No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 848 - Brandel Chamblee

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Brandel Chamblee checks in with Soly ahead of next week's US Open at Pinehurst to talk through his preparation for broadcasting the tournament for NBC, the distance and golf course setup debates, backlash to his stance on LIV and a ton more. 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 Support our partners: Precision Pro Golf - Father's Day Sale - $30 off all rangefinders Rhoback - take 20 percent off your first order with code NLU 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 Out podcast. Got an interview coming shortly. I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Brando Chamblis from the Golf Channel. I'm not going to tease any of it. You know exactly what we're going to discuss. You know, some of our beefs in the past, some distance

stuff, US Open, he's calling the US Open on NBC next week. A lot to get into. I'm not going to waste much more of your time on the intro. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Precision Pro. They have been the sponsor of the last several seasons of Tora Sauce and that includes season nine of our trip to Australia, which is the finale will be premiering on Wednesday night 9 p.m. Eastern time if you're listening to this in time if not you can always catch the replay precision pro

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including the new Titan Elite. Head to PrecisionProGolf.com to take advantage of their best sale of the year and save $30 on your next rangefinder. Don't forget to grab one for your dad as well. Again, that's PrecisionProGolf.com. Without any further delay, here is Brando Shambly. The golf world needs to know, Brando.

We had a Twitter spat back in January, if you want to call it that. People assume there's this massive beef between no laying up, Brando Shambly. Are we beefing here? Are we squashing beef today? What is it from your viewpoint? Oh man, I was just poking the bear.

I'm just having a little fun. I was just having a little fun. I know you guys, and like I say this all the time, like everybody needs a critic. Everybody needs an editor. So I appreciate that y'all hold people accountable for their, for what they do on TV. You do. I mean, I think you've had an impact. I think broadcasts get better from criticism. I think everybody needs an editor. And you you know before you hit send on anything you need to have somebody look at it go yeah no does it need a smiley face. So I was just poking the bear. I know you guys give us a lot of grief about our commercial loads but over the winter you know I've been doing my homework and I hadn't seen your Lee Trevino interview. You know in the middle of it you run an ad for a couple minutes or whatever. And I thought, well, I'll just

give him a little shit. And then you know, you came back with a long beef of which were some pretty darn good counters. But I was like, this is not the place to carry this out. Because one, I'm busy. And I can't give you the bandwidth needed to answer each one of these. Well done on you. But I was like, that's not the time or place. At some point, we'll run across each other and have a drink or beer. And we'll hash this out. And I said this, yeah, it's a little early on West Coast time for that. I'm getting close to noon here. I could have done that. But I've said this many times,

I'm team Brando. Right? People think that, you know, people love to pile on with you. That's one thing I've definitely noted. And, you know, people are like, Oh, great job putting brando in his place. I'm like, well, yeah, I had to put him in his place on this one, but I'm team Brando here. Like I've long said this, like top 10 guy in golf to be seated next to at a dinner. I think your role is really important. We might disagree on things, but I just find the whole atmosphere to be so toxic of like, you know, if you've made your mind up that if you don't like us, or if you don't like Brando, you have to disagree with almost everything they say, or just kind of almost put that person down. You know, I like debating

the individual merits of the conversation, right? I don't like what things get especially personal. So I'm happy to have kind of those debates. I think we're going to debate some stuff here today, but I think that's healthy. And it's needed in the golf world. I could agree more. Unfortunately, we live in a world where, here today, but I think that's healthy and it's needed in the golf world. I could agree more. Unfortunately, we live in a world where if you have one side, you have to hate the other. Politically, if you're a Republican, you have to hate a Democrat. And if you're a Democrat, you have to hate Republicans. Like, wait a minute, whoa.

Whoa, the fun part is to sit around and talk about things. And the back and forth, I think, makes everybody better. And that's true in everything. And it's certainly true in the golf space, where what we confuse with controversy doesn't anywhere near approach the divisiveness in the rest of the world. So as I said, I was just poking the bear, having a bit of fun. If we'd have been sitting at a table, I would have said,

bullshit. Come on, hold on. Wait a minute. You haven't thought about this. You haven't thought about this. You guys have thought about it, no doubt, but I would hope that you'd come away from a conversation just with a little bit different perspective, as I'm likely to at the end of this.

Well, and it's interesting because one, we have a lot of broadcasters and whatnot on from networks and I don't want to direct critiques or criticisms for things that are not your area of expertise or not where you what you're hired to do at NBC. Yeah, nobody's asking me about my thoughts on the commercial loads at NBC when I walk through the door. That's not what I'm here to you know make people apologize. I mean we had a big kind of debate I guess if you will with Jim Nance several years ago when we were especially critical of CBS. I was hard pressed to like you know direct a lot of critiques at a person who's not responsible for all

that, right. And I think it, it just comes down to, for me of if I felt like we were really off base with our audience, the golf audience in terms of how they also are viewing some struggles in the professional golf world. And aside from live and all that stuff, you know, I wouldn't be as vocal about it, right? I wouldn't be as critical about it. It's to say, I understand the points you're making of saying, look, if I understand the need to run commercials for having spent a ton of money on golf coverage, right? Or on rights and all that. It's to say, like, sometimes my critiques of NBC are more at

the tour. It may sound like it's at Golf Channel and NBC, but it's more of the tour. It's everybody came to an agreement that this is how things were going to work, right? It's all the excuse we get a lot is contracts, contracts, contracts. Well, it kind of takes two people on both sides to sign a contract, right? To agree to do something like this. And that's where, I mean, I'm just old man yelling at clouds sometimes. It's not going to change any anytime that we have this current TV deal, but that's kind of the source of where we're coming from on all this. It's not that we don't understand that it costs a lot of money to produce the golf and it costs money to run cameras and all that. It's just to say

Comcast is a massive company and how they devote their resources to covering the sport that I cover and love is I feel like a fair conversation point in a lot of ways. Yeah. And look, what I would have said, what I'm gonna say is you think about the commitment to golf at NBC and Golf Channel has 365 days a year, we cover pretty much every tour in the world. You know, you think about what we did yesterday with golf's longest day, you know, days like yesterday, make me very proud of NBC Golf Channel golf. It's good day. You know, days like yesterday make me very proud of NBC Golf Channel Golf. It's good work. I mean, you tune in and you watch Justin Lauer get emotional

to the point of tears talking about what it's going to mean to play in his first major at 35 years of age and the possibility that he might be playing on Father's Day after his father passed away 20 years ago. The emotion of Willie Mack, you look at the playoff. I mean, we brought you that chip in of Adam Scott, you know, going up against Cam Davis. I mean, in the overall golf world, maybe that's inconsequential in terms of outcome. But my goodness, tell me that wasn't good TV.

John Chin getting emotional. We bring you those stories. You know, when Arnold Palmer passes away, 24 hour commitment to coverage to talk to everybody involved in the golf world about what he meant to the game, his peers, the fans, the whole bit. When Tiger has his, you know, accidents, we're there. Do we occasionally make a mistake?

You guys were right in criticizing Golf Channel, NBC, for not being up at the PGA Championship on the morning that Scottie Scheffler, Sam Flood has admitted that. He was like, yeah, I'd like to have that one back. But the overall scheme of things, you think about the commitment that NBC Golf Channel has and the rights fees that we have to pay

to cover the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, college golf, junior golf, drive chip and putt stories, women's golf. You tell me who's more committed to women's golf than NBC and Golf Channel. To the European Tour, you get to watch players in Crowne-Sousaire hitting beautiful golf shots. That costs upwards of 10 figures, 10 figures plus. So how's it going to be paid for? I mean, I don't think these businesses are in the philanthropic. That's not that I mean, they're not philanthropic, they're meant to make money. So I get it. How do you how do

you mesh commercial loads with with the outlay of cash? Again, that's not my area of expertise. But I imagine there's some really smart people thinking about it, but they have to have buy-in on every side as little as I know about it. My job is to go in there and talk about the golf. When I walk through the door, they ask me, who's swinging? I'm like, who do I think is going to win that week? Who's going to lose, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm like you, I'm a golf nut through and through.

I do this job because I love it. And yeah, I do enjoy watching commercial-free golf like you do. But I also understand when they break away to commercials, they've got bills to pay. All that's fair. And I think, again, we could go down a whole rabbit hole and probably spend a whole episode talking about a lot of this stuff.

I think it kind of comes with at times golf can feel a bit like what you've said there as well. When it starts to feel like a line item on a P&L, as a golf fan, that can sometimes be frustrating. And I don't want to dismiss the individual decisions that go into this, but it also goes to say, and this is kind of a once in a generation example, but like ESPN's investment in WNBA and women's college basketball over the course of several decades

has led to a massive moment where now they're getting big returns on it, right? So it's to say for PJ Tour, LPJ Tour, all kinds of golf, like the investment of kind of recruiting fans, generating interest, sending live from, again, I know that's not free, but I would love if live from was at the signature events. Like I would put on the tour and the sponsors to put up the money for that.

I don't, that's for somebody else to figure out. But as a golf fan, I love watching you guys on Live From. Every event feels bigger when Live From is there. When you guys are at the players, that feels like a separated event from the rest of the PGA Tour schedule. And all of that kind of investment and support into it is kind of what goes beyond just commercial loads and some of the things that are really tedious to complain about.

So that's- You're not going to get any argument from me. I mean, I love being on site. There's a connection to the tournament that people at home can feel. We all want the same thing out of it, right? Is what I ultimately get out with all of it is I want golf to be as popular as possible. I want as many people watching it. That'd be great for our show.

