No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1128: Reaction to Brian Rolapp's vision of the future PGA Tour

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Join us for the 2026 Players Championship Kick-Off Show! Reaction to PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp's remarks: new season structure, late-January-September, 120-player fields with a cut, major markets, promotion/relegation, and is match-play back?! PLUS - We will get you caught up on other news and notes, course updates, and everything else you need prior to this years Players. Presented by Titleist. Support our sponsors: Titleist - the #1 ball in Golf! Rhoback - code NLU for 20% off at https://www.rhoback.com The Stack - code nolayingup at https://www.thestacksystem.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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

be the right club be the right club today yes that's better than most how about him that is better than most better than most

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the no langup podcast the no laying up live show uh hello to everybody watching on youtube if you're watching us here or listen to your car whatever you're doing at the moment my name is DJ uh joined by my friend sally

and TC greetings from Jacksonville boys. How are you? Good, thirsty, sweaty. It's hot here. It was just an energetic day. I'm still on the energy high and I want to just make it to 6 p.m. here today because I have a feeling it's going to be the fatigue is going to set in here quickly. A lot happening this week. Record high today, Dege, 92 degrees. I heard, you know what, snowing in my house, T.C. quite literally right at the moment. So, yeah, watch. one. We are brought to you today, as we always are by our friends at Titleist. We got a lot to talk about today. Firm golf course I'm hearing. I'm receiving words of a firm greens out there. You're going to need a lot of good long iron control out of TPC sawgrass. We're going to

circle back on that later in the show. But before we do, guys, we got a lot to talk about from just, I would say the world of pro golf. We had a big update in the world of pro golf today as we heard from Brian Rolap for the first time in a meaningful capacity since probably last year's tour championship when he spoke. He spoke at PJ Tour HQ. We're going to talk about what it means him speaking at PJ Tour HQ instead of in the media center. That's that's a change. He spoke in front of media, partners, notably PJ Tour staff, kind of an all hands come through. Hear ye, hear ye, type of day. Took questions for 45 minutes. Took questions so people literally didn't have any questions anymore, which was very impressive. And so I want to get into all the

nitty gritty of what he said, what he didn't say, what he almost said, what he into that. But just first things first, Saw I'm going to start with you. How are we feeling? How are we doing? What are you taken away from today? I feel it's like suspiciously great about it all. You know, my guard is up in some way of like, you know, am I getting out ahead of myself? But I overwhelmingly felt during, you know, there was some. anticipation going into this. We kind of talked about this early into the week of, you know, we're maybe hearing some things like there's not going to be as much

in this press conference as maybe we'd hope. They're not as far as long as we'd hope. Maybe roll up running into some roadblocks implementing his plan. And I did not walk away feeling that. I walked away feeling like definitively, I feel like the PGA tour is in good hands. And it's been

my whole life since I've felt that way, I think, in terms of where it's headed and the direction it's going. I said this when we talked to roll app back in August of the Tour Championship, it was like we took 10 years of our podcast and put it in a chat, GPT and summarized it into an agenda and laid it all out. Make simpler.

Make simpler. I feel like it's crystallizing even more. We're going to break down the specifics of all of that, but it all started to really, really, really make sense. And it just, you know, it's a soft skill and it isn't, you know, It is kind of game-changing, but it also isn't of just the ability to deliver that message so definitively so well. And so with all with the aura that he kind of had in doing it and the ability to just put the trust.

I felt like he had everybody's trust in that room. And nobody was like rolling their eyes at that. Nobody looking at each other like suspiciously. Like, really? It was just like, oh, okay. Pretty hard to argue with everything you're saying here. If you didn't know the answer, like you kind of just said like I'm, I'm, We're working on that.

I don't know enough about that at the moment. We'll come back to that. And I don't know, man. I feel, I think everybody left that room feeling like nodding along and making the little smirk face of like, okay, this is kind of what we're talking about. Let's go. There was a lot of, yeah, a lot of this was the day Brian Rollout became president type of, type of vibes floating around. But I think there was some substance and some stake to go with it, even if some of it was hints. But TC, what do you have to add to that?

And also, like, again, I'm a little bit biased here. Former PJ tour employee. I've been to the players 200 times. Have been to that state of the union press conference. Have been in the media prep sessions for that. Like, I love this press conference. This one was totally different and I totally missed it. And it was like the first of, of its kind.

Just a little palace intrigue, T.C. Like, paint a picture for me of like, who's there, who's hanging out, who's talking to who, who's not talking to who. what's the vibe in there? Yeah, I think the, first of all, I was a little disappointed when I saw the screenshots you guys sent through

for what it looked like on TV because it just, you know, same step and repeat and sitting in the media center, it felt like watching Jay, you know, hunched over.

Who you couldn't get for the first part for saying Monaghan. I knew it. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah,

he got up there and called Jay a winner, which we can talk about that. But, but no, like it felt like, you know, kind of from a room closet to like the entire organization is there

in this $100 million dollar Norman Foster design building that we reference all the time like inside the moat like it's one of the coolest buildings in the world like the design and all of that there's three levels up and like the entire tour staff

I mean every tournament director every corporate sponsor and partner like they basically canceled the partner summit this week And they were like, hey, just come to the press conference instead. They had, you know, like the Uruguay Golf Association was there. Those guys had their blazers on. You know those guys aren't just showing up just for shits and giggles?

DJ America, LPGA. Like, it was true. I mean, I saw everybody from the world of golf maybe except for, I'm sure there was an Augustine National representative there, but didn't, I didn't see. I didn't see one or recognize one. But otherwise, like every agent, every agency that does. does work with the tour. It truly felt like every single stakeholder was in the room. And it was like come one, come all. Even if there's not a specific tangible detail or headline that came from it,

I think it was truly just like under new management kind of banner at the top. And even sitting there, like he spoke directly. He spoke, you know, clearly like a human being. And, there's not a media person up on stage with him choosing the questions and handpicking stuff it's it's roll out pointing at people calling him out and he was doing the speed go get that is kind of what i thought that was it was kind of like when randy did the did the thing at like the pGA championship right so yeah next question yeah down in front here yeah um he was running it himself and then like literally he was like like anybody else have any questions like does anybody possibly want to

want to ask anything else? Whereas in the past it's felt like oh no, all right, we can maybe do one more question and then like we got to get Jay the fuck out of here because he's going to spontaneously combust. Well, let's get into some of the specifics here and I'll

preface some of this with these are all none of these recommendations have gone to the board yet. None of this is real life stuff yet. This is kind of just what has come back from the future competitions committee, which we referenced, you know, the state of the union at Eastlake. That was one of the things that came out of there was, you know, Tiger Woods is going to

head up this future competitions committee. They're going to look under the hood at everything that we're doing. We're not doing. How could we be doing things better? They're going to come back with recommendations and how we need to change things. And today was all about, what was less about like we rocked them. Here's exactly what's going into play this afternoon. And more about here is what we're starting to see here are the big themes that are starting to kind of organize themselves. And I would say before you get there too, like also giving us mile markers or checkpoints of like you will hear from me again at the Travelers Championship. And I will up you on these very specific things.

And then you will hear from me again at the Tour Championship. And you'll and it was just like I know transparency can be a hollow word. at times, but it was very much like, here's what we're working on. We're not there yet. It seems like they've kind of gotten into the hood and saying, all right, we can't break this thing apart yet. Like we've got to keep it intact while we build the new thing. But also, here's where we're working on. Here's when you'll have the next update and hold us to that. Like, there's accountability involved. Yeah. I think there's just, but I know we're kind of jumping ahead with this, but I'll be quick with this to say. Like, I almost, I feel like they're at the point in the process where they now view

being able to use the public nature of this as an asset for action in terms of like this is now out there. The buzz is out there. The reaction is out there. Like who wants to be a part of this? Let's line up some sponsors. Like, you know, you could feel like having all the sponsors there to hear all this and hear the enthusiasm could not have been an accident. You know, of course it's not an accident of like, now this is out there. Do you want to be in on the PGA tour? Come to death row. Because like you're going to need to step up to this big level and that's how we're going to do it. And here's how we're going to do it. and, you know, almost like using that as a little bit of power. Like now that this is out there, this is what the plan is.

It's going to be harder for people to fight against. And it just makes it a little bit more clear for people what they're signing up for both from a media perspective and from a sponsor perspective. Peter Jacobson, your ass is on notice. We'll get to that. So, well, speaking of clarity, one thing I would commend them on just from a pure communications standpoint is like make it clear what we're talking about. And I really appreciate it. As soon as you know, hey, I have, there are six points, point number one. And Ryan Rollab went through all of this.

And I just think it's funny when you see the media reporting on a lot of this stuff, including what we're about to do right now. People are dying for this. People are just like, sweet, copy and paste the six points. This is what I'm looking for rather than kind of like a mealy mouth. Like, yeah, we're looking at that. We're kind of working on maybe this, that, and the other thing. And then people miss and construe things and then everybody gets mad.

