No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 290: Coronavirus

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

As professional golf goes on an indefinite hiatus due to the coronavirus we discuss a wide range of implications that will affect the Masters, the other majors, the PGA Tour and its members, and much more. 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. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast Sunday morning, another beautiful day here in Neptune Beach outside Jacksonville. Sully here, TC running this, you're running the show today. Hey, we got a lot to break down.

Somebody's got to do it. Lots to take, take, I don't know, take stock in. I don't know. A lot of things to consider here. In G shoe, Mr. Neil Schuster is here quarantining down here in Florida. He were supposed to go back to New York. You did not supposed to go back Thursday. I did not go. And yeah, I'm happy to be here. This is a better place to be. You have a work from you can work remotely with your company. We've talked to the head of HR, the CFO. Big Randy. I better place. Yes. You have a work from, you can work remotely with your company. We've talked to the head of HR, the CFO. Big red.

I'm head of HR. So we've been, we've been discussing our work from home policy. We'll get back to you guys. We'll be releasing a statement to you guys in the coming days. Mr. DJ Pie. Hey, good morning. Good morning.

Before we do get going, instead of telling you about the outstanding new Chrome soft 2020 golf ball. Callaway would like to hear you here, like you to hear some more CDC guidance about coronavirus disease 2019. The short version, wash your hands thoroughly and regularly. Don't touch your face with unwashed hands and maintain a six foot distance from others wherever possible to avoid airborne transmission of respiratory droplets. Stay home if you're sick, cover coughs and sneezes, and clean and disinfect frequently touch services daily. Avoid large gatherings of people, and if you're going to play golf, remember that just because

you may not be at severe risk if you get the disease, others around you could be, and you might be the one that transmits it to. The maintain social distance protocol in the course by avoiding high fives, close conversations on the T-Box, and if possible, walk or take your own cart instead of riding together. And leave the flags to game. To learn more about protecting yourself and those around you, go to cdc.gov slash coronavirus

for more at cdc.gov slash coronavirus. Speaking of the cramps off, play the new ones for the first time. New dimple pattern. I like it. I like it a lot. I'm sorry. I'm not talking about it.

Knocked off some new birdies. I did. Yeah. Invigorating to see. Actually, just one new birdie. Well, you made multiple birdies though. I did. The Jack Speeds birdie challenge

might be like the prime content. So the race is heating up. I'd like to point out for all the haters and losers that I think I'm currently in second. How many do you have? I have everything on the front nine, except for number nine, and then I have 12. Be careful with 14.

12, 14 and 18. So that's what? You have 14. 11. Oh, okay, you have a right. 11. That's pretty good. Pretty good.

Yeah, so it happens when I'm in town, baby. Let's go. Everybody's off to a good start. It's kind of crazy, yeah. But this kind of happened last year, too. At least for me, I had like 12 before the end of February and then I looked up in September and I had like 13. It's when that, when those like six get isolated,

you start thinking about it and I, it's already started. Like I stand on those T's like, oh, the walk between eight and nine, it's 50 to 100 years too long. And it actually might be. I know. I've noticed that the holes that I struggled the most with last year, I've gotten off to a good start on this year.

I think just because I had to focus so much and learn the intricacies of those holes. You're the ultimate competitor. Like 10, yeah. Well, we were gonna talk a lot about, basically trying to see around the corner on everything that's gonna unfold in golf. I think there's gonna be a lot of conjecture,

a lot of somewhat predicting. We're kind of, as in the question. This is all a conjecture. Yeah. Well, we're asking the questions and the considerations. I mean, for me, person, I think it's kind of like, you kind of look at the situation. You're like, all right, here's what it is.

And then you start thinking like a month or two out and like, huh, yeah, I don't know if that's going to happen. Like, yeah, oh, yeah, I don't know if that's going to happen. And for people like us in this room who scheduled their year out basically through, basically through October, it throws quite a wrench in things. Definitely. Not to mention players, staff, tournament organizers,

agents, equipment, manufacturers, all those people. I think when it first happened on whatever Thursday night, it's kind of like, okay, four events, cancel, okay, the Masters canceled, all right, and we'll just pick a pack up. And as Mr. TC is going to get into it, yeah, some of the ripple effects can be a little head spinning. Yeah, my initial reaction was, oh, we'll just reschedule. Like, EG probably just bump at the end of the year and then you start to dig into, like you just said, how everything is already locked in

and has been pretty good. Only so many days. Yeah, you're like, oh man, well then that, at the bare minimum, someone gets the short end of the stick. Right? It's a bummer, Randy's not here to speak on behalf of shrinking the game because I got a feeling that there's going to be some stuff that hits the chopping block.

Again, I don't think the PGA tour should or any major tours should be making their schedule out to be able to necessarily handle something like this. Like with this in mind, it's unprecedented, it's never happened, but it does go to show if you cram the schedule with 47 weeks of events that like one domino that falls out now affects everything else that's downstream. Like if your heritage, heritage has not been canceled yet officially. Are people working on that right now? Yeah, they may be in the worst spot. Are they letting people work? How do you let people go to work? That's why I think it's going to be, and I talked to a player that with knows what he's

talking about. He's like, I think we're out two months. I like, I don't see any way we're back in two, within two months. And then what happens, I mean, this is a bigger question for all the sports, but like, who, who gives the okay? There's nobody, you know, there's nobody like, okay, we've got to add it. Everybody, we're about to blow the horn. Everybody getting positioned. Well, someone's going to have to be the first one. I don't think that's going to be golf. It better golf. If they waited till everyone else canceled, they better wait for everyone else to come back. Uh, yeah, it's just nuts.

It's nuts. You know, like TC, when you get into some of the specifics, well, can you, first, can you imagine golf being played today like Sunday? How long ago does it feel like they can't? No, it feels like it was a month. They were going to be playing the players today, which you kind of mentioned it offhand up the front, but I mean, it's the nicest weather week of the year. It's like legitimately amazing heartbreaking for the city, for the tournament, for everyone.

It's, it's socks, man. It would have been an excellent week. That's what killed me. Some of the people that were like, this is what you wanted. You wanted. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Definitely.

You know, I feel thankful that this is happening in March versus in July or August here because everybody would be just grouped up in AC and like self-quarantine anyway. Yeah, and everybody's blown out their AC and power's going out. Yeah, that would not be good. So, yeah, just just to reiterate again, like this is us asking questions and brainstorming, we don't have the answers. You know, a lot of this is conjecture. Some of it's grounded in talking to a bunch of agents and, you know, folks in positions of decision making.

But, you know, sorry, real quick, I hope this goes without saying too, but, you know, we're obviously pretty hard on the tour for some of the decision making around the players. None of this obviously falls into their purview. Like there's going to be some some players and tournaments and all this people in just tough spots. Like, yeah, I don't know how like you said, so I don't know how you plan for that. Like hopefully none of this comes across as like, well, what are you going to do? Fix it. It's like, man,

I have no idea what the answers are. Well, and beyond golf, like obviously everybody's taking a haircut on this. There's, you know, there are plenty of people that are being laid off, you know, just all sorts of repercussions from this. So golf is kind of the least of those, but we talk about golf. So we're going to talk about that. Neil, is this going to affect the Norris Wilson Memorial NLU internship. I think it actually might Expand it. There's a couple football players that have reached out from Columbia. They don't have spring practice all spring sports were canceled. So the workforce is flooded. Yes, it is and there's some stuff All it worked on all internship applications. Please send a kneel at no laying out Anything that's on your mind, dude,

is it anything that's on your mind? Those positions have been filled, officially have been filled, but this is the proverbial DJ and I were talking about it. Well, maybe not the proverbial, the literal force measure. Yeah. Is that the mega force measure?

So, you know, they're in contracts around the world. It's acts of God. It's always deep in the wedding planning. You got to be familiar with the Force Majoricalize. Well, so here's what I, again, trying to see like the next step. And I'm now on my head like 20 steps. And people, you know, I'm getting married in October. And people have said, oh, what a horrible decision like you did a wedding in the

South on a Saturday with college football. And I was like, honestly, man, if you can't attend our wedding over a college football game, that's on you. The masters is looking to be postponed potentially to the fall, potentially to October of it is. We'll get into that. I think you're safe on the master. I think so too, but it would be so perfect if that landed on my wedding weekend. Just completely unprecedented. Don't worry. We'll manage it for you. I've been relatively positively surprised by the airlines, hotel industry, all of that is how reasonable and customer-friendly they've been thus far. I think the first couple of companies stepping up and setting the precedent kind of dictates everything.

