No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1194: Kuwaki wins the AIG Women's Open, Thorbjornsen in Detroit

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

It's a wrap on the 2026 major championship season as Japan's Shiho Kuwaki defeats Esther Henseleit on the second playoff hole to win the AIG Women's Open. We break down Kuwaki's breakthrough, Henseleit's close call, and look back at the biggest storylines from this year's LPGA majors, including top-10 finishes from Nelly Korda and Jeeno Thitikul. Then we head to Detroit, where Michael Thorbjornsen captures his first PGA Tour victory at the Rocket Classic as we say goodbye to the newly restored Detroit Golf Club. We close the show with some personal golf updates, including TC's journey from London to Alaska and Randy's first time out to Rodeo Dunes. Presented by Titleist. Support our sponsors: Vokey - the #1 wedges in Golf! High Noon - Suns Up! Loch Lomond Whiskies - the Official Spirit of The AIG Women's Open 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 today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Live show, presented as always by our friends at Tidalist. Sali here. We have a lot to chat about tonight, joined by my crew.

Mr. Big Randy is here. Hello, Big Randy. Hello, Sallie. Glad to be here. T.C. is here. If he's hurt, not injured tonight, how are we, T.C? I'm good. I'm good.

I'm just, I'm watching this corn fairy tour event there in Utah, uh, monitoring pace of play. They're starting to, starting to publish the pace of play. This is how St.C. Spence his weekends monitoring pace of play. We need you on that wall, T.C. played really slow, slow. Cody McBride is here. Hello, Cody. Hello, Sally.

Thanks for popping away. I know it's a big birthday weekend in your household. Yeah, I got a three-year-old, man. But I'm excited. ready to fire it up. It was, it was awesome. We have a lot to chat about tonight. AIG Women's Open at Royal Lidtham, Michael Thorpe-Biornsonson's breakthrough at the Rocket Classic. Randy got some eyes on a new golf course this week out in Colorado, Rodeo Dunes. Going to talk a little bit about that. We had some news around the golf world related to the PGA tour, Live Golf, all that stuff.

Of course, TC made a really long golf trip in the United States this past week. We're going to chat a little bit about that on the back end. But as mentioned, Michael Thor Bjoranson, your winner at the Rocket with the final round 63. When I typed this, Derek Hitchner was leading the Utah championship, presented by Zion's Bank and Intermountain Health, which is, I just had to get that full tournament name in there because that is one of the most ridiculous ones on the Corn Ferry Tour that is still going on tonight.

And Shio Kewaki wins the AIG Women's Open in a playoff over Germany's Esther Hensselet. As mentioned, the show is brought to you by our friends at Titleist and the Voki designed wedges. It is the most played wedge on the PGA tour. A Voki SM11 wedge fitting is one of the easiest ways to dial in your short game to make it super simple with their three keys to great wedge play. Clean contact, controlled flight, and precise spin. It starts with playing the right setup of loft bounce and grind and Voki offers an industry leading 27 combinations in the new SM11 models. There's even more tour proven grinds through Vokie's Wedgeworks program as well. But 27 combinations.

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seven of the top 10 and the official world golf rankings play at least one Voki Wedge. Tidlest.com to find a fitting near you. Randy, you want to take us across the pond over to England with a little recap of the action for those that may have missed it before we break it all down? It would be my pleasure, Sully. I think the big story, as we all predicted at the start of the week, you said, Shihu Kewaki, if Japan wins, congrats to all of us. No, we had an interesting one today. It was a very good ending. We started the day Yalimi, no 25-year-old American looking for her big career breakthrough,

took a three-shot lead into Sunday at Royal Lhythm, among those in the chasing pack. As mentioned, Esther Henslite, Sheho Kowaki, and here on you looking to win her third consecutive major championship. Randy. I just don't even know what to do at this point. I feel like I got the you. Roll the R. hate on you hate on you

I can't roll the yard not under pressure not on a live show hate on through no also not that so that was the stage that was the stage

of Royal Litham um listen I it looked early like this could be Yalimi um not like

well not the greatest start but somehow still managed to birdie what the second hole she got through those first couple

holes got a birdie it looked like, okay, maybe she'll settle down. Maybe she'll lock this down. It was not to be, though. More on that in just a second. You had Lucy Lee, another young American looking for a big breakthrough. She came out charging.

She was ultimately undone. It says here, lit herself on fire. That's pretty accurate. She bogeed the fourth and triple bogeied the part three fifth. And that was just about it for Lucy Lee. Yeah. Kawaki, she birdied the second, but then she dropped shots at four and five to fall back to three under.

Those would only be, those would be the only bogeys of the day for her. She went on to pick up birdies on nine and 13, and eventually posted a five under number and had the lead in the clubhouse as the final groups came down the stretch. Heron, you, got off to a quick start.

She birdied the first, but she dropped shots on the third and the fifth to fall to three under. She was never, she got back to four under, but eventually just too many bogeys. And she bogeed 17, 18. She got in the house at one under par. So you have the Yalimi know you have Esther Henslite. Yelimi really started leaking oil. She carted bogeys on four, seven, eight. And she fell back to five under going to the turn.

Esther Henslight, she didn't look. much better. She bogeed eight and nine. For a while there, guys, it looked like, I'm not sure if anybody wanted to win. Um, there was like a little win, but not a ton of win. It was so benign. We had a stretch there where like, yeah, it wasn't very good golf. It was bad golf. We could say that. It was, it was bad golf. There was no wind blowing and live them's hard. Bunkers are hard. It was just bad golf. They were doing like, like, like, whatever the right thing to do and then the wrong thing to do was on, like, for like a seven whole stretch. I don't think anybody hit a good shot. It was pretty captivating to watch, honestly.

It was like, what can go wrong? That's what's going to go wrong. We had a little juice, though. Esther, she birdied 11 and 12. She jumped up to 4 under par. You'll leave me know it was just on a roller coaster. She bogeed 12. She birdied 13. She bogeed 14. So she nets out at 4 under par. And now she's out of the lead for the first time. So fast forward, you get to the 18th hole, the 72nd hole of this championship. Kewaki's in the clubhouse, five under. Both Henselite

and No are on the tee at 400 par. One of them needs to make a birdie or both to force a playoff. They both hit it on the green. Esther goes first, 40 feet away and drains the birdie put. And this is where things get very interesting.

We will have a playoff. You'll leave me know it was a bit closer. I don't know, call it 25, 30 feet to make it a three-way playoff. She cannot get the putt in. So, Esther Henslite. Miraculous that you'll leave me know finished one shot back in this championship after. She was missing. She battled so hard.

Like I give her credit. Like she battled hard. She played terrible. And I got a lot out of that round today. Yeah. Yeah. So for some reason, the women, they don't do the three-hole aggregate like the men do. So we just went to 18 sudden death playoffs.

off on the first hole of the Sund Death playoff, it was major advantage to Henslight off the T. She found she had a pretty good drive up the left side, avoided the bunkers. Kowaki, a little peeler right that I don't know if it was a break or not, but it stopped before the bunker in a really thick clump of grass. All she could do is kind of hack it up the fairway. So she had 100 yards left, essentially having to get up and down. Henslight hit her shot onto the green. Honestly, it was a good shot, like maybe 15, 20 feet. She had that put for the championship. That's when Kwaki hit the wedge of her career thus far, the shot of her career. She sticks a wedge to five feet. She makes the par putt. Esther cannot make

the birdie putt, so we go back to 18, second hole, and things just totally flipped. Kowaki, awesome drive right down the middle of the fairway. And Henselai, I didn't realize this, guys. Her ball ended up just in a gorse bush. I guess, it hit off the volunteer. I didn't touch that in real time. Marshall. Yeah. Hit off a Marshall goes like directly right into this gorse bush. She could get club

on it. She hacks it up the fairway. So she was essentially in the same situation Kowaki was on the first playoff hole having to get up and down. She does not hit her wedge quite as close. Misses about a 12 footer. Kowaki two putts from I don't know,

call it 25 feet. And she's your champion. AIG Women's Open Champion. She is not an LPGA member. She was the 12th woman to win a major holding not being an LPGA member. The last due to that was Sophia Popov at the AIG Women's Open in 2020. Just a little bit about Kowaki. Awesome personality, which I think we'll get to some of that.

She's 23 years old. She's Japanese. She came in. She had won five times on the Japanese LPGA tour, including twice in 2026. Hand up. I didn't quite register that this was the fourth major she played in this year with some like good results.

Finished T14 at RIV at the U.S. Women's Open was T24 at KPMG and T-41 at Evian. So not totally out of the blue. This wasn't quite Hanako Shabuno of 2019. But certainly for an American-based audience and crew such of ourselves, a very surprise winner. She had until midnight tonight to accept LPGA membership. I have read that she has deferred membership until next year. Until the second half.

She's going to receive the kick in 2027. No, look for her on tour next year in a more full-time capacity, I would imagine. And yeah, so listen, five underwinning score. Good drama down the stretch. We'll get into whether what we thought about Lithum. and how it played, but I think it delivered some drama. I was,

it was a good championship. Not the winner I would have necessarily picked, had it been up to me, but nothing against Kowaki. I think she's a great story. T.C., really fashion, loud fashion. I was curious, maybe we can start there. What do we think of her fashion?

Yeah, it wasn't good, but I also didn't think it was loud. It was loud. I didn't think it was as bad as what some people were saying. I could have done without the black stripe down the pants today. She was, it was pretty loud all week. Just a lot of fluorescent colors.

She had like a fluorescent yellow on at one point as well. But, you know, there's, there's a lot of really bad fashion out on the LPGA tour and just women's golf generally. And I think this doesn't even scratch the surface of being on my watch list. Okay. All right. I'm going to pose a question here. I think there's a version where I could passionately argue that Kowaki got crowned a bit. But I'm not going to do that.