Anyways, what we have are six points. which is interesting because there's five points of five points of contact or five points of pressure football roll-ups taking it to six. I didn't even think about that. Point number one, this has to do with the season structure. He wanted to make it clear that the PJ tour, at least the first track, we're going to get to what first track, second track, top tier, lower tier type stuff means. But the main events of the PJ tour,

the big dog events of the PJ tour should run from late January to early September is what they're finding. They want to at least double the number of signature events, which means that if you take those, you know, call that there's eight now. So double that to 16 plus

the majors and the players and the Ryder Cup or President's Cup. You're kind of looking at like 21 to 26 events for the main top players on the PJ tour. Which brings us to point two consistent fields. He really wants to incentivize the right

players playing the right tournaments and sponsors knowing who's going to show up. And that means 120 man fields at those signature events instead of 70 man fields. And that means also with a cut, which people are very fired up about and championing today as far as I can see. Point number three, PJ Tour needs to open big. And what that means is open the season with a big marquee event at a, iconic West Coast venue. I'm a little worried we're talking about

20 lines, but we can get to that. Finishing on network TV in prime time, who says no, not too many people, I don't think. Point number four, the PJ Tour needs to take better advantage of major, major markets. Major, major, major markets.

He wants to take advantage of the opportunity to bring golf to larger markets where it's applicable, not necessarily forcing it, but he called out specifically New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, D.C., Philly, all places that don't have a regular tour stop for some reason and, you know, seemingly wanting to really get back into those markets and take advantage of those. I thought he made a great point that the bulk of, you know, you hear a lot of this like COVID golfers, the new golfers in the golf world. The bulk of those new golfers are obviously in high population centers. And those new golfers are obviously in high population centers. And those new golfers, golfers really have not had a consistent PJ tour presence in the last five years and haven't really had the chance to go to one of these events for the first time. So it is a little bit of like almost starting over in some of those places, which which I think is an interesting thought.

Point of- Also funny to think about like Boston is like, all right, TPC Boston's like 20 minutes outside of Boston. Yeah, exactly. Point number five, moving down the six points of contact here. Promotion relegation, must credit live golf. This, he just continues to say meritocracy, meritocracy, meritocracy. There needs to be consequences. There needs to be fans need to know exactly what is on the line at all of these events. They need to know if somebody is moving up to the first track, moving down to the second track, what's on what's on the line for different golf tournaments.

And then number six, enhancing the postseason. Exciting stuff here. lots of kind of at everything's on the table sort of situation the post season i want to pause on that word too and we'll get there but not the playoffs it says the post season yeah so exploring ways to add drama to those final events of the season very explicitly including the potential of match play uh one of the quotes that stuck out to me was and we'll circle back to this when i get done with my monologue here was the thing that matters above everything else is whether or not the competition is

compelling. And I just think that kind of flies in the face of everything we've heard about the FedEx Cup in the past where it's like, no, no, no, you don't get it. It's a big cash redistribution system. And it needs to be distributed along these points. We're going to go to Memphis in late August. It's going to be awesome. Relapse's point seems to be like, no, no, no, you don't get it. It needs to be interesting or people are not going to watch. And this is, of course, where the quote that will probably reference a couple times came from where he basically said pro sports are about listening to, listening to the fan or thinking like a fan and nine out of ten times, that's probably the right answer. Again, not necessarily

where we've been in the past. So I want to go through all those kind of point by point and we have lots and lots of stuff to talk about. But before we do, just a couple other things that he said that we're probably not going to get into today, but probably need to be read into the record. Again, none of these are going into effect immediately. None of them have even been brought to the board. Still just ideas. So, you know, if there was no resistance to these ideas, they probably would would have been pushed through and we probably have a lot more announcement to be doing today. But instead, there are still just ideas.

So that probably means we're talking about at least like 2028 as the earliest time that we're going to see wholesale change. So worth mentioning that up front. Which, Dej, I was a little bit disappointed earlier this week. I was like, oh, this thing might be a nothing burger. More I think about it, the more I'm like, I'd rather than do it right, then rush something out in just to win the press conference. or just to win, just to get it out for 27, when here's the vision, we're still working on the

details. And he said that a couple of times of like, we're, I don't want the details to start affecting the vision. I want the vision to, you know, like, let's, let's be, let's be flexible on the details. Millician with the strategy and loose with the details. Yeah. Which, and I think that that's important where the details will matter and do matter, especially as it relates to venues and certain competition things, but the vision right now matters of like,

all right, what are we trying to accomplish here overall? And like, yes, it feels like what we've been talking about for eight years. And there's also a built-in urgency to this. They touched on just the timing of media rights deal. So the media rights deal runs through 2030. But negotiations, I don't know when technically, but at least two years prior to that. And the media, the entire market needs to know what the product is that they're potentially buying. So like having it ready by 2028 is non-negotiable. Like it has to be ready by 2028 because that's the year when negotiations start and it better start working right off the bat because your entire valuation of your next media deal, which makes up what percent of your valuation of the entire company? I don't know, but it's

massive. Like all relies on that. So there's built in urgency and that's where I'm with UTC of like, we may see some remnants of this in 2027 and like 2028 is the year. to focus on and I think that they have no choice but to be ready for that. A couple other things before we get into the specifics again. I mentioned no consideration to folding the live players into the players. Just thought that's interesting with all the major talk and, you know, who's missing this week and et cetera. Didn't weigh in on the major talk, which this is the only part where I'm kind of like, you know, he was, he was big on, you know, that's just not for us to decide. That's not for us.

All right. Well, it's okay, well, it's your commercial. But it's, okay, well, let's just set that aside. He was like, all we did was put out a commercial. Our marketing did a really good job. And I was like, maybe for the first time ever. Yeah, you guys are talking. Got you guys talking about it.

Didn't weigh in on the rollback decision other than to say that basically everyone seems like they're on different pages. Stakeholder wise right now as far as USGA is saying one thing. Players are saying one thing. Manufacturers are saying one thing, which is, I guess, how it's been for last. 25 years. And his point was essentially like there needs to be consensus around, you know, we need all be looking at the same data. We all need to be having the same conversation before we can decide.

There's two questions. He said, is distance an issue in the game? And all right, if so, how do we go about combating it? I think unequivocally, I hope he says yes with the first. But I think number two is up for debate. Right? I think that does the current rule that's being proposed accomplished that was his phrase. There's a big and I think his his take too was very much like, all right, we're going to get our like, we're going to get our house in order here and we can deal with that here as we go along. Yeah. This is worth mentioning just, I think, as some of the criticism and I hate, I hate all this change stuff starts popping up.

I wanted to stress that no one should expect the tour to take a step backwards from a charitable. standpoint. I feel like that's been out there a lot is like we're taking all the charity money and we're funneling it to, you know, all of like six players. We'll see. We'll see how the math, maths on all of that, but that's, you know, relaying what he said there. And then the last thing, again, don't have to get into this today necessarily, but just thought it was very interesting when he was asked, I think about Joseph Lamania maybe about the idea that golf, or that the PJ Tour does not own any of the five biggest properties in the game. game, he kind of made an illusion that I hadn't really heard before that was like, you know,

we could potentially, as you start looking at rights, we could potentially be in an all-boats rise situation if we start thinking about negotiating these things together rather than separately because of how much everything runs through PJ Tour golf. All of the value of the majors is provided by who the stars are, which is created by PJ Tour golf. And it was just a, it flipped it on it flipped it on its head a little bit because I think we've always kind of joked about, you know, the PJ tour has to provide 95% of these guys income while owning none of the biggest pieces in the game. And this is the first time I've almost seen

that, like, go on offense a little bit. What that means, what's going to happen, what the other entity's reaction to that would be is who could possibly say. But it was, I had never heard it phrased that way before. I don't know about you guys. I'd say if you ask like the LPGA tour, there's probably some heavy mistrust there. Like, oh yeah, that didn't go so well for us last sure sure you know but also there's a different guy negotiating how yeah and it could be a subtle like hey we we loan out our talent for the majors and that's how we just why don't we all do this here or else the price of the brick going up otherwise is is i think the pj of america is in a very interesting spot with like if you look at the relationships had or lack thereof of like

Sprague and Ray and those guys where like the new guy, Terry from United Health or Optum or whatever is like he basically signed a massive proud partner deal with the PGA tour for their company to host. Like he's a long time partner of the PGA tour. You know, and I think there's kind of resetting that relationship from what, from what I gather. Yeah. So I want to get into all of these points. We'll go in, you know, Into them in finer detail. But before we do, we got to, we got to. You know I got to give a shop to the subtle dog.

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through the end of the week. So getting back into the actual, the six points of contact here, I'm going to lump, I'm going to lump three or four of them together into this first thing, which is kind of the state of play. It's the structure.

