No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 251: Ryder Cup - One Year Out

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

We might be a year out from the 2020 Ryder Cup, but Soly and DJ are in a Ryder Cup mood after road tripping around the midwest and visiting the last three Ryder Cup venues, as well as Whistling Straits, the site of the 2020 event. We chat about our first impressions of Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington, and you'll hear the best clips from the press conference within this episode. A lot more content to come from this road trip, but we had a blast hashing out some thoughts on golf's greatest event.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sunday night, USA team wins, they gone down down the press conference, celebrated. They're in back in locker room and they were packing up their lockers to get ready to go back to the hotel. The entire guy kind of pulls the guys together and says, hey guys, we'll talk to everyone for a minute. And whenever the entire guy would say that, the guys would just zone right in and he says, hey tonight, we'll get back to the hotel. Let's really stay up late and enjoy this one. The guys are kind of laughing like, yeah, obviously. He said, he was serious. He said, you know, the reason I say that is, when we went at 99 at Brookline, go back to the hotel, we have dinner, we have drinks, but this week just takes it out of you. So by like 10-30, I had nothing left,

kind of backed out of the room and went up to my room and got bad. He said about an hour later somebody's pounding on his door it's you know it's players only on that floor so it can only be one of them and the person is not going away so it gets out of bed and answers the door and it's pain store pain's a big smile on his face he goes what are you doing? Because I'm already in bed you guys go ahead he. He goes, no, come on. Let's go. The tiger is like, I got nothing left.

He goes, that's not what it was to. Come on. Let's go. And Tiger said, what's the big deal? He says, the tiger, you know, the big deal is you never know if you don't ever get to do this again. Tiger says, pain, we're going to do this every two years. Pain says, you don't know that. Come on, let's go. And Tiger said, I'm so glad that Payne wouldn't let me go back to bed.

You know, I'll always remember that night. And Payne was right. That's the only winning rackups he might have ever played on to this day. And we lost him a month later. So I could see it, you know, kind of sinking on the guys that enjoy this mold. Be the right club today. Yeah!

That's better than most. How about it? That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang-Up podcast. The voice you heard at the beginning of this episode was the head pro here at Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chandler withington. We, uh, myself, Mr. DJ Pie, hello. Hello, sorry. We, uh, we're on a little rider cup road trip.

It's one year out from the rider cup. We went up to Whistling Straits, played up there, went to the media day, and, uh, now we're driving around the Midwest, going to, in case you saw our Instagrams or anything, and we're, uh, wondering why the hell we're in the Midwest. We're going visiting here at Hazeltine. We're off to Medina next and we're going to Valhalla.

We're working on a big video project. We're not going to try to try not to cannibalize ourselves too much on the content, but... Also, we don't know what it's going to be. Yeah, we have no idea. We're shooting a million things and we'll sort of all that out later. And it's going to come out at a much, much later date. But first thing we cannibalize was that story from Chandler, which I think... All right, so if you're tuning into this one, you saw what the title of the episode is.

So I don't have any sympathy for you. If you don't want to hear about Ryder Cup yet, you don't have to listen to this, but we are in a Ryder Cup mood. I'm always in Ryder Cup mood, but you're starting to feel how I feel every day. I know, I can't, this would be exhausting to live life this way.

I can't believe you feel like this all this time. Why do you think we hate PJ Torment so much? No, so we, so my Ryder Cup fandom, I don't know, like, listen, of course, I like the Ryder Cup, of course. Nobody likes the Ryder Cup more. I almost said that, but I was like, well, solid likes more than I do. But you start to get, I don't know, fatigue

is the right word, but I'm just, you know, it's great. I've never been to one, though. I think that's part of it. I've never been on the grounds at one. We lose all the time, so I think that has part of it. I've never been on the grounds at one. We lose all the time. So I think that has kind of killed my boner a little bit. For the riders saying we still. For the riders, we're wavering.

Well, that's the thing. We can get into that later, but I was a little on the edge. I feel like a free agent on this whole thing. I'm like, man, Europe is very easy to root for. And like, we'll get into all this, but watching the two captains up there Patrick Harrington and Steve Stricker like you know watching them for a whole day and Then seeing the highlights and thinking about like like hey man, you want to root for

some of the like fairly whiny Guys who are fighting with each other over the last like six years or do you want wanna root for like Tommy Fleetwood, or do you wanna root for Mulinaria, Rory, or Polter, or all these guys who are just like, man, I wish my hats had you're up on it. Like those guys look like they're having a lot of fun. But I think that the visit to Hazelteam today, I think it's one of me back, because I like, got it, there you have some cool stuff here.

And like, worse would be to flip to Europe and then the US wins, 2020. Exactly. So listen, I'm Tron. I know you're listening. I would be happy to look at some literature for Team Europe. But I think after today, it's going to be a tough sell to see me switch sides like like turncoat. Tron. It was it was great to just hear the goal of this again, part of least the goal of this is to hear some stories from people that had integral integral roles within these rider cups. And this is just this is just the first part of this video series that we're on the ground here filming, but just hearing stories from people on the ground and the run-ins that have

with players and the things that happen in the team room and all the things that go into a rider cup and knowing, you know, because it's one thing to, you know, the event comes, it comes on TV, you watch it, and it goes away, right? But you don't realize that somebody spent like two years running up to it working on it. And like the more we start, yeah, yeah. Like the more we start to peel it up back, the layers of it, like we're in that process right now and just seeing, and the same goes for the captains. I mean, this, they were on Faredi Live this week, but this is, I think, the kickoff really for them

And they've been doing a bunch of stuff behind the scenes talking about hats and all the things they had to order and all the Stuff that goes into it that can't be fun. Like I can't imagine that that's fun at all It makes me wonder like what are I would if I was given the opportunity what I honestly want to be a captain I don't know. Be very careful the PJ of America's probably listen to this. They probably got you other shortlist When I lose this one they're gonna start, they gotta get away from players, right? They're gonna have to go to Greg Popovich or whatever it is. But we're gonna talk a little bit about Paris.

We obviously debriefed that several, several times and are still dealing with what happened there. Well, before we get there, so we have, we kinda did a little bootleg recording at the press conference, Padre Harrington and Steve Sticker, kinda dove in-depth to a lot of topics. We're going to pull a couple of insightful, interesting clips from that. So before we do that, let's start with their breakdown of what happened in Paris.

We had a good team. There's no doubt about it. Thomas Cook captain, the best team we've had in terms of world rankings. There was a lot of quality in the team. They came together very well. Obviously we lost a Friday morning 3-1 which was a big set back to us. But we had some nice balance in that team. We stood to our goals and we came through for our day afternoon, which was huge for our team.

That Friday afternoon session obviously. It's tough to lose one session three-one, but to come back in the afternoon, it's still the confidence to go on with the plan. I think Paris National now goes to the European European game, suits our style of play. So yeah, after getting the advantage back home advantage, it carried out from there. As you can see, I'm really trying to avoid anything that actually keeps away what exactly happened behind the scenes. But yeah, I've got to say, it was a really quality tape.

