No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 108: Tiger Woods’ Return with Kevin Van Valkenburg

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

The Big Cat is back, and Kevin Van Valkenburg from ESPN is here to talk about Tiger’s impressive return. We get hyped, but also preach caution regarding this version of the comeback. Also, we lay... The post NLU Podcast, Episode 108: Tiger Woods’ Return with Kevin Van Valkenburg appeared first on No Laying Up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alright guys welcome back to the podcast. I do apologize for the delay in posting episodes. Before we get to the show real quick, I want to remind you guys that starting in January, PGA Tour Live is going to be back. So put PGA Tour Live on your Christmas wish list. It's just $39.99 for the year. This is the perfect time to buy it. And with that you get $40 off T times at toff.com. So right there it's going to pay for itself. A bit later we're going to tell you guys about some more holiday ideas from Callaway, but for now let's get to Kevin Van Volkberg talking about Tiger Woods. Let's get a right club.

Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. It's Sally here. Thank you for the lovely supporting and encouraging messages on the extended break from the podcast we've had. I am coming to you live from the future 18 hours ahead

of UKVV from New Zealand, but we brought in Kevin Van Volkberg to, of course, debrief on Tiger Woods' season debut. First time we've seen him in almost a year at the Hero World Challenge. First off, Kevin Van Volkutberg for me SPN. How are we doing? I'm doing good, so I was thinking today.

Remember when you said to me, hey, I'm thinking about going to New Zealand in Australia to play some golf. Would you be up for a join me? And I was like, oh, I don't think I can. And then after seeing all your photos this week, I wanted to hang myself. So thanks for, you know, thanks for the invite can. And then after seeing all your photos this week, I wanted to hang myself.

So thanks for, you know, thanks for the invite anyway. And I'm sorry I dropped the ball. Well, the funny thing is I've had several Twitter, Twitter-oddy people tell me that I should not have gone to Australia, New Zealand, that I should have been standing by watching Tiger at the hero. Yeah. Like that.

That's the level we're at. A bucket list trip for a ridiculous hit and giggle event. Yeah, that sounds right. No, that's where we're at with the status of Twitter. That's my current enthusiasm level for what I'm reading on there. So you are the resident. Oh, that's right. We haven't even talked about this publicly.

Tell everyone your recent life change you've made. I was I was pretty deep in the Twitter game for a lot of years. That's how you and I became friends. And I just didn't like how it was making me feel on a day-to-day basis and felt like it was time for me to to step back and and deactivate the account and go go dark for a while. Just maybe youate the account and go dark for a while. Maybe work on the artistic game for a bit. It's supposed to be the free-tweet game. And what's that experience? It's kind of like you go without the whole thing, and golf.

That doesn't sound good at all. It doesn't sound like me at all. But what's it been like? A little weird, a little bit sometimes feel like you're not involved in the conversation. You want to crack the same kind of jokes even cracking. And there's no one to hear them. But also, it's a good detox, a good focus on

the things that I actually get paid to do, as opposed to a little ridiculous quips. And yeah, no one, if people really hate you, they can't find you, which is interesting. It's there. I've seen some, every now and then I'll go on there and I'll just be like, oh, I'll put in a link to one of my stories and that I've written recently and just sort of see, you know, people are talking about this, whatever. And if they don't like it, they're really mad, they can't find me. You know, there's a lot of

Where's this coward show your felt coward? You're afraid of Gary player. That's what's going on. You're ready from Gary Wait, it's this young man. There's no one that twits a box Will you be back? Are you gone for good? I Think I think a gust that will bring me back. I mean, which is, of course, you can't tweet on the course, but the lead up of the major season is going to make me want to come back and be a part of the convo.