The two tracks I mentioned, the field sizes. the promotion relegation. I think all of these kind of go hand in hand. And just to reiterate what we're talking about, as he's laying it out, he's basically saying we have two tracks on the PJ tour. One,

by the way, if I may, just trying very hard not to say top track and bottom track or upper tier and lower tier because it all is supposed to be the same tour, even though we're clearly talking about two different tours. Not anymore. The top track is the main players,

120 man fields, signature events beefed up with cuts, late January to early September, which I think begs, you know, the question we can get into on what the, what the bottom track is. But as far as, you know, in layman's terms,

I mean, we are kind of talking about two tours here, it seems. Yes, this is shockingly kind of in line with what we had talked about a lot in terms of there being a championship level structure. Like he talked a lot as well about restructuring the FedEx Cup and the point system that nobody, really understands and I might be paraphrasing some of that but uh you know basically changing the way the at x of points the points it sucks it doesn't we all do nobody knows how it works how many when

how many points is the fourth place finisher get this week tc we do this for living nobody knows nobody has any idea redoing that top level there's this is where the events that are going to matter for the championship is going to be six of them uh 120 people with a shot at it there's going to be and we don't know the details of this part yet like opportunities to fall out of of this series to get back into this series, all of that, everything laddering up to a completely different competitive series. And I was thinking of a tonne about this today of, you know, because we'll get to a little mention there about the potential season as well. And I was like, are we overhyping this? Is this silly? Are we going to get there and like, you know, still roll our eyes at this? And I'm

like, no, no, I don't think so because, but we've only lived in a world where we truly haven't cared who wins the PGA Tour title. Like if I asked you who won the 2013 Masters, I bet you guys could tell me. Who won the 2013 players? I bet you guys could tell me. Who won the FedEx Cup that year? I bet you couldn't tell me. And like, but if you told me what the courses were for the majors, I could tell you, or for 2013.

Tiger won the players that year. Twenty-13 was Adam Scott. But I don't know. He was 2010. I think it was Bill Haas maybe. I don't know. Anyways, Stenson, I don't know. That's the whole point. But I think you can create a system where we do end up, like, caring who wins if it ends up in matchplay. Like, if it ends up, if we got a Scotty Rory final this year at the end of the PGA Tour season, like one of those two. I think we would remember that.

I think we would definitely remember who won that. And, like, you can, it's weird because you have the players championship is kind of like the PGA Tour champion for the year. of the FedEx Cup, which is like just a big money distribution thing. And you're more likely to probably remember who won the players than you are who won the FedEx Cup. Like, I think they got to work towards changing that. And I'm allowed to at least envision that world now where we care who wins the title at the very end of the year.

And I think that's more important than we've probably talked about in the past. Like, I just think that you've got to nail that part. And I have a feeling they'll get closer to that here in the club. Yeah. T.C. what, like, what stood out to you? likes, dislikes, winners, losers, what do you think of kind of the overall? I mean, going through the six points,

like the season structure makes total sense. And he included that September in there with, like you made a distinction between, I don't necessarily mean that the tour championship is going to be mid-September. I just mean we play the President's Cup and the Ryder Cup later into the September like that. Consistent fields, like I don't know

of a single person who's going to disagree with that. It seems like there's, you know, like some of those Curtis Strange quotes in the Adam Schupeck piece that dropped yesterday of like, yeah, like it sounds like they're getting back to that and he's prolap said. Like we're we went too far the other way in trying to lock down our own talent and we're fixing that now. So I think 120 man fields is great. Like it sucks when you're out at a tournament. There's only 30 or 50 guys. Like that's there's just not enough guys out on the course to justify that sort of build out and all of that. open big i think that's a no-brainer i would say open big but also like keep the momentum going

too i'd love to see you know and then maybe go back to the west coast because you can go much later into prime time in this in later in the summer if you go back to the west coast then you can in early february right so uh i'd love to see him go to a place like a chambers bay or a place like a you know uh she go back to pebble in august right that's where you know they got to have all those conversations. Major markets, this is, it makes sense, but also I think a lot of the time, outside of some of the majors, I think a lot of the time the major markets can feel like a shiny object. And some of these major markets have so much stuff going on in them that PGA tour gets washed out. And granted, maybe that's a relic of the old PGA tour or of, you know, hey, like, we're going to

put a lot more emphasis and a lot more resources behind this or we're going to make it a true spectacle. That remains to be seen. But, It's a lot easier for the PGA tour to feel big in some of these middle markets when it's the only show in town that weekend versus in, you know, say a Chicago or in New York when it's, there's, you know, the weather's great and everybody's out on the lake or out on Long Island. And it's like, hey, there's, there's a bunch of stuff going on and everybody's on vacation kind of thing. Well, let me pause there real quick on the major markets thing because I think it kind of ties back to some of the upper track, lower track. however, again, they're not going to ever call something lower track. I'm just very curious from a nomenclature standpoint how they start to do that. But I am very curious, like, you brought up, like, a criticism on,

and I'm not meaning to pick on these guys, but they just are the most recent quotes that I've read, but like Peter Jacobson and Curtis Strange and Mack Barnhart, and some of the people that were in Adam Shupak's piece that he wrote yesterday for golf week. It's like Mac Barnhart. Like, Mac Barnhart's irrelevant. Like, I can't believe he got quoted there. They're basically talking about how the PJ tour is supposed to be this big traveling circus. We're supposed to have all these events. We're supposed to help charity.

We're supposed to be doing all these things. And then I think there was a quote from Peter Jacobson that was like, you know, if you don't like it, then you can go to live because that's what they're doing over on live. And it's like, as players play against each other on live, if that's what you want. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, okay, everybody needs to pause because for for five years or so, that's exactly what we've been talking about. because if they today felt to me like the culmination of like this five to six year conversation we've been having even before players left for live after they left for live and since the dust is kind of settled a little bit more is like well first you had to keep the players and the way they did that was with a lot of these like cotton candy you know guaranteed purses like player equity like all all the things that have changed over the last the pip god r i p uh first you got to keep you got to keep you the players. Then you got to figure out what the players want. Then you got to try to implement that.

And then you got to go sell that to all the other sponsors. Like they've been trying to do a lot of different things at once. And to me, today kind of felt like the first in the last six months as the FCC has been working on this, has felt like the first time where it's like, okay, we're all hitting the reset button. We're all going to get our arms around what the fuck is actually going on right now. And we're going to present like a new plan.

And part of that new plan is both of those things. It is an upper track that can go to bigger markets. I think that makes a lot of sense for like the playoff events, right? It's like, yeah, those events seem like they should be Chicago and New York. And like kind of what they tried to do out of the jump. Like, I don't think that was like, it didn't seem like that was some big failure. It just seemed like the FedEx Cup sucked rather than like the market sucked. And then it's sorry.

Postseason. Yeah. Well, the last thing is then like that other track, like there still is room for the John Deere's, the rocket mortgages, the, like, like, talk to me, you guys were in the room. Like, talked to me about, like, I forget whoever, who asked the question about scarcity, basically, because that was the word that I think spooked everybody.

It was like, oh, my God, scarcity means that we're going from 41 PJ tour events down to 16, and he's trying to turn this into the NFL, and this is so stupid. And, like, I walked away from today being like, and maybe it was, you know, maybe he was trying to clean up some of that wording mess, but he seemed to be taking like the opposite tack.

Yeah, he said there's been a lot of discussion about scarcity. Ultimately, scarcity is not about the number of events we have, but rather scarcity is about making every event we have matter. And then, you know, there was a question about misconceptions, and he kind of circled back and answered it. So I think about when I talked about scarcity, there's a bit of a misconception that scarcity means a dramatic cut and the number of events of the PGA tour as we know it.

As I said, my remark, scarcity is about making the events we have matter more. so I think there will be a place for most of our events in our new model. Yeah. So it's, I mean, here's what I'll call it for the sake of this. There's like a championship series and like a tournament series, right? Like there's still going to be golf tournaments for a lot of money that aren't like a part of this upper track, like a part of the championship series. And I have a feeling it's going to work kind of somewhat similar to the way the swing 10 and swing five,

next 10 swing five works now of like you play well in the tournament series. You're going to get opportunities up at the at the higher level. And maybe it's pretty cutthroat, you know, the bottom 15 guys in last week's event that missed the cut horribly. Like you're getting relegated and you got to go play on the qualifier. I don't know how dramatic that will be, but that's, that's in a sense what he's saying is to how this is going to actually work and all ladder up to each other. Yeah, it seems like there's a, it's like we're going to set up a system and then we're going to stick to the system instead of, instead of doing all these little carve outs for, oh, yeah, you know what? You missed it, but you don't actually have to go through the system because. you did this six years ago.

