No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1159: McNealy/Smalley lead, but setup is all the talk

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Alex Smalley (-4) and Mav McNealy (-4) have a one-stroke lead over six others after 36 holes at the 2026 PGA Championship. Notable chasers include T9 Cam Young (-2) and T9 Scottie Scheffler. Is it an interesting setup to blame for the bunched leaderboard? Join us as we break it all down, discuss some disappointing missed cuts (Blockie, Tommy, Vik Hovland, Bryson, Max), run down news and notes, and a bunch more. Presented by Titleist. Titleist - #1 Ball in Golf High Noon - Sun's Up! Arccos - NLU15 for 15% off at https://www.arccosgolf.com/ Looking to travel this year, check out East Sands Golf Co.: https://www.eastsandsgolf.co/nlu Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: https://nolayingup.com/esf The NLU email newsletter: bi-monthly updates on all things NLU: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/subscribe Join The No Laying Up Nest: https://nolayingup.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club today. Ronnie, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, we are halfway home in the 108th PGA championship. Welcome to the No Lenga podcast presented, as always, by our friends at Titleist Live Show Edition.

I am Salli, joined by Mr. T.C. Hello, T. Ron. Greetings. No puck tonight, Sali. We're just talking golf. No puck. Guy was glued to his TV set all day long. Neil Schuster. Hello, Neil. I was.

T.C. We'll be playing blue line to blue line tonight, brother. We're going to dump and chase. Dig it out of the boards. I'm ready for a good one tonight. A good clean fight with you, brother. Let's go. Love it. The No Laying Up podcast and the live show, of course, brought to you by our friends at Titleist, the number one ball at the PGA championship

with 106 players at Aaronomac teeing up at ProV1, Pro V1X. or ProV1X left dash golf ball. I got a big list here, guys. I'm not going to name them all, but a lot of guys on the leaderboard play a titleless golf ball. We have Aldrich Potkeeter plays a ProV1X. Alex Smalley plays a Provee 1x.

Stephen Yeager plays a Provee 1x. Cameron Young plays a Provee 1x. Double Dodd. Justin Thomas plays a Provee 1x. Maverke Neely plays a Provee 1x. Ricky Fowler plays a Provee 1x left dash. And why? And how is he driving it, Sali? Fourth in the entire tournament in strokes gained off the T has hit 21 of 28 Fairways,

averaging 307.6 yards off the T. So is there a ball that helps with your putting? They're not going to promise that it fixed your putting. They're not going to, but T to Green, gosh, is it really helping Jordan's feet? It just warms my heart. As a left dash man, welcome to the squad for the experience and love seeing him keep it in play. I found the same for my game, so that's awesome. Maybe one of the highlights of the day was the shot he hit into 11, skipping it up up the hill,

downwind on that one and getting it. it to grab. That was a super tournament so far in my opinion. You can visit tidalist.com to find out what ball is best for your game. It's probably going to be a titleless one if I'm guessing if 106 of the players in this field are using that as well. So a lot to talk about. We have an interesting leaderboard. It was an interesting day. Again, not the most exciting day at BJ Championship. We're going to, we're of course talk a little bit of course set up some of the storylines. So Farbenil, I'll start with you. What's the, what was the story of the day from your golf watching?

I found today, like you kind of said, both boring and fascinating. I watched a lot of golf. It felt like a novel where the first hundred pages, you're like, man, I don't know, am I going to stick with this one? And then I did, and I was really happy I did. I'll get it out there, T.C. I fucking loved the setup. You and Randy like to talk about psychological evaluations.

That's what this was. And I know, I hear you on the Pace stuff. We're going to talk about JT with Pace. We're going to talk about, are the pins fair? Are they not fair? Should they have done this? I don't want to talk about fair. We're not talking fair.

Hit me with the Tommy Lee Jones meme. I don't care. Okay. Like, let's see you survive the slow play. Like, and most of the horses did. Really good stuff. Like, really, like stories of the day. I mean, watching Pock Eater glue it together and stay at the top of the leaderboard.

Impressive. Really impressive. Like, couldn't look away. Near the top. You're the top. Excuse me. And it feels like you have some, what I'm going to call. gazelles up there and then you've got some lions chasing them and a lot of the big names

brought themselves back into it i was thrilled to see cam shoot a 67 rory had an awesome bounce back scotty sheffler stayed in it j t stayed in it so i think there's a lot i'm i'm uh i don't know with this many guys what 44 guys i think within five strokes of the lead uh i know it could lead to maybe like uh you know an unbecoming winner it's like oh yeah like you know the talent's not separating. But today, Friday night, it's exhilarating.

It's like anything can happen. It's a total toss up. So I'm fired up about it. What's your reaction to that, T.C. Let's just, we'll get right in the course setup here. We're going to talk all about the,

oh, we're going to go. We might as well. Dump and chase, DC. It's going to be unavoidable. It's unavoidable. Listen,

I think it's been an interesting tournament. I had no, no major issues with it. It's totally different from what we expected it to be. I think that's fun. I don't know if I would have changed up some of the holes so drastically from round one to round two, especially when you're trying to get a full field around. Like I think they backed off some of the par threes today,

but Scotty had a lot to say about number 10, number 11 in his presser afterwards. And it just feels like Kerry Higgs trying to make this into a U.S. Open. and I think that some of what we want in a PGA championship isn't what we want in the U.S. Open. Or maybe we do, because maybe we're not getting that

in a U.S. Open these days, like you said, Neil, from that perspective. Or maybe we can have it, it's a major. Maybe we can have it more than once a year. Yeah, that would be, that would be fine. It was, I just feels a little,

I don't know. I just, like, it's just so unexpected. And I think a little bit of, it is it seems like the test is so much around, uh, the whole locations and the pin positions and not like the total test T to green. It feels like it's very concentrated on the whole locations. So I'm, I'm like extremely curious to know what you have to say about this. I, I, I, I, my take is honestly a lot more boring than you might think. I'm very Alonzo morning, Jiff. I'm very gray about this. It is not black and white. I'm going to try to walk you through.

You guys, I'm just, well, I'm going to walk you through. Well, I'm going to walk you through. exactly where where I'm waffling back and forth on this. Like I wanted to play hard. But what kind of hard? But like pins being somewhat silly can be kind of deflating, right? So again, I don't have like a clear answer on that. I enjoyed, I think I enjoyed this a lot more in person, like watching it. Like you were, you know, you, you were nitpicking a little bit of it last and I was like, dude, in person, like that was that was really good. And then I got back on TV and I'm like, all right, yeah, I don't, I'm not enjoying this as much as I did in person. So I'm kind of, kind of in the middle there.

Is this better than like an easy and, and that boring of a version of a run? 1,000%? I think almost certainly, yes. Is it better than Valhalla? But shouldn't a major venue be separating on skill more than this? It's halfway through the tournament though. But that's a long way.

I'd like to see you guys be patient here. And I think some of it is likely, like it's been cold, right? I think that has a bigger effect than people think. The cold and then the wind as well. So I think the cold in the wind are there. I'm not done flip-flopping. Okay. Because it should pins be difficult at a major.

Yes, I think they should. But should it be this much of a putting contest as we're looking back on a through 36 holes? I kind of don't say that. Is it starting to border on piece of shit putting contest? It is highly. It's not though, because it's not birdie putt. It's like really hard lag puts. And I think that's a skill that doesn't get tested enough.

And it's really hard like eight to 10 footers too. Like I think they're, I think they're interesting putts. or like they're way outside the hole. It's not just like, this is an edge putt on it. So I agree. It could be more of a putting contest than you want, but at least to me it's an interesting putting contest. I can't remember the last time I saw these guys leaving lag putts five, six feet short.

Like these are not easy to putts and these guys are stressing out about it. And that's the psychological evaluation. They are on their back foot, a lot of them. And so I like that. Sorry. Keep flip by. No, it's this whole thing's a journey, right? and I hate to default to the technology part,

but of course it all ties back to this. And like the best version of this course and test of this course would be with equipment that's drastically different than this. But I still want them to go to a place like this instead of like a Valhalla. But like Valhalla did have kind of an exciting finish at the end. And there were a lot of birdies.

No, we're not doing that, Sally. We're not doing that shit. But I hated watching Valhalla on Thursday and Friday. And like I think we might feel differently sitting here if there was one or two, bigger names in the top eight. Like there's just not not big names in the top eight.

There's only one major winner in the top eight. That's a decky as we're sitting here. Now again, there's that group sitting there at T9 and more and it's not kind of a long way. They're right. I got no issue with the tournament or with the leaderboard at all like no. But I think it could have I guess papered over some of

some of this bunched nature of it. But I'll say this. I think the specific critique I have this set up to this point. It was I think it did blow harder than they were expecting. and I think the nature of the layout of this golf course with all the trees that have come out, accentuates that wind that much more. Like that has been one of the feelings out there.

