No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 979: Min Woo breaks through + TGL Season 1 Review

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Soly and DJ are ready to dine on tonight's pod as The Chef, Min Woo Lee, wins his first PGA Tour title, holding off Gary Woodland and Scottie Scheffler to win in Houston. We break down the weekend and sneak in a little lookahead to Augusta before an eclectic back nine (38:15) featuring the LIV Duels announcement, a review of TGL's inaugural season, Eugenio Chacarra winning on the DP World Tour, our research into the best current golfer in MLB, Jack Nicklaus winning a lawsuit against himself, the passing of Dave Pelz and a ton more. NLU Pro Shop First Major Collection Support our sponsors: Footjoy Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast 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 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? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying up podcast. Solly here. Two man show tonight joined by my guy, Mr. DJ Pie. Hello, pie man.

Hello. Let him cook, Solly. I'm ready. I'm ready. Nobody is letting them cook. Nobody's going to let this guy cook, man. I'm excited to talk about Minwooli's victory down in Houston. We got a fun back night. We got all kinds of fun stuff to get to. Good to be with guy cook, man. I'm excited to talk about Min Woo Lee's victory down in Houston. We got a fun back night. We got all kinds of fun stuff to get to. Good to be with you, my man.

As mentioned, Min Woo Lee wins down in Houston. Euhenio Shakara wins the Hero Indian Open. We're going to talk a little bit about that. Lilia Vu was leading in the final round of the LPGA event out in Arizona called the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, which is a very sick tournament name. Hyoju Kim has the lead over Alison Corpus. They got the back nine to go.

We might have some more closer to a final result by the time we finish recording here tonight. What do you got for us? So it's not often that we all agree on something, but based on what I've seen recently, I think we can all agree the new hyper flex shoe from foot joy is a winner. Would you agree? I would agree. It's comfortable like a sneaker, but it is made for golf with it's got the targeted performance and stability where you need it. If you need any further evidence, I wore them at the gas. They hold up really well to a lot of golf shots. They're really

durable. You can, yeah, you can. There's a lot of zigzag and back and forth. They're just really comfortable if you'd like to walk but they're also really stable. It's got a great balance of casual and traditional. That's what I like about him. Some of the you know, some of the like the more tennis shoe golf shoes can just you don't feel that stability and you're maybe you're not you're a little more hesitant to swing hard at that's my words. That's not in the copy. But we seen a bunch of tour players convert as well. Justin Thomas

was the one that led the way he moved from 33rd in the world to inside the top 10 since he made the switch in the fall and accorded JT and his trainer Colby Tullier. Hyper Flex is allowing JT to explode off his right side is using his body more efficiently is creating more vertical force. And his ball speed is up significantly just by finding the right golf shoe, just in doing some stack stuff in the backyard. If I if I switch up

shoes, sometimes my numbers are different, which is honestly kind of surprised we made fun of the square square stuff for way too long because it's a it can be very influential for JT like many players footwear testing has become very similar to driver or ball fitting. They're trying to get as much data as they can around how shoes are improving their ability to maximize performance for them. Like many of us hyper flex gives them exactly what they need. It's a fantastic combination of stability and flexibility. Looks great and it's very, very comfortable. As you shop for shoes this year, make sure

to check out the new Hyperflex from Footjoy and learn more at Footjoy.com. Down in Houston at the Houston Open, which slaps according to TC but also doesn't slap with overseed according to TC. Min Woo Lee opened 66, 64, 63 with a four shot lead going to the final round over Alejandro Toasty who he of course will talk about. Five shot lead over Scottie Scheffler, Ryan Gerrard, Ryan Fox. Kind of a shaky front nine for Min Woo but got it in at two

under par. You know, and held off the initial run, made back to back birdies on 12 and 13, got the lead up to four and it looked like they were letting them cook. And then the, the, the, the left the, what happened in the, in the bear, they left the order orders ticket system. I think they left the online, online orders open too early, you know, so everybody's just working online. Kitchen just gets bull rushed.

You know, it's just a disaster. Yeah. I'd say that that happened, but they got out of control pretty quick, you know, one hole's just working online. Kitchen just gets bull rushed. You know, it's just a disaster. Yeah, I'd say that happened, but they got out of control pretty quick. You know, one hole and we're back. Blows it off the planet, right into the water on the par five 16th, when like literally all he had to do was cover land.

Cover land in this tournament's pretty much over. Scottie's up head putting for Eagle at this moment, which could have tied things, but Menwood actually ended up making Birdie on a second ball, which was bogey. Scotty misses the Eagle putt, but now he's got a hold off Scotty on the final two holes, but Scotty did not birdie either last two gets up and down from long of the green.

Gary Woodland made a little run in there, birdied 15, eagles 16 to get within a couple there at the very end and close it off the great birdie. He finishes one shot back, but men really goes long on 18. A lot of comments on his pace, which maybe we can talk about as well, but puts it up there to within six, eight inches or so. Put a little in classic men Wu style, put a little flair on it. Aim pointed the eight inch. Kind of got booed a little bit. I don't think people were in on the joke there for a second. But taps it in and gets his first

win. Uh, your reaction to the, the chef. Uh, it was electric, man. I had a really great time watching it. It was, uh, you know, a guy that we have called the unstable compound. I think for good reason, we saw that certainly on 16, but the, you know, he's, he's been in this situation each time he's contended. He's kind of blown up on the launch pad a little bit. You know, there's been a lot of, uh time he's contended, he's kind of blown up on the launchpad

a little bit. There's been a lot of questionable decisions, a lot of narrative and didn't know how it was going to go today with a little bit of a cushion that was kind of a new position. Like you said, it was a little bit of a scratchy start, but also like he just kept staying in it, kept making putts when he needed to make putts, kept hitting good chips when he would get loose with the irons. Didn't hit very many fairways this week and just also didn't make very many bogeys. So say what you will about that. But hung around, hung around, hung around. And then we did have the one moment of just like, okay, maybe this guy is who we thought he was. And then

he absolutely slammed the door coming down on 18. That was that lag. Close the door. On 18. On 18 is, sorry, what I should have said. That lag putt from the fringe was nails. I mean, that was really, really, really good. The shot in 17 looked like a little flippy, a little spooky to that back left pin, but he got the job done, man.

And you could see the relief on his face. I loved his interview with Kira afterwards, just talking about mentally exhausted he was. That was one of the best pictures into how hard it is to win on the PGA Tour. I think that we've gotten in a long time and I don't know him at all. I just see him on TV like everybody else, but it's like he strikes me as the type of guy that once he gets one of these over the finish line, he's going to exhale a little bit more and he's just going to play maybe a little less tight when he gets in those situations

and kind of trust his talent and maybe not have to make it looks quite so hard the next time around. Do you feel any of that? You're teaming up to be negative here after he just got his first career PGA tour win. He's won the DP World Tour before, but my honest and true gut feeling, I like Min Woo Lee a lot. I'm rooting for him. I want him to win 20 tournaments. Like he's an entertaining character for the game.

I still just see, like I felt like he got away with a lot. Like he was tailor-made for that style of golf course. Like a lot of PGA Tour golf courses and definitely major championship golf courses in a place like TPC Sawgrass, the kind of misses he had of the course of this day are going to punish you more than that happened today. I mean, you can blow it off the map on that golf course and make a par relatively easy. And that's, I got that's honestly not taking anything

of this is the golf tournament they were playing this week. He beat Scotty Sheffler, beat Roy McElroy, beat everyone in the field on that golf course. That's not me diminishing the win. As we go to project that out, like a question from Shell's wonderful world of golf, great Twitter handle, obviously. I said, in the opinion of the fellas, what is Minwooli's ceiling? Major winner, multiple major winner, top 10 player. I'd have to see like a lot of progression with the off the tee game. I mean, he was 22 of 52 in fairways this week, which is sick. He had just sick. You have to admit he had 26 birdies and hit 22 fairways,

which like again, this kind of golf course, you don't need to like blow it, hit it hard. He hits at 195 miles an hour. Like credit to him for that. That's a, that is definitely a skill, but he's going to have to keep the race car on the track at some more demanding venues. So does this change what I think about his ceiling? Not really. I think he had a good week with the iron play this week and really good putting week.

Like it was second in putting this week and it didn't feel fluke-y. Like he was just very, very, very solid on every putt he needed to make. It just is gonna take a lot more refinement. And that one blow off the map on 16 is that like, okay, I don't know if I can get like fully on board this straight into the top 10.

Here comes a major championship with this version of Minwooli. That's not to say that he can't improve some of these flaws, but I'm going to kind of need to see it more before I declare that. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I mean, worth calling out. He's 26 and he's been a fairly world-class player for a while, at least into big events and into big moments in big fields for quite a while now.

So like you said, he still can add more pieces and almost add more pitches, right? Is kind of what we're looking for him to do. We know he's got the fastball, would love to see a little more command on that. And maybe get some ride on that cutter, maybe add a sweeper later. But like, I guess what's cool is for events like this to me, it feels like a reliever. Like that's more right now. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying is like, maybe, you know, there's time, the organizations long on this guy. We've got a very team friendly deal. Maybe we get hit where it makes all season down guys get ready for six months of this. Maybe we get hit. We're in baseball season now guys. Get ready for six months of this. Maybe we get him into a, you know,

a more of a starter, a starter role. But I think what's cool is for now, it's almost like if you were going to design a modern professional golfer right now and a guy who's like, it depends what you wanted to, to make your, your KPI here, but it's like, let's just say it's money, right? Like you just want to make a professional golfer who's going to make your KPI here, but it's like, let's just say it's money, right? Like you just wanna make a professional golfer who's gonna make the most money possible. Fastest way to the top 50. You'd want somebody who hits it really long,

who puts it really good. And like, you know, obviously you'd like pick iron play too, but that's kind of where he's diminished. It's like, if you can drive the shit out of it, hit your iron's average is I think kind of where he's at. And he chips and puts the shit out of it. It's irons average is I think kind of where he's at. And he chips and puts the shit out of it. It's like, man, that's a pretty good recipe to at least get to the cocktail party.

