No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 424: Zurich Classic Recap

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Marc Leishman and Cam Smith win in a playoff, and we unpack the week in New Orleans, including (of course) format talk, what makes foursomes cool, TPC Louisiana, how this event fits on the schedule, and a lot more. We also breakdown the new "Player Impact Program" in great detail, as well as debrief on the LPGA Tour at Wilshire, a WITB segment, and 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. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. the screen calling in from our Denver Headquarter office. Big Randy, how are you tonight? He's back. I'm good. I'm good. How are you guys? Thanks for having me. Yeah, you guys, uh, first, first item on the agenda is just to talk about how bad a guy is you are because I have a feeling we're going to have to hash hash a few things out. That's what you usually do. If you've

been paying any attention, you first talk about the all new Callaway Apex 21 irons the apex pros the new forgiving apex DC B models many golfers including PGA tour players like Phil Michelson and Mark Leachman who I believe ever heard of believe is a topic of conversation this week. Actually have a few different irons in the bag. They don't have uniform sets. A lot of players need you know you need forgiveness in the longer irons but kind of prefer the shot shaping and control of a more players iron in the shorter clubs, if you will. Calaways Apex irons can be blended across the different models to help you build your ideal setup. They got combo set offerings for the players out there featuring the muscle backs and the

Apex pros. So that's for like, you know, I don't even know who that's for. I don't mess with them with the muscle backs. Yeah, that's the like, you know, I don't even know who that's for. I don't mess with the muscle backs. Yeah, that's the 400 level class. That's for the people who just find golf to be way too easy. Yes. Or they got something for the player that likes a bit of everything with the triple play combo of Apex Pro, Apex 21,

and the Apex DCBs. You can do all kinds of different things. DJ, I believe you have a combo set currently. I do have a combo set. I have the, everything eight and shorter is the Apex Pro and everything seven and higher is the Apex, which we should talk about that later on. And I think we will. I would love to talk about that. Okay. Yeah. So go to calawaygolf.com slash Apex for more about the Apex Irons and combo set options. combo set is intriguing. I need

to, I want you to learn me up on that. Okay. That'd be happy to. Mark Leishman and Cameron Smith are the winners of the Zurich classic Big Randy. I'm just going to throw it to you for your immediate reaction. I know you probably watch a ton of golf, you know, this week, especially not just on Sunday. What a, what an unfair advantage this was for Team international for the next president scout having Two squads down the stretch pressure pack situation playing for some sense. That's all I could think about This is disgusting. You can't pay for that kind of experience. No, no No excuses next next president's cup if if team international can't get it done

Besides that Great to see Alicia Menning came Smith get a W. I'm curious how you guys feel. I'm a little uneasy given both guys a full win. I almost feel like you know we should go to half wins for events like these but yeah a little bit of a battle of who wanted it less there down the stretch, but I guess it made it compelling. A few things to react to there. I actually did see some very non-ironic, well, Trevor Emelman's got to be really pleased by this president's cup, potential pairings for the president's cup here, which, yeah,

very clearly this event here in April is going to be a big dictator for next year's president's cup, which Quill Hall of Ony even remember where it is. It's a true who could say it. Who could say it? No, it is at quail hollalon. All right, so, Rainy, I'm gonna throw this at you. I think, all right, if we're gonna call these half wins, Kamsmith has won it twice.

Exactly. But I think that means it's two full wins for him, right? Like he is very clearly the key piece. Well, he's done it twice. And he's won both in playoffs. Exactly. Which even is a further punctuation, Mark. Right, so I'm happy giving him two wins.

So one win is a half, but two wins is two full wins. It's like that. It's like validating. Yes. Yeah. I like that. I could be talked into that. And one thing we know for damn sure

is that if Finau would have won, it would not have counted as a full win. So I do appreciate you, you know, kind of getting out in front of that one, Randy. Of course, of course. I'm having, I have integrity. I think a lot of people sometimes forget that, but, you know, I call them like I see them.

Let's not skip past the winners of the tournament and quit trying to drag Big Tone into this. You know, we didn't even do it. You're, you're so spooked that you're trying to get out in front of it. We didn't even say anything. Honestly, honestly, no. Honestly, no.

Why the chat is just Big Tone. Big Tone, Big Tone. That's what's of it. We didn't even say anything. Honestly, honestly, no. Why the chat is just big tone. Big tone, big tone. That's what's fucked up. It wasn't even that, it wasn't even popping off today. No, it wasn't. It was, it was, oh, you know what, man, I've seen this movie before. I don't really wanna talk about it today.

Randy, did we even glow today? I thought it was actually, I did say it was a triumph that they got it in under 80. Today, I thought that was very cool. That was the only thing I said. I thought you wanted to talk about the winners. I thought you said you wanted to talk about the winners. You off-course me here.

I did nothing. I did nothing of the sort. Let's talk about the winners. Saw you tell me, what makes Cam and Big Leish a good team? And it's not just that they're both from Australia. Well, I was gonna start with them from Australia. I don't know if you heard, but God, gosh, just the team chemistry, Leish coming out with the mullet,

you know, on Saturday, I mean, you just can't, I don't know if you heard, but gosh, just the team chemistry, Leish coming out with the mullet, you know, on Saturday, I mean, you just can't, you can't replicate that. Are there two guys on the face of the earth that are better at just getting up and down from totally fucked up spots? It was awesome to watch. Not to sidebar this into TPC, Louisiana just yet,

but I feel like whatever they did with the redo with the new grass, made the golf course way more interesting that I remember. I kind of enjoyed watching it today. Especially all shot. I mean, it was like a scramble for, it encouraged a lot of different kinds of shots. Fauto, I think, said you should be scuttling,

scuttled blooding it up there, you know, just on repeat, he could not believe anybody was putting anything airborne around the greens. I just thought that Mayforsmith's interesting golf, that style where like the different shot shapes and the short grass around the green is gonna play into Australian's hands. Like these guys grew up playing somewhat of that style

of golf and somewhat similar grass. They play the kikui a grass down under, but this is typical Bermuda around the greens and whatnot. But gosh, you can leave results, speak for themselves. I mean, that was just a class, class performance, Leisha's chip in on 16 was probably the highlight of the tournament. A lot of people writing in about maybe their drop on that hold, but there was an official there

and it's awesome, and just, yeah, maybe didn't look great. I mean, I'm not gonna, if it was Reed, we probably would have had an issue with it. Is that fair to say? I've been deeply publicized as, you know, I'm not big on where did it cross Twitter or where are they dropping a Twitter? I leave that fully in the hands of the officials.

I really truly don't care about that stuff. It seemed like somehow they got like pin high. And I don't know, I wasn't paying attention to close sleep, but they dropped it right where it bounced in. Well, yeah. And it took a, it did take a very generous bounce to where it crossed the line and then came back down. Right, but the aerial view of where they put the T

in the ground and then where they put the two club links was very much like, Oh, I don't know. Ian Baker Finch talking about it about how it was like, who could say whatever you're gonna say. It was like a windshield, like the way that the drop line moves is,

I think you're basically dealing with like a radius or something, it's, again, this is why I don't care about this, and I leave this truly to the professionals. If there was an official there, I trust the system. Big leash is beyond reproach. There's no way, come on, he's not taking a scummy drop. These are two absolute classic gentlemen we're talking about.

Is the rules still the same though, if you drop your ball and the caddy misses it and goes in the water, don't you? If I go fetch it, you might. No, I think it's if the ball's still in the play. No, no, no, that's the one play. Yeah, exactly. They toss you the ball and it goes in the water.

That's what happened to a couple guys. Dustin Johnson, I think, did that one. So I think he impoltered, did that one. They might have both been on the fourth hole at TBC Saga. Maddie was a total pros pro. He put the glove hand down, it was on the ground. There was no flinch in that ball coming underneath. I got to see it right into the glove.

I took enough. You're going to make a play. Four seamers off the face playing shortstop growing up to know that there's a little flinch when that ball starts running towards you. So no, gosh, I mean, they just outlasted him. I think it's time to talk about Louis and Charles as far as what? I mean, what was that shot on 18? Louis might hate winning.

I think we've talked about this for a while. First of all, I think that four ball, somebody said this in the comments. It might have been the most chilled out, like kind of likable final four ball you could possibly have. That was like, obviously we're gonna root for Leeson and Cam, but that was just fun to see, you know, a couple good teams coming down the stretch, but Louis, one of those guys that, you know, a couple good teams coming down the stretch,

but Louis, one of those guys that, you know, we always, we bag on Fienaune, I think we bag on Fienaune because he has you bag on Fienaune. Cause he, he has all the physical gifts and he like, should be so much better than he possibly is, but yeah, Louis gets a complete pass for literally having never won in the United States. It's crazy.

And we went through that stretch at the majors a couple of years ago where it was just everybody was, like, oh, it could be a Louis week. It could be a Louis week. It's like, dude, he just, he never wins. He's got a major. He's got a major. It was 10 years ago, 11 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been a Louis time for far too long. I was good. I just wanted to make sure you guys were going to be consistent on the, he doesn't, he doesn't like consistently perform nearly to like the level that like Tony does. You know what I mean? I mean, he's had obviously some huge finishes in big, big tournaments that Fienaude has not had, but he's not just a week to week force on the PGA tour.

And it probably doesn't get talked about enough that he ships a mattress between. How does he do it? Do we need to do that? Yeah, they talked about on the broadcast today. Unbelievable. Do we know how he gets the mattress from, you know, he doesn't fly with it, right? I mean, I'm guessing, I don't know if you're setting this up,

but I'm guessing it's a UPS thing. Oh, didn't even think about that. I'm guessing his hitters at Big Brown haven't taken care of. Do they stand by on Sunday night and get it to the next place by Monday? Like, how does that, I just don't know how that works. It just seems like a massive logistical headache.

Maybe it's one of those things. Aren't there guys that drive guys golf clubs from events to events? Really. I think there's a, at least I think there, at one point there was a guy that like does it. He puts them in the back of a truck of some kind. So guys don't have to fly with clubs

and worry about clubs getting lost. That wouldn't make it too much. I know know that that was the issue on the LPGA tour. They did that on the right. They did in the LPGA tour and Lexi Thompson had a passport in the bag or something like that and had a bunch of stuff go wrong. But anyways, um, they get the nomads to drive them. By the time this airs, you know, people are going to know you think no madland won or what? God, I hope not. It's super off-lawed. It's super hard to break down the week because we don't have like, strokes, gain stats and everything for a team event.

