No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1098: Royal Melbourne love at the Australian Open

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Soly and TC talk all things Royal Melbourne and Australian Open as one of the best courses on earth took center stage this week with Cam Smith three putting on the 72nd hole handing Rasmus Neergaard-Peterson a one shot victory. Expect minimal birdies and bogeys discussion, we’re here to celebrate RM, react to Rory’s comments comparing it to Kingston Heath and have a fun hypothetical fifth major discussion.  From there it’s on to the Nedbank in South Africa and the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas where Kristoffer Reitan and Hideki won those respective events and some notable quotes from Wyndham, Jordan and Tiger. We close with some thoughts on the reaction to our midweek pod with JT and the aggregation around his comments on the green speeds at Bethpage plus some assorted news and notes. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Titleist Loch Lomond Whiskies The Stack 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. Yes. 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. Sali here, you know who's in the next seat tonight. I don't even got to tell you, Australian Open Week at Royal Melbourne, my guy, Mr. T.C. Hello, what are we getting into tonight? Hey, Sally, we got a lot on the agenda, the aforementioned Australian Open, the Crown Australian Open at the composite course at Royal Melbourne. It was an awesome week of golf, kind of restored my faith in just professional golf at large. Got some Rory stuff.

We've got the hero. I don't know what there really is to talk up from the hero. I was going to jokingly lead with it tonight to see how far you let me get or like offline. Like, T.C., I think the hero, I think we should lead with that tonight. We do have some Tiger comments, Dr. Munjal comments from their presser, their joint presser at the hero. A little bit of speed.

Got some JT aggregation and, you know, just some media commentary there. And then we've got a lot more. But Rasmus, near guard Peterson, of course, won the Crown Australian Open. I think we need to get them on the team. Also, in the DP World Tour, we had Africa's major. The fact that they held Australia's major and Africa's major, the same week on the same tour is insane. Christopher Ritan won the Ned Bank Golf Challenge in honor of Mr. Gary player. Get him on the team.

And then the PGA tour, Hideki, won the aforementioned Hero. World Challenge presented by Dr. Moonjall. I've got great news for any of you, listen to this. If you're still shopping for golfers in your life, or if you, if anyone's, you know, if your mom's texted and you asking, hey, what do you want for Christmas? Titleist is once again offering their holiday two pack for ProV1 and ProB1X, but you can save $10 on two dozen while supplies last.

The worst thing that can happen is you just get the wrong golf balls for Christmas. You're not going to play them, and it's just awkward. Just tell someone exactly what you want. It's also not too late to order Titleist golf balls with custom text or a personalized message. Get those orders in by Tuesday at noon Eastern to take advantage of free standard shipping. Again, that's whether you're shopping for ProV1, ProV1X, ProV1X, ProV1X. ProV1X.

Tidlis has a golf ball model for every player. Playing the right golf ball for your game is one of the simplest ways to play better golf, and there's no better time than now to stock up ahead of the new year. Go to Titleist.com to learn more. It's the gift that keeps on giving. You just can never, ever go wrong either for yourself or for, others with a fresh set of golf balls. Solly, that's, that's pretty wild that they can customize golf balls,

get them out before Christmas. I mean, we're what, you know, 16 or 18 days out right now. And really, I mean, that's, that's pretty remarkable. And with ground shipping, too, or with that free shipping. They might know what they're doing on the golf ball front, uh, T.C. By the way, are we wearing the same, same hoodie? I think we're different. I'm, I think I'm the blue herringbone.

I think you're more of the grayish. Oh, you're herringbole. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, I checked before we hit record just to make sure. But if you want to go ahead and rush this for us, that's fine. T.C. Australian Open was fantastic. Rasm to nearguard Peterson took a lead into the final round. But Cam Smith took the lead with a birdie on the 10th hole. It actually ended up being a one-shot lead over Siwu Kim with near Gar-P Peterson two back with just eight holes to play. Neargar Peterson made a bomb for Bertie on the 12th hole. Cam bogeyed. Then those two were tied for the lead. Then he hit just one of my favorite shots of the year, just this nippy little lob wedge into the 13th hole, which is 3 West, which is one of the most underrated golf holes in the world. He almost hold it. I don't know how it didn't go in.

That set up an easy birdie. Cam bounced right back with a two-putt birdie on the 14th hole. They're still tied playing the 17th hole, and it's clear it's going to be one of the two of them. And near guard Peterson lips out an eagle put from the fringe, and then Cam gets up and down after badly. He rarely, very badly pulled his, a second shot and made a great putts

get up and down there. So they're tied playing in the last playing the 18th on the east course and near guard Peterson misses short right to a back right pin in some hairy rough, green perched up on top of a bunker with a massive back to front slope. It's a great

recovery to like maybe 20 feet by the whole. Cam plays it way safe but left himself a really difficult put lagging to about six feet, but near Garperston stepped up, makes the put and Cam misses a shorty ish for cam smith that was a short put what like six or seven feet six feet i did not expect him to miss that put and missed on the left side and that was it 33 000 people there in the final round

obviously cheering for camp but you can see slow motion in the background on near guard pearsons like celebration like people in the background literally with hands over their eyes like no come on everyone was pulling for cam smith but massive win and just an epic epic week especially Thursday man And that was some of the best golf viewing of the year. We knew it. We've been talking about it for months going in, and it ended up, it more than passed the test, man.

It did. We were traveling a little bit. I got home and I watched full coverage of both the first and the second round. Replay. Just laid down on the couch and just watched full coverage on replay, even though I knew what the leaderboard looked like and everything like that. And just the wind, the crowds,

the energy, the international feed, like getting the, getting the Australian commentary on there as well. It was, it was awesome. Like, it just,

it made me, I don't know, it was just everything that I want pro golf to be. And it didn't matter. Like, you know, Rory was playing, Cam was playing,

Leish was playing, Waco. You know, there was some good players in the field, but it didn't really matter who was playing on that canvas. It just, you know, I don't know.

I was, I was over the moon this week. and it just seemed like there was a palpable energy in Australia much more so than the last two, three, four years with the Australian Open doing the co-ed thing. And it just seemed like it was a shell of itself. And this year it seemed like, man, it was back to being the Australian Open that, you know, we saw five, six, seven years ago and maybe even better and hopefully on a trajectory now to grow and, you know, become what it should be, which is like, I think the fourth major in all

golf and then bump the bump the PGA down of the fifth major. It's just it's everything that pro golf should be. It's variety.

It brings it. I don't know. I'm rambling, Sallie. I just love it so much. I'm going to focus on the positive here for a second on this. I'm,

I am enamored with this golf course. I'm obsessed with it. And some highlights I think from the week. Again, I think this week was about more than just the birdies and bogeys and who won. And like, like Rory being there alone was way a bigger story than him finishing T14 right and not having his his best week which in that field T14 is is not not the week that you're looking for out of Rory but watching guys the Thursday viewing the wind was absolutely howling it was and there's almost no better golf course to watch in windy conditions than that one watching guys try to tackle the eighth hole which is 10 West was an absolute delight men willie drove it too close to the green uh and he he had a look like a really nice pitch downwind, I think it was from 48 meters, if I remember right,

to a treacherous back flag. I mean, it went long by like a revolution or two, and it rolls all the way down to a sandy area under a tree. Like, you just don't see that margin of error in any professional golf event. Even some of the majors just don't seem to be that much on edge. And it, the 13th old was soft coming into that. Like earlier a week, this was a relatively soft. golf course because they got a bunch of rain and it still was that knife's edge and the 13th hole which is three west remains like one of my favorite holes in golf in the world I think there's no I was thinking about this there's no greater disparity between like the quality of golf hole and

the complete lack of photographability what's the word I'm looking for photogenic there's no photogenic nature of that golf hole it's not a beautiful golf hole but as far as the playability it's it's a near perfect golf hole. And watching like Rory, he was playing with Adam Scott in round one, Rory lays way back off the tee. When do you ever see him lay back on a short par four? Lays back off the T,

hits the fairway and lost one up and holds the back part of the green, which is where the pin was, where Adam Scott missed in the left rough and hit it like a really nice shot, but had like no stop, no chance of stopping it, and it eked off the back.

