No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1117: 1994 PGA Tour Season Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Our Deep Dive series takes a slightly different form for this pod as Soly, Neil and DJ go through a week by week recap of the 1994 PGA Tour season. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Titleist Rhoback SoFi 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 today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast presented by Titleist. Sully here.

We have such a fun episode for you today. We are diving deep into the 1994 PGA tour season. We'll tell you why here shortly, but also wanted to note today's episode is brought to you commercial free for the first hour by our friends at Tidal. list. Let's get right into it. I'm weirdly, weirdly very excited for today's episode. The amount of research to time recording is one of the highest ratios we'll end up having probably on a podcast this year, but it's all really fun. You'll learn a lot in the process. And I think you're going to

walk away from today's episode, hopefully feeling a little bit of nostalgia, maybe learning a thing or two. I know I felt both of those things in the research. We are going to be diving into the 1994 PGA tour season. We're going to talk about why here in a second, joined by my colleagues, Mr. T. Pye-Houski, hello, pie, man. Hello, good to be with you. Coming off of the CB McDonald's, deep dive, I'm glad to be on the audience proxy side today is what we're going to call it. I didn't have to do as much research.

So I'm just going to be asking you guys questions. And I have a lot about it because I don't know a lot about this season. So I'm excited to dive in. Neil Schuster is here as well. Hello, Mr. Neil. I'm doing well. Got my book report done. I'm fired up.

I would say, I would use AI, Neil. Did you use AI? I'll tell you where. I did and it was very helpful, but no, I did a lot of splunking. I've been grinding on it the last two days. I would say it's a golf version. Teacher's going to sit it out. Project Anyo. And you know, I love that. So this is good stuff. I'm excited to, uh, I have the back half of the year. So you know, Solly, you take it away, brother. All right. So give you a little run of show how this is going to work.

One, the original plan, we were going to divide the year into three sections. Dege got a little bog down with some other research. other episodes you may have listened to very recently. And he ended up passing off his part of the research to me. So if my, if it feels a little out of balance, I basically have the first two thirds of the year. And then Neil has the final third of the year. It's kind of classic. Dej, can't count on can't count on him in the group project. Guy just, you know, he's going to get the A, but he didn't do any of the work. Yeah. No, I'm happy to be out front though, you know, help sell this. Yeah, he brings the good vibes to the team. I just, I just like the way you write, you know. I just, I just It would sound better coming from me. Yeah, I think so. Exactly. No, this is an excused absence on this one.

I get mono, man. I was out for six weeks. Come on, dude. I'll be honest. I've kicked around this idea for a couple of years. And for whatever reason, I always had 1995 in my head as to where we would start, kind of right before Tiger, right before things kind of get out of control. About 30 minutes into researching 1995, I realized we were coming into the middle of a couple very important stories that made me think we're better off starting 1994. Plenty of things happened prior to 1994. Again, kind of looking for an arbitrary starting point. This felt like an interesting one for a couple of reasons.

Again, we're pre-Tiger, but we're also in transition this year. This is Dean Beeman's last year of being the PJA Tour Commissioner. In fact, Tim Fincham would take over during 1994. We get some labor issues pop up during this year. Across sports. A lot of labor issues in 1994, everywhere. which some, you know, kind of legal things that have come resurfaced here in this current decade. Also a world tour idea headlined by a shark.

Also, I know. That's also something that I think resurfaces in the 2020s at some point as well. But we've referred to all that stuff a lot of the time and not really fully dove into all of it. I don't think we have. And also just kind of look, what we did is scoured the newspapers from this time period, looking for interesting stories from from week to week. What was golf like in 1994? Again, kind of when a lot of us were getting into the game.

But man, it just, it doesn't take very long to just read a little bit and be like, what they were doing what back then? Like, what are the Vantage classics? Like tournaments within a tournament on the senior tour and they're, what? Like it just some really, really, really, really fun stuff that we had covered, I think. What's been going through my head? I don't know if either of you've ever seen the movie inside Lewin Davis, Cohn Brothers movie.

But I watched it recently. And it's kind of about like the folk. scene in New York right before Bob Dylan, you know, because like there's so much stuff about like, well, after Bob Dylan, here's what it looked like and here's how the scene changed and blah, blah, blah. And it's kind of more interesting to be like, no, what was it like right beforehand? Right before the whole thing just absolutely exploded and all the money came in and all the TV changed. I seems like we're going to see a lot of that today. You know, before the tiger shift, before the whole kind of the engine changes and the money the runaway money making machine just takes

over it's like no i kind of want to know what it was like right before that what did the gas lamp cafe or whatever they they fictionally called it in the in the movie what did that what did that place look like tell me about that well what i'd say is it's it's almost like the end of a i'd say really good stewardship from dean beeman and the secrets out like the money's pretty good you know it's not like tiger money it's it but it's like these guys are the secrets kind of of out these guys are starting to make good money and that's going to kind of trigger some things you know from the shark uh where it's like why why shouldn't it be better but you're still in a two tour world right you very much like in reading a lot of these newspaper articles it's a lot of

pga tour and european tour or international players there's a very much a dichotomy between the two sides still and it's not the way it is today or the way it becomes where it's like yeah the pga tour is kind of like the the only tour um you know a lot of that was driven through through policy Like a lot of European players are not playing on the PJA tour because the minimum number of starts was 15. And Beeman would not budge off that. And I will, and just because this was started in 92, the FTC is, has an ongoing investigation throughout 92, 93, 94, one of their longest up to this point in history, investigating restraint of trade for that specific reason, Sally, that like they're firm on this fifth. Like international players have to play 15 PGA tour events to keep their card. And they're like, what the hell, man?

like, you know, it's kind of unfair to them. They're like, I want to go home. And then, of course, like the television rights dictate that players have to get waivers to play in these silly season events when the Skins game was a big deal when there's a lot of money in it. So those two things are just underinvestigated, just kind of hanging over the tour. And, you know, I'm sure I'll hear some of that from you, but it becomes a big deal come November of 94. That's more of the restraint of trade was like the PGA tour basically was making. can all anybody that that organized an event chip off a certain amount to the pga tour to pay them and finchum fit so that's part of the reason why finchum ends up winning the job as well he's a a slick

lawyer from dc that you know ran campaigns a democratic campaigns in the white house pj tour not that democrat not very left leaning at this time it was an estimated 90 woke pj tour woke commissioner comes in systems working just fine for me each Practice your fucking chipping, man. You want to make some more money? Practice your chipping. But you could see why Fincham was picked. And you know what's funny?

Because the money hasn't exploded yet. But I don't know if you, if you noticed this, Neil, like your career earnings or your season earnings was the first thing listed after the comma in your name. Like Tom Kite, 8.6 million in career earnings. Like the money you were making on course was the only. thing that mattered in this time period. Like truly, if you finished fourth place, it was like, and he made 31,000, 175 dollars. Like that must have been what people cared about a ton on this. The money list is like the list. No one talks about the world ranking at all in this time period. It's all about the money list. And it's like the tournament too, like the purse size is called out

in a lot of these local paper articles. And, and at tour championships like three million. Majors are around two million open championships a little bit lower than that. And everything else is like a million like a good tournament look like a million bucks is total purse that's that's what we're looking at but when i say the money's getting good it seems like if you look at the trend starting in like the late 80s it's it's just kind of like going like this whereas before that you know it was kind of flat for the most of the 80s so sorry dj cut you off no i was just going to say it's funny to hear that uh that kind of trend in media coverage because i've said this before but when i started at the pj tour in like the early 2010s i mean it was very much like don't talk about the

We don't need to focus on the money. The golf is the thing. And so you can just kind of, I'm guessing that was the, you know, the ball kind of hitting the opposite wall there and starting to bounce back as far as PJ Tour kind of messaging was concerned. But, Sally, was there anything else? I was going to ask you, anything else like media-wise that stuck out to you? Any trends like how the game was covered or anything like that?

Well, we're getting into another big thing with, with, Beeman to Fincham was like, you know, there was like a four piece prong and we'll get to here of Finchum's plan, right? One of them being like, he thinks the PJ tour players are massively underpaid. Like compared to other sports, they're massively underpaid. And I'm going to fix that. And the next was just like the- By the better, man. The evolution of cable sports in this time period and how it's all exploding and how like sports are about to be presented on television in a way we haven't even been able to fathom at this point was like a big thing for him that was like,

A, Beeman, like, you brought this tour from, like, nothing, like, eight million in purses, like a rag tag group of events, random groups from the country. You formalized it. You grew up to 100 million. Like, you did an amazing job. Like, the next era is going to take a different set of skills to capitalize on all these things. And, like, it is kind of a fly the banner thing with Finchum in terms of what the plan was and what ended up happening. Like, not the most well-liked guy, but fly the fucking banner when it comes to the money coming in there.

The tiger thing certainly helped a lot. which we'll get to but yeah took advantage of him off it more than 95 but finchum like the gauntlet kind of gets laid down for him in the back half of this year or like the end of this year and it gets tried like yeah and you know what and he comes out on top you know it's like okay good for him what uh sorry if you guys don't have the answer to this but as far as tv goes you mentioned cable kind of coming online obviously golf channel doesn't exist at this point what does televised golf look like is it is it airing on saturdays and sundays is it just Sundays. Is there some sort of coverage on, I have absolutely no idea of how that worked.

I think if I have, I think we'll get to this in terms of, we're somewhere in the area of like around 670 hours are being broadcast on air at this point, which is up from like a hundred hours, maybe 10 years prior. So I don't know how many days the week that is. But I think it's CBS, NBC and ESPN at this point. Like I, there's very little, there's very little on YouTube, except for the 94 Bell South Classic and the 94 Canadian Open. And the only two tournaments I could find. Which is sick on ESPN. I watched it's ESPN.

I was like, I did you know the final round. I was like, oh shit, I got to keep moving. I got plugged out too. It's good stuff, man. It's, it's a good broadcast. I mean, in, God, the commercials are hilarious. We'll get there. Yes.

I got some commercials there. I think, so it's what's interesting about the money is that not only are you comparing money to like other sporting events. You're comparing money between tours because guys, we have to do. I think a separate episode at some point on the senior tour. Like, I underestimated this beast. Like, it was the shit.

It was, you could finish first in a champions event and you'd make more money than everybody but the top two finishers in a PGA tour event. And Jack is even arguing that the champion source should make more money. But like, it's hard to argue with some of it. Like, it was billed,

and we'll get to this with the very first event. It's billed like some of these like, hey, tune in to watch Trevino and Nicholas. And like, this is what it's about. Ray Floyd absolutely fucking bucks in 1994. Oh, my God. Well, also, Sally, like, you can even see it anecdotally in some of these newspaper articles. Like, the Champions Tour is getting almost equal page space.

You know, I'm going to, I'm searching a specific date for the finish at the, you know, the Hardee's classic. And it's like, no, check out this senior tour event at the Brickyard. You know what I mean? It's got like a full page write up on it. It's sweet. That's so interesting to me. because I just saw a thing, Michael Bamberger, you know,

friend of the pod, one of our favorites, put out about tigers, you know, Tiger at 50 and kind of his next chapter. And it was very good, you know, good piece about like, all the excitement of what's going to happen. And is he going to win these senior majors? And I just, it caught me a little bit off guard where I was a little like, you know, who cares? Like, I kind of hate to, I hate to be that guy.

But like, I'm very much like, who cares, man? It's, you know, U.S. senior open. Like, you know, whatever. And to have Bamberg or somebody who covered the game at this time, have his barometer so far different from mine as far as like, no, these things matter. I think that must come from this era, right, of Gary Player going around and winning, winning all, you know, the senior grand slam or whatever.

And it's a big deal when Jack's in contention. And Arnold Palmer's running around signing autographs and winning tournaments. Like I can see how it became a big deal, but man, that's far off from where we are today. It catered to the icons of the game at that time when there's like a little bit of a gap in star power after like the big three and now like it's kind of a reboot potentially with tiger on the champions tour like this is the dude like Phil played on the champion's tour before he left for living it it generated more electric it was a little like that big cedar lodge one remember what he just messed everybody up at that event yeah it had some promise i can see how it could happen

but even players in this era like there's a couple guys that you know older winners are like this is gonna this is gonna take me right to the champions tour you know they're kind of map it out their exit and can they get over there? We are in this episode are not going to cover the 1994 majors. We have done a ton of deep dives into the majors. We skipped 94 for some reason, again, other than no reason other than we can. Because you hate Nick Price. We're going to save that. It would be impossible to do within the structure of this episode because the majors, that alone takes a couple hours. We will do 1994 majors at some point. I will pledge that. It will not be within this episode. This is going to get extremely brief mentions during there, because

Yeah, we don't want to half in, half out that one, and we're going to do that at a different time. And the President's Cup. Presidents Cup was deep 1994 Presidents' Cup. We did a deep dive. Was it episode 902? I think I sent you, Neil. We did a deep dive of several Presidents' Cups ahead of the 2024

for Presidents' Cup. And it included the whole backstory of how they rushed to create the first President's Cup. Didn't even have it announced at the beginning of 94, and they were hosting it in the fall. It was announced for congressional, it ends up at RTJ. like it's a it was a mess we that check out that episode it is episode 902 that is correct so

i that that came in neil's section i told them to completely skip that so i'm going to start this off a little trivia question i i put this in white text in the document in case you guys were scrolling through my notes because i didn't want you guys to to end them let this get spoiled but i didn't look at your notes i didn't peek who are the how many guys in the top 10 to start 1994 can you name? To start the year. Yes. All right.

I'll let DJ go because I have a little bit more context. But you might not, yeah, you have some context, but it might be very different by the end of the year as well. Yeah. Just Norman.

Just name some names. I mean, yeah. Nick Price. Norman. Norman is two. Price is four. Jose Marielle Olaffable. He is not in the top 10. Wait, sorry, money list.

You say money list? No, top 10 in the OW. Sorry, this is World Ramp. This is in the world. This is not the money list. Yes, yes. Tom kite. Tom kite is eighth.

That is correct. Elkington. Elkington is not in the top ten. Davis-love. Davis-love. The third is ninth. That is four. Calcaveccia?

Calca is not up there. You are missing the number one player in the world. Marco Mirre? Nope. Tom Lehman? No, Lehman's career's kind of light. Fred Couples.

Couples is number five. Well done. Bernard Longer's number three. He can start thinking international. There's only one American left. Yeah, I was going to say, like, Monty. Monty?

Monty, not in the top ten. I could not believe that. Woozdom is seven. Well done. You guys are going very well. I'm going to just go down. National major champions. Sevy's too old.

Larry Mize? No. Too old. The number one player in the world has won six major championships. Faldo. Furnio. Faldo was number one in the world. How did we not say Fowdo? Honestly, that didn't come up much in my, I guess on PGA.

We're focused on PGA tour, so he wasn't really playing the tour. Corey Pavin was number 10. I believe that was the only name you didn't get. Aisinger was six. I forget if you said that or not. Did not say that. Yeah. So I'm going to take you guys on a little tour of the 1994 Media Guide.

This is not a very visual presentation this episode, but there are going to be some visuals. If you're listening in your car, there's going to be some YouTube stuff. This is a pretty random list of people that have accumulated that I just want you to see their page in the PGA Tour Media Guide. I'm going to exclude some top players, but there's so many people that end up in golf media in this media guide. And there's some really good pictures that I just wanted to highlight. I think there's like 30 pictures here that I'm. want to show. This is our guy Paul Asinger.

Looking great. He is beginning the year. He, of course, was battling, had a lymphoma diagnosis at the end of 1993. So he is undergoing chemo as we begin 1994. We will not hear from him until a bit later. Here's Ian Baker Finch. Our guy, of course, he won the 1991 open championship or 1991 of those two. This is Phil Blackmar, of course, from the Golf Channel in here at 94 j don blake club pro guy legend looks like uh one of the god one of the country stars i can't remember who it is i know that's a diffy or so it's just a smash in the mullet it's really good look uh billy ray brown erb got a little hit to the mullet uh coming out the back there as well uh mark carnival rest in peace uh former pj tour rookie of the year famously beat

out phil mickleson it's dj pie's favorite stat of all time i have a license plate to that effect as well. Randall Shambly, on the PGA tour, of course, in 94. Ben Crenshaw, still quite relevant.

John Daly, major character. We'll hear from him very soon. He'll be hearing plenty from him. There's Steve Elkington. There's Faxon. Again, more media people.

The Gripper, Ed Fiore, which is, of course, what Tiger referred to him as in our interview in 2018. I later found out his nickname is the grip.

It's not the gripper. That's kind of a tigerism, then. Yeah, he's an ER or Y now. Is that grippy? Yeah. You know, Ed, the grippy. It's grippy. Raymond Floyd legend, PGA Tour status.

I'm going to touch on some of that here in a second. Jim Gallagher Jr., of course, on the golf channel now. Bill Glasson, just a classic picture here. He becomes a character in 94 as well. The stash here on John Houston, A guy could absolutely take it low. We'll hear from him. Peter Jacobson.

Roger Malti is on the PGA tour in this time period. Mark McCumber. Jacksonville. Rocko Mediate with a full head of hair here. We of course got Phil Mickelson. Andy North. Pied to remember, but I see him as a broad. He was the first guy on the green interview, Nick Price.