But I just needed a six-month detox or so. Is it the replies, mostly, that wanted you to turn away or the actual things you see on your timeline. Things I see on my timeline and it's also removing the temptation to tweet dumb things. A lot of people have been gotten in trouble recently for tweeting things that don't necessarily job with their job. As you know, I'm not a person with an enormous amount of self-control. I needed to just sort of as

As my buddy writes as a twig is just a weapon that basically is gonna shoot your dick off at some point so I think I decided to take that out of the equation and move forward for a little while without it All right, well on that note. let's talk about the big cat. I got a lien on you a bit here as spoiler alert, I have not as many people have pointed out, and I have not been watching much of the Hero World Challenge. I've caught some highlights. I've caught the end of a few rounds,

but it does happen quite early in the morning over here. But first, I wanna talk about, as mentioned, you are the resident tiger skeptic, but I want to first get your thoughts on what was good that you saw from Tiger this week of the hero. So obviously first good is just swinging pain-free. Like I assume that he's pain-free and he's not exactly the most forthcoming, but we didn't see any Wincing or we didn't see any sort of cringing or any walking gingerly. Whoever this back surgeon is who did this is some sort of genius like I

The difference between all the microdosectomies and the essential of the fine the spine fusion Seems remarkable even though I think you know his game is still going to be up and down, and I think there's going to be some scars here and there before he's really ever going to compete in a major, which is all that really matters. But the actual, I mean, he was swinging it hard. I'm a little bit still nervous about how hard he was hitting it, but as some of our guys and our group are saying like it's he's ripping at the ball and it's not something that I expected at all. And that's my point to that was and you've made the case many times that you just are your

fear tiger over swinging and the reports leading up to the up to the event this week where that is distance was back, his speed was back and you're you're of the opinion that this is going to be a short comeback if that is the case. But my point was kind of like, man, it's not really worth it for him to come back if he can't come back and swing it like that. If there's no real point of it, if he's trying to protect against something, he's never going to have any kind of aggressive mentality and it's just not going to work from a mental standpoint or from a physical standpoint.

So I thought to see him just like recoiling and having no fear of much of anything was the best sign. There were some iffy swings we saw in there, which is to be expected, but I thought, I just think that what I'm reading online, and again, kind of, you know, you're not seeing this because you're not on Twitter right now, but like it's just, everything's just two extremes and it's like you can't find this nice, it can be both things. Like, I was pretty encouraged from what I saw,

but I'm not gonna get super hyped until I see him on a better course. And like if you point out that Albany is like, not a great PGA tour course, and not a great test, and probably hides a little bit of what Tiger is trying to get away with right now. Then your view as a Tiger Hague, then people come at you and be like,

how can you not be excited for this? I've been waiting all year for this. It's not a fun place. So, in that regard, I have no regrets in kind of missing out on this past weekend. But, I mean, at the same time, it's great to see him back. I mean, I would imagine I haven't seen any ratings or anything come through. This has got to be like golf channel NBC's highest rated term in the year don't you think? I would absolutely think so. I mean I want to talk about the media coverage of Tiger in a bit but like just the sort of the

fan reaction for that was kind of my always my whole point about let's just sort of be cautious about this because I feel like we've seen this movie before and so you know in the initial part it was like oh my god is that Elbow? Yeah. Oh my god. You're kidding me. And then like I'm not kidding on Saturday or whatever. It seemed like the golf Tiger track or the golf channel golf Tiger was about right at drink bleach because it was just like,

oh, is there anything else on? This seems horrible. I'm going to hate myself. It's like, it doesn't have to be like the end of the world or like, he's going to win the next five majors. It's going to be a sort of a slow process if this is going to work. And like even when like he was pretty healthy, like he was still having a little bit of trouble closing the deal in certainly majors and some other

tournaments. And so I think that's going to some of that's going to come be the same. But there's so many reasons to be encouraged by just how hard he was swinging it, how I mean, he's still he's a greatest iron player that ever lived I mean it's just the fact and I feel like If he can hit the driver like he hit it this week my goodness the drivers must have such a liability for a decade in some ways The chipping still gonna worry me a little bit, but he's his putting looks unbelievably good his iron play is unbelievably good Man, I don't know I'm I went into this week with a lot of skepticism And now I'm starting to get the itch to like believe and see how much fun the gust of the