But before we get going too much on the specifics, whoa specifics. DJ, you tweeted a link to an article in the Washington Post last night. Just kind of, I just want to accept the scene. I have a lot of people are confused as to why they can do certain things and why they can't do certain things, why the golf had to be canceled, why they couldn't just do it without fans. That article kind of helped me understand that a lot more. I'm wondering if you can kind of sum that up for us.

That's cool because there were a lot of Twitter doctors who said, this is a massively flawed model that you're working with and you go and look at their last few tweets. Oh, you know, I don't think that they're necessarily experts on the situation. But the idea of 617, it was one of his associates. But yeah, it was from the Washington Post, I believe one, seven, eight, eight. It was one of his associates. But yeah, it was from the Washington Post, I believe, shout out to Jeff Bezos. It was basically just a bunch of infographics, kind of showing how stuff spreads.

And I am, of course, not a source on this, I would recommend going to my Twitter account and looking it up and I'll say up front, like yes, this is not a simulation of what's going to happen. It's a model of how things spread. It's basically math. It's just math.

And it's like, how does a quarantine work? And how does, you know, transmission work inside of a quarantine system? How does it work inside of a soft social distancing system? How does it work inside of an aggressive social distancing system? And if you're like a visual learner, I mean, I know that's definitely a thing. It's a good way to just picture like,

oh shit, yeah, if I go to dinner tonight, I'm gonna come in contact with 30 other people, I'm gonna touch the silverware, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. I mean, if everyone goes to dinner, it's gonna be like pure chaos. And you can see what happens when people start just staying put. And I know that sucks for the economy

I know that sucks for local businesses. I know that sucks for for everybody involved But when you look at it, it's like how that's the only yeah, of course That's the only thing that makes sense And that's what helped me understand it too is like it's staying put is not gonna like it's gonna spread It's too late. We can't stop it and But spreading that out is what is going to be able to make it possible. If you look at the hockey stick, growth of number of cases in the last three days in the United States,

we're heading in a very, very bad direction. Exactly. And that's the thing Randy set up front of the last podcast is, it's not about, oh well, if you wash your hands, it's not going to go away. It's like, no, dude, the point is if everybody gets sick at once and everybody, nobody changes their lives and everybody spreads it to everybody, the hospital systems are going to be overwhelmed and then you see things like you're seeing in Northern Italy when people are kind of like,

hey, man, who's got the best chance to survive in this thing because we're going to give the respirator to him and, you know, 79-year-oldold dude over here like, sorry, there's literally nothing we can do. And so that's what happens when a shake it's overwhelmed. I saw something about New York only has like 1600 hospital beds or something like that. So that's a tough math for, you know, city of what, 8 million people. Well, you also... So that's why you see things going on lockdown. And like, that's all I'm gonna say on it because I'm not an expert in everybody's going to pick holes and whatever I'm saying, but just go fucking read stuff about it. Man, it's not, it's not, it's literally math. It's math, like you're saying, it's not, it's not a big conspiracy.

It's not being blown out of nowhere. The point, like the best quote I heard was after every pandemic, like everything you did before looks alarmist, everything you did after looks insufficient. I think that's kind of the situation right now. It also feels like this last five days plus the next five or seven. There's a lot of unknown. I don't know.

I'm not an expert either, obviously, but reading it, it takes, you know, people can have no symptoms for a week, 10 days. But then in a week from now or 10 days from now like you'll know a lot more of like oh Well, you know those people that are sick are now staying home. So it's like that's why I was such a tough decision to play on Thursday Right, it's like we don't it's not like a well Well, at least nothing happened Thursday. We have no idea that's what happened to say and it's not Necessarily going to be traceable back to something that happened Thursday

But like if one person dies from them playing golf on Thursday What the fuck? I'm thinking of the in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king in the land of the coronavirus The person that got it and recovered might be king. Who can say that? They can just walk around and... I don't know. Yeah, I didn't have a really looked into that.

I'm not sure how to, like, I don't know if that happens. I thought there were cases in Korea of like people getting more than once. Okay, nevermind. So, listen, let's get out in front. There's no medical advice on this. T.C. don't be crowned in anybody. That's it. Anyway, so,'t don't be crowned anybody.

Anyway, so all right so One thing to remember here to is every fix for the golf schedule and for exemptions and status and all that every fix cruise Someone somebody else. So there's no way you know, there's people people that are gonna get it sort of in the stick here, either way, which I guess is life. But I wanted to make things a little bit real. That's pretty, that's pretty pointing it, man. Start out with Hank Lebiota, friend of the pod.

He has dealt with Crohn's disease for the last, I think since college, they're probably five, five, six years or so. He takes a drug, he mirror, he might run to control that, but the side effect of the drug is that it basically has a very compromised immune system for him or for everybody that takes it. So, he's kind of squarely within that very, very high risk pool of people for this. So, I was talking to him about it last night. And he's like, yeah, man, like it's not just the elderly.

Right. You know, there's plenty of people amongst us that look and seem healthy that are in a pretty shitty spot here. So think of them as well. Right. So he was not in the players, correct? Correct.

Not that that changes anything about the situation, just wondering what he was exposed to this week. And he was not out there, which is good. Yeah, so I think, you know, first things first, you know, looking at the schedule, biggest thing like this probably won't peak until end of April, into May, even beyond that. So I have a hard time thinking that there's not another wave of cancellations coming as we go along here. It's going to be, it's always harder to start stuff back up than it seems to shut it down, too, right? That's what I'm saying.

That first event that's coming back is gonna need some runway. No, totally. Because I can't, I don't know, I can be wrong. I can't imagine bleachers are going up like this weekend at Heritage or. A lot of that stuff gets done in the last three weeks. It's kind of amazing how that stuff comes together.

But these guys are, it's not a slip-to-switch and be like, all right, now we're playing. There we go. Yeah. It brings up a question I've asked in the past, which is what, like, sometimes I look around at the events and I'm like, are these bleachers necessary? Like, what if you had the tournament and it went back to the 70s? I know that's not good for the corporate partnerships and everything, but if they were just forced

to be like, all right, we're gonna have We're gonna, you know, someone blows the whistle and everybody getting position. Yeah, and then the heritage is open We're planning the tournament and it's just gonna be like a tournament in the 1960s and everybody's gonna be behind the ropes and Break those periscopes. Yeah, I honestly think that you know, that would be a vibe. I would Minimalist golfs, I think you know and listen, they're gonna that tournament takes a haircut Probably on you know, they have to in the contract whatever they didn't provide a corporate hospitality But wouldn't it be better to make 50% of it? Yeah, and then nothing Yeah, and maybe when they do come back it is like that that that kind of makes a lot of sense. It's better than, it has to be better than cancer.

Like I think every industry has to start looking at what's better than zero. You know, like I gotta get, you know, let's get something out of this, let's keep moving forward and then figure it out next year. I think where it gets really complex though is, so assuming, so heritage is the week after master, so third week of April.

And you know, like you're saying, trying to buy all accounts, this thing is not going to peak until about then or maybe even into May. And so what happens, I think, is you get, it's not just the fans that are at risk. I know that was the big talk at the players championship for good reason. But I think a lot of it too is like, you have these players who are, you know, okay, you get on an airplane and come down here because you need to, you know, okay, get on an airplane and come down here because you need to, you know, you need to go play the heritage. And I think Rory was not that I think Rory would be playing the heritage, but I think he would, he was kind of speaking

on that was like, listen, you know, the same thing you hear from a lot of different people. Like, hey, I'm not, I'm a young, pretty healthy guy. Like, I don't think I'm going to get sick, but like, my mom has a respiratory issue. And so what the fuck? I'm guy. Like, I don't think I'm gonna get sick, but like my mom has a respiratory issue. And so, what the fuck? I'm not, no, I don't wanna be on planes. I don't wanna be in big crowds. I don't wanna be doing this. And so-

If Rory did play the Heritage, there would be big crowds. He would not fly down to- Well, listen, I'm getting- Listen, the point still stands. If you play the Heritage, the television crew needs to fly. All commercial.