Montana video. We played in Andy North course. I was like a name I know well, know that he's won two U.S. opens. I don't think I've ever seen his golf swing. Other than until Kevin put a clip in our video, Dee, just like, oh, that's a good golf swing. It is. So they're like, you could get some seriously, seriously long exemptions on the PGA tour in this time.

And it's like kind of, I can't quite tell what's going on this media guide because like, Andy North made six starts in 1994. But he's listed as a full PGA tour member. They were still just doing a lot of marketing of the past names and past champions to be like current PJA tour members, even if you weren't playing a lot. which again, we'll touch on here shortly. The bear, Jack Nicholas, going to play a little bit more full schedule here in 94 than he has the last couple of years. We have Arnold Palmer still considered a PGA tour member at the time.

If you will note on this, I want you to check, I can't zoom here, I don't think, but if you can look very closely, what do you think Arnold Palmer's status exemption category is? Why is he on the PGA tour? Can you see it that size? Winner of the 1960 U.S. Open. That got him PJA tour membership in 1994.

Pretty sweet. Calvin Pete. Oh, that's good. Tour at this time, VJ. Singh, still current PGA tour member. Sam Sneed. James Sneed. Winner of the 1942 PGA Championship. Come on through, sir.

Yeah, we've got your locker right here. That is his exempt. that is in 1994, the walrus, Craig Stadler, my neighbor. They got this other section of, you know, other prominent members of the PGA Tour. I did this for you, Neil, Tommy Arborne, the third here at the bottom. They're just considered other prominent members but was not featured in the upfront media guide. David Fertie, Jim Furek here listed here, Furek with a lot more hair back at this day. 24 in 1994.

Billy Kratzert, of course, from PGA Tour Live and Golf Channel that you know, him from Mark Lye, unfortunately he was canceled, but he was out on tour in 1994. Gary McCourt as well, heavily featured. That's a good look for Gary McCord, too. His facial hair, believe it was canceled. It was a story in this type period as well. Weirdly, in the media guy, there's an exemption category for two foreign players designated by the commissioner.

Did you come across the word foreign a lot, Neil? Like it was truly like a us versus them mentality. And they referred to anybody not from the US as a foreigner. Yeah. I remember that from a lot of the masters broadcast. Yeah. Well, it also feels like the Europeans play in Europe, but the international guys, the Australians, you know, Zimbabweans,

uh, kind of, you know, Japanese, like that's, they're coming to the PGA tour versus the Eurodard feels like if they can get there. So, yeah, so there's a category for exemption that there's one for winners of the PGA, or US Open prior to 1970. So I believe if you won a US Open or a PGA, prior to 1970, you got a lifetime exemption on the PGA tour. I love it.

Sense of history, man. You also got 10 years on tour for winning the players championship or the NEC World Series of golf. You got a 10-year exemption for that? Which is so random because that's just like in middle, like late August. It's just kind of like.

Yeah. It was like a sprint international. Was that supposed to be like a precursor WGC sort of event? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a Firestone. Yeah, okay. Also, if you won an event, you got to play that event for 10 years.

And if you won that event prior to 1970, you got unlimited exemptions to continue to play that event that you want. Well, it's kind of like the NIT for us. I mean, it's like the Masters or Open Championship, really. Man, that's wild. There is a little bit of that, sorry, that, like, when you start to get to 20, 4, 25, 26, and you start looking at like,

man, there's too many exemption categories and why are all these like carve-outs and what the hell is going on with all this status stuff? It's like, well, they've, it's a big machine that they've been trying to whittle down for a long time. Like, I get how they've been trying to duct tape the pipes and just kind of, you know, fix that erector set for quite a while.

And you start to hear some of the stuff like that. You're like, okay, I guess I get, it's probably a little more complicated than it seems. teams. This is definitely not meant to be all-encompassing of what's going on in the sports world in 1994, but just a flashback. We, of course, have the Olympics and Lily Hammer. There's MLB labor issues. This season would later be canceled. Unfortunately, it was canceled in August. Tony Gwynn was hitting 394 when it was canceled. Had a chance to have the first 400 season, I believe, since Ted Williams. But you said batting average doesn't matter, though. People cared about batting average in 1994 as well.

No references to weight of runs created plus back then. We have the World Cup is, of course, taking place in the U.S. Michael Jordan is playing minor league baseball. ESPN cable sports are expanding dramatically. Nancy Kerrigan. It was a big year. 94 was a big big year. Are we going to talk about the big one or is that? Yeah, we'll cover that one. And T.C.'s uncle ran into some trouble. He's going to say, that's what I think of. I think of 94 sports for sure. Big thing in a lot of newspapers. Anytime golf made it, to the front page of a newspaper. The Bosnian War was a massive, massive thing going on at the time.

It was front page news pretty much every day. Nelson Mandela becomes the president in South Africa. Believe it not, we do have a tie end to that. NAFTA goes into effect at the beginning of 1994. The EU is expanding with some Scandinavian countries. The channel opened between Britain and France. Didn't know that opened in the 90s. I thought that was older than that.

And Amazon is founded in 1994. Ah, you stole one of mine. Ah, sorry. Nah. So just some preseason writing is we got to go to kick off the first event of the year. The thriving tour is entering its most lucrative year ever, where the headlines, $103 million set to be doled out across the three tours. This year, again, just so much is about the earnings, the money list, the career earnings, all that stuff.

Five potential comebacks to watch. This was an article I found, return of Paul Asinger from cancer. We have John Daly returning from suspension. He was suspended last year for picking up his ball in Koppelua in a Hawaii event, which I did not know existed that was not the season opening event. Actually, I did know that from Rolfing recently, but that was the Bay course, right? Bay course, yeah, exactly. Hey, sorry, real quick on this, who are the heavy hitter golf riders that you guys keep coming across?

Is this like, are we in Rick Riley time? Is it too early for him? Is there any recurring names that came up or not? No, it's a lot of local papers. Yeah, it's almost better because like some of the, You know, some of the hooks are good and some of them are awful as you'll, as you'll hear, which is the beauty of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I did come across, the article was not really of note, but I did find Paul Feinbaum had written a golf article at some point. I believe it was around a champion's event that was held in, uh, in Alabama at the time that right around when Finchum was coming around. There's, uh, Lauren Rudinstein. No, he doesn't play nobody, Paul. Yeah. Lord Rubinstein was around then, uh, I kept kind of across as Larry Bohanan guy.

Sure. Yeah, I did too. Of the desert. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Palm Desert. He's still doing it. Okay, I didn't know if that was just like their papers were really good at getting stuff on to, you know, the newspaper subscription.

The Desert Sun. Yeah. In Palm Springs. Fred Couples is returning from, you know, a season of lethargy, I believe it was described, exacerbated by his divorce in 1994. Again, return of Jack Nicholas from two seasons of spare time golf. And the return of Greg, this is again from the article, return of Greg Norman from fouling up what would have been his greatest season ever when he bungled the torch. championship last October. 1994 might be his best year yet was the tease.

It was most certainly a year of consequence. Who was coming back? You said couples from divorce? Yes. Greg Norman also forms his own management company. Stay tuned for that. Great White Shark Enterprises. So first event of the year.

And I am going to cover every event, some events with more depth than others. I'm going to go quickly through some of them. But of note, to begin the year, do you know the name of the first tournament of the year? It's been through many iterations. Can you guess where we're going and what it's called? The Hawaiian Open? It is not. That's a good guess.

Gosh, I don't know. Is it Palm Springs? We are going to La Costa. And we are going to the Mercedes Championships, plural. Okay? That is an important note here because I just learned this. The opening event was a dual PGA tour and senior tour event. Wow.

Not only that. Had no idea. They played the same teas. And they were intertwined. The groups were intertwined with each other in the early part of the tournament, like for initial tea times. But separate leaderboards. Separate leaderboards.

But there's a storyline brewing there as well. So again, kind of cool thing for the seniors event. Yeah. You get a pretty cool platform, right? Also, like, sorry. Yeah. Dean Beeman confirmed senior players that approached him about having their own event to start the season.

He said there's been ongoing discussions about that. The seniors would like to play in places where they are featured. No doubt they love to come here. Their wives love to come to the spa. But Nicholas said that they would like to have their own stage to start the season instead of kind of feeling like they're in the shadow of the regular tour playing alongside them. I disagree. I think that's a bad idea.

I don't think you should do that. That's kind of maybe a jack's, you know, I don't have. long-term business decisions, maybe not quite as strong suit. That would be another one that I'm like, I think you misread that one, bear. I don't know. As a golf, you know, as a pretty heavy fan, I would be down to bring this combo event back, like versus,

I mean, versus the Zurich. I'd almost prefer something like this where it's like, well, that's what we said that it should be men's, or LPGA to start the season. Like it would make a ton of sense. But it was a smaller field. It was truly a tournament of champions then. wasn't obviously the exemptions didn't expand past that but um we're entering this era where like tv

is is like becoming more and more prominent and it like it it factors into decisions and how things get presented over the course of this year so there's like bitching about tea times of course from the seniors because they teed off before anyone else in the final round just to please abc and like the event was like it was branded as like two like one of the senior guys like say this event was branded as like tune in to watch nicholas and trevino and And yet the senior tour guys are all upset about how the tea times ended up shaking out over the course of the weekend. Bitching about on tour is not a, that is not a new thing in the 2000s. This most definitely existed in the 90s as well.

As we learned from DJ's CB McDonald, it existed in the 19-18 a a a aughts as well. Jack Nicholas wins the senior portion. He won $100,000 and a Mercedes-Benz C-280. This got, this was like, Nicholas winning. Those are really. early 90s Mercedes sports cars are sweet. It got top billing in the Daily Times Advocate. Underneath it, Phil Mickelson beats Fred Couples in a playoff.

Like the top billing was that Jack won. Mickelson was the only player born in the 1970s to have won a PJ tour event at this point. So like it's 94, even seven, like no one 24 or under had won a PGA tour event. Like it's all the olds dominating. It's that. It is. It's Phil's third win in 11. months. He gave the car to his mother, which he also did when he won the Buick at Torrey in the

year prior. Interviewed afterward, Phil would still claim that winning the Northern Telecom as an amateur, you know, having not ever won a tournament, needing to birdie the last, I think that was probably a bit more intense. I think today was a close second. The Buick I won by four, the international, I could have picked up after 16 holes. This is definitely one of the most intense events I've ever played. And I was like, you can't pick up and, you know, win a golf. Like, that's not how it works, Phil. Went back and looked. It was Stableford scoring and Phil literally could have picked up after the 16th hole and walked in. He won it

by eight points and he mathematically did not need to finish the tournament. So reporters didn't know how good they had it with Phil quotes. Probably back. Like that's such good newspaper fodder right there. Sounds like Daley tried to pick up the ball and win too the year before but that didn't go so well.

It's like Cody in the club championship. A lot written about Nicholas was distracted a couple times on the back by noise one time by a barking dog. He decided not to back off the shot and he hit a poor shot after it. After hitting the shot, someone in the gallery. The dog was put down summarily, unfortunately. Let me get there.

No. After hitting the shot, someone in the gallery fired a rock in the direction of the dog, loudly striking a metal fence. And Nicholas said, and the dog shut up, just like that. Wow. What do you know? Interestingly enough, after 50, holes. There's a big storyline brewing as to which crew would put up the lower scores,

the seniors or the regular guys. Dave Stockton. Yeah. And Bob Murphy were tied with Fred and Phil after 54 holes. And like Jack comment, he's like, yeah, I'm surprised. The other tour just must not be playing that well. Um, it did end up. We love these young guys. They stink. This is a good big Randy, uh, you know, I think maybe if we're not doing full tournaments like zippered together, maybe we just put three or four of these champions tour guys out there, a little rabbit group out in the, front group. If anybody fails to beat those guys, like, you're off the fucking door.

You're out of here. You're done. Couples of Mickelson finished at minus 12. Jack won the tournament at nine under par. Though Jack's 68 on Sunday was tied with five regular tour players for the second best round of the day on either side of the of the bracket. So I might be into this idea. Jack's got a new driver and metalwood designed to give the ball more hook. It's called the bear. Of course. Sure. Phil was fresh off the ski slopes heading into this event. Keep tabs on that one.

Yes, sir. That one I do know. I didn't watch a lot of golf at this time when I was seven years old, but that one I think I do know what happens. Also, this is the week that police are continuing their hunt for the attacker of Nancy Kerrigan. Next up, Neil, we do make it out to Hawaii at Wiley. Brett Ogle, an Australian, is going to win.

He went on to say he's going to play 22 events on the PGA tour this year, but plans to snub. anyone that didn't give him a sponsor's exemption, including calling out specifically the Kemper open. Quote, they gave, they even gave Mark Rippin a spot and he shot like 9285. There are struggling tour pros and they let a guy who makes around $6 million a year play. I'll remember. God, back that they want me. We need to bring Spite back guys.

Spite needs to go on the list of things that are sick. Yeah, they gave what does they rip in the spot? Mark Ripp in the spot. Rippin fucking sucks. Get him out of here. quarterback i'll remember i'll remember ripp is the football player right for those that are not familiar yes he is the quarterback of the washington redskins yeah at this time it's ogle's second win he won pebble the year prior credit the broomstick for saving just career debilitating yips that was the

massive kind of story going around like the guy just couldn't couldn't get the ball in the hole uh davis love shot a course record for more uh for more uh updates in the coming decade as well davis love shot a course record 60 uh how many scored lower than 60 in PGATO history to this point. I'd say one. I'd say five. There were two. Only two times had 60 ever been broken.

Who was the other one that I thought Al Geiberger was the only one? Was there another one? Chip Beck. Chip Beck. I believe in 91. Chipper. Yeah. We're going to hear from Himmlet.

I love Teens. There's always just something. There's so many threads to pull on. This was random. Honolulu's Star Bulletin said, number 13 a pussycat uh which was just i didn't know you could say that in paper uh the par five played to a scoring average of just 4.420 uh bad news for some par fives out there in honolulu they're going to get a lot easier like the third easy like hardest one now or third easiest

it's not even a par five anymore yeah oh that's right that's why ogle uh got a united airlines travel card worth at least $60,000 he would say quote it'll come in handy the last ticket i bought on United, by the way, cost me a fortune. Did not reach out to TC for comment on that one. Well, T.C. apologize. Of note here, Chris Smith penned a column about how the skins, the slams, the shootouts, which Neil, I know you're going to have a lot of those late in the year. They're putting a squeeze on the early part of the golf schedule, sucking the life

out of the fields in the early part. Very funny to see almost the exact concerns in 94 as of today. It's like, say, the article's like February is going to slap. All right. It's going to be great. Like we got, we got the great ones coming up. Pebble. RIV.

Tori is struggling. It's like considered to be the sacrificial lamb. The field is, is weak out in Hawaii. Like it literally almost nothing changed over the course of over 30 years. How about that? Scarcity, baby.

It's coming. This is a brief one. Andrew McGee wins for the fourth time on tour at Tucson National at the Northern Telecom Open. A term it does not exist anymore, but that's the one that Phil won as an amateur. Did he make an ace on a par four?

He made an ace of the par four. That's in Phoenix. Isn't that what that was? later. No, so this is in Tucson, Tucson National. Oh, right, right, right. Okay. We haven't made to the Phoenix Open yet. Yeah. There's a newcomer in contention, a young Jim Furrick in his first year on the PGA tour. He was tied for the lead with McGee and Dillard Pruitt after three rounds. End up finishing seventh. Just interesting to look back on, said he got sidetracked for interviews over the final two days

of the tournament. You know, you could be in contentioned on the Nike tour and nobody would bother you, but it was a little distracted by the attention that came over the course of the weekend. A lot more attention going to come Jim's way over the course of a Hall of Fame career but interesting to note that that that time capsule of uh him being overwhelmed by the media being in contention with the first time neal hit me uh dillard pruit career earnings what do you think oh man uh after i'll say 600 000 1.2 million okay 1.6 there you go phoenix open our guy is back bill motherfucking glassen looks like great you see he wins this one wins 200 $116,000.

Raymond Floyd wins $240,000 this week on the senior skins. So listen, the person is not necessarily as good as they could have been. I was just curious about Glasson. I dug in just a little bit more on him. I asked Chat Chapti for a career comp for Glasson. Chat is not ready for this game. They're not ready for this kind of stuff yet. The first thing they threw out was Brooks Kepka.

We're not going to let that out. This is proprietary knowledge. Yeah. That ChbT can't do what we do. They can't replace it, you know. Can't replace us, Sally. Can I replace the Gary Burtier or us in this, in this vein. I challenged it a little bit more.

They came up with Charlie Hoffman or Ryan Moore, which I liked a lot more. Charlie Hoffman just because they look alike. Yeah, exactly. Glasson did win more than both of those. Randy off the line. Yeah. It is Rivian. Driving the minivan from TPI.

