No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1089: LIV's 72 Hole Change, Phil's Group Chat + Weekly Recap

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

DJ and Soly discuss a plethora of recent off-course news from the LIV format change to the latest with Pablo Torre’s reporting on Phil and Sable Offshore. Then it’s on to the week in pro golf as Ben Griffin claims a third PGA Tour win of 2025, Aaron Rai over Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff on the DP World Tour in Abu Dhabi, and Nasa Hataoka on the LPGA Tour in Japan. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Titleist SoFi DeleteMe If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. I mean, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying up podcast.

Solly here joined by my guy, the pie man, Mr. DJ Paihauski. How are we're doing good. We're back at the desk. Solly back home here in Milwaukee after spending some time with you and the rest of the team, playing some golf out in the desert. We had our nest invitational tournament this weekend out in Phoenix at Dobson Ranch. So that was very, very fun. But I'm back and it's cold.

I think winter, I think winter is here. You know, whatever the equivalent of spring is sprung. winter is winter's here it's it sucks it's up winter is it's not coming it's here unfortunately it was very cold getting off the plane and so we've entered that portion of the of the year i think i'm watching highlights from yoss links i'm like god look at the sunshine that looks pretty nice over there it's just you know 28 degrees and cold and windy over here so moral of the stories i'm doing good i'm doing good if it makes you feel better i have the golf schedule for this coming tuesday morning that is already canceled because of cold weather

if that makes you feel any better. It's going to be like 36 and below in 25 and we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. Give you a little run of show for tonight's show where you're going to talk about some of the live changes, changes to their format. Somehow now a weekly segment,

the latest round of Sable Offshore News, which a lot happened this week on that front. Kind of started as a bit and now it's turned into some legitimate news, it seems. Well, yeah, it just feels like we should talk about that. Like that six-time major champion is caught up in something to give. But it also feels like par for the course at the same time. But we're going to do that. We're going to go around the world in pro golf, of course,

a little bit of, you know, other news items that happened over this past week. But what happened in pro golf here? Touch on that quickly before we get into our first topic. Yeah, kind of a wacky sort of fun week in the world of pro golf. Ben Griffin, your guy gets his third win of the year at the Worldwide Technologies Championship down in Mexico. Aaron Rye wins the Abu Dhabi Hsb, C championship. He might be becoming my boy.

He might be like, I'm trying to think of another comp. He's just playing so well that he's just, he's putting himself on my team. You know, I can't leave him off at this point. It's kind of how it feels. Fun, fun one to catch up on. He wanted to playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. See what happens when Fleetwood gets a couple wins? You know, you don't, you don't have to bag on him gagging away.

It's just like, oh, man, another close call. And then on the LPGA, another, another wacky one, Nasa, Hataoka wins the Toto Japan classic in a playoff over Yuna Arachi after the event was shortened to 54 holes, or was it? We'll talk about that in a minute, too. It was sick. As somebody who has been in events that are really hard to organize playoffs just happened this past week at the NIT. We'll talk about a little bit about how the LPGA handle that. Speaking of coming off the NIT, one of our favorite parts of the weekend, one of the coolest parts was the titleist fitting presence on site.

did golf ball fittings. They did 3D T series iron check-ins. They did Voki wedge challenges. It was a great kind of informal setting to introduce, you know, a lot of our nesticles and people in our universe to what titles has going on. It was just a really cool hands-on experience for a lot of people there. I will say, if you're unfamiliar with the fitting process in any way, like working with a custom fitter is going to help you identify the areas of improvement and help you build an equipment setup that complements your game and tendencies. Like it, it,

that might fluctuate from year to year as well. I have gone into these fittings and been like, yeah, I'm just like swinging it bad. Like, don't worry, you know, you can't possibly fix this right now.

They're like, well, let's talk about it. And you walk away from the setting and you've built equipment, uh, that is, you know,

built around your misses and, and helping, you know, minimize those. And it's amazing what can happen in 30 minutes, honestly. Playing the right golf ball and clubs is going to help you hit better shots more often on the golf course and shoot lower scores.

I think we can all agree. that and you do always learn something new during a fitting and going at it alone would be the most foolish thing you could possibly do like just going onto a website and looking at all the different tweaks you could make to a club you couldn't guess right in 10 tries like get somebody to help you do it and that's the best part or one of the best parts i should say about titleless fittings the fitting fee is credited to any club purchase you make like so it makes it a complete no brain if you're in the market for new clubs go to titles.com to find a fitting near you and get your bag dialed in.

I just experienced that with the GT2 and I drove the ball great this past. I want to go play so much more golf now because I'm driving it really well and I'm really excited about that Dege. That makes a big difference. I drove it really well in the third round and still was, you know,

I was able to make a mess from the fairway which doesn't always happen. But it was a lot more fun from the fairway is what I would say. Shout to the titles, people too. That was it was maybe my favorite NIT we've had. It was just really, really fun.

Great prizes. someone won golf balls for a year, someone wanted a set of iron, someone wanted a driver. It was like... It gave away a lot of stuff. Some heady prizes leaving the NIT this week. So, yeah, thanks to them for coming out.

I had a great transition ready, and you had to get one and more line in there, but I was going to say, speaking of playing more golf... I played 54 holes. Can you use that as a transition? I played 54 as well. I didn't make the championship.

But the Live Golf Tour, the Saudi-backed live series, if you're unfamiliar, announced this past week that, I should say, this is from their press release, Live Golf, the first truly global golf league today announced that beginning in 2026, all events will be played over 72 holes, marking the next chapter of Live Golf's mission to grow and celebrate the sport for a new era of players and fans around the world.

Deid, what's your reaction to Live going to 72 holes? my first reaction and I do have some actual genuine like is this going to change things or not and some actual you know thoughts on this but my first one was just it's a bummer that you can't like

I feel like everyone's so glazed over at this point and everyone so just kind of checked out that you can't properly illustrate how funny this is I feel like is that how you felt because I mean it's like the name of the fucking tour is live and they made a whole deal about how it was because of 55

it's Roman numerals. This is going to change. We're speeding up the game. We're doing all of these things. I was told Steph Curry is not a good three-point shooter type of situation. I was told this 54 holes is going to change everything. And now we're innovating, I'm hearing, to 72 holes. Oh, that's the best part. That's the absolutely. Unironically, they're unironically claiming this is innovation. So there are a couple things that I'm like, of course, I do think it's a good idea because the tour that I watch, you know, most weeks, all of the tours that I watch most weeks tend to play 72 holes. I think better player tends to come out of 72 old tournaments and they do out of 54 whole tournaments. I think there's just the tours. The major championship golf is four rounds of stroke

play tournament. Like that's what a standard golf tournament is. We know that. So on one hand, I don't want to be like, oh, moving to 72 so stupid. On the other hand, I'm like, I just don't, I don't know if it really matters. Like, I think it's very funny to go back on what was kind of painted as this, this big, giant, uh, disruptive idea, uh, but at, yeah, I don't know. What, what were your, what were your initial thoughts? It is funny, but it, the, the emotions of all this whole thing have died down so much over the last, say, year and a half, even closer to, closer to two years that it, uh, it's hard to, there's not a lot of news they could come out with that would evoke, like if it shut down tomorrow, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. If they, like,

you know guaranteed they'd be here for another five years i'd be like okay yeah that makes sense like nothing would shock me at this point like that i think is even somewhat realistic the only thing would shock me is like rory and a bunch of the guys leaving for live right nothing else seems that newsworthy or noteworthy to even discuss in detail but we are going to do that rebrand sure that wouldn't shock you do they have to change the name of the tour are they going to pretend i know that there's the thing going around now is that it's actually to represent the perfect score over 18 holes is 54, you know, 18 under part, whatever. Scott O'Neill, the CEO of LiveGolf, his quote, the most successful leagues around the world,

I just felt this funny. The five leagues he lists, IPL, EPL, NBA, MLB, NFL, continue to innovate and evolve their product. And as an emerging league, we are no different. LiveGolf will always have an eye towards progress that acts in the best interest of LiveGolf and the best interest of the sport. He names five successful leagues around the world does not name the PGA tour as one of those as he moves his format from the 54 hole to just the 72 whole PGA tour stroke play of it. I just find it all like we're all exhausted from pretend, you know, these gaslighting quotes, which again, continued by Bryson. This definitely sounds like Bryson does not sound at all like Chad GVT.

