No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 830 - Byron Nelson and LIV Singapore Recaps + Listener Mailbag

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Taylor Pendrith birdies the 72nd hole to win the Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch while Ben Kohles bogeys the final hole to miss a potential playoff. Meanwhile, at LIV Singapore (24:00), Brooks and Ripper GC win while TC's Cleeks made their first podium appearance of the year. We break down both events and a few other news and notes from the world of pro golf, Soly's trip to Bandon Dunes (53:00) before opening up the listener/reader mailbag to answer your questions (1:04:30). If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Get the best ball for your game - get fit at Titleist.com Blade and Bow: Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey https://www.bladeandbowwhiskey.com Omni Hotels and the Omni Golf Collection - the Generation Cup qualifiers begin later this month. Locate the one nearest you at omnihotels.com/generationcup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying up podcast. Solly here, TPC, Craig James weak. So, you know, my guy, the big guy, remember the five big Randy is here. Hello, big. What's up guys. Great to be here. Interesting week. We'll get into all of it, but, uh, yeah, nice to be with you gentlemen. This evening, we call this

a hazard pay week. We, we demand extra pay from the rest of the group, uh, to, to cover a tournament week like this one. I'm going to be turning the host duties over to my guy KVV here shortly. I am coming in hot off of a trip to band and dunes, which I'd love to tell you guys about if you'll listen, but it might be more interesting than, than CBC Craig James, but I'm going to toss it to him. He's going to guide us through the show tonight. Kevin, how are you? So I'm doing great. I am living the dream of every middle-aged white guy. I get to play point guard in an off week here. I get to feed my shooters. So I get to get you guys

to hustle, get you guys to move up and down. I'm running the show. This is what I've always wanted. Uh, guys, tonight's show is brought to you by titleists. The number one in ball in golf. So you're coming off a weekend of Lord knows how many holes abandoned dudes. The people are demanding to know how many balls did you go through and how do you, you mark your title? Gosh. I mean, again, here it is. Topic conversation. My golf abandoned this past week. Happy to talk about it, but, uh, I packed light this week. I went Sunday bag. I was being nice to our caddies out there. Joe's wickle was on the bag for, for me this past week was trying to be nice. I only brought 12 golf balls. I've never done that on a trip. Proud to report. I only went through six in four total rounds plus 19 holes at Shorty's. One of them I lost. One of them I scuffed when I hit a sprinkler head on the 13th hole at Bannon Dunes, which is all in film. It'll be not quite as funny as Neil hitting the sprinkler

head at St. Andrew's Beach, but Titleist was nice enough to send me a box of the balls with a small NLU logo on them. So I actually was pretty lazy this week and did not mark any of my golf balls this week. So I knew the small NLU logo was mine. I play the Pro V1 and I gotta say, so the Pro V1 is softer, it's lower launch, lower spin and man was I thankful to have that power this past week. Hitting low shots, using the ground, piercing the wind, it honestly wouldn't make all the difference in the world to me to play the Pro V1 or Pro V1X under normal conditions, but in what we played in,

it really did make a world of difference. It was predictable. I never once hit the dreaded ball into the wind that balloons so much and starts coming back at you and comes up 35 yards short. Not once did I hit that shot playing the T 150 irons, which are lofted down two degrees and the combination with that in the foot joy rain gear, which came in great handy. I also played some of my best golf in some very not nice conditions, which is

not the case. If you've watched some of our videos from many years ago. I can honestly say the equipment had a ton to do with that. So this is an ad read, but that part honestly is not like that's the truth. It's all on video, which will roll out here at some point. But in the meantime, head over to titles.com to start the fitting process, find the best ball for your game. Titleist.com.

Thank you. So that was an excellent recap. You know, I was reminded of my friend Max Holmes comment about band and dunes is like if you've been to band and dunes, it's sort of like discovering that someone is a vegan. They're going to tell you about it. They're going to let you know all what it's like a quick rundown before we sort of get into the meat of things about what happens. Really quick on that, super quick before that.

People, million questions we got about the Bandon Dunes greens, we'll address all of that on the end, at the end. You gotta listen to the end of the show. But to the kajillion people that have this on their calendar, wanna know the deets on the Bandon Greens, we'll give you all at the end. Spoiler alert, it's all totally fine. Everybody's gonna be fine.

Thank you. You're gonna have a wonderful time at Bandon Dunes, do not fret. All right. Everybody's going to be fine. You're going to have a wonderful time that band of doons do not fret. All right. Now to the less important stuff. There were some winners of some tournaments around the world. The winner of the CJ Cup slash Byron Nelson was Taylor Pendriff by a shot over Ben Coles.

This came down to the 72nd hole. With Coles making a pretty bad bogey and Taylor making a birdie, a little reversal there at the end. Randy, I know we're going to dig into this within a second, but let's keep running down. I know you're itching to talk about this, but we're going to get through the results. I'm laughing. I got to start putting in my NLU contract. I want to be on the Jim Nance

schedule. You know, if Jim's not calling the tournament, I don't know why I'm on the Sunday show. No offense to my guy, Andrew Catalon, but yeah, we'll get to it. KVV. All right. There was no corn fairy tournament this week over in live Singapore. Brooks Kepka fired a 68 to win by two shots over Aussie's Cam Smith and Mark Leishman. Ripper GC was the winner in the team competition by three shots over Los fireballs and TC's cliques strong showing by three shots over Los Fireballs and TC's Clique's strong showing. Unbelievable. It sounded like TC was just locked in at Bandon even, to this what was going on. The time zones were really weird. It was a, oh shit, that might be going on right now. What's going on? Yeah, they have four holes to play. It was very weird, but yeah, TC was into it, of course. We'll get to Brooks in a sec,

but it's his fourth victory on the live tour, which is four more than, you know, John Rahm, which I'd also like to talk about in a little bit as well. On the DP World Tour of the Volvo China Open, Spain's Adriano Tegui shot a 65 but went into it by a shot over Guido Migliazzi. Thank you, Salih, for I don't want the fine. The handle of you got to kind of have the Italian hand symbol when you, when you do that. It was the fifth career DP World Tour victory for the 31 year old third round leader Sebastian Soderbergh shot a 72 on Sunday to finish tied for third. The LPGA and the LAT were both off this week and on the Epson tour, Madison Young wins the casino del Sol golf classic from Tucson, Arizona by two shots over six other women was the first Epson tour win for

the 27 year old American who moves to the top of the year long race to the card standings. Guys, should we start with Byron Nelson? I know Byron Nelson in general might, might feel like this is not the best. Does this event honor him? Like, can we start with that? Does it honor Byron Nelson? I wanted to ask you guys, right to you guys, which if you were Byron Nelson's family, would you still want this event to this conditions, this tournament, this course attached to your name, put aside the charity element for just a sec. Obviously, charity is great. Nobody hates charity. Do you think this honors Byron Nelson?

And I even think the CJ group are trying, you know, I appreciate them building out the 17th hole, the par three. They got the guys in the red trousers, working the course like, I'm not sure who's, well, I think we all know whose fault it is eventually, but it's just, it's a bad venue. work in the course. Like I'm not sure who's, well, I think we all know whose fault it is eventually, but it's just, it's a bad venue. It's a bad venue and it's a bad part of the calendar. And I don't think it does justice to Byron Nelson,

a historic name. I think he's sixth all time in PGA Tour victories. It just feels unbecoming to still have his name attached to what is clearly a second class event on the PGA Tour. Well, someone has to win the second class event. So Taylor Pendreth emerged as the winner. He actually began the day with the lead. I'm going to give a quick sort of rundown of how things happened in case you were one of the millions who did not turn in. He chunked a pitch shot on the nearly drivable sixth hole, but then hold a bunker shot for sort of a surprise birdie to get to 21 under. That sort of seemed to steady his round. He did not play particularly well,

did not hit his irons particularly great. But Ben Coles was really the story. He made three straight birdies on the back nine to get to 20 under. Then he made a, excuse me, on the front nine, and then he made another birdie on the eighth to take the outright lead. It was kind of back and forth there. made another birdie on the eighth to take the outright lead. It was kind of back and forth there. Pendrith birdied the ninth to get it up to 21 under. And then he took the outright lead back from Coles on the 12th, but then Coles birdied 16 and 17,

going into 18, a big boy birdie on 16, hitting a sort of shot to about three feet from 180 yards. A great shot into 17 and rolled a putt dead into the throat of the hole. Really looked like he was in control. The easiest hole on the entire course, the par 5 18th. No one had bogeyed the entire day. Cole had sort of a kind of a squirrely drive that ends up kind of in just short of the bunkers in some right. He only hits it about 275. So, you know, some of those bunkers were not in play that they were in play for others.

Hits a shot up towards the green. It doesn't get into the greenside bunkers. It gets into the sort of those weird, you know, in between rough. Uh, there's a big discussion about what's the ball doing. It looked like in, from the TV broadcast, they, they were saying Colt and, and IBF were saying it was sitting down actually on the transcript editor, I looked afterwards Colts said it was sitting up and that was the problem. He deceled hard into the chip. The chip pops kind of straight up should have maybe if he goes into the other bunker, uh,

he might actually have been able to get an easier shot to get up and down from there, but it doesn't. He has a super weird stance can only get it to about six feet from there with a little kind of grab the club halfway down and Penderth. Meanwhile, hits a second shot onto the green from about 225 and two putts total reversal. Uh, Cole's misses his putt. Penderth has a shorty to win pretty devastating finish for Cole's who's 34. Uh, not a lot of, uh, chances are going to come in like this again. I would think for him, I was played well in the corn ferry tour, but not exactly like a big time career ahead of him. Yeah. Randy,

we're doing the choke symbol a little bit. Look, when is it okay to call on a guy for choking? I mean, friend of the program is a wild world of golf alumnus, Randy, you know, he played great into that, those pressure situations. Who are we if we can't call it like it is though? It was very unfortunate. I mean, IBF said that's pressure, right? That is pressure. He gets that chip up down like a ton of times. So nervous. He couldn't even spit. Absolutely. Uh, so I don't know what, what is it like down the stretch like that in a tournament like that? I mean, you know, it's tough, man. You're trying to win your first. You know, a lot of things going through your head.

