No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 999: Big Letter Hats, Bucket List Trips and Musings From Around The World of Golf
Episode Date: May 5, 2025Soly, Neil and TC begin tonight's pod with a quick recap of recent travels to New Zealand and Northern Ireland before we take stock of Scottie Scheffler tying the PGA Tour's 72 hole scoring record at ...the Nelson. We also discuss the rest of the leaderboard in Dallas, Collin Morikawa's caddie change, this upcoming week's edition of the Creator Classic, updates from the LPGA and LIV, and some other news and notes. We close the pod with some NLU content updates and an important commentary on the unfortunate trend of Big Letter Hats. Support our sponsors: Titleist Whoop 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 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Be the right club. Be the right club today.
That's better than most.
How about in? That is better than most.
Better than most.
Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No
Laying Up podcast. We fought for this one. The three winners tonight for TPC Craig James Week are
myself, which is Solly and my guy TC. You know he wasn't going to miss this week. Hello TC.
We're just here to honor Byron Nelson, baby.
I hope that's not the way, uh,
I hope that's not considered an honor of Byron Nelson, but, uh,
Neil Schuster here as well. Hello, Mr. Deal.
Listen, shout out to sales reps everywhere. I always get a kick out of that.
The, the salesman's what is it? The salesman's foundation.
Salesmanship club. I love that. That's good stuff, man.
Takes me back to my roots. Good to be here,
gentlemen. You know, I wouldn't miss the CJ Cup, the Bibigo. I had some dumplings tonight too,
in honor of Bibigo. How about that? They were Trader Joe's dumplings.
But they do make you hungry watching this one. They have good commercials. I like them. You know,
Sal, you know, it's we're 30 seconds in. You knew I was going to go straight to the sponsor stuff
for you. All sorts of, all sorts of dumplings plastered behind that 17.
Yeah, they are using those billboards out in the lakes. I mean, they're like, they want
to get that brand out there.
Well, shout out to our friends at title is that now gets second billing on this show.
But before we get into play by play, we got to run through a couple of numbers from the
week. 116 that's how many players teed up a titleless golf ball at the CJ cup. That's 74% of the field who played a Pro V1 or Pro V1X, including the champion
guys. A lot of birdies were made with Pro V1s and Pro V1Xs this past week. 63 players gained
a titleless drivers. 51 had titleless iron sets in play. 273 of the gap sand and lob
wedges in play, including the
three that went into the winner's circle were Vokey
design. As titles continues to be the most played driver, iron
and wedge on the PGA Tour. Earlier this week at the PGA
professional championship titleist was the top choice of
competitors in every major equipment category with more of
the 20 more of the PPC's 20 qualifiers using titleist golf
balls, drivers, irons, wedges, and putters than any other
brand. Go get fit people. Go get they're going to get you in
the right stuff. They're going to get you in great stuff.
You're going to have a great time. Hopefully you get a
chance to get around the world and play a little golf, which I
believe the three of us all managed to do over the past
couple of weeks.
Yeah, just those numbers are kind of staggering. The the wedge
one specifically, it's just a lot of Bob Bokey's being gamed out there.
A lot in the winter circle too. I don't want to just a lot in the winter circle.
That's exactly right. It's interesting. That's all I'm going to say is it's just interesting TC.
Uh, well let's start with you guys.
What are you guys been up to over the past a couple of weeks?
Oh God. TC got me on one of his boondoggles.
TC, why don't you give him the itinerary? He knew he took me with him because he knew
I get pissed if he, if he went to New Zealand on short notice. So he's like, well, you're
like, he corrupted me with them. No, yeah, we went down. I called, I called Neil's, Neil's
lovely wife, Carson to kind of front run me too, which was actually a sick move. I kind
of said, Hey, like, I'm not asking.
I'm telling you.
And I'm, and I'm not doing it as a colleague.
I'm doing it as a brother.
Neil's, Neil's coming to New Zealand in a few weeks.
And you know, this is a really good trip.
So we ended up flying down to, down to Auckland
and drove up to Tara Eady and played there.
Well, we played six or seven rounds there.
And then we played a couple of rounds a piece at the TRI North and South
courses. I think we played about 171 holes.
18. Well, 18 on in California first then 18.
Yeah. We played cow club 36, 36, 27, 36,
18 I believe was the rundown.
So, and I got a shout out TC.
He beat my ass, man.
He's playing some golf, playing some golf, putting well, God, he had just like a, I don't
know, a telepathic relationship with his, with his caddy and he's a New Zealand sportsman.
This guy was, he was a cricket player.
He was a squash player and he was just a stick and he's a pro golfer.
He turned pro at 35 being their faces off in the wind and rain. He was a squash player and he was just a stick and he turned pro at 30, vibing their faces off in the wind and
rain. It was great.
I'm so happy that this is getting out and mentioned on the
pod first way in light of strapped, uh, the new strapped
airing this past week, straight into six or seven rounds of
Terry. Nick Orito that that makes me so happy.
I, I take an invite, you know that, you know, the world's
guests, if you want me to be. So
TC, yeah, I got, he got me in, you know, C-suite there we're, we're healing. Solly, the C-suite
and the Strap boys were, it was a bit of a, maybe a labor meeting, you know, off season
meetings for the strap stuff. We'll talk about strap later. I do have three things though,
TC, if you'll indulge me.
Please.
And first off, we're going to do a wider pod about the trip. But there was it wasn't a content
trip was a vacation. And I know I can almost feel the eye rolls
like, you know, all you guys, you know, you travel around and
film but not having to film this the first time I got on a golf
trip in three years, I think, without filming, since I took my
buddies to Sweeten's Cove, like in 2022 or 2021. You know what I
mean? So it's very different. It is and I really like nobody wants nobody wants to hear that. I hear you in the car upset. I do, but I will defend you.
I wouldn't have it any other way, but it's just a different feeling. And I really, you know,
I just want to call that out that I really enjoyed it. So I just want to say gratitude,
you know, to my brother for getting me involved. Shout out to our host, Iain, for inviting us down.
And I was so three things, maybe four, but let's start with
three. So is it worth the trip? I was kind of like question,
like, man, it's a long way to go. I got a I got a young kid.
It's we're going for six, seven days, you skip a day, then you
repeat a day when you come back. I know it sounds obvious, but
it was definitely worth the trip. And and that's coming from
a guy who was in row 45E,
middle seat in the back of the bus on the way home.
And I was like, this doesn't matter.
It was sick.
Like it was worth it.
14 hours to Houston.
I don't give a shit.
This will be over soon.
And then having the Tayari or TRI,
the North and the South course,
like I think it's worth it even just to go to Terri Eady.
So people are curious, like, is that place worth it?
I would say definitively it is.
And I'll kind of list one or two reasons why in a second.
But having those two other courses,
honestly to compare Tara Eady to TRI North,
which I did not like as much
or even close to as much as the original,
but that was a fun comparison of like,
almost like Doke 15 years ago versus, you know, now or recently.
And then, Corey Crenshaw, man, they just, for me, they don't miss much. And that South course is
really, really good. And so having three courses really made it feel like it was worth the trip.
Two, TC, I want to shout out, I love playing Fescue greens. The only other time, I think we
played them at Cal Club, but I rarely play on Fescue. And my one lasting memory of fescue was the old Mac greens
from long ago. And I never really liked them. And that was
kind of like, yeah, fescue greens stink. I totally changed
my mind. I didn't putt well at all. But I just love when they
look really shaggy. And then they roll so true. It's like a
pool table and how firm they can get them and how it's just like,
it gives that vibe. But the whole course is the same grass and it just feels, I don't know,
just feels old school. And I really liked that. And the third thing I want to shout out is the
Tara Eaddy's caddy program. Caddies are like an accelerant, right? Like they can, it can make a
round magical, a good round magical, but it can also take a good round and really kind of pour
some cold water on it. And not all places have good
caddies. And I feel that way, especially up in the Northeast.
And I just want to give them a shout out on the other side of
the world, a very far away place that caddies from all over the
world. And these guys were energetic. They were talented.
They were dedicated. They were like golfers. And I just, you
know, they really improved my experience. So you know, my
guys were I had Alex, Sandy and Willie, and I just want to call those guys out. But Tron, I mean, you know, they really improved my experience. So, you know, my guys were I had Alex, Sandy and Willie, and I just
want to call those guys out. But Tron, I mean, you're everybody
in my group, all of them, you and Katie Brady, Henry, Henry
from Michigan. Sorry, from University of Michigan, he was
one of the caddies with our group. And so I shout that out.
They made me even more excited about our Evans scholar
scholarship. So I'm going to shoehorn that
in because I was like, man, the world needs more good caddies. And when you see good ones
and you get good ones in action, you just like want it. You know, I want to work with
more good caddies. So those are my three things. TC, what else you got?
Yeah, I would say I think to piggyback on what you said about it's worth the trip. I
think it's worth the trip even if you don't play Terra 80. I think it's worth the trip
to go down and play TRI North and
South. And then I really want to play, there's a little kind of Muni down the street that
I mean, like I'm kind of embarrassed. I've been to New Zealand twice and I've just been
up to this, you know, kind of five mile radius twice. And I haven't really explored New Zealand proper and gone to Titurangi and Para Paraumu and
Waverly and all these cool places.
So that's on the list.
I love the Kiwis.
We're hanging with some Aussie friends down there as well.
We're watching some Aussie rules football.
Man, I just love it down there in the Southern hemisphere. But yeah, I think, I mean, I think Terry Eady, I think it's probably, it's like tied with Sandhills for best modern golf
course in the world, in my opinion. And it's truly Dokes masterpiece. And it's just, and it's cool in
the shoulder season too. We got a lot of conditions. Both good and bad. We got really lucky with the weather overall. It was windy the
whole time coming right off the ocean. And so it was definitely like proper challenging golf.
But this late in the season, the greens were like Brian Palmer and his team had the greens still
absolutely firing. I was blown away at the TRI South course, the Koren Crenshaw. I played it two years ago when it had just opened.
And it was just to see the progression in two years of how much it's grown in and all
the tie-ins and the native and the framing and everything was amazing to see.
And I think, Neil, I think that'll probably-
I think the North course will grow into, but I thought the South course was spectacular.