So sick. Just absolutely floored it. Glasson is in the lead for the best aesthetic of the 90s. I think. I mean, come at me on that one if you want, but if you're watching this, I don't, I didn't come across anyone else that had a similar aesthetic to this one. He really does look like a hybrid of Gary Boosie and Charlie Hoffman. Yeah. Yes. For sure. It's perfect and perfect. Gary Bucci kind of before he, before he lost it. You know, like 20 years early. Yeah, he was a movie star, you know. Like when he was when he was still the rocket. Yeah. So we're off to Pebble. Can you guys guess who wins Pebble in 1994? I'm bad at this game. Tom Hogi. Yeah, Ted Clark Jr.

No, no guess. Nothing. There's not a memorable. Mark O'Meara. Someone that reheat, you know, somebody that won a bunch of these. It's kind of late in this career and you're like. Tom Watson. Extremely close.

He finished second. Tom tight. Tom kite. Tom kite, not quite. Even older, a little older than kite, a little younger than Nicholas, just a little bit. in the booth for a long time. Johnny Miller. Johnny Miller.

I was hoping you would guess it. That's correct. I was hoping you would guess this and I was going to make you feel like an idiot. Like no. Like, yes, we know Johnny Miller won a surprise Pebble Beach,

AT&T, Pelbeach Pro Am in 87 guys. And then he essentially retired. Like he did not win it in 1994. The motherfucker came back and won it again in 1994. Like he won a miracle one in 87, already in semi-retirement, was not playing the tour anymore.

Came back to play this one event because we know you can play it for 10 years. And I'm sure he had lifetime exemption. And he, he, he, like this, the equivalent is like, Trevor. Yeah. Trevor, yeah. So what is he? He's in his 50s at this point? He's 47 years old.

Okay. Watson was 44. Not quite champions tour. Not quite champions, but he's not going to play the champions tour. Like, his knees are messed up. His shins are messed up. He could hardly walk. Tom Watson ended up missing puts of four, three and six feet on the last three holes to

lose by one. And this was. This was later in the career. Johnny's third Pebble Beach Pro Am. He was not planning to play competitively again that year. This was the only tournament he was going to play. He ended up playing three more events that year.

He withdrew from Doral after shooting 83. He shot 7773. The Masters to miss the cut. He shot 81.76 to miss the cut at the U.S. Open. Guys, he never made another cut again on the PGA tour. This was the last cut he made on the PGA tour. It was

winning at Pebble Beach. Gosh. With the $225,000 paycheck he got for winning this, it was, that was his only paycheck of the year. It was his fourth highest grossing season ever on the PGA tour. I need a documentary about this event alone. Like this was just, I knew it happened, but I didn't understand the full context of how little he was playing. Did they write about who his partner was in the, in the write-up?

I didn't write it down, if not. If so. But there's a lot about playing partners in this, if you'll let me. So field was okay, but like some of the big guns, like Greg Norman and Fred couples were over at the Johnny Walker Classic in Thailand stacking those paychecks. And the big controversy will Bill Murray return in 1995? Like is he going to be back. I think it's the takeaway from this entire episode. Okay, guys, breaking across a while in 1994 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am, Johnny Miller played.

with amateur partner Donald J. Trump. Whoa. Are you serious? I just looked it up. This is what Gemini's telling me. The tournament was a historic one for Miller, who was 46 at the time and largely considered retired from professional play. So they're getting some things right here.

But they can conflate a lot of years into one AI answer. Like we did to confirm this. I'm going to say, are you sure? That's unbelievable. No. Okay. Actually, I should clarify Johnny Miller's amateur partner for 1994 AT&T Pelvo Beach program was his son, Andy Miller. Okay. That makes a little more sense. While it's common, while it's a common trivia point that Trump played in Pebble Beach Pro Am during that era, notably making a hole in one in 1993 when paired with Paul Goidos, Johnny Miller chose to play the 94 tournament with his son. At the time, Andy was a standout young golfer who would later go on to play on the PGA tour himself.

See, again, you cannot replace us. Hey, no, and I leave all this in because that's good. This proves that we're not, we're not using the AI. We're using it very specifically. I was going to say, I feel like I would have come across that. I thought. I was like, oh, my God, I had to bring that up. So on Saturday, Murray completed his round.

And he took a baseball bat out of his bag on. the 18th hole and swatted a golf ball tossed by the Chicago Cubs Mark Grace into the Pacific. This capped a three-day run of pranks and Pratt falls that most people enjoyed and a few found objectionable. At one point, Murray even publicly called for the resignation of PGA tour commissioner Dean Beeman, who had himself publicly threatened Murray that his particular kind of behavior would, quote, not be tolerated. The Desert Sun also said that he, Bill Murray called the PJ tour a quote Nazi state and referred referred to Beeman as a screwhead too big for his britches. He makes $3 million a year and flies around the country in a private airplane.

It doesn't sound right, does it? Again, it was noted. Murray was no doubt responsible for a few thousand extra spectators this week and at least half that many laughs. The PGA or tournament community does not extend an invitation. It would not be a popular decision if for no other reason to give Murray a chance to turn it down. So it sounds like Bill Murray in this tournament are going opposite directions. Our big hitter, Larry Bohannon, says, lighten up guys, have a little fun. After all, you're currently in possession of a tour perceived as being populated by humorless millionaire clowns and golf shirts. Larry did go on to say it was a bit much when Murray yelled at Vice President Dan Quayle

while we was putting last year. Honestly, it's funny when you go back and look at this stuff. It's like, man, I can't believe Bill Murray's been playing in the Hellwood Beach Pro em that long. and it makes you feel kind of, I don't know, closer to present time. And then you're like, yeah, it's the same year the chunnel was, you know, like, I thought that was in like the 70s, you know? It's like, it's like time gets like like squeezed together, these connecting pieces. It's weird.

Well, gosh, what are we? We're closer to the year 25 than we are, 1994 right now recording this. It's not good, guys. It's getting, it's getting late. Sorry. Anyway, moving on. Yeah. Clint Eastwood, who's on the board of directors for the tournament,

reportedly brushed off autograph seekers and mumbled, they're coming out of the woodwork. Let's haul ass. Get off my lawn. I get infringed in the newspaper? Yes. Got me careful. Never know who's listening.

Phil skipped because he was at a trade show on the East Coast. Through my research. I believe it to be the PGA. show? Really? I guess that would make sense. Timing. I guess, but what was he up to? Maybe he was doing a sponsor obligation, right? For, yeah. Yeah, but used to the sponsors just like you to go play in the tournament on television. It's an interesting one. I, I, I, I, you could see like a moron CEO being like, no, we want to bring in it for some fireside chats. And he was like, I wasn't going to play there anyway or something. I don't know. Yeah, that's a weird one.

Yeah. Bill, notable ties to pebble. That's a, that's a strange one. Articles of course written about the Crosby not being what it used to be. The Crosby name came off the tournament, I believe, in 86. Poppy Hills replaced Cyprus in 91, just a few years prior. Sloppy Hills. I left this in there for Randy. Tom Watson hates the 16th hole at Spyglass, quote, I hate the 16th hole there.

Hate it. It's got a tree growing right where you're trying to play the ball. It's stupid. I get to the 16th and I just lose it. Totally losing. I'm getting hot right now just thinking about it. God. Watson would also say about the Crosby,

in many ways we've lowered ourselves to the lowest common denominator. The comedy here in the past was classic valid comedy. Now the comedy is like the wretched stuff you see on HBO, like twisting a little old lady into the bunker. So of note, Bill Murray did drag a elderly later into the bunker the year prior and like rolled around with her in that. Retched to the quote, the hassle of that kind of clowning might be scaring some players away.

It becomes a hassle to play when the boundaries of golf etiquette have been crossed. If we keep lowering our standards, we're going to find ourselves in an uphill battle to get those standards back. Where's the line, you know? Just golf. What's next? Hoodies? Unbelievable. But also, I see a changing of the guard here.

The entertainers are younger, like Huey Lewis, the Gatlin brothers, and Craig T. Nelson. Let's go. They appeal to a younger crowd. I just worry about the emphasis being removed from golf. This has got to be like, what, mid-coach, I got to imagine. Yeah, got to think so. Former President George Bush was in the field. Jack Nichols said, I still love to play here,

although I don't think you'll see me playing with Bill Murray. Oh, wretched. It's also revisited here. There's allegedly an unwritten rule about facial hair on the PGA tour. I don't think I'd ever heard that before. There's only three current holdouts with facial hair, and I think that means beyond mustache. I was going to say because the

media guide that looked like there was some excellent mustaches. Andrew McGee, who quote keeps a neat goate, Gary McCord, who has a beard that is shrinking, and Scott Simpson, who has a full-on beard. Those are the only players left with facial hair. So something, this is where I learned about something called

Vantage Classics on the senior tour. Do you guys have any idea what Vantage Classics are? No. That could be anything from events to shoes to, it sounds like a pharmaceutical brand. Yeah, no, I could give you 18 different guesses as to what they are and you would not guess what it is, but it is designed for players over 60 years old in the field of a senior tournament where you can play a 36 whole tournament within the regular tournament. And it has a separate purse of $95,000.

And like, Arnie is over 60 at this time, but like refuses to play in that, like refuses to enter the Vantage classics. Again, you're just playing your tournament, but it's like a side pot for anybody 60 and older. So it's like they're in the retirement home and that's hospice. But that's creating problems. I mean, seriously, because it's like they can't go four rounds. I'm guessing that's why like, oh, they only play three anyways. Yeah, but so they're playing three. They're still.

Okay. I think that's a good question. I was when you outline that, I'm thinking, cool, the guys over 60 that like maybe don't have the stamina to go three rounds. They're going to play. They're going to declare I'm going to play a two round tournament. This is going to be. Maybe you could only. play too, but like, like you, if you're over 60, you can also play the three rounder and you're just

side potting the other two rounds, like the final two rounds. Maybe the first round doesn't count or something like that. Maybe you throw out the low round. I don't know. I found this very late in my research, but it's creating a problem where you got guys that are hanging on, like, Charlie Sifford is still playing on the senior tour at this point. He's 71 years old. And like the golf, the guys are bitching the golf courses are set up too short. So they're not separating out the T's for this. And so, like, they're not trying to embarrass the guy, the really old guys. So you end up playing golf courses that are considered to be too short. And, like, it made some good points of like, yeah, this whole 18th hole here is like the feature hole.

And I'm hitting like eight iron into it, which in 94, that meant it was very, very short. Right. And like, you could blow it past all the trouble and all this stuff. So interesting dynamic. Never heard of Vantage classics. Don't think they do that currently. I was going to say it's like order of merit. You got to declare like this week I'm playing advantage.

Yeah. But not next week. You need to maybe keep track on the PJ tour this year. Just keep track of who the 36th whole winner is each week. Like that would be great. A vantage winner. We should have that as part of our Friday live shows. And we just want to award the Vantage winner.

Patrick K.L. Vantage winner this week. Congratulations. Another Vantage, classic for Camille-Flegoe-Mittagas. It's fantastic. I'm going to do a lot. I'll take that as a homework assignment.

I'm going to do more research on the Vantage classic. Please. PJ Tour. So, oh, I just find there's a lot of stuff. a bunch of eBay golf balls and and hats. I might need to get some of those. Okay. Rive, surprisingly brief on this one. Corey Pavin wins for the 11th time on Tori beat out Fred Couples.

Are we the gallery? Are we the Nissan open? We're the Nissan Los Angeles Open. That is correct. The gallery clearly pulling for Freddie. It's a second runner up of the year for Freddie. How many career runner-ups do you think Fred Couples has? 8 to 10.

14. 17 career runner-ups for couples. He's been stacking money already this year, though. He got 100K for finishing second in Thailand, got $100,000 appearance fee in Dubai, and $228K here on the PJ tour in his first two events. Keep that in mind. Because, well, Pavin was going all over the place for that cash.

That's couples. Oh, that's a couple. I was going to say Paving. Paving gets paid later in the year. Really? Because couples is the guy that's famous for cleaning up all the, and all the articles were like, yeah, and he cleaned up last year.

in all the skins games and all the shootouts and everything. The guy just raked it. Greens were redone at RIV that offseason. They did not take the way they had hoped. So playing conditions were less than ideal that week. But players were pretty actually cooperative about it. You know, it was a bad winter or whatever it was. But there was not a lot of bitching going on, surprisingly.

This is obviously not the Tiger year, right? What was that, like 92? It was 92. Yes. Yeah. Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Scott Hoke wins his fourth PGA tour. event.

Headlines are still about the three foot putt that he missed to not win the masters. It's crazy. Just he was not ever going to shake that. On Saturday night, he's sleeping on the lead. Scott Hook went out and saw on deadly ground at 7.30. Stephen Segal. I think it is.

Yeah. And blue chips at 10 p.m. Oh, double feet. Then went back to the hotel and watched another movie. The guy's a cinephile. I love it. just all about it. He was just trying to, I think, keep his mind off things. The one saw three movies in one night. Scott, hit me up, man. Share the letterbox to use your name. We want to see

what else you're up to. Sounds like some bad movies that he's watching, but that's neither here or there. Hey, I mean, this is like mid-90s action. We're about to come into the golden age. He set up for the golden years in the late 90s. I bet we could get him on to talk about the rock. Neil, did you find much on Payne Stewart in 94? I was expecting to. Coming off, you know, runner up to US. I literally haven't seen his name. So he signed a big new equipment deal with Spalding ahead of 1994.

And he had a tough year. He finished fifth at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic this week, but only muster one top 10, the remainder of the season. Again, if you just asked me who was a big character in 1994, Payne Stewart would have been one of the top 10 characters I would have listed, but he did not play heavily into 1994. You know what?

I was kind of also keeping some side notes on like, maybe a deep dive. It's like guys, I was like, and I feel like Payne Stewart, like, you get the rundown of them with Pinehurst and the U.S. Open win. And, you know, I know he went to SMU, but I don't, I really don't have a great, you probably have a better feel for him than I do side with all the Ryder Cup stuff you've done. Yeah. Yeah.

There's probably just a lot. There's probably a Payne Stewart deep dive in there. But around the sports world, Tom Coughlin getting ready to become the Jaguars first coach, NFL is coming to Jacksonville, Florida in this time period as well. Go Jags. Hope they're still in it as of this public. I don't know when this is going to get published. They're playing the bills on Sunday. Two days from now, as we say that.

Buick Invitational of California, guys, Buick. Everywhere. Big, big, big, Buick. They were sponsored like three tournaments a year at one point, weren't they? Four. Four. Four. We're going to get to that.

They sign on, they extend during 1994, this package. Craig Stadler wins for the 11th time on tour in his hometown. This is Tori for 26. This is Tori over Steve Lerner. Lowry. He grew up playing Torrey Pines daily in high school. Phil was the defending champion. He closed with 64, but finished two back. Stadler was an old winning on tour. He was 40. This was a theme in 1994 as well. The seniors played in something called the Chrysler Cup this week, which was the U.S. versus the internationals. The internationals won. It's all I got, but I'd never heard of the Chrysler Cup. And then. Clint Eastwood show got involved in that one. It's all ass. I don't know why he's got the tiger voice, but a lot of Michael Jordan stuff going on

this time period is spring training is ramping up. Doral rider opened. John Houston wins for the third time on tour. Start of the day four shots back of Billy Andrade. Fred Couples hurt his back warming up and left Houston without a playing partner. Houston would go on to shoot 66 and win by three shots. Houston didn't want to play by himself. He wasn't in the last group.

Didn't want to play by himself, but couples withdrew so late, they couldn't get a marker. But by the 12th hole, Houston's friend Brian Clare joined him. Clark had already played the tournament and finished and just went back out and played the last seven holes with him as far as I could tell. How about that? Right? I haven't heard that one before. I didn't know you. I thought at first it was just like a guy from the audience.

I had not. I was going to say, yo, put me in. Put me in. It's like somebody coming up to play with the band. We need a drummer. you know, Clark was a god, I got to shake.

I got to send you guys this, this picture of him. He looks like, like Ed Norton playing a golfer with a, with a mustache in the time period. He, he,

let's see what he finished that week in 94. Darabro. He finished T-39, shot of 73 that day. And just, yeah, I'm going, I'm going back out and playing some more golf guys.

I got seven more holes in me. I can't imagine that today. Neil Brian Clark career earnings. I had never heard this name before this podcast. Yeah, 900K. 2.2. God. How about that?

Way off. How about that? Here he is. Is that not Edward Norton? That is for sure. That kind of death to skewery. That looks AI generated. I don't believe.

It truly looks like an AI picture. Big news this week. Phil Mickelson skiing at the Arizona Snowball near Flagstaff. uh slides on some ice and hits a tree ends up breaking his femur had a pin inserted just below his hip to just above his knee he would be out until the end of may at colonial that seems like a quick turnaround for a broken for a fever jeez uh but he was not out that long uh on the senior tour j seagull made ten birdies and beat jim colbert at the gt e west classic he was an insurance executive six months prior seagull famously won two u.s amateurs a british am and three u.s midams and now has a 12

month exemption uh he's planning on 12 month exemption on the senior tour after finishing 11th in qualifying the prior year so i don't know how many people made it through qualifying at that time but uh not only that now he's exempt through winning on the on the senior tour so unreal little teaser ahead of the masters hosea maria la fable won for the first time in two years over in spain i really did not dive into european tour stuff at this time not heavily written about even uh no i didn't see it like a lot of roundups on the sports page either yeah Honda Classic Nick Price era, it really arrives right here. I mean, he's already been hot.