The Europeans have outplayed us the last few times. We get a lot of practice at it. We play at Presidents Cup every other year. We play this event. We also have the World Golf Championship match play event. You know, maybe if anything, you know, we've been looking into stats as well. You know, I mean, we do the same thing as the European side. And it's, you know, we gave a lot of holes away in France by making something other than part. We made as almost as many birdies, if I remember right, during that week in France, but we just gave so many holes away and making different numbers.

So, it could be our style of play. Our guys on the US side are aggressive players. They make a lot of birdies. Usually the guys that make the team are leading the birdie average for the year, you know, they're just aggressive players. And sometimes in match play, it's okay to back down and try to make a par. And that showed in France that if we could have just made some par, that it could have been a different match.

But that's easier said than none too. France was a tough setup. Of course, it was very demanding, very difficult. Our guys didn't have any experience on that golf course. So yeah, so I think if anything, the message for our guys will be sometimes backing off and making pars and making the other team earn it is a good thing. Okay, so you were, I mean, you were on the ground at Paris. What, what's your lasting memory of that?

How much time do you have? Poor me. Get on the road, please. My lasting memory of it was, oh, I'm trying to measure right now how upset I want to make the Europeans about this currently. It was just like a, keep in mind we're looking out at the 9th and 18th greens here at Hazel Teen and where are the pins that were seen? Just right in the middle of the greens.

So let's be careful of the setup stuff. It should be hard to go to set ups. I at least felt like, and this is obviously going to come from a bias perspective, but the American style setups, set up for excitement and free swinging and kind of attacking in birdies. I felt like there was just a lack of rhythm to the 2018 one, because for both teams, even, guys are hitting the ball in the rough so often and there's guys winning holes with double bogies

at certain times if you're hitting the water, shout out Bubba, I think that happened. And it just was like a stop start, stop start. And maybe that's just as an American fan that's the exact level of discomfort they wanted us to feel. So again, I will never fault a, a either the Europeans were setting it up the way they did. I won't obviously fault the Americans were setting

it up the way they did. I do think that maybe we'll, we'll talk about this a little bit later. I think there's a lot of interest after this one, after the 2020 one on US soil, in like a neutral party setting these things up, because I think we're going to keep swinging too far the extremes. But anyways, it, it you know it was so I'm gonna cut you off whenever I whenever I've got a clip Q-Def I'm gonna cut you off please podric Harrington had kind of a a very similar feeling on this which also was starting to wincidate starting to pull me started to pull me to the European side as well let's roll that now there's a substantial difference it is

I would advocate even too much of a difference between home and away. Clearly in Europe we get to set the golf course open. We set up every way we can to suit our players. And in the States we've seen that as well. And you know where the golf courses are set up to be most advantageous for the home team. I think that's obviously not going to happen probably in my lifetime with 40, 50 years down the road where the rider cope is still going along. It would probably be best to have a neutral setup where there is no set number golf course

as we did in Europe. So that was very tight soft to tee and then it made it a real difficult where car was a good score whereas if you went back to Hazel team, it was more of a birdie fest, which, you know, suit the statisticians have gotten involved and tell us what suits each team. So yeah, possibly down the road, it's gonna be more of a new to a set up.

Thankfully here at Wiston's race, this is a much more natural golf course. Interest to see the road. What Steve has in store, but it doesn't look like you can do a lot with this golf course. To finish off my thoughts on Paris, I really, really felt like the US had a tremendous group of talent. I cannot fault the team that Jim Fjord put together. If you wanted to question the Phil Pick, it's, you know, people were, we're questioning that before the Ryder Cup even came. I was on board with it. He had been seven and three in the last three Ryder cups and just seemed to have really kind of gotten over a lot of what had plagued him in the Ryder Cup for many years. Anyways, even if you critique that one, the US wasn't going to win. I mean, Tiger was coming off a win at the

tour championship and he went 0 and 4. Bryson was maybe the hottest golfer on the planet. He went O and 3 or O and 4. He didn't win a point. Phil obviously didn't win a point. Brooks Keppka was the number one player in the world. I think he went one in 3, maybe one in 4. And they got great performances from guys they maybe shouldn't have. Tony Fino went two in one,

Web Simpson had a winning record. Bubba even eaked out a point, I think at one point. So it was just a mess and it was, it sends everyone back to the drawing board. And I guess I was more dismissive of the home field advantage than I should have been. That's my regret and how did I not see that coming? We have one since 93 for a reason. But this one honestly did feel different, I thought,

and it just wasn't. So I thought we'd roll, run them in Rome, and I now definitely question that. And I definitely thought we'd stomp them at Whistling Straits. And I question that now. I really do. At least maybe I've just been humbled a little bit,

but I just don't think it's gonna, I don't think it's gonna be simple. Like here, let's shave the rough down and let's put the pins in the middle of the greens and let's whoop their ass because I just don't think Whistling, and you know, they talked about this some in the press conference as well I don't think whistling sets up that well for manipulation. There's no real tricks you know I mean they know how we like to set up the golf courses and we know how they like to set up

the golf courses and they're you know I'm sure what he's got in vision is in his mind is gonna be the way it's going to be. And I know the next time we go, where do we go next time? I'll roll him. Yeah. And I'm sure it would be much like Paris. So yeah, there's no real tricks here. It's not going to be eight on the stimp meter

like it was in Paris. It's not going to be as high as rock because it was in Paris. It's not going to be as high as we're off because it was in Paris. But, you know, there's no real tricks, you know, but it is a little bit more of a challenge here, to Patrick's point earlier, that, you know, it's a link style course, but I don't know if this is a true link style course, you know, a lot of this is still played through the air here, you know, some of the link style that I've played over on over the years overseas is that you know you really bounce the ball up, you roll

it up, you can flight it down low and and here I think it's a little bit more in the air than it is overseas personally thinking but yeah we'll see how it goes. I think it gets much better. All right, before we get back and get rolling, we got to talk about the week the Callaway had in professional golf. On Sunday alone, they had three driver wins on major worldwide tours. I hope you guys saw what Kevin Knaw was doing. Walking in puts from everywhere with his two lawn Madison putter, as well as Cheyenne Knight, she won on the LPGA Tour.

They also had a win on the Japan Tour. Calloway has more driver wins across the globe than any other OEM this year. And also, he wrote in the most feet of putts in the history of the PGA Tour with that Toulon Madison putter. Check out Callowagoff.com for all the information you need on all the things, all the successes that Callaway Golf has had in professional golf this year. Now back to the Ryder Cup podcast. Yeah, I think Whistling is going to be, I don't know, I think it's gonna be interesting for a lot of reasons. I don't know how I feel as

for today an American fan. Well, this I'm excited you. I'm not. I'm not super confident. After we've seen Medina and Valhalla too. Yeah. Because you're gonna see the theme in the venues in that, you know, you can say what you want about these golf courses. And I'm almost never, I won't criticize what a, except a pair of, like the venue,

the courses are not the story, usually the week of. It's the setting, right? For you have to bust a shitload of people into these things. And that is part of the story, right? I mean, I kinda, you can kind of roll your eyes at, some of the courses that have become obsolete just because you can't fit people into the grounds to be fans, but fans are the story at the Ryder Cup.