I mean, I assume they just made a shitload of birdies and not as many bogies. This is the reason why they won, but it is really refreshing. I don't wanna say really refreshing. It's refreshing to watch a totally different tournament. I think, maybe we can talk about format now. I don't see a reason why we have to play four ball on Saturday and Thursday. Four ball outside of match play just doesn't

I mean, it doesn't do anything for me. I don't know. It just feels like, yeah, it's I honestly can't even really expound. It just doesn't all chat was awesome. I loved watching today, but I do think if this is a four ball Sunday, I mean, it just feels a lot lamer and a lot of the people in the replies and stuff even are kinda, you know, oh, it's really fun to see the birdie fest and it's like, is it though? I don't really know that it is.

I don't think if this is a four ball event on Sunday, I definitely don't think I'm tuning in. Big Randy, where are you out on that? Just going through the scores. It looks like the four ball is what separates the teams, you know, like the, the all shot tends to hover right around across the two rounds, par one under one over. I don't know. Maybe a third round, you get a little bit more variability,

but I think you need something besides four sums just to, you know, get a little separation. And I do think maybe that's just this year. I don't know, but it seems like the all shot tends to be more around level par. And I do think too that, you know, talking to a couple guys in the event and stuff, it seems like a really fun event for the players to play in. And some of that might be because you have those two, four ball kind of breather rounds.

Whereas if it was four, I mean, all shots really hard. You saw it coming down the stretch. It's really stressful. It's really easy to play horrible. You know, it's easy for a guy like Fina how to go shoot 76. You know, it's just Fina and Cameron champ his partner. I didn't see a lot of horrible highlights. What were you looking for? What were you looking for?

Nevertheless, if it is four days of all-shot and just getting punched in the face, it's probably a little less fun for these guys and maybe get a few less big names. It already kind of struggles for field. I don't know. Fair. I would, I know we do this every year on the Zurich pod is, you know, how should the format change? I probably honestly, I probably wouldn't change much. It seems totally fine. So that doesn't make for a great podcast, but that was as I was sitting watching it today. Like, you know what, this event is totally fine.

Round one scoring average was 66.6 and four ball. For sums went to 73.2 and round two. And then after the cut, it was 65.8 on Saturday. And then final round was 72.6. So a consistent six to seven shot gap. That's the formats. And I mean, they set it up hard. Like, it was 7300 yard. Every time I look up, I feel like they're playing a 500 yard par four today. Pin on 18 was. Yeah. And normally that is not usually where it is. When the balls and greens are bouncing up that hard and stuff like that, that's a tough, tough golf course, which I just find, I found interesting

because watching those two guys go back and forth despite Fowdo saying it's a match play situation, there was a ton of chances for two shots wings. I swear a couple of times he's like, could be a two shots wing, total match play situation here. I'm like, I don't think, he's played in 11 rider cups. I don't know if he knows what match play is, but it does seem like there is that variability

of birdie or bogey happening in this format very, very easily. Yeah, and I found that interesting. Randy, I'm curious, the guy who, of course, loves seeing the pampered fuxx, you know, taken to task. What did you, you like all-shot? You like watching, get behind the eight ball, struggle a little bit? That's a little question. Like, do I like it? It's, God, that's, that's hard to answer.

It's a refreshing change of pace. I think it's fun in pressure-packed situations. So like, final round, I think it works at Zurich, of course, Ryder Cup, President's Cup. I think it's the most fun, besides singles matches, I guess. I think it's more fun than the Four Ball format. Yeah, I kind of look, I like to look at guys. You know, they are so used to being in complete control of everything, right? And all chat just forces them to give up

a little bit of control. And I think that's good. I think it's fun as a viewer, a little bit entertaining to see guys put in new situations like that. The biggest thing with the Zurich though, guys, it's a tough spot in the calendar. I think that's the biggest problem, right? It's a tough, everything after the Master Masters just feels like a big come down.

I mean, it's several straight weeks of, it's just a, yeah, very tough stretch where you go, you know, RBC and then you go Zurich and then you go Valsbar, like, dude, skip that and viewers skip those events. Like, it's just, it's hard to get super-amped up for it. I think, which is where though, I, you know, I guess push back a little to them to try and something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If they want to, you know, try to win that battle I guess push back a little to them to try and stuff. Yeah, exactly. If they wanna try to win that battle a little bit,

they gotta do something a little different. And this is now what, year four or five of doing this. And it seems like it's found some footing. It seems like it's finding a little bit of identity. The one thing I did wanna say that would be cool and every time I see the golf course, I always think this is, they totally redid one of the golf courses at City Park in like much, much closer to downtown New Orleans.

And it would be so cool if they would have been able to get the golf tournament over there. I know that was a big talk when they were when they were redoing the golf course was, you know, you get it over where you have kind of like these views of downtown almost. And you can, you know, do it the same week as jazz fest and people can almost like go back and forth

and you can hear the music from the golf course. Like that would have made it feel, I don't know, Rainie, I know you're with me on this. Like New Orleans is, if not my favorite city in America, very, you know, it's on the short list and where that golf course is, like, not New Orleans. Not New Orleans.

It feels more like true detective out there. So I think if they could, I still think it's on the way, but it's still got some work to do before the full identity is realized, I think. So maybe eventually, but that golf course at City Park is not quite up to snuff.

I don't think as far as challenging enough. Yeah, I think, first of all, I totally agreed, New Orleans, Best City in America to visit. Just more atmosphere, exactly like you said, if jazz faster, you know, it should feel like a crawfish boil, it should feel like a big party, and you just don't quite get that out at, what is it, TPC, Louisiana?

Correct. Shiloh to Gators though, so many gays, And a shitload of gators though. So many gators. I've never seen more gators in my whole life. I think what they could consider doing, maybe playing a worstball third round at like Autobot and part of it. Woodwatch.

Yeah, yeah. I will say, you know, I'm glad Neil and I played a ForSums event in December last year, the FSGA ForSums. And I'm glad I have that kind of perspectiveSums event in December last year, the FSGA ForSums. I'm glad I have that kind of perspective to pull on in terms of playing a stroke-play tournament in all shot is so much more fun than playing your own ball. Like way more fun.

I found it, I thought part of it would be hitting half the shots would feel like a letdown. And when we do our silly little contest, sometimes it does feel like a letdown, but in an event where you're counting your shots, it was so engaging, so fun. I had more fun watching Neal hit shots than I did hit my own shots. But the same time, like you're saying the guys are used to being in control,

I can handle adversity when it's me that screws up my own score. Like when you screw up for your partner, like Lou Yusin's gotta be feeling it right now. I mean, that t-shot to just completely eliminate yourself in the playoff. Like, you can handle it when it's on your partner, like Lou Eusin's gotta be feeling it right now. I mean, that T-shot to just completely eliminate yourself in the playoff, like, you can handle it when it's on your own, like, knowing you let down your buddy, that's gotta be just a different kind of muscle to flex. And I like that.

I love that. On the flip side, I mean, how cool is Lee's feeling after shipping in after cam hits in the water? Yeah, and that's a good shot. Even though it went in the water. Totally. Like, totally fine, good, easy bar from there. Yeah. Unlike the weird chip shot that Schwartz will hit.

Yeah, that was, that was mutual knock. He should have scuttled it. Before we get, I got a couple more questions about Zerke to ask. We got to talk a little bit about our weekend we had. Our week we had. We went to Pinehurst this past week. I have so many great things to say about Pinehurst,

the whole area, we stayed a week at the Dornec Cottage. We shot a Wild World of Golf on Pinehurst number two, which will be out after the stream song. We got a ways to go. We got a few Wild Worlds to get through. But gosh, we had Pinehurst number one. Randy, you played Pinehurst number one? I did. What did you think of that? First time seeing it. It was such... We played with Dole Bogey Dave, shout out the refuge and he put it perfectly. It is the true definition of recreation golf, just a really nice walk, not punishing by, certainly not by Pinehurst number two, number four, even number three standards. It was, everything we would have wanted on a, I think it was a Thursday morning.

Everybody knows about Donor Ross's masterpiece, Pynars number two. Gill Henson's freshly restored Pynars number four. We've talked a lot about the cradle. You guys beat the cradle up on Friday, huh? We played, this is going to set. Randy, this is going to be music to your ears. We played a 27-hole metal play match on the cradle. It was grinding, hitting cups.

It was, it was honestly invigorating and you would have loved it. And we had a match play bracket on the Fistle do. The amount of different things you can do at Pinehurst, the deuces right there, there's people clapping for people coming up the 18th hole and number two. Big shout to the North South Whiskey Bar that they just put in. I know Randy had to be wheeled out of there one of the nights too. That was fun and exciting.

So good cocktails. Upset I missed that one. But visit Pinehurst was fun and exciting. So some good cocktails. Upset, I missed that one. But visit pinehurst.com to schedule your Pinehurst visit. It's called the St. Andrews of American Golf for a reason. And that's my copy. That's not even in the copy, all right. It just feels like a golf place. So pinehurst.com.

All right, so we've touched on a couple of these topics. We've got some good questions from people. M. Sharky 23 says, why is the Zurich so boring every year? I know we can play in about watching 72-Hull Stroke play on repeat every week, but this is a snooze fest, even with a bunch leader board. Well, I thought that I'm struggling a little bit

to separate. This was the most enjoyable one that I've watched. Yeah, I'm trying to separate the fact that, you know, one of our good friends, Caddy's, for the guy who won. Obviously, we had some rooting interest. But I think a lot of it had to do with how they set up the golf course and the grass. Like you said, I think it was just, we always talk about last year at Harbor Town, where it was just so obvious that like, okay, nobody's going to make a bogey.

This was the opposite of that. I felt like we were on the knife's edge a little bit, guys were, you know, they were struggling to get it in the house so you didn't know what was gonna happen. They're chipping in, they're making birdies, they're making bogeys. It was, you know, like you were saying about, there's such a big difference

and you don't really realize it because there's so few of these events, but there's such a big difference between playing all-shot, for sums in match play and in stroke play, right? We always see it in the rider cup where it's, oh, you know what, you hit it by a tree. Okay, I guess you lose the hole. And today it was like, holy shit, they hit that one.

They kind of take it on playable, cam misses the green, like, oh man, they might make it double here. And it's, that's when things like start moving really quickly. And so I don't know, I actually, I would push back and say, I enjoyed it this year. I only watched Sunday, full transparency on that. I'm not really geek to watch.