It's like, no, all right. Like, like, like you referenced English, you know, English soccer, you know, European soccer a couple times as far as promotion and relegation or just like, it's like the Premier League. And then, all right, you drop down to, first, like, you're still playing, you're still playing soccer. You're still playing football. It's just a matter of just playing against different people and you're trying to

earn your way back up. And I would imagine the churn, they try to almost follow that a little bit too from a churn level of if we have you know what is it how many teams are in the premier league i'm going to show my ass here but who you all are right who could say yeah i know but i'm not going to say yeah yeah yeah you don't have no idea like i can see i mean like two of them get promoted up every year and it's like that that's the churn i think the other thing is like like same thing with like sponsor exemptions yeah no like that's insane like telling me that like this guy sat to the CEO of this company three years ago

at a dinner and they hit it off. And like, so he gets to be in this, in like our, our quarter finals, you know, event. Like, no, that's, that's outrageous. Like, you should have to earn your way in, unless you're like LeBron's son in the NBA.

Like, that's the only kind of exception that I can find. That's real sport. That's, that's where the 120 thing takes care of it, right? I don't think you need to go past 120 to get someone in. I think, they'll have to potentially look at like certain situations where they have star players returning from injuries and how that works from a medical situation.

They'll have to have a clear answer as to how that all ladders up. Like that's one. One thing I'm kind of curious on here in I have been maybe one of the few like, I don't think the cut thing really matters guys out there. I clearly am in the minority from what it sounds like from what most people think. part of that reason has been like I don't think they cover the cut very well I don't think that the actual sweat is that interesting I think it all you know they've gone off the air sometimes before cuts are finally decided and I just don't think it's that big of a deal I think that has

been something that they when they've gone to these partners for a ton of more money they've been able to say definitively well no matter how bad just and Thomas plays at Bay Hill or no whatever this bad example matter how how bad this star player plays he's going to be there on that Saturday and Sunday. We don't have to show him on TV, whatever. He's going to be there if you want, like, you know, as a sponsor, if you're going to put up the money for him, he's going to be there on that weekend. If they can do this, if they can sell this still with the, without being able to guarantee that all these guys will make it to the weekend, good for them. And I'm, I'm fine to bring the cut part back into it. I think it was a, whether or not they had to do it,

we could never know, but it was a concession to, to appeal to a certain sponsor to be able to say, if you could put up $25, $30 million for this, I can at least promise you this. And I will say credit to them. If they're able to bring that back, get all these sponsors in the boat with this without making that guarantee, then the whole golf is also better for it. But also,

Sally, I think the important distinction, too, is like, we're going to work really, really hard to format and create a point system that incentivizes guys to, to play in all of these events. Like,

these guys are going to be guaranteed to show up 15, 16. times instead of eight times. You know, so I think instead of like, like I think cuts are almost humane sometimes of like, you know, who wants to see Justin Thomas or, not to pick on Justin Thomas.

Who wants to see Adam Scott or Patrick Cantley when they're, when they're 25 shots off the lead on a Saturday afternoon. Then they just clearly don't have their game. Like I don't think, I'd rather see the 60 guys playing the best golf that week and whittle it down. And then that's how you create. eight new stars and that sort of thing. I think the incentives is big.

Also, going back to the Premier League, 20 teams. We can't now report. Free down every year. Many people are saying, I'm going to get roasted tomorrow morning by some of the other guys on the numbers there. I think to your point you see, the answer to that I would say is like, if you're like nine years old

and your favorite player is, Jordan Speed, let's just say in theory, I don't know if you're nine, why that would be the case. but, you know, and he plays horribly, like, and this is the cut. Like, you have a chance to go out and watch. He's in your town. You have a chance to go watch him with less crowds out early on Saturday morning. Is the case for not having a cut?

And again, not a lot of people view it that way and feel way stronger about it than, than I probably do. But I think you answer a lot of questions, too, in terms of pushing this through the mule class, like having 120 people is going to help you a ton. that's going to give you a lot more leeway to get get this through and if that's you know if that's necessary to offset again like i said if you can thread the needle with the sponsors and keep the mules happy like i think this is like a home run i think too it's like with pGA tour you and all of that like there's there's still pathways like he talked about pathways there um he talked about i think the

just from the level of like I think they're just going to rip up some of the the kind of the nanny state pGA tour stuff some of the some of the entitlements out there of like all right like you're a top 25 career money list guy cool like that doesn't mean what it what it meant 10 years ago because purses have exploded so you are guaranteed to play in the second track events you're not getting into the first track events on that shit you know I think what's going to be really interesting and this is kind of like the third or fourth step. And I'm sure this is the shit that is like, you know, making people pull their hair out right now or why they haven't made an official announcement is like the people who came up with these rules are not idiots.

Like it's the opposite. They're very good at coming up with, you know, eventualities and carve outs and oh, actually we got to think about this scenario and this. We need a plan for if this happens. And what you basically need is someone to come through with a sledgehammer and just be like, no, you don't get a three year exemption for winning this anymore. I don't know what to tell you. You need to go win it again next year. you need to get it you need to earn it back and i think i don't know if it's going to be that dramatic but that's the stuff he's talking about is you know it it is truly the players who are playing the best

and what i think is so cool tron we were talking about this earlier like what i think is really really cool about it is if you're a player we'll pick on our beautiful boy jordan spith you know i don't know if he fell out of the 120 like he would he would have been close but he certainly has fallen out of the the 50 famously and now is in this spot where the tournament is clearly best and better for to have him there from a sales standpoint, from an interest standpoint. And so then he gets put in this position where like he accepts sponsor exemptions and he does compete and he plays well, but it looks like it's a hand. It is a handout in one way, but it kind of isn't.

But the point is like if he falls out of 120, dude, sign me up to go watch Jordan Speath play in the John Deere classic to go fight his way back in. Brooks Kepka comes. Brooks Kepka comes back to live. Right? And they're like, oh, Brooks is coming back. Like, yeah, let's go see. if he can beat, you know, whoever, Ricky Castileo at the Puerto Rico open.

That's what he is doing right now on the DP World Tour. It's like, let the system work. Like, like, you know, these guys have to go back through the proper pathways. Like, all right, you know what? Like, let's say Chelsea got relegated somehow. Cool. You got to go play the, you got to go play some fucking weird places that are, you know, first league or whatever. We got to take it out on the soccer stuff where there's just no way we're going to do.

going to say. This is, this is sad. I love to see Chelsea get relegate. I don't like Chelsea. All right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's just, it's going to be

great to see it in practice. And, Sally, I'm with you on like, the next step is just can you, can you push it through? Can you get everybody on the same page? Clearly, it's been hard or it would have been pushed through already. So, you know, to Tron, what you said earlier, like the, the June looming date is, like, that's not an arbitrary date. because that's when there's a board meeting.

And I think putting it out there publicly is kind of like, guys, all right, it needs to be done by this day. So let's figure it out. You got to do something. I would think, Dege, it's not as much about the push through with the board and players as it is like unwinding, what you need to unwind with sponsors, dates, venues, all of that stuff. And re-pieceing all, rejiggering all that together.

Sounds harder to me than getting approval on all of this from the people you need to. Because it's a really good plan. and like the argument against it is like but I'm not very good at golf and like that's going to hurt me a little bit. I just don't think that's going to fly anymore. Like I have golf channel on and they just they just threw up the PGA Champions Learning Center and Ryan Armour is making his debut or made his debut last week. Like Ryan Armour, Zach Johnson, Ben Crane, come on down. I saw it's been, I think Brentley tweeted out. It was a three year anniversary of the Mules quote.

last week. So happy anniversary. I think the other thing too is like, let's keep fucking weird in this silly season, man. Like that's that's kind of where he said. I think there's some there's some stuff like, um, with with regard to the DP World Tour relationship where it's coming out that, you know, I think there's there's level of subsidization or subsidization. Uh, you and Murray had a really good piece in The Guardian today about just some alarm Bell's going off, I think, where Will I've been saying, hey, you know, this is, this, this, this feels like a one way street right now and we should be getting more out of this relationship. And basically, and he acknowledged in his presser today, yes, we've, we have, uh, put another proposal or an updated proposal in front of Guy Kinnings in the DP World Tour that that is, you know, very much like, hey, this is, this is the new reality. And I think if, if, if, you know, if the DP World Tour doesn't want to take that, then I think we're like, probably headed towards some sort of breakup of the strategic alliance.

And I think that, like, I don't know, I think there's an interesting thing, too, where, like, you look at an entity like Augusta National. And they're basically saying, all right, we're, we're not admitting the guys that won in the fall series this year. Or let's say, let's say in 2028, they say, you know what, we're, we're only going to let let the first track guys in. We're not letting the second track winners in. You know, the rest will come in through the OWGR or, but I think that like they've taken

some of those fall series winners or those opposite field winter spots and said, you know what, we are actually going to, we're going to go back to our core mission of growing the game worldwide. And we're going to say, all right, we're giving this to the Hong Kong open winner or the Spanish open winner or, you know, the like kind of like what the open championship, you know, qualifying series does too. Like I think that that's something to where Augustus said, all right, we're going to put our money where our mouth is.