We can be accused of talking about angles too often, which it might be true at a lot of levels of programs, golf, but not this week, which was what made it so fascinating to watch, just watching Adam Scott in a rough lot. Usually what happens in pro golf is if you're 100 yards out and you're in the rough, it doesn't matter that much because you can get enough loft on it, enough spin on it to be able to hold the green and not be punished. But like, it kept happening on repeat. Guys, we're receiving the consequences of hitting a less than perfect tee shot. And on like a 6,500

yard course, if the yardages were right on the DP World Tour site, which were in yards and not in for the record. I had to like double, triple check that. 14 under par 1 this week. And yeah, they got some wind, but that speaks to just incredible,

incredible design. And I can keep going if you want, because watching the seventh hole, the short three up the hill on Thursday. Oh, the whole location there on seven. It was just so nasty. Like,

the fact that they play this and they don't even play 16 East. Oh, that's the biggest error of the week, if you ask me. They played four East instead of 16 East, which I think 16 East is the, I mean, five, five, uh, West is obviously the best part three at Real Melbourne, but I think 16 East is the next one. And I don't understand why they skip that one. But, Sally, do your point about photogenic holes, like seven's the same way, seven, seven West is the same way. Like, it doesn't look like anything really on TV. And it's just, you know, green's just perched up on that hill and it doesn't look like there's a lot of green out there. And it's like, it's just brilliant. And it plays. And like, and to your point about. this course. I love this course, the scale, the, just the grandness of it. But that said, like, I'm just as excited about Kingston Heath next year. I would be just as excited if they went to

Victoria, um, year a year. Like, there's, there's all sorts of courses down there where I'm like, man, like, let's just, let's just keep going on the sand belt here. Go over to PK. You know, there's, like, it's, this is what golf should be in the winter of like, I'm sitting at home. The weather was awful here in Jacksonville this weekend even. And I'm sitting at home, it's raining, pissing sideways outside. And I'm just watching these guys have to think their way around a golf course for the first time in months. It's brilliant. It's delightful.

Well, and it's, again, I probably have extra special appreciation for this course, having been to the Asia-Pacific Amateur two years ago around this time of year. I guess that that was in October of 2023. But watching those dudes play it in different wins. and like with my own two eyes watch especially like they have the same exact pin on 18 East, the finishing hole down the stretch and then in the playoff was super, super interesting because the wind was off the right into a back right pin and you had to watch guys, try to hit a fade up against that wind just to keep it from doing what Cam Smith's ball did in the playoff, which is land or sorry in regulation, which is land and keep moving left.

Like which direction your ball is moving when it lands matters when golf courses are this first. And Cam, right, like, after watching near-Gar Peterson blow it right and make the mistake that you can't make, I don't blame Cam for playing safe, but he didn't have the ball moving the right direction, didn't have a big enough cut up against the win. And it starts rolling away and he ends up with a really hard two-putt, which he ends up three-putting. And like, again, at the Hero World Challenge, if there was somebody had short-sighted himself, like the safe shot would have been so freaking easy and it would have been night-night and it would have been game over. but the test is not done at rural Melbourne until you get that damn thing in the hole. And so the same thing happened with Winnie Ding and Jasper Stubbs in that playoff

and watching Stubbs make a miraculous put from the left side of that green, which is really, really, really difficult. It was just awesome golf. And just getting all the flashbacks into that of knowing what the requirements are on these shots. It was just, I need there to be a fifth major, T.C. and I needed to go around the world.

I started thinking about this a lot more. Like, all right, the calls for people to bring the PGA of America to bring their championship to Australia. Like, if you guys aren't seeing what's going on in the PGA of America, that's not on the table. We'll get to them later. That's not happening, guys. All right, they can't we get the greens.

We can't even get them to go to the right courses in the United States. Right. That's so not happening. And the fifth major, like, should not be the players. Like, we don't need another major in the United States. Why can't there be a fifth major? that just moves around the world. Because, yeah, like, because nobody wants to step up and, like, you know, do what's right for

the game at large. And I think that's where, like, if you look at tennis, right, tennis, you know, the Australian opens grown steadily over the last 20, 30, 35 years, I think. Like, it's become, it was definitely the, the kind of the afterthought major. Now it feels like somewhere that rises to the level of, you know, like it's got its own identity and it feels like it's not that far behind the other ones. And that's despite like, you know, like people say with golf, you've got the tax situation down there. You've got less commercialization opportunities with, you know, smaller companies. You got the time that it takes to get there, the isolation, all of that.

It's a lot of difference as well. Like tennis has all of that going on as well. and tennis also has like you play tennis on like the same court as anywhere else where where they have the most brilliant like it would be like if they had the most brilliant tennis courts in the world down there would make more sense for the Australian sure I see what you're like the tennis courts are the same they have the most brilliant golf courses in the world like you know you could argue heathland long island California you know here maybe some spots in Japan you know Scotland

and Ireland like but like the like the PGA tour or just the high level the top echelon of golf goes to all of those places at least once every four or five years and for whatever reason for all those reasons mentioned we just get the same excuses over and over again and Sally I do hate to break it to you the composite course was was 7,087 yards okay it was I'm glad to hear that because it was wrong on their website and I triple check that with my own two eyes. But, yes, I'm glad to hear that. And it was, and like, it was crazy, too.

Like, no par fives until 14. You know, there were two par fives in the last, last five holes. But like you said, like, like, like 13, just consequential second shot and you get up too close to that green or number eight or, like, they're just, just brilliant decisions to be made the entire day. I don't know. I'm, I'm kind of at a loss for words. as to like, at some point, like, you're either a golf fan or you're not.

And you either enjoyed that or you didn't this weekend. Or you made it a point to tune in or you didn't. And, you know, go back and watch the highlights. Go back and watch. Like, it was one of the few times where I've turned on a golf tournament and not been upset that they're only showing half a dozen to a dozen players. Just because I want to see those guys hit every single shot on the golf course. I don't want to see the breadth and death.

I just want to see shot by shot, whole by whole, the obedience of the round, watch a guy build around. And then augment that with with some highlights and some good shots from some of the other groups. But we saw Rory whiff a ball in the tea tree this week. We saw it was, it was awesome. There's just, you know, it's, it's everything that's right about golf. It is.

And it, you know, I don't know how many times we do this conversation over the course of a year. but it is like, like the downside is just the bummer of like the field strength, right? And not having the depth of the field for a tournament and a golf course that's very deserving of having the best players. Even that, I mean, that's that's such a own goal. Like the DP World Tour can't even get out of its own way to schedule two of its, you know, kind of premier opening events of the year between the Ned Bank and the Australian Open against one another. and that was that was a decent field down in south africa and uh you know right tan played well and that's on and then you've got and like the one that pisses me off the most is is the hero

world challenge because it goes up against this every year and i and i just like it's just it it it irks me so much that these guys are playing in front of nobody in the bahamas for a two hundred thousand dollar guaranteed payday million bucks to the winner you know 200 grand the last place or 150 grand to last place and like for what like nobody's watching that thing nobody cares dr moonjal's probably you know like entertaining or hosting some clients but other than that it's a glorified like corporate outing and you know 20 of the top what 50 in the world are there it was fun-ish silly seeded event when tiger played or when the tiger stuff was going on, right?

You know, that would be where you'd like make a comeback or there'd be an update on his health and it was just, there was still a tiger buzz, but, and there was, you know, way more of the top players in the world used to play it. This was the very first year where it was like, this is very silly. You could be not a fan of this event.

I've never been a big fan of this event, but this year was just silly. Like it's just, it's not, it's just golf for the sake of golf. I'm glad Scotty didn't. We'll get to that, but I need to, I need Scotty to not win them.

those events because then it just gets every time we talk about his wins it's confusing because you got to throw the hero in i'd rather just it's beneath you scotty to win this tournament especially to win it three years in a row i'm only partially kidding about that but all right so with your fifth major like your fifth kind of just the worldwide the world's major we'll call it yep are you on a rhoda or are you are you just pop a rhoda but it's got to be i would say royal melbourne should be minimum every three years, if not every other year, right? Maybe you could sprinkle in another sand belt course here and there. You could take it to you can't, there's no reason you can't have it in the UK. I don't think, you know, like the British Open is going to stick to links

golf courses on the men's side. Give me a Heathland version of this major, right? Play it, you know, a week, maybe two weeks after the, I don't know. I don't know about the scheduling I haven't thought it through other than like there's, there's always talk around adding a fifth major. major and they need to figure out a way like there's no reason that like a golf course of this level shouldn't have the best players in the world compete on it right and so but something's got to change that to happen we can wish it in like we can keep repeating it we can keep wanting scottie to go down there we can keep wanting speed to go down there we can say that you know until we're blue in the face that's not that's going to happen it's not even close to happening

like it just doesn't make financial sense it doesn't make sense for those guys on the family front we can ask them to do it and they're going to be like cool I'm not going to and none of that's going to change unless like there is a structure change of some kind that forces them to go in some way or changes the desire financially one that's a big one and two like for you know if that becomes a major championship and that's probably not going to happen ever but even within the next 10 years if if we're starting truly from scratch on this idea but I just it's really frustrating to see like I have the numbers if you want them and I don't like want to harp on this because it was a great tournament

and that strength of field didn't really matter in terms of the enjoyment of watching it, but there were 16 above average pros in the field of the Australian Open, like above zero strokes gained average. And like the hero had more than that in the 20 person field. Like it just shouldn't be that way. Like that's, oh, I know.

That sucks. That really does suck. There was one player in the field that had more than one stroke gain. That's Rory. The hero had 10. The average skill at the hero was plus 1.0. 7, average skill at the Australian up was negative 1.62.