By moving to 72 holes, Livgolf is taking a proactive step to align with the historic format recognized globally. This is a fantastic evolution of the live golf product, showing how our league listens and adapts to create the best possible experience. You could have listened when we all were screaming, like, this is stupid, don't do this. And they obviously didn't. Dustin Johnson had some quotes that he definitely didn't say.

I think it's a great move for the league, and I'm excited for it. Playing 72 old just feels a little bit more like big tournaments. We've all grown up playing. I've always liked the grind of four rounds. It gives the best players a chance to rise to the top. Three years ago, these guys were selling us on and how much less golf they were going to play,

how much better it was going to be for all their families. All that is evaporated. And I didn't have the heart or the time today to go look up all the quotes and bring them back because it just doesn't matter, man. Like, what's the point of reading all this stuff back and doing the, yeah, I remember grinding my feet on Eddie's couch thing

because I don't know. I don't think it changes. If we can get to what are the important parts, I don't think this changes fan interest at all, which they don't have enough of to justify this league, which we've covered in great detail. Does it change anything on the OWGR front or pause on the fan interest real quick? Just because I think there is something interesting about, you know,

I was thinking about like when did Liv have any juice over the last year, two years? And I think it's walking Neiman's dominance, right? And if you do have a player, like that forced, you know, the masters to change an exemption and it forced, you know, some of the other majors to change what they were doing. And I think if you can identify, you know, A player or a group of players who are very, very clearly like heads and shoulders above the rest,

which you obviously have on this league because a lot of them are players at the end of their career and kind of field fillers at this point. Trying to eat out a living. The, I think that is a good thing. So I'm kind of, I can see the vision if it is 72 holes means we're probably going to get more big name winners. Like I do get that as a business case. So I guess I just wanted to say that there might be a, a tick of fan interest built in there.

But the flip side of that, I thought was very eloquently put by our friend Shane Ryan and Golf Digest, wrote a column that I'm very much paraphrasing here, but the crux of the column was like, none of this matters. It does do anything. It doesn't matter. Play on the moon make it 108 holes. Make it, make it 18 holes.

Like none of it matters. And his point, which I think we've said a lot too, is like, man, unless you're going to, unless you're going to get, you know, the critical mass of guys up front, you're just going to be battling the inertia of, yeah, I just watch CBS on Sunday afternoon, man, I just watch, you know, what's this week? Pebble, oh, yeah, I'll just watch Pebble.

You know, it's a lot of that stuff. And all the rest is pretty much window dressing is kind of how it feels. Yeah. Like, do I agree that this is a better test of golf and better at identifying the best player over the last four days? and obviously sticks in line of the traditions. Yes, I do, but it's really hard to marry that after getting three years of screamed out

of how different and amazing, innovative this was while PJ Tor was boring, lives doing something different, and this is totally exciting. Now, they're saying the fast pace and the shotgun starts and the really cool music, that's all going to stay. Like, nothing's going to change. It's just an extra day.

But I just don't think that changes anything. I think maybe part of the more frustrating part of it is, if I was to say, why are they doing this? it is, I think the answer would be for OWGR points. Yeah. And I'm curious your reaction to that because I don't think this, if I, I think this maybe addresses 1% of the OWGR problem that they have to begin with. Yeah.

And I apologize, because I know we've said this 400 times, but the 72 whole thing was part of it, right? That, that is a big part of the OWGR, you know, curriculum or criteria. But they've given points to 54 whole events in the, past they've done that like they could figure that out the much much bigger part if I'm understanding it correctly which I think I am is the pathway to get to the tour the fact that you just go out and sign Tom McKibbin and you say hey you got a spot in every field whether you finish first or last doesn't fucking matter man you're in like you can't

really give points to somebody who got their spot in the field that way because there's guys who are trying to play on the corn fairy tour or the Alps tour that whatever tour that gets ranking points that have a system and clear criteria on how you get onto that tour and you can't really just be like, oh, well, you beat such and such this week on the live tour. Well, you get this many points because you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't necessarily be in that. You didn't earn your spot there to begin with, I guess, other than signing your contract. Am I understanding that or explaining it clearly? I mean, I think, well, to back up, like even Peter Dawson, who's no longer the head of the OWGR, I believe it's Peter Dawson that said this, again, I'm paraphrasing again,

but like he even acknowledged, like the 54 whole thing is we can figure that out mathematically. That's not the problem. It is in qualification. And this is where it gets super frustrating. It just feels like kind of bullshit PR that they continue to put out. They're going to pretend like, well, what now why can't we get it? Now why aren't we compliant? No matter how many times we cover this on this show of like what you got to, what like a real qualification system would look like. what they're also still putting out is they've they've doubled the number of open promotion spots like they've doubled the number of possible pathways you can get in do you know what they doubled it from from from one to two like that's there's two open qualifying spots now and

like not only did they have a problem with this from the very beginning of just giving guys contracts and saying come on and play some of these guys have played on the tour played poor enough to not qualified to be back by their own bullshit standards that don't really count for anything and still get to come back. Like that's you're and again, you go all the way back to the OWG criteria. You need to be in compliance for this for a full year before you're even eligible to get the points. So again, that's how the ODGR is operated. That's how the rules are stated. Again, just a reminder for what the OWGR is. It's the PGA tour. It's the DP World Tour. It's Augusta. It's the International Federation of PGA tours or whatever. That's called.

It's the USGA. It's the RNA. It's the governing bodies and the biggest tour. that are deciding this right it's not some independent body you know that's looking out for you you know that is that is independent from all these big organizations it's this group deciding whether or not that this other tour deserves points or wants to get them how incentivized are they to change this at this point what have we talked about for years now is the majors are in charge of inviting whoever they want some of the majors as we've just discussed have already made exemptions for live players top in the point standings that's not already qualified gets into the u.s open i i don't know the exact list right here but uh the masters has shown that they're willing to give exemptions to

live players that are playing really good golf that are not otherwise qualified so how incentivized are they to give them OWGR points at this point i don't know i don't know why they would change it at this point they've not really they fall still fall woefully short of what is expected of all of the other tours they're not singling live out live said out loud we're doing something different here and just changing from 54 to 72 holes doesn't get rid of the other problem that they have with the qualification as it's written now. That's my take on it. Yeah.

And I think even taking that a step farther is if they were to give them points now, the way that the OWGR changes went into effect a couple years ago, where it's much more about like the broad strength of the field than it is having two or three guys at the top pulling up the strength of field. Like now everybody has plummeted so far down the rankings that it's going to. Can I pause you on that just for a second? because Rory also said something similar to this this week and I actually disagree with this part.