ities you get to get your sword irons into greens that he knows really well. Oh you're getting me excited I wasn't excited so I wasn't excited until just now I Was expecting you to bring me back down to Earth, but all right, so last year around this time, he had a similar performance at the hero. And I said something along the lines of like, look, there were some, there were definitely some low points of this week. There was nothing like the club bro guys low points in the mid 90s, but it was, it was like, it was, all we were looking for was signs of

life that it was still there and it was. And that, that, that kind of fizzled out rather quickly. Did this week feel different to you in that regard? It did because he, he was just more in control. And to be honest, he seemed strained a little bit the last time around. He was, he was making pots. I mean, it was like the first time he busted out the Scotty and forever. And so we're all sort of excited about that. And like, the magic in his pudding was back. He was a competent putter with the Nike putter, but like, it wasn't the magical putter that he was for.

I'm sure there's people who think that's ridiculous, but it just honestly just really felt like that that he just had such better touch and such better pace on the ball. And this time around, he seemed much kind of lighter to me mood-wise, in his interviews. One of the things that I think I was sort of laughing about in our chat group was about how golf channel was like, just wanting to kind of touch on all the, like, all those birdies and all the happy things.

And he was like, yeah, but what about the bogey on whatever? Is he was bringing up the things that weren't all that great as sort of a way to be like, guys, I'm okay with talking about the highs and lows. Like I know kind of what I am. And I'm, he seemed, I don't want to jump to cute's conclusions because he's a difficult person in a lot of ways.

But I would say, I would love to talk to the guys who were there and sort of see like, it seemed to me like he was a little bit more like at peace with sort of what this come back sort of is. And even today they're talking to him after the broadcast and you're saying, you know, did you have a better sort of feel of what you've meant to the game like after all this. And he was like, actually, yeah, like I do kind of feel like I he's like the world was really small when I was struggling with all those back injuries. And now I kind of just feel better.

And they showed his kids on the sand and by the green and they were just smiling their faces off. And I thought, honestly, like, I thought, what a cool thing for Charlie and Sam to see their dad who they've only heard about being great for so long Do these great things and like all of a sudden have all these people so excited to watch him That to me like I seeing those human things from tiger now really makes me root for him going forward Man if you make it be feel feelings today Love across the ocean here. Give him a, get him high.

This might be the longest distance golf podcast ever recorded for the record. But, so that's an interesting point you made about the kids because I thought about that too. Like, he's got to have a little bit, and I think he's talked about this. I think it was what Charlie Rose about whether or not his kids know about the transgressions and all the things that he's gone through and how they're kind of coming to that age of being able to understand that

and him not wanting his legacy with his kids to really be that. Of course they know about his greatness before but never being able to kind of see it has got to kind of eat at him a little bit. And I know that Kevin Kysner talked this last last episode on the podcast when he said just kind of being in that president's cup vibe and space kind of encouraged him to or he said, I think it was before the president's cup he hadn't hit anything longer than 60 yard shots.

Is that right? And that doesn't seem, I mean, that was two months ago. That seems like a pretty rapid transformation to where we are today, with him recoiling and having 180 mile an hour ball speed, which is, I don't, I don't, so first of all, do you know, was that a graphic, it was on the golf channel, I heard that going around with it. Okay, that either, a graphic of that.

I didn't know if they did the Justin Ray thing that said that only however many people have had a ball speed that higher whatever on tour, but that's like Rory's ball speed. I'm just gonna say, like, I'm not a huge track man geek, but I know that 180 is fast. Like that is extremely fast, but. All right, the holiday season is here, but please promise me you guys are not going to be the guys that give the bad golf gifts. Our friends at Calloway are here to help you with this. CallowayGolf.com slash gift guides.

