No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 271: Sony Recap, Reed's Cease and Desist, Trinity, & Handicaps

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

Cam Smith wins the Sony, Brendan Steele gets relief, the Korn Ferry is mic'd up, and a lot else as we recap a fun week in golf. We also discuss Patrick Reed's bizarre cease and desist, the AT&T moves on from Trinity Forest, and Charlie Woods makes the news cycle. We also chat with Lee Rainwater from the USGA on the new World Handicap System, the challenges of it, and the thought process on the changes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most! Thank you. Thank you. Expect anything different! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast.

We are here in the new podcast studio in the Kill House. I put together mostly by Mr. Icarito sitting across the table from us. Hello. Hello. I had some subcontracting from DJ P Pie who's also here with us. Yeah, didn't get paid for the subcontractor work, but we can we can talk about that later. That's that's it. That's it. That's it. It's that's it. It's that's it. It's that's that's 30 contract. It's all the same. All the time.

It's that up with the CFO. Yeah. Come on. Let's take that offline. Yeah. What basically uh, solid move down. So we just turn his room into the studio. Very quickly. I may add. I just I came back from Christmas break and it's awesome. I love it. We're gonna be tearing this place up. It's a reverse shut in the studio, Dan. What should we call it the cruise nest? It opens, it's the bros nest, the bros nest.

Excuse me. All right, we're gonna talk, this is two weeks in a row that we were kinda like, man, what do we, what am I gonna talk about with this week's tournament and then just got thrown, the content, the content gods came, they were a little late to the party, but they came and threw us a bone there at the very end.

With a wild finish, Brendan Steele, I don't know what you call what just happened, really, with Ryan Palmer and Brendan Steele on the last hole. And Cam Smith has won the Sony Open before we get too far without mentioning that, which is awesome. I think I know what I'd call. I'd call it an nickname. Yeah.

Somebody tweeted and said they had to call the C suite on the 17th hole. Got stalled out. I was having a little bit of PTSD. I felt like I was a Pacific Grove all over again. Yeah, for such a cloudy day, to get someone burn up in the sun like that is a very rare situation.

I feel bad for him. I did, a lot of times, for Brennan's steel. Yeah, for Brennan's steel. When guys eject like that, it's fun, but he does seem like one of the nicest guys on the board. Great guy, not exciting and not, you know, I'm not outwardly rooting for him.

I'm thrilled it came. I have a feeling he'd be one of the guys that like, if we heard an interview with him or heard, like, I don't, like almost nothing about him, which is my own own fault like I could have reached out to him for a podcast and could have learned a lot more about him but we probably wrote for him that's what all fans should do if you want to know more about a player you should reach out to them maybe they come up with that now yeah I'd like to do you want down a little Wikipedia well I see the only thing I know about him like that's what happens like we make fun of we make fun of the broadcast a lot for like leaning on one thing. And I have the same, you know, kind of, uh, just like visceral reaction when you see somebody,

it's like, oh, yeah, I remember like four years ago, he played an pro and with a guy from Lincoln Park. So and they bonded and that just kind of colors your whole, your whole thinking about a guy for better or worse. But yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to fill in the picture a little bit more on on Brennan's Hill. Where's he from? I don't want California. Uh, I was reading, in the picture a little bit more on Brennan's list. Where is he from? I don't Wild California. I was reading a little bit about his interview. His, that's wild, man. That's, that's idle wild, man.

That is wild. Yeah, grew up in LA, I think, and his dad moved away. We don't have to go down a whole Brennan steel biography. Can we, I think it's topical though. Yeah. I mean, the guy just, yeah, that's very topical. Well, that was kind of the end of himself on fire. You know, idle wild's very small town. He grew that was kind of the end of himself on fire. You know, I don't wilds very small town.

He grew up there kind of driving like 30 minutes to the golf course. Very dedicated parents. He was talking about it in his interview on Saturday. I don't know. Yeah, can we, can we agree? We're not, we're very happy that he did not win the tournament by getting an unbelievable free relief on the 18th hole out of hitting, after hitting it out of the stadium.

For sure. Okay. Yeah, I totally... What should the rule not be? Hold on, all three of us were not paying attention until he hit that shot and the protracer came on and it was like, oh no! See ya, dick, no!

What should the punishment be for that? Like, I don't think we should... Well, on the last theory, he should play it over the grandstand, of course. That would be if we're going to prioritize what I would like to see. And none of what I would like to see makes competitive sense. So let me preface it with that.

I don't actually necessarily think this from a competitive standpoint. But as a viewer, I would have loved to have seen him try to find a gap in the tree over the grandstand and try to get up and down to win. That would be so. Wouldn't the fear of having to do that make them play some of these, I don't think he's aiming left.

He wasn't trying to do that. Like I'm not saying that, but it would make you play differently if like the, if it was a hazard, if the bleachers are like representing the boundary of the whole. It should be a penalty area. I don't think it's OB. Like you're, you're arguing for OB. I think it should be the mega unplayable, where if you don't, if you can't see the whole

and you wanna move it, you can go to the closest point of site relief. So it could be 500 club lengths away, but you're gonna get a penalty for it. So it's not just one club length, right? It's not just a regular unplayable, or you can play the ball too much. I like this, if you're backed up against it

and you're still within the arena, that's not a penalty. That is like, you get free relief from the grandstands. Hands up to ground row double. Yes, yeah. But if you leave the stadium, and if you want relief

between the bleacher and the hole, that should be a one-shot penalty. Yes, absolutely. I would be like a... I would be on board. Almost like imaginary lines coming back from where you can't see it. And so like if you're moving it

because you can't see the whole or say you hit it off the top of the tent and it fell down. Hypothetically. Hypothetically. Off the top of the tent. No, it rolls down the back. You know, because the guy gets pinned up to it or whatever.

But if you're behind it, I'm with you. Then you've created your own penalty area. Don't hit it there. You put yourself in jail. And then, but we'll give you a fair point of relief for that. Not we, the powers that be will. I'm way on board with that,

because it just, somebody's, it's so scummy, it's so scummy. He took it, and then you were saying to me, like how do we know that his nearest point of relief wasn't behind that tree? It's like directly in front of the tree with a clear path. And it's just such a guesstimation.

It's like, yeah, I guess right here, it's like a hundred yards away though. He had a T in the ground like to mark path. Yeah. And it's just such a guesstimation. It's like, yeah, I guess right here, it's like 100 yards away though. He had a T in the ground like to mark where he's going to drop it. But honestly, like my instinct for a second was like, oh my God, don't let him tee it up. They're bringing out a mat. Yeah, he can't get it up. Put it on a T. It just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem right that he like should, that there's no real risk for that shot.

Brennan, this is going to be a tough lie. We're going to give you one of those diamond face wedges to see you really put some spin on the ball because you shouldn't be over here. This is not- That was one of still my biggest disappointments in life because all I wanted is a kid was a pure face diamond face a pure face diamond face scoring wedge.

That was the most like infomercial, the difference in how it looked on TV versus how it looked in person. Did you get one? No. No, I finally saw one. And it's supposedly like it. It's like sandpaper faces, not really diamond.

So you're saying you don't want a square strike? I did not say that. Different. To the different games. To the different games. To my mouth. Do not. Shout out to Jack's native, a Jacksonville Beach regular.

I would say the first. He's been there once. Probably the first participant in the Jack's Beach Thursday game to win on the PGA tour. I would have. As far as I know. But DJ has a bone to pick with him. I do.

Yeah. He's a bull bean guy. He is a bull bean guy. We don't have to give him that. Bull bean like it's coffee. It's a coffee shop. It's a coffee shop. Yeah, the coffee shop wars have kind of escalated and.

And with the Jack's Beach. It's the best coffee in town for sure. And the Aussies seem to take and the Aussies really, they put a lot of priority on that. They're on the vibes. It's very sterile. It's very like, you feel like Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, going in there. It's like going into a hospital. It's all like white, very sterile.

Anyways, but the coffee is probably the best. So it's a tough call. Can you, can either of the two of you imagine hitting the shot that Ryan Palmer hit into the last hole and not taking a professional, not playing a professional? I thought you were. I didn't know there was a second after that. No, I would have. You picture hit shot. Yeah. Yes.

Well, for sure. It would have been an Irish job. Yeah, just job anywhere. There's play a lateral. Yeah. We play lateral. You're done this whole. I was thinking about this. Maybe he didn't see, he was kind of tucked over there.

Maybe he didn't see it bounce 70 feet. I mean, all that in the park in our hurry. Here's the question. If he was getting ready, I guess if he would have played a provisional, could he have raked before he did it? That's the question I'm asking. I don't know. Maybe that's the reason why he didn't.

He's like, oh yeah, let's rake it. And then, oh, let's go back and then play. I think you get to simulate the lie, right? Or do you drop it? I think you recreate it. Is it a new, is it part of the new rules this year that you can drop in a bunker? Or has it always been that way? Oh, man, if you got a replay.

If you go a B, if you have to replay the shot, you have to. There's a new rule about dropping from a bunker. You can take it on playable from a bunker. Two-shot penalty. Okay. I played behind it on playable from a bunker. Two shot penalty. You can play behind it, which for some reason I thought, I don't know why you can't do that. Sometimes I thought you couldn't drop in a hazard, now a penalty area, but like,

because a bunker would count as technically, it's a, it's not a penalty area. It's not a penalty area, but it's a hazard, right? There's those things that hazard anymore. Any more, but before. So that's why I thought you couldn't drop in a bunker. Well, if you had to, yeah, if you'd taken on playable, you would have to still drop in the bunker.

Yeah. Okay. The new rule is you don't have, you can drop outside of it for the two-shot penalty. We can take this block. Yeah. Okay. No, I think it's top of all. I mean, we're like, talking about the drop. Uh-huh. But this did lead to

Brennan's deal getting absolutely iced. Like, imagine, like like it's for us It's all sport like imagine for him like trying to win a PJ tour event It's like that's from saying straight up 40 minutes to play the lights. Yeah, and like yeah You like factors outside of your control lead to you having to sit there and wait in the rain And he's talked about how he didn't like playing in the rain. He's a California boy I sympathize with this with my moisture issues Glandular issues. He made it to not being a mother.

Yeah. And came to a dog. Yeah, but excited for Kansmith, that was impressive birdie on 18. And he could have birdied 10 if he wanted to, I think. Yeah, I think he was just kind of the laggy boy on the plan. But still did step up on 18 after waiting. They had the shot like the hit a great drive. Hit an awesome drive.

Yeah, that's what was, I was like, oh man, he's just gonna, you know, but that's a tough one with an iron in hand. I was good. No, that's that's pretty bad. That was not good. The one thing I want to say about Cam Smith that I thought was interesting. I think it was the three of us were talking on one of the president's cup preview pods about, you know, seeing some of these people

that you, they're on the PJ tour week to week, but you don't really have a reason to root for them necessarily. I think Cam Smith probably made a lot of fans at the president's cup. And so I think this win probably means a little bit more to people watching. You know, I still don't know how many people are watching. It's 11 o'clock here on the East Coast, and you've got the NFL football games and all that stuff. But I felt at least a little more connection to Cam Smith just from watching him at the Presence Cup, watching him beat JT, watching, hearing some of his comments.