You know, and like once you do that, now he's got a couple of years exemptions. You know, it's like, he talked a little bit in his pressers this week about getting steeper with the irons and just like having a totally different feel with his ball striking, which led to better results. And it's like, man, maybe you stack up a little more confidence and a little more of those kind of like ball striking attributes. And then

it's like, he is a different player going forward than the player that he has been. So that's where I'm not good enough, certainly to like project out, oh, man, here's how his iron plays going to change. It's like looking back on it, on how it has been and looking at it, what it is right now is like, I'm with you on everything you're saying is like yeah this doesn't really project great for like Augusta necessarily but Aaron Norris Ironically because it's supposed to be kind of set up with the grass types of Augusta

things like that but... Jason Krohn But it's like that's the kind of place where it's like do you need to be you know hitting your irons kind of within about an inch of where you're looking type of place. And so, yeah, I don't know. I hope he adds those tools and becomes, you know, a guy that's like legitimately contending in multiple, multiple majors. Right now it's like he kind of threatened at the US Open T5 at LACC, which was probably much a golf course, much more like this one almost than normal US Open, just wide fairways and a little bit different kind of setup than we traditionally see so Outside of that not a ton ton of success at the majors, but also not a bunch of car wrecks either

You know it's so it's almost like kind of hard to predict which I think makes it kind of fun because I had a blast Watching him. He almost was like watching a college kicker out there. You know, it's like, dude, I have no idea. I have no idea what's gonna happen. And then you got Scotty chasing him down, Gary Woodland's hitting all kinds of shots. Rory's hitting all kinds of shots. Wyndham Clark's up there for a little while. It was like, it was a really fun tournament, man.

Yeah, it was good stuff. What do you make of Memorial Park? I feel like it's gotten pretty rave reviews on this podcast. I'll ask you that before I before I chime in. I have never been to it. I would love, love, love to see it in person. It seems like it's punches as a pro golf venue. I'm asking the question. It seems like it. Yeah, I think that's a different question. I don't I don't know. It's it's interesting. Like I've been really, you know, I've gone way in on all the width

and angle stuff for so long, but seeing a guy that hits five fairways and shoots 63 is like, this kind of sucks too, right? I've got to be really careful with why it wasn't working for me because it didn't have thick rough. They had a lot of mid irons into greens. There's some longer, have thick rough. They had a lot of mid irons into greens. There's like some longer, you know, meteor holes on there. Some really good contouring around the greens. It just feels like the overseed plus the rain just makes it just takes the like the entire point of the challenge of the con. I remember when this was a fall event and it was dormant Bermuda. Like how much of the slopes around the greens came alive and how that test was completely different when the grass is not

just flushers only.com and you can pure it off of every single lie and ball in hand early part of this week didn't help, but maybe it's just cameras or whatnot. I just there was nothing distinct to look at as to like I didn't know whether the shots were straight crooked left right. I you know you couldn't really see much because it's such a flat property and it just was kind of like it felt like you could hit any, maybe you could, if you could hit anywhere out there and it kind of didn't really matter, which that is kind of where I'm like, I don't

know if that is the thing for me, but I don't want to punish them too hard for like getting a lot of rain and having it be overly wet and like that being the problem because like the chip shot that Scotty had on 18 they used a low camera for once and showed how big that contour is up there, which like that's what I'm looking for out of out of pro golf. But when it's that soft, it just in the grass is that perfect. It's just not that hard of a shot. And that's where I have a hard time really weighing in just

having never been there and never really seen it is like I look at that public golf course first. No. And we're not hating on any of. No, not at all. I'd love to play it. And it's like, it's really cool that they go to a golf course that is a $60 municipal golf course and it fits all of what should be a $60 municipal course on top of being

like a very, very, very pure place. It just some of that didn't necessarily come alive in this past week's tournament. Yeah. I think that's fair. The, I guess what I would say about it is even from a pro golf standpoint, even like I said, is, you know, as it starts to feel a little bit like driving anywhere and you can still make birdie, I still had a really fun time watching it. It's still a good variety of holes. I like the shorter par threes, the long par threes. I like the reachable par fives. I like some of the short par fours. Like it was... 13 is awesome. That pin is so good that I use on Sundays.

It's really fun. And there's downside risk out there. You can hit the slope. Like even though the slopes aren't firing at a million, like there's still downside. You don't control your spin. You can rip one off into like a low swale. It looks like some cool tiers on the greens, especially like that par three on the back nine, uh, where Min Wu kind of, you know, didn't quite get to the right shelf and now has a much tougher putt and, you know, just made like a much more difficult to putt. Like there, there still is clearly a ton of nuance. What I was going to say earlier is the shot that sticks out to me weirdly is Scotty's putt on 17. He had just seen Yesper Svensson hit the exact same putt.

He had just seen it slam on the brakes and still he wasn't really able to adjust. That tells me I'm like, man, there's got to be so much more going on in that putt that I'm able to see from like a high tower flat camera. Yeah. You know, and like that's the kind of stuff where I'm like, ah, I have to see it in person before I think have too much of an opinion. One, I just look at there was a ton of balls this week that got to a point where I was like, Oh, here it goes off the green and it would stop like a foot away from probably where it should have gone and split. That's not how it's going to work at Augusta. I don't care how much rain they get between between now and then. But for sure. And that's that's not how I remember the course playing

in the past. So that's where I'm kind of like, you know, it has a lot to do with the weather, which can I get you to join me in this one? I'm, you're probably would be fine getting rid of lift clean in place forever, which is unrealistic. But what do you think? It would just be one decision. Well, it doesn't take an act of Congress to do that. I still think we need some reform on lift clean in place.

And I want you to join me on this one. You picked the number three, somewhere between three and five. I've said this place. And I want you to join me on this one. You picked the number three somewhere between three and five. I've said this before, but I want to officially declare this like you only get to pick it up that many times three to five times. Yeah, I love that. Any, any reform save it for mud balls like a true mud ball. Like I'm going to burn. Not for I missed two feet off the green and I can use a club length and pick the lie I want and all of that. Like there's no reason professional golfers need that much relief. Like you got to use it for when you have a mud ball and you actually, cause I don't think mud balls

are fun. I don't think that's good test of golf. So there's something there to say like, all right, if you get a really bad mud ball, clean it off. But you're just going to be a little more thoughtful on when you actually use them. If you're limited. Okay. Let me know if I can phone bank for that idea. If I can go knock on doors, I'm in. It sounds great. It seems unrealistic. That's going to happen. It doesn't. Well, I mean, yes, it is, but like it shouldn't be, should be just a, it's just a decision, right?

A couple mean spirited questions on the Minwoo front from Ryan Peruski. What are Tron Carter's thoughts on Minwoo winning a tournament before Tommy Russ Flynn? So does Minwoo front from Ryan Peruski. What are Tron Carter's thoughts on Minwoo winning a tournament before Tommy? Russ Flynn said, does Minwoo now dethrone Tommy Ladd as one of the top 10 players out of major? I'm not even reading those questions into the record, guys. That's just so mean spirited.

I would not do that with TC not being here tonight. So it's just completely unfair. I will take a semi-serious take at those. Like, listen, the Tommy stuff, we took some barrel fire on that. That's fine. The list is going forward. And it's like, if truly still right now, there's a major starting tomorrow, like am I picking Minwu Lee because he won a tournament or am I picking Tommy Fleetwood? Like, dog, it's just not, it's not close, man. We like giving to see different skills that go into these different tournaments, right? And like,

that's, I don't know, that seems like, thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it.

I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it.

I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about it. I think that's the thing about chef. Uh, I just put it in here. It's toasty time, baby. Alejandro toasty playing in the final pairing. It was kind of shifting and bending time out there. It sounds like go play it super fast and then play it super slow. Uh,

bones just shitting all over of like openly was great. I, I pre that, that is not a knock on bones. Like that was, that was truly enthusiastically like I love hearing commentators say what's actually on their minds and him being like, man, this is like kind of pretty disrespectful. What's going on right here. Like, hell yeah. All right. So earlier in the round, men who drives it under a tree, of course, is trying to decide what to do and takes an

obnoxiously long period of time. And I was kind of half paying attention to it. I kind of thought he was, there was some ruling part of it, but it took him 30 minutes to play the eighth hole, which like, Hey, from that perspective, I'm Alejandro Toasty and comp, you know, and he, so Toasty is getting into a rules officials ass about, about this happening, which like, again, Toasty's got a really really tough reputation, well deserved, and probably doesn't get the benefit of the doubt in these scenarios. But you know, from a bird's eye view, it's like, yeah, it's kind of a pretty reasonable grievance to have here of like, why they probably got put on the clock because they fell way behind because Minwu took forever to do

this. And it again, a lot of comments about Minwu's pace of play, which I don't notice as much as some people watching because apparently that's all people have their stopwatches out. And said he deserved, Brian Kershner said he deserves the same treatment as Tom Kim and Patrick Cantlay, which we'll look into that later. But Bones chimes in to say, at a certain point,

I don't know what's going on, but Toasty is playing at his own pace. At times it's normal, at times it's glacially slow, but he's decided on this particular hole to really take his time, and he's holding up play in the last group. He's got 150 now that he's here as he gets to his ball. We got a bunch of great with Kyle Callaway. 20 is toasty exactly what the tour needs right now. Seabus drew is toasty. The John rocker of golf stirring up controversy, but might not be good enough to close in the big leagues.

Still needs a W to be a solid villain. Toasty's, have you looked at Toasty's like skill profile before? He's a, I mean, I'm guessing it's masher. It's probably pretty similar to everybody else on the top of this leaderboard. It's very similar to mid-Wu Li, except he doesn't putt it or chip it good,

which is tough. And if you go back and look at, first of all, I'm with you too, like get this guy involved more and more. Every time he came up on the screen, I was kind of leaning in and hoping that we'd pick up a little bit of audio. You needed a mic on him afterwards. We needed an interview. Yeah, just a tough, tough kind of like last 25 events. I don't need to go through them all, but it's

truly like a miss the cut or kind of threaten the top 10. It's kind of run of that Scott Stallings playbook a little bit. He loves his golf course too. Yeah. Yeah. The place where he finished. What did he finish third here last year or second? T2. Yeah. I don't know, man. Just an electric factory. Maybe not for all the best reasons. I would have liked, maybe he's given an interview as we're recording this right after play ended. I don't know if anybody got to him and got any comments from him. We can check here in a second,

but wanted a little bit more color on that one. But yeah, I don't know. Again, he's not going to get the benefit of the doubt in any of these situations, but I thought there was going to maybe be a showdown on 18 men will kind of play because men would did a big celebration before he actually hold out, which like the point of marking the putt is so that, you know, the crowd doesn't get all super jacked up before the other guys finish. And he got the crowd super jacked up. I was like, man, you, you push toasty, uh, you know, presses buttons any more than you already have. You might get yourself in a little bit of trouble here, but good for Tosie, though.