So I can read you Rory's quotes, if you will. Okay. He said, I think it's a peculiar move because I think they could have gotten ranking points with three rounds. I don't think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back. This is, I'm reading all of his quotes

just for reference here. It says it certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what they've done. It brings them back into not really being a disruptor and sort of is falling more in line with what everybody else does. But if that's what they feel like they needed to do

to get ranking points, I guess that's just what they had to do. He also then offered this up. He said, because their strength of fields are going to be so weak, because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings, because they've not had ranking points for so long. I don't know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out, basically saying guys have gotten heard in the rankings, even if you start now, you're not going to get that many points

because your rankings are so low. But Roy's off on this part because a few years ago, when the OWGR changed how they distribute points in events, Specifically, they changed how they measured what strength a player adds to the field. I don't want to get too bogged down in the numbers with this, but for this past week in Abu Dhabi, Teryl Haddon, whose OWGR is 21, he contributed 10 performance points to the field this week. Alex Noren, who's rated higher than him, Alex Norton's rated 17th. He only contributed 5.6 points.

And the difference there is Hatton's strokes gain world rating is 2.01, and Noren is 1.43. So like Hatton's skill in these events is higher than Norenz, even if he's not playing enough events to earn the points to be higher than him. His skill rating is above a two and that is what determines how many performance points you're adding to the field.

So I don't think Rory's right in saying it used to be, hey, you're in the 90th ranked player, here's how many points you're contributing to the field. Now it's based on your strokes gained. So it will be more fair than I think, I think it's a more fair representation of the talent level of the. the field um got it okay i it's but it's only counting this that then but it's only counting the

events you're playing in official o wGR events so it's only counting dp world tour yeah Asian tour it's not counting your live golf results so you got so again on top of all this i bring that up because again we want to play less golf we want to do this now you're playing four round tournaments and if you want the o wGR world rating or whatever to be able to bring back to your live tour you got to go play other tour events and succeed in them to be able to bring you points back to your tour gosh does that make sense uh it does it does i completely missed that switch over sometime in the last talk about uh you know nobody nobody in the pile of glazed over i suppose but yeah i think you

just kind of hit a point where you start to feel a little full on on falling all of this stuff you know it doesn't really matter that much i think people have made too much of the o w gr it's a qualification system for major championships. And I know it's become less fun to follow who the number one player in the world is and who's the number fifth ranked play. Because we know like John Rahm is one of the five best players in the world regardless of what is OWGR

ranking is. And it, the conversation 71 by the way, Jesus. I pulled a couple of those to make my point that I was going to say of just how far down some of these dudes have fallen. I mean, they have five guys in the top 100 at this point.

Neiman is outside. that at 122. Dustin Johnson has followed the 604th. Cam Smith, 310, Mickelson, like 1100, something like that. So it's like, yeah, it's, it's just a weird,

weird dishmash right now. But this is still all a big distraction. Totally. Without the qualification thing, it's a non-starter. It still is a non-starter. It really is. And.

Or should be anyways. I still think it is. if the OWGR again drastically changes their entire structure. It's a non-starter for them. I'm not saying for me, it is for me, but also like that is what the OWGR has stated. That's what Peter Dawson has said. Trevor, who is now the new head of the OWGR,

is non-voting as I see it written on their website. And I don't think he has the power to completely change the philosophy. And I, I mean, we should probably interview him and have him explain the role, you know, of that. But it's not like Trevor Emily can come in and make, widespread unilateral changes in all this as well because of all the governing body interest there is on this board. So I've learned more about the ODGR over the past four years than I care to learn.

Like it's not, you know, and then it just gets distilled down on the everything app of just like, oh yeah, the tours are just blocking live to, you know, to be anti-competitive. Totally. Just might be a little more complicated than that. Might be. I want to thank our friends at SoFi for sponsoring today's episodes. SoFi, an all-in-one finance app where you can bank, borrow, and invest. Think about your golf swing.

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I did not even mean to do it. I didn't. I did not mean to do it. I didn't mean to structure it this way. You never know how long the convo is going to go before you get the ad read in. This was not intended to be the transition that it is going to end up being. But speaking of financial advice, we have been updating you nearly weekly on the Sable offshore situation. if you want to know why or unfamiliar with why it is something that Phil Mickelson again

one of the founders of the live golf tour that we just spent 20 minutes discussing a six-time major champion I believe most are quite familiar with his resume has you know built up a massive social media profile through telling great stories on Twitter being super engaging engaging with fans he has now switched over entirely to being a political commenter, I believe, and trying to... As with most people on X, to be fair. And he's gaming the algorithm really well. I know that stuff gets promoted now.

And also tweeting nonstop, putting pressure on... I don't know how to describe his activities with this company that I all have only heard of through his social media profile, which is Sable offshore. Influencer. He's promo code lefty. So... He's clearly a big investor in this company, Sable Offshore.

What is it? I know we talked about this a little bit. I believe everything we say behind this is a legend. And this will become clear here at a second. What is Sable Offshore? The gist is basically, I'm going to be talking about this last week. But after an Exxon oil spill in 2015, there was a pipeline that was shut down. It was sold to this guy, Jim Flores, at Sable Offshore, with the hopes of reopening the pipeline.

And pun intended, it was potentially a pipeline. a pipe dream and a long shot. In other words, a big ass gamble. And not going to be the last thing we're hearing about pipes of this story either. Like for a while, it was just kind of funny to see like the GM of the high flyers way more invested than this in this than like his own team or league that he helped start. But now it's getting past a little bit funny to as now it's a big news.

story as news organizations are digging into what's going on here, starting with Hunterbrook, again, which we just covered last week, basically Hunterbrook, Hunterbrook acquired a bunch of group chat messages that show that Phil is, I would describe it as potentially uncomfortably involved here as the way he's describing his emotions as the Sable offshore stock tanks. And again, all of the, and there's some potential for some malfeasance with information, all very alleged and not by us. And again, more on that in a second. But this made its way to the desk of one of the hottest names in sports media right now.

And that's Pablo Torre. And they dove into it on an electric episode this past week of Pablo Tori finds out and dove into Phil's history. There's some Billy Walter stuff in there. Sam Coppelman, I believe was the name of the reporter from Hunterbrook. And he was Pablo's guest. His dad wrote Rounders. Really?

Yeah, Brian Copperman. You check and check. Pay that man his money. Anyways, the episode's about 45 minutes long. It goes through the whole saga and it's worth your time. It's always interesting when, you know, kind of bigger sports, you know, news organizations, get pick up on a golf story and go through it all. Also worth it just for the revisiting some of the Billy Walters specifics.

There's a lot of excerpts from Billy Walters book in this podcast episode. Stuff that I had really forgotten. It's a treat to revisit some of the film. specifics. The NCAA day where he lost, what was it like $4 million allegedly, lost like $4 million and then was that the night before he went out and shot 64

and won at Pebble when he beat the year that he beat Tiger. Beating by 11. It's just color it in the context for some great golf golf moments. And it's coloring that in because of just like straight up talking about what

what they're up to and how big of a gamble this is. And like that's where it's like, it's it's what what is this what is this like how's this our business why do we care what kind of phil is doing but we're talking about like one of the legends of the game right now like if tiger woods was doing this this would be one of the biggest stories going in sports right now but because it's phil and because he's had a very zany last several years it's just like up just phil being phil here and there's kind of more to it than that like he might be losing his shirt he was bragging on twitter several years ago about you know almost becoming

a billionaire and it's very clear he has invested a ton of money of this company he has said notes in this group chat that basically the hunterbrook guy got accidentally added to or added to in some capacity he's just been keeping up with this they've been just sharing all of this with a reporter all along where he's gotten people to share all the comments in the group chat but Phil talking about how anxious he's too anxious to go on a hike too anxious to fish like just being very uncomfortably involved in this to the point where he's pressuring politicians and to Essentially, the big quote that has come out of this. And honestly, Dege, I didn't want to read this one.