Let's get him on the pod. He needs to get him. For sure. But you know what I mean though? I think he has more context to his career now, which I think people bash the president's cup a lot for good reason, a lot for bad reason, but I think that is one positive we can take from it,

is that it does provide some moments like that. Similar for Sung Jae-M is on the later board and all of a sudden I'm like, oh God, I hope that guy wins. Like he's a fucking menace. Like that would be cool to see all of a sudden. Whereas this time last year, I don't really care. I think also the way... So I think Capca kind of went through this.

Yeah. I love like, oh, I don't have to do an impersonation of a PGA tour player. I can be myself. Oh, that actually made some... Like, that made some waves in the tour. So I'm gonna keep talking. I'm gonna keep doing stuff.

I hope Cam Smith continues to do that. Because he's like 25th in the world coming into today. Yeah. Like he's now going, I would assume in the top 20 in the world. I don't know if he's 25th in the world. I think I made that up. As of like nine months ago or say the last year, he's 54. He's seen Patrick is also diminutive smaller guy that is 25.

You're thinking of Ricky Fowler. Okay. Yeah. So he's been very like intriguing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you've seen him's been very like intriguing. Okay, yeah. You've seen him show up on the way.

What's that guy's doing? Yeah, you know, he was wearing the, like, the, you know, guardian penguin logo. You're like, yeah, man, like he's different, you know. And then, but he seems like he's got some swag. And, well, one thing I noticed too, watching the past two days is, when he addresses the ball and we take his, like,

pre-shot, like, little club back move, you're like, oh man, this is, like, it looks like it's right there. And then he goes, gets to the top and we take his like pre-shot, like little club back move. You're like, oh man, this is like, it looks like it's right there. And then he goes, gets to the top and you're like, and then he just like loses it across the line and there's wrist of something weird. You're like, whoa, it's like out of nowhere. It's like, yes, yes, yes, yes.

No, no, no, yes. And then I'm like, no way that ball went straight. And it's just like, boom, 300 right down the middle. So I say that because that makes me want to keep watching. I'm like, wow, how do you pull that off? He's got a unique swing. And I think there needs to be more of that. Yeah.

I say we did get him on the pod. He actually was on the pod back in the, when we went to the players in 2017. And we didn't even have microphones. And we were doing podcasts. And the tour was going to help us bring some rookies in. But we had no idea who was getting ready to walk through the door.

And we were not doing this full time at that point. There was a very good chance that we would not recognize the person that walked in the door. We honestly did, Michael Kim came in, and thank, I think one of the tour officials was like, did you win the junior players? Oh, very cool, little buddy. Yeah, cool, what's your deal, man?

One of the tour officials was like, all right, here comes Michael and we were like, that's a shame. He won the fifth major. Not yet. Oh, that's true. Well, he would go, you should sense that those things are coming.

When you're in the aura of a major winner, you should have seen that coming. So, all right, before we moved, there's a lot of time. Was that the blog cabin? That was blog cabin. A bunch of Michael of Ultras over. Capca brought over. I think it was a Michael of Ultra gathered. We, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, we, uh, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, shooting the good round with the new Odyssey Stroke Lab 10 putter in the bag. Did you not? Did you let's share about it? Sure, for all intents and purposes, sure.

It's a bit. Come on, it's a bit. Listen, you won't shut up about it. For the purposes of this, I've already done it. Definitely, we listen to the pod. I did have 26 putts with it this weekend. Really? That was a good.

I thought so. Brennan Grace had 22 putts with an an Odyssey 2 on Atlanta, complete with the Stroke Lab technology, the same technology that is in the Stroke Lab 10 that I'm using. In route to shooting 62 to win the South African Open on the European tour, I don't understand what 22 puts. I don't understand that. He made like a 20 footer to win on 18. I saw that highlight today.

A win on home soil. He said, I can't remember the last time the putter. It was that hot. He also had some of our personal favorites in the bag. He had the new jaws wedges. And then on the PGA tour, while he didn't win, Kizner putted great with his Odyssey number seven, a shape used by Zander last week

to nearly take home the win. So hot start for Odyssey putters. Haven't been able to grab the wins on the PGA tour. But for more on graces, Odyssey, Tulan, Atlanta or Kizner's number seven putter. Or my new personal favorite, the Stroke Lab 10, visit Odyssey Golf dot com. It's Odyssey Golf dot com. I don't think they have. Are you listed on there? I don't think so. I'd have to check it. I don't know. I sent over. Click here to expand. Read more about Chris. You know what I like to check it. I don't know. I sent over here to expand and read more about Chris all of it. You know what I like to shout out to Lawn is that they named the

center chapter of the 70s. Oh, sorry. Okay. They named the putter's upper cities like the Atlanta, the end of the Las Vegas. Yeah. I'd like to understand like why they decided on the city name. Well, you're from a specific. You're from a land. That's what I'm wondering. So what, I don't. Well, what are the characteristics? You know, how would you sum up your home city? I'd say a good amount of sprawl, a satellite of the north in the south. It's a transplant city. I would say that. What are the factors we can put into a putter?

No, let me say this. It's a city built on transportation. First it was the river, then it was the railroad, then it was the highways, and now it's the airport. Biggest airport in the country. Okay. Can't go through the south. Again, I don't know how we just still this down in the butter.

You asked me to describe my city. In the context of why you would make a putter. I don't know. That's why I want to talk to big and sprawling. We can use that. We can use that. It's a big putter. Is it though?

I don't know what it looks like. I don't know. We're off the rails. Can you guys explain stroke lab technology? Because I didn't really know it until I tried this putter. Like, you can't. It takes a lot of the shake out of me. Yeah, you can't open the face.

You have to work to open the face. It's actually been pretty sick. Really? Yeah, once you get going with it, it's been kind of scary. I'm just kind of pointing it at number 10 specifically. Or that's the one I've liked the most. And it is a putter shape that I would normally hate. Like, when I picked it up, I'm like, I'm not doing this.

I literally put it in the bag to like flirt with one, like it for a second, then hate it, and then go back to my room. Just a second. Just to refresh. Just to see how it feels. Exactly, just a tip. It's all I was gonna do with it, and I am in love. I'm playing my first tournament tomorrow. That's a lot of time.

Do you know how many days of the tournament is? Did you like it? It's two days, I got playing my first tournament tomorrow. That's how it's been. Well, good luck by the time. Do you know how many days of the tournament is? Did you look at all these things? Ah! It's two days, I got a hotel room this time. Huge. To make sure that doesn't happen again. How far has the drive?

Did you work that out with the CFO? It's not that far, you could probably drive it. Oh, do I get the charges? I personally paid for it. If I can charge it. Oh, no, Ryan, you could do it. Oh, that's a good idea. I'll send Ryan to the bill for that.

It's a fair field in, it's not expensive. All right, back to this week. Speaking of good putters, cam's fun to watch putt. He is very good putter. Third this week, Stroke's game puttingt, that seems like his calling card. They went to the worm cam a couple extra times today. That is so much more fun to watch putts from the worm cam than it is. And they did it a little bit in the corn fairy tour. We're going to talk some of the corn fairy what they did with that this past Sunday. Cam'm gonna, like, not quite the same size break is Brennan Steel dropping from Hades where he hit it,

but God, Brennan Steel's put on 18th his birdie putt, like almost went directly over Camsmark. Like he had the exact, there was no fucking way, he was gonna miss that part. So, you know, so it's all about the brakes. They they could do so much better With this is all the coverage we're going to do like explaining grain and like how much grain affects like that Put if you we saw Britain's deals put go by on the right and the first thing I looked for was like the burnt edge of the

Grandly okay the grain takes it that way So knowing that like they could have mentioned some of that if they had seen it and knowing that I'm like Oh, can better borrow enough from the left because I don't think there's much slope there. It's all green taking it right. And as soon as his putt started outside on the left, I'm like, boom, that's cash. So sure enough, sure enough. The warm Cam showed you that's going to, we're going to get to even more putting stuff

really that cornberry. But can we pretend? But can we pretend it landed greenie? Where's the green stop? No, I don't think they are. But I don't know. There's plenty of Bermuda in it, really. Yeah, okay.

Sure. I'm gonna need a fish big. Why are you gonna put me on the spot? No, I'm just out of lightening on fire. A lot of people come down to the South and don't play on Bermuda a lot. And it's tough. The bitch about it, you have to embrace it on the face.

Oh, yeah. And now I prefer putting Bermuda over at regular ground. I think it was... this is like my favorite quote of the last couple of years, and I sure I've mentioned it before, but Xander was talking one time about, I think he was talking about putting on Poana and basically said like putting, or Poana is an attitude grass.

Like if you have an attitude that you're gonna make putts, you make putts. If you have an attitude that you're gonna get boneed up, like you're gonna miss putts. And I think Bermuda is very similar. At least that felt very similar with putting on Poa, but I put Bermuda now and I prefer it over like pass pal We were out. Yeah, the kids were out in California finding themselves the password and just I didn't make it couldn't make any But see I'm a bunch of pots. Well, you have a great attitude. I do. I'm very positive

You're not a southern boy either. You know, you're not putting on Bermuda every week True, that's true I'm a very positive. You're not a Southern boy either. You're not putting number of mute every week. True. That's true. And so what's your point there? Like that's helping. You can put a poet better than we could. Because it's a bigger change for you. I would say so.

Or am I just think? Or you might not be using the stroke. Well you were also complaining to me about your putting stroke. That's true. That could be part of it. That attitude. You know how we could fix that? Yeah your putting stroke. That's true. That could be part of it. Bad attitude. You know how we could take that attitude? Yeah, bad attitude.

That's an attitude. Yeah, for sure. Stroke lab technology will take care of that. All right. I can't believe we made it this far without discussing this. And it kind of like, it hit big this week and then has started die off by the time we go to record this. Patrick Reed sent Brain or Shamble.

He has seasoned to six. Where's he going? Hell yes. He's a seasoned to six. Hell yes. You and to see where he goes. How long? The SEC says, hell yes. You want to give us a couple of the highlights? The, this was shared exclusive for golf week in Aiman Lynch. The communication that was sent towards brain or shambles, was, I don't know what you're saying.

The purpose of this letter is to obtain assurance that you will refrain from any further dissemination publication or republication of false and defamatory statements concerning Mr. Reed, including any allegations that he cheated at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Wrote Peter Ginsburg, a partner at the New York City Law firm of Sullivan and Warchister. Warchister. They make Warchister sauce. This is of course the same gentleman who represented Ray Rice, so we know it's come.