But I feel curious if any of you feel passionately that this was a crowning. Just because of the way she closed the back nine, bogey-free, and got up and down on the first playoff hole. I think she earned it, although I think a lot of women are a handful of women are going to be kicking themselves, that they're not the chance. after this week. It was one of those you got to, you know, you got to kind of play a little boring to, to, you know, emerge the champion is a cheesy way of saying it. Like, you just have to avoid the landmines and she did it the best, which wasn't the most exciting so it can feel like a crowning at the end. But like as much as the golf wasn't great for the most part today, like there's something in the, there's something to the fact that everybody kept going in bunkers and everybody kept missing all

over the place today. Right. Like it, it's not like everybody had to freak out. Like the, it, for whatever reason it was playing harder probably than we're giving it credit for just based on the actual scoring. But no, I if anything, I mean, a little crowned by a very unlucky bounce for Esther Hinslite in the second playoff hole. But also, that ball could have been going towards another gorse bush. If you, if you watch it, like it's pretty beaten down rough over there where people have been walking like and there's more gorse up the right. Like it could have ended up in a bad spot there as well. But usually yeah if you get the middle of the fairway your ball's not going to hit a marshal and get a bad bounce so that's the uh you know that's the where it does fall on the player and there's bad bounces to be had in liggs golf as well but hence light's got to be kicking herself a little bit on the shot into 16 out of the out of the left rough it looked like i was kind of distracted when this was going on but look like they were a little unsure on whether or not it was going to jump or not out of that rough and i don't know if she changed clubs or didn't change clubs i missed that part but it came up short of the green didn't get the kick

onto the green she's putting from 70 plus feet and three putted that one to fall back and who knows if she makes the put on 18 if she needs that to win i i don't know for sure of course the situation does change but after the incredible shot she hit into 15 uh almost hold it really and stealing a birdie there when not a lot of players were burdying that hole uh it looked like she was going to you know that it was maybe going to be her time so i'm sure she's i was impressed with henselite like yeah she made four birdies on the back she looked like she looked like she looked like she looked pretty calm throughout it all. Like she looked like she, she certainly belonged.

She's, you know, she's done, like she's been a veteran out there for a while now. Still hasn't won one, which is crazy to me. I think there's a lot of players in this field that are kicking themselves, right? Like, now, I mean, Nellie, 73, 68, 7368, Gino opened with 64 and, you know, just didn't do anything this week.

Like, just couldn't, couldn't buy a put. But Charlie Hall was in the mix for a while. Lottie Wode, like her putter just never heated up this weekend. You know, Haydhan was, she was right there in the mix and shot 74, 74 on the weekend. Yeah. This thing was, you know, her, that was kind of hers for the taking. So even L.C. Like, L.C. finished T-16, but, you know, 74 on Saturday, 71 today.

They just, the margins are just thin at rhythm, man. They're just like, it's just a really technical golf course. And there's no, like, we talked about it a little bit on the preview. The, that, like, I thought six, the, like, the back-to-back par five, six and seven, I thought six played harder than I thought it was going to, especially with the win they had early on in the week. And then, like, there's just no true green lights. It all comes down to strategy off the team. how much you want to bite off off the tea and then how much you want to bring those bunkers into play and

as lucy lee you know exemplified uh you can tie yourself up in knots pretty quickly and have to even just put around in a bunker to to get one out so yeah they did a great as as weak as the coverage was which i'm sure we'll touch on uh they did have at one point a great montage of the bunkers and just like the awkward stances the lies ball stained in the bunkers hey don't you at one point had to like basically put one with a wedge into a flatter part in the bunker. I think that was on Saturday. Yeah. Like that montage, one, it made me just watching the golf tournament this week was like,

what what made like American golf designers decide to just make bunkers like extremely playable? Like the whole most interesting part of, and this is not just a, I don't think this has to be a links golf thing. Like part of what makes the bunkers play bigger than they are and links golf is the firm turf and the, you know, the contouring that leads balls into the bunkers and needing to be in control of it for getting it to stop. But the whole bunker avoidance thing is what makes links golf interesting and golf interesting, like avoiding hazards. And how we've gone from that to just, you know, groomed, really groomed bunkers and balls almost always finding the bottom of them. And like, because what I loved about these is like a ball rolls in at a weird angle.

And you're like that, your ass is in the jackpot now. Like, maybe you got lucky and hit the sod wall and it went into the flat part, but otherwise, you are going to be standing on the outside of it. Like, that's just, I don't know, man. That is how you put a premium on ball striking and not make it easy to get up and down, easy to hit it on the green from Fairway Bunkers. Like, it just is a, it's such a real punishment. I'm not sure if you saw that, that clip of Miles Russell hitting that shot with one foot in the bunker and one foot out of the bunker. And, um, Clayts had a tweet about it. And he was just like, why is there a strip of rough?

Like, why don't, why doesn't the fairway just run into the bunker there? And it, like, that was kind of the theme this week. Because I think as we saw from from Detroit, too, which we'll get to later on, like, the cross bunkering there and the stuff that they put back in on that golf course made that tournament. Way more than it was in the past. And those eyelashes put uncertainty into any borderline shot throughout the 72 holes. I totally agree. We will get there.

that that was the part i enjoyed yeah it wasn't like a storybook uh ending to major championship season i don't think today other than some really fun action at the end and and a playoff which we you know we had the chevron playoff last year which was kind of a mess um but uh yeah big mess yeah live them lived up man i thought it it was we were very very very excited as soon as this was on the calendar to see the women's game at that scale fit into it and i mean just I could give a bunch of examples of the opening hole was just it was just great it was like dude I am not missing anybody teeing off this morning because that's such a unique pressure of having a little you shaped horseshoe grandstand around there and you got to hit iron off of it and you got to hit a proper

shot right off the jump and the results immediate it's not like a oh you can figure it out from there you're in the right like no it's hit the green or not or you're behind the eight ball uh the pin on nine today was great of just like you had hit such a precision shot over that bunker and any that didn't get the wind right and a lot of people that didn't get the wind right were paying pretty massive prices being in that bunker or hey den newsball funneled all the way off the front of the green and it was just a so many t shots that you know people are club twirling and it's missing bunkers by three four feet uh just because of how tight it it all was a brilliant golf course and i salute a ig and the RNA for for putting on a championship at this place and i can't wait to see

them play in two years and it was such good viewing From like I wake up at seven seven 30 throw it on and it's such a good viewing until 10 a.m. Yeah, when it was hold on. Hold on. Hold. I thought I saw you okay. On the first on the first hole. A couple quotes from Yalimi.

Obviously she struggled off the first. It was awesome because just based off tracers, you knew exactly like this is going to be good or this is going to be a very bad result. Yalimi obviously hits. something way too hard, runs into the back, ends up in rough there. Post around press conference, they asked her, was there a moment that felt difficult out there today? Were you comfortable at all or was there like anything like that? And you'll leave me immediately like, yeah, the first hole started out a little rough to say the least. It was weird, but I tried to get it back together after the first

couple of holes. It's just such a hard start. And you're literally hitting not even a midiron in there. And it's so demanding. And you're, you're, you're, you're literally hitting him, not even a midiron in there. And it's so demanding. you're riding this razor-thin margin. It was such a sweet thing. Real quick before we move on to bigger, grander things. We talked a lot about the bunkers. What I'm going to remember from this year's Open Championship,

both the men and the women, is exactly that. Ryan Fox hitting the shot when he needed it most on 18, and Cam Young not being able to do it. The same thing, Foxy playing smart and playing a shot backwards on a par three, something that, you know, anybody else, would have probably tried to do something different. And then fast forward this week, how many times did we see Haydon, like literally just blade it into the middle just to be able to get a swing on it?

It's so amazing and it's a shame that all these architects, American architects, that say that their ethos and what they learn and they took all these trips over to Scotland, didn't bring any of that back. You know, and you're just kind of left their pondering like, why, how is this possible? then on the flip side we'll get to gino her quotes about lynx golf and just being like yeah links golf basically isn't going to be for me it is what it is that's just not not my thing and i'm like out of here stinks man like so you're telling me that you're this one's just out you're you're not even going to like try to embrace it or anything like that exact quote um yeah i mean i finish in really good like

a positive one this is her english is her second language um I finished really good in a positive one. Links is not going to be my ideal type of golf. I'm going to play. But when we're facing the challenge and we're trying to stay out there, hang in there, and then I'm proud of what I did this week. So maybe a bit lost.

A little bit lost in translation there of the challenge of links golf. Maybe I'm going to go. I don't know why I'm going on my way to defend Gino. I've been the one, maybe the hardest one on her there. But not ideal quotes in there. But I respect it first. three cuts for Gino today.

Yeah. Well, let me quickly, the rest of the top 10, Yulemi No, finished solo third. Gino and Nelly finished tied for fourth at two under. I want to talk Nelly quickly here. And then in tied for six, that one under par, you had Haddon U, Lottie Wode, Charlie Hall, Wailing Sue,

who made a mess of 18, doubled that, or else, you know, I thought she might sneak in and maybe grab a share of a playoff at one point. And then Shannon Tan and Rio Tocoda round out your top 10. I, Royal Litham being baked out just, it heightened the technical test that was presented this week with all the bunkering, with the runout. It just is such a different test than I think these women ever get week to week. know they are the most accurate drivers you know when it comes to just hitting fairway but you can't there there's a difference between just hitting a fairway and getting the ball to come to rest in

the fairway at litham and tc you you called this out in our preview show um but it it bared to be you know a huge factor this week and i thought it was just an awesome test to see who can plot their way around this golf course, right? Who can move their chest pieces around? Who can survive? And that's what we saw in the end. There's just like all kinds of different, there's many different flavors, right, of golf at Liddem.

There's many different notes. There's many different, you know, a lot of different ages, really of a lot of the competitors in there, which reminds me that we are presented, of course, by Lachloman Whiskey is the official spirit of the Open in the AIG Women's Open. Also the proud Scotch Whiskey partner of No Laying Up. Shout out to Locke Lohman for supporting the R&A major championships and our content.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out our Northwest England film. You can learn more at locklomen whiskies.com or ask for Locke Lomon at your preferred spirits retailer. He thought these ladies play bad today. At one point, I compared Yulemi Nose golf to Neil and Randy's, or sorry, Neil and DJ's. match at litham which was called the provisional match i will say i really enjoy watching yelimi play golf she's she's like emotive she's you can tell how she's playing she's you can tell how she hit each shot she's she's always got kind of a reaction or lean to it all of that i i don't know i always just enjoy watching kind of colorful uh reactions and she's she's got a lot of those and

and kind of an interesting career arc for her as well. I think, you know, like she's just kind of tabbed for stardom and then scuffled for a few years there, and it's great to see you're playing good golf again. Yeah, she, I mean, we'll be on the Solheim Cup team next month. This absolutely solidified that. I'm with you, T.C. I think that's a great shout out.