That'd be great for your show. It'd be great for the sport. It's just the excitement level is what drives it. And that's kind of where it can be frustrating sometimes to watch and be like, all right, that was a great five minutes and now we're back and playing through. And all right, that was a good two minutes

and now it's just that momentum can be really tough. But I put a lot of that on the tour too, like the structure of their rights fees and the purses and how they pre-sell advertising and kind of share that revenue, blah, blah, blah. I don't want to spend a ton of time on that. But like that's that's not all NBC's fault. CBS deals with the same problems and all that. So we're also all pretty spoiled with our streaming choices that

are commercial free. We pay for it on the front end. So we get so used to watching whatever the heck we're watching without any interruption. So I mean, I think that that does contribute to it for sure. But I take your points. Again, you know, I cannot imagine the outlay of cash and what it costs to produce these tournaments, what it costs to get live from on site is it's a it's a pretty big chunk of change. And again, you know, I mean, I think you can appreciate as y'all are in business to make money. So is every other TV network that covers the game of change. And again, I think you can appreciate as y'all are in business to make

money, so is every other TV network that covers the game of golf. Yeah. I want to, just before we move off any of this, I want to give a shout to the phrase, thank you for bringing sensory blitzkrieg into our lives. That was one of my favorite. I don't even remember what you said it about, but that was one of my favorite phrases that we're going to continue to use forever. So was this even on your radar to start the year that you would become the the lead color analyst for the United States Open Championship, which is going to happen for the for the first time next week. Was this even a thought when the

year kicked off? No, no, it wasn't. You know, late last year, though, I think at the hero, they asked us to come up and cover the live golf before the actual broadcast came. So you're covering the live golf from Connecticut and the Bahamas. And like anything, you roll your sleeves out. You're like, well, if I'm going to be responsible for calling the live golf for six holes, I'm going to download charts and look at the weather and go back and look at the history of the

thing and try to do as good a job as I can thousands of miles away and cover it. And you know, you have a commitment. You want to tell the audience something that's not obvious in those six holes. Nothing's a throwaway. And so you dive in and you do it. And you know, I think they liked it. And you know, at the end of the year, they were thought, they came up and said, would you think about doing some live golf?

I said, look, you guys are the bosses. Do you want me to do live golf? I'll do live golf. But I, you know, my, I love my passion is live from in the studio shows. The mechanics of calling live golf are completely different from the mechanics of doing what I normally do. The nature of what or how you're explaining it is different, but the underlying principle is you roll your sleeves up and what do you have to know? I have to know the golf course and I have to know

the players. That sounds simple enough, but that takes a lot of time. What are some of the differences that you encounter in calling live golf? A lot of people probably don't have appreciation for your windows to get some words in. Sometimes it might be tight. You don't know how long they're going to be when you start a sentence. And if you've got something that's going to take 60 seconds, that ain't maybe not the spot on television. But what have you kind of learned and evolved in this process from doing it a few times?

Well, you know, live from somebody asked me a question and I'm generally looking into a camera for about 90 seconds or turning and having a conversation with McGinley to my left for 90 seconds or a couple of minutes. You've got all the time in the world to expound on things. In live golf, first and foremost, it's okay to say nothing. I can't really say nothing on live From. You gotta have an opinion. That wouldn't be the best thing.

It doesn't work. So first and foremost, it's okay to say nothing. Second most important is to listen. So that you're picking up what everybody else is saying and you're not repeating what somebody else is saying. And then you're trying to fill in the gaps, what's not been said. But you have nine seconds at most, nine words,

not 90 seconds. You know, there's no soliloquies. It's nine seconds, you're in and out. Again, it's imperative that you know the golf course thoroughly, you know the setup, you know all the partners in the game, but you know, you know, the players inside and out, which is, you know, you got to know something about their caddies, you got to know something about their coaches, you got to know something about, you know, what got to know something about their coaches, you got to know something about, you know, what they're working on. Did they play well last week? Do they like the golf course? You read all their commentary and, you know, that's a lot to digest. And in Live From, you know, yeah, I think Live From works best when organically conversations and debates come up

and both sides feel passionately about different sides of an issue, that way we can get to 360 degrees of it and people at home can make up their own mind about you know what, it doesn't have to be a winner or a loser in these debates. It's just get it out there, talk about it and have some fun with it. Live golf is nothing like that. You know, this is what's cool about the shot, but let me just tell you about this whole location is in the danger going here, et cetera, et cetera.

This is a cool move. Watch this. I love the way this guy works his lower body, and here's how he develops all that power. You've only got nine words. You only got 10 seconds. It's about the golf. They're the stars. I think it was Henry Longhurst who said, you're just a caption writer. And I think that's the

best explanation of calling live golf is, you know, you're just a caption writer. There's the picture. And can you add to it with a caption writer? But again, it's okay to say nothing. And to try to not talk over the hit. So and then you know, it's such a huge team game. Oh my gosh. I mean, it's insane. A lot of golf is just, Oh my God, all the cameras, all the things going and they're loading up the next shot and the next shot and over 13.

It's graphics and all that. It's massive. Yeah. There's such a team game, you know, and everybody there is, is so passionate about covering it. You know, I, I've only done a few events this year, but a few of them I'm sitting there and I'm listening, like, man, that's really good.

That's great stuff. And, you know, you finish and there's no need to say anything else. Like, it couldn't have set it up any better. And then you just sit there and soak in the sounds of the game because the sounds are awesome in this game. You know, somebody trying to decide which club and the irons sort of clattering together, you know, somebody trying to decide which club and the irons sort of clattering together, you know, the conversations that the players and caddies have, you know,

sometimes they're nothing special, but sometimes they're absolute solid gold. So you lay out and listen to those and then you look at the expressions of the players, yay or nay, and it's a pretty fun, fluid, dynamic world to be a part of, in and out. But having said that, I've, like you, sat and watched NBC and they've used Kisner this year. I watched Kisner and I think, oh, absolutely, just hire Kevin. That's great. And then Luke Dono comes along like, hire Luke.

He's terrific. You know, I thought Padraig Harrington would want to do it. I thought Padraig, you know, he wants to play. I thought Padraig, he wants to play more. He's busy doing what he does. Jeff Ogilvie, there's a handful of people I've listened to this year where I thought, man, they're great, just hire them, let's go. But they want to take their time

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of the favorite hoodies are my favorite hoodie to ever wear. I wake up in the morning and I just reached for a different color of rowback hoodie. I think I got about 20 of them now at this point. There's a reason the fabric is so soft. You cannot take them off. We wear them on the course or just around the house. If you haven't already load up on some rowback for yourself or for others, code nlu at rowback.com. Get you a generous 20% off their first order through the end of this week. That's r-h-o-b-a-c-k.com. 20% off bottoms, q-zips, hoodies, and more with code nlu. Summer is not the

same without row back. Back to Brandon Chamblee. How do you prepare for Pinehurst, right? And, you know, have you watched any prior US Opens there back and separately as well? Are you, you know, if you go listen to Johnny Miller, do you hear and say here? Oh, man, that that's really good. I should try to, I should try to, you know, take some of that with me while also making a call your own and making a style your own. I'm just kind of curious. I just watched the 99 US Open and I was having a frickin ball watching it is kind of where my coming from.

Yeah. First of all, there's no duplicating Johnny Miller. I mean, following Johnny Miller in the booth is like following Robin Williams on the stage. You are just not gonna live up to that expectation. I go back and I listen to Johnny Miller and I think there's never been anybody more prescient in the history of sports who's called a sport. The thing that made Johnny amazing was, one, he was an incredible player. So at the highest level of the game, it's okay that his first thoughts would run to

him in 73, 74, 75. A lot of people would go, oh, it's all about Johnny. It's like, well, if the best representation of the best golf you've ever seen happened to have been you, I think that's apt. Get after it. But beyond that, he was bold. He was smart. He was articulate, but he could talk to every level, you know, he could get quirky. He wasn't afraid to be funny, or try to be funny. He wasn't trying to be funny. He just wasn't afraid to be himself, but he also wasn't afraid to be wrong. Of course, yeah, I go back and watch all the broadcasts that I can of NBC doing the US Open, more than anything to get the cadence, to get the cadence of it. The cadence is important to get the flow of it. But yeah,

absolutely, I go back. I played, I played Pinehurst, I played the 99 US Open, I made the cut, middle of the pack. But I remember, you know, the golf course then is nothing like the golf course they played in 2014. Monochromatic, wall to wall grass. And 2014 was like Melba toast. Well, you're a big rough guy.

So I was curious to pick your brain on the transformation of Pinehurst into, into what it is now versus this is, this is where again, if I were sitting across from you and Andy, I would say, you know, I think you guys, I don't know if you do it on purpose, but you straw man my arguments by saying you're a big rough guy. You well know I'm not a big rough guy.

And Andy knows I'm not a big rough guy. I'm only a rough guy in the context of testing the best players in the world and not all the time, but sometime. So I certainly understand the pervasive architectural bent now strongly towards minimalism. I understand it and I love it. If I were, you know, looking for a way to create an environment for the most fun for golfers, that is it. But the challenge of architects is to try to provide

great playing conditions for the masses and test the best players in the world. And not all golf courses are fortunate enough to have been built on sandy soil. You know, unfortunately, you know, you have to build them on clay and in areas where it rains all the time. So the rub here is, how do you build a golf course

that's fun for everybody and one that will test the best players in the world? Nobody really designs. There have been very few golf courses designed explicitly to test the very best players in the world. The mystical Leto eons ago by C.B. McDonald was, PGA West was, maybe Bethpage Black was.

You may argue that Oakmont was, the TPC Sawgrass was, but there are very few of them. Mostly they're built for the masses. And so in my view, it's like, how do you test the very best players in the world? Wide corridors with cutting down trees, in my view, is not the best way to test the best players in the world. I don't mind it a lot of the time, but occasionally I think, you know,

like for example, the set up at Lancaster last week for the women was a 10 out of 10 to quote Nellie Korda. There was just enough rough there where you could escape, you could get up near the green, but it held you accountable for a great drive in the fairway. And that's intimidating. And I think that's important. If Andy were sitting across from me,

I would say, look, I understand your point of view. But with the advances of the players today and the advances of the equipment, it's much, much harder to hold the best players in the world accountable. And golf courses, as much as we love to talk about lines of charm and angles, when a guy's hitting nine miles in the air with spin, the angles are obsolete. So how do you hold them accountable? And you know, I'm not a fan of rough and Andy knows I'm not, but he loves to straw man my argument. And, you know, I think it's important when we're having a debate to steel man the

other person's argument, you know? So, you know, give the best representation of their argument, and then debate it. It's too easy on Twitter to straw man arguments and knock them down. That's why, you know, I haven't debated Andy on this. I see Andy occasionally at major championships. You know, he always try to poke the bear and always poke the bear back. So I'll poke you. I'll poke back on some of this, right? Because a quick Twitter search of the word rough from your, I just did this sitting here. Like I have a tweet here that says just from January says the best way that the only way to test the very best players is with thick rough hold them accountable for inaccurate drives and very soon the best players will be the longest and straightest

players. Right. So I have trouble conflating that you said you're not a big fan of rough with saying the best the only way to test best players is with But when you say you're a big fan of rough, I think you're strong man in the argument saying that I believe rough should be everywhere for everybody, which is not the case. You know, I don't think there should be any rough at most golf courses unless they've been, and this is not an architectural conversation as much as it is a setup conversation. So, you know, design these golf courses with minimalist philosophies is all you want. I love them, and they're great for you and me.