Also famously misunderstood. Maybe, Ray Rice. Maybe the con. All somebody else who got caught on camera. Somebody else, yeah, which is they can stuff out the footage. These guys must be experts in denying a video. Horrible camera angle. Horrible camera.

Horrible. Also got hit's a bad camera angle. Horrible camera angle. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera.

Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera.

Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. Horrible camera. a two-stroke penalty. Also, we have no evidence that that's true. Anyways, Ginsburg wrote, everyone involved agrees that Mr. Reed acted unintentionally and the tape of the incident fully supports that conclusion. Really. Also quite debatable statement. Brandel responded to golf week and Mr. Amin. Well, as a brandel, I could just picture, like he's obviously, you know, buddies with Amin, not that, you know, Amin did anything wrong in his reporting, you know, buddies with Aiman, not that Aiman did anything wrong in his reporting,

but they're obviously buddies. I could see Brando, I just pictured him like a stand-up comedian, like just smoking a cigarette in front of the brick wall with the spotlight eye, like just throwing out these one-liners about Patrick Reed at his lawyer. It was like, it was the absolute best.

Well, this is clearly, I would have to know, assume that Brando knows that he's giving official savings to say men. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. But it literally reads, as I've been on record saying, Brando's like one of the best dinner guests to have in golf. This literally reads like something he would say at a dinner, which was, my first reaction

was that someone, as his reaction to getting a season to assist. My first reaction was that someone is so pissed at Patrick Reed that they went back and watched all the nice things I said about him when he won the Masters and it was demanding I cease and to cease saying nice things. Oh! Oh!

That's one ladder number one. As I read further, I got to the sentence that the tape fully supported him. I wondered how did Patrick Reed find the only lawyer in the world who didn't play golf? Oh! All right, folks. Hey, tip your butt, 10 minutes.

Oh! Shh! This is from Jody Balsum, a professor of sports law at Brooklyn Law School of the Attempt, by Reed's lawyer to silence public discourse about his client's tournament conduct is outrageous and not legally supportable. As someone who does not have a lot of agree,

I would have guessed that as well. As a public figure, and especially as an athlete, Reed assumes the risk of Frank and even Sensorius commentary about his performance and admitted rule-breaking. Nothing, Brando Schambley, said amounts to a fall statement effect, but falls within as well established an absolute right to express an opinion.

You left out the part where Brando said he felt like he was reading Finnegan's wake. What he was reading, the C.C. said to C an opinion. You left out the part where Brando said he felt like he was reading Finnegan's wake. When he was reading the Cicid to Cicid, the famously discombobulated James Joyce novel, which is a good flex by Brando who fancies himself quite a bibliophile. Literally mad. The only thing I wanna know is how much

did Sullivan and Borkschister make to write that letter? Like what are the billable hours that they got? This was sent on the money. What a money grab by the way. did Sullivan and Barchister make to write that letter. Like what are the billable hours that they got? This was sent on the money graph. Like, hey, you're 40 grade. You'll definitely get up to stop saying cheating, right? Yeah, for sure. Oh, there's definitely some legal precedent here.

Like, let us just, we'll just draft this up. We'll send it to you, then we'll do another draft. And this whole time, the clock's ticking, it's ticking. This was sent on day two of the president's cup matches. This was sent through the middle of the president's cut. Oh, so it was going back and forth like while he was prepping for the president's cut. You would think. I thought this had to do.

So it just came out this week. Yes. Okay, I thought he was, I thought he waited. I thought that's why I thought it was even funnier. I was like, wait, wait, like a month. I think the golf channel and Brando probably like sent this through legal and I was like, hey, can we make fun of this yet? Yeah, you're in first year.

For sure. So anyways, I'm talking to this guy. They sent it to Jody then, too. They got a second opinion at the Brooklyn Law School. This, so the fact that they tried to get to stop using the word cheated in it, now is like, oh, let's just say it five more times. Cheated, cheated, cheated, cheated.

Like, you know how much worse this makes everything? And what world was this the right move? Well, I think it's just, it kind of speaks to the bubble that golfers live in, right? Where it's like, in the world of golf, like cheating is like, that's against the rules. You cannot say that about a person. Like there's a code of gentlemanly conduct.

You have to adhere to, you cannot just throw that word around. This is absolutely defamatory. This is horrible. Whereas then you hear like the law professor from Brooklyn's like, yeah, no, you literally say anything you want. Nothing matters. Just do whatever. The only defent, let me play does like dude, like that, that's not how the world works. Let me devil's advocate for one second here in that there's two things that are a bit of precedent here. One, Patrick Reed has pushed the golf channel around before.

When the news was coming out around his cheating scandals and college and stuff, he leaned on them hard and basically was like, I'm not doing anything ever for you guys again, and then they went on the defense of him for all the allegations and gave him, like an interview with Todd Lewis and they just basically went to war for him.

So there's precedent there and that, I've leaned on the golf channel before and they've backed down. Two, Brando, I believe use, I don't know if it was the word Cavalier that he used with Tiger back in the day and they took some legal action of some kind of legal threatening stiny did

against Brando and the golf channel and he rescinded his comments and apologized for them. So. The other seward, Cavalier. Which is a good seward. A good synonym. Yes. So that's the only thing I'm thinking of, but I'm like, dude, also like to call what Tiger did Cavalier is very different than what he did. You know, I mean, like there's for sure. There was some, there was some a huge amount of gray area with

what happened with Tiger and the masters and this has been 2013, I believe. There was so much gray area with what happened there. A lot of people thought he should have with Ron, but that was purely opinionated. This was like, no, gee, we saw what happened on camera. We saw this and you can't get around it in this way. Him sending a season to assist, it made the Washington Post, it made CNN,

it made Sports Illustrator, it went everywhere. It's awesome. We were in the process. How do we put out this fire? I don't know, Jen made Sports Illustrator, like it went everywhere, like it's awesome. We were in the process. How do we put out this fire? I don't know, drive through some of that gas out of it. Yeah. Oh, it's just unbelievable. And then Sullivan and Worchester, now they get to be like,

okay, well, well, now what guys? It's only one way to make it go away. Well, now we have another answer, but it's gonna be like, it's gonna cost you. It's gonna cost you. It's the 80 more hours of work. Okay, let's do it. The golf guy won, asked, do you think that if Reed is heckled constantly and called a cheater at every tournament he plays in the first half of the year, it will be considered bullying

and the narrative will turn to sympathy for him? Honestly, I think he already has. Yeah, right? I totally agree. Well, you can have fully, but I'd say it started with the loud cheater call at the century at the tournament of champions last year. She was asked about claim he didn't hear. Which, I'd say like a minority of people now feel sympathy for him. I'd say every time that happens from here on out, a small piece of like amount of

people start to feel that way. I think you'll just start to wear on people where we like, all right, like I don't want people yelling in the backswing. You know what I'm saying? I think people just get exhausted with it. And then they'll naturally. I think people have a grossly inflated sense of how funny they are. And I think something like this will,

like they will. No, I don't think the shouting will stop. I'm saying the minority of people that feel bad for Patrick Reed will, I agree with the golf guy. Like I think that the shouting will stop. I'm saying the minority of people that feel bad for Patrick Reed will, I agree with the golf guy. Like I think that it will flip me. But not for me, it'll be more like just give it a rest. I think he's making more of the broadcasters.

He's making fun of like the broadcasters. Like how long before they turn this into like, oh man, this is so much adversity this week. And here is your quick and loans winner. Well, that's already started. I don't kind out. But Hazinger was already doing that. But they had a tough couple months it's been for. I think Hazinger was the one that was kind of like, I felt like he kind of stuck to his

guns a little bit. Honestly, like I love Dan Hick. I made my thought of it as a most of Dan Hick. Yeah. So that was, you know, long week and what he's dealt with. That's what he's dealt with. I thought I was saying. I was kind of stuck to his guns a little bit.

I could be wrong on that. He put as much, he was as inflammatory as you can be basically saying like, he better get this stuff right basically, which is a fair, fair comment. But do you, but do you think that like public perception will, will shift if people keep it up? Just because it'll be disruptive to the golf tournament. People will be like, all right, let's give it a rest now. No, no.

As mashed potatoes stopped over the last 15 years. No, but the majority of people have gotten sick of it, but they still do it. People still do it. Yeah, but I met out on this. It's like the guy who yelled Icarito at Riviera last year. It's the people's champion. Well, how long is the cooture tipping thing lasted?

It's literally mid of year, like to the date, almost. And that's not gone away. And cooture head is possibly more fun than ever. No marks, like almost literally no marks against him going into that. And that has lasted, and it will probably last forever. Reed has all the marks against him. And now that,

and people like don't feel any sympathy for him, I don't think this is going away. I gotta take. I gotta take. Ooh. The only way to make it go away would be to do something worse. Like off the course.

Like send a season to say this., he should try to control freedom of speed. He should do something. I don't know what it would be, but he should do something, something that doesn't have to do with like integrity of the game and cheating and all that stuff, but like is objectively like more shock and awe. He should do that. He should probably get in a like like drunk driving incident.

No, you know what? It's going to be like, then it could be like, all better options. No, no know what? It's gonna be like, oh, then it could be like, there's better options. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're just gonna have to rehab and then people love to come back. But you can't, yeah, but you can't, you can't, if he's gonna do,

like, oh, you can't put anybody's life in. You know, here's what's gonna happen. I'm picturing like the ranny moss like mooding thing. No. Like, you should do something like that. No, no, here's what's gonna have that's like, wow, what an asshole. Justine's gonna put a cheater anymore,

but he's an asshole. Justine's gonna put a brunette wig on, and rob a store, and Reed's gonna come in and save the cashier, and it's gonna be on video. There's gonna be three cameras in there. No bad angles. No. No bad camera angles.

No blind spots. I think, no, I think it's the rehab. If you look at all the celebrities, like look at Bieber, right? He goes, you know, he goes off the deep you look at all the celebrities, like, like look at Bieber, right? He goes, you know, he goes off the deep end. Everybody hates the guy and then he, you know, goes to rehab, finds God and he's, you know, oh, everybody loves to come back, man.

Yeah, Bieber's putting out hits. That's true. What if so, so then, reads back. He's like the best hands in the game. Yeah, he comes back from rehab. He's a really good golfer. And he wins another major.

And then everyone's like, oh man, look, he slays demons. Like yeah, he cheated, but that was all because of like the substances. I'm telling you, that's how the celebrities do it. If you had a good lawyer, that's what they would recommend. I think that's what Sullivan and Worcester are talking about. Well, there's a free legal advice. This is not considered legal advice. Please do not take this as a very, very hypothetical.

Yeah. All right, can we talk a little bit more about some other news that hit the airwaves? I believe on Saturday afternoon evening. The AT&T Byron Nelson is, it has been announced. I don't know who had it first, apologies, but it is. Dallas Morning News. Dallas Morning News has the AT&T. I saw a road something, Tim Kalascha, I saw a road something Tim Kalascha.