So you're absolutely right. That's that's worth seeing as well. But to
your point about Doke, like, you know, I've been critical of Tom
Doke, his courses I find very difficult. This one, for me, one
of my favorites from Tom Doke is Bally Neal. And I thought this
was like similar to that, but better. And a lot of just really
fun half par holes, not only short fours, but like
long fours. I mean, you know, holes number four, number seven, number 13, number 14 come
to mind as those, those holes. And then the ability to mix up T's definitely a match play
course, but you mix up T's and it changes the whole dramatically. It just doesn't get
boring. And then you mix in the variables, the wind changing all the time, rain rolling
in. It's just like my kind of golf experience of like, you don't really know what you get
when you wake up, but you know, you're just going to be out there all day.
And everybody's down for that. You know, the caddies are down like, yeah, man,
just throw on the waterproofs. We're charging. It's great.
Shout out to foot joy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, just a, just a great trip
playing a shitload of golf and competing and, and Solly you'll be happy to not put the mini driver in play. Oh
jealous 280 of you know that that was that was really useful and I almost aced the seventh hole we're playing we're playing a
Little two-man scramble the brotherhood listserv was was talking about and I hit it so like three inches
They feel like heart went hard off the left.
It was crazy.
Made three Eagles, up to six Eagles on the year.
Yeah, T.C. was golfing it.
And that number seven, that hole,
like I finally made par in our like our last round.
Otherwise I was just up by the clubhouse.
Just getting blown off the planet trying to hit that green.
He hit it to the same spot up by the clubhouse.
I hit it within five yards of my divot twice.
Like up by nine green, like way up over the dune. So it can read a lip. The big right miss lives on.
Sally, how was your trip? Yeah, we, uh, we just got back last night. I just got back
last night, um, from Northern Ireland. I was there with big Randy, uh, DJ pie and mr. Ben
Ho tailing met up with our guy, Patty over there. And I got KJ was out filming it. This
was a filming trip. This was, was, there will be content from that.
There will be a full debrief pod from this as well,
of course, ahead of the Open Championship this year,
which is heading up back to Royal Port Rush.
We got off the plane, played Royal County down,
did a little tour of Belfast, went up
and checked out Hollywood Golf Club.
They're just outside of Belfast, of course,
the home of one Roderick Muckleroy,
and then made our way and played Royal Port Rush. Had just ridiculously good weather for the entire
trip. Like honestly, like some of the luckiest pictures I saw on I got off this flight from
New Zealand. I was like, man, I felt so much FOMO. I was like, that looks so sick. Like,
it was Irish dunes are hard to beat, man. They're so cool. Like that one of you guys walking up
with that dune in the background. Where was that? That's real Port Rush. That's the seventh
hole at Port Rush. Yeah. And then we went and played nine holes at the band course over
at Castle Rock, which is like their little like short course. And it was like, it was
the Kilmore nine from Karn. Like it was awesome. It was so much fun. So didn't play nearly
as much golf as you guys played. There's a lot more running around filming and all that
stuff. But man, it was a tank filling trip. And we just had
such a idea. I Yeah, we did a lot of stuff outside of just the
golf and learned a heck of a lot about Belfast and the country's
history and, and things like that. And I'm kind of embarrassed
this is the third time I've been in Northern Ireland the first
time like I've really like taken that on in terms of reading and trying to understand
kind of the complicated history of it, which listen, we're not going to solve that, but either
on this pod or in the video project. But I just had an entirely different kind of perspective
leaving yesterday. And I'm jet lagged. I hope I make it through tonight's pod, but man, there's
some special golf. We do have a fun one. We got some fun.
We're going to talk a little bit about TPC, Craig, Craig T. Nelson or Craig James,
but overall we're going to, you know, we got some fun stuff dialed up.
So I haven't listened yet, but the Seamsters podcast with Patty.
We did. It was my idea of Pat, our Fred Patty, who's, uh, uh, you know,
he lives over there in Belfast,
not a, not a, not an American baseball fan, not a baseball fan, I should say.
And we, we had him on the Seamsters union pod to just pick his brain on some stuff.
He nailed several tech.
I knew he was going to do this.
Like you just put them on the spot and just be like, what are your, what are your thoughts
on this?
He just pulls it out of his ass and he nailed several of them.
We had a good time talking baseball and doing a lot of stuff with him.
But gosh, it was, it was great trip. Great to see. I ran into several people I'd met
in Northern Ireland, like eight years ago, you know, coffee shop owners and, and, and
just people that we'd come across. And it's just, life is just going on there as, as scheduled
and as planned and oh my God, Royal County down just absolutely slaps in the,
in the sunlight. I'd never seen it in, in light like that.
And we were just absolutely buzzing coming off the plane. So stay tuned for that.
A lot of that content it's, it's common. And it's like, I don't know. I just, I,
I don't, it never rolls off the tongue as somebody's top desire of a place to go.
Like nobody's ever like, I, I gotta get everyone's, I gotta get over to Scotland. I really want to play Ireland. Like,
and you can do Northern Ireland and Ireland in the same trip, in terms of a lot of the
golf courses. But it is like, you know, I've all I played Port Stewart, we toured the Castle
Rock course, I never made art glass, but there is just an entire Northern Ireland golf trip,
you could have. And it's just a, it's a really,
really special place. And this, just the mountains and the setting and everything up there. It's,
it's, I can't say enough great things about it. If you had 10 rounds of team port rush,
I'm saving that for the pod and the video. Cause we, that was hotly contested. And my,
my answer would be very unpopular. It would be extremely unpopular, but it's,
the courses are hard.
Both of those courses are hard,
which was a big takeaway for me from this trip.
Again, I played them eight years ago,
but I've seen so much other stuff since.
And like going back, you know,
a lot of Scottish links courses
and even a lot of Irish links courses
around the greens is not severely punishing. And both of these
courses it is. There are just massive mounds around some of these greens. Think of like
eighth green at Pack Dunes, just about like the way that one sits and how they're, think
of the second green at Pack Dunes, how severe that greenside is. That's like what rural
county down is like. And when the crosswinds are blowing 30 miles an hour,
like our caddy was just like working with us on,
just hit the front of greens, hit the front of greens,
hit the front of greens.
Not because you don't want to be above the hole,
it's because if you get pin high and you're offline,
you can play ping pong on so many of those greens.
And it's hard, like it's a hard style of golf.
And, you know, it's a little tough for some of those,
a little bit rusty, but it's got me that much more jacked up at the video is going to get everybody
jacked up for real port rush.
And it was a smash hit the last time that they played there as well.
And it's, it's, it's going to, it's going to slap again this time around.
How'd the big guy play?
Pretty good. I mean, pretty good. We had some good matches.
He's, he's launching it up a lot higher. He had a, we,
we all struggled at port rush. Everyone played pretty well at County down.
We got really benign conditions at County down and the wind blew a little bit at
port rush, not a lot, but just a little bit.
And it blew everybody's score up by five, six, seven shots from County down.
Cause yeah, we just, we weren't quite,
we weren't quite ready to hit those hold up fades off the right to left wind and
flight it down and then all the shots you got to hit on that stuff.
But it's just the most fun style of golf. And I hadn't,
I hadn't got to do that in a little while and it was a great, great, great treat.
So as much of a joy as that is, is it time to get into,
what was us get these, what's the meaning of the guy taking his headphones off?
Get this out of my fucking talking about their own golf.
Well, we got to reprioritize stuff a little bit for, for this,
this week's tournament for all of the, of the pro golf. It was a got to re-prioritize stuff a little bit for this week's tournament, for all of the pro golfers.
It was a good week to be out of pocket.
Exactly.
I mean, I think the story of the week, I mean,
I don't think Scott is a killer.
Finishing bogey par to tie the scoring record,
I mean, does he have a killer instinct?
I mean, what say you guys?
Well, I would just be ventured.
Did his, what was higher, his highest round of golf this week
or like his resting heart rate
throughout the course of the entire week?
Like that'd be very curious to know.
Like either one of those things.
He didn't have a five on the card
until midway through the third round.
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Scotty Scheffler won by, I honestly lost track.
I couldn't have been less stressed
in like watching the golf today
because the result was so far out of question.
But I ends up winning by eight after kind of struggling down the stretch there as
Neil mentioned,
stumbled to a final round 63 to just eke out Eric van Royen who finished in
second place. He birdied seven of the first, or sorry,
he shot 30 on the front with a bogey, which was six under par.
He shot 30 or better three times on the
front nine this week while making two bogeys in those rounds. I think his best ball I looked
up his best ball was only 26 because he eagled the night but he eagled the ninth hole twice.
He had two eagles but he eagled the same hole twice. So but he did birdie every other hole
on the front nine as well. Birdie 11 birdieied 14, birdied 15, bogeyed 17th, an embarrassing chip.
And then didn't birdie the 18th hole.
You got to wonder if history got to him, you know, having that scoring record if he was
thinking about it.
He had an eagle on 18 at one point this week.
He also had three eagles this week.
Welcome to the club, Scotty.
Tough week for Phil, of course, who predicted that, uh,
Scotty would not have a win this year before the rider cup.
To be fair to Phil, does this count?
This is like going back to your hometown and getting a slump buster.
It's, this is, this is borderline.
This is the second weakest event. And the second second weakest full field, not opposite field event of the
year behind Mexico at Vedanta world so far.
What is it from official world golf ranking standpoint?
Yeah.
Just not a very good golf tournament.
Like I don't think, I don't think that this tournament should exist anymore.
I think it's like, well, I guess the question then TC is like, should it be,
should there be a tournament every week or should there be off weeks during the
season? Because that's kind of what, what you're saying.
Like this should be just an off week or should it be something else? Like what's,
you know, what do you do then? Like you move the, is it,
is it your issue with the tournament itself or is it with the course and the
venue, you know,
allowing these guys to go 30 hours?
It seems like it's been rudderless for course and the venue, you know, allowing these guys to go 30-yard?
It seems like it's been rudderless for years now.
Like, you know, I like Trinity forest as a golf course.
I don't think it's a great pro golf course, certainly not in, you know, early May and
they're going to get a bunch of like, it's never a good week to have a golf tournament
in Dallas, first of all, right?
It's this, this unpack that.
That's a big, it's always drenched city USA down there in like late April, early May.
It's not enough wind really in this time period.
Like it's so good.
We do this every time it's like fall would be the best, but you don't, you would never
bring you would never do that during football.
But I just feel like there's just not a viable course to have it at.
Like Trinity, obviously the pros hated it.
It wasn't good for spectators because there's no shade out there.
This place, by all accounts, everybody hates it.
It's out way out of town.
The pros hate it.
The caddies hate it.
By all accounts, the tour people don't like it.
TV people hate it.