But if you want to test the best players in the world, you're not doing it with angles. First of all, nobody's good enough to chase an angle. Nobody, nobody in the history of the game has been good enough to chase an angle. So you get there more by chance than by skill. So since golf at the highest level should be more about skill than by chance, let's get rid of the idea that anybody's good enough to chase an angle. Nobody is. Nobody's dispersion is 10 yards wide with a driver. So the idea that you're going to drive it down the left side to get an angle, nobody's going to on purpose try to get on the left side of the fairway at the TPC 18th hole at Sawgrass.

They'll get there by accident. They'll hit it on the toe and it'll rope around the corner and they'll look like heroes, but they didn't intend to do that. If you watch Tiger, he'll pull an iron out, hit a punch draw down the right side, and the middle of that fairway is fine. And then he can get over the need for the angle with his trajectory and spin. So at the highest level, in my view, the best way to test the best players at a US Open or at the PGA, generally they're playing where it's hot and it's soft.

But with rough, and I'm not talking about hack out rough, and again, this is where people straw man my argument, because they'll assume they will out of convenience say rough is hack out rough. Well, no, I didn't say that. I don't even know where there is hack out rough that anybody's played since the 1974 US Open at Wingfoot. So a bit of rough to where if you miss, and I don't know what the, again, I think these problems would be solved with math. It's like, what penalty do you want when you miss a fairway? Is it 0.3 of a shot?

Is it 0.5 or is it 0.6? Because if we want players to hit it shorter distances, you can roll the ball back, which again, I, you know, we'll wait and see, maybe that will lead to more compelling golf. But organically, if you want players to hit it shorter, make it a penalty for hitting it in the rough, and they will gravitate towards spinnier golf balls and clubs with less MOI. They will they will do it organically.

So much in that. I love this, by the way. This is fantastic. But the first thing I want to go back on is the angle chasing and that kind of part of the conversation to say, I understand dispersions, I understand cones, I understand kind of how you come up with a strategy and a plan. And to your example on 18 at Pinehurst, like the penalty can might be two shots for I'm sorry, 18 at sawgrass, the penalty might be two shots for hitting in that water, that changes where you aim right that that that kind of goes into the equation. I'm also of the belief that the as much as I am a data guy, like at professional golf at the highest

level deciding on like who wins this thing is happens within a different cone level like a different margin level and a different understanding of where your golf ball is going, right? The we worked overall from an average standpoint of like how to shoot the lowest score on average over the course of an entire season implementing this strategy doing this, this, this and this, especially with the current state of equipment, like, totally understand all of

the, you know, before a certain one particular mathematician will gets in my mentions on that I get all that but I think like I'm of the belief that I don't know if it's whatever, not median number or whatever it is like your best chances sometimes of creating the birdies that are required to win championships, which is where it's decided the highest level. There is a benefit at times with the right setup, the right level of firmness and the greens of hitting the ball in the right spot off the tee to

give you the best chance get close to a hole, right? It's rare. It's rare that it happens these days with the current state of technology because you can launch a nine iron from 170 over a bunker and hold a lot of the firmest greens, right? To your point, I agree with some of it, but I also think not every shot can be solved with a math equation. I've just heard Tiger and Jacklaus, the two greatest golfers of all time talk so much about the importance of angles. And like, I was extremely, extremely fortunate to get to play at

Guston National this year for the first time after the Masters this year. And like, there were some shots there that I was like, look, I don't know if I was like, chasing this angle, but I have put myself in a really bad spot for this. And there's times where I put myself in a really great one, right? And it was just like, the best place to score to the Sunday pin on the 15th hole at Augusta was left of that pond, like front left of that pond and not the right. And again, those are little itty bitty nuances. But that's kind

of where some of this stuff can get decided on the right setups in the right, you know, kind of format of golf. And that's where I think, I don't know if it's worth just necessarily debating chasing. I believe it's you, Chris, I do, of course, of course, philosophically, designing a golf course, we as an architect, your golf course is to create interest in the game, if you can create some aesthetic beauty, all the better, but interest

holes should be interesting. So the idea of creating lines of charm, of course that's central to any architect's job. But the idea that players are good enough to chase those lines of charm or attacking lines is I think a little misdirected. They're not that good. If you give a guy the option of chasing a line with a penalty and to the left of it because again I mean this goes back to and what these players know if you give players the better angle into a hole location Versus on the other side of the fairway. They have the worst angle at every single distance

The worst angle on average is scores better than the one with the best angle on tour. Now that's counterintuitive, isn't it? It's on the left behind a bunker. You drive it down the right side, you've got 150. Okay. You are Adam Scott, you're 150. I drive it down the left side, I'm Chez Revy. I've got 150. On average, Chez Revy beats Adam Scott. At every distance. From a worse angle? Make that make sense.

How do you think? And this is great, and this is what I mean about creating interest and numbers. And this is why the players can can overcome designs. They look at that. And they're beginning to understand that. And because if you get a better angle, you get more aggressive, and you short side yourself. And when you short side yourself, you've made a mistake. So the better angle doesn't give you a get out of jail free card.

It gives you a step or two different, you shouldn't automatically be going at hole locations. Just because you have a better angle, it gives you a step or two maybe, a yard or two maybe that you could get closer to the hole. So I get it. How do you divide the design interest into a golf course? Give these lines of charm, attacking lines. But how do you, that's great for recreational golfers. I just was blessed to do this golf trip last week before last.

I went to Pine Valley and of course, you think about where you want to drive it. But man, if you miss your spot at Pine Valley, you're making a 10. So do I try to chase an angle at Pine Valley? Hell no, put me in the fairway anywhere, right, left, center, I'll work it out from there. So, you know, I look-

I think we can merge this to say like, I think you can, it's not that hard to create an execution test at the highest level of professional golf, right? I think you can create a, you know, I would say Valhalla was an execution test, right? Of whoever executes the right shots on this golf course, hit in this fairway, hit on the screen, make your putts, that's it, right? It's a lot harder to

do. I think Pineyers is a masterpiece. I think it's an incredible golf course. And I think it's rare. Like, right, that's an extreme example, though, of combining certain elements of risk that I find super interesting in golf, right? If they move the tee up on three on one of the days, they didn't move up any holes at Valhalla. But if they would have, it would have been, oh, they did. Sorry, they moved up the fourth hole. And it's just a pin your ears back and send it, right? And hit it near the green and find it. If you move the tee up on the third hole at Pine it's just a pin your ears back and send it, right? And hit it near the green and find it. If you move the tee up on the third hole at Pinehurst, you are going to create a shitload

of intrigue in so many different ways. The risk profiles of different shots are going to put the pin in a diabolical spot, I promise you, and it's not all equal where you missed that ball around the green. No, you're not in control of it, but you have to weigh in the risk that you're willing to take on. And it might make sense, hopefully, if they set it up right to lay up to 100 yards to give yourself the best shot at making a four that that level of of intrigue is I think more interesting to watch harder to

execute way harder to execute and pull off especially at it like an okay, just to take another example of, you know, may up in upstate New York, like it's it's not as it's not as simple to pull off. But I still find that to be the most interesting style of golf. That's why I found Lancaster to be just such an awesome test. And the way they set that up for the women was just perfect. Right, and they had rough. They had bunkers in rough, which again, a lot of golf course

architect critics laughed about it. And I thought, well, look, OK, put yourself, we have a flame when you design a golf course, people were playing hickory shafted clubs, you hit it on the toe. Golf was hard. So if you had the same corridors for players a hundred years down the road, it wouldn't be as hard. It wouldn't be as exciting. It wouldn't be as testing.

So you bring the corridors in and does that mean that some bunkers are in the rough which drives golf course architect nuts? Nuts? Yeah, it does. I just don't take it to the be all end all. I think you have to philosophically say, what do we want to test here? The Masters is exactly what you're talking about. You know, angles.

It's all about angles and taking risk. If a player makes a mistake, the penalty is not obvious on that shot. It may be a little more not obvious on that shot. It may be a little more obvious on the next shot. So there's hell to pay later. Whereas the U.S. opened to me in theory, and look, they're willing to try other avenues, and I am appreciative of that. But in theory, it was about intimidation, execution, and a lot of great parkland type golf courses, where you don't have 50 mile an hour wins and you don't have the firmest and fastest conditions.

So it's like, well, now how do you test players? And it's like the penalty is immediate. The reason I would argue that we so revere Ben Hogan is for his US Open record, amongst many other things. And he was playing in the most draconian setups in the history of the US Open that didn't reward so much as it demanded long straight driving. Jack Nicklaus the same way. There's never been a driver longer straighter than Jack Nicklaus. Now, Jack won six Masters too. So the variety is

what I think is missing in the world of architecture. There's very few Mike strances in the world and in the architectural world. And when anybody's up mostly of the same mind, I think you run the risk of missing something in the same mind, I think you run the risk of missing something. And the same mind now is about minimalism in architecture and Trumpy maximalism, if you want to call it that, of Fazio or Weisskopf or, or Reese Jones. But, you know, if you, if you, you know, you look at the more bizarre golf courses like Tobacco Road, you know, and you

think, where is that? He took a chance, you know. Was it Union League, is Dana Fry and Strachup and Philly? He took a chance. I'd like to see more of that. You know, the whole world's hell bent on deforestation wide corridors. I get it. You know, I get it.

It's beautiful. And it's the best way probably to get the whole world around in golf. But I also like to see somebody come in and not be afraid to throw paint at the canvas. Frisco is going to be interesting in that regard of kind of some wider corridors, but some funky angled greens that are I've been made shoot 2500 for all I know, but I'm just if the wind blows out there, I'm intrigued to see how that modern, modern like freshly designed golf course for modern champion,

major championship golf. I'm curious if that's kind of the future of the game. I think where again, maybe you can call them straw man's if you will, where we can, the whole industry as a whole can end up talking past each other on some of this stuff is I don't currently know as much as I think about this and talk about this, I do not know what the right combination is for for rough height and fairway width, like to have a good proper test under the current equipment that they

play under. We found Bethpage black wing foot that are narrow fairways thick rough to be the worst. That's not the worst possible answer, right of testing accuracy off the tee, right? And well, if I just stopped there, so I think, you know, if I were having this debate, I would say, and this is where math helps, you would look at the dispersion cones of players today and you so and you'd compare it to and you wouldn't have this accurate data, but you could extrapolate the dispersion cones players in the 80s. And you think, well, you can't have corridors of fairways the width that

they were in the 80s, because players hit it a lot straighter and shorter than so you'd have to have a little wider dispersion code. So at wing foot, nobody was able to hit 44 fairways. The corridors were too narrow. So the shortest of hitters couldn't differentiate themselves from the longest of hitters by hitting drastically more fairways. And the rough, you can't have rough at the height

that used to test players in the 70s and 80s because they're coming in with faster clubhead speeds and steeper angles. So you have to have rough at a sufficient density and height where the penalty is 0.6. You know, that's intimidating. If Bryson DeChambeau were facing a 0.6 penalty for every time he missed a fairway, he's a smart enough guy, he would have rethought his strategy. But since he wasn't, it was, I'm going to send it. I'm absolutely going gonna send it. I'm absolutely gonna send it. I think philosophically that that's worth investigating. I'd like to see that.