She lets you know what she's feeling on the golf course. And not everybody does. I feel like it's less prevalent in the women's game, at least among who we see at the top of the leaderboard most weeks. So that was a breath of fresh air. I, guys, I just can't get back. Like, Haydon Yu was nine under par through Saturday, like the sixth hole. And I thought, oh, this is, she's going to win three straight majors.

Unbelievable. Like huge story line. She had like a five shot lead. Yeah. And then just death by a thousand paper cuts, just bogies, bogies, just missing in the worst places. That was a big surprise. And then, yeah, Nelly, I'm curious what you guys think about Nellie. You know, T4, it's not a bad result by any stretch.

Just could not get any momentum going. And even today's final round 68, she doubled the par 5th, you know, if that, if she they're the six sorry if she birdies that you know that's a three-shot swing and she could be in a playoff but um curious what what we take from nelly that was one of our other storylines coming in this week so is she links tough what what was your verdict here with nelly man i'm i could be talked into either way here right i'll say this at no i picked her not to win this week and at no point did I ever feel threatened by that, right? Even going into the week or at any point during this tournament that I feel like,

ooh, I made a mistake there. It just didn't. She played, she played, and that's where I'm like, dude, all right, do you hear yourself? Like, she won two majors this year and just finished a top five in another major. Like, can you be consistent in how you apply things? Like, probably unfair to her, but I did not feel like she was a threat to win this championship in the same way, in the same vein. So it's, it's tough.

Like, I think she's massively talented on. on golf courses that are pretty straightforward. I think this is a relatively good result for her. I wish I didn't feel what I felt going into this week, though, of like, I do not think she's going to win this tournament. And I don't, I don't, I don't say that about like, I don't know, when the golf gets more real, I feel less inclined to pick Nelly.

And I don't, I don't know exactly why that is. And I don't, that's a, that's got to be a slight in some way. Is that fair? Talk me, tell me I'm being unfair, you know, slap some sense into me. Well, my opinion is I feel like I'm not sure who I'm confident. I know when the golf gets really tough. And if I had to pick somebody, it is probably Nelly. Okay.

You know, I, she wasn't coming in playing as good a golf as she showed, you know, back in March, April, May of this year. But she's still kind of there. Like, I think I do have some respect come out of this week. like she she found a way to at least get a top five and you know it might be your C game overall I'd be shocked if she doesn't win an open one day I just simply think like the more women's golf I want like she's just so clearly talented uh to a degree that there are some like I think hate on you is so talented as well but Nellie is one of the few that like just stands out like I know that I'm not breaking any news here but I'd be shocked if she doesn't.

St. George's next year is a really good fit for her from an iron play perspective and driving. And then they're not playing a Lynx in 208. They're going to Sunday now. I feel better about that than I would. Yeah, the women's game does move from Lynx golf courses. So in that vein, yes. And I think old course is also a different. I don't think they are scheduled to go back to the old course currently,

but I would imagine they would. Like that would be obviously she finished second there. And that's a style of golf that she can play a lot more offense, I think, than this. one. The skill advantage she has is limited on a setup and course like this. And that's not a slight on rhythm in any way. It's just like that's the nature and reality. It's a compliment to live them. Yeah. It brings the field together. Totally. It's funny. I thought, T.C. I don't know what we call Gino's week, like a front door top 10, like both a front door and a back door top 10. You know, she goes out and shoots, what, 64 on day one holds the lead. And so you're pointing about Nellie. Like,

I never thought, I picked Gino not to win this week, and I was never sweating after that. I just, there's something just missing there for me still. And, you know, she, she was over par each round the rest of the way. Still, T4, you know, good week, but the weight goes on for Gino at majors. This is maybe, you know, I guess a compliment to Nellie would be. how fast things seem to move for a lot of the top players in women's golf from year to year. I mean, if you look back at Lilia Vu won two majors in 2023, and I know she's battled injuries.

Maybe that's not the best example, but like that is kind of that window closed, or seems to have closed as of right now for Lilia. And Nellie's a constant. She's a constant in every year. Like, hate on you. Looks to be like in this moment, like there's no reason. to say she's going to fall off, but the windows just seem to be tight. And who knows if we're

talking about her in two years, right? I mean, you know, Menji Lee, won her third major last year, but was pretty much a non-factor in majors this year. And that, I don't want to say that windows closed, but like it just, there are very, you know, it's like Anna Nordquist, Brooke Henderson, Nelly, Menji might even be an example of somebody with a little bit of longevity, of being very competitive in majors. But it can come and go really quick. quickly for a lot of these players. So, uh, maybe that's probably why Neil picked her 11 and a half majors, probably, I, I think, but, uh, Yeah.

I think the one I'm most disappointed is Lottie. I got a lot like this was, this was the chance. Like, I know her family drove up from, from south of London. And I felt like this was her chance to like really put her imprint on like, hey, I am, I am the ladies links master. I am, I am, I am the junk. junkyard dog i am you know like i can i can go get this even when i don't have like complete a game she tc i i i yeah i think though if i'm playing devil's advocate here's what i would say to you 22

years old and her three results at the open now are t10 as a low amateur t8 and t6 it's like love the trend line and totally you know i just want to see a win could still be the lynx master yeah Hopefully, hopefully the big breakthrough will come sooner than later. And then Paula Martine San Pedro, she's like, she's been low AM twice now at this tournament, which I think we might need to get her on the team, get her on the Solheim Cup team, especially because Norquist isn't picking herself. She bravely took herself out of the running today, what Captain Key and didn't, you know, wouldn't do. Yeah.

I maybe we can go down the leaderboard a little here norquist as as you mentioned she finished t29 a great result for the captain i was a little disappointed in lydia coach she she came in at t20 plus two like i thought a technical test like that i guess i just think of lydia as like in control over golf ball excellent short game you know getting up and down from green side bunkers or, you know, weird spots around the green, just could not, was kind of hanging around, just could not get any real momentum going.

She was, she was so many. And then the one that flabbergast me is, on this setup of all, is Yucasso decides to have a top 12? Like she couldn't break 80 on so many easier venues. And all of a sudden, she's going to come in at even par T12 for the week. I hope that's a sign of things that come

that maybe she's, found some answers. Honestly, this is for just now, but coming across my desk, I mean, she had to be plus a million to top 20 this past week, but I would not have picked Eucasso.

No, Yucasso and Davis Riley this week. Just emerging from, yeah, coming out of comas. We drafted teams and I, I meant to add up the results in having. I'm hoping,

I'm pinging my, my top AI website to see if, to see if it will properly, estimate who won our draft this week. It could be horribly bad results. But I'm not going to try to add it up live on the show. I think I won, though, guys. Okay.

I just didn't want to lose. A couple tidbits here real quick, maybe sparked some discussion. So over the last three full years now, 15 major championships, Japan has five of those. They've won a third of those. And I think what's even more impressive,

they've been won by five different women. This is per Justin Ray on X, the Everything app. It's all happening on XTC. I thought you were bricked up. Justin's got the good stuff around Major, so I have to unbrick very quickly to go get some of his stats. You have Japan. They've won five as a country in the last three years.

The U.S. has won three. It's all Nelly Cordo. South Korea has won three, Australia, too. And then the other two countries are Sweden and New Zealand over the last three years. But I think, Cody, this just really, like Japan, Japanese women's golf, it's deep. And they are, they have a lot of players that can win major championships. I don't think this is a flash in the pan. I think we have to continue taking a lot of women from Japan seriously every major championship.

And they seem to, I mean, just like this week, they seem to roll out more and more, every major that comes along. It's crazy. We thought that, you know, we're living a good when it was just me and the twins coming over. But now it's like major by major. I am excited. I don't know what it, the only thing that that really jumps out to me and says is from a greater LPGA tour stance, I understand we're going to talk a little bit about the Solheim Cup in a little bit. We're missing out on a very, very good opportunity.

And that is either, they got to figure out, is it the international crown that they're elevated? or something in the realm of a President's Cup-like thing where you can get all these countries involved. If it made sense for any tour, it is the LPGA tour. And for some reason, every time you even bring that up, people are just like, oh, no, no, that's what we have the international crown from. And I'm like, that's fine. They got to figure out a different place in the schedule or something like that.

But if you're looking for potential for growth there, I think that's it. Why can't it be a fall thing opposite the Solheim Cup and just do the international crown every you know instead of it being midseason i don't know yeah i don't know future that's a future we can break that down in the future it's a good call i'd say the lpGA also you know you look at the last three years 11 other 15 major champions have come from japan korea australia new zealand like how cool would it be to have a major championship down in that part of the world you know uh i i understand all the logistical difficulties but it objectively it would be awesome to have

a truly international women's major you would move a major out of away from Houston if I think about how much cooler that that major location graphic that NBC loved running you know think about how much sweeter that would be did they run it today I didn't see it I saw it I saw it in the I saw it in the the the early coverage but I missed it on once they moved one once they brought the a team in hicks and hicks and morgan tc you want to do a little hamster damn i'm so worn out from fucking i know we don't have to we don't have to it feels like belaboring the point at this it's so bad but i there was a three minute in between commercials with the leaders on the back nine today like three three minutes of golf in between full commercial

breaks today that was that was that was that was a breaking point for me uh when it was already bad to that point. That was just like maddening. It's just, it's just always, it's always commercial, which I learned on the everything at that's how they pay their bills. I was informed of that when I brought attention to this is that's how they make money, which was, that was how I learned that today. So that changes kind of how I think about it. It's crazy when the world feed is so much better than when NBC or Golf Channel kicks in. And simpler and simpler. Yeah. It's not complicated. The early hours Thursday, Friday, when, when Golf Channel was just running the World feed was like oh my god this is awesome yeah you know it was on USA right yeah yeah yeah or USA yeah

yeah yeah yeah uh no yeah it's it's just yeah like it's not it's not that like it's not that complicated you already have producers doing this like just just save the money strip out some of the commercials don't send your own crew and and then like we get you know you get dame laura davies on there you get iona it's it's great like there's a sense of place there's accents there's instead of morgan just yelling at us just yelling at us yeah do that and run less commercials if it's a dollar for dollar thing like we don't need to send everyone there and just pound it with commercials just just just just play the feed with less commercials we would all like that more like that's yeah that's not yeah it is crazy how excited we were last

week watching the women's Scottish and how like truly just scrape down there there's nothing there's no bells and whistles at all and it was such a good viewing experience compared to this uh I understand a lot of our our overseas listeners right now are like what are you talking about sky was awesome good for you guys man I I I I I hear you loud and clear that's just not the case for no commercials here in Australia what I will say it was great here in Ireland yeah that's super helpful that's really helpful guys. Really appreciate it. What I will say is that, you know, Randy and I usually go over and work radio for this

event. They removed radio for this year in order to expand the hours of the world feed coverage. And we were very lucky that we got that. That was the majority of the USA coverage that we got. And we were able to listen to, you know, just like Sully said, everybody else coming through. There's just this weird thing when

the USA team that's the Golf Channel team and then the NBC team that come over. So I am thankful that we got more TV time, I will say that. It's just, I don't know who we're really doing it for. I firmly believe that the people who are turning in for this championship are like, you know, your audience here, if you're trying to get people to stick around and become fans, I don't think this is the route that you should be going down because it ain't good.