I mean, you know, like they had the
B squad on the telecast. Yeah. It's just like not a, it's just like even the last few years
at Las Colinas, it just, it wasn't a good tournament. And so either get a, either build
a better golf course or it's like shit or get off the pot. You've got a great tournament over
at Colonial and there's what,
four other tournaments in Texas?
There are a lot of tournaments in Texas. So I hear that argument. But I guess just to
get back to what I asked you is like, do you think that if they moved it to a different
market, you think that's the answer? Like I'm trying to understand if it's just because
of where it falls on the schedule, is it always just going to be a really tough one because it's going to be
before a signature event. Everybody's catching their breath from, uh, you know,
you probably don't want to have any later because this is where I see,
I net out on like, dude, I'm, I'm totally fine having these dip weeks,
not every week, you know,
but this course is just so unbecoming, But that makes it easier for it to just dip.
Oh, it's terrible.
Like it's it's a total it's more of an exhibition than it is a golf tournament.
I would I would say that.
Look, do I think this should be a world ranking points?
Should have said the same amount of FedEx cut points as the as as waste management.
Yeah, I know. I don't think so.
Like, I really think that those are on two different levels, but the tour
has got a tiering problem as it is. This is the lower tier of
the lower tier and it just kind of not along and watch the end
of it on Sundays. And you know, this is a week that you got to
your everybody's locking in for I don't know if everybody's
locking in for the truest this week, but it's a signature
event. You're more likely to lock in for that. And then you
go right into a major. Once we get in between the majors on a lot of these tournaments, it just gets very
easy to maybe, you know, check in on Sunday to see what happens
at the very end, but otherwise just not a great tournament to
watch.
They're gonna redo it. And I don't I don't know if it's gonna
be any better.
I would be stunned if it was. I'd be amazed. It's got no soul.
Top on TV. That's
it just I think if anything, maybe you got to respect Scotty more because he won on a course that like,
it's hard to separate, doesn't differentiate.
It's a good point.
So, you know, to win by eight, and it seems like the kind of
course that like rewards a lot of the wrong stuff. And so to
win by eight and even, you know, and still beat a lot of these
imposters is cool. You know, Sally, you were even, you know, instill beat a lot of these imposters is, is cool.
And as all you were getting, you were getting pretty hyped up
about speed today with the 62, just feels a little bit like
pooped in the potty.
No, just to fit my narrative train with you.
The golf doesn't matter at all, almost in this week,
but this fits my narrative.
So I'm going to ride this one out.
TC. This was a massive, massive week for speed.
And all the haters can suck a total shoe in for the rider cup team. This, this one out TC. This was a massive, massive week for Spieth and all the haters can suck it.
A total shoe in for the Ryder Cup team. This proves it right here.
Who said that? Why did you say that, Neil? Who claimed that?
You said that. You said that a month ago when we did.
Did I say that, Neil? Neil, did I say that?
I will be happy to go check the tape. You said-
You want to check the tape? I'll put a wager on it. You got to wear one of the dumb ass
hats that we're going to talk about.
No. What did you say?
Oh, okay. You've already backed off of it. No, no, but I think
you said, uh, Spieth is going to be on the Ryder Cup team. I, yes, I think Spieth is
going to be on the Ryder Cup team. I believe you said that. Do you want to, I'll bet I'll
do a big, uh, big lettered hat bet. Well, you're going to try to take a direct quote.
I think the spear. I've got one. I've got one right here. TC, if we're down to do the
spirit of the quote, I would be happy to take that bet because I know what you said and we were all KVV.
I don't know what else on the call. He wants to, it's all he wants to put a bunch of qualifiers
on it. Just like he jumped down on. I think we know the spirit of like, you were like, yeah,
of course, speed's going to be on the rider cup. Like you were like a gas that we were like,
what are you talking about? Sitting here. He's more likely than not to be on the team.
He was the greater than 50% gen.
I don't know if that was the vibe.
If it was just, I think it was a lot more like Spieth's
on the team.
You went down your list and it was like, yes, Spieth.
And it was like, what?
You're like, yeah, more likely than not.
Sure, I still think that's a bit egregious.
But I think my point still stands.
But sure, you didn't say what I said.
The category was called odds on but not locks.
And I put JT, Bryce, and Brooks can't land Spieth
in that category.
Odds on.
Odds on.
I don't think Spieth is odds on.
That's greater than 50% would be odds on.
Yeah, I just don't.
Right now, I don't think that's the case.
I don't think that's improved since you said that.
Have you seen the bottom of the guys trying to qualify for this team?
That was the whole point.
Come on.
You know, JJ is going to respawn, baby.
We got all kinds of horses coming up the leaderboard.
Do you think Keegan's picking JJ respawn over Jordan's speed was the point?
I don't think that he is as likely.
I guess my point is I don't think he's as likely to be on the team as you do.
But anyway, we can move on that. We don't have to relitigate it. But I feel like that was,
you know, I don't want to skip over that that is that might not age well. Let me put it that way.
Again, my point is that all he has to do is show a sign of life. He's probably going to get a
captain's pick and he's going to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of different ways. Speaking
of the doubt, you got a sponsor exemption next week as well. So he's been injured. He already
had that sponsor exemption the next week. well. So he's been injured. He already had that sponsor exemption the next week.
Correct.
Before this week.
Yeah.
So a guy that's begging for sponsor exemptions
into CIGI events, we think he's odds on to get on the Ryder
Cup team.
Come on.
Let's be fair.
Why do you think he has to beg?
I understand the point, but I think I don't know, man.
Why do you think he has to beg?
Was he injured last year, Neil?
Yes.
He was, of course.
Listen, you know I love Jordy. This is not me saying I love Jordy. I'm not, this is not me saying
I hate Jordy. It's just me saying like, yeah, he's just not playing that good compared to other people.
But I understand the politics. I understand what you're saying. You listen, let's just, we'll just,
we'll just watch what happens. I don't want to, I don't want to get us all bogged down here.
Holly, any, yeah, we're somewhat joking about like, just does this win mean
anything for Scotty? I think it, it means something. And he
hadn't won this year after all the dominance last year. He
went by fucking eight. Like he was not on afterwards.
Hometown event and made something to him.
I think that's awesome. Good for him. Seriously.
This is awesome.
This makes me think about him for the upcoming stretch a
little differently.
I don't know if it does for you guys.
We, of all people, talk about dubs.
You know, the year of getting dubs.
Sometimes you just need little dubs.
Little wins are important.
You know, hey, it's hard to what you're JT talking about
at Heritage, how hard it is to close the door,
how hard it is to win.
He made this look so easy that that's almost something
similar.
I'm like, you know what?
Yeah, I am the alpha.
Like I am like I just ran away and just, you know, just ran away from the field. That's gotta give him some confidence.
Meanwhile, Rory's doing his media car wash up in New York.
As media as Roy lost his edge. Why is he not at the Byron getting after with these guys? I yeah, there wasn't a player anyone on the planet that was going to beat Scotty. They could have had the entire tour there. They, you throw the live guys in there too.
Nobody was going to beat that guy this week. He gained 23 shots on the field.
It's actually a pretty interesting course for Bryson. Oh, for sure. He's also, he's
sticking with that, uh, that claw grip. Um, which I, you know, I don't, I'm not breaking
any news there, but I kind of thought when that came out in the Bah which I, you know, I don't, I'm not breaking any news there, but I kind
of thought when that came out in the Bahamas last, you know, November, December, I was
like, man, that's interesting. But he seems to, he seems to like it. I haven't looked
up his putting stats, but I was thinking about it. Sixth gained over six shots on the greens
this week. You know, but in my head, I'm like, I haven't looked at the stats, but he hasn't
won yet this year. Is that, you know, should I be looking at that? But obviously, you know, the data says otherwise.
Well, the ball striking has just been okay.
Like it's just not been Scotty level this week.
He, he gained almost 13 shots approaching the green next best gained eight.
Like the gap between him and the second place guy is like the gap between the
second place guy and the 30th place.
Like it
just was a completely absurd approach week and he was third
off the tee and six then putting like it just like one of
the most lethal combinations come up. He had the best round
of the day in round one, the best round of the day in round
two, the fourth best round of the day, and on day three and
second best today, like he almost won each day. I don't
think has anybody ever done I don't think that's there's no way that's ever happened on tour. Is there?
Maybe the cat.
I'll have to get J-Ray on that one. Like that, that's, that, that would be the, we need to come up with a name for that one. But yeah, I don't know. That's, it's fun, Chris. You know, we like that. That's fun. We love
that. I'm not, not hating Sam Burns also. So some of the cream
was rising to the top, even on a course like TC you said that,
you know, let's,
to Kumi Kaniya, T5.
Yeah, I'll flip right back around to Kumi Kaniya finishing
T5. This is a dumbass course. None of this golf means
anything. All right. This is stupid.
I'll flip right back around. Takumi Kaniyaf finishing T5. This is a dumb ass course. None of this golf means anything. This is stupid. Yeah.
KM Champ, T15. Ross Steelman, I think. I don't know if he Mondayed in or got a sponsor exemption,
but he's a corn fairy guy, Georgia Tech guy, T25. Chris got her up. Like I like it when younger guys have a shot at,
you know, playing well and stacking up some points. I just, my big issue is like,
this is supposed to be a good tournament, right? This is supposed to be, like it's, you know,
the Byron Nelson was always a bigger tournament when we were growing up. And now it's, it's just
a shell of itself and it's an uninteresting shell of itself.
The aerial, they need to get the drone or blimp or whatever. They need to get it off
that golf course.
Yeah. Stop shooting from above.
It does not help.
That's not helping.
Really does not help.
Just unbecoming.
The neighborhood, everything. Yeah. It does not seem like a great honor for Byron Nelson,
but
Well, we skipped over, but Eric Van Royen, I would give him a big shout out for keeping
up, keeping pace with Scotty. I mean, 63 in the final round, finish the solo second.
Like that's, that's really good golf. He seems like a, a, honestly,
a great guy. And, uh, that's, uh, you know, going 23 under, you know,
normally that's going to win it. Uh, you know, he had,
he had three Eagles this week too. Yeah, that's awesome.
I love Eric van Royen. Great dude. He had some quotes
afterwards because he got into truest, you know, like, yeah,
the next five next man up. And he said, Yeah, I hate it. He
still is very, very against the whole kind of broken up model
and, and all that. Which again, we can kind of agree to
disagree on that one. But so I know we're talking about field
field strength earlier, just as
no of note if you fast forward if you if you don't care about
the data behind it, but data golf, of course, does a
tournament summary for all professional golf tournaments
and basically measures them up against each other basically to
say like qualifies about something they call the X
score, which is like it's named after Xander Schauffele.