And we don't think that these fall series events are important. And, but I think that's where the tour then needs to say, all right, cool, that's when we're going to go internationally. That's when September through, you know,

December or January is when, all right, maybe there is a co-sanctioned Australian event. Or maybe there is, you know, the Irish Open is also co-sanctioned. Or, you know, these guys want to play like the top.

Tommy Fleetwoods and the Rory's of the world want to play more. Because I think that's where the rubber meets the road a little bit on like, is Rory going to turn up 16 times to play signature events on the PGA tour and play in the four majors and the players and play the Ryder Cup and play six to eight times on the DP World Tour? Probably not. Like something's got to give there, right? Well, it depends what the incentive program is. It depends how the points work. it depends how the status works like all of that stuff i think it's like it depends how you're

kind of enticing these guys to show up which it sounds like is going to be a pretty a pretty giant carrot that that they're trying to create but so i wanted i wanted to ask you the so for for anyone who is not convinced on you know like yeah all of this i get what you're saying but like let's just go back to the old way uh that seemed to be working great what was essentially I thought there was a lot that came from his answer about the NFL's media rights that that kind of illustrated like this is why we're we're blowing this up. This is why we're trying to get the house in order. I was wondering you summarize some of that a little bit. Well, do you just mean what he what he talked about with the NFL owning having about 12 billion

of the 30 billion media rights? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure I understand your question, but I think. what I was going to try to get at is like I think there's a lot of people are like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? And I thought his answer about like, you know, the NFL is the biggest like gorilla in going to the well on sports media rights. And I think the number that he threw out was, you know, that that market is currently like $30 billion. The NFL is about 12 of that currently. And they've publicly said that they'd like to double that. So do the math on what that leaves for

everybody else. And what that means is like our product needs to get a shit, my words, a shit load better if we're going to be competitive in getting other media assets. I'm like, who knows what will happen with the NFL and, you know, how those numbers work. But I just like, I heard that answer and I was like, dude, that, that makes a lot of sense to me on, you know, the media thing is what drives the whole engine. And if you're going to try to put yourself in the strongest position possible. That's what is pushing all of these decisions. And the time to do this was prior to the last

media negotiations. That was what made the last round so disappointing and the length of tenure of that deal. Granted it, look, there's a ton of flaws of the PGA tour and one of those major flaws was the fact that

there was a structure at the very top that it incentivized people like Monaghan and the other brass of the PGA tour to keep things in motion. like they were. Like they've reaped incredible financial rewards from this new media deal and the fact that money keeps coming in the door. And they just,

they've rode the coattails of the product, which is basically Tiger Woods and public, like the corporate interest in golf being what it was and not tangibly tried to improve the product. And roll apps like saying, no, no, no, no. We did one deal too many,

I think. Again, paraphrasing, this is not his words. But we did one deal too many without changing what our actual product is and like we have to be visionaries in some way we have to turn this over we have to make changes and like it you do have to in some they were way too slow to do it and they needed live to come into into you know the ecosystem or the world the world of golf to actually be able to implement

and push change through and see the urgency in doing it but this does build off the backs of like this signature event model which has been successful for the pGA tour it's flawed and not perfect but has been successful to the point where, like, the Rolaps' ability to get this through is helped a ton by the fact that, like, they are on somewhat of a path.

Like, if this, if they were in the 2020 model trying to push this through now, it would be, I mean, look at what, when the Premier Golf League tried to get, guys tried to get a meeting with the PGA tour

about, like, changing a ton of things. Like, they couldn't even get it because everybody was high on the hog and did not feel like they needed to change things. So, I, You, no matter what, you got to give live credit for shaking the PGA tour up.

It's like, I literally don't know one single person that isn't, like, won't acknowledge that part, but we still do see that on a week-to-week basis. And, yeah. So I think the, yeah, like he said, hey, my goal is like, I'll talk about anything that ultimately makes the PGA tour better, right? We'll talk about ideas. We'll talk about all that. I think today was a communications win and a clarity win.

And then I think it buys him time or it buys some credibility then now to, all right, we need some execution, some operational and some strategic wins moving forward. And not just resigning a 2010 media deal in 2020. You know what I mean? Like just keeping the keeping everything going. I think on that $30 billion number, like I was talking to some friends today about like why are a, why is the why is the NFL trying to move? up the date from, you know, two or three years to now to kind of lock all these entities in. And my sense is that like it feels like they're, all right, they've got new money in the system with the Ellisons and Skydance and Paramount and all of that and buying, you know, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Netflix has a bunch of money that they're not spending on that deal. You've got ESPN and Disney still, you know, they're trying to gobble up rights. You've got NBC and Fox trying to be relevant as far as like, you know, hold on as long as they can to figure out what's next. And then you've got these streamers that don't really know what their strategy is, but they want to spend more money. And it seems like there's more parties at the table now than maybe there will be in two or three years. And to me, it's like even if the NFL, let's say they go to $20 billion, you have to think that maybe a little bit of that has to be incremental as well. Like if, if to go above that 30 billion, we're like, all right, it's not just the NFL gobbling up going from 33% of it to 66% of it. The total would have to go like there's got to be some incremental money coming into the system from a Netflix or an Amazon or an Apple from, you know, taking it from 30 to 33 billion or something like that.

I think that's right. And if I'm understanding you correctly, the only pushback I would have is I think golf more than any of those other sports. is still like the most beholden to the power of it is being on CBS at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Whereas I feel like the NFL can can be the tail that wags the dog and change people's habits. And like if you don't like it, I don't know what to tell you fucking get peacock is like they can do that. I don't think that that's part of kind of the alarm bells that are ringing. I mean, we see this like with baseball all the time is like, yeah, you can come up with the best streaming platform ever. People still want to watch it on Fox Sports, Wisconsin, which it hasn't been in 25 years.

It's like people's habits are still just like, dude, just make it easy for me to just turn it on with my cable box. And I think that the, yeah, it's, it's just, it's an interesting push and pull. With Dege on that note, like, I think the, you know, that's why he, like, you saw it at Torrey Pines. Right. When Brooks came back, he said, hey, this is something that transcends golf. this is a front page ESPN headline or front page of the athletic headline. Let's take advantage of that. And it was during NFL football, like during NFL playoffs and all of that.

Hey, let's let's, you know, all boats rise kind of thing. But yeah, I don't know. I guess the two, two maybe disappointments I have would be the rollback stuff or the, but also I don't blame him for, hey, I'm not going to jump into that. I'm still assessing the situation. I'm a newcomer to golf and all that. But also, I don't think, like, he may not view that as as big a deal as the life or golfers are of like, yeah, like, all right, we're going to, we're going to change the driverhead or we're going to change the ball a little bit. Big deal.

We changed the kickoff rules last year in football. We changed the, the, you know, this penalty or video replay and all of that. Like, I think, you know, maybe there's something like, like it probably won't look like at the current present, you know, presented rollback proposition. But I think once you lay it out to them of like, hey, you can go to better like better venues that can still hold, you know, a rolled back golf ball or if distance isn't as big of an issue, you can go to this place. You can go to that place. That improves this product or this is going to create more volatility down the stretch. That's going to help, you know, drive viewership. We're going to see more more things like we did two weeks ago at Cognizant. Like that's, you know, that's killer. I think the other thing is just sure, T. Because guys certainly are. bombing it right now. Absolutely bombing it. Every week. It like it just seems like we're seeing some massive ball speed number pop up.

And the question is why? Like these guys are already. Are these guys doing it? In the world. Like why is Adam Scott still getting faster? It's pretty darn simple. Like the strokes gain data. It's very clear.

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That's how it works. Every time I've fallen out of a cycle of doing it, do like three or four of them over the course of like a week and a half, and my body just moves so much better through the golf. So not just hitting it farther, but just hitting it better because my muscles are working in the proper way. So if you want to be the one bombing it past your buddies this year, check out the stacksystem.com slash NLU.

Again, the stack system.com slash NLU. Code no laying up, I believe, get you a discount on that. as well. I need to, we need to start putting that on the, on the, uh, on the product sheet. That's a, that's a Sali almost guarantee right there. You can print that. That's an almost guarantee for Sali. There's rules. And it's legal, for legal reasons. It's not a guarantee, but it is that's all. it's like a longer regardless of if the driver heads are smaller. Exactly. Rolls roll back. Right. You're going to help you. You're going to make gains. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, roll up. Roll up, tipped it off. They're not rolling a back. So just keep, just get, you got, you got, you you better get faster, guys. All right. No, but I think the other thing too, like on that note is like it does seem like the worldwide game is maybe an afterthought, but I think that's, that's been the case for a long time. And it's kind of like, hey, if we lock down the and make the product a hell of a lot better in the near term domestically, then you know what? We can do like the worlds are always trying. We can do a lot of interesting things and get good stuff rolling, you know, worldwide as well. So well, okay, from a venue or from a product standpoint, I want to talk about venues for a second because that was a big focus of what he said today. There was a lot about TPC sawgrass, the, I don't know what's the control, I guess, that they have over that golf course, the control to be able to do whatever they want to that golf course to host the tournament in the exact way that they want.

