No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1122: Jacob Bridgeman wins the Genesis & Jeeno Thitikul's big win at home

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

A wet week around Riviera and a big lead going into Sunday, Jacob Bridgeman beat out Kurt Kitayama and Rory McIlroy by 1 to win the 2026 Genesis Invitational. Plus Jeeno Thitikul wins her home event at the Honda LPGA Thailand. Join us as we break down the results across the world of golf, run down the leaderboard, news and notes, and more! Presented by Titleist. Support our sponsors: Titleist - and the new Vokey SM11 Wedges High Noon - Sun's Up! Arccos - NLU15 for 15% off at https://www.arccosgolf.com/ SoFi - Get Your Money Right at https://www.sofi.com/nlu Looking to travel this year, check out East Sands Golf Co.: https://www.eastsandsgolf.co/nlu Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: https://nolayingup.com/esf The NLU email newsletter: bi-monthly updates on all things NLU: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/subscribe Join The No Laying Up Nest: https://nolayingup.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. 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 live show presented by our friends at Titleist.

Solly here joined by my guy, Mr. DJ Pi. Happy Sunday, Pie, man. Happy Sunday to you, Sully. And a great Sunday, it was. A lot of sports. just got to watch a little hockey this morning. That was great for the US of A and some great golf to talk about from Riviera.

So good to be with you. I think my eyes are still not fully back to the white that they're supposed to be from the waterworks that were flowing this morning. T.C. is here. Even a guy like T.C. had to be caught up in that, in the emotion of that moment this morning. Oh, absolutely. I loved every minute of it.

And I think the Canadian tears have just been bathing and it was all afternoon too. So, you know, I guess they outplayed us. dominated us, but the scoreboard says otherwise, guys. It is super fun to just helicopter. If I actually followed hockey really closely, I would totally be that guy, but it's really fun to just be on the other side. I just didn't make the big shots, guys.

Didn't want it enough. Americans just made more goals. For more goals. Big third down here. Guys, we got a big show tonight. We're going to react to Jacob Bridgman's win at the Genesis. we got a lot of stuff from Riviera. We got some new T's, Scotty's week.

Rory's week, his start to the year as well. DJ's going to take us through some birdies and bogeys. We got all kinds of news and notes. We got an LPGA tour over in Thailand. We got the magical Kenya open, of course. Jacob Bridgman, of course, wins the Genesis. Casey Jarvis won the magical Kenya open. And Gino Titicoon wins again at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

I feel like AI just kind of like wrote that into the agenda here. That was a lot of complete. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty easy. one. But again, the Knowing Up Live show is presented by our friends at Titleist. The new SM11 wedges officially landed in golf shops this past Friday. Just do yourself a favor and go get fit.

All you got to do is look at the bottom of the club. And when you see all those numbers on there, and if you don't know exactly what those numbers mean, you need to get fit. Even if you do know what those numbers mean, like you need to get fit. There's like, I'm going to make this number up like 278 different combinations of wedges that you could have. Just let somebody else make the decision for you. Like it's going to give you cleaner contact with the ball.

it's going to help you lock in your launch window, deliver the right amount of spin from any lie. It kind of just dawned on me when I put the, I immediately subbed in the SM11s, didn't even think about it, like two rounds in. I totally forgot that I had new wedges. I know exactly what to expect out of them

when I use the 58 out of the bunker, when I use the 54 out of the bunker that has a different grind, different loft to it. It's really, really simple and easy transition. So I would highly recommend it. And that 58 is really, was carving through the bunkers, really well out there at Pebble Beach.

So don't do not try to go out of yourself. Work are they professional to find the right wedge for you. Go to tidalus.com to find a fitting near you. Again, go to tidalus.com to find a fitting near you. Deidge, take us out to with the golf that we just watched

at Riviera. Absolutely. The bridgeman, Jacob, Bridgman, took a six shot lead into the final round after going 66, 64, in the opening 54 holes, believe that Hyde Joaquin Neiman's tournament record. Worth mentioning, I think on Saturday, Jeff Shackleford in the quadrilateral,

had a lot of good stats. Basically calling it yesterday that, like, Bridgman's golf on 10 through 12, like, that's it. It won him the tournament. And with what ended up being a one-shot cushion, it's kind of hard to argue that fact that Shackleford had yesterday. He went 3-333 on 10-11 and 12. Roy McElroy, on the other hand, went 5-4-4-4-shot difference.

Bridgman wins by one. Spoiler alert. Bridget was the only player to Eagle 11 on Saturday as well nearly made an albatross don't know if you guys saw that one a little floaty seven wood in there that like truly unlucky it didn't go in it felt like it had Bertie Eagle looks T.C. love this one 12 times inside 12 feet on Saturday that is a hell of a stat yeah the CBS stats team was cooking I think they fed that one to Trevor

and I was like 12 I mean that was he had more with birdie looks inside of 12 feet than he many hit fairways. He did not drive it well. We can talk about that. But that put Bridgman in position. He had a chance to break the Lanny Watkins scoring record at this tournament, which is 20 under par. I say that because I love this stat.

It's the oldest 72 whole tournament record on tour right now. Dates back to 1985. Love stats like that. The oldest scoring record on tour. Did not fall. Another spoiler alert. But not easy for our guy Bridgman on Sunday. His lead got as big as seven.

got as small as one, as we mentioned. He was only up by one as he teed off on 17 after making bogey on 16, a good bogey, to be honest, on 16. Another long par saver on what was that 13, where he gassed that one passed. A couple nerve, nervy puts, none more nervy than the one on 18 that he, I don't know if he chunked the putt or what. He had some great, great comments with Amanda after the round about how nervous he was, couldn't feel his hands, barely got the put about halfway there.

after a great approach shot, a great T shot and a great approach shot into 18 and makes probably what, a four and a half footer to three feet five inches. It looked longer. And we've seen shorter putts than that. Max Homa, if you remember, missed it, you know, to go into a playoff. We've seen that before on that, on that green. So he, uh, he did close it out. He did make that putt and he ended up winning by one over Rory McElroy and Kurt Kittiyama.

TC, I got a lot to say on Bridgman. I think there's a very pro-Bridgeman trio we've got today. But you correct me if I'm wrong. No, yeah, nothing to correct there. I've been calling him John Robling all day. You know, noted, noted bridgeman. Sally and I had the opportunity to play with him in November at the RSM program up at Sea Island. And we both walked away from that thinking, like, that guy doesn't have any weaknesses.

like he's just he's going to be a 20 year pro out on tour and he does everything well he's got a great head on his shoulders gw his caddy's the man um he's cadd for some for some dudes in the past steve marino matt every chris kirk um but yeah it was you know it was cool to see him come back after the beach fiasco last week at pebble beach um literally on uh pebble beach but uh i think just like i watched his entire round saturday and Sunday and watching him, like even Saturday on 18, he hit it to, I don't know, eight to 10 feet, like really, really great, you know, approach shot in there, missed the putt, but even the putts that he wasn't dripping in still looked good. Like all those worm cam angles that they had on the, on the greens this week were,

they were horrifying me. Like, I'm not going to sleep for three or four nights after seeing the poana, just wiggling those things back and forth with no discernible rhyme or reason to how putts should have been breaking in spots. And for him to putt as well as he did, the last few holes, probably notwithstanding,

was just absolutely remarkable. And he was so steady the whole time. Like, I don't know, he just seems like, Doddy or Doddy or somebody on the broadcast had a really good comp. They said that he reminded them of Lucas Glover. Yeah. And I think that's a great comp. Just kind of steady, confident, but not cocky, get the work done, accomplish something without telling everybody that you're accomplishing it.

And that was, to bring it back to November, like, that was kind of the story of the day. Like, it's just incremental improvement. Like, he won three state championships in high school. And then didn't really play all that well at Clemson, his first year or two, he said. And he kind of had to, like, relearn how to play golf and, and kind of, kind of. of build a swing. And so just, yeah, just an impressive, impressive young man. He's, he's not exciting. Like, he's not going to, you know, this isn't a game changer from a talent perspective. He's not a game changer from an excitement standpoint, but he's just a really, really, really,

really solid golfer and a really, really, really solid kid. And I'm really thankful we got to play with him. I think it did help our perspective on this. I think he can, you know, a guy like Bridgman can be almost kind of replacement level for a lot of fans. But it is that, you know, we've been fortunate enough TC to play with a fair amount of pros over the years. And there is like a, I go back to last week's pod talking about playing with Mav and Russell Henley of like, you notice the top 50 player versus the top 100 player really quickly, really easily. And that was definitely a takeaway we had at that time.

And Sally, I think also just like him, like him talking through his wedges. Like he seemed wise beyond his years. I was just going to say that. I asked him a question about like, all right, it was the second hole in the seaside course and he hit some kind of a lob wedge in from like 65 yards. And I wish I'd commit his answer to memory better. But I was like, how do you hit a ball 65 yards? Just expecting it to be like, well, no, just feel it out.

I'm a top 50 player in the world, man. It's not that hard. And he had like a really descriptive answer of a system he uses about creating miles an hour and where he chokes it on the club. And I can't even summarize it. But it was just like a, again, talking about what I was talking about last week of the level of calculation these guys are doing that you can't, you won't ever see or we won't ever really understand as viewers is really, really mind-boggling.

And to just, you know, get that answer of like one of the only detailed questions I asked him all. He could probably give me a detailed answer on his driver and why he shapes it the way he does and all that stuff. But just really, really, really talented. And I'm really happy for him. Six-shot lead going to the final round is enough that, like, I don't really care who you are. I ain't rooting for anybody to blow that lead. I was rooting for some excitement. We got that.

But I definitely wanted him to win this one. Well, it's just impressive, too, from the fact that, like, he, he made the, he made the tour championship as a rookie. Like that, without winning. Dude, that is so wildly impressive this day and age with the, you know, all the signature events and, and what everybody says is a closed system. It seemed to go fine for Jacob Bridgman. Well, that's the narrative going around now. He, you know, he qualified out of, like, the spot 113, which wouldn't be qualifying now. and all that's like no he just played

he just shot low scores even if you wouldn't have qualified right then he has the game to continue to shoot low scores and you get opportunities and you get to go beat the best players in the world that's how it may not be the exact same timeline but like he just like he played corn fairy tour he played Latino Ameri like he just he just

played well at every level and succeeded and earned his way on that's what I was going to say he was a stud in college they talked about that a lot of the broadcast winning a lot of Clemson made it right through the corn fairy tour after PJ Tour You, I think he was number two and in PJ Tour you made it right through the Corn Fairy Tour, which I almost think is

in a way makes today even more impressive when you think about it because what they say this was like his 67th start or 66th start or something like that on the PJ Tour and when you couple that few PJ Tour starts with that few Corn Fairy Tour starts, I'm like, man, that's not a lot of opportunity to go win a bunch, you know? And then I said this last week, but I think it bears repeating because he played great last week too guys like this who were just like man this guy's not exciting this guy's boring

this guy like they kind of don't have the chance to be that guy under the current system they don't really have the chance to be that guy unless they do what he did this week at Riviera because he's not playing a lot of 3M's John Deere's you know whatever anymore it's

it's the Memorial big tone he's playing too many good events that's why he's not winning take which which makes sense for this one doesn't make sense for big tone for reasons we don't have time to explain but uh that that was my my big takeaway uh for him is like listen man what about what we just watched this week and last week and the week before that like look at this guy over the last year what's telling you that he's not going to be on american rider cup and presidents cup team what's telling you that he's not going to

contend it majors what's like i'm i'm not doing the project how high the ceiling is stuff but like the floor looks pretty freaking high. And that is, like, that is exciting. In a weird way, I'm almost like the Lucas Glover comp is great, but I,