And there's so much focus on the purse sizes in women's golf. and I think that they got to get some of the purse sizes up in on the bottom half of LPGA and LET events. But I'm so much less, like, I don't think that they should be going about it. Like, these need to be 12 to $14 million purses for the majors. Like, I would rather they invest some of that back into the actual product and build this sustainably, instead of just redlining the purses, and then having to figure out how to pay for that and lay in, just commercials and choking the product off in the process. It goes for golf as a whole.

But I wholeheartedly agree on the women's side. It's got very limited growth opportunities if that's how the viewing experience is going to be. I say this as somebody like if I'm not invited back to radio, like no hard feelings, but it is so additive. Like I just want to listen to the radio feed. So I do hope they bring it back for the women's open. And I guess my big disappointment was like why the app. for the women's open was noticeably different and worse than the app for the men's open you know like the the

usGA the the women's open and the men's open kind of the same experience on the app right um that'd be one piece of feedback criticism for the RNA is like that that those should should feel and look similar in my opinion and and this is not tv related or but like what what is the answer for why there's a three whole aggregate for the men's and there's sudden death for the women's. Solly, they heard that the 18 at Lhythm was on my dream 18. Okay. They play it three times. Give it to me three times, I guess.

They should play one, one and 18. That would be such a same. Yes. Oh, my God. That'd be awesome. Two whole aggregate would be better than, you know. Like you should change the playoff format to suit where they're at. I love that.

announce it at the beginning of the week. You know, everybody knows what it is. Like cross country if you want. Yeah. Recut tea. Yeah, recut cups. Move some teas around. I'm way yet.

Yeah, that's weird. We're going to have to get an answer for why they don't do an aggregate. Before we get to grades, Randy, I want to give a shout out to our friends at high noon. Vodka Seltzer, vodka iced tea, tequila seltzer, no matter the occasion, high noon has something for you. I am on prickly pear. tequila guys this this so what i'm about to say actually just happened this past week so that if you're looking for your next pack check out the high noon tequila seltzer fiesta pack it's an eight pack or a bigger 12 pack if you're planning for a bigger fiesta guys i had a big fiesta this weekend had people

over my brother-in-law said he'd never had the tequila before i said look guess what i've got for you i've got the prickly pear i've got the blood orange he took a sip he made the the face you all met we all make when we tried it for the first time. That's actually good. That actually happened this past week. So I'm glad I went for Moss Fiesta in that one. You can find the high noon tequila seltzer fiesta pack nearest you at high noon spirits.com. High noon suns up.

That's a true verified story. Nice. Yeah, we'll do some greats. Before we do, I want to note this also per Justin Ray, six women made the cut in all five majors this year. and a little surprising Amy Yang, Ayaka Fuwa, Patty Tabitatinicit,

Brooke Henderson, Mao Saigo, and Maya Stark. Maya Stark are your six women. So I guess congrats to those six. None won a major. None.

I guess Brooke had a close call there. But yeah, so let's do some grades. I think we start with Nellie. Five majors. She wins the first two. She finishes T8 at KPMG. She misses the cut at Evian and she finishes T4 this week.

Boys, how are we grading Nellie's 2026 major season? I'm giving her a B plus. Whoa. I thought I was going to get a shout on for saying A and not A plus. No, I think she won the one. one that she really, really set out to win, which is Riviera. She won Chevron. That's like extra credit.

That's not really like a, you know, like a real one. I do agree with that. Yeah. She missed the cut at Evian, which is now a major in our books. And then T8 and T4, I just feel like she left some meat on the bone with the, with these. So I, I wanted to see three. I did too. And I think the fact that someone else also.

also one two, knocks a little bit off of luster off. Rive is a jewel. I'll say A. And I feel a little shi-de, not giving her an A-plus, to be honest. But yeah, I'm going to say A. I think it's a solid A here. I do think they're, we've noticed something about Nellie. I think when she, she has these really big moments.

She has a letdown period from that. And the way that the LPGA tour schedules, like, kind of formatted, that, that ain't good for it. So the fact that we've, you know, basically have back to back to back majors doesn't fit very well for somebody like her, which I think is even more credit to Haydham. Yeah.

I was going to go a as well. inflation. It's real. I want you judging the rest of these women on the same on that same curve TC. Haydon, Hayd on you. You got it, dude. You're licking it. We're running

out of major season, unfortunately. uh t12 at chevron did not play at the u.s women's open wins the next two kpmg and evion and t6 this week i i mean i'll start i don't know how you don't give this an a also like i'll say a plus i mean she won two majors and i could have won a third i almost finished the year winning three in a row um and was dealing with something obviously in the front half of that year of this year is great on a different curve than nelly is uh like i think nelly's overall major season is slightly better but um a plus i mean that's just an unbelievable near historic major season for hate on you give her a d plus i well i was gonna say incomplete because he didn't show of it at rive i'd like that that's that's kind of where i'm at it's like that was a big assignment to miss she was sick during like hey i'm not gonna fail you but you do need to retake the test We're withholding your diploma until you do take that test. Miu Yamashita, God, disappointing week this week, missed the cut.

But she went T-21 at Chevron, T-34, U.S. Women's Open, T-12, KPMG, T-4, Evian. I thought a little bit more. I give this C-minus. C-minus, wow. I'm disappointed. Bad taste in my mouth this week. She was primed to be in contention. I thought she should have been in the mix this week.

I'm sure you guys have covered this before, but if I missed it, did you know there's also a Japanese sumo, female sumo wrestler named me. Very confusing. Don't go down that route. I came across that one today. Yeah, I wiki that today.

Yeah, I got caught on that one today. Let's see for me. There's a lot going on there. Randy. I mean, she was a rookie last year. I think, you know, she's still trying to get her sea legs underneath her. There's a lot going on. I'm sure she would say she's disappointed, but I don't know.

I mean, you can't be too hard on her. I just think that the potential is so much clear there than anybody else that are going to run down this list. And she is heading above leading the field when it comes to the rest of the Japanese women. And now she is top 10 in the world, been top 10 in the world for quite a bit now. So expectations are definitely there. But I wouldn't say that it's like she's not failing here. No.

No. No. It just I wanted her in the mix more. I thought last year, you know, culminating with the win at Porth call, I was like, oh, shit. She, you know, she should be in the mix at the biggest events of the year. and she just really wasn't. Should we do Lottie Wode? T7 at Chevron, T49,

U.S. Women's Open, missed the cut at KPMG, T16 Evian, T6 this week. I'm curious, TC, how are you grading Lottie? And are we feeling optimistic heading into 2027? I'm giving her a C plus. Okay. But she knows what she needs to work on. Okay.

I'll give her a B. Two top tens in majors. Another top 20. She's 22 years old. Yeah. She's got her driver's license. Yeah. She's a listener of the pod as well, as is her dad.

So if they're listening, that's going to be, if I give her anything lower, that's a problem. No, C plus. I think that's fair. I think she, I want to know what she would grade herself on. Let us know. those are in the comments lottie uh did i miss gino we didn't do gno did we uh she emcee this will be the last one we we she emceed chevron t 28 kpmg t 10 evion t4 this week so you know three top tens giving gino an f

It's a pass fail. She failed. She's got to win a major. C minus. I love where your head's at, T.C. I do too. I mean, everybody's assignment's different. I agree.

This is her best year by far for major championships. I know that that doesn't make sense with where we kind of think of her at what we expect from the world number two. It very much is just a thing where she, she's got to win one. And who knows when, of course, caveat, she's very young, okay? But eventually it's got to happen. What if she's like a Daniel Monti, though?

Like she's not actually that young. So that's the don't know. Daniel Monti comes up at least once every two weeks in these possible situation privately behind the scenes. And you're too young to know that reference. Yeah, it's this weird thing. You know, the three top tens this year, she had two top tens in her last three major starts last year.

It's like, all right, I see yellow on the board. I guess Grace Kim did straight up steal one from her. So there is that, but I'm with you, T.C. It's just disappointing. I'll go D. Like, I know she expects more. it needs to happen soon for the sake of me, everybody, women's golf. Like, it's just going to be so much better when she can get a major.

I think the most damning thing about it is what we said earlier in the show when even after having that amazing first round being like, I don't think that's still going to get it done. Even watching her on Friday, like she's playing out of her mind, Tita Green. and you're just, you're not feeling like she's gonna win. It's, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, she's, she'll win, like, she's, she'll win, yeah, she'll win, yeah, we're, like, what the hell, man. God, what, yeah, can you just rewind a little bit on a T, T, just try to slide in there, just to just drop a nuclear bomb and just think we'd all move past it. Yeah. And I'll let you guys unpack. that's in your spare time.

It's not for me to say. Not my place. Where do we need that out on the Charlie Hall prank on her caddy? So what? She got him a fake fake lottery ticket that looked like he won 100,000 pounds. Yeah, and he was like crying.

A hundred thousand, like, I think it would have been one thing if it was like 30 million pounds. I think 100,000 pounds maybe makes it a little bit more. It's just believable enough. Yeah. I don't know.

I struggle to get too torn up about it. You know, Charlie does her own thing. I've stopped trying to... This is where I can't figure out if I'm too online because the sentiment was just overwhelmingly like you are one of the worst people on the planet right now when like in reality is like, well, I mean, she probably knows her caddy really well.

And like, you know, she claimed he laughed about it. and like maybe maybe they know I don't know I that is one of those things that it was just like have we all lost our minds online like there's a lot of that going around on a weekly basis I couldn't quite I didn't get like overly upset about it and I was influenced by other people getting very upset about it and I hated myself for that yeah is where I was kind of trying to feel out the room even before I was backlash to the backlash yeah it kind of took on the full life cycle it's like without really knowing they're really knowing they're really relationship. It's hard to comment from the outside. I did reach out to

catty friend, just where the caddies talking about it. And this person said, everybody thought it was hilarious. Adam is a prankster himself. Oh, okay. So I think amongst the caddies and I think it's probably no big deal. Okay. That does make me funny. But I was with you, when I was first reading, I'm like, oh my God, yeah, is this like an awful thing to do to somebody? But But you never know. Yeah. And yeah, she finished what, how much did she make for finishing T6? I think it was.