Steps up in, you know, birdie's 18. Probably big ass paycheck for him just breaking out of that group of what was that, like T9. Got 337K for everybody to finish at T5. And not as much as you might think. Ninth place got 277. So still. Better than poking the eye with a sharp sharp stick is my dad like to say

Big freaking moment and day for gary woodland goes 66 62 on the weekend Club twirls it into 18 like I mentioned already Birdied 15 which not a lot of guys were doing today Eagles 16 drains a long putt and makes a par on 17 and then hits it from 200 yards, absolutely stuffs the pinata 18 to roll in a birdie. Well documented at this point, but kind of still not something that you could ever really breeze past is the fact that he had a lesion on his brain, on the part of his brain that induces fear and anxiety. It was well documented in full swing, season three this past year.

Just to get him out back on the golf course and be competitive and to finish one shot out of another PJ tour victory as remarkable. That's probably as good as he's ever felt walking off a golf course that includes a major championship he won. So good for Gary. Happy for one of the good guys. Absolutely. The guy who I forgot how much I love watching his golf swing, you know, although everybody talks about like the down cock, but it's like, it is totally, totally unique on the PJ tour. It's really fun to watch. He, he, every time I've dealt with that very small amount of times, I've dealt with him. He's been awesome. And just, yeah, a guy that everybody seems to really rally around who, who went through something pretty, pretty horrifying, man. And, and to bounce back

and I don't know. I always think, I always thought about that with JB Holmes too, right? Like nobody, nobody talks about that a ton, but went through something I think somewhat similar, right? At least brain surgery of some kind. And just I feel like to maybe it's to come back and live even like a normal life feels like a massive W to come back and play golf at like an incredibly high level just seems truly inconceivable to me. And so the fact that these guys can do it is is awesome. And the fact that it's even possible with modern medicine, you know, is possible is is unbelievable. So have you have you watched full swing?

Honestly, if you haven't, well, there's a part in there where he details he wrote letters to his kids. Yeah, as in like, yeah, sure. Don't know if I'm making it is frickin incredibleicking incredible. It was, uh, it had to be, and the crowd was fully, fully behind it and, uh, they documented it really well today. So great for him. Good for him. You know what? I messaged you that shot on 18, like he's so far like wide, right, you know, up against the guy to like move patrons back. Uh, fans, I don't know why I've said patrons. Uh,

just, yeah, that's stupid. Uh, he's got like move fans back fans. I don't know why I've said patrons. It's stupid. It's got like move fans back on the right side and the fans are so close. He's hitting like kind of a long iron-ish in there and I'm just like I was messaging you like it do if he shanks that it would be truly like a a death sentence for one of these fans like that would go bad so quick. How are these guys are just not thinking about that stuff? On the 72nd hole I don't't know if you can be like, yeah, in case I shank it guys, just everybody scoot back. Just, I don't know, pro golf in general, just rides like such this crazy fine line. I always think about this, that like, you know, NFL game, NBA game. I mean, I guess NBA game,

you could be maybe sitting on the floor, but it's like- Jason Day's wife. That's true. Like golf, it's just like, all right, hey, there's this rope. No one's going to go underneath the rope, right? Like everybody's on the same page. It just, there's a couple of moments a year that just lay bare like, man, this is what a wild security thing that we've got going on here. Yeah. Guys just stand right in the shake zone would have just been complete lights out if if if Gary hozzles that one, but instead he hits it to like two feet to

two feet two inches. Yeah. Scott Scheffler, number one in strokes, the end approaching the green on this Sunday, his final round before the Masters, he finishes one shot out of the playoff, shooting a final round 63 birdies on 10, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Pretty vintage Scotty run there coming down the stretch. And it, again, it felt like, I don't know, I want to say he ran out of holes, but it felt like if this thing would have gone 18 holes

longer that he would have been able to run down them. Yes, absolutely. Sixth this week in strokes game putting for all the haters and losers that said it would never come back. I don't know, man. I would be, I I'm getting very amped. I'm going to try not to do too much masters talk here until it's time for the masters, but it's kind of starting to feel like a little bit of a two horse race, which would be really fucking fun to just get like a duel between those,

those two. Would you think take those two or the field right now? I would take them. I'm not going to let you, I would take, I'm not going to let you do not masters. Yeah. Right. I mean, is, is it not a two horse race right now? Who else is like, I think the math, I get that. Like the tell you, you should take the field, but it's really hard to like do a

talk show and guys are in a different universe right now than everybody else. Well, worth noting Roy McIlroy fought, shot a final round 64, cash that Fandel pick from earlier today under 66 and a half. Thank you very much. Got about one, 100th of the messages I did from barely missing that Keegan bed a couple of weeks ago. Thanks everybody. Rory shoots a 64. Bogie's the 18th hole actually kind of look like he was going to make a little threat there. But you know, fourth and eighth and strokes came off the tee this week.

27th approach, 12th around the green, 21st in putting. All right. Here's what here's my talking myself into Rory take on this. Perfect week. Yeah. Not close enough. Winning would have been a disaster. Winning would have been the worst thing he could have done. And a super close call wouldn't have been that much better. A T5, again, on a golf course that's really not like Augusta. Yeah, you got the hit off the off the over seed. That's pretty much it. But, you know, I wouldn't, it could only have distracted him if he would have won this and had to do the whole winner's tour and had the exhaustion that comes from winning. And I'm not saying that facetiously. Like

I honestly and truly think his odds of winning the masters are better having not won this week. And I'm just going to say, are you, are you coming? Are you coming to the party? Well, the definition of what that means changes all the time. Do I think he can win? Yes, I definitely do think he can win. Am I rooting for him to win? Yes, I definitely am rooting for him to win. So I think that means yes, I'm going to be there. I'm coming to the party. I don't know if I'm picking him solely right now above all other players. I don't know if I'm picking him above Scott Scheffler right now, but yeah, it's as excited as I think I've been because I think it's kind of a speed coming in there solely. I almost stopped. I was like, should I make a speed joke? Now I'll just, I'll just keep moving.

Solely. Great to see you again. Yeah. I mean, I think this is like a dream week. Like you said, he played, played just good enough to have a ton of confidence and keep the confidence rolling, figured out a little something with the driver today. I think he said he changed a couple, maybe changed a couple of settings or something I took some loft off his driver. Yeah. And drove it great today. That was kind of the shaky thing last time we saw him. So I don't know, man. I have nothing but nothing but good vibes. I mean, it seems like, again, I know Markow was obviously playing great as well. But it's like, I feel like it's been a pretty Scotty, I'm sure would have loved to get a win. But I got to think that both of those guys are just like, I feel like it's been a pretty Scotty, I'm sure would have loved to get a win, but I got to think that both of those guys are just like feeling like 95 out of a hundred right now, as far as like, man, that's, that's about as good as my, my prep could have gone. I think on the Scotty side, it's like, you know, coming off the injury and how's his

hand going to be and all that stuff is like, he probably, I'm sure he expects to win every time. Shout out to Tiger, but it's like, I don't know. I, I, do you agree with that? Like, is Scotty like disappointed that he doesn't have a victory or does he, is he looking at like, man, I'm still mega competitive and could have pretty much won. I could have won a lot of these golf tournaments that I played already. It just didn't really go my way. I think Scotty would have liked to have seen the ball go through the hoop in one of these, honestly. It was kind of a late flurry here.

I mean, again, kind of good ascending as we, as we were two weeks out from starting this thing, but I guess less than that from starting it. But it's gotta be a really different feeling of, you know, I would think that the guys feel like he's a little bit vulnerable heading into this one. Like it's a reason for Roy to psych himself out as I go to say it. I'm like, Oh, this is, it really is one of his best opportunities ever. And an opportunity

that I feel differently, way differently about than I have in past years. I've been quite dismissive of his chances and been quite right about a lot of those and to much dissent among this group and much hate. It feels like I said this after the players and I think I said Thursday and Friday and Saturday the players like this feels like the most complete game we've seen from Rory and if it's going to happen just kind of a little bit more of a fuck you attitude that he's carrying right now, it just feels like this is an actual serious chance.

So if you had to pick between the two of them right now, who you had to pick one. Does, does the elbow tightness worry you about any, any potential time? I think they get him on a six day, six day rest that he's, he's going to be okay. Maybe skip a start. He's going to be fine. God, I hate this game. Just a 47 to my head right now. I'm picking the guy who's won it twice over the guy who has been snake bitten there. I was comically psyched out by this place. I think that's the tiebreaker right now. I was literally getting ready to do it. I don't think that's controversial.

Why the hell not? I'm going to Rory, man. Should we do a little head to head bet? Sure. All right. That and the Brewers red series, a serious bet. Brewers are due. I'd be scared coming in for a four game set. Brewers are due after this weekend. We need Rory to try one of those torpedo bats. Fucking cheaters.

Yeah, I think I'm going Scotty right now, but the odds are subject to change on that one. But I don't know. I guess we're not going to see him again before the first round, so I don't know what would change. Yeah, I mean, you never know. We'll find out. Yeah, I mean, you never know. We'll find out. Maybe worth mentioning now, took a little visit to Augusta. Had a couple little, some interesting quotes. I think Cameron Jordan from Golf Week rounded those up. But basically talking, he was talking about how four greens are brand new and redone. He wouldn't say which greens they were, which is interesting. I'm sure people will be digging into that. I'm sure one of them was 16, obviously, where the big tree fell, but it sounds like they put Humpty Dumpty back together on that one and recreated it exactly according to Rory's comments

anyways. I liked his note, there's maybe a couple fewer shadows with some of the trees that went down there, but other than that, the green appears to be exactly how it was. And then not too much else to report. It sounds like everything else is pretty much business as usual, which I know was a little bit of uncertainty with Hurricane Helene going through there last fall. But anything else from his comments there? No, don't think so, other than just the mystery is no real

drastic changes, I think, is you don't really. I don't know when the first word is that usually comes out when there is changes, but the club doesn't really announce it necessarily. And just to get the kind of confirmation that there aren't major changes was, was interesting. I liked his comments too about like going there beforehand, you know, I, we've, this has become a meme on this podcast. Like the amount of times he's, he's joked about, I'm not going at all. Okay. I'm going a bunch of times. I'm going to go practice. I thought it was very level-headed in his comments this week where he's like, man, the week turns into such a zoo and I've got so

much stuff to do. I've got like media, I've got tournament obligations. There's all kinds of like stuff that it's just very hard. It seems like it's very hard to get real meaningful work done the week of the tournament. You know, things are moving quick. A lot of guys are usually playing nine holes one day, nine holes the other day. And so I think, you know, it sounded like he really enjoyed just posting up and being able to really, really, really take his time. No fans around, no other players around really, you know, just like probably go out there and, you know, probably one of those days we go play a seven hour round of golf and you're just chipping and putting everywhere and just really taking your

time. So I know he's tried that in the past and you know, we're kind of, again, we're joking about how he's, he's employed every tactic at this point, but that seems to like, to be the one that, uh, makes the most sense to me. Yeah. I got him hesitant to even say this though, but there is something different about tournament golf course versus even a couple of weeks out. Sure, there's a big difference even sometimes within the tournament. From day to day. Like I've just seen way too many times of Rory

just had that befuddled look on his face at Augusta when something you know, it's not like you could it's not the kind of place you can just go in advance and memorize everything that comes with it because the golf course changes personality. Looks like I just was looking at whether it looks like a really hot week in Augusta this coming week with not much precipitation. And then it looks next as of next Monday, it switched. Nope.