You have to have a venue where you can fit a ton of people, crowd greens, crowd tea boxes, grandstands, and have people feel the noise. And I don't know how that's going to really work at Whistling. Because it is not the easiest course to navigate while you're playing it, much less getting from Holdahole as fans would. Now, the difference in a Ryder Cup is you don't really go Holdahole. Like you pick, when I went as outside the ropes in 2012, I'm a dina and we would move an hour ahead of the first group. Get a good spot and watch all four groups come through somewhere on the front nine and then you slide over the back nine and usually you try to find a spot that has a jumbo

tron, hopefully you have a radio and whatnot. But it is, it's not easy path walking and that was my feedback from France, they didn't have enough bridges. They had really, really bad traffic issues at a lot of places. And I'm curious how they're going to handle it a little whistling. I mean, they have to have thought of these things, right? If not, and if you're listening to this podcast, please build walkways over, the walkways over where the players are going to walk between holes is so key,

because that's where you get bottlenecks, because the volume's going to be insane. They're not going to limit ticket sales. It's going to be a lot of people and this property is obviously himdened by Lake Michigan. You've lost a whole side of the property and it's not going to have that kind of stadium feel as much to it because you just can't surround holes all the way around. That's what's funny. I've never been here to Hazelteen and we're sitting in just like a conference room

right now with these big beautiful windows and we're looking out over the golf course. I mean, it is a big ass sprawling piece of property. And Whistling Straces is really big and sprawling too, but the difference here is that there's some natural amphitheaters around the greens. There's some big, wide open spaces where people can gather and where people can move around and where people can cross from hold a hole. Like you said, there's a lot of intersection space out there,

right? But at Whistling Straits, it's like, I mean, you've all seen pictures of it. It's the surface of the moon out there. You know what I mean? There's 58,000 bunkers. And there's all these crazy things that makes it look really cool when you're playing it

I mean, I don't want to get it anyway triggered like it doesn't play like an Irish course But it looks like an Irish course. You know it feels like the dunes are wild and and all that is like a you know Maybe a feat of construction more than this like great piece property, but it's it's gonna be interesting I think one thing I was thinking about is it could be, I would give as much power as I have here, I would give approval that it would be the only course, the only spectator event that it's okay to work golf shoes. Because I think people are going to,

especially if it rains or if it's super dry. Like that fescue when it starts to lay down, like I'm sure everybody listening to this as well has played some course where you've got the fescue laying down if you've got tennis shoes on or something and your features go right out from under you. Like that's gonna happen so much because a lot of it fighting for views. People are gonna be fighting for, fighting for space and like someone was saying earlier, you know, kind of on the trip is like the way you navigate Whistling Straits, which again,

like all this is good for your everyday golfer and caddy. You've got these six foot paths that kind of go between T and green and kind of go from hold a hole. And these little walking paths that are healthy fun balls and help you do all this stuff. When you have 50,000 people in there trying to all be single file into those six foot walking paths, that's going to work for a little while. But then eventually people are going to try to around and try to, especially, okay, oh, tiger and bricin' around this hole and they're one up and oh my god, we gotta go get to 14 to see this.

People are gonna start running on these hills and they're just gonna slip and fall and like when you slip and fall, the hills are so steep. Like people are just, I'm not making it this up, like people are recounting this from like the 15 PGA and stuff. You start falling down these hills and you just take out the legs of all these, you're just a bowling ball rolling down these hills. So whatever, I mean, not to be all doom and gloom and like, the fan experiences is one thing, but really the people who care about that are the fans that are on site.

But it's a lot more people. It is a lot, but there's a lot more people watching on TV and so we can probably focus more on that. Yeah, I mean, it's gonna look pretty on TV obviously next to the lake and all that, but again, I wonder just how with the wind that comes off that lake and the sound like when we're out there, the waves were whipping and roaring. And we're gonna talk a little bit about weather here in a second too, but it you a bit, I guess we played Hazel team yesterday evening, there was not a sound right there. There was not a single sound.

So everything you're gonna hear out there is the crowd in the atmosphere. But the elements are a factor when you're at Whistling Straits and that's gonna be what you hear. I don't know what saying it's gonna drown out the crowd. They're gonna be plenty loud, but I can't picture it being the same kind of boisterous venue as and again, maybe they've got it all figured out.

And I remember when this site was announced, I was like a very kind of surprise for Ryder Cup. I think it has played very well for PGA championships. I had an absolute blast playing the golf course. We had so much fun. But there's some questions to be answered, I think, in that. And I have faith that they'll get it right. But you know, one of the factor too for fans on the ground

is this event is famous for letting so many people inside the ropes. Yeah, so people like I've camped out and gotten good viewing spots. And then it's like, people come and stay out and photo you. So we've mentioned a lot about the crowd and fan support and what it's gonna be like. I think one of the biggest things,

it's a very lazy kind of storyline, but you know, Steve Sticker being kind of the poster child of Wisconsin Golf and that's a huge factor in why he got this captaincy and stuff. So let's roll a little bit of him kind of talking about that. Yeah, I mean, it first started off as major championships, right? You know, we've had the PGA here three times. We had the US Open over at Aaron Hills, and this is the ultimate here to have really

the ultimate event in the game of golf to be here at Wistling Strait in Wisconsin. It's just really, from everybody I talk to, the anticipation, the excitement level is through the roof, and it's just really, from everybody I talk to, the anticipation, the excitement level is through the roof. And it's no different for me either. You know, I'm very excited to have this opportunity to be here in my home state to try to help this team and leave this team to try to win that cup back. And yet it's a great treat for all of us and I know the colder people will treat us unbelievably. They already have and look forward to being here and getting the ball rolling.

It'll be here before we know it, but we're all super excited. I do think it's really cool that this event is going to somewhere like basically just north of Shaboygan, Wisconsin, which is, so I mean, the last three writer cups in the US were outside of Minneapolis, not really far. Basically, Minneapolis one, Chicago, I mean, Medina's just outside Chicago, and Valhalla's just outside Louisville. This is outside Milwaukee. This is not a Milwaukee, is that? Outside Shaboygan.

Right. And which, you know, it's population of 50,000. It's not a tiny town. No, but is outside Milwaukee. This is not a Milwaukee, is that? That's how it should boy you. Right. Which, you know, it's population of 50,000. It's not a tiny town. It's not. No, but if you hear somebody say this is a place in the middle of nowhere, it's not. Like that's not the fact. There's a town.

It took us way. Two and a half to get there from Chicago. Yeah. Like it's not an hour north of Milwaukee or something like that. That's not the case, but it is small town feel. And we'll have a small town stories when these videos do come out. And I'm a fan of that.

I think that's cool. I think there's a really cool element to that. Wisconsin sports fans are fantastic. And it's just a significant, a huge thing. I mean, we talked to one local there. He said, you know, they're bringing the world here, which I was really cool for somebody that just kind of owned a farm in Wisconsin that, you know, couldn't have imagined a golf course going in there and it being a focal point. That element is really cool for somebody that just kind of owned a farm and Wisconsin that you know couldn't have imagined a golf course going in there and it being a focal

point that element is really cool so I don't I don't mean any any questions I'm asking about it going to Whistling Straits are not based on the fan support that's gonna be there. No, I think it's gonna be awesome. It's just a cool it's a you know you might think farmland and all that stuff is not the sexiest thing in the world, but maybe it's because we grew up not super far from there, but it's just a really pretty, really cool part of the world. I think the people are so freaking nice

and all this stuff is clichés. You can hear it in a million different places. But I mean, we were up there for three days and we didn't meet anybody who was brash. We didn't meet anybody who, like everybody's, well, people are literally, we're knocking on people's doors. And they're like, yeah, come on in. Oh, what do you got a camera?

