No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 886 - BMW Championship/AIG Women's Open Happy Hour

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Big week in golf! Randy and Jordan check in from St. Andrews and the very interesting weather at the AIG Women's Open. We make some picks for the final major championship of the year, as well as chat with Max Greyserman about how he's adjusting for altitude at the BMW Championship at Castle Pines, and hear about Neil's first pro-am experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes! Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another live happy hour edition of the No Laying Up live show podcast brought to you as

always by our friends at high noon. We are sweltering down here in the heat and the humidity in Jacksonville Beach. My guy KVV. how's it up in Baltimore? I'm pretty chill today. I saw it was about 70 degrees. Uh, when I did a little putting practice, uh, but working on humming while I'm doing my pots, you know, God figure that, that's, you know, take the, take the brain out of it. Just, you know, get a good little vibe going.

And there's so much energy across the pond in Scotland where we're going to check in with, uh, you know, two folks that are with us, so much energy across the pond in Scotland where we're going to check in with two folks that are with us. So much energy they blew a fuse at the entire building that they're at setting up for tonight's happy hour. That's Big Randy and Jordan Perez over at the AIG Women's Open at St. Andrews. How are we doing guys? Hey guys, we are great. Yeah, we blew a fuse. Cody though, ever the professional work in the problem. We had a little help from our BBC radio friends or, uh, I should say greater radio friends. And so we are in their flat right now.

We have the North sea behind us. The sun has set in St. Andrews, just a gorgeous, gorgeous place to be. But man, was it chilly. We're going to get some condities tomorrow, Sally. Very excited for that, but no matter the forecast you can live like the Sun's always out with High Noon Hard Seltzer made with real spirits and real juice. Text some friends to get the plans going. Pick up a pack on

the way. High Noon is of course a hundred calories, no added sugar available in vodka seltzer and tequila seltzer variety packs with crisp delicious flavors for every occasion under the sun. Visit high noon spirits dot com to find a pack near you. High noon sun's up. I see the the beanie on Randy you're getting a lot of flack on all the social medias for being a yank. It's summer over in Scotland it cannot possibly be that cold. summer over in Scotland, it cannot possibly be that cold. Uh, I, I feel like it was, it was solid. You know what Florida cold feels like this was, this was Scotland cold.

Uh, this was thankfully, you know, they give media a little gift upon arrival. This was part of the gift package. I can report there's a nice little, almost like fleece, fluffy lining here. Uh, I am going to wear the shit out of this hat today. It is the perfect, perfect accessory for this week. Honestly, you know, the high was like 60 today, but with the wind chill, I mean, it's gotta be what? Feels like in the forties, low fifties.

It's just a, it's more of a shock coming from, you know, the hot weather where we've come from. So I think that plays a part. Everyone needs to lay off Randy because I've got a heat pack right on the back of my neck and in the indoors, I'm sweating a little bit, but you know what? It's really coming in clutch on a week like this. I was really hoping you would just call them out for being soft Jordan. I was really, I thought that you were just waiting to swoop in there for that. But so let me just tell you, the folks should just wait.

I hit up the titleist, uh, tour truck today. I got some big oven mitts front. Like I got, um, what they call a snood. And I forget what the, like the neck buff, you know, the war I am so prepared. I am ready to go out in the elements this week. Well, as it's going to relate to this golf tournament, uh, you know, you guys have spent a couple of days here on site, getting the vibes. There's been some conditions for practice rounds.

What's it look like for the actual golf tournament? Uh, what's going to be the good wave to be in? What can you, what can you, what kind of on the ground reports can you give us so far? Yeah. Uh, Jordan, feel free to jump in here. I honestly am not sure there's a good wave tomorrow. From the first ball in the air at 7 a.m., it is gonna be windy. It's probably gonna be raining.

There's a good chance of rain up until about 10 a.m. And then what will be 15 to 20 mile per hour sustained winds grow to about 20 to 25 mile per hour, sustained winds in the afternoon, less precipitation, but stronger wind. So it's like, maybe I would even say the morning is the time to go off, but you're going to be dealing with precipitation and wind and the afternoon is just going to be a lot, a lot of wind. Honestly, right now I'm fingers crossed that play doesn't get delayed because that is the big concern with the wing gusts

and some of the exposed greens, you know, out at what 11, 12, 13, out at the far end of the property. That is my concern, Solly. I would hate to suspend play if, you know, just out of, because of the wind. Speaking of suspensions, your camera I believe has been suspended as we are scrambling last minute here to get this stream up and going due to this power issue.

He's the omnipresent narrator. It's kind of nice. You guys don't like the beanie? I'm taking it away from you. Let that be a lesson, okay? If you're listening to the podcast, you have no idea that any of this is going on. So in 2015, there were actual conditions at the old course, but it was

famously play had to be stopped because of high winds on that Saturday. It robbed us of a great day of golf. What, what kind of prep has gone in golf course wise? How ready is the RNA for if it is super windy for play to not get delayed? Have they done anything with green speeds or anything to kind of keep it, keep it playable in that, in those conditions. Yeah, they have. Uh, Martin slumbers had his big press conference earlier this afternoon and made a

point to say that they are slowing down the golf course. They have put water on the greens. He mentioned that all four days that they expect the wind to be mostly out of the same quadrant. So they have a good idea of where they can put pins to at least give them the best opportunity to keep play going. So that's that's what it's going to be. I feel like they are fully prepared for this.