He's already one of the best players in the world, but he wins the Honda Classic. His 10th PGA Tour win, 12th international win in 18 months. Just a ball strike in Jesse hit all 18 greens and missed one fairway in the final round. Brandl Shambly was in contention for his first win, but made bogeys on the second and third,

doubled the fifth. He had shared the first and second round leads, took a two-shot lead into the final round. as well. He finished third. He made $74,800. John, motherfucking daily would finish in the top 10 in his first start in four months. He just had one top 10 in 1993. There's all kinds of stuff already going on with Daley. He's been suspended. He is awaiting a trial, I believe, for an assault charge against his ex-wife. He's, of course, had gone to rehab within this time period as well over the last.

last several months and he is sober at this time. Nick Price had some interesting quotes about Daly and said, I wish I could hit the ball as far as he does. I wish I could draw attention like he does. He's got everything we ever dream about. In the week that Nick Price wins, he's saying this about John Daly. It was, of course, Nick Price, who withdrew from Crooked Stick in 1991

that got John Daly in, that set him on, you know, the tournament he obviously won. So those two are tied and interesting. I just saw Mark McCumber This time was contracted to build the tournament Players Club facility outside Coral Springs which is getting ready to host the tournament beginning in 96.

It got delayed a year. Maybe it began 96 was supposed to host in 95. How long do you think Honda's agreement is in this time period with the PGA tour? Whatever you're thinking, double it and add five years and I bet you can get it. I was going to say it has to be like 20 years, 25 years. 25 years.

I was going to say 20. Yeah, 25 years. I mean, they were responsible. for like 60 years or something it's crazy at the nestley invitational do you know where the nestley invitational is uh nestley invitational was this like one of those southern georgia ones makes me feel less like it makes me feel less like an idiot no it's bay hill oh bay hill was the nestley invitational wasn't going to guess that uh Lauren Roberts wins his first pGA tour event in his 13th season on Tour wins by one over Fuzzy Zeller, Vijay Singh, and Nick Price.

Zeller was in the lead when he hit someone in the dome with his T-shot on 17. That was unfortunate. Roberts had held the distinction of being the all-time leading money winner for someone who had never won a tournament. What do you think Lauren Roberts is driving distances at the time? Like, 2.59 or something. Yeah, I was going to say 250. You would have been exactly right, Neil.

It was 250. I got one. I got one. The boss of the Moss of the Moss. right the goal of these questions is not to get him right it's to show how unlikely this is but you just nailed that uh 15.1 millie for Lauren Roberts in his career how about that I'm going to start doing like the newspapers whatever you say a name I'm just going to say out they're just blurred out their career the career it eggs yeah who wins the players in 94 Greg Norman

this Greg Norman he just decimates everybody it's like all-time performance right so fuzzy Zeller sets the scoring record uh for the tournament in 94 is waving the loses by four to Greg Norman. He's famous scene of him waving the towel, waving the white flag. God, it's fun to hear this stuff from you because I'm like, just so many themes. Now, filling in the first half of the year. Yes. Like, you had a harder job than I did. Yeah.

Like, fuzzy coming up short. Like, that's going to continue. Okay. Just keep that in mind. Interesting. The players was played just two weeks ahead of the Masters back then. Norman, again, one by four shots, set the tournament scoring record. And Beeman at the time said, look, that record is not going to.

to get broken and so far he's been right scotty sheffler got to 20 under uh in 2024 uh but no one's gotten uh anywhere close to norman's 24 under par uh in that time period dean beeman all know her 63 67 67 67 this was fuzzy's third straight runner up so if you encountered a lot of close calls for that's what i'm saying i'm like cheese man down here in florida we are looking for any excuse to rock the outer wear and it has been outer wear weather here nobody does outerwear better than rowback best fit best feel hands down whether you're looking for vests full zips jackets pullovers roback has it all for men and women i've got the fulton performance vest on right here i've got these in about six or seven different colors it is an absolute winter staple for me it's available in many

different sizes and colors the glide down jacket it's got the ideal balance of warmth and mobility and the summit fleece available in full zip and half sip it is great for when the temperature dips but your plans do not slow down we still got a long ways to go an out of wear season. So check out rowback.com. That's R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Use code N-LU at checkout for 20% off your first order through the end of the week. Polos hoodies. I didn't talk about shorts, but you know they got great shorts as well. Whatever you need, Robeck's got you covered. Let's get back to the show. Norman's in the process of building medalist and Hobbes sound with Pete Die. He had told Die in the week prior he was going to shoot 22 under this week.

And he would go on to shoot 24 under. A few notes, Lenny Clements and Roger Maltby. were penalized four and two shots, respectively on the 11th hole when they played each other's balls. Maltby made a nine. I think it was Maltby that got four shots, but it was written funny on there, but I think Maltby got a four shot penalty.

Lenny Clements, the name I never heard, 2.2. There you have it. L.E and I. Plus inflation. Again, I just think golf, like the ability to make money

and nobody know who you are is just kind of unparalleled. Lenny Clements, number 469 on the all-time money list, number 470, the gripper, Ed Fior. And then David Gossett and then Roger Malthy. How about that? Really?

Yeah. Pete Dye, you know, the course is blitz, but Beeman says, we're not changing the golf course. Pete Dye was interviewed about it. Remember when players thought it was too hard, now it's too easy. Dye would say, quote, it doesn't hurt me. I don't have anything to do with what's going on there. It was supposed to be a rustic-looking golf course. Now it's the most manicured golf course in the world.

How about that? Bang. That rules. I feel like there needs to be a documentary almost. I'm like what that course looked like the first couple years. I know Sean Martin's wrote, written a lot about that. And it's just,

it's stark, man, the vision versus what it is now. I love what it is now. And I still think it's like the bones are there. And it makes for a great golf tournament. And the presentation's really fun. But it is wildly,

wildly, wildly different than what it started out as. Well, I was thinking about this when I was watching the, when I was watching the 94 Bell South Classic on YouTube, which is just not a real. sentence anybody should ever say. It was like very much a reading that quote and then seeing like what Atlanta

Country Club looked like in that time and like what golf courses look like now in the PGA tour, the effect TPC Sawgrass has had on what golf looks like on television. I'm not saying it's a positive development, but it has been heavily influential. I think is very, very, very, very fair to say. Augusta effect had an effect on TPC Sawgrass as well. So I think that's, you know, there's a lineage there. Which is also funny, and I hope I'm not talking on my ass because I haven't done a Pete die deep dive, but it's just funny to hear like, I think you'd pin a lot of that on him too, right? Like, oh, it's the Pete dieification, you know, and here he's kind of being like, no, this is not really the golf.

I built. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which it did sound like the, like, the greens were a bit silly for how hard the course was T to Green. Like, you, you know, balls would just like hit the green and deflect into the water back then. Like, it was truly like a true middle finger to some of the. of these guys. I think there was still probably a balance to be had in there. But the way it's

described in this time period as well, it was like, I mean, dudes were pissed and not just like this course is too hard to piss. It's like, this is kind of silly golf pissed. So it's the first note I ever saw of a golf writer being upset about cell phones at a golf tournament. Just there was a little note on that one. Hester that. Orgen Gekyll out there. Like that. So this is very, so a lot of like what we've made fun of the PGA tour in recent years. I've not seen a lot of that in the 90s until we get to this part. The NCAA tournament was banned from the six televisions in the media center. And officials from the tour were running around to corporate tents and into the clubhouse to switch off the Florida Boston College game to the players championship.

Don't look. We're not doing this. Charlie, chain smokers, who played the concert? I don't know. I don't know if there was a concert then. I don't think that was quite a thing yet. Jake Trout and the flounders are like that. Huey Lewis.

Youngsters like Huey Lewis. I don't have an answer for this, but when did the tour start capitalizing players? It most definitely was not players, uh, capitalizing this time period. Like all caps. Yeah,

all caps. That was not it. That's a fascinating little deep dive. Might need to reach out. Can we find that at HQ? When did the all caps come in? And who's, who's behind that?

When did players become an acronym? Yeah. What does it stand for? That's good stuff. The first year that TBC Sawgrass played the bunkers as bunkers and not waste areas, taking some of the Pete Die element out of that as well. New state of the art media center was built for the event at the cost of a million dollars. It was pretty like where the,

I think it's where the cart barn is now is where the media used to be. And now there was a new one built. I don't know if it's in the same location that's currently at, but that was a... That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. So kind of pausing some of the action here for a second. Second, PGA Tour News. Over 100 players attended a two-hour meeting on Tuesday in which the selection process to replace PGA Tour Commissioner,

Dean Beeman, was discussed. Players were told there were 30 to 40 applicants. Candidates will be kept confidential from players, and they will not get a vote, which leaves the process entirely in the hands of the seven-person selection committee, which includes how many player representatives? Seven-person committee, how many players do you think are on this?

I'd say three. Good guess. Yeah, I'm with you. It's two. J-Haw. and Rick Fair were the only two player representatives on the selection committee. Tom Kite supports the fact that players have no say, deferring things to, you know, to people with experience in the business world.

The Miami Herald names David Faye as a candidate from the USGA. Okay. PGA tour deputy commissioner Tim Fincham and Dan Quail was considered a candidate for the PGA Tour commissioner job. because of course the vice president to George H.W. Bush with his term there ending in 1992 with that offense. Kind of like a deal's guy Ari Fleischer going to work for Liv. Sure. Second career, man.

You know? In the meeting, Beeman was given a standing ovation from all the players, but all but one person rose to applaud. Hell yeah. It was either determined to be Ken Green, who was Beeman's along. longtime outspoke critic or Bob Gilder, who was the point man for the PING lawsuit, which I don't have time to get into the entire PING lawsuit, but I just, they could not determine who it was, but it was one of those two guys refused to stand for Dean Beman.

I thought about shooting Ken Green a text and asking, but that it just becomes that. What do you, what is this for again? Print that are you? Yeah, that's great. This is a, Neil, this is up your alley. I've never heard of this one. The USA Today notes, there's an investment. going on into purse splitting, where players agreed to divide payoffs regardless of who wins.

Hate it. The Merrill Lynch shootout was the focus on the senior PGA tour. And a few weeks later, fines totaling $100,000 or more were levied against scores of players, among them 1993 senior player the year, Dave Stockton. 51 players were fined by Beeman in the greatest mass disciplinary action in tour history. Beeman, of course, would not confirm or deny these claims. So the shootout, I don't know how 51 players got fine, but the shootout itself was 10 players competing for $400,000, but they all agreed prior to just split the first.

That's like a match. It was Asau Ioki, Jim Colbert, Bruce Crampton, Mike Hill, Miller Barber, George Archer, Larry Laureta, and Billy Casper were in the event. Bob Charles as well, Bob Charles said, I'm as guilty as the next. He didn't try to deny it. Stockton said,

I didn't think. What do you guys think? We just split this thing, get a couple beers, go have a good time. I mean, it was like a true silly season event. Like, they're out there, like, hammering up at the crowd, like, you know, throwing wigs on. I think I have some quotes on that later on. But Stockton said, I didn't think anything was wrong with it at the time. We're clowning around wearing wigs and earrings, hitting exploding balls, trying to get the gallery into it.

Okay. Well, that's good contact. It makes more sense. Yeah, that does make more sense. But they still got fined. Yes. Wow. 51.

I'm guessing it was just going on a bunch, though. it must have i guess for some of those yeah i guess so it was like professional wrestling or something you know no even if you lose doesn't it no it's okay you come back the next night it's all right just got to give a good show got some k fabe going on can anybody tell me what the freeport mcmurran classic is uh or mcmorren classic is in today's parlance uh well you know did a lot of these tournaments still around i've a lot more than i thought are still around preport sanderson farm arms. Interesting answer because that's no longer around now.

But what's the date where are we at? This is like right before the master's. We think it's in the south. Yeah, I was going to say maybe like Harbortown or something. It's Louisiana. Oh, okay. I guess Harbors town was MCI or something. Yeah.

Ben Crenshaw wins his 18th tour event at English Turn golf and country club. There was very little on this one. All the writings about the masters. Everybody's ready for the masters. So I didn't have much on that one. again, we're not doing the majors here, but Jose Maria Lofabo wins the master. Sorry if that spoils anything.

More on the old's MCI Heritage Golf Classic. Hale Irwin wins for the 20th time. The Island Packet says, quote, Hail Irwin may have gained a couple of pounds and a few gray hair since the last time he put on the plaid jacket. Just love that we're talking about weight in a lead there. Irwin was 48 years old.

He had previously won the Heritage 21 years earlier in 1973. three joins davis love is the only three-time winners of the event of course davis loved went more of those sixth oldest winner in pga tour history came back from three shots down to greg norman with 12 holes to play it was the only tournament greg norman ever blew in the final round uh of his career pgisd hill irwin 5.9 million i would have taken me over yeah yeah you know he's older he's an older guy obviously but yeah hopefully that i mean that if he invested that that money's worth a lot in this day and age. Lee Trevino won the senior

PGA after Ray Floyd made a back-nine quad. It would have been back-to-back senior majors for Floyd. We'll revisit that a little bit later. Mike Springer wins his first PJ tour event at the K-Mart Greater Greensboro Open, which is of course now Windham. Different schedule going on.

Finish three shots ahead of Ed Humanek and Brad Bryant and Hale Irwin. Hale-Herman almost went back-to-back at age 48. You'll enjoy this one. when the final round was disrupted for about 15 minutes when protesters sat in the middle of the 10th fairway to protest Kmark's conduct in its negotiations with a union representing workers at a local distribution center. The authorities arrested 64 people, getting them off the Forest Oaks

Country Club course without holding up play for an extended period of time. Hell yeah. I stand with the protesters. There we had a chance. Shout to the travelers. As a union man, I have to. to stand with them. The iPod stands with them. They were chanting to the army marching tune of Sound Off like, we are here and we won't go sound off.

Sure. It sounded really cool. So that brings us through, that brings us through April. Greg Norman leading the money list. Lauren Roberts is in second. Jose Maria's in third with that master's win, Hill Irwin and fourth,

Fuzzy Zeller in fifth, which gets to the second part of my homework. This is the original DJ Pi section. A little briefer in this section. you'll allow me. This is a late audible in the game. Shell Houston Open. Mike Hinen wins his first PJ Tour event. A lot of first time winners around this time on the schedule. And olds. Kind of a lot of olds and first time. We're in a weird, weird talent timeline here.

Mike Hine doesn't seem like you did a lot else. One point. Not much more. Okay. The turnouts were absolutely massive. The final round had a crowd of 57,000 people, which the biggest turnout since 1986. It was like a living. event out there is what a lot of the writing said. At a hundred, where was this? At the Houston open. Got it.

155K compared to 110K the year prior. And then this is like, this is when the daily stuff honestly starts to read like happy Gilmore. Like the articles are written about just like just how crazy the attention was like legitimate security concerns as kids were getting trampled by autograph seekers around daily. He hasn't had alcohol in 18 months.

He has a shaved head. He made a whole. one this week. And things are, things are trending well for him. Like he is considered to be the single biggest draw on the PGA tour at this point. Like he is he's the needle, which just again, recreating those scenes from suspended like, you know, all the disciplinary actions he's had on there and like the run-ins he would have with Dean Beeman. And things are, things are potentially turning around for it. And what I've kind of found doing my research was it is right now the The internationals kind of have the dudes.

There's a lot of good players on the U.S. side, but, like, Corey Pavin's not moving the needle. You know, like Jack and Arney are still drawing attention on the, there's still branding champions tours with the Golden Bear, you know, it's like Azingers out with cancer. Like, you just don't like couples has been out with back injury in this time. Yeah, it doesn't feel like there's a dude on the, for the, there is like a, this is a transition period before Tiger. Well, and especially in a vacuum like that, like it makes a lot of sense as to why a character like this is going to just completely take up all the oxygen, you know? And like you, you've alluded to it,

but like happy Gilmore is two years after this. Right. You know, like, it's not an accident that having Gilmore looks at looks the way that he does and says the things and does the things and even plays the game the same way that he does. You know, it's it's not an accident that it looks like that. Which again, you could watch the 94 Bell South Classic, which is the next week. You can watch that on YouTube. Watch John Daly swing the club and you're like, oh my God. Okay, that's my guy. Yeah. Like, I want to watch that guy play golf. I mean, this is not breaking news. but it's not just how far he hits it. It's like the grace and effortless power with it.

Like he was pretty magnetic. And he was Shufua. Yes. He had touchy, touchy with the wedges. Around the sports world this week, tragedy struck Formula One. Eriton Senna died in a tragic crash at Emila in this week in 1994. You ever watch that doc?

Yes, good ones. Excellent. I haven't. Excellent. On to the Bell South. Did you ever go to the Bell South Classic? Neil? I did.

Yes, I went in 19, I want to say 96 or 97, 98, some, sometime in that from the year that I think Greg Norman won. So maybe 96. I can look. We can, not important to the story, but I can look that up. But it was at Atlantic Country Club? No, Sugar Loaf. Stewart's Sugarloaf. So we're in Atlanta Country Club in this time, which I'll be honest, I did not know existed.