Let's see. She made 266,000. So 8% of that would be around 20K or something like that. Hopefully a little tip this week. Yeah, maybe a little something for the trouble for the, you know, making a bit of a scene on it. But yeah, British, British humor can be weird.

That's what they always try to tell me whenever they do something's really not funny. But yeah. Mab up, baby. Yeah, you mentioned next year's at Royal St. George's and then 2028 is at Sunningdale. We have the final qualifiers for the Solheim Cup on the European side. That has gone final.

Charlie Hall, Esther Hinslet, Lottie Wode, Maya Stark, Celine Boutier, Carlo de Saganda, Lynn Grant, and Nana Kurtz, Mad. Randy, I was pleased to see that Captain, Vice Captain Headwall on there. It's Norquist Captain Headwall, Mel Reed, and Van Dam.

I mean, that's a squad I'm going to war with, T.C. Those are some foxhole people. The one movement today, so Esther moved into that auto spot. She was going to be for the LET points list. She was originally in the Rolex list. She moved up to LET points list and kicked out Chiarra Tamburlini.

So that's the squad, the eight that are autos. Anna's going to make her captain's picks tomorrow morning. So people on they're listening to this, they'll know who the complete team is. But if you're kind of going down the list, you have Julia Lopez-Romera's Leona. I can probably say Leona is going to be a lock there. Mimi Rhodes, Natasha Dedu, and then Dewey Weber, who we saw pretty prominently as the KPMG.

I don't know. I mean, home cup? Why not? I'm trying to win. That would be such a charity pick. It would, but I mean, if you go straight down points-wise, you got to go pretty far down before you, you use. start picking other known names leona jumping out from that list of probable guarantees here tc would love to get our girl helen bream you know a little forward

thinking big trepper prepper for the next six solheim cups uh that could be fun fodder for all those convos we just say that europeans are just trying to sell tickets if they take weber i could i could do it i could do a bit about that i can get worked up about that carolina shakara I'd love to see, you know, let's build for the future. How about Annan saying she's not going to pick herself, T.C. Are you disappointed in that? No, I thought it was, it was strong leadership. She didn't let it fester.

You didn't seem to think when I was saying that last year, when I had all the problems with Gigan last year. I thought Keegan should have been on the team, though. Maybe, maybe Headwall hasn't put out a statement yet. Maybe headwall will be a playing vice captain's thing. I'd take headwall over, you know, you can do a lot worse in that last one or two matches. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Anything else from women's side before we get over to the rocket? Are you guys good there? Yeah, that's all I got. You know, long season. We're going to Thanksgiving, you know, even though it's the end of major season, there's a long way to go.

I would just shout out this. month. You know, they go to Portland. They go to Canada. It's always a real good event. They go to Boston and then the Solheim Cup. So some things to monitor. We'll get the American squad finalized here in the next week or two.

But yeah, good major season, Sallie. And we're going to have some boots on the ground for the Solheim Cup as well. And we are greatly, greatly, greatly looking forward to that one. In Detroit for the last ever rocket classic Davis, Riley, Riley, Riley Davis took a one-shot lead into the final round over Michael Brennan. There's a big group of guys that there were three back, including Rasmus Hoygard, Chris Kirk, Ricky Fowler, Cameron Young. Notice I've not said the winner of the tournament just yet. Riley had just made over half his cuts this year on the PGA tour.

He'd fall into 457th in the world. It was 146th in the FedEx Cup coming in. But he did have all kinds of problems early on. He made bogeys on two, four, and six. I saw the montage later. He's hitting shots left-handed. It just was really not going well for him early. It was Rasmus Hoygard.

He took the lead into the back nine at 16 under, made a birdie on 10, but made bogey on 11, made a four-way tie at the top with Michael Thorbjornson, Zander Shoffley, Davis-Reilly, and himself Rasmus Hoygard. But Thorbjornson goes on to Bertie 12, 14, stuffs it in tight on 15 to take a two-shot. Got lead hit all fairways and greens coming in, then drained a 25 footer for Bertie on the last hole for a final round,

63, low round of the day. And also took home his first PGA title. In the meantime, second straight week, an American under the age of 25 wins on the PGA tour. Delightful week of viewing in Detroit as well. And a massive statement from Thor Bjornton, T.C. Yeah, his game kind of reminds me a. Justin Johnson's. The more I watch him, the more I'm kind of...

That's a high compliment. Yeah, yeah. Just, and I think, you know, high ceiling might need to get him on the team. Like, I think he would be a great, a great fit for a P-cup locker room of sorts. But yeah, it's all right. It's just always, it's just always fun to see, to see guys kind of kick in. You know, we got Rocket this week. We got Windham coming up.

next week and it's always fun to see the guys that are kind of if scuffled a little bit this year like can't lay can't lay's kicking it into gear it's fedx cup payout season like he this is this is what he peaks for like skip major season this is this is his super bowl bad guy um you know i thought brendan was going to run away with this thing today he shot 73 the brennanites and i were not we're not happy dude could not not stay off the left side of the golf course. So like, like good week for him.

He finishes his T-15 and he goes from 106 and the FedEx cup to 105. Oh my God. Damn, dude. Like, it's just so hard to make progress. The detective came out fire in early. I asked about Michael Thorpe Burenson. I did not ask you to go down the leaderboard yet.

What are you even on? What place are you even in? Thor's good. I just, like I watched a ton of them at the players this year when he was in the, what the final group there and didn't seem like he was quite ready for prime time um from a just you know like i don't think a moment was too big for him the game just looked a little bit um not immature but just not fully fleshed yet and it seems like some of the shots that he hit coming

down the stretch were were meaningful and i know the scores aren't demonstrably different from what they were in previous years like it was what 18 under one and it was a par 70 this year instead of a par 72. But it felt like there was a lot more, and, you know, it rained this weekend, so it was definitely softer. They were playing ball in hand and all of that. But the shots just felt more meaningful at Detroit Golf Club.

And maybe that's just because we're golden age simps. But Tyler Ray, like, he did a good job. It was just the pins were good. The expanded greens were great. there was cross bunkers all those eyelashes and fescue there was just good contrast and everything they removed that lake uh you know nobody nobody got the 3-1-3 challenge yet again uh so it was i'm kind of sad to see this tournament go i know i was first of the crowds were massive for the they said uh during the CEO interview which of course you can always trust what the CEO as it said it was

double the uh attendance the best attendance they've ever had one and two it's like all right It is a, they're going to hose this term to here one more time. Let's not blow up this golf course to be the hardest possible test. It can be for PGA tour players, old Donald Ross golf course. That's not a good, good model for a club in Detroit. So like if you want to make it really, really hard for PJ tour players, make the greens a lot smaller than they are, right? That would be an easy way to suppress the scoring. But to have, that's not always going to create the most interesting golf, to have heavily,

contoured, interesting sectioned off greens with like, look, look just when you have a freshly designed set of greens like that, you can design a corner for like, all right, here's our a PGA tour pin for Saturday. Here's a PGA tour pin for Friday. Here's a PGA tour pin for Sunday. And a whole bunch more of great pinnable space for the members to play on a weekly basis. And that's like, that was the execution of it. I mean, it was, it was drastic. It was like I was stunned when I saw the images earlier this week. I feel like I hadn't heard a whole heck of a lot about it and I watched way more of the rocket than I ever have. It was much less formula style of golf.

All of the fescue, it just added a certain level of uncertainty. A lot of uncertain lies when guys got off the fairway. It was not bomb it wherever. Despite like a bunch of good big top names on the leaderboard being kind of some big hitters, overall, the course favored accuracy, like from a technical statistical standpoint. It moved a little bit of the focus from the tournament away from putting variance, which it usually has been and put a little more emphasis on driving, but more in the accuracy vein. And, you know, you see somebody with massive speed like Brennan shoot up to the

top. And then when he starts hitting it wayward, like the golf course fought back against him today. And it was kind of like, I did not go into this week expecting to be like, hey, can we figure out a way to get a championship level event at Detroit Golf Club? But I kind of feel that way right now of like, that was one of the more, the one of the best glowups I've seen from a PG. GA tour course has me thinking of like what else could get a, could realistically get a glow up like that because I love Donner Ross golf course. I love classically design golf courses, but a lot of them don't fit the modern professional game.

And this course has not fit it very well in the past. But that felt like about as good of a possible glow up as they could have gotten out of it. And like I was a little bit worried it was going to just be eye candy and, you know, a little overcooked, right? And it seemed like the substance was there as well. I think the the bunkers had slope in them. Like guys were having to, like they were actual penalties.

Guys, to the point we were talking about with bunkers earlier, like there was just a couple shots I sent you guys earlier this week of just like God Rupp's ball. Like on Friday, ended up on the downslope on the back of one of the bunkers. And it just required like a flash shot. And he hit a shot that just made me gasp when he hit it.

I was like, oh, it was awesome. He missed a cut. It was an awesome shot. But I'm like, that should be a required. of professional golfers.

I want to see you in some awkward spots. Amaze me a little bit. You're bought on and have to find the bottom of every bunker and have a straightforward bunker shot. And there was just, you know, a bunch of times guys got short-sided this week and, like, had no shot of getting up and down. Like, you're just not, like, if you missed left on 14 today,

we saw a couple of the chasers missed left. Rasmus Hoygard missed left. Who was he playing with? Was it Davis Riley as well? They both missed way left over in the thick fescue. And it was just like, oh, you're not getting that up and down. Now you're fighting for par.

And like that just that too many courses in this part of the year on the PGA tour end up with like a lack of consequence like that. And just to see it fight back a little bit this week. But provide scoring opportunities is as good of a balance as we're probably going to get on the PGA tour. I don't think they're ever going to trend towards wanting to torture these guys. And so like having that little give and take just felt like good good golf tournament this week. Amen. Yeah. For for my money,

I thought it looked like visually. I totally agree. I thought it looked fantastic and and I found myself a little. Yeah. Right. I wish this event wasn't going away. Nobody's done the 313 challenge yet. We can't get rid of it yet.