For someone that's been kind of around pro golf for that long and on the, not really on the precipice of anything like this at any point in his career, all that comes with a win is just got to, I don't know how it doesn't enter your brain. He had an awesome pot on 17 to make a two on that one. And honestly, if he gets into the bunker there, instead of, instead of the ruffle on 18, I'll be sitting here saying he choked. Probably not. Like it was kind of maybe a little unfortunate to get into that spot. He probably at minimum,

he gets it out of the bunker on to the green and two putts and gets into a playoff, right? And then the bunker shot was not, or the, the shot of the rough was not ideal, but it was an unpredictable shot to get out of there. The putt was the one that's like, ah, that's pretty tough to describe any other way. I mean, did not look like a very difficult putt. Not much of anything looks very difficult at TPC Craig James. And I mean, it was five feet, one inches, and it didn't hit the hole. That's the part that was really tough, but I'm sure he was pretty flustered from looking like he had this thing wrapped up,

and then it gets away. So it's, it's tough. I was really pulling for him. You get two year exemption here. You know, you got your job locked up through 26, you're playing the masters next year. Uh, and now you don't get any of that. And, uh, it's, that's pro golf in a nutshell right there. Big, uh, TC and our internal Slack said that Taylor Pendreth is a disgrace that he is, you know, should apologize. This is a fraud. I think, you know, we know, no CC is kind of doing a bit half the time about this stuff, but Taylor Pendreth, not exactly like a butt kicking kind of a player on tour this year. What, what do we make of a guy who's hits it long,

but obviously is just really not an elite tour level player grabbing this victory. I mean, somebody had to win, I think is my big takeaway this week. That should be the new PGA tour tag. Like somebody had to win. I mean, why not Taylor? I will say going back to that 17th hole, you mentioned Ben Coles draining a birdie putt. Taylor had, according to Statcast or whatever, six feet, six inches. And I don't know if it was a full 360, rim the putt in, but that ball very easily could have stayed out.

And if he makes- I had in my notes, it went 355 degrees. Yeah. If that putt doesn't go in, Coles has a two shot lead going into the 18th and then, you know, if the same thing happens, we're in a playoff. So that was a key moment. Listen, I don't share TC's disdain for Taylor Pendreth. I have nothing against the guy.

I think some of that TC's disappointed in Taylor now being prominently involved with his international side in the President's Cup. Listen, I believe he was going for his first tour victory as well. So it was a bunch of guys, you know, you could kind of see the pace slowed down and you could kind of feel the nervousness all through that pack nine. Credit to him, you know, good birdie on 18. I'll just go back like Ben Cole's like, I'm not, I'm not necessarily relishing in that it was a choke. I think it was a choke. It wasn't a crowning in my book. Like a crowning is when everybody around the leader kind of vacates early in the round and it's kind of a no pressure win.

This was a choke. I mean, the 71 hole leader is the only guy all day to bogey the 18th. Like, that's tough. He makes the one mistake you can't make with that little chip shot, leaving it short and just spiraled from there. So it was at least we got, you know, I was sitting there for three plus hours today watching golf. And it's like, at least I got some moments that, you know, I gave an audible sick when that chip shot happened and we did get a good finish. So I do appreciate that. So if I'm an architecture kind of novice and I tune it into this, why am I, architecture kind of novice and I tune it into this. Why am I, why does TTCPC Craig ranch stink? I mean, we talk a lot about it. I feel like we're, you know, in the third year of this playing it here,

it's probably our least favorite tour of course. What would you say is like if I was some asking you to explain, why does it suck? Hit me with an explanation. It's hard, right? Because I do my best not to sound like a snobby architecture nerd, and I don't really enjoy that. But what I really enjoy is a really strong relationship between the quality of your shot, the punishment received, the reward received.

And I like to see a close line in that relationship, right? If you pull off a daring risky shot, you earn a birdie and if you miss, you might make a bogey and TPC Craig Ranch is the opposite of that. It doesn't require daring shots of any kind. It requires the most straightforward golf you could possibly play. It's not even in good shape. Like it's a rain to be fair to the architects and that's that's grounds crew, not the architects, the grounds crew.

Yeah, ignore ignore that ton of rain. That's not in the top 10 reasons why it's not a good golf course for a professional golf event. It doesn't have any of those things. Taylor Pendreth is not a good ball striker. He barely even gained strokes approach this week, it's just becomes a driving and putting contest essentially, when you can drive as far as he does, he's just becomes a driving and putting contest essentially. When you can drive it as far as he does, he's not an accurate driver and he is a long driver.

I'm not discrediting Taylor. Somebody's got to go win the tournament and he did it and pulled off the shots and was good around the greens and made the puts he needed to. It's just like that is just the poster child for a golf tournament that just doesn't need to exist. But again, in a totally different world,

I understand why it does. I understand why they moved it to the North side. They had it at Trinity forest. It was a disaster at Trinity forest for variety of reasons. They couldn't raise the money. The salesmanship club could not raise the money that they could if they had the event on the North side, they needed a new home, they found this,

they can raise a lot more money for charity. That's why this event exists. That's not why I'm a golf fan as much as I love charity. Like it's, it's, it's just one of these things. That's like a representation of the archaic model of the PGA tour. And like, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it's a great entertainment product. Like it's just not, it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish. It raises a bunch of money and it's brings professional golf event to Dallas. But yo, that ain't it. As far as where I, where I'm saying,

if it's your thing, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, but that ain't it for me. Well said. I don't think we need to spend too long lingering on this here. I got another 45 minutes to go if you want. What are we really going to say that we haven't said several other times, but some kind of notes from the tournament. Chris Kim from England at 16 years old and seven months became the fifth youngest person to ever make a cut on the PGA Tour. He's the youngest European to make a PGA Tour cut. And he broke Jordan Spieth's record for the youngest to ever make the cut at the Byron Nelson. He struggled a little bit Sunday, but still someone to keep our eye on. You know, his mom is a former LPGA player Ji-Hong Su. Chris got into the tournament because he's the first amateur sponsored by the CJ Cup. So I watched a little bit of him.

I had a nice shot into 18 there. CJ Group. You meant there. CJ Group. Yeah. Look guys, we absolutely got assaulted by the the Babijo commercial. BibiGo. BibiGo.

My God. Kids are asking me how could someone possibly this be this excited about frozen dumplings? I got to just ask like what ad agency is like, Hey, let's get 60 of these ads and let's just jam down people's throat over and over again. I got the answer. I got the answer again. Archaic model of you sponsor a tour event. We've pre sold this media for you. Like this is where your ads go. Like right here, the can't can't, if you want to give up the ad spots, you can't. Like we're running your ads no matter what. And we the television partners want the break, they want the revenue.

And this is where the money is going there. Like again, take it all away. This is this exactly because the representative of everything that needs to change. But that's the answer to the question. Do those commercials do on net net? Do they do more harm to the product because you're so angry at having heard that little jingle over and over again, or do you now know what BB go is because you've been subjected to, you know, the, the torture over the weekend, hearing that jingle. Great question.

I would say that the ad people would probably tell you that the torture puts it into your brain. Like how many, if I started singing the burger king theme song, you'd probably be able to sing along with it. So it's like the, you know, hidden, I guess earworm that it puts in your brain is probably worth it to the ads, but man, does it feel annoying in the 50th time you've seen it in the last two hours. I didn't even watch very much go. I love, I watched not even the full back nine today.

I literally got back in town today and I was sick of it by then. I do a ton of tweets all week of like about this BB go thing. I'm like, yo, I missed Thursday coverage of the buyer Nelson guys. I don't know what you guys are talking about. As soon as I saw it, I was like, ah, okay, got it. I'm up to speed here. Straight up assault, like auditory assault or whatever the term would be. Somebody needs to apologize for it. Will Zalatoris WD from this event, Not a great sign for the back stuff. Sal, you're the Zalatoros expert. I'm gonna kick this to you. What do we to think of Will being out?

I wouldn't say I'm the Zalatoros expert. I'm the back injury expert as it relates to golf, though. I can tell you this is not a good sign. He, for especially for a hometown event for him, I don't know, maybe he really didn't want to play Craig James and was just like, yeah, guys, the back is not great. I'm sorry to bail on this, but not good for some of it as was out for almost a full year with after surgery. If it's still lingering then that's tough with major championships around the corner here that should in theory suit his game pretty well. Jordan Spieth also missed the cut in this event. He had some interesting comments during the week said that Scotty Schauffler success

had sort of motivated him and he felt like it was the first time he had looked up to someone looked at someone younger than he and felt completely like I meant I do not have that guy's game. Like that guy is miles and miles better than me. And then went out and shot to two mediocre rounds. Big any any Spieth insights that you could throw out? I mean, I kind of buried him a little bit. The masters being like, Whoa, it's, it's getting to be a long time

in the rear view mirror since you've had a truly great tournament. Uh, you know, I was thinking midway through the morning, I was thinking, man, what if Jake Knapp has two more victories that Jordan Spieth has in the last couple of years? That would be quite unsettling. Yeah, it's, it's really sad. What a disaster for the tournament organizers. Beath can't even make the cut. It's just, I don't know, it's sad. It's they're talking about, I believe, like a wrist issue that he's dealing with and a lot of

speculation how bad that is and all the difficulties that is that is causing his golf swing where, you know, he could be at the top of his swing, he could be through the ball, he never quite knows where it's going to flare and pop up. So, I don't know, sounds like a terrible situation. Spieth, I don't know. I honestly, more than ever, I said at the beginning of the year, if he doesn't win a major this year, like he's on the deceased list with Rory. Like the guy, no juice.

I feel like he's just another guy until he proves to us that he's not. Like at this point it's on him. I'm writing him off until he makes it so that I have to start paying attention again. This is the worst iron play year of Spieth's career, aside from 2019, which was when he was kind of in the pits of hell of his game. You guys tell me this, and I know this is in the number weed stuff,

but tell me what sounds like the outlier when I go through this quickly. 1.4, 1.5, 2.6, 2.0, 2.5, 1.4, 0.78, 0.35, 1.6, 1, 1.25, 1.16. What sounds like the outlier when you go through those numbers? The 2.5 ones that are- I was gonna say the small one, the 0.3, whatever. 2015 to 2017, 2.6, 2.0, 2.5 strokes gained annually. Those are the numbers.