Is that still the same name? There still is an Atlanta Country Club. It's not Atlanta Athletic Club. because that's why I was like, oh, this must be Atlanta Athletic that got renamed. Separate place. It did not. It does not, I don't know when, did Norman win that Bell South Classic? I don't see him.

I thought he did. What am I thinking? I remember watching the shark at the Bell South Classic. Okay. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Paul Stan Kowski won in 96. Playoff over Brandl. Dang, we're spoiling the 96 episode.

Anyway, so this is where we actually have some video. We have some resources here. So if you will, I'll play you the intro package from CBS. Yes. I was hoping for a lot more of this stuff, a lot more than nostalgia pieces here. But here's how CBS came on the air on that Sunday, which happens to be holiday. Georgia and springtime. A breathtaking combination. And now a tour tradition has evolved here, Mother's Day in Atlanta.

Rudell Nelson received a special gift in 1988 when her son Larry won here for the second time. Great shirt. Barbara Pavan experienced the same joy on Mother's Day, 1991, when Corey found sweet success. Maureen Kite was on her son's mind in 1992 when he won this tournament for the second time. Tom would later that year win the U.S. Open on Father's Day. A year ago, it was Nolan Hinkie's turn to experience a special

victory. He had the last dance at the 18th and claimed a tour event for the third time. It's Mother's Day once again on the final day of the Bell South Classic. Somewhere there's a mom whose lifelong support is about to be rewarded in Atlanta. All right. First off, I thought this was a master's thing for a second. I was like, I don't recognize any of those holes. Like, what the hell is going on here? With it, yeah, this is not a laughing matter, but it didn't transition to do John Daly is leading this tournament, who is again going through like, sure. He has an assault charge against him with his ex-wife and he is a recent father. Their daughter is about to turn two.

Anyways, there's a lot in this. And this was like, this was a blast from the past. I'm going to play a few commercials for you. Again, the whole broadcast is on there and you can experience the entire flashback into 1994. before, but I really loved the look, because I was a big Orlamar tri-metal, Adams tight lies, like all the infomercial, all the golf equipment stuff in that era, give me all of it. The golf equipment commercials during this broadcast are just like, they're all shot the exact same way, same concept, and I'm just going to play a few of them for you. Here's Leetrovito.

Good players are saying, hey, Lee, how do you shave strokes off your games? And I tell them, well, you can start by teeing up a new ball. The new top flight tour is. Z. Balata. Lots of spin. Great field. Oh, that ball feels good right there. And that top flight distance. So if you want to score better, start hitting that new top flight tours. Zee Balada. And it wouldn't hurt you to hit 300 of them a day. Very pronounced bass. This is going to be a big moment for very, very pronounced sloppy base. I got to I got to get that in my repertoire. People keep asking me, Hey, I get Giroito. I get that long ball.

Huh? I tell him. Left dash, baby. All right. Here's more. John Daily. For the same reason, staffs were the top performers on tour last year.

Staffs are easy to hit. Staffs are forgiving. Isn't it a time you gave staff a shot? A lot of disruptive angles in some of these. I'm just, I'm just, I think wide angle lenses just came into fruition. Well,

I think if I, I'm giving my read on this. I think that reeks to me of just like people think golf is stuffy. What? No, it's cool, man. Check this out. You know? Maybe even leverage some other sports to kind of show that golf isn't so stuffy.

Here's Chip Beck. When you play most sports, you use the same equipment. The pros use not always true with golf. Sometimes you can't even buy the same irons the pros play. You can if they're a little. ellipsoid of power irons by power bill my game is consistency and accuracy and the sweet spot on these oversized irons was made for my game so play the same irons i play on tour the tps ellipsoid of power irons by power bill and you'll play a whole new game that bag looks so hard to hit yeah you see how hard

those clubs look like it oh my gosh there was more there's a hail irwin uh king cobra with greg norman one that's just the same thing all over. But I just, those blasts from the past, like, man, the equipment companies that were spending the money back then have definitely changed since the 90s.

So 98 Tiger won the Bell South. And that's the year. Now I remember that's the year I went. I watched Norman though come down 18. And I think that was at sugar loaf. But Bell South is a big deal like in Atlanta. It was like, you know,

warm up for the Masters, you know? So it's a, that's a blast from the past for me. Well, then maybe it moved before the mask because this is after the Masters. After. Okay.

this is may maybe scrap memories can be weird i can't i can't remember anything i stink if you have information on what deal was at the i hold myself in contempt reach out neil and no leg up com you have any info to help people ask you know why can't you remember anything i don't know miss too many whippets is it this is considered to be the third toughest walk on tour outside of castle pines and west chest Is Atlanta Country Club that big of a walk? The Caddial loaf is. And maybe, okay, let me now, see, I'm going to get blamed from Atlanta people

because maybe Atlanta Country Club and Sugar Love, like, Sugar Glove was a mega one. Now, from 97 to 2008, it was at TPC at Sugarloaf. Yeah. 67 to 96, it was Atlanta Country Club in Marietta. Yeah. Yeah. I've never played Atlanta Country Club, which that's a whole of my, my bona fides for sure.

So you're not wrong, Neil, from 99, to 2006, it moved to early April the week before the Masters. Yeah. Okay. So maybe I went 99 then. Regardless. Icarito. Why can't you remember anything? Give you the last. Um, so again, kind of surprising top 10 finish for him the week prior. John Daly wins his third PGA tour event at the Bell South Classic. He birdies the 72nd hole. I do implore people to go back and watch this on YouTube and watch the T shot. T shot he hits on 18. And like watching the other guys play it. He hits this. It's a dog leg left

part five all water all down the left and like he's shaky he missed a short put on a on a previous hole and he has to wait a long time before he hits his t-shot on 18 and he teased it high and my god is he ripped this ball and he looks nervous as hell as it's in the air because it's left and it's like the the closest thing i can come up with and the tv the camera angles are awful and you can't really tell but it's like the closest thing to the bryson bay hill thing that you might imagine in like the cameras can't concept where this ball landed. He thinks playing with Brian Henninger and he probably gets him by 60 yards in the fair way like it's insane. He hits a eight iron. It's a bad second shot into the green. He's in

the green side bunker but pitches out and makes a four footer. He, you know, they obviously got to get off the air really quickly. They rush under the green to interview him. Daily, Amelia says, I never got this nervous playing golf when I drank, but I'm still shaking now. Honestly, this is the first time I've won a PJ tournament sober. He later would say he's going to celebrate by driving overnight to Memphis to see his two-year-old daughter and eating a dozen Duncan Donuts along the way. And so yeah, this is one you can actually go back and relive a little bit. There's some Tom Kite in there. David Peoples had a great chance to win. He three putted 17. Unfortunately, he couldn't birdie. 18. Steve Stricker made three straight birdies in the back.

He was headed towards a nice payday, but he made on 11 on the 14th hole, taking four penalty shots. So I don't remember what 14 is there. It'll cost you. All right. So here's a good one. The 94 Byron, the G. B.E. Byron Nelson Classic. Okay. Neil Lancaster is going to be your first time winner. The event was shortened to 36 holes. It was the first tour event since 1986

to have such a distinction. The Fort Worth Star Telegram headline, Lancaster wins a half Nelson. Ah. Which was great. We got a Vantage Classic on our hands. So now that Squeegees were employed in an early effort in the week and helicopters. They used the

KRLD and Channel 4, helicopters were blowing off surface water. People are risking their lives to get this golf course in play. Turns out no golf Thursday. In 1994, it also rained a ton in Dallas in May. Yeah, there's so much weather in this upcoming stretch. My God, there's so much. Still a lot of rain at that stretch of the PGA Tour season.

No golf Thursday. There's no golf Friday. PGA Tour tournament director Duke Butler. They said they didn't play yesterday to protect the integrity of the game. Mr. Butler is also a neighbor of my. that I got put in touch with. I did not get a chance to talk to him before this, but I know his son quite well.

And I'm like, wait a second here. Duke's name is all over this one because he was a basically a rules official for the PGA tour, but he was a tournament director, not the tournament director of Byron Nelson. But again, they didn't play to protect the integrity of the game. So Saturday comes around and they're going to split the tournament

across two golf courses now on, there's the Las Kalinas course and the Cottonwood Valley course, which was not prepared for tournament play. There's no ropes. There's no leaderboards. It's just a golf course. Just golf course on property there. But it's a higher elevation.

Like it was a little drier than the valley course, which had clay fairways, which were just like they could not clear. It is known for the first green is shaped like the state of Texas with a bunker above it shaped like Oklahoma. He said the pin today is somewhere, near Amarillo, which I thought was just a lovely, lovely touch of that one. So not only this, only eight guys were able to get the 36 holes in on Saturday.

They were trying to get double up. And then apparently a tornado touchdown on the Cottonwood course. It hopped over the press center and disappeared back up into the clouds. Like more after this disastrous weather week, they get more weather. So the field had to come back and finish round two on Sunday and have that be the final round rather than like come back like that's like they were not going to have tv on monday so rather than try to make it 54 holes and play monday they're just said all right we're on tv we're going to finish this on sunday and it's a 36 whole tournament and we're going to have the finish

on there so oh smokes after 36 so the vantage classic uh it's a six way sudden death playoff and so there's six players six all playing together um six players six caddies heading out there and there's a the only 75 percent of the person was required to be paid out But they ended up, they end up paying out the entire purse. Like the sponsor said, no, we're paying out the entire purse. Just happened on the LPGA, too, a couple months ago. Like, you know, just like all time, all time shit show weather, clay fairways, nothing they could do about it. Fucking tornado blows through.

Like just like the worst luck you could have. Players were pissed. Players were furious about the whole thing. Norman said they waited too long to put the Cottonwood Valley course into play. Jeff Maggert hated it. It says like, I wasn't much of a tournament, was it? You know, said they could have teed off. at different times. Crenshaw said those decisions were easy 30 years ago. Now TV just rules.

We can't cough without getting in their, uh, them getting in their say. Trivia question. How many, uh, PG tour events had ever been rained out and not rescheduled to a different date in PJ tour history to that point? I'll say none for the state of the trivia. One. That shocked me. Wow. One tour event in their history to that point had not been, but like they were doing crazy stuff back then. Because you remember in 98, pebble they got um the final round started and they got rained out and they came back and finished that final round after the pga at sahali like they were doing weird shit to finish tournaments back then so yeah am lost kalinas is kind of a that's a throwback throwback was a drywall he was doing

the mcdonald i'm gonna las galinas oh shit no pausing here to say earlier that week on may 9th it was announced tim finchum would be succeeding dean being as the next commissioner of the PGA tour. The other finalist was Jack Frazy, the retired head of Centel Communications. Fincham was elected unanimously. And Fincham was a Virginia lawyer who once served as an economic advisor to President Carter. He'll be taking over June 1st, which is 19 months before Beeman's contract lapses, which is kind of around the same rollout Monaghan.

Yeah, exactly. Of note. Many thought Fincham would be named immediately when Beeman announced back in March that he was going to retire, but the 10-week lag time allowed Finchum to build support. among players, which was seen as his biggest weakness. Big reason Finchum was unpopular in his role was his role in the legal battle over the Ping's square grooved irons and because he was often seen as Beeman's Hatchet Man. That phrase is all over the place.

Hatchet Man. Like he was the Hatchet Man. I don't really know what that means other than like he was. He's making shit happen. He's the guy that makes it happen. Yeah. He was just getting shit done. One player said he's been out here more since Dean's announcement than in his first

six years. It's basically just starts showing up at tour events and starts glad. Pressing flesh was the phrase that was used a lot. One interesting quote, T.C. has always used this quote about Fincham. A player said he knows where all the skeletons are buried. Where the bodies are buried. I was going to say. Exactly. A player says that, you know, Tisi likes to say left booby traps. Norman said, I'm sure Tim will do a good job, but I believe they should have taken more time and done a thorough search. They shouldn't have rusted

decision so quickly. Interesting with what's coming. Fentham is seen as a continuation of the efforts of Beeman and a confirmation that the tour is heading in the right direction. There was, again, there were some efforts to squash Pincham's past working for the Democrats with the tour that was seen as 98% Republican. And Fincham said, let the record show I was against the tax increase. And I'm very concerned about a comprehensive health bill that would continue to strap it to employers like us, basically a small business. So might have been a Democrat, but I don't swear on all other policies, right? His four major areas of concern, substantial financial reward for our players.

He says pro-golfers are underpaid compared to other sports. We also have a challenge in the changes that will occur in television in the United States in the next few years. We must make sure we are posthured to compete for the entertainment dollar. There's also a challenge with respect to the IRS and Fenton described it as the tour is under attack by the IRS and then continued emphasis on the integrity of the game and its players. Those are his four pillars.

Again, Beeman, when he took over the tour in 1974, the tour conducted 57 events with 8 million in purses, had assets of 730,000. Now the tour conducts 118 events with nearly 100 million in prize money and has assets exceeding $200 million. And before you ask it, no, that does not include the NFTs. So it was probably even higher than that. But it does include the pension, which I think is probably what the IRS is coming back to sniff around on. None of the where is the TPC network fall into this is that that has that's considered a bunch of the assets okay that is so Beeman did the TPC network and a lot of those assets are considered under that beam was 56 years old he was off to go

play the senior tour that was a great player in his own right that's right as we know so though if you don't know Beeman was a tour player and like that's a big changing the guard too like Beeman was seen as a player he was one that took over the the players tour and now a lawyer is taking over the players tour this was a part of the changing of the guard. But again, it's a lot of quotes in there from Trevino and people like that are like, this is a stamp in the,

in like, we're towards head in the right direction. We're going to keep doing what we're doing. We don't need a major shift. We need somebody with different experience coming in, but like this is the path we're taking and we're continuing on that path. That is a really massive shift. I'm glad you pointed that out because I've always,

you know, Dean Beeman's playing career so far removed from me having anything to do with golf that I've always kind of viewed him as a suit. You know, and it is a massive shift going from a player to a suit, you know, and that's, you see that in other leagues too, but it's like, yeah, it's not really about how far back do we put the roll plan off the fairway anymore. The conversations have gotten a lot more complicated. The fact that he was so good at the business stuff, it's like at this point, like with

that much cash at stake and all the, yeah, you had to go with a suit. I'm not the Beeman expert, but like everything I've encountered on him, like, he did not like pander to the players. He wasn't like, oh, I want to free, you know, the conditions are too hard out there. He'd be like tough shit, like play better. Like he was not like a, you know, an agent for the players. Like he was set out to make the business as big as it possibly could be. So a lot of players didn't like him.

So this leads up into the memorial tournament. Tom Lehman wins his first PGA tour event. That's four first time winners in the last five events. 20th different winner in 20 different tour events this year. That was his first win. And he was 35. And I was going to say, I picture Lehman just bawling out in the mid-90s. Right.

Yeah. 35 years old and he won this. He won by five. And again, every time you read in the papers, you can't stop reading about Raymond Floyd on the senior circuit. He started the year going fourth, second, win, win, win,

or sorry, win T2 win. T10, win, T7, T6, T3, 12th, second. He bagged three more runner-ups later on in the year. He also won the Tour Championship. He did not finish worse than 18th on the entire year. He had 17 top tens and 20 starts. Four wins, five runner-ups, 12 top fives. He made $1.382 million on the senior tour in 1994.

Only Nick Price beat him on the regular tour. She's the second most money of any male golfer that year on the course. What a year. Breezing through these last few Southwestern Bell Colonial. Nick Price becomes the first player to win twice this year. He beat Scott Simpson in a sudden death playoff. Overcame a seven-shot deficit. That was also a Monday finish in Dallas-Fort Worth area.

or just literally in Fort Worth. Hale Irwin continuing to stunt. He finished third. He finished top 10 six times in 21 events, made 814,000, finished 10th on the money list the year before qualifying for the senior tour. So Phil is back and is indeed finishing eighth place, fresh off the broken leg.

Fresh off of femur problem. Impressive. It's pretty wild. Kemper Open, which did not have Brett Ogle in the field. Mark Brooks won his fourth BGA. I'll remember. Volcano?

No, that's Steve Pate. I always think of Mark Brooks and love the volcano. Yeah. I think it's Steve Pate, but every time Jerry Pate comes up, he would say the volcano and then now that's the first time I've ever heard you say the volcano.

How do you keep getting these pros mixed up? I tell them. I got a lot of demons in between my ears. All right. Dan, you saw. I think I have the week right. This is the week. Bruno's, I think, is the Alabama event on the Champions Tour, on the senior tour.

Bruno. Gary Player. This, this. So Gary Player has just returned from South Africa, having witnessed and participated in South Africa's first all-race elections. And here's how he would describe the elections. I'm not going to do the exit. I saw people standing in line as far as your eye could see. nine hours they stood to vote, a businessman in a suit, and right beside him, an old poor guy with bare feet.

A lady gave birth in the line. Somebody died in the line. There was one old woman being pushed by her son in a wheelbarrow. They all stood in the line to vote. It didn't matter if you were an executive in a company. You stood in that line. It was the experience of a lifetime. Sounds like it.