Just like nobody shot 54 on Lyft. Yeah. We got a lot of time left. Detroit's a market though that should have a, I mean, it's such a good golf market. I think that's the big thing. There were so many people there around 14, 15 and 16. It was like, it looked like a live event out there, T.C.

What, uh, the, um, like just thinking, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago with, like, all the tournaments that we watched growing up, whether it was firestone or when Tiger would play the one at Warwick Hills. Yeah, was that kind of one of the one of the two buicks. And it just got me thinking. I was like, man, there were, like the PJ at Tori used to go to some fucking weird markets. Yeah. What, back on Thor Bjornton, you, what was the level of seriousness T.C. And put him on the team. Well, I've said it in the past.

Like, I'd love to, because his dad's Norwegian, right? I'd love for him to reclassify as a non-US American. So he could, so he could get him on the European Rider Cup team. Um, no, I, like, I think he's a, he's a, like, really like high upside player. The putting just kind of seems to hold him back, right? And, um, like he, he can, he chips well. He's obviously awesome off the tea. Iron play kind of comes and goes.

But I think like he's the kind of guy that he was a standout collegiate player. He was a standout amateur player. He's played a lot of match play prior. Like, he's the kind of guy that I would say, like, I give him a look on the president's cup team. and see what you've got there, you know? I'm totally with you, T.C. I wish, I think I would enjoy the President's Cup a lot more

if they at least made like two or three of the captain's picks, almost like next-gen slots. So you have to be like 25 and under. And let's take the best young Americans and get them experience in the President's Cup with the hope that they're going to be part of U.S. team competitions for a while. So yeah,

like Thorby Ornson, Coyvin, Clanton, you know, I don't know how the standings would shake out, but yeah, give me,

give me, golly's going to lobby for Blades Brown. You know, DJ will probably toss in Ross Steelman down on the corn fairy tour. But I think that would add just some,

some intrigue to, to this event from the American side. And I think it'd be fun to watch some of these guys, like, you know, in some moderately pressure-packed situations at the President's Cup, too. I'm going to thread this one a little bit there, Randy. I totally agree with almost everything you said there.

I think one this year, the way it sets up for the American team. I said this about Coyven last week. Like the bottom of the team is not shaking out to be like, you know, the spots are available at the bottom of the lineup, I'm saying. Like, you can take a hot hand. You could take a flyer on somebody you want to. Like, that's available this year. I think Thorpe Bjornson moves into,

okay player you got my attention now you know not a this is not a a stamp because i'm obligated to say this before this week the name he is right next to in strokes gained over the last six months the name he's right next to nobody nobody would want to put on this team not one single person would want to put on this team and that's jordan speed okay so that's that's been his level of play over the last six months now are we about he's with john foley now are we about to enter a different stratosphere. Are we going to finish out this season on a hot run and like to all the tools on the pedigree of the of an amateur golfer and everything I just said does that, would that deserve consideration at the bottom of this lineup, I would say a thousand percent.

I'm not going to stamp them on the team as of right now. I'm also raining out fully convinced, and we're not going to do a big President's Cup thing today tonight. I'm not fully convinced President's Cup experience trend, like is like a predecessor to Rider Cup success. Like I, for sure. I, I won't pretend to. say it absolutely is.

I agree with the sentiment, though, of like, get him in the, get him, you know, have an appreciation for the team events and kind of what goes into it. Sure. Probably play junior president's cup. Should be good. Yeah. Yeah, he's probably good. And he's played TGL.

And he's like one of the best putters in the world on TGL. So, uh, I think, you know, he's got all the experience you need. But no. I mean, dude, just, I don't know when it became really normal to watch guys like step up on, the final holes and just smash 185 mile our ball speeds right down the middle. Like, Bryson was doing this in Detroit like five years ago, and we were all freaking out about it.

And now there's like eight guys that step up and do it at it right around the same speed. And it's just, it's crazy. I mean, he was, I think on 17, he flew it into the wind 317. There was no runout on that shot at all.

And he just absolutely mashed it. He's got amazing tools and freakishly hot putter when he gets going. And I'd be interested to see how this full, he mentioned he just started working with Sean Foley, like what the, does the ceiling change now with kind of where he's headed? It's hard not to get a little bit excited about it. So kind of a mixed bag at the 2022 Palmer Cup,

which gives me a little bit of pause, but he did win. He did win the US Junior Am. I think he got to the quarters in, in the US Am. He's won the Western Am. If it comes down to him versus Akshay, he beat Akshay at the finals of the U.S. Junior Am, is that right in 2018?

Is that what they said, today? Yes, they did say that. Yeah. So maybe he will have that over him. Oxshay's 13th on the list right now. Bridgman's 12. JT's 11th.

Another guy I'd love to see, Ryan Gerard. Yeah. I'd be like that guy's just played his nuts off all year. Goddard of seventh. He's definitely going to be on the team. JJ's spawn is eighth. I didn't see that one coming. Yeah, I don't.

Maybe the, don't get me a work. No offense to like J. But like this is the exact situation where like dog I'm don't need you on the president's cup you know like play hard get on the rider cup potentially next year like let's let's just get some new blood in the president's cup at least. I feel like that would be more interesting. JT is 10 3 and 2 career at the president's cup. What would the reason you have nothing left to prove nothing left to prove you've you've done it.

It's a compliment it's not that he hasn't done it. It's just I've seen it. truly like we're we're good i think what's going to be interesting is like like wind him obviously had a crazy hot stretch but like i i watched a fair amount of his golf in the early part on the quiet please feet i don't know if you guys caught any of that but it's just like kind of seems like he's kind of back to back to not you know it's one week who knows how he would finish the year but if he he's so streaky and if his hot streak is over what's going to happen there because that that's exactly what happened 2023 he had the you know won the wells fargo won the u.s open And then by the time it came to the end of the year at Rome,

he wasn't playing nearly as well, and that cost the U.S. pretty badly. He was too busy doing influencer stuff up in Michigan this week. He threw out the first pitch of the Tigers game. You know, he was all over the socials. And, yeah, any statement on Godderup missing the cut, T.C.? No, none whatsoever. He's a very good player,

and we're going to see a lot more out of him. Now you can, you tried to go doubt leaderboard at T50 with Jackson Subaru earlier. I'll let you go down. You're on a short leash with down the leaderboard if you want to do. No, I was just trying to tell you the detective thing. Like when it happens, I'm going to tell you. Okay.

Bunky sent me the detective emoji. I sent it back to him. Okay. Thank you. So, um, I don't, yeah, I mean, weird T5 from Hedecki this week. Always, um, yeah, like, always, yeah, always weird. Yeah. Uh, Christopher Ventura, citing.

He kind of pops up from time to time. Cantlay kind of petered out on the weekend. He shot 64, 66 first two days. He's up to 41st, the all-important FedEx Cup. Michael Kim, T-8, Chris Kirk, had it going for a while. In a massive shank to which one of the one fan in the crowd shouted. What the fuck was that? Cam Young shot 61 and finished T-8, 69, 61, 6870.

Ricky is getting sinus surgery This is this is per nuclear The kids over at nuclear Oh, golf Ricky hit me up if you You're getting a functional rhinoplasty He's had a sinus infection for like the last two or three years And you're trying to get it fixed

So good luck to him on that Um Essentially just being a dad You're just always sick. Exactly. Exactly. Otherwise, not, not, yeah, Coyvin finished T-31. He's up to 70th.

The FedEx Cup. He needs a, yeah, he needs a decent week at Wyndham to make it to, make it to the playoffs, the all-important playoffs, Randy. Jordan, the former Lynxmaster, Jordan Speeth, also finished T-31. So you got, you got quite a kick out of, out of, out of, our friend um peter monotti peter moni shot 61 in the opening round and finished t 68 that that just that's sick that's awesome 61 71 74 uh he's just treading water at 170th in the fedex cup so randy you got big tone

t 71 uh he's he fell to 89th ah i think big tone might be his streak his streak A lot on the line this week. His streak of making the playoffs every year, which has gone on for a long time, is in, I don't know what the total number of years is, but it's on the line this week at Windham. So, yeah, that's all I got from Detroit. I'm curious you guys' thoughts on this.

Brad Dalke teed it up this week. It did not go great for Mr. Dalke. He shot 81.75, finished dead last. Obviously, that missed the cut. The internet had some thoughts on a lot of this. I know this is right up your alley. You're a big YouTube golf fan. Where did you net out on this?

He's with Good Good. Is that right? He was with Good. He was. He was. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, if I'm judging him on like an influencer standard,

certainly better than I would have done this week. So hats off to him. If I'm judging him on like, you know, is pro golf your thing? Seems like not good. Not, you know. Make pro golf your thing. Not going to cut it. Those are my thoughts, Sally.

Dalkees seems like a great guy. I think he's just a bad week for him, very likely. But also it's like he's not being helped by who did Wesley Brian say he was better than? Okay, yeah, yeah. Well, Wesley, we'll get to that.

In our slack, is Dolkey, do we need to put him on the team? Wesley Brian is responsible for one of the worst takes in golf history, which is that Dalke would have won points at the Ryder Cup this past go-around. It's just an epically, amazingly bad take, which is like sets the scene for like getting a bit of abuse and ragging when something like this happens. I'll say first of all, Brad Dalke is massively popular, massively

talented. Like he did draw interest to the event. One, I was curious to see how it was going to go and he's got a huge fan base. No, he certainly did not play well. But like it's just reality. Like a YouTube golfer's floor is going to be considerably lower than a seasoned qualified tour professional. And like he's, he's not that. Like he, if he plays solid golf, like not even great golf, but if he plays good golf this week, I would say he very quite likely makes the cut. Like, his top level ability is that good.

He had a great showing on the DP World Tour a couple weeks ago, and he is good enough. But it's also a massive amount of pressure to put on a mic pack, which he, and have every shot filmed by the PGA tour, tee it up with 150 other tour pros, know you are under a level of scrutiny that is very different than a lot of other people in that field. And like you didn't qualify for the event.

That's another thing that's like going to just add a little bit of pressure to it. And all of that rides with like, hey, you got kind of one shot go. All cameras, all eyes on you. And when it starts going bad, maybe I'm comparing this a little too much to my Gasparilla experience at time. I'm like, dude, when it goes bad and you're not one of the top players, like, it's going to look really, really bad. Like that's just the way it is.

So when you fly to Alaska and yeah, had the cameras on you, you're playing well. And then you totally lose your golf swing. Like the floor. it gets low. Yeah. I say this is maybe I respect him for putting himself out there. This was always a possibility that could happen.