There's a through Saturday, but I really enjoyed watching Sunday this year. I will say one thing that got working against them big time is not only is the field not great, like the teams are not great. The teams don't seem to make a lot of sense to a casual viewer or a hardcore viewer. Like, I mean, apart from the obvious and the people who are in the final group. At the top. Yes, very much so, but like Richie Wuerinsky and Peter Uline don't, I don't fairly random. Don't know the connection there.

Billy Horseshoe. Think I'm asked to use it's guys. Sure. Actually, that's fine. Like, but like does that do much for the entertainment factor? Keith Mitchell, Brantz, Natacre, Keegan Bradley, Brennan Steel. John Rom and Ryan Palmer, I know they won the event,

but can you imagine two guys getting beat up on Bourbon Street faster than Keegan Bradley, Brennan Steel? Or just like robbed? They seem like they would be, I was thinking about some of these teams. They seem like they'd stick out really tough. Sorry. They get rolled on. Be sure, short day for you coach.

But Mr. C. sword asks the obvious question, which is, is Zurich the perfect event slash opportunity to have a PGA slash LPGA mix turning? I mean, that would very, very, you know, markedly easy for us to say. Yes. And for us to make decisions for other organizations, but like, hell yeah. I know you've talked about this in the past, but it's not, the PGA tour is not, all right,

let's look at our 42 week calendar here, and all right, here we're gonna do a team event, here we're gonna do a mixed one, here we're gonna do this, here we're gonna do that, like it's, whatever gonna do a mixed one. Here we're gonna do this. Here we're gonna do that. It's, whatever, 47, however many events it is, it's 47 individual tournaments, right? Like they operate on their, not on their own, but pretty much on their own. So it's easy, even if the tour wanted to be like,

all right, we need a mix of this, this, this, and this. It's like, for Zurich and the people that run that event, like that's their Super Bowl. Like that's their event. Like they don't have a responsibility to the big picture of the PGA tour. So super easy, like you said, for us to sit here and say let's do a mixed event right here.

It's also not like the goal of the PGA tour to promote women's golf and to promote the LPGA tour. So like, where does that fit into their mission and their charter as an organization? I don't believe it does anywhere. I could be wrong on that, but clearly it's not one of their goals. No charter as an organization. I don't believe it does anywhere. I could be wrong on that, but clearly it's not one of their goals. No, I totally agree.

I would, again, this is, it's not my decision to make. And, you know, I could be totally off base, but I would argue that, you know, seeding the floor on one week out of 47 like this would actually do much more to grow the brand of the PJ Tour and make more people like the PJ Tour, but that makes sense. But again, I see why it doesn't happen.

Yeah, I see why it doesn't happen. It sucks that it doesn't happen because I think it would be just outrageously cool. But I also, for the 800 time, we'll come back to, I'd rather have the president's cup be a mixed vent because the president's cup feels very, very, very, very, very soulless at this point. And I think it would be awesome too. Like, that's a place where I would rather have, like having mixed event stroke play or like metal play

feels weirder than mixed event match play to me for some reason. Yeah, it'd be weird, but it'd be awesome. Like, just with the disparity in like how far people are hitting it and who's teaming off on which holes and all that stuff, it seems like that would be a little weirder. I don't know why match play seems like it'd be a little more fun. Weird is good.

Yeah, to a point. And of course, you need some warm-up events if you bank the Presidents Cup, a mixed-gender event. I don't want to completely get off this point, but one thing you said prior about the teams, most of the teams not making sense, is there a fix for that besides somehow enticing better players to come to the event? Like with the field they had this year, what's an alternative to create more exciting teams?

That's a great question. Maybe like do it like by FedEx Cup ranking. Like you got to have, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that other than recruit better players and better teams, right? That's what I was going to say. I'll go back to my very apathetic take of I think the field, the format seems totally fine. Let's leave it alone. But if you're, you know, twist in my arm to change something, it's like, I guess maybe you make the field smaller

so that better teams stand out a little bit more. I don't know, you know what I mean? It's, I don't know what you could do. I really actually applaud the PJ Tour for allowing, you know, the kind of unpredictableness of letting guys pick their own teams. Actually, it's kind of, it's kind of cool. Like, I don't know.

My, someone was, my dad was texting me today about how the teams get made and was texting him back, like, oh yeah, no, they just, yeah, they picked their own teams. And that whole aspect of it is actually kind of fun when you break down and you get to the high school date for the dance feeling that has to be going on with at least some of these guys. There's some weird ass teams.

Shout out to Akshey and Scott Piercey. But I'd almost rather dig into like the really weird woods that like, you know, how did that happen? Can we dangle some, you know, a player impact program points in this thing? Or like, dangle some kind of, with such a weird, there's no OWGR points available for it. There's no Masters invite for it.

Yet you get an tournament champion, you get the PGA championship with the win. It's just a very, very weird combo. Ozzy Stanton said, for team golf to stick slash B interesting, does it have to be part of a longer than a weekend slash series? Weekend event slash series, it seems tough to get into these haphazard teams as a one off. Also, all shot only four balls. No foul with these guys. So yeah, that'd be kind of, that's an interesting thought. Have like one team event in quarter,

and essentially your team is your team for the year and almost create, you know, like soccer has different cups, right? You almost have a season long team competition. I don't know. That's what I was doing a little thinking about this event and which naturally leads into bigger PGA tour questions. And it's just like, I feel like there's a lot of room to get more creative.

It's easy for me to say that because I have no idea what goes on to make some big decisions. But it just seems like we're getting the, maybe the least creative season long tour event, all that. The more I think about it, the more I'm like, why don't more top, and I know the schedule and all that, but like winning is really hard on the PGA tour. This is essentially, you know, twice as,

twice as easy or whatever it is, half as difficult to win. If you, like, why wouldn't DJ and Capco wanna come and like, and Capco's injury right now, but like, why wouldn't JT and Spieth wanna team up for this thing and like, try to snag another win? Like, if you look at the odds going into this week,

like the favorites were big, right? Because it's only 80 teams and, you know, the good teams that had two top players paired up, your odds of winning are actually great. I mean, every other time you teed up in a stroke play event, your chances of winning are less than 10%. Right. Unless you're DJing, way, way less than 10%.

Yes. Whereas like some of these guys could come into this week with a much better winning percentage chance, I guess you. I know you hate those. Big tones got to find a better horse. I don't disagree. Do you want to go ahead and get all of it out? Go ahead and say anything else you guys want. Should we just save it for the next one? Should we just put it in the tank and we can just we can go twice as hard of the next time it happens?

I was gonna say, Sully, why don't you tell us like have you have you learned anything? What's going on in your world right now? I'm good. I didn't even seem like you played that great, you know coming into Say that again in just Sunday and that didn't go well Sunday So they finished somewhere in the top 20, but His floor is so high that, you know, that's pretty much where we'll see him. We're worried about any flooding issues with this floor. It's fine.

We're totally, totally fine. I will say I gotta look, he's gone to, I don't know if it's a new putter, but it looked like a new putting grip and it looked mega uncomfortable. That's right where we wanna be. That's right where we want to be. That's exactly where we want to be. You might need to get in his Instagram DMs, right? I know you've recently switched to a new grip as well. Provocative stuff up there in Pinehurst.

It does. Are you guys surprised at all that know like US players aside from a zander and can't lay know like potential for some guys even tried anything out this week. I guess you have Bubyn Sheffler and you had maybe champ and Fienaou could be teammates, but nothing obvious. I don't think we can fart on the international presence cup stuff and then also say, we're surprised that there was no Ryder Cup prep going on.

Although I guess that's a much closer. I'm not talking about these guys were talking, these were talking like, all right, these guys are trending. Like here we go, this is gonna be a great, but like getting used to that format and playing with someone's ball, like some of these guys I believe were switching balls every other hole, which I don't think you can do in the president's cup.

I don't, or Ryder Cup, I don't know exactly what was going on with golf balls this week, but it just seems like you wanna get, as much information as you can have about playing other people's golf balls, what works for you guys, what playing styles work, you would want to get,

and there seems to be no effort on that front. So on this. There's a pattern in Mike Wallace. Played together. And Stenson and Rose played together. Interesting. They've been teammates before in the past. It's like, all right guys,

we're not doing much of anything different yet. There's a lot of things we could be trying. I'm not saying this is the answer, but like, hey, could we circle this one on the calendar and be like, hey, I want you two guys to show up at this and play each other's golf ball and see how that works for all shots. So when you do it in September, it's not completely foreign. That's not outrageous. I might literally outrageous provocative take.

I might literally take Billy Horseson's same burns on the American Ryder Cup team. They seem like absolute cowboys. I feel like you want them on your side. Horseshal, I don't know they were gonna play well this week. That was obvious. I should have taken that one. Horseshal I think could make a very good case for the Ryder Cup team by the end of the year.

Burns is not on my radar. Respectfully. Yet, respectfully. I wanted to shout out there was one other American in case for the Ryder Cup team by the end of the year. Burr is not on my range. Respectfully. Yet. Respectfully. I wanted to shout out there was one other American potential Ryder Cup pairing. They did not play well. Mara Kawa and Matthew Wolf. Hmm.

I don't think Wolf's gonna be on that team, but. God. That's a bummer. Yeah, he's got some stuff going on. It would appear. I look into the shot tracker. It was not ideal. That's a good point. I missed that one, Randy.

And I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. But everything is trending the opposite direction for Wolf right now. So Morakow was going to be there. We know that. We know that. All right. Are we ready to anything else from Zurich?

Are we ready to start talking to it? Also, Mayikolpe, it was Danny Willett and Hayden. Not Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace was with G-Mac. Okay, that's right. Well, two things. One, very cool of Stenson to join Team Rose, but two, Sully, I don't know. It's all about leaning on each other, or leaning, or whatever they phrase it.

DJ, do we want an apology today from Sully? No. I will not apologize for today. Are you kidding me? I made it one. No. I will not apologize for today. Are you kidding me? I'm not. No. Absolutely not. I mean, they were they in the second to last group?

Second to last group. And just 76. Yeah. I mean, if you feel like you should apologize, then I would listen to an apology, but I don't think we need to mandate it, Randy. I, that's a complete abuse of the apology policy. Okay. Okay. We had an apology bet that took a year, and I apologize for that. I didn't date it, Randy. That's a complete abuse of the apology policy.