How about that? Giving birth in line from Gary Player. Somebody that knocked me off. That just, I'm like, through the Gary Player lens, can we believe either of these? I don't know, but that's what makes it like, if half of that story, I want to read up on that. That's a hell of a hell of an experience. Lady gave birth in line and someone died in line. That one just, Gary Player has not changed.

Buick classic. Again, Buick's absolutely stunting. Lee Jansen wins his fourth, PJ Torvent. He beat Ernie Ells in a U.S. Open's going to be the following week. Fred Couples returns after missing three months with his back injury. Again, more weather. in this time period. And then folks are,

folks are all, so this is kind of like the, you know, where Buick starts to unwind a little bit. Folks of the tournament are all upset that the tournament won't be played before the U.S. Open next year. It's going to get moved up to May.

It's going to crush the field. It's not going to be as good of prep for the U.S. Open. It's going to have worst course conditions in May. So this is at Westchester in New York. And it's going to be moving a different spot in the calendar. And nobody's happy about that. Ernie Ells wins the U.S. Open.

We'll get to that in a future episode. Cannon Greater Hartford Open. You're slashing right through some big news outside the golf world. What's that? During the US or was that during the PGA. It was US Open. Yeah. We're going to get to that and that.

Okay. This is not, we're not doing that here. We covered that in the beginning. We're not to an OJ here. Arnold Palmer. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah. I thought TC's uncle would at least get a mention. We mentioned in the beginning. We're not doing that here. It needs its own episode. You can't just dip into that one. Like that's just that's, we're not doing a brief,

brief one. that one. Hartford open. David Flash it. David Frost wins his ninth career title. Norman made a double on the 12th whole Sunday when his ball was found in an unraged part of the bunker. He called for the culprit to be fined or suspended. Norman finished second for the third time this year.

Fred Couples announces he won't play the British because of the flight and what that will do to his back. A hundred thousand people attended the final round. Attendance numbers in this time period are insane. insane. Again, again, in the video of the Canadian Open that you probably watched, Neil, the 18th whole crap, like, it was crazy. 292,000 people attended over the four days at the Hartford Open. Things were going great for Mr. John Daly. Around this time, it starts to get a little bit back on the ugly side. Daily would be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. The day, and as at the time of writing on Sunday night, the tour was not even in touch with him, but he signed for a three that should have been a, on the fifth hole.

By my count, this is the fourth or fifth scorecard incident that Daly had since 1991. The rest of Daly's year would go 81st at the open. WD of the New England classic, two missed cuts and a 44th at the NEC World Series of golf, including a final round 83. Hold that thought. Dave, 54 holes, Dave Jr., Dave Stockton Jr. was tied for the lead in Hartford, while Dave Stockton Sr. was leading on the champions on the senior tour. And obviously Stockton Jr. did not go on to win, but Dave Stockton, Senior, did go on to win.

And he's getting updates in the final round, how his son's doing on the regular tour. How about that? Dege lineage, not leverage. That's right. Exactly. Busy times for Finchum is of note. Hardy's announces they will not renew their sponsorship of the event, which is where. Neil's going to know this one is on his part of the calendar.

DJ? Hardies. I don't know. Hardies. The Hardy's golf classic. Gosh, it's got to be in the Midwest because it's not Carl's Jr. Yeah, right? So are we talking just outside Chicago? Uh, no, but in the, pretty far outside Chicago.

In that, in the Midwest, what is it? John Deere? Quad Cities. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Uh, in an unprecedented situation, the PGA tour takes money out of their TV fund to make sure the event stays. So no sponsor, no problem. This event ain't going nowhere. We're taking money out of our TV fund. We're going to pay that. So then we get to the kind of the big, the big point of, of the summer here, which is, it becomes public for the first time. This is June. 27th, 1994. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the PGA Tour for possible unfair methods of competition, according to published reports. Brandweek magazine, so the FTC is investigating whether PGA Tour rules stifle golf tournaments by, among other things, forcing organizers to pay fees to use tour professionals. The letter from the FTC states, specifically, we're focusing on the competitive effects of the PGA Tour's conflicting events and television release rules. there are also interested in whether the PJ Tour has ever sought or received rights fee payments for events such as yours.

Finchip said, we went to them six months ago and asked them to finish up, either to take action or not. They are continuing with their interviews, but it's the same thing that started in the spring of 1990. It's been four years now. We would like for them to get it done, but you can't tell a federal agency what to do. Tour VP Ed Morehouse bottom lines it. Our rules are not anti-competitive. Our rules have allowed for the development of tournaments. put a lot of golf on television, made significant prize money available for golfers,

and provided more than $120 million to charity. And again, the FTC is currently interviewing organizers of unofficial pro golf events, many of them made for TV productions whose organizers must pay a rights fee, generally $200 to $400,000 to the PGA tour in order to secure the tour players. These are stuff like the Skins game, Shell's Wonderful World of Golf, and the Shark shootout. Can you just kind of summarize what you just said? Is it, I feel like, like, what does that, what does all this mean? Break, break, they're accusing them of a shakedown where it's like, yeah, you, these guys are independent contractors.

How can you charge a fee for their time? Like, you made them sign a contract that they have to get permission from this trade organization to go play in a golf, a professional golf tournament that's independent of the PGA tour. And they're basically arguing that this could be restraint of trade, meaning those guys as independent contractors, like those tournaments should have to pay you guys if they want these top players to come. play it's their decision because they're independent contractors so again echoes a lot of what we saw in the last five years correct 100% if you remember like the pj tour rules and regulations state you need to get released to basically compete in golf tournaments outside of this circuit which the idea being we're pooling all of your interests into one place so we can go out and market that we're going to sell it for big money and you're going to come play in our events you can't work outside this

system on your own unless you get special permission and a release from us to do that Again, this is going to weigh pretty heavily into Neal's section here, here shortly. But same conversation as the last several years. Fincham would later say in August, really great point, I think. Their theory is that somehow we are artificially limiting the amount of product available to the consumer, which is incredible. In 15 years, we've gone from 110 hours of golf on TV to 617 this year, one tour to three tours, 40-some events to 118-1-180-players. So, hard to argue. He's a lawyer.

He's pretty good. He pulled out that the FCC, he pulled out this card. The FTC had spent four years at substantial cost to the taxpayer investigating the tour. That's a real. Yeah. That's good stuff. Yeah. On that one.

So. All right. This kind of summer events also didn't slap much in this time period, kind of like they currently don't. Nick Price wins the Motorola Western Open on the Dubbs Dread course at Cog Hill. Again, this is where Finchams out there on tour, pounding flesh met. with over 200 players across the top. Pressing flesh. I don't think it was pounding flesh.

Absolutely crushing flesh. Pressing the flesh. I wrote pounding, maybe it said pressing, but he's suffocating flesh. Firm handshake, that guy. He's going to two events a week. He's just running himself ragged. He's spending like one every 10 days in Pontevira, apparently. Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic.

Mark McCumber wins his age. of any chips in twice on the back nine in the process Justin Leonard I I'm I I looked this stuff and I don't remember St. Louis or St. Louis and has her Bush Virginia Virginia okay it was at Kings Kings mill or something Kings mill yeah this is Kings Mill yeah it's exactly right okay no this got a newspaper right up Norman beat Fowdo and Shell's wonderful will of golf at Sunningdale Norman was the eight to one favorite heading into the open championship in the following week That's a cool one. I've watched some of that.

John Daly made some comments. They're not great. He said, I wish we would have drug testing on the tour. If we did, I'd probably be one of the cleanest guys out there. There are certain people on tour who do the crazy stuff. They're never going to get exposed unless they're found out by police and put in jail. This is again where we start to enter the happy Gilmore phase of Daly's career. Curtis Strange said he should crawl back under the rock he came out from for trying to tear down what Arnie and Jack have built.

Finchum Strong quote Yeah Finchum publicly states It's conduct unbecoming To just like accuse other tour pros Of doing drugs Uh,

I hate it A lot of calls calls for suspensions for him I feel like conduct Unbecoming is one of the great Power levers Ever created by the PJ Tour Not totally non-specific

Yeah no that's it That's conduct unbecoming For sure, fine, does ask Anytime somebody does something on the pod That's just like That's conduct unbecoming Conduct Unbecoming

We're not doing that here. You will be fine. We will be sending them a fine. They might not have to, they might not pay it, but we're going to send it to them. I'm going to go quickly here. Nick Price wins the open.

This is fourth win of the year. We'll do that in the future. Brian Henninger wins the opposite field event, the deposit guarantee golf classic. Kenny Perry wins his second PJ tour event, the New England classic with a one-shot win over David Farity. The gripper at Fiore was third there. The Federal Express St. Jude Classic,

Dickie Pride, wins his first PJ Tour event. He missed 12 of 17 cuts to that point this year. He was third alternate to get in the event. He had set his wedding day for December 17th instead of December 10th because he was planning to be back at Q school. But now that he had the win, he would not need to do that. Won a playoff over House Sutton and Gene Sowers.

Nick Price, heavy hitter, finished fourth. Buick Open. Do you know where this one is? Where's the Buick Open? I never remember where they are. Gosh, well, we've already done. New York. We've done Torrey.

Is this Detroit? This is, Warwick Hills. Bob Seagos gets rid of this one. Your guy. Neilie's. Yeah. Fred Couples gets revenge

over Corey Pavan from from Riviera. They had to play 36 holes on Sunday, of course, because of weather, which was a problem for Fred couples, but he managed to grind through it. Winning a Buick was also a problem. A TV reporter tried to get him to pick

what Buick he was going to pick live on camera. He said, I want a Buick, but I drive a Cadillac. Oh, tough, tough break for Buick. There's put up four events and had the winners say that one. And this is the week that Buick announces a new contract that will lock in their four sponsored tournaments to the PJ tour schedule through 1998,

the Buick Open, Boewick Open, Buick Invitational, and the Buick Southern Open, which is in Pine Mountain, Georgia. We will get there. PJ Championship, Nick Price wins again at Southern Hills. And that is the end of my reign there. That was extremely lengthy.

but a lot to get through there. And this is where I officially passed the baton. I knew it when we fired the, before we fired this one up, I got a massive water and a tea. I was like, this is going to go a while. I'll try to keep it tight here, though, because I knew you'd have a bunch of stuff. All right, world events in August, 1994.

Let's do a little reset. Dege, Carlos de Jekle was captured in Sudan, extradited to France, Venezuelan, like a true bad ombre from Venezuela. blew up the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, among a string of other international attacks. But the jackals off the streets. So rest easy.

High bars. You look for a rock at its fence, rattled the cage. Yeah, we, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. MLB strike gets underway August 12th of 94.

Woodstock 94. Speaking of bad weather, I believe it was slightly muddy. And then in the box office, summer box office, Forrest Gump, the mask, and the Lion King

were dominating in the box office. All right, we'll kick it off the Sprint International. This was in August, August 21st. So after the PGA, you know, my tournaments aren't quite as fun. Or, you know, it's, this starts to get into the silly season a little bit. One by Steve, don't call me Mike Lowry in a playoff over Rick Fear at Castle Pines golf course. So this is the Stableford scoring.

Lowry is the ninth first time winner at this point in 1994. So I was thinking about this. Some years it feels like you get a Scotty. just wins everything you know and this year was not that year it feels like was it a couple years ago i felt like that was happening on the pga tour which is like gosh just like a new random dude every week which kind of sucks or the the lpj is the example this year where it's just what was it 25 in a row or something yeah and it's like sometimes that's hard to talk about because there's no like consistent theme so you know you feel like verne and in happy gilmar like

you know like so he uh let's see 252 000 winner check which is 9,700 more than the 33-year-old had won the rest of his pro career. So he had been kind of a journeyman up to that point. Fun fact, Rick Fear, low am at the Masters and the U.S. Open in 1984. Wasn't familiar with Rick's game, but it seems like he was, he'd been around for a little while. All right. So then we get to referenced earlier, the NEC World Series of Golf. Jose Maria Olifabal wins over Scott Hoke.

When I was a kid, I used to call him Scott Hatch. So that's why I kind of hesitated there. It's another Whaleberg-Walberg thing for me. So Scott Hoke at Firestone Country Club. He hesitate. You got to hit the whole deal. I think you would have got there. Rick Fair, by the way, made $200 less, $180 less than Brandl Shambly in his career.

Okay. He's the one that was on the selection committee. He was on the policy board. Yeah. So Brad Faxon and Steve, don't call me Mike Lowry, finish runner up. Lowry was he was hot in August the second this is the second NEC win for Jose

Maria O'O'O'Avobl I feel like we're we've committed to Othot like I don't get the pronunciation on that right so I apologize to Jose Oathobo Fahble that's like the Or a lawfable if you're a lossable that's like how

the Brits say hearing him saying on golf channel I'm like I don't know if that's is that right that's not I think you got a lot of license you got a lot of space to really make that one your own. It's just not olizabel. We know that. SoFi is the all in one finance app that helps you bank, borrow, and invest your money in one place. If high interest credit card debt has been holding you back, SOFi could help you finally take control. With SOFI personal loans, you can consolidate your credit card debt into one low fixed monthly payment with no prepayment fees and no late fees. Funding is fast. You get $5,000 to $100,000 as soon as the same day you

sign or SOFI can even pay your credit cards directly. Terms apply. You can check your rate now with no impact to your credit score, no commitment. And SOFI has already helped members pay off over $33 billion in debt. So if you're ready to simplify your money game, head to SOFi.com slash NOU or click the link in the description. This is a paid advertisement. Loans originated by SOFi Bank and a member FDIC terms and conditions apply. Let's get back to the pod. I would say, and we'll get to Nick Price, the year of Nick Price, but Jose Maria had a fantastic year. Win the Masters, but this is a, this is a BDE, I think on the calendar in 1994, the NEC World Series of golf, at least purse-wise it is.

10-year exemption, baby. And this was like the second biggest tournament behind the players. So that was his second win. Scott Hoke misses a three foot, three-foot birdie putt on 17. That makes a three-foot birdie on 18 to lose by one. Quote here in the Akron Beacon Journal from Scott Hoke, quote, well, I better make this one on 18, or my wife is going to be upset. That will be some furniture she won't be able to get.

So it seems like he handled it in stride, but it sounds like my guys got some trouble with the shorties. I just clicked on this on this page. Which kind of shorties you met there with the furniture. Yeah, not his wife. I met the short butts. That's a throwback phrase. I haven't heard that one in a while.

Ola Fable also won this tournament in 1990 by 12 shots. Yeah. He shot 18 under at Firestone in 19. Um, Hale Irwin becomes the first man to have a hole and one on both the north and the south course of Firestone. I don't know if anybody's done that since, but that's sick, right? I feel like, put it in there. All right. Now, big news from the NEC. John Daly, the drama continues. This from the Florida Times Union, quote, John Daly, John Daly golf's longest hitter got into a fight with the father of another golfer over course etiquette after shooting 83. According to witnesses, the 28-year-old

Daly grabbed was grabbed from behind by Bob Roth, 62, after the two exchanged words near the entrance of the pro shop. Roth was upset because Daly twice had hit a ball into the group ahead of him at Firestone. Ross's son Jeffrey was in the two-sum ahead of Daly. The elder Roth and Daly fell to the ground, wrestled briefly, and were separated by the crowd. That's like afterwards. That's end quote. Afterwards, it says like the cop showed up.

Nobody wanted the press charges. The elder Roth said, said, just let it go. Got out of hand. Some real, like, junior golf shit. Yes. That sounds like a junior golf thing. This guy won't stop hitting into us. I think Bob Roth was a PGA professional.

I'm not sure if it was at Firestone, but, like, he was a known quantity in golf. Greg Norman's caddy, Andrew McGee, made the same accusation that Daley hit into his group earlier in the week. And this puts him back in the crosshairs with the PGA tour, Tim Finchum. So there's a lot of writers. It was like, you know, the commissioners heard about this. You know, he's, he's a value. whether it's conduct unbecoming um i didn't get a screws up virginia if he if he screws up yeah it's your ass yeah i didn't get a any closure on this sally i didn't like because i so i i'm not

sure if he got suspended for this or not uh but it just doesn't seem like it's going well for daily at this point just both shooting 83 and uh wrestling with bob roth uh you don't want to be wrestling you don't want to be wrestling with with your competitors father was another competitor's Yeah, that's just bad for everybody. That is kind of time coming. All right. Same week, big news in the golf world, not on the PGA tour, but a certain someone wins a U.S. amateur. 1994, Sawgrass, right?

Sawgrass. Tiger Woods wins at TPC Sawgrass. The 18-year-old Tiger Woods rallies from six down to win the U.S.M, kind of a lot of fireworks on 17. So he tracks down Trip Keeney with extreme prejudice in the 36th hole final. according to the Florida Times Union. Another one, kind of like the desert sun. A lot of good stuff coming out of the Florida Times. Yeah, I wonder if there's our guy Smitter.