I saw he broke. Who I was like, oh, it's around the horn guy. I saw it covered two different ways. It was like, here's why it's going to Trinity Forest and why it's a good thing. But then also like, it's moving ways to Trinity Forest. Here's why. This was always a huge disaster.

This was never gonna work. This will be 2020 will be the last year that the AT&T has played at Trinity Forest. I'm not sure where it's moving to. I don't think there's anything beyond speculation. There's a lot of speculation about the Frisco thing, which I think is just people confused about the PGA of America and the PGA tour. Which I think is the thing.

I had to ask you guys if she is confusing. Which is confusing. For the casual fan. It is, but like people, I don't know. I was like, is there something I don't know? Like is there another course in Frisco? I can see making that mistake if you like literally never cover golf and only cover Dallas and I don't know a lot of people in their plies like frisco here

We come like you guys do know the difference between the pd and Maybe they know something we don't that's what I'm saying. I don't know if it's going back to lost cleaners I don't know what's gonna happen There's a lot of factors at play. I think all of us here can probably understand why it's moving and also also- Also great through some of those reasons. Well, for those that don't know. But at the same time,

you can also agree like this kind of sucks for some hardcore golf fans. A lot of us said, like Neil, you're more casual fan than us. You can tend to, if you want to- One is 100% with any of this, please butt in and feel free to. I don't know if you're bummed that it's moving.

I'm bummed that it's moving. The factors working against it are, this is the best I can describe it from people that are from Dallas and are close to the situation, is this tournament's in South Dallas, most of the potential audience for the events is north of the city, right? Near closer to where TPC lost Kalinas is. Again, huge factor

for PGA tour events as these kind of things. A lot, they've had trouble with the fundraising, the charitable fundraising for this event because of the location, they've had trouble with the parking. They've also been dealt like a pretty shitty hand last couple of years. They set up, was very questionable in year one. PJ Tormented rain. PJ Tormented rain. Much like they did it. Sony. Like a like a over the overwater the golf course won here, but they did. It's just really bad weather. It was last year was just like cold and unseasonally cold and not windy.

It's supposed to like the whole idea behind this golf course is supposed to be wide. It's supposed to be firm and it's the wind is supposed to blow. And there's a ton of elements for players to deal with. This was like really exciting for people that want to see a different form of golf on a week, than what we see on a PGA Tournament week to week basis. The art, like... So there's a big, before we go ahead, move past it.

There's a big downstream effect on the charitable fundraising stuff, because a lot of that stuff, I think, gets thrown out, willy-nilly, and just kinda, I've said this a bunch, but it can kind of wash over you. Like you hear PJ tour and charity and the same sentence and you just kind of like check out. And that's fair, I get why people would do that.

But also when you do dig into these things a little bit, like it's, we don't talk about it enough, like it is crazy how much money is raised by the PJ tour andJ tour events for charity. And when you start to look at the actual organizations that are affected by these tournaments, I mean, it's life changing if they don't hit their numbers. Right? So Sony, it was 25 million over the last 10 years.

Since Sony's been a sponsor, which is probably a lot longer, but two charities in Hawaii. Yeah, it's not.'s not just talked about it. And so I think that like to put it in perspective, and I hope I don't mess up these numbers, I'm sure I will, but I was reading something that they used to raise kind of on average like six million dollars. Is that the number you saw at lost cleanists before it moved? They're down three million. And they're dead. Yeah, and it was down half. So down to three million. And to put that in context, I think Schwab and the colonial team raised like 14 million this year or something like that. So that's a tournament that's 30 miles away and thriving.

And so I was reading some stuff and it was very sympathetic to these charities so they did a good job of kind of selling me on this idea. But I think it's the momentous institute is the chief beneficiary. And so imagine if like you have been used to getting $6 million every year and all of a sudden your budget goes down to $3 million. Totally. And it's like, I know you can get cynical about the tax exempt status and blah, blah, blah, and entertainment product and all that stuff is very true.

But when you really get down to brass tax, it's like, well, it's more important, like, raising $3 million more for this low-income education system or, like, with an angle. It's like 100%. All right. I completely get why you got to move it. It sucks, and I don't want it to happen, and I really enjoyed Trinity Forest, but I get it. And from a good tournament, logistic standpoint, it's like, you're probably hearing from people that go like,

man, I wish this was closer to home. Yeah, like where I go. Well, so that's closer. The regular's closer to, you know, people that have gone for years and years, like, oh, well now I'm not gonna go. And there's a better viewing at other courses. Like that, again, the whole thing nets out to me.

It's just like, it just is a bummer. Like because it's a lot of things that don't affect the viewer at home are the factors here. Again, all understandable. As much as we rail in the tour for the oversaturation of all the marketing, and it is a business. It comes down to dollars and cents. The way these things work in that the tour is a collection of really small companies

in quotes, really. Like each individual event is like a company. So it's not like the tour isn't coming up with a whole big, I'm saying like you can't be like, okay, this is the week we're gonna experiment. They're gonna do something different this week because it's like no, like AT&T, like sponsors this event. And you know, the salesmanship club

is in charge of all the fundraising. Like that is their year. Like that is what is going on for them. You can't just be like, hey, take one for the team here. And like, just because we're the tour and we wanna do something different, you guys have to pay the price for it. That's not fair to the people involved directly in that.

So that is why a lot of events look similar and end up being similar because people want to have views of what's happening. That's a formula. Very fair. It is. So that's all understandable, but it's also understandable that we as golf fans consider and say that kind of sucks.

The tournament didn't really have much of a chance. Either they were afraid the first year and just all everything we can say, we're going to be making 15 different points of this. It's all going to net back to. It's an entertainment product and the players have so much control now and there's so many big events and there's so much money, they have so much power to just say, I'm not gonna play that. Yeah. And like, yes, it is cool and fun and weird and quirky and challenging and different for the players to play it, but it's also super easy for players to say, okay, well, I'm not gonna play that, and they haven't been playing it. So it goes away. Like, that's just the reality of the situation.

I think another thing, we've talked about this with, this is not gonna be a broadcast take, don't we? We've talked about this with the broadcast, though, where it's like, man, we can make a lot of noise and we can talk about this, that, and the other thing, but the, it's really only gonna affect anything when it starts to hit someone's pocketbook. And for us, we are still granted a very vocal minority, but we're still totally in the

minority of how we enjoy golf tournaments, what we like to see, all of those things. And I think we would contend that given the chance to convince people or have people here are side of the argument, a lot more people would agree with us eventually But we're not at that point yet and so the reason I bring that up is with regards to fans And so I've never actually been to the Byron Nelson but talk to a million people who have been there and it's The identity that it has is almost like Almost like the players are almost like colonial actually on

Saturday where it's like the Friday of the Byron Nelson is the players are almost like colonial actually on Saturday where it's like the Friday of the Byron Nelson is the day of just like complete party, right? You go out, you drink a million beers, you go hang out in like North Dallas, right afterwards, you're like kind of downtown, like with that kind of vibe. And moving it away kind of like we've been to Trinity Forest, it's awesome, it's in the middle of like we've been in attorney forest, it's awesome. It's in the middle of like nowhere.

It's a landfill. It's a landfill. It's not to worry. It's hard as much as we are nerds about golf courses. It's a really cool golf course. Like everything outside the golf course is that it's not pretty. The trees aren't pretty.

There's no skyline views. There's no houses. Like it is just a weird setting. And so to the larger point I'm trying to make is the vast majority of fans are not going to take the time to listen to this podcast or other podcasts and really educate themselves on what makes the course different. It's just going to be, man, I know what it used to be and I know what it is now and it's not the same thing.

So let's go do something else. And you saw that in the attendance, you saw it in the fundraising, you saw it in all these things. And that sucks because it became kind of like, I thought like a really cool new identity for this tournament from the outsider perspective. And that's obviously going to go away. So I don't really know how you, I don't know where it kind of like goes from here and how they'll kind of revamp stuff, but I guess we'll see. So where I net out on this also is, for me, I'm a casual NFL viewer, okay? But I will, I was like, the chiefs and the Texans

were playing today and I was falling the squirrels, running some errands and I was all, is on CBS. And I was like, oh God, Romo is covering it today. Like I gotta get home and watch that. Cause every time I listen to Romo talk about football, he gives you something to look out for. When they're audible at the line of scrimmage, he is saying, the two safeties are leaning up here.

They're probably going to play action here or watch Edelman's gonna come in motion here. Like, he tells you something to watch out for and my eyes go from my phone to the screen, and I'm like anticipating something. And something like that in golf would suit Trinity for us so well, and that he needs to ride the left side here

because it is not possible to get to this pin from this blah, blah, blah. So I know what I'm looking for, and the way it's been presented on TV is T-Shot. Oh, yep, he's fine right there, and then it's just like, well, of course he's fine. It's an 80 yard wide fairway. And what also is contributed to it, though, is it just has not had the bite in the green, so the angles haven't mattered. And it's all, it all kind of works in one motion. And then I think we said this after the

after the Trinity event last year, it was like, that wasn't great viewing. Like it just wasn't. It hasn't worked for them yet. It sucks. And I can understand coming to this decision if the criteria is like, okay, it's gotta be dry leading up to it. We need the wind to blow. Also, we need more top players to show up than have been showing up. And blah, blah, blah.

And it needs to be presented well. And somehow the fans need to be able to see it really well. It doesn't set up very well for fan viewing. And it needs to be hot, but not too hot. The fan, like, if you need all those factors to go right, then the tournament shouldn't be there. And I can understand. I can come to terms with that.

But it just didn't feel like it got a really a fair shot. And I'm still bummed because it just is like more of golf moving towards this big business thing that I think we all know it's heading towards. Yeah, already there. And I think that it's a couple more things. I don't want it to, I don't, we're kind of making the same point over and over, but like, I hope it doesn't get painted as, like, well, the players bitched and then they, they

moved it because I don't think it's that simple. I think that was part of it, but I don't think that that would be fair to like a lot of people. That was going to be my question to you too. Do you think that, so it seemed like the main issue was the fundraising stuff and the fact that it's just not convenient for, you know, the people that have gone to this tournament for years and years that, you know, basically donate the money. Do you think that in the future, if there was a course in another city or another tournament

was looking for a new venue, can they separate the fact that, will they think outside the box about the architecture of a course and go there or will they bucket it in with like, oh no, we tried that at Trinity Forest. It didn't work out. I don't know. Do you know what I'm saying? That's question. That's what I'm most concerned.

Does this ruin it for a, you know, interesting course? Nope, that's not part of the formula. You know what I'm saying? I definitely know what you're saying. And I think it does. I think it's like, now there is a case point in study of a failure of going, like, yeah, it's an interesting course. It's wide.

It's supposed to play Furnable. Okay, well, they tried that at Trinity and it didn't work. Like, that's not a good argument. Yeah, but it's almost like the more you dig into it, it's like, it didn't work more because of the course's location, not because of it. Yeah, but I don't think people go to that next slide. I don't know.