Yeah, come on in. Let's go, sure, whatever. And I mean, they're just so excited to have people there. And it's a testament to what happens when you put, you know, as a double sided, double edged sword, whatever the, whatever. Whatever. Oh, nailed it. You nailed it.

But, you know, when you put this, like, let's not make any confusion here, like, whistling straights, it's not like it's your local muni. It's going to cost you, however many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go play there. So, it's not like this is some like community gathering point. I mean, it's all tourists and whatever. But it still does show how you can kind of use that as a place to show off your community

or bring people to that part of the world who probably wouldn't have otherwise been there. I mean, we're right on the border of Manitawa County. It's pretty much most famous otherwise for making a murderer. And then shut it to the Avery Auto Parts, which you wanted to detour, but we had to get it. I would have felt bad doing it. I just want to drive by. I see if we can help out with the case anyway we can maybe when we come back next year. So I

was spending a lot of time I'd read it. I think I got a couple breaks in the case. I've been looking at satellite photos like there's some holes in this case still. I just want to ask the questions. For sure. So let's talk a bit about kind of our takeaways from the media day, which I can't believe that's a sentence I'm saying out loud, which because it sounds so ridiculous. But I think we did have some. I mean, I think the, for me, I really always have struggled with the idea of captency, how much it matters, how much it doesn't. And I think it gets overblown with a lot of people, but at the same time, you know, it's, it's, you know, a striker kind of said it really well but at the same time, you know, it's, it's, you know, Stricker kind of said it really well in Faraday Live. He said, it's also no win situation.

If you, if your team wins, it's because a great play and if your team loses, it's because the captain didn't do his job right. But, you know, the fact that people are, are, have such things, the little stories, I guess, we hear about the captaincy and, you know, how Paul Azinger did it this way in 08 and like the players really love that and wanted to bring that to Corey Paveon. And Corey Paveon said no, I'm going to do it my way. And then you know Davis love comes along and did it really well. I think players really liked that. And then Tom Watson came along who did not do it the way they liked.

And they went back to Davis love. And there seems to be enough there that it does matter. Right. I totally agree. Yeah? I would really agree. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think that I've always definitely laughed about the idea. And a lot of people will laugh about this. And they'll continue to laugh about their cart drivers.

And they don't like, what are you really changing? And besides making the pairings, what can you really do? And I agree with you completely. I mean, like all the stories we've heard this week kind of speak to, speak to being in that mindset. I think one of my favorites that we heard this week was, you know, there's some Europeans over here as well for doing media stuff and whatever.

Hearing stories about certain captains kind of telling the European team, like, okay, when we go over there, like, the first thing we need to do is win the hotel. And that means when you get there, you are the nicest possible person that you've ever been to the hotel staff and to the bellboys and to the bartenders

and to the valet and to everybody. And like, you go in and you're doing stuff like that and just being that kind of person to everybody. Like, it just puts you in a good mood. Right? And it just makes you in a good mood, right? And it just makes you easier to be friendly with your teammates. It makes it easier to be friendly with media, friendly with all these people. And it like, you know, it probably speaks to why everybody looks like they're having a lot more fun.

Of course, a lot of that's because they're winning a lot too, but but it's kind of as doubling down factor, right? They're kind of laughin' at us and that like, look at how good these guys are at golf, but they can't beat us. Exactly. And that's why I think the US has an inherent disadvantage all the time because like, you know, maybe we're not the quote unquote,

like batting favorites, but we have the biggest tour and we have the biggest names and we have all the bit like, it's like we're never ever, ever ever gonna be like a chippy underdog. You know where it's like the Europeans always come in and it's like, ooh, everybody, the big bad Americans. Like come on, like let's just, like how funny will it be to like just beat them?

Just continue to beat them. Like how do you flip that? I know. And I think part of how you have to do it is to have like a captain who's just inspiring as F. You know, and Steve's tricker that guy. That's where I bring the question. I'm not gonna make a snap judgment a year out,

you know, to say, Steve's tricker should not be the captain. The statement I'll say is, I hope he was selected as captain for more reasons other than he's from Wisconsin. Right. And that has, you know, for years everyone said, oh, well, Strucker's gonna get to Wisconsin when it's from Wisconsin. Right. And that has, you know, for years, everyone said, oh, well, Stryker's gonna get to Wisconsin when Stryker, and again, I don't know what his leadership style is. And doing the media stuff is not easy,

but the vast difference between the way Patrick Harrington handled the media day and the way Stryker does it, it was noticeable. It was very noticeable. Yeah, and a lot of that, it's hard, because like how much does that matter? Is it very for your question? Yeah, and a lot of that, it's hard because like, how much does that matter? Is it very for your question? Yeah, and maybe it's nothing.

And I mean, Stricker is not far removed from playing, you know, the tour week to week. Like, he knows most of these guys. He was very open about like, hey, there's a lot of young guys that like, I don't know very well at all. And, you know, we can go through like the points a little later. But, you know, the core of the team, the rickies and JT's and Brooks and Dustin and Tiger and Phil and all these guys, he obviously knows all those guys

super well. He's done a ton of vice captain stuff and he's done a ton of, he's been in a million team rooms and I think when it kind of push comes to shove, it's not like he doesn't have the respect of these guys. That's not what we're saying. That's not what I don't think.

But is he someone that's going to totally shake up the system and just be like, hey, let's just figure out a way to be more loose and be more relaxed. And I don't know. We'll have to see. But I thought one of the things that just rolling, one of the clips from Media Day here, one of the things that just rolling one of the clips from media day here one of the things I thought was really really interesting was both players kind of talked about I think your natural inclination would be

Like oh my gosh this guy's played in a million rider cups like he must be he'd be an awesome captain And I thought it was really interesting to hear them say like how much more they learned Outside of being a player you learn a lot more as a vice captain than you do as a player. It's starting to how I suppose, in order we are as players, we, we, we, it's all about getting your own game ready, do what you need to do and as professional golfers, we're self-managed. So it really is all about us as we go along. When you become a vice captain, you start seeing a lot more.

And because of that, you have to clearly learn a lot more what's the demands of the players, and how to fit them together, and manage all the different personalities in a team. So yeah, the voice captain's, for me, that's where you learn the most. It's nice to be the player and all that, but it's, and I suppose when you're a player, Iewn i'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio yn ymwch i'r gweithio. Mae'n gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'n gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gwe I remember with Bernard Langer, he sat there with the evening meeting after the first day's play and nearly the first words I got to meet him was at a boardroom table as

well and he turns around and says, we'll have nobody laying up into the hazard on number five tomorrow. I was the only one who laid up into the hazard that day. So yeah, Bernard was a, and Bernard would be on the teas, tell you what clothes to get into the paratries and things like that. And so just, there's so many different styles of capncy. You do see that. I don't believe I'm going to be born or the older. I hopefully would be a mixture of most.