Gary Smith. I don't have the author for this one. But, quote, Tiger took dead aim with wedge at number 17. He had a high, soft cut shot from 139 that hung delicately in a quartering right to left wind. The ball hopped on the sliver of land between the pin and the bulkhead,

clinging to the fringe, two feet from the water, 14 feet from the hole on the right side. What followed is something Wood says he'd doesn't remember being quote in the zone with a final par at 18 woods completed one of the great turnarounds in championship competition and what is believed to be the largest comeback in us am history end quote i i wanted to call out believed to be because dj i was thinking back like there's probably some u s mss stuff from like the early 1900s where c b mcdonald's like nah i i i

move my ball and i i actually won that tournament so i maybe because it was like why isn't why wouldn't he if this is the largest comeback ever. Well, it's just the power of like databases and computers and the fact that you can't. Yeah. Like, I don't know. Man, we have the final score here. I don't know how much the guy was up by. I mean, it's God.

I believe it's the best. Nobody in the press. That's what I can remember. Think of a longer one for sure. That's yeah. My guy down the way on press rose would do this 50 years. He said it's, he can't think of another one. Yeah.

Which even just trying to get research done for this time period. I like, I was so tempted to just call like like, like, hey, random sports writer. Do you remember why what Phil, the truth? trade show in 1994. Like there's no social, there's no like documentation of this stuff other than like people's memories. Like I called,

uh, I talked to bones on the phone for some of this. Like he, I forgot to mention this. When Jack and, uh, and Phil won the same week, the cover of golf world that week was the bear in the air.

Because this tiger thing hadn't started yet. It was golf world or whatever it was at that point. But that's a good. That was, that was, uh, like Phil was supposed to be the air to, to Jack.

And it was so fun being like at the tail. into golf week. My first job I ever had. And sitting around on Sunday evenings, like trying to think of those like big Sunday. Like, what's the headline? Like,

everybody's standing around trying to just throwing them out. Fucking ruled. That was really fun. So also worth noting, Tigers fit at this 94 USM is just legendary. Pink and white. Big blocks, stripes.

And he's got the quarter socks and the footjoys on and the straw hat. And he's just this pumping like, like 18, you know, youngest winner. of the USAM. I mean, just, just good stuff. I don't have a good, this is before my time.

You know, I'm at this point, four years old, three, four years old. So I need to get a little steeper on some of these, these back to back to back, Emanski, U.S. Ops from Tiger. Thank you for the proper use of the manscape. Yeah, there's three of those. All right, moving on to September, world events in September. Premier, Sally's favorite show Friends, September 22nd. Notorious BID releases his debut album,

ready to die and soli's favorite band Dave Matthews band puts out under the table and dreaming in theaters Shawshank redemption gets off to a slow start but uh becomes a you know a classic it does really well and then the river wild dege underrated yeah really maril streep Kevin bacon being a bad ombre i need to i might throw river wild up in in uh into a rewatch category you're gonna see who's your your guy sell you the cinephile gonna see if he was up on that one uh who was that hoke it was hoke it was hoke Yeah. All right. So September 4th, Greater Milwaukee Open. Mike Springer wins over Lauren Roberts. So he's having a good, a good season. Shoots minus 16, wins by one.

Sounds like Calquecaveccia gassed it for the second year in a row. The Greater Milwaukee Open seems like the one that got away from Mark. All right. So good article here from DJ. I put this in here for you. Good article by Mike Zubolsky in the Ozaki County newspaper. Ozaki. Yeah, yeah. Just north of Milwaukee up by Brown. Okay. So in the Ozaki County newspaper regarding the move to Brown Deer Park, quote, I entered the ropes surrounding the 18th green at Brown Deer Park two Sundays ago and spotted Tom Strong, the executive director of the Greater Milwaukee Open.

I made sure to shake his hand. Congratulations, Tom. I said, you pulled it off. He thanked me. This has more of a homey feel to it. He reflected. Strong managed to take a well-worn public golf course that nearly, that nearly no one had confidence in and not only brought it back to a condition sufficient for a PGA tour event, but at once gave the tournament a new flavor that will allow it to continue as a classy event in years to come.

So four months before the tournament, only nine holes were playable. And this was the first year at Brown Deer Park after a 21 year run at Tuckaway Country Club. Do you know Tuckaway? I do know it up there to the north, but I've never actually played it. Okay. So this again, quoting my guy, Sobolski, the tournament was able to exude a style while making it clear that unlike the stuffy attitude at Tuckaway, unlike the stuffy attitude Tuckerway left us with

this tournament would go out of its way to cultivate the average golf fan one set of signs showed us that the ones that nailed to the outside edges of each set of bleachers surrounding the 18th Creed they said public welcome this alone represented a shift in philosophy before only special passes

got somebody into the 18th hole bleachers so I bring this up one because you're you're fond of Brown Deer Park and so this was the first year at Brown Deer Park and then they played it there until the tournament went away. But it kind of feels like 94 was right in the cusp of PGA Tours still kind of, there was a good number of them that felt like local events.

They could almost, the organizer could almost run them like a county fair. And, you know, you didn't have to play at a course where you needed room for hospitality tents and stuff. So I just thought that was that, that piece there that I found kind of summed that up. Well,

well, you don't have to have lengthened golf courses at this point. And you haven't had to get rid of all the space where the people would be. right is and you're not you're not limited to a certain number of golf courses that don't even have a chance of being long enough in this and there was a there's a bunch of good quotes in there of like the players saying the course played hard you know it was like a good challenge

for them and so it goes on the guerdemaki open is hosted brown deer for the remaining 16 years of its existence yeah which is yeah as you're saying that I'm in my head I'm like okay well why are more tour events not at municipal golf courses I'm like well where are municipal golf courses are usually much more so centrally located in the city where they don't have room to expand and they don't have room to get longer and yeah like you said so it's kind of just before a lot of these places just become even more obsolete you know and it's yeah so again it kind of reinforces this being such a transitive 94 95 like a link between uh two eras so then we're moving on to the canadian open uh this is in mid-september nick price when it's the second canadian open at glenabby and

Oakville, my old hometown up there in Ontario, also won the Canadian Open in 1991, and this is his fifth win of the season. So after winning the last two majors, it's definitely the year of Nick Price. I mean, macro take guys, I don't know a ton about Nick Price, but watching that final round style, he's a stud. No hat. He's got a legendary shirt on, like just from a visually, like he's a strapping lad. Presence.

A presence, yes. Like he looks like a, you know, he played rugby. like he's from Zimbabwe. There's just a lot of like interesting stuff to him. Number one player in the world now at this point. So this was his year. Like we, I was eight in this time period and me a little young for this,

but I watched Nick Price in the 90s a lot like, like the pelts he would take. I mean, we would go out to the range and try to swing it like Nick Price did. Like he just was so him like, yes, for Parnavick was a big one, like a swing we always tried to emulate in some way. like Price was he was just I feel like he played a lot of European tour in this time period too without checking this I always felt like he was on when I'd wake up in the morning and there would be European tour golf on like I would be watching Nick Price somewhere yeah I would

I would encourage people you know if you if you're a weirdo like us to watch that final round on of the Canadian Open some great commercials a lot of Cadillac Oldsmobile uh some some retirement stuff I think from Prudential talking about little Johnny's planning for little Johnny's college um Some just some really weird commercials. It's good stuff. So this from Dej, don't know where the daily gleaner is,

but this is from the daily gleaner. Headline, ho-hum, the price is right. Quote, when the best player in the world hits the best shot of his life, no one else has a chance. That's just what happened at the Canadian Open, to the Canadian Open Field Sunday, when Nick Price smoked a 229 yard two iron

that set him up for a decisive eagle and one-shot victory. That was probably the best two-iron of my life, said price. Of course, I thought this was on 18 at Glen Abbey. Was it? It was on 16. And he has a tap in eagle there. And then he bogey 17 and just makes a ho-hum par on 18 to kind of cruise to victory.

So he took home $324,000 for the win. After the round, he highlighted the importance of national opens. I wanted to get this in here for T.C. Quote, those of us that play internationally know the value of winning national opens. And I really value with this, end quote. I thought that was just. It's just nice to point out.

After the Canadian Open, Price had won 16 of his previous 54 events since 1991 in the last two golf majors. Calcavecchi, again, runner up, and his quote of this saying, I told my wife, why does it have to be Nick Price again? He's clearly the best player in the world right now, so I guess that's why it's him. It just feels like a pretty defeated quote, which I caught my eye. Oh, and then this, Sali, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, more than 500 spectators and players use their cell phones to use a special automated banking machine set up by TD Bank and Bell Mobility.

How about that for an activation? Sure. You know? Wouldn't have... Bitcoin ATM. Yeah, wouldn't have pinned that that early. All right, moving on, BC Open. So this one is posted in Endicott, New York, which is truly Western New York, way west.

I believe they still play a Champions Tour event there. This is an opposite, kind of opposite field. This is during the President's Cup. So President's Cup's going on in Virginia this week. One by Mike Sullivan, wins by four over Jeff Sleuman. Sullivan overcame back problem. Shout out to Sali. I think he struggled with dad back his whole career.

First wins since 1989. Sullivan had an epic, according to the newspaper article, I read epic stretching routine, a la Cantlay. He had to warm up and stretch for like two hours before he played every round to fight off herniated discs and other back issues. So he was obviously fired up to when he didn't think he'd ever make that walk again, DJ. Hell yeah. I love it.

Comeback story. Just ahead of your guy, Lenny Clements, the career money list. What's he got? 2.3. Just ahead of David, Mr. Skins. Presidents' Cup, as we said, we have a whole episode about it. U.S. team wins it at Robert Trent Jones, 20 to 12 over the internationals. U.S. beat down on the first session, 5 and 0.

Start the day in Virginia. tone yeah just sweeping them uh all right we move on to the hardy's classic which is now the john deer classic in the quatt cities mark mcumber wins by one over kenny perry i believe this is ninth career wins second of the year solid he won earlier in the year correct from the associated plus this i thought this was a good uh um opening whistling until his mouth was too dry to pucker shout out the azinger chattering throughout the day with his caddy mark mccumber made sure he stayed calm and controlled sunday but cumber was able to play steady golf and win the Hardy's classic by one shot when Kenny Perry drove off the fairway on the final

hole and finished with a boge he got a little quick he got in the place that was good for me and bad for Kenny Perry said you hate to give one away you don't get in position to win too often to play the last hole so poorly hurts I feel like he almost made that that exact same quote at the 2009 masters which is which is tough jeez I think that I love the John Deere I love the quad cities the Hardy's classic is that's not a prestigious sounding event. I'm not going to, we're not doing that guys. Yeah, I don't think you want to win that one. People, some people ride for their burger, Dej.

It's fine. Yeah, yeah. Not me. It's not, it doesn't feel elevated, you know, but Sally, to your point about the Champions Tour, worth noting, I mean, full page, like, you know, just dwarfing the Hardy's classic. Isau Aoki was absolutely beating up the Champions Tour. He won back-to-back events here. And the week before this.

and then he wins the brickyard crossing, or wins the tournament at the brickyard crossing. I didn't even get the tournament name in the article. He played the full tournament without a boge. So I dug into Aoki a little bit. First off, Dej is not related to Rocky or Steve. Benihana or the DJ. Aoki was the first Japanese player to win on the PGA tour,

1983 Hawaiian Open. Of course. He has 80 professional wins, including nine senior tour wins to go along with one PGA tour win that Hawaiian Open. One Euro tour win. and 51 Japanese tour wins. And he finished second to Jack the 1980 U.S. Open.

He also won the Japanese senior tour in 2007, shooting his age 65 in route to victory. Have you ever seen him? No. But I saw some videos of like his putting practice or something on YouTube. I didn't click on it. Oh my God. It's unlike anything you would have ever.

Have you ever seen a Dij? I don't know if I have. Oh, my. It's, he like, it's hard to describe how low he holds his hands. and how high the toe stands up with the old bullseye putter and he just like stabs at it. It was, I mean, it's horrific.

Like, it's hard to describe what it actually looks like. Well, let's see if there's anything on YouTube. The big, there is. The big homie was, was, had some longevity. It's a worth a shout out. All right, moving on to October. World events. We have Pulp Fiction, Dege, Quentin Tarantino's movie released on October 14th.

There was a cult tragedy in Switzerland on October 5th. The world was shocked by a mass murder. suicide of 48 members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult in two Swiss villages. A story that dominated international headlines for weeks. I did use my friend Claude for help on this one. I wasn't familiar with the Order of the Solar Temple. No, I'll be digging into them. Corn's debut album.

Follow the leader. Corn. Oh, no. Follow the leader's second one. No, that was her second one. Corn, it was self-titled debut album, which was widely credited with the launch of new metal as a genre. The F-Bomb interview?

this show is my age. I'm not familiar with this, but one of the most famous moments in late night TV occurred when Madonna appeared on the late show with David Letterman. Her swear heavy confrontational interview became an instant piece

of television lore. Then the World Series that wasn't first time in 90 years, there was no World Series. And then, guys, I didn't realize the NHL had a lockout going on too. So tough scenes in the sports world in October of 94.

So we've got the Buick Southern Open. Elk wins after the fourth and final round was canceled due to lack of hustle. Just kidding. Due to lack of rain at Mountain View Golf Course. This tournament's played at Calloway Gardens Resort. I've heard it. It's in Pine Mountain, which is such a random part of Georgia. On the border with Alabama, about halfway up the state, like in between Atlanta and Columbus,

I've never been there. I had no idea this tournament existed. Now I kind of want to go check out Pine Mountain, but I kind of feel, again, it's my people in Georgia are going to be like, there's no way you're from here. So it's funny you were calling out crowds, Sully. The tournament was like, like fired up. There were like the, there were 12,000 people on site before the rain out and 20K were expected that Sunday. The tournament director was quoted as being thrilled with this turnout.

And I was like, okay, so I guess it's truly a silly season event. I mean, this is part of the reason why I'm a huge golf fan. It was just like golf events in the 90s, like the Memorial Tournament was just a massive deal. Like my family come in from out of town. come stay at our house just to go to the golf tournament and there were just tons of people there if you weren't there what the hell were you doing like there just wasn't the distractions in this time period like people just freaking love going to outdoor sporting events and yeah like there's more people like in all of these tournaments that like come to the players now i would say like the players is

well attended event but it's not like a bum rush of people and yeah just some of these attendance numbers were just kind of mind-blowing honestly all right we'll move on walter's Disney Oldsmobile classic. Rick Fear gets it done. Unfinished business from the Sprint internationally gets it done over Fuzzy Zeller to win by two. Fuzzy again, bridesmaid. Fun story from Chris Smith in the Florida Times Union. Rick Fier was all dressed up with no place to go. He gave his wife Terry the car to take their young kids to the Magic Kingdom. The courtesy ride to the course forgot about him and he arrived 15 minutes before his tea time. This is a quote from Rick. I was wondering if this was another chance down the drain.

I was running in and out of the condo making calls. There was a lot of anxiety. I started praying. I handled that type of situation with prayer. I knew it wasn't a conspiracy to keep me from playing well. Going from prayer to consider like, I knew it wasn't a conspiracy. Just got that caught me off guard.

So I had to had to put this one in. So what happened? Like nobody came to back to pick him. Like they took the wife. He gave us wife the car. I don't know if he like scheduled a courtesy card. They just didn't show up. And so and you know, you got to think this is back.

and might be a little harder to get in touch with the driver. Or not Uber's running around. So he gets there. He's the article goes on to say he was able to hit like 15 balls to warm up. And he and his caddy were like, this could be a good story. He's almost like it freed me up a little bit to go out and play well. That was that US Open local qualifier or what were you guys doing where you get hit,

you hit all that. Oh yeah. Oh my God. That was me as a caddy though. I was. All it was. You were stressed. Yeah.

And then the US also lost. Dunhill Cup to Canada at St. Andrews this week. So it sounds like Tom Cite and Fred couples gassed it for the U.S. down the stretch. I didn't realize that Dunhill was like a Nash, like it seemed like it was a bracket style like country versus country situation. I didn't have time to dig any deeper, but that caught my eye. And then Corey Pavin won the Tokai classic in Miyoshi Japan. He won $198,000 of a $1 million purse. God, something tells me you guys just aren't going to be able to name a lot of the Canadian players on that winning team. No, I'm not.

I did not put that in my notes, Dege. Rick Gibson, Ray Stewart, and Dave Barr. There you go. Not familiar with their game. Congratulations. Belated congratulations on the victory. So Texas opens, following week, Bob Estes wins, wire to wire at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio becomes the 10th first time winner of the season, another theme of or kind of

continuing the theme of the year, and joins Greg Norman and Mike Springer as the third wire-to-wire winner. Go on to become a prolific tweeter later. Yeah. Also, Ernie L.'s vanquished Monty in the World Match Play Championship in England. 25-year-old and U.S. Open winner won the biggest paycheck to date, which was the biggest paycheck in Europe to date, $240,000. after getting this dub.

Monty was quoted as saying he has a very, very old head on his young shoulders, and everyone that's played him and been beaten by him has said the same. There was a lot of quotes this week of like Els is the future. The olds were viving with just

like his mindset. And he's, I mean, think about it. Like big dude probably felt like he's, it might be unstoppable moving forward. God, you got to think Ernie Is it, we think it's fair to say, like under, you know, under realize his career? Four majors is a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. He traveled the world too. Like, he just didn't just beat up the PGA tour. Like, I, I wouldn't quite say. Yeah. Also, I mean, I didn't want to talk out of school there. That's why I don't.