They are going to do everything in their power to keep play moving. I don't think anybody wants to see a delay. So we'll see. or to keep play moving. I don't think anybody wants to see a delay. So we'll see, you know, obviously not ideal conditions from a certain standpoint, but on the other hand, like it's a British open, you know? It is just gonna be proper golf conditions. It's gonna be just as much of a psychological test as it is an execution test

It's everything we could have dreamed of man. I heard that some reports of people hitting driver three wood into 12 Today is that sound right? It's like a 300 yard hole if I I don't know exactly what they haven't set it up as but It's just gonna be a fascinating golf course to see to see the women play And you know, it's it's a familiar golf course for you know, the men's side of the game, but not so much on the women's side. I'm wondering kind of just what the overall takeaway you've had, I don't know if you got a chance to listen to Martin Slumbers talk a little bit about some of that today as far as what it's gonna be like

to watch the women play this golf course. Yeah, we have some graphics to kind of show how this course I think is best situated to challenge the women where that game is now in terms of the distance and just the bunkering around St. Andrews, uh, the original design. And I think the thing that Martin slumber said that was exciting, specific to the old course, specific to St. Andrews, you know, this will only be the third time the women have played

the open championship here. And he made a point to say, we will come back with regularity. I think as they've done on the men's side, I think they wanna make this more or less an anchor site for it sounds like reading between the lines, they're gonna develop a bit of a rota on the women's side. He went out of his way to mention,

you'll see many of the same courses utilized on the men's side become the courses that are utilized on the women's side. With the one exception, he did point out, he said that the women will always make a point to go down to the London area every however many years, just because that is such a population center and one of the key mandates for this championship in the RNA is to grow participation, especially on the female side,

and that's where they see the biggest potential to do that. Yeah, as far as St. Andrews, I think we're going to get a lot of future tests from the women here. Like you said, S Sally, it just sets up fabulously for the distances that they're hitting it off the tee, and how this course is designed. It's going to be much more of a test that is, I think, closer to what old Tom Morris and what we think this course should offer,

certainly more so than what we've seen with the men and much more so than what we think this course should offer, certainly more so than what we've seen with the men and much more so than what we saw in 2022 when the conditions were very benign. So yeah, it's going to be a great week. Well, maybe some of this is relatively obvious, but I've often said I think the old course is the best golf course in the world. And do I think it's the best golf course in the world when the pros tee it up and play on it? I don't because a lot of what makes it so great is a little bit even with tees that are set up on opposite other golf courses I think you play some tee shots from the new course you play some tee shot a particular tee shot from the

Eden course you tee off on the 17th hole out of bounds but Jamie Kennedy had a great tweet kind of a tweet thread this past, I think it was yesterday or today on Twitter, just kind of showing some some cones and some shot charts for what the typical drive is on the LPGA tour like the I don't know exactly what these are, but I think it's, you know, short end, median end and long end of drives. And it's just laying that over a lot of the bunkers, you get a good understanding of what the intended challenge is supposed to be off the tee

for this place and it's like the example that's up on the screen right now is the 12th hole all these bunkers that it's not you know it's not just a hey let's pound it and go find the ball or I can hit it in on an infinite line on this route it's like hey I've got to hit this club to cover this one and I've got to hit not more than this distance to stay out of a distant bunker, right? And with the wind changing every single day, you know, it might be six iron to cover that bunker

right in front of us that we're looking at, or it might take driver depending on what the wind direction is. And if you want to go over, I mean, it's like this on repeat too. And that's where maybe not all of this shines through when you're watching it on television. But if you go to the next hole, the 13th hole,

which is a shared fairway there with the sixth hole going the other way, you have these kind of center line bunkers here, the coffin bunkers that play, you know, almost like center line bunkers there. The typical route would be up the right. But as you'll see, like back into the wind, those bunkers are gonna be a huge problem for players to carry so you

may have to play out all the way down the left depending on what the wind is and that's what makes this place so special I mean it's it can look kind of benign and silly you know when these bunkers don't come into play and it's flip wedges into a lot of this and the I can think of no better golf course to show off the disparity in as to what that what technology has done to the men's side and what we're gonna see out of the women's side than this one. And I'm just very, very stoked to watch it.

Plus adding in the conditions too, just makes it like 10X more exciting. I think that's exactly right. Yeah, it's, you know, I know Jamie, that tweet thread he went on to mention 16 and the principals nose bunker. It's like every famous bunker that we know of that, you know, I just go back to 2022 because it's the most recent championship here.

Those weren't even in play. The guys weren't even thinking about it. And so combining, as you said, you know, the women obviously aren't hitting at the same distance and then with certain conditions out here, the direction of the wind, it's going to be very, very interesting to watch them navigate this golf course and who can stay out of trouble. And it just, I think when you think of an open championship, right, the indelible image for me are the pop bunkers and you know, the kind, the kind of the luck of the bounce and, and can, do you have a shot? You have to play out sideways backwards. I think that's all going to be on full display and I absolutely cannot wait. KVV what's got you, uh, what's got you a buzzing for the edgy women's open this week? You know, for a long time, I thought Nellie was a dome player and that she couldn't handle

the wind. And then she won a bunch early in the year in some kind of challenging conditions that made me feel like, oh, I was totally wrong about this. And we've kind of reached that point now where she's kind of, I don't know, regressed is the right word or putting this kind of go back to the normal. I want to see how she handles the elements. I want to see, you know, she's the most talented player in the world. This seemed like it was gonna be a super, you know, historic year.