like the head room ceiling, I don't even mean this literally as far as like his game, but it's like, Xander's pretty boring until he started winning a bunch, you know, he was kind of a, he wasn't Jordan Speeth coming out of school. He wasn't,

you know, the current comps of like Blades Brown, Miles Russell, Akshay, some of the like, he wasn't the super sexy, exciting guy, but,

you know, eventually you get enough opportunities and you keep like, man, now he's won twice, now he's won three times. Now he's contented in this. And eventually you become the interesting guy. And I just, I don't know, I've really enjoyed my little mini Jacob Bridgman arc really since you guys played with him in that pro-am and you're like, watch this guy. I was like, all right, great. And once I have been and I had a reason to kind of pay attention, I'd be like, man, this guy is really freaking good. And it just paid off way faster than I thought it would. Well, and if I remember this right DC. I hope this was him that says this. It almost

certainly makes sense from a timeline perspective. They referenced he got married 65 days ago. Like he got married sometime around like mid-December, late December. He said that he scheduled it that week because he wasn't sure if he was going back to Q school or not. Like that was that was where he was, you know, when setting his

wedding date, obviously playing those things pretty far out in advance. And, you know, he makes the tour championship. It makes that part pretty easy. But that was the reason why they had the wedding date that it was. I know a lot of pro golfers get married the week after Q school, but just that was, I would remember to take it back on that. I'm like, man, I don't, I don't think you got to worry about that for quite some time. You win a signature event early in the

year. You're exempt for a long, long, long time. So here's all yeah. I just did a little bit of research here. He lost his singles match at the junior president's cup in 2017. All right. He's out. But he won. He and Akshay teamed up in afternoon foursums and won. They beat Lamprecht and Luca Filippi won up. And then in morning four ball. He also won as well. So, you know, just the, I think, I think he needs to be on your radar screen. Need I say more? Let me, let me hit you guys with a trivia question of the day here, if I can.

Data golf coming into this week, he's obviously going to rise now. But Data Golf top 50, I think he was like 43 or something coming into this week. In the data golf top 50, how many players are younger than Jacob Richmond? Ooh. I'm sorry, let me, let me rephrase that. How many Americans are young? younger than Jacob Richmond. And then we can do how many players if you want.

Like in the entire top 50? In the top 50, Data Golf top 50. Akshae, no. Probably four. I'd say it might be like two if you're asking. It's two. Akshay and Pearson Cootie by a month.

Other than that, it's like, man, he's younger than Goddard. He's younger than Ludwig. He's, you know, he's younger.

I mean, everybody's younger than Lutton. Artie, younger than Ryan Gerard. It's just, my point is like we might be in a gap also we need to talk about this at some point

like yes or or and this is going to be my thesis that I wanted to bring up how here's why I think I'm going so much in on Jacob Bridgman is I don't want to be old man yells at cloud just like my generation

was the only generate I'm like those guys are getting pretty old man the speiths and Ricky's and JT like once Ricky came on the pod at Pebble and said this is my 17th year I'm like all right dude I need to like saving private Ryan Giff, get a gold.

Yeah, man. I'm like, yo, we got a, we got to, uh, what else is coming here? And it's just a like, what, what I'm getting at is like, I know that this crop of guys is not as exciting. But in a way, I'm like, there's not much we could do about that, right? Like they're, they're still going to be here and they're going to play really good golf. And I almost am like trying to be more eyes wide open about who and what is kind of coming next and who to pay attention to. Because I don't want to, I don't want to be the old guy being. like there's Jacob Bridger, I've never fucking heard of that guy.

This wind doesn't count. It's like, no, that's a you problem. He's really good. He's really good. What's the gap you were talking about? Is there like a three year window of plumbers? No, just like American golf, just the opening. I mean, it's not a lot of dudes right now on the American side.

There's that one guy. An endangerment of dudes right now. Right? Dudes might be endangered. Scotty. How old Jake Knapp is? Jake Knapp's 31. I know.

They're all like so old. Young buck. Is he one of the best 10 Americans? Like golf? Like right now he, of course is. We're not doing a fedora five. We're not doing a fedora five this week. It's not going to be an update every week.

But like there's the, you know, Morikawa is a bad example because he just won. And I played ball this week. But like, his speech is not one of the dudes right now. JT's been hurt. Like, Cantlay's not one of the dudes right now. It's just a weird, you know, to DJ's point, I think we just need to recognize that it's open S-ZN right now.

Like we might have some more dudes. Is Goddra up one of them? Maybe we'll, it will explore this. A thousand percent of dude. I think he has to, he's cleaning up the mule events, T.C.

He hasn't missed the cut of the signature event this week. It was nowhere to be found at Pebble. Like, I can't trust him. I can't trust him at this point. So, you know, watch this space.

Yeah, there's, it's, I don't know. It's an interesting, interesting time. Cody kind of, thrown some anonymous digs in our private chat here that all the all the youngs have driver yips

i think maybe that's a reference to the the gordon sergeants and nick dumb laps of the world who should be filling this vacuum who i think we thought we're going to be filling this vacuum and are not quite there you know dudes dudes missing in action dm ia uh roy speaking of missing in action broie mackler how did he shoot 67 today it's seemed like he shot about 76. He did shoot 32 on the back nine. Bertie, the last two rolled in a bomb. They're on the last hole to make it interesting.

Thought he might get into a playoff there as Bridgman had the obviously the three and a half footer to win it. Are we early part of the year with Rory? Are you liking what you see and what does it foretell for the remainder of the season? It didn't look sharp today. It didn't look great. But obviously a runner up finish here at the Genesis. like I got it I've I've come a long way in the last three weeks I didn't like what he did to start the year over at the hero in Dubai thought he looked rusty thought he looked a little

little lost and now like usually Rory's game you see you see it there like it if you if he shows signs of it it usually the good stuff really comes lately or like really really soon after that I mean I think we saw some signs I don't know what they were signs of necessarily I could see TC kind of smirking about this as well as like we saw a lot of stuff You know, this one spring training. He's working on new pitches. Yeah, which was electric. He's got a new sweeper.

The Stinger driver was awesome. The shots he was hitting were or fantastical, you know? I thought the drug, the stinger was great. Yeah, when it was windy in the early part of the week, I was like, oh my God, Roy's got all the shots. Then he had a 25 apex driver on, on 13 today. I'm like, brother, it's three miles an hour of wind right now. like why do we need to do this?

I'm sure there's an excellent reason. And it's soft and soggy. Yeah. No, I mean, I think, I don't know. Like, he played alright at Pebble. It was kind of a useless round today from him. You know, birdied three of the par fives, but otherwise pretty quiet. But also, I don't know.

It's tough to put too much stock into this tournament this year just because I think it was so toothless. Like, it's got to be like, weirdly, I think. think Bridgman might have had an advantage this year of not having seen the golf course because there's no scar tissue there. And there's so many shots out there that you're not aiming at that flag or you're not trying to hit it the exact number that the pin is. You're taking so much off of it and running it in or using a slope here there. And everything this week was just pin your years back and try to dunk it really. And so, you know, I think like looking at Rory,

seems like his spin control has gotten so much better than it was two, three years ago. And I, like, you know, even on weeks like this where he's not at his A game, it's, you still see the progress, even versus last year. Like I, like, he just seems like such a more complete golfer. Now, whether it's the JT curse and he knows how to hit the right shots at the right moments, um, which I think JT stroke like like, like, you know, it's like JT like that's a blessing in a curse, right? he's got all these shots, but he doesn't know when to really deploy them. I think Rory, it seems like he's becoming a more complete golfer year after year after year now. And like, I don't know, I think it portends well for the next six months.

Yeah, I think, I mean, the headline, if we're just looking at the concrete stuff is like he just played against the, what, 70, 71 top players on tour and he lost one of them. Sure. That's good. He made three bogeys this week. That's good. I think if we're looking at Pebble, like I think T.C., I think he played better than okay at Pebble. I think he played really better, a lot better than his score looked, making a triple. And then he made a triple on four that was pretty inexplicable.

And then a couple doubles and just some really big numbers, like nasty golf in a small amount of holes. And so I kind of think he's right where he should be. I think it's kind of fun for the narrative of, you know, I saw a couple of people talking about this this week. of, you know, Jack never won at Riviera, Tiger never won at Riviera, Scotty hasn't won here, Rory hasn't won here. Like, I think that's kind of a fun, a little tiny element of this. But it's like, Rory's played twice over here, and I would say shown up and, you know, got some juice going at the very least on Sunday.

And I think he's trying new shots. He's keeping himself engaged. He's like, I think he's trending in a very good way as we come up to the big things. I'm saying any more teeth and Rive this week and Rory waltz is to victory, honestly. I mean, that's, that's maybe an unfair shot at Bridgman, who obviously played excellent all week. But that's the harder Rive gets, the more it becomes a, you know, the cream's going to rise over 72 holes. And we saw a version of Rive that that's not, that's not what we're about. Solly was so upset today.

Like Foxy was up there on the second page of the leaderboard, Min Woo Lee, Potkeeter. kiddie yama it's not what we're about i think rory if we're going to diagnose this week he just didn't put well on the weekend you didn't put well saturday he didn't put well sunday and you know it's yeah that's just it is what it is on screens i think kittyama won at bay hill he might be a proper player who knows kittyama's a i don't we were all i hope you know by me sharing we're all like an iron player man i'm uh i have no reason to root for or against kiddiama but i'm a little glad he didn't win because i don't know what to say is kind of how i feel about him just a larger sets.

I'm like, just he's really good, but not good enough to be like one of the dudes. He's, he's won. He's not a choker. He's not a closer. He's just kind of, just kind of one of the lowercase D dudes. You know, he's not a dude,

but he's just a dude. He can't really put. Yeah. He's just there. Yeah, I don't know anything about him. I've never heard a good or bad thing about him. I don't know anything about him. I just don't like watching him like off.

It's just impressive. He invokes no feeling out of me. Can we talk about the news of the week, guys. Can we do that in a second? Sure. Because I want to give a shout out to our friends. At high noon, no matter the forecast, live like the sun's always out with high noon.

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under the sun. Dej, you know you're doing your calorie tracker on your phone. High noon's got to fit the bill for all these being under 100 calories. What are you waiting for? Text your friends, make some plans and pick up a pack of high noon on the way. Visit high noonspirits.com to find high noon near you. High noon suns up. Dej, what's the story of the week? This could go so many different directions. The streak is over. Guys, the streak is I was weirdly invested today in the Scotty

Schaeffler top 10 streak, which now I believe we can we can put to a close at 18 top tens in a row. I think 19 if you want to count the Hero World Challenge TZ. I know you're a big Hero World Challenge guy. 50% of the field. Just I mean, Cody's put it up

on the screen there. Just maybe just take a glance at that. Since the player's championship of last year, so almost a year he has finished in the top 10 every fucking time he's teed it up. I don't, we talk about it every week. We talk about it all the time and we still don't talk about it enough. It is insane that he's been doing that.

I know we're going to talk about Thursday. I know we're going to talk about the case of, the curious case of what's going on with Scotty. But guys, he almost did it again. He was a dead last on Thursday. And he almost finished in the top 10. It almost missed the cut. Nobody misses the cut.

I didn't even know there was a cut. this week. It's just crazy. He beat Bridgman the final 54 holes. Yeah. Like one shot. So you know, opening around 74. The crazy part about that

that streak, Deges, I think there's like one T8 in there. The rest of I know. They're all in. T2s, T3s T4s. They're not even. He had what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine in a row were top fives, including four wins.

I mean, it's just like, it's a joke, man. So just a pure celebration of life. Disaster of a week as he finished T-12, way outside the top 10. So what, Zander and, Zander and Cam Young clipped him coming in? I think the jump up out of that top 10. Exactly. He had a put on 18 as well that he left short.