I'm looking at this. Every forecast out there, every weather app out there is showing like maximum 21, 22 mount hour gus. You get out there and it feels totally, it feels like a lynx wind out there because there aren't trees stopping any of it and how constant that feeling is in your ears all day long. So I think it has blown harder than,

basically anyone forecasted. And I think they could have had friendlier pins and gotten to a proper challenge and an interesting challenge through 36 holes. I think with the wind coming down a little bit this weekend, they could have... Because again, as soon as the wind came down a little bit near the very end,

it was kind of like, all right, man, the teeth is kind of out of this golf course and these tougher pins make more sense. But again, we're talking about threading a line here that's just impossibly hard. And I'm kind of fine where they aired on, Even though it's not all adding up, again, I'm just very gray on this. It's not perfect.

It's not terrible. I think it's just unexpected. Yeah. That's where I'm at. I'm just on my back foot. The minks got me on my back foot. Scary Carrie Hags got me on my back foot. I wasn't expecting a U.S. Open to break out.

And I think even then, it seems like a lot of the punishment is delayed towards the greens. And also, it just, if, if, feels a little bit herky jerky between and I said the same thing at the masters right Thursday to Friday a little bit herky jerky I just want to see Thursday Friday look somewhat similar and either ramp it up on Saturday right well okay fair enough but let's talk about the golf no no no I'd like this conversation because I you what you said TC right there it was unexpected that is a that's a pro for me like that's why I think I loved it because I don't see this enough where these guys are stressed out.

And a couple things I'm thinking about are they could back off. It's the pin positions that are causing a lot of problems. I do think it is a full, a pretty full test, though. If you don't hit the fairway, it is 10 times more stressful. Because like we were talking about last night, the rough is patchy, unpredictable. Like, you got, you know, there's consequence to hitting it in the rough here. But real quick.

I don't feel there's it. You know, real quick on that, though, like it felt like that way yesterday, but if you check the numbers, the missed fairway penalty is like less than what we see normally on the PGA tour. I know it felt that way, but like the actual math, because you can still make par from the rough, and it's really hard to still make birdies from the fairway. It is the accuracy off the T isn't impacting scoring as much as you would think that it might. Again, it felt that way, but like the math isn't. One point I want to make, though, I understand TC, what you're saying about Thursday, Friday,

wanting it, you know, because you got split field, split T's, all this stuff. It should be kind of equal. Sure, but I don't, I don't really give a shit about that. What I care about is like, yo, if they want to, like, they can set some easier pins up tomorrow as the course is going to continue to firm up. Because it's going to be hot tomorrow. So now it's going to be a little more baked out with any like, yeah, they could throw in like four, five, six birdie pins. And now, I don't know, I feel like they're building something here. And that's what I'm trying to say to you guys is like, I am fired up.

I like seeing them push it, make guys like evaluate them psychologically. and Neil. And then, okay, maybe we'll reward you on the weekend. Like part of it is like, we don't know what they're going to do. Like, Neil, I kind of, I like them. They got everybody on their back foot. I like, I like that. I feel like you've been asking for this, T.C.

I have, I have. I have. I just don't know if I, I have trust issues. I don't know if I trust Kerry Hague. All right. He's never, he's never shown himself to be capable of this. He showed himself to be capable of putting together a pretty good, exciting, uh, birdie-fest kind of tournament. but I think, you know, they backed off the par threes pretty hard today on, you know, versus yesterday.

Yeah, but like eight, eights, they moved it up, but that pin was still like, yeah, one of the hardest ones you can put on that green. Um, I think, I, I don't know. I just, I'm a little bit, I guess what, where I'm struggling with the, the missing fairways thing a little bit is there's, it doesn't seem like there's many compounding errors out there. Right. Right. Right. It feels a little winged footy. to me from what was that 20 20 when bryson won at wainfoot i'm feeling a little bit of that nature where i'm like i think we're getting to the the ends but i don't know if the means are doing it for me and everybody's everybody's gonna say tc what do you want tc you all you and rind to do is

bitch about proper tests and this and that's fair that's that's what i'm saying i don't know what you're asking for because i'm i don't either at this point for like maybe two times a year i mean They're missing on the hard side. And it's like, I am going to give them all kinds of benefit of the doubt. Like, hell, yes, you are missing. You know what? You're whipping me, Neil. You're whipping me to your side.

Solid, to your point, are there a couple pins out there? Like, you can play the clips of, you know, talk about the pins on 10 and 11. Great. There's two of 18 pins. Like, yeah, man, put them on the edge a little bit. That's the ones they referenced. Like, that's, that's. The superintendent's revenge day, like, this is sick.

Do that on Saturday. not on Friday I'll take it any day I can get it at this point DC I know I kind of agreed to like we gotta we gotta enjoy this shit well we got it man stay present with me

so the the critique of that Neil I think is it does feel reactionary to what everyone was saying coming into it I mean it was you know I do not it's working and I know Carrie Hague is like I am Mike Davis I am Mike Davis

I don't remember hearing one single person prior to this tournament that said anything other than this is going to be a birdie fest, right? And I think we were kind of looking forward to it a little bit. Yeah. Oh, no. You guys weren't. Go watch the tape.

It's like, oh, it's going to be soggy and they're going to, you know, Keegan won at 20 under. They missed rain. That's right. They missed rain. I think the mink might have some main character energy, Neil. And I'm in for it. Like, I think it deserves credit. That's all I'm saying.

And it's only Friday. So like, I just want you guys to be patient here. If it wasn't exactly what you wanted today, I think they missed on the right side. If this, that's where I'm what I get at. PGA of America, I would have so much more trust and patience. They've just, like, they're just not a, like, they haven't proven themselves to be a competent organization over the last decade. Fair enough.

Sallie, a question for you to get it, maybe to get us out of this, this whole life. Now we got videos to play on set up. Was there a significantly, what everyone's talking about how the afternoon was going to be a lot easier, was it? It was not significant. Wow. It was. Which is sick.

They didn't go out and water the greens. Solly, were you, were you relying on the eye test as far as it. So I don't know what the waves look like in terms of, it was about a half shot easier in the afternoon than it was in the morning. And it was really that late, late, the guys that were finishing late late that had the course. Last hour and a half.

Yeah. The stress down a lot. Yesterday's wave played, the waves are going to net out pretty evenly overall as a whole. but a fair amount of the contenders, like the ROM experience and Rory group, got like a good, a fairly good draw, I'd say.

And like there was some guys that didn't take advantage of the opportunity in the afternoon. Ludwig took advantage of it completely, but like Zander kind of shit the bed. I kind of thought Zander would have a great, great opportunity to rack up some birdies this afternoon and it did not work out that way. The contagion was contained,

thank goodness. So, but last thing on this setup thing, and I think it's just interesting to hear, we have a couple of clips from Sky, in there. We have even more. We can talk about what he said. We don't have the clip of this, but he called it the hardest pins he'd ever seen.

Right. I think that's just an important reference point. Okay. Celebrating. Right. It is just a reference to saying like how far they pushed this very early. And, but we have a couple clips of him just talk about the setup and we can play those, Cody, if you don't mind.

I started, it was just, it was really, really tough. I mean, it was blowing really hard and it was quite cold as well. And so the golf ball wasn't really traveling anywhere. And I mean, it was just a really challenging morning overall. After the first, I think it was maybe three over through four. And I mean, the par I made on 14 was extremely good. I mean, that was one of the craziest pins that I've seen just in terms of it wasn't, your ball wasn't going to roll off like 50 yards away.

But that was like they put the pin on like this microphone. Like this was just like a high point. I hadn't seen anything like it. You saw, I mean, I made a really good three and a half footer there. And if you don't start that perfectly on. line it's probably not touching the hole and i mean you saw it with with fintzy and rosy in my group both of them missing a couple of different couple of puts inside 10 feet with when you got guys you can put the ball like that that's pretty rare and so you knew there's some some activity i would say around that

hole uh no yes my case and hold on i got another scotty quote scotty this is the hardest set of pin locations that i've seen since i've been on tour and that includes u s opens that includes Oakmont. I did ask, I asked Fucci who catty's for Justin Rose. You guys know Fucci's a great man. He's been around for a long time and I asked Teddy too. Have you seen anything like this before? They said maybe Shinnock is the only place they've seen pins that could compare to this. But it's extremely, it's different in a sense on this golf course because Oakmont, their greens are extremely severe, but they're extremely severe in one direction. Here, it's like the green may slope all this way and then we put the pin down there and there's all this slope this way.

and it's and like it's not as how would you say natural to the slopes that are there there's a bit more i think there's that's manufactured into the greens and it's just very difficult it's difficult to get the ball close to the hole it's difficult to whole pots especially when you have big slopes and wind and that's why you see the scores close to par so neal i mean yeah love it i love it i love it and and he he doesn't seem pissed he doesn't he went right to the line of complaining he respects it he's like no it was just really hard And I'm so fucking cool with that. Because also they could, if they need to, they can, all right, maybe they'll give them a couple easy pins tomorrow.