So on the Pablo Torre podcast, they read this quote that Phil sends about what's going to happen here. And I'm just going to play that excerpt rather than read the quote myself because I don't want that to live on the Internet forever. To jog your memory in case it's not seared into it forever. Yeah, I should now, I guess, be on record quoting it, Big Daddy Trump in all caps. Trump, ready to swing his 14-inch in front of Newsom's face, will drive up any stock. So basically, there's just this big panic about it, and they're making a plea to the Trump organization, and there's all this, you know, we're going to get Howard Ludnik, the Chamber of Commerce Secretary, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, to arrange a round of golf with them

with a certain left-hander. There's a phone call that's recorded, Sable, and Phil in all and the group chat gang claimed the recording was AI, then they backed away from that claim. It gets messy. Phil comes out and says, has a tweet this past week that says,

I know from experience that being in the public eye makes me a frequent target for sensationalized media coverage. I get that it comes with the territory, but there are legal limits on false reports. And while I may have been willing to let it go in the past, I'm no longer going to sit quietly and take it

when those lines are crossed. I have retained world-class defamation counsel Tom Clare to advise and represent me on this quote article by Hunterbrook and anyone and anyone who reposts it. More to come. Dot dot dot lots. Which he was met with a lot of criticism on the Everything app of like, yeah, you can't sue people for retweeting something.

That's not really quote how it works, allegedly. Should seem to be Clayman. How he's not involved in this. It's only a matter of time before. claim it is involved here Phil blocked Pablo Tori on Twitter then unblocked him and replied I've never heard of you and have no idea who you are

but given what I know to be true and what you report your your tabloid and I'll wait for the right opportunity shall I keep going because yeah this is the good stuff I'll be super honest with you the rest of this stuff I'm like it's funny but like I don't actually really care what's going on it is he is he swapping tips

is he not swapping to someone's tracking that I'm sure but this is the good stuff here I think and this is all comes from our reporter Sam getting added to this group chat it's a little bit like the Heggsath situation where the was it Politico reporter or whatever just got put on like the you know

Atlantic Atlantic yeah it's got put on like the the Secretary of War kind of battle plans signal chat it's a little bit of that but just much dumber even I think so Sam's going to tell the story here of getting in touch with Phil and it's about two minute clip

and I'll play it here. So I get Phil's number. Fun fact, Phil seems to change his number all the time. I figure out which is his current number. Get him on the phone. He talks for a sec. He's like, who is this?

And I'm like, I'm calling from Hunterbrook. He's like, no, thank you. And hangs up right away. And then he does something I've never experienced before as a reporter, which is that he then posts in the fucking group chat my number and his like warning guys here's the number they called from

they're very curious about our group chat doesn't think to leave the group chat and instead keeps posting about it. The thing that gets posted in the group chat, which is the part that made me laugh out loud when I saw it, unfortunately for you, does involve Craigslist. They tried to docks me by putting up a Craigslist post

with my number on it. Yeah. So this is a Craigslist post. the title is free dog food parentheses Lafayette this is a place in California quote Hey y'all

sad story but my old three and a half year Great Dane finally done kicked her bucket got here about 350 pounds of Perinia dog chow if somebody just wants to drop by

and get it out of the carport I'm on disability and cannot lift nothing too heavy there are typos throughout the entire thing just for the record my nephew till will help you load it give him a call at your phone number correct and i'm obviously watching this the whole time yeah they're they're they're loving what's happening to you at this point in the story they are until i i put all of this in our investigation which we published last

friday and then we finally got a response from phil there you have it there you have it for years in years we've alluded to the crazy stuff that we probably think fills up to but it's been kind of a joke and now for like the first full time we're getting like a actual glimpse into all of it the group chats somebody in this group chat making a fake craigslist add to docks a reporter that's digging into whatever their trading activities and information sharing is is just like man i i did not think when i started bringing this up this was going to become somewhat of a big story, but Phil's back in the news, man. Yeah, the Craigslist, God, it really, really, really got me. All the intentional misspellings is just a very interesting choice. It's just, I don't know, man,

you never know what you're going to see on the, on the internet. You got to hang out and, you know, you never know what's going to come across the desk from, from X or Phil or any of these places. It's just, what a thrill ride. Well, and I bring this up again to point out, like, you don't, you don't want Pablo Torre on your scent. Like, you don't want him on your. trail because that guy's not going to let it go uh he is of course responsible for kind of uncovering a lot of the stuff that's happened with the clippers uh allegedly circumventing the cap kawai leonard story uh amongst many other things and he is uh he's obviously just done a full episode on it and there's probably going to be going to be going to be follow up on it and uh now if now phil's

going to be probably trying to docks him and sabotage him and uh yeah it's that's your week that's your weekly stable offshore update the stock is not doing great uh there's a lot more in the podcast that i haven't shared so please go check that out and shout out to them for the reporting they did on that one i'm just really laughing at what the next ad read is as well but uh well let's let's skip that for now let's get it should we do it now no no no all right i will do it now Delete me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Delete me does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. Delete me knows your privacy.

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uh the work from delete me take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for delete me now at a special discount for our listeners get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to join delete me.com slash nLU and use promo code NLU at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go join delete me.com slash NLU and enter code NLU at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash NLU code NLU. Shall we go around the world in pro golf? Yes.

Let's go around the world of pro golf. Ben Griffin shoots a final round 63, we mentioned, to win the worldwide technology championship. down there near Cabo. Didn't watch a ton. Got to watch the end today after getting back home. And Ben Griffin, a couple things, I think, stick out, just kind of catching up on his quotes from the week and his scorecard and his stats and all the kinds of different things that happened.

First of all, 10 birdies on Sunday is significant stuff. He becomes the third player with three plus wins this year, only Scotty and Rory. Granted, the other two wins were the Zerner. and the Schwab, so Zurich Schwab and the Worldwide Technologies Championship kind of doesn't totally stack up against, you know, the Masters and the Players and the Open and the PGA and, you know, things of that nature, but it is a fun stat, you know, only, only three players with three plus wins. He hasn't played a ton coming into this week, but I kind of missed

that he had played the DP World India Championship last week. It was kind of fun to hear him talking about that and how he was, you know, just kind of, I don't know if he got an appearance fee to go do it or what, but. I was also just talking about being inspired by other guys who have done that in the past and having more control over his schedule and I think that to me is kind of the big thing that sticks out from a week like this is

I just go back to that podcast you did with Ben Griffin all the time and you know just mentally like thinking about that every time I see him on screen and a guy like that I'm trying to think could you think of a more dangerous golfer to give like free run of his schedule? You know what I mean? Like you start sending him to events where it's like you don't have to worry about your job.