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Again, it's CallawayGolf.com slash gift guide. Check it out while you still have time. All right. Let's dial it back. As much as I was harping up people getting over hyped, here we go. All right, so what's something you saw this week that gave you a reason to be a bit concerned?

While reasonable with any kind of rust that he might had, what concerned you? I mean, you got to start with chipping. I know that it's hard, bermuda to grass, and that's a good excuse. And everyone was willing to make with chipping. I know that the, the, it's hard, bermuda to grasp and that's, that's a good excuse. And everyone was willing to make it for him. But I think that those, those chipping yips are never, you know, everyone who has covered the game of golf has followed the game of golf says that

that those kind of things never completely go away. And what I will say is that like, what's the last real round that we saw Tiger playing? It was the wind him and he played his ass off in that thing. It was like, I mean, that was the most banner fun Twitter day of all time when people just like drop in gifts and fire this right and left and Tiger Pim step in and T snatch in and doing, you know, all those filling up with the world with sauce and Yet that whole round came apart and the foul round when he could have won

when he bladed a terrible ball over the green and made a triple. And so it was like the moments when that is gonna come back, I think, potentially, are the moments when it's, he has a really tight lie in a really important moment. And, you know, I'm not sure that we're not going to see that again. That's going to be a little bit cringe-worthy to watch.

Like, what if he's in a major championship? And he's right and not in the lead, or maybe in the lead, and he blades a chip sideways. Is that going to sort of make him think twice over the next chip? Is it going to make us sort of be like, oh my god, this is really hard to watch? I don't know. That would be, I I guess my concern.

How many chips are we talking about for chunks this week? Really just two bad ones. He kind of got around it a little bit by going with some different like clubs. He wasn't quite and it was really only in the beginning. He had a couple really good chips today, and one on Saturday it was like, he had to be really creative and run it through some rough in it. So I think in interesting, in some ways, you know that the Chuck noblock thing where he couldn't throw the ball to first base, whatever, he still

always say that the ones that were routine were the hardest because you had to, like how you thought about it. And the ones that he could do, like he could throw the ball to first base without sort of double clutching or throwing it crazily, or the ones that were like, hard, like the ones he where he had to just

make a move of pivot and throw. And the ones, it made me think like, is that possible that might be true of tires? The ones where he really has to be creative and really think of it and Just kind of draw on his mind. Is that gonna be a little bit easier in some ways than the ones that are the routine ones where it's like Okay, I totally should this. There's no pressure on the earth. You know, this is an easy chip That's something I think to watch I don't know. I mean is if is it something you feel like the chipping scars are gonna really

stick out or? I don't know. I want to chalk that up to Rust. I remember in 15 when it was really bad, like the really bad chipping yips when he was blading chips at Scottsdale and it was just jarring. I mean, that was more yippy to me than, um, and, and he had some bad chips here last year too. I remember not necessarily even like blades and chips or blades and chunks, but just some really bad misses and just not hitting close.

And then he showed up to a gust of that year in 15 and was hitting like flop pitches off those tight lies. And it was no issue at all. So part of me wants to think like, all right, he, you know, it's going to take what take what he could, I don't know what he's been spending most of his time practicing on, but he's going to take what he could get for this week and look and look around and look, assess what's the weaknesses in his game and go work on it. So I don't know if that yip thing is something you can mentally get rid of. Maybe he is stuck between release patterns.