Like, we're halfway through this thing. So I just want you guys to stay the course with me. Side note, is Scotty turning into the cat? Fucci, Rosie, Fitsy. I mean, we're putting a Y on it. I added the Y. Okay. We got, we got Wies on all that stuff, Sally.

Something to monitor there. I mean, when JT is complaining about the PG, his beloved P. of America set up you might have some issues there what did he what did he say what did he complaining uh let's see here are we somebody asking here tc or technically there's no such thing as an illegal pin but what would you define generally as like an a fair pin or an unfair pin and he's talking about um let's see trying to think of an example here you just have a lot of slope on some of these greens to where you get a whole like 11 say or 10 i mean 10 and 11 are great example is that pin today i think if the wind was blowing the opposite direction and off the left

like it's really hard to use that section because the ball it's so high a ball probably it very easily could blow to the middle of the green versus you know yesterday and today it was kind of on areas where the wind it's not going to have an effect blowing it off the green type thing so i think that has a lot to do with it uh he you know jt seemed to be walking up to that line as well uh and then and then that that plays into the pace of play stuff. I felt like he was doing the opposite of walking up to the line. He was like, when I was a way to say it's not unfair. Like, what could have happened is this exact scenario of how it could have gotten

unfair. Like that, I didn't hear anybody used the term unfair. I didn't either. Like Scottie was like saying this is bullshit. It's just like, no, man, it's really hard out there. He was like proud of, you see the par I made of 14? When's the last time you heard a pro talk about a par they made? Like, that to me is awesome.

Like, that makes me lean in. We don't get enough of that shit. I think some of this is just coming back to like this tournament doesn't have an identity. It's just picking it out of a, it's like a, it's one of those balls that you shake. And it's like, what are we going to get today? I liked, I liked what we've gotten this week for, I'll take this 10 times out of 10 versus what we got at Quill Hollow last year or what we got at Val Hollow the year prior. It's the difficult and not big separation is is what is difficult to wrap our heads around. Right. Usually when it's difficult, you get good separation.

And that's just not what we've had to date. But we got 36. Outside of the Corbridge financial team. Correct. But it means a lot to me that it's a certified hit for Icarito, Neal Schuster. That does. I rest my case. I'm sorry.

I drag it out. I rest my case. And that is no news to this crowd, but the high noon transfusion is also a certified hit. That is right. High noon has finally brought the number one golf drink into their vodka, Seltzer lineup, the transfusion. You can get it now, but not for a long time. They only dropped the limited amount, and there will

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short time. Grab it before it disappears. Let us know. Tag us on social. Tag everyone on social so you can track them down. High noon. Sun's up. We had a of these and another great event little meetup out there yesterday it's here for a good time not a long time it's exactly and if you're in king of prussia they they are cody cody tracked them down in a big auto spot king of prussia all right let's get to the leaderboard uh it looks this way this is Alex smalley and maverick mcnealy are tied for the lead at four under par heading in tomorrow they

will be playing together a big group at t3 hadeki matsuyama chris godder up aldrich potgeeter Stefan Yeager and Minmooly and Max Grazenman Eagleed the ninth hole, his 18th hole today to get up into that group at three under par. Then the big group at T9, Cameron Young, Justin Thomas, Scotty Schaeffler, David Pooge, Harris English, Siwu Kim, and Ludwig Oberg. Where do you guys want to start with that? That top 15 guys. Smalley. You got to start with Smalley. He had it to five for a bit, and then he,

then he he had three three bogeys in a row one two and three yeah and then he and then he he had two two coming in so good bird good birdie at the last um i'm just you know hoping his mom packs the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for tomorrow and he and maver gonna have a good day out there tomorrow small he's a really good iron player uh he's just kind of steady wins the race so uh i don't think he's going to win, but I don't think Smalley's going to fade away, like my guy Kimer did today, unfortunately. Kimer righted the ship, though. It looked like he was going on his way to an MC, he went out in 40, and then he got it across the line. He's going to be playing the weekend,

but sustainability models of Mr. Smalley, he is leading the field in strokes game putting, almost six shots on the field, 37th in strokes gain T to Green. So I would, again, we might be having a different conversation tomorrow night, but I would be extremely surprised if Mr. Smalley is sticking around and would be in the top five heading into Sunday. But it would be very interesting if you would. A couple other stats here as well, or I got one here on Maverick McNeely. This is his 14th major championship start. This is courtesy the Elias Sports Bureau, our boy Randy Robles. Prior to this week, he had never been inside the top 25 of the leaderboard at the end of 36 holes in the previous 13 major championship

starts. And he will be tied for the lead heading into the weekend. here at a good interview post round with Michael Eves was like yeah I was walking up 18 or 9 whatever his last whole was like I was surprised way I hit it you know that where I was and he just talked about you know he's like what what part of your game's going to carry you through the weekend he's like the putter it's my superpower so he kind of knows I appreciate that about Mav he kind of knows what what you know what his strength sorry he's trying to lean into him but interestingly Mav hasn't putted great as a Yet he's been slightly above average.

His ball striking has been exceptional. So round two, he was number one, T to Green. Really? Yeah. Scambling well. The short game has been very good. He's seventh round the green, fifth and iron play so far. Gave a couple away coming in.

But, you know, I think he, I don't know, I feel like Mav talking to him, like spending some time with him, I mean, significant time with him between the flight in Vegas and then out at pebble with you sally like i think mav mav seemed pretty resolute like he's made what six or seven cuts in a row in majors hasn't really had a ton to show for it and he seemed pretty resolute in hey i've peaked too early in the season the last few years and i really want to try to extend that and kind of conserve my energy towards you know pGA championship u s open british open

playoffs more so than peaking in February, March on the West Coast swing. So, yeah, good to see some, some, you know, fruitful signs on that. I hope he sticks around. I like his chances of sticking around more than I do, Mr. Smallies. I was probably a little dismissive of Alex. He played some excellent, excellent golf and was up at the very top of leaderboard for the entire day, and that can be a little exhausting. And like it looked like it was going to slip away at times.

and he was playing in some of the tough conditions as well. And I was expecting him to keep dropping down the board and he just never did. And listen, I know I make a lot of jokes about Alex Smalley's mom. But you like she's, she's like they're inseparable. They're attached to the hip. Seems like it's what they're the team's working because he's been, he's had a good year. You know, he's not this isn't the first leader board he's been on. Yeah.

Yeah. Alex is the third. eighth ranked data golf player in the world 78th in the OWGR. So is, yeah, the results haven't spoken quite to his consistency is what that would say overall. So a top 10 is definitely not out of the question. And that may sound like a slight, but this bunch of a leaderboard, like any kind of slip up and you can fall back really, really, really quickly. So you fall two, two shots to, you know, just fall 16 spots with a double. Like, that's tough.

I think the next guy, I think Hadeki is the perfect. encapsulation. Perfect. The weirdest golfer and the weirdest setup we've seen in a major. Who knows how long? And I find that exhilarating. It's a true grab bag right now. Like that's why you can't simulate this shit, Sally.

I know, Neil, I think we're just lashing out because we can't make sense of it. It's a putting contest. And Hedecki is, uh, is eighth in putting so far. You're like, Smalley's top in putting this week. Mav's an awesome putter. So you're like, oh, God, this is a piece of shit pudding causes. And it's like, wait, but it's Hedke. like what?

I don't know. It's great. Yeah. It does just feel like the first two days. It's such a, I don't know, this is a weird take, but it's such a mess when you're on both sides

of the golf course and keeping track of things. It just feels like the turn, you know, it's all positioning to get ready for Saturday. And like the golf, everyone's going to play the golf course in twosomes in the order

that it's supposed to be played in. And it should flow so much better. It just feels like, among many other tournaments, this one just really take. takes a couple days to really fully get started. But next name on the list here. Sorry, I lost my leaderboard here.

Oh, there's a dude. There's a dude. Oh, God, look out. There's a dude. That's all I look out. There he is. God damn it. Chris got her up.

Just not, if anybody was getting confused there. 65. Shot 65 today to get up into that big tie for third after the 72 yesterday. a low round of the day, potted it well, hit the irons really well, drove, did everything well today.

He shot, started on the back nine, played that in bogey free, two under, birding the 11th and 17, flipped over bogey two, but then birdied the third and birdied his final three holes,

seven, eight, and nine in the morning wave. And when it, when it was, it was not, it was not gentle when he was getting through those, those final three holes in three under par.

So big, big, big, big spot for, for Mr. Godder up tomorrow. Yeah. He's, I mean, I think there's some dude tendencies there, Sali. Approach plays off the charts. I want to make this clear on the dude thing. I am going to have my list of dudes.