They need to go lay all the cable. They need to all the like there's just so much that goes into a tournament that it's not. It's not as simple as you know, if they're if they're canceling NBA games and not playing those in front of fans, then you know, the outdoor space or whatever the excuses that were made for golf are not. They don't fly. They should not be playing. The only time I was going to get down with the, you know,

this is played over lots of acreage and blah, blah, blah, is when it was gonna be no fans. Like, okay, all of a sudden, now we have the players, the media, the cameras, like, we're all super spread out. That would feel like a massive public park at that point. Except for all the players going through the locker room, all the media's going through the media dining, all the people are taking the shuttles. Yeah, the media is going through the media dining, all the people are taking shuttles.

Yeah, it's like, there's literally no good answers. And the point is like the second you have a player test positive, you're too late. And there still might be one that is carrying the virus right now. Are you guys how well in tune with the NBA? I mentioned this in the last episode, but like are people upset that it let it get to that point that, you know, players caught the people upset that they let it get to that point, that, you know, players caught the virus and that they were allowed to keep going?

I mean, I think we should really fire it up if that happened in golf. The NBA had a plan for as soon as any player and any major professional sport in North America got like test deposit for this, they were gonna shut it down, not even NBA. So, you know, the fact that it happened right before a game or whatnot. But yeah, I mean, so it seems like they were kind of on the front end

of this to where that was as early as anything was going to happen, right? Stuff I've read has been mainly positive in the leadership of the NBA, right? I mean, I'm, you know, if I'm sure if I dig into the replies to some of the NBA tweets, it's, why are we overreacting? But I think that Adam Silver is like, is again and again, establishes himself as like, a guy that's gonna do the right thing. So I would echo that.

So I think one of the big things with golf is, it's far harder, more challenging to unravel of this or put it back together because it's such a performance-based sport, whereas team sports and all of that, you can shorten the season and still have a coherent result, right? And there's salaries. And there's these guys, they're independent contractors. And then there's a team of independent contractors around them. So, you know, we're not crying poor for professional golfers,

but caddies and physios and coaches and all of that, like there's this entire ecosystem built around it too. So, looking at the abbreviated season, like if things, if all of April gets wiped out, so you're looking at Heritage, New Orleans, Wells Fargo, and Charlotte, and then you're into May. You got Byron Nelson to 7 to the 10th, PGA, the 14th to the 17th of May, Colonial after that, and then Rocket Mortgage, and then Moriel into June.

And so let's say they don't play to Memorial. Is it, do you just say, all right, this is an abbreviated season, we're gonna take, you know, we're gonna take everything, you know, basically strip those eight to 10 events out and basically play on as, as like, this is normal kind of thing. And like, do the playoffs as normal because the problem then is like the, you know,

guys that graduated from a corner fairy tour, like they're looking at max, like five or six starts left because the strength of fields are going to be higher at each one of these events. Because people are coming back and want to play. I think the hard part about this is we'll get into a bunch of different scenarios, but you're going to have to draw the line somewhere.

Yeah. Right. Somebody's going to be at screwing. Yeah, I have a feeling they're not going to want to screw their top overall players that could potentially be flirting with another professional golf league right now. I doubt they're gonna go prior to it. Like a lot, one of the issues,

you know, that you hear the rumblings of is, it's a member run, you know, a member organization in that number 200 on the FedEx Cup gets treated the same as number one. Oh man, if they come back and it's like, it's good. Whatever happens, I have a feeling this has been the conjectured column, but it's going to be very favoring towards the top players, which I mean, how do you feel about that? I think that's probably right.

Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. I can't be the high, I would, I would, doesn't seem to serve this poor grade to be like, no, the priority should be the corn fairy graduates. I mean, we, we are friends with a lot of those guys and root for them. And it's been really fun follow their journeys, but I have a feeling like they are the ones that are going to get hit some of the hardest of the PJ tour.

You almost went to like an English accent there. An English outreach accent. That was like a halfway like, no, do this. This is going to be a really not. You were triggered, uh, triggered British Twitter. Twitter user. Yeah. So I got a question for you TC. I'm not really not. You were triggered British Twitter user. Yeah. So I got a question for ETC.

Let's play that scenario out. Are there any opportunities to expand the field, to add an opposite field events on short notice or is that just way too big of an ask? Well, so that's something. All right, so, hey, you've got... You're talking for the PGA tour or Coin Prairie tour. What are you? Let's get specific. Well, I'm laying it out.'ve got... You're talking for the PGA Tour or Coinfairy Tour, what are you, on the specific? Well, I'm laying it out.

Okay, so let's start with the PGA Tour. Like, is there a way to expand the field so that you could play across two courses? Or you could go off both 10 and one and like, you're at three. I don't think anything is the table. I mean, to make sure that everybody that want, like anybody that, like as we said,

everything's planned out six months in advance. So, you probably know if somebody that's well outside everybody that want like anybody that like as we said, everything's planned out six months in advance. So you probably know if somebody that's well outside the WGC rankings or whatever is going to be playing in the John Deere to ensure that everybody gets a spot. Do they open can they open up 30 more spots by they're kind of maxed out on the course as it is like on as far as single course venues. But yeah, I didn't even thought about opening up another course. Well, that's where the mandate of the of the organization to provide playing opportunities for the members could benefit. It could benefit the guiding North Star for them.

So two things, too, is you've got anything that you do this year, like, you know, I floored it last night. So a couple guys like, hey, do you, do you just make the fall series? Like part of the 2019, 2020 season. And that would make a lot of sense. But that seems tough because then you, you know, then you have a sense. That's been for 2021, you know, or do you,

that's what I mean. You guys don't have a lot of time. Basically, anything you do this year, taking away from next year, because then you, you know, also next year, it's like, all right, cool, how do you get? You got to make room for the guys that are going to get their cards off of the corn fairy

from this year, or like you can't, like you said, you got to draw the line somewhere, you can't steal from Peter to pay Paul, kind of, all the way down the line. So, the other thing to consider too, is like, before we get into a lot of these these specifics is the tour is going to take a backseat to Augusta National, USGA, the RNA, and the PGA of America. And then the tour gets to fill in. And like the Olympics is probably pretty much done at this point.

Right? I can't picture that. At least the Olympic golf. I can't see, like Olympic golf seems like it's farther down the priority list for these guys. If they're looking for somewhere to put a major, or if they're looking for somewhere to put a WGC, I can't see Olympic golf taking precedence over that. Tough. God. Tough scene and condolences to the Olympic golf organizers.

They've been dealt with very shit here over the last eight years. Which one thing you said there, like obviously we gotta make, they have to make room for the next year's graduates of the Corn Fairy Tour. Just throwing this out there, like, do they? Like, I don't mean that book presupposes it. I don't mean to be a smart ass, but like if the Corn Fairy event, like if the Corn Fairy schedule gets cut in half,

I would imagine the rules mandate that they have to do that. Or do 12 spots instead of 25. So I'm saying it's not necessarily representative of a full season on the coin. So basically, again, kind of, they're probably more likely to screw people further down the totem pole. And we'll get to that.

So let's talk scheduling first, because I think that's probably the, one of the things that like, let's talk scheduling first because I think that's probably one of the things that like we'll talk masters. So, um, heard, you know, like they could take the PGA slot in May, heard about that. Like it seems like masters should we go through what it, what are the, what are the gusts to actually say? You said we're postponing. postponing. Yeah. So it is all that sort of thing. Kick down the road for another, another time. So, you know, it sounds like they've got

kind of first crack here. Which even pull on that thread. Like, imagine being in the boardroom of, like, okay, who's gonna pick the date first? You got four or five just alphas in there that aren't gonna want to back down. It's nuts, whereas I think August is the only one. Really?