Like, like, even considering the field size, it was harder to win the hero than it was the Australian Open. And this is all courtesy of dated golf, of course. But like, that sucks. Like that, that sucks. And I wish it wasn't the case. I don't know what to do about other than finding out a way to make these golf courses on a more permanent rotation in pro golf.

And you got to give credit to Matt McCarty for going down. You got like, you know, I saw. Max tweeted he's like man I want to go down to that next year you know F1 goes down there it's like I don't know it just doesn't it it just doesn't seem that hard right like I mean I've been down there three times in the last what five or six years it doesn't seem that hard on the surface but I think after of what they've redone with the schedule how much they're jamming in these signature events playing for all this money like they're just not Yeah, but if they go to scarcity, right?

If they do dial things back and there is an off season or there is a more condensed schedule, it could, you know. From what I've gathered, they're not into the fact of how much money they lose out of going to Hawaii. So like, Hawaii is not looking good for the future calendar. So like, again, I'm just being a realist here. Like I, of course it, of course I would love to see a ton more golf going. to this place and in places like this. And I don't want to stop him.

This was a good, it was a good step in the right direction for golf Australia this year. Massive. So I think they got it back on the rails. Shout out to Liquorland. It looked like an awesome lounge that they had on 17 there. They got their money's worth like Liquorland re-up for next year, you know. I'm very glad you said that out there. They had all sorts of stuff.

I'm very glad you said Liquor, TC, because we are excited to welcome in Locke Lomon Whiskey. as the official spirit of the open since 2018 and now the Scotch sponsor of no laying up. If you've ever wondered what whiskey pairs best with golf, this is it. Locke Lohman is setting a new standard in single malt excellence. They're no stranger to championships, having recently been named IWSC Scotch Distillery of the year and winning 10 best in class awards and over 70 gold or better medals across their scotch portfolio, including the original 12 and 18 years old. What makes Locke Lomondwiske stand out at the 19th hole,

their unique distillery combines innovative, remarkable stills, with a distinctive approach to maturation to create exceptional flavor with a signature style of fruit, honey, and just a touch of soft smoke. Perfect after a round or watching the open. More on this when we get to 2026. For golf fans who believe True Craft comes from passion and patience, elevate your whiskey game, and check out Locklomanwiskeys.com or ask for Lockloman at your favorite spirits retailer.

he caused a little buzz in the early part of the week, T.C., he made the cheeky comment. I hope you were mad as hell. I'm still mad as hell about this. I hope he doesn't piss the membership off, but he doesn't think it's the best golf course on the sand belt because he thinks

Kingston Heath is a better golf course. I'm going to play a little... Six texts from people down there, too. We're like take that, Soli. I am going to play a little clip. This was tweeted out by Rob Williamson. Caption on this clip is Rory explaining why R.M. is better than Kingston Heath,

and he doesn't even realize he's doing it. It's all about angles. Still love Rory, legend. But here is Rory describing Royal Melbourne after playing in the opening route. Can you elaborate on the challenges of the approach shots in there? Because it felt like to me there was a two, three club wind. And it almost didn't matter how far you hit a certain club. It was really just all by field.

It was, I think the tricky thing with this North Wind is there's a lot of heavy crosswinds. And depending on what you want to do with your shot, that crosswind can hurt it or it can help it. So depending if you want to ride the wind or fight it at touch, and then because the fairways are so wide, you know, the angles then become where, okay, if I was in the middle of the fairway, the wind would be helping this shot, but I'm on the left side of the fairway, so it's actually going to hurt it. And I got caught out a little bit at times out there today. And as you said, it's like, you know, you just have to keep the ball down and get flight it down. and the nice thing is for the most part you can run the ball up onto these greens so that makes it play a little bit easier in the wind

but yeah it's got to control your trajectory, control and yeah, I just have a good feel for it. That's it. It has the width. It has the width, T.C. It has the width. It brings everything. He just described it better than I possibly could have as to why Royal Melbourne is not only the best course in the sand belt, it might just be the best golf course in the world, that composite course. I really,

I really do think so I think that is the main advantage it has over Kingston Heath and we can do this debate all over again next year but the width sets it apart by a pretty significant margin if you ask me I think there's there's certainly more topography out there as well

not just the width there's you know there's more scale and more you know looking at five or six or seven kind of up that that ridge there I think they're very different golf courses I think Brory's favorite golf course down there is Kingston Heath.

Yeah. I think he's maybe conflating best and favorite. If that makes sense, I think, like you said, I think there's... I was worried we're going to debate tonight. I think you're exactly right. Listen, I think objectively, yeah, one's got more going on, especially for tournament golf. But, man, Kingston, he's up there as far as courses I'd love to play every day

for the rest of my life kind of thing. That's what makes it so unfair. You're going up against, like, the goat. It's so fucking good It's just I just Nothing deserves Almost nothing deserves to be

Compared to that golf course It But I will Like Kingston Heath I think I think it's interesting That Rory loves it so much Because it's such a

It does take driver Out of your hands And spots And it really It's a lot more constricting It's a lot narrower in spots It's more

It's more of a technical challenge I think Like I've played Kingston Heath four times I think I've never played well there like I and I and I walk off every time and I'm like god I want to go back to the first tee whereas I feel like I roll them over like I can there's certain shots where like I don't have that shot but I feel like after that I've had I've been to like a banquet or a gala dinner and I'm like cool that was a really really fun day and you know like the

other one's just a little bit more intimate that makes sense I think it's fair I think Rory's for a competition, Kingston, he's a better fit for Rory than Real Melbourne is. I think it's going to say, Kingsney dictates a little bit more, like what you should do here. Like there's a kind of a more mathematical play at hand, whereas Royal Melbourne, you can,

you can get bogged down in options and different kinds of shots. And for, like, you can take so many different clubs off T's that club could change depending on the pin and depending on the wind. And like, Kingsney doesn't, I'm only played it, three times but it doesn't quite flex in that same way so i think it's a much more open competition at rural melbourne i just think it's a you know i think his distance doesn't play nearly as well there as it would at kingston heath as well and pros definitely like golf courses that fit their game uh the best too and i think he's not overwhelmed by royal melbourne but i think it's it mystifies

him a little bit uh he didn't quite seem as sharp he just seemed he couldn't he couldn't bully it man and he's a he's very good bull he's like he's not a ball speed imposter that's not what i'm saying about rory but like he's a really good bully like when he gets uh the gas pedal down like he can take over a golf course you just can't really do that at rome albert i think the i think rome albert definitely calls for more creativity i think kinks and heath calls for more discipline if that makes sense you got to you got to stick to your guns at kinks and heath and And, you know, like really, really, you can get caught with your hand in the cookie jar out there. Or is it Role Melbourne?

I feel like you're, you can hit whatever you want off the tea on a lot of those holes. But, you know, there's, it's basically a matter of what you do next. Whereas at Kingston Heath, I feel like there's more trouble lurking, you know. It's so, yeah, I'm stoked for next year. I think it's going to be just a brilliant presentation next year as well. And I'd love to love to go down for it. like hurt my soul not to be there for it. I think I would still,

I would trade, I would give all the Australian opens to Kingston Heath if it meant the President's Cup was going to go back to Royal Melbourne. Because like it's so, it's even more as good as Melbourne is. It's even better in match play. It really is.

And I wish, I wish it was going back there in 2028. But some other notable performance of Siwu Kim finished solo third, Michael Hollick, solo fourth and Adam Scott, solo fifth all got into the open championship with this win. Of course,

Neargar Peterson gets into the Masters as well for winning a National Open and he's going to be on the Ryder Cup team as well. Probably the worst time you could possibly win an event to try to make the next Ryder Cup team. But Jose Luis Bister and Daniel Hillier finished T6, Rory and Minwley shared T4. I love this. Rory and Minwley shared T4 team

with Greg Chalmers and Rock Fox. That just goes to show a golf course that a lot of different skills sets can compete on Elvis Smiley played well this week opening 65 saw a lot of him on the on the broadcast the first couple days uh Caleb Surratt Carlos Ortiz the aforementioned Matt McCarty about 6967 on the weekend Davis Bryant an American I'm not sure who he is I'm not familiar with his game finished finished time for 12 as well the hottest players in the world let's let's get a little back out on Davis Bryant what is he he is he plays the deep

World Tour. How about that? Our buddy Curtis Locke made the cut, finished T30 as well. So yeah, I don't know. It was like a celebration of golf. It was a festival of golf down there. And you know, if next year

how many above average players did you say they were in the field this year? 16. Let's get it to 25 next year. 25 above average players in the field next year. I think some of that could probably be

accomplished just by having the other DP World Tour guys there that we're at that you know we're over in South Africa that's that's one for sure I would say credit to the golf channel came on at 4 p.m. Eastern on on Wednesday afternoon to to be there for the opening of Rory's roundplay had a lot of coverage that night that was a great I mean that was the best day of watching I thought with the wind and it was great to kick that off I know there weren't as many hours on television the rest of the way as we would have loved but what are you going to do Well, you know, they had to show the Grass League. That's right.