The forecast has already changed. It looked earlier. It looked like it's going to be cooler, the high of 63, low of 49 on Tuesday, but like highs in the upper 80s on the better half of this next week with not a lot of rain. I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know if that's too good a grass growing weather and it's hard to get it kind of firmed up, but 85, 87, 86 in the back half of this week and then high of 63 as of next Tuesday.

So it's a good combo to get firm. For sure. And it's very interesting to think about, I don't know, we've talked about Roy so much on this podcast, I think, but thinking back to the majors that he has won, I think a lot of people in their heads have him as like, oh, if it's soft, he's going to do great. He only wins on these soft golf courses. And like you mentioned it, he's just like such a different player than he was even five years ago, six years ago, 10 years ago, for

sure. You know, it's like, I almost in a weird way, I'm like, man, the harder it gets, the better for him, the more like if there's a little wind, I think that's better. If it's if there's a little bit of elements, I think that's better. Like he just has become such a complete golfer that it's, I almost feel like the harder it gets, the more him and Scotty are just gonna separate you know, why I forgot about Brooks again. Wow. Forgot about literally forgot about Brooks literally forgot Smith. Yeah,

all the live guys. John Rom. Wow. You're right. I did. I did. We'll we'll see. I forget if I mentioned this Sammy Valamaki made the cut on the number aka finished Barstool Big Cat. It's finished solo fourth, uh, Wyndham Clark, Taylor Pendreth, uh, Alejandro Toasty and Rory rounded out the top five, a lot of, a lot of BSIs or BSI adjacents, uh, in the top five of this past week. I would just need to mention that. Listen, I know he hasn't had a great stretch the last couple of events, but I just, Taylor Pendreth is, is put up a lot of good results and that's why I want TC to kind of I know he hasn't had a great stretch the last couple of events, but I just,

Taylor Pendreth is, is put up a lot of good results. And that's why I want it. TC to kind of find it in his heart, maybe to re-examine, uh, his, his take that I, I forget, I don't want to put any words in his mouth, but just lumping him in as, as just a truly like a porn golfer. Uh, I think he's maybe evolved. I think he's adding some skills and while I don't know that he makes me feel a ton while I watch him play golf, listen, you got to kind of call him like you see him. And the guy has put up some really good results. He's been playing some really good golf over the last year. And he tried privately in our Slack this week to deny that he ever called Wyndham Clark

a ball speed imposter, which he just like literally just searched in our Slack and found it from like six months ago. But yeah, a lot of stuff flying around by the seeds. One thing I got from hamster damn, that was the best player caddy convo effort I've ever seen at an MBS NBC. Yeah, they were just like actively laying out and just getting a ton of I mean, listen was Minwoo and his caddy taking way too long to make the decisions? Yes, but they're getting all the audio at least in there. And that was a very clear intention and good execution on that.

So that's the only coverage to take for this week. Hear, hear, agree. Shall we go to the back nine? Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's go to the 10th hole, which is going to be our, our live corner. I know you're pumped about this one. A couple of things going on with, with live.

First of all, the big announcement this week is that we've got the upcoming live duels, you know, kind of a, a creator classic 2.0 type of situation. This one is going to be different in that a bunch of the creators are going to be paired with some big name golfers. We've got Sergio Garcia playing with George Brian, Bubba Watson played with Luke Kwan, Joaquin Nieman playing with Rick Shields, Phil Mickelson playing with Grant Horvat, Dustin Johnson with Wes Brian, Cameron Smith with Fat Perez. And then we're going to have Mason Nutt, Andrew Santino, Joey Coldcuts, and Robbie Berger from Bob Does Sports doing the commentary. And all of this is going to air,

which is maybe the strangest part of all of this, but also like, yeah, on Grant Horvats YouTube channel is all going to air there, which is just, it's so a lot to, a lot to go through here. Where, where would you like to start? I mean, the guy that won the PGA tours creator classic is hosting the live duels on his YouTube channel. Like, which yeah, interesting stuff, but from a like history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes type of perspective. It's kind of like a, yeah, man, I don't really know why any of these people would be loyal to the PGA tour. Necessarily. Like, I don't know if the PGA tour is expecting them to be like, yo, your, your, you know, PGA tour is about legacy. You know, it just is really funny how fast it happened.

They might not have expected to have to suspend Wesley Bride for playing in a live warmup event. Like straight up, man. I was trying to reach out to the tour. I was trying to get some intel on this. I didn't really, you know, we couldn't really track down an official statement, but like Wes is like, I mean, he played on the PJ tour like last month. Like he's a PJ tour member. How does he not get suspended for this or how is this not the same disciplinary actions

that you know, all the other players were subject to that's wild. And is, I don't know. I couldn't stop laughing all week at the thought of after all of this, after all of the players you've lost, the players you've thought you've maybe lost and are constantly battling on just to cut the email is going around. We've lost fat Perez. That presence is left for live. He's over. He's gone. We've lost the Brian. Both Brian brothers are going. Both of them. Unfortunately, Grant Horvat, the guy that won the creator classic. He's going to. Yeah, it's wild, man. I think on the on the I would say on the positive side,

I think this format makes a ton more sense to me. And this was kind of my whole thing with the Creator Classic. Both of them that they had was like there was just no real tie other than the golf course, which Sawgrass was very cool. Eastlake is not my favorite, but whatever. Like there's just no real tie back to the actual product, you know? And that's where I kind of constantly was like, man, this seems like such a whiff to not have players involved in this thing in some way and so where I'm kind of like man massive kudos to live is like There's some big ass names doing this, you know And like I think this is if you're gonna do something like this This makes a ton of sense to me to pair these people who are bringing, you know

A new audience with a bunch of like your biggest stars is like, dude, that that seems like it like that makes a ton of sense. Of course. They have like there's no reason Liv shouldn't try anything to try to get people to watch. I mean, they obviously get zero viewership. They do a ton of extra stuff around their actual playing days, concerts and things to get people to stick around to really up the attendance and create the party atmosphere they want. So absolutely make it as, like that's where the more surprising thing was that the tour kind of went for this fun, like why not kind of attitude towards

getting some YouTube personalities out on the golf course prior to the tournament, build some awareness and, and just get people talking about something. Like this is a no brainer to copy for live. And this is a copy. Like don't make no mistake about it. Like it's straight up copy in the homework of the people that they're still, they're stealing all their players from. But it's just hilarious. I don't know what this does.

Are all these creators banned from the next creator classic? Is another question. Who's gonna fill the field at truest? I don't know. That one seems like it's gonna be, I don't know. I haven't talked to my player? I don't know. That one seems like it's going to be, I don't know. I haven't talked to my player. I don't know if he's playing and I'm playing that one or not, but that one seems like it's going to be bleak to me personally.

Just a really cool golf course, but not necessarily like the same draw as TPC Sawgrass. That one feels like a lot of random people playing a pretty random golf course and probably a pretty bad TV product. So that's sort of a one plus one plus one equals zero type of situation. But I also like, I think Aaron and on grants YouTube channel also makes a ton of sense, right? Like that's, that's for, yeah, I'm like, man, this, this, that's where I think live is like,

like gripping the steering wheel a little less tight than, than the tour, probably, you know, but it's also they have no actual product on the competition side. So why not try to do something? I'm serious, they're involved with like, there's something going on with Liv and Bryson's YouTube channel.

I think they, for as much as they're like, oh, do whatever you want, Bryson's YouTube channel getting really popular, set off some alarms at Liv to the point where, I don't know what the final arrangement ended up being, but I'm almost certain there's a revenue share of some kind between whatever Bryson brings in on his YouTube that goes back towards Liv because they own his likeness and all that stuff. And like there's way more people watching Bryson's YouTube channel than

watching Bryson on Liv. So it wouldn't surprise me if their strategy shifts towards like this major, I mean, if I'm them and I'm getting these embarrassing, hideous, horrific ratings on a every single week basis, why put yourself through that? Own the YouTube thing, like own the streaming thing. Like for all, it gives a good product. It was a way better product when it was just on YouTube. Like it was very easy to just tune in

and see how many people were watching and like engage and fast forward through the highlights and stuff like that. They're better off doing that than like trying to trick people into watching it on television. So that's this. So this makes sense with that. Yeah. That combination. Totally agree. Also, how's Bryson not playing in this? That's wild to me. That's, that's something going on. It feels a little, a little fishy to me, but we shall see. I know you're,

you're also geeked about this. Lopez announced a new all access series, which is premiering on April 7th. I believe you have the trailer here. I do. They posted this. This is courtesy of our friends at live golf, the live golf tour, but here's the trailer. This will never happen. They won't get the players. You're wrecking the game. People said nobody's going to show up. All right. All these guys are done. They're not competitors anymore.

Bull... We don't care. Don't ever tell me that I don't care about golf. I want you to look out the windshield and not the rear of your mirror. If people said bad things about you, I'm sorry. You're big boys. Get through it, get over it. I've had my phone ringing from multiple players on the PGA Tour. Anyone you can tell me or you don't feel liberated? I mean, I don't want you to

steal. Owning a team is not easy. There is that same sense of accomplishment and doing a good business deal. From the time I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a professional golfer, but have I earned my spot yet? No. If you don't win, what's the point? Winning takes care of everything. It's like the Kardashians, but better. You know what I'm saying? There you go. Coming to ad number one. I got such a kick out of every single element of that entire thing. Kick off your master's week with that one. I'm just glad that somebody, an independent entity got to the bottom of this story and could finally give us the true story behind Live Golf.