And his best since then was 2021, 1.62. But last three years, 0.99, 1.25, 1.16. That's massive. That's the difference in being the second best player in the world, best player in the world, and being 30th. And it's been a long time. It's been like six, seven years now. So. Well, listen, he's got this PGA Tour board that he's on. They're trying to keep Rory off the board. So who knows what's going on with the internal politics. That guy, that's a wear a

lot on your game. Come on. Can't expect him to do the business of the tour and, and play good golf. Maybe speaking of people who are not DOA Brooks Koepka. Before we get to that, may I interest you as you know, as fellow golf enthusiasts, we've come to appreciate the tradition of celebrating a round of golf with a round of cocktails at the 19th hole, we are teaming up with blade and bow Kentucky straight bourbon, because they elevate those celebrations honoring the legacy of the golf clubhouse are crafted with the same

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savor every moment responsibly. Blade and Bow Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey 45.5% alcohol by volume. Stitzel Weller Distilling Company Louisville, Kentucky. Please drink responsibly. Bladenbo, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 45.5% alcohol by volume. Stitzel Weller Distilling Company, Louisville, Kentucky, please drink responsibly. Thank you, Sally. They were drinking responsibly in Singapore this week, I saw as they were digesting the fourth consecutive, or sorry, not fourth consecutive, but fourth win for Brooks Koepka at a live event.

Brooks always started tuning it up right in time for the PGA, which has been sort of his MO of the last few years. He mentioned in the lead up to this, how pissed off he was about his master's performance and how he was a little more motivated by that. Look, he said, I think the embarrassment of Augusta really kicked things into overdrive for me

in terms of having to put my nose down and grind a little bit harder, having to look my team in the eye and apologize for not looking to do that again. Said he'd been working all through December to get ready for the Masters, trying to sort of knock that one off his list and it felt like wasted time and an embarrassment

when he finished 45th. And then it was disappointing to have his own kid watch him finish 45th. So it was cool to have him out there winning a tournament when he was there. Didn't know kind of what was going on with his swing, even the last few months that he couldn't tell whether he was gonna hit A draw or a fade over a second shot guys as Brooks Gonna come in and win yet another PGA is I suppose like maybe we should talk about live Singapore

But bricks is always more interesting to me when he's trending upward when it comes to major time. I Yeah, it's interesting, right? I don't quite know what to make of it, except it's certainly better. He's got to see more out of Brooks in majors before he buys. No, not majors. Honestly, I hand up, I didn't watch a lot of live Singapore. So, but listen, he obviously has found some type of form. What I was going to say, it's better to be coming into a major playing well, I think, than not playing well.

So you got to give them that. I do think that he's the type of guy, obviously the major weeks mean a lot to him and he'll do everything possible to make sure he is at the top of his game. So I think it would be great if he can get in contention and really be a factor at Valhalla. I mean, Brooks chasing major victory number six

is certainly interesting. It goes back to like, your guess is as good as mine though. I have no idea. And there's a, we don't know quite what's gonna happen with Scotty. I mean, I assume he's gonna play. I don't know if Meredith had the kid yet or not and what, you know, the aftermath of that's going to do. But

if Scotty were coming in as normal self, I'd say you got a big Scotty Scheffler problem to deal with in Louisville, but it should be good. I think it adds to what will be an interesting major week in a couple of weeks. So can we give Brooks credit for at least going out and winning these live events? I mean, I feel like there's some credits to be sort of received there for actually just being like, you know what? Fuck it. If I'm going to compete in these things, I'm actually going to go out and capture titles

instead of just going through the motions with the way some of what he could have easily. Yeah. This is what his fourth live win. How many PJ tour wins that even have? I don't five, I guess you can't even not accounting majors, not counting majors. He is his entire list of PGA tour wins includes the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the CJ Cup, the set of the FedEx St. Jude Invitational and the Waste

Management again, if for PGA tour wins now is for live wins. You can say whatever you want about that with the competition, I would not reach any conclusion personally on what that would look like. But what I find noteworthy, he won live Orlando the week before the Masters last year and finished T2 at the Masters. Going into the PGA last year, he finished third and T5 at Singapore and Tulsa before the PGA that he won obviously at Oak Hill. So I was just kept mentioning him in front of the Masters

because it was like, I'm not gonna fall for it again. He almost won it last year. He does this at majors. He's healthy now. Like when he, it was truly just that time where he wasn't healthy, that he was not competing in these things. And he was totally uncompetitive at the Masters,

which was really disappointing. But the forum is obviously back. He finished in the top 10 at Adelaide as well. You made a great point there, Randy of like, we just a question mark around Scheffler of, you know, first of all, Scheffler's never won outside past the month of April. You know, he's one to major pumpkin both the band the same golf course that he's just tailor made for now a lot of golf courses are very tailor

made for Scotty right now. But yeah, absolutely take notice of Brooks heading into one of these, another major, he's won three PGA is already as it is Valhalla seems like it'd be a good Fetty finished T15 there in 2014, which is again, 10 years ago, and I'll put a lot of stock in other than to say like, there's, there's no reason Valhalla wouldn't fit his game very well. The setup will be tough. Same strategy deploys at major championships that he's won. He's going to do here. Um, I, I, he will be at the top of my, he was the first thing I mentioned going into the master's pod of like storylines I'm interested in, and he's going to be

near the top as well, uh, cause I'm just not, I don't think another major is going to go by where I don't fall for it and, uh, or where I do fall for it and don't mention him very early on. Ready? Unlike you, I did watch some of the live Singapore, although I did not stay up through the night to watch it. I watched the replays of it. Thanks to all the live fans who told me that I didn't know how to find the replays, whatever was too dumb to figure it out. Finally figured it out. I do can't say it. I still can ever really get used to the broadcast. I feel like Arlo White just

continues to scream like it's a Premier League goal. What a moment on every single chip in. But it was fun to watch Brooks hit some good shots. I will say I love that Brooks can't help himself in sort of kind of tweaking live people, even though they sort of live in the deniability. There's a couple of quotes from his press conference. He said, when there's more on the line, it actually feels like real golf. And then he said, it doesn't mean anything in this scheme for the next two weeks. Which is just like, he always kind of has like a little barb that could be flipped either way, which I tend to enjoy. The press got the team smash press conference this week. I saw a clip of this. We're just talking about guys. They're trying for qualifying for the U S open. Just the fact that he doesn't wear the team gear

is like kind of all you need to know about it. It's kind of, he's the captain. It doesn't wear the team uniform is a, I think I'm ready to declare team smash might be my team on live by the way. Well, won't you feel good when Nike finally buys them for a billion dollars or whatever I've been told is going to happen. Uh happen. Brooks did have one great quote that I thought sort of asked him in the press or why he played well under pressure. And he said, you know what? I think I'm pretty good putting inside eight feet. If there's a clutch putt, I do feel like I'm going to make it. The biggest thing I think that separates me is my ability to lock in and go somewhere

where I think a lot of guys cannot go, which I think is a true sort of insight into Brooks's kind of killer mentality, particularly in majors. Uh, I'd be remiss if we didn't mention that, uh, TC's Cliques hit the podium for the first time all year. The crushers finished 11th, which is their worst finish. He's not on the show. Why is he not on here? You know, taking a victory. I feel like if the cleats were going to, we're going to hit the board, we're going to win that maybe we'd had to have a call in, but even he couldn't be moved to go ahead and

do that. There's some notes in here that is, is Kevin now the worst camp captain manager in the history of the sport. The iron heads and majestic continue to stink. I got to say, I don't really care that much. If you guys want me to spend more time on that, I will, but not in show. I do want to talk John Rom though. But here's back to like, if you want me to get invested in the teams, then like, we got to talk about that. You got to have a draft. You have like, you have to, how do these teams come together? Like you can't just walk up one day and have a team. And like, you can't trade Matthew Wolf for Taylor Goucher that not like it have people actually seriously invested in these teams. It's only going to be laughing at the cliques if if this the Majestics have three captains, they have three captains out of their four

total players. Three of them are captains. They finished last by six shots this week as a team and they finished 32 shots behind Ripper who won. They finished 17 shots out of 11th place. Like it, what are we doing? I would not hate just for the sake of fun doing an entire podcast about live, like every team at the end of the year. Like just like, all right,

this is how this team needs to get better. These guys need to get cut. Some of these contracts got to be coming up. Like there's, there's gotta be guys who are a little nervous. We don't know, nobody knows. It's all a guess. All right. But I do want to do, I want to do a quick check in with John Rom finished 10th this week. This is his worst finish as a live member.

He's now finished third, eighth, fifth, eighth, fourth, third, and 10th. So it's kind of what I was alluding to a little bit slowly. And they're like, at least we give, you know, Brooks credit for going out and getting these victories. I kind of thought Ron would like just like win every week when he went to live. Is there something kind of, you know, busted with his competitive, uh, you know, fire, I guess with this, or is it just kind of like, Hey, golf is hard. Even when there's 20 guys who are you competing with, it's not been, you know,

pick up the same John Rom and, and place them in there. I mean, his, his strokes gain number is down as low as it's been since 2018. Um, so he has not played as much golf. I don't know how to reach a conclusion there. I mean, it's, it's, I would honestly need like more data. Like anecdotally, you can make the argument like, yo, live players have played great in majors, look at this, they have cam Smith, they have have blah, blah, blah, or like you could make the case. So like, hey, there's been seven majors since live golf started six of them have been

won by current active like at the time PGA tour players like, if you know, once we get to this will be this will be the eighth one PGA championship will be eight, that'll be eight full majors since live has been in existence. You either got to reach the conclusion that like, Liv is not preparing these guys very well to play majors. If a if a PGA Tour player wins this one, that's seven out of eight either reach that conclusion or the

talent isn't nearly as good at Liv. It's got to be one of the two if that's the point, right at that point. So it's not it's not like a snap of the fingers super easy for Jon Rahm to show up and win one of these events. But mathematically, if you want to look at it, the Live Singapore is easier to win for a player of John's skill level than the Byron Nelson is, just based on the field size, the members of the field.

And that's just what it tells you. That's what the data tells you. So yeah, it's not been that many events. Seven starts this year, six live starts. To win one would be, you'd be winning 16% of the time. That's a lot. So, I'm not totally alarmed by it. It's just been kind of meh, which is like the worst possible result. It doesn't make me feel anything other than like, still feel like he and Scotty were on the precipice of having one of the great golf rivalries of our time. And if he's not going to, if he's going to show up at the Masters and finish T 45, this is a really sad development in his career, but it's only been one major. And I hope to still

see him be competitive in the other majors. I, I really though can't pretend to care what he actually does and live events. That would be, that would be disingenuous of me. I don't know if you guys feel differently. Uh, no, I would like to see him be more competitive in majors, but if, you know, if in the Scotty rivalry he's going to be the Drake to the, to Scotty's Kendrick Lamar, then I'm going to go ahead and feel disappointed in that one. In the preterm press conference, Taylor Gooch said he will not attempt to qualify for the U S open at Pinehurst.