We tend to see, like Trinity Forest in Dallas, we see that philosophy explored and it didn't work there. It's a fabulous place for the members, but it wasn't a good test for the best players in the world. So I would never criticize that architecture. That's some of my favorite architecture in the world. But if you were gonna test the best players in the world, we can't just let them run downhill

and play tennis without the nets. It's like, how are we gonna test them? You gotta hold them accountable. I believe that Pete Dye had it right. Let's scare the living shit out of them. Okay, let's intimidate them. Okay, now that's not Augusta. Augusta's meant to be fun.

The PGA is meant to be fair. The open is meant to be reverent and whatever mother nature gives you. But to me, the US Open is meant to scare the living hell out of you. You're supposed to lay in bed awake at night, worried that you're going to shoot 90 and scared shitless about two, three, four holes or two, three, four shots the next day. And it's the person who can walk out there, steely eyed and execute.

To me, I think that's, we need a bit of that. Not a lot of that, just a bit of it, Solly. Well, and I think we can come merge these two conversations here. And I was trying to keep core setup and technology on two different paths, but I think it's time to at least bring that element into it, right? Cause we've been talking about core setups for quite some time now and recognizing the challenge

of blending all of this together. And coming up with a few good examples over the last several years, but I would say there's been quite a few misses as well. And it's recognizing the challenge of everything I'm asking out of this setup. The scale of that, in my opinion, changes. If you want somebody like you just said to be lying in bed at night, worried, like sick about Pinehurst number two, do you think they'd be more worried if they got to play a 460

CC driver and a golf ball that they can be in control of or if they were playing the technology of 1999 and that tournament, which one do you think would keep them more up at night about being able to execute on a on a fast, firm and difficult golf course? Without a doubt the old equipment, no doubt, you're not going to get an argument from me on that. You know, does the is the new equipment better or worse for the game? Well, I would, the game is a different discussion, which I want to explore that, right? I think,

and I was, I was planning to start the whole, sorry to interrupt you, but I was planning to start the whole conversation on technology with you of asking the question of like, are you, are you arguing for the status quo or are you arguing for this is the best technology for the game of golf? Yeah, I'm arguing for. Yeah, I do. So I think technology has made the game better for recreational golfers.

It's more fun for them. They can't really get better at it. I haven't looked at the data recently, but they're not better than they were 20 years ago. At least the last data I saw, the golfers aren't better than they were 40 years ago. But the game's booming. People love it. And they love to buy things that they think make them hit it straighter or longer. And if you're in the equipment business, you'd be just trying to figure out how to do that. Does that make the professional game better? I don't know. be just trying to figure out how to do that. Does that make the professional game better? I don't know. I feel like when I watch the best, I feel like it's exciting to watch them. It was exciting

watching Roy win Wells Fargo and drive a bunker at 16 that nobody could believe he drove. The bunker, I think, was out there at like 330 and he drove it over. You can have an issue and say that's no good, that he doesn't hit five irons, but materially, at the highest level, the game hasn't changed. They're hitting shorter clubs, but the game is still about who hits the longest irons, not long irons, but the longest iron shots, who hits the longest iron shots, the best. First and foremost, the game is still about that. It's still about then who hits their irons the best.

It's far less about who hits it the farthest than anybody will believe. I posted something about the average world rank of the top 10 in driving distance on the LPGA and the PGA Tour. Again, Andy Johnson tweets, you know, no cherry picking. I'd be like, I'd be happy to have this conversation with him. Don't think I'm not loaded for bearer when I come to this debate about the belief that there's an overemphasis on driving distance and that it's all about driving distance. It's less about driving distance than people realize. So the game is first and foremost about who hits

their irons best. It is then about who hits the longest and straightest. Can I backtrack into some of that a little bit though? Because what you just what you said there is it's still about the law who plays the longest irons the best, right? But at the same time, the longer the ball goes, the more you are moving shots out of the longer iron area where they're most. So that's kind of a, yeah, you're gonna get some differential in there. But I think a point a lot of us are making is taking more shots out of that bucket does less to identify the best players, right?

Like the major championships do that better than PGA tour courses do, like mathematically, they take more shots out of 100, 150 and put them above 200, right? I promise you Bryson's five iron's a three iron. It's a three iron 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It's a three iron, just because it's got a number on it that says five, doesn't matter.

It's a three iron, okay? When he's got a five iron out, he's hitting a three iron. And I looked at I agree when I watch I got to admit, when I watched guys drive it on to it Augusta down there, and they've got five iron or six iron in, I think, okay, all right, I hear that side of it, you know, there's certain St. Andrews and Augusta, there's those two venues more than any other make it hard to defend my position.

They do. But I think in the overall scheme of things, those two golf courses, and as important as they are to the world of professional golf, and this is why, again, maybe you have the debate about bifurcation. Professional golfers, though, they are such a small percentage. I've used this analogy before. You've probably heard me use it. But reacting to the way the professional game is played in a broad scope is like draining

an Olympic-sized swimming pool because somebody spit in it. Professional golfers represent 0.0003% of the golfers. They don't pay for equipment. They don't pay for green fees. They don't. They're just entertainment. And if it's entertainment, everybody gripes about the idea.

And this is another debate. And I'm not incriminating or even trying to, but in the world of sport where people will absolutely be enraged at the thought of somebody using performance enhancing trucks. But nobody minded if everybody who creates music is high on psychedelics and out of that comes genius. Okay, give them all the mushrooms in the LSD

because by God we get the greatest music we've ever had. Well, that's about entertainment. Okay, so sport is also about entertainment. I'm not advocating for performance and hansi drugs. What I'm saying is it is about entertainment. So when I see, you know, players hitting nine miles, they're also we wouldn't even be watching them if they weren't hitting it straight. I don't think we're giving them their due. When Rory steps up as he did at Wells Fargo and all anybody sees who wants to criticize

the game is that he hit it nine miles, I'm like, well, you kind of missed the point of what was going on there with Rory. He wasn't just hitting it nine miles. I'm like, well, you kind of missed the point of what was going on there with Roy. He wasn't just hitting at nine miles. He was hitting it so straight, you couldn't believe it. And so did Bryson DeChambeau. Off a centerline dispersion rate at Wells at the US Open at Winkfoot, nobody was straighter than Bryson. But the setup made it look weird what was going on. So involved in all of this, right?

And you can, I almost think you have to go all the way back to the beginning of what is happening as a huge input here, right? I've read a lot of what you've said. I've heard a lot of what you've said. And I don't disagree with almost anything that you just said there, but I think it all comes down to a huge problem I have is just with the risk profile of gaining distance and that there seems to be little to no risks to it, right? And I don't mean that quite literally,

like you could hurt yourself, you could lose your swing, you can do all of these things. But it's worth the risk, right? I don't know if you got a chance to listen to our Steven Yeager interview from last week, but he was a short driver that was inaccurate. And he reached the conclusion that literally all he did is he went to his course and he would hit 32 drives

as hard as he could three times a week. And he has become above average in PGA Tour and is now one of the PGA Tour. Like he is in the top 20 in the FedEx Cup just by going to a hole and training himself to wail on the golf ball. It got rid of some of his inaccuracies. Say what?

Tell me that's not fascinating though. I don't find it that fascinating to be. I find it fascinating in terms of what the technology is allowing him to do. When he told me- He had that technology before and he didn't do it. I'm saying a better test of skill would come with equipment that would... Let's just go back to this. I don't know what equipment time period I think is best. I preface that and I don't. You will hear me give this example probably multiple

times of persimmon and belata. I don't know if that's best, but I want to give that example to say like the pro the risk profile of wailing on a ball like Rory did at the 16th hole at Wells Fargo is weight. Let's let's say that bunker carry was 280 with a persimmon and a belata or 330 with a 460cc in the current ball. They're two different shots, two different risks that go into that, right? And maybe it doesn't make the most sense to absolutely wail on that ball and take on that

risk with a belata ball and a persimmon. Now it seems like, well, yeah, Rory should try to do that because he can't. And the path to getting better on the PGA Tour seems to be coming in one specific way of like the prerequisite for driving distance becomes stronger and stronger and stronger every single year. People point to, now there's taller players and all that out there. Players aren't growing. It's just more tall players are making it on tour because they have speed because speed is so heavily rewarded.

It's a cycle that we've been in for quite some time that a lot of us do honestly find concerning for a myriad of reasons. But it's all to say, I just don't think you should be rewarded for off-center. All this technology talk of Bryson did a test where he tested a rolled back golf ball and he's like, oh, my toe hit. That flew nothing like my normal ball. I don't like it at all. It's like, wait, wait, wait. I like that. Like I believe there should be emphasis on hitting the center of that club face and the talent that comes from that. I don't think the best players in the world should have their golf balls auto

correcting and going straight and not feeling that risk of putting extra speed on it, right? If you hand me a persimmon and a ballata right now, I am going to weigh the risks of swinging this thing hard. If you give me a 460cc and a current golf ball, I am going to wail on it. It just, that's a very general point, but that's what drives so much of things that you've talked a lot about the athletes getting better

and I don't disagree. Like they are finding new ways to create speed, you know, with technology, launch angles, spin, gym, all that stuff, speed six, all that stuff. I just think if you change the profile of what it's like to actually hit the ball, the equation to getting there changes a lot. And I'd be curious to see who can run that gamut

and get through the eye of that needle. Well, look, I mean, Nicholas wailed on it. Watson wailed on it. Johnny Miller wailed on it. Sebi Ballesteros wailed on it. The idea that players weren't wailing on it with Woods is, I don't see that. I'm not saying they didn't wail on it.

I'm saying they are recognized as the greats, right? They threaded that needle. Not everybody in that era could wail on it. Jack could and create accuracy and distance. That is what's so impressive about how Jack drove it. And I can't say the same for like, I'll just pull him as an example. He's a friend of mine, Keith Mitchell, right?