And I wanna see her to have to sort of hit some shots that with the right trajectory and then be able to take on certain stuff. And, you know, I was thinking guys, what do you have to do to not get your name on a bunker? Like there's a bunch of bunkers that aren't named here. I feel like there ought to be a campaign to name all the bunkers.

Jordan, I want you to go around and find the unnamed bunkers and see if we can, we can have people name them this week. Got it. Got it. I'll happily take that assignment on. I think you want to call it not get you don't want it named after you the only way you get one's name. Yeah, I think we should name all the rest of the bunkers that haven't been named. I feel like it's some of the bunkers being

left out not having names is bullshit. They should all have a name at this point. It's been around for 400 years. I agree. I think that's a good point, Kavi. There's had to have been some car crashes in just about every one of these bunkers. Like, let's find out who, you know, who's had the worst go of it and slap some names on it. Totally agree. Jordan, that's what you're doing tomorrow. We did that on the new course about nine years ago. My buddy Bishop got lost in a bunker on the 18th hole he took four shots to get out of it we've since called it the Bishop's bunker. I don't know if the Lynx Trust

has made any updates to the Yardage but I can I can follow up on that but see if you can ask him that. So guys I want to do a little game here for for picks you know we usually throw out picks whatever but I really like this draft thing we've had going lately so I'm gonna we're gonna go around the horn. I'm gonna ask everyone to draft We're gonna try to find the winner, right? So you can take anyone on the board when it's your turn I rate I did a random generator to get the draft order. I happen to get the first pick I filmed it and I know you guys are gonna accuse me of it. I filmed it if you want the video I will send it to you

I have the first pick KVV has the second Randy has third and Jordan has fourth and we'll snake back three rounds, okay? But then the fourth round is gonna be instead of like the field you can choose any nationality. So you know you can be covered off by anyone that's not in those first three rounds by picking a country and you win the game if you're playing if a player like us if you picked Sweden and a Swedish player that's not drafted wins you get it. So with first overall pick, I, you know, I'm looking at these odds, first of all,

scrolling the odds and like Lauren Coughlin is like 20 to one to win a major championship this year or this week. And I don't know if she's going to come back to me on the second go around and I'm just going to do it. I'm taking Lauren. I, she's like one of the hottest golfer in the planet is playing with incredible confidence. The ball striking is gonna get majorly put to the test.

No one is hitting it more consistently and it's the kind of golf horse that just, you don't have to be spectacular with your ball striking. You just gotta be smart and no one is playing smarter and more put together. I'm taking Lauren off the board first. Don't care if it sounds crazy. Maybe it's a hard play, but that's my first pick.

Kevin, you're up. Damn it. I really wanted to pick Lauren. It's not fair. All right. You know what? I'm going to go with my heart, with my sentiment. I want to pick Lydia Ko. I feel like this is a great opportunity for Lydia to win and walk off, to just basically walk away from the game. She's got a gold medal. She hasn't won a major in so long.

I feel like this would be like an unbelievable capper to her career. Great putter, great wedge player. I feel like the idea that length will be neutralized a little bit by the elements. I'm riding with my heart. She's been super nice to me and to my kid over the years. I'm ready to ride or die with her. Randy.

Bunch of homers. Well, I'll say, KBV first, you are not the first person I've heard mention that hypothetical this week. I think that's a very compelling scenario that we should keep an eye on if Lydia's in contention come Sunday. Sully, to your point, I have a stat that kind of backs up Lauren's play. You know, not of course she's won what two of her last three starts. Cumulative score to par across all the majors this year on the women's side.

Elsie is 11 under total. Only two women have been better than her. And with the third pick, I'm going to take one of those women. It's actually my pick to win. I, it came to me this afternoon. I feel really, really good about it. I'm taking Ali Ewing. Wow.

She finished, uh, she finished tied for third last year at Walton Heath. She's had some success over on this side of the pond. She's, she's a bulldog. She's got that US Open grinder mentality. I really like Allie Ewing. All right, Jordan, you get two picks here. You can really dot the board here. Whoa, two picks, huh?

Okay. Go nuts. Well, thank you for breaking the streak of heart plays and actually backing up the facts. Of course, why do I like Allie? I expect more from the data boy, but you know, whatever. The data's there for Lauren. Randy just cited the data. I'm very confident in this one.

I have no data for Lydia, but the data is there. All right, all right. All right, for my first one, I am going to go with Miyu Yamashita. I have been a massive fan of the Japanese contingent this year, especially their running majors, and she has also come off some really good momentum. She is just been so phenomenal and I don't expect any less this week. Listen, Jordan, I'm not going to critique you.

I'm just guessing she might've been around coming back to you in the third. You know. I'm just not sure the value on that pick, but please make your second one. All right. My second one, guys, I listen, y'all are kind of laying it to the party, but since I get to, I'm just going to take Nellie. Okay. Like I think she's prepped and she knows the pressure going into this week. I think kind of being precise with her rest time has been, it's only paying off. And I like Nellie this week. I really do. Trey Lockerbie All right, Randy. Randy Pauly Oh gosh. I mean, I feel like the value here is the defending champ. Give me Lilia Vu. Love Lilia. I feel like she's proven to be somewhat

back in health. I think the back is a day to day thing. This weather does as I'm fucking longer. It's already in. It's already in. I know. I'm going to talk myself out of this pic, but yeah, I'll stick with Lilia. KVV. Oh man. I'm trying to decide whether I want to go head or heart here. All right. I just got, I want to take Charlie Hull because I want to see head or heart here. Uh, I, all right. I just got, I want to take Charlie Hall because, uh, and I want to see Charlie Hall win, I actually don't love this pick in terms of like, will she win, will she close the deal?