No follow up question as to why this was, but he just said he was not attempt to qualify for the US Open at Pinehurst. No follow-up question as to why this was, but he just said he was not going to qualify. Uh, big, is this the biggest pussy move you can possibly imagine from our guy, Taylor Gooch? Uh, yeah, I think so. I think so. I listen, I go out and qualify and shove it in the USGA's face. I think that's the track course of action. I would like to see somebody in his position take

and that he's chosen the exact opposite. I can't really get down with that. And frankly, larger point, Taylor Guch is getting so much oxygen and here we are talking about him. And I'm just like, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? So I think larger point, like, who cares about Taylor Guch? But on this specific point, yeah, dog, go earn your way in and ball out. And then, you know, and then you can talk all the shit you want. I felt worse for him last year because I do feel like the USGA he sort of changed the

rules a little bit with the tour championship stuff and could feel sympathy a little bit there being like this is a I'm trying to make a philosophical point about how if I was in the top 30 of the tour championship I should still be that was what qualified for the US Open. This year he doesn't really have any sort of excuse other than just being sour quitter. I mean, it's all you're trying to qualify for the US Open. Maybe you'll take Taylor Gooch's spot, right? I mean, I'm going to at least give it a shot. I'm not afraid to go out there and we're not going to film with this year, but listen, I've put an 82 out on film for the world to see. And I'm going back to the same golf course tomorrow to try to qualify

for the US Open. But it is a taking your ball and going home thing. Like dude, if you're that good, you would go qualify. If you cared that much about it, you would go qualify. Like he's so wrapped up like in the political nature of all of this, as if he has, as if it changes anything for him. Like he, I don't know. I, he wasn't even supposed to be in this league. It was an accident. He thought he could just play live London and not get suspended. And then I'd like back his way into joining this league. And now he's like one of the ones riding the hardest for it. It's just not much money. Yeah, this does not seem like an intelligent person. I'm sorry to say, but it just does not seem to be the case. It's a very nice person. I'll say I've had a couple dealings with him and I always thought he was very pleasant, but I would agree that not the most worldly sharpest person

out there. I don't think we really need to spend any more time on live. I did see that Anthony Kim. How much real quick, just I have two two trivia questions when it comes to live and one of them can be this without looking team and everything involved. How much money do you think Taylor Gouge has made from live golf? Oh, I think it's almost 50 million. So not including his signing bonus. Correct. We don't even know if he got one. Yeah. I would say, gosh, yeah, I would, I wouldn't go as high as Randy. I wouldn't say 50. I would say 35 million. I would listen to Big Randy because it's 53 million dollars. Holy shit. They're giving away a lot of money at Liv. His Liv earnings would be 15th all time on the PGA Tour. He has made more from live golf than John Rahm made on the PGA Tour on course. Jesus. I mean, look, if you're not a serious person and you do not really care about

playing in majors and winning majors, then this seems like a great deal for you. Well, I don't get as like, dude, you got all the money now. You got all the money. Like, aren't the majors kind of how you want to imprint your name in history? I can't imagine not wanting to of how you want to imprint your name in history. I can't imagine not wanting to give it a go. I mean, unless you're just too scared of like, if I don't qualify, I can't take the public backlash, which there would be, you know, but I would have more respect for him going and trying

and putting his name on it than just refusing to go try. It would be pretty easy to make a joke about it too. Like you shoot about around and be like, oh yeah, guess what they said I was was, you know, they, what they said was true. Like I'm not, I'm not like not good enough. So I'm going to go back and make another $50 million on this other tour. So, you know, enjoy that one haters. Like it wouldn't be that hard to kind of like brush off. How much money do you think Brandon grace has made from live golf? I have no idea. Well, now I have my calibrations are completely off. So, I gotta say 25 million dollars. 29 million

which is roughly equivalent to what Colin Morikawa has made on the PGA Tour. Alright. Sounds great. Let's and it's made a huge difference, right? In with a perception of of the league and everything. those guys, those seat fillers right there, they're, they're really important. 160,000 people watched the final round of live Adelaide on CW. Of course it was on replay and I'm sure a million point, 1.4 billion people watching on caffeine TV and on the, on the apps. I'm sure all that's the case, but no, I, let me just say that we've, that might be how many watched the, the CJ cup final round. I did see very low. I did see big that, uh, the WNBA chose not to, uh, put angel Reese's first game on there. So some

fan pre-season pre-season. Yeah. And some fan live streamed it and it got 400,000 views. So that that's a good, a good sort of, I think, weighing against how where golf stands in the viewing public's interest at the moment. If that's a preseason WNBA game with a potential star is getting twice as many views as a league that's handing out 54 million dollars to take. But you don't know how many billions are watching on the app, right? That's true. That's what we don't know. I did see that Anthony Kim had a pretty good couple rounds early, but then first round and then 75-75. It's all you are asking, does anybody care?

I'll say I started following Anthony Kim on social media and it's become the one thing that I feel like I'm mildly interested in and live every week. So I'm still kind of tuned in a little bit. DJ and I had a sort of a long email exchange back and forth earlier this year that we ran in our sort of pen piles segment about what to expect from Anthony Kim. So I'm, I'm having quite given up interest yet in it, but I'm, I guess I've never really thought that he was going to be a star, but I do like seeing him with his kid and seeing him healthy and sober and looking like he actually is having a good time. Best case scenario, it helps, I don't

want to say literally save his life, but save his life, give him some purpose. Hopefully he gets personal satisfaction out of it. I don't think it's going to be a needle mover for Liv. I really don't have a problem with him like eating a spot in the field. He's like an add-on to the field. You know, it doesn't really change a whole heck of a lot for me other than when he does beat some of your,

the captains of other teams. That's probably a pretty tough look for some of the book you gave long-term contracts to. But it, I said it when the first week out, it's knowing a little bit about the backstory. Just the whole thing makes me feel really icky in general of just feels like he's being taken advantage of. Look, he's going to make a lot of money in the process.

But like, like I said, there's just a lot complicated past that he's kind of hinted at a little stuff here and there. And I don't know when, when or if we'll get the full story, but it just, I don't foresee him ever being a serious competitive golfer again. This is obviously not serious competitive golf. Like what he's playing now, uh, granny has some time to figure it out and is not expected to be competitive this early on, but it is just the whole thing still makes me pretty uncomfortable.

I'm rooting for him. I just don't think his, his only one I'm rooting for is like tied to success on the course though, for him, if that makes any sense. Oh, well said. Well said. I love while we're on the subject of live, I want to sort of touch on Phil Mickelson, who during the sort of pre press conference thing kind of hinted that he might be close to retirement, sort of a Bloomberg article that I think tried to maybe blow that up a little bit more. But

he did say that I'm kind of near the end of my career. We'll see if Phil sort of hangs on. But then, in more recent, Phil sort of took to Twitter again after having a few energized coffees perhaps and kind of popped off a little bit about saying that, you know, if live players were not going to be invited to majors, that maybe, what if no live players attended? In a now deleted tweet, I will sort of read off here. Maybe some live players won't be missed. Nicholson wrote, but what if none of the live players played? Would they be missed? What about next year? Would even more great players join or the following year at some point they will

care and they'll have to answer the sponsors and television F a F O a F O, which I assume is means fuck around and find out. Uh, I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think or I would love to see it happen if Phil trying to convince Brooks Koepka and John Rom to skip majors to make a philosophical point that he's been trying to make about whether live players should get OWJR points. But again, Phil deleted the tweet, so it's impossible to know whether he actually meant this or whether he just was kind of in his bag a bit. You know, big Phil, Phil was our guy for a long time. He's become, you know, quite the the living Twitter troll should live

players just blanket refuse to come to majors and see if the people want to fuck around and find out. I mean, I won't tell them not to if they feel strongly enough that they're getting blackballed as a group, then hey, if they want to band together and exert some power as a quasi-union, then let's see what happens. Now we're talking. I just imagine Brooks Koepka, All he actually cares about is winning majors. Imagine him doing the Rudy thing, laying his Jersey down in Mike wants office of like, because Abe

answer does not have a spot in your tournament is not earning world ranking points. I refuse to even compete against the likes of Scotty Scheffler. Imagine that imagine John Rom. She's like, nah, until Taylor Gooch gets a special exemption in this tournament, I'm not going to play in this tournament. Phil's 54. Like imagine Phil not playing the masters, right? Like I can't imagine him willingly skipping a master's year. I, it, none of it makes sense. But again, hypothetically speaking, if they felt that strongly and wanted to act as one body, then it's interesting. I, you know, I'd be here for it, but I just can't

ever see it happening. I just I want to ask this briefly, I don't want to spend too much time with this. But as a philosophical question, how does live and the PIF benefit from having Phil sort of be like one of the front facing things of their enterprise? Is there a future that exists where like they kind of realize like maybe just cutting Phil loose is sort of a better thing. Like he's very polarizing. A lot of guys don't want to sort of be back together with him. He doesn't have any kind of interest in the union reunion

with the PGA tour stuff. Like I kind of feel a little bit like maybe the PIF maybe like, you know what? Like we kind of got what we needed out of Phil. Like we got enough credibility to start with league. We got a blueprint for it. Now like, like just kind of let him figure out if he wants to go and play on the Asian tour.

Like we don't need him. He's not a very good player. He's not really bringing fans in. Is there a future where there's no, does Phil really think that Yasser's gonna be loyal to him versus the actual profitability of Liv at some point and joining forces with the PG Tour if Phil is one of the people standing in the way of that?

It's all the, I'll jump in here to answer first. I think, yes, I think Yasser should be loyal to Phil. I think Phil remains very popular with a large swath of golf fans. He is polarizing. He's not as universally beloved. I think where Phil's real value is, KVV, and I was thinking about this question because you had put it in the agenda early today. I think him moving from competing in Liv to being a broadcaster for Liv is a very interesting

and potentially exciting career move and something that he is very, very good at. He is excellent about talking about golf, breaking down what shots, you know, what it requires to hit certain shots, what it means to try to do certain things. That's where I see all of his value going forward in Liv. It's not as a competitor. That's a great, great point. I was gonna say, one thing I will give Liv

a lot of credit for, and Bryson in particular, they've really upped the game when it comes to content. They had a fun little thing with Phil and Bryson talking about grinds on wedges and things like that. Just walking down the fairway. I was like, dude, that bring me in on some of the personalities that you have here, right? Like that's, that's one thing you do have going for you. And yeah, I don't, I don't need Phil rolling around in high flyers capes to be entertaining, but yeah, him on the broadcast

talking golf would be, I mean, it would, it would get me to tune in more often just because you're waiting. Him on a live broadcast would be so unfiltered. He would say some outrageous stuff. It would be, that's a really, really good point, Randy. And I'm guessing probably at a four year deal. I mean, after next year it's up and I don't know what's gonna happen. Liv is looking like it's gonna make it longer than I thought it was gonna make it. And if there is something coming back together, I would guess next year would be the last year for Liv as we know it. I don't know that I've heard nothing that would make me think that that's imminent anytime soon, but I don't know.