Yeah. But basically, if you like go out and play like Xander
does on average, the probability that somebody would go out and
beat you like somebody in the field would go out and beat you.
So like the bet the strongest field players championships 95%
of the 95% chance that like somebody is going to beat you if
you gain two shots on the field every single week. So that's a
met just a this how they measure it. This was the third lowest of the PGA Tour events to
this date of the full field ones ahead of barely ahead of Cognizant
and a little bit ahead as well of the Mexico open at Vedanta
World, but well behind. It's actually like tied with Valero
Farmers American Express level and they got all kinds of other
stuff. It's called the tournament summaries
page on there. You can look at what the median player was in
the field, what the average player was in the field, what
the 90th percentile player was in the field. You can also
compare it to a bunch of live events. It'll show you
basically having a smaller field like as strong as the top of the
live field is. It is harder to win technically the CJ Cup at
Byron Nelson than it is to win any live events just
because of the number of players that get added to the field and
these full field events and the full field events actually keep
up with the signature events more than you might think just
because of how many guys are in the field for those weeks.
Why do they take that a joke that it's named after Xander?
It's like named that is it named after perennial plus two
skill players and or Shafley X scores the probability that the
field beats a two stroke game player in a 72 hole stroke plate
tournament.
Okay,
probability that you're going to give it to the field.
Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, it gives you great if you want
to see how many players in the field average more than one shot
gain, how many average more than 1.5,
they break down every tournament of that to give you pretty tangible data on what.
Basically I'm saying all that to like,
don't go to the OWGR website anymore to see the field strength because the OWGR
is so messed up that that's not the best possible way to see how hard it is to
win some of these tournaments. So.
Sally, any concerns with, you know, a couple of your boys, Tom Kim,
Taylor Pendreth both missing the cut this week. Listen, it's a golf course.
It doesn't matter.
No, the results don't even matter.
I mean, you know, you can't separate on this golf course.
Yeah, they got, they still managed to separate themselves
out of it.
I got the bad side of the draw.
That must be it.
No, I, it's honestly very hard to put stock in anything that isn't just like blowing the
field away.
Like in truth, am I putting a ton of stock in speed finishing in the top five?
I'm not.
I think it's good to see a sign of life, but it just is like not a test of professional,
not a, not even a decent test of professional golf.
So it doesn't really answer any questions.
True.
As well as answer some questions.
Like, I don't know if I'm, if I'm,
I'm still not riding high off speed going into quail hollow. I don't know if, if,
if anyone is in particular, but, um, I, uh, Scotty did make me just say like, okay, like there,
there's the dude right there. I don't care if this course was easy. He lifted and separated
at a level that no one else on this planet can do. Yeah. He answered the question of everybody's
playing the same golf course, you know, it's like, well, watch what I do on it. You know, huge, huge of true Rico
Ho. He had it going for a little bit, you know, good course for him. He's a, just a predator with
the driver, but couldn't just constring for four good rounds together. Sally, any concerns?
Zala Taurus withdrew free tournament. Yeah, it's not, it's not good. He had a tough go at the Masters and I don't
have any more details behind it. We should be asking you that. I feel like you've been picking
them a bunch lately. I know. I'm concerned. I haven't heard anything like solid. I haven't heard
anything positive or negative. So hopefully, he's just being cautious, abundance of caution,
but you know, want to see him. Other news this week, Davis Riley, got a two stroke penalty
for inadvertently using the slope feature on his rangefinder, which guys, how are the
rangefinder companies not giving these guys either, you know, like either melting the range finder
slope button. So it's inoperable or giving them something where it's disabled. Cause it's so easy
to inadvertently do that. Or switch it to meters. I'll watch that too. That's not a penalty. That's
not a penalty, but that does that's a career ender. I can never figure out
how to undo that. Yeah, I know. It's like, Oh boy, I got to hold
it down for how many seconds? I don't know. That can be a tough
one. Yeah, it tough tough as it's very tough penalty,
obviously called it on himself. And I'm not pro rangefinder. I
don't think this is going to change much of anything to
begin with. And like just think this is going to change much of anything to begin with.
And like just adding this element into things is not, uh, not ideal, but yeah,
everybody should have a rangefinder that does not have a slope feature on it.
I get it that they probably have them for practice rounds to be able to,
to measure all that,
but let your caddy use all that in the practice round.
And then that thing gets left in the hotel. There's no reason to even,
even risk that.
He still made the cut, um, and shout out to him for calling it on himself.
That's integrity.
It's what you do when no one's watching TC.
No one else can see that number coming up
in the left hand corner of the screen.
Guys, I'm just receiving word as well.
He had three Eagles this week.
How about that?
You're diluting your club because Craig Ranch
is not the same as doing it at Tarahiti.
Couple other things, Solly. Colin more Kawa and Joe Griner.
How about that? Did not see that one coming. Call more Kawa splitting with his longtime caddy,
Justin Djokovic, um, don't really have any more. I don't believe, uh, there's been a ton of details
out there. I know he detailed some of it of how hard the phone call was to make.
And I guess that just the opportunity to get Joe on the bag with all the success he's had,
it's just interesting.
They won two majors together and it's the only caddy he's had as a pro.
And it's just, I'm surprised.
I was very surprised by this news.
I had a hole in one of the players.
That's right.
You know, that's tough.
So that's an interesting, I imagine Justin's going gonna find a job very, very, very quickly.
But it's interesting little caddy swap.
And Joe's, yeah, Joe's been on a lot of big feature bags here
in the last several, just months alone.
So you should just keep,
you should just keep moonlighting for people.
Just have the honeymoon, like a,
just an indefinite honeymoon, you know?
And then just kind of hop around like, all right,
you know what, like Tom Kim, you're next, man. I'm going to fix you.
You know, anything else from, from, from Craig James?
Not really. Look, I'm more looking ahead at truest. I think it's been drench city up there
as well. I've had some, I think they've been soaking the golf course for some reason is
what I've heard.
Golf course is Philadelphia cricket club. For those that don't know. I've never been there,
but I've heard it's been on my, I've gotten rained out of that course three times that I've
tried to play it. But it's been on my list of a place I really want to get. And I'm very keen for,
it seems like a great decision for the tour to go here. And I'm excited to see this golf course on
TV. And it's more exciting. I believe it's going to be more exciting than Quail Hollow, even if it
has been drenched at Drench City USA. But that's-
Forecast is tough up here in the Northeast this week. It's going to be more exciting than quail hollow, even if it has been drenched at drenched city, USA, but Orcas is tough up here in the Northeast this week.
I think it looks like it's going to be Thursday, Thursday to Sunday is going to be good.
It's just, I think it's going to be, it's not a long course to begin with.
I think it's like 70, 100, 7,200 yards per 70.
It's pretty tight piece of property as well.
So I think they've had to wedge in some, some hospitality and things of that nature. So I will, I will zip my mouth on
grandstanding and backstopping and TIO this week. Cause listen, I applaud, that's just one of the
things that comes with going to a smaller footprint course. I'm so proud of you for this. The golf ball
that's, that's completely out of whack. Thank you. We still should, you know, reform TIO relief, but that's, we'll leave that aside for now.
Yeah. Sponsor exemptions. We've got Rick, Jordan, Gary Woodland, and then one more is to be determined.
I'm not sure if they've announced that one yet, but not a great look. I don't think given Rick another one, you know, it's just kind of like, all right.
Like, is this a meritocracy?
I mean, we've done, we've done that.
I've done, we've done this exact conversation with this exact group of people multiple times.
I think it, I think it is big time meritocracy.
I think these are like some big time marketing passes for some marketable guys that are going
to get, that have got, are getting some opportunities would be, be my answer to that.
Is it a hundred percent fair? I would not say so,
but it's also golf for money and individual sponsors are going to want some
say in who they want to bring to the tournament.
And Rick always tends to make a lot of sense for bringing fans out.
Yeah. And then the creator classic,
we got another creator classic this week, Solly.
Is it losing steam is my question.
It's a different format, different field.
Very excited for you guys to watch the broadcast
and not be on the grounds.
Let me know what you think.
That's all I'm gonna say.
Well, I think the live duels thing
had me thinking a lot more.
For all of these events, we've always said like, why does
it have to be live? Why does it have to be live? Like you can
edit it, you can cut out all the other riff. And honestly, as
soon as I found out live duels was edited, I was like, I'm not
gonna watch that. Like it just goes into the YouTube like
algorithm part like a live event is a different thing. It's a
different product. Like it's a different kind of thing of in
terms of competition. I don't know what it is, like I can't
sit and record a baseball game, then go back and watch it once
it's over. Like you will you watch it live. Like that's the
whole point of sports and kind of the re I'm saying I like to
say like the rebranding of the way lived in it did not catch my
attention despite having a stronger like professional tie into it. And this route that they're going, I'm not even sure I understand the format,
but it's a lot different. Teams of three all shot. Yeah, that's going to be really hard to string.
My takeaway from watching the broadcast at the players, you know, trying to watch you play,
Solly was they need to simplify things, not make the format
more complicated.
I mean, they already lost track of a bunch of, we didn't see a lot of golf, let me put
it that way.
And so I'm concerned, my concern would be goes the way of the match with, we're going
to have a new format every week and then it's just, yeah, it's just not going to, it's not
going to have any, there's no through line. And I
think people underestimate how important a through line is with
whatever you're doing. I mean, the way we think about our video
stuff is like probably less match and more, you know, travel
and, and, but like, if you look at strap, for instance, there's
a through line there, there's a few things that like are, you
know, pretty consistent throughout, you know, season to
season. And I don't feel like that's happening now
with the creator classic.
And I think a lot of people would hearing this will say like,
oh, we'll give them time.
It's like, well, I don't know if you got a ton of time
with this stuff.
If you lose the momentum, it might be a problem.
I don't know if it's a creator classic
without Gabby Golf Girl.
And her dad.
Just come out and say that.
It's hard. I got to play in the one that was
at TPC Sawgrass, but the Sawgrass one to me seemed like
a way bigger success than Torch Championship because it was on
a golf course that everyone was super familiar with in like
great conditions and playoff on the 17th hole was just like very,
very easy to understand, like just very simple. There's a
leaderboard in the corner and everybody's playing stroke play and it's, it's quite easy.