I want to be very clear. You can do whatever you do. And I would love if you found a different word for it. So you don't confuse the system here because it is very, very, couldn't be more delineated. And you are going to put the 22nd ranked player in the world into the dude category. And it is going to create confusion that I don't think the world's prepared for it. Everyone's hanging on the edge of their seats. I think you put forth the dude system as a group, a group thing.

And it's only backwards looking and not forward looking. And I think there's some. That's what the fedora five is for, T.C. That's a forward. There needs to be a dude fedora five mashup. I feel a little left out. If I can't nominate dude, Sally, I feel left out. Exactly.

You can. You can. It doesn't feel like to burn. Solly's taking his ball and going home. You burst. Sally's just upset that ROM's not a dude. Ron. Rob played good today.

TC. TC said Rom is a dude. TC said ROM is not a dude. TC said Bryson is a dude and then said TC is that Bryson is not a dude. So we're just looking for consistent. The whole thing here is if you put somebody in the dude category, you can't touch it for a year. You got to leave them there and go through the ups and downs.

All right. There's four dudes on my list just to make it very clear. Four, one, two, three, four. Scotty, Cam, Rory and Rom. Those are the four dudes right now, I think, in golf. Like the four clear tier one dudes that are the constants in golf right now. I don't have an argument with that. I don't know how far your list would have to go.

Rom hasn't finished top five in a major. That's backward looking T.C. Since the beginning of 2023. I know, but wouldn't we have, wouldn't we have evaluated Rom's dude status at the end of 24 or end of 25? He's enough of a dude to have survived a blip in the radar. He's got the same major, major resume is Martin Kimer. He's living on, uh, uh, uh, uh,

Dude fumes. A bit of an OWGR or a Ryder Cup points list. He's got some stuff from the deep past. Anyway, Sally, let's move on to Potkeeter because I think he's an interesting one. Pot Geeter shot 70 today. He again was leading the field in putting after round one. He is still second in the field in putting. He was bogey free on the front nine.

Start on the first hole, bogey free on the front nine, got it all the way to five under par. made a couple parts to start and then duck hooks one on 13 I'm gonna say started going really really haywire at 13 I don't think they did they ever show what happened with that ball like it they made it sound like it was headed out of bounds

and he was yelling for it to hit a tree and it got back in play somehow and he made he didn't hit a provisional so clearly somebody signaled that it must be he didn't get TIO either because there was like a shot link tower there but he hit the the wedge you know up above the fence to what the front

right of the green there. Well, it was interesting. The Shotling Tower was between him and the middle of the green, which is where his play was going to be. But because it was not between him and the hole, he could not get relief on it. That was the way they described it on the telecast. You know what, Neil? You're whipping me here. PGA of America.

That was a good ruling, KC, because I watched that closely. And it was like, oh, God, he's going to get a relief for this skinny tower. And then, no, and then he played up, he took it, you know, anything he was taking it over, like, out of bounds. I'm always like, hell yeah. Again, I'm leaning forward.

I don't think he left it in the rough short of the green, Sully. And it made it really good up and down. It was to the fair way, but he couldn't really get at the pin. He already ended up like 22 feet right of the pin and then made the 22 footer for par there. So that was basically it was kind of like, you know, cameras getting in position here. Like, all right, Podgeeter, here we go. And he hooks one almost OB. He was like, oh, this could fall apart.

But he saved par there. Did bogey his last two holes, 17 and 18 to fall back to three under par. but guys we we kind of dogged on because he has BSI sentences he's making me look stupid I dogged him I'd picked him to feel last I would know at the masters like I this was not lie this was in our in-person event on Tuesday you he was your pick to finish DFL well it was a little bit it was a question from the crowd I was like yeah give me pocket eater I'll double down on my master he was discriminating against BSIs uh guys I will say just to to put a put an exclamation point on how just out of balance his putting statistics were in round one.

He was 66th than putting today, and he's still ranked second. We'll be interesting to see him in that spot. I'm still waiting for tea times to come out. Have they come out yet? Oh, there they are. They are out. He is going to be playing with Stephen Yeager.

So the final group is going to be Smalley. Yeager made 18 pars in a row today. Did he really? I did not know that. It's going to be Smalley Mab out last, Hideki Gotter up in the second to last group, Pot Geeter, Yeager, Minoo Lee, Grazerman, J.T. Cam Young, Scotty, David Pooge, Harris, English, Seawukam,

Ludwig, and Andrew Novak. And then a little further down, I'm just looking for some of the big names, see if we get any bigger pairs. Brooks and Rory at 11, Ricky Fowler and Zander at 1110. Speeth and DJ. Hal Tong and Pee as a potential President's Cup, singles match. Ram's playing with Andrew Putnam.

I got to admit, I did not realize the Andrew Putnam. A little dudes was up there. Anyways. Yeager, yeah, you just mentioned it, C.C. made nothing but pars today. That's incredible. I kind of dream of doing that. I mean, that might be, I might retire if I ever made 18 pars in a row. That's so, that's, like, legitimately awesome.

He's hitting all the, all the greens, too. He's second in greens for the week. That's so, that's so cool. Like, what a cool thing to do. I would feel so cool if I would feel so cool if I, came off the course, set all pars. The stable compound leading the field and strokes gained T to green to this point, Min Woo Lee sitting there three under par, just one shot off the pace.

Got the sustainability models love that. So big spot for Min Woo Lee. Max Grazeman, again, I mentioned snuck in an eagle on his 18th hole. I did not see a lot of his golf. They were not showing a lot of him on this day and is going to the weekend. One shot off the lead again on a massively massively bunch of year. And so did Cam. Cam Eagle 9.

And it just felt like all the moment, like, oh, my God, here he comes. What I really, really good stuff from, from Kim because he was a little shaky on the front nine, but rolled in a probably 12, 15 foot eagle put on nine, awesome, Fairway Wood up to the green. My pick to win, so obviously I'm fluffing him right now. But T9 and JT, I thought JT battled both today and yesterday. So T.C., to your point about his quotes, got put on the clock today. I give him a ton of,

credit because he's uh it feels like he's pressing and he's not he hasn't blown up yet and i find it a lot more interesting like maybe it's just because i have so much context with him over the last 10 12 years but i'm like oh hell yeah j t's involved you know like it's just it's just interesting to me because he's kind of he's wired a little tight sallie you said it yesterday you feel like when j t's playing really well he looks really loose and like low body tension everything just moves really slowly in his arms. He grips the club super light. And he just like he's,

yeah. So I don't see that. I feel like he's wired super duper tight. And he's like so overly focused. I feel like he's going to spin out of control. But his mind might be like his body. It's almost like he's intentionally with his body, trying to move as slow as possible.

Like he doesn't swing hard. It looks like he's trying to like, you know, hit feathery shots with all of them and just try to like, you know, everything just kind of looks loosey goosey in the arms as he gets into a shot. He takes a little bit longer, which again, they got put on the clock today. He was asked about that.

You know, there's a clip. Kentackett comes up to him, Kegan and Cam Young to tell him they are that they are being put on the clock. There were images going around both Kegan and JT were a little bit animated about it. He was asked about it after the round. And I think we have that video as well. Talking to an official, were you guys put on the clock and what happened there? We were, yeah, yeah, we just didn't really agree with it. It's just, it's hard because it.

You know, it's kind of the whole time part thing. Like, what is time par? How can time par on this course be the same when it's blowing 25 and the pins are tough than if it's not? And this time par change every day. There's just so many factors that go into it. And we were behind. I'm not, I think that that wasn't our issue or being annoyed by it. It's just the fact that we weren't holding up the group behind us.

They were, you know, they were about, it seemed like every time we were on the, green. They were on the T and so on and so forth. And it's just the hard part to me with the whole pace of play thing is that you, there's so much that goes into golf and there's so much that goes into it hold a hole in terms of, you know, are you hitting it close? Are you able to tap it in? Or you have to mark it stuff like that to where are you holding the group up? Are you not? To where it's very hard to make that call. And we just didn't agree with it, to be honest, but we got taken off, you know, a whole later, they were, we were caught up. So it's kind of goes to our point of why we didn't think we should have, but it is what it is. It's a part of it. God, it's getting

existential. Just the question. Not much different there with the, with the Higo stuff. I mean, honestly, it was a little bit like, yeah, we, we didn't agree with it. We were behind, but we didn't, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, what even is time, right? I was, yeah, how do you measure a second? It's hard to measure. No, we were definitely behind, but like, we just didn't agree with it. That's like, I found that funny because I don't think you get to disagree with the rule. I get the rule is like if you're out of position, if you are, if there's a, I don't want to go through all the specifics of it. Basically, if you, if you're like a hole behind and it depends on if it's a part three or par four or par five and if the next group is teed off the next hole, whatever, if you are behind, like you're behind and you get time, like the rule is pretty obvious there.