Really with the Trump card, where it's like, okay, cool. We're just going to put our tournament this weekend. And if you if you guys want to have the same one that we can fill, yeah, totally go ahead. See how that goes. So like, like, how do the other three, four, like October doesn't feel. So the course is like, the grass isn't going to be, you're talking to some turf grass guys and some of the reps for lower companies and all that, like that doesn't sound like, like it sounds like November 1st would be rolling the dice if they went before November 1st. Just because it's hot and humid and wet. Well, in the grass. Yeah, I mean, everything's gonna be soupy and muddy and what would they have to,

do they have to have overseas for a gust? They don't really, I think that's kind of the mist, like the course closes and like, it's not even, it's not even really bermuda, it's just like, you know, it just dies all. It's like carpet. Yeah, and, but then the problem is, if you run into, you know, after November 1st, like the weather, like you're gonna get

some really shady cold weather and, you know, then that's, and then you're, which would be sick. You're also, and it's soupy and all that, but then you're also doing two masters in a span of six months. Would a gust of national, would want to have the masters with shitty optics on TV. Like would they be better, if they're in their mind, and they're mind, they may be better off, to be like, nah, we're just gonna wait until next spring. It's right around the corner. like would they be better? If they don't want to compromise. And their mind, they may be better off to be like, no, we're just gonna wait until next spring.

It's right around the corner. And they're kind of the one that, you know, if they said, all right, everybody that was eligible in 2020, plus everybody that's eligible in 2021, they're one of the few with some actual flexibility there because it is a smaller field. The only compromise they would have to make would maybe be with the amateurs.

So hey, if you're gonna turn pro, we'll still let you in. Yeah. You know, you can't earn the prize money for it, but we'll let you play kind of thing. Mr. Jones would have understood exactly. So, but has the masters ever skipped a year, like during World War II or two? Yeah. They did. Yeah.

Okay. Because I was going to say that could have been a factor of like, right? We got to keep this streak going. Yeah. Yeah. My guess would be they either try to get something in in May, because if you're gonna do something in November, you guys start planning now, too, right?

Like that's the thing, like there's all these dominoes that need to fall and like. Vendors and ops and all, yeah, okay. May feels like, I know, right? For an organization that is probably very conservative, feels like a tough thing to declare right now to then get everybody moving. Yeah.

When it went. I will say if that was not ready. Listen, the masters is gonna have high ratings and none of this is about ratings, of course, but if that was the first event back, people would be very hyped. It'd be one of the wildest sporting it would be like in history. So other stuff is, would they do May, late May with no fans?

You still have all the player travel. But are we in a different scenario? So like right now, crazy spread right now. In late May, if we're on the downside of that bell curve and a lot of people have already been infected, are we in a different scenario? I don't know the answer to that. Are we in a different scenario to say we can play this, just we're going the downside of that bell curve and a lot of people have already been infected, are we in a different scenario? I don't know the answer to that. Are we in a different scenario to say, we can play this, just we're gonna go no fans.

Listen, as Big Rainy says, you know, I don't know the answer is gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to find out. So something else, I would assume, I would assume they do the, Augusta National Women's Amateur Drive Chip and Putt, they do that in the fall. They punt on the masters this year.

That's just my guess. They're looking at ways to sell merchandise so that it benefits the local economy because they know that everybody. They have people are gonna get, tell them to get your best with me. I can't punch. I gotta store.nowayingup.com.

If you guys need, you know, people can't come in person. We can sell some masters gear through that. We could, if they listen with their permission, of course. Our fulfillment, I'm, that's what I'm saying, they can supply us with it, but our fulfillment center will get that stuff off. It sure will. They will. We are open for business, everyone.

So here's the craziest part. What are you doing for the local economy? You know, we can't, you can't not judge me. That's right. Okay, that's cool. Come on, back off me. Talking about Augusta, like that, so we just had that whole conversation about Augusta.

Augusta is the easiest. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So next you got the PGA. They might be extra-bond. Like, so it seems like they need the money. They're in the worst spot possible with San Francisco. Yeah.

In all of this. Yeah. They could have a TBC saltgrass. And they have to get it in before the NFL starts because they're on CBS, too, which it seems like CBS would maybe make some concessions for the masters, but I mean, it's an ESPN CBS deal, right? So could they play it on ESPN in the fall? I know ESPN has college football in the fall, but I don't know.

What if we get to a major that's just streaming only? That's the future, right? Streaming's the future. Why do you say the PGA needs the money anymore than anybody else? I mean, Augusta doesn't need the money. Okay, so other than Augusta. But I'd say the USG-80, it's USG-80.

The USG and the PGA of America run their whole organizations off of, the USG runs their whole organization off the US Open, which the revenue. PGA has the Ryder Cup later this year. PGA is the Ryder Cup, so they've got that in their back pocket. But like, yeah, like the USG A, I forget what the, what the percentage of revenue that comes from the US Open is,

I think it's like 75% don't quote me on that, but somewhere around there. And so, if you don't have the US Open, that's a tough line that I'm going to strike from the budget. So it seems like the USGA gets second crack after it's the national Open. Yeah, I feel way better about the US Open because I think like well the only problem is like qualifying and stuff Like all the qualifying starts in late April and early May and listen. I know Not sure if you're aware of that. Well, so FSGA the local Florida State Golf Association has canceled everything up until

April 26th and no handshakes policy. Yeah, it was implemented well in advance of this Do you get a stroke penalty if you do anything? Me and Randy played it in a one day event. We did the elbow bump on the 18th green. After Randy missed an eagle putt that would've won the tournament. But that's a whole other. What a tight, right?

A whole other pocket. Not a dog, not a killer. Oh man. Well he certainly looked like a dog. He had an eagle putt at the last. Not a killer. You know, put himself in it. Did he make it though?

He had a good putt and it didn't go in. Ow. But I was gonna say though? He had a good putt and it didn't go in. I don't know. I don't know. But I was gonna say, it would have been a good way to slam the door on feet out. Hey man, second event, got the W, you know. That was just a tie, right? Yeah, but I think he would have won

in his core class. Oh, that's cool. No, no, no, no. His core class is sick. The story's better if it was for the way. So the April 26 is when local qualifying starts. So they haven't called off local qualifying in Florida. I would struggle to see that being the first thing back.

The Florida is happening next week in Florida. It's not an FSG. Well, and that's what I mean is like for a local qualifier, yourself notwithstanding, most people aren't flying in for that. Or you know you don't have this big ass infrastructure that you have at a pro golf tournament. There's no camera crews. There's no right. That is basically like a okay we can all do this and everybody operative or wash your hands. Keep your distance from

people and like that actually at the risk of sounding insensitive to all the other things that are canceled and all the other hardships people are gonna have that kind of seems like it could go on. Yeah. It seems more tentable for you. Yeah. Should be on the back end of the bell curve, theoretically, or the mega high end. We'll see.

Looking at, you know, even if they push the US open back and you said, all right, you know, local qualifying is pushed back or in the sectionals is pushed back because now we're pushing back WGCs, now we're pushing back all the other Puget's first. Yeah, everything slots in around the majors, right? So let's say the Olympics is dead, you slot something into that week, somebody throughout the idea of the tour could cancel the WGC Memphis event, shout out to Kyle Porter.

You free up that week for like a major or for something, and then you move the tour championship to Memphis to a piece FedEx in the fall. You do that. When you say to Coke. As I'm saying, there's not, and ludicrous. I'm not saying that like answer the question, I'm saying like every one of these decisions

is gonna have a downstreet. It's kind of the hierarchy. Like getting sure FedEx is happy first, right? And then, you know, we even got into the wind of rewards stuff here. Yeah, that's what happens to the A on risk reward challenge. That's what I was saying. So the option you just presented has the British open, UK British open, presented by her majesty, the queen, followed by a major in Memphis.

Correct. We're saying it's not in Memphis,, followed by a major in Memphis. We're saying it's not in Memphis, but followed by a major, the week after, because the Memphis, the WGC in Memphis is the week after the British Open, isn't? Hold on. Because I thought, it was the last year, but I think it was open, Minnesota, Olympics, windum.

So this year, the WGC Memphis is 4th of July weekend. That's right, then. So it goes WGC Memphis, John Deere, British Open, Minnesota, and then, and then, and then, you would have three majors in a row because the John Deere is the mid-media. Yeah, there you go. Right?

That's true. There you go. How about that? One thing that maybe there are a number of disease experts who can be happy to poke holes in this, but I know there was the whole thing floating around on how spread might be lower in the south and in the warm weather and all that stuff too.

I wonder if any of that could play a factor in rescheduling some of this stuff. The only reason I thought of that is like, man, July 4th and Memphis sounds hot as fuck. Yeah, but maybe you can reschedule some of this stuff earlier in Southern. Yeah, which maybe they're there's something the tour here with with like a lot of guys were maybe going to skip that event. What I've read with the heat thing is like it could be the case, but there's zero evidence to support that.