Okay? Okay. We had an apology bet that took a year and I apologize for that. I'm not apologizing for anything past that, all right? Okay. Respect the apology. We'll leave it up to you. Okay.

God, that would have been a, whoa, so what's the actual win bet? I don't even remember what it is for this year. Because I gotta think you're gonna... It's the same matter. That's why I try to tell you it doesn't matter. It can be infinite. It doesn't matter, that's why I try to tell you, it doesn't matter. It can be infinite. It doesn't matter, DJ, we don't have to worry about anything.

I gotta think when the, you know, when the bet's called in, I gotta think you're gonna want that one today. Of course I want that. I think you, you know, you would have liked to have that one. He's gonna play a lot more tournaments the rest of the year and he's gonna win. I for sure, I've never lost faith.

I will never leave you Tony. That putting jerk I saw Saturday, he ain't winning with that. I'll tell you that right now. Well, listen, he's gonna hit it so close one week that the putting won't matter. I wanted to shout out GMax hole in one on Friday, which was during playing through. I had it on while I was working and like, of course, wasn't watching the screen while the commercial was playing and look up and just see it like him and was working. And of course, wasn't watching the screen while the commercial was playing. And look up and just see it,

like him and Wallace and GMAC tackling each other on the team running around sprinting while a Fisher Investments commercial is on the TV. It was just like, this is the perfect PGA tour moment. Just most exciting moment of the week and caught on. Yeah, they had the footage of that one. So we saw the replay about 15 times. They never showed, never got to see Sam Riders'

Albatross that he made this week. I don't know if you guys heard about that, but it didn't get caught on film, so we didn't get to see it. Tough. I liked the question you had in the agenda here. Cleveland Cow, would you rather be a partner with someone who has a similar game to you

or opposite strengths and weaknesses? It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. I think it, I think similar to you. That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. I think it, I think similar to you. That's what I think. I think it can run down here. If you partner with somebody opposite of you, like you can get out and run and really get stuff vibing, but if you get off in that format and you can really, really mess

each other up. I think it depends what kind of player you are too. If you like, you know, much like me and Tron, if you like getting in the process and talking with your playing partner, it's obviously nice to be able to like see the other person shots in your head. So it's like whenever I've had partners that are similar games,

it's always really, really, really fun. It kind of feels like cattying for someone who has a similar game to you. But yeah, I mean, if you're just kind of doing your own thing and your partner can say leave me leave me 105 Like I'm sure that works too. So depends what you like, but I would say I would pick similar Randy I Just for the novelty. I think I would pick opposite right? I

Think you can game plan around opposite a little bit if the core sets up for it where it's like, all right, we're hitting the T-Shots on this whole and this is what we're doing it and this is gonna leave. You are gonna have ideally 13 birdie puts to my five. You're a better mid-range putter. You can kind of game it that way. I almost feel like it puts too much pressure on that though.

I could. If you're the bomber guy, you're gonna put it, you're gonna give us so many birdie chances because you're gonna hit so many good drives. I feel like it almost like puts more pressure on those drives. You know, it worked for Neil and I when we did it, all the par-fives were on even holds.

So he teed off on those. So like inferior, that would leave me with the most birdie puts and the most chances to hit like the long iron shots. And he was hitting most of the short iron shots. And I think we scraped the most out of that we could out of that week. So I found that interesting. Uh, ready to talk some pip, pippin. No, no chip and pippin.

No chip and pippin. This is so no. Brady would do this bit all week about Scotty Pippin. And if he just, if he was playing golf, he would never chip. He'd be no chip and pippin, bud from everywhere, which Fowler would have actually really dug now that, you know, here he gave out the broadcast today. Anyway, so I continue. Okay.

So this is, this feels like a month ago already, but it came out earlier this week, credit to Golf Week exclusive from Aiman Lynch, that the PGA tour has implemented a player impact program. Basically, it is a middle finger to the PGL. I mean, it's incredibly obvious that this is a direct shot at a lot of the things that the PGL was able to offer tour pros to try to lure them in. It is a this on top of the strategic alliance with the European tour is in my mind, and I struggle to argue, I struggle to understand any argument opposite that a direct Just a perfect string of events and in leading to this and that

$40 million will be made available to the top eight players that rank in this Player impacts program based on the following criteria their popularity and search, their Nielsen brand exposure rating, which places a value on the exposure I play or delivers to sponsors. Through the minutes they are featured on broadcast. We can talk about that. Third one, they're Q rating, which measures the familiarity and appeal

of a player's brand. Their MVP index rating, which... Which, it's a show and speed. Calibrates the value of the engagement a player drives across social and digital channels. And the fifth one, their meltwater mentions or the frequency with which a player generates coverage across a range of media platforms. It's worth noting in the original golf league article, it said their position on the season ending FedEx Cup points list was listed in the criteria. but the update they posted was that while the FedEx Cup rank was included among criterion

in the document players received the tour told golf week that it will not be used as a metric to determine bonus payments. So a lot to unpack. First of all, I want to give a shout out. Does anybody get exclusives other than Aiman? No, it seems like Aiman's the only one dropping absolute bombs on the regular. So just a perpetual shout out to Aiman. Leader in the clubhouse.

This, while this was news to us and to golf week and to the golf world, this was not news to BGIT tour players. This is something that was circulated last year, which I'm surprised took this long to come out. I don't know why it took this long to come out. Aiman's the only one out there getting explicit. Yeah, come on. To some't know why it took this long to come out. Sam and Zeele went out there getting excited. Yeah, come on. To some of the guys I talked to this week, come on, give us the heads up on some of these things, man. We'd like to know it.

Gosh, where do we start for this? Let's get a couple questions in and I'm going to direct this at former Tor player DJ Pire or former Tor employee DJ Pirehowski here from TW hitter. DJ Pihalski here from TW hitter, uh, Tiger Woods hitter. Where is the $40 million coming from? Are fans paying the price for more, quote, engagement? Uh, let me start with, of course, I, you know, this is a guess at best, but, uh, I mean, with the fact that it's not branded, the fact that it's not sponsored, I got to assume it's just a byproduct of the massive increase in TV rights, right?

I mean, I think it's just stray cash homie. Like from the coffers, I don't think this is some like dark water. I mean, the TV rights went up 300 million from the previous and this is 40, what's 40 divided by 300? Exactly, exactly. I don't think there's some secret, you know, funding of this or something. I think it's just cash from the PJ tour, I believe.

I think it's what the volunteers pay. It's all, yeah, I gotta do the math on how much they pay for those shirts that like heavy cotton volunteer polas. A couple of lunch tickets. What, if I'm running one of the charities tied to these events that have taken massive, massive hits during this COVID era of golf?

What is my what is my reaction to this? All right, there's a couple places to start. One side is there should be a bunch of people that are really, really pissed off and that this should rub the wrong way, and that this should look ostentatious, and it should look like the rich getting richer, and all of those perspectives, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it. I also think on the other side of the aisle, like, it's a very smart idea that makes total sense,

and I can completely understand how and why they came to the conclusion to do this, and why they chose to execute it this way. And honestly, as kind of weird and, I guess just weird, as it feels to say, like I kind of have to side with the PJ tour on like dude, I totally get why you guys had to do it this way. And it's not as simple as like,

they're not sitting around being like, all right, we got this 40 million. Where do you guys think to do it this way. And it's not as simple as like, they're not, they're not sitting around being like, all right, we got this 40 million. Where do you guys think we should give it? Should we give it to charity? Should we give it to the players? Like, it's not like, this was some slush fund of money that they're like, well, let's just give it to the players.

They, they really, they earned it, man. They earned it. This is a complete defense against, you know, the encroaching PGL, right? I mean, to add on that, if I can pick up their DJs, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if it's still is,

but at least at one point was very real. Even past the point that people probably thought it was dead, the PGL threat was still very much there, extremely there. And you can't, that can't be denied now, especially with this development, right? The tour had to make a move like this. And I think, and I think we even said this back, you know, when we first started talking about charities,

kind of getting short-changed in relation to these events, it's like, maybe long run for all of the charities involved the PGA tour, that a short- short term hit is best in terms of like the tour had to get their arms around their their the freaking tour. Like I'm like I said, they were going to lose the tour, but if you lose your 48 of your top 60 players or whoever was going to jump ship in theory, like you got a big, big problem into the future. So they had just, you know, put up a wall around what they have and say, all right, here we're making this richer. We're giving you incentive to stay this, this, and this. And that's going to help us drive value into the next whatever millennium, if you

will. And that's going to help fund a lot of these charities into the future. Because if we lose these guys, they're every year is going to be like 2020 for these charities. Yes. That's fair summary. That's a much better way of saying what I was trying to say, which is if you lose all the best guys, like the tour starts to go downhill and the charities don't get that money anyway. So it's a pure, I mean, it's a pure like defense move. It's not like it's, yeah, it's not just money going to them

for the sake of giving them money. It's money going to them for the sake of keeping them and keeping the status quo how it is. Yes. Do we want to get into the PIP itself? Absolutely. Well, let me offer from a good friend Jeff Shackleford. Jeff Shackleford.com talking about this. Talking about Aiman breaking the story. He revealed a player impact program funneling 40 million in bonus money to stars based on a bunch of doubtable,

crackable, and corruptible marketing metrics. So I guess let's jump in there. What do we think about the formula as we know it to allocate this 40 million? Well, so we talked about this a little bit offline and kind of throughout the week as the news came out and stuff. And I do feel like every, every thread I kind of start to go down as far as well, they should have done it this way. I always kind of run into dead ends a little bit. And the first one for me was appearance fees. Like this all seems like such a needless question. Like just let kind of the, whether it's the tournaments or the tour itself or whatever, just kind of pick,

you know, go on like who you think deserves this money and figure out how to disperse it to them. Like this whole algorithm and all the numbers and all the corporate speak and the MVP index, of course, the hitters, it meltwater, of course. Like that is the part that's gonna be so easy to make fun. Yes, all that shit seems so stupid. So, you know, in my head, I'm like, well, why don't you figure out some way to disperse the money

to the tournaments and let them choose who they want to give appearance fees to? Yada, yada, yada. And then, you know, solid, we were talking about that today. And like, that ends up getting messy. It's messy. It's like, yeah, you can't, you know, our tournaments fighting over appearance fee money from the PGA tour and they're responsible for recruiting these players and starting getting in bidding wars for, you know, paying Dustin Johnson a million dollars to come here paying Tiger Woods a million, I have to come here

to spend all, it's messy. And then you become a, you know, we joke about it all the time, but as the member run organization, when, you know, you start arbitrarily just giving cash to people without receipts. Yes. Then you start getting in the Patrick Reed, the line drive section.