I will say he lost strokes approach this week, which he has not done. And again, I don't know what the true strokes game adjustments going to be within data golf i have you guys might need to give me a second to find the last event he lost strokes and approach it was the bmdow in 2024 uh is the last uh event where he was not positive with the with the iron play how much of that was on thursday if you still haven't pulled up that was that was the bmw 2024 was at castle pines that was at like 6500 feet elevation he was uh he was a calculation he was a half shot over

in the positive for Friday through Sunday. So he lost 1.2 on Thursday. So it is a Thursday thing. But it is a not amazing trend on the approach play. Like it's obviously what he was doing was unsustainable. And like, like, I don't know what the actual percentage is better. This is probably like the wrong application of mathematics and statistics, but like 60% better than Moracawa at his peak in iron play there for a while.

And it's kind of coming back down to a somewhat regulated level. But he's still, he's gained in putting every single week since the Scottish Open last year, which, I mean, 90% of this pod in 2023 was just just in awe of how bad he was at putting. And that having flipped completely. I'm not, I'm like 0.05% worried about Scotty. I think this is not nothing. This is not a complete blip on the radar. He looks a little more irritable. He looks not as in control of the golf ball.

And again, we're comparing him to the best version of himself, which is completely insane. He's still quite clearly the best player in the world. But I don't think it's like a complete slam dunk as we're standing here right now that he's going to win the Masters. And I felt 3,000 percent committed to that as of like three weeks ago. I'll talk myself back into it. I'm still going to pick him to win, but I'm not like convinced you just like go ahead and bet the mortgage on it. No, the Thursday thing, I mean, it is mostly, it has weirdly mostly been Thursdays, both, you know, here, Pebble and Phoenix. I went back and watched that whole Thursday round again today.

And it's really bad, man. It's really like nothing. Objectively and subjectively. Yeah, just not. It wasn't close. And not, yeah, that's not just like for him. That was for, that's kind of for anybody.

You know, he made a couple putts to kind of hang around and turn that into whatever it was, 74 or something. But, I mean, it was like missing his spots with his chipping. It was missing greens by a mile distance wise.

was just not the stuff that usually you usually see from him. And the only thing I can compare it to is the weird putting short putting stuff. You know, where it's just like that feels like it took out a life of its own. It's like an Icarito. Yeah. It was it was electric to go back and

watch it. But it was, yeah, some weird ones. He chipped into the bunker on 10. You know, it's kind of, granted he was under those left trees. And I think trying to kind of makes up to work. According to that, it's Patrick. That's true. That's true. But yeah, it's a fascinating one. And I think it's, I don't know, we kind of say this every time, but it's,

the more adversity Scotty faces, I think the more interesting he, he gets for sure. So I am, sign me up. He's, I want to see him like he's, he's the top draw in my mind every week of what's going on and what did they shoot today. But, uh, yeah, I think this just makes it, just makes it even better. I don't know where we're going to go from here. Like my, yeah, my brave take, I'll go out on the limb and say he figures it out. Uh, but I'm very, fascinated to see how and what happens. He has since switching to the mallet, he has been the 12th best

putter in the world. On top of, of course, being the best approach player, fourth and driving, sixth in chipping and 13th in putting. All right, question from an emailer. We'll just call him M. Hi, Jens. Listener M.

Listener M. Hi, Jens. Long time listener, first time caller. Scottie might be the player of his generation, even one of the all-time greats, but I think we need to talk about how hard it is to watch him moaning like a little bitch when he's not playing well. It's painful. Imagine when it's like for the pros paired with him. Here's a guy who wins practically everything he looks at as one bad round and then sulks like Varuka salt because she didn't get a pony. So the question, is Scotty a little B? Love your work. And I pose this to D.C. This really spoke to me today. And I thought, all right, like Tiger,

Tiger could get cranky out there, but it was always inward focused, right? It was always Tiger, like, oh, Tiger or, you know, Tiger. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, nothing, like, not blaming others. And every time with Scotty, it seems like he either underreads a pot or overreads a put and he just feigns this genuine surprise of,

I cannot believe that didn't go in or like, like, it's like he's owed every break out there. And it's just, like, I can't. stand watching it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, disgusting. Uh, a couple things. One, he might be so good that he is owed every break. I'm not willing to totally discount that theory. Uh, two, I think, like, what I always think about is, like, the famous Jack quotes about, like, how do you become the, you know, the most mentally tough player in the world is you just don't think anything's your fault, you know, and I think, if,

if that is the case, I mean, Scotty seems like a pretty well-adjusted, dude, you know, like big picture-wise, if this is his way to play superpower golf, then I think that's kind of just the world that we're going to have to live in because it seems like it's, it seems like it's going pretty well for him. I don't know how you can, I don't know, both things can be true, I guess, maybe is what I'm, what I'm saying. Or that's my read on it. It is a little too demonstrative.

Sure. And you reserve the right to not like him and to be like, that's not my guy. I don't dislike him. invented the guy, come on. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Same relate. I've vetted Kepka.

I've had it up and down relationship with Kepka over the course of the years based on decisions he's made in the way he's acted. So it, I mean, T.C, will you answer listener M's question directly?

Is he a little B? I don't think he's a little B. I think he's a little B. I think he might be a big B. Oh, wow. I just, I don't know. It's,

it's just not. yeah it's just not cool you know i think everybody can act like that every once in a while but whenever everything doesn't go his way it's he just goes straight to that i don't like that it's not for me cody what you got the only thing i was going to say tc is you did great job of comparing it to tiger but also rom went through a little bit of this uh as well and it's continuing to work on it uh you know you're kind of silent outside of when rom really started getting a little tuned up and maybe affecting his playing partners and things like that. But how do you compare it, ROM to Scotty?

I mean, I don't have any real feelings towards ROM and ROM. Like, I don't know. I don't think, I don't put ROM in the same category as Scotty as far as, like, hey, this guy's the generational, you know, number one player of his, of his era. Yeah, like, you know, I think, I think ROM, I mean, speed can act like that at times, right? I don't think it's it's rare. And I think the operative word there is at times or words are at times. Not every time, everything.

It's just like Thursday was, Thursday was really, really tough to watch. It was. I totally agree. Can we agree to monitor the situation? Yeah. Because I do feel like some of this has to be, I think I said this last week too, but at Pebble after he shot 64 on Sunday, you know, there are a couple of media asking him.

like what you know dude what happened on Thursday why'd you play bad on Thursday what and he's just like dude I don't know I don't I don't know what's going on and so I think for him there almost has to be a little bit of like why is it not working anymore guys like it's worked for four straight years where I have gotten all of these breaks and I haven't put myself in these positions and I have hit my spots and like what like there has to be a little bit of just well you know I think that's I think that's what it is is that he's hitting all of his spots and he's so used to PJ tour courses and PJ tour setups reacting the way that he's expecting them to react. And we saw it really a waste management when the overseed was a little bit higher. It wasn't cut as tight and he was chunked

chips all over the place and it completely threw him off. A guy that grew up, you know, and plays and practices primarily on Bermuda or very good overseed here in Dallas throughout the winter goes and starts putting on Poana and trying to chip on it and it's not reacting the way that he's expecting and he's just really struggling with those variables. I mean, he putted well this week. I think it's ball striking. He's not going to be eligible for the Fedora 5.

Oh, is a probationary period. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it was, that's interesting. Okay. I don't want to ask you. I didn't realize that those are the types of things that were taken to do effect. But I do think it is why I was like so stunned by the Amex win was,

Like, Scotty is at best when the golf is hard. The questions are like, this is challenging. Can you do this? And that's why the Bethpage set up with such a disgrace. And the last two weeks on tour have not been difficult. They've not been challenging. And that does not work in Scotty's favorite. It's not an excuse acting.

And for his numbers to have fallen off this hard. But, yeah. And again, it's just a Thursday thing. Like he was like the winner of the tournament, I think, mathematically from Friday on. So it's not like he's that far off. The other thing I'll say is, and this is not an excuse of Scotty, but just in general comment, Thursday was so hard.

That was such a weird combo of wind, soft greens that are super fast and wet. And it was just a bunch of like a cold, like just a bunch of super interesting variables, which I think just makes it even more impressive. The guys did play well. Can we talk about RIV? better be impossible. I want to see these guys suffer. Without getting to see RIV last year,

getting to see it in a very, very bad weather week, you know, in the early part of the week, setting up an unrecoverable, basically an unrecoverable amount of rain this week was, it sucked so much of what I love about this course right out of it. Specifically, I always, a hold that always stands out for me, the third hole where it is just the quintessential hole where if you miss the fairway here,

you know, the rough isn't too thick at Riviera. You're going to have a shot, but I don't care what club you have. You are going to struggle to hold the green out of the rough onto this, under this green. Like this is where the firmness of the greens works backwards and like punishes bad t-shots and it restores balance to a test of golf. That is really fun to watch over a four-day period. You can flip on the golf on Sunday afternoon and be entertained by the close. competition and the excitement of a final round.

But if you want to watch it Thursday through Sunday, the course just needs to have teeth or else it becomes a putting contest. And we saw, again, according to Data Golf this week, how the putting, it drove so much of the variance this week, which we see when courses get soft, way more than a normal PGA tour week and way more than what we normally see out of Riviera. And it affected my viewing enjoyment this week. This is the week I look forward to probably the most of any of them. and I hate to be a downer about that part.

And there's nothing anybody could do about it. Like it's weather related. Some of the best, you know, course maintenance and management of the turf there anywhere in the world. It's just you got bit by having an event there in February. It doesn't always happen. But it got bit this year and it affected,

it affected the golf tournament greatly. I think it's fair to say. Yeah, I think that's right. Can I, okay. Are we? I don't know anybody's, is this a totally, totally safe place.

Trust tree. I feel a little bit like the guy from Royal Tenenbaum. So he's like, everybody knows General Custer died a little big horn, but my book presupposes maybe he didn't. Everybody knows Riviera's the best course on the PJ Tour. Everybody knows that, right? Are we 100.0%

sure? 100.0% sure that that's the case. And it's not just a tick overrated vis-a-vis professional golf in 2026 because I feel like every year I walk into this tournament of just like man this is about to be this is the best week of the year this is going to be electric I can't miss a single shot and I get to Saturday and this year's different because it rained so much but I'm I'm always just like yeah that was 78% of what I thought it was going to be uh your your response to to any of that

February whatever whatever they put they oh yeah no I'm saying that's that's that's my response It's like you can play the best courses in the world at the, you know, inopportune times. And I think, yeah, it's probably. It's usually better in February, though. That's an important disclaimer. Yeah, but I go back to, you know, watching Doc Redmond and Doug Gim at, you know, play the US AM there. It was like, holy shit, that was just otherworldly.

And I think that, you know, it's based on, we'll get to some of Tigers quotes in the booth. He hung out for like an hour. It was crazy. But I think that sounds like it's on the table to move it to later in the year, later in the summer. DJ, I think it's just all relative, right? I think it absolutely is the best course on tour, non-major division. But I think that's more of a reflection on the other courses on tour more so than it is RIV. And I think there's other stuff that RIV could be improved with.

Like, I thought the changes to Forstunk, the new T-Box. For anybody who didn't see that, what was it? It's like 280 yard par three now. You can't really play it at this week. Well, they massively changed the angle too, right? Like, it used to be way off to the right. So the whole idea was you could use that big slope and, you know, try to feed the ball down in there. It was like how it was originally designed.

But granted, this year it was like, really the last couple years, it's been soft and super sticky kikuyu. So the ball doesn't always come down anyways. But they basically like lengthened it and moved the T to the left, right? So there's far less. Oh, to the right. I'm sorry. So there's, I guess, a more angle. But yeah, I don't know if it.