It was one of the times I was like, oh, thank God, Roy's like an investor in NBC. Like, this is clearly why they've rearranged this. This is a good deal. But I did see ratings for that opening round were not good on Golf Channel. Oh, really? Which I don't care about, but it is like, you know, we can geek out and love it as much as we do.

But it, if it doesn't make financials, it's average. This is from, yeah, click, clack on Twitter. averaged 41,000 viewers on Golf Channel from 4 to 930. Granted, you know, that's spanning five hours and that's going to hurt your averages and a bigger volume of people than that tuned in. That's not comparable to YouTube numbers, which is the mistake that I see a lot of, you know, people make online, but that's not great. It's not what you're looking for.

I think creator classic outrated that. That's not good. Are you ready to talk to your own? X might be out rating. Are you ready to talk to your old World Challenge for another hour? No, can we do the Ned Bank first? I don't have anything

from the Ned Bank. What do you have from the Ned Bank? Christopher Rytan won, beat Dan Bradbury by one, kind of limped home a little bit. What else? Salatoris was there. The bullet had a bad weekend. He shot 66, Marcus Armadage, and then kind of limped in with 72s, the last three rounds.

Sorry, 73, 73, 72. Hovlin was there. Corbyron Olison was there. Martin Covra. You know, pot heater. Like, legitimately a better field than the one that was in Australia, I think, with the exception of like Rory and Adam Scott. Maybe, you know, we should cam, a few other guys.

It was pretty clearly a better field. Yeah, that had that field had 20, 20. above average players in that one compared to 16. Like we said at the Australian Open. Average skill there was negative 0.41 to negative 1.62 in the Australian Open. So average player was almost a shot better, over a shot better, I should say. But this is the crooked data golf rankings, right? For sure.

For sure. But speaking of the crooked rankings, I saw Ian Carter wrote an article a couple weeks ago about how is Johnny Kiefer up to 47? in the OWGR. Let's take a look. How is he? He's 83rd in data golf rankings and 47th in the official world golf rankings.

That would say, yes, he's gotten, but, you know, there's probably a fair amount of live guys in between those two numbers as well that helps drive a fair amount of that. But I don't know, he's had a lot of really good finishes

on the Corn Ferry Tour. No, he's played great on the Corn Ferry Tour, which just throws into stark contrast, like, man, how heavy it is U.S.-based right now from both. It is, and it's a, I mean, the OWGR is going to rank you. If you stack up a bunch of high finishes, it is going to shoot you up that list. That is, if you have a really bad week, it's not going to hurt you very much. Data Golf ranking is going to measure all those rounds and spread them out equally.

So that's where you'll see some disparity in some of the rankings. and, of course, there's live implications in there as well. But I'm dying to talk hero. The reason I bring Kiefer up, because he's about to finish inside the top 50 in the world and earn a master's invite at the end of the year. Do you think he's earned one? I think he's really good.

But I think he needs a little bit more seasoning until we're considering him a top 50 player in the world. But, you know, I don't know. It was an interesting piece from our friend Ian in BBC sports. It looks like, I mean, his T7 at the RSM gave him quite a boost to round out the year as we get head to. So top 50 at the end of the year, we'll get an automatic invite into the master. So clutch performance that was. All right, let's talk, hero.

Your boy, SEP Straca took a one shot lead into the final round over one Scott Schaeffler. SEP went out in 32, but shot one over on the back nine, would get past, did not have his best stuff on the back nine. He was not passed by Scotty Sheffler. Scotty shot two under on the front, but was undone by two bogeys on 11 and 12. He made a birdie and an eagle on 14 and 15, or excuse me, yeah, 14 and 15 a little bit later, which made it look a little better than it actually was, I think, for Scotty.

Hadecki and Alex Noren were in the group ahead. Hadecki shot 5 under 31 on the front nine, then hold out from 117 on the 10th to get to 21 under par. He birded to 13th, got him to 22 under par. that's where he finished. But Alex Noren tracked him down, shot a back 931, including a bomb birdie on the last to match Hadecki's 64. Take it to a playoff.

Hadecki stepped up, club twirled it on an approach in a playoff, which if Hedkees club twirling, it's night, night, stuffed it in there, made birdie to win it. And thus ends probably the least dramatic, not the least dramatic, but the least compelling hero world challenge that we've had to date. If, like, if Noren would have won, you would be, you'd be you would have buried this in the last five minutes of the show yeah i would have been i wish he would have won greatly because i'm one of a fan of alks norrin uh and i would have loved to have seen

you try to make the hero seem like it mattered if he would have won i think you could have done it you're nobody's better at threading those needles than you are uh but yeah it's uh norris played some great golf this fall i mean basically from september onward he's uh got healthy really really really good golf and seems to be i bet it seems like he's heading towards a a really big 2026 as well. Potential future Ryder Cup captain. You know, I think he's just a pretty switched on dude.

And, you know, like what do you think the deal was this year with the, with the hero? Just the lack of sky's just totally burned out. Well, who we missed is. So we're missing Xander.

I don't, I can't remember if he's played this in the past. J.T. hurt. You know, what else is there? Tommy, what's Tommy up to this week? I mean, I hope this.

Resting after the Skins game. Skins game and then, you know, some guys are playing the Optum Golf Channel games. Ben Griffin not there. I don't think Russell Henley, you know, it's just golf's fractured right now, man. I mean, I don't know what else to say. I mean, a lot of the European guys don't play this event anyways because this is kind of when they're either home or when they're traveling playing elsewhere. and there's not a lot of top U.S. players in the world right now, low-key also. And Ludwig was hanging out in Dallas.

He went to the Big 12 championship game and then saw he was posting from the book depository and the grassy knoll today in Dallas. Seriously, he was doing some history wall. Sounds like some shit, Hovlin, let's usually do it. Well, Alvin was down in Africa's major. That's true. Yeah, why are there three? golf tournaments going on this week.

That's the thing. Like, can't we just spread? Like, they're all worthwhile. Like, I would say Africa's major and Australia's major, they're worthwhile events in the hero. If you want to have the hero, have the hero a different week. Have it the week of the PNC or whatever.

I've never thought this event should get world ranking points. Let's disgusting. Officially abolish that. It's time for Tiger to step. Like, what happens now? Like, if we're talking about scarcity of events with Tiger on the board now, like what one massive conflict of interest when it comes to this event and I don't want to like just breeze past you know I've heard a lot of great things about tigers foundation and that's who this event benefits and that's why tiger does this event and I again I don't want to breeze past that but what how do you make a decision on something like this going into the future if you're going to be reducing events I don't know it just seems like this one's going to get could should get caught in the crosshairs but also tigers involved with the decision making of how this. shapes out going forward.

Tiger's also given himself a little out too of saying, like this is what the silly seasons for, you know, all that stuff. I think the, I would imagine that Tiger could play a variety of events in, you know, for fundraising purposes for his foundation, just like they do the Genesis and raise plenty of money for the foundation. I don't think that this is an exclusive window. Right.

The hero world challenge for him to, you know, raise that money. So, I mean, sure, we heard a lot of good things this week when we're hanging with Jim Wagner and, you know, the cavemen, Gilhans and the guys at, you know, about the Cobbs Creek project up in Philly and, you know, Tigers Foundation's building the learning facility up there and by all accounts to do awesome stuff. And I think it's, you know, it's one of those things. It's like, I don't think the two things have to be mutually exclusive that, you know, it's either have to be. of silly season event the worst possible week that's that's either you know before the president's cup when they had at a row Melbourne or against the Australian Open or you know raise this money and support a good cause I think you can figure out how to do both of those things I would say let's just get the Grant Thornton the week of the Australian Open but I also don't think nobody's going

to play the Australian Open and the hero if they're back-to-back weeks either so just maybe the hero just goes away I think that would solve a whole heck of a lot of the hero and did like January, you know, if we're not going to the, like, like use that as the easy cash grab warm up event for these guys if there's not going to be Hawaii, you know, and they can both, they can all jet over from Jupiter and Dallas and then, and then, you know, meet out and at Tori or Phoenix or wherever they're going to play first or, or, you know, I, like, I get to Dubai, like basically do that for the guys who aren't going to play Dubai, you know. Yeah, finish it on a Saturday, I guess, trying to think of how you could time it up.

I mean, I guess there's NFL playoffs already happening. So that would be, maybe have it run Tuesday or Friday. I don't know. That's true. That's very true. And there's been playoff. There's been college and pro football gone on anyway. That's a very good point.