But then as vice captain, you tend to learn a lot about the tactics I don't believe I'm going to be born or the older. I hopefully would be a picture of most. But then as Vice Captain, you tend to learn a lot about the tactics that go in behind that. And it is difficult to, Steve would notice from being there as well. It's incredibly difficult to put a team out as, you know, a big morning, a late morning on Friday, when the guys have already played maybe 14 holes of golf and you have to put a team out for the afternoon and sometimes you put players out who end up losing their morning match and sometimes you drop players who won the

morning match and clearly you get second guest on your team selection. But, you know, oftentimes people don't realize those teams have to decide that there's so many factors that go into it that literally be the vice captain, you do get to sit there and be in part of that decision making. And that's really what I believe that's going to help me the most as being a captain to be a captain. All right, let's talk a little bit about team formation here. It's too early to look at the standings, but it's not. That was one of my favorite things, Patrick said. I don't know if he said it at the Faire de Live thing or whatever, but it's just like, I basically went in and was like,

okay, I'm not going to look at the standings. I'm going to completely ignore them. That's going to be my thing. He's like, of course, I can do that. No, I look at them all the time. He's like, I build a new team like every single day. The Europe, but I think there is a vast difference in how the two teams form their team. Right? And that it's kind of weird. It's just weird how it works. The European tour runs team Europe Ryder Cup, whereas PGA of America runs team USA Ryder Cup. Yet the so the PGA tour itself is not involved in the Ryder Cup. Yet the world the European tour uses kind of a world performance system, which makes sense because a lot of their players are European tour members by technicality and play most

of golf and PGA tour, so they want all that world golf to count. But the world golf for the US players does not count, right? So if so and so goes over and wins the Scottish Open and the Irish Open, you get nothing for that. There's no world ranking There's no nothing and they have this point system on the US side that I still just struggle I struggle with a lot because They seem to take it with such gospel and let's go let's go right actually into podjus clip here talking about Why he went from four captains picks down to three. I know this is different than what I'm saying.

This is Europe captain talking, and I'm talking about US, but just how much they hold the points list in regard is why I want to roll this now. The logic is basically you, anybody who pays his own more pressure, more pressure, more stress than a player who's qualified. So I wanted the way I looked at it is the night guy how often would you skip the night guy and the rankings and pick four people after? Not very often.

It's not something that you would probably do. You'd normally pick the night guy and why pick him and put him on the pressure, why not just let qualified into the team, let him feel like he's there on his own, merits, no second guessing, no judging. That would be my talk. You hear them kind of talk about how hard of a time they have glancing past the ninth guy on the list. And I just don't understand the mindset of just taking this list at gospel.

Like, we know how it's put together and we can go through that. So again, this is for the 2020 Ryder Cup. There's maybe, let's say there's nine events that happen in 2019 that points count. So major championships, you get one point for every thousand dollars you earn. And for WGCs and players, you get one point

for every two thousand dollars that you earn. So the list right now reads Keppka, DJ Woodland, Tiger, Zander, Web, Coocher, and Finau. That's not going to be who's top eight, you know, come in the end of next year. But some of these guys have earned a lot of points. A Gary Woodland is third on the list, right, with 27, 2762 points and Tony Finau is in the eighth place with 1,300 points. So he's not as far from a lock, but I just never understood the point of like, okay, Gary Woodland obviously won the US Open next year. Why does that matter come how he's going to play next September?

And like, why are we rewarding like 2019 performances at all? And I know that it's weighted heavier for 2020 and a lot of these points are going to be pushed out, but basically winning that major was in June of 2019 is equal to winning a PGA Tour event next year. And he doesn't have that much more work to do to make the team, whereas it's like if he didn't, I don't know, I feel like for somebody like that, he should make it and it be should be very, very clear that you cannot have him not on that team, right? That's what the points list should be. Well, clearly we can't have not have Capca on the team,

clearly we can't not have DJ. But I feel like we're gonna end up with a few guys and we're kinda like, oh, and if you cut it off right now, and again, I know we're not going to, but not on the team would be Cantlay, Kisner, Spieth, Ricky, JT, Reed, Snetaker, Bubba. Like imagine if you had to today picking four between those guys.

I didn't say Phil, Bryson, like it's kind of nuts. How they've done it. I know it's gonna change, I know we're a long way out, but I just hate the point system. I think you should maybe do six players with end points because that's just the most obvious. Otherwise the points are kind of there as like, again, you're basically making you take

a guy that you wouldn't pick otherwise. Yeah, I think there's a couple things. First of all, it have been very vocal, not really, but very unrecorded that like, I think it should just be 12 captains. Sure. I think that would be a complete circus and I think it would be awesome. And if you wanted to, it kind of leads in my next point is like the point system almost It almost kind of like keeps the writer cup

Top of mind like you can you can give them dates on the points list every weekend You can there's almost like a structural reason for doing it, you know But I think you could if this is all completely blue sky But I think you could, this is all completely blue sky brain storming here, but if you did 12 captains picks, like why not back it out like in the 12 weeks before the deadline. It's like you're going to pick one guy per week or one guy per month or one guy for, you know, whatever. And just like slowly build your team with captains picks, I think would be awesome. And to round out the rest of the points for 2020 PGA Tour events, it's one point for every thousand earned.

So basically the same as the 2019 majors. And for 2020 majors, you get two points for every thousand earned for the winner, and then 1.5 for every thousand earned for all others to make the cut. But what that does for the majors is it basically makes it three times as valuable, because the money for the majors is bigger than the other events. And it's double points.

So you end up, if Tiger, whoever wins the Masters, is basically going to get 4,000 points out of that. Which is, what happened in 2016? It didn't end up costing them. But Jimmy Walker was 29th in points going into the PGA championship at Baltic Roll, which allegedly happened. We still have not confirmed it tonight.

Yeah, many people say it was a fake. It was on the sound stage. Yeah. But he won that. And he jumped to fourth on the list. So like right now, 29th on the list is Lucas Glover. So like in theory, Lucas Glover could go in, you know, the open championship will be the last major next year and jump into and be guaranteed a spot. And it's like, okay, great week, that's fine.

But what if somebody, and this was the argument I had to make for Fina last year that was not getting through people's heads, oh yeah, he hasn't won, he hasn't won. It's like, he plays great golf every week. Like you don't, winning doesn't necessarily translate to being a great writer cup player, bubble one three times last year,

and look how he played in the writer cup because he misses a ton of cuts. He's kind of jekyll and hide. I don't want a bunch of jekyll and hide guys. I want the guys that I know are really consistent as much as we don't like really ride for Kutcher. He sets up really well for match play. To a leaps Simpson sets up really, really well for match play.