You're not treating me fairly. And you're talking about all shitload of money, also. It's like, I mean, literally it's going to come down to, why did this guy get $2 million and I didn't get $2 million? Just like show me some, what's the proof? And you've gotta have some sort of, as dumbass as it might be, you've gotta have some formula, some algorithm

to, you know, to prove the concept, I guess. The impact score, baby. See if it's gonna be so, so, so, so, so delicious. Already the deliciousness that comes from maybe, I have a feeling there's gonna be some takes out there about the way that money is distributed on the PGA tour that might differ from the way a lot of the PGA tour represents their political beliefs.

That's a whole, yeah, that's a whole other thing. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of like, why are these guys getting all the money, man? What the hell? I work just as hard as those guys. What do you say a lot of pro-market folks sewing, what they were, what they were sewing?

Yeah, exactly. There's some great quotes in the golf week article. There's one, this is from a unnamed veteran tour winner. There I was thinking they were compensated enough. We earn our money through performance. Using metrics will definitely cause complications at some point. What if you're a really awesome player

but don't move the needle in those metrics? Dog, that's the point. You are not bringing to the table here. The best way I can think of this is, we are having a big community cookout. All right, I got a big pool in my backyard. I'm having a bunch of people over, okay? If I, you know, if I, so and so,

is my next door neighbor, and that's Tiger Woods, and he buys a ham, a steak, some fish, he brings the keg over and does all that. Is he bringing a lot more to the table than the guy brings the side of macaroni and cheese that feeds four people? Yeah, probably a little bit, but everyone gets to sit at that table

and eat the same amount of food. That's what you play for, right? That's what the money that gets paid out, week by week, William McGurt and Justin Thomas get the same amount of money for a T10. And that is what's overall messed up. Like JT is bringing over some beer to this party. He's bringing some top shelf tequila, okay?

Like he deserves more out of this. And these dudes that have been, and I kind of want to just name some names out here and say like, I want you guys a quick reaction opinion. Are they putting stuff on the table? Are they taking off of it? Justin Thomas. Putting it on the table.

Putting it on. I'm just gonna grab some Billy Horshaw. He's putting a little bit on. He's, he's, yeah. I got no problems with the new chair. Of course. Let's just see here. Ryan Palmer.

I think he's putting it on. I think he's, when they're doing a Texas, when they're doing a Texas cookout, I think, you know, there's some people that get excited, but I don't think he's putting on the table when we go up to, you know, John Deere Classic. Well, he is Mr. Palmer's grandson. Which people forget. His family put a lot on the table, but he has got a big table, David, after. This is no offense to Ryan Palmer.

He has 100% taking from this table. Has he provided the PGA tour with $30 million in whatever, just it being a good at golf? Yeah. He might be the guy quoted in this. I wanna give a shout out to Tron who said there's it, you know, I'm loosely quoting, there's a great opportunity here to implement

some of our death panel ideas. Maybe it's the 10, you know, the 10 highest. I got no problem with the 10 highest impact scores, divvying up 40 million. Maybe it's the 10 lowest impact scores that get tapped on the shoulder. You know, hey, dog. You gotta go.

Smell ya. You gotta go. You're out. So a couple of other things from Amon's article, the simulated scores in 2019, predictably the player with the best score the man who have added, judged to have added the most value to the tourist product. Can you guess who simulated scores in 2019, predictably the player with the best score the man who have added judge to have added the most value to the Taurus product.

Can you guess who that was in 2019? The cat. Oh, yeah. Who won the Masters that year? Woods was followed by FedEx Cup Champion, Rory McElroy, Brooks Keppka, Phil Mickelson, Ricky Fowler rounding up the top five, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson,

Justin Thomas, Justin Rose, and Adam Scott, complete of the top 10. Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose, and Adam Scott, complete of the top 10. Justin Rose, the upset of the cinch. I think it's all making it that far away. Maybe that's why he's in all the Zurich commercials. All the Zurich and Morgan Stanley commercials. I would like to think it's maybe a bunch of bots, triggering FedExCup search results

and just racking up the tours Google Bill, but I give you wrong. Which I do be awesome. I wanna know how manipulate, manipulateable. What would the word be there? What's the opportunity for manipulation here? I don't know, I don't know. It seems like something you can't fake, right?

Yeah, I, I, they don't, you can for sure. You can manipulate anything. This feels like we're waiting in a conspiracy territory. I feel like we're gonna, yeah, I feel like we're gonna get deep into everybody saying, like, oh God, he's only doing that for his, for his PIP score. That's what's gonna be really fun.

Yeah, of course. Definitely. I mean, that's, dude, they've been manipulated the LIBOR. I mean, if there's a difference between like $5 million, you better believe that the human nature is gonna be to do whatever they can to get that money. So where I think that potentially, like the, again, I don't pretend to know

all the ins and outs of this, where I think they have some weakness here, is like only paying out eight guys seems a bit. Dang it. It's eight guys. Okay. Dang it. It's eight guys. Okay. It goes to the top eight guys. Oh, sorry.

It, that seems light, right? That seems like a lot of competition to get into that top eight. And the number nine guy, number 10 guy, number 11, number 12. Those dudes are gonna be extra incentivized to like bump up into this, right? I don't see Dustin Johnson really caring that much. And that's what I mean and like how much can you manipulate it?

Like, I don't think DJ is gonna be really trying very hard to go from three to two or whatever that would be. But like the dudes like that are gonna be trying to get up into that top eight Justin Rose is gonna be trying. Are we getting kicked me? Well, that's the whole thing. I guess with manipulation,

I'm kind of thinking of it through the lens of quantity over quality, right? Because I feel like that's what we're going to get is just a lot of stuff. A bunch of answers to questions that nobody's really asking. Hell yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah, with dumb social engagement. I think it's going to just shine a mega spotlight on how bad most of these guys teams are at providing things that people actually want to see besides Brison, team Rose. Oh, I thought that. No, I think Brison, honestly, I think Brison might be the only person equipped, much like on the golf course.

And he's the only person with the firepower to move up these ranking. I think the weird shit that he's doing off the course is just the perfect combo of authentic, inauthentic, makes people mad, makes people happy, makes people just want to search what's going on. And noted in the article, the 2021 ranking of player impact scores, the list that will actually

determine bonus payments at years end, will likely look very different to that simulated version. Bryson DeShambot, arguably the most talked about player on tour this year finished 12th in the 2019 simulation, one spot behind. Tony Fina, hate that. Hate that he couldn't crack the top 10 in the simulation.

Woods is recovering from a car crash, Keppka nursing and entry, both Mikkelsen and Fowler are slumping, it's assumed all would still earn bonuses since they continue to drive significant engagement with the Taurus product. But basically the point is it could be totally reshuffled from that list that we saw in 2019 as I think it should be. Totally. So I think like totally in theory, if you say, all right, at the end of this year, we're going to look back at who brought us the most engagement, the most who'd move the needle, who does all that. All that in theory, we're gonna pay out bonuses

to those top eight guys. Does that make sense? Six thumbs up. Like that is, that makes, I wish I had more hands. I wish I had more hands. Now, actually measuring that and giving it up and figuring that out is gonna be very, very difficult.

I know they have a formula for it, but like, I hope it's really well-guarded against this manipulation possibility. But again, I get know they have a formula for it, but I hope it's really well guarded against this manipulation possibility. But again, I get why they have to do it. Sure, if someone, I look at, this is no offense to anyone, but I look at someone like Xander, someone like Cantlay, one of these guys who might very well go rattle off

like three wins in the next year and still not finishing that top eight. Yes, right? And I just don't know what they can do. And that's where, right? And I just don't know what they can do. And that's where I am very, very, I don't know what they can do. No, I'm very fine with if you win three times, the money you get for winning those tournaments is your reward. Yeah. Like that. You have gotten, you have reached gotten endorsements and

FedEx and all kinds of things. If you have gotten, you have earned your on course thing. And again, if you are bringing more to the table, you're gonna get paid for it. But if you showed up to that cookout with a six pack and you drank 12 beers, like I don't feel bad if you don't get a bonus. How does this, how did this, that feels like McGarry. But how did, how did the PIP get,

McGarry brought something last year. I think I'm good. See, these days, shove it a bit his pocket, something last year. I think I'm good. He stayed shoving him in his pocket. I brought six beers last year. I only drank three. Like I'm good. I got credit for this year. Sorry. I've never met Willie McGurdy. Probably a super nice guy that just he feels like a, you know, an easy one to pile on. No, I was just going to say I'm curious how this policy got through a player run organization. You know, I think it was probably their idea. It was probably like a, you know, the board or the pack I assume is probably pushing something

like this through. Didn't Rory become the president of the pack? Yeah. I mean, Rory would be someone who's going to, I don't even know if his name was on that list. I guess it was for the 2019 one, but yeah, he's someone that's going to massively benefit from this right? Yeah, as he as he should I mean that's kind of I think he's been kind of the the key example of who we've been talking about when it's like man He's Woffully underpaid. Yes, and I know that's you know

That's where it gets cloudy and that's where everybody goes, you know Oh, well, he made this much money and why doesn't this should be going to charity? And yada, yada, yada, it's like, man, in the grand scheme of things, like, look at who's, who's putting food on the table and who's not. And Rory is, you know, Rory's a very generous guy, food wise.

This is really interesting. I think I need to, it's gonna take a lot of digesting. I wanna be very clear, very, very, very clear here. If they would put, I would be so down, use it as a commercial break, go away from the action. I don't care. Like show me the top 10. Oh, give me the rankings.

Player-impact rankings. I need them. All throughout the season. That's like what they try to make us feel about the FedEx cup and the fucking business, whatever, top 10 and the windom rewards and the risk reward challenge. And don't care about any of those rankings,

but if you show me this three times throughout the broadcast, that would be, it might not be enough. We should make our own. Which thereby, of course it would be private. Okay. Getting back to this real quick though, would the cynic, what do you say to somebody who

says, like, isn't this what endorsement money is for? Like, isn't that the market telling the players and us who is the most marketable, right? So, I guess what I would say to them, Randy, is like the amount of money is almost arbitrary at some point. It is so much, it's just not about that. It's so much more about the PJ Tour keeping their assets. Right, and that just becomes, it's essentially a almost like a bidding war, right,

between the PGL and the PJ Tour. And when you look at it that way, like isn't that what endorsements are for, yada yada yada, I mean, that's like completely third party thing. That doesn't, I mean, what endorsements are for, Yada, Yada, Yada. I mean, that's like a completely third party thing. That doesn't, I mean, those endorsements are gonna be there whether they're playing on the PGA tour or the PGL. It doesn't, it doesn't matter.