I don't know, but it's concerning enough considering that I think the ball striking is kind of being held on by a string a little bit, and that I think it can go awry pretty quickly. I think all but he does is very friendly off the tee and kind of doesn't demand a lot out of him hitting driver and of course that will demand a lot more say Tory Pines It's and that's when things really fell apart form last year I mean he was he didn't make it through Tory Pines and couldn't find a fairway and it was it was kind of a nightmare So Albany at least lets you like get We'll get the schedule here in a second. I know

Albany like lets you not fall behind. Like yeah, you can hit it into the really bad stuff, but your poor drives are minimalized. You're really poor drives are punished, but it allows you to kind of get to that spot where he's always been great, which is hitting iron. So it's in that regard, it is again, where we have the draw the the line that this was an 18 person like kind of pitch and put tournament that was No just a cash grab and world rankings grab But at the same time he teed it up for four rounds and he tied that coacher He beat Justin Thomas. He beat Kevin Kisner Alex Noran Daniel burger Dustin Johnson Kevin Chapel Henry Stenson and Brooks

Capca like I don't think that means nothing. I mean it's not, no, these guys didn't show up like, ready to grind out a tournament, but they also showed up ready to play a tournament and wanted to compete and he beat those guys. So to me, that means at least something, but going forward and he talked a bit about it in the booth today, just now, about trying to figure out what his schedule is going to look like. And it looks like it's going to, it sounds like it's going to be different. It sounds like it's not going to be too intense, but if you're him, how do you make out your schedule for the winter in the spring? I just don't want to see him play Tory. I've been saying that in public and in private for a long time, like it's the potential that it could be 50 degrees there. It's always cold

there in the morning and so he's going to have a morning tea time at some point. You know, the whole point of like I couldn't get my glutes activated, whatever it was because like it was an early morning round. And he apparently, you know, he didn't have, I mean, the one other thing I'll say is we're talking about schedule that worried me a little bit is that he had something, I had a really good gym session this morning. You know, and he was, I just made me feel like, what are you doing in the gym? Like, I know you have to be in the gym. And it's, you're strengthening your back. I'm sure in just made me feel like, what are you doing in the gym? Like, I know you have to be in the gym. And you're strengthening your back, I'm sure, in some ways.

But like, if you're doing like lifts to get yoke to whatever, then that's what happened last time. Like, we were, we talked about this a lot, that he looked sort of skinny or not skinny, but live kind of inflexible in the Bahamas two years ago, or whatever. And then all of a sudden, he started kind of bulking up. And he just looked bigger when he got to Tori and Dubai and his body looked

slower. Like he, it just, I want to see him stay healthy in a way that isn't, how I have to be, like quite as macho. And so, I don't know, like, just play the, play the humana, you know, play some tournaments that you've never played before, or that you've not, they've never played before, but you haven't played in a while, and just feel kind of like soak up some of the love from the people who are super appreciative for you to be there. What's the safe way whenever that he was gone and played and that he pulled out of? I mean, that, all of that just, I don't know, what would you, what would your ideal schedule be for him going forward? I like that idea for the Hubana. I was actually thinking about that. Like I'd rather see you do that than Tori Pines. I don't.

That's a very fast like, you know, he's he do they just prove down here. He can throw a lot of birdies and stuff. And it's not nearly as demanding with the driver. You get more, you know, just more reps of me. I don't want to say be in contention, but like I think you can make the cut of the humana easily. Like I hope he plays Phoenix. I think that makes a lot of sense. I know that's kind of where a lot of the scarred tissue is from the chipping, but man,

wide fairways out there and kind of just, it's, it's, it's, it's, the course has been tough and a lot in the last recent years, but that's a place that I think would suit him well. But man, trying to, yeah, like you said, 45 degrees early morning fog and trying to grind that the ball out of that rough at Torrey Pines Now I'm good man. I got I don't necessarily want to see that. It sounded like Joey LaCava heard him say that He got the the sense that the get the days of going to Dubai are over If that's the case, I think that's good too. I mean, I don't see any necessarily any reason to go there other than

I mean for the the Tron conspiracy when he goes and plays to for you and they cut the rough down to like He goes nuclear about how the integrity of the game has been broken by Tori Tori changing the conditions of suit tiger. I would love that I wouldn't mind to see him go play Sony either. I mean, yeah, that's not a big driver fest He could hit that tragedy to iron off the tee all over the place there and I think the track if the if he's gonna compete at car news to do this year that tragedy to iron is gonna be huge because He's hitting driver over there with you, you know, if you're not 100% confident about it's gonna be a little bit