He is a great driver of the golf ball and I don't, that's just a random name I've pulled out to say like he, you know, people are just bunched in tighter with this driving because there kind of seems to be, and I'm using air quotes, I'll do the word easy, it's pretty easy to do. Yeah, look, I mean, equipment's better, but it's far from being

the most important part of the game, how far you hit it. If it were the top 10 longest drivers on tour wouldn't be ranked 150th in the world on average. But nine of the top 10 are of the best players in the world are above average in accurate in distance and only one more cow is the only one that's not. And when does that ever distance difference in the history of the game? That has always been the case.

Sam Snead was unbelievably long. Hogan was unbelievably long. Palmer. Jesus smoked it. Nicholas smoked it. Watson smoked it. Seve smoked it. Norman smoked it. Nick Price interestingly enough switched to a solid-core golf ball. He was an early

adopter. The first of them went from being sort of average in driving distance to top tier driving distance and what happened was he immediately became the best player in the world. He picked up about three-quarters of a show. I guess what I'm saying to that is shouldn't that be hard to get? Right? Like shouldn't that be if that's the path, the life, the if. Let me push back. So Bryson DeChambeau. Improved his length, took a lot of risk to do it, won the US Open.

Phil did late in his career when when his speed was decaying. It worked. Stephen Yeager did, it worked. Padraig Harrington did, it worked. But there are loads of players who tried to get longer and lost their game. So it does come with risks, lots of risk. It is really cool to see a player,

and Stephen Yeager, by the way, had nothing to lose. He was struggling with his game, struggling to stay on tour. So the risk was worth it for him. What's amazing to me is that Bryson wasn't struggling, and he decided to risk it all. And I think that's really cool. Now, did the equipment change or did he change? Because the parameters for the equipment were set in 2003. So you can't have a faster clubface. You can't have a longer golf ball. They took away the longer driver from Bryson. And still working within all those parameters,

he figured out how to build speed. What I'm seeing is that golf has come out of sort of the dark ages. And it understands how to create speed and they're getting as they get a better understanding of it and how to train yeah what's coming down the pipe is players coming out of college swinging 130 miles an hour so in that regard look I met with Mike one last week and you know obviously obviously they're rolling the golf ball back. I've been against it. I said, Mike, I'm happy enough to sit here and say, I'll wait and see if the

game's more compelling after the balls rolled back or if it's better or old courses tested, but the better. I'm happy to wait and see if that's true. Solly, if it turns out to be true, I'll say, Hey, man, good job, guys. You were right, I was wrong. But I think the game's headed in a good place right now. It's in a really good place right now. There are more people playing golf. Golf's booming. The alternative golf experiences are booming. We're all having fun doing that. You get to make a living sitting around talking about golf. That didn't exist 20 years ago. The fried egg podcast kills it. Because people are

interested in golf. The game's pretty good right now. And so I think why change it? Because the game's divisive enough in certain areas. But if I was to look at from 20, I know there's a, you know, a recession and all this, but I was looking from 2010 to 2019, participation in the game was not trending well. And the amount of golf courses that were closing and comparing to open were not trending well. COVID changed a lot of that trajectory. It wasn't technology all of a sudden in 2020 that brought all these people back to golf. And yeah, maybe you can argue people that were reintroduced to golf or reintroduced to golf had the big driver heads and the ball that went straight and they fell back in love with it. Right. Like, Sure, you can maybe make that case. I just think

it is like your Olympic pool analogy is apt because I think Mike Clayton said it best. He said, for a lot of people, the ball goes the right distance. It does. And for a lot of people, it doesn't go far enough. And for the very best players, the very fewest of the group, it goes way too far. That'd be my stance on it as well. Like it's, and it's not easy to change for everyone. I think it, it's a massive, massive, very gray discussion. There is no black and white to this discussion. I, I personally believe that, look, we don't, the game will be better off if a 12 handicap was playing a 330 yard par four with much less dramatic equipment than a 410 par four with today's equipment,

just for a lot of reasons for golf course acreage and for the scale of the game that makes sense. I just think the smaller, the better, honestly, in almost every aspect. And I just think that the biggest thing I always fall back on is that distance is relative, right? And like the best, I don't want players to be punished for being longer players, for being,

I just want that to feel earned and I want that all to be relative because I don't think, and I'm curious your thought on this just in a vacuum, I don't think like Rory has to hit the ball 350 for that to be an amazing and marketable skill, right? If a long drive from Rory, I know this sounds sacrilegious now, but if a long drive from Rory, I know this sounds sacrilegious now, but if a long drive from Rory

goes 310, I think the game is way better than if it goes 350 because they just moved that tee back at Wells Fargo 20 yards and he still went over that bunker in five more years. I know this rollback is coming bad example, but like in five more years, there's even more players in that field that can cover that thing. I think it would be better for the game overall if that if a long drive still went 310 yards. I don't think anybody would not be amazed by that when it leaves

his clubhead. Well, what if people at home hit it 250? And so they're like, well, he only hits a 60 yards past me. That's not that amazing. And what if in an effort to get his driver 310, people that did hit it 250 are now hitting it 210 and they hate golf and it's too hard and they quit. I'm not saying that is going to happen. What I'm saying is the game's in a phenomenal place right now and the changes to me seem unwarranted but I could be wrong.

Again, and I feel like there's an argument to be made. If you're going to roll it back, let's get after it. Roll it back more. But do you run the risk of turning people off in the game who are really enjoying it? You know, I don't know if my wife would have loved the game of golf as much if she couldn't hit it but 160 or 70 yards. You know. Nobody loves golf more than my wife. I'll come in the kitchen here sometimes and she's in the kitchen doing this with a YouTube video. I'm like, what are you doing?

She's like, I'm trying to get some lag. I'm like, stop it. You know, she's got a mirror over here in the kitchen, putting mirror. And she can hit it if she smokes it, it'll go 210. But she always feels like it went 240. You know, and there's a par five at my course, the 10th hole, Arizona Country Club. We've been here more permanently for the last four years. She's birdie at once in four years, and she's a seven handicap.

And she's partied like four times because it's 530 and then the third shot's over water. And if she becomes shorter and plays worse, I'm not sure she's going to love the game. I hear your points, I take them and I understand them. And I'll be the first person to applaud the game if it looks better and plays better and it's more compelling. But personally, I like Simone Biles being 30 feet in the air and doing crazy flips and coming down and me going, not a chance in hell I could do that. And when Rory hits shots, first of all, I just don't think people properly understand

he's not there just because he hits it that far. He's there more importantly because he hits it that far and straight. And that's really hard to do. Scottie Scheffler is, he's not in Roy's league, but before the PGA championship, Scottie Scheffler was leading the tour in a stat called distance from the edge of the fairway. I look at that stat a lot, how bad is your miss? There never been anybody swing a club as fast

as Scottie Scheffler with a smaller miss. In the history of data collecting on the PGA tour, people who lead distance from the edge of the fairway are Jim Furek and Colt Nost, who, you know, I played with Colt the last tour that I ever played. And at the AT&T and you know, he wasn't playing well and on the last hole because we both missed the cut. You know, he hit a good one. I was like, Colt, that was the center of the face. What

did that feel like? You know, he still gives me crap about it because you know, he didn't hit it very long, but he led in distance from the edge of the fairway because his Mrs. Vermont, Jim Fury, Chez Revy, the average club head speed of players who've led distance from the edge of the fairways, 109 miles an hour. Scotty Scheffler's up there around 118, 119 miles an hour. That is not celebrated. All he, he hits it too far. Like, well, he hits it straight. Otherwise you wouldn't know his name.

So much of this, I still find that like that, where I always come back to it being relative, right? Is a ball that doesn't go as far, that's still gonna be the case, right? And I think it's still- I know, but at what cost? It's a massive cost, right? And that's kind of where, again, why I want to start with like the status quo versus like, there's a, I think there's a difference between thinking this is the right level of technology and equipment, and this is right as the status quo of like, is it worth

changing all of it? I think those are two separate questions, right? Cause I think I'd be, I don't think you're wrong for saying it's not worth changing things, right? There's two separate questions. Yeah. You know what? And I said that the USGA, look, I mean, it's really hard to beat engineers who pay to innovate.

You can't beat them with engineers who are paid to react. So the smartest people in golf are the engineers at golf equipment companies. They're paid to innovate. And so in the early 90s, they came up with innovation that really nobody had ever addressed. And so, you know, the metaphor, the horses left the barn is. And, you know, we can go all the way back to the great Big Bertha and say that a lot of the problems that we have right now are in overlooking what happened with the great Big Bertha. And then the race war, the distance war, Chris, we all want the same thing. We want a better, more compelling game that everybody's

interested in. You argue one side of it. Andy will argue that side of it. I'm arguing the other side of it, but you know, we'll see what happens. You guys might well be right. I might well be wrong. Um, and if that's the case, I'll buy you a beer and we'll laugh about it. But if everybody leaves the game in 10 years from now and we're yawning as we're watching Rory hit it 292. You know, that seems unlikely to me. I will. And that seems really

unlikely to me it does because I can make a bunch of bad faith like comments like kind of more on the extreme end of it to say like, all right, if it mattered how the number of the driving distance that actually went from Roy McElroy, they'd play a heck of a lot more events in Colorado, right? Like you would want it to go 390 instead of 340. Right? But like, that doesn't mean as much when you play it at altitude, because the whole field is gonna hit it

far, right? So what I'm amazed at is how far he hits it, how straight it gets. So as he hits it farther, y'all are disgusted about the distance. I'm blown away by the fact that he can keep it on the golf course because it used to be that the dispersion rate was the great equalizer farther. You hit it the wilder you got. Well, now as the guys have hit it even farther, well now it's like the guys who can hit it long and straight. I'm even more blown away by them. You know,

watching Bryson at the PGA championship off of the first tee. I felt like I was seeing like an athletic phenomenon. Him hit at 370 when everybody was hitting it, you know, most everybody was in the 290. And he drawn around the corner. He looked like Chez Reevey. And it went 380. I'm like, come on, stop it. That's a video game. And that, but I go all the way back to the the entry point of all of it is like the club you're holding and the ball you're holding. It's not easy to do what they're doing. I don't want to like distill it down to that, but it's a huge contributing factor to going really far and really

straight. It's off center misses curving back towards the center of the fair way. Like, imagine if again, this is like not a realistic comparison, but imagine like a pitcher, if they had a baseball that when they released it from a wrong point, it curved in the direction that they wanted to correct for that. As distances relative, so is accuracy. So when you say the reason he can hit a straight is because of the engineering of the equipment. Okay. But relative to anybody else out there who hits it as long as Bryson, nobody can hit it as straight. Nobody can hit it as straight

as Rory. Again, go look at the top 10 longest drivers on the PGA Tour and they're all losing their cards. They're 150th in drive. So if distance is relative, so is accuracy. So while you love to look, well, not you, but people love to look, ah, nobody hits 80% of the fairways anymore or 70% of the fairways anymore, but they should, they should, I mean, to me, that's an antiquated stat. It should be degrees off the center line. And if somebody told me,

if somebody in a way I said, Rory hits at 350 on average, but his degrees off center line are 2.1. Okay. And then you look down and I'm not beating up Ches Reve, it's just in my head. Yes. You're an Elva player. I couldn't touch it. But if Chez Revy is hitting at 282 and his degrees off center line is 2.1, but he's hitting 74% of the fairways and Rory's hitting 58% of the fairways, there's a belief that Chez hits it straighter than Rory. And he doesn't, not by a long shot, if that data plays out. So it's degrees off center line that is, you know, Mark Brody talks about this in his book, Every Shot Counts. And so that, I think, would help frame this debate better. And that's where I'm of the opinion personally, like the rollback, whatever that's coming proposed for