But, uh, would be super fun for me. So I'm going to go ahead and stick with it. I can, I was ready to take her with the first one. If I didn't take learn Lauren, I'm taking Ayaka food away. Uh, she is by all accounts, the favorite for this week. And I'm getting her with the, uh if I didn't take Lauren. I'm taking Ayaka Fudo-Wei. She is by all accounts the favorite for this week and I'm getting her with the eighth overall pick. I'm very excited about that. And I'm dotting the board with favorites. I'm going data with both of these. Jin Young-Ko, still just a phenomenal player and is still on the board. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night having passed on her. So my team is Lauren,

Ayaka Fudo-Wei and Jin Young-Ko. I feel good about that. Kev, final question. So I'll just mention quickly, Solly Ayaka is the other player tied with Ali Ewing at 12 under par cumulative in majors this year. How about that? All right, I'm gonna take, it's my turn again, Solly, is that right?

Yes. I am gonna go, I'm to go at Tyotidical. Just feels like a lot of game has one of these already. If I know it, excuse me, doesn't yet, but has a major already. So I'm feeling good about her chances. Randall. Oh, God. Let's go. God, I'm almost, we're gonna go H.J. Kim.

I don't know why she seems to show up in big events. We have the meats. Jordan, final pick. Final pick. I'm gonna go Alison Corpus. This will be a good place for her. All right, and you also get to now choose a nationality for the rest of the field. That covers off the rest of the field.

Pick any country that you want that wouldn't be in the, how many players have we drafted, 12 players we've drafted. A nationality that of none of the players we've picked? No, it can be any nationality. Like basically, but for the rest of the field, you are like, all right, I'm taking all the Swedes, I'm taking all the English, I'm going to do whatever you want with the remainder pick. Can I just say the English stink? Don't take the English. I wasn't, I wasn't. Let her take them, then you can rip on it.

That's true. No, I wasn't. Yeah, she didn't say anything. I was going to continue off the momentum of my first pick. I'm going to take Japan. Okay. Oh, nice. Randy? That the momentum of my first pick. I'm going to take Japan. Okay. Oh, nice. Randy. That's kind of who I wanted. Um, cool. I'm trying to think, uh, who I'm leaving on the board.

You know, give me the red, white and blue. I'm a proud American, Sally stars and stripes. Kev. Wow. I gotta go with the Koreans. So this looks like a huge value there. Yeah. Not to call Hank Haney get canceled, but there's a lot of good Korean players I

Am actually gonna go Aussie that gives me Hannah Green and Minji Lee that that's it that I'm going I'm going I'm going the date on that one More than I would be hard at Swedes. You could throw in there, but that's an interesting one on that one more than I would be hard. It's Swedes you could throw in there, but that's an interesting one. Announcements this week, the AIG Women's Open Prize Fund has gone up to nine and a half million dollars

up from $3.25 million just six years ago. Pretty remarkable. Enjoyed some of the dive-ins on the deep dives into the old AIG Women's Open, Women's British Open stuff that came in our preview pod, which you of course are welcome to listen to. We do have split tees on Thursday and Friday because of some daylight concerns and the weather forecast.

I see somebody's written in here that the slumber is quite pleased with the decision because of that. Yeah, you know, I was a little disappointed that they were going split tees. I think they had made this decision before they knew about the weather, but I think the weather has reinforced that it's probably the right decision for this week. So, um, yeah, Martin, Martin was pleased and I guess I'm a little less pleased, but still pleased. TV coverage here in the States, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern every day on it's on

USA on Thursday and Friday, seven to 12 on USA Saturday and Sunday, then 12 to two on NBC and Peacock. And as well, you can go and sign up at RNA.com and sign up and get access to the World Feed each day. It might cost money, I believe, is what some of the research is. Yeah, it might cost money. But they do have the World Feed.

I will note the World Feed doesn't start until noon local time. So that would be your 7 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States. So, but that's another option. And we'll just throw out, Kody and I, the AIG Women's Radio folks, we're gonna be doing a lot of radio.

They can find that on the website, or there's a nice app that you can listen if you wanna do other things on your phone. Well, I'm jealous of you guys being there. I'm jealous of the weather you are experiencing even if it may be cold. I'm also jealous of you getting to wear some long sleeves. There's a reason we talk about row back so much. It's probably not a day that goes by where I'm not rocking some sort of row back clothing. Not only are they a great supporter of our

content, a lot of our preview content, a lot of our content coming out around St. Andrews as well. They have it all. I went Q-zip today just because I'm trying to get some long sleeve stuff in. I've got The AC pump in here in the house q-zips don't get a lot of love in the summer, you know But if you live somewhere cool in the summer, you're gonna get you know I cannot think of something more stylish and more comfortable you guys got the hoodies going they look extremely comfortable As well, the crew necks are fantastic great material. They're great for any situation Workout tees are great bathing suit is great

It's just fantastic stuff If you haven't already load up on some row back for yourself and for others code and now you at row back comm for generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's our HOB a CK Comments 20% off bottoms q-zips hoodies and more with code and I'll use summer isn't the same without row back Anything we're leaving on the table for women's open before we get to BMW? No, I thought I got one step for you Sally before I leave you and I thought this was an interesting one One other thing Martin slumbers said in his press conference, you know This is of course a golf course that I think we as golf fans are very very familiar with

But what makes it a bit unique is 30 of the top 50 ranked women have never played a competitive round here. So it is not a golf course that's super familiar to the field, and especially the top end of this field. And so I think that plus the weather, I just truly feel like this is a wide open golf tournament. And I think anybody that tells you they know what's gonna happen or they,

like I told you, I think Allie is gonna win. I obviously don't know. It's gonna be fascinating who's left standing Sunday evening. It seems like if there's ever a week for a really random winner, it would be this one with all this weather and how wide open this golf tournament is.