The Kikuyu is a real problem. The new T is to the left. You're right. But they didn't use it in the tournament. The new 270 T. But it's a U.S. Open T as I understand it. Got it. Yeah.

I just think overall, like there's, you know, the course doesn't, I think RIV has a ton of flaws in its current presentation. It needs like a very real and serious touch up. and some actual like restoration work. But that said, like, I just don't think we can, we can come down on these courses on tour and be negative on them because, like, nothing's going to defend itself against the onslaught of technology

and scoring plus, like, not ideal conditions, like soggy conditions, like Pebble last week. Like, I'm being overly hard on Pebble because it's not giving us what we want because I don't think anything at this point can give us what we want. Because everything is so out of balance. The other illustration I would say is 18. They added another new T over there, which was supposed to be,

that's the one that they kind of took even less of the angle, or took more of the angle away, I guess, because that one's supposed to be, you're supposed to hit a big cut there. It's supposed to be if you don't cut it enough, you catch that hill and you end up losing a ton of distance, and you end up having like a very long iron, and even like a five wood into the green.

And instead, in the name of distance, they added a T way back. Back into the left. Oh, back into the left, JFK. And open up that angle. So basically you don't have to cut it. So it's just kind of like walk farther back, don't have to shape the ball and hit it dead straight and farther. And it just becomes, it seems like without seeing it in person,

like just the manifestation of just kind of dumber, right? And but necessary, but dumber, basically. And again, Jeff Shackleford had a great post again in the quadrilateral earlier this week about this and four. But yeah, it just stinks, man, that it's both like, I see why you're doing it and why you kind of have to, but also it just doesn't feel good. Throw those two changes out for this conversation.

And I think it is so unbelievably important. And this is the course I feel it's the most on tour of how well contoured it is and how great, so many of the hole locations are. Specifically 11 and 17 are par fives that are like, dude, when you miss those greens, you better miss in the right spot

when the greens are fast and not receptive, or you cannot get it close. And that's like the whole math of the entire day, from day one, like the first hole. If you hit it in that bunker front of the green to the wrong pin, you cannot get close to it when it has the firmness.

Like the slopes that run away out of so many of the bunkers. I watched guys, what was it on Thursday? like Morikawa and Rory missed left of 14 in a bunker that like should have been dead. Like absolutely should have been dead. And like they couldn't even get their shots from those bunkers to the hole because of how soft it was. Like they just took that takes all the bite out of Rift. And all of what I think makes it a fun watch for again from Thursday all the way to Sunday is like you have to position your ball in the right spots or you're going to pay a price.

And like you could be in the wrong spot this week and not pay a price. Like shots out of the rough were not punished. You can miss in bunkers and not be punished. Rory hold a bunker on 12 today. That's maybe not the best example to pull. But I really do think when they have it playing normal, not even like rarely firm, like playing normal, it is clearly the best course on tour.

We just caught in a bad, bad week. And we didn't get to see it last year. It's like those. We haven't seen it since. Those memories are a little far away of how amazing, like the Max Homa year was, Homa versus Finaw and so many great back nines that we've seen. And the leads don't feel as safe either

because you just have to hit shots in the proper spots. And I'm so over. Dues are hitting five irons that are backing up this week. That's just not it. I think Scott, he's got to hit a five wood that backed up on number four on that first day. If this is the last version of Pebble in RIV in February, I should say, if they want to make the change,

if they want to move these two golf courses to later in the year, make them playoff events, which I think would be absolutely sick. What an awesome case for doing that and what we got in the last two weeks. This is not the best representation of these golf courses and best test. And like, let's just transition this into the technology question. Matt Fitzpatrick's quotes about the 10th hole.

He said, is it a bogey on 10, the world's most impossible golf hole? I'll leave it there. I mean, I really don't want to talk about it too much. I'll just get wound up. But hit it and hope. Let's leave it at that. And I'm like, dude, I think we have to start doing unfair golf holes for these guys.

Like, you get to swing a frying pan. 10 isn't unfair, to be clear. It's not unfair. It's on the silly side, which I am a fan of at this point. It's weird. The size of the green doesn't really actually make sense. They've kind of stripped all the strategy of that hole out, which I'm not a fan of, but I'm kind of like, dude,

four, like, go back to 275. I agreed with all Roy's comments of like, if you don't have the apron fixed with the kikuyu, it is silly. I agree with that. But, dude, play of impossible 2.75 par 3. And I, this was done on me. Well, saw the first hole too.

Like, all right. Like, what's the difference between a long three and a short four? If the first hole is a, is basically a par four that says par five on the scorecard. You know, it's pretty cool. It played almost a full shot under par today. Like, it was a complete show. One and four.

Call those two holes a par eight and be done with it. You know? But I honestly am thinking about, like, what I like about the fourth hole, like it is kind of silly and dumb, but it's like, hit it up near the green and figure it out. I'm like,

dude, I'd rather do that than just like your track man calculation of my five wood is going to cut into the middle of this green and sit right there and easy two putt. Like, I'd rather see you figure it out. I was thinking about this today. The Saturday of the 2004 U.S.

Open at Shinnecock, when like the seventh hole, when Phil like just aimed it into the bunker on the Redan hole there because the green was so baked out and out of control. And I'm like, do you guys are the best players, in the world. Why wouldn't, why wouldn't we take the challenge and make it more about your ability to chart seemingly impossible situations? If we're going to play it with this technology,

we're going to butt up against ways we can actually make this hard for you guys. We've seen that over the last decade, five years, whatever you want to say. Let's get unfair. I'm closer to Big Randy's thesis in general than I've ever been of like, dude, I don't want to hear you guys complain about things being unfair because you didn't like the rollback. You, you might not even adapt the golf ball rollback that has been agreed on by the USGA and RNA. You're not giving up your 460 C C drivers.

Like, I'm done hearing you guys on course set up. It might be time to start making this get a little bit silly. Amen. I think the other thing is just the like Fitzpatrick can't complain about that hole being unfair when he blows it 30 yards

right, which is you just can't hit it right of that hole. That's the whole. That's the whole fucking that's the entire hole you can't do that like it's asking you that like like it used to ask more questions now it just asked one question can you keep it left of the hole and he couldn't do that so you can't you can't complain about it you know I felt this way for several years though I am done pretending tens a great golf hole like in terms of great strategy like literally literally what's your top three short fours on tour driveable fours on tour god you put me on the spot

15 at River Highlands If they if they if they if they if they shave the bank 12 sawgrass 17 and TPC sawgrass of course is number one That might be one two and three Yeah honestly That might be the only good driveable for On the PGA tour

What is it 12 at Coppalua Even though we don't go to Coppilua anymore It took that away Took that one away What else? Not really anything at Bay Hill There's not really anything at Bay Hill there's not really many

there's not that many no I mean it's horrible for pace of play yeah you know on tour yeah but so are 360 yard drives and par fives you know like the east lake one is pretty nondescript

yeah yeah it's a harder question that it seems on its face and it should be and it should be for sure yeah yeah I'm with you Sally make it unfair that's a great sermon you just gave

converted me yeah like what else we're gonna what do And unfair, I guess thick, rough is not like, is the other alternative in a lot of people's minds. And we're well documented as to why that's not going to be fun to watch. But like making a slope unfair or making the green comically small like this and dude, figure out a way. Like 10 is still must see stuff. Like Rory over by the trees on 10.

And like, how are you going to find the green from there? Like is a fair question for a diabolical, like a very short par four. Like your second shot into this should still be challenging. did not hit a perfect t-shot i forgot about nine at nine at harboretown oh yeah that's sick yeah that is technical attractible i'll put that one but i think that and then also like seeing how fast the greens were this week with it being that soft what an awkward weird combo for sure as well of all right like why can't we just say all right this week it rained like crazy we're not going to mow the greens as low they're going to roll an eight or and nine let's see who can ball strike their way around this place it'd be

awesome. Again, back to variables. Let's add more variables for the mix. Yeah. T.C. Go down the board. Sorry, just three at Augusta count? No, that's not a more event. Okay. Yeah. I'm just asking questions. Then you get St. Andrews in there and you get Well, we go to Augusta every year. So it feels fair. Yeah, but Augusta doesn't, that's its own thing. That's not. Three is a good short

four. I wouldn't quite say it's driveable. Sure. I want to give a shout to our friends. It's a SoFi, the ultimate finance app for sponsoring our down the leaderboard segment with Mr. TC. It is sophy.com slash NLU to learn more about how you can get your money right with SOFi. Plus, TC, take us down the board, my friend. Oh, I would love to. I thought you'd never ask. Adam Scott got his money right today.

Final round 63. How much did he pocket for a little solo fourth? $1.0000 million. $1 million on the spot. I think he probably would have made about $250 if he'd a shot even today. So that was a very, it's just blown up 190 ball speeds at age 45 or 46, whatever it is on its way to a million bucks. Now, granted, I think he made $250 in California after tax. That's true. It's true.

On that way. But very good round. Aldrich Pock eater. We'll get to him here in a little bit. but, you know, solo fifth for him. I think the guys that they kind of, so I watched like every bit of coverage this weekend, which shout out to college basketball for running over.

We just, we still can't fix that problem. Down the leaderboard segment, but we get our money right there. But Cam Young, 66, 66 on the weekend to not win and to help knock Scotty out of the top 10. Sally, how much did he make? $603,000 to be exactly. Yeah. Love seeing that.

He's T7 with Morikawa, Fleetwood, Foxy, Zander. I feel like Xander's putter cost him a lot of money. A lot. This weekend. He, he, yeah.

Oh, TCR. Are we worried Tommy's not getting his money right? Because he's buying all this pro shop gear that he's wearing. You know, like, where is that? Is that coming out of the budget every week? I feel like it's,

I feel like it's just adding to his aura. It's already, though. But at what cost is my point. Yeah. He's playing the last. long game. So I think he's, he's, you know, he's getting his money right. Marco Pench watched a lot of him on Saturday. He was in one of the final groups. He finished T-16. Did not play well on Saturday. He did not, but he gave a great interview Friday. I don't have the summary of that one other than

just like he was super appreciative of being the moment looking forward to being the final group on Saturday. And he's talking about, you know, seeing Rory in the locker room and on the range of like, you know, still can't believe he's in this spot. Like I'm a Marco Pinge fan very easily, just hearing him out down to earth and humble he was in the interview he gave Friday. He's going to have to get his money right too. Maybe set up a 529 or something. I think he's his wife is due any day with their,

I think with their second child. So Pearson Cootie continues to get his money right. He's 16 from him. He's just poking around every single week. All his twin brother, I think, is in the field for the Argentina open. next week. And then otherwise, trying to see,

let's see here, Team Rose and Goderup. You need to, bad, like a whimper of a finish for the West Coast swing. Both of them missed the cut, the mini cut this week.

Can't have that. They were both in the mix for our West Coast swing MVP's. And obviously, I think they played themselves out of the mix and played themselves out of a paycheck this week too.

So, Sally, there's your, there's your sofa, get your money right segment for the week. Thank you. You can go to SOFI.com slash NLU to learn more about how you can get your money right with SOFI plus. You left off Kagan on the missed-the-cut list.

I don't know if that, you know, with the conversation we had last year, I just kind of feel like for as much as you guys were hyping that guy up, it deserves a mention that he missed the mini cut and is playing stinky golf. I'm just saying. I think you cannot deny that he was in the conversation to make the team. I think that was our point all along.

Yeah. Which, again, was a stupid thing. We're not talking about that anymore. Now he's exhausted. It's totally irrelevant. What was last thing you heard? He's all right. It doesn't matter.