Exactly. They'll just bucket it together. Like, now we don't want to do that. Yeah, a lot of this has to go to that next slide. Exactly. They'll just bucket together. Like, we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. Yeah, a lot of this has to go right. That's what I was going to say. That was going to be the other point I was going to make was like, I think if you were going to do it, it almost needs to be, it needs to be like a 20 year project, right?

Because you need like, you almost need to like win, you need like, take some early losses. Right? Like, this is all me spending somebody else's money, which is going to be the ultimate point I'm going to get through here. You need to take early losses and have some way subsidize all the charity that you're losing out on so that everybody kind of stays happy. Then you'd have to basically win over the telecast and have everybody else talking about how awesome this place is, hoping that that would drive more attendance, and how long would that take? Right, and so it's, again, that to me,

from a completely, for lack of a better term, purest golf fan perspective, feels like the way you should do things in the long term, but I also am not writing the checks, so I can't at all blame somebody for being like, yeah, we're not gonna make this a 20 year thing. We're just gonna follow the blueprint. And we'll have beer tents over here

and we'll have parking here and everybody be happy. This is gonna be the fans. This is gonna watch it on TV. But it's gonna sound like a big die-hard fan. The die-hard the tour. I'm not meaning this to be as big of a shot at the tour as prize gonna sound like, but also a big factor in this is counting on the tour to get it right with the setup.

And I don't trust them too. So in that regard, I'm like, okay, it's fine to move it away from here. Like I don't think you guys are gonna execute it, the way that it could and should be done. So like let's not try. I get it. Which is why on the flip side,

I'm in a weirdly praising mood tonight. But you also need to kind of give some golf collapse to the USGA for like trying this at places like Chambers Bay and Aaron Hills and places like that that were like completely much more outside the box places that were like, you know, no, this is not super convenient. This is not a great viewing perspective,

but like we think that the golf product is gonna be that much better. So we're like, you know, no, this is not super convenient. This is not a great viewing perspective, but like we think that the golf product is gonna be that much better, so we're gonna try it. And of course they got dicked up on some weather stuff as well, but I don't know, it's at least worth recognizing that they're giving it a shot because I think for someone like that, like the Byron Nelson people aren't gonna come out there

because it's the Byron Nelson, right? Like they'll come out there, which clearly, like that's what we're learning from this. They'll come out there because it's like a great party and their friends are going to be there and they've gone for 20 years. They will come to the US open, right? Like no matter where it is. And so I think that's one, you know, to your point, Neil, like is, does this just like doom every remote, interesting golf course in the world? Like I don't think so, but also the USA hasn't had a great, you know, great trade-hate or go into this,

like Ryder Cup and almost like more of the... Like Ryder Cup's another whole other animal because that's like even more important on fan experience and hotels and like, but they seem to go to like new places. Well, I just don't want this to end up being the death of like what I hate this, hate this labeling it all,

but like a woke golf. Go on. Like yeah, a woke golf wants this, so, well, this is the death of with an angle. It's like, all right, if you go up to a random person and ask him if they like with an angle, they, I wouldn't, I'm not gonna guess they're pro, they're gonna enthusiastically say,

oh yeah, like, oh, I love that. But I also think that if you went up and asked them, like, hey, did you enjoy watching grow a Melbourne, I'm gonna be like, oh God, yeah, that was awesome. That's the whole point, right? That was incredible. The point, I'm trying to make people connect those two dots.

Yes, and it's like, the whole thing gets labeled as this weird, you know, again, the woke with an angles thing, but it's really just, it's just about strategy. All it is about strategy. And like watching guys have to do to battle different strategic elements is, you know, and listen, Trinity Force is not real Melbourne. I'm not making that comparison, but there's like elements of the same kind of philosophy. It's also not TBC lost cleanist. It's not, you know. But I mean, again, like whatever they shot, 26 underlash, like that wasn't that exciting,

like because it just didn't play that way. I don't know. Can I make it really, really off topic? Of course. Every time I hear lost cleanist, I think of office space and Lawrence, his neighbor, he's like, yeah, I'm doing the drywall with air from New Mac Donald and lost cleanist. I think every time I hear it, it's like, yeah, I'm doing the drywall there for new McDonald's and lost cleaners. Like every time I hear it, I swear, it's the first thing I'm sorry. I had I couldn't say that man.

I died. I was bottled up inside of every time. Every time I get lost cleaners. One thing I didn't know irony. I wanted to point out here was golf week did a survey of tour players on who they would want to design a course for them. The winner of that survey was Bill Koran, Ben Krenshaw. How about that?

Yeah, two years in. Yeah, we're gone. Yeah, we tried. How about a, as good a time as any to give a in-moriom to Pete Dye, the absolute master of doing things at players, absolutely hate? No. Hopefully that spirit doesn't, doesn't go out with him. I was struggle with like putting into words

somebody significant in golf's career, like into a tweet, like golf Twitter loves to do, take it be very self serious on this. Make it about themselves. Well, yeah, but I wanted to say this in the point I'll make about that. When I played TPC, so I grabbed. Right.

Oh, cool. Well, one thing I want to say about dies, like I feel everyone, myself included probably, I'm just really in talking to like Bill Kor, about it really hit home to me of like, dies legacy is not just about the golf courses he built. It's, he literally like changed golf course design forever. And then he taught those guys so much.

No, look at his people. He taught them work for him. Exactly. Yeah. He taught them what worked for him. Exactly. He taught them so much of what to do and also what not to do. I mean that in kind of a weird way of like the way CORE does things is not the way Died did things

but he learned so much positive from him that he could make his own twist on a Died philosophy and make it more enjoyable for casual like Amon or golfers to play. So it's really his impact on golf is immeasurable. I mean, it's not like, and you don't have to play, to be die golf courses to know that.

I would almost say, I hope I'm not over over my architectural skis here, but I think that his impact was, it was felt so, I forget the words you just said, but like most influential, I almost think like positively and negatively. Like the people who didn't get what he was trying to do, I forget the words you just said, but most influential, I almost think positively and negatively. The people who didn't get what he was trying to do,

I think is where a lot of negative trends came from. Like a lot of people see Pete Dyga off courses, you know what I'm trying to say? I know, yes, great Norman. People see, yes, yeah, Norman was just wax and poetic about him on the corn fairy project. That's kind of what I mean is like, I think all the bad, the the hardest elements of Pete Dye

without like the nuance too, that's what Norman does. And that's what I think people look at, like TPC Sawgrass or Kioa or any of these places and they're like, oh gosh, it's so good, it's so hard. Looking at how hard it's so cool. It's like, well, yeah, but if you're playing the right T's, look at how much space he gave you.

And if you're a 25 handicap, like look at, you can hit it right here. And so he was kind of like this, T's, look at how much space he gave you. If you're a 25 handicap, like, look at, you can hit it right here. And so he was kind of like this, you know, it's what you're saying, like he was so good at giving you space, but also like giving you, attempting you to not use it. And so it's weird, he's almost like a very, I don't know, misunderstood,

it's kind of a grandiose. Well, I should've brought 90 on Pete die courses. Who is my thing? There it is, I know it not. I don't mean that as like, I don't like Pete die. Yeah. I respect that point. That's the whole thing.

You're the excitable boy you see. Yeah, come on, I get it that shot. No, well I think my biggest issue with him is that No, die is out to fuck you. I know. I'm looking at your image right now. He's like, oh this guy. Yeah, I'm the mark. I'm. I'm looking at your image right now. He's like, oh, this guy? Yeah, I'm on the mark.

I'm like, guys, it's on the poker table. Like, give me all your money. Hey, Pete, check out the far I can hit it. No, it's cool, but it's actually cool. No, no, it's, it's one of the 327s. If I might get on a doubt for a sec. It's not so much you have to hit the ball far. It's one, if you try to overpower it, yes.

You're gonna get punched in the face. You're gonna have a bad time. But two, you stand on the tee and it's like, lids and there's no doubt, 150%, you have to hit a draw here. Or you have to hit a fit. Like, you just have to. And it's like, dude, I can't do that. But, you know, it's like, he's dictating this shot.

And then it's like, you know, I can't do it. Or I don't execute it. And it's like, he know, I can't do it or I don't execute it and it's like he just He really I think people would have a I think people would have a much greater appreciation for him if they you know How many people are there really that play Pete that golf courses like as they're every day right? Of course, you know, I mean like think about how much more you would learn about a golf course if you played it. That's 30, 40, 50 times a year rather than like, oh yeah, I played that place once, I shot 180.

Like that place, so. Because I tried to play the way I always play, which is like overpower the place or whatever. It's almost like a victim of that. Let me ask you, what's your favorite? Which is the two-pointer. Which is your favorite P die course?

That I've played. Yeah. Probably saw grass, I think. Saw grass. P die golf club in West Rune is really cool played. Yeah, probably sawgrass, I think. Sawgrass. Pete DiGolf coming was reading is really cool too. Yeah, there's a place in Hilton Head Long Cove that like I can't break 90 yet, but like I've played it now three times.

And every time it's like, I get back there, I'm like, man, this is, this is, like it's a big puzzle. It's awesome, you know. You want a really meta answer? Yeah, my favorite Pete Di big puzzle. It's awesome. You know you want to really meta answer. Yeah, my favorite Pete Daikler's 24 Oh I see what you did there

All right, we got a couple things we got a cover here and then we also at the end of this podcast We're gonna play an interview we had with Lee Rainwater the USGA's assistant director of handicapping and Education outreach we covered the the new handicapped change. We were pretty skeptical of it, I would say. Well, we'll get to this at the end. We got that to get to it at the end. I want to talk about the corn fairy. What happened this past Sunday?

Again, these first two events of the year, the Exuma, the two Bahamas events are going to run Sunday through Wednesday, which is sweet. It's awesome. We saw some this last year. It didn't garner a ton of attention. But we officially have our template for what mic'd up coverage will look like when they eventually do this on the PJ tour,

which they have to. I mean, absolutely have to. We do encourage tuning on Monday. I don't know if they're gonna have it past Monday, but I know on Monday. I think usually they've got them locked in for the first two rounds. Right, Saturday, Sunday, they're kind of at the mercy got them kind of locked in for the first two rounds.

Saturday, Sunday, they're kind of at the mercy of if one of the guys in the last few groups says, yes, they'll do it. The guys are mic'd up and it's not, again, it's not the most remarkable commentary will ever hear, but it's just way, way, way more engaging. I could list off like five different things that were said during the round today that I watched on the corn fairy Tour and I can't tell you anything that happened at the Sony because the like the announcer's talking I don't hear it Like it just goes in one year and out the other for the most part and the corn fairy guys

It was really interesting for like Andy Pope to stand over a 157 yard shot and be like it's got to be it's got to be a five Right I was like oh what they were saying about the win when they were putting. Yes, they were all missing puts, and they're like, man, you know, they're just talking about how the win's changing. Like, caddy's just thinking different times. And the caddy gave Braden Thorneberry a read. It's like, if there's no win, I think it's over this mark.