On the complete opposite side, our guys Neil and TC and Casey are out at Castle Pines Golf Club for the BMW Championship second, the penultimate I always, it's one of my favorite words I should have I should have let that should have written that right in the penultimate event of the PGA Tour season. If you want a preview of that tournament or of that golf course, we have a video that's out on our YouTube channel from a couple weeks ago. TC played with Roger

Steele out there, is out to rave reviews, gotten a lot of texts saying that Roger's the perfect antidote to TC. He pushed him around the way TC typically pushes other people around. So that was a great relief today. There's a lot of elevation going on out there. We have a bunch of preview videos on our on our social channels as well previewing a bunch of the holes And did I feel ready to get bombarded with it on the telecast but I'm super curious to see How everyone handles the elevation I see I thought I saw some Roy's hitting 371 yard carry which I've heard anything from 7 to 15 percent as which I've heard anything from 7 to 15 percent as the altitude adjustment.

I did some research online. It was all the online tools were saying 7 percent. All the players are saying something different than that. Are you guys curious to see professional golf at altitude? Is that gonna play? Hey man, Chapultepec North. This is gonna be sick. I'm all in.

I'd say this, this better be the highest rated viewing golf tournament of the year because everyone has always told us how important the driving distance is and everyone, this is what drives the ratings. The ball's gonna go really far this week. I expect this tournament to rate extremely well. Everyone better be watching the BMW championship this week.

Think of what the Sports Illustrated rankings are gonna look like. I mean, it's not like distance for shot. Do those still exist or did they stop doing that? I'm pretty sure that in the sale of sports illustrated or new effort was run through the, you know, venture capital meat grinder that does went by the wayside, but I'm not sure.

Please, if you're a close follower of the sports illustrated distance per shot rankings, please write into us I we have a clip Neil and TC played in the pro am today. We have some tidbits from them I I did this for Neil's sake and I maybe I shouldn't have because it was really really funny He struggled to pronounce Max Grazerman's name. I did clip that out of this video, but please just know in the beginning of this video There was a very funny moment where uh... you'll reach back and panic when you realize he didn't

uh... know how to pronounce uh... max griswold here there's the asking max about how he's doing his altitude adjustments uh... for this tournament it is right how do you think of the altitude this week so we're at sixty two hundred feet about so i have an app that basically

computes altitude how far it's going So for me, it's about 10 to 15 percent depending on temperature. So in the morning I'm playing about 10 to 12 Yeah, afternoon is gonna be about 14 to 15 Okay, and so that has to do with the heat too. It's like 65 in the morning 90 in the afternoon Well, it's always gonna go really far Also, the higher you hit it the more percentage affects it, right? So do you feel it mainly like more percentage affects it, right? So do you feel it mainly like, what about wedges?

Same deal? Well, I feel it mostly when I'm walking uphill like I'm doing right now, because I'm out of breath. Like wedges, for example, since you generally have hit flatter trajectory, they'll be lower on the percentage scale. So probably more like 10.

You get the most in about a seven iron, because it's just in the air for the longest So anywhere from 10 to 15 percent and it's kind of a field game. Okay. Love it. Thank you max So what do you think uh about you know, what are we gonna see out of the top 30 players this week? Who's who's gonna kind of shine? Well again, this is a low-key big week It always is a low-key big week because of what comes with making the tour championship, right? Even if you're not the biggest, you know, tour championship fan, Eastlake fan, FedEx Cup finale, all that stuff. There's so much that comes with this. This is an obvious, there's a two-year PGA Tour exemption that comes with making the top 30.

A 2025 Masters birth and tradition would say that it also gets you in the US Open and the Open Championship I got a list of guys that are in this tournament that are not eligible as of now for next year's Masters That's Christian Bezadenhout or whatever that guy on the social clip called him earlier this week from Memphis that made my week Zuden howder or booze and booze and hound or whatever that was Christian Bezadenhout a step Straka, Jason Day, Tom Hoge, Denny McCarthy, Chris Kirk, Corey Connors, JT Poston, Steven Yeager, Austin Eckrote, Adam Hadwin, C. Wu Kim, Alex Norrin, Eric Cole, Max Grazerman, Nick Dunlap,

and Keegan Bradley are all not in the Masters as of next year. Now, there is another exemption as of the end of this year for anybody that's in the OWGR top 50 and there's obviously future chances to get in. Straka is 30th in the OWGR, Day is 26th, Nick Dunlap is 36th. How is Nick Dunlap not in the Masters yet?