2028 for a couple years and then 2030 for everybody is 25 to 35% of the issue to me like that's really just addressing one issue it's the actual carry distance that I'm talking about right whereas a bunch of the risk related stuff I think would come from a spinnier golf ball and a smaller club head would would change the willingness to do all those things that's a lot more complicated a lot more difficult I think where I always come back to and this was in the 2022 distance report from the RNA and USGA, like it just

kind of comes back to this line of they believe, however, that any further significant increases in hitting distance at the highest level are undesirable. Whether these increases in distance emanate from advancing equipment technology, greater athleticism, improved player coaching, golf course conditioning, or a combination of these factors, they'll have an impact seriously reducing the challenge of the game. That line covers off a lot of it. And I think we're a specific example that we're about to see at the next week's US Open is the 16th hole. Again,

I went back and watched 1999 and like, Tiger Woods had a four iron into that hole. And there will be guys hitting driver wedge, I'm guessing, into the 16th hole, maybe nine irons in. It depends on what the wind does, whatever. But a 490 to 500, I don't know exactly the yards are going to play that next week, 490 to 500 yard par four is going to bypass one of the things that you liked being emphasized. 528, by the way.

528. I bet I know some on the extreme end, there'll be eight to nine irons hit into that green, right? I just really struggled to come up with like Tiger was still the longest in 1999. And the longest, you know, he was taking on a risk profile, he wasn't the most accurate, blah, blah, blah, but like he was hitting four iron into that. And I don't, I'm not saying every everyone in the field should be in four. And I'm just saying, I don't see how the game is better

by bypassing all of that area, all of that grass, all of that turf, all that sand just through the air makes the game of golf better. I think it's just the smaller the scale the better the more intimate and you can still create such an unique challenge that the best golfer is going to get identified on a smaller footprint, a more sustainable footprint. And I know sustainability is a whole different animal that people love to pick at as well. But I just can't get

the argument for going all the way back and just covering all that space with through the air. You know, it's funny, I played the 99 US Open. And on the 16th hole, I got in, and I started looking up all the data. And I think at the time I played it only two players that hit that green and regulation. And I joked with the USGA ref I said why don't y'all just make it a par three and only two less players would hit it in regulation Because it was you know, it converted par five to par four. It played really long played really hard

It was a brutal hole the equipment changes Yeah, as I've said they they've changed the way the game is played. But when you say it diminishes the skill said, they've changed the way the game is played. But when you say it diminishes the skill, it's much, much harder to hit that fairway at 350 than when Tiger played it in 1999. And the risk now with the wire grass and the scratchy areas off that fairway, you run the risk. If you stand up there and you're going

to try to push it out there as far as you can, 350, 360, and you miss it right or left, you're going to have unplayable life. You get in that scratchy grass. I think they've added some scratchy wire grass even more. So I would say you'd be blown away by the drive. And then the second shot's not cake. I mean, yeah, maybe someone will have a wedge in there, but the hole will still be about who hits the longest and straightest off of the tee. It will still be about who hits the most accurate iron shot into the green. It'll still be about that.

It'll still be about skill. I don't think it diminishes the challenges of the hole. It's just that the challenges are more obviously seen at the tee and then rewarded on your second shot. Would I like to see golf played exactly the same way it was played before? I don't know. You know, you were on a roll things back to 1999. I don't know. I mean, I was blown away by Tiger. Would the game be better?

There's no right answer to that. You know, would you like to see people hitting forward into the 13th hole at Augusta? There are loads of people that would say that the 13th hole had less interest this year at Augusta. Loads of people would say, well, nobody was going for it. People were laying up. Now you could make the argument that it puts more emphasis on hitting the driver down the left side and taking the risk on the T shot. They roll the ball back and it becomes less interesting. That's a risk. I think the game's in a pretty good spot right now, but we'll see. And we'll see on the 16th hole. I bet you at the end of the week, it will still prove to be one of the most difficult holes there. And we'll see

players drive it in the left crap and have to chip it out. Whereas we didn't see any of that in 1999, or probably comparatively speaking, not much of it. Well, I think you can sum this up of we can all agree that there's not, I do not, I'm not going to say there's a right answer to one of these questions, but take 13 at Augusta on this is like there's, it's two different things 1995 equipment, 1995 T 2024, equipment 2024 T, the sentiment

is supposed to be the same, right? They're moving that tee all the way back, 80 yards, whatever it's gone back, trying to recreate all of that. That's kind of what they're trying to get in the same range, right, of having a longer approach into that. But it is two different paths, right? And that's the thing of like where the constant arguments I hear for, oh, just move the tees back, move the tees back, move the tees back.

It's like we're stretching the game and changing the scale at which it's played. And I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze on that a lot of that work has already been done. And it's again, it's hard to I always say it's hard to put the toothpaste toothpaste back in the tube. But what I what I find troubling on all of this, you've talked a lot about accuracy on this is correlation to distance to scoring average on the PGA Tour. In 1980, it was 13%. And in 2017, it was 44%.

And the correlation of accuracy to scoring average on the PGA Tour in 1980 was 53%, and in 2017, it was 12%. So we've seen those two numbers go in the complete opposite direction. So of all that accuracy talk on that, that's like what I would like to see accuracy be rewarded. Right? Give me those stats again.

Give me those stats again. Give me those stats again. It's a correlation of distance to scoring average on the PGA tour in 1980 was 13% and then 90 was 14%. 2000 31%, 2017 44%. And the ACME 17, 2017 was 44%. I'm gonna give you the source here at the end of all this. And the accuracy on the PGA tour correlation from 1980 was 53%. In 90, it was 48%. 2000, it was 35%. And in 2017, it was 12%. And my source on that information is at

Chamblee Brandle from November 3rd, 2018. That's what you tweeted. Yeah, I was saying that. I remember those dad. I say thank you, Tiger Woods. And so when I set that tweet out, because I was like, wait a minute, I remember that. I can see a light bulb going off for you. Yeah. So I was for the rollback. And what changed my mind was I spent a lot of time- Real quick, I want to defend your right to be able to change

your mind on this. For those that accuse you of flip flopflopping on that, changing your mind with a different set of information and opinion, I would celebrate that. So I'm not going to support you. Thank you. And I'll change my mind again if I'm proven wrong. But I thought, well, that is my knee-jerk reaction to how far the golf ball is going. First of all, I'd say thank you, Tiger Woods, because we have, and I enjoy Jeff Shackelford, but he takes, he loves to do air quotes that athletes are better. Athletes are better on the PGA Tour. They're all, they're 6'2 and 185 pounds and built like speed swimmers, and they used to look like plumbers for the most part.

They were built like me, five foot nine and 155 to 165. So yeah, thank you Tiger Woods. But has the game or the reason I changed my opinion on this was I was like, all right, let's start over. Let me investigate, has the game changed? So you go in and you start to look at where the best players come from. And they come from 175 to 225 or 175 to 250-yard approach shots. That's where they live. The longest irons.

Was that the case in Jack's day? Yes, it was. Empirically, it was, because you don't have the data. But empirically Jack Nicklaus was the best long iron player as was Ben Hogan as was Sam Snead as was Bobby Jones. Empirically, I think you can make that argument and defend it pretty well. So has the game materially changed at the highest level how to player separate themselves? If for example, I looked at the top 10 players in the world

and they corresponded to, let's say, the top 20 in driving distance across the board, I'd say, what's going on here? But the game is still about separating yourself with iron shots. It's not as much about driving distance as people like to make it. So I came to the conclusion that

the game is materially the same and accuracy, of course, we're judging accuracy. And in that stat, when I sent it, I would argue that stat now and say, well, you're looking at accuracy through the lens of fairways hit and not dispersion off a center line. And you're skewed, that stat that I tweeted that you quoted is skewed towards an antiquated statistic of driving accuracy. Driving accuracy is, we've got better tools now to measure driving accuracy than fairways hit, which is what I was looking at there. So I would, if I were retweeting that now, I would tweet that and say, driving accuracy is an antiquated stat and that skews that all the way across the board. I don't think

the game's materially changed. I think it's changed for the better. I think recreational golfers have more fun. People send me messages nonstop about equipment they're buying what I should what I should get to three of my friends. You know, I am just not an equipment geek at all, but my friends are and they're lit up about this game. So I don't think the game's material changed. Jack Nicklaus was the longest straightest driver in 1980.

Who have the longest straightest drivers been over the last 15 years? Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy, John Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau. They win the most tournaments. And I think, yeah, we can, we can, this is where we can get ourselves right back in the rabbit hole of like, well, if it doesn't go as far, they could still be the longest and straightest, right? By the way, how, actually, how do you dig up old tweets that fast? I came from, you know, I know you do your research.