He'd be Justin Rose in singles last year. He had a fantastic writer cup and I think Xander's going to fit that bill really well. I think that can't lay. Some of the guys that they're going to be adding, I think, really will improve this team a lot, but I just, I hate the points. I struggle with it a lot every year. I think what's so crazy is, you got two conflicting storylines that are going to build over the next year or two, because think of those names that you you just rattled off

All of which are legitimately Awesome choices to have on a Ryder Cup team, right? Mm-hmm, and then now you've let's add into the mix like Matt Wolf and Carcow and and Victor Hovelin on the Euro side and like it's just That's what I want to talk about there, too It's gonna be really interesting to see like those guys are gonna have to play really freaking well this year to to get a look. They are but hoveland the way the Euro tour has it structured

based on it being worldwide like they he has an advantage over like more cow and wolf on the other side to try to earn his way onto the team via points because he's gonna be in so many events. I guess I'm gonna really broken it down but that, but that's why you always see kind of weird names on that world. Yes, the world points list. Yeah. So he has a leg up versus this, you know, points earning system versus, again, the Euro Tour is using like a world ranking kind of sort of system.

Basically, it's just your play from around the world. And I think he's got a much better chance to make it than, you know, more cow or wolf. And it kept with as many guys that are outside that bubble right now And again, we know that's gonna change but you're it's gonna be tough tough tough tough for more cow or wolf to get a captain's pick for sure as rookies with all the other guys that are gonna be out there so And they they might be great watter cup players. They might not but Basically my point is let's play the watter cup every year. No, let's get to that later the only other takeaway I had from the media day was, I thought there was a really interesting difference

between the way that the Ryder Cup is ingrained in these two captains. And this is not meant as a slight to stricker at all, but just listen to this next clip and kind of see the difference in how these guys answer the question. Questions for both. I'm wondering if you can take a trip down memory lane and think about the first writer

cup you remember as kids. Maybe the first one you watched or the first big moment that you can remember. Excuse me. Yeah, I guess the one that really sticks out in my mind is the winning putt of Davis Love. And where was that when he raised his arms? Bill Fri. Ninety-three. What year?

Ninety-three. I'm sure I watched him before then. But that one just really sticks out in my memory, you know, being in a way match and a tight match and, you know, just an iconic really kind of picture when he made that winning putt and raised his arms. And you could, you know, knowing Davis now, you know what that meant and what that feels like. So, you know, I still remember that and still look at it. It's in a lot of our team rooms, pictures and all that throughout the years. So it's probably the one that sticks in my mind most.

I think for me personally, I grew up as an amateur playing. We used to play our Winkers series at Golffala in a golf course called Royal Dublin, which is the home of Christiotana Senior. So he had at that stage he played the most rider copes in rider cop history. I think it was nine and his golf bags are obviously in the memorabilia, cabinets and takes there. So I grew up with the rider. I hope being very much in the forefront of the Golf in Ireland. And then obviously Chris, you kind of do,

you're hit that two, aren't it? 85 would probably be the first shot. I probably saw shots before that. But 85 would have been, that was the one for me against Fred Copus. Then Quixie followed by Aime and Darius. He had an under Irish girl holding the putt in Mirafield Village. Holded like a six footer down, maybe a four footer down the hill and Aime and Mirafield. Aime would not have been the most beautiful putter to hold a putt like that in the Ryder Cup.

Phillip Watt then went into 95 and Holen had to talk to down the last. So there was a lot really being a great Irish heritage in the writer code, but that's something that I would have been brought over with. And so those are the standout memories for me. Before we get back to it, a quick word from one of our new or partners. A lot of people have been asking us about this.

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Put some drops in that as well. And I have been feeling so much better. It's either placebo, aph, or like actually the really legitimate stuff. You be the judge. Either way, I'm sleeping better and feeling better. His big question, he's like, you know, I've heard a lot about these oils and they just don't mix with your body real well.

And I was like, bud, do I have good news for you? It is water, bud. Because it is completely water-based. Zero THC, you're not going to test for any kind of weird stuff. Maybe a lot of people are getting new jobs, they're taking drug tests. Not going to be a problem. And it has just, yeah, it's been, it's something I think we were all very suspicious to start, but it's been something

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I know that's one question, and it's a press conference on a day where they're doing nothing, but answering very generic questions. I just think it's so interesting to hear Patrick Harrington's perspective on that, and hearing him rattle off. Here's eight different Irishman's names that like literally like most of which I had never even heard of. And he's just rattling off these in holes and lengths of putts and all these different things.

And striker, like it's just, it was a different, while he was coming up, you know, it's a different, it's a different event than it is now. Like it has grown into a complete spectacle and it's just interesting that it has always been so at the forefront of a lot of these European minds. Yeah, and you hear the US players talk a bit about how much more, and I believe them.

I just, their experience all feels very personal. I've never been so nervous. And you hear the same stories in Euroside, but it all feels like how it relates to me. You don't really hear a ton about the camaraderie factor, and which feels like it's kind of changing. I agree with a lot of younger guys, and I feel like I'm diving into SB2K,

whatever the fuck year that was, but I feel like I'm rehashing a lot of that stuff, but you do see, even since I've kind of started quote unquote covering golf, like you see, you see a change a little bit, you see guys hanging out more, you see guys like doing a lot more things together and maybe that has kind of like a ripple effect and we'll lead to this big,

you know, kind of macro change over 20 years, but it's just interesting to see what already kind of exists on the Euro side. Yep, interestingly enough, you know, being here at Hazeltine, and I know we're not ready to talk about the 2028 Ryder Cup, but it is coming back here. And it's been really, really fun being here and reliving the 2016. It's the only one that brings this joy to relive here.

2008, we're gonna enjoy some of that as well. I haven't feeling Medina is going to be quite painful. But this is your first visit up to Hazeltein and tell us about what was the impression you came away with? Yeah, so I said a little bit upfront, but it's always kind of struck me as kind of an uninspiring place, and I don't mean to be unfair by saying that, but I couldn't remember much about the golf course, even though I've watched a bunch of tournaments here. I couldn't tell you much about the club, even though they have a ton of tournaments. I just couldn't tell you much about the place. Being here for the last two days has completely shifted.

Part of that's a fantastic tour guide in Chandler, the voice you heard at the top of the podcast. Like he's, we were kind of saying, you know, like it's such an asset to a club like this to have somebody who can be just like a complete, like a completely like educated cheerleader for the place. You know what I mean? And none of it is, some people you hear talk about their club and it feels kind of brainwashed and it feels kind of inauthentic or whatever.

And Chandler's just like such a smart, brilliant storyteller that just makes this place like really come alive. Even though we played the golf course yesterday and like it's not the best golf course I've ever seen in my life, like it's not, you know, I didn't walk away from it with, you know, my imagination just firing on all cylinders. Like it's pretty straightforward golf course. But one of the things I thought was most interesting and I had never, I guess it's kind of my fault

for not really like digging into the club, but is the mission statement stuff. And so right when you walk in the front door, there's a big framed mission statement for the Hazelstein National Golf Club. And it is like to be a hot, I don't know the exact wording, but it is basically like our goal like to be a hot, I don't know the exact wording, but it is basically like our goal is to be a hot bed of competitive golf. Like we want to host the biggest championships

in the world, and we want to do it consistently, and we want to do it really well. And I think like when I think I don't belong to a private club, but like when I think about private clubs, like that has always struck me as something that I'm like, oh my God, can you imagine having to, like pay all these dues and having to like, give up your golf course every two years or three years for a big, like their season is so short here in Minnesota too. It's five months, whatever you can play golf.