Here we go dice if you go sideways. You just said the phrase if he competes at car noosey this year I can't believe I got sucked in already I'm the biggest chemical here is and I got sucked in already in in eight minutes in this podcast It's so easy to do man. It's easy to do. No, I think this was this is this this conversation It's got me feeling better than I did at the start of it, I think. I mean, I mean, I don't know I Seen seeing I don't know if prowess is the right word or his aura like it felt like it was there more so than last year the last year It just kind of felt I don't know it was cool to see but it didn't feel like something that was lasting I don't know I'm not saying this feels lasting

But this I don't know why I walked away from this feeling. Maybe just I watched less of it, but I just walked away from this actually, actually feeling pretty good in thinking that this one's going to be a little different. He had, he's not a dumb person by any stretch of the imagination. He had to have learned something from whatever he did last year. Can you, can we agree on that? Yes. I mean, this swing last year looked like it was being held together by band-aids. And this one looks like it's sort of at least built on like duct tape or steel You know, it's a little bit better than what it was. I just it's to me like I don't really I don't honestly

yet trust his ability to Take this cautiously and I and so when he's ripping it out there past all these young guys like and it's kind of doing that sort of cocky walk like a buddy still loves that he can hit it past those guys or that he can hit it with them and so is can you practice that's what I've always thought and then big and I have been talked about this on his paws like can you practice for three days leading up to a tournament and then play four rounds hitting balls before every day? That's a lot of swings.

This is the very first step. Whatever competing this tournament and not embarrassing yourself was the baseline. Obviously, we got a lot better result than that, just as fans. Yeah, great. I want to see that, but it's like, what happens next? I think, too, that no one really talks about this, which is just weird to me, but like, he's really going to have to play going forward

for the first time without any kind of painkiller. So, like, it's obvious that that was part of his regular routine. I mean, he's six months removed from having gone to rehab, and all of those various painkillers and sleep aids and medical marijuana was all in his system. having gone to rehab. And all of those various pain colors and sleep aids and medical marijuana was all in his system. And everyone's so busy about like, I was so happy that Tigers back that I think that that's the kind of stuff we need to think about. Like, okay, what is he going to do to sort of manage the pain? Because

while the pain may be lessened for his back being fused, it's not going to be eliminated. We didn't fix the pain in his knees, which have had five or six surgeries on whatever. And so all of that is gonna be, if he plays three out of four weeks at some point, which you would think you would have to do at some point, then what is that gonna be like in that fourth week, where it's he stiff and he feels like,

man, I just don't have it today. I forgot about the DUI until you said that. Like I had, like, it, so much has happened in the last few months that I had forgotten that that happened. Um, so what, what is, and I've been actually learning more about it this past week, more than I have when it actually happened, but this fusion surgery that he, first of all, we need like a nickname for we need to like a robot nickname for for having this surgery for but first like what do you know about the actual surgery and why this one was so different. That's a great question. I honestly don't. I mean I know love had it. I know that Goosehan had it but beyond that I mean I think it's just you know when your

back starts to go it's because the, I'm totally playing the amateur, so the doctor, it's because the, you know, the kind of rubbery sort of fluid between your vertebrae is kind of like, your back is basically rubbing bone on bone. And so it's just a enormous amount of pain and it pinches the nerves a lot in there. And so in order to sort of stop those two vertebrae from hurting like all hell, they basically just go in there and they fuse them together so that they can't, you know, they can't rotate against one another. And here I'm, we're doing a podcast and I'm using like my hands to talk to the scribe. This is as you can see this. But I mean, that's my sort of very limited layman's understanding of it.