I would also say having won twice this year but the opposite field wind does not get him in. Keegan is 22nd in the world. He's almost certainly safe to make it in but I just remember at Delaware a couple years ago Like saw hits getting up and down and making like a ten-footer on the last hold like make it into the Masters and that's always A fun thing to watch with this final tournament last week Obviously had the 70 getting into the top 50 for the signature events for next year and this one is Getting into you know getting them one of the most prestigious invites that you can possibly get in golf. So

into getting them one of the most prestigious invites that you can possibly get in golf. So, Denny McCarthy is in the 30 spot, sitting on the bubble. Billy Ho is the safest. He's the last safe guy at 19. Matthew Pavon appears safe, as does Aaron Rye. JT has about a 99% chance of advancing, according to Data Golf,

but some notable names outside the top 30. Tommy Ladd is 31st. Matt Fitzpatrick is 36th, and only if you're 36 you only have a 14% chance to advance or he has only a 14% chance again per day to golf. Sal Taurus is 37th, only 11% to advance. Cam Young, Adam Scott, Max Homa, Keegan Bradley, all with low chances of advancing this week on a brand new golf course.

Course these guys haven't seen before at altitude. It's just a very interesting wrinkle thrown in here at the end of the year. I would not mind it if the BMW was at a different golf course every year, like obviously it is a different golf course, but like a new golf course where they had never played every year, just have that be its identity. We're going to roll you out

and you're going to never have seen this before. Now you got to go out and get it. You want to be in the tour championship? You want to like all this free money? go out and play a new course and take it I'm in on that man. They're they're going to a bunch of different ones You know in the future here a bunch of courses that a lot of guys would not have seen Listen, I know you guys Jordan Randy I know you guys have struggled with power and continue to struggle with power on your cameras

As much as we'd like we'd love for you to stay the whole whole time we're gonna go ahead and excuse you I know you probably have many many glamorous parties to get to over there in Scotland and I'm envious of you enjoy the golf this week we'll look forward to you guys will have a halfway show on Friday night as well as we'll have a separate women's live show on Sunday night as well as a BMW live show on Sunday night so a lot more content to come from you guys. We'll listen to you on radio and can't wait to check in this week. Thank you guys. Should be a great, great four days over here. We can't wait.

Totally. Thank you. We got a few on the ground reports from Neil and TC. They're just now, they're coming in as we are recording here. Apparently Roger Steele, who played the pro-am with the guys again today drove it to six feet on 18 from 406 yards. So again, if you take a peek at our preview video that we did with Roger, and we can attest the speeds and distances

he hits the golf ball are very, very, very real. TC also wrote in to say, big Muirfield village vibes at Castle Pines. Bunch of guys are gonna lay back with irons off the tee and then just keep it in front of them and pick their spots and feed on the par fives. Said the par threes are very long. Also reported Neil hit it over a grandstand

slash hospitality tent on 14 from like 220 yards. I'm just assuming he hit three wood. He said it was epic and then he hit it off the roof on 17 and then Roger hit it off the grandstands a couple of times as well. So that seems like a very fun Pro-Am group to have been a part of today. Absolutely.

I would love to see Neil's brain light up, taking the going, taking lines over the top of grandstands. Neil at altitude, there's just, there's no chance. Like he literally has no chance. We have a random little game that you have prepared for us here today Kevin and I truly don't know if I will get a single one of these right but tell us what we're gonna do here with the remainder of this show. Well so I just this idea lit in my head, and we truly, sometimes in the happy hour, get a little bit loopy.

We've coupled a few high noons in us, and we're like, what are some dumb games we can play? You and I like to do these deep dives, and every time we do it, we talk about Mr. Eldrick Taunt Tiger Woods. And we always kind of make that joke, because his middle name actually is Taunt. And it got me thinking, with our other game of our other game of like, hey, can you,

if I give you the first name of this guy, can you identify who it is? And I thought, wouldn't it be funny if you know all the people in this field, it's not a huge field, if I give you their middle name, can you guess which golfer I am talking about? And I will give you a couple context clues if you really need them, but I think, you know, we're just

gonna throw some of these out here and we're gonna see how well you can do or put you in the hot seat to give it a go. All right, my hands are up. We're not we're not googling. I don't I think I know two of them. But so I might be asking for a lot of hints. All right. Our first golfer is middle name is Paul. his middle name is Paul. He's not an American. Give you that first clue.

Tommy Fleetwood. Yes, you got number one for one. No way. Very good, Tali. Are you serious? I was like, there's no way it's Paul. Some of these English Irish lads have very, as you would imagine, kind of like Anglo-Saxon names.

You can just keep that in mind. All right, I'm gonna go a little bit different direction here. Holland is this Balfour's middle name. I'm gonna say it's not Victor Hovland. That's one thing. Holland. Holland Hovland, that would be sick.

Let's go with Stephen Yeager. No, that is incorrect. Would you like any more clues before I sure can give me a clue. He's a writer copper, a recent writer copper. sep straka. Sam Holland burns. I know that some of these southern lads have a very nice, funny middle names. Uh, little name, this of golfers middle name is Victor. Hovland? That would be so sick. No, I thought, no, I thought that he went by his middle name was maybe what I thought that was.

No, that is not correct. That is Xander Victor Schauffele. Did not know that. Yeah. Uh, this golfers middle name is Alexander. Are there any tricks in this that it's a golfer that we know? There might be one trick. Okay, there might be a trick coming, but we have not received a trick just yet. JT Poston. No, I feel like you should know this one. Scotty Schffler, Scotty Alexander Scheffler.