This is purely like anti-defection money. Right, because if you go, if you're the PGL and you say, hey, Rory, you're gonna get paid, let's just pick a number. We're gonna pay you $22 million a year to play these 22 events plus you get equity in this team. And you have your schedule,

you don't have to play 35 weeks a year, you don't have to play between two tours, you don't have to do anything. Here's the weeks you're gonna play. It's gonna be this, this, and this. There's not gonna be cuts. You're gonna own part of the team, blah, blah, blah. That's pretty damn appealing.

It is. And now this is like, all right, what is my fixed amount of money that I get for having star power from the league? Gonna give me, and the league being the tour here? This is what it is. So that's like, again, it goes back to just like a pure wall of like, what is the PGL?

What can the PGL offer that the PGA tour can't some guaranteed money for the top, top stars in the game? That's now changed. They don't have that leverage piece anymore. It's really, I need some time with this. Respectfully, like 40 million is not that much in these goals. And I totally get why the tour wants to do it.

I totally understand why it's happening. I guess the piece that's causing me to think a little bit is just like what the PJ two are ultimately being a player run organization and like what the purpose of it is, right? Like, couldn't they have just like, I think if you want to get to rewarding the stars more, like maybe you pay out less spots, right? And make wins more top heavy. Or, you know, it's just very curious.

But think about the scale of the amount of money that we're talking about, though, too. And look at like the season long. Can I reply to that actually real quick, though? I think there's a huge difference-ranging and being good at golf doesn't necessarily bring a lot to the PGA tour, right? Like, by all accounts, Ryan Palmer is very good at golf. And I'm sorry that he's the example in the situation. He just happened to top 10 this

week and I saw on the leaderboard, but like him, like, gobbling up money for top finishes doesn't do a whole lot for the tour, right? Now, I forget where I was really going with that, but other than to say like, you know, if just by making more money at the top at, you know, at the top of in the top five or for winners and stuff like that, I don't think that solves the problem, right? Because you still make Rory go get it. And I don't think Rory makes a ton of his decisions based on pure bottom line,

but like part of the issue here is he gets the same money that Ryan Palmer gets for finishing whatever place. And I think that like we've covered, they bring different amounts to the table. I know these numbers have gone up a ton in the last couple of years, but like even when you look at the season ending, you know, to your point, like divide up the pie a little bit differently, which, you know, we can absolutely find community and less cards, less of, you know, just kind of less players taking up the same amount of money. I would be down for that.

But even, you know, I mean, JT last year won a ton of money, but he won $7.3 million to lead the money list, which none of this, we haven't even talked about this, but none of this, you know, factors in FedEx Cup or any of that stuff, which is supposed to lead the money list, which none of this, we haven't even talked about this, but none of this, you know, factors in FedEx Cup or any of that stuff, which is supposed to be the cash distribution, the first cash distribution mechanism for all these guys, but that's a whole other thing. But each of these guys is gonna make what,

five, six million dollars. If you're on the list, I think the guy who, I don't know how they're breaking it down, I don't think they've released it, but I think the guy who is number one gets eight million, I believe. So, I mean, it's essentially another, another season and a half of money. I mean, it's a ton of cash. It's a ton of cash. And relative to how much you make on the golf course, like it's even more, you know? I'm curious about it. You know, this raises questions. Does it perhaps disincentivize guys to play more, right?

Like, I think you got to, you got to generate the meltwater mentions though. But I like Tiger Woods does that without touching a golf club, which is really interesting. Which he, I think he's in a different category than everyone else in the list, right? Because they're talking about Capca being hurt. You know, the 2021 list would look way different than it did in 19.

I don't think you can sit back and just, Dustin Johnson or Brooks Capca, I don't think you play, I don't think this makes you say, I'm playing 10 less events this year because I got this big windfall comments. No, you gotta go out there and kind of market yourself and play for it. No, but I will say this, perhaps a guy retires

a couple years early after having gotten a few windfalls, right? But I think that's gonna happen anyways. How's it gonna affect that? Nobody seems to be doing that though. Like nobody's praying for it for years now. I've been praying for it. Well, I don't know that we've-

We've- I don't know that we've really gotten, I think that generation of, you know, playing for massive, massive amounts of money hasn't really gotten to that age yet. I look at Mike Weir, like, yeah, he's made a massive amount of money. He's firing it back up on the Champions Tour.

I think we keep expecting these guys to burn out and not keep playing for cash, but like, why would, if you still got game and somebody's putting up a lot of money to go play next week, why wouldn't you play? If you want to, Steve, you still have that itch. So I think more than anything, I think this represents a big, obviously, a big shift or a nod to, you know, this is an entertainment product and not necessarily

a pure sport, you know, meritocracy anymore. And I know that's some conversations we've had offline with certain PGA players being like, you know, for me, and I think it's good for the viewer. Ultimately, I think it is where, you know, lean into the entertainment aspect of it. Hopefully the tour, you know, like I think as a league, they should start releasing punishments for guys, right? Like that creates social media engagement.

I feel like hopefully this will be a step towards, you know, bringing us an entertainment league. But there's some questions there. You know, that's gonna make a lot of golf die hearts a little uneasy, I think. They're not, you have to worry about that, Randy. They're not gonna make it more entertaining. That's been well established

that they don't seem to be interested in any of that. Well, I am curious, it's weird. It kinda, I'm curious how much they're going to lean into this and how much they're also going to try to keep their arms around everything. Because I do think the PJ Tore, and for good reason, is notoriously, you know, I don't know about if Control Freak is the right word,

but I mean, they're very strict on their media rights, they're very strict on what people are allowed to do at events, and I'm not even just, I would have said that before we started doing what it is that we do. I mean, obviously that hamper's us and what we're allowed to do at PJ Tour events. But I guess what I'm getting at is, if you're turning a bunch of players loose,

a bunch of guys in that, let's say the top 50 of the, the PIP, because there's some guys who just straight up aren't gonna, you know, they're not gonna be able to crack the top eight no matter what they do. But there's gonna be a bunch of guys who are gonna be right on that fringe. And so to your point,

so all of their, you know, if it's between making $5 million or not making $5 million, I'm sure there's gonna be some efforts made to try to do something. And it's like what I look at is like the media rights are so strict on the PJ tour. It's like, I wonder if this is gonna almost force them to loosen those up. If you have a bunch of players going to the tour saying like, I want to do this. I want to have a camera crew follow me around and, you know, I wanna do my own reality show. And I wanna post on YouTube.

And why can I not do that? What do you mean I can't do that? What do you mean the rights are restricted? Yada, yada, yada. I wonder if, I think that's really interesting. Two, I think it's really interesting to think about whether this is like a permanent thing or whether this is just a, you know,

I don't know if it gets written into the bylaws or whatever is like we're gonna do this for three years or five years or in perpetuity. But I think it's interesting like if the PGL kind of officially goes away, I mean, I know it could always fire back up but obviously it takes a lot of time to, you know, you have some advanced warning

when someone's trying to start competing league against you. So I don't know if this is something that only lasts for a lot of time to, you know, you have some advanced warning when someone's trying to start a competing league against you. So I don't know if this is something that only lasts for a couple of years and then goes away, which I think is interesting because you know, it might totally change how some guys handle their business and then if it goes away, that's really interesting. I don't know, man, there's just a lot to,

there's a lot to think about. I'm with Urania. I need to, another week to digest. Well, I mean, don't you think this could incentivize guys to like fight somebody in the locker room or do something totally outlandish? Well, I think there's something in that valve, the MVP rating or whatever it is,

like the value in positive or negative press. I think there is like something to that. I don't know, I cannot pretend to know what that would be. But the most interesting thing to me, I think, is point number two, I guess, criteria number two, it's number three in the article, but number one got deleted out. They're Nielsen brand exposure rating, which places a value on the exposure, a player delivers to sponsors through the minutes. They are featured on broadcasts. Is it delivers to sponsors through the minutes. They are featured on broadcast.

Is it deeper the takes? Is it going to be one an issue that there's 54 minutes of commercials for every three hour viewing window? And like once the top players start getting like understanding the math behind like, oh, 18 minutes every hour they go off the air and not show us. Like I need my shots shown on TV. My sponsors want my shots shown on TV. I have money at stake Like, I need my shots shown on TV. My sponsors want my shots shown on TV. I have money at stake here.

I want my shots shown on TV. That's one, two, players that just don't get, when they're actually covering the golf and don't get shown. Like, how do you think Justine Reed's gonna handle if a key shot of P-Read is not shown on TV? Like, they're purposely suppressing his, Nielsen brand exposure rating, which hurts his PIP,

they don't wanna pay him money, and all the pins on the right side of the green. It's like, hell yeah. Oh, it's gonna be Mayhem in that regard, but like, if I'm the top guys, that's the number I'm looking at, and be like, yo, we gotta be on, actually, on TV. Like, not this fake commercial vehicle on all of this shit,

and I know it's part of where the money comes from and all that, but we gotta figure something out in this regard. It's gonna be interesting. I where the money comes from and all that, but we got to figure something out in this regard. It's gonna be interesting. I don't know. Do you think this is a thing that lasts all year? Do you think it's a thing we talk about for a couple weeks and then everybody kind of forgets about it

and becomes just shadow money? We won't. It's shadow for sure, but like we'll make fun. Oh, I'll be sure. We'll have a PIP section weekly on the, who did the worst thing that's right? That's a good one. Yeah. Winners and losers of the PIP every week. I who, who did the worst thing to try to help their PIP? That's a good one.

Winners and losers of the PIP. Every week. I mean, Capca's winners. The biggest movers. Up the social media engagement stuff, which I will say makes a lot more sense. Now that you know that this has been, you know, with the players for a couple of months now,

it makes sense as to why Brooks is up in his game. Which, Kudos to him, it's been very enjoyable. So are you joking? No, I'm not joking, it's been great. The Eastbound and down steroid tweet, he posted about Bryson. Bryson freaked out out of the cameraman. I mean, there's been some very good stuff

for Brooks in the last six months, yes. I think Randy's probably thinking of more week, the last week stuff, which, yeah. Has he done anything this week? I've been mega checked out. Well, just move on. Okay. Moving on.