Yeah. But I don't understand pro golf. For 11 years, there's just so many aspects of it. I'm like, how does this work? I mean, there's no, there's, I don't know what the ratings would have been on Thursday, Friday, the hero this week, but they couldn't have been more than 80,000, couldn't be more than 100,000. I don't know, but listen, before we get into a couple other news and notes from around the PGA tour, if you're in that like new year, new me mindset, just add speed training to the fitness plan,

skip the fad diets, don't go buy the $400 yoga mat, get the stack and actually pick up clubhead speed you can use on the golf course. Make the stack part of your New Year's resolution. It might be the only one you actually keep past January 7th. I'm not good at like keeping things going once I get started on like a workout plan or whatever. And I did the stack for a really, really, really long period of time and had sustained growth. I've not been very good about it doing it since.

Had some other life stuff getting the way, TC. But when I did it and it was easy to do, it was easy to keep the momentum. It didn't feel like I was sacrificing anything to do it. I was looking forward to the workouts. I stretched better. My muscles just felt better when I got back out in the golf course, even if I wasn't playing as much golf. It was way easier to get to what was previously my max speed,

and it felt like I was just cruising at 85, 90%, 90% when I was swinging driver. Can't say enough great things about the stack. And if you are a Android user, the Stack app is now officially live on Google Play and in Chrome. And again, if you got an Android or Chromebook, whatever, you are good to go right out of the box. If you go to StackSystem.com slash NLU, code no laying up. that's i'm just talking about speed training there's great videos in there there's putting there's a stack putting is going to definitely help you with your putting it's going to help you practice the putt that matter there's wedges in there as well about if you want to get your wedge distances out it's a

great tool to make you better at golf in a lot of different ways www the stack system dot com slash n o you code no laying up get on it i'm going to do it i'm going to do it no you're not i i'm going to do it uh how many birdies did you make on thursday Seven? Seven or eight? I forget. Seven. I think it was seven. Makes me mad when I hear that. That's what motivates me. I wouldn't even driving it could. Wait, he made seven birdies? Your boy, Wyndham Clark, could not resist making some comments when asked about

course conditions. This was, again, I'm copying this from nuclear golf. I think Zaire nuclear said sounding off. Hashtag not good. When asked about course conditions or the conditions around the green, I don't know exactly what the question was, but his answer was, do you want the politically correct answer? It's not in good shape.

You're always chipping into the grain and there's a lot of chips that are up and over. So you have to chip up and you're coming from really bad lies in Bermuda and you have to hit it up there and there's just very little margin for error. Sounds like maybe like something I'd like to see the pros. I feel bad for doing this, like just cutting this clip and talking about it because we are going to talk about cutting a clip and talking about it like the Justin Thomas interview

a little bit later on. But to this, I would say, what you're describing here, Wyndham, sounds like a very nice challenge for professional golfers. It's like grains into you. That we chip off of all the time here in Florida. There's very little margin for error. I don't know why pro golf should give you a ton of margin for error.

And I get it being frustrating when you're battling. There's a difference between, like, difficult course conditions and bad course conditions. Like, is it, I don't know if it's fair. I've never played Albany. I've never been there. Is it fair to say that the course is not in good shape? That seems a little harsh. It's famous for being grainy.

I mean, we remember when Tigerhead could not get the ball on the green from green side several years ago. Yeah, it's going to be grainy down there. That's part of the challenge. One, it puts a little more emphasis on your ball striking. Instead of just hitting it up green side and figuring it out from there, you've got to be cautious about where you leave it around there. and you're going to be rewarded even more strongly for hitting on the green. Like you shouldn't be guaranteed and up and down when you miss it.

It should you should be punished in some way. Watching Scotty, he was playing from ground under repair on Saturday, I think it was. And he had a chip go all up to the edge and come all the way back to his feet. Then JJ spawned the same thing. Like we enjoy watching that, man. And it's not impossible.

We've seen people chip from these areas and get it up and down. So I don't know. It just seemed like there was a way to word that. that Wyndham just does not know how to do this, man. There's a way of wording this. Like, it's really challenging. It's not my favorite, you know, style of grass to play on.

I find it quite challenging. I need to get better at these kind of shots, rather than saying it's not in good shape. There were areas roped off ground under repair. Like, there was some bad condition spots, but it looked like they had all those areas roped off as far as I could tell. And I don't know, just seemed like a little. Just people are not going to give him the benefit of the day.

out anytime soon. He finished 7th of 20 guys in the field this week for strokes gained around the green, too. So, you know, I don't know. Which also, it's, it's a farce that they even set up the full shot link package for this event in and of itself. I didn't even know they did. I didn't even go to check because I didn't think they had, I didn't even think they had those numbers this week. That's crazy. Jordan Speath.

I'm surprised we didn't lead with this. He finished D-19. He had some quotes earlier in the week. He said, I feel healthy. I feel like I should have the structural integrity of my swing by the time I get to January. I've gone through phases with it, but this is a good trial run, tested out here this week. And if I finish first or 20th, as long as I'm sticking to what I'm working on, that I'll be making progress. I would continue on to say, I've had to reverse bad habits.

It takes a long time. When you get a few months off, you have the ability to make bigger changes than you do in the season. I said, I've been off for so long, hit the ground running, probably play a lot on the West Coast. I want to work my way into events. I don't want to use exemptions. I don't want to ever have to use that again. It sucked the last couple of years. He is playing on playing the Sony to kick off the year, which that'll be a boost for that event.

And that is the starting event, of course, of 2026. How are you feeling about George going into 2026? has not won in three years. Do we think he wins in 2026? Kind of wish he would have played like RSM or something to play his way into that next 10 to so he didn't have, so he could just knock out the, the qualifications into those first two signature events right then and there.

I guess the question is if he doesn't work his way into those events, is he still going to take the exemptions? Oh, yeah, he's going to take him. He doesn't want to have to rely on. I mean, he's still going to take him. I don't know. man I mean I guess yeah like I guess like what he had surgery the previous year so he couldn't really he was knocking off rust while playing his way into events so surgery the previous year and

didn't which did not get him into the top 50 for 2025 and so he missed I know he missed like bay hill he finished he was close to finishing in the top 50 if he would have you know if he wouldn't have had surgery the prior year would have been in the top 50 probably would have played all the signature events probably would have finished the top 50 again and would be there throughout the year this year as well so i look forward to many of these conversations with speed getting uh exemptions he's going to get one into AT&T we know that i imagine he's getting one into genesis uh as well and hopefully it sounds i like to hear him say it out loud of like dude i just want to play well and just start getting into these things on my own um but that doesn't mean he's not going to take him and

it's not going to be available to him but like i know he didn't get one to bay hill last year and if he'd have played in that one probably would have finished in the top it was close to finish in the top 50 as it was probably would have finished the top 50 and I mean what do you think are you buying or selling I don't

even sorry I might have to just close my position if I'm buying anymore like I'm not I'm not the SEC here this isn't I'm not talking about sable offshore I mean head no hard Yes, you know.

I'll caveat it this way. Like, is Spieth getting into, let's set aside the Genesis or Pebble Beach and let's talk about like travelers or Memorial. Is he qualifying his way into those? I mean, you got to play some really damn good golf to get in like the Aon next 10, right? Or you got to win. If you win, you're in the rest of them, right? I'd have to look exactly what the criteria is. And is there a top so-and-so on the FedEx Cup list,

not otherwise qualified, like top 10 or something like that? I think that's how they've started netting it up. Yeah. But, yeah. And he's going to have to go ball out. I mean, it's, that's the name of the game.

And yeah, I don't think he deserves a pass forever to just, like, continue playing all of them. But like on an individual tournament by tournament basis, tournaments are more interesting when he's involved in some way. That's pretty much been proven. So I get why individual sponsors do it. Um, but yeah, there's, I don't know, he's got to play good golf at some point.

Like, this kind of is the year to start playing the good golf all over again. It was, uh, 30. 30. So he was 21 when he won in 2050. He's 32. Yeah, he's 32. He turns 33 in July, late July. I'm buying.

I think so too, but what does that mean? I can't put him. He was not nearly as bad in 2025 as people are. thinking as they're driving in their car right now he just he was not i'm sorry he was not he was he was positive 1.28 strokes gained that's better than he was in 2019 better than he was in 2020 better than he was in 22 better than he was in 24 better than he wasn't 23 as well like that was his best season since 2021 uh which i believe he he won that uh the valero i think that was that year yeah there's so many speed haters out there i just sometimes i just feel like i have to i have to stand

end up against them. I mean, he drove the ball. Well, his iron play does not appear. That's where like we need a leap in the iron play to get I don't know if he's getting back to 2015 or 2017 as we're here in 26. That's now nine years ago.

Which is insane. Like, but he was a good putter. It was good around the greens. It just doesn't add up to anything sexy. I think I just, what I loved about these quotes, I'm going to play a lot. Like I am excited to see him out there. Play in the mule events, go hoover up some points, hoover up some money.

Go get a win, man. Go to Myrtle Beach. I don't think he said that. But I think he wins. I think he wins one. Of course, I think he wins one in 2026. I mean, come on. Kind of we own the bank situation.