You don't get to disagree when they, when they put you on. I agree. I was looking for evidence. I don't think you can, and I'm picking on JT here. Like I don't think you can be against a technology rollback. And, and, you know, be in this position about pace of play. Like the reason why the pins are the way they are and it's taken everything you just described is because the ball and the equipment is the way that it is.

Like, that's just no secret. Yeah, but JT's worried about the billions of dollars that are going to have to be spent on R&D and everything. And all that said, get. and put on the clock, add it to the psychological evaluation. Sure. Yeah. JT passes my test today and I'm glad he's T9. And he had a good outfit on. Yeah. I like the outfit. Like I'm still like

I'm fired up that he played well. So good for him. The rule is though decidedly like it's not just if you're not holding the group behind. Like that's not how the rule is. The rule behind you, the group behind you doesn't need to be on your ass for you to be out of position. He could also be slow. Yeah. Correct. So that. Guys, real quick,

we do have a Rory setup. quote that I'd like to I'd like to read into the record here okay I don't yeah I don't think we covered the setup yet uh uh Rory was asked scotty said when he finished this is the hardest set of pin locations that he's seen since he's been out on tour including the U.S. opens are you okay with the setup the last two days with those whole locations Rory yeah um I was the only thing I would say is I think a bunch leaderboard like this I think it's a sign of a not a great setup I think it when it's as bunched as it is because it has

really enabled anyone to separate themselves. It's like, you know, it's easy to make a ton of pars, hard to make birdies. And not that it's hard to make bogey, but it feels like bogey's the worst score you're going to shoot on any hole. There's not a lot of hazards. There's not, you know, yeah, I think the setup is fine. Like the golf course is good. The pins were tough. The wind was what it was as well. But I just think, yeah, I've always felt like really good setups. It starts to spread the field a bit and not great setups sort of bring everyone together. I feel like that's what happened the last two days. I've said.

Yeah. Yeah, that seems pretty spot on. No one wants to be the leader in the, in the, in the, in the setup quotes. No one wants to take it to it. It's why Randy and I are so brave. That's what everyone's been saying.

I just think it was a hard setup. And I'm totally fine with it. I think we covered that. I think sure. We did. It's the story of the day. I felt like, I feel like,

I feel like when Rory chimes out on it, you read it. Right. Yeah. JT. Scotty's sitting there. T9. He had a really rough start to the day. Bogied his three of his first four holes and had to had to battle for a par there on 14. It looked like it was going to start getting away from him. It was getting away from a lot of people in that really early stretch. That was at 902. You said JT is quote exiting the proceedings.

Yeah. You're writing people off left and right. Yeah. I know you would never make that mistake, T.C. And I just feel like I let you down, let you down with that. one but uh he did battle back was less than a perfect day from scott he did not put uh very well but um he's he's there he's there he's two shots back still the favorite i believe uh the last i checked uh to win the tournament of course and what's he at he's two um he was minus 300 something or plus excuse me plus 300 uh the last i had looked i can look that up but i got it he's

plus 350 okay um what do you think Cam's the next closest at plus 950. Yeah. Sheesh. Plus 350 is insane with this many guys. Plus 390 on Fandul. But yeah, that's like,

what is he? He's two shots back. If you could clear the deck of your, of your prior picks and we could suspend habeas corpus for your actual picks to win this week, would you take, would you take Scotty right now? I'd take Cam still.

I'd stick with my picks. Wow. I'm going to stick with my pick Ludwig, who's also at minus two. Yeah, your pick is T-22. The Undertaker stuff from you coming out of the coffin, brother. Yeah, I do. He was taking advantage of that easy wave. I have your pick at T-22, T-22, T-22, T-22.

Yeah, but I was told I couldn't change my pick, so I'm stuck with Ludwig, I guess. Oh, yeah, but there was just a tweet yesterday, dismayed by what I saw from Ludwig. today can't have it changing my pick to pee this is his to lose I hate that did that run public with that did that right before Levin disappointed in what we saw from P

today changing my pick back to Ludwig put me in jail come at me sue me yeah all right I want to give a shout out here before we get back to Iran to make a talk some more course set up here

this week's PJ Championship the perfect example of why Arcos has become such a big part of no laying up and elite golf. Arcos is the official game tracker of the PGA tour and honestly the smartest platform in golf. You're seeing it in real time with guys like Matt Fitzpatrick. If you watched him lately at the Vowspar, the RBC, all of these events he's been winning. That is not an accident that Patrick has talked openly about how much he relies on Arco's data to understand his game better than anybody else. It's not just tracking stats.

It's showing you tendencies where you actually lose shots, what distances hurt you, what decisions cost you strokes. That's the Arcos edge. This week specifically gets a little bit interesting that the PJ Championship, players and caddies are allowed to use rangefinders during competition. Of course, got to be in tournament mode. You don't get to use the slope adjustments and extra environmental calculations and all that. But it's worth noting slope only rangefinders are missing most of the story anyways. Arcos analyzed nearly 3.5 million smart laser zaps from real golfers and found that slope only accounts for about 20% of what actually changes a shots true playing distance. Wind alone, especially the gusts, makes up about two-thirds of the adjustment. So if

you're using only a slope only range finder your distance is a wrong way more often than you think in fact almost half of range finder readings are off by 10 yards or more once real conditions are factored in and one in five are off by 20 yards that's why the arco's smart laser is different when you're playing your own rounds outside tournament mode smart laser gives you a true plays like distance by factoring in the wind the gust the temperature the altitude humidity and slope basically all the stuff golfers are trying to guess standing over the ball like arcos is giving you that. And Arco's member data says Aronimic is a very tough test. The 10 handicaps average almost 88 there, which is more than 17 over par. But that's the difference between hitting the green and making bogey. The Arco's smart laser gives you the actual, the number of the shot is actually

playing, not just the raw yard. It gives you good range, too, between the, you know, the wind gust possibilities as well. So go to ArcoSgolf.com. That's ARCCOSGolf.com. Use code NOU 15 to say 15% on the smart laser in the entire Arcos lineup. Range fighters sweet. Yeah, it is. Where do you guys want to go next? Who have we not discussed? It's tough, Sally.

Like we've got, you know, you want to go down on the leaderboard. And but in order to really do so equitably, there's like 30 guys you have to talk about that are within four shots of the lead. We still have to give a few guys the, all right. If you're in the top eight tomorrow is when we're going to give you. you the road. David, David Pooge, are you talking about him tonight or not? We'll get canceled if we don't, I think, T.C. I mean, I think this is, you know, this is a great example of why more golfers from that

tour should be eligible to play in the PGA. I think it kind of speaks for itself. You know, it's going to be an asterisk on this tournament because Lucas Herbert is not here. I think, I think that should probably cover us, but we know that's the, with the consensus out there. Well, there's already an asterisk because our guy, Prem Law. from that other tour, the D-Tee World Tour. He didn't get the field either.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I don't know. Big spot for Pooge tomorrow. Yeah, very big spot. Him and Scotty. That'll be really, really interesting one to watch. He's driving the hell out of it. You know who I was a little disappointed in today?

I felt, like, had some momentum was Jason Day. It felt like he was, it feels like a good, good place. for him two-time PGA championship winner Jason Day sounds right to me a little bit. Seeing him clip one late in his career, but he just kind of ran out of gas and tried to even

par. So he's, you know, he's still in it. He's T-16. He's at one under, but I felt like he missed opportunity for him today. Neil, I love your allegiance to Jason Day. I just think there's no holes in his game. I think now I look at him and I'm like, man, I

just hate. You know, the quote is nothing worse in the world than wasted talent. And I start to think a little bit of wasted talent. It's like he's, and he's been very relevant the last three, four, five years, maybe let's say three years. But it just, he hasn't, he hasn't like broken through again since 2015. And it just, um, it kind of bums me out. Because I don't see any holes in his game. You just can't put it all together. You know, this ball striking has been been pretty just pretty medium the last couple of years. You're right, Sali, the consistency is the problem, but he shows flashes. And today on the front nine, I was like, man, there it is.

Like he was hitting some really good shots. And then he seems like the kind of guy on a tough setup with awesome, you know, I feel like eye test-wise, really good short game. Every six to 10 footer you think is going in. I mean, he just seems pure on the greens. A lot of this is maybe just, again, I test. But it just, it looks good. It just doesn't add up.

checkbook doesn't balance. He has some flashes and he appears on boards. He got a little bit of the experience in him, though, just like 72 holes. Just doesn't like, you don't have like good finishes, you know? Like, he pops up on the board and,

like you associate. Well, and it's like when was last time he was relevant in 2015? You know, we got some. I go there. That's, similarities here.

Cut his mic. Cut his mic. We're not, we're not doing that here tonight. Is he a dude? I mean, he would have been a dude after 2015. Yeah, he definitely was.