We won't know and there's nothing that there's no one's bank, no one with medical expertise is banking on this thing's going away. Yeah, one of those things we'll find out in the next few weeks. So you got to figure winged foot is going to be flexible with the USGA on wherever this, the later the better, probably for winged foot. I mean, coming to Northeast, coming out of, they've struggled a couple, like Shinnecock

who's had a really rough winter. I know it hasn't been a rough winter up there, but they struggle to get that thing in good US Open shape and they kind of lost it because they pushed it too hard. They just didn't have the, I'm not an agronomy expert, but basically it was sopping wet three weeks before the tournament

and trying to try it out did not result very well for them. So they've lost it. It's gone. Some other stuff just to consider with schedule. So then, yeah, so then everything else has to fall into place around the majors. You majors. I assume it's hierarchy of sponsors. I don't know if you just tack on another year to each sponsors that are losing their event this year. I don't know if you tack on another year to their

tournament or what. And then you've got all the corn fairy stuff that slots in, you know around that as well. You know one idea, a couple of agents have put forth is, you know, the tour could basically dig into the word chest a little bit, subsidize the purses of Corn Fairy, Mackenzie Tour all that to, you know, kind of net up the rest of the year so that this goes making up for missed events. Yeah, because the other thing too is like the, you know, I feel bad for the Cornfairy folks because they've got, you know, they're missing one of their new events, the Lake Charles championship in Louisiana. They're missing that March 26th through 29th. Another new event in Arlington to the Veritex Baying. Tony Roma. The likely miss that one.

And then another one Huntsville. You know, that'll that might go by the way side too. So three, three of the like six events that they're missing are going to be new first time events. Like that sucks. They were making so much momentum and progress. Also, Canadian tour at QSchool is going on right now. There was a run of it, a sectional in Alabama this past week. What happens if the rest of the sites don't, I don't think they've been canceled yet. I know everything down, official, you know, Latino America,

Cornfairy, PGA Torbanz, or canceled. I don't think as of now the rest of the Q school has been canceled, but what do you do for the people that qualified and then the rest of the people, I can't go to their qualifier. I do those people that already qualified, does that still count? Or are they delaying the Q school? Or do they wipe it slightly clean and start all over?

That's staggered out across different dates, across different locations. What happens there? One of them's gonna be at Valley at TPC. So you got all that. You got, I think one time frame that probably makes sense to do some stuff or to, you know, you do have some flexibility in the fall. There are some off weeks there and you could reach bigger the fall series a little bit but also like, you know, you can do a big

co-ed event at Sawgrass. As we go through this, you know, I think we were pretty sympathetic to the thought process that went into the tour and how hard of a decision it was to pry cancel the players. Looking back, that's going to look like the easiest decision of all of the remaining decisions. The only one that was like, oh yeah, we should do this. Now, it's not a yes or no question for almost anything because it's whatever decision you make, it's going to be, nope, that means this doesn't happen,

this is that stakeholder is pissed about this, that's not gonna work. It's, I mean, they, I mean, they, thinking about like just be creative as possible. Say like, all right, like let's have a, what's something we wanted to do for a while? Let's have an LPGA, PGA joint event at Sawgrass and have the top 75 from each one come to that or something

like that or a team event. Like just like the commissioner day for a day pod like you have no rules. You can, you know, unfortunately I feel like when in times of uncertainty is when a lot of people get less creative and like understandably. Right. No, seriously, but I don't think that's going to happen is what I'm getting at. I think it's going to be like we need to, you know, batten down the hatches, take care of the, I think the hierarchy gets even more ingrained and lower down the totem pole.

You are the less likely you're going to see your event happen or you're going to be the one that, you know, is the odd man out. It could be the ultimate harshest ever probably green, play better. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So so really difficult to solve it. But WGC's in majors. How do you do the qualifying for those? What's the what's the OWGR cutoff? The guys that are in a good spot right now have lucked out and there's no chance to really improve your position. Do you have events drop off the OWGR still? If you're not playing events, like there could be guys who have events improve your position? Do you have events drop off the OWG R still if you're not playing events?

Like there could be guys who have events, you know big finishes two years ago that drop off or a year ago That drops off or gets weighted less and now they're not being replaced and so then they're getting into the field. I would assume that the Reflexes to say we're gonna pause everything right, right. So I would assume they would say, everything stays exactly as it is until we start back up. Just so insane. I keep having these moments throughout the day where the gravity keeps kind of hitting you.

You know, and not just for golf, just for everything. Where you look around, you're like, man, everything in the whole world has been canceled. The sports don't exist,, concerts don't exist. Are there any farmers markets, like, is there any tours? Any tours that are earning, like, still going? I know not European, I know not PGA.

I think there's a couple like Sunshine, like, kind of mini tour type stuff. Any of you that's earning world ranking points. I got a press release yesterday about the Sage Valley junior thing that they were kind of patting themselves on the back. It's like the only competitive golf going on in the United States. I got sick, man.

Well, the kids aren't in that. Weird flex. Well, yeah, you're not like the bravest one. That's just like the dumbest. They only not pussy's in America. So you've got that. So basically, somebody who's in the top, say 50 right now is going to say in the top 50 and they're going to get into, they don't run the risk of

dropping out really. What do you do about the century tournament of champions next year? If there's eight less guys, we can spot for the Jack speech birdie challenge. PGA tour university. What do you do? Do those guys get another year of eligibility next year? Those seniors? And then do they get slaughtered and ended? 2022? Yeah, the college sports thing was one that hits really hard

on college golf. Like what Havlam was talking about. It's like, I mean, there's nothing to say. It's like, sorry, seasons canceled. Thanks for playing. Of course it's closed, just no. That sucks. How do you sort through eligibility for next year's events when certain guys like Kats only

played three times this whole season so far? Okay, come off the tour. You know, guys like, I think Kizner's played five or six events, like, you know, guys are gonna fall well short of there. I'm sure they'll suspend some of the minimums, but all right, then what do you do with the pension? You know, you got to make 15 starts to be eligible for basically to make it count as a year for the pension.

That's hundreds of thousands of dollars for some of these guys. And isn't that like you can stretch that out to equipment contracts and stuff too? Equipment contracts like or just any endorsement deal. A lot of them can be voided if you don't reach the number of events. You're not eligible for any of the bonuses. You know, it's, this could reset the entire equipment. Which, yeah, it's, it's, it's one thing to be like,

hey, hey, endorsement company. It's like, pay, pay your guys, but you would have paid them. That's one thing. But like, they are losing out on revenue So like is that person that they're getting their revenue from you know paying for that and it's all it's just this cycle of like And then when you turn when shit is like when the revenue stops coming in and then if they if they have to lay off people But they're paying out bonuses to PGA torpos

It's like the only people in the world that aren't taking air could have PGA Tor Pros then. Top level PGA Tor Pros. Yeah. So, you know, and then from the perspective of the equipment contracts too, you've got, you know, you've got like, or FedEx cup even, how do you, you know, guys who have gotten off to a good start this year? Like, leash or your boy Lonto. Yeah. Oh, do I win the FedEx Cup? What happened? FedEx Cup.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. But yeah, I mean, those, like, it's like those guys, all right, cool. I'm gonna open it up. Could it absolutely get off the hook for not trapping hotlin' if the whole season gets stirred up? He was playing chess. Nobody even talked about it. The Zang The Zang gang I think is is Looked pretty good right about now. No one even talked about it. The pizza party got canceled. That's right

That was post-poned post-poned. Sorry. Yeah, it was the right thing to do. I think so too Um, and yeah also only like rainy post-poned like weeks ago Only like to rainy skies. It didn't fit his calendar I did it did it with coronavirus. Can I just comment on just the absurdity of this entire situation? Like the whole. That's what I mean. The whole world is pausing.

It's a sweepstakes. I've never seen anything like this. I have no idea what's gonna happen. Like I said, I think we're still a far away from this thing bottoming out. We're at the very beginning of this. Listen, shit could get markedly worse and probably will get markedly worse over the next few weeks,

but right now there's almost something kinda cheesy and inspiring about it, right? Where it's like, man, you know what? The reason that they canceled the NCAA Championship, like the biggest money maker that they had, I don't know how that stacks up to College Football and all that stuff, but like, do you know how hard that decision is to cancel that?