Did not know that. All right. Francis is next on the board. JT. No. Any more guesses? Sure, well give me a hint. It is an American.

He's really good on the greens. Denny McCarthy. Denny McCarthy. Denny McCarthy, Denny Francis McCarthy, which is what we should be calling him because if he's gonna be like an assassin, Denny Francis McCarthy. I think you can get this one. His middle name is Poo-ha.

Tony Fino? Yes, it is, oh actually. Milton. Milton, Tony, Poo-ha, Fino? Yes, it is. Oh, actually, Milton Milton, Milton, Tony, Pooja, Fino. Okay. Yep. Run out of really interesting ones here. But how about Lewis? This has been a this person has been on the NLU podcast. Lewis like multiple time guest.

I'd say this year he's been on. Is it Max? he's been on. Is it Max? It's not Max. Okay, is that one JT? It is JT. Justin Lewis Thomas. Okay. This one here. This one kind of surprised me. His middle name is Hanson. Hanson. Sebstraka. Boy band Hanson. Sebstraka. No.

Any more guesses? I don't. Any hints? He's tall. He's tall. It's so hard to pull these out of your ass. This is the last one. I'm embarrassing myself right now. Cody looks like he's ready to chime in here. It's so hard to pull these out of your ass. This is the last one. I'm embarrassing myself right now.

Cody looks like he's ready to chime in here. I don't know. He's done with this game. He does not have audio. He's your own. You're on mute. I've been battling for my life over here and this feels exactly like the game that I play with my three little girls.

When they're like, daddy, yes. Why can't you guess it? Why can't you get it? You gotta give me an answer. It's kind of impure. It's so hard. Oh, you're a girl, can we get a nationality? Oh, he's tall.

Come on, KVV, help the guy out. It's like, guess who? He is, he's won a PGA championship. Keegan? I don't even know what name, I forget what the middle name is at this point. Hanson. Keegan Bradley. Keegan Bradley. Alright.

Alright, well, that's just sort of a stupid game I thought was fun. Some of the other ones that kind of, you know, surprised me. Of course, you know, Maxwell, Max Holm is middle name is actually Maxwell. First name is John. Kirk, Chris Kirk is Dark Brandon, his middle name is Brandon. And Maverick McNeely, Scott, we have a couple Scots here. Bobby Mack Duncan, very Scottish name there. Justin Peter Rose, all the Englishmen have

these very basic names, I'd say. Adam Hadwin's middle name is Gerald, enjoyed that. Jason Anthony Day. And then the other last one that I thought was interesting. Russell Henley's middle name is Chapin. I guess which is a I guess maybe it's kind of a southern thing. So anyway, truly the dumbest game that I've ever bought the table. But you know, put me in the mood. So happy hours for that. You know what else happy hours for is getting in your plays of the week. We have scoured the board. There's a lot of great

options at FanDuel. Of course, the FanDuel sportsbook odds are of course subject to change, but a lot of fun little options here. Kev, what's your pick of the week? My pick of the week, let me pull it up here. Sorry, just a sec. It is, I'm going to go with Scottie Shepler, Xander Shafle, Colin Morricalla, and Victor Hovland to all shoot 66 or better in round one. I'm feeling like it's plus 2,600. The guys are gonna just sort of tear it up a little bit, and so we're gonna run the board with some of the top guys racking up a bunch of birdies.

I was trying to talk myself into one of those. I read through every single one of those, and I was like, oh yeah, they're definitely gonna shoot 62. And I backed out and I went with something way more conservative with my pick. But I'm going Rory or Xander to be bogey free in round one. And that is plus 165. Two shots at bogey free on a golf course.

I don't think they're gonna have a lot of problems with this golf course. BMW championship scoring is always always quite low I'm gonna be I'm excited about that one. I think it's a solid play I like your chances with Xander better than Roy, but we'll see I don't know It's easy golf courses Roy does typically does pre-old bogey free I don't know they're not gonna set it up to overly difficult from what we've heard I know there's some rough out there, but it's, you know, it's, but I got altitude adjusted.

It's like 7,200 yards or something like that, depending on who you ask and how they're adjusting for that. But, but yeah, well, just wrapping up here, but with some odds and ends on our way out, cause I don't, I don't want to talk about this on the Sunday pod. We need to put a time limit on some of this stuff, but some absolutely brutal ratings flowed in this week

for both the PGA Tour and for Live. Josh Carpenter reporting here that PGA Tour viewership from Sunday at NBC was 2.21 million for Hideki Matsuyama's win at the St. Jude. That's down from 3.2 million for Lucas Glover on CBS. Ratings are weird, man. So I't know exactly like what to tie this to I don't think Lucas Glover is the massive needle mover I would love to tie it to the fact that people want to watch CBS and don't want to watch on NBC but I doubt it's you know, 33 percent or whatever this dip is but