I think you're going to hear, we already have heard a lot, a lot, lot, lot from Brian Rollap about being. militant about what makes the product to the product and then and then following those indicators towards success hopefully and I think that you know you look at Bay Hill that golf course didn't look like that on accident I don't think you look at what made cognizant really fun I just feel like the notebook is filling up with man these these weeks are a lot more fun when they're not 36 under birdie fests of course all of this goes hand in hand with the rollback which we don't need to talk about today but You can't ignore that, I don't think.

But you guys have been out at TBC Sawgrass. I don't think, again, I don't think it's an accident that it seems like the ball's bouncing higher. It seems like the rough is thicker. So I tell me a little bit about what you've been seeing out there and what we're in for this week. It is noticeable. You go down to any and look, this could all change tomorrow. We'll get some weather stuff here as well. But you go to pretty much any hold that you laid eyes on.

You're just like, that's a little, little tent of purple in that. And, you know, I went and watched a couple guys hitting shot. around the second green, third green, fourth green yesterday. And like even just little green side pitches are making like, it's not like, it's not Australian Open Royal Melbourne firm out there. I don't think we're in for something that's like this is going to blow your mind how firm it is. But it will blow your mind compared to recent March TPC sawgrass players championships, which have disappointed on a lot of fronts from a setup and agronomy perspective.

And just how it affects the way the golf tournament has played and how it is enjoyed. I would strongly venture to say. And it just, I watched just a couple holes. I followed Andrew Novak and Cameron Young around for a couple holes. And Sadrhen Yala Miraji was in that group as well. And watching just like the different impacts of the different shots. And watching them chip from short left of three from the fairway. And being able to hit excellent pitches with spin and holding the green on the upslope into the grain and stopping it near your holes.

And then go over to the right side of the green in the rough and in the moguls, watching the ball. hit the fringe, bounce almost to knee height from green side pitches, and having no one able to even come close to any of the little cup things that they had out there. Like the balls, they're not in control of the golf ball from out of position. I watched Andrew Novak hit not one, not two, but three drives on number four. As a Novak hater, I needed to mention all of that. I want to shout you out. You were trying to protect him in your tweet.

I saw that. Yeah, I tried to protect him. Just tell everybody it was me. I don't care. Ball nor Andrew. I saw him afterwards. I was like, I said,

haters in the building. He goes, I'm in on this bit. This is kind of a good bit. I think, I think we're going with this. I don't know if you ever found his ball from about six feet left of the fourth fairway.

His first driver, if he did, he dropped one over there. And I think the lesson he learned there quickly is, hey, if I hit it over here, this tournament, I'm laying up because his ball barely reached the water out of that rough.

Cameron Young was in the right fairway bunker. kind of caught one a little bit fat. This doesn't anything to do the firmness other than it's hard out there. And it went in the water. And Yel Maraj, he was in the middle of the fairway. He hit a three-wood to the middle of the fairway and hit like a very nice short ironer wedge into the green, bounded and landed up top and held with spin. And it was like, it deserved to hold.

And it was like, boom, three shots on display right here of why this is going to be an awesome golf tournament if the weather stays away. And if you drive it in the rough, be prepared to have a bad, bad time. You're not going to get bailed out. you're not going to have the ability to just run it through a green and stop it somewhere convenient where it's going to be an easy up and down, which I hate. There's going to be emphasis on the driving accuracy part of it. It is just going to make for some really, really, really good golf if the rain that comes tomorrow doesn't ruin all of that. And to be honest, and I'm not agronomist, T.C.

But like, it's in good enough shape right now where I think it can withstand a little bit of rain and not be completely toast. I don't think one rain shower. I think what is maybe a quarter of an inch scheduled for tomorrow. I don't think that is going to ruin what we have right now. Yeah. I mean, Deeds, your point from earlier of like,

hey, we own this place and we can do what we want with it. It seems like the tour like kind of just realized that. Like this year. Like, holy shit. We could, wait,

we could challenge these guys, maybe the right people at the tour. No. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But they thought we can make this as green. Yeah.

Had control. And now it's like, no, honestly, like we should drive this place out a little bit. and, you know, present a pretty coherent challenge. And it's like, yeah, like, it's truly like, like walking around on a different golf course that it has been the last five or six years. Um, with regard to firmness and, and just, yeah, they like, they turn the water off much earlier.

And, uh, you mentioned the rough. I think the, the height of cut on the surrounds as well, like the, you know, the, the ring around 17 or the stuff. right of 16 or left of 12 like soli we fucking rocked them man that that strip left of 12 we said mow down this straight down this and they did they did and like we may see somebody put it in the water this week it's we need them fall in the water if randy's gonna hit his yeah yeah we need somebody to go running after their ball like mickleson and try to stop it from going on the water and then fall in that's the best thing but like truly it's like hey like this is our canvas and like we're gonna we're going to lean into, you know, hey, it should bite back a little bit. It should be. And hopefully,

like, do you want to do weather? You want to do forecast stuff? No, well, the only thing I was going to add to that is, is it's just a good byproduct of a very silly conversation, which is the major thing, right? Where I'm like, okay, this whole thing is stupid and outdated and pointless largely. But man, if it gets you spicing things up and it gets you realizing like that really hard tests are going to create the best, you know, the best winners and chasing that side of the game, then like, all right, maybe that's a net positive. I don't know. But it remains to be seen this week.

But I thought what were you going to say? I mean, we mentioned this kind of off the top of just again, this is where golf gets really interesting to me and where you can nerd out a little bit on, I'm sure like, I'm working this into an ad. I'm just going to telegraph this. We tease off the top of the title of stuff of like, I bet guys are making tweaks this week, honestly. And one of the things that has come out, I know a fitting for all of us is how, how we, I think we're all in blended sets of irons in some way, right? And if I ask either of you to

describe what the descent angle is on your foreiron right now, like, could you tell me? Like, I could only because of this conversation. Only because I've had it explain to me over and over. I'm like, what the descent angle needs to be, the 3Ds, distance dispersion and descent angle, all of that stuff because of like working with title lists and doing all of this stuff for you know reasons like this sally i just know it because i like when we were at tPI last week i specifically i was like hey my four iron i have too big of a gap between my four iron and my five wood i need to bridge this gap and so i put a u505 and so i put a u5 o5 in with a with a graphite shaft and i'm playing around with the eight and nine iron in the t250 now too um but yeah like i like i'm very much here on Bermuda especially,

or on firmer greens, like that shit matters, especially the descent angle. Like on a hole like number eight at TBC Sawgrass. Like it's going to be 235 yards, 240 yards. Wins going to be coming out of the east on Saturday, probably out of the northeast on Sunday.

It's going to be in off the left on that hole. Like that's going to be a man-sized golf hole, especially with rough that's like four and a half inches long surrounding it now. we watch approaches into 16 as well like it you know if you don't have the proper descent angle and something like that it is running through the green into the water and uh you know like what we've kind of did i'm in like a t-254 iron which is going to launch it higher because everything i would hit you know if i went to 150 all the way to four iron that's where they they figured out the gap was they said i could have even gone to two t-255 iron and i might at some point because i love how much

height you get out of that and that's that's that i don't know the fact that we're talking about conditions bringing something like that out and tying something in of like what we've learned you can't do this stuff on your own is my point like Tylos.com get fit for something like this is the overall trying to make in all of this but continue to doge well yeah I think the venue stuff

is fascinating I think it goes along with some of the the postseason stuff the playoff stuff we talked about which is there seems to be this overarching like whatever makes the competition most compelling is kind of like over and over and over what I think you're you're hearing. And I kind of like it.

You even hear some of this in like with Ryder Cup talk. When you just kind of start hearing team Europe say the same mission statement over and over and over, the same verbiage over and over. It's like, oh, man, people are starting to actually be on the same page here. This is great. And the more you kind of hear the tour talk or roll app talk or whatever, the more you kind of hear that stuff shining through, which is the only thing that like I have been somebody that is. very, very pessimistic about a golf postseason, golf playoffs, any of that stuff.