And there was no cynical financial decisions to do. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we have to do this in order to keep people safe. And everyone had just kind of followed suit. And I don't know, there's something. I think it's somewhat optimistic or inspiring about it, I guess. In every industry too, and talking about the PGTOR schedule highlights this

is I think there's been over the last 20, 30 years. There's not a lot of redundancy in the, whatever you wanna call the supply chain or like the business model for a lot of people. It's like you get loaded into this false sense of like like for instance the wrap around schedule. Like that 10 years ago that could have been, oh cool, we can we can just map out all these October, November dates that are open when the players are off. Everybody has kind of like rev the engine and taken up all the inventory that you know and then you know, in e-commerce

or whatever, like supply chains, like everyone's getting stuff from overseas, so there's no backup plan when you can't get it. You know, so I think in a way, it may, the business is- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, have redundancy back into their business. It may lead to less profits, but it's like it has to be there, right? This is close to like a Zoom's day scenario that you have seen in our lifetimes, definitely.

So what does it seems like? I mean, it's almost like a friendly reminder, but like a, because this could be, let's say it's a far more communicable disease, or let's say the death rate is 15% or 20%, instead of 2% or 3%, it seems like we're actually kind of getting, if this is gonna happen,

this is actually kind of a nudge of, hey, get your shit together. Yeah, exactly. Versus, all right, cool, 20% of the world population is gonna get wiped out this time. Right? Well, it's also, I don't mean to be especially cynical about it, but I think we're a long ways away from hearing any good news.

Like I think it's a very, the reason why there's a press conference almost every day is to try to ease the level of the panic. Like if we hit whatever full level, like we should probably be at whatever full level of emergency we could be at, but we're easing it day by day to avoid the grocery stores getting overrun and people like literally fighting and shooting each other for food

and toilet paper for some reason. And so like if you look at like how we are compared to Italy, I forget if we talked about this last time, but we're like 11 days behind Italy. And on you know, on that day when we had like 1200 cases, Italy was on 12,000. So in 11 days in theory on the bell curve, we will have over 10X of the number of cases.

And they have full domestic travel bands now, full quarantine, and this is just purely guess I haven't seen this written anywhere, but I would have to imagine we are headed for that in the United States. Oh, especially Spain. Especially down, right? Especially in big cities.

Shout out to New York, you might be with us for a little while. Happy to be here. Going back to the I have redundancy in my life. Exactly. You got to escape. I got to bed in here and some original penguin clothing. No, for, come on. Shout out to the voice. It's not come on. Don't be in the voice.

It's not a free act. It's not a free act. It's not a free act. You're right. You're right. You gotta shout about it. I got a bunch of NLU merch in there too. I'm wearing it as a original penguin jeans right now.

Yeah, I mean, shit, maybe the upside of this is you, you know, you spend more than six months in a day down here in Florida. You know, maybe he's stating. Wow, for sure. For sure. For sure. I'd like to go back though to the expanding the field of a PGA tour event. You guys know better than me.

There's what normally on tournament, there's 150 guys. 156 for the fullest field events in the summer that they don't need two courses on. Okay. And that is. Let it be said, real quick. Maxed out. Like, you couldn't do 180. Not without, not without more than one.

Let it be said that during daylight savings time, starting T times at 7.30 AM, with 144 people at the players, they did not finish. They had to call for darkness. Okay. Which is, it's still shorter days, but still. Yeah.

It's 12. Which I think actually happens at the players' place. I was gonna say, what if they, what if they start playing forces? Like the rest of the game. I'm actually going to slow it. It's slow, Which I think actually happens at the players' critical. I was pretty sure what they did. What do they start playing forcibly? Like the rest of the game. Actually, I'm actually going slow. It's going to be going slow. It makes it worse.

I love the 30 day events with Forson. You know what I'm saying? I love the opponent on the thread. I do. I like it. But again, like I backed what I said, who does that hurt the most? Your top level guys. That's creating more opportunities for kind of corn fairy grads and all that stuff.

And I doubt that's going to be their first priority when they come back. Which I think that that's why we've talked about this a lot, especially with the PGL stuff, where that's the reason the WGC's exist in these like the Zozo and the CJ Cup and all these events, the reason that they exist is like, okay, this one's just for you guys. We're going to put up some walls.

Here's a chance for you to hit the rocket boosters on FedEx and money and all that stuff. And I think as we've kind of gone through a lot of this stuff, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of those events that might get wiped out. So to your point, just to put a finer point on what you're saying, it's like the more of those events you kind of backfill, the more of the events you're talking about, be able to backfill with like, you know, propping up a supercharged 3M championship that has 180 guys, you know, you kind of need to offshoot it with, you know, what's one that's just for the top guys or just for, you know, you have to figure out the right balance there because otherwise the ecosystem gets out of it.

Otherwise guys are pissed and chez' really. Exactly. Okay. That put for a if you got those top players in a room and said, everybody's taking a haircut. Like, I think a lot of them may say, like, okay, for this year, I understand, like I get it. Maybe not though, it's their livelihood, right? Here's some to think about. PJ towards the original gig. These guys are cold, coldly economic actors that's true

that's true I'm I'm getting maybe giving them too much credit and like how would I react in that situation it's yeah right now as we look at the FedEx cup standings Phil Mikkelson is 89th Jason day is 91st Ricky Fowler's 94th Matthew Wolf is 99th and Jordan Speeth is 110th, Dustin Johnson is 111th. The point being like those guys are not like safely inside the 125 if they don't get some, if they're gonna need some opportunities to slide up that or else they're gonna get passed.

So we should have done this ahead of time but there have gotta be some guys, like I think all the guys you just rattled off are exempt through wins or something from last year. I would think by saying for their playoffs, like the FedEx. Oh, I see. Yeah, that makes sense. Exactly. Exactly.

That's where the big economic redistribution comes is through those FedEx. Yes. Zach Johnson is 131. See, yeah. No, he probably has some exemptions. I mean, I think he's earnings. Yeah, I think he's got one. Oh, right.

The money and stuff like that. Well, yeah, I mean, there are some guys, I don't know. There's not a huge names outside the top 120. If I like Jimmy Walker's 157th, 2016 PGA, I think he'd still be good. Right. Because you get five years exemption with a major one. Allegedly.

Allegedly. Yeah, it's just, I don't know. It sucks. It goes 179. You could simulate some of these majors. That's true. I mean, the PGA in America does have, you can knock that conspiracy button here real quick. But they have a history of faking some of these champions.

Yeah, the one that Jimmy Walker, Walker Texas backstopper, one at Baltic Roll, I have a hard time believing that that tournament actually happened. I don't think it did. What if, what if we did that? It's like when you get to,

when you're doing like your Madden season and you just sim the rest of the season and all the people stats auto-populate and all that stuff, we could, you know, we got a lot of shot like data out there. But if they just sim, what if they just sim the rest of the season and go on those ranking? I think another thing to consider here is guys

that are no support for that idea. No, no, no. Okay. That's a good one. There actually, people are doing that. They're like simming NBA 2K games, people are betting on it and stuff. There you go.

I'm sure very legally, all very cool, very legal. Guys that are a little bit banged up that have been putting off certain surgeries or certain things. Brooks, what was the direct quote? Brooks's knee. Well, no, that's a different thing. We'll get to that next.

So, like, Brooks's knee seems like it's pretty messed up. Hey, maybe it's his knee scoped. Maybe, you know, maybe he gets that cleaned out, shuts it down for the next two or three months, but there's so much uncertainty of when things are going to ramp back up that you don't know Am I gonna miss a major if I do that or am I pretty well safe, you know The other thing is we could be looking at a complete Bucking sweepstakes of major medicals a quote tsunami of major medicals according to what agent which you know explain why explain why that is so

They would carry a full exemption over to the next season you pay you know So guys that are off to a really bad start this year and but have you know say however many starts left on a full season where Like the so and I'm not sure how this would work Let's say you're a corn fairy guy and you're only gonna give five starts left the rest of the season but if you declared a major medical it would give you 15 or whatever you know like the average of what guys had gotten in previous years, you feign an injury or play up an existing injury, basically get a jail free card into 2021. To get it, a medical, do you have to have it just like a doctor's note?