Is this good? I mean this has to cause some panic right? This has to be a little bit they're taking some phone calls this week about this number right I would think so I mean at least like some trying to explain it away right there's some sort of explanation of like oh we were you know happened to get a you know bad weekend for going up against I don't know post-olympic you know doldrums or something I mean if, if you're an executive who's in charge of shit, it's your job to be able to explain it away. Uh, it seems a little bit harder to explain the live ratings, which I know you're going to talk about in a sec. But if in

theory, right, there's a million people who are interested in golf, who didn't watch golf this weekend, who could have watched, uh, this other golf tournament that had pretty good people in the playoffs. They're all in the app. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's just that they all they're just definitely a lot of those 65 year old man just loading up the app. I bet. It again, if it wasn't in line with an overall trend, I wouldn't

maybe bring as much attention to it because you can get a lot of noise within year to year data, right?? Like if you get a tiger weekend one year and the rating dips the next year, it goes down by 25%. That can be easily explained. I don't think Lucas Glover weekend last year is going to do that as much as I love you. You're my guy, Lucas. You know, Hideki maybe having the big lead going into Sunday

can, can explain a little bit of that. But the bots tried to make it their, their thing of like, well, yeah, of course, Rom and Brooks were on the other channel. Of course that's why everyone was watching. of that but the bots tried to make it their their thing of like well yeah of course Rom and Brooks were on the other channel of course that's where everyone was watching and then their ratings came out they had a hundred and sixty five thousand people watched it live on the CW which is a catastrophic rating and again all the the fictitious reporting that they use for their streaming and apps and all that stuff is what they'll tell you where everyone is watching it

but like there's a reason why everyone uses the same ratings and comparable but like 150,000 people watched us on ESPN to like doing a live podcast talking over the PGA championship this past year to 165,000 people watch John Romvers Brooks Koepke. Like I don't know what again if common if comments- My 40 million, so where's my 40 million? If common sense ruled the day, this would race us towards a conclusion. It's been very obvious that this was gonna go this way for quite some time.

We're here. That doesn't mean we're gonna get towards a conclusion on this. That's one thing I've learned over this process. I think we have all spoken maybe too rationally on this topic for the last couple years of, yeah, we can say the same things this is obvious this is always going to happen golf's not big enough to split this audience but that doesn't mean that we're any closer to concluding this because the people in charge of on both sides like the live people

seem so intent on just like destroying golf as the way it stands that they're not in a hurry to do a deal and I don't know if the PJ tour thinks that they can just wait and last outrun this thing. Monahead had some comments last week. I only saw the transcript but it seemed to imply that he didn't think anything was gonna happen through 27 or 28. And I'm just like, maybe there was an article that came out in the Financial Times this week about the era of dumb money is over with with the Saudis.

They're bringing a lot more stuff domestic, blah, blah, blah. Kind of still believe that when I see it kind of thing. But if the strategy is still for the PGA Tour to just sit around and wait for the Saudis to run out of money, I still think that's a bad strategy. But man, it's just this past that honestly seeing both of those numbers just really bummed me out because it was like exactly what we said when Rom left was like, dude, this isn't a win for Liv. This is just a bigger loss for the PGA tour.

That's the game that the PIF is playing with this. And they're fine to let it burn and golf fans just suffer. And it's just all like, like I could explain this to a third grader and they would understand it. Yeah, this is the reality that we have to live in. Cody get ready to start giving Arabic lessons to Phil Mickelson and those gang, you know,

if they're going to bring that to league in domestic, that would be kind of a truly delightful turn of events. If if the boys got brought back to just be a domestic league in Saudi Arabia, that would be fun. I mean, look, you know, you can explain away some of the live stuff. So I guess with the app, so, you know, you're not watching on streaming, but like in theory, right? If you had John Rom and Brooks Koepka, which they did in a playoff, that would also lift the regular number above like terrible, which has never

really been anything any of the ratings that they've shown. I mean, I think the high watermark and all this stuff is like in the 200s. Well, they had the Pebble Sunday with the rain on the PGA tour, they got like 430,000 people watching on CW on TV, right? So that doesn't explain, not everybody switched to streaming in the last five months, right? Like that's a clear downward trend that they've also had,

like just people have other things to do. That should be a watermark right there, right? That's what they should have gotten this weekend if people are actually invested and interested in this. There's no excuse why they shouldn't have, right? If you're in theory saying a million people are watching this overall and 400,000 people are watching on the app, then that would be progress.

That would be sustained traction that you've gained. But look, I mean, the BJ Tour is also, at least there's a bottomless pit of money in theory over there. BJ Tour is gonna be the ones asking all these sponsors to cough up five more million dollars to sort of be the title sponsor of this. They should be terrified in that sense of like looking at these ratings. Yeah, man. It's Denny Cash. We might even get Denny Cash back on the horn and back in here to

help explain how the last couple of weeks have gone and how this renewal season is going to go. I don't know, man. It's just kind of wild that we're just expected to sit here and cover the tournaments like the exact same way that we always have and talk about it like it's normal because it's just not normal man. It's why the majors have gotten that much bigger. It's just a real bummer man. Overall life raft. Pro golf needs a life raft right now and the people in charge don't seem to be in a hurry to do that so anyways a Lot of golf to be watching this week a lot of content still to come for us as we mentioned check out our YouTube channel For a bunch of content that we that we've had or the the preview video that we shot out of BMW championship at Castle Pines

We got a bunch of feature-hole videos out there for for for Castle Pines as well as a bunch of feature hole videos out there for Castle Pines, as well as we're going to have live shows on Friday night, Sunday night, a bunch of content coming from those on the ground. You can listen to the boys on AIG Women's Open Radio. That was a delightful listen last year when you couldn't watch it on television. So big, big week. The team spread out in a lot of different locations Cody We appreciate you battling through some power issues over there across the pond KVV appreciate you calling in as well. Thank you to everyone that tuned in live We'll be looking forward to bringing you the coverage all week long. Thanks to high noon fan duel and row back crack on cheers