So play as much win as you want from over that mark. And like, it just immediately, I'm like, whoa, okay, that's cool. And I'm following like this, and then talking about a read, and then having a worm cam view of it, I'm like, okay, let's see if this starts on the left edge, and it goes in like that.

That's what I was gonna say is it makes you, makes you so much more invested in the result of a shot. Yes. In that like, when you hear him say, okay, we need to start it on that tree, and we need to finish it on that spectator stand, or whatever, finish it on that guy in the red shirt. All of a sudden you're like,

all right, well, let's see. Like, if you can do, is it gonna land by the guy in the red shirt or not? And whereas on Sony, like you said, it's like, okay, cool, it's in the fairway. Yeah, it's on the green. And it takes a ton of pressure off the broadcast. Yes, because then all they have to do is respond

and be like, oh, you know, it makes sense that he was, instead of, because you hear so much with the announcers on the PGA where they're guessing, they're like, how he might not be like, oh, you know, it makes sense that he was, instead of, because you hear so much with the announcers on the PGA where they're guessing they're like, how he might not be happy, he shouldn't be happy with that. Which is all, like, well, I don't know why I'm just like, I mean, yeah, in fairness, it's like, all they can do, right? Exactly. And that's why I'm almost saying, like, from a production standpoint, like, take the

prep, like, you, like, make them, make them better players, make them better announcers. And it's, it's, again, it's not gonna be like amazing stories between the guys, the chatter, between the players, it's never really that interesting, but it's kind of funny to be like, Brain Thoriberry made Bogey on that one part three that was by the water and he's like, oh, it's great Bogey. And like, they were just, it's just so cool to be,

it just makes you way more present in it. It's an entire extra layer. I love that they're trying it. We need a sponsor, I think it's gonna take a sponsor on the PGA tour to be like, we want this. That's what I said indeed. It's like, I don't understand how two things, one, it's another thing to sponsor.

So there's money in it for the tour easily. And two, the excuse I've heard is, well the players don't want it or like, you know, they never go for it. Well, why don't you offer to pay some of them? Like say you don't need to pay like but you could I mean I just say like nobody wants to do it Well, how what if you what if you throw your grumble here? Go find your 10 grand a bunch of guys that want their sponsors to have some more Air time sure they got logos on their hat. They got them on their chest like no

Come like if it was one of our guys that we sponsored. Here's a free idea. I'd be like, hey, dude, how do you get in that? Yeah, exactly. Our logo is going to be on the screen the whole time. Yeah. Like, we'll pay extra $5,000 for that, not us literally, just for the record. But like a different sponsor might be like, yeah, we'll pay $5,000 if you're on TV for this whole day and you're talking and being personable and people to know you. Like, that is not a hard sell. Play it. And if the commentary's bad, just don't use it, right? It would, I was saying to DJ earlier, I feel like it would really enhance

to this a moment ago stuff. Yeah. 10 fold because it'd be like, they could go back to a, you know, player conversation that was actually good and show that and be like, hey, we saw this a moment ago. Yeah. And then now they can all take a break

and just feed off of what those guys are saying. Braden Thorneberry had a 134 yard shot into the 10th hole. He told his caddy, I think it's a flightid 155 shot, so seven iron, which I don't think he hits a seven iron 155. But it was that layer of, it's gonna be a 155 shot, but it's not like my nine iron, it's like, no, a low 155 shot with a seven iron and he hit it. He stuffed it. It was sick. It was awesome Like we can't talk about any of that from the Sony because we don't know any of that and so

Well, the huge other thing I was invested in thinking about why I was struggling with Sony to stay engaged and why the Corn Fairy stuff this afternoon was was fun to watch Which is kind of a backtrack on what I said last night is they followed the same group of three for like two or three straight holes. And then I was able to like watch the round build, right? So I don't think they can do that on a Saturday where I was saying to you last night, like, yeah.

Why don't they just show as many golf shots as possible? But then it's like, well then then there's no context for any. But this is what PGA tour live should be. That was my take away. Totally agree. That was my take away. It was like, if you're gonna follow a group, like, I know they do a good job with the mics

on the players, but it's not the same, the exasperation after a shot. Like, even if it's just a deep breath, I know that sounds ridiculous to say out loud, but like, it just was surprised to hear that from one of the guys today. He had a 40 foot putty left that from one of the guys today, he had a 40-foot putty left at short, he just,

ah, there's got like, whoa. That brought me right there. I know it doesn't, that's not significant, but that is cool, and I think that would be really engaging with you. And also, what an easy marketing thing for PJTWR live. Like, think about, think about someone debating whether to sign up for PJ tour life or not.

What's the one cent? Tell me on PJ tour life, what is it? It's a you follow a group and then you're going to get out. It's for golf sickos. It's a if you are not getting enough golf. Well, I'm good. But if you said what's PJ tour life? Oh, it's sweet.

They make up to players. Wow. Okay, cool. I should check that out. Exactly. Like what an easy one sentence, so your entire sales pitch. Yes. And even watching the replay of the skins game in Japan,

just like the little, and it's kind of forced banter between the guys, they know they're mic'd up. But I was kinda like, oh, they're kind of, you know, jabbing at each other a little bit. Like that is more interesting than listening to an announcer's talk. When they always feel like they have to fill the air and they talk so much less when that goes on.

So at Bahamas KF tour, which NLU staffer plays best in 20 to 30 mile an hour, sustain wins, asking for a friend. So I think they're asking if they want to, we want to sponsor exemption in the event next year. Oh, yeah, I could read it for sure, for sure. If it's down with, if it's down with, for sure sure a hundred percent got my have all my distances dialed into the wind i don't know it's a hard one i don't know i had to ball too high yeah i think we can agree on that

all right uh... i want to give us a small i'd love to go do we have a uh... do we have any takes on the charlie woods situation the video that surface to tiger woods you know cadding for his son and his golf swing, and people got mad about it. I'm firmly on the fence. Like I don't, I don't really care. Well, I wanna, I told T.J. earlier,

I went through like an evolution of like, who's that kid? Oh, that's Tiger standing behind him. Oh, that's Tiger's kid. It was like a three step thing, you know? So I probably watched the video like four or five times before I figured that out. Yeah. So what's the context for. It was like a three step thing. And you know, so I probably watched a video like four or five times before, like, figured that out.

Swing is awesome. So what's the context for people who are not on Twitter? So there's a video of Charlie Woods 10 years old, you know, at a junior tournament that Tiger's cading for him and it's a video of his golf swing. And it was posted and went everywhere of like how amazing his swing was. And then it started people. It was really good. It's good swing.

It's really good. It's good swing. It's really good. It had people started getting upset about kind of a discreetly filmed video from a long ways away that like clearly they didn't have like permission to do and like is it creepy to film like a 10 year old swing and put it out on the internet and it's just a, I don't necessarily agree.

Yeah, it is. I'm not like mad about it, but I'm also not like, yeah, you're wrong for thinking this is weird. Cause we've at least heard stories of Tiger like being asked for formal permission from like television networks. Like, hey, can we like film your kids?

Like during the broadcast day and the answer being like, absolutely not. So like, I don't think Tiger is like a big fan of this happening. I would not imagine, but also, I like he's got to think if he's showing up at an event unless they're taking everyone's cell phone away, this is probably gonna happen.

I think it's just hard, like what I prefer that this 10 year old is not like filmed without his permission and then widely disseminated on the internet, for sure, like of course. Let me be clear. But it's gonna happen. Asking people, like it's just, yeah, it's not a real life to, like, of course, let me be clear. But like, asking people, like, it's just, yeah,

it's not a real life to be like, everybody, okay, we're all on the same page, everybody's signed into this contract now, we're gonna let Tigers kid grow up like with total privacy, like that's, I don't know, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a, a reach, I don't think that's all. I think that's all the major golf publications for disseminating it, like I don't.

Breaking down the swing, it was a little, a little, I think that's a little, I probably, that's probably, that should probably be a line where you stop. But like, you know, of course some guy that is there with this 10 year old that stinks and he's sitting up there, you know, on the deck and he's bored and he doesn't wanna be there. He's like, oh shit, that's Tiger Woods.

Well that's what I was gonna say, even just like watching, that should he do that? No, but like he's gonna, like you're gonna do that. That's, that's where, whatever, I know it's like, oh shit, that's Tiger Woods. Well, that's what I was gonna say, even just like watching. Did he do that? No, but like, he's gonna, like, you're gonna do that. That's where, whatever, I know it's a solid side the ropes, he was living under par, exactly. Total permission. I know it's a slippery slope to allow these things,

but like, the way I viewed it was like, oh, that's fun. Like, he does have a good swing. I didn't watch it, like, yeah. You know what, we need to get this guy an exemption. He needs to, can he break? Is he gonna break Jack's record? Is he gonna shatter Jack's record? Like I don't think anybody's really doing that.

And it turns into kind of like a false. That was, it turns into a bit of a straw man on like, well everybody's putting too much pressure on this guy. That's where the line is. It's like when the flip-bait headlines come out from actual publications are like the next tiger the next like look look who's the next tiger tiger's kid that's when it's like oh man like I roll but like the initial video is like exactly oh that's fun that that was my reaction as

well like yeah that's tiger that's tiger's kid honestly you know my cool my biggest 10 I didn't realize he was that old my biggest takeaway was like tigers that they're cattying for it in. Hit it in a junior turn, that's sick. I know, I know. Like what? It's just, these things expose the aggregators the most, though. And it's just like, dude, like every, all of you posted the video,

like, and no one had anything funny to say or interesting to say about, like you all just did it. You all mined it for your own content. And I think we're doing the same exact thing right now, so I feel that he's allowed to move on. Yeah. The only right now. So I feel that this is not even that related, but it just reminded me of there was a tweet that went around when this happened, but there's like a headline of LeBron James Jr. won't wear LeBron's number anymore because he wants to make a name for himself.

And the tweet that was going around is now checking into the game. LeBron James Jr. and the other guy's like, oh shit, who that? That's like, these guys aren't gonna be given a chance to, that's kind of where I'm getting at. It's like, it's a very unrealistic expectation, just expect everyone to, hey everyone, just be cool. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, well that's probably not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. So let's just try to manage it. Okay, we're going to have a new segment of the podcast throughout the course of this year. We're going to debut it here today. BMW is, of course, a global partner of the Ryder Cup. And they, of course, are a global partner of ours as well. We are going to be doing different set. We're going to be mixing it up every time that we do this segment. It's gonna be, you know, might be a history, it might be a funny story, it might be an interview, a clip or something.