All right. Does that pretty much cover the pip? Like yes and no. It is. We have a lot. I feel like it's Pandora's box. Yes. It is a true gift from the content gods for us.

That's the best I can say it. Who's gonna be the worst at it? Rose? He will definitely be the opposite. The perspective of thinking how good he is at it and how good he actually is at it. Who's gonna be the best at it? It's gotta be Bryson, right?

Yeah, it's Bryson. Bryson is the needle. Everybody hates Bryson. What if he gets dicked down by the sentiment, the MVP index sentiment, everybody, you know. Yeah. How are they going to, how are they going to account for Bryson's, you know, performance art tone? There's a thing, none of these guys are good at it. Really? Like, I don't know. Max is, but like, I don't, a lot of people were talking about, you know,

and Max made a joke about it too on Twitter, but like Matt, we all do respect to Max. Like he's not who we're talking about here. Like he's the best at social media of all the players, but like he's not in this, he's not, he's not playing this game yet, you know what I mean? Yeah. He can't off, he can't like leap up into the eight spot just through like being funny on social media. Like he just doesn't. The guys that create, I know golfers don't create much buzz in the sports world overall in general, but like the dudes that do create it

are very different than like someone at max's level. Again, with the utmost respect. I know you're listening, Max. It's also gonna be interesting to see, yeah, man, just who's good at making stuff that's very, like actually impactful versus Twitter impactful? Like this is gonna be a very good, like Twitter's not real life.

There's what, 8% of the population, or something. Oh, something. It's like three is on Twitter. Like that's gonna be good. It's everybody's gonna take to social media. Most of the people aren't actually listening. It's just, man, it's gonna be good stuff.

I'm excited. Let's get to the, oh gosh, the Hugo Air Premiere LA open. Is that, did I get that right, Randy? Yeah, you're guess this is good. I think it's, I think we call it the LA open. Tough tournament name. The LA open is such a badass name to buy with great tournament. Great tournament.

Brooke Henderson wins by one stroke, her 10th career win first in two years. Lot of people blowing up big Randy in the mentions. Big Randy, is she back from the dead? No. What did you say? Can you catch me up? I didn't listen to the podcast.

What did you say that you're taking so much barrel fire for? Last week, I reiterated that it's beginning of the year to LPGA, people, members, players, Brooke Henderson and Lexi Thompson. We're on Death Watch. I quickly clarified this is a comedic bit. It's not a literal death watch. If you've never eaten here before, let me explain how it's going to work.

Exactly. But the whole thing is, uh, it's, it's, it's a major. They, they got to win a major. I like, I know Brooke can win on the LPGA. Granted, she hadn't done it a couple years, but that's not the thing. Like it's more speaking to they need to win a major here. Or else I have serious concerns about, you know, the, the importance of their career going forward. And so one, one win, it's a great win for her. It's a good bulletin board material.

Listen, you can only win the events that are in front of you. Exactly. I like to think maybe I motivated her this week and it's an important step perhaps to capturing a major this year, but this doesn't do anything. People need to people need to understand that. What I do like about the LPGA tour is they don't have this completely oversaturated calendar like the the PGA tour is they don't have this completely oversaturated calendar, like the the PGA tour players do, and that definitely not I'm overgeneralizing when I say that all tournaments are created equal, but there's not huge variances in field strength, week to week like there is on the PGA tour.

So like you get a lot of the big names up there at the same time and like I win like this, it's not as valuable as a major, but the field is not tangibly different than what you'd see in a major championship, almost week to week on LPGA tour. Yeah. They went Wednesday to Saturday again, which I really like it. I think the overwhelming sentiment, people like it. It works.

Obviously, they've been on the West Coast. And so it's prime time on the east coast. But you have that Wednesday where it's kind of dedicated viewing for the LPGA and then, you know, getting Friday, Saturday night, finish in prime time. It's awesome. I don't know how they could do that when they're not on the west coast. But it's been a fun couple of weeks. Hey, man, I hate that Mike Wands answer to that was just that, you know, they do better in ratings when people flip back and forth, potentially. That's like the channel surfers.

TV on Sunday. I feel like that's a little bit of a short-term hit, you know, and the best chance for long-term, you know, moving the needle, if you will, on that would be to kind of own some of these nights. But it feels like also they did the Wednesdays at anything to allow for Singapore travel. Yeah, is that right? Accuracy. Yes. And it goes back to what we're talking about

with the PGA tour though, like each of these events and each individual sponsor isn't necessarily going to be willing to lay down on the train tracks to get run over. So to help somebody else on the calendar or, you know, while we sit here and maybe like that, again, if the numbers say a different story, like we're gonna get a different story,

which is unfortunate and golf, but that seems to be that way for the first time. I'll have to give it with my big flask to what the numbers say. How about Wilshire? How great was that to watch? So awesome. That was cool.

That was one of the cooler courses I've watched, either tour in quite some time. What made it cool? The Br the brancas were really cool. All the little like ditches run offs, uh, just off the greens were unbelievable. You had, man, I guess, you know, Jin-Yan Co is definitely the best example of it, but just some players missing in fucking terrible spots. Aspots.

Aspots. Just some of the worst spots you've ever seen, which I don't want to read too much into this, but I didn't know if that was, I don't know if that was players, you know, just a drastically different golf course than what they usually play week to week. And I don't know if that was players just having the habits of going directly at flags.

I don't know what that was, but there were some, like you're watching on TV, they were slow motion car wrecks, which is like, okay, cool. I see the green from behind. Absolutely. If you dropped a hundred balls, you better not hit one of them in that spot.

And like, they just kept doing it. It was unreal. But it made for awesome TV. Some of the ups and downs they made, God, a chip that broke hat on 18 to ice it was just unbelievable. It was really, really fun. Awesome, awesome golf course to watch. Yeah, it was, it seemed like the course was playing really fast and firm too, which, which probably is why they were hitting it over some of those greens into some of

those spots. But still, and what made it fun, it seems like that's the way the course should play. It looked like on TV, the greens were pretty small. I mean, it didn't look like huge landing areas necessarily, and especially with them being so firm, it was a little difficult. What you guys make of, so Jess Corda started the final round. I believe she was at 16 under. Janune Coe was 15 and Brooke started four back at 12 under. People are like, Randy, it was just a crowning. They were very concerned that Brooke may have been crowned. What's your take there? Well, we got a couple questions about this.

And I didn't, of course, save any of the right ones here as I go to ask it. But the the pace of play honestly looked to be an issue. A lot of people were talking about that and that Judy Rankin was all over it, but if I may say Brook Henderson was not the fastest player in that threesome. And Jessica Corda and Ginnyanko are famously fast players and looked to be at least perturbed on at least one occasion, the final one being good like whole and a half behind the group in front of a ginnyanko teed off on 18. They'll final hole the tournament before Brook Henderson got to the T-Box. And, which is a flex.

I'm not timing shots, but man, they were taking a lot of time around the greens, like really wearing them out. And Judy Rankin made the point just of like, yeah, slow play doesn't really, getting put on the clock or getting behind pace doesn't affect the slow players. It affects the fast ones.

It makes you go even faster. It makes you uncomfortable. Some people that are very uncomfortable with falling behind and not playing quickly feel like they have to play even faster, whereas the slow players don't speed up. I could be wrong here. I don't know Brooke Henderson as a slow player. I've not known that to be something that correlates to her in the past, but whatever it was about this tournament, it was the win really picking up, what you

did on the back nine on Sunday, the firm greens, that just the kind of difficult decisions that had to be made on what kind of shots the player on the greens, how much break to take in and out of puts. There's just a lot going on there, but she seemed to be the only one that was really having trouble with the pace at the end. I always struggle with it, too, where the very understandably so, it was going to be one of those three players who won. And they do a good job of bouncing around to Allie-Uing and a couple other people who were

making runs. But when you're focusing so much on one group and you're seeing so much of one group lining up putts, it's easy to kind of skew like, this is the slowest player I've ever seen. And she did seem very, very slow. Like definitely no protection on that. But it is, it does get a little skewed when it's the only group you're seeing. But a great question from Tussum is full. Does it matter how fast Brook Henderson plays

on a Saturday night broadcast in a pandemic? Yes. I totally agree. Well, I'm usually in the camp of like, dude, I don't, don't get worked up about slow play because it's an entertainment product and like gives them chance to get around to see other stuff blah, blah, blah. However, the exception I'll make is if it is having a tangible impact on your playing partners in putting them in uncomfortable positions,

yes, we care about the fact that it's fair. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. As a viewer, like it doesn't affect me, of course, but as it affects her playing partners and competitors. I think that's where the LPGA, the rules, people like that, that's where you have to step in and enforce some stuff. If I may say, and this can be the 500th decision we've made on this pod that is not our decision to make, but LPG Akes should do whatever they can to push harder and harder for these awesome golf courses that probably can't or won't host a PGA tour event to, you know, I know it's a top, it can be really tough sell for memberships to convince them to give up their course for a week.

And I don't know what you have to do to make it a great experience for members hosting, you know, a gala of some kind where all the members can hang out. The LPG A player is almost kind of like a pro and whatever you got to do to kind of get on these courses, like that is what is going to make this like watching LPJ tour golf, you know, that be be appreciated, right? Like watching them hit those shots, you know, a golf course that is probably not long enough, you know, to host a PGA tour event and doesn't have the infrastructure. But like having the women play on these places that, you know, the men can no longer play out at the top level

is should be a market. They hammer absolutely hammer over the next decade. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think that's where, you know, the US open the KPMG women's PGA to name a couple. Obviously, the A&A is stationary and I think the Evian is stationary, but those other two majors and then the women's British is going to some really awesome venues too. So I'm excited, at least on a major championship venue and then yeah, I have to think it's

a little bit more difficult on some of the annual tournaments, but hopefully, you know, like, God, I know they're going to Inverness for the soul. I'm cupped this year, but just the LPGA drive on last August from Inverness until you know, like, that's of course, if they got to play that every year, it'd be awesome. But, you know, it's also like a major championship venue. So it's, it's a little bit of a bouncing act there. Well, to your point though, I thought wheelchair felt like it was right in the middle of that, right? It didn't feel like a complete punchy in the face,

major championship test, but it also felt like a really awesome, really enjoyable golf course to watch. So hopefully they stay there. I know this is at least what the second year they've been there. So hopefully that sticks around because that's one aisle circle to watch next year.