He's not good anymore. Yeah. Also, T.C., you didn't mention Adam Scott was a sponsor exemption this week as well. So shout out to him. I'm playing well on a sponsor exemption. And Adam Scott is now in the, he's in the top 10. The, the Aon or the next 10 or whatever we're calling it, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

two pay 10. Which is, uh, yeah, which is kind of a, yeah, which is kind of the case for and against the sponsor exemptions into these fields. Exactly. I suppose, right? Yeah, if you get your chance, you got to take advantage of it. And if you don't, then, you know, whatever. But yeah, interesting, interesting case.

Yeah, I enjoyed watching Pennage this week. He, like, I'm with you. He had a case to the lefts a little bit on Saturday. It just wasn't really in a flow state. But great golf swing, tons of speed. He just smiled. Like, I like the way he carries himself, too. And the more I watch potkeeter, it's at least interesting.

Totally agree. It is. I totally agree. I don't know if he's good, but I'm totally down to watch it. He's 21. Yeah. He was getting interviewed after the round on Saturday. And Amanda was like, you know, you changed.

You changed up your trainer, your swing coach, your equipment, you know, pretty much everything. Your agent, you know, all of it. And then she was like, am I forgetting anything? He said, my physio. And I think, I think she was like, yeah, your trainer. Your trainer and your physio are the same thing. But definitely throwing a lot of variables at the wall. Kind of the maximum of playbook.

Yeah. You lost like 30 some pounds or something. Yeah. Yeah. Kim, again, but if I was just to, if I was to pull up his data golf, like skill profile, TC, will you swear this off? Like, is he the king? I just said it was interesting.

Yeah. Is he the king of the BSIs, though? of just like absolutely maxing out driver distance and below average from from every other skill is is where I'm like this is not the rib that I love uh see it's see it's something this and men woo lee it's pretty start any of the guys again start looking like the star trek logo is it's pretty bad it's a pretty bad side uh the data golf scatter plot there but he's 21 yeah right like you know what he's these you know american plumbers and firemen's this The sergeants and the Dunlaps that have the drivery yips,

they would kill for this. And then he'd round out the rest of his game. Can you? I feel like does winning. I don't hate the player. I hate the game is what I'm getting at there. He seems a nice kid too. Yeah.

Does winning the British AM get you an exemption from being labeled a ball speed imposter? I feel like it gives you at least like a five year exemption. Where did he win the British Am? Oh, that's an important question. I don't remember. I think it was Nairn. Is that right? It's a good golf course.

They have a British ham? Let's see. 2020, Royal Lhythm and St. Anne's. That's the, the antithesis of BSIs. You can't, you can't,

BSI. Proper player open. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not buying it. Let's just say, it's inconclusive. It's inconclusive.

It's inconclusive. It's like, it's like, Scotty being a little B, as listener M said. We're monitoring the situation. Let's continue to monitor it. Did you have some birdies and bogeys from this past week?

You want to take us through? I did. I just kind of had a... I had a lot of interaction with the PJ tour itself as a consumer this week. And so I just wanted to round that up into some things I liked and some things I didn't like so much. And first, we'll do the birdies. These are the things that I liked.

If you can follow my naming convention here. First one, I don't know that a lot of people watch this. I saw it had like 25,000 or 30,000 views on YouTube or something. But the PJ Tour did a video. with Ricky Fowler, where he talked through every shot that he hit on the front nine during his pro-am practice round. Sign me the fuck up for more of these videos. This was awesome. This is exactly what I've pitched this exact idea, either in reality or just in Slack complaining about stuff to you guys. This is exactly what I want to see. It is just him vlog style. Like here's every shot

that I hit. Here's what the yardage was. Here's what club I hit. Here's what I was trying to do. Here's what I ended up doing. I learned so much about Riviera just by watching him hit different shots, talk about what he was looking for, how the cold was affecting things. It was awesome. And I think this seems like something that is so repeatable going forward. I would love to see more of these videos.

So shout out to Ricky for doing it. And shout out to the PJ Tour for doing it. You guys, I think, watched this as well and felt similarly. Amen. That and upping this to tournament rounds. too would be even better. Yeah, that was always my thought. You have, you know, easier said than done, I understand.

But you have every shot from the guys who are in featured groups on Thursdays and Fridays on PJ Tour Live. Like, can't you get one of those guys for 15 minutes afterwards? Just be like, hey, man, here's the, you know, an iPad that has a cut down of all your shots. Granted, I guess they'd have to kind of quick turn that or talk to those guys later in the day. They have that technology. They have that, yeah. But it's like, can you get Xander to be like, hey, man, you just shot 67.

Can you talk us through every shot you just hit on River Highlands, what you were trying to do, whatever. He would probably would. And I know all of the reasons why it can't work, but like, man, we're not trying to put a fucking man on the moon here, guys. This doesn't seem that hard. And it's just. You have equity in now. So additive. Yeah. As a golf fan, man.

If you were Ben Griffin this week or Sammy Valmachie, Sammy's Valamaki, did you got, did you watch him and play golf this week? he finished T30. He made $92,000 this week. A lot of money's getting put up for these golf tournaments. Just do stuff. Can we get 12 minutes of your time? Just do it. Sammy. Yeah.

Just help us out, man. And again. Strocka last place, $51,000 of the cutmakers. The other, I guess, circling back, maybe this is a me, a me problem here. But I think the post around interview with Amanda, as much as I was glowing about my Jacob Bridgman fandom, that might be the first time I ever heard him talk,

straight up. And I'm like, that's another one where you, like, you got all these. anonymous guys, like, start giving, you know, put a microphone in front of them for 15 minutes, get him talking about golf. I think that's like the golf media, uh, mistake. He did a walk and talk this week too. Like, he did that on Friday. Like, he was, but and he did pre-round interviews. Like, he, breadrooms down. Like, he was, he was, he was, that's what I mean. And he seems like a totally delightful, self-facing, interesting guy.

And it's like, when you have all these guys that seem anonymous, it's like, don't try to get them to do like, TikTok dances for people to be like, man, that guy's sick. Try to get them just talking about golf. These guys are all geniuses at talking about golf. That's all I want to hear them talk about. So anyways, shout out to that video. Go watch it if you haven't. And PJTor, if you're listening, would watch one of these every single week.

Number two, I'm going to shout out, this is in my birdie section. Is a new newsletter that they started by all of our mutual friend, Paul Hodowanic, I believe is his last name. Is that how you pronounce that, T.C? I think it's kind of a Hoto.

Kind of a hockey, a Minnesota hockey name. started newsletter, the signature scroll. Paul's on site at all of these events, all the signature events, all the big events, and delivered right to your inbox every day is just like, here's what I saw. It's very first person, original reporting. He's a great subject matter expert on a lot of stuff. I learned a bunch of stuff every day from reading his newsletter. So shout out to the BJTor for starting that because, like, again, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

This was great. which I think brings us to the bogey section. And TC, you were very fired up about this because I was like, oh, Paul started this newsletter. You got to go check it out. You forwarded to me. TC's like, how the fuck do I sign up for this, man? I can't figure it out.

But we got to fix a sign up flow. Listen, we're, you know, glass houses over here. We got our own side of flow issues. I know that. But they're making you sign up for the fan connect and partner offers section in order to get a debrief from the, from the golf tournament every day. That's not what we're looking for. not we're about this is very old school pGA tour all the all the things that used to be wrong with

the pjutor this is emblematic of those things so please please please fix this and get some shine i want your product in my inbox but i don't want all of the products in my inbox just this product i i think that was the first time i've ever signed up for a pga tour account right and that's where it's like let's just what if we lead with just the subject matter here i think i'm pretty fucking cool when it comes to viewing ads for your PJ tour partners. I think I'm doing more than my part on that one. I watch that Genesis commercial. Yes, straight down the middle.

Straight down the middle. I don't think that I don't think I need your partners emailing me personally. Either fix the commercials or fix the email sign up flow. And I think the sign up flow is a lot easier. God, your A1C is about to get out of fucking control. Possibly. That's a risk. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

The other bogey that I had at TC, I know this would piss you off to you is, team USA wins the gold medal in hockey. One of the more patriotic, like, tear-filled moments I can remember. Not a lot to root for over the last couple years. I don't know if you guys have been watching the news. But a really nice, nice moment. And the PJ Tour

just bludges people with the Scotty gold medal tweet, just Kool-Aid man coming through the wall. We don't need it. We don't want it. Nobody's asking for this. Just that meme. Just get in there. That was the old tour. Get in there and make this about you. Just be comfortable.

confident in who you are. You have nothing to do with this moment. Honestly, it would have been better to say congratulations, Team USA. Or just don't say fucking anything. You're not a, you're not a USA tour. You're supposed to be the PGA tour. Just don't say anything. And so that was my, those are my second bogeys. I think that makes for an even par week. A lot of good, a lot of bad. We're on to the cognizant. But anything else, anything else you guys had in this spirit? We already went over the Tommy, continue to wear stuff in the local pro shop.

I'm all in on that. That's a birdie. He looks great. I think Nike was holding him back. I agree with that. I think the tour's signature event commercials are good. Not including the players when we'll get there. Signature event commercials, they're good. They're leaning into like the venues and the history

and like what makes the tour the tour, which I think is good. And it shows there's a sense of like, hey, we're starting to understand what our product is. And then lastly, Don Ray getting kicked off the PGA tour board. This is a PGA tour thing. This is about the birdies or the bogeys. This is on the birdies.

Oh, this is incredible. Shupak got this one, of course. Actually, Shaq got it just by looking at the, you know, the tours, the Tours board composition. Nathan Charnes was, you know, like the, I think he's taken over. He's, he's the next president of PGA of America. PG of America put out this gobble you statement. It was just insane corporate speak.

But yeah, Don Ray like, man, happy trails, dude. Like you fire that guy into the sun. And you know what? Like, we should just go ambush him sometime with some cameras out of his Augusta ranch or whatever that place and just just pop in. What would be your lead question? I just don't think he left anything unanswered. I don't have any questions.

That's true. but just the fact that they just pushed him aside with no like they didn't impeach him they didn't do anything just like acon's brother just tried to replace without telling anybody and then for bogeys I've got Finno wearing a big ladder rib hat stuff kind of part and parcel with

I hope Tommy didn't pick that up for him when he went into the pro shop you know what I think now that I'm thinking about it I think Finno had a another big letter hat on at Pebble when I was following him. I think it was TFA. It might have been Tommy Fleetwood Academy. Well, I've seen that one before.

He's got a Tommy's Academy. It's growing game. Yeah, that's true. That's fine. Maybe offset each other. Yeah. And then, yeah, that's, you know, I've only got one bogey this week.

Shot one under. It's a good score. Sally, anything from you? Where did Sawheath getting the Charlie Sifford exemption? How did that not fall into a bogey category? here uh but you're wow this is this your word sally i've uh you know saw it's one of my favorite golfers as i've said uh yeah i don't i don't know i feel i don't know what i don't know how i feel about this one it is i understand it's a signature event's top 70 players you're trying to

like make the most competitive you're trying to make these the best fields in golf it seems like if i'm doing my reading properly the the charlie sifford exemption was supposed to be you know giving a person from a minority background who wouldn't otherwise be getting in like a spot in a field to allow them to try to test their metal against the best in the world, which I think they've done a great job with over the years at this event. So it seems like he's getting plenty of starts. This one is, this one falls a little on the, I'm not quite sure how to feel on this one. There's a great article that Cody has up on the screen by Samir Pandya.

I hope I'm saying that right. just detailing the history of the exemption and, you know, again, trivia question for the other. The Charlie Sifford broke the color barrier, which, you know, blacks were not allowed on the PGA tour until 1961, which is, again, shocking to read. But there's a great line in there. It talks all about, you know,

Sahith being the child of immigrants. And this is not like Sahat's fault in this. But the line here that got me was in giving to Gallo the exception or the exemption, I think is what it's meant to say. And giving Tagalog the exemption, the tournament is signaling that his journey into professional golf is roughly in the same vicinities as Siffords or any of the other past recipients.