We've been waiting for some journalists and documentarians to get to the bottom of this and give us this product on varnish with a clean look at everything that everybody said. These guys have proven wrong. It feels a little bit like I was told Steph Curry isn't a good three point shooter at the series. Don't ever tell me I don't care. It literally is just for the internet commenters. No person of import has ever said like John Rom doesn't care about his golf. He's literally just responding to like dumb asses on Twitter that say he doesn't care. Ben Coley wrote a great article on sporting life, just like breaking down each individual part. It's like a lot of people and fans, like not just like,

I think they're like mocking media people and journalists throughout the course of that. But like a lot of fans of golf have given like very fair critiques of, of this. And this whole thing just like shits in like everybody's face of like, Oh no, you're wrong. People said, people said he wouldn't show up. Well, nobody's watching it. Like he gives a, I got a line by line breakdown of like Kevin Dahl says there's no point unless you win, which like he's on like the worst team in the entire league is one of them. Paul Casey. Oh, well, they said, like, uh, people said this. Well, he also was the one that said, I would be a hypocrite if I played for the Saudis and the sports is very political. I'm glad I took a stance more so it highlights issues within the region, especially next door in Yemen. I've seen the numbers now he's, uh, turning around.

I get just like such a load of shit. My favorite being the PGA tour players are, my phone just won't stop ringing with all these guys. Then fucking sign them. Where have you been? You haven't signed anybody like two years. It's just, that piece tickled me. Absolutely tickled me. It's like the Kardashians, but better.

Hell yeah. You can watch that on April 7th if you are so inclined. Moving on, hole number number 11 TGL wraps up their season. Big shout out to William Ho and a B the fine people of Atlanta, proud sporting city as Atlanta drive are your, your inaugural champions over the New York Mets. Billy Ho delivers an unbelievable putt to clinch it sincerely. Very, very fun moment. Let's go through, actually we had a, we had a voicemail here to kick off this discussion. What's up boys. It's Drew out of SoCal by way of North Carolina. I want to talk about

PGL. I think the response from NLU has been pretty muted. One of the things that I think it was Neil that coined the term, nothing excites the passions like a little bit of meaningless competition. And I think the excitement that we get from that we've seen in TGL that is so sorely missing from the tour. You know, I've tuned in 10, 15 minutes here and there, and I've seen Tiger Woods in legitimate stitches over just some stupid crap that's going on on TV and just seeing a little bit of ourselves out there. I think, uh, you know, I'd expect a little bit more from you guys and it's maybe it's not the most sophisticated product in the world, but I think it deserves its flowers

and I think, uh, they've come a long way since the outing. So would love to hear a little bit more from the team on TGL and maybe a little bit more why the response has been muted. Thanks guys. Let me start with our coverage, our response, and then we can get into the actual stuff. I feel like very, I don't know, I feel very confident in how we've covered this in that I was, I think it pretty closely mirrors how I've felt about it, which was initially a ton of excitement. Man, this is wild. This is brand new. This is shiny and fun and different. And I felt as the season went on, it was just, it was very missable. You know, it's like very easy to, very, very easy to miss, very optional. And every time I tuned in, if I remembered it was on, or if I, you

know, happened to have nothing going on and it was, you know, I'm sitting in front of the TV at nine o'clock at night or whatever, and I would flip it on, I would have a totally perfectly fine time, you know, with it. It just was, there was a lot of weeks where I missed it and wasn't exactly missing it, Bob. And so that's where I'm like, I don't know, man, I think we covered it upfront and we told people what was going on. I don't know that we really need to break down the birdies and bogeys of each week. But I honestly think that it's just worth saying like the scheduling of our programming is like we talk golf on Sunday nights. And by the time like it gets, the golf is usually

on Monday or Tuesday and we don't, we have a different set of episodes that we do usually during the course of the week, we don't get around and talk about ongoing events, it was just terrible timing for our programming specifically. So that leads to the muted kind of reaction to it. That's one I think and two, to your point, Dej, personally, as I get into my late 30s, and in my home situation, I don't have time to watch all this stuff. Like it was the moving around the, I don't have time to watch all of this stuff.

Like it was the moving around the time slot was tough for me to keep track of who was playing and when, and I don't have time to watch sports in the evenings anymore. I just straight up don't, which like goes to a macro point of like as people get older and people get busier, like you gotta make a really crazy good product to make it unmissable,

which I kind of felt the same way you do. When I tuned in, I enjoyed watching it. I really did. I think I have a list of improvements that they can definitely make and it sounds like they are very keen to hear those and want to take action on them. But I'd never felt like I missed out on something big time

when I didn't tune in. Cause you can catch up on the highlights and you kind of laugh along with it. But I would still call year one a success. Like I think it went better than they probably hoped like it could have gone really, really poorly. And I think it still has a future. It just Yeah, we can we can go through what worked and what didn't. But I wouldn't, I

wouldn't call it our response to it muted for any other reason than like, it doesn't really fit our programming. And we're just busy with other shit. Like I don't have more golf to add to the calendar. I'd like to watch more LPGA Tour golf. I like're just busy with other shit. Like I don't have more golf to add to the calendar. I'd like to watch more LPGA Tour Golf. I like to watch more European Tour Golf. I would like to watch more live golf and I'd like to watch more PJ Tour Golf.

I can't do all of those things as it stands now. So yes, DGL did not bump to the top of the, of the priority list for me personally. Well, you mentioned it. Let's go through what worked and what didn't. What you want to, you want to just alternate volley here? Well, let's start with what worked. I mean, it was different.

It was untethered. I think we said this before. It was unburdened by what had been. It was untethered from what holds golf back on television. It was fast paced. All the shots were live. It's contained to two hours. And that's a lot of things that worked, I think.

But that was a very clear dub in the positive zone. What do you got? I would say the triples format was awesome. I loved the three man all shot, bang, bang, bang, was like, was really, really, really fun. And that obviously kind of tips its hand to a what didn't. Every time I felt like it got to the singles, I kind of started to doze off and lose interest

and things slowed down and it wasn't like, I don't know. I think they could very easily get rid of singles going into next year. And I don't think anybody would complain. Yeah. I mean, it's good to see guys just in competition too. Like once they figured out the hammer rule and change the hammer rule, like the matches all got way closer and the suspense of a comeback was looming. And there was some, some serious comebacks. And it's like, I mean, I was critical of live and still am on like, we don't know how the hell these teams came together.

Like we're not going to treat your franchises seriously like, we don't know how the hell these teams came together. Like we're not going to treat your franchises seriously if we don't like know, is there a draft? Is there actual strategy to this? Like that's still a problem with TGL. I have no idea how they came up with these teams and why. I think it's more literally more schedule based. Yeah. That's, that's what it is versus, you know,

any real reasons to root for a specific franchise. But I mean, I think they can improve on that. If they're going to, I mean, if my Juke Blinks team gets serious about maybe not building around two guys that are outside of professional golf at the moment, you know, we can, we can understand that a little bit better. But squad, I mean, my point of all that being when it got close late, I didn't care about how they ended up with these teams.

It was like, Oh, I, I'm kind of curious to see who wins here. And like getting to see the team aspect with miked up and the energy around some of those kind of big moments. It was, there was some legitimately highlight, highlight real stuff that happened over the course of the last couple of months. Yeah, I guess maybe I'd throw that in another, what worked too was like the packaging

of some of the highlights. Like, and that's kind of almost what works against it too. You mentioned this earlier, but like when you do miss one and you just see all the highlights getting packaged and you can catch up on, you know, it's kind of like real golf. Like you can either sit there and watch a three hour broadcast or you can kind of watch the cut downs on Instagram the next day or that night or whatever. It's like, it's, it's pretty tough to, uh, to sit down and actually, it's just

not an urgent thing that you really feel like you need to watch live. So on both sides of the coin, I thought they did a great job of cutting stuff up and making media very accessible and not taking the tour route of DMCA-ing everything and making sure no highlights are getting out. It was almost the opposite. Share whatever you want. But then the flip side of that is like, well, I don't know if I need to really watch it live now.

So again, that's kind of a dual sided one. Anything else on the what worked here? You want to? Let's get some others. I honestly think it's a positive to like not have to plan my night around it. Like, you know, it was nice to have, it's a nice to have on. It's additive and we've constantly said nobody was asking

for this. So you better not take away from the product of the PGA tour and your, your normal golf flies, which I don't think it did. I think it was a nice additive thing. And it's not something that was like, you know, you can't, you can miss a week and not feel like you're behind on something. It's just like watching a college basketball game. I will say this is probably going to get into the easy improvements for 2026 category. But I think what worked any of the fucked up crazy holes were like the crazier, the better was like, you, I don't know, again, not to take a pessimistic view of it, but it was like, what didn't work was the stuff that was like, we're trying to replicate a very traditional golf hole

and we're going to try to put traditional grandstands and we're going to try to like, no people. Yeah. Like that. That's the stuff that's just like, yo, this sucks. Like what, why am I watching this? But the stuff that like is very video gamey and very just out there. I'm like, every time one of those holes came up, I was more interested than, than the former. Which the things that didn't work. Number one thing, the technology and the gameplay is it stinks. Like it's bad. Like I sent a clip. I don't play like the EA sports video game anymore. I haven't played it in probably 15 years. And like I just saw a clip randomly on Twitter and I sent it over to our group earlier of like, look at how much better like the gameplay is of this random

shot off of Tiger Woods, PGA tour, whatever it is versus like the TGL, like the ball rolled on the ground, it had like, it legitimately looks like a Tiger Woods game from like 2003. Like it's just very bad. Velcro II, rough and like the ball takes the same bounce every time it lands like make if you're going to advertise the technology being the cool part of it, start from scratch on all of that you got to need way more golf, way more than you had because there was a lot of repetitiveness of a lot of the golf holes. Make the gameplay good. Make it fun. Make it interesting. Add some variety and bounces and how things will play out. Change the camera views of balls as they're coming in. That's your product.