I mean, he's like a-com. Tiger Hoover. Tiger hovered up a lot of wins and majors during that stretch as well. But some quotes from L's in that same piece of just like, I'm taking it one week at a time. He just sounds really. mature and like really, you know, like got a bright future ahead of them. So it's cool to go back and read this stuff and see that written, you know, with nobody knowing what his career looks like. Yeah, I mean, you know, Mickelson's putt in 2004, you know, otherwise he's heading to a

playoff for a master's. He finished second to Vijay at the Masters in 2000. finished second at the 2004 Open Championship as well, finished T2 at the Open in 1996, like a lot of close calls. He finished second to Tiger twice in the Tiger slam as well. Like, you know, he could have had a Fouto-like major championship record in a slightly different era very, very, very easily.

The, our favorite, the day of golf points, kind of like the career war sort of equivalent for golf. Ernie is fifth on that list. I think it's. Okay. Okay. Well, worth, worth the discussion, though, I think. And this is kind of the beginning of it. 23 top fives in majors, including 15 top three finishes. It's just, it's a lot of good golf. This Dunhill Cup's kind of sick, Neil. I might need to dump. I know. I kind of was pressed for time. I was like, I shouldn't go down this rabbit hole because I hadn't got. I hadn't got the main event.

So many off ramps. It's, it's so fun. Team Australia. Steve Elkington, Robert Allenby, Greg Norman. Team USA. Curtis, River G.C. Texas Open or sorry, the that Waltz Disney World Oldsmobile classic was definitely the alternate field event.

All right. Las Vegas Invitational at TPC Summerland. From Bob Green in the Palm Springs Desert Sun, veteran Bruce Litsky. Bruce Litsky. Bruce Litsky. Turnback Golf's new breed at TPC Summerland with one magnificent swing of

club extended his season and possibly his career this will take me right up to retirement he said on sunday after a one-stroke victory beat robert gammes phil mickleson and jim furrick to earn a spot the tour championship this is 13th victory in 20 year career this quote dege i was like oh my god i almost had to i almost fainted after this i thought you and randy would love it uh the win came as a surprise to the man who plays the tour to meet his own specifications he averages about 18 tournaments a year and frequently as he did this year he skips all the majors i usually play all my good golf in the spring. I just take the summer off and then I come back in the fall, even though I don't have a ton of enthusiasm.

Complete. Yeah. Complete legend. Our friend Steve Peace out of Aaron Hills, massive Bruce Litsky guy. I think he was the, I think he was the guy, if I hope I'm remembering this right, that his caddy going into the off season, like last tournament of the year or whatever, his catty would put bananas in his golf bag. And then when he showed up at the next event, he'd see if the bananas were still there just to see whether he was practicing or not. and frequently like they would still be there because he just wouldn't hit balls just hanged with the family just out yeah he just hang out just just take the summer all even yeah I just take I just majors are not for me yeah I'm all set thanks guys great big guys to the tour championship

deep dive candidate too tour championship was interesting so mark mccumber wins over uh Phil Nicholson well theme of the year oh fuzzy zeller in a playoffice in a playoff at the Olympic club in San Francisco. See, guys, we can move the tour championship around. We can do this. We can rethink the tour championship. Zeller took the playoff loss in his usual stride, enjoying a vocatonic afterward in the interview room,

which I thought was a nice little clip there. It's McCumber's 10th career win. Purs is 3 million, which from my research is the biggest of the year. Another kind of the darling of the media this week was Brad Bryant, a.k.a. Dr. Dirt had a strong showing according to the Sacramento B. He played 20 years

and 475 events without a win. And though he didn't get one here, he was in the hunt. I think he was in the lead at Friday or Saturday. He did go on to finally get a win at the 95 Walt Disney World Oldsmobile Classic. And the media was just eating it up when Dr. Dirt was in the mix.

Sounds like kind of a tin cup character. Armourillo, Texas, like, just digging it out of the dirt. So good stuff here. He was a lot. I kept thinking, like, is that typos? Is it Bart Bryant? But no, there's a Brad Bryant. It's a Brad, Brad Bryant, Dr. Dirt. Later, there's a Bart Bryant that, uh, that one wins the memorial. Like out of nowhere in the 2000s, but yeah. Uh, all right. So another, uh, highlight. Greg Norman had a hole in one, uh, quote, Greg Norman's final round challenge never materialized, but the shark made a bunch of new friends this week. He invited everyone who witnessed his hole in one on Saturday to drinks.

and the bar bill was $18,513.60. I wonder he also. Yeah, he also wore a skeleton Halloween mask as he walked up the 18th and attempted his birdie putt with it on. It doesn't say if he made the birdie putt, I'm assuming he didn't. Okay, so I'll skip over. Let's get to the kind of the most significant event.

Well, first, world events, of course, we have to hit those. DJ Republican Revolution, the GOP one control, both the U.S. House, of Representatives and the Senate the first time in 40 years. Your boy, Newt Gingrich, is the architect of this. Sure. And the contract with America is signed. Yeah.

Tough one here for you as well. Your guy up in Wisconsin, Jeffrey Dalmerd dies. He's killed in prison. Tupac gets shot and allegedly killed November 30th, but, you know, albums continue to come out. Yeah, conflicting information. Vegas. Shout out to Mark Cuban, the first internet radio on November 7th, WXYC, The student radio station at UNC Chapel Hill provides the first internet radio broadcast, major leap for digital media.

And then the birth of Amazon. Yeah. So the domain Amazon.com was officially registered. But the business isn't started until the following summer. Okay, Shark Shootout. This is where it all goes down, Sally. Help me. I believe I have the kind of overview here right.

But the World Tour was formally announced at Sherwood Country Club during Greg Norman's hosted Shark Shootout. In advance of the Shark Shootout, Greg Norman called a closed-door players meeting, during the shark shootout. The details. $25 million series of eight tournaments would feature fields limited to the top 30 players in the world plus 10 sponsor selections. Each purse would be $3 million, which was the size of the Tour Championship purse. And the winner would get $800K. The tournaments would be broadcast on Fox.

So Norman and Rupert and there's this other guy. What's his John Montgomery, the executive director of the World Golf Tour. Those three were in cahoots. Quotes from Norman at the Thursday press conference after the players meetings. If you are the best at what you do, you deserve your just reward. So from the kind of initial reporting on this, it's right from the start, it's kind of established that Norman has rushed the announcement. And according to the Ventura County star, there was speculation that the announcement by Norman

and New War of Golf Tour executive John Montgomery was made hastily because of competition between parties wanting to be the first to launch a world golf tour. So it sounds like maybe a premier golf league situation. People sniffing around on this idea. So Norman wants to get it out the door quick. This rush secretive meeting made players feel like the announcement and the tour was forced upon them. Some good quotes in here surrounding the announcement from players at the shark

shootout, Faxon, Brad Faxon, who's on the policy board at the time. Quote, no way our guys are going out there and to play that tour without the sanctioning of our tour. I don't know why they're being so secretive. It sounds like greed. It sounds like a quick financial ploy to make a buck for a private guy. I believe that being Mr. Rupert Murdoch. Sounds familiar to what we heard, you know, two, three, four years ago.

Back to it again. So much money for Yasser. That's what they're doing. Or no, here's one from Fred couples. Greg sees the world tour as an idea 30 years overdue. The rest of us don't quite see it that way. Our tour is the PGA tour. And then here's another one from facts.

And at the meeting, guys were saying that this has to be done. through the sanctioning bodies of the tours or it's not going to work. That's what Arnold Palmer said. Now, when Arnold Palmer talks, people listen, I sure do. I don't know if Greg does. Funny enough, facts and couples went on to win the shark shootout. So then back to our guy, Larry Bohanan, our hitter for the Desert Sun, the New World Golf Tour, the quote, or the headline of this article, New World Golf Tour is no laughing matter

for the PGA. Quote, it's a good thing. The PGA tour commissioner, Tim Fincham, is a lawyer. between the ongoing FTC investigation, the new threat of Fox Network's World Golf Tour, Fincham and the PGA Tour, look like they will be spending plenty of time exploring the system, the American system, sorry, the American justice system over the next year or so. The new tour is a serious problem for the existing tour, not just in its threat to pull away the PGA Tour's best players, but also in how the PGA Tour's response will be judged by the FTC regarding restraint of trade. The FTC wants to know why a tour member

must play 15 events to keep their membership or be limited to no more than eight events as a non-member many international players would like to know that too so like reading this it sounds like again it becomes on us versus them the u.s guys are kind of like i'm good man like this is why are you surprised me with this and then norman's out there in the press conference saying like no i talk to sevi i talked to jose like they're all in you know so he's kind of like front running and a lot of these guys hadn't committed yet, but he's acting like they have. And I was trying to think like, all right,

where are the similarities and differences with the, with, with, with, with, with, the biggest difference here is he had the, he had Fox Network.

They had the TV deal. What they didn't have were like locations. They didn't know when they were going to play these tournaments. So there's no schedule yet. But like he had the money and he had, what lived has never really had. They had the broadcast partner. And that's kind of what really put Finch him in a tough spot.

So Finch had in a statement in November later that month, if these proposed world golf events are staged in 1995, the tour will fulfill its long-term agreements with television networks and sponsors, and we will enforce our television release and conflicting event regulations. Simply put, PGA tour members won't get permission to play in any world golf events that conflict with PGA tour events. So he gives himself an out with like conflicts. You know, we have the right if it conflicts with tournaments on our calendar. And you can see up to this point,

all these like releases are for tournaments in the silly season or therefore it seems like they're a little bit more liberal with the champions tour guys for skins games if they're during the you know kind of meat of golf season but um i'll stop there any any reaction to that stuff for you guys i hope i set the stage pretty well here i think what sticks out to me uh besides what you already said is uh maybe a tangent but i just think it's very interesting when you think about tim finchum you also and and kind of like career legacy it's like well he's also the guy that made the wrap around season, right? And the guy that kind of made the PJ tour season that never stopped. And when you read, when you read it like that, it's like, well, what if there was a

conflicting event every week? And because that's kind of always the thing you hear from the tour, from kind of people close to it or insiders or whatever is, you know, this idea of like, oh, we should just have scarcity. Make the PJ tour go away, you know, take a big off season. It's like, what do you think's going to happen if we do that? You know, that's where these other tours are going to pop up is if you give them a big block of four or five months. Gotta keep them busy. And so I think about that a little bit. I'm like, I see why I finch him, you know, I see some of the allure of this

wraparound season and just golf every week. So what about what about you? And you also truly can't keep everybody happy like that if you, you know, we're tired. We're playing too many events. Why is the event season this long? Well, you would go play somewhere else if we didn't do all this. Like it's, it's just a whack-a-mole, a constant whack-a-mole thing. So it seems like in my reaction to this is like,

Norman was on to something. One, a lot of guys didn't like Norman. So, and he rushes, he rushes it. So he kind of, but he, his timing was good because he did back finch him into a bit of a corner with the FTC stuff. So there's just a lot of kind of gamesmanship going on where it's like it put a ton of pressure on the new commish. And that all starts to play out. It doesn't play out in 94. It starts to play out in 95.

And I think we'll get there in the future. Yeah, I think it, another thing, too, is just like, the the I guess like the the maintenance of the marketability of the top guys on the senior tour had to stick out a little bit to Norman as well to be like I don't need to like wait till I'm 50 to like cash in on the fact that all of the marketing power of the golfers comes from the top tier of players like what if we just carved out some events that were you know outside of the PJ Tour's just like you can see the like it's still the same like we're going to get WGR points like no you're fucking not like this there's clearly an issue that's going to happen here this is

not going to be easy this is no one's going to roll over for you you are being the problem child here you are acting outside of the pGA tour you don't even have the support of these players that are allegedly going to be in this tournament like sounds pretty half-assed to me which again reminds me yeah but what comes the devil's advocate picture that the pGA tour i don't want to say it doesn't exist but like instead of playing and like the hardy's open and it's like well he he's You know, Norman's coming at this from, he's got all these international guys that are like, man, we only play together during the majors because they're all playing on the Euro tour. So he's like, why does this spawn? What comes next is the WGCs?

Like, yeah, but that's done within the PGA, like the only way this, like, but in facts and say, like, the only way this is going to work is if it's through the PGA tour. Like, I know, but I guess my point would be the PGA tour has proven that they will not make changes unless they are forced to. Right? So like, does the WGC stuff happen? Like, it technically, in theory is a good idea. to have all the best golfers in the world playing together more often. That is kind of, if you're just boiling it down to the thesis of the concept, take the, you know, the ego maniacs trying to get it done out of the equation. It's like that is a good thing. And it's just like, then the PJ Torb still has to like kind of middle it because

they've got all of this like DG you said, just like this, you know, a rector set that they have to work around. but if you could start from scratch like you know that's a it's a compelling argument and this is the first time we're seeing it and and we're living it now well that's what i was going to say the other thing that sticks out is solid you're exactly right like what comes next to the wc's i mean what's come from our current iteration of this like signature events you know it's just is like it's it's very much the same answers to the same problems yeah it's just very funny to me two hours and 40 minutes in we've learned that time is a flat circle.

Yes, exactly right. All right. Just to round us out here, I've got just money list. So where did we finish the year? So, oh, sorry, there are a couple events I skipped over. November 6th, the Lincoln Mercury Coppalu a classic. At the Bay course, Fred Couples wins this one. It's a million dollar purse.

PGA grand slam of golf in Hawaii as well. Greg Norman wins this limited field event, a million dollar purse. World Cup of golf. Fred Couples and Davis Love in Puerto Rico And World World Cup Oh, the team event, the team event And then the World Cup golf individual trophy

So I guess they award two there And then Fred couples kind of cleaned up at the end of 1994 he's winning all these He's did this every year Sounds like you won like $2 million. Shark Shootout, he wins with Brad Faxon. Skins game Tom Watson wins J.C. Penny Classic I didn't dig into that one, but Brad

Bryant wins that one. And Marta Figueroz Dottie, so I believe that was a men's and women's event. And then the diners club matches. Don't know much about this one. Jeff Maggard and Jim McGovern take home 890K. Good for them. All right. Money list. Who's number one, gentlemen? Nick Price. Nick Price. Nick Price. Number two. God, didn't we? I know you. Mark McCumber? That's a good one. He's three. Dregg Norman is number two. Norman. And then Tom Lehman wins a million. 31,000 Fuzzy Zeller 1.1 or 1,1, 1,1,16,000. Lorne Roberts, just over a million.

Jose Maria, 9,969,000. Then he got Corey Pavin, Jeff Maggard, and Hale Irwin, old guy, 10th on the money list in 1994. How about awards, PGA Tour Player of the Year, the Jack Nicholas Trophy? Who gets it? Nick Price. I hope it's Nick Price. Nick Price, PGA Tour Player of the Year. Nick Price, rookie of the year.

Oh, who did you say shit? Is it, is it Henneger? No. Oh, God. It's an easy one. Yeah, you said. Can't remember. Furek?

No, it's Ernie L. That's, yes. So think about that. You got, you got 24-year-old Phil Mickelson, 24-year-old Furek, and I think, I don't think Ernie might have been, I guess he's 25, 25 was in my notes. So the new the next generation's coming, but they're not here yet.

I think 94 was a good year to pick. I really don't think 93 would have brought us any more drama than the 94 brought us. Scoring leader. It's Greg Norman. It's the Byron Nelson Award scoring leader for the PGA. Barden Trophy is Greg Norman and comeback player of the year. Fred couples. No, this kind of blew me away.

He's like, oh, we haven't heard. We haven't said his name once. Halimony. Just really? Oh, Halimony. Yeah. Sure. He was in a playout.

I said his name in a playoff earlier. That was about it. But yeah. And he shows up in the Canadian Open, but he didn't, he wasn't, you know, wasn't like he was pressing Nick Price down the stretch. So that's all I got. Man, it's fantastic stuff. It was a ride. Well, what, you, that, let me ask you, Dee, was it fantastic stuff as the, as the list.

I love it. I love it. I think, uh, it's very fun to hear. It's very fun to just see. very fun to just see for someone like me who follows the PJ tour very, very closely, like how the schedules changed, what used to be at what times and why and what events were popular and which ones weren't. And yeah, I find this almost not, it's different than the majors ones. I really like the majors ones as well, but those, you know, you tend to dropping in. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this,

you can kind of see the themes develop. And yeah, I think this was a good year to start with. I love it. So 95, it starts, it starts quite fun as well because world tour stuff still going. And then we're going to roll right into Tiger stuff. So assuming people like this, I think we keep this gravy train rolling because this is, it takes so much time, but it's like the fast. I'll do this from 9 p.m. to midnight and not not even get up from my chair. Yeah, I know. I love the research stuff is right up my alley.

It's just like you. It's a lot. Got to carve out the time. Yeah. So. All right. thank you guys for all of this thank you everyone for tuning in we'll be back on the no laying up podcast every sunday every tuesdayish around then uh and we'll hopefully do another one of these in the

future it's a lot of fun cheers