And I was like, yeah, that's pretty tough. I mean, we've seen Willie Mac get this exemption in the past. Aaron Beverly, I think, got this exemption in the past. And I get it. It's pretty random, you know, with this kind of promotion to signature event with this field and it being 80 players and being big money, it's kind of random to have players that are not PJ tour members playing this

and what is supposed to be a PGA tour like icon, you know, very serious. This is what we're all about event. But giving it to Saheth was certainly just kind of that magnifying glass emoji of, I think they probably wanted to find a way to get him an exemption. And maybe the entire point of this is like, aren't we should go searching past the normal names to find somebody that this exemption would mean the world to, or else doesn't need to exist. And I mean, that's my read on it.

And who knows, it's their exemption to give out. And maybe they feel differently about it. Because, yeah, but it's just a, it is a strange one that probably needs a little clarification maybe. Yeah. All right. I want to give a shout to our friends at Arcos, the official game tracker of the PGA tour.

and honestly the smartest platform in golf. It's not just tracking your stats. It is helping you own the choices you make on the course with confidence. You may have seen me and TC. We're in the recent Arcos own it spot, which I think debuted the last week. Sony, Texas. Pebble, yeah. That was, we really appreciate them, including us in their spot.

It's insane. It automatically tracks every shot while you play. It gives you a full strokes game breakdown after the round. It shows how you actually played. first how you think you played and you glean something from it every single time. It leads you to making better decisions. And if you're going to make better decisions, you need real data in it. And this gives you exactly that.

All you got to do, you take the link pro, you put it in your pocket and you play. There's no phone tagging and all of the insights are there after the round. Actually, Cody's showing some of this up on the screen now. I use this at Pebble Beach during the proam last week. And again, all of these shots that you're seeing recorded on the screen here are just automatically recorded from wearing the device in my pocket. That's exactly how it works, and it's insane. And you get tour, getting like tour level data on a tour venue is unbelievable.

It's awesome. Like, it was really, really, really cool to see. And yeah, we're flashing a bunch of. And so I lost 1.8 shots compared to a scratch player off the tee. I was being aggressive out there, guys. I tried to drive four. I hit in the water on 18. We're having, you know, I wasn't necessarily playing normal tournament golf.

but yeah, I putted pretty well. Plus 1.7 shots gained on a scratch golfer on the greens. But it also gives you like a handicap breakdown of what you are in individual categories by rounds. So I was a six handicapped driving it and a plus five putting. It's just always really, really cool to see. And you just get so much information. And over a large sample, you're going to learn a ton about your game and you can compare

it to whatever handicap level you want to be. If you want to become a six handicap, you can see where you're losing shots to six handicaps and I cannot recommend it enough. Arcos has nearly 1.5 billion shots tracked and is trusted by over 40 tour players. If you want to own your choices out there and play with more confidence, this is it. Arcosgolf.com. That's A-R-C-C-O-S dot com. You can use code N-U-15 for 15% off.

Again, Arcos.com, A-R-C-C-O-S, N-U-15, get you 15% off. Also, they have the smart laser rangefinder, which has wind-adjusted numbers in it with slope and it's insane. they've got a really, really cool product, and we're stoked to be partnering with them this year. It just runs in the background. Yes, it's a big hindrance was like the thought of having to be on your phone doing all this, and you do not have to do it. Guys, who's your West Coast MVP?

I've been, I don't know. It's stewing over this. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's Bridgman, I think. Really? Yeah. He won today. T-8 at Pevel.

T18 at Phoenix T13 at the American Express T4 at Sony Like I Are we counting the opening drive As West Coast Swing? I thought we had a pre-production question About that. I thought that was I don't think we did get into

Consensus Everybody said yes Yeah I think you're in maybe a different meeting I don't know I also would throw out a nominee He did not get a win And so I don't think he can be MVP

But TC I think you skipped over Jake Knapp in the down the leaderboard segment. He finished 6th at Riviera to go along with T8 at Pebble, 8th at Phoenix, T5 at Farmers, T11 at Sony. Yeah, that feels a little bit like maybe the guy

from Canada getting the MVP award today. Well, for sure. I guess if we're throwing Sony, it's like got to obviously be gotter up, but it's interesting. Is one signature event worth more than two non-signature wins? I think it's got her up for me, man. I think it might be for me

too. Like, not only did he win. He was just, he's a dude. He established him. He continues to establish himself as a dude. Could it be Patrick Reed, even though he wasn't in any of these events? I was thinking about that.

He hasn't played the West Coast. No, I know, but it's just, West Coast of certain countries. West Coast could be a construct of sorts, right? Yeah. He's not playing our West Coast. It's a pretty, you know. I think it's got her up, if we're going to value wins as much as we do. and I think the Phoenix win is not a normal mule win.

Like the Phoenix wins a lot bigger win than winning Sony. But I am I'm monitoring that his wins have come in, you know, the lesser, the lower tier events, lower middle tier. We're monitoring the mule events. Scots are going to be all over you. He's not winning, he's not winning like lower tier events.

He's winning mid-tier events. Yeah. All right, Myrtle Beach. I'll give you that one. Sony's kind of. Phoenix is real. That's what I just said. I mean, is him like, yeah, I don't know if I can get down with this.

Is him like, National Open? Like he fucking won, though. Like, is him winning the event? Like, is that worse than him not winning? No, no, no, no. I'm just saying I'm not getting carried away. Is that worse?

I think if he finishes T7 this week, it's a slam dunk. If he finishes T19 this week, I think it's a slam dunk that he's the MVP. He missed the cut this week at Rive, like on a soft setup that should have been really good from. He also finished solo third at the open. in his last major. That's not on the West Coast swing. Again, some years it is. There is Myrtle or Scott. I mean, the Scottish Open

was on the east coast of Scotland. I'd just say we're monitoring his win resume. That's all I'm saying. Wins a lot. But, you know, are we going to, are we going to do it in the big tier? Are you going to be, if you're a dude, you got do it in the big tier stuff, T.C. That's all I'm saying. Like Big Tone? Big Tone won the Northern Trust.

The top 70 players in the world. Four years after we, after we'd been riding him. It was a statement victory. You should do a deep dive podcast about that is one of the greatest events in the history of golf for as much as you bring that. Liberty National. Yeah. It was over T.C.'s boy, Cam Smith, too.

That's what makes it so hard for him. It was. Do you want to shout out last year's West Coast MVP? It was Sepsraka for me. That was, I think. Ryder Cup lock after that. That was huge of you. That was one of the biggest, I think, one of the greatest gestures of sportsmanship.

I think you've ever, you've ever. you've ever had. Yeah, I really appreciated that. In last PGA Tour news and notes this week, Lucas Glover named Pack Chairman. TC Translate this for us. What does this mean? Well, again, this was reported by

Adam Shupak, the Mule Whisperer. I saw Adam at dinner last night, actually. Yeah? Yeah, I was like, man, I'm not watching the golf. I feel like you should be watching the golf, but yeah, what does this mean? I think it's interesting because Glover

and said quote that he had quit going to tour player meetings and called the pack a waste of time and useless because he contended that the tour was quote going to do what they're going to do hiding behind pace of play I think challenges our intelligence they think we're stupid

he said about reduction in field sizes and the number of fully exempt cards so this this feels like you know this feels like kind of an about face from him that he said which I love Lucas He's like one of the smarter, more thoughtful conversationalists on tour and just a genuinely good guy, it seems like. But he said, I can add value from inside the room instead of outside.

And at this point in my career, it's not like I can stand on the range all day and hit balls. So I've got time. And there's enough guys that want my voice in there to be heard. So I should probably do it. So good on him. It feels like a good thing for, you. you know, for, it seems like he views his constituents as the guys in that probably 40 to 120 range on the tour that feel like they've gotten short shrift here over the last, you know,

12, 18, 24 months with all the changes. And I don't know, like, we joke a lot about the mule stuff. And I think that, you know, that gets like, you know, I was joking about Lonto Griffin this week on, on, you know, like, was it five or six years ago? He was bitching about them making them walk down the hill at Riviera and stuff, or up the hill. Yeah. And I think there's plenty to make fun of, but there's also plenty of guys out there that, like,

they earn their way out there and then they feel like the rules are getting changed right out from under them. And, all right, you know, I made it to the tour. I did what you told me to do. And now, you know, you're pulling the rug out from under me. I see that too, but at the end of the day, I don't think that changes the fact that I think the poor was probably bloated in the first place. So it's a tricky line to walk.

And I think Lucas is a thoughtful guy that it'll take into consideration. He's been in both camps. He's a major champion, but he's also been through the wilderness with his putting, and he's had lean years, and he's had a late career renaissance. And, you know, he's got three or four years left until he's on the champions tour, which I bet he absolutely cleans up out there. there. So, you know, good on him for, for, you know, putting, putting time and energy into this. I think that's very well said. I totally agree in that that was the first thing that jumped out to me is like,

there's a guy that has truly seen everything in pro golf, highs, lows, different levels of play, like all the stuff he just said, TC. And it's, uh, I think it's a valuable perspective. Because I think that the, I think we've gotten, uh, over, I'm going to be careful. Like, not even necessarily over end. on the superstar voices because I do think those have to carry a lot of the conversation and I get all of the it is an entertainment product stuff but this kind of feels like the first thing to to balance the scales a little bit in a very healthy way you know kind of getting much more of the two sides of the house to to have a voice in this conversation I think is great Lucas Gepard feels like a Clydesdale instead of a mule like he's a

Claude Zell, he's not Ryan Armour chucking the most inane bullshit we've ever heard from the cheap seats. Yeah, they've got to figure out what the next level of the tour looks like still, right? If they're going to do this scarcity model, if they're going to have it, have it, you know, this championship series or whatever this higher

level of the PGA tour is, like what the next level looks like still has to be figured out and it has to work. So everything ladders up to the championship series or the highest level or however that ends up working. But that's, it seems to be secondary on on they feel like they I feel like they need to get the top level right

the signature event series the championship series whatever this is whatever if it becomes a 21 22 event season uh they got to get that part right and they'll be the trickle down effect to to the remainder of the of the tour which I know will be the subject of a lot of debates but they do they got to they got to nail what that next part is and because it massive media deals you can't just like take all like the reason why CBS and NBC buy up all these spots is that they, the golf is on every Saturday, Sunday on network TV on,

on throughout the year from January through August. And it's somewhat easy to find sometimes. And like just taking it away on a lot of these weekends is not really an option. I don't think. At least the math doesn't math nearly as well if you just take away a ton of events. So it's interesting that Lucas will be on the policy board for 20, 2027 to 2030 as well following this appointment. So now does,

does the policy board actually have any power anymore? Because we heard Tiger talk about future competitions committee this week, the FCC, as he kept calling it. You know what was even better at that. TC was the, so the tour has this tool where they, it's like the speed rounds tool that they send to players and they send to media as well. But you can kind of just see,

like, if you want to watch every shot of Scotty's round, that was on TV, they'll just like auto chop it up and you can click on it and watch. And so I was watching Bridgman's round from yesterday again today, today just to prepare. When he was in the booth, that was over a lot of Bridgman shots.

I was just hearing like snippets of Tigers close. Oh yeah, I mean, the FCCs, they're just, we're burning the midnight oil every night. The emails are flying. You know, and it's just catching little snippets and sound bites of it maybe was even better than watching it the first time in full context. Yeah, Tiger, it was, it was kind of rough.

It was on the rails and first, and then it got a little rough. And then he settled in. He whipped it back around. And he whipped it back around. But he was in there for an hour. And I think Trevor and Jim were pretty shocked that he was in there for that long. Like, you spent an hour. You've never done that before, Tiger.