It's super interesting question in general is what happens with this next round of contracts with Liv? I mean, one, we don't know what they look like, but two, like, do you re-up like Danny Lee, or do you, again, throw $100 million at Wyndham Clark now, or do you go, who are, Tony Finau, what if you double? Yeah, it's gonna be guys like that, I feel. Double his offer, and like,

how do you turn that down at that point? Like, if the PGA Tour is not gonna get back to, I don't know. I, that's, that's an interesting question. I think it is still totally antithetical to what I like about pro golf and not where I'd like to see the game go, which I think is well documented, but it's, I don't know how you just kind of re they have so much dead weight there now. I don't know how you just signed that,. That's a huge flaw in their model though is like you have to keep paying exorbitant fees for these to retain the talents of these guys. Again, if it was a serious sports league would not work out, but it's a sports watching exercise. So we've been through that. And

I think, I think that's covered. Guys, I don't want to spend too much time recapping the China open as I don't think any of us really watched it, but Adrian Otegwe, who was a live player. Before we do that, man, can I tell you about our friends at Omni resorts and the Omni golf collection as the official hotel, the PGA tour Omni's impressive golf lineup spans 13 can't miss destinations from coast to coast, 28 courses and all from championship designs by iconic architects like Gilhans, William Flynn Flynn and Bo Welling, multiple short courses, putting courses, even leading non-traditional and interactive experiences.

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Soderbergh and Japan's Kida Nakajima were all earned spots in the PGA championship by virtue of their finishing top three in the Asian swing rankings. That is actually part of what set fill off as the people were complaining that live was not getting spots into the PGA and yet these guys that China open were in other major news guys, Tiger Woods got a special exemption into the US Open, very much expected. So should Tiger just be able to get like an unlimited amount of these I believe Jack got eight of them. Arnie got seven or eight of them.

How long should Tiger be able to get a sort of a free pass into the US Open? Tiger's one on one as long as he wants, long as he's not going to play past embarrassment, right? He's not going to go once he's shooting 85 and up, like he's going to be done with this. So as long as he wants to play, long as he can, uh, you know, somewhat get the ball around and get through however many holes he needs to get through, uh, ideally 72, he should take them all. Tigers are one of one, just move on. He's, he golf still needs this guy. They still need the viewers. If he wants to be involved with leadership and kind of guiding the game

of golf going forward at all, he knows he can have an impact still through just showing up at a tournament. So even beyond that, I feel like you earn a lot of credit for having won the USGA Junior three times, the Junior AM three times, the American US AM three times, and the US Open three times. You've stacked up a lot of USGA. You should get one per title.

One per title. You get nine. How about that? How's that for a dancer? It's not one of the reasons I was hosting today is because you were off at Bandon Dunes this weekend. It was the 25th anniversary of Bandon Dunes opening this year. I would love to hear, I'm sure the people out there listening would love to hear like, what was your band experience like this time? How many trips was this for you? And, and I really, I I'm kind of curious what changed in the last few years since your

first trip to Bandon Dunes? I was actually kind of surprised with how much has changed. I mean, it's not been under reported on. I just unless you put unless it's right in front of me, I struggle to keep track of some of these things, right? I kind of forgot there was a new short course opening up out there, you know, see some stuff pop up and, and all that the, the pre the the shorties, the night the new 19 hole course, that's kind of out by band and

trails kind of out by the third hole, past the third T of band and trails is where you would enter this, this new place is it's fantastic. It is freshly opened. It's got fresh sod out there like it I was amazed at how great the turf was to hit off of. The acoustics from that video are going to be amazing. I mean, it's just as flush of turf as I've ever hit off of. Definitely abandoned dunes, but the greens still need some time to grow in. They're fescue and they're not lightning quick yet. Not that a par three course needs to be, but it was so much fun. It was 19 holes versus 13 at the Preserve. It was just kept going and going and going.

And it was, it felt like a full round of golf. It had holes up to seven or six iron, I think on it and a hole that was 39 yards, I think over a ravine, trying to generate some spin off the off the turf there, try to hold a green was just, it was awesome. It was really, really cool. That was Rod Whitman, Dave Axley, and Keith Cutten that did the shorties course there. And another great addition, preserve has been, it's busy at preserve.

Like it's hard to get a tee time at Bannon Preserve. It's only 13 holes, but like, as I get into my late thirties, 36 holes of walking is a lot to do in a day now, whereas like 18 holes plus a par three course is a great, great day of golf. And it just was hard to get out and preserve but now there's two short course options and they're both different and unique and

both really, really fun. I was really impressed with shorties. I was ready for it to not feel grown in or you know, kind of feel like an add on but it was definitely additive to the resort. So I was excited about that. Was there a tell me about is there a new sports bar behind Old Mac? There is. It's like a full-on, massive restaurant. Like it was epic. Like it's really, really, really cool. It's an awesome spot to sit out by outside. It was raining the whole time that we were at Old Mac, but they had an awesome dinner for us one of the nights and just massive ceilings

in there, big TVs, incredible menu, great place to hang. That's kind of always been lacking down there at Old Mac, but it's another, the food all week was, it went from, in my previous visits, I just remember saying like, hey, the food is like a solid three star. Like it's not Michelin star,

but like three out of five star of like everything you need after a day of golf, nothing more, nothing overly fancy, it's perfect. And now it's like, dude, it's getting it's getting kind of next level out there. It was really, really, really impressive. And I got another thing to report, Randy, we talked a lot about your old Mac take it's it's it's been your favorite course at Old Mac. You got you got your stock is rising, if I may say, because

the Fescue greens at Old Mac are gone. And it is all POA now, which is an entirely different aesthetic and entirely different playability. It really the greens just look the mounting within the green surfaces is just highlight a lot better with the green grass versus the kind of sandy brown that was on the fescue. I always struggled to put the fescue grass. I did. I'd never liked the greens there. So greens such hard green. Now they are pure. They were the

best greens out there by far. They're awesome to put and old Mac just like continues to rise. It's it I will never understand the people who are like, Oh, no, we're not playing old Mac. We're just doing the other four big course. I'm like, nah, dude, Old Mac is good. So I'm happy to hear that. I can't wait to get out there and see the new greens. It still has like three holes that I would. I would start at like 10, 11, 12 stretch the radan and the road and the bottle hole. I still

think could could use some. That's the only thing it puts a sour taste in my mouth. This beginning is so good. The ending is really good. I really love playing Old Mac. I still I said this as well. I still think it's my fifth rated course at bandin, but I still think between 10 rounds, I'm spending two on every course that is that that's the nitpicking we're doing between the golf courses at this point. Yeah. Yeah. So you brought up the greens, a lot of talk on social media in this month coming up. I'm sure you got a lot of DMS on the way in there. What are the greens going on? What's happening there with the greens, a lot of talk on social media in this month coming up. I'm sure you got a lot of DMS on the way in there. What are the greens going on? What's happening there

with the greens? So a lot of pictures were circulating of an issue they're having on the band and dunes greens, which if for those of you not up to speed, it has been the worst winter they've had up there the most rain possible. I didn't rain almost the whole time we were up there. This past week, this coming week, it's supposed to continue raining. They missed their window to punch the greens at Bannon because of how bad the rain was during the week that

they were supposed to punch. And there are I don't know, probably six holes that have big spots in the greens that are relatively it's ugly. It's not good. Like, there's no way around it. Other than to say we played it as ground under repair. And I think we had one I had to move one ball that I hit into 15 over four feet to the right. And just to get out of putting on the brown stuff. And it was totally fine. Like honestly, it looks way worse than it plays. It did not bother any of us. It did not affect our experience in the least. By time if you have a trip there planning like going the summer everything's

gonna be totally fine probably by the summer. Some of the greens that they had punched like Pacific and abandoned trails again, the weather has just been not good since then and they're still kind of coming out of a punch and then not rolling that true. abandoned greens I thought rolled the second best next to next to old Max like the parts that were healthy rolled completely pure whereas you know the pack they and they are going to punch band and at some

point when they get a window where they can do it. But honestly, a lot of people fretting about a lot of people worried about it. A lot of people kind of slamming them on it. And if you we played it in the worst that it will be like every single week from here on, it's going to get better. I would say maximum brought our enjoyment of the trip down 1% the absolute maximum. I mean, if you let the current state of the greens affect your trip in any way you're doing band and wrong,

like it's like the most fun place to go play golf. I'm I can be a little bit of a snob with some of these things on conditioning. I can promise you it just did not affect my experience. It just did not. I think the second green abandoned I had to put through some bumps that were near the hole that green was not in great shape. There's 90 holes there. Sheep Ranch was not open while we were out there. There's 90 holes there. If you have one hole where you have to put through some stuff and it ruins your week,

you don't go to bandit. You don't deserve it. All right. So that's my report. Do not freak about it. Do not fret about it. Everything's going to be fine out there. And even in the worst possible spot that it could be in as of right now, it's only gonna get better. As I said from here on, it did not injure our experience in any way. So Anything changed about your rankings? So there, I think everybody always wants to know the rankings of the courses any To a piece to a piece across all 10 It sounds like two a piece, two a piece across all 10. I think so. You know, it would depend on the conditions, right?

Because we played pack on a very benign sunny day, which like going to go play in pack on a very benign sunny day is great. It's so much fun. It's so enjoyable. That was probably the highlight round of the trip. Our energy was just way high. We weren't hung over yet

because we kind of went hard the night after pack. We were hung over for many trails, but it's great. My beef with pack has been, it's not playable in most of the summer winter. It's not as nearly as enjoyable in the summer wind. I think it's poorly designed for the summer wind, which is again, uh, picking knits really, really, really tightly, but a lot of the holes do not play as well when the wind is coming out of the north. But when you don't get that wind, it's, it's very enjoyable. It's very fun.