And you know, being like, I'd be a little longer than five months. Well, you know, it's short. Yeah, really. It's like April through April ish to like October ish. Point being yeah, we're having to save you from Minnesota golf. Thank you. Nobody loves Minnesota more than me. Both my parents are from Minnesota. But having you know, having to give up your golf club for that long and for all these tiki-tack demands and constantly having to make improvements that the PGA of America, the USGA, or whomever is dictating to you, like, God, that would seem like such a pain in the ass.

Just let me go through what's on the cups here. Like it's the events they've held here. US women's open, US open, US women's open, US senior open, US open, the US Mid-Am, NCAA Division I, Men's Championship, the USGA Men's State Team, I don't know what that is. It's kind of a cool championship actually. The PGA Championship, the USAM, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, and the KPMG Women's's PGA and they have the USAM in 2024. It's junior.

The US junior this year is just a, yeah, this place is built for tournament. And another Ryder Cup in 2028. Yeah, it's pretty nice. So where I'm going with all this is like all of this to me would seem like the biggest pain in like the opposite of why you would want to join a public golf course. Private golf course. Private golf course. Everybody that we've talked to has such the opposite mindset, like they love hosting

and they love showing it off to the world and they love, like, they just love what this place has and what they can show off. And I think that's really, really cool. And like I said, I'm not gonna walk away from here being like, oh my God, 16 is the most brilliant Strategic interesting hole ever like I don't feel that way about really like any of the golf holes that we played out here But what I do feel is like man I'm actually like really psyched that championship golf is going to hear frequently because this place is freaking

It's awesome like and the people are great and it's just I was not excited to hear like candidly I was not excited to hear like like candidly, I was not excited to hear, like, they were getting another Ryder Cup. And after today and yesterday, and just like hearing all the stories and seeing the property and like, how it comes alive and why it comes alive and why they're able to do a lot of the stuff

they are able to do, which is because they have all of this space and property and all that stuff. Like, I'm just, I'm very happy for the people here and excited to see it. So I, well, I'm glad you got that experience just from here because it feels so incredibly different than what it felt like during the Ryder Cup. Which if you were there for that, it's like,

oh, well, duh, like you have to come back here. Why wouldn't you, why would you have it anywhere but here? Because of how well everything went that way and the reason why you wouldn't do it is the weather in this part of the world in Ryder Cup week can be suspect and they had bad weather the week before the Ryder Cup and then it was 75 and sunny the whole week.

That's not been our experience this week. No, we've got no time to decide. We're kind of taking, I feel like hopefully we're taking all the bad weather this year so that it'll be nice. The point, like nobody cares what our weather is for a trip, but the point is we are here during Ryder Cup week. This is the week that it will be back here, back in the mid-wester day.

Yeah, which yesterday, how was our weather yesterday when we played? Absolutely brutal. It was 47 degrees and raining all the time. The entire time. And it was not much better at Wistengstraids. It was a little warmer there, but it rained when we played there on Sunday the entire time. And it's the event again, so much more goes into this than just like, oh yeah, it might be kind of rainy for the players.

No, no, no. Imagine trying to park in the farm field when it's muddy and wet. I don't know how it's going to work, but they keep going back to the Midwest and keep hoping that I keep hoping to get great weather. Nobody wants to see a slop fest, but the reality is it might not be like that, you know, when they come, you know, to Wisconsin next fall, and it might not be like that in 2028, but there's literally nothing they could do to control it. And even outside of a logistics standpoint, like of course the logistics has its own threats

with all of the weather and all that stuff. But from a golf perspective, like being right on the lake and being right, like that golf course is going to play, like it can play very difficult. That's the thing too, it was like, I don't know the luck out there, it's necessarily good for us. I'll just say it's not like, oh, this is American right here.

Like it's gonna be, I don't know. It's tough because I would think we could say that the american team is a more complete group of ball strikers meaning distance being a factor in that now the golf national neutralize distance right so what makes kept going dj such great ball strikers

is how far they hit it same goes with rory of course and rom and all that but you know that is a big element of ball striking. That will play well at Wistling Straits. But when the win blows, in theory, it should help the teams, the guys can hit it the furthest and can control their ball in the win the best. But also, the European players are usually just better playing in the elements.

So I don't know how it's going to actually apply. It's probably over analyzing it, but it's not just like a dome. We're not playing it a dome, which would suit the US team a lot better. Totally. And I mean, Patrick, it was kind of a bit, you know, for the press conference,

but like, Patrick's face kept lighting up. Like it was miserable on the media day. Like it's pouring rain. Yeah. 50 degrees, maybe less, and just like, just gross outside. And everybody kind of kept bringing up like the weather. And like I said, it's kind of a kind of a guy. That's like an Irish summer day.

Yeah, but Patrick is like, he's kind of glowing about like, yeah, if it's like this, like cool, by all means, like let's do it. So, oh, we did have a one last thing. We had a little challenge at Wisconsin. I was going to say, did you find it to be a long golf course? It was from the back tees in the rain and the wind, hitting three woods into three of the last four holes.

We put, yeah, I did. I thought it pretty lengthy. So we have a week-long competition going where we're trying to, you know, basically we didn't know what we were going to get for interviews and stuff So we got to have some sort of lowest common denominator So we'll have a little, well a little contest going between the two of us for the week And so we're trying to come up with we obviously can't play four sums or four ball with one person So we're trying to come up with all these stupid formats

And so the first one was we got to whistling straights We're kind of sitting in the parking lot and we're both like, we play so much golf together that like what we don't wanna do is just go have like a match where it's like, you give me eight shots and we'll see who wins. So we're looking at this course rating and stuff and we're like, well, theoretically it's 10 shots harder. 11.

11 shots harder from the back tee than the red tee. So like, why don't I just play the back, sorry, why don't he just play the back tee and I'll play the red tee and we'll see how it shakes out So no strokes. So we did that at Wistling Straits No spoilers on how that went But it was very very very interesting. We threw the hypothetical pull out on Twitter and 80% voted that you would beat me very cool. Very cool to get such a high voter turnout, especially Wisconsin That's Very cool to get such a high voter turnout, especially in Wisconsin. But that's another topic.

But we're gonna do it. So what we did at Hazeltean, what do we do? Oh, we had two man scramble. Yeah. Or sorry, two ball scramble. So each person scrambles with themselves, which I had never done for some reason, that was very fun. And then we gotta figure out two other formats for Medina and Valhalla to wrap it up.

And then we're not going to share what the stakes are, but the loser... The stakes are significant. The loser has to do something that's not fun. And I was getting very buttered. You know, at one point yesterday with things going well, I'm like, oh my god, I'm going to have to do this. Like, I need to figure this out, I need to blah, blah. And yeah, so that'll be farther down the road

when we ever get to editing these videos. But for now, let's get on the road and we say it to Medina. And yeah. Last question. Yeah. Lay out the case for why they should play it every year. Oh, they should just play it every year.