And he also didn't rule out playing Augusta. Yeah. I don't know what I think about that. We'll see. Can it be interesting to see what happens? He also keeps referencing. You know, he says, yeah, I can go out and brought a buggy out on the top of the champ. that wasn't an option before but you know it's a different deal out there you guys know how i feel

about it out here but it's a different deal out there do you think he plays the masters no probably not i kind of hope he doesn't i mean i feel like i'm at a very healthy very healthy spot with this i think anybody who's who's revving up the siren and the hype machine is that's going to happen i can't do that yeah but that's their problem i'm i feel very emotionally distanced from like if he goes out and shoots 78 and withdraws I'll be like oh man well that's a bummer what else is going on or if he shoots 71 I'll be like wow what a great story or if he doesn't play I'll be like oh that's fine too like I just feel I'm very just good I'm taking it as it comes yeah that's great I hope he does hope he plays every tournament you know

I would love to see him play the play the open championship next year at st. Andrews that'd be awesome that's what I would like to see and I'd like to see him play Boston common on Sunday March 1st Are we concerned we've got too many double-headers coming up on the TGL front, T-C? I just, I don't know if anyone's asking for that. Monday and Tuesday. Tomorrow and Tuesday. Yeah, they will be playing off real turf, though, Sully. Eight straight hours of TGL off real turf.

No, they've got a two-hour break in the middle. It's five to seven and then nine to 11. There's nothing going on from seven to seven to nine. Some would say they might need to figure out their TV windows, but bleak field. Next week it cognizant. It does not. Chance for our guy Michael Brennan to do some work next week, you see. That's what jumped out to me for that field list.

We need it. Is Godder up in the field? You know, Sally's riding him. I don't think so. He's not. Brian Gerard is in the field. ADDC in the field could be a, you know, I think he's going to pick one of these off at some point. Neil Shipley, you can see him winning at some point.

Let's texting with Harry Higgs earlier. He's one of the alternates. I was like, all right, are you going to, are you going to Buenos Aires for the, for the Argentine Open? He's like, I don't know, they're going to let me know on Monday if I forget trying to get in. Otherwise, I'm hopping on the plane. But I was like, I was like, I hope you don't get in

because I, you get to go play an Alistair McKenzie course and eat a bunch of delicious steak down in Buenos Aires. Like, that would be killer. Worse, worse fates than that. D.B. Straight Vibein is in. Michael Kim withdrew. T.C., I'm surprised you let me get an hour and a half into the show before mentioning one of your favorite events in the world.

I just found this out. It's at Karen Country Club. It's incredible. In Nairobi, the magical Kenya Open. Casey Jarvis is your winner. Can't say I know a whole lot about Casey Jarvis, but he... Former Lack winner. He made two Eagles on the back nine, shot a final round 62 to claim the title there.

Oh, that's a different guy. Sorry. You know, I didn't want to... I wasn't 100% sure, but I just don't think that's true. T.C. It's right. Aaron Jarvis, maybe. Arvus was the guy from the Cayman Islands.

That's a different thing. I don't think that they should be in the Latin America. Back to you. One more thing about the Latin American. I don't know. I mean, I just let it go too. I'm like, I didn't know that, dude. I'm sorry.

There was a great moment on Friday. I retweeted this one from D.B. World Tour. Jirogi Kaboo, Kabugu, uh, made Eagle on the final hole on Friday, a native Kenyan,

uh, to make the cut and just a ton of Kenyans around the final green, uh, as he, as he made that putt and just absolutely going nuts. I went to go do some research on him. He's got a great, uh,

Iona Steven has a great video with him on her YouTube channel on the road with Iona. Uh, just, you know, them, them playing golf in Kenya. And it was just a great exploration piece. But that was a nice touch of local flair.

for that event this past week. And it was, it was, it was well documented. He ended up finishing T61, but his second, I think second time making the cut at the magical Kenya open.

It was magical. TC, T.C. Are we, are we tracking this? It's magical every year. Are we tracking this guy, Davis Bryant,

who finished second? I looked at love. He went to Colorado State. Yeah. The American who's playing the DP World Tour. Just always a fun. That's always a fun thing. I always love seeing that.

So I missed the cut at the guitar masters. It's kind of like, can really, really tell you. Maybe add that to your monitoring list. Open a couple of tabs on him. We know Nicky's have ever won the guitar masters, though, since Fuzzy Zeller. We've also, we had a couple,

so we had two national open, sorry, we didn't have a national, it was the New Zealand PGA championship this week, which was down at Para Aumu, down near Wellington. Sounds like they have some teeth in their PGA championships. 6,600 yards baked out, firm, fast, only two guys under par. American Austin Trueslow won.

And then MJ McGuire was another American guy that finished even. Yeah, and then Cooper Moore from New Zealand finished second. But more of that. Chase Kepka seems to be bouncing back after his relegation a couple of years ago from Smash G.C. He finished T. T5 as well. So our friend Curtis Locke T16 plus five. And this week, we guys, we have three, count them three national opens this week.

We have the South African Open down in Wine Country, down in Stellan Bosch, on the DP World Tour. And then we've got the New Zealand open down in Queenstown. Was that AroTown, golf club or I think it's Ayrotown. I'm probably going to get a mea culpa on that one. And then what was the last one? We have a third one. Oh, we have the Argentine open. Yeah, yeah, at the Jockey Club, which is, that's going to be fantastic.

I've gotten reports that it's going to be much drier. Of course, it's going to be in much better shape than it was last year. And that there will be a live stream this year as well. I think there was a live stream last year that I'm watching. And it was delightful. All the commentary was in Spanish, of course. I had more fun watching that than I did whatever. it was against last year on on the tour side.

So I think it'll be on the Corn Ferry Tour YouTube channel. Just sick. Props to them for doing that. On continued DP World Tour news, a statement came out earlier this week from the DP World Tour said they have granted conditional releases to eight members to play in conflicting tournaments

on LiveGolf during the 2026 season. Each member has accepted the conditions specified by the DP World Tour for their release, which include payment in full of all outstanding fines for breaches of the DP World Tour's regulations, participation in additional stipulated DP World Tour tournaments, as well as associated media activity and promotion, as well as withdrawal of all pending appeals.

The eight members that agreed to this, Lori Cantor, Thomas Dietrich, Tirol Hatton, Tom McKibben, Adrian Moronk, Victor Perez, David Pooge, and Elvis Smiley. Any names missing from that list of interest to either of you? Ron J. Ham. Yeah, I'm going to say John Rom, not on that list. Which is very interesting. I know we talked about it.

I think we maybe even played the quotes, but a couple of weeks ago. But the Rory, Rory just straight up saying, you know, hey, we all said, we all gave the Americans a lot of shit saying that, you know, we would pay to play in the Ryder Cup. And now there's a couple guys that have the opportunity to do it by paying their fines and showing that they want to, you know, want this to be a smooth situation. And Rom continues to take the opposite tack on that.

So what did you think of this? Brom also the richest man in golf not named Tiger Woods. Like, and has made the most money off of golf in the last five years of anyone. And he's the one that won't pay the fines just to do this. It's principal. Honestly, this one, I thought about, this a little bit today. I'm like, what? Why? I still find myself kind of rooting for

Rom. I overall like John Rom and I find him interesting and when he's in contention in majors. I don't know. I want him involved in the mix. I'm like, what? I feel like I'm bending over backwards to like Rom at this point. What, what reason is he giving me to actually like him at this point? He said all the pledged his field to the PGA tour. Four hundred million dollars wouldn't change my life. Like that's not real golf over there. Leaves and does that. And it's one thing to like to do that and like I just I cannot understand how he can I don't know what's three or four million bucks that he owes the DP World Tour to want to continue to play over there why why he can't afford to do that why he refuses to do that he's the one of all of these people that

can afford to do it refuses to do it and we're supposed to act like that he's justified in all of this it's the DP World Tour has very clear rules and regulations for conflicting events live golf has very clear rules and regulations for conflicting events. Like you can't play the, you know, I should be able to go anywhere. Your tour doesn't let you go anywhere. You have to play live golf events. Like you do not get the luxury that DP World Tour players get, which is they can get releases to go play other tour events.

And I do not know if he's going to play in the Ryder Cup in Ireland. Like I don't know what he's trying to win. I don't know what a win here looks like for him, that he doesn't have to pay the $3 million out of the $300 he's made. from live golf if not more it just it's it's unredeeming it is it is like Rory said it out loud the better than I possibly could like you you had a chance to do this you had a chance to put your money where your mouth is and you're just not doing it trying to find this it was from one of the pro golf critic Bob surah fan you know one of one of

those accounts but I can't find it because they got I think the guy blocked me and so I couldn't bookmark it but it was kind of like playing devil's avidavit a kid of all right here's and i think it was something along the lines of why should he have to get releases for tournaments that he's not planning on playing in anyway on the dp world tour because it's basically a feeder tour for the u.s tour which was i don't know made maybe a little bit of sense to me um but also yeah like yeah like you you've signed the membership regulations you knew what you're getting into when you when you signed and like you know maybe that's a separate membership issue if you want to bring that up otherwise but the question of why

can you go play pGA tour events if you're a dp world tour member like the strategic alliance there like you can you get yeah or even before that i i suppose right um i don't know i'm just i'm just trying to play devil's advocate here because yeah i think i think i think rome just seems like he's totally lost in sauce and just intransigant and doesn't want to he like he's truly turning into the modern day sevi It's solid. Didn't Sevee miss a Rider Cup? He did.

Yeah, he did. That was more over the minimum number of events required. Travel, it was different back then. It was really, really different. Yeah, a little bit. It's somewhat similar. But I guess I just, I don't know, for someone that I was like, I felt like it was one of the dudes that was the most intrigued by legacy.

If you ever listen to that guy, I talk about golf, you know so much about history. And he was so easy to root for. all of this. Like his his true desires to be great and his golf knowledge and his, he listens to podcast, he knows all these little details. It was like, dude, this guy is great. I really am enjoying this and he's thrown all this

away for, again, just to save 0.5% of money he's made off of live golf to this point. It just is, I don't know. It's stunning. For the Ryder Cup. I also think the, I don't know, like the strategic alliance is kind of bullshit because

the tour's just gutted the DP World Tour. too, right? I mean, that's I mean, gutted slash they're funding it. They're funding it. Yeah, it goes both ways. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's Tiger kind of gutted the DP World Tour.

If you really want to pull on that string of all the corporate money that flew into the PJ tour and all those guys left to go play, you know, more golf in the PJ Tour because they make more money there. That's kind of what killed it. Just the American economy too. Yeah, exactly. So it gets man I I feel pretty

uninterested by the super nitty gritty courts and appeals and fines and all of that stuff but man it does get interesting when you start like wake me up for the the rider cup roundtable John Rom might not be on the team episode like we'll we'll listen to that one

because I think for all of the this is a brotherhood this family this is everything like it gets I think the rubber is going to be the road on some of that stuff if if one of them is kind of putting himself outside of the system. I also don't think they need him to beat the U.S. Oh, that's true.

Dare Banner as we're standing here right now. On the LPGA tour this week, Gino Titakum became the third Thai winner of her home event joining Area Jutanagan and Patty Tavitanicott. I believe this is her first win

with her mother present. She had rounds of 67, 63, 66, 68. She beat Chizzy I-Y by one shot. One of the E-Y twins. Cody's laughing behind the scenes here. What did I mess up here, Cody? I'll help you with some pronunciation. You know, that's the fastest police to get out there on you, Sully.

But it was electric. Gino winning in front of plenty of family and friends. And you're right, it was the first time that her mom has been present for her to win. a professional event. Awesome. Great quotes after it. Said it was an A plus plus plus plus win comparing it to what potentially winning a major would feel like.