Push and I worked out our differences on our ranking of the courses versus, versus Bannon. We were able to reach some common ground, I think, in understanding what he really values out of a golf experience versus what I value out of it. I made him eventually agree, like, all right, Pacific Dunes is not a strategic golf course. If we can agree on that, that is the common ground that we need. I think it's overly penal on high handicappers and honestly, kind of pretty easy for low handicappers. I'd rather see a course trend the opposite way in both directions. I think Randy will agree with me on that take as well about Pacific Kev. I don't know if you'll agree as well. But he loves the natural,

the nature of it in terms of the found golf holes, the flow of the routing and the walk that you're on on the course. And like, wait, describe that I'm like, man, honestly, that that part is better than banded. Like it is what I really value is like the strategic chess match of a golf course and banding gives me that way stronger than Pacific does. So I continue to rank it well above Pacific. I'm curious. I think that's my I'm big on aesthetics. Like I like the

feel of like the experience. And that's why I love trails. And it's not a hips or take. Like I legitimately, if I could play any course every day, if that was like a country club I could belong to, I would choose trails because I just love the serenity of being in those corridors. I love the vibe of it. I think the 13th hole is stupid, but like that's okay. Like it doesn't 14th, excuse me. It doesn't ruin my experience of, you know, and if I played it 10 more times, I might figure out how to actually like not make double there. So, well, look, I, Bannon has, is established enough credibility for me that we're like, if they have one bad season, I know like it's a lifetime trip for a lot of people, but you know, it's, it's just still like a great experience.

The thing I will just say about bandin is that they never make you feel like they are doing you a favor. I hate high end golf courses that sort of like act like you owe them something by coming to them and giving them a bunch of money. And bandin always makes you feel welcome and makes you feel like, Hey, you deserve to have a great experience here. What can we do?

Is there any way we can make your experience better? And I've always been appreciative of that, I guess, in the two times that I've been. So cheers to another 25 for bandit, I hope. 100%. Yeah. I'll say this too, like the first time I went with my dad in 2013 was when they had a mosquito infestation and like we're literally spitting mosquitoes out of our it was horrible like trails was closed. It was horrible. And I still

came back with like having the best golf experience I've ever had to that point in my life. And so that's one of those things like again, if you get a couple greens that are not in perfect shape, do not let it ruin what that place has to offer because it is again, one of those places, this was visit five that I'm just like, dude, I don't have a fresh hot take for you guys. There's not a person in the Gulf world that doesn't know this. The place is just magic. It gets incredible. There's no diminishing returns

and going back. It is always sad to leave because now it's hard to get a tee time back out there. And you don't know when you're going to be back. I don't know when I'll be back. And that's sad. But like, dude, it is just magic. It's special. There's just so many highs. We were trying to figure this out. We were trying to figure out every person to name their five best holes on the property. That is a way harder exercise than you might think. It is really, really, really hard to just only name five. It's easy to name 10, but having to pick five was really, really tough. So there's a little exercise. People want to chime in on the YouTube comments to leave their five

best holes, be picky, be particular. Cause you'd be surprised what you have to leave out. We might have to throw that in as a what's burning at the Kill House question for all of us. Make, make everybody put their name on something. Promise that the readers, you know, they're always saying, sorry, doesn't answer questions. He just ignores them. He just uses them for the tone of the show. And I, I try to get one in. So I, you know, I, I just said, I determined I would answer some mailbag questions of the people out there. Big, this one caught my eye and I want to throw it to you to sort of kick off our mailbag section here. This guy, Dave, Devin Anderson says in my DMS, I'm a listener and enjoy the LBGA content. Thank you very much, Devin. But why do you all insist on calling the Evian and the Chevron fake majors when

especially Evian has been making at times larger investments in the pro women's game than the governing bodies compare per size player experience and the fact that the PGA of America didn't even have a major till about 2015. I think it's hard to say you want more investment and undermine corporations that are making those big investments to the women's game. Mr. Randy, I point the question to you. Answer for yourself here. Fake major. Yeah, Jesus. LBJ is off this week, man. Relax. No, I think I listen, let me just say I don't want to

diminish the the efforts and the the money that's being put in by Evian, Amundi, their partners, as well as Chevron. That's very good. But I also think as the best professional women's golf tour on earth, they have to have some standards about what is a major and what's not. And I think at the top of the list, like venues matter. Okay. We talked about TPC Craig Ranch.

If you go look at the course rankings in the state of Texas, guess what? TPC Craig's Ranch is like 32nd, where they're playing the Chevron, Carlton Woods, no offense to the members at Carlton Woods. They're ranked 29th. It's just not on par with where the USGA is taking the US Women's Open. It's not on par now where the PGA of America and KPMG is taking that championship. It's not on par with the RNA and what they're doing with the women's open. And I will say, you know, they mentioned the PGA of America wasn't involved in the KPMG women's PGA until 2015. That's true. So, listen, I don't want to excuse their inactivity for decades, right? But since they've been on board

coming up on 10 years, you know, they're going to Hazel teen, they're going to Baltis role, they're going to congressional or Ron and mink like these are championship courses befitting of a major and the RNA wasn't involved with the women's British Open until 2017. Like that is just got a great, you know, the first however many women's British Opens, the LPGA didn't even recognize it as a major. And they didn't always even play them on Ling's courses. So there is a lot of work still to be done, but I think the crux of it for me is venues, more so than Purse Size or anything else. And so I also, as much as-

And if you're going to have it at one course every year, has to be a banger, has to be special. Yeah, it has to be. It has to. You cannot be a run of the mill golf course, which both Evian and Chevron are. Right, I mean, you have some of the best players in women's golf, Americans have skipped the Evian

through the years. Like Lexi Thompson famously won't go over there because she's like the course's Mickey Mouse. Like it's very quirky. It's a gorgeous setting. It's a gorgeous setting from everything I understand. The players all say it's kind of hard to get to. It's a little out of the way.

It's a long week just for the travel and the logistics. I have no problem with one or the other even being a major at this point. I think five is a little gimmicky. If you have two majors in the Evian and the Chevron that one, the casual fan doesn't, they couldn't tell you the significance or the history of the event.

They couldn't tell you anything about the golf course. It's like, what are we doing? They're not really... I know we can call them majors and that's fine and we can treat them as such when we talk about Nelly Korda winning her second major, but I think it's incumbent on the LPGA. They got to figure something out sooner than later to make that fourth major. And if they're gonna have five, the five majors, they gotta venue wise, they gotta be on par with the other three in my opinion. Well said. And the more honestly, like the more they can,

for golf fans, it needs to mirror the men's game as much as possible. Like I hate to diminish it to that, but men have four, the women have five five and the fourth that KPMG women's PGA equivalent to the PGA championship, US women's open equivalent to the US women's open AIG women's open is equivalent to the open championship. There is no equivalent to the Masters and the other two that's so the

other two are just going to feel like outliers. That's just how it's going to be. So like, the answer to me would be a women's masters like that. That's the fourth and that's it. Like it's those four and compare. Imagine that a women's major at Augusta national versus the Chevron at Carlton Woods. Like again, that comparison is what we're talking about here, right here. Like it's, it's not the same. It's, it's night and day. The suggestion I'd made previously is, and actually the the LPGA event coming up this week is the Founders' Cup, which is the LPGA that that they are honoring the founders of the LPGA. So the 13 original women that that came

together and formed this golf league. It's their most historically rich event, just in terms of like what women's golf is and what paved the way for the LPGA Tour. I, if I were them and they've never asked me and I don't get a vote, but I would take all that branding of the founders and I would at least attach that to the Chevron, right? And make it the founders presented by Chevron. And then you have the tie in with the history.

You can tell the story every year of the LPGA. You can invite back, it can be a homecoming, right? Past champions, luminaries of the women's game. Like that's, to me, that's what the fourth major should be. But we're just in this weird environment right now where, um, they, they needed some money and, and they gave some corporations promises that they could have majors. Well said. Well, big, we're going to let you, uh, beast out on that. I know you got some other commitments that say you're going to go, that's your walk off Homer that you're delivering right there. I'm going to continue to grill Sally a little bit more here on a

couple more questions. Cause all right, let me, let me just say enjoyed it boys. Thank you. Sorry to bounce. I'm going to continue to grill Sully a little bit more here on a couple more questions. Because all right, let me let me just say enjoyed it boys. Thank you. Sorry to bounce. I gotten movie tickets to the movie Challenger. So hot in the streets and die, I guess. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of them diet, but I will have a full report next week. We need to have a golf movie. That's like the equivalent of challenges. That's like a, you know, a hot romantic sort of thing that people can, there's buzzing with the people. Maybe that's what the world needs to save golf. All right, big get out of here. All right, boys. Thank you. All right, Sally. I'm going to keep grilling you here. A couple of things, uh, you know,

some dumb, some interesting, uh, Twitter user Matthew Bellew asked if the pros had a karaoke contest, who would sing what song Rory's don't stop believing was a super cliche. But in the end, it kind of fit. It got me thinking like, what would you, what guys would you like to see what sing what song I want to hear Phil Mickelson do his own version of hit him up. Like I want him, I want that to be chest moves 32 through 37. I want him to air out all of his grievances,

but it's gotta be in rap form. It's gotta be intense. I don't even know if that's technically karaoke, cause I think I'd need him to change the lyrics to include Monahan, to include everybody that wronged him. Maybe I'm just too much into Kendrick Lamar, Drake phase right now of wanting to hear diss tracks. So I'm gonna twist that answer into, into

that one. That was the only one I come up with. Cause that one had my mind in a pretzel for most of my flight today. I was thinking that Jay Monahan could sing, ain't too proud to beg that, hoping that, you know, the Victor Hovelins of the world wouldn't leave or the Scottish Shelfers wouldn't leave. Is he even begging? Cause like, I don't think he had a conversation with Ron before he left. Like I don't even know if he is, is trying to retain these guys. Uh, good question. But really, I mean, like serious answer, I would love to see Brian Harman sing

friends in low places. I think that would be just a banger. Uh, so like, uh, email or Ben's, uh, spinket asks that we all agree that East Lake in late August is not an ideal place to host the tour championship. It's, uh, the extreme heat, the boring setup, it's not even a top four course in Atlanta. What course do you and the other lads think could be the best place to wrap up the prestigious Tour Championship? Disclaimer here is that I'm excited to see the new Eastlake

with Andrew Green redoing it right now. Some of the images look drastically different. I don't know if it's gonna be good, don't know if it's gonna be bad, but I would think it's gonna be good and better, but it at least is gonna be different this go around. That does not eliminate a couple of the other questions there, the extreme heat, just kind of a sleepy overall,

it's going to contribute to a sleepy overall vibe. I've always said this one, or maybe I've just said it more loudly in recent years, feels like this place, this should be a pedal beach, a tour championship, Pebble Beach in August would be incredible, it'd be great, it'd be more prime time on the East Coast. It's an iconic venue that spans beyond

just golf watchers on TV. If you are even remotely familiar with golf, you're familiar with Pebble Beach, I think it would, people tune in for venues and they tune in when things are on the West Coast as well because the TV window is that much better. if you really wanted to proceed just toward championship, that's where you would have it. That'd be my answer. Other than that, like a Riviera one, again, I always end up on the West Coast, but something out West on an iconic golf course

is a championship test that tests a variety of different skills, would satisfy a lot of people. That's not what everybody tunes in for, but it's what the golf junkies would want to see and a lot of casual fans would like to see it as well. So like how about Chambers Bay? Let's throw that out there. So I think it'd be great. I really do. I think a lot of people have sour taste in their mouth from 2015 still and don't want to give at the time of day. Ah, you get over that. Just the greens are bad. They've been fixed for a while. Chambers Bay rules. Not that I've played it, but I've heard a lot. It's my favorite course that I've never played is what I say about that.