Yeah. He just forgot to reevaluate it. He was absolutely a dude. On dude watch, missed opportunity for the buoy. Had it to three under par when he birdied the 11th hole. Conditions lied down there for him a little bit at the end. But bogeyed 13, bogeied 15, failed to birdie 16. Got in the house even par today.

What was that? Drive hit Wyndham in the foot. Was this during bad time? I might have missed that. What hole was that? Yeah, I think this is why you were reading my pet goat. Lama. That's what we did.

Lama Lama, red pajamas. Oh, yeah. All the Lama Lama books, yeah. Yeah, he's his, I believe his, I was just told his, his, his drive on one of the holes coming in, hit Windem in the foot on one of the holes. On one of the holes. That might have been his drive off 12. We did skip right over Cantlay watch. The flags are staying out.

Yeah, now we're 16. We're going to keep them out until Saturday. Yeah. It's the right thing to do for liability reasons. Rip tides and things like that. We don't want to see anybody get swept out. Also, I just got to go back to the Luke LV tweet from yesterday about I'm not sure how, I'm not sure the world of golf knows how good this kid is in regard to David Pooge.

And now why would that be? Why would that be, Luke? Because he might, it might not be that good. We glossed over H.E. H.E. finished tied for second last year. PGA Championship. Siwu had an awesome finish today. Seew,

you know, T9 as well. Novak. So I know you hate him, but we got to, we got to cover him. He knows I hate him too. He knows I'm a massive, massive hater. But, yeah, this would be a... We all hate Kittiyama, but he's up there.

We don't hate kiddiam. It's not the right word. I think NPC's the right phrase there. Do you see, what do you have to say about your boy, You were just glazing really hard last night. Really upsetting. I think he got off the bus this morning. And then just didn't, you know, he birdied four.

He was right there. And then it was just the slow gas leak the rest of the round. He just didn't have it today. So 72 today. Didn't, you know, didn't putt it great today. He didn't really do anything great today. It was like it's a bad short-sided misses. today.

Very mad. I don't know what holes, but it was like, I'd look up and it's like, oh, yeah, you can't miss on that side. Yeah. No, I would, I would agree there. On the flip side, like, genuinely excited to see Cameron Smith playing decent golf again. Like, it just made me really sad the last five, six, seven, eight majors when he's just been awful.

And he's got a new swing coach. He's working with Claude Harmon. It just seems like things are at least trending in a decent direction again. And it looks like he's having a little bit of joy playing the game. He was 350 to 1 coming into this week. It just is a shocking, shocking decline. He's 146th the day the golf ranking. Just really, really struggling with all.

He's still putting it really well is the thing. Just the ball striking has reached a new low. But there's no, there's no, yeah, sad is the world. word like honestly cam has never rubbed anyone the wrong like there's some guys that went to live that you're just like i kind of want to see that guy fail and i never felt that way about cam smith um you know he just is a really likable person and a massive talent and uh just was like he was just a sad live story which was not not fun for anyone involved i think he redlined the engine pretty hard to win the open and and win the players that year like he's 2022 was remarkable

and I think he he sacrificed a lot to get there and there was some regression that was probably natural from there. But yeah, I don't think there was regression to, you know, where he's reached now. So on the flip side, Neil, Rico Hoey, I feel like he just continues to make strides. Well, yeah, from the U.S. and National Development Program video I did, coach Zambri.

He's like, yeah, Rico Hoey. he was just like the goat of the line test. He's like the best ball. His word is not my like best ball striker ever seen. He just can't, can't. You know, and it sounds like he was kind of out of pro golf for a little while. I saw, I don't know whose apologies. I don't have the attribution on the ex post,

but I think he was kind of an assistant pro somewhere out in California in his hometown or where he grew up and kind of, he's kind of bounced back. So making the cut, T-22, he shot 70-70. Yeah, the first three rounds. I wasn't familiar with that story, but it looks like 2022. He kind of either was hurt or took some time off. And yeah, one of the foremost, uh, I just, he's a, quote from coach Zambry, flusher.

Oh, we go, the ultimate flusher just doesn't, didn't miss with his good dude too. And you know what? He's, he's not putting well this week. Doesn't matter. T22. 7070. Brent.

Brentley Romline had that, uh, tweet you probably saw. Oh, my guy from my, my August around. Sorry, Brentley. Yes. I, I, I read that. morning goose creek golf club in mirrooma california he in the fall of uh 2021 he took that job so he's one of the foremost practitioners of the driver off the deck in the world too uh speaking of which so we can't we cannot skip over foxy 70 70 as well proper player we'll talk about the

weekend tomorrow he's also at t 22 right below um can we can we pause on ben kern uh from the Corbridge financial. 67 today, guys, in the morning, T30. He's won over. But I think he's out of Ohio. Is that right? Hickory Hills, yeah. Grove City, Ohio.

Played there in high school. Massive shout out. Hopefully we get him miced up on a walk and talk tomorrow. Maybe the next blocky. Who can say? A person could not carry themselves in a complete, in a more opposite manner than he did compared to Blocky. They give him a shot.

Give him the mic. Listen, Sully, neither one's right or wrong. They're just different. They're different. I still want to hear from him. He did a great interview afterward. He was quite emotional. He was incredibly humble.

And yeah, he's quite an easy guy to root for here this coming weekend. Who does he get to play with tomorrow? Might be playing with Sally's boy, Nick Taylor. I believe, Sallie shouted out Nick Taylor to finish DFL on Tuesday night. It's not new. He's funny. He's playing with Daniel Hillier. I'm not familiar with his game.

Let's get to some bigger names here. I'll skip right over the Nick Taylor stuff. Yeah, we're fine there. Rodrigo McIlroy, Roy McElroy, 67 today after a 74 yesterday. He's only five back, but he is T30. And apart, he had a very nice round of golf today. Bogie free, 67, still looked like he was kind of laboring through it. And there wasn't anything especially spectacular.

But hit three more fairways today. and that driving number was basically a two-stroke improvement off the T today and putted a heck of a lot better. He was just pounding everything through the break yesterday and looked quite lost on the greens. But man, just all he had to do was get it in the house around even yesterday. And he's right there in contention in this tournament. He's five back, but it feels farther than that with the amount of guys that he needs to leapfrog. And you say that, but I got a couple of interesting stats on that a little bit later on.

I'm not fully convinced Rory is out of this. I don't think anyone else that plus one can win this. He's playing with Brooks tomorrow. He's playing with Brooks. And you don't think the experience at plus one can win this? I don't think either of those guys can get the damn ball in the hole. Like the Brooks thing is it's maddening. He was positive today, but he's 75th in putting.

He's giving up almost two shots there and didn't hit as well as he did yesterday. But I just felt like Brooks. Yeah, again, just not a good setup for Brooks. If it's going to be this much about putting, it's been the weakest part of his game this year. And he's just not being able to, not how he's going to separate. What a leaderboard.

It would be at T-30. Sahith. Ricky, Zander, Brooks, Rory, Speeth, DJ. The experience. Little baby Colin, who I feel like Little Baby Colin, this maybe, maybe too much of a putting contest,

but probably should have set up pretty well for him. from a precision perspective. I think it's not precision perspective is why I don't think it does set up that well for him. We skipped over Saif, he, on 10. So I missed this. He hit a ball out of the fairway bunker on 10. There's a tree that kind of overhangs.

On the right side, there's a tree that kind of overhangs on that side. It clipped the tree and no one knew where the ball went. Never found it. Nobody saw it. Lost ball. Had to replay out of that. bunker. I mean, just like hard to fathom how with all the people watching that nobody saw where that ball went. Maybe it's stuck up in the tree and stayed, but it was a lost ball,

complete fluke. He would have just said it's in that tree. It's in that tree. He literally did do that. Allegedly. I had forgotten about that. The experience today, guys, 37 feet 9 inches of made putts 137th in putting Randy would be appalled by that yeah it didn't I mean didn't play great but

yeah just no no magic I want my money back to you see from the theme park I would argue that you got your money's worth on on the second or on the shot into 11 I didn't make the putt that's the experience That's what you signed up for.

I mean, he had a great shot to 18 as well. And that's not going in. At no point that I believe that was going in. It didn't even sniff the hole. And continues to drive the shit out of it. Good for him. He's close, Sali. I wish you could figure that out.

As mentioned, Zander shot 73 today. He falls into that T30 group as well. That kind of takes us down the board. You want to get to some some emcees? Sure. Important emcees. Yeah, well, first and foremost, I want to shout out my man, L.D., for making the cut. Luke Donald, Ryder Cup captain, shot 73 today.

He's plus four. Both Rasmus's made the cut as well. Rasmus Neargard Peterson and Rasmus Hoygard. I believe both Hoygard twins made the cut. Brian Campbell made the cut, Salli. He's tied with your guy, Shane Lowry, who he'll be. one of the worst shots we've seen this year.