I got a Google Docs. No, no, no, no. I love it because I'm always trying to. And I don't have that app on my phone that allows me to dig up old tweets. You could just type like, I could type rough from at Chambly Brando. It'll be every time you've mentioned the word rough

in there. So again, I'll say this. Like you can change your opinion on things. I think that's that's kind of what's not celebrated in sports media or media in general of like, Oh, look at these flip flopping on this. It's like, well, no, I mean, hey, there's, I was anti rollback when we started no laying up. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever. It's like,

I hit it far. This is amazing. What made you change your mind? Understanding what was being given up with with the drives going farther and understanding the intrigue that comes from longer iron shots and dispersions and the risk of hitting dropping a six iron in close to a hole versus dropping a wedge in close to a hole and just seeing a lot more professional golf kind of get, I would say homogenized in terms of kind of just seeing so many wedges and so many short iron

shots, I find those to be the least interesting shots. It's really sometimes when the setup is great on those and the risk is really good on the short par threes and you know, the pins with the bunkers and sometimes it's really intriguing. Like that's not saying all short iron shots are not but just finding like the best player like a better understanding of the best players are going to separate themselves on that 200 yard iron shot and wanting more of those, trying to

get more in this direction. Gotcha. So that's where, you know, your evolution springs from. Mine springs from when I watch players and I realize that they have a completely different understanding of where power comes from. I celebrate that. I don't look at it as the equipment. Nobody in 1999 was talking about using the ground or left pelvic tilt or right side bend. Nobody. Those terms were unknown to the world of golf Uh, but now when I see, you know somebody, uh

Get deep into their right hip Get their right leg straightening it lift their left heel get left left, uh pelvic tilt Moved diagonally and laterally into the ground I'm like man, that's cool That's this is it's turned golf into a sport laterally into the ground. I'm like, man, that's cool. That's this is it's turned golf into a sport.

You know, we watch home run hitters and we think, you know, look at these moves. Now then we dive into it. And so these young kids coming up, they're watching it. They have a better understanding of it and the pressure plates. They they know the roadmap to power. And so the rollbacks that are coming and in one sense, I'm like, okay, you know, you guys, if you, you know, you fought for it, you could go, you could go even more,

because the distance gains are going to be, they're going to be regained, just like that, a blink of an eye. By the time they, these distance gains go into effect, they will be rolling it back to numbers that surpass where we're at right now. I mean, the game will come back to numbers that are surpassing what we have right now. So I would argue if they're going to do it, they should just do it even more to really validate it. Because let's steel man their argument. Say they might be right. So 12, 15 yards is their concession, but it should be 30 or 40. You know, if they're, let's see, if you really believe that, let's see if the game's better.

Let's see if it's more interesting because what's going to happen is Gordon Sargent and Christo Lambrecht, here they come. Well, there are going to be guys that come along and hit it farther than them. And then guys could come along and hit it farther than them because they know now what they did not know in 1999. I never went to the range in 1999 and tried to hit the ball as far as I can. I'm 61 years old. I go to the range now. I get my launch monitor out and I do speed training. And I'm swinging as hard as I can. I would never have done that in 1999 because if you, you know, an off-center hit goes wildly inaccurate.

And you think, God, I'm turning myself into a hack. I'm like, I don't, this game's about control and it's about, and now then, yeah, it's about power because for the first time in the history of golf, more players understand that power is not a gift. It's a skill. People used to just look at Nicholas and go, that's a gift. Can't get there. Honor Palmer gift bullshit. Power is a skill. So when you look at it and you say it's becoming less

skillful and and you know, Michael one respectfully would say, it's not less skillful. Power is a skill. You have to develop it, you have to train it. And you can't just have power without a high degree of accuracy. Otherwise, we don't know your name. And I'm not saying you're wrong on any of this. But you I laugh for a second there when you when you mentioned about not doing this in 99 is me as a golf fan, just again, I'm not projecting

this on anyone else. I'd be way more curious to for you to gain distance in 1999 with that setup of whale, with that in mind of it could go way offline. Like that's kind of the whole thing summed up for me. I know we've spent a lot of time on that. But that's where I lay on that. You're just saying that you wouldn't do it because you'd hit it on the toe and it'd go wildly offline.

But there would be margins of gaining speed with precision that would be the sweet spot. Yes, and that to me would identify the best players more frequently. I'm not saying that golf doesn't identify. We're talking decimal points here percentage like parity. But I think that arguments be as it creates bigger stars. I really honestly truly do think that like that's why we see major winners be

the biggest names more often than on the PGA Tour. Just because it's like dude, they take shots out of that shorter bucket and make it longer. Like that's that's extrapolate over time that's going to create stars is what that's my belief. But well, I think, you know, we've seen the greatest separation in the game that's ever been in an era that is criticized for having equipment that doesn't allow players to separate themselves.

So Scotty, I'm saying with Tiger Woods, um, you know, Tiger Woods came along and played, you know, arguably his best golf after the equipment supposedly made it impossible to separate yourself. He won at a higher percentage after 2002 when the equipment came along with the 460 CCs and the solid core golf ball, you know, and you, you made it impossible if you listen to some people that I debate to separate yourself and I'm like, well, the greatest separation in the history of this game is Tiger Woods and he was still doing it in 2009 and he came back hobbled and injured and old and could hardly swing the way he did previously and he did it in

2013. He did it in 2012 and he get it again as an old hobbled man in 2018 and 2019. So in an era where people want to claim that the equipment makes it very hard to separate yourself, we've had the greatest separation in the history. So those two don't mesh. What I would argue about that point is the early 2000s up to maybe when he tears up his knee, I would say was a huge evolution in technology, but a bit confusing. Like the information wasn't still out there in the way that it is today with, with the optimization of

all that stuff. Right. And I, I'm just of the belief that like, in your era, the guys that you grew up and kind of the guys that Tiger took over so quickly, were striking even Tiger was not on the among this group, like I view the JT and later wave of guys of like, they've pretty much only played with technology like this their whole lives. Whereas Tom layman was not hitting the golf ball in the same way that these guys are these days, right? And Tommy was a that's my are these days, right? And Tomlin was a fantastic guy. That's my generation.

Yeah. Scottie Schaffler is separating himself nonetheless. Nellie Porter is separating herself nonetheless. That's recent. Yeah. That's a recent development that's been amazing to me. Like amazing. Again, this is why it's fun.

That's why 19th holes are wonderful. Totally. Because you'd say that, I'd say this. Oh, we could keep going for hours. I think we're risking retreading. That's why I don't think social media is the best place to do it because people think you're mad at each other and you're angry. And it's easy to get a little too snippy on social media that you would never, you know, you would do it in a bar, but you'd laugh about it.

Sure. Totally. Well, I've taken up a lot of your time. But I do want to chat with you just at least a little bit on some of the pro golf ongoings. And look, I honestly don't have a ton of like, hey, what do you think is going to happen? How is this going to play out? Questions, because I think we've exhausted that. And I don't know. I haven't found anyone that really knows the answer on that,

even people that are involved in the process. But I'm curious to pick your brain, because you've been completely unafraid, it seems like to me, as we sit here, of any kind of backlash for any of your stances of any of the current ongoings. And I have to admit, I have the backlash and the reaction of a lot of people that has come towards us has, I wouldn't say muted me, it just has made me less eager to continue the conversation just

because I get quite fatigued of being yelled at by the same vocal minority, whatever that may be. But I'm just kind of curious where that comes from for you. What's your reaction to how the last couple of years have gone and kind of some of the vitriol directed in your way for being staunchly anti-Saudi and continuing to point out some of the human rights abuses and kind of the same conversation, you know, your willingness to continue to have that same conversation, I find to be extremely interesting. Well, I don't know how to answer that question.

I would say that I say things that I believe to be true, and I try to defend them because I think it's important to defend them. And I'm willing to suffer the criticism. It doesn't bother me, the criticism. I would prefer debate without profanely and ad hominid attacks. I would prefer that I block those people. I don't necessarily block them because I wish them any ill will. I block them because I don't want to go to social media and have my bandwidth disrupted by profane people. If you can't take the time to structure a criticism in a fair enough way without using

profanity or ad hominem attacks, then you're not worth my time. But if I engage with loads of people, I'm sure you could check me on that on Twitter, but I engage with loads of people in the last few years who've criticized my stance. Mostly they'll say, well, the US's hands aren't clean, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, well, let's really make those comparisons. Let's dig in and see if we can compare apples to apples there. But I think it's important. I think it's important.

I don't think golf should be taken over. I don't like the source of the money. I think a lot of core golfers feel that way. Again, face to face, you cannot, I don't know that that's as accurate a judge of the way people feel in debating you in the same way that Twitter is not an accurate judge. Twitter is too negative. People tend to be more conciliatory face to face. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but I know that, you know, I don't hide, I walk the golf courses, and I'm on the range. And I've had very few people come up and, and take issue. I've, you know, I'm on the

set every now and then somebody will walk by the back of the set and say, you know, you're an asshole, you know. But I would say, by and large, you know, most people are pretty darn polite and supportive of my stance. But that that doesn't I mean, it's nice to hear nice things, but I don't. I believe what I say to be true, you know. And I don't think it's good for golf if the Saudis have a dominant say in the game of golf as

it's played here in the United States. I hate to give oxygen to what I would consider to be some of the dumbest conversations around this, but it's something we've dealt with as well of like, oh, well, now you're going to be a hypocrite if they merge this and you cover golf if the Saudis are involved with it. My argument against that always is like, no, I'd be a hypocrite if the Saudis paid me hundreds of millions of dollars and I pretend like everything was fine. If I was not free to speak my own mind on these issues, I could still, I think, I think, I don't know, I think I'm still rooting for a merger of some kind or a PIF investment

into SSG. I can still take this microphone and say, they have human rights abuses. I don't like a lot of these things that are going on. I'm not going to sit here. I'm not taking money from them just to whitewash everything, which is just a big problem I've had with the whole thing is just people lying through their teeth at us about why they're doing this and whatnot when all I care about is the structure of competitive golf. I'm not a PGA Tour fan. We get accused of that just because we don't like live but I'm a fan of professional

golf, right? And if I thought that live golf tour, whoever was backing it or that product was interesting in the future of the sport, my support would probably be there. But I don't see that as the path. And that has just been, I've never experienced anything in my career. I've doing this for almost 10 years where I've gotten this much harassment for, I guess, just even somewhat supporting the status quo of competitive golf. It's been a shock to me.