Don't get tron going on's a that's a very complicated Tron takes everyone that is on medical is No, there's a lot of there's a lot of little stores on a1a here where you can go get your major medical car If you need no, so I think there's there's there's certainly you know It's certainly guys get injured all the time playing golf I you know no problem with the legitimate major medicals now like there's a guy like David Burgon you a junior Who I'd like to I have some literature that I can get beyond him bit on major medicals. Now, like, there's a guy like David Bergon, you know, a junior? Who I'd like to, I have some literature that I can get on him.

Been on major medical since the Clinton administration. But is it, at, it's definition, taking out the bad actors. Is it, man, my, my shoulders sore, I go to a doctor and say, can you, like, they just get in, how do you apply? I just go get a doctor's note. I think they've cleaned it up here in recent, they've tried to at least, because it's also tied to basically disability.

Like these guys get, the issue is the hangar ons is what you're saying. The people that are like, your game is toast. You got some, you have some status through this and you kinda got hurt. Now you're 44 years old. You are milking that medical status for years and years and years and years

and years and years. Do you tell it that? Do you tell it that? But is the tour review, like, is there a team at the tour that reviews like the legitimacy of a major medical or is it just like, yep, you just fill out this paper or work? They do, but at some point, it's going back. It's like it's a member-run organization. You have to take a guy's doctor sign kind of for his work.

So I think they've cleaned it up somewhat. I got to think there's going gonna be some thumbs put on the scale for cleaning that up even more. Yeah, as a playing opportunities become kind of worth their weight and gold. I gotta think there's gonna be some death panels. You're trying to go in and out and you're out. You're trying to game the system.

You know, somebody's got to try to game the system saying, all right, I'm only gonna get six starts the rest of this year. You know, I am kind of banged up. I could do this major medical. I can basically get 12 starts next year instead of six this year. Plus I'll have a full eight months to get healthy again. Like that sounds appealing to me. One thing I can't figure out through talking about all of this is whether the

fact that the tours, like the way you get to the tour, all the regulations are so fucking complex, you know, with who qualifies how everybody fits in. I don't know if that helps them in this situation or massively hurts them, meaning like that these people are so good, legitimately great at figuring out memberships and thinking of every contingency and figuring out how all these pieces work together. I don't know if that helps them in this scenario or if it hurts them because it just made it so polluted. It made a convoluted thing like put it all in a box and shook it up like crazy. Whereas if it was just kind of

like, nope, there's 125 tour players, like you're in or you're out. It seems like it would be a, that's the problem. Everybody has this. Who's the 125? No, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So on the one hand, it helps them because they can take care of some people. I think they're good at like navigating this because that's what they do all the time.

Like, hey, we can, we can use this condoluted process to help people with all these footnotes. Exactly. But it hurts in that, then they have so many people they could take care of, you know? There's just so many like exception cases, you know what I mean? I feel like everybody is going to be going outside of the, you know, the top 120, 150-ish guys. I think everybody's just going gonna be going to the tour

over the next, I don't know, 18 months. It's been like, hey man, what about me? Like this is my case. Okay, fuck, all right. Well, you're technically in this bucket over here. Yeah, but what about me? Like what about my case? Okay, well, you're in a different bucket.

You're in a real, real, real category 32. Yeah. And it's like, I just don't know how all that shit fits together. That is a very unenviable position. You said it well. The coldest way about it is like I just don't know how all that shit fits together. That is a very unenviable position. You said it well. The coldest way about it is like play better. Honestly, like there's no great player that's going to get held back from this.

Right. Which again, it's a cold way of going about it and saying it. But like there's a lot of people that survive on, you know, you need a couple things to go your way. You need a couple balls to bounce your way. You need a couple of puss to drop. And that is what helps you keep your status. And those are the people that are looking like they're going to get this. Is this the ultimate rub of the green? I think it might be. And I saw condolences to you, like a guy like Christian Middleton who's, you would argue

as his OWGR ranking is inflated. Now he is gonna get even more benefit from that over the next CPU. I'll be okay. It's tough look for you. I'll be okay. That guy has a good though. I'm sure he does. It's kind of really good.

It's really good to golf. Kind of a unit too. Yeah. I don't know, we're walking the range at the TPC and I realize he was kind of a big dude. Yeah. I was so right on the Norton thing that I'm willing to take on him.

That's my word is Norton go. He should be put at the top of all these. Well, then that's the only thing we haven't even talked about, you know, the European tour. And if this stuff. Multiply this times 50 worldwide tours. If this stuff starts to, you know, so let's say they move a major into the fall, you know, let's say that's the same week as the BMW went worse. Yeah. How's that affects Rolex and race? The rider cup in late September.

How does that of those teams get chosen? Yeah. Oh, okay. Captains pigs, baby. All captains pigs. All captains pigs. Yeah, as we've been saying, this is far from the headline, but I think this is going to lead to a lot, a lot, a lot of retirements from professional golf.

There's a lot of people that are on the fringes of like trying to get sat here trying to do this trying to do this. And I think it, I talked to a guy yesterday who was like, yeah, I'm getting ready to go to make a cue school, but I think I'm good. I'm probably just going to go get a job because that's what it's like. I'm not waiting another year. So there are so many, nobody's going to feel sorry for these guys, but there are legitimate PGA tour players who are probably talking to their

financial advisor and like, okay, things might, who knows what's gonna happen if you don't get X $100,000 from... Baddened on the hatches. From a equipment sponsor? Like that's a fucking big deal, you know? Like that's a really big deal. Not a lot of people live their lives with like, I'm gonna make sure I am $2 million above my exact limit. Exactly. So there's many players like that on the PGA tour. Take that down to the Cornfairy tour where it's like, if you're not in the top 25,

top, I don't know, 40, like you're probably barely struggling to break even on a full season. And of course, they're not gonna have travel expenses and all that stuff, but still, they're like, I feel for those guys. That is gonna be a tough next couple months, just of uncertainty more than anything.

Just trying to figure out where, when are we getting back? And then I have to play well because legitimate, like I need money. To all of our young hitters and hitresses, just to be clear, we are not, we'll be no clawbacks from the online industry. That's exactly right. We are still focusing on.

I think we'll be pro-rated, you know. The forced major is in your face. That's right. So now, the next level down is the people like you're talking about, the people who aren't even on the corn fairy tour, of which there are so many of, you know, guys and women who are, you know,

hey, I'm gonna try to make it work at Q-School this year, I'm gonna try to do this, like those are the people who are getting, like they don't have a prayer of breaking even as is, you know? And like, think about being a caddy for a guy, even as a PGA tour card and you think, all right, you know, this is a good bag,

this is a, you can make a living off of that, you know, being a caddy for a guy in, say, a hundred to 150 range in the FedEx cup. Those guys, they don't have health insurance like through their employer, so they're paying that out of pocket. They're not getting even 3K just They're not getting even 3k just to show up regardless of how much stuff works as far as if your guy makes the cut or not you're still getting a thousand or two grand and show off that week. Yeah, so it's kind of like they're at the top of their profession, they're good enough to they're on the big tour but they're getting squeezed harder than anybody. So all of this hopefully goes without saying saying all of this is said with the full

perspective that like, yes, also outside of golf, people might die and the hospitals might be overrun and like, there are other much bigger hardships, but. You're an airline, it's a golf podcast. That's not what we're talking about. That's, listen, it's a golf contest. We're making tips that, you know, that's a question for you guys. Based on Commissioner J's appearance on CNBC last Monday. I think Andrew Ross Sorkin, yeah, the insurance question.

Yeah, I thought that was such a good question that he was unable or unwilling to answer at the time, but so the heritage or, or the, you know, the, the Texas open, does, what happens to the sponsor money for the tour? Do they, in the, in the TV money? Yeah, and the TV might does, does I have to think there's contingencies for that or active God clauses. I have to think I don't know direction they go in. Yeah, but the active God clauses would go in the direction of the TV folks. I would think so. Because the event never ends.