I was on 17. Try to skip it across the pond on 17. Shane can hit some hit some poor shot. He hit some of the ugliest shots. I just saw him top in one and a pro am like a few weeks back. Yes, you did.

You did. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. I can't believe I did that. He seemed real shocked by it. And here it showed up again. I ate that for you, bud.

Um, we, all right, Blocky and Jimmy Walker both missed the cut and they both shot plus five. They tied. Jimmy Walker shot 74 today. Blocky shot 75 today. Is that the tiebreaker? Or are we going to a scorecard playoff? Uh, they both bogied the last two holes, but Blocky birdied 16. I think it goes.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, Jimmy. Jimmy didn't. Jimmy part 17. No, never mind. I think Jimmy. It's a time.

Yep. Sorry. All right. To the miscuts, let's go with Blocky. Let's go right to Blocky. Jason Sobel tweeted this earlier. He said, I asked soon to be 50-year-old Michael Block to reflect on what could be in his last

PJ Championship. Start his response. I have to be honest with you, there's no way on God's green earth. This is my last one. No chance. I will definitely qualify for one more, if not five more.

That is the Michael Block quote that I really wish was on video. Honestly, when he posted that, I was like, circle of Blocky. I've kind of I got to start thinking that way. I was waiting for him to like chime in like, no, I was joking. Like he'd, of course didn't say that. But like it apparently

was what he said. P.J. Clipped this and said, this is what Blockie said earlier in the week. Scratch asked him with you being on the presuppance of senior golf, does this feel a bit like a swan song? And Blockie said, oh yeah, definitely. I was actually surprised I made it again this year. After the PJ, I'm focused only

on senior golf. I'm trying to get into some events. I'm going through qualifying for the senior U.S. Open, the senior Scottish Open already gave me an exemption, which was nice. And I'm trying to play a handful of events, but I don't want my card. So within a week, he has flipped it to, yeah, I'm going to qualify for five more of these. So everything changed in that in that port of John on 12. He looked in the

non-existent mirror and said, we got this, homie. Let's get it. Do you think, I mean, some of the quotes this week about blocky, finishing payroll and approving budgets from the range. Oranamik. That's the good stuff. That really got it coming for me.

Any other misquotes? T.C. You want to bring up or address or kind of miscuts? Oh, yeah. Excuse me. Yeah, JT. Posten, Akshay,

Russ Henley, hate seeing that. We talked about that. Englishman early on. Sullivan. Like, Russ weirdly never has a good, maybe not weirdly,

but he just doesn't have a good record the PGA championship. Tommy missed the cut. Oh, there it is. I'm glad. Listen, I think you know, you've tried to goad me into picking him this week and I stayed strong and I said, I don't think he's going to play well this week because I think he's truly focused on Shinnecock and Burkdale. And it bared itself out.

And I'm glad that he missed the cut this week. It wasn't a proper enough test. Can I just say, one, I think it's been a great test. Two, I think this is kind of a stain on Tommy's resume. Like, I think you'll look back and be like, damn, he missed the cut in like in that major. Like, you got to show. Everybody else kind of. As opposed to other major.

Yeah, I just think everybody else kind of grab their sack. Like, I don't see, other than him and Bryson, I'm not seeing a lot of horses that missed the cut. Like, they didn't just, like, kind of dig down and grind. T.C. I know you're a big Wyndham guy. Knock it off. Knock it off. I mean, we got to, we got to be honest about this.

This is a, this is a bad miscut. That's all. Listen, it's a bad miscut, but I think it's a strategic miscut. Oh, come on. Just don't buy that. I mean, what, what are the stats saying out there? He didn't put well. He didn't make the cut.

He drove it great. that he didn't make the cut. He didn't make the cut. That is. Approach is approach to the green. 106 in the field. Minus. 0.5 shots. Around the green, 100 second.

Tita Green, 78th, putting, 97th. He fucking stunk, T.C. That's what the stats say. Yeah, I just... In your system and whatever word we're going to end up calling it, is Fleetwood a dude? He's post dude. He's like his own thing.

He's not a dude because he's never won a major. So we can't even consider him. He's pre-dude or post. dude, I'm not sure which one. I was going to say because, I mean, the recent major record for, for Tom is, it's not looking great. No, but he's also the defending FedEx Cup champion,

sorry. He has not had a top 15 in a major since he finished T3 at Augusta in 2004. What did you call it? Is he the defending American champion? The defending champion golfer, domestic champion golfers. Domestic champion golfer.

I like that one. That was good. good branding uh victor hovlin missed the cut rider cup locks up straca missed the cut kegan bradley missed the cut your captain sall he lost again to ld god the guy does can he go any lower he's just got to be so heartbroken tearyl missed the cut well hold on we skipped right over my guys to sink so okay ronamink next time we come here unfinished business i know my my guy's gonna be back in it uh angel a yora missed the cut uh in honor of sevi uh Who else?

Harry Hall? All right, Bryce. We got to talk Bryson. Yeah. Bryson. He birdies his last three holes to make it look a little bit better. Sheesh. 71.

A little bit better. On the way out, though. Neil's impressed. No, I, because the last, last I saw of him, he was, he was, what, nine over? He got all the bit of ten before birding the last three. But, yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's, I think, dogging him. like why is he swinging out of his shoes? Like they were, uh, I think Duval mentioned like,

I gotta think that having the same length wedges are making these shots harder. Like they were starting to, to chirp them pretty hard on the front nine, which I was appreciate. Curtis was kind of chippy today. Yeah. Curtis was, uh,

kind of like that scout from Moneyball, um, you know, that looks, you know, with all the other links going on around them. Like now you don't want to get too close to the green here. He's like,

yeah, you kind of do, man. Like that's just a modern game. I'm sorry. Billy, he can't play first. Base.

I think, not to make excuses for Bryson, there's no way he's healthy. He was like 40th, I think, in driving distance this week. Like I just, I think there's, there's no chance he's actually healthy. Is there, do you know if something's wrong specifically? Well, he withdrew with that wrist injury in Mexico and that was kind of suspicious, right, because everything else that was going on there. But I would have to imagine there's got to be some lingering effect. Like the guy is not 40th in driving distance anywhere he goes.

Like that just does not make sense. So I would have to think, I mean, his distance is down just overall this year from from peak. And I would have to think that's health related more than a conscious decision. So solid carrying Bryson's water here. No, I mean, just looking for, you know, look at it. There's got to be something to this to this story. Just like the setup. We're just looking for things that can help explain reality what we're seeing out there.

I just think you guys need to enjoy it. You got, you know, this is what you can ask it for. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it's better than it was. Get off the setup. We're on Bryson. Enjoy this. It's fun to watch Bryson blow up. That's also fun. Enjoy that. It really is.

I don't give him an out. Unless he says he's hurt, he's not hurt. He fucking played like shit. Let's go. We didn't meet the media this week. We need to take away a second round pick next year. The Crushers. They don't get a second round pick.

You guys see that? The Vegas Knights. Got their second round pick revoked because they, Tortorella didn't meet with the media, and they didn't let media in several times. They've been warned several times. This is what Monaghan and Juan should have done to Rory after Pinehurst. Yeah, a lot of people have been saying that. A lot of people are really hung up on that.

And, and that is cool that they enforced it, though, T.C. I'm not going to disagree with you there. Anything, anything on Marco Pinge, you want to revisit T.C. anything you want to take back, you think you want to water down at all. You got mad at me when I called him a fringe rider cupers. I think that makes him a lock rider cup. Do we want to...

No, well, reel that back in. Too flashy this week? Yeah, no, yeah, I just don't think his game fit this place.

He's been struggling a bit since Valspar, really. So, um, no, actually the guy that was a little bit, I thought he, I thought he was going to fit well here.

He just didn't. Was Michael Thor Bjorinson? Uh, A little bit of the driving stuff. And he was, I think, sixth in driving distance. And he just didn't really do it with the irons. 127th in iron play. Pudding was awful.

So I just don't know how he contended at sawgrass. Ludwig. Ludwig really saved the day here, Sally. Otherwise, T.C. Davis Riley at plus 11. DC would be down really bad. Am I a big Davis Riley guy? Yeah, you and. Dege have been fluffing him for weeks.

No, we've been saying he's, like, everybody that we hear from says that he's really good. And they can't figure out how he plays so bad. I don't know if we've been fluffing it. All right. Then I felt like you were. And regardless, Tommy, or Bjornson, you know, you had tough week, T.C. Don't flash you wide boy. After that, we're the bottom 13 guys on the, on the, uh, well, there's one of one of

Another name we need to mention down there, of course, Max Homa. He did shoot 75, 77, finished 12 over par, and missed by a wide margin. He made one birdie. Tough, tough week. It was negative in every category for both days other than driving. He drove it well on day one, but the rest was decidedly not it for our boy. I felt like we were on the right path and making some progress. And this, you know, not saying we're completely off the rails here,

but this was a tough finish in the same vein of a lot of the other tough finishes that have been involved in his unfortunate recent decline. Maybe he's just like Neil. He was just cold. He's cold-blooded. Sure. He's a shiver boy out there.