This is still better than the alternative of not trying. Having said that, I do not think he can win points in the Ryder Cup and think that was, maybe we've gotten a little carried away with his abilities. But I, I'm in support of this still. I think, you know, doing some weird things with sponsor exemptions and delivering a little bit of, people love the tweet that always goes around of like, in the Olympics, they should one average person running around to see just how fast everyone actually is.

And like, I think it's fun when golf adds a random person and you could see how it goes. So I respect to Tony Romo involved. This got a, I'm going to move over that one. It got a lot of eat, obviously, because of Dalkees shooting 81.75. After round one, I did see PJ tour every shot.

He's breaking it down. Incredible video. He's very open and honest and like just struggling. off the T. Love the fact that he's like, he knows the role. He knows what he was invited there to do and didn't have an issue doing every single one of those sponsor obligations. Four total sponsors exemptions for this post. He was not the only YouTuber. Ryan Ruffles was also there.

Shot even par 70-70. Didn't make the cut. The other two, Joe Hooks, he was the Seafurt Awardee. And then William Jennings, sophomore at University of Alabama, got in by winning last year's Fold of On. under a collegian event in Michigan. So Brad obviously catching William Jennings, Brian. You know, Brad's catching a lot of the heat, but, you know, Ryan Ruffles were there too. And I think it's just one of those scores, man.

It doesn't matter where you go. If you hang a shitty score, he's going to kind of follow you. Yeah, 100%. Also, PJ Tour, why did that the inside the field article that they, that they've always done on the website, like used to list out how everyone got in by category. they now just list the entire field. I need it by category. I look at that every week to see how everybody got in the field.

Please, please. Sorry, I know you're a big. No, they still have it there. Still on. I, it did not. Is it? Okay.

Maybe I was looking at the wrong thing. I know, I know you're a big, you know, reshuffle guy and, and, you know, all the, the,

you know, reorder category 37 through 44, all that stuff. The, the one I've just pulled up just literally just shows everybody lists. it in order. We can take this offline.

The one for Wyndham does not have. We can take this offline. Yeah. We'll say, might update it. Oh, yeah. The one for Rocket has it.

So they may. All right. You have to send me the link you're looking at because the one I'm done. Anyways, that does not, that's not important to show. Anyways. T.C.,

you mentioned it. You went to, you went to Alaska this week. You made a little golf trip this week? Yeah. Well, yeah. Actually,

I went to Alaska on the back end of a golf trip. Was it Sunningdale for, for, for, five or six days playing there and then uh which gill's doing some great work on sundingdale new that's it's like the the fifth hole uh he's done a lot of work to that bringing back kind of the the o g cult stuff um but yeah spent spent some time in london and then instead of coming home i was like you know what a i forgot to sign up for the midam and i was waitlisted like all the qualifiers that i wanted to get I always forget to do it at like 9 a.m. that day. All the qualifiers I wanted to

get into were full. So I said, you know what? I've never been to Alaska. I got I got I've been to 46 states. I got four more. I got North Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alaska. Went up to Alaska. It was, it was, I think last year it was more guys. I didn't go because it was like a less guys in the field or whatever. It was it was only 15 of us. Um, did a practice. I flew in. I flew from London to San Francisco, San Francisco to Anchorage. Uh, got in.

I played a practice round on Monday. Uh, the course is just, it was moose run golf club, uh, up at joint base Elmendorf Richardson. Uh, Randy, you would have loved it. Centerline trees. All sorts. They had, they had an alternate fairway that was like maybe 15 yards wide at one point that you could go down the left on the front nine.

uh it was basically like auto loss ball if you miss the fairway or like if you missed a decent it was seven that it was like 69 50 C level it takes driver out of your hands a lot uh and guys i got off to a really good start like flawless golf the first 10 holes and then save some of the drama maybe for the video because this is all one video we have and then i and then i didn't qualify yeah spoiler alert yeah we'll we'll save some of it I kind of pressed coming in and I didn't have a caddy. I think that actually like did hurt me, not having a caddy.

And then I was carrying my own bag. I didn't take a push cart. It was a big walk. I kind of lost my legs a little bit. But, but yeah. And then I guess I took some flack from that used golf facts guy who I blocked him. He's always such a good independent reporter. I think I blocked him maybe two or three years ago because everybody kept sending me his

stuff thinking that it was. Lady J. And I'm like, no, like, you're not going to impersonate Lady J and act like this is the the Tame Reed burner here. And it just wasn't very funny. So I think that guy has a bone to pick. But the guys up in Alaska, like there was, I think there was like two of us from Florida. I play with the Montana State, like raining Montana Stadium champ, a couple guys from California and then the rest of the field was from Alaska. And all the guys from Alaska were like, dude, thanks for coming up. Like, that's fucking cool.

Like, it's, like, we've only got 15 guys in our qualifier, and the USGA wants 25 for, like, like a minimum of 25 per spot, basically. And they were like, if we don't get more guys in our qualifiers, like, we're going to lose the qualifiers. We're going to have to travel down to Washington State or Montana or, you know, Oregon. So, so yeah, it was, I don't know, like I had a blast. I met some great people, play with,

Hello, Sam, who's the VP of the Alaska State Golf Association, had some good meals. You know, drove down to Gurdwood, which is where Ali Eska, the ski resort is. Just gorgeous, and like gorgeous flight in and out. I just, you know, some of the travel caught up with me. And it was probably a pretty good course fit for me, to be honest. Like, you know, accuracy off the tea. And then Greens were running like a seven during the practice round. I think I was blown away at how well presented the course was.

Like they put a bunch of sand in the bunkers overnight, Tuesday into Wednesday, because they were having the Alaska Stadium there this weekend as well. But yeah, just some provocative golf holes out there. So it'll be a very, it'll be a very entertaining video. I can assure you of that. TC, I assume you are on the Creek course? The Creek course. Okay.

Yeah, it looks a little more elevated than the hill. course up there at Moose Run. Yeah. I did not see any bears. There was a big sign on like the pro shop door and I saw like bears. There was some clips going around of bears like basically pushing over people's push carts the weekend before I was there. But no bears. I saw a couple of eagles. But yeah. And then it was just, you know, it was like right next to the Air Force space. So there's one of the wildest air spaces I've ever been in, man. You got all these float planes. going out to the bush you got cargo planes coming in from Asia you got F-35s and you know C-130s taking off doing training runs and flying over to you know the Middle East it was a lot going on

it was it was cool so has to be some of the lamest flack I've ever seen anybody take take shit for is that you went to Alaska to try to qualify for the mid-am like anybody has this opportunity this going to different states different locations for qualifiers if fit your schedule is a totally part of the deal. That is the internet making it absolutely something out of nothing on that. I will ride with you on that, TC. That was some. Yeah.

He's taken a lot of Ls lately with the Liv thing. He's lashing out. It's a, it's a tough scene. It's a really tough scene. We're literally sent push notifications. Anybody who signs up for a event, you're sent a push notification that says, hey, we have these other fields that are, uh, don't have enough people. You can move, you can move,

sites if you want because they're struggling to fill some of these venues you know i think it was this thing it's like that should only be for alaska people that's just like not how it's not it works at all that's not what the u sss every college nothing every college kid in the country like searches out a good course fit for them to go qualify for the u s am you know that's the whole fucking thing and it was like like golf for me i enjoy golf because of the people i meet through it and the places it takes me. And this was, there was no other reason. Like, and, like, I wanted to scout it out for like, I want to take my family up and, like,

go on a fishing trip up in Alaska or go, you know, like, go do something, go hiking or something up there. And like, it was, it was like one of the cooler places I've ever been. So I'm, I'm thrilled that I did it. And like, honestly, I look forward to going back. Like, I had, I had a few beers with the guys afterwards. Do it. And what's they're going to go.

You're not even going to play golf. No, no, no, I'll probably do it around the call. fire but like I think like I had beers with the guys that I played with afterwards they were they were awesome like you know like it's like cool like I have two new friends in Alaska now you know it's great so it's great so a little bit of news that I skipped here on the pGA tour front a bunch of championship series events were confirmed this past week roll app clearly clearly going with the daily drips get idea here from the end up running the NFL playbook of just letting stuff slowly drip out.

The confirmed championship series events for 2028, the Century at Torrey Pines, as long rumored, suggested, believed to be happening. The Travelers Championship, of course, stepped right up. TPC River Highlands. Arnold Palmer Invitational is confirmed there.

That's going to be at Bay Hill, of course. I do not know if MasterCard is confirmed for that. That was a little bit of a surprise, right? Because MasterCard... We don't know about MasterCard yet, but that is a confirmed champion. event, which I'm sure we'll learn more on that. Then a new one, Sompo, which I got to admit I'd never heard of this company.

It's an insurance company. They announced a multi-year partnership that will make Sampo the sponsor of a full field PGA tour event in 2027 and continuing as a PGA Tour championship series event beginning in 2008. Next year, 2017, they'll be played at Silverado Resort in Napa, California. And it'll be a new market for 2028 and beyond to be announced. later. So that is the first one of these to be

announced that is not an event we've already seen. Our course we're typically seeing or expecting to be seeing in the championship series on the PGA Tour. Sampo's a Japanese insurance company, I believe, so I imagine they would probably want to have that on the West Coast.

Yep. I think Seattle's kind of the rumor for that one, or the where there's a little bit of smoke in that one or somewhere up in Washington. Maybe it's your Chambers Bay Dream. TC, who could say? Isn't it like crazy dry this time of year in Napa? Isn't it a thing?

They're like, there's been no water, so they're burning all the grapes? No, well, no, they're burning all the grapes because the alcohol market's totally cratered. And a lot of the grapes. Well, no, they're like they're just oversupply with grapes. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of bad vineyards that should have never been planted either. That's more down in the Sweeason Valley and all that. So I also, the Rocket classic, if you just go to the leaderboard and they've got those tabs there and you go to field, that's where you can see how everybody got in. I saw what you sent over.

The inside the field thing, yeah, like I don't know why they changed that because you're definitely right. I see what you're talking about there. I see what you're talking about there. Anyways. Also, the triad, this is from Josh Carpenter, the triad business journal reported that the North Carolina General Assembly is offering the PJTor up to $40 million to keep the Wyndham Championship. in the tour's top tier. Didn't see that one coming. Didn't see governments getting involved here to try to top up the money needed to keep, keep events around.