You don't have to worry about, you know, where you're going to finish. It's just a matter of, like, going out to an event like this and like, yeah, man, just try to win. Nothing else. Everything else is totally set. And he just seems like he's built for that. He, it's, again, the matter, I guess we almost all, I guess most of us, some of us, who knows, I don't want to project that on people, but like, the Ryder Cup didn't leave like a great taste in everyone's mouth. He played one session on Friday, sat.

you know on Saturday all day he didn't play great in that Friday session that whole year of an incredible play like time to cash in on that in the Ryder Cup stage was just like ah man it was just a bummer like it would be easy to lose faith in his talent and forget what he accomplished this past year and how he truly elevated his level of play to an incredibly incredible level and it appeared to be very sustainable so I'm really happy for him to get this win to just kind of remind everyone again that he is that talented of a player he is one of easily one of the 12 best American players easily should have been on that Rider Cup team despite it not working out great

and you should be if there's any stock to be had out there for him going into 2026 buy it up now I don't think he's done with any of this he's won on a lot of different he's won different events and competed really highly in a lot on a lot of different style of golf courses as well

it's not just the birdie fest is not just the hard course courses like he's gone toe to toe with Scotty Sheffler you know at the memorial and one at 29 under here he's just a really good golfer he's the eighth ranked data golf player in the world as of this week that'll go up after after this win as well and uh i'm just super stoked for the guy and and uh it seems like a great easy dude to root for i also get a kick hearing again some of his quotes i think he he is interesting

when he gets asked the right questions and stuff but he's uh just just seeing how fast these guys can snap back into form because he kept saying he's like you know i'm not really like playing a ton it's very different than the rest of the season and he talked about uh it's talked about how he topped a driver in the pro am he's like yeah i just you know the same thing happened at uh at pro core in napa like i came in monday t wednesday or just just bad and then i don't know it just kind of takes that to knock the rust off and then you know he snapped back into what did he finish t three or something that week like he's he had a great week in napa too but a lot of these guys can just come in so rusty and knock the rust off and and figure out a good way to

get the ball in the hole which kind of gave me a kick but uh super quick trivia on the spot trivia question. There's five players worldwide in professional events that have over two strokes gained over the last six months, the six month period. So this would go back to second week of May,

whatever it is. Who are the players? You can guess one of them quite, you can guess a couple of them quite easily. How many you say there are? There's five players with more than two strokes gained per round in the last, over the last six months.

Okay, well, one of them, I'm going to guess is Ben Griffin. One of them, I'm going to guess is Scotty. That's, that's very well done. uh one of them i'm going to guess is rory it is not really not one of those correct who else who else finished runner up this week on the other side oh tommy fleetwood of course brussell henley no plays on plays on the other tour on that other georgio hatton no he's easy to forget how good he is.

Didn't win this year on that tour? Yeah. Really? Wow. It's up there. Yeah. And small, you're not going to get this fifth one.

Small sample size alert, but it's Jackson Coyvin in the five pro events that he's played. Luke Clanton. Cameron Young just missing out at plus 1.99. But just to again, emphasize Ben's been one of the top five players in the world over the last six months. That's not counting this way. He,

he finished first over Chad Ramey and Sammy Valamaki, who've tied four. second, the boys took it, took it pretty deep. Griffin was at 29 under this week, which I believe was a tournament record, runner up at 27 under. Valamaki got me, got me thinking a little bit because I was just, you know, thinking through like, okay, he got his card through the DP World Tour a couple years ago, obviously kept his card with a good year last year. And it got me thinking, like, how are the guys who got their DP World Tour cards at the end of 24 into 25? Like, we're getting towards the end of the season, you know, FedEx Cup fall.

You got to be in the top 100 to keep your card. How are guys looking? I'll give you a question, Sally. Of those 10 guys that got their card from the DP World Tour, how many are inside of the top 100 right now? Six. Two. Whoa. Two of them.

I was trying not to get labeled a hater of the DP World Tour. I think this might be our like feeding the manipulator segment here a little bit. bit. But, yeah, Rasmus Hoygard is number 78. And Torbjorn Olison is number 95. Those are the best ones. I'll push it even further. How many are in the top 150? Four. Out of ten. Three. Three. I'm going to go through him real quick. Rasmus Hoygard, I mentioned, is number 78. Tristan Lawrence, 159. Paul Waring, 226. I think he must be hurt or something he hasn't played since July.

Yesper Svensson, 121, Nicholas Norgaard, 169, my beautiful boy, Mateo Manasara, 164, Torbior and Olison, we mentioned 95, Antoine Rosner, 161, Rukuya, Hoshino, your boy, 191, and then, of course, Tom and Kibben joined Liv. So a little bit of a technicality there on your sample size, but I just, I found that a little interesting. And going back to last year, there was only three guys that didn't keep their card. Granted, it was a, it was top 125, but, you know,

You know, you had Bobby Mac winning twice on that exemption. You had Matthew Pavon winning. Just a different one. It's kind of one of those, like, little game within the game things that I feel like are kind of interesting to track. So I thought that would be, you know, I thought you'd get a kick out of that. A little manipulator corner for you. Yeah. I don't know what the takeaway is there.

I don't know. I'm just presenting the info. I don't know if I even have a takeaway other than that's kind of interesting to watch the next couple weeks. it's interesting in the in the realm of man there's a lot of hand wringing around who's getting the last spots on some of these tours and not a lot of people really tracking it or following that closely as to how it actually ends up shaking out DJ pie finds out there and that's a segment but yeah what are you where are you at on on this tournament on the worldwide technologies in Cabo great views. I guess where I'm coming up on this is like, all right, super low scores, great views, driving pitch, reachable holes, all this.

We say we love it in Capulua. And this one doesn't, I want you to explain it so I don't have to. Why is this one not quite capture, or does it capture you? Well, a tough week this week with the NIT. Obviously, we're out playing golf all day every day, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So that makes it tough to watch this one. But even in years past, it is, it does get lumped in with a lot of the other fall stuff.

I don't think the, um, the views and the, um, you know, uniqueness don't quite rise to the level of like black desert that we were kind of raving about a couple weeks ago. We're like, oh, I will go out of my way to turn this on. This is really cool golf to watch. It's not fun weird either, you know? Yeah, it's just kind of, it looks very much like, uh, I'm like, ah, like I would kind of like to play there, you know, I don't know if I need to necessarily watch big Sammy Valamaki you play it necessarily, but

you know, it looks cool. I would like to check it out, but I was going to ask you this. How long do you think this tournament's been around? And granted, it hasn't always been at, at Diamante or whatever, but it's this blew my mind. I mean, I'm guessing it's a long

time since the 80s? No, it's been like 19 years. It seems like they added this like 80s. That was too big for reach there. That's big. I shouldn't have said it blew my mind. But yeah, I didn't, I wouldn't have pictured being around that long. It just has been kind of one of those like

there's just a lot of those events on the PJ tour at this point that have been part of the fabric. There's a lot of past champions of tournaments that a bunch of people have forgotten. There's a lot of guys whose careers have kind of shuffled around by a T2 or a T4 at the right time. And it's just, yeah, it's in a weird

spot. So I'm not really answering your question on why it works for Kappaloa, not works for here, other than to say inertia. Let's go back to that entire Shane Ryan conversation and just say Capulua is supposed to be the start of the year and Capulua has big names and Coppalua's

got this, that, and the other thing and it just kind of, it works. I don't think you can take that and try to replicate it somewhere else. I think it's just got that's like a one plus one equals three sort of thing. Yeah, I think the uneven lies and lack of stock shots

in Coppalua always is what is a big driving factor. Ball. Again, I didn't get to watch it live, but catching up on the highlights. was pleasantly surprised with how much it's like oh wow they're using a kicker on that one oh that's a kind of a fun little and it's not a complete joke of a golf course they do they do take it very deep um and fits into the fall like if this was a prime you know winter weekend we would probably you know it it would probably get compared to the vedanta world event which is kind of like the uh you know the weakest spot in the calendar in that time period but i don't know for a totally

fine fall event that's serving the members more than it is serving the fans anyways. I don't, I can't really muster up the, uh, the, the, the hate for it. Um, despite the, despite 20 or 16 guys broke, we're 20 under par or more this week. Imagine finishing 19 under just being T-17. Thomas Rosen Mueller. That maybe leads into my next note. I just kind of

put together a little notebook of just some things that caught my eye, uh, scrolling through this week. And the first one was going to be a guy that shot 61. I was going to say there was a lot of a lot of very, very, very low scores out there. And a guy that shot 61 in the first round, Nick Dunlap, is a guy that is still not 22 years old. He's still 21. And a guy that I just, you know, you and I talk about other sports all the time.