So you're giving up some flexibility for the taking away the potential nerve pain and the bone grinding on bone pain. The fact that he just didn't have this kind of action at the ball last time around when they were sort of doing, I think, you know, microdicecmi's, I think, are like, they drill little holes in there to try to like create more, I'm completely making this up. But it's, this is, I think, it's like the last resort procedure that you can do. And, you know, love had it and apparently talked them into it and said, it kind of, you know, it saved Goose and Scarrose and his career and so too and they sort of felt like you know

This is this could be really good for you Now, you know gosh like how can you right now like it just looks a lot better? Will he be smart enough about? Just taking it slow and and not thinking like well I'm fixed the back to being Superman like let's get some power cleans man Let's I'm gonna do a little lift off in the gym here with with Kepka. Well I'm still I'm still I forget it was a couple weeks ago a couple months ago when he had a blog post It said he was lifting two times a day six days a week, which I mean apparently like maybe he's routine's different But what whatever man like I've done I'm done fighting that one, but I did some googling while you were talking and it's a

minimally invasive interior lumbar interbody fusion. It's a procedure that removes a large portion of a degenerated disc that is causing back pain and replaces it with a bone graft. So, the goal of a fusion procedure is to provide stability to the spine and reduce painful symptoms. So this surgery, we've heard great things about what it's done for him. And to me, it looked like he, and I think he make, if commented on this about how he built his swing kind of around this surgery. Is it, do you say something like

that? I think they were, yeah, yeah. That makes more, it makes, it starts to make sense to me, like, look, this is how I'm swinging the club now because of this surgery. And if, I don't know, I don't wanna say like, he's not at risk to re-injure it, but I feel like that gives me more confidence that he's found something that's gonna work for his current state of health. It's not to say one swing doesn't ruin everything,

but man, this surgery sounds like a big deal. And I don't know, maybe things are different. As he's still working with Cuomo, that I haven't seen any indication that he's not, but anyway, shout out to all the back surgeons out there who are ready to light me up on Twitter about my incorrect summation of what a fusion is. You can't find me there. You can't find me.

Oh, too good. All right. So again, I thought this we're gonna spend 30 minutes on this podcast getting like dialing people back from all the hype, but all I can say is, what would you eat for your not on golf, you're not on golf Twitter anymore, but what would you, what would you be your recommendation

to people following along and wanting to share their opinions? This goes to brands and everyone in golf as well. That's what overwhelmed me this past week was just the overreaction and all the gifts and all that. All right, guys. I know we've done this before, but what would your advice be to people? Be cautiously optimistic. Like, no one wants to go through the misery of what happened with Dubai and Tori again.

And so I just don't think there's any chance that this is possible. Like, we've joked a little bit about how, I mean, to me, the golf channel is a little bit like Tiger's Provda. They're so financially invested in Tiger's success that they're sort of like, you know, Tiger's amazing, Tiger's back, Tiger all the time. And I just worry that it's a little bit repeating some of the mistakes of what they've already made. And then there's a group of people out there that's like, oh, well, if it's not about Tiger, then I don't care.

So if he goes away, they're just not going to care. And it is a long-term strategy. I think that's kind of a little bit shortsighted. I just wish, as someone who's background is in journalism, that we could cover Tiger as a journalistic entity for some of it. I mean, like, you know, no, this should not be the person like following him on the court. It that should be bones.