I can just keep saying that. It doesn't really matter. I don't want to say otherwise. We on the bank. What did I say? Morikawa was going to win eight majors. You backed off that one. But we are revisiting that one after this open this year.

That was a calendar invite we set almost five years ago now. Man, there was a time when whatever Tiger did during Hero Week went straight to the top of the agenda. We're 56 minutes in now and I guess we'll talk Tiger a little bit. He said on its health, I just got cleared last week to chip and putt. So it's good. It's been six weeks last Friday. It's been slow, not able to do much on a disc replacement to let it set. and said can't really do much now we got the okay to start crank it up a little bit in the gym

started strengthening and started doing a little bit more of the rotational component that I haven't been able to do just letting the disc kind of set yeah just let me just set I was talking about this with somebody this week do you think tiger like plays a serious schedule on the champs tour when it's time he's turning 50 in December uh when he gets healthy five or six events you know and probably in I would imagine he works his way up to it, but, you know, definitely, yeah, I mean, I can't see him playing more than like six to eight events a year. I don't either, but even that seems like a lot to me. Totally.

Which brings about my next question, does he ride the cart? I think he does because other guys are riding the cart. You're probably right, but part of me wonders pride-wise if he wants images out there forever of him just like riding around a golf cart. you know playing on the champ story i know but he said things about carts he's talking about like how much he wants to play golf though you know it's just a wild image to picture man i have been to some of those champs events where the guys just hit these shots and just like fronple back to their car general is a wild thing to picture right i know but i just cannot picture tiger riding in a golf cart playing the champs tour i bet you would insist upon a

off top, like no roof. I think, yeah, how do they do that? He's going to photograph your nose doing, like, you know, at a rider cup or stuff like that, you know, or at a president's cup doing the captain thing. Yeah, well, that's different. But I think it's like playing a golf tournament,

you know, riding, you're driving inside the ropes and you're getting out to go hit your shots and they go back to the cart just to move it up to the next green. I don't think, I don't know if your cat, yeah, I think your caddy can move it for you. but I don't know. It's just a wild image to think about it. If I was in tour,

I'd say somebody can drive Tiger's cart for him. Yeah. You know, maybe the catty gets his own cart. On the tour's future, he said, we're trying to give the fans the best product we possibly can. And if we're able to give the fans the best product we can,

I think we can make the players who have equity in the tour. We can give them more of that. So the financial windfall could be fantastic for everyone who's involved. Woo! I'm super pumped for that. what is the FCC? I know he's on the competition. Or the future competitions.

Future competition committee. I just think it's funny. Not the federal communication. I knew that, but I just think it's funny that it's called the FCC. That's what he's referring to. But so the FCC has been beating. I think we've had three different meetings.

We've got one coming up here. We've torn down and looked at so many different models. It's been a lot. We've talked to title sponsors. We've talked to CMOs. We talked to tournament directors. We talked to a lot of different people and taken a lot in of what they would like to see.

Then it's up to us at the committee to try to put it all together and try to make it work to keep players informed to what possibly could happen and we want their opinions as well. We're being very transparent with all of this. That's something that we've been very adamant.

And I've been very adamant before about this process is the transparency side of it. This is something that's going to be fantastic for all the fans for the players. And as I said, it could be a financial windfall for everyone. Saying a lot to not say much, but other than like,

yeah, we're not going to do this in secret potentially has been done in the past and we'll let you know when we have something. Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about it this week. It kind of blows me away that these SSG guys have gotten, they got what, four spots on the board, or on the four spots on the enterprises board,

because that's the one that matters now out of, I think, 12 or 13 seats. And they put $1.5 billion in with the chance to do another 1.5. It just seems like they've gotten a lot for that one. point five billion a lot of power four directors on the board are john henry arthur blank andrew cohen and sam kennedy if that sounds right as from an article from some point there's no date also very funny that uh don ray is on policy is he non voting though he is non voting

but i assume he's there when they have meetings anything else uh from the john ray and j Monaghan sitting there together. Anything else for the hero or on the PGA tour side? No, I think I'm good. Oh, he said no one has asked him about the 2027 Ryder Cup captaincy. And then Shupak said, well, I'm asking you now. He said, well, no one has asked me. Again, he reiterated it.

Which I think is just Tiger, just dodging questions like he has wanted to do. All right, let's get to, it feels like a long time ago now at this point, Justin Thomas earlier this week or a week ago was a guest on the No Laying It Up podcast. He had a great conversation, if I may say, with the host of that episode and made some comments about an hour into it. I'm just going to play that one minute, 14 second clip. And then we can discuss kind of what happened after that. Were the greens faster on Sunday? I had overheard people

an assistant captain on the microphone I forgot if I overheard it or I heard somebody say that too of like saying like we got to get these greens faster like it seemed like that was a goal and it took several days for you guys to be able to get the greens faster. Yeah, I don't really understand that. I don't know why they weren't at all what Keegan had asked for.

I mean it had been pretty clear of asking for a certain speed and wanting them fast enough and I mean I watched them argue with us that they were 13s and it's like guys we play golf every week like look on TV how many guys are leaving putt short nobody is getting you can't have a putt roll three feet four feet past the hole like these greens are slow like speed them up and it was it was just bizarre because that's not something you had expected a home rider cup and again that's not an excuse they they had to adjust them just as much as we did but that's kind of a fun advantage you generally have is like being able to do that a little bit. And it was just so frustrating that we were being fought with and argued with on the speed of the greens that we asked for. So that was, that was bizarre. So, so he hates the, he hates the superintendents, the grounds crew, he blamed them, right, Sali?

That's what I, that's what I heard from that. That, what happened shortly then, was the aggregators over at Golf Digest, took this clip and said in a tweet according to Justin Thomas the grounds crew quote fought and quote argued with the team about the green speeds at Bethpage Black that clip did not say technically the the grounds crew in there so they filled in

nor was even intimating that it was the grounds crew could be Carrie Haig could be PG of America could be anybody right he said they were being fought with and argue with over the speed of the greens they also went back to the well and tweeted this again on December 3rd, two days after initially tweeting that. They got the engagement they were looking for on that one, 725,000 views on their social media post.

It's frustrating on a lot of levels. And it's hard to, we do this too. Like we take what people have said in interviews and we discuss it on the show. We make every effort we can to put the context around it to kind of give benefits of the doubt when we can and to include the question in there and discuss what happens when you take but when you take something out of a podcast and you you put it like into the machine that is social media now which is a different world than it was 10 years ago it's basically saying you don't need to listen to this whole podcast here's this part here is this be mad about this is what that read like

to me like I'm going to take this and make it as salacious and controversial as possible and it is not it's not their work right that they're doing this with they're taking you know i have a great relationship with justin we've he's done so many interviews with us he gave over an hour and 20 minutes of his time to like give insight into a lot of different things and like he is counting on it was a great interview like that was like the maybe one of the like least interesting parts of the interview just wanted to listen to it for 80 minutes you know yeah and it it uh it like washes all that out and And it, like, we should be, we need people in golf and in sports to be able to get on a microphone, talk for as long as possible, and give insight into things that are happening.

Like, there's a lot in that interview. And I hope people listen to it. And I very, what's very funny is you go into our YouTube comments. Nobody was upset about this. Nobody commented on this. Like, this wasn't a thing until, like, basically golf, I just said, this is what you should be mad about. And we end up in this vicious cycle now where, like, Justin probably is like, well, well, that makes him want to do less podcast, makes any player want to do less

podcast, makes them want to say less interesting things because, you know, then they're just going to start this whole cycle all over again. Golfers are dull because they just don't want to deal with the blowback of something like this where it's just like, not just really giving a fair crack. Now, listen, I have some issues with that whole setup and some of the things he said or how that was run by Keegan and the mistake still made there. We can talk about that. But it just was like the worst of the aggregation game catching up with him this week.

And it was just frustrating. I don't know. Especially from a from a legacy outlet. Like it's one thing if it's if it's nuclear golf or Zyre or someone doing that. It's another thing when it's golf digest, which I didn't like technically partner of the PGA tour, right? And they didn't technically break any like journalistic rules. And I know this is just considered fair game. It's just like.

Well, so two things, I think, A, like you said, that there's there's the conversations and the context there. And I think we try to go above and beyond when we do with something like we do it, you know, Adam Schupec gets great quotes all the time. I try to read as much of that as possible or if there's a press conference transcript or clip, we try to play that or add context. I think the, I think the worst part about this was what they aggregated. like they they then twisted and fabricated something in no correction then and i and i think that that's where like like yes i think they did violate a journalistic code or or just a just a general code of honesty like at no point did he say anything about the turf crew or the superintendents or the grounds crew of beth page you know like this could be the pga of america leadership that he's

talking about like whoever is is is in that team room and, you know, liaising with that, with Keegan and his assistant captains on that level. Like, we've heard nothing but, but negative things. And like, it's, it's jarring for Justin Thomas, who's the son of a member of the PGA of America, son of a teaching pro to, you know, be, be at odds with the PGA of America. That's how dysfunctional this thing is, right? and that that I think should be the headline is these guys can't even like like they can't

even do the little things right you know and and I'm not sure it would have given them that big of an advantage but I do think it gives them a bigger disadvantage when they think that the greens are going to be fast and they don't end up being fast they end up being slow and you know versus the Europeans just you know they don't know what's coming so they're going to adjust to whatever's out there they don't have the expectations you know most of those guys play on the U.S. tour anyway, so they're putting the same greens week in, week out. But, but the U.S. players had the expectation that these are going to be very, very fast greens. Yeah.