Careful. Exactly. She did not say that. She said what a major would feel like. I was like, I got to add potential in there because it would be tough. But overall, great showing. This is an awesome event.

Thailand always shows out for it. Has it like crazy week purse still as everything else on the LPG? J-Tor continues to get elevated. For some reason, this purse hasn't really gone up yet. But really, you know, Gino wrapped it up firmly this morning coming to her back nine. Chisie had two Eagles on her day, second coming on the par five-tenth and then didn't make a single birdie in from there. Hoy-Ju Kim finished solo third, Somi Lee, fourth, Lydia Coe and Nana Kurtzmatson tying

for fifth there. Great showings from Alison Corpus, Andrew Lee and Lottie Wode. Ronnie's back tied for 15th there with Lottie. Great to see her having some good form again after a pretty lackluster season last year. But it is very exciting that we're this early on into the professional calendar and the top three women in the world, or the Rolex rankings at least, Nelly, Gino and Charlie of each one already. So we have Gino and Charlie back in action this year at the Asian major HSBC. women's world championship in Singapore. Nellie, of course, don't travel for that. Get off my back.

Lydia is there defending. Gino, I just said, is going to be there. Minji making her season debut. The only player that's in the Rolex top 15 is that's not there is Nelly. And it's just, it's wild that you continue to look at this and you continue to have big money dumped into these events and she just doesn't show up. And that really excited. That legitimately makes me mad. She just doesn't want to buy in. It's crazy. I think she has to once every four years, I think it is.

So we'll see. I think it would be coming up next year for a lot of these events. But excited for this week as well, because on the LET, they start their month-long Australian swing. So pumped about that, they're going to be in Sydney for the Northwest Wales Open. So, more to come. Cody, I... I need to see more, better setups out there, too. Like, where?

On LPGA, especially with the Thailand event, like, T-32 was minus 10 this week. I mean, like, and that's, that's my rub on, on Gino. You could literally lay that across the entire LPGA tour schedule T-C. No, I know, but Gino feasts on all these, all these birdie-fests, you know, and that's, I'd like to see. So, I don't know. We'll see what happens. They got, they got what, they got. Singapore this week and then they got China next week and then they're back state side for founders.

Yep, week off during players and then they're back up at founders. I think the other just natural, natural tie into this week's conversation is U.S. Women's Open going to Riviera and all the things we said about Riv playing in February and being able to see the firmness and the shot shapes and all, you know, the scale, probably in a little better place than to what we would want to see is, is probably going to be a lot better in late May than it is. you know, in February, late May for the women, then February for the men. So that was one of those things that came up into my mind more than once today was just like,

I don't know if this is it, but I think the U.S. Women's Open is going to be it in a big way. I mean, not only that, but just wait a couple more years too in the Olympics are there in late July, early August. Both men and women, the first time that we're going to actually have a co-ed competition side of it as well, it's going to be awesome. So I think we're going to see, you know, the different versions that we crave of rib coming up, at least in the next couple of years that we'll enjoy. We'll also get the men's U.S. Open there post-ball rollback, 2031 U.S. Open there, which might be. Allegedly. Yeah.

The second or third rollback of it, BJ Torto. Anyways. Final few notes I had, the Saudi Public Investment Fund approved $267 million of fresh capital for LiveGolf that comes from money in sport. The total investment in LiveGolf has now reached $5.3 billion following a 266.6 million injection approved by Yasser Albuyan on February 1st, 2026.

At this current rate of spending, it will put the cumulative spending of LiveGov past $6 billion by the end of this year. don't think this necessarily means much of anything. I was not expecting to live to all of a sudden stop pumping money into it, but the numbers, of course, are staggering and worth monitoring. But could this be money moved around to re-signed Bryson? Could it be, who knows, probably just to keep your current costs.

Yeah, we just did to keep throwing money at this. Because not making a ton of money on the income side, Fox average 331,000. for the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. window for live Adelaide. Pebble last week averaged 3.3 million for Morikawa's win. Coverage peaked at nearly 5.2 million. Those are per Josh Carpenter. Do we have, so remember last year, it was last year or two years ago where they said Nielsen changed up the way they rate stuff?

Ratings. Ratings Twitter's turning a little bit into where did it across Twitter for me. I'm just like, man, now if we can't all. agree on the numbers, this whole thing seems pretty worthless, to be honest. It was panel only now, it's big data. And Pebble was flat to Rory's

way. I don't know to tell you about big data, T's, yeah. Something like that. I couldn't fully explain it, but. I will say on that, those numbers for Lid don't look good, right? But it's still that window, it's one of their best ever. The incredible, but compared,

right? Compared to the PJ tour, which I do think is very unfair. But it blows my mind that we're still, we're over a week into this. And the continued momentum of AK and the story and just getting picked up all over the place, it's a really cool thing to see. I mean, you can say a lot that you want about live. But for AK and the side and like every single sports to all other things, just continuing this momentum, it's been nuts to watch.

Yeah, it was cool. I was on vacation. I didn't like, I just kind of watched it as a fan for the most part. Yeah, and then seeing people argue, like, when Fultz, he said that it was more impressive than Hogan, all of that. And then people climb in and saying, well, you know what, like drugs have killed a lot more people than buses. It's kind of like, yeah. That's a conversation. I can't get down with the rating stuff.

Those are the conversations I need to be having, T.C. Those are the debates I need to be. Yeah, those are the debates I need to be embracing. I think to your point, Cody, there's a big difference in the AK success story. the live golf success story. I think it's it's very easy to celebrate the success of Anthony Kim and the bounceback. And I don't think it's necessarily like a game changer for live golf or any of the hundreds of thousands of things why it's not working that we've documented over the years. Oh, you're just a hater.

A.K. took to X the everything out. Looks like on Friday and said, want to take a moment to thank at Golf Digest, atGolf.com and at Golf channel and many other excellent writers for taking a shit on my name all down giving me more motivation. I love you all. I do it. I just don't think anybody's ever been more universally. Like we all love you.

Please come back. All we want to do is watch you play golf, man. We all, all of us love you, dude. We're just, we're so in on watching you play golf. And maybe, listen, maybe I missed, maybe I miss some stuff. I know. And then also not to not for nothing like he did play really bad for like two straight really bad. And I think that's where it's like do you want this to be a league that people talk seriously about or is it just about sticking it to the haters? Because if you want if like go ahead,

man. Like how's that working out for you guys to take that to take that tact. I guess. It just is yeah, that was a disheartening for as cool and as much as I enjoyed watching. that, seeing posts like that after the fact of just like, see, I told you. It's like, cool, man. I don't know. Godspeed. All right. I think my lasting takeaway was just how much, like I know we say this every time there's an event in Australia, how much I love watching golf on shortish, firm and fast golf courses where anybody that's teeing up in the field can win it. And I think that that like like AK is not going to go win at a lot of of 7,500.

Like he's not going to quail hollow and fucking winning. He's just not right. Because it's where like like he was in total control of his golf ball out there with his iron. And that matters. And his wedges. And that matters. And man, I want to see that more often in golf.

And I think that like, all right, if we're not going to do anything with the equipment, then you know what, man? Like we got to go to more interesting places where the weather is good and where, where it can be firm and fast certain times of the year and put ourselves in that position a little bit more often if if the equipment's not going to get taken care of but either way

you're going to have to make a sacrifice here for the sake of the product and the entertainment and the sport at large but yeah i mean like i just god i love watching golf on those those Australian courses doesn't even have to be sandbelt it's not even a great golf the Grange is not even that great of a golf course it's just like just give me Australian sandbelt like i don't even care I mean, like the ladies are going to Kuyanga in a few weeks. I think Liv's going there next year for the Live Australia event. You know, it's like, like it doesn't like shit, you go to Perth. You get firm and fast out in Perth.

You know, there's just, just give me that more than once a year. Give me that like four times a year. Please. I think this maybe just, I don't know. I don't want to be, I hate being a pessimist here. but like we tz we can't even get tg l holes playing firm and fast like i'm just looking at like where we're going next on the agenda and it's like oh this hole looks cool and it's like who cares and it's not we can't even get those holes played like the way that we want to see holes

play those are too sticky and soft and like well i just don't think we're i don't think the other grass because it's real grass tj that's why exactly the other problem is like all right if we're if we're not going to get firm and fast let's go the opposite direction and it make it slow They get wildly slow on the greens. Give us that. Give us something different. On that note, there is a new hole on the TGL. It's a gill hole.

We got it. This is Bo Welling. We got to celebrate it. We've got to do it. We ask for less realistic golf holes. This is in a cave, in a cave, in a cavern. There's stalactites. Things that I've remembered and learned from the.

Like mites, I think. No, tights. They're hanging on tight from the ceiling. That's how I remember stalactites. Really? Wow. I'll stand out and you sound pretty careful. God, I hope that's right.

I've committed that to memory when I was like fifth grade. But what if you're wrong? Selag tites are high school shaped mineral deposits that hang from the ceiling. Well, then what are still like mites? From the bottom. From the bottom. Oh, man, I'm sorry.

It's got both here. I know, but the tights I'm worried about here. That's the design aspect here. You're right, player. That's on me. Stand out. It's kind of an homage to, you know, Bo Wellings curling. He's been in, he's been in Italy.

Oh, I can't believe he was able to do this and do all of his Olympics responsibilities. I like that, Cody. That was good. Curling. Maybe this. Yeah, yeah, Canada. He's all these stingers. Wow, I didn't even think about that. TGL in cell had that on Twitter.

I meant to submit to that one, but that was very good. TGL said, or Roy said stingers out there to get ready for, get ready for TG. Oh, all right. question, are they going to turn the lights down in the SoFi Center when they play this hole? That would be sick. Yeah, you can't see the ball. We'll get, let's see. Release some bats in there.

All right, that's good about doing unless you guys have anything else before we wrap here. I wanted to say RIP to Jeremy Turner, architect who designed Lufth and Links. did a lot for Norwegian golf and he's from the UK originally but designed a lot of courses up in Scandinavia and yeah we were able to play it on our Tauras

trip. Sal you were able to play it on a previous trip as well. So just wanted to shout out a great man who did a lot of cool stuff in a nascent golf part of the world. Amen, thank you for that, T.C. Thank you to everyone that has tuned in live here on a Sunday night. These are always very, very fun to do. I want to give a shout of course to our friends at Titleist. High noon, Arcos, and SoFi for DJ Pi, T.C. and Cody running the

ones and twos, Matt, running the social behind the scenes. Thank you for being with us on this Sunday night. We will see you back here. We got an episode coming out, I believe Wednesday this week. Usually we're Tuesdays. We'll be out Wednesday this week and we'll have a cognizant recap as well this coming Sunday. Anything else housekeeping wise that we need to give a shout out. I got one. Check out the nest. If you're not a nest member, DJ worked really hard to put together a vlog. He's loving.

He's a big vlogger these days. I didn't work that hard. Don't get your expectations up, but it is. The whole point is he didn't work that hard on it, but it's a bunch of footage from behind the scenes at the AT&T, Pebble Beach Pro Am, from actual golf shots and stuff played during the Pelper Beach Pro Am,

practice rounds, and just a big behind the scenes for the week as well. So check that out. You can go to no layingup.com backslash join to learn more about. We're doing a lot more NEST exclusive content this coming year. We're doing a lot of expanding of the NEST podcast this year. So be sure to check that out for NEST members.

People that are already NEST members. And if you're not, please consider joining for, there's a lot, a lot that goes into the NEST membership. And we greatly appreciate everyone that supports the show that way. Here, here. All right, that is going to do it for tonight. Thank you, everyone for tune in. We'll see you back here next week.

Cheers. Next Sunday, new Fodora 5. Be there. Be there.