But at least when it's accompanied with this is like it has to be compelling first or it's not going to work is where I kind of walk away from this whole conversation of like, all right, man, if you could marry that up like you said, Sully, with getting the mules on board, getting the sponsors on board, getting the networks on board. All right. I feel like we're all rowing in the same direction here. And that's maybe kind of like my lasting synthesis or takeaway from the day

if I was trying to describe why I feel so optimistic is it's that is that it feels like we are kind of putting the product truly like first. And I think that starts this week again where it's like are we putting our money where our mouth is here? Is this going to play like a major championship golf course or is it not? Are we going to, you know, when we get to June,

are we going to revamp the playoffs or are we not? is, you know, at every turn, it, like, seemed like all that stuff was on the table. He wasn't married to staying at Eastlake, you know, like, yeah, we really want to have it. How killer would Eastlake be in April? Pre-masters or pre-masters. Just most masters. Yeah. Fucking awesome.

Totally. Totally. And like that, I think that's the other thing of, like, I almost think back to, like, I've been coming to this tournament for the last 11 or 12 years straight. And, like, it's such an awesome golf course. And it's such a great place to watch. golf, but I feel like it's just been a shell of itself. Until now, or like we've been making compromises this whole time.

And it's like, you don't have to. Hey, like there's like we, we don't have to set it up like that. Let's let's, let's have confidence in the people who are, you know, running PGA tour agronomy and PGA tour competitions of like, hey, like put them in charge. Like, what do they want to see? Oh, like, there's, there's more of an emphasis to, to challenge these guys and, you know, more consequential shots and more. consequential moments cool like you know put the onus on the players a little bit more it also seems

like reading between the lines too that like the tours if it goes well now we're we're kind of getting into if this than that but if it goes well and they start seeing some seeing the ball go through the hoop on on exactly what we're talking about here they're going to get addicted to that kind of control and they're going to get very uh impatient with traveling around to different clubs and having to work with different memberships and we can't actually do that because we have this member guest that weekend that always is like they're going to get very impatient with that stuff which is where I think it ties back to him talk this is a projection by me but I think it ties back to some of that SSG stuff right is like he that was the only thing he kind of sort of tipped his hand on just like maybe this

this investment helps us basically put up the you know the money to have the events that we want to have. Maybe they, I don't know if that means actually getting ownership of different venues or if that means, I don't want to imagine if they had a network of course. Right. Of course, D.C. They were purpose built to host tournament golf and then the players had an equity interest in those and players could go and play and practice at those and make those their home courses. Right. And all that thing. Imagine if, imagine if that existed. No, but like, in all, honestly like yeah like I think there is maybe unless you do something with distance and in some like they built all those courses at the wrong time right yeah there's well yeah and with the wrong

architects and they were residential plays and all that but like hey let's say you made a concerted effort to revamp that or refresh that and because I think there is probably a crisis of you know some of it's going to the wrong like we go to good courses in a lot of markets sometimes at the wrong time of the year too that's that's part of it but there's also a crisis of like, I don't think there's enough good courses in this country, at least, they can host PGA tour events, you know? For a multitude of reasons. Yeah, or, or, you know, maybe that's part of the solution is, hey, we're going to,

we're going to move around a lot more and we're going to, this course doesn't have to give their, their venue up or their property up every year. They, you know, you sign something and we're going to do this every three years or every four years. And there's more, there's more, there's more ROTUS. Kind of like what, what the BNW championship is done to where, you know, hey, you know, you want to host something, but, I mean, Sally, you're a member at Tim Aquana. Like, that's like, it's, it's a senior tour event.

And that's like the most disruptive part of the year out there, right? It's like just, it makes a, it's a huge impact, right? And it does damage to the course and it stays damaged over the course of a winter. And the grass doesn't grow back. Yeah, it's, it's a lot. It's, it's not, uh, you know,

it's not the one week where they're playing on the course. That's the problem, you know, that, uh, but yeah, it, they're going to, they're going to be interested in owning these courses and these venues that they're going to be going to in a lot of different ways, just owning the setup and being like the arbiter of what kind of golf's going to be played on. And the commercial opportunities to come with it. That's going to be, that's more important to them still. Like that's, if I was to have any kind of a pessimistic view of the Rolap era is he's not a golf purist. I don't think he's going to magically like create the style of golf that is the most aesthetically pleasing to.

to, you know, us golf nerds in particular, I think it's a commercial play. They're going to try to make as much money as possible, and that's what the mandate is. But I think we're going to be closer in that then diagram of, you know, what the fan wants to see and what's going to be commercially positive for the PGA tour is going to, it's going to, they're swimming the right direction on that.

I think the, I don't think they're doing this with the love of the game, though, is where like where I would draw the line, you know. No, I just hope that, you know, I think that there's some people there and some people he can rely on to like, all right, I've got the tact. Give me some taste here on the golf front of like making sure that it's not just like, hey, we're going to Liberty National. How fucking cool is that skyline there? Like, no, like, all right, or like blow Liberty National up and let's start over and create a compelling, you know, venue there, like layout. But I think, I don't know, I just think that there needs to be, yeah, that. that discerning level of like, all right, here, here's what makes a good venue.

And we are also like, we hear you golf purists, golf sickos, core fans. Like, like one of the other things that stuck out this week that feels like almost an afterthought, but I think it's a big deal. So we've talked about it for 10 years. It's like, how is there not a golf sounds of the game or sound effects like on NFL network? Ryan Rollops bringing NFL films into produce basically said thing. week with certain players or they're bringing you know they're bringing in a variety of other things it's like they're basically saying hey you know what like the current the current offerings aren't cutting it

we're going to add more to the table here hearing hearing some of the stuff about what they have up their sleeve uh for that program this week as well like has me jacked up as a as a true just like a core fan yeah man like hang like fly on the wall for golf moments. Not like, hey, we're going to build this narrative 10 months after the fact in full swing and it's going to be totally disconnected from what you actually remember happening. Like, no, here is us taking you as close as you can get to the action. Yeah, and it's unproven.

It could be one of the coolest pieces of golf content like we've seen at the professional level. If it turns out the way I'm picturing it and I'm sure the way they are picturing it, if they happen to get the right guys that are in the mix in this, like, it could, be it could be truly incredible. At minimum, I think we're in for one of the most unique pieces of content we've ever seen come out of a major golf tournament. I did not mean to say major. A significant golf tournament.

Dang, it's just incepted in me. It's not. Toreco's not here. It's not a major because Toreko. If this was the U.S. Open or Open Championship, Toriko's bringing us in on Thursday morning, Thursday, midday. Trico ain't here. Well, I feel like we've, we could take each of those six points of contact, T.C.

And do another hour at least about each of them probably. But let's leave it there for now and move on to this week. TC, I know you got a couple things in the notebook. What are we got our eye on? First of all, the weather. We've got our eye on the weather talking to our church. Chief meteorologist here at No Laying Up at ProTragh Holdings and really here in Jacksonville, First Coast News Zone, Lou Turner, Lewis Turner, the great man himself.

He's, it sounds like tomorrow this front's going to push through pretty, hopefully pretty quick, according to his models. He sent over some of his proprietary models. This is, he says his models tend to overstate some of the, rainfall totals he's seeing he's seen between point like one tenth of an inch and less than half an inch so it's probably in that point two point three inch thing should come in after lunchtime and and then then we get a wind shift j and the wind is going to come out of the northeast that's that's that's the good when you can cancel christmas yeah that was that way that's we got an alarm bell emoji in our slack and i was like oh my there is good

going to be some breaking news here from TC. It was just a change in the wind direction. And I was like, I. That's how good it is. I just don't know if that was red alert. We only get it like once every four or five years during this week during this tournament. Like I need it. It's diabolical.

It's in off the right on 17. It's, you know, it's in off the right on on 18. 13 gets really tough to control your trajectory there. So all good there. I think, you know, cools off Friday. We get sunny and cooler. high of 70. Saturday, pretty much same deal as Friday.

Maybe winds moving a little bit more out of the east, southeast. Then Sunday, TBD, could get dicey. Not a lot of moisture in the forecast, but potentially some electricity in the forecast. So we'll see what happens there. Maybe looking at an early, you know, earlier start on Sunday to get it in because Monday doesn't look great either. So we'll see. But yeah, basically tomorrow, we just got to dodge this frontal system that's, that's, It's moving through, going to cool things off.

But yeah, just got to hope that kind of runs through and only dumps a tenth of an inch because I think the course can very much take that. Otherwise, of note, we've got, yeah, thank you, Lou. If you see Lou out there this week, I know he'll be out there. You know, just thank him for his service. He's been a longtime supporter of the program and very generous with his models. governing bodies, like I said, there's an equipment meeting this afternoon. Rory flew in this afternoon.