That's everything. We're watching the ball just fly into a screen. Like what happens from there needs to be really interesting. And they got to get that way better. And and that's not even to say anything about the full swing monitors, I mean, which were a problem, I think, for a lot of people and watching them just bite their tongues as they like it. I did not do that to that ball. Like they just got to get that part has got to be a lot better. Like that's like, that'd be like number one through 10 on my list of things to improve. Yeah. I think on my list, going broadcast here, and this comes with the biggest caveat

possible of this is a brand new thing that they invented from scratch that they're doing for the first time. And so I'm not holding any of this against anybody. But I think that the person in the booth needs to be much less of a traffic controller and much more of like an MC type of, like straight up, I think Raj should be that person in the booth. Like I just think that would be, that should be like a roasting type of like a half stand up, half, you know, moving you from shot to shot type of person. And I think Matt Berry tried to do that, but couldn't quite get there. They're asking a lot of Matt Berry. That's a tough spot.

You're not taking the shots at Matt Berry. And I've said the same thing like that. It's not a, he's asking, having to do too much. Like that's, that's two, it's the Matt Berry show because what it is and you need somebody either that role needs to be lessened or it needs to be somebody who's like wildly talented and entertaining like Charles Barkley level of like being able to carry their own show again. That's just an unfair ask of Matt Barry

I think that I think he's totally fine. It's way better than I would do in that role It just is a way too hard of a role. Yeah, I'm flipside Marty Smith ain't it like a Sure, that's not working. Yeah, that's just that's just not working for that's not it I mean, I kind of alluded to the golf holes, like, you know, some of those being, being pretty boring, but consistent spot on the, on the, and I know it's schedule related and I know it's ESPN programming related, but it's gotta be on ESPN. And I need a specific time one day a week. Um, and otherwise it's like all TG has on at 5 PM today. And then it's 9 PM on ESPN two tomorrow.

And it's interesting. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I'm not busy part of the year as it is like the best part of the PGA tour calendar. And it was too many times. It was like after a pretty exhausting week of like a really big golf tournament, players, especially like finished on a Monday. And it was like, we got TGL tonight.

Like it's just, it's hard. It's sometimes hard to ask all fans to get hyped up for that. I get that you're trying to reach an audience outside of normal golf fans, but, um, your, your core here is still going to be golf fans. Yeah, agree. Well, listen, from a truly like pretty heartfelt perspective, congrats to the people who pulled it off. Because, dude, it is something brand new out of thin air that like you had to build a stadium, you had to get players involved, you had to get

sponsors involved, you had to get networks involved. Like none of that is lost on me. It's crazy that this thing exists, which was kind of my takeaway every time I flipped it on. At least once I was like, man, this is nuts that everybody is on the same page and actually doing this thing. I can't believe that this thing actually became a thing. Well, I guess I've read that there's a wrap up article on golf week. I guess it's Tom D'Angelo from Palm Beach Post written, and it just goes into some details behind it. I guess the buy-in level for these teams is $50 million each.

Which might explain the Arthur Blanks and Steve Cohen groups getting involved with money-wise here. But I don't- In that case, we should just spend the money on something else. But- I don't know if we need to be talking expansion right now. That wasn't my first thought. That wasn't my first thought.

That was not my first thought. Yeah. Listen, I don't pretend to know the finances of how all this works and kind of the model of it all, but yeah, some of the McCarley stories are a little iffy out there to say, I don't know if I'm like tripling down on it. I think it was better than I thought it was. I don't know if it's like time to on it. I think it was better than I thought it was.

I don't know if it's time to blow it out and say this is a banger and this is the future. And that's what I think is worthwhile to linger on for a second is there was a part of my brain as just the person who's like, let's be open to some futurist ideas and let's rethink everything for just a second. No bad ideas. Could this be the future of pro golf? Let's rethink everything for just a second. No bad ideas. Could this

be like the future of pro golf? Let's just entertain it for a second. And there were times in that first night where I was like, damn man, I don't know. This is pretty interesting. And like the further and further it went on, the more I was like, okay, my cotton candy high has worn off here and I just kind of want to watch real golf. And so yeah, I'm with you where I don't know that this is necessarily the future, but I don't think it's a, I don't think it's some massive failure either. The changing the hammer rule mid season, like saved it,

saved the back half of it. Honestly, it made like, blow out a ton of close matches, which is all to say, like the list of stuff we're coming up with for improvements. They talk about that in the article too, of like they're, MacCartley's out there like, Hey, keep your list. Everybody keep your list of what we can do better. There is no reason they can't change the things that we're, I mean, programming aside is more complicated, but there's no like this thing is made up out of thin air. Like there is nothing you

need to protect here. There's not, it's not like unwinding the PGA tour media contracts, which are impossible from some of the things we want to see improvement on. It's like, dude, just go change it. You could do this. Like make the gameplay tech. I know it's going to cost money, but make the gameplay technology better. And this thing is a better product. Yeah. And it's refreshing to see it all change on the fly. You know, nobody's precious about it. That's great. All right. A couple of long opening holes there, but we've got, you know, it's a lot of birdies coming in. Navigate the serpent. That's right. Also get rid of Alpine. I'm good on Alpine. I don't want to see that hole again. Number 12, Eugenio Chikara wins in India. Salih, what do you

got to say about this one? If you remember Chikara was what I'm deeming the whistleblower when he left Liv earlier. Departed my beloved fireballs. Spilling the truth, he had quotes from January that said, I see what it's like to win on the PGA tour and how your life changes, how you get major access and ranking points on live. Nothing changes. There's only money. It doesn't matter if you finish 30th or first only money. And just going back to the reality show for a second, this guy fucking played in your league. Just real quick. Like this guy played in your league. He's the one saying like, it doesn't matter. Like maybe just, just think on that for just a second before you kind of come at everybody as, as some like, uh, whatever.

He, uh, he said, I'm not a guy who only, uh, who wants more money. Uh, what will change my life is playing in Hawaii and qualifying for the majors, qualifying for the masters, the rider cup. He moved up into 309th in the official world golf rankings and expected to move up into the top 180 after winning this one. I also said when I joined live, they promised OWJR points and majors, but it didn't happen. I trusted them. So it's interesting. He's taken the DP world tour route.

You got a sponsor's invite, I believe to the event this week goes on to win it at the very difficult DLF golf course out in India. He was on one of only two players under par, I think for the entire week, gets the win. And the route to getting the PGA Tour card would be to get in the top 10 of the race to Dubai on the DP World Tour and get a card into the tour from that night. I believe if I'm doing the math right, like I think the suspension would be for a year from the last live event that he played. So in time that he would get a card through the DP World Tour, by the end of the year, he

would his suspension would be lifted from the tour anyways. And he would be able to go straight on starting in 2026. If he does go on to get it. So story with interesting, interesting story with he could potentially be the first live player welcome back to the PGA Tour. He was never on the tour to begin with, but he would be the first live player welcome back to the PGA tour. He was never on the tour to begin with, but he would be the first live player to get a full status, I believe. Weird cool leaderboard in India too.

Chikara, Keita Nakajima, just a kind of young stud a lot of people were following. And Yos Luiten, who I thought was- Loudon. Loudon, I'm sorry. My Dutch brother here. I am sorry to him. I thought he was, I thought was... Lowton. Lowton. I'm sorry. My Dutch brother here. I am sorry to him. I thought he was... I thought he was much older than he is. I kind of thought he's just been around forever. I would have assumed he was like 48, 49, 50. He's like 38 years old, 39 years old.

My twin brother. Of course he's 39 years old. I was very funny to see that you guys were almost the same age as well. All right. Moving on. Hole number 13. S solid opening weekend in our beloved major league baseball. One and five combined for our teams. Not great. Tough start. We can talk about that at another time. Torpedo. Not a great start for either of our clubs, but we've been beating the bushes all weekend, man. Just beating up sources, assembling a panel, hundreds, hundreds of sources coming together to form this list. We wanted to make a list of kind of like, who are the best golfing baseball players?

Like the best current golfing baseball players. I just think it's fun. Like I think of a guy like Gavin Sheets, every time he comes out, he would come up to the White Sox, you know, to bat for the White Sox, and I'd play for the Padres. I'm just like, great golfer, that guy, you know? And so we just wanted to put together a little bit of a list of other people that a lot of people in the know around the world of baseball would nominate as, you know, some very nice players, some serious golfers. It brings me no pleasure to say that there was a true consensus amongst

the entire panel that I think we reached out to. Unfortunately, it seems like Jeff McNeil from the Mets is pretty far and wide, far and above the holding the distinction of the best major leaguer on the golf course, which is tough. I'm not a Jeff McNeil fan. I hate the Mets. That's just a, it's a bummer to see that. I don't know if you had any reaction. You hate the Mets? Yeah. The Mets. I'm good on the Mets. Just the whole- Why do you hate the Mets? That's a strong- Well, yeah, playoffs were tough last year, but they also like the, you know, they also like the whole like, oh my God, we're so plucky. Aren't we so cute? We're the Mets. We're the level-

Moneyball thief. Highest payroll in baseball. Like get out of here, dude. You guys just stink as a baseball club. Like I don't know what to tell you. A couple other nominees, a couple other people just file away, maybe watch out for if you see them on the first tee, don't bet with these guys. This one was a surprise. This comes from a very credible source. Ryan Weber, up and down guy over the last 10 plus years, was last with the Yankees. I believe just one panel has called him the best I've ever seen. That's pretty impressive as a golfer for a guy who also played in the league for 10 years. Bryce Elder, pitcher from the Braves, was a nominee.

JP Sears, apparently a two handicap out there. Josh Donaldson, solid, your boy, I know know he used to be a plus handicap. I believe I don't know if he's in the league anymore or a plus handicap anymore, but worth mentioning. Why is he my boy? I don't know. It seems like your boy. A lot of law in common. He was on your team last year. That was a couple of years ago. Two years ago. Who else? Who else is on the list? Corbin burns as a nominee, which might explain getting out to Arizona. I mean, he lives in Arizona, but maybe he wants to play a little bit more golf out there.

I swear I was at a Brewers game a couple of years ago and they were doing like the little trivia things up on the scoreboard and there was like a Corbin Burns trivia thing. It was like, what's the lowest score you've ever shot? And I swear he said 63 because I was like, it like stopped me in my tracks. I was like, holy shit. And like maybe, I mean, maybe it was 65, something like that. But if anybody can verify that I'm not crazy on that one, I would appreciate it. I'm sure people will get you that answer.