We're gonna actually debut it by teasing this Tuesday night's episode that we recorded with Lanny Watkins down in Dallas back in December. North Dallas. He told a lot of great Ryder Cup stories and we're gonna be doing some special Ryder Cup podcasts this year. Anyways, I just want a ton of Ryder Cup stuff. A ton of linger on that for a second,

because I'm not more excited about, like maybe anything this year than like some of the Ryder Cup stuff we got going on. I've been trying to tell you guys, I know, I turn them into mad, I know. Everybody seems to be coming around. It's a complete content banana around the Ryder Cup. I'm excited. I'm too thrilled to witness it firsthand.

But anyways, of course, a shout out to our partner, BMW. They wanted to get creative with how we did this segment. And I think it's going to be a fun thing to keep doing all year long. But here's a quick story from Lanny Watkins from the 1985 Ryder Cup about SEVY. What's your favorite go-to Ryder Cup story? Your favorite memory, favorite go-to story cup story? Your favorite memory favorite go-to story.

You may have already told it on here, but... Well, I mean, I've always, you know, because he was such an integral part of it, it's probably always Sevy. You had to get back in his face. You could not let him intimidate you. I was gonna say, did you ever have any personal run-ins? Yeah. First hole.

1985, I think, when I'm playing with, Mark O'Meara in the morning, the second day at the Belfry. Playing the second day at the Belfry in the morning, Mark O'Meara and I'll play in Sevy and I think Manuel Penairel. Going on the first hole, best ball. We get on the green and I've got about a 20, 25 foot of a birdie. Savvy's about 12 feet. His coin's in my line. I had him move it.

I pulled my putt. It hit his coin. It bounced right. It went in the hole. He was living. You had me, you had me do that on purpose. You had me move my coin so you can make that putt. I said, yes.

I got right in his face. I said, yes, Savvy. I'm that blanking good. Don't forget it. First hole. This is Omirah's first router cut match ever. He gets his white as a sheep standing on the first screen. What's going on? I said, love it. Let's go kick the. We had him six down and six to play. Oh my God. That's amazing. But we have first hole. How about that? How great is that? Did you guys have great with the Lani at Los Calinas? No, I was pressed in trail actually.

You would not have been allowed there. All right, so we touched on the next topic. Can we help you? If you guys have any more that you want to get out about the handicap system before we play our interview with Lee Rainwater? No, I'd love to hear. I'm going to guess he's probably much more. Yeah, I'd love to hear his for a bottle guess he's probably much more lost. Yeah, I'd love to hear his rebuttal.

I aired out my confusion on the last spot. What was set it up for people as you're about to get dunked up by Lee? What was it? What was it? Also, not what happened. Rainwater? Rainwater, yeah, that's a nice, great thing.

It's a great thing. It's a great thing. You know, we were, we were, we cited the golf digest article that was basically shredding into the new handicap system. We did disclaim before we said that like, oh yeah, this is written by the guy that came up with the old system that got his nickname is the Pope of slope. Which is where he'd be self-clothed. Which is worth going out. Just to sound like a nickname if somebody else gives you. I wish someone would call me the Pope of slope. That sounds like a really good skier.

So we thought it might be, and the interest of being fair and balanced might be interesting to have somebody on from the USJ just to ask them a few questions about some challenges we have to the system. I mentioned this earlier, but I will say after playing with it for a week, it makes a lot of sense. It's going to be a shock to the system for some people for how much variability there is between the T-boxes, but if you think about it, it usually makes sense. And the numbers we cited in that one, the numbers that that Dean Knuth guy cites are the extreme of extreme for variances.

The homo-slob. The homo-slob. The homo-slob. The homo-slob. The homo-slob. The homo-slob. They were the extreme examples, but really, it's fun to kind of mess around with a new app and see what your what the courses you would play

and what your variability between the T-Box were a lot of older people, I think, are not liking the new ones, because if you're playing forward T-Series, you're just losing your skills. Which is weird, because I usually love new stuff. Yes, exactly. It is going to be different,

but I'm having mess around with it. One, the fact that it changes overnight now is huge. Your handicap should not stay the same for two straight weeks. It's a much more active reflection of how you're playing. And I'm coming around on it. I think there's still some question marks on how it's rolled out and everything. But do you guys have any questions for the question for you? Did he say anything about we're going to find out?

Yeah, but changing it if it's not working. Like I'm sure there's really good things about it and there's probably some things that aren't so good, like everything, like would they make some tweaks to it in the next month or two? If like there's something that was like, ah, we didn't, we messed that out. We messed that up.

I did not ask about that, but I did not get that sense at all. I mean, I think it's a calculated approach to changing it, whether you agree with that approach or not, I think it's not. This is not a comment period. This is like, no, this isn't a comment. Which is interesting because then, you know, the UK and Ireland are like, yeah, we're

just going to wait and see. Which, he had some comments on that too. It's not necessarily, it's really just the par adjustment within it. And that's, we're getting kind of technical here, but in reality, their system already has like had a course rating effect, and that's what the new chain is. I know we're getting complicated there, but basically, it's not really as wait and see system already has like had a course rating effect and that's what the new chain is, I know we're getting complicated there, but basically it's not really as wait and see

as like that article made it sound. Again, this is PR from the USDA of course, but I think the questions were fair and balanced and I think you will find this interview. I keep scrolling through Netflix seeing the show, the two popes. That could be the way you're setting up a lead. Maybe that's what the new pope is slope.

That's Mr. Reinhardt. Well, there's the new pope, which is the H.B. I think now there's the two popes well yeah totally separate well so we're not seeing white smoke from the chimney I don't know maybe there could be two popes is what I'm saying okay and maybe that's what that shows about I'm not sure I gotta check in without any further delay here is that interview thank you every week okay now you should the fuck we're gonna on. Time to go to bed. So, without further delay, this is Lee Rainwater from the USGA, the Assistant Director of Handicapping Education.

Now, reach cheers and crack on. All right, Lee, thank you so much for joining us. I've got a couple of questions for you about the handicap system based on our discussion from last week. The first one I have, why did the handicap system need to change and why did it change now? Yeah, absolutely. It's certainly the USJA handicap system, it's been around since 1911, so it was 108 when we retired it just last week.

And certainly, no major flaws in the USA handicaps system by any means. It was more of an effort to look at the landscape around the world, where we have six different handicapped authorities, or six different handicapped systems in use, representing about 80 countries, 15 million golfers. And so it was really an effort between the USDA and RNA and really the global golf and community, many other national associations were involved to try to take these six systems that had the same objective. You know, we're all trying to measure ability of a golfer and provide equity for play, but we all were doing

it in different ways and they didn't really translate well from one another. So it was kind of a fragment and market, if you will. So it was really just an effort to come together with everybody, create one measure for a golfer's ability and really modernize the way we think about handgaping. And the only thing I would add is just that, with the USJ and the RNA governing the game with the playing rules and equipment rules and amateur status, it really just made sense for handicapping to kind of fit in and complete that,

or be the last piece of that puzzle, if you will. So on that note, I think for those of us out here that we're waiting for this to come out and understanding where you're coming from there, I'm getting everybody for a unified system. Was it surprising to you guys that the governing bodies of the UK and Ireland are taking a wait and see approach with certain elements of the calculation? And was that a surprise to you guys and how do you see that playing out? Yeah, that's a good question.

Great Britain and Ireland, you know, have been a part, you know, the development of this system really, really since day one. It's really not a wait and see thing. You know, one of the important important things about about the WHS and I kind of alluded to it already is, you know, you have all these, you have these different handicapped systems out there and each, each country and each handicapped system. They're experiencing a different level of change with this. You know, in the USGA and in the US clubs and golfers, we are kind of lucky in a way that there's a lot of things that are that are staying the same and many things that are that

are minor tweaks from what we're all very accustomed to. In other parts of the world, that's just simply not the case. So part, the real reason behind Great Britain and Ireland waiting to deploy into later of the year, I think it really boils down to the fact that it is a bigger change for them. There's technology implementation, things that they have to work through, and course rating is a huge part of it. England, for example, tons of golf courses in England, and they still have 20 to 30% of courses to rate under the course rating system, which falls under that World Handicast system umbrella, so that golfers can really effectively use the system.

So it's not really a wait and see, it's more about making sure they're just ready to fully deploy the new system. Okay. So on that note, you kind of the introduction of PAR is one of the elements that we were challenging a bit in the last episode, a bit confused by where it all, I guess, why was PAR introduced into the equation when coming up with a calculation of course, handycaps? And from what I can gather, this element is bringing a lot more variability into

determining a player's course handicap. Do you consider this a good thing and why is this change being made? Absolutely. Do consider it a good thing but I'll be transparent and say that this is the biggest change for golfers in the US that this course handicap calculation change. But I do fully believe that this is good for handicapping. I think it's good for golf. Going back to your question as far as why it really is an effort while there undoubtedly will be that initial kind of eye opening shock factor when you see the volatile the potential volatility in the number The effort really is to make a course handicap more intuitive. I'll explain that You know, you know first off, you know and before I get into the intuitive part, you know

There's par based adjustments built into the system with net double bogey based on par, net par when you don't play a whole, so par kind of comes into play there. But really getting into the intuitive aspect of it is before 2020, Course Handicat represented the number of strokes to play to the course rating. And quite honestly, I think that that was confusing for a lot of golfers out there. You know, a lot of times, if you look, if you see your course handicap from the back, middle forward, set of T's, like a lot of times that number really didn't budge that much. And that's because it was just real to the course rating. And obviously the course rating changes from T to T.

So we felt like if we bake in part to the calculation and we change the bench mark from course rating to par, that this is something that's just that's just going to resonate a bit better with golfers because par is a number that we're all familiar with. I mean we all know what it means that really was a big reason behind it and just to be clear I mean this it is changing the benchmark but it doesn't change expected scoring or anything like that it doesn't change the the strokes exchange between people when they're out having a round together.