I'm always cold. A couple stats, if you'll allow me here, we can move towards wrapping. Again, this is courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau. Randy Robles. Scotty will be top 10 going into the weekend of a major for the 14th time. 14th time. I think I have the recent versions of those.

Sorry, I lost this. That's fine. The most recent two, he's won. And then he was, I saw that statue, Sally. It looked like most of those, the ones that he won, he was already leading by this point, except for last year's PGA championship. I think he was T5. He was T5.

He was three back. The last two of these, he's won. You're exactly right. He was tied for the lead at 2024. Masters and won. Tied for the lead of the 2023 PGA, 36 holes. He finished tied for second in that one. He had a five-shot lead at the Masters in 2022,

and of course, went on to win that one. In the last, in 14 to last 15 PGAs, the eventual winner was in the top seven end ties after round two. So that would include that that list would cut off before you get that that if that comes true, it's either Smalley, Mav, Hadeke, Goddra, Potkeeter, Yeager, Minmooly, or Max Grazerman that's winning this one. The lone exception was Colin Moracawa in 2020, who was T25 and six shots back. That was also a very bunched one at TPC Harding Park. But that was the only one of the last 15 PGAs where the winner was not in the top seven and ties going into the weekend.

8 of last 18 winners were at least three shots behind the leaders after 36 holes, though. So this is definitely a more bunch leaderboard than usual. There have been just two major championships in history in which 15 or more players were within two shots of the lead after 36 holes, the 91 Open Championship and the 2002 Open Championship. And this week we have, it looks like exactly 15 guys who are within two shots of the lead. TC, do you know who won the 2002 Open Championship? 02. Is that Padrig?

No, that was Ernie L. Oh, was that at Liddlem? That was at Mirfield. He was in a four-way playoff, Neil. How many players, we just did this trivia question? Steve Elkington was in that one. Thomas LeVay? Correct.

Monty? No, it wasn't Monty, but it was, that's kind of a no-name guy, I think. No, no. No. Oh, Stuart Appleby. Got it. Right? Exactly right.

Yeah, we're talking about this in the van in Liverpool. Is that the one that they didn't let him play a four-wall? They played it. We do not play four balls at Mirfield, uh, T-C. So we're going off in two-toes. Oh, do we live. Oh, shit. Oh, four bad playoff.

Go back and listen to the Steve Elkington pod, uh, episode like two, I don't know what it was, two or two or two, something like that. Uh, and he tells that story. I mean, top five episode of all time. Worth digging out of the archive. Guy is a menace. The last time the leader, after 36 holes in the PGA, were no more than four under par,

was in 2012 at Kiowa. Here, the players who have been the top 10 on the leaderboard after 36 holes of a major most often over the last five calendar years. So from 2002 to now, the players that have been in the top 10 after 36 holes the most time, Scotty 12 times, Rory eight times Cameron Young seventh time

he has been in the top 10 of a major leaderboard after 36 holes hell yeah so guys that's about it that's about it I have in the notes

unless there's anything we're leaving on the table here I think I had a Robles quote one of them maybe he said this one sally he went through a lot of there seven former major winners

within four strokes of the league did not do that one after 36 holes boom shout out to my guy Randy doing the Lord's work out there. Do you guys meet Randy this week? No, no, I didn't meet him, but I want to. I'm going to send him an email this week.

I like getting his emails. We have pins for tomorrow. You guys want to take the gander? Let's start the course setup talk all over again. Let's go another hour. Guys, real quick, as we're analyzing these, if you had one tea time to follow tomorrow, one group to follow, who are you following?

I got a feeling for Sarge it would be 2 p.m. Is it Cam and Justin T. For sure. Yeah, that's probably the one I'm going after. A great one. All the way back left on the opening hole. Where is it on 11? Back left again.

Does that look like? It's hard to read it on this screen right here. But yeah, back left on 11. It's kind of the same spot it was, isn't it? On round one. What if they just left? You were worried about them burning pins.

They're not scared to go back to the well. Let's go, baby. That was an easy one, though. That was easy. There you have it, you know? It's still a fun pin, though, because if you go long there, you're so screwed. 10's kind of an easy spot, too. That was where they had it on the Wednesday practice round,

and guys were kind of getting, getting pretty close to that one. Nine all the way back left, eight all the way front left. I'm guessing they will move the tee up again on the eighth hole. then seventh hole front right while front right on 17 that one that will of course be challenging back left again on 16 not quite as close to the to the front part of that back left

corner as it was in round one it looks again these are hard when you don't have the heat maps around them because these could be on top of spines for all we know but it's not as close to edges tomorrow also interesting to see what they do with the T on 13 I feel like tomorrow's the day if they're going to move it up and it seemed like that guys were in the practice round

we're hitting off that forward T we'll see if they make it a reachable par four I would think they would. The PGA should just like they should design a course maybe they could do this at Frisco where they just have a bunch of crowns and just have a bunch of knobs and they just move which crown it's on every day.

Guarantee there will not be the complaining about pin positions next year frisco so enjoy the discord while you have it the pin why because they'll be complaining about everything else or yeah it's just not that like interesting really i think there's enough interesting i think i actually think frisco will be a pretty good test i just think the fans and the players are going to hate it yeah i think that's that's probably right all the received words they put uh some more trees out of frisco

to help with that shade issue that they have tc anyway uh sallie good pins for tomorrow uh Neil, I appreciate your passionate defense through 36 holes. This is, of course, is just a big setup for me because, Neil, I, I stole some, some shop credit. So I'm going to run this giveaway here. The code was pins today. Get them in. People hit it.

Pins. Give it people like, I don't know, 10 seconds more to get in there before I hit this. Hit the people. Hashtag Pins if you're watching this live. Smash that thumb. up. We appreciate everybody coming through. Where'd you fall on the setup, Cody? We were walking together yesterday.

I think it's through 36 holes and you truly never know what the PJ of America is going to do. So tomorrow could be like, you can't trust them. We could be looking at something in the low 60s. It kind of shocks yourself though when like you think of how

difficult it is and there's a 65 that was out there. You're like, well, somebody figured out. You know, so. I will say too that if the forecast is be believed it's it's calmer in the morning in the early afternoon and windier in the afternoon like there is a chance we're more bunched tomorrow oh we have a winner jb sim 13 go ahead shoot me an email cody at no laying up dot com and i'll get you dialed who is our 54 whole leader and at what score tomorrow i'm going to say it's cameron no i picked scotty i got to get yeah i think it's cameron young

at six under par. I bet he shoots 66 tomorrow. I think it's Min Woo Lee. Man, we're sitting at the same par. I think six under's the number. And I mean, I'll go with Cam, but I was looking at Min Woo Lee. He's a threat.

Some of these guys got to get on their horse if they're going to get my under 14 and a half under par or over that bet that I have outstanding there. I need somebody to start getting after this weekend. Hands up. We totally bottled the preview stuff here, but it's because you can't trust them.

You can't trust Carrier. You can't trust the PGA. Or they did a good job, and they made it hard. They did what you were asking for. And they got they got the heat up, TC. They got the conditions that we've been begging for at a U.S. Open for the last six years. Three factors.

Less rain than a, look like they were going to get as of the early. part of the week to the wind stronger a lot stronger than was forecasted in the early part of the week and the pins have been way more aggressive than i could have imagined them being i think would be and i just let's just stay president enjoy that gentlemen i know when's the next when's the next it's like mavericks once that wave going to blow in again tc we we never know hopefully it blows in it's shinnock uh but i i wonder what randy thinks that's that's where i'm at i just i'm fascinated to know what randy thinks because because it's it's in an interesting spot where it's there's

there's some fascinating borderline stuff out there but i don't think it's holding up on the proper test index so it's it's it's kind of a push pull for him we'll have to get some thoughts from him when he's when he's back in the fold next week there's also just a level there's a there's a version of carnage that's really fun. And this hasn't been like funny. It's not carnage. That's right. Yeah.

That's that's where I'm yeah. Anyways, I think we're probably covered there. Anyways, we're of course going to be back as soon shortly after I should say. The third round of the PJ Championship concludes here tomorrow. You can find us here on the No Langup podcast YouTube channel or on the Everything app live or you can listen on the podcast feed wherever you like or do both. Helps us out.

So make sure you are subscribed here. Please do the No Langup podcast. channel throw a little thumb on the video if you don't mind and we will see you back here tomorrow thanks to our friends at title list high noon and arcos cody run the ones and two's matt run the socials uh and we'll see you guys here tomorrow night can't wait enjoy the golf tomorrow crack on and drink