But his teammate, Zach Gallin, also in the starting rotation there in Arizona was the nominated. Kyle Hart from San Diego. Michael King, I believe a five handicap. Yeah, I threw that in there. Would love to play him straight up. I think that's fair, right? Great pitcher.

I love watching on my beloved Padres. Five handicap, I think. I think let's set that up. I would love to do that. Are you calling that into question? No, no, no. I just think he's a guy who I really admire his game. And if he's a five handicap, I'd love to set up a match.

I think that sounds great. Zach Krenke and Justin Verlander have heard stories apparently nice players there with Mike Yastremski and also Kurt Casale catcher for the Giants kind of did a little stint with the Reds as well. Witton Merrifield on the list. Aaron Hicks and Tyler Clippard you know kind of in the past tense category. Those guys got a lot of burn, a lot of panelists nominating both of those guys. One panelist, I don't know if the Aaron Hicks thing was real or not. I know. He does the celebrity stuff and hasn't done that great in them.

But Wade Miley, formerly cheating in the Brewers dugout has now slid over to the Reds. And Luke Mailey are some of the nominees. I believe Luke plays some of the nominees. I believe Luke plays off a plus Andy Capes. Former Brewer and Red as well. Exactly. He's good grid guy. That's right. Toronto, Cleveland, uh, some former players. Everybody knows John Smoltz, but Barry Enright also mentioned. Jeff Frank, the Frenchman, Tim Lawler, Mark Mulder and Kyle Loesch as well. No, no, no.

Kyle Loesch was nasty. Last thing on this. I've got a good nugget from one of the panelists. I really enjoyed this. This is a pro ball player said this. So the way to tell if a guy is actually good or not is whether or not they're willing to go play a truly public golf course. Apparently there's a lot of guys that will just, they just won't go play public. Yeah. Then it's just like those guys are not, they're not real players. Like you can, you can win money from those guys. So I thought that was a fun, a fun indicator.

Anyways, hopefully everybody enjoyed a opening weekend and hopefully better times ahead for Sully and I personally, I don't know. So why don't you take us to hole number 14 here? Right. We have Barbara. We went to court. We won. Jack Nicklaus has won the case over the use of his own name, image, and likeness. In a court decision this week, a judge affirmed that Jack Nicklaus retains full control over his NIL. So Jack used to do business as GBI investors, which

was Golden Bear International. He sold that company to Howard Milstein, the owner of 8M Golf, for $145 million, which created Niklas Companies. Niklas resigned from that company, I believe, in 2017. The question has remained over who owns his NIL after the non-compete expired. This was the big major ruling, seven different ruling. I'm not going to get caught up in all the legal stuff. All this to say Nicholas has won the case over Howard Nolsteen. It got really bitter between the two of them.

And fun detail that I liked coming out of this is so it gets very confusing, but Nicholas companies, which is the like new company that Jack is no longer a part of they want a separate suit a while ago to retain all of the rights to Jack's Social media accounts. So like that is kind of a funny thing, but this whole thing I don't know if you had a different read on it but the whole thing just seems like Jack is trying hard to put his name on everything and maybe this was like keeping it from doing that like that all the pieces I read kind of felt like fly the banner for like Jack can finally put his name on stuff. And I was like, man, that didn't seem like it was an issue,

but I guess obviously he- It was like the first like major win in the NIL, like a first athlete suing over their own NIL and getting it. I don't know. The whole thing is very confusing because like athletes don't sell their business over to another company. And then, yeah, that's essentially what Nicholas had to do in the mid 2000s. And it's been kind of tied up in all this legal stuff for many, many years,

but Nicholas has won. That's all to say Jack has won his 19th major. We don't know who retains custody of Digital Jack. I don't know if that remains a Nicholas company thing. I don't know if he, Digital Jack maybe sues for some sort of emancipation from either party. I don't know how that works, but yeah, just to kind of seems like kind of a shit show going on over there in the Nicholas world. But congratulations to Jack. Go put your name on everything.

Hole number 15. Dave Pels passed away this week after a battle with prostate cancer. At the age of 85, I want to give the biggest possible shout out to Adam Schupack's tribute slash obituary that he wrote for golf week. It's one of my favorite obits that I've read in a really, really long time. It made me realize that I think I knew 1% of the story about Dave Pels. And it made me like really, really regret not learning more about him. And frankly, like, you know, trying to have him on the podcast, there was some time over the last 10 years, because he sounds like he lived about 10 different lives, both inside and outside of golf. So I cannot recommend people going to read this a bit enough, but a couple of the fun nuggets in there. He went and played golf at Indiana

university when he was a young man. I thought this was funny. He just had an 0 for 22 record against Jack Nicklaus in head to heads, in play and all kinds of that was just, it just like a great sense of humor about it. After that, he went to NASA where he was doing all kinds of research and you know, kind of like physics type of, um, projections and statistical analysis and stuff, and he straight off, he left NASA to pursue golf research. Like golf was such a hobby. He had this shoe pack details.

It greatly, he had this shoe pack details greatly. He had this fascination with the difference between hitting putters center on and hitting them off the toe or the heel and how that affects line and speed and brake and all of these different things. And he just got obsessed with it and left NASA to go pursue this and just became this pioneer in applying statistical research to golf instruction. He convinced Tom Kite to become the first guy to carry three wedges, which is really fun. And then Tom Kite went and had like the best season of his career after that. Shout out to KVV here. He developed more than 20 different training aids, more than 40 different

training aids. I'm sorry. He held 20 different patents. I did not know this, including for the Odyssey two ball, which he was the one that licensed that to, I did not know this, including for the Odyssey 2 ball, which he was the one that licensed that to Odyssey. So this obit is just full of all kinds of unbelievable. True pioneer. You just read all that. That's a pioneer. Yeah. It's just full of all kinds of little fun anecdotes and factoids. This great quote, I love this from Patrick Reed. I mean, Pels was kind of the natural short game guy. Like that was his big, big area of expertise.

But I love this quote from Patrick Reed, one of the great short games of all time. Everything he ever taught me holds strong and holds true. And it always will because Dave didn't back anything he wasn't a hundred percent sure of. He didn't sway with the wind. He was the wind. Every time I met with him, he blew me away. I just, I liked that a

lot. I also love this, you know, of course, Phil Mickelson, his most famous student. Dave found that the average bunker shot was 10 yards. So I practiced from that distance and I went from 180th in sand saves in 2006 to third two years later, said Mickelson, who again ranked third in 2016. It's a lot of stuff that I'm sure a lot of the stats guys somewhat take for granted now. He was the first guy to do a lot of this stuff based on shoe packs right up here. Just a RIP to a guy that I didn't know how much more I had to learn about Dave Pels, but I'm going to be

spending the next couple of weeks trying to learn a lot more because he seemed like a true legend. So rest in peace. Yeah. Great. I mean, it's just, it's the whole, I guess, point of a bit chariot tribute like that is for people to recognize and to learn in the process. And I'm right there with you, Dej. I was a very underappreciated character in my book, but a live on with Phil's quotes of, of, is it a Pell's eight or a full eight? Truly like that's what I knew about, about Dave Pell's. I was like, Oh, he must be some sort of instructor. It's like Pell's eight. Okay. Got it. And like, yeah, just go back and read all this stuff. It was just such a, such a thrill. Hole number 16. It's all I

love is love is in the air, my man. Was that Sunday or Monday? When did he post this? I don't think it was Sunday, wasn't it? Maybe it was. I think it was actually. It was, it might've been recorded during the recording of the Sunday night pod. Of course we're talking about the post from the cat, Tiger Woods, who posted a photo with

his, with his new squeeze. And the caption... Did he, like, who wrote this? Like, Chad GPT, maybe? The caption is, love is in the end, I should say. If you haven't seen it somehow. The first photo is just no shade. Everyone's going through stuff.

Tiger looking pretty haggard. Just kind of half-grid at the camera. Looks like maybe the end of kind of like a beach day or something, just kind of squinting at the camera, smiling. And then the second photo is like the most, the world's most awkward hammock photo where they're both kind of laying there and she kind of rolls over to him and is like almost like hiding her face. And he's just vibing, kind of putting out a little bit of a weekend

at Bernie's type of vibe. Uh, and anyway, the caption is love is in the air and is better with you by my side. Exclamation point. Interesting. We look forward to our journey through life together. At this time, we would appreciate privacy for all those close to our hearts. I wrote down a couple of lists, a list of the things that really, really got me about this post and this just general concept. Uh, number one, just that the woman isn't identified ever. No, no name, no, no tag, no, like I would like you all to meet my girlfriend. So, and so obviously everybody knows who this is by now. This is Vanessa Trump, who's the, by now, but at the time, not nearly as much.

I don't think it was still pretty like, I think it was in a lot of the, I now, but at the time, not nearly as much. It was still pretty like I think in a lot of places, but yeah, not the common golf fan. I don't think was necessarily like tracking like, Oh, surely that must be Vanessa Trump, the ex wife of Donald Trump jr. Which is who it is. Of course. So that really kind of tickled me of just like we're going to make an announcement. You do your own research on who this is. Wikipedia page, by the way, go look up what else she's got going on. Yeah.

Boosh, Texas. Like, who's the girlfriend? I was like, Oh, oh, Boosh. And then he goes, Oh God, which brings me to my second bullet point, I think, which is all the reports, like somebody, I don't even know who it was originally. Somebody got Don Jr. on the record. Everybody has gone with the same quote, which is that Don Jr. is reportedly quote, cool with it. And that just keeps showing up everywhere. Makes me laugh my ass off. Makes me laugh to see it in print. Just the photo,

Don Jr. is cool with it. He's the best golfer of all time, man. How could I say it in the way of love? It's great. I love that the text was edited. I don't know if it was a typo at first. A porter was all over this. Garrett from the Frydeck was all over this. Originally, it said, at this time, we would appreciate privacy to all those close to our hearts, which made me feel like I was having a stroke. You know, like tigers, one of the few people I have like post notifications on just from the days of like, you know, breaking news, and he's hurt and he's back and you know, whatever. And so I read that and I was just like, God, am I like, am I glitching out like what is at this time, we would appreciate privacy to all those close to our hearts.

Like, what the fuck does that even mean? So that really threw me off. I was like, did he lose a bet or something? Were they playing like UNO? And it was like, all right, if I lose, then yeah, you get to type our announcement on Twitter. Next bullet point, Tiger had three different Sunday red logos on in the hammock photos, on the shirt, on the hat, on the sunglasses.