Uh, and it seems to be kind of headed to, like you said, towards the match of like a
little bit more complicated, a little less like, I'm not really sure what the question
is now. Like, is it, you know, just a hit and giggle fun thing? That's, that's fine.
It needs to be simplified. It needs to be like, what would I shoot if I played TPC sawgrass?
That was an easy question. I don't know if they broadcast it very well. What I would
say is like, yo, why don't you just run back the same format and just get better at it?
Like take a bunch of the top like amateur players that people watch play on YouTube.
Everybody wants to know what would you shoot on this golf course in tournament conditions?
Like what's the talent gap like between you and these top players go do it. And I think that's an interesting
question to be answered, whether I got to play in it or not. I was, that's why I was.
Well, and to your point about the live duals, I do think like some type of pro integration with
all shot for instances, you know, you could hook me with that a little bit too, or basketball. I
don't know. It just, you know, you're, you gotta say again, you gotta pick a lane. You gotta have a
through line. That's right. And I just think now we're grasping the dark and it's like, it just kind of makes me shake
my head a little bit.
Well, I think I have no idea on the, I don't know behind the scenes on this, but I think
the complications that came from live duels also just added another wrinkle to it. Like
all of a sudden they're putting up $250,000 for a lot of these guys that travel around
and play in a lot of this stuff. And all of a sudden,
putting up a million, who could have seen that coming guys. I've been saying, I've just said,
we're about to get water boarded with creator leagues and here they come, baby.
It's it's coming for us full steam ahead. It, uh,
it's a creationist. God. I think I said that to you guys like last October.
I was just, I, I, I, I kind of ahead of schedule for me actually.
So yeah, it's, it's,
I don't know if they're having trouble recruiting people or what.
I did not get invited to this one for those asking.
You know, I didn't either.
Yeah.
Where's my invite? Huh?
You know, he made three Eagles this week.
How did he not get invited?
He's down there making Eagles everywhere.
Evidently.
I saw it in everybody else though.
You know?
Yeah, it's true.
So, all right.
What else happened this week? Do you see LPGA was kind of a snoozer. I just told everybody else though. Yeah, it's true. So, all right.
What else happened this week TC?
Yeah, LPGA was kind of a snoozer.
It was good thing to have up on a second screen
with the good views from black desert out in Utah.
Heyron U one by five, kind of similar story to.
We got to commit to Heydon it's I don't know why.
I don't know why, but that's that's the pronunciation.
It's on you. Yeah.
She won by five sixty eight sixty four on the weekend over Esther Henselite
and Ronnie Yen and then Rio de Qaeda.
H A E R A N is pronounced Hey Don.
Yeah, yes.
And that was that's going to I'm going to struggle with that. Yeah. Yes. And that was, that's going to,
I'm going to struggle with that. Fair. I think it was very fair.
Hey, I do. I need to have, I might be larger than the post-it note for me.
TC. I have a white doll. Go with the grant boon pronunciation. That guy,
that motherfucker do not miss.
Do you want to shout out Rio Takeda? She shot 65, 66, finished solo fifth. I think, I think
she, I think, I think she's going to major this year. I'm putting the word out there.
So a real one or one of the fake ones. Cause that's all we only have one fake one left.
So we got three, three, a real one. Okay. But if she wins the avion does not count.
Charlie whole, I guess she's officially quit smoking, but it sounds like she's starting to use Zins Neil.
She's just good.
They are, they're a, I don't know if it's in, but she's supposed to be like a freshman in Oregon this year, skip college.
Altogether. She won the Mizzouho AJA event in 2023.
Mizzouho is this coming week. Neil, you're,
you're going down to that at your home club, I believe. Right?
Yeah. I'm actually going to go play. I got invited to play in that program.
So how about that? I'll be out there Wednesday.
Neil's going to do his own creator classic.
Yeah. You know, maybe we'll do our own, our own, uh, creation out there,
but yeah, Liberty is actually a fun place to watch golf. If you're in the New York area,
it's a, that's a good term. You get to see, I like the format. You have the AJGA, the, uh, amateur,
you know, junior golfers out there playing with a stacked field. It's a, you know, it's a good
course for the LPGA. Uh, Sally, can I do live corner? Can we just keep, it was live Korea at, uh, the Jack Nicholas golf golf club
out in Incheon where they had the president's cup forever ago.
I think that was the Jay Haas, uh, Bill Haas president's cup prime for a
blandy Bryce and showdown.
I thought it was a one stroke.
What happened to you?
It was late. Uh, as somebody that has twice tweeted watching golf on delay this year, I could understand
where you were coming from, but you tweeted out that it was a two horse race, but apparently
you read the leaderboard wrong. You know, the heart wants what the heart wants. And
I was thinking, Oh my God, they're, they were like, what happened to the field? Uh, Bryson
had like a, you know, four Bryson had like a four shot lead
instead of a one shot lead over Blandy. I was just looking at the second round scores.
And then yeah, Blandy shot 73 and lost by 11.
You know, fellow crusher Charles Howe III gave Bryson a really good run for his money.
I think he shot like 63, but Bryson locked in, made six birdies on the back, prevailed
by two shots.
As his crushers won by nine over Smash GC.
Co-crack shot 77 in the final round.
Certainly didn't help matters for Smash.
And it pains me to say this, but the cliques and the ironheads were
the only two teams over par. The cliques lost to even Phil's team. What's Phil's team? High flyers.
The high flyers. They were like six back of the high flyers even just bleak stuff.
Hate that. So, you know, in other live news, it seems like there's a, you know,
In other Liv news, it seems like there's a, Scott O'Neill, the Liv CEO said that, I guess according to Sportico, he said that Liv Golf and the OWGR were in quote, serious discussions.
Doug Ferguson, I guess, spoke with Trevor Immelman.
Immelman said, quote, that's an interesting choice of words
in relation to serious discussions.
Immelman continued, they have not put any application in.
Whether that happens or not, I guess time will tell.
He said it was-
Allow me to contradict him.
He said, I've enjoyed getting to know Scott O'Neill
over the last few months.
We've spoken on the phone a couple of times.
We met in person at the masters, just really introduction stuff. We're, we're in the same position we
have been without any application from their side.
Honestly, good for Trevor. Like yo man, that's just not true. You know, that don't, don't
in a very nice way.
We don't think that's what I would call that, but yeah, we, we have met and it was a nice
discussion.
We met Scott O'Neill at the Masters and like he was just telling everyone that he
had a meeting with Trevor and it's like to get the rumor out there about
OWG and put the word out under the tree for sure.
In other news, ratings were not good for last week's head to head showdown between
Zurich and Chipotle pack. There's no way Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal
reported FS one averaged 110,000 viewers for Sunday's final round of live golf Mexico City
Saturday coverage got 84,000 viewers and then Friday on FS to
30,000 viewers final round of the Zur Classic, delayed by a weather and a power
outage. I missed all of this. Average 1.63 million viewers from three to 740, down 12,
only down 12% from last year when Rory and Shane Lowry won. So coverage from then until
the finish average 2.3 million, which would have been a 10 year
high for the final round.
Like they had literally they had to play the 2024 replay version during the power outage.
Then they got a weather delay.
It was true.
I sucked because that was when Zach and Fishburne just just couldn't beat a replay of last year's
or it couldn't get within one sixteenth of a replay of last
year's Zurich was a tough break for our friends that live. I
really was told this TV deal would be a big deal. You're
gonna hate this. Like I think they've redone least like part
of it since then. It looked like it did not look like a
muni anymore. It looked like kind of nice. And well,
actually Bryson though, did you see that video of Bryson?
Bryson freaked out about the book. I kind of thought that was
like AI. I thought so. I thought that might be that felt like
bait man. And then I guess it wasn't that. Oh, no, I think it
my senses were up of like somebody dubbed this. Yeah,
because he would not be outrageous. It's like, are you
seriously freaking out about the sand? Like, just don't hit in
the bunker. It should be hazards. What are you talking
about?
This isn't serious golf, buddy. They paid like $200 million to
do this. Just get the money and get out of the bunker.
Actually, couple more live things. Money and Sport
Newsletter had some interesting intel on just some of the
contractual tie ins or clauses that are related to the PIF giving live more money.
Pretty rudimentary business. You got to reach a certain threshold of revenue. I think it
was what? Like 77 or 80 million this year.
I think it was 80 million.
82 million.
They're on pace. I think they've given them 330 million through April for the year.
674 is actually 330 on January 16th and another 344 million on April 25th for a total of $674 million
this year. The total funding for 2025 could reach a billion as soon as July or August,
assuming a third capital injection by PIF of $330 million is required total authorized share capital of
live golf in investments is now 4.58 billion, which is an
increase of 1.9 billion since January 2024.
Yeah, it's like, all right, so I've seen this like, yeah, that's
really good in town somebody. Well, then some of these
contracts are going to come up. So what are you just going to, you know, and like the big.
Wrinkle in that though is nobody really knows how the payer, the player payments
work. So it's like, nobody really knows how much John Rom got and nobody knows
how they, you know, who got guaranteed money versus who's like, you know, kind
of getting paid on based on performance.
Like I think it's all over the map. But how sick would it be like for us
if somebody was like, yo, man, I'll give you 100 bucks. And you
guys like, just gonna make me a dollar if you guys can like get
10 bucks back to me when you can. We're no interest just
that's that's success. Like that would be kind of that man.
That's kind of, and then it was what you got to set up. I think
they had to set up, I think they had to
set up like six more tournaments or something like that. There
were a couple of other wrinkles in there, but yeah, I would
encourage everybody to.
It was a broadcast, having a term sheet with the approval of
the executive committee for a US broadcasting deal with Fox Inc
and its subsidiaries for 2025 and 2026.
Yeah, they wanted a multi-year deal.
I know way too much commentary gets directed
at just like the worst people ever online,
but like literally as one of the covenants of this
is to say you need a TV, US TV deal.
So when we talk about TV ratings and why they are zero
and why that matters, like spelled out in this
is exactly why.
Like that's what they want is to,
for people in the US to watch this on television.
Actually, something else stuck out to me though, TC was with two things from that newsletter.
One, the estimate was that the rest of the world, so ROW revenue was about equal with
the US revenue, which I just found kind of surprising. I mean, but then I started thinking
about it, you could argue, you know, it's probably, you know, it's more seems to get more attention. Like in Australia, I would have thought that
at first would be higher, but it's like the US is a bigger market. And two, I mean, the one,
the London event, I think it was like 28 million in revenue, which to me, I was like, that was
actually more than I thought you would generate. And I think that was off of tickets and merch and,
you know, all the sponsor stuff, which, you know, some ways you can launder that money though too.