We're sitting here talking about it. Like, I thought about this as we gathered at Wising Straits for a year to go until this event. Like, we should just play the event. How much better would it be if we were playing the event? And I don't, I understand somewhat the argument of like, yeah, it's more special when it's every two years. And I would say to that, okay, fine,

let's play the masters every two years. It'll be bigger. It'll be talked about bigger. Let's just's play the masters every two years. It'll be bigger. It'll be talked about bigger. Like, let's just do the US Open every two years. Why not? It's only been every two years because of, you know, that's how it's how it's always been. If you started the event now, like, no freaking way would you do it every two years? It's such a huge money maker. European tour from what I've gathered, like, loses money for three straight years and then has a

rider cup, a home rider cup year, and then loses money for three straight years and then has a writer cup, a home writer cup year, and then loses money for three straight years and has a home writer cup year. It's financially, it makes a ton of sense for everyone except for the PGA tour, probably. And the fact that you only get one in home soil every four years, and it's for three days of competition, it just, it doesn't seem like enough.

And I know that people argue that that's what makes it special But man it'd be cool to be have a home one every two years and be talking about it every single year about who's you know Who's favored and then when somebody runs off foreign or row? It doesn't feel as like if you win four radicups in a row You go eight years in between like there's a reason why the US overreacts every time we lose because you have so much time to sit around and think about it Which is kind of sick, but again, as I'm saying that, I'm like, yeah, I probably this is my best argument. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to say it.

The exact opposite of everything you said. Exactly. Nobody, I don't get a lot of support on this one, but I don't. Here's my only thing is your master's is a stupid argument. No, it's a great argument. That's actually my best argument. It's a very stupid argument. It's not as the right or cup is a completely different format. Of course it is. Then the masters. You don't play... How many arguments are like, oh it makes it more special.

That's the retort to that. Oh, it's more special if it's every other year. It's like, okay, no. The masters in that theory, masters would be more special. Let me finish. No. This is a debate. This is a debate.

I'm going to scream over the other person. No, it's like the masters is the same as the rest of the schedule. Like you play 72 whole stroke play events every year. Like that. And that's boring. And it's the best one. So you play it. Right. You played every year. That's exactly the point though. It's boring. Like 72 whole events all year are boring. Give me the team event that we look forward to. What are you talking about? We have a team event every year. Don't you say it? No, what I'm saying though is like, I don't know. My biggest...

Oh, I'm gonna see you. I'm not. I'm gonna see you. I'm literally not gonna change my mind. You're just not open to new ideas. I think that my biggest argument is... This really is a new idea. Well, you know what I'm saying. You're not open to having your mind changed.

So, and neither am I. But I think that the only other argument would be like the Olympics. If you did the Olympics every year, it would be a fucking train wreck. It would be a big production that nobody would want to watch every year because it would be too overwhelming. Buh-buh-buh. And the reason it's so cool and the World Cup is another example. Like, let's go, oh my God, the World Cup is the most successful thing.

Let's go play it every year. That's not what would be your return. I see where you're going. I do have different retorts in the Olympics and the World Cup are logistically way different than a rider. We just got done saying, we're talking about one week of that.

Yeah. World Cup is spread out over a month. All different places across a country. The Olympics is kind of the same way around a city. And it's like a three and a half week thing, and it's all these different sports. We're talking about one sport. We're talking about one event in one little squared off little field. I guess not, that's not the comparison, I don't think, I really don't.

I think you're just being an instant gratification millennial, and you can't, you can't. That's fine, I'll take that. You have no patience, your phone is ruined all your patience. You got it. You can't wait for anything, you can't let it simmer, you can't let the anticipation fine, I'll take that. You have no patience. Your phone is ruined all your patience. You got it. You can't wait for anything. You can't let it simmer. You can't let the anticipation build. Gotta have it now.

Why not go every four years with a rider, Cup then? Sure. That's fine. No, you don't want that. You're just saying. You don't want that. If, like, I'm not a huge traditionalist, but like, if that's how it had always been,

I would say, okay, cool. That's fine. That's just, that's the exact opposite. This is the one I learned in accounting. Well, don't just do it the year, because the way we've always done it is not the best way going forward. What's the, okay, what's the upside,

I don't know, I need to think about this, because I know what you mean by that, like you don't wanna be stuck in like, you know, in a rut, a rut way of thinking. Like, I of course get that. But I don't get the upside is what, like the PGM America, like makes more money, like I, whatever. I don't care.

But that's what I think. I don't know. I don't know. I'm saying the interest would be there. Like the PGM, like the, like the interest tour and the PGM. So it's already there, though. I've already answered a lot of questions.

It's like, why doesn't this happen? It's always money, right? In this scenario that I'm proposing, everyone is making more money. Exactly. The PJ tour. Exactly. Which is why it won't happen.

Can they block it? Can they stop it from happening? I don't know. I don't think they could. So imagine how much it would lose in this scenario. The PJ tour. Right, but like, they're not involved in this. So fans win, right?

Players who want to do this. And the PJ of America and the European tour would want to right? It seems like it you the only rescued run is like over saturation Which I agree like it wouldn't be a thing like everybody would get up to watch it every year And like of course to your point like if it was on right now like of course I would watch it and I'd love to watch it But I also really like the anticipation and And I really like the long buildup. It means more, it means fans are louder on the first tee and it means like, I know you can't measure any of this stuff

and I'm just like speaking in cliches but I do believe that that is true. Okay. I respectfully disagree with your wrong opinion. Also it doesn't matter. We can't do anything about it. The goal is to talk about this so much that like somebody would be able to to bully them into doing it every day. Maybe we should think about this

So yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen for a while. We're gonna wrap it at that We're gonna hit the road to Medina and hopefully uncover some more stories there Thank you for tuning into the writer cup one year out podcast. We have a lot more to come on the writer cup Thanks to BMW We have a lot of come so a big shout out to them That's kind of the reason that we're able to do this stuff. I think we talk a lot about, we talk a lot about partners adding to what it is that we do

and enabling us to do more stuff. And I think this is the perfect example. Without having a partnership with BMW, without having like good leadership there and good vision there, like we literally can't do stuff like this. And so what we're gonna do, like today I'm not being hyperbolic.

Today's one of my favorite days we've had at an oling up, like listening to stories and gathering interviews and like doing all the stuff that we never possibly, like would have foot the bill on our own to like to go do. And BMW being a global partner of the Ryder Cup, that was kind of their point was like,

hey, there's so many cool stories out there that don't get told or that don't get shined on. And so like, you know, once you guys go do Hood Ratch shit, you know, $100,000 car around the Midwest for a few days. And you know, who are we to say no to that? So well, it's the goal again is like you might hear the sentence like oh yeah We talked like the tournament director and the head pro here and one of the members here about the event And you might be like okay, that's pretty boring, but that's exactly the point is like no

No, there's stories out there like you probably haven't heard and then like the little things that are said in the locker room and Little moments that Man, it's I'm excited to tell him everyone that listen to this knows how passionate I am about this about this event and we're gonna do a lot more stuff like this throughout the course of the year leading up to it because it is that big of a deal now and if they better do that if it was every year and if they played it every year we wouldn't have had time to go do this all right that is officially a wrap let's let's have some lunch get in the car and thank you for tuning in cheers later

months getting the car and thank you for tuning in. Cheers! Better than most.