But some. That's the live playbook. Interesting competition there of, you know, the 15 available championship series events, trying to, you know, create at least the illusion of some scarcity is what the tour looks to be doing. I would love to see them throw a little bit of that money to complete restoration. of Sedgefield and you know, bring a Tyler race. You did it at Detroit Golf Club, you know.

Yeah, 100%. North Carolina is known to do this. I mean, they did the same thing when the USGA made Pinehurst and Anchorsite. So they're very open to throwing state funds to make sure that people come through, get that tourism money, man. Yeah. People are lining up to throw money at the PGA tour. On a different note, um, for the live golf league, uh,

Saudi-backed, no longer Saudi-backed, live golf league. The team finale, this was per Flushing at Golf, was set to be canceled, but the cancellation has been canceled. Offsetting cancellations was interesting news that was dripping out. I hate seeing and flush get tied up and cancel culture. I know. It was, as a little bit of news dripped out later in the week, Mark Kanzaro, the New York Post said that lives on the cusp of landing new investors

to keep the tour alive into 2027 and beyond. The quotes from there said, according to sources, Live golf has received multiple written commitments from Blue Chip investment firms that would serve as anchor investors to support the league going forward. The prospective anchor investors

have submitted qualified term sheets that would support the formation of a financing syndicate with sufficient backing to capitalize what LiveGolf is calling Live 2.0. Sounds awesome, first of all, like just that language, just like that's what gets me jacked up about golf.

Like just. I got a couple rumors inbound today that Randy's guy the Cush might be his affinity partners the family the family

firm. I think they've got some extra money laying around after the after the Lafifah debacle dried up. Oh my God. How is this happening in the golf world, man?

Really? I mean, I would think over the next two weeks, Like, that's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, fight or flight for live. Like, they got to, those guys want clarity. They want to know where they're playing next year. They want to know how to build out their fall in case they have to go play DP World Tour events or try to get their, you know, and, yeah, I don't know, I just can't see, like, the whole equity thing of it.

I just can't see that for the players, a big, you know, big piece of it. it. This is like I'll just this is we're tiptoeing around. This is not enough money to keep the top players around. And with just the massive uncertain, like there was a certain, you know, with the amount of money they were paid to do live 1.0, like the, the future of the league was not nearly as important as it was like, dude, I can make 20 years worth of money in like three years.

Like I'll figure the rest out in three years. Give me the money. Let's do that. I'll take that risk. Now just like market rate or way below market rate. in all likelihood that would come from the uncertainty of this, plus like the complete lack of understanding of where the future is, I don't know why those guys would sign back up for that,

assuming the bankruptcy would let them out of their contracts. Now, again, I've said this before, and I'll say, I'll keep saying it, like, I think Live 2.0 can exist. I think it is going to be dramatically different than what has been of like trying to poach top players with a ton of money. I think it is like best case scenario. It's an alternate alternative to,

to the champions tour and like a precursor to the champions tour of like the dudes that are in their 40s that, you know, don't want to grind out the qualification aspect of golf all the way until they turn 50. And you want to go play team golf 10 times a year around the world and get paid a fair amount of money for it. I don't see why that can't exist. And just be outside the golf ecosystem. Stop worrying about ODPGR. Stop worrying about any of that stuff. You don't have the money to recruit the top players that are going to be the most competitive anyways. Why don't you just go make your own team league?

that could be somewhat interesting. Double down on the team stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like the best route forward. I don't know why. Yeah. I don't.

Well, the death knell too felt like the, just the Asian tour basically telling him to kick rocks. We're going to win with that. Like there's obviously there's been so many mistakes along the way. But I'll be fascinated to see kind of how this next tranche of, of tranche, of,

of players like the, the you know the guys that aren't set i think setting aside like the rome you know rome bryson you know like what what the david poohs and the the tom mckybans and all that i assume they just go play dp world tour but like if i'm roll-app and those guys i'm like man i'm going to have some of these guys uh you know come play challenger series events let's Let's soup those up for, you know, 2028. Like basically wait them out and say, all right, you're done for 27, but 2028, you can come out. You can play Challenger Series events if you've got this sort of, this sort of resume.

Like you've won this many events or whatever, like dust it, right? Now, I don't know if he wants to do that. Or say, hey, go support the DP World Tour and you got to play in these six national. opens or something like that. Like it's, you know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like going to reconciliation or, you know, like the priest gives you your, you know, all right, you got to do 10 Hail Mary's, you're going to go play in the Australian Open. You got to go play the magical Kenya open. Thank you, T.C. I was going to say that. And you got to pay a million dollar fine, you know. Yeah. I mean, remember what the deal Kepka got is what is not on the table for these other guys.

That's what I've heard is that is, you know, and look, some of these dudes that sued, your route back is harder. Like, and you're not going to be able to dictate the terms you think you get. Yeah. Like, go earn your way back, you know? Go play DP World Tour. Yeah. Which, yeah, I can't believe P is somehow, somehow going to get out of all the suing that he did all over the place, potentially. We'll see what his route back actually looks like.

But, Randy, you got to take a little trip to rodeo dunes. this week. Am I saying it right? Is it rodeo dunes? You got the full down there on it. Yeah, I think it's the former. I believe it's rodeo. Awesome. Awesome. It's going to be fantastic. It's crazy to think like truly 35, 40 minute drive from Denver Airport. I just feel like it's going to be so popular. They have space for, gosh, the starter was telling me six golf courses are kind of planned right now. obviously that'll take several years to get them all built they have the water online uh they do have more water out east of denver um i should have asked more about that's that's a tricky situation but

rodeo dunes uh corn and krenshaw really what you would expect from a koren krenshaw routing through the sand hills of let's call it eastern Colorado you know east of Denver i had a great time it's open this year for preview play went with a buddy our buddy nick and and a couple other guys um green speeds are a bit slow there as you might imagine um but man uh just really thoughtful use of land really i don't think they moved a ton of dirt uh you you're playing kind of between dunes some of the green sites. Awesome collection, diverse collection of par threes, different yardages. It's just going to be, you know, I think anything Kaiser family touches is really good.

And it's hard to see this being anything, but really good. So was a treat to get out there. Look forward to next year. It's open to the public. They're taking tea times. Right now you can book something. But yeah, it was a real treat to pull. play was a bit friendlier than I and I think some of that was just you know they don't have the

green surrounds as dialed as as they might in another year so the green speeds obviously are bit slower so it was a confidence boosting round of golf for me which was I'll always take those nice Cody have you done wild spring dunes yet I have to see a little for a little while you know I think I was out there the first day that they actually opened up all 18 holes to preview play I held the course record. Nice. Which has since been absolutely destroyed by a million college kids. But good news going on there, too.

They're actually finally exiting preview play and opening it wide open on September 10th. So get online, get your tea times there. It's going to be awesome. Doke 18-hole course. Got plans for another one going in, cabins, condos, you name it. It's a cool spot. I think there were even people bitching on. the everything app this week about just new golf courses being built on sandy soil and

by world class variety all this like oh my god yeah they're like like why is everything called dunes it's like well they're building these like on on dunes like ancient sand dunes and also these like these like to be geographical places for people you don't have to go play all of these like this is a great thing for people of texas or people of colorado like it's new good golf is a good thing I'll add this about Radio Dunes. There is not a lick of shade out there, even if you wanted to find something somewhere. So my advice, playing at once, I'm like, oh, my gosh,

I think October would be the ideal time to get out there. Certainly playable in the summer, but it's going to be interesting without any trees, any shade anywhere. Summers are hot. Let's get you an umbrella and summer umbrella guy. You can totally do it big. I think you are born.

for that role yeah but god you can just see the weather moving off the rockies um some big ass storms are just you can see so far in in every direction it's really cool it's it's it's neat to have that literally in my backyard i'm pretty giddy oh yeah nice sounds like another horn crunch uh course we got here no trees just survive it's coolers yeah yeah trinity yeah uh all right that's gonna just about do it this coming week with the Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour. We got Live Bedminster second to last event

if the team event really is canceled, which we don't know. DP World Tour is off again. LPGA Tour is off this week as well. Before we do go, we had a massive weekend in the NLU Pro Shop that is store.no-langup.com. We just dropped a whole batch of new, holderness, and born pieces

for the fall. It's about as good as we've seen from them. The fabrics are amazing. The colorways are dialed, and Everything feels like something you can wear on or off the golf course without looking like you're heading to a member guest in 2007. We put a lot of work into this drop, especially the colors and some new approaches to the NLU embroidery. The end result, it rips. There's t-shirts, polos, crews, layers, a bunch of pieces that work perfectly as the weather starts turning here into the fall. My fellow birdwatchers, the birdie watch collection has some new options in the Mason T-shirt.

It's got several polo styles and a few layers as well. and some of the new pieces feature our new wayward wing logo. So I don't know if I've ever seen TC this excited about a drop that we've done in the store. It's, yeah, the fall stuff is fantastic. Yeah, and we got some good. I would shout out the T-shirts, especially the T-shirts with the little birdie guy on them are awesome. So, yeah, I've been wearing them for the last couple weeks on my travels. And, like, yeah, H&B continues to raise the bar as well.

Fall golf is coming. on the horizon. It's time for layers. Go get yourself right at the NLU Pro Shop. Nest members, you get 15% off in the No Laying Up Pro Shop. It's an important benefit to keep in mind as well. Store.org.com to shop the new H&B and Birdie Watch collections. So thank you everyone for tuning in here on a Sunday night. Gentlemen, thank you for being with me as well. Appreciate our friends at Titleist High Noon and Locke Lomond. That is officially an end to major championship season. We'll have some major live shows around the Solheim Coven. President's Cup, of course, in September.

But that is the end of nine majors in a very short period of time. We'll see it again in April for those. When's the US AM? That is not this coming week, but the next week. Do I have it right? Do I have it right? U.S. Women's Am is this week. Is that right?

I think that's right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's this week at the honors and then next week at Marion. And then the Western Am was this past week at Beverly. That's right. I thought Miles Russell was going to, he ran. ran away with it on the stroke play side and then got beat by Jay,

Jay Lang from Stanford. So good action. Lots of good amateur golf here coming up soon. We'll have podcasts, of course, and we'll have live shows around the final playoff events as well. And then we'll be live for Solheim and President's Cup, and that's the end of the live shows for the year. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in.

Hit a subscribe button if you can find one, and we'll see you back here for our weekly recap next week. Crack on. Cheers.