Hit balls did a little mini presser. I think conspiracy T.C. thinks that Rory just wanted to hang out at home for a few more days and chill and, you know, we'll see what happens. And I don't know, maybe there's maybe they, the aforementioned DP World Tour, PGA Tour, 2027 schism is at the forefront there but that's just me

injecting nonsense into the mix we'll take that to another episode yeah you guys wouldn't like this is like glimpse into what we deal with on a daily basis in terms of just me quote me injecting nonsense I truly think that if they

if the if the tour goes too hard at the DP World Tour and says like we're going to cut we're going to cut the knees out from under you I think Guy Kitting's in the DP World Tour go go straight to Yasser and say, here's your off ramp for your shitty live product. You inject all this money into the DP World Tour. We integrate the live players to national opens.

And it's the global golf tour. And the PGA Tour is the U.S. golf tour. Like I truly think, I don't know, but that's that's the off ramp there. What else we got? We got an Akshay anchoring update. Todd Lewis on golf or live from last night said that Gary Young looked into his technique out on the putting green, assessed it and cleared him of any wrongdoing. Paul McGinley and Brandl had a great, great chat about it last night on Live From. Live from's awesome. Like in the big weeks like this. It elevates it. It sets the stage. I chat with Paul today.

He said like, hey, that was a great chat last night. You know, Brandl was not. making some very non-s subtle references to Burnhard Longer of someone who's like guys are refusing to sign his scorecard basically out on the champs tour but like A, they said that it's a very, very poorly written rule, which I agree with. But also like Adam Scott, Lucas Glover, other like other guys that anchor like they're not coming anywhere like they're an inch or two off of their shirt or like they're not anywhere close or sorry that who who used the long butter like they're they're making it clear whereas oxhay is like no like he's touching his shirt and it's very like he's putting himself like the governing bodies aren't doing anybody

any favors and then oxshay is not doing himself any favors either and i think that that's an important thing of like you know like oh like gary young going out who's not the you know gary Young is kind of a pushover, right? Like he's, he's going out there saying, all right, Akshay, show me your stroke. Are you anchoring here? It's like, they're on the putting green. He could easily just not anchor, right? Like, just bring it, bring it away from them. So I don't know. I think the whole thing is, it's unfortunate because we shouldn't be having this conversation. And I would implore the USDA and the RNA to like just fix the fucking rule. Yeah. It seems like the USDA should be able to just swoop in in a moment like that and handout tickets.

it was like now you've been cited you're you're you're you're you're you're on the fourth oh yeah exactly yeah we're talking we're pulling rank give them a two big buzzer like that just yeah if it hits there like what a local rule in place this week

you can't touch your shirt straight up you can't touch your shirt this week local rule if you don't do it TC maybe they won't do this I like it Scottie Presser Tidj what you think oh it's great it was great it was great

I really, really enjoyed him geeking out about one of my, what has become one of my favorite topics, which is just dudes who can play different golf on different courses and accomplish strong results. He had an awesome three minute answer all about the difference and the challenge between playing Pebble Beach, where all you're trying to do is take spin off your golf ball at all, at all costs because it's going to get hammered by the wind.

the greens are mush, as he says. All you're trying to do is take all the spin off your golf ball that you can. And then you go to Bay Hill and all you're trying to do is put as much spin on the golf ball as you possibly can. And the fact that we're just like, what the fuck? Why can't these guys win at both tournaments is just an unintentional humble brag by Scotty, I think. Like it is him being like here. Again, this is my read into it. Not at all what he was saying.

But to me, I'm hearing this is just like, these are the things I'm doing every week that you guys are not even noticing and I just keep finishing T2 and T3 and T5 every single week. And it's just, it's kind of what was going through my head when you guys are talking about this week's venue and how Sawgrass is going to play so much different than, you know, even all the other golf courses that we've seen this year. So it's just, it's a cream should rise more. It's a wildly underrated.

just part of pro golf that we almost like just take for granted I think and I really enjoyed that. What do you mean this guy that won that that that won the marathon gold medal isn't competing yeah yeah exactly what the hell just play better he's got to want it more yeah think my thing going back to the last few weeks with scotty we've we've been having this talk internally on our slack is like how Scotty gets up there and he says the most thoughtful, you know, golfy, like really, really conscientious stuff as far as his game and his place in the game or the way he approaches different golf courses and all of that. And then he goes out and like, that's where, like, that's where I get frustrated with the bitchiness

of like, that's the same person, right? And there's a dissonance there a little bit of that's like, if it was, if it was some, you know, moron hothead who's just who never gives us anything good in press conferences or whatever is out there throwing clubs or getting frustrated and acting pouty whatever but like it's scotty he's like you know he's standing there and he's like kind of opening up and saying really really interesting stuff and then he's also going out just like you know acting like he deserves to make everything inside of 30 yards it's just it's tough for me to square those two personas, I guess.

Yeah, I get that. He had some good stuff, too, about commitment. And I would encourage people to just go watch the whole presser. But he was talking about, like, his goals and his, how he views results and how he stays locked in on the process and all this stuff. And he started talking about, like, basically, like, all my goals are just, like, shot by shot. He's like, you know, truly, like, one shot at a time. Like, that's what that means is, I, he's, I, he's, like, I'm. I have a certain expectation of every single shot and whether or not I achieve it is like,

I kind of assess that in the moment. It is sick, which as an optimist, I'm looking at that as like, yeah, that's probably why he's frustrated, man, because he's like, he's talking about. He's like, yeah, the last couple weeks, I have had moments where I just, I was not as locked in. I was not as committed as I should have been. And then I put myself in a bad spot. And so, again, I get that it's unbecoming.

It's bitchy. It is all of those things. I'm just a little bit of Tommy Lee Jones where I'm like I don't I don't really care It doesn't bother me that much But you're welcome to be as aggrieved as you as you want to be I get it I'm not entitled to being aggrieved either

Like he can do whatever he can do whatever fucking wants Sure we all have our moments That's for sure Hey guys I feel we're getting very close here I'm you know it's a big week We got a lot of live shows going on I appreciate everybody who's stuck on this far I said hey I'm gonna do giveaways

more often during these live shows. I got a new giveaway tool here. Hopefully people can see that. I ask people to do a little wind in honor of Lou here. I don't know why it's not getting better, but we're going to do random drawing. So, Dege, you have a beautiful hat in order of that amazing hat. I am going to ship X-ray Punk-1-159.

Go ahead, shoot me an email. There you go. Solly, you also have an awesome titles hat. All I have is ropes, baby. You know me. I love it. Sorry, that's it. Rope in the wind. Let's see who the next one is going to be there. But anyway,

we did. We're at the final precipice here of the 2026 players championship. Have you guys changed? Matt Fisher 1-172. Please also hit me up. Have you guys changed who you think is actually going to win this tournament? I might just talk myself

into Scotty as I was saying. saying all that. But no, I love, you know, I got my, I got my feeling on Adam Scott. And I, I loved his, uh, he had a great presser this week talking about the old vibes of, of when he won here for the first time. And was that 04? And, you know, sitting at one of those restaurants and over hearing somebody say like, you know, some fucking no name is leading the tournament. And he was sitting right next to him. It was shot 63 on Thursday or Friday. It was, uh, it was good stuff. He's got, it seems like he's got good spirits. It's all he's telling me, he's bombing it, you know, so I, I, I think it's an Adam Scott week for me. T.C. I'm still going with Ludwig. I haven't laid eyes on him yet this week. I haven't laid hands on him. No, I know.

That's a good thing. Yeah, I know more at Kaw's odds of, I don't know if plummeted is the right word. They've gone from like in the 30s to like mid-teens, I think, as far as his odds. But no, I'm sticking with Ludwig. I think we're, I think we're in for a big hot boy. summer.

Interesting. Sully. I'm on Scotty still. I'm not moving. Again, I'm just my, just continue to try to be early on, on his triumphant comeback from his falling outside the top 20. Yeah. That's good stuff.

All right. We'll save the, it's some fun stuff from the first timers presser. We've got live shows after every, you know, every night this week, which I'm stoked for. I will say, I think Stephen Fiske and I, like, we, we might now be best friends. Love that. Long time podcast listener. And he was just like, oh, DC, what's up?

You got it's every week. It's like sick. That's great. And then also, yeah, just keep an eye out on 11. There's a new tower on 11 that they're going to show us the second shots on that's going to be sick. And then all the wind graphics are back this week. They've got the stuff that's like they show the different levels of wind on, especially on 16

and 17, where like once it's, gets above, you know, say 70 feet. They're going to, you know, get the, all right, like, you're going to get a wall of wind above 75 feet or whatever. So also, Sable offshore is absolutely ripping today. So just shout out to, shout out to Mickelson on that one. Congratulations to anybody holding that one. All right, let's call it there.

Cody, thanks for running the ones and two. Shout to T.C. and Sully for a great day down at the players. Thank you to our friends at Titleist. Our friends of Roeback, our friends at the stack. Like Cody said, we're going to be live after each round this week at the players. Excited to, excited to keep it rolling. Talk to everybody tomorrow. Cheers.