I'm sure there are, but I just thought that was... JCB says, Hey, there's $15 million.
That's why I think that course owner had something probably to do with that as well.
Actually, I sat next to him for a little bit at Live Miami, the JCB guy. But yeah, the money
in sport newsletter is great. They've had some great stuff on Carnoustie here over
the last couple of months. They've had a look back at the Fox USGA deal. They do some Formula
One stuff. They did something on who owns Wentworth Golf Club, all sorts of stuff. So
would highly recommend that.
And then, yeah, I think that's really it on the live front. Although Bryson did have a, he had a really shitty quote,
a really bad question too, about just the,
somebody asked him about the Rory freezeout at Augusta.
And Bryson kind of didn't really take the high road.
He was just like, yeah, I don't know anything about that.
It's my duty to grow the game and talk to the fans
and be nice to everybody kind of thing. She was like duty as a golfer and as an entertainer,
TC. Yeah. Yeah.
So I guess it was like a local news person that asked it in Korea.
So I don't know if it was a language barrier thing or what, and I don't know.
There's like 85 million other things Bryson does that, uh,
that aggravate me more than this one.
This one didn't quite register for me, but it's within the bounds.
Poor I thought a good piece, fried egg this week too, about just looking at Rom and how
this is going to be such an interesting summer for Rom.
Because I think he's signed longer than a lot of these other guys for Liv.
So let's say things start disintegrating, but he's stuck over there these other guys for live. So, you know, if let's say things start disintegrating,
but he's stuck over there and other guys are kind of free to play wherever they want, you
know, plus if he doesn't win another major or compete, at least have a high finish in
one of these upcoming majors, it could get, could get spicy. So the fuck is going to happen
with this thing. Like who's going to play on this thing?
I don't know.
I really, as much as I've thought about it,
and we've talked about it, I don't
know what happens with Brooks and Bryson
by the end of next year, which is the legality.
I don't think guys were thrilled either about the Chapultepec
to Korea commute.
And then someone comes back stateside for the PGA.
Just some other stray news and notes.
Sally, this is per Monday Q info.
I thought this was an interesting thing.
This is on the PGA tour Americas.
I believe they were down in Peru.
Hunter Wolcott got dinged for pace of play penalty on Friday.
He was the first one to get penalized under the new rules.
If a group is on the clock and there's no first warning and any shot over 40 seconds
gets penalized.
He took 58 seconds on a putt and got a one shot penalty.
Final round, he was two shots back playing the 71st hole.
He made a birdie, his competitor made a double, and he won the tournament.
So the first guy to get dinged for it won the tournament same week it happened and everything
like that. But it doesn't seem that complicated. Did you just enforce the rules? You know, and
this is a different rule, right? This is a different, this is the new one that they
that they're testing out on testing out, right? This is different than what is the current policy
on the correct. And this is, this is what, you know, this is what they should be doing at the lower levels.
PGA America's or fairy tour even of, Hey, test this stuff out.
Just like they do stuff in the minor leagues with baseball and then bring it to the, bring
into the PGA tour.
Like for the record, I have no problem.
Every other sport, you miss the shot clock, dude.
It's a turnover.
Like that's part of the game.
Can I challenge this?
Throw a challenge flag in this. So let's say Hunter Wolcott is playing with,
let's say it's Joseph Bramwood. I'm thinking of a very slow player. All right.
And he's playing with Carlota Saganda.
Carlota Saganda. Let's go with that. Carlota Saganda is the reason they get put on the clock.
Hunter Wolcott standing over a putt that, you know, playing for trying to get, make it onto the corn fairy tour, trying to
win this golf tournament, staying over putt. Carlota Saganda's caddy pulls a Gabby golf
girls dad and walks behind the hole. I think there would be a, some sort of judgment call
there from whoever the referee is. I's like, I hope there is.
Cause I, I, I, I worry about some of the language of this
being like against the spirit of the game and somebody that's
like not a slow player getting totally boned, like watching
you guys, I don't know.
You guys probably get to see the end of Chevron.
We're like, Carlotta area put on the clock and she's standing
over a T shot and she starts to back off of that. I don't know if a fly land on her
ball or what starts to back off and then it gets right back in
her stance and hits the shot. And it just is like trying to
win a major. Somebody else has really fucked you to put it,
put you in this spot and you are given no leeway to back off if
there's a distraction or things that have.
I guess is there a way to just make it an individual timing of
some kind? Like somebody in the core has that
data, right? Like, yo, it's just, there's gotta be a better way than putting the whole
group on the clock. It's like, yo, you specifically problem or the problem you're taking too long.
We got word that your group was slow. So we came and we, we are mystery shopping and you're
the one that's taken forever on all these fucking shots. Like I think there's a solution
here. Just find the slow player and tell them
that they're playing slow.
Fix the glitch.
And fix the glitch.
I'm actually way more on giving officials
like carte blanche to do like a real official,
like a foul, calling a foul in a basketball game.
It's really interesting coming from the guy
who hates umpires.
Why, balls and strikes are pretty darn easy to measure
when, especially when there's one
ball coming into the coming into the batter's box.
This is a lot different.
You get an Eric Greger.
What's the a Hunter Wendell stat things of that nature.
All right.
All right.
Are you getting digressing?
Let's let's let's move on.
Like the way the shot, like the pitch clock stuff works in baseball, like you do have
a number of disengagement.
So you're allowed, right?
Like, you know, that's what I mean. But just, yeah, if we can come with
up with a black and white thing. But I think that we've started
from the, I don't know, the foundation of like, it's always
got to be the group that gets put on the clock. And I think
that that's like a faulty foundation. I think you could
just start to communist. Yeah, it's like, let's just, let's just
find the slow player in the group. Like, we all see it, you
know?
Let's see here. What else? Jim Dent, pretty cool PGA Tour career and Augusta native. He was caddy at Augusta national and then eventually played PGA Tour. He in really 40 years out there
between PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions. He passed away at
85. So life well lived there. We've got an LPGA Commish Search update. Our friend Josh
Carpenter at Sports Business Journal. It sounds like a two horse race, guys, between this
candidate, Craig Kessler. He PGA of America, COO.
He's a Harvard MBA grad.
He was the COO at Topgolf.
I believe he used to work at McKinsey,
worked with Neal's Hitters at KKR for a while.
Just a kind of a resume builder, it seems like.
And then Alex Baldwin, the Corn Fairy Tour president
is the other kind of remaining candidate, but it sounds
like Kessler has the inside track there.
So we'll keep tabs on that one.
PGA Tour CEO search.
Sally, this one sounds like it might be a two horse race as well.
Five senior industry people.
This is per Josh Carpenter and Adam Stern.
Five senior industry sources with knowledge
of the search have identified NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps as a name that the Tornish showed
interest in.
And then two people familiar with the matter also named TaylorMade president and CEO David
Abelis as a possible candidate.
There was some more rearranging of chairs and roles and personnel at the global home this week.
Um, you know, all sorts of kind of rolling up tournament business affairs
and championship management, you know, trimming some head count over there.
Uh, a plane landed at Riviera.
This feels more like a trap draw story.
I did see that at a great landing as well.
I mean, it's the green, green kind of hit some, some humps and bumps and kept that thing
firmly on the wheels. I mean, really impressive stuff from the
pilot. Didn't hit anybody didn't do it. It didn't look like he
did any damage. Crazy, crazy. Yeah.
Portmarnock memories approved a the course changes that will
kind of set the stage for at least the AIG women's open. If
not eventually the, the British least the AIG women's open. If not eventually the British Open, the Open Championship.
That'd be the Open Championship.
Presented by the King now.
Yeah.
I don't think that would be presented by the King.
Yeah, exactly.
That might be just presented by EU, right?
Yeah. Any chatter over there?
Did not hear any chatter.
I guess that's in Dublin.
That's in Dublin.
That's more Dublin thing. We didn't, I look at this one as with one, this would be the first one ever played outside
of the United Kingdom, uh, first open championship, I believe, unless there's some way back in
the day, but there has not been one, if there has been one in a long, long, long ass time.
That's one.
And two, like we've talked about this before on here.
I still, I've, I've been to that place twice.
It's incredible.
It's a great place to be.
I've been to that place twice.
It's a great place to be.
I've been to that place twice. It's a great place to be. I've been to long ass time. That's one. And two, like, we've talked
about this before on here. I still, I've been to that place twice. It's incredible. It's awesome.
Not once did I picture it hosting the Open Championship, just in terms of logistics.
There's all kinds of pictures in the clubhouse about how they used to get there via
horses. When the tide went out, that was the only way to cross the estuary like when the tide went out, like that was the only way to like cross the estuary was when the tide went out to like go through the sand
to get there, like it's out.
Rain caster.
On this crazy peninsula.
I hope I'm thinking of the right place.
It's on this crazy peninsula that just does not look set up
for infrastructure, but the RNA has figured out
how to do this.
Like if they can, if they see the path to doing it here,
I trust them on this,
but if LITHM has gotten too small for them for
their operation, I don't know how Portmarnock could possibly
work, but that's there.
It sounds like they're going to build another causeway.
Okay.
Over there as well.
They kind of have two routes of ingress and egress.
And then I think they would, Mackenzie and Ebert are going to reroute,
I guess reroute 17 and 18 as well.
But I mean, 18 is going to become the first hole.
They're going to change the second hole from a par four into a par three.
I think a couple of those changes, but footprint wise, AIG Women's Open would make a lot of
sense for me.
And it would be, that'd be.
Dublin would just be wildly profitable with all the corporate, you know, stuff there.
So I mean, if they have one in Ireland, you can have one down in Australia at
Royal Melbourne, right?
That's interesting.
That is interesting.
And at Royal Montreal.
Royal Montreal, TPC Toronto, you know, things of that nature.
So Neil Rory, teaming up with your hitters at TPG Capital.
For sure. For sure. I don't think, I think this is just kind of making it public.
It feels like they were already pretty involved in the, what is it? Symphony ventures or yeah.
I didn't realize he even invested in golf genius. I floated that the thread. I was like, yeah,
I'm not the biggest, I don't throw any shade.
You got in on that like in 2020, kind of pretty good timing there.
But you know, listen, it sounds like Rory set himself up for life after golf too.
Listen, we got a lot of momentum, Salih.
I'd like to stay focused, like stay focused on the golf.
Just maybe for the next four or five years, I'd like to focus on the golf.