Cause I really want to play it. All right. So I, uh, listener Sam Weitzman, Kierker asks how many clones of you would you have to play to win a scramble? The CJ cup? Uh, I've listened to you on the, uh, your, uh, Augusta pod. So I don't know if something like this was a question, but how many of solis would have to play to beat Scotty's final round of 68? Uh, I don't know what. So it's two different questions, right? So how many, if I was, uh, you know, but I basically what I have to hit two balls for every shot or three balls for every shot, uh, and a scramble

with myself to win the CJ cup is the question. And I think two is not enough and I think three is too many. Like I think I would win the CJ Cup easily if I could essentially play a three man scramble with myself. That's not a brag, that's just a reflection of the format. Like I'm not gonna make a bogey if I get two mulligans on every shot on a single hole at Craig Ranch and only 22 under 23 under one this week.

Like I would have to make, there's drivable par fours, there's reachable par fives. I'm probably playing the par fives in close to 15, close to 16 under if there's four of them. Like you're just, again, with that many mulligans, you're gonna convert a lot of birdies. So I think I don't, but I don't know if one mulligan per shot would be enough.

I think I would easily break par with one mulligan per shot. But, I, the master's one is different. That would be still be pretty darn hard for me to get a lot of birdies from the back tees at Augusta. I think, I think definitely a four man scramble with myself. I would, I would beat 68 and I think still a three man that I would as well. People don't, I think don't quite grasp how like low you can go with a scramble, right? Like they're saying, especially a player of your, like your scratch talent.

Like, I mean, I, I could never win the masters in any scenario with four or five foot, but something like yourself is going to put up, you know, it's going to basically like make one of four putts, like a lot of those times, right? If you have a makeable chance. And it's just probably not going to have many eight footers for par anyway. It's like you just are, if you're choosing between three

of your best tee shots, none of them are, it's not like all three of them are going to be in the woods. Maybe once or twice, but even then, your best punch out, your best chip, like, I don't know. It would not be that hard scramble wise, but scramble formats are, you know, they're a joke for a reason. All right, this is a long one.

It might be a better address on a longer podcast, perhaps if Scotty wins the PGA, but I did think it was sort of interesting. Kevin, I'm writing to ask, I think Scotty might be a problem in terms of golf maintaining interest. He's playing some of the most brilliant golf we've ever seen.

It's his listener, Ben Pierce. I'm sorry if I didn't call that out. It's more or less flawless when a flaw appears, he minimizes the damage. His style of golf is relentless and brilliant, but not interesting. Or perhaps it's just him. He seems like a lovely man with great morals, but he isn't a superstar. He is golf, but then he also isn't. Is this because I am growing to resent his dominance? I think it might be part of the problem in declining US TV numbers. If Scotty keeps dominating, I think does professional golf have a real problem?

Uh, I don't think so. I think he's kind of in the, in the zone of like trending towards being more interesting because of the dominance, right? I think even if it's not the most flamboyant and fun style, like at least it's interesting. It's a great conversation piece for golf of like, how long is this gonna go on? Like, is he one of the all time best players? Is he gonna have Phil Mickelson's career? Like, I think that's a good thing overall for golf.

It's better than parody. It is like, there's not that many interesting guys, if we're being honest. So like one guy being dominant is better than like the wind spread between Zell Taurus and Scheffler and Mora Kawa. I think Spieth and Rory are in a weird, different category where they tend to do have this star power that Ben I think is talking about, or they have an interesting something about them, either the way they behave off the course or the style of play like with Jordan Spieth. Those thrill rides are different than the Scheffler

speed thrill rides. We can all agree on that. But I just don't I think the list of guys that really move the needle that way is very, very short in golf. And I don't I don't see some of those guys coming back in that way. So I don't know, I tend to agree, like it's more I'm in all of it because of how good it is, right? It's not just that he's the best, but like how much he's lifted and separated from everyone else is astonishing

considering the current level of technology. And we can say it every week and still doesn't really do justice for how impressive he's been. And we've wanted a superstar in golf and I refuse to do that. Oh, not like this. No, not like this because I mean,

if more cow was doing this, I think we'd be in this having the same conversation. If Ludwig is doing it, are we having the same conversation? I would, I would probably agree with that. Rom, maybe not as much just because he's got a little red hat, more red ass in them. But, um, I dunno, I, I'm interested in it. I don't think he's the reason of declining TV ratings. I think the sentiment of the sport, uh, is 1000% the one contributing to that one. I see a lot of people sort of grasping for like, why are TV ratings declining?

Because everybody was really pissed off about like the hypocrisy and the, you know, just money grab that it all went through. It feels, I wrote this at the time, like very much like the baseball strike of 1994. And guess what? I looked this up, Kev. Guess what the ratings dropped were in 1995 after the baseball strike? 20%. Guess what?

PGA TOR ratings are down this year. 20%. You know, you don't fuck with people in that sense. They don't want to have it rubbed in their faces. So that's what I think is sort of disheartening about all these people who just feel like they got theirs. And they broke off in a people who just feel like they got theirs and they broke They broke golf in a lot of ways and but they got there So they don't give a shit and getting them back is gonna be even harder like once people's habits change like getting somebody back

Into the boat is is really really hard. It really is golf is a huge uphill climb in front of it broke Speaking on that Corbett Van writes, what is a perhaps out of spotlight tour player if given more attention, either deliberately through his own better play or something else I guess would be better for the tour? Is there someone out there who is fun or inspiring

or even plays a unlikable anti-hero who would be good for golf? I went up and down the player list to get an answer on this one, Kevin. I don't know if I feel great about my answer, but I do have somewhat of an answer here. And that it's Keith Mitchell is what I came up with. Thought about Keith. And that he's one of the more interesting guys to talk to and one of the best personalities. Like we've done two podcasts with him and he's awesome. And we, I want to do another one with him. He keeps saying we need to do one where we just do fun stuff instead of super serious golf stuff. But like, he's a bit like Max in terms of like, you could listen to him talk about

anything with the game of golf and he can make it be interesting, engaging. You know, he doesn't like, he doesn't, that doesn't necessarily come off on TV when you watch him. And he, you know, he's locked in being a competitive athlete, but like off the course, he's a great hang. He's funny, super likable guy. I don't know if it would like change golf, you know, if he was playing fantastic, but he's a great hang. He's funny, super likeable guy. I don't know if it would like change golf, you know, if he was playing fantastic, but he's a dude that with a little bit more spotlight on him, I could see having a rise like Max in terms of popularity. And he's

got that kind of personality to match it. My answer on this, I guess I had twofold was if like Harry Higgs were like an actual like top 25 player, the the everyman quality of Harry and just the sort of the way his personality is, the way he's willing to kind of wear his emotions on his sleeve. That would be, I think, really bring in a lot of casual golf people. Not a huge amount, but I think we're, you know, we're sort of finding the little sliver of people out there who could bring people to golf. And I honestly, if Patrick Reed were a better player, if he was like legitimately contending at every major and was like just a black hat wearing SOB,

I think that would try to draw a lot of people in because it would make them be like, oh man, I hate this guy. I want to see him, but I still want to see him take down like some of the white hats on the BGA tour. We had no idea how good we had it in like winter of 2021 when he was cheating at the farmers. Allegedly, no, sorry, I didn't know how to wear it. Checking winter of 2021 when he was cheating to farmers. Allegedly. No, sorry. That's not that I'm working on that.

We're checking to see if his ball was embedded. Sorry, Todd Eckstein writes, I'm a division one men's golf coach. I think I have an argument to say I have, I have one of the best jobs in golf. You guys have a chance to interact with a lot of different people around the game from tour pros to agents to journalists to caddies outside of your own work. Who do you think has the best job in golf? I thought about this one a lot today as well. And the answer I came up with was there's there's nobody that I'm envious of. And that's not to say I think we have the best jobs in

golf, but there's nobody that I would trade spots with. I don't that I can think of as of right now. I bet you could, you might be able to come up with something that I'd be like, Oh, yeah, that's that's better than this. Because I will say, getting to see it up close, like, it's not there's almost nobody I know, is enjoying a free ride through through any of this. It's awkward hours. It's a lot of hard work, especially in golf. Like, if you work at a golf course or the golf club, if you're a caddy, if you whatever, if you, you know, are a head pro or whatever, like, you're near where everybody else is

having their recreation time and you're working, which is, you know, it's, it's a great job to have. But like, when I'm at a pro golf tournament, I'm working, I got snow, I'm not there for fun. I'm not walking around for fun. I wouldn't be there for fun to do what I'm doing there. And I work Sunday nights, I work Saturdays, I work, I work, I took a day off last Wednesday. I think it was the first day I'd had off in like seven weeks or something before I counted like it just

people in golf work hard, you work crazy hours, it's it's around the clock. It's it's, you know, is just Jim Nance have the best job in golf. I mean, he makes a lot of money doing it. And he you know, shows up at tournaments on Fridays and leaves on either Sunday night or Monday morning. And, but he works every weekend and he travels and probably misses a lot of stuff at home. And like, you know, it's, it's, there's weather delays, there's a lot of flights. It's just, nobody has a

smooth ride through all of it. And it's, it's a lot of hard work that goes into outside of the hours you're working, a lot of hard work to make sure you're good at the craft along the way as well. So it's true. Do you have a better answer than that? Like, do you have anyone that springs to mind? Nance is the one that came to mind. I mean, I could say the trollish answer and the like, Greg Norman has the best job in golf because like you don't actually have to like succeed or like actually adhere to facts. You could just make things up along the way. And, you know, so you get to air out old grievances from, you know, 25 years ago that basically you're still raging against.

So maybe it's Greg, but I mean, I think like, if you respect the craft, you respect someone who works hard. Like I, you know, I think Nancy's a great answer. I mean, like, I think Brando's an interesting answer too. Like Brando works very hard at what he does. He's polarizing. We don't always agree on stuff.