That's what I'm saying. I think there's probably a plan of like, literally throwing this out, you get 20% of the money for not running your event. And that's like what we're willing to guarantee. I don't know. I know a lot of leagues and networks have like business interruption insurance, but a lot of that just goes

for 30 days. So if there's some sort of terrorist attack or something, nothing is really built for a prolonged period of time. So that's the other thing where, say, the talent at the Encore's reporters or camera guys or all that, they may get paid for the first 30 days, but then if stuff's not happening,

then even if it happens, be on the other days. And this golf is still a very niche sport, but I keep thinking about all these other sports. I mean, how many people were supposed to do media stuff for March Madness that all got wiped out? How many vendors are paid by the game as a ramp up for March Madness studio broadcaster. To be clear, NBA is not canceled, right? It is postponed indefinitely. Suspended. Suspended.

But I would imagine it's the same they could come do the playoffs in June. Yeah, I've heard that clearly. So I don't know. Some of this, I mean, going back to the PGL, like some of this for the tour makes this seem, you know, kind of fraught where it's like, hey, why don't we just have a system where it's like 48, dude, you're in or you're out. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, that probably looks more appealing the more of these questions try to get answered and the more the more stakeholders there are with having 200 and something guys having a piece of, you know know some sort of category exemption on onto the tour You know the more guys you add the more fraught and convoluted it gets so before we wrap

I'm sure we're about at that time, but in your estimation What I mean what are people gonna do for the next no-ling up YouTube channel is alive and kicking I we can get there in a second But I mean like people in golf. I mean, what, like, what is a golf channel do? What does the tour do? They've done good steps already. They've been thrown wild, wonderful, wonderful golf up. Shell's wonderful, wonderful golf replays have been playing in the mornings and stuff.

And I've been DVR in some of those. Pine Valley, Pinehurst 2, just keep the Arnie documentary. Yeah. 10 cup residuals are going to go through the room. You know what, you raised a really good point the other day that the Mike Stone's Heyman album, the one week in April. One week in September. Yeah, it just doesn't work.

Cuff channel caller agent, we got programming, it's programming. What, so on that note, did they play the like old players this week? I didn't saw their plan, I think last year. Do you think they're embarrassed of like the 1980s and 90s players? Where it why they feel like I know they're awesome. I love like the one with Calvin Pete back in the golf course looked all scruffy. Yeah, fucking mean. But do you think it they think in their weird vein? It doesn't get the golden.

It looks I don't know. It looks diminished and and I don't know. I hope not. I don't think the gold in. It looks diminished and... I don't know. I hope not. I don't think so. That feels a little, that feels like a reach. I think that they, if you press them on like, should we, you know, under very normal circumstances, should we be putting this out?

Like, I could see maybe that being like, wow, let's focus on what it's become. But as far as like golf channel stuff, I don't know. I think it's part of the history. It's like looking at a picture of your soft and middle school. Like, yeah, it's embarrassing. Well, yeah, who doesn't love to do that?

Why wouldn't you do it? It's like, come on, it's funny. Why wouldn't you do a full marathon this, like if it's players week, let's celebrate the players, you know, do a full marathon of players. We should have Randy should be forced to do a deep dive in 2015. Why don't you hit us before we leave here, hit us with some programming updates on our side.

Well, definitively, we can say we're going, at least for the short term period, we're going to three times a week on this podcast. That is an effort that we are going to make, I should say. We have some stuff prerecorded. I was kind of thinking we throw it out, kind of like I choose your own adventure for the third episode of the week. You know, we could, you could kind of throw out some topics. People can vote on it. I love it. Or we could place on the stuff that we've already pre-recorded. Somebody had a good idea of doing, going through all 15 of Tigers majors. Oh, how'd you get

out? Basically just saying, all right, cool. Like, here's, here's what he shot each round. Here's who was in the mix. We should claim a bunch of ideas right now, so other pods don't take them. Like a dog just pissing on everything. Yeah. Shout out to Ole Miss. Yeah, as far as our stuff, I think that was the one,

I kind of tweeted some stuff earlier this week, but I think that was the one moment of clarity for me, was like, man, I have no idea what's gonna happen. The whole world might be coming apart of the seams, but I mean, I know that I'm stuck in the house, I basically stuck between either my house and this house. We have so much stuff that we have just been dying for time to edit, so I guess that's what we'll do.

And so we have three episodes of Tour of Sauce Left, I think they're my three favorite episodes in the whole season. Maybe Mini Golf, I really liked as well. But willing to meet him was good. willing to meet him. Listen, there's a lot of good episodes. For all great episodes.

I think the last three are really good. The betting ramps up, great golf courses, et cetera. So we've got that that we're gonna roll out. We have strapped Southern California in the can with special guest, Max Homa, as well as Brendan Thomas from the golfers journal. He showed us around the the San Clemente Muni and then we made our way up to to LA. So much more there. I think we're going to do a strapped

trap draw just a little bit on like the history of what that is. Many trap draw ideas. Many, many trap draw ideas we have around a Michael Bamberger podcast that I think is one of my favorites I've ever been involved with that I think will run on the trap draw. Hopefully later this week, but talking all about life and death and golf and everything. If you're listening to this pod and you have not heard the trap draw, and you need something to listen to, we're subscribed.

We've got a craft podcast. That's the bespoke podcast, the trap draw. So we've got that coming. We've got, you guys help me out. I think we do some perfect clubs. We do some very, I think called the perfect club on the trap draw. So we've got that coming. We've got, you guys help me out. I think we do some perfect clubs. We do some very, I think called the perfect club on the trap draw, which is basically anything non-Golf related. We've done them one on airports, one on a Metallica documentary, one on a Garth documentary, one of the Oscars. So I think we'll do some more of those. We've got

some ideas coming out there. So I think you're working on some rider cut pods. Working on some deep dive historical rider cut pods. Shout out to our friends at BMW. Yes, they are the presenting sponsor of those and I need to get grinded on those. It was pushing those more towards the later part of the year as we got into rider cut mode, but there's no, the rules are off. All rules are off.

Everything's off limits. Everyone's up the right. Haviest core business is suspended. There's a good amount of crash courses that we have in the world. We've got a bunch of crash course videos. We've got a wild world of golf with Jim Furek, which is superb. I'm very excited for people to see that. DJ and I recorded a pod with Jim Herman. We did. The Herman air. Fantastic. Shout out to him for his whole story. A T6 finish at the players after one round.

Yeah, yeah, came over here to the kill house after shooting 68, I think. Yeah. In the first round and then, you know, hey, I'm going home. Listen, as counterintuitive as it might be, I think things might actually ramp up on our end. We've got a veritable sweepstakes of. We're heavy of car theft coming out. The one idea I do want to piss on to claim is I think we should do a PGL draft.

I love that idea. If their PGL was starting, what would a draft look like? I think the other thing that we should piss on is, uh, you know, I don't know if we're willing to announce it, but you know, our membership has met. And I think we all agree that in order to help grow the game, it would be good for us to do. And I know you drive chip and put. Yes.

So look out for that as well in the coming weeks. That's about it. So stay tuned, a lot more to come from us. We're going to be ramping it up here. And yeah, I sit tight. If you haven't watched the Taurus sauce on YouTube, I do recommend going back. Even if you've seen it, go back. If you need to pass the time for two hours,

go hit the playlist button and watch, you know, all of Australia or Scotland or... You can see how much better the video's about. Yeah, it's kind of fun to journey to go on. I can't watch it, but yeah. You should watch it. Unrelated about a parting note is good luck with all the awkward social distancing situations

where someone goes in for a handshake and touch up. I'm still working on how to not make that like weird, you know, I can't, you know, but if you're on the other side of that, don't make someone feel awkward if they don't want to touch you. And also, it's not offensive. I think a good rule of thumb is maybe just don't be a dick to anybody. Yeah, it's a tough time. Yes.

People are your best judgment. It's just where the TC way is. Exactly. It's a guiding light. Just listen, we're all we're all in this together. But golf is, you know, golf is in a better place, I think, recreationally than a lot of other sports, maybe we're go outside, you know, walk golf course and you're not putting

anybody in harm's way. Don't touch the flag stick. Yeah. Leave the flag, leave the flag and shout out to Bryce and he's been years ahead of us on this topic. On that, we're going to wrap it. Thank you for tuning in and stay tuned a lot more to come this week. Cheers, Steve! It's gonna be a nice club. Be the right club today! Yes!

Daddy, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most.