Didn't know Sunday red makes sunglasses, but just, you know, never, never quite miss an opportunity for the, for the branding there. You know, tiger's on a layoff, whatever he's got the harsh goat going on, you know, I don't feel like he ever shows up to tournaments with the harsh go team, but that is very much a, like, like I remember one time my dad grew a goatee, like when we went on vacation, you know, and it was like, man, I'm going to be away from work for like a week and a half, two weeks. Like I'm going to grow a goatee. And it just seems like Tigers got that mentality all the time. Right? Like, man, I'm not, I don't have to be at work. I don't have to be shown up at that range. Like, you know, I'm going to be growing a goatee. And that always, always makes me,

makes me smile. And then finally, the mirrored sunglasses that he's wearing, I drove myself crazy trying to zoom in. I don't usually do this. I don't usually care about any kind of couples or relationships or anything, but when the cat's involved, you just can't help but let your mind wander. And so of course I'm like, who the fuck is taking this photo? This is the most awkward photo ever. Who's taking this? Who's posting this? What's going on? And so zooming into the sunglasses, trying to find some answers. I got scrubbed out.

Yeah. That was in the Photoshop. Maybe it was, maybe it was a tripod of some kind. Maybe she's the kind that carries around a tripod. But this was so very confusing. And the caption does not make any sense. Asking for privacy as he goes public their relationship, but which maybe that's the age old, like we're going to put out the first photos that the tabloids aren't trying to, to haunt us or, you know, all the time type of tactic. I don't know, but I want to give a master shout out to KVV in, in this week's knowing up newsletter

wrote one of my favorite things he's written in, in a while. It's this very short essay about how Tiger is the quintessential Florida man. And he just, he does it much better than I'm going to do if I try to paraphrase it and sign up for the newsletter. It was a, KVV's got little stuff like that all the time. So anything else to add on, on love being in the air? No, it's, I just still can't believe that was this week. This has been one of the longest weeks ever. Short one here. So it's just a little tiny par three, hole number 17. Apparently everyone hates this Noa Khan Masters remake. This was the famous Ray Charles, George on my mind that ESPN uses for their promos all the time. ESPN was very transparent in a couple of interviews

about trying to reach a younger demographic through the use of Noah Khan, who very hot in the streets, uh, right now. And, uh, apparently it just did not go well. This didn't really come across my desk until later in the week, but, uh, apparently people really, really despise this. I went all week without listening to it. And like I accidentally clicked on something and it played today and it was not,'s not it's not it. Justine saw this before I did she's like gosh you see this see this master's thing I was like no I missed it but yeah.

But Noah Cahn on the list of things I don't I don't get. Yeah I'm gonna be you know that's kind of the the Al Borl and NFTs situation. I've looked into Noah Cahn and I've just I've decided I don't need to participate. It's not for me. I wish everybody the best, but I will not be participating. Best of luck. Finally, let me round it out. Hole number 18. Sergio Garcia has been named an honorary Texan by the Texas legislature. Apparently this is a thing that they've done. Yeah. Doff your 10 gallon hats to our guy, Big Tex. Apparently this is a thing that they've done. Yeah, doff your 10 gallon hats to our guy Big Tex. Apparently this is something that they have done since

the 1930s and it can either be done as a gubernatorial decree or an act of Congress to let you know. I don't think this is a super rare thing. It sounds like since 2015, this is a view of my research, TexasMonthly.com. Since 2015, Governor Greg Abbott has signed off on more than a thousand honorary Texan hoods. I got a trivia question for you. I just, I really don't think you're going to get this right, but if you did, it would be all time. Somebody famous became an honorary Texan for donating their private collection of Alamo artifacts, which was the largest private collection of its kind in the world. This person personally held the largest collection of Alamo artifacts and they donated them to the state of Texas.

Who would your guest be on who this is? Is this like, is this related to golf in any form? Could not be less related to golf. It's an entertainer. Artifacts. Kenny G. Honestly, pretty good guess. Phil Collins. Okay, all right.

I just did not see that coming. I did not see Phil Collins owning the world's largest collection of private Alamo artifacts. That's wild. So there you have it. Oh, I should have guessed Darren Revelle. That would have been, God, that's good. I actually own a signed Daniel Boone rookie card. Other honorary Texans. Again, this is via my hitters at texasmonthly.com. Chad Atkins, no brainer there. Russell Crowe. I don't know if I've, if I'm tracking on that one. Bob Dylan, Rudy Giuliani, Bob Hope, general Douglas MacArthur, Shirley McClain, Don McClain, different spelling, no relation, of course. Chuck Norris. Again, that one kind of seems like

written in the stars. Uh, Sarah Palin, Arnold Palmer. So I guess Arnie, I think Sergio might be the second golfer. Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pasterini, but very few other notable Houston athletes that I could find. Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Wayne, of course, and many, many thousands of others. But I just thought you'd like a little, a little recap many thousands of others. But I just thought you'd like a little recap of what this means. Do you have to live there for a certain period of time to get the night out?

I don't know. It's such a weird timing. It doesn't, it both sounds like very buttoned up in that it has to be this act of Congress, and it also sounds like they can kind of do it for whoever, whenever, at any time. So if you got any more trivia out there on honorary Texans, please hit me up

because that's pretty fascinating. It sounds like the win that live Hong Kong is the one that pushed it over the edge. It might be like the LPGA hall of fame. Point system. Yeah. John Wayne, you know, I mean, you finished the searchers, you're pretty much already there. So what else we got from a housekeeping perspective here? Just obligatory note on Sergio playing a little golf ahead of the masters. Is that right? That's the 27th in the

data golf rankings. Like really? Uh, yeah. Just, just of note. I missed just, just of note. Okay. He did win. That's right. I remember talking about his win at, at Live Hong Kong. I missed his fourth place finish at the international series Macau. I was not up on that. But yeah, some results. Some housekeeping notes. Our first major collection, it's updated and refreshed. We got some new green and yellow apparel from Roebuck and H&B.

It is perfect for watching a certain major championship that's coming up in April. You can find that at store.no layingup.com. You'll find the collections there the first major collection on there. We'll put the link in the show notes as well. How about that? Also the housekeeping front. I want to give a shout out to our guy, Connor Belcastro, who has been on our podcast before. He's been doing some writing for our website in the past. If you're not familiar, he's a former college golfer who's now trying to make his way in the pro game.

And he's writing a newsletter, like a sub stack newsletter called Into the Weeds. And I just think it's like really exceptional stuff. This week's episode particularly was great. He had a very, very tough tournament and shot 85 and just wrote all about what he, what he did after, why he think it went that bad. And then just gets really deep into like, he goes to Michael Tye. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but he goes to Michael Thompson's garage, Michael Thompson, he lives down in sea Island. And so he goes down to Michael Thompson's garage, who apparently has become like this, like big, big, big time mechanic,

restoring all these kinds of cars. He gets deep into this contrast therapy. Are you familiar with contrast therapy? No. Where you sit in like a 225 degree sauna for like 10 minutes, and then you have to sit in a, I think it's like a 30 or 35 degree cold plunge for four minutes. And it's basically so high contrast

that your nervous system thinks it's shutting down. So it releases like DMT into your system. Connor writes about all of this and how it relates to golf. It's fucking awesome. So I would recommend people checking out his newsletter into the weeds on Substack. I always, always enjoy reading it and think he's doing in a world where, where people are doing a lot of a lot of same, there's a lot of sameness out there. You know, Connor's doing something totally different and I applaud him greatly.

So. That's well said. I like that. We have a somewhat strong field of the Valero, if I may say. We got Ludwig in the field. Keegan is going to be there. Patrick Cantlay.

I love seeing you put Keegan in the kind of premier players category. I copy and paste this from golf week. It's fine. Patrick Cantlay, Big Tone, Matt Fitzpatrick, Ricky Fowler, Fleetwood, Max Homa, Hideki, and of course, next week's winner, Jordan Spliff. We got Live Miami starts Friday. Of course, we have the live duels on the front end of that.

Will the live duels outrate Live Miami? Is a question that I think we should throw out there. I think like sizably, won't it? Yeah. We have the AnWA on Wednesday and Thursday at Champions Retreat, then Augusta National on Saturday, of course. And as promised, LPGA is wrapping up as we they're on the final hole. Hyojo Kim is on the final hole with Lilia Vu chasing her and Alison Corpuz one shot back. So could be headed for a

playoff in that one. We'll have a Onwa preview podcast and LPGA pod coming out later this week, actually on the front half of this coming week as well. So a lot more LPGA talk will come. And then after that, we will have a KVV dive as well in the back half of this week, master's theme deep dive that I think is going to get everyone even more jacked up for. It's coming. I mean, I'm traveling up to Augusta next Sunday. I will be doing the show from Augusta next Sunday, which is kind of crazy to think about, but it is almost April as we, I guess April on, on Tuesday. So Stoke baseball season is here. It's going to be

really hard to keep the, uh, the baseball, uh, language out of the show for the next six months. So apologies in advance for that one, But, and also should shout out our Seamsters union season preview went up on the trap draw feed. So if you want to hear some takes that already didn't age great across the first week, go ahead. What do you regret the most so far? I mean, I went, I was, I remained very bullish on the Brewer still, but that obviously didn't look great as they gave up about 600 runs in a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing.

I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing.

I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing.

I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think it's a good thing Cardinals local app, like, it'll be fine. It's just three games, but every your own, when it's your own team, you live it. Uh, day to day. That was fun. Yeah. The Yankees Yankees. What I might need to revise that one. If they're going to use these, uh, slingshot bats or whatever the hell's going on. Torpedo bats.

We got the home opener in, uh, in Milwaukee tomorrow. I'll be taking my, my young son to his first baseball game. I can't wait. Great is that Neil already claimed victory in our first, Neil just got to add to our fantasy baseball league and he's claiming victory over me with a week to go in the matchup. So I'm excited. It doesn't look good for you. Your team is stinky right now. I mean, sorry. It's been four days. We're going to be fine. We're going to be fine.

So, uh, all right, we're going to move to wrap Dej enjoyed as always. Uh, thanks everyone for tuning in. Uh, again, we're going to move to wrap. Diage, enjoy as always. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Again, we're going to turn the page over to Masters and Anwa stuff here very soon. Anwa, Anwa, I've probably used both of them, I think, in the last 20 minutes. But nobody's listened to this part of the pod anyway. So thanks for tuning in.

We'll see you back here next time. Crack on.