And you have like the Jackson Holiday type players that, you know, are phenoms. And then they come up and it's like they don't kind of fade into anonymity, right? They continue to be that, you know, under a lot of scrutiny and what's that guy doing? and send him up, you know, send him down and bring him up and doing all this stuff. And Dunlap, I feel like, is kind of faded into a little bit of obscurity unless he plays, plays really well. And it's just a really weird spot for him to be.

He's won twice before the age of 22. That is insane. The hype machine should be revving up, but the problem is he hasn't been able to drive it in the fairway. And so it's just, I don't know, he's a guy that I just root really, really, really hard for. And I want to be really good. and I want him to be on my TV screen

and I know he's just been scratching and clawing trying to make something good happen. Started working with Scott Hamilton this summer, I think, kind of around like the John Deere classic and trying to get the driver figured out. Try this stat on for size here, Sally. Dunlap is very obviously the last on tour

and strokes gained off the T. If you add up all the cumulative strokes gained off the T for a season. Scotty is number one, obviously. He's gained 54 shots off the T this season. Dunlap has lost almost 100. Oh, my.

There's a 154 shot difference between those two players just off the T. And that's in like 80, 75 rounds, 70 rounds, something like that that I think was measured by Dunlap. Part of that's because he misses a bunch of cuts and he's playing a lot of two round events. So that's just his, like a you know i don't think it's hard to identify the problem obviously a little tougher to

to fix it so a golf course like this where it's got wide fairways big corridors i think he went out and hit you know he said he hit every fairway for the first time and who knows when uh in that 61 and it just you know could take advantage take advantage from there but uh i don't know it's just one of those guys that like i feel like whenever he's playing well i want to shout it out because it's it's a guy that uh i would really love to rally around because it seems like he's got some exciting Sundays ahead of him. He had 53 of 56 fairways this week, which might not have been a driving test out there. So a tough mark for the event and the test that's presented here.

But he knows maybe that's the get right that he needs. And I had just in looking at it just now, I had thought it had gotten better than it had. I mean, everyone kind of remembers what happened to the Masters, the 90 or the 91. I forget that he shot. followed it with a 71 I believe or something very dramatic in a turnaround but lost like four and a half shots around at Augusto which like doesn't have a lot of penalties opportunities off the T was really really really tough it's borderline Y word stuff if we're not already there um I hope he yeah it's super I guess the the pull I would make is max was once completely off the planet with driver uh pre when winning six times on tour and obviously made it to the mountain top and almost won a master's. So it's not to say he can't, but I think Max would also tell you that how hard that battle and journey is.

And it might be a long time. It might not be next year. I don't think your point is like Dunlap is turning the corner and here he comes. It's like, dude, it's going to be fascinating with the exemptions that he has and, you know, from winning twice and the status he has. like how is he you know and it's such a it's such a almost getting forced onto the tour faster than you were probably ready or undoubtedly ready to be out there

he's kind of the case of like this hasn't been like said out loud but I would have to think Jackson Coyvin is looking at like something how this has happened to Nick Dunlap and saying like I don't need to be in a rush to get to the PGA tour I think it was still smart of Dunlap to take the status like yeah it's sitting right there for you like go out and learn and and kind of do a little bit of the the Akshay approach of like, I'm going to be out there playing with the pros and it's only going to make me better. But it's not a guarantee. It's going to work. And it's going to be an

interesting story to follow. Well, and yeah, he said a lot of that in his interviews this week, too, kind of on both fronts of what you touched on. A, it's not a, it's not some like found it quick driver fix. Like, he knows he's going to, like, that's not really how that works. You got to kind of rebuild stuff and that takes a really long time. And you're going to play a lot of bad golf courses that aren't going to fit what you're trying to do, and it's going to be very uncomfortable for a long time. But then the other part of that is trying to do all of that while you're also trying to learn how to travel by yourself for the first time. And you're also trying to learn golf courses on the PJ tour for the first time.

And you're trying to learn all the little ins and outs of what being a PJ tour player is for the first time. And it's just a, yeah, and you're coming into your own as like a 21-year-old kid. I mean, it's just a, it's a really uphill battle. And again, all of this, I feel like hopefully it's just, just to set the table on like if he does get it figured out and he's got some space ahead of him you know he's got a couple years of exemption through 2027 he's exempt so he's got some time to figure it out and and i hope he does and if he does it's like you know hopefully you kind of remember some of the the low points and and where it started to turn around but uh on the flip side mac coocher finished t-11 i just want to shout that out that's just it's just continues to be insane i i don't even know how old he is at this point 40 years 48 something like that I have a look I have no guess but his

47 47 he shot a final round 65 today he's only if you go back like his last five events goes back to the John Deere he's only played five events since John Deere and he's finished in the top 20 at four of those five so he went

T5 at the John Deer T-44 at the Windham T-13 at Napa T-18 at Sanderson T-11 this week so just picking his spots parachuting in cashed a big check and getting out of town. I just a quick appreciation for that. Let's do quick, quick quiz game on Matt Cooch. Career starts for Cooch.

Uh, gosh, I'm bad at this game. I feel like, 432 is the number that popped in my head. Not terrible. 577 events. Wow. 577 events and he's probably made 420 cuts. $415, really well done. God, it's so good.

That's so much, it's just money, just an absolute earner. How much? God, I was hoping you were going to ask me that. $59 million. $61.3. Well done. How about top, how about this is one, I want you to do, top five finishes in his career? Five finishes out of, what do we say, 412 or 420 made?

1415 made cuts 15 top fives um 39 63 top 5th how many top 10s oh crazy like 100 19 top 10s more god that's crazy that's crazy what a career man isn't funny how the older you get the boy you're just like bad that look at that guy love what that guy's doing I want to be like that guy How many runner-ups you think Kooch has? What did we say? How many top fives did you say? 60-some?

63. So, yeah. I feel like there was a lot of top, like, T-5, not a lot of seconds. I'll say runner-up, 11. 15. 15 runner-ups. I know. What a career.

How many wins is it actually? Like 10? 9 wins, 15 runner-ups, 16-third places. That's 40 top-3 finishes. on the PGA tour. What a stud. On Toursons, 2001. A couple other things.

I just wanted to shout out, Saul. You mentioned Thomas Rosenmuller earlier. Three Germans in the top 20. Don't think I've seen that before on the PGA tour. It's a lot of German flags up there. And I just wanted to shout out the Germans. Maddie Schmidt continues to have a nice season. I think he's like 66th or something in the FedEx Cup.

He's like six top tens this year. And then Jeremy, don't call me low. Logan Paul finished T-16 or 16th and your boy Thomas Rosenmuller, T-17. So shout to the Germans. On the young guys beat, David Ford finished T-3 at Utah, got into this week, made the cut again. Pearson Cootty finished T-3. Last tournament got in, made the cut again. And Luke Clanton has moved up to number 186 in the FedEx Cup fall.