I think we're fine.
I think we're fine.
Which, Salih, it was cool to hear anecdotes from when he was down in Tarahiti and playing
around there. And then I would say keep your eyes peeled for Rory Planet International schedule over
the winter, possibly a Dr. Moon Jol appearance over in this newly created Indian event. And then,
uh, possibly at Kingston Heath down, down, in the Southern Hemisphere as well.
Interesting.
So, Pioneers number four closed for the summer.
I guess they lost the greens.
Feels like they're making the right call to, you know,
resawed and just kind of start from scratch there.
Let's see, Blocky is back, qualified for the PGA.
Which he didn't qualify last year, did he?
Was he not? I think I thought he earned his way back through the top finish. Club Pro.
Almost positive he played last year, didn't he? Let's see. I think he was there. Oh, he
was there. He missed the cut. He missed the cut. So, yeah, but yeah, he's, you know, obviously the, the, whatever the club pros are called the core bridge
financial club pro ball. What else we got? Sully, this is big
news coming out of Jacksonville beach and indoor golf spot
opened up very close to where we live.
Allegedly 24 seven.
Got to get in this game. I've been been
go on his golf club. I'll shout them out. The similar the key
fob 24 seven access. You just use 24 seven. Yeah, it's
awesome. You can go anytime you want. No, you don't have to talk
to anybody. It's the weirdest time you've been the latest. I
went at 10pm one time. I haven't been like, yeah, that's
not that weird, right? But you could go at 3am, you know, like
the it's great. And, and for me, you know, I kind of
have a flexible work schedule. So you can kind of hunt a day
of like, yeah, maybe middle of the day, it's open at 1pm, you
can go just book it and, you know, you get X amount of hours
a month. But I think that business model for simulators
has a lot of potential, low overhead, you don't have to pay
anybody,
turn it into a little bit of a club
so people take care of it.
You can host a few events.
It's a really good space.
I think you guys, if you get involved, you'll like it a lot.
It's very flexible.
I like the idea.
I mean, the only time I can really actually get swings in
is like 8 p.m. or later these days.
It's like, oh, is that close?
Yeah, you bring your own food, beverage. It's very, uh, yeah, you bring, you know, bring your own like food beverage.
Like it's, it's, it's very, I think this is because it's sometimes, you know, I like going
to five iron, but then you're like, it's just, someone's always waiting for the Bay.
You're like, Oh God, it's just kind of crowd trying to be a social thing.
Yeah.
It's stuck.
It's like, no, I just want to hit golf balls.
I don't really want to talk to anybody, you know, truly like it's, it's for a specific
purpose.
It's for practice. It's great.
Yep.
Okay. Interesting.
So I want to give a shout out to the 2000 majors pod. You and
KVV did awesome. What was the most surprising thing that you
uncovered or that you had forgotten about?
I think it was laying out of the timeline of Tiger changing golf
balls after the Masters that year and the testing that
went into it finding out about two piece balls from Jorka Mira. Like they tried it out in Germany,
he had guys from Bridgestone come meet him in Germany and he put it into play at Byron Nelson
shortly after that and how that led to like him just like blowing the field away
very, very, very quickly and people catching up really by the end of the year in terms of the technology was just something
that I never really made that full connection over and just
kind of reading all about that timeline and the news cycle of
the whole thing and how his relationship with Titleist was
weird at the time because of the juggling commercial that he did
for Nike. Titleist wasn't very happy about that because people
thought he was playing Nike ball then and then he ends up
playing the Nike. It was just a it would have been a very
interesting time to look at all this stuff. I'm like, it would
have been like a podcast during all this. That's what some of
these deep dives look back on. That was my favorite. But KVV
what he found from the I don't even want to spoil it if you
haven't listed yet from the Barbara, Barbara Nicholas, hobby incident from some of the AI images that people
can only imagine what it is based on those images.
It's well worth it. So please check that out. A lot went into that one.
Neil, speaking of images strapped.
Yes. At least I was talking to, it was, our parents were in town.
It's past weekend. My mom remarked, yeah, I liked it. It wasn't as good as the
previous ones. Neil and Randy are getting older and it's just not quite the same as
what she said.
I think Peg, you know, I think a lot of people are echoing that. And you know what? I would
say that to my mother and to people that have that feedback, like I wish I could change that fact that I'm getting older. I really
do. You know, but we cannot put that toothpaste back in the tube. We're doing the best that
we can brother. But yes, it was, I don't know. It was, it worked really hard on the plan.
I've been wanting to do this West Texas one for a long time. I know DJ and Randy have,
and DJ kind of, or Randy kind of called for the ball with the spring training one, season
11. And I was like, guys, I really think this, you know, I looked up the schedule for high
school football and I was like, I think this, this weekend would work. Like, and then we
got to work planning it. I think I've had three big take was one, you know, the biggest
change is we released this one as one big episode and whether that's a success or not is, you know, TBD. But I think the answer is probably yes. As far as, you know, helping DJ with the edit and making it something he wants to work on that doesn't, you know, suck the juice out of the battery. I think it's easier to find one video versus three as far as promotion goes. And just, you know, we've kind of talked about this as a team, like it's hard to promote something for three weeks or eight weeks,
just like, you know, really bang the drum and the views and the engagement show that over the
course of a season. So I feel like this will be a fun one to look back on. And if you want to watch
it, you know, it's, it's free, man. You didn't rent it. Like you can watch it in three episodes.
If you want, it's 90 minutes. You can watch, it's free, man. You didn't rent it. Like you can watch it in three episodes if you want.
It's 90 minutes.
You can watch 30 minutes at a time and it don't cost you nothing.
I loved it.
It was one of my, probably the pantheon for me, probably top two or three.
The average percentage of the video viewed watch times.
Those are some metrics I look at on YouTube up 60% week over week, which is fun.
I mean, obviously the longer videos probably help them with that.
You know what else I saw?
It's crazy on the YouTube stats.
Over half of our YouTube views are on TVs
over the last year, which is, you know,
I knew kind of knew that was growing.
What about the app?
Yeah, I know, but you know, mobile,
but I thought it would be more neck and neck with mobile.
I mean, TVs are really taken off with YouTube.
And I love that knowing that that's like, hey man,
first screen in the, in the, like more than than half the people are watching on the big screen is,
it gets me really jacked up. But I think, you know, we brought some extra toys for this one.
We brought some nice rigs and we were really excited when we finished it. And I think DJ,
you know, shout out to him. He's the real magician on this stuff. I think it's, the other thing I'd
say is it's always a thrill to me when people spot the Easter eggs because that's what
gets us jacked up. You know, something like every season we're, you know, three
of us for like, we're, we're, uh, spoofing something or like, ah, this, you
know, and then without fail, we're like, nobody's going to get this dude. And
then sure enough, like, it's like, you start to read the comments, like, oh my
God, people, people are, they can see it.
You treat people like adults.
Exactly.
And I always get rewarded by that of like, man, I'm glad people thought that was funny
because I thought it was hilarious.
And there's a lot of people out there with, uh, you know, that are in on the joke, I guess
is fun.
And then I think lastly, a lot of positive feedback, obviously, you know, if you don't
like it, that's fine too.
Don't cost you nothing.
But I think the feedback that really send your things to big Randy. Yeah. Yeah. Send your feedback to Randy.
The feedback that really feels good is when you see like locals comment on a video and say like,
I've never watched this. I'm from Lubbock or Midland or Peoria or wherever. And it's like,
you guys did an awesome job, like showcasing my town. I play
there all the time. It was so cool to see that. And I don't know, I don't ever want local people
to get this video sent to them and feel like we're trying to like clown on it or make fun of it.
Cause that's not the goal. And we're trying to have fun and make jokes. But I think that really
got through. And you know, we interviewed Brian Ch Brian Chavez, the captain in the 1988 pernium panthers,
who was an absolute legend.
And he invited us over to his place.
We sat down with him for like an hour.
And he texted me and said,
dude, my phone's blown up, man.
It's bad ass.
Like, he was into it.
So we're working on putting together
like a full interview with him.
And we're gonna do a NestPod too.
Just kind of talking about the trip,
taking some nest member questions. So sign up for the nest strapped is presented
by nest members and you can do that at no layingup.com forward slash join.
And we, and we appreciate it.
You got strapped posters out this week too. It's a free sweat bands. Yeah.
Use the code any purchase in the pro shop this week.
Use code sweat, all caps.
And you make sure you add the wristbands, the sweat bands,
to your cart with code sweat.
And those sweat bands will be free.
And that will make a lot more sense if you watch Strapped
and we're wearing wristbands.
Which listen, I could make the argument,
much like I made for chocolate chip pancakes,
I think sweat bands in golf, you wear them in a lot of other sports in the summer. I don't know why guys don't wear
sweat bands, get, get hot and sweaty out there and a human,
you guys down in Florida. I mean, you know, we could, could
use them. I don't know.
Well, let's test it out.
Test it out.
Guys, I checked my, uh, my AirPods in my, left them in my
golf bag and checked it. Like my whole plan was to watch, watch
strapped on the plane. I was like, Oh my God, I got all the
time in the world bag and checked it.
Like my whole plan was to watch, watch strapped on the plane.
I was like, Oh my God, I got all the time in the world to get through this.
Didn't have my headphones.
Still haven't watched it.
Well, I feel like it's gotten spoiled.
I see all the memes and everything and I feel like it's gotten
stolen anywhere.
And I just feel like with one video, it's like, yeah, you can, it's almost easier
for people to save the one link than, Oh man, did I, you know, you got all these episodes rolling everywhere.
Yeah.
And then, you know, some people just pissed that like we upped the budget to 800.
That was last season guys.
And you guys approved that shit.
We're highly inflationary.
No, no, no, no, no.
We did not approve anything.
We approved $800.
No, I absolved all responsibility of all this.
It's not the same series anymore.
You guys blew through the budget.
You spent $2,000.
You should get on the refuge, Sali.
You got a lot of, you got some like-minded individuals.
I have no part in all of this.
60% inflation all of a sudden.
I have no, I have no, no part of any of this.
What I've learned, I guess the general feedback
is people hate change.
And you could throw that me getting older in that,
like some uncontrollable changes, like, hey, this is just,
we're working with what we got here.
So, uh.