I had a blast watching that. I was gonna say I was gonna have a call out to the listeners and feel like, all right, if they're gonna play on these courses, we gotta watch. All right, I just need people watching, right? Let's reward them for going to some cool places and tune in and watch LPGA tour golf. And there's so many courses, you know,

like there are so many courses across the country that would fit that mold. So we'll see. What some specific stuff, obviously Jessica court is playing some really, really good golf. Another good week for Nelly. Did you guys have any other takeaways? I had a couple of shout outs that I wanted to give DJ our girl Dana Finkelstein finished tied for 12th. Huge.

We spent a day with her down at the game bridge when we were making the Madeline sex from video and spend a day watching her. I don't think we talked her. No, no, well, that's what I mean. Spend a day watching her play golf and it's just remarkable. She has to be so perfect to compete out there and you know, to finish tied for 12th this week is an exceptionally good result for her. Yeah.

Well, I was just gonna say that Jessica Corta and Nelly Corta Austin Ernst Lydia co patty Tavitanicate and Brooke Henderson as your winners to start the year. Hell yeah. Is that any good on the in the year that you have the most television hours you're ever gonna have like that's what we're talking about. That's exciting stuff. And honestly, I, maybe it was just the commercial that, that kind of did me in, but the Singapore event looks sweet, yeah. I'll be, I'll be DVRing that one. That's got some cool hours, too, on some, some nighttime. Yeah. I also wanted to, sorry, last shout out Gabby Ruffles. Continue to, to impress. Just so, so steady, so good. I'm super excited. Just, you know, see how her next 18 24 months progress out on out on the tour. Breaking news that Cam Smith is keeping the mallet says sorry to his girlfriend, but he's keeping the mallet. That's big development. Huge. Also, that had to kill Jim Nance today,

who Andrew Catalom was on the call today that, you know, he said, came Smith's wife. Said wife, I know. Jim Nance would have never made that mistake. Absolutely never made that mistake. I thought Catalom was good though. He's fine. He's totally fine. Yes.

I thought he's fine. Let's get it to our, what's in the bag segment of today's show, DJ Pie, as we teased in the beginning, is going to chat with us about his Apex Irons, about the combo set, about what his experience has been like, how long he been doing it, and I need to hear kind of your breakdown of it. Sure, so I just got him a couple weeks ago. It's the first time I've ever done the combo set.

I love the regular Apex Irons, that's what I've always played in the past. I think honestly, if I'm being totally candid, I don't, I think I was drawn in by how good the apex pros look, which you guys have both seen them now. They look fucking sweet. They do. And so I'm honestly, you know, I'm almost throwing myself upon the court here to see what your guys' reaction is.

I know we've played a little bit of golf the last couple of weeks here, but I don't know if it's the right fit for me yet. I don't know if I, so the way it works, you know, we mentioned this at the front, but I have four iron through seven iron are all the regular apex, think of those as the, you know, the fatter sole, the kind of cavity backs,

like the classic Calloway irons, and then my eight, nine pitching wedge are all the Apex pros. Kind of the little sleeker, almost kind of bladey looking. I know that's going to trigger some people on the refuge, but that's fine. And yeah, so that little more, more of a workable scoring club, I guess, to use your copy from the front. The thing is, I don't think I've been hitting it horrible, so I don't know if it's the combo set, I don't know what it is, but there's something that's very interesting that's going

on there between, how I'm feeling with the Seven Iron and how I'm feeling with an eight Iron or two very different things right now, which is not something I know, how I'm feeling with the seven iron and how I'm feeling with an eight iron are two very different things right now, which is not something I know, I don't know if I love that, I don't know if I need to put in some more time, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but that's where we're at right now. So a lot more questions than answers right now.

I think we might need TC here to help you through this more than I can, but I would say, I think you would trend more towards like Apex pros than Apexes, like in theory, but you got to be comfortable with it, right? So I would have to say, you need more time with this experiment, one. That's where I'm at, too, I think.

And I do feel like the ones that I've hit, a little, you know, they don't, even when they don't feel as good, I do feel like I've had more than I ever have, you know, balls that like, oh, whoa, that did. I was gonna say that did get to the front. Exactly. Oh, whoa, that did get to the middle.

There's an example of a, in a video. So I need to get a little more comfortable with that. Yeah. So if you're not hitting it great, it's hard to tell what you're, you know, you know, if your clubs are right for you or what? Like it's hard to make the judgment call. Yet there's nothing about your game that makes me think like, oh, you need all the help you can get with your irons. That's kind of where I was at.

Yeah, I was trying to, I've always loved the Apex pros, wanted to dive in and that's one thing I love about the combo said, it's a good foot in the door. It's a good, you need clubs that are less workable though, just to make you hit stock shots. That's exactly right. That's what I'm doing. Kuddy, Kuddy, Snippy.

I've been better about that. You've been better at hitting the middle of the greens. So let's just play chess. Let's just go from point A to point B, a little less art, unfortunately. I'll just say in playing against you some that I have, I have a little more fear when you're holding like a short iron now than I did prior.

So maybe if you're not feeling it, that helps. As an opponent, I was kinda like, ooh, like he won the Apex Pro sound unbelievably good, like when you're not feeling it, that helps. Like as an opponent, it was kind of like, ooh, like he won the apex pro sound unbelievably good. Like when you make impact with it, and it just, when I see you standing over one with like that, just the way that back of that club sets up, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be good. We played some matches against each other this week,

and it didn't feel great watching you hit shots into the greens, as your opponent. The combo set though is cool from that where, you know, when you do reach for one of the apex pros shots into the greens. As your opponent. The combo set though is cool from that where, when you do reach for one of the apex pros, and it's a cooler feeling reaching for those than it is reaching for the apexes. I think those almost feel like, all right, now it's business time.

Like let's pull them close here. We're pulling out one of the really sharp knives. We're ready to make some cuts. What's a realistic handicap for you to get to? Like what's a good goal for you? Because I'm gonna say whatever you're gonna say is your number, like probably not Apex's. Right, right, right.

No, exactly. I think if I play well, I mean, I would think I could, my handicap should start with a two or a three by the end of the year. I think if I start driving it better, it's not the irons, the irons are not the issue. You know what I mean? I just have been driving it really, really bad.

And the less I play, the worst, you know, kind of the rusty or the short game gets. So when you're driving it out of play and have a rusty short game, it's really easy to, you know, not break 83. So I do think once I'm driving it better, and you know, hopefully maybe putting into break 83. So I do think once I'm driving it better and hopefully maybe putting into some new game management

type stuff, people might see that in a video coming up, I think two to three is a stretch goal, but a realistic goal. And thank you for not laughing me out of the building for verbalizing that. No, I think it's very realistic. Thank you. Rainy, anything to add? How can I possibly add that?

Any other housekeeping items before we wrap up today? We got some, oh gosh, I got one thing I want to hype. We have a podcast coming out this Tuesday that has been in the works for quite some time. It is a look into the 1991 Ryder Cup, the war by the shore, originally planning a couple episodes. It's going to be one mega episode. It's going to be about two hours long interviews with just about, not almost, I just about

everyone involved the 91 Ryder Cup. I love some of the names. Paul Azinger, Chip Beck, Paul Broadhurst, Lanny Watkins, Dave Stockton, Bernard Galker through his book. Mark Calcovechia. Mark Calcovecchi. Mark Calcovecchi. There's more of your similarity. Jim Moriarty.

Jim Moriarty. Bernard Longer, you say? Bernard Longer, of course. Like every detail you want of all the final matches and the whole week and the crazy drama of Dave Stockton. Dave Stockton gave some incredible insight on it and Stockton and Galgher to this day is don't get along. I had such a blast putting this together.

It is something I probably should have hyped up more leading into it, but I would like if everyone listened to that one because that took a very long time to do. Neon, I listened to it on a drive-back from Pioneers. Absolutely loved it. I learned 300 things that I did not know about the 1991 Ryder Cup.

Thank you for that. It's really great. Kept uncovering all these facts and crazy stuff about it that just is gosh, it was incredibly entertaining. It got me really hyped for the Ryder Cup. Yeah. Honestly, I know it's still months and months away, but I struggled to get quite as hyped as you do

for the Ryder Cup. I know you're thinking about it every day for the whole two year window between them, but it got me really amped for like I F*** it wait to be it at Wistling Straits and then ready to go shopping at the bit. Amen Anything else on the content front for this week? I would just like to give extreme kudos to mr DJ pie for his edit job of the week in the life with Madeline Sackstrom released last week.

If you haven't seen it, check that out on our YouTube video. It is a really fun, interesting deep dive into Madeline Sackstrom and what a typical week on the LPGA tour is like. Thanks, Big. Unbelievable stuff. I know that it was incredible reaction from everyone. Thank you, Aaron, for the feedback. but yeah, I echo those sentiments and that it's weird to say proud of something we've done that I didn't really have anything to do with the edit, but like that's the

pride I felt watching that was it was strong. Well, thanks. You guys are too nice. Too kind. Way too kind. We're doing a little filming this week. I guess we'll just save that one for later. A little bit of travel this week. I got Florida mid-AM that one for later. A little bit of travel this week. I got Florida Mid-Am qualifier, Tim Aquana Cup, and US Open locals coming up in the next eight days. So, hope that goes well. That'll be nice. Good time to peak.

Be a very good time to peak. I can't say I've been practicing until I'm leading up to a bullet. You do. Let's go ahead and send it. So, Randy, any party thoughts? TC and I get to go out to the US Women's Open media day tomorrow, actually, Monday at Olympic club in San Francisco. So we were both very excited about that.

And then we have our event in Fort Worth at Colonial this week, fun travel field week ahead, lots of golf. So good luck to you. And I guess that's it. Kudos to us for getting to go some cool places. Good job, big guy. Man, this just hit me and we'll take this offline, but we should do our own PIP score.

Oh yeah, I just thought of this. Randy, I was gonna ask you what you're gonna do to increase your impact score this week. Oh, it's gotta be positive, right? No, ours can be either. Okay, I'll probably get in, uh, what's the Gets a message. Maybe Aegon some Canadians. All right, that's going to do it for this week. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We. Be the right club. That is better than most.

How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Anything different?