I just wanted to highlight that with his made cut. Will you apologize? No, he moved up to 186, that's what I'm saying. So it's a lot of time left. Monitoring the next 10, the folks that are going to get into the Pebble Beach Pro Am, the Genesis Invitational. Garrick Higo moved up five spots from 57 to 52nd. So he's looking almost certainly like a lock to get into those signature events. Rico Hoey moved up from 61st into 58th.

That has bumped Wyndham Clark down to 61 on that list as they near a close on the active part of the season. We have the Butterfield Bermuda next week and then RSM, yeah, two events left before we get to Hero, which doesn't count and get into Grant Thornton and all the PNC stuff. Man. Well, over on the DP World Tour, Aaron Rye is your winner at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

This event, again, I was catching up on highlights and, you know, time changes and travel and all kinds of stuff, but I was wrapped just watching the highlights. This looked like an unbelievably cool event. uh yes lynx looked great a lot of lot of short grass around the greens a lot of ball on the ground feeding the ball into holes i don't know what it's like on the ground there i've never really been to that uh part of the world but the golf course on tv that's very fun to watch or at least on youtube when i was watching all the all the highlights this week but uh erin rye after very he had a really short miss on 14 i don't know if you saw that basically like it popped in out of the hole it's crazy short miss uh playing in the final group with Tommy and Nikolai Hoygard and kind of just going toe to toe is a fun

shootout. You had those three, you had Rory hanging up a 62 on Sunday. This is now, this is not a misspeak, his 10th top three finish at this event without a win. He's finished in the top three 10 times at this event and has never won it. Obviously, it's moved across a couple of different

golf courses, but yeah, just kind of one of those crazy weird, weird factoids. but uh really fun fun finish uh they fleetwood and erin rye both birdie 16 they got to the par 3 17th kind of lengthy par three erin rye hit just a such a proper shot in there kind of this like low feeder below the hole 15 20 feet cashes it for birdie Tommy had to scramble he had like this really probably a 20 footer for par that he had to make uh so they're tied going to the 18th Hoygard hits, it was kind of like

Dobson Ranch at the NIT a little bit. Nikolai Hoygard hits this epic shot in there. The par five has a great look for Eagle from probably 15 feet, something like that, which would have got him in the playoff. Fleetwood and Tommy both wedge it to maybe 15 feet or so

and both miss go to a playoff. First playoff hole, Rye hits a wedge to like eight feet. Tommy hits one very, very similar, but just kind of spins left and gives him, it kind of essentially gives him the read. Tommy misses it a little low it looked like and not a great putt in the playoff.

But Aaron Rye gets the read, cashes it for his second Rolex series win. He also won the Scottish Open five years ago. And yeah, just a, I don't know, man. He also won the Scottish Open five years ago in a playoff over Tommy Flewitt. That's true. Important context.

But yeah, I just had a blast. I wish I would have got to watch more of this one, you know, kind of in real time. But it was go back and watch the highlights if you haven't because it was some really, really fun shots. Some of the, especially getting Rory on that type of golf course where you got a lot of creativity around the greens. And I just, you know, I think about that Ryder Cup shot that he hit in Rome three or four times a week, the crazy spinner up the hill on the 17th. And, you know, there's some of those shots around those greens and some putts from off the green. just like a lot of options around the greens for those guys. And it was a, yeah, a fun one to catch up on.

And congrats to Aaron Rye, man. He just is, Grindr is like such a cliche. I know, but man, he just embodies that so hard. He just looks so committed to every single shot. He holds his finish forever,

like until the ball lands. It's just, it's, it's very laughable. No, I know. You hated him. I know.

I hate watching it. human incarnation, no, hated him. The human incarnation of a T.I.83 calculator. It is taken a lot for you to get as upset as you do about any golfer as you do Aaron Rye and how much you've sworn him off. So I appreciate you coming around here. Some of this might be watching the YouTube highlights and not having to watch the full process, you know, in its entirety.

That might be part of it. But the other part's just like, hey, good on you, man. I'm the one that's wrong here. You're the one that keeps winning golf tournaments. So clearly it's it's working and you've got it figured out. So it's, I don't know, I, he's, he's kind of kicked down the door and he's, he's demanded, demanded respect, which I am, I am obligated to pay because it's been, it's been a hell of a last couple years that he's put together. It's, it's really impressive to, he loses 12 yards on average. Yeah, he's like 168 ball speed or something off the sea.

170 in the playoff I think it's a lot 12 yards a lot to be like throwing back back to the field and he gains almost a half shot around off the tea yeah he begins a half shot around off the tea because he's like one of the most accurate like he's the most accurate driver in the world I think that's the uh the official whatever did golf judgment on that one he's if not that he's one of like the top three most accurate players the world so and it's nice to see one guy up it's out there doing it this style that, you know, near the very top. I'm not usually this guy ever,

gear guy, but he's also, I just just kind of interesting, he's playing the old tailor-made M6, which is from like seven years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, something like that. So yeah, it's just kind of funny to see something like that and see him just hitting all the fairways as well.

It's really interesting. If you just go down, like if you just compare the list of longest drivers versus most accurate drivers, like the longest drivers in the world, Bryson, Pot Geater, Marco Pinge, Rory, Neiman, Dean Bermester, Cameron Champ, David Pooge, Chris Goderup, Nikolai Hoygard, Nicholas Norgaard, John Rom is up there, Matthew Wolf, Rasmus Hoigard, blah, blah, blah, and they need the most accurate drivers, Aaron Rise, number one, Russell Henley, Henrik Stenson's still up there, then it's like Kazuma Kabori, Paul Peterson, Takumi Kanaya, Morakow is up there,

Adrian O'Togway, Ben Coles, Joe Gerbach, Lucas Glover, see, like names you don't even, aren't even heard of before because of how hard it is to climb up there if you're not also pounding it, you know, above average distance. You've got to go far down the list before you find somebody. Who do you think the first name is on the, if you've sorted by all the most accurate golfers in the world, the first one to be above average in distance is?

Does that make sense? It does. It's not more tower? six guys top 36 most accurate drivers in the world are below average and distance who you think's 37 it's not Morcawa is

actually you're right it is barely more cow I miss that but Scott he's the name that jumped out when you get all the way down the list like he's like 30 yeah he's he's just the goat what happened on the LPGA so the LPGA

again you mentioned Nasa Hataoka wins the Toto Pan Classic in a playoff. So Hatoka and Araki, Arachi, I don't know how to pronounce her last name. We're tied going into the final round. Play began in the final round. So they played a few holes. I couldn't find what the actual scores were from what they played.

But it rained so hard that they had to cancel the final round and revert back to the 54 hole scores. Problem was there was a tie. So they had to shorten the 18th hole to 130 yards. and go have a playoff. And the videos that were coming out about this, like they're just in there just, it's hilarious.

They have a pump in there in the bunker just spraying. It was like a fountain coming out of this bunker of how much water they were like shipping out of it. And it looked like a very tough scene. But they got it in, done deal. Not so it's like a wins in Japan. And look, I think, you know, I didn't see a lot of people mad about this one.