And so getting to some kind of fallout from this, again, like, where I feel better about where we stand on this is when we take quotes from other interviews and like, we talk about them. And when you do that in an audio format, there's just way easier to pick up context. And like, when you remove things from an audio format and put them into print, it like, and put it on social media. especially like it just again says here get mad about this red meat so people did get mad about this and this is uh from journalist top 100 rick uh your boy the big dick rick yeah the top 100 rick is he's been he's been on fire lately uh this is from quote a beth page turf staffer

that said they can argue with numbers all they want but these are concrete collected numbers that cannot be argued with data is data not an opinion player perception is opinion there was zero conversation between the captains and the grounds crew during tournament week, and that is the fault of Keegan. The crew was available 24-7 and only spoke with him once week before the event. If there was a problem, it should have come up in the practice rounds, which they failed to play, when they would have noticed they didn't like the speed. They still lost and still can't accept it.

Two months later, the excuses keep coming. The grounds crew wanted to win more than any player on the American team. It meant more to the best paid staff in the state of New York than anyone else. Learn to practice and compete as a team where JT will continue to scrape together, excuses in 2026. A lot there. One, like again, in the context of the full quote, like JT says, this is not an excuse. I get how that's probably still going to read his one.

But he was asked by me if the question, if the green speeds did change and he answered that with a ton of context. Again, not excused. They made the adjustments they needed to make. We didn't blah, blah, blah. So again, he's just going to get painted as somebody making excuses. But again, I have no idea who this Bethpage turf staffer is. but Kagan only talked to the grounds crew one time

and those weeks before the event. That would help explain how you could possibly make an error this big on not understanding the Greenspeeds. They're being told, so a source reached out to us as well. And I don't know if they want their name on this or not, but I'll read kind of what we received in an email, which was that the grounds crew met the objective that they were presented with on Friday and Saturday,

which was Greenspeeds 12 to 12 and a half on the Stem meter. They talked only once with Kegan about a month, before who asked for that specific Green Speed range, which came from Scouts consulting. Our program met with the Scouts after the Rider Cup where scouts confirmed this was their guidance to Team USA. Their data suggested Team USA

would perform best relative to Europe at that green speed. However, Scouts was clear that it was a very marginal and not some big stroke game putting gold mine. Saturday night was the first time the grounds crew received any additional guidance. That was to speed the Greens up. This was not a directive from

Team USA, but jointly from the PGA, Euro tour setup guys who oversee the Rider Cup week setup, which is to remain neutral, as I understand it. The Greens were more than 13 in the final day, certainly faster than previous days as J.T. corroborated. When I say his comments are

interesting, it's because he seems to be under the assumption Keegan asked for 13. Kegan did not request that. Also, J.T. didn't specify who he was arguing with when it came to green speeds on site, but I'm confident it was not the grounds crew, perhaps a PGA official. Whoever that was saying they were 13 on any

other day other than Sunday was also misinformed. One of the piece of commentary, in addition to the facts below, Bethpage greens are extremely flat. A stint meter reading of 12 will probably feel slower given there's a substantial lack of slope that makes those downhillers feel so fast. Someone should have accounted for that when requesting a green speed range. Seems like it's pretty darn good intel in terms of the whole process. But I'm kind of up to mind.

Like, it's hard here. Like I definitely trust the touch and the knowledge of these tour pros. Like if it doesn't feel like 12 and a half, it's probably not 12 and a half. Yet that was what they asked for and that's what they're being told that this is. I can see where a misunderstanding or disagreement could come from there. Like I get that they didn't ask for faster than that, but they're saying that they don't even believe that it was that fast. Yet the grounds crew is defending that they had it set.

at the level that they were asked by Keegan several months earlier. I don't know. It's, it's, it's, we're, it's thin margins now at this point. And very, it seems to be very silly. I, if you think I won't take a little bit more of a victory lap about the Keegan thing, I definitely will take this moment to do that as well. Yeah, maybe Keegan should have been way more focused on being Ryder Cup captain. He was giving out to me tickets out there.

Going to be the captain, then focused as much as he was on his own game. Again, I fault the people that put him in charge way more than I do Keegan himself. but this was very clearly a huge, huge snafu that we're just now just, we would just be getting to wrap our heads around of how big of a fuck up this whole thing was. Just a mess that again, like I said in the interview as well, Justin's like,

but Europe would just never make this mistake. Like it just wouldn't happen. I don't care whose fault it is. It just like wouldn't have the wrong green speeds. And I don't know. They cut all the rough down. Oh, my goodness. It's so funny.

Also, I saw something this week that the state of New York is, is not getting any money for women's PGA and the future PGA championship that's going to be held there too. PGA of America just gets to hold it there for free. I don't have PGA of America energy tonight, DC at 920. But it had to be like Carrie Haig or somebody

they're yelling with. I mean, it's somebody in between everyone, right? And maybe it's, I get the week of the home team is supposed to not have control over the course anymore. so it's a neutral group that it gets to. I don't understand exactly how that works. NATO takes over. I think at that point, Ed.

So, yeah, there may be of the belief that there was something lost in translation from the speed they want versus when it passed over to the neutral team, but I don't know. I'd not heard anybody report that the speeds were any different than what they were in practice rounds. So I just don't, I know.

I just don't know what the fuck out. how what happened here man it's it's a mess but i would suggest people go listen to the interview still i think there's a lot to glean from it uh he talks parings he talks about a lot of the emotions of of the event and uh what it's like to you know you know what it was like to try to compete on that setup and how difficult it was to come from behind and and all kinds of things so i appreciate justin put himself out there i it does suck that like he probably one one minute of it uh probably makes him regret doing something like that hopefully his back is setting Yeah.

Just like Tiger said, right? The disc is setting. We need the disc is set. Solly, also in somewhat related news, Team Europe wrote an emphatic Sunday session to win the Skechers World Champions Cup supporting Shriners' children's. I think, honestly, I think we don't even,

this is the point where I would come in, like, hey, for the listeners' sake, this is what this is. I think we should just let people figure that out on their own. I don't think I don't think people know what this event is. And I'm not going to explain it. No. 30 to 213.5 to 204.5.

I'll just say no more. Yeah, say no more. You got to go find out what that is on your own if you want to. Other news and notes, weather canceled the final round of second stage in Valdosta. This was a tough break. This was making the rounds. Play was well underway in the final round before weather hit. And not everyone could finish.

So basically all the scores of that final round had to get reversed out and reverted back to 54 hole scores to determine who advanced the final stage some guys had rotated their way in some had rotated their way out through those round four numbers you know you're if you didn't known that it was 54 holes uh it doesn't something there's there really anyone at fault here like the they had to follow the bylaws of the pGA tour as this came about and it doesn't it's not a it just sucked uh i think from the was the feedback from a lot of people that were playing in it or involved in it and like if you didn't know you only had 54 holes would you have played the back nine of that

of that third day a little differently knowing you needed to make a move potentially it seems like this isn't that that unimaginable of a scenario like I don't know how it there's no um safety net of any kind or a Monday possible finish or I guess it could have gone would have gone on Saturday I think Friday was the last day but yeah a lot of people involved because they've got what they've got they were at the landings in Savannah they were Paul Palm Coast, Florida. I mean, the weather's been awful down here.

Like they had four different, they had five different sites. They had one in Arizona, one in Val Dosta, one in Dothan. And then, yeah, the two here in Florida, or the Savannah and Palm Coast. Yeah, like James Nicholas had a bunch of stuff on his Instagram feed that was kind of laying it all out. Yeah, shitty situation.

Hopefully they take a look at the bylaws, but, you know, like it seems like it's just kind of the rub of the green. Yeah. It's just the vagaries of, of, you know pro golf and pathways and all of that so all right let's get to the the tc portion take us down your list of final final notes you have in the notebook for the week yeah well first of all i am stoked for uh final stage it's this week at uh what it dyes valley three rounds and then one round you know pre-cut at uh at sawgrass country club so a lot of guys coming in

I know Notables to Miss, this is per Kevin Prizes right up on PJTor.com, but noodles to miss Tyler Duncan and the Schlong, Adam Long, missed out of Hammock Beach, got Blades Brown, like, and again, these guys can go play Corn Ferry Tour. Some of them finish the top 75 on Corn Ferry, like Blades Brown. But, you know, just they're trying to get one of those, what is it? It's five or ten spots? And they're not doing, like, there's,

There's no ties this year. They're going to do playoffs for the spots. So if there's a tie for fit, they're just going to keep playing. She'll figure that thing out, which is sick. Big text, Jimmy Walker and Robert Streb missed at Kinderlood Forest. Andrew Landry, Sean O'Hare, Scott Piercy,

missed it at Tucson. But again, it seems like some of these guys is just like, hey, it's kind of a free role. Like, if I can get through to the final stage, you know, I can get one of these calls. cards. So let's see. What else do we have? We had, uh, this happened a couple, or maybe a week and a half ago, but Fuzzy Zeller passed away on Thanksgiving day. Um, we didn't, we didn't have our Sunday pod that night after Thanksgiving weekend just because it wasn't really any golf going on.