Like, it, no, it is essentially, he's one step away from carrying Tiger's back. Like, we're talking, like, he's, he's almost reading pots. It's referring to them as we, like, come on. Like, you're pretty good friends with Justin Thomas at this point. I don't think that you would show at the lack of objectivity that no one shows if you

were like the on-course reporter following JT route. It's really uncomfortable for me. And it's so, I mean, look, I don't expect a great journalism from the PGA tour or whatever. But like when golf digestes like posting videos of them like clapping and cheering about, you know, it tigers back. Like like can you imagine like if I had And I said this you already but like can you imagine if when Peyton Manning came back that I posted a video of myself like standing and cheering On the my couch like well Peyton you threw it you threw a ten yard out. Oh my gosh football saved Cruz on Oprah

Yeah, I couldn't dream of doing that. So I just feel like have some pride and let's cover Tiger objectively. Let's be happy for him, but let's also understand that he's a very important person within the sport. And with that, we can be happy for his success, but also kind of still cover him like a journalistic subject. Wow. Well, I like that answer. I thought you were just gonna say tell golf.com

to just stop direct stealing my memes, but whatever your answer was, that's fine. That's fun too. There's a lot of Peter Curtis going on. That's fine. I like it. No, I just couldn't get swept up in it. It was just like literally every single thing you read

was cat and an overreactioner, it. It was just like literally every single thing you read was cat in an overreaction or whatever. It's everything that just happened. I wasn't that upset to miss it. But when he comes back to for a real tournament, I'm going to be plugged in and tuned in. It's going to be, like I said, we're just looking for signs of life.

We saw it and it gives us reason to be optimistic and to look forward to things. But like you said, I want, and it's not going to happen, but I wish that we could have objective, like, okay, I don't know, like in the middle conversations about what we're seeing. Otherwise, it's just, it's just all a big waste of time. And it's, it's not that fun. So, yeah. Should we, should we talk about the Rick at all? Let's see, just shot 61. Oh, did he win? And not need to win by a significant amount.

Usually I would be very critical of networks, like just blowing the tiger thing out and not paying attention to the tournament. This is the one tournament that it's totally hard to do that. Like I would, it's like, it's slightly above like when we played at the Oak Ridge course down in Jacksonville like and had a tournament basketball there, but it's not quite much beyond that, right?

No, it's, I will never remember that Ricky Fowler won this tournament. Like, I might use that if I need to make a Ricky argument in the future, I might cite that, but otherwise, I will never not remember who won this week. It will be, I don't remember who won last year, and don't tell me, I don't remember who won last year. Yeah, I don't, it was Ricky.

Uh, the Rick, Rick, he looked good, but as I said, I didn't know how like fervent the Rick fans were until I wrote a super mildly critical column of him at the US Open, be like, hey, it's time to get one of these things done. Like you're too good to not have one of these now. So you know, it's time for you to just one of these things done. You're too good to not have one of these now. It's time for you to step up and do it. Oh my God, the bombardment of hate. You'd think that Porter had linked it on one of the Oak State message boards or something.

It was vicious. He might have. Porter might have rallied troops. He might have brought a portal is a double agent See that's interesting. I feel like there's more Rick haters than there are Rick Taders Interesting, okay, I don't know. I feel like I'm always defending Rick Yeah, I don't know I maybe that that's the ESPN.com audience is different than the no-langup.com Audience so that might be the case. Maybe the Rick haters, they hang out at ESPN and the taters are over with you.

So, I mean, I've got to throw this in as a token. Like, we're not going to spend literally every second of this podcast talking about Tiger. Yes, for the two people out there who want to criticize us for, I'm screwing up the discussion of back fusions and the fact that they didn't, we didn't salute Rick for winning a hidden giggle then that's what I threw that in for yeah, I honestly have no interest He looked good. He putted really unbelievable. He's a good putter. I wish I was a tenth of the putter He is hidden giggle. I love that. I love using that to call this tournament. So KVV thanks for taking time out of your Sunday

I will report ahead that Monday, the, what's the date today? Monday the 4th is a glorious day. I'm reporting from the future and thanks for taking the time and everyone have a wonderful December. We'll be checking in again shortly here, but KBV, take it easy buddy. Thanks buddy, go play some more wheel class golf. Yeah, I know, I know, I will. Yeah. Okay. Thanks buddy, go play some more wheel class golf. Yeah, I know I know I will yeah, okay

That's better than most That is better than most. Better than most.