But I was just kind of like a couple of tournaments. we've ran and gotten there like when you're fighting darkness and you get to the end and you're like yeah you got to come up with a playoff now or else like there's not going to be a winner i just felt uh i i would yeah i could have read that 10 years ago i'm like like what a joke what a horrible way to end a tournament and having done it a couple times like dude that's well done by them honestly get it in get it figured out it's not going to be pretty but you got to identify a winner somehow uh they got it in yeah that's like a mess filming a video out there you got full golf course everywhere it's just yeah you start to start to really got you know

I understand why the chip off became a thing. It's, uh, you know, settles it. It settles it. It's easy. Small footprint. You know, I get it. Uh, only other bit of news, Sali LPJ also announced they're going to be co-sanctioning an event with golf Saudi, uh, the Aramco championship at Shadow Creek in Vegas, uh, March 30th through April 5th. Of course, that was the site of the match play.

This will be a stroke play format tournament. Any, any, any reaction to this news? Um, Three and a half, four years into all of it, it's hard to get overly worked up about it. I think it was, it makes a lot, how do I say this, I guess, it makes more sense on the LPGA tour than it made on the PGA tour in terms of it felt really greedy for a lot of these players to take these massive paydays and kind of ruin, somewhat ruin or damage, greatly damage a product that was, you know, surviving. some would say thriving like the you know a really strong tour massive purses that they were playing for just didn't seem uh just didn't sit great to disrupt all of that LPGA tour is a different scene I still feel the same way about like basically just you know the getting in bed with the

Saudis and the the messy nature of all that and the human right I feel the same about that still but it's harder to get super worked up about that at the LPGA level when like if they wanted to they could pretty much eviscerate the LPGA tour like if the Saudis really wanted to. So like partnering with them and getting in front of that and maybe doing what the PJ tour should have done from the jump, it's hard to say that it's a bad move from their leadership for representative purposes of their members because all these members, not all of them, but almost all of them have shown the willingness to take the Saudi money and go play the Aramco series anyways. So it's not the same as maybe the June 6 agreement where a lot of PGA tour players had hard lines said,

we're not going to do this, we're against this, blah, blah, blah, we're lockstep with you, and then they kind of sold them out. This seems to be like what the members of the LPGA tour want and quite a different scenario. Does all that make sense or do I am I doing what aboutism here? No, I hear what you're saying. I think it's, yeah, there is probably a difference in partnering with. it rather than you know blowing up your tour yeah go get in bed with them yeah yeah i understand it i mean it's still like you said it's been three and a half four years of arguing about this stuff and

so i'd be lying if i said it wasn't a little fatigue i think i'm on my end for sure uh for fighting that battle but i i think it's yeah i understand the rationale behind it and shadow creek is seems like a good fit for the the women's game and And, you know, I'll miss the match play. I like the match play event out there. I thought was very fun. But I don't know. It seems like a good purse and a good event that I'm sure the ladies will enjoy.

So any other news and notes? Just a couple quick ones. Our guy Gary players doing it again. He's out there doing it. You got to give him credit. All right. He's willing to put himself out there. He did an interview.

I think this was with Golf Digest. I missed this interview that he did. It's a very stricent effect of what happened here. But I screenshot this input on Twitter, but he said something along the lines of calling for an end for the Rider Cup. And the question that was as asked, wait, is like, wait, are you calling for an end of the Rider Cup? And his quote, and I will read it, was,

yes, I would like to see them abolish it, and I'll tell you why. All right, it starts with that. Very clear. It says, nobody loves golf more than me, but I love golf to such an extent that I sat there and cringe. the whole world was watching and all you heard was F this, F that, and you see people misbehaving. It goes on for

other quotes. But then issues a clarification. This is put out on the Everything app, a statement that said, Rider Cup clarification. And it started with, it has been brought to my attention that recent media reports have stated that I wish to see an end to the Ryder Cup competition.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Even on their toes. Very much. A theme going on in the by people that are represented by Gulf Saudi, ironically enough, about blaming media for being misquoted. GMAC had some quotes that leaked, I think, were reported last Sunday that was after we had already recorded our podcast about,

he said something about, you know, trying to eke out a career, eke out a living, you know, a remaining living with what's left of his career. He was accurately quoted in the piece, claimed he was misquoted, walked it back without apologizing to the, you know, the author

of the piece that, you know, journalistic integrity matters a lot to these people and when he tries to call them out for being misquoted and wasn't actually, just a messy scene all around of people saying things and then pretending like they didn't say them this past week for GMAC and Gary Player. But that's pretty much

all I had in the notebook. Yeah. A couple of other events this week, we got the Butterfield Bermuda Championship on the PJ Tour and the LPJ, the Onica, driven by Gamebridge at Pelican. That's a lot of that's a lot of words for a title.

And then DP World Tour Championship as well. Yeah. In Dubai. In Dubai, Rory trying to win his fourth in a row, his seventh race to Dubai title, which is significant.

He's got a big lead in that. But yeah, I'll be looking forward to probably lock in a little bit on that this week with how much I enjoyed kind of following that HSBC this week. close it out with a big thanks to everyone that did make the trip out to Dobson ranch from all over and the people the, the, the Roos communities that have sprung up all over the country as well

for, you know, all the qualification that goes into and the, the hard-earned tickets to get there. It's a lot of competition to make it to the NIT and a lot of people had, I had such a blast out there. Dobson Ranch is represent so much about what's great about golf, just a very fun, I'll say easy golf course deeds that Ben and I were talking about it afterward was just like in that mammoth Dune's category of like way more golf courses should be like that level of challenge because I consider myself quite a decent player. I had so much fun trying to unlock the challenge of that and it doesn't have to be harder than that for the average player ever. It really just does

not. The golf course is awesome but what I think is almost more applicable to so many other places, is what they've done with the entire rest of the facility. Yes. The driving range is incredible and it is packed at all times of day. It's lit at night. They've got food trucks out there. They've got a great bar and kind of event space. And it's just, I know they've got great weather out there this time of year, especially.

But man, they take advantage of it to the fullest. And staff was awesome. And the whole deal just felt like a perfect fit for this type of event. So, yeah, massive thanks to them. And if you're ever in the area, you know, go, go check it out as just from a pure, a pure muni appreciation standpoint, you know, it's just, it's a great, a great spot. Even after dark. Yeah, exactly.

Great hang after dark. Lit driving range, a astroturf putting course for, for kids around there. It's a very friendly staff. And Aaron Gregory here runs our events just continues to absolutely crush these things and we couldn't do without it. This was the sixth, somehow the sixth nest invitational tournament that we've done. if you're interested in joining the nest or unfamiliar with what it is it's our community of avid golfers you support it helps support all of our NLU content strapped special projects like the Walker Cup film and you you know you unlock all kinds of access to next nest exclusive content a monthly nest podcast extra videos all the threads on our refuge message board you get 15% off every order in the NLU pro shop and you get 25% off right now for black Friday cyber Monday the czar is running a lot of specials right now great discounts on a lot of our partners h and b golf pride stack like uh it's just a a really really big offering knowingup

dot com slash join if you want to get involved in that and learn a little bit more about that raise a ton of money for the evans scholar foundation uh as well so thanks to everyone that bought mystery boxes and help donate along the way to help get us on our fundraising goal with our scholarship with the evans scholar foundation auctioned off one of my paintings that was a first for me uh that was that was very very fun uh yeah it's it's a great event i can't can't wait for next year And congrats to Lane from the High Cotton Club, who is our 2025 Nest Invitation champion. And I'm already stoked to get back, man, next year. It was so much fun.

So, yeah. All right, Deeds, that's going to do it for this week. We will talk to you guys next weekend. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. We'll see you then. Cheers. Cheers.