Like, but I enjoy how much he cares about, you know, is an interesting answer too. Randall works very hard at what he does. He's polarizing. We don't always agree on stuff. But I enjoy how much he cares about gathering information and trying to sound intelligent and smart. And I think Live From is continues to be a bonus to the game when it's at big events. It makes it feel big. So that would be a fair. With how many people hate Randall,

I don't know if we could say he has the best job at golf. I love Randall as well. I don't always agree with him, but, uh, and like he does a lot of studio stuff. Like he's traveling a lot. It's, it's dude. No one has it easy or I haven't, I haven't seen a lot of people out there that have it easy. Um, is, is one thing. Wrapping up here a few more. So, uh, is there any, and I mean any chance that we get a competitive president's cup this year? Duncan McDonald asks, I think he's a Canadian who's Taylor Pendreth looks like he's gonna make that team. It's a home game for the Canadians that will have you know Hideki and Jason Day also playing really well this year. Young Tom

Kim who knows if he's gonna make the team but you know Sunjai, Minwoo, Ben Ahn is playing really well. Hell throw Toasty into the mix could be something to monitor. Are we gonna get a a competitive Canadian president's cup? I would not count out how much the Americans could suck. Like, I would not count that out. After what we saw in Europe, I just would not count that out. I don't know if I have that much faith in the president, you know, the international team talent as much as I do.

Like, their process is really freaking good. I mean, they overachieved like crazy at Coelholl on a core setup that was terrible for them. I hear they're ravaged by live. They were like flipping one or two matches on that Sunday from like one of the all time collapses from the US team. So will I like dismiss this president's cup team? Like I did the one in 2022. I will not. I will not. On paper, it looks like pretty much all of these do that the US should blow them out, but on the road, US propensity to throw up a stinker

in that first session when they're on the road, no matter what the event, I would not count them out. So this is the perfect question for a couple of country club assholes like you and I. Cole Lenninger asked, where do you see American public golf going in the future? It seems that 2020 had a massive impact on the rise of recreational golf and has made courses and resorts more popular and there's new ones springing up

everywhere. We've also seen tea time price and availability suffer for the common golfer as a result, or even as third parties try to buy them up and flip them for profit. Where do you guys predict this will all lead us? Is the future of American public golf going to continue to grow for people or go the other way as a result and become more disparate and private?

Does the PGA Tour Enterprise impact this as well? What's going on with American public golf? Which I know is close to our hearts because it's what we grew up playing. I was going to say, I would resent the notion that I'm just a country club golfer because I worked at a country club growing up. I learned the game at one Twin Oaks Golf Club,

which was a nine hole course that has since closed to become a housing development. I then played a lot at Shamrock Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, which is of course closed and now a housing development. And then worked at Riviera Country Club. I was a member, my family was a member there for a couple of years when I was in high school. But then I worked there after that before it closed

and became a housing development, which is my way of saying like, watch your back to McQuana until like land gets cheaper and until cities start, stop sprawling out farther and farther. And a, it until then I, I, I do fear for the long-term security of golf in the way that it's asked by Cole here of like, hey, are we gonna get squeezed out? I go back to TC's article he wrote in the Golfers' Journal several years ago, it's the Munis, stupid. It's on the city's to designate this is the green grass space that we are gonna maintain

for our city to go outside and have recreation time on. If you want the answer for the common golfer, that's it for me. Or you're going out towards farmlands and remote locations to somebody that maybe is running a golf club at a loss for tax reasons or is a benefactor of some kind. You either need a municipality to be taking care of a course or you almost need a benefactor. Otherwise, I struggle to figure out how it makes financial sense. Speaking very broadly for the whole country, there's definitely regions where golf is cheaper and more manageable and maintenance costs aren't what they are here in Florida or maybe in Baltimore where you live or where any of us live. It's really hard to speak in general terms when every community is affected differently by this. But for like, I pay more money to have country club membership because like,

I need the convenience. I just don't have like, I can't, I don't have a broad window of when I might be able to play. Right. And I have to, I overpay for golf cause it's a passion of mine. And that's like what the demand of the situation calls for, right. Where I live in Jacksonville beach and Jacksonville Beach, an area where you could play golf 12 months a year. So it's, I don't, like I said, I don't see that any of that changing anytime soon. That the demand is going to be that high for people that are willing to overpay for golf. Like it's, I don't know. I don't know when that changes. Maybe the next, you know, bust in

the economy. But other than that, I just don't see that part dying off. I do think the growth of short courses and lighted driving ranges and all that kind of thing where I have more enthusiasm than 18-hole green grass golf getting more affordable and more accessible. What do you think? I think a lot of it depends on the region that you live in. Just speaking to a little bit of what you were talking about, I remember very vividly my father when we would, you know, he would try to get me and my sister to play golf with him and my mom who wanted to play golf every weekend but couldn't afford to be a country club member in Missoula, Montana. And so he would get up at like five in the morning when like the tee times became available a week from then on Saturday

or whatever. And he would start dialing the number of the thing, the reservation system at Larchmont Golf Course in Missoula. And, you know, sometimes the, you know, the media, the best thing you could get was like 1030, you know, even if you started at five in the morning, because all these people were wanting to get those weekend tee times or whatever. And that was the time that he and my mom could play with us, right? So the demand has been there in a lot of ways for public golf over time. And here in Baltimore, like you can pretty easily get a morning tee time at one of the either five city courses or the five county courses that we have here. Like, and they're,

honestly, I think Baltimore public golf is sort of underrated because like it's, you can walk for 35 bucks at a course where conditioning is not that great, but like it's kind of a fun layout and you get sort of fun wind of the city so I sometimes when people complain about like yeah if you're in Atlanta public golf might be shitty but like if you're in the Philly area or the Baltimore area or hell if you're in Nebraska or Iowa or Michigan whatever there's probably a lot of options for you I get it in LA where it's super frustrating right now where someone has purposely like manipulated the system, basically screw over regular people and try to flip profits, which

is what happens with kind of everything in life. Someone tries to gain the system to make a profit. That's like capitalism to a T in a lot of ways and we allow it. So it's good that they're looking to sort of solve that in LA. I do think like we can figure out ways to where, you know, courses could shave off areas like, all right, this is for a family tee times, right? Like this is where we're going to say like dads can bring their sons or daughters or moms can bring their sons or daughters. And this will be how we'll sort of reinvest in the game. I think that that's not too much to ask as a long-term growth investment

for municipal courses around the country. So it's not always getting squeezed out. But it's like, look, when I see some courses that are like 190 bucks to play on a Saturday, I'm like, whatever slight upgrading conditions or architecture is not that worth it to me and my friends. We could play, you know, Northwest in Montgomery County for 50 bucks, essentially. And so I get the concern and the worry. worth it to me and my friends, we could play, you know, Northwest in Montgomery County for

50 bucks, essentially. And so I get the concern and the worry. I don't know, like the person asked us, PGA Tour Enterprises, I got to imagine that PGA Tour Enterprises would only pay lip service to that kind of thing. Like, hey, we're going to buy up a bunch of golf courses and make them available. I don't think that that would actually be a priority in any way, shape or form to a for-profit entity. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's kind of part of the long-term strategic plan. So obviously the golf has grown in popularity and that playing golf in some ways is now like more important to people than watching golf.

I think you can make that case. But what that means for the future, I don't know. I think that we do need to kind of distinguish between like, hey, ratings are down and golf is like, is golf in trouble? Well, you know what, like on golf as a TV product might have a massive problems, but golf as a, you know, an actual recreation, there seems to be a lot of healthy sort of growth

in that last few years. And I don't know if this is in line with the question, but I do still think there's more room to grow on like the resort front, like these new resorts that like are not outrageously expensive, like by any means, like it costs a lot of money to go to Santa value and band and dunes. But like, it's three, like in the summer peak summer, I think it's like 350 to play your first round of golf and 175 to play

your second, which is, you know, 500. I can't do the math off the top of my head, 525 bucks or whatever it is to play two rounds of unbelievable golf for less than it costs to play Pebble Beach, right? There's room for more of that. If my Kaiser and his sons want to keep going to build these awesome places, Ben Kalandor want to keep going because the demand is there in all these places. It's hard to get tee times in all these places. You can keep adding courses, keep adding lodging.

People are still going to keep making the trips that that part gets, has me excited more so than like my local course is going to be, you know, less crowded and more affordable. Like that, those two things kind of go in opposite directions in terms of the profitability of the people that own it, which is why a lot of people get into the golf business. So, well, I think that kind of wraps the solid for a Sunday night. I mean, we, we still managed to go an hour and 30, but at least we got some, I don't want to ever hear a reader come in, come out and say, we don't answer questions from the mailbag again. Cause I put it to you, saw it. You came up with some good answers.

Thank you for that. Thanks for taking over the hosting chair. Uh, while I was coming in hot, I got nine 30 tee time tomorrow, my shot. I'm hoping 200 should get through. 100 maybe close enough. Who knows? I have no idea what the course conditions, and I'm coming in blind into this one. But balls coming out of the window right now. Love it.

Heard you might have had a good score out there being in despite the Candidies. Yeah. It's a good whole few putts. Who knows? But I'm solo it tomorrow. No caddy, no camera, no nothing. I'm just going to lock in and see what we can generate tomorrow.

We got also our club championship is coming up for NLU. We should be able to have like, paramutual betting for that. Like, I should be able to place a wager on you for winning it all. This is after I've declared Ben the best player. Maybe I'm going to flip now and like, put the pressure on Ben. Interesting.

Game in the markets. I appreciate that. So thank you, you everyone for tuning in for an hour and a half during TPC, Craig Nelson, Craig James week. And we'll be back next week. We're going to have an interview podcast coming out Wednesday overnight on Tuesday. We will have a happy hour show on Wednesday. We'll have episode four of Taurus sauce. Australia will come out Wednesday night. We'll have a four of Tora Sauce. Australia will come out Wednesday night. We'll have a live show this coming Sunday for Wells Fargo.

Anything else coming up this week that I missed? I put some notes in here. Yeah, there's Myrtle Beach this coming week, and then the LPGA has Founders Cup at Upper Montclair as well. And TC wanted to give a quick shout out to Ian Finnis, caddy, who's recovering from open heart surgery. Yes, I put that in there. That's that's my guy, Ian. I love that

duty posted this past week that awesome dude. Yeah, he's recovering from surgery and hopefully he's doing well and we hope to see him. Hope to see him back healthy soon. So appreciate that. Kevin, thank you so much everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Have a good night. Cheers. Be the right club today better than most better than most expect anything