But, uh, RIP to Fuzzy, kind of a complicated legacy, you know, just a colorful character, you know, kind of at odds with the media, I think a large portion, like Jeff Shackleford had a pretty interesting write-up in his his newsletter, um, just about, you know, how much his life was shaped by the comments he made their, uh, post or, you know, I guess pre-masters, uh, you know, about Tiger and, and his off color remarks and all that. So, um, but yeah, like really interesting life, career, uh, and golfer, too, just a proper ball striker. So, uh, saw, your boy, Larry Clayman suspended from Florida Bar for two years

this was courtesy the Palm Beach Post allegedly or whatever I guess you can't really do any more we got a free run for two years now yeah maybe the statute of limitations for anything that we could or would say is longer than two years so it's possible he could he could run the

clock it might be he might be running the long game on us what else Gil Hansz joined TGL And they put up just a delightful walkout clip of him that, uh, it was, I loved it. Like it's, it's so unsurious that, uh, he had, was it stone and steeple, I think was, was a hole that he, that he put forth as well, um, you know, kind of a great hazard in there, a wall, a couple diagonal fairways there. And then Pisa is back with the new, new and

improved temple. Uh, the graphics look a lot better than they did last year. I think we're going to hear about a new hole this week as well. And we can't give away any details yet. But it's pretty sweet. We're under and I think it's going to be pretty sweet. I'm serious about that. I think it's like maybe the highlight of TGL so far. Solly, have you, have you been tracking any of this Gary McCord stuff?

I have read some of the quotes. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, the guy's been around the game for a long time. He knows a lot about the inner workings of the tour. and I don't know what's happening with the future of the tour, but he certainly has a vision for it. Can you tell us about it?

He wants a fifth major as well, 41 events. This is per Adam Shupak. Yeah, but McCord's been kind of making the rounds. He went on the Shamblese's podcast. I think he was on the subpar podcast with Colton Gravy. He's got two kind of leagues. Gravy in the sleeves. Colton is the gravy.

You said Colton Gravy. Oh, Colton. I'm sorry, Sleeves. I'm sorry, Drew. Drew in the sleeves, cult in the gravy. Big gravy. Thanksgiving, there we go. But yeah, I could kind of, I don't know, this whole thing that there's, there's 41 tournaments,

there's a draft, and then each tournament is its own franchise. And they're all kind of competing against one another to attract the best field. A total of 140 players will be drafted with fields of 110 and a 70-man cut. And then it would conclude with a Super Bowl of sorts. It's a match play finale of the top 12 players from both leagues in a winner take-all format. So, yeah, it's just, you know, a lot of talk about franchises in this. You know, he's, I guess he's pitched it to SSG. And, you know, he said he's put together his own team as well.

I put together, I've got eight guys on my team. They're called The Watchers. I'm not telling any way about who they are. I can't. but they have helped me immensely with eyes everywhere across the world, inside guys. It's really amazing that these guys are helping me do this for nothing. That's how much they love golf. He's quick to point out that this concept can't work until 2030

when the Taurus media rights deals expire, but negotiations likely will start in advance. Think about it. We're going to reduce the number of tournaments played and more than double the amount of players they're exempt to play. All those guys who are crying on TV, losing their jobs at 100, 101. We're going to have 2.20. Got the economics figured out the ROI for SSG

and future revenue streams within each franchise. We got that shit. Don't worry about the economics. We got that, all right. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I'm sure he's just getting the word out out at Whistper Rock and all over the desert out there. And then, you know, God knows where the watchers are.

They're everywhere. So inside guys, Sally. So I'll be fascinated. see what what this turns into kind of sounds like you know what pg with the premier golf league was put plus but franchises as the teams instead of or franchises of the tournament instead of the teams is this the sense you get from like roll up has said significant change i'm not heard like this kind of any of these rummings from anybody but gary mccourt uh on this is this the sense you're actually getting of the big change they're talking about because

McCourt's not an idiot either, but he just seems like he's a little bit on an island with some of this. Yeah, I mean, I think the sense I get from Roelap, though, is like they want to roll all this up and centralize it and bring more into championship management and own more of the own and operate more of the events. And so that would seem like the opposite, right, of instead of, instead of franchising and out and having 35, 40, 41 events that are that are outside of your, you know, I would assume they're, Super Bowl or whatever they would call it would be owned and operated, but it would seem like it's going the opposite direction to what they're trying to do and how they're trying to create economies of scale. But yeah, anyway, also in gravy news, Colt is sliding into Ian Baker-Finch's spot in the Super Tower as an analyst. So I feel like that's been kind of percolating for a while and I think he's he's improved.

He's gotten more, seems like more sure of his voice and more sure of what he wants to say in the moment. He's good for TV, man. He's good, good relationships with a lot of the guys and they could definitely do, Cole, I know you're listening. They could do worse than that.

All right, I'll give you a little compliment there, buddy. All right, I know you, you're just waiting for me to slip up and say something bad about you. No, I'm just kidding. He's a friend of the program. But he's got great chemistry with the rest of the crew. and I'll kind of miss them on the course, though. I mean, I was going to say, who are they going to throw in next to Dottie on the course?

That's kind of my question. So, but yeah, I think it's a good move. Yeah. So, and then, yeah, roll off out all sorts of quotes during the CEO council event. Honestly, I didn't get a chance to watch this yet. So I haven't dug too, too deep into it. But I think we can not a lot in there. I'd taken a peek as well.

There wasn't much especially noteworthy other than, you know, kind of in line with other things we've talked about in recent months. But hopefully, yeah, hopefully we're going to keep digging on that and hopefully have something around the beginning of the year on just kind of a run through and where things stand. In other news, I would say go to the pro go to the NU Pro Shop or Pro Shop. Store.0layingup.com. I think pro shop.nolayingup.com works too. Let's try that.

I've never tried that. And so I got a question for you. A couple sleeves of ProV1 X's laying around. Uh-oh. We're going to altitude this week. Oh, that's interesting. You can't try it? You can't try it?

I might bring a, bring a sleeve or two. Do some testing. That's interesting. I did not even think about the altitude. You might be hitting it a lot farther than, if that's the case. If you're actually getting the spin plus at altitude. Yeah. Huh.

I've messed with it. I'm still sticking with my ProV1. I, you know, just had like one four iron kind of into a little crosswind a little bit into that came up like 30 yards short. And I'm like, I just,

I like my ProV1. I like the way it appears as this guy. But I want to see, see, I feel like you've been playing so well. And then like you're starting to tinker, man. You're changing drivers.

You know, you want to say you want to see it move a little right to left now. Now you might be changing golf balls. I don't want to see it right to left. You're kind of like, Like, I don't, I don't love what I'm here. I've loved what I've seen out of your game. I don't love what I'm hearing.

No, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, you're still bored with being down the middle of every fairway, I think. Oh, I was, I was dinking it out there, too, trying to, I did gain. You're talking about stacking too. I forgot about that. That might be, yeah, the real test. If I'm, if I'm going to really tinker. We have some, a very interesting trip caught on the books for, for this week.

So you may not hear much from us in this coming week, but of course, filming another video project in a place neither of us have ever been and we'll be back back by next weekend. We might be a little bit more on the fatigued end

for next Sunday show so give us a little bit of grace for that. And speaking of video projects head to our YouTube channel. Montana came out last week. We got great dunes coming out here soon. We've got all sorts of stuff here in the hopper for the next

three, four or five weeks. It's been a very, very, very, very very busy fall. Definitely the busiest fall I've ever had in this job. Usually this is the time to slow down a little bit, not the case this year. But we appreciate everyone that watches and listens and allows us to do this on a weekly basis. But we're going to hit the ground. We got a lot of stuff ready to go win the new year as well. So we're really, really, really excited about that as we as we wind down in 2025. It's been a great year. But all right, T.C. I will see you at around 6 a.m. in the Jacksonville Airport, I believe, tomorrow. Thank you everyone for two.

We will have a little season. We have a Jeopardy episode, a Bazinga episode, I should say, coming out Tuesday, pre-recorded. You can have Larry Kalaman coming out. That you can catch on Tuesday evening. And we'll be back next Sunday as well. Thanks for tuning in.