But you've made a point about the volatility and that really depends on the difference in course rating and par, you know, on a specific set of t, you know, if the course rating is 71.8 and the par is 72, no sweat. And I think you mentioned on your podcast the other day, I mean, if you have these kind of edge case scenarios where course rating is 64 and power 71 or 72,

you're gonna see a big shift. But again, we're still maintaining the appropriate strokes between golfers, but one point that I really wanted to make without rambling on too much, the biggest reason for this is that the section three dash five of the USGA handicap system, which was a section that addressed when players compete from different T's

or from different ratings. And that was hands down the most common question to the USGA, hands down the most common question to allied golf associations around the country. And I would imagine to club bros and handicap committees around the country. It's just, it's something that I think people understood the principle of it, but we saw that it just wasn't being

applied very consistently across the board. And basically, if you and I go out and play in a match or a game, and if you're playing the back tee and I'm playing the middle tee, we had to make an adjustment for the difference in rating to make sure that I didn't have an advantage because I was playing a shorter, easier course. So this new adjustment, it basically, it bakes all that into the course handicap calculation where no additional adjustments are needed unless there's a difference in power, which

is much less frequent than a difference in course rating, which is pretty much going to be every time if you're playing different T. So again, it was more about getting over the hurdle of section three dash five and trying to make it in more intuitive and easier for golfers and for golf clubs to use. And that's where I think maybe even ourselves included the idea of par in the equation isn't the big element

of the change. It's really the introduction of course rating into the into the calculation. Am I correct in saying that? Yes, it's not just par. It's you make a great point is course rating minus par again to try to change change that benchmark. Yes. And so my challenge, well, two things related to that. One would be if, if, you know, we've been playing golf for so long with course rate, without course rating ever really factoring into the equation in a course handicap for the day. If this, it does seem like a glaring omission in the calculation

I agree, but why did it take this long to change if it is going to introduce this much change into it? Yeah, I mean, that's, that I mean, that's a good question. I mean, we've certainly, section 3-5 is something that was around for quite some time, ever since the introduction of slope. And it was always a big effort on the USJs part, when it's just the USJ system to make sure that they were proper education materials

and proper messaging about this to help, to help tournament committees and golf clubs and golfers. But throughout all that effort, I think we realized that it was a stumbling block. But going back to why it took so long, I think one thing is this World Handicap system while it just launched this week It really wasn't eight year development This was something that was kind of always on the table and so I really think that the timing was right

You know not only for the USGA, but as the as all of the you know the National associations and the golf authorities came together. We felt like you know, this is something That makes sense to do now. We have an opportunity to fix something or improve something that wasn't working quite well, at least from one system specifically, and that will be the USDA system. Yeah. That makes sense. My, I guess, overall, to, again, the change that we're going to see happen, and I can already kind of sense it happening with some of the guys I've played with, though, is it does seem a bit counterintuitive to the play at forward campaign, or T-it forward campaign, and that it's, there's going to be more

variability between T-boxes. And I think it's, while it might be well applied mathematically, it's a hard hurdle for a lot of golfers to say, I'm going to give up three shots, maybe potentially. So the course, we play a lot at, but the difference between the backties and the next, the one-up teas is over three shots in the course rating. So for me, to tee it up from the blue teas,

which is one-up, I got to basically give up three shots. That's a big hurdle for a lot of people to overcome. Do you foresee it being an issue that this is going to want to maybe encourage players to tee it back further than they probably should? Yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic question. And I would just say that the whole crux of the handicap system is really to allow, we want people to feel comfortable playing from any tee and feel confident that their handicap in in eggs, which is not specific to any course or any T that's going to allow them to have a fair game. I do think that that change in the number, especially for those folks that, hey, if you play the same course in Jacksonville with the same people from the same T,

and that initial change in the number in January or March or April whenever you get a chance to play. I do think that there's going to be some surprise in that, but I think that that goes back to help from the golf club, from the, in your case, the Florida State Golf Association, the USDA, to make sure that there's education materials out there to explain. This is the new calculation. This is why, and it's actually easy, it's actually easier on you. There's more, there's more taking place or bait into the calculation that's really just allowed you to go out, play golf, have fun, post your score, and just kind of let the system do the rest.

So there really shouldn't be, um, there really shouldn't be the perception. And though, and I realize those are hard to, hard to control, there really shouldn't be a perception. And though, and I realize those are hard to control, there really should be a perception of, hey, if I can play this tier, that's the I'm really gonna have an advantage. Really, if you're Haynecap in this as accurate, you're gonna have a fair shake

before you put a T in the ground regardless. And then at that point, it's all a matter of how will you play in relation to your Haynecap. Well, how do a couple more here and we'll let you go, but why do, how do the daily calculations work and how much can a handicap change on a day-to-day basis and who is, who is managing that? A couple of questions there. I mean, the daily, daily revision, just to be clear, you know, it is called a daily revision,

but it only updates when a golfer actually posts a score. So if you know, if you, if you don't play again for a couple of weeks and your handicap won't update until mid-late January, we do feel like this is 2020 now. This is a modern, this is a responsive feature of the system. We've gotten good feedback on it so far. As far as how much it could change from day to day, probably with one round, you're not gonna see just a big shift from one round to the next.

The new calculation is your best eight scores out of your most recent 20 in comparison to the previous system, which was your best 10 out of your 20. But one thing that's important to note is the 8 of the 20 is an out of the box calculation. The 10 of the 20 actually included a 96 percent multiplier, which served as purpose, but it was also kind of hard to explain. 8 of 20 is, look, it's just an 8 of 20 average, and that's your number. So going back to your question about who manages that, it's all be you know, be managed through in the US through centralized

computation, and for the first time ever, every golfer in the US that has a handicap index, their number is going to be calculated through the same platform. So there's consistency and there's integrity there. So I think the management part of it, you know, will be easy. Undoubtedly, there's still responsibility, you know, at the allied golf association level, at the club level to make sure that, you know, we're still expecting golfers to have integrity. And when they play an acceptable format that they post their score, going back to, going back to the calculation a little bit, I think where you were getting with this and, and, and create me if I'm wrong, but just as far as like the end, you know, how what's the impact of this

kind of, is it going to be? And for the most part, you know, I talked about the 8 of 20 and in comparison to the 10 of 20, with the 96 percent, those two things in comparison, they tend to kind of balance each other out. So the expectation is minimal change in a golfers handicap. And we're not talking about full strokes. We're talking about death, you know, tense of a stroke, one tenth, two tenths. Mine changed by two tenths of a stroke. And as far as, you know, but there's not a, there's not a, you know, fixed answer for how much someone's handicap is going to change.

It kind of depends on. No, I think just as started, buddy here, Lee, I a, you know, fixed answer for how much someone's hand he kept is going to change. It kind of depends on. No, I think just to started, buddy, here, Lee, I just meant in the, on a day-to-day basis under the new system, can we expect a lot of great fluctuation and variability? I think I kind of understand that the answer is probably going to be very similar to when it updated every two weeks, but I was just wondering if you could ease the listener's concern maybe about things fluctuating too much on a day-to-day basis. No, there will not be a lot of fluctuation on a day-to-day basis again.

Whether it being an average-based system, you know, a lot of time, you know, 12 out of those 20 scores will not factor into your calculation. And even if you do play around that makes this way to that top eight, you're not going to see you're not going to be big see a big shift in your handicap on a day-to-day basis. Okay. Quickly if we can cover the the introduction of the net double bogies, I think the main concern I have with that is if players are expected to track which holes they're getting strokes on to know if they can't take more than a net double bogey on that hole. I know a lot of rounds are played where you do know

what holds your getting strokes on, but if you're playing around a golf that's not a match and you're not getting strokes, is that all addressed with the expectation that players are going to be entering scores on a whole by whole basis and the system is going to calculate that for you or our golfers expected. I imagine it is when they're entering 18 whole scores, they're going to have to have calculated on a whole by whole basis whether or not they're taking anything over a net double bogey. Is that accurate? Yeah, no, that's pretty accurate.

I think a couple things. You hit the nail in the head. We can't stress enough the importance of using whole by whole because the system will be able to take care of that adjustment for you. But some golfers aren't comfortable with that just yet. Some golfers like to pose by nine, some golfers like to pose total 18. And in that case, they will be responsible for determining based on their course handicap, which holds they get a stroke on and how that may impact net double bogie.

Should they struggle on the whole? But what I think is important is that we've had equitable stroke in place for many years. And really the philosophy is the same here. It's just to prevent a couple of bad holes and around from overly inflating a golfers handicap index. And that responsibility that we're talking about as far as knowing where those strokes fall

and keeping record of that for posting scores, whether you're, if you decide to just post your 18 hole score, your not hole score as opposed to all the hole. So that responsibility is certainly nothing new. It's really just the procedure itself is what's different, with Net Double Bogie. And it is important to note that this is, Net Double Bogie is not new,

but it is new for the US. So around the world, Net Double Bogie is very common. It's very well accepted, but it's something that the US adopted as a part coming on board with the World Handicap system. Okay, great. I got two last final questions that then we'll let you go. Regarding the rollout of the system, was there anything you guys learned in the process,

maybe the rollout of the new rules that you guys factored into the rollout of this, and how would you assess how the this adjustment period has gone? Using the rollout of the new rules last year was a big advantage for the WHS to see how that rolled out just 12 months ago. One of the big things for us is that kind of balance because obviously golf has certainly very busy times of the year and determining how to roll out information and win. But I think the big thing for us is for a golfer level to make sure that golvers understand what those top five changes are

understanding that in the US, you know, we're very fortunate that, you know, a lot of the system was based on what we're used to. The course rating system's not changing a lot of fundamentally, a lot of things are the same, but we wanted to kind of double down on the things that are different. We've already hit on most of them, so I won't go through them again with the calculation that the Webochi et cetera. But I think one thing that we learned and was very important is, you know, education with allied golf associations around around the U.S. You know, we spent really started an A team at really heavily in 2019, certifying all 59 A.G.A.s in the U.S. to be able to provide education to their

clubs and golfers, you know, through workshops and providing materials to them. Was extremely important. I would also note stakeholder engagement was extremely important, something that rules modernization project that did a really nice job with. But you know, a good example of that would be the PGA of America. You know, we've developed a good partnership with the PGA of America. You know, we gave a short presentation at their annual meeting earlier this year.

We gave a webinar to their section leadership. We've developed a toolkit with them, with education and awareness materials that's on pga.org. And we're excited to be at the PGA show next month as well. In our land, where we'll have a booth for the USGA And I think we've got five education sessions scheduled for PGA members during that week So those were things that we picked up from I think from rules roll out that have benefited WHS But certainly there's still still work to do is even though we've launched there's still implementation

work and education work to make sure this is as've launched, there's still implementation work and education work to make sure this is smooth as possible for everyone in the US. Great. And lastly, we've talked a lot about a lot of details all within this. If you're explaining the new system to a somewhat casual golfer who's probably not listened to this far into the podcast,

but if you're trying to explain to somebody as simply as you can, what is the way that you would explain the new system? Absolutely. You know, one thing I would just say is that the whole thing about handicapping is to add enjoyment to the game, you know, allowing golfers of different abilities to play on a fair basis.

I would just say it's, you know, it's easy to get a handicap. You only have to play 54 holes or 318 hole rounds. There's a higher maximum handicap now, so that we're trying to be welcoming and accessible. But I think the important part is, on top of it being easy to get one through an allied golf association or through your local golf courses,

really and truly, get out and play. There are complexities in the system. We don't want to hide that, but the complexities of the system are taking care of in the background. So really, if a golfer gets a handicap, goes out, knows the fundamentals, plays, has fun, post their score, let the system take care of the rest, and hopefully it does add to their enjoyment of the game. Awesome. All right, we'll wrap it at that. Thanks, Lee, so much for joining us. And we look forward to seeing how it all plays out. I'm not thrilled with it because my handicap went down a bit, but I think a lot of people are seeing that across the board.

Alright, well, look, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on. You bet. Thanks, Lee. Alright, thanks, bye. Be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most.

Expect anything different. Expect anything different.