It's affected me mentally at times, and I'm just kind of curious how it's affected you. I bet, first of all, I don't believe much of it because I think what you're being attacked for would be from mostly Saudi bots. The Saudis have spent fortunes, absolute fortunes, to populate social media with Saudi bots to defuse, like last year, Saudi bots. We're saying that I was fired, that I was in a negotiation, and I was demanding triple my salary, and that NBC executives have had it up to here with my demands. I mean, nothing could be farther from the truth. I extended a long year contract last year at the

beginning of the year. I had no such negotiations. But it was just Saudi bots trying to put into the ether a lie. And, you know, even, you know, it works. That's the crazy part. They said about me, they said that I deleted every anti Saudi tweet I've ever tweeted, which was not true. But like I had friends texting me like, is that true? And I'm like, no, they're just making it up literally, making it up. They're making it up. That's who these people are. They're, you know, they're devious people. I don't think we want them in the, and into the ecosystem of the game of golf. I had loads of my friends text me are like, man, what's going on? And like, life's good, man. I'm out in the

backyard, chipping with my having a glass of wine getting ready to go to the, you know, the US Open or wherever. And they're like, so the news isn't true. I'm like, are you believe Twitter? Are you on Twitter? You actually believe what you read on Twitter, man, I hardly believe what I read. I believe what I can see and look up. And it's like, I go to Twitter and I'm like, I don't know. Let's hold on. Let me investigate. But anyway, the human brain, real quick on that, though, the human brain, and I'm like this on a lot of topics. Like if it's not a topic I'm following religiously, I can read a tweet about tennis and it could say raf and a doll, you know, blah, blah, blah is, you

know, when streaking down a beach, whatever it was, I'm like, Oh, wow, he did. Like, if you read it, and you're not following it closely, you just like your brain wants to think that things are true, right. And I think that's what's happened a lot. And that's how they've used their influence to like drive a lot of the sentiment. Yeah, and they're trying to shape the debate. But if we get away from where the money comes from,

and we just look at the product that they put out there, so you think about the billions of dollars they've spent and the time and the energy, and that's the product? I said this before, John Rahm had to think, and probably does think, the analogy to me is he had a lead role in The Godfather. Now he's like a little sideshow in a vaudeville act. And that's the trade off for the money.

Now, I'm sure he's sitting around going, nice play here, John, well done. You got a few hundred million dollars when you already had several hundred million dollars, and you were going to make several hundred million more, and you traded it for what? And you know, they're out there playing music and they're taking pictures and it's, it's the individual competition is, is not as important as the team competition. So you come to the last hole and you need to birdie to win the individual, but a part of when the team, are you really trying to make a birdie?

Because if you- It's four million for first, yeah. You take the risk, you take the risk and their team loses, you know, there's hell to pay. So I think it's, you know, it's an insult to the integrity of competition. Golf holes are, you're not supposed to win golf tournaments on the third hole or the fourth hole.

You're meant to, there's a reason you pay architects to build a crescendo of drama. And they give great thought, architects do, to how they want a championship or the day of a round of golf to play out. And the highest drama is usually not gonna be on the second or the third or the fourth hole. It's going to build and you're meant to have a sequence of order in championships. So set aside where the money comes from and that's devious and demented.

But let's just look at the competition. It's laughable. And so do I miss those players? Hell yeah. I miss seeing John around play. I miss Bryson DeChambeau. I miss watching Brooks Keppke. You know, Brooks, you know, people think I have an antagonistic relationship with Brooks. I actually have, I've been around him very few times in my life, but I promise I would like, I know I would like the guy. I think he's funny. I think he's pretty damn bright. He's got a little chip on his shoulder, all that. And he's damn fun to watch play golf. And I miss him. I miss watching him play more often. You get to see him at majors. But so yeah, I'm pissed about that they're

gone. I had to, I'm laughing just because of the most unexpected, you know, beef I would have thought would come from this year is a Brando versus Anthony Kim. As he has he took on Kevin. Kevin had a great comment on our live show just like, yeah, you know, Anthony Kim's tweets are like, I love being a girl dad, like, I'm so happy for my family. I'm thankful for this opportunity. Man, fuck Brando and his whole crew over there. He just came after you so hard.

And he has impugned me with a feminine body part. I was, again, I hardly have the bandwidth for that stuff. I was, where the hell was I? I was on the set and a buddy of mine, Luke Wald sent me that tweet and I said, I said, I don't, I don't know. Is that his real? That's gotta be a bot or something. And then I went to dinner that night and I was, I don't, I don't, is that his real? That's gotta be a bot or something. And then I went to dinner that night and I was, I could have given, you know, a spit in the ocean. And I'm sitting there and I got like several messages.

I was like, is that really him? And I was like, good Lord, what happened to you? You know, but I thought the poor guy is being bought by the Saudis and sent to be an attack dog by Norman and Mickelson. So all these guys, again, I feel sorry for them because they had autonomy in the game. They could go where they wanted, do what they wanted, say what they wanted, and they've lost their autonomy. Sad as a sports fan, right? I mean, you could do the demo, you'd take the money. It's like, dude, we're just like sports fans here.

I get that all the time. I get, you know, I, you know, Bailey's got a really good friend from college. And her husband is monumentally successful. And he's really bright guy. And we were, we were with them on a vacation. And he goes, what's your number? What would you take? And I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, society's come to you. What would you take?

I'm like, there's not a number. He goes, oh, bullshit. They were going to pay you a billion dollars, $300 million, $400 million. You wouldn't take it. And look, I mean, it's a fair enough assumption of anybody to go, oh, you'd take it. You'd take it. And look, I mean, it's a fair enough assumption of anybody to go, oh, you'd take it. You'd take it. And I said to this guy, I was like, listen,

I'd like to think I wouldn't take it. Does money make some things easier, that kind of money? Yeah, it does. God, what was the fellow's name that wrote that beautiful column about the corruption of money on ancestors of magnets. What was his name? Hold on. Oh, yeah. Donald Casey. Donald Casey. Lovely guy. You know, did you ever read that column that he wrote? I think I read it. I think I've seen it. He wrote a beautiful column about the corruption of money on future generations.

And I thought, it's easy to say I wouldn't take the money. But when you start to think about the corruption of that kind of money and the impetus for your kids to then go out and hustle to make money. If your life was played out for you, Chris, and it was easy street all the way, you'd have hustled to make no laying up. You think you'd have worked your ass off to create what you guys have created? I don't know, maybe you wouldn't have.

And are you doing everything you are about, for money right now? Money's nice, but I'm sure it's the purpose every morning that you wake up that drives you. And it is me, you know, I wake up in the morning, I don't think about the money. I think about, man, I got to get to work. I got shit to find out. I got to work.

I got to dig. I got to do this job. And I love it. I love it. I love digging and doing research the way I used to love hitting golf balls. I still could go hit golf balls all day long, but I'm not getting paid to play golf next week.

And it comes down to, does what you want out of your life, can it be purchased, right? The money is only worth if it's you can, if you're going to be the happiest in a $200 million home, then yeah, they'll go take the money. Like, that's what you need to be happy. But like, what are you going to do then when you're, when you're in that home, are you just going to sit and look at your, I think it's purpose first, that makes you happy or it gives you not happy. I think purpose, you know, it just gives you a sense of direction and that's interesting. And I think it's fun to try to have some interest in your life. That's where it's...

The whole money thing, I'd like to think I wouldn't take it. You know, I said that to my wife, you know, because it's an interesting debate to have with yourself, you know, because we all have idealized ways that we view ourselves unfairly, you know, one of my favorite intellects in the world makes the debate that most people read history as if they would have been the victim. When in reality, it's more likely they would have been the person inflicting the harm. So, you know, we're all prone to our biases and weaknesses, but I would like to think I would turn that money down. And my wife, you know, she looked at me, you know, sort of angry and she, you know, she's

like, you would turn it down. But you know, I, part of it is, you know, it's like I read about what they've done to homosexuals in Saudi Arabia and it makes my skin crawl. You know, I have a son who's a homosexual. I've got loads of friends who are homosexuals. And what's interesting to me, though, is that people assume, because of my stance against Liv, that I'm far-left liberal. And I'm like, why would any political party cede human rights to the other side?

Nobody's going gonna do that. And to make assumptions about my political bent based upon my beliefs about human rights is I think misguided. I think like most people in the world I meet, I'm center right, but certainly on social issues I would be left, but on fiscal issues I would be center, center right. But people love to assume that I'm, you

know, far left liberal, because I have views on human rights that, that make me recoil at the thought of the Saudis having a huge stake in the game of golf. Yeah, that's where it just, I don't like politics to begin with. I don't think it's dense. I definitely don't like mixing it with the show. But at a certain point, it just becomes a you've almost a it has to be like, right? If we're talking about what the future of this is, like it's being bought up by a government that you know, like

this, all of a sudden, it's a geopolitical play for them. Like it's, it's impossible to avoid. And every single like I have absolutely adored this conversation, because like we, we talked about issues, debate, like, you know, the actual things we're talking about, we're not based on like an ideology that we're following blindly. It was about, you know, that's what so much it drives politics is like, here is what my I've identified myself as this ideology. And I believe in

everything that this party believes I fall exactly on the right or the left of every single one of these issues, like, find me a well thought person that could possibly do that. Right. And that's where it's like, you're not gonna find you're gonna find plenty of people that are will find every great thing about live and nothing bad about live and every flaw of the PGA tour and nothing good about it. And I really don't think you're gonna find anyone that won't have critiques of the PGA tour is a

blind PGA tour fan. But that's just where it's like, all right, there's an ideology being pushed here that's not based in the facts. And that's where things just get really, really hairy. And again, I'm listening to myself talk right now. This is a golf show. What am I talking about? I'm not qualified to speak on this stuff. I'm not an expert on this. You shouldn't listen to my opinion on it. It's saying the same thing. You know, I, I go to the broadcast and I think, what do you mean nice is talking about golf. It's hard. Unfortunately, you can't because the nature of the game is it's embroiled in a political debate. And so it's

important to dive in, roll your sleeves up. It's like, you know, so because of it, you know, I've, I've learned again, you know, gained a new appreciation for people who are experts in these, these political conversations. And you spend, you know, because it's a, you have a responsibility to inform yourself. And over the last two, three years, I spent an inordinate amount of time, you know, on YouTube, listening to Mehdi Hassan talk about Saudi Arabia and should the West deviate towards any conciliatory business relations with Saudi Arabia. It's an interesting debate.

They're experts. They're experts. They know as much about that as you do your field and I'd like to think I do in my field. All right. Well, that's not the serious note to end this show on. But I could run but I could, I've run the risk of taking up four more hours of your time because I greatly do. One, I appreciate you spending so much time with us and I know listeners are going to enjoy

listening to this. I wish you luck next week with the US Open. I appreciate that. Thanks so much, Chris. Do not wait to watch. It's going to be fantastic. I do. It's exciting. US Opens in general are exciting. Pinehurst makes it even more exciting. So I'll be really jacked to be part of the team next week and looking forward to it. Fantastic. Well, thanks again for- Must I be there?

I will not be there. No, I will not be there in person. Too much travel so far this year. Easier for me to do my stuff. Enjoy home. Take care, Chris. All right. Thanks, Brandon. Cheers. Be the right club. Thanks for the... Cheers. Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different?