You know, there's some parallels between Midland and Odessa I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. for a while. So, you know, I love the jeans with the golf shoes. Oh my God. Our guy, Richmond,
Houston for Midland on all. I honestly pulled it off like sick look. We were saying that in the
moment, like, man, and awesome, dude, our guy had such a good swing and he's like, ah, my swings all
broke. I'm like, no, it's not like the guy gets through the ball better than anybody. I mean,
he was, he's good player. You player. You can see it in the episode,
but we literally ran into him sitting in rocking chairs
at the Rawls, like randomly.
Shout out to the commish.
The commish and the doke.
Yeah.
And into, you know, Callum and Sandy Scott and-
Yeah, and that's what I love about Strap.
It's like, yeah, we, you know,
we set things up with Callum beforehand,
but he was a joy to play with and a guy to watch, man. One of those ball flights where you're like, that's what I love about strap. It's like, yeah, we, you know, we set things up with, with Callum beforehand, but he was a joy to play with and a guy to watch, man.
One of those ball flights where you're like, that's different. Like I think,
I think homie might be around proper player, Naren, proper. Yeah.
And, uh, but Richmond Houston, we ended up playing with them, you know,
a couple of days later. And that to me is like that strap. It's like, yeah,
man, we just ran into this guy and he recognized us.
And then he was our Sherpa a couple of days later.
Just loved it.
It was great.
Really, really fun season.
So I'm glad that kind of is coming through on the video.
Neil, I'd like to address something that's not fun, but it's not a pleasant thing to
bring up.
And I want to just set the scene.
I want to set the table, Sally, because I think we can go into it on either the happy
hour show this week or the Sunday live show.
Uh, I've seen some really, really unfortunate stuff, uh, come through the
on X the everything app and on Instagram and the big letter hats.
I've got some stuff for you.
If you're watching this on YouTube, we have, uh, this is, this is, this
is from Dornick.
Dornick has fallen.
Nothing.
You rushed me with this.
I got sent it through a slack.
Just so devastated guys.
Dornick has fallen.
That's the best possible way to phrase it.
What does Foxy stand for?
Foxy is the name of the 14th hole.
You know, I think just a magical, magical hole in its own right.
But big letter hat with, with Foxy there,
clubs like real Dornick, a couple of weeks ago, there was one I saw up from Oakmont. So I actually
we can, we're going up to investigate this week. Uh, said the, the, the pews, uh, which, uh,
yeah, yeah, there was an E in it.
You know, there's one in the St. Andrew's Pro Shop
right now that says hell in the bunker underneath it.
Do you see, I sent a call out for some nominations
via Twitter and I have a few,
if you'll allow me to show a few.
Hopefully we don't have one this week
up at the Wissahickin course with no vowels.
I was gonna say, I don't know what they're gonna with with Quail Hollow. A lot of vowels in Quail.
Are we just going to go QL? They've been putting the vowels back in them lately.
And I think that's bullshit. You know, if you're going to do them, you can't, I don't know,
if you're running a pro shop anywhere in the world right now and you're fighting the good fight and
you don't have big letter hats, I think you should respond to this call for the next two.
It's a beautiful day.
Our friends at Pinehurst are guilty.
Pinehurst has fallen as well, but IAB Dip,
it's a beautiful day in Pinehurst.
Can't have that one.
These are some quick ones I just threw together very quickly.
There is a Swilken one as well from the old course.
At least it's not upside down.
Not yet.
That always comes next.
Yeah, that's the next conversion.
The upside down version of this.
Conk.
Metaconk golf club just has one that's called, say, Conk on them.
There's obviously Pitt and Radan.
Yeah, we went through that last year.
Some of the members and various people in and around North Berwick reached out in solidarity.
North Berwick has fallen.
This was good.
Rost, R-O-S-S apostrophe D there at Pine Needles was one that was sent in.
Of course I've got my doke one that just was given to me out at common ground,
horrifying stuff.
This is from Walnut Cove in Arden, North Carolina,
the nut, a lot of teeth, peat dye.
I have to get the peat one for my son.
Casa de Campo, a lot going on there.
TNT.
What do you guys, what would you liken this to? Is this like, it reminds me almost of like the
POG, the paro pogs long when we were, when I was in like second
grade, it's like pogs. They took over for like three months and
then they never heard of pogs ever again.
You got to get this one. If you're out there, I'll take,
I'll explore the space over at Liberty National.
This is the lib H town. It's rather H town. Of course in a, in a, you know, a tartan plaid.
If you got more, keep sending them. We can keep, we can add this as a segment of like, see just who
else has fallen across the country as it comes in. Cause it gave me a good laugh. I just don't think
the big letters are going to age well.
No, it's fine if it's at resort courses. It doesn't like if you're a top 100 course, we're seeing it. Sorry. I was, I was at brunch this morning, wherever the 19th at TPC Sawgrass,
they have a wonderful brunch. My son, Freddy, first communion this morning. We went over there. First
thing I see is some, some dude in the clubhouse wearing a hat that just said,
the die.
It's just like in the clubhouse. Can't have that. In the clubhouse, man. Just like neon green too.
Just tasteless. You know, Peg might be right too. See, we are getting old. We're just, we're yelling
at the clouds right now. Yelling at the big clouds. We are getting old, but we're also like witnessing,
yelling at the clouds right now. Yelling at the big clouds.
We are getting old, but we're also like witnessing just,
just, you know, certain stuff still needs to matter.
All right. There's, there's been, you know,
Gary Smith's here in Jacksonville.
He was like, what's wrong with these hats?
Are you gatekeeping?
Da da da da da.
And I said, you know, we gotta have standards, right?
We gotta, we gotta stand for something.
And uh-
Well, I just don't think they look very good personally, but I, you know, I'm not criticizing.
If someone likes the hat, that's great.
I want to say that I don't like the way it looks, but I don't like the, uh, it's almost
like the sheeple vibe.
Oh, everyone's doing it.
So that's where it just gets repeated over and over.
It's like, ah, well, like that just gets old.
We got to do it.
They did it.
They're the nut.
The nut is probably doing it because they're
selling them. People are buying them. That's the problem. That's
the problem. I know. I know. Just you know, just because you
can doesn't mean you should though. Right? That's exactly
right. Let's move towards wrapping. If you missed this
announcement in the last several weeks or months, we have joined
forces with the Evans Scholars Foundation. We are working
together with our community to establish a no
laying up scholarship at Miami University that will be given
out every four years and funded in perpetuity. This is actually
we're very, very stoked about this. Big thanks to everyone
who has already donated. We launched it two weeks ago. We've
raised approximately $48,000 on our way to the 500,000 that we
need to fund
the scholarship. So over the past 10 years that we've done this, a lot of people have
asked us how they can get involved to help make the golf world a better place, help support
us or whatever you want to do. The No Laying Up Endowed Name Scholarship. This is exactly
how you can do this. So if you feel compelled to join us in donating or helping in any way,
you can go to nolayingup.com backslash ESF to donate directly through our portal. If you have any questions
about donating in other ways, like donor-advised funds, send a note to Casey at nolayingup.com.
She can help you out there as well. But we're off to a flying start with the scholarship and we're
very, very stoked
about the thought of sending someone to college every four years in perpetuity through this golf
community. And it's awesome to see the support that's already coming through the door.
Maybe we should do some hats, some big letter hats.
Shane Evans.
We've talked, I think what's really nice about this is the center of gravity where, you know, we always have these good, dumb, interesting ideas that just come like, you know, in an ongoing fashion.
And it's nice that it's like, Oh, maybe we can direct it towards that. Like, you know, we've talked about, we've never done cameo stuff. You know, I never really wanted to do cameo stuff.
I was talking about maybe we do cameo. We send the money to the Evans Scholar Foundation, you know, stuff like that. We're like, we don't have to
do that like right this second, but maybe sometime this year, like those ideas, I
feel like now have a home. And that's what gets me really excited about this.
And based on my, you know, conversation at the beginning of the pod, like just
more, more caddies, caddies are sweet and like more good caddies, people that know
how to caddy, like learning how to caddy at a young age. I think that's just
awesome for the game of golf too.
Well, and then caddying and then, you know, going to college. No, obviously, but I'm just
saying like, to me a win-win. Yeah, the impact. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. I mean, how about
this? How about a chick hat or Chick Evans? Right?
We'll workshop it. I would say if we do the big letters, we can't have vowels.
I got, we got to, we got to stand for something. Draw the line somewhere. John pond reached out.
He was out at the black desert. He said people were running around all over out there with lava.
That's just the lava.
That's kind of sweet. I'll buy a lava hat if we get, if we've, if we complete our goal, how about that?
Magma.
Someone needs to get an M just or M G M A.
As T mentioned, T.C. mentioned earlier,
the Seamsters pod dropped late last week.
We were a little late recording it,
trying to do it in person in Belfast.
But if you want your monthly major league baseball update
for myself, DJ and big Randy, and of course,
Patty dropped it from great takes the rocky stink.
Yeah, it was Spencer Torkelson just eating like he had some
great takes it there. So he didn't I don't believe good
stuff. We also as mentioned the 2000 majors pod drop last week.
And I got in the in the hot seat for a spotlight episode as well. We've
done four or five of these now at this point. So that those
hit your your no laying up podcast feed this past week. And
then this week, we're gonna have Episode 1000. We got a special
little arrangement ready for that one. And we'll mom we are
getting old have a happy hour episode as well ahead of truest
TC and I are going to go head out
to check out Oakmont here at media day and see the pews and maybe buy a hat.
So you know what, I think I'm fired up.
I want to shout out last thing.
I got my roost.
I signed up for the New York match play.
I got my match, my first round match on Thursday.
That's apparently my opponent's he's a stick.
So I'm playing at Marine park.
I'm fired up.
Oh yeah. Competitive golf. I'm getting into it. I got some MGA events coming up,
but golf season started for me as TC knows I gotta go practice my putting.
It was bad. Yeah. People are talking about it on Reddit, Neil. It's tough. They are for sure.
TC, how about we play a match at Oakmont and losers gotta wear the pews hat. I think that's
only fair. Loser wears the pews hat. And then- I was like, Ben had to wear the losers gotta wear the pews hat. I think that's only fair loser wears the pews hat and then I was like Ben had to wear the first hat the pine hearst it was just all
first uh and then Sally I'm gonna try to source one of these foxy hats too because I know
you love that hole and you love you love foxy as well Ryan Fox of New Zealand so of course that
is gonna do it for this week as As mentioned, several pods coming this week.
We'll have a live show, of course,
on Sunday night this coming week as well,
after Truist and then right back
into major championship season.
So thanks everyone for tuning in.
Neil, TC, have a great evening.
Crack on.
Cheers.