No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 442: PGA Tour Player Handbook Deep Dive

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Ever wonder what's in the PGA Tour Player Handbook? We read through the entire document, and spent a couple hours chopping it up on some of the funniest and most informative findings, from someone writing some bad checks, exemption categories, tournament setups, sponsorship rules, how fields get put together, tee times, and so much more.*  The link to the handbook: https://qualifying.pgatourhq.com/static-assets/uploads/2019-2020-pga-tour-handbook--regs-09_10_19.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah! That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different! Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast, Sully here. No Sunday recap this week.

We had some travel this past week and we actually had an event out at Gear Heart in Oregon. Several of us were out there, unable to watch much golf really any golf this weekend. So we decided to sit down. We spent a lot of time this week reading through the player handbook, the PGA tour player handbook, studying up on it, finding anything that we found interesting,

and we just spend two hours going through the entire thing, chatting about it and having a lot of fun along the way. We learned a lot, hopefully you laugh a little bit along the way as well, but it's both, it's informative. It's some interesting things. We don't, we kind of skip over the boring parts and really focus in on some more, more humus or more informative parts of it. Did catch the end of the Paul Meadow championship on the plane, very tough viewing via Wi-Fi on a cross-country flight.

Tough scene for Chess and Hadley, gutted for him, but congratulations to Garrick Hego made a lot of noise on the European tour. So far this year, winning several times, and wins in his second PGA tour start, 22 year old South Africa. And a lot to download from the week. I'm still getting caught up on everything. I regret missing not being able to see a lot from Congress. Of course course look like it played really interesting. Shout out to Justin Lauer our young hitter for his runner-up finish at the BMW charity program and it was honestly nice to get away from ProGolf for a week and turn our heads towards the

US Open this coming week. We're going to have a preview podcast. We're going to have live shows after every round like we do for every major This this US open is going to the backyard of San Diego native Zander Shoffley He made Zander made some waves at the memorial He put the not only to put the on-log putter into play He's he's already ranked ninth in Stroke's game putting on tour and said it's a technique that should be banned in the same week very confusing Sequence of events, but he said he said the rationale was that it takes the stress of putting out of the game, which I found again, very interesting. Good news is for anyone that's interested in trying armlock putting Odyssey,

the number one putter on tour, just launched its newest two ball 10 armlock putter. The 10 head shapes are most popular shape on tour and it's paired with a grip that properly enables the arm lock technique and shaft links ranging from 40 to 44 inches even available in a half inch increments. So Neel's got one. We've been kind of giving a lot of crap for it. I know he tried it out, tested it, said it was a good training aid for him. I don't think we're gonna see him put it into play, but he found it very interesting. I think he felt a little scummy for it, but there's reason why everyone's doing it. I'm intrigued. I think my next putting slump, I'm going to at least give it a try.

So take a look at the new two ball, 10 arm lock putter in the entire two ball, 10 line up at OdysseyGolf.com. Odyssey, the number one putter in golf. Without any further delay, here's our discussion on the PGA Tour Player handbook. TC is with me in the killhouse. Greetings. DJ Pie is joining us from an undisclosed location in Illinois somewhere outside Chicago.

Hello, good morning guys, how are you? We are recording this on Tuesday of Paul Meadow Championship week where I'm able to be watching Golf this weekend. I documented that in the intro. This came up a couple of weeks ago when the Byron Nelson was under rain delay, trying to figure out what was gonna happen with maybe a Monday finish leading into a major,

and I put out a call for like, hey, what are the guidelines here? And a lot of people sent me the PGA tour, player handbook internment regulations from 2019 to 2020, which I admittedly, I think I'd looked at before but never really sat down and read, looked up the rain rule, and found the answer to my question, which was that no matter what event is the next week, if it's a major the next week, that does not affect the decision to move a tournament to a

Monday finish. In the PGA tour's eyes, it might actually make things easier. They could do more. So I was like, that's pretty interesting. And I started reading this document and just thought like, holy crap, this is a really interesting thing to read about tour rules.

We talk about rules all the time and regulations and all the things going on and how all these decisions are made. And I'd never read it from beginning to end. And I immediately five pages in, was like, this would be super ripe for a podcast discussion. I think we're gonna hopefully teach some people some things. I learned a lot and we're gonna just ask some questions

about things we've read and share what we've learned. And I have no idea how long it's gonna last. It might last until Sunday, but because it's a meaty document. It definitely is that and hopefully this is interesting for some people. Hopefully it doesn't turn into, you know, US patent tax code 401, which is very possible because that's definitely the feel that you get diving into this thing. And just a couple of kind of early takeaways for me was one, I mean, I think the PGL and

the SLG and all that stuff is all very top of mind for people. And I think one of the big appealing things to that is, you know, hey, there's 48 guys or 54 guys or whatever that are eligible each week and they get to play. And if you're not eligible, you don't get to play. And I think that's very, very easy to understand. I think F1 is very easy to understand. I think the NBA is very easy to understand. I think the NBA is very easy to understand. Like who's going to show up at the games and who's not? When the tour has the structure that it has

and you have all these different, you know, column independent contractors, column whatever, you've got all these different ways that people can get into tournaments. I mean, things get so freaking complicated. And this list of how you build out a priority ranking, how you have different eligibility for all these different tournaments. I mean, it's massively, massively complicated. And one of my biggest takeaways was, I don't understand how they don't make more mistakes

with regards to eligibility and who's in events and who's not. That is like, I remember happening like one time, the top of mind for over the last 10 years with what? Polter. Yeah, it was either Polter or Grammack Dowl or maybe it maybe twice and it was kind of like, yeah, I'm not really sure. Like, am I in or am I not in and blah, blah, blah. Like I don't know how that doesn't happen 700 times a week. Like it's crazy, crazy, crazy reading all this stuff. It's just, it's Byzantine.

Yeah, but also, I mean, you understand like why it has to be that way. When you go back and read it, I mean, unless you're gonna massively simplify everything and make it like, you know, if you're top 125, you get in and if you're not top 125, you don't get in. Like, it kind of has to be like this. It's really interesting to a very sick person like me.

And the exemption and qualification stuff was honestly the part of the document I got to and just started glossing over. I was like, oh my God, this might be its own podcast. Like this is pages and pages and pages of this kind of member versus this kind of member and the order. And so that's the good stuff, man. One of the cool things about like all the tournament

Wikipedia pages is you can go and see what the qualification criteria are. And every week on PJTour.com they do it inside the field on how the field is put together and it's actually pretty interesting to read each week on, you know, if you care about, you know, who is in on what quantum, because sometimes you know, so Ryan Bram will be in a tournament and be like, how was he qualified and you go in and see how he's actually qualified and that's actually pretty interesting. I think the reading through it, there's definitely

some qualifiers, some sentences that you can tell were added on, like some clarifying or qualifying sentences that were added on in certain spots. Did he feels like a living document? Very much. Yeah, very much. Very much. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much. Very, very much and they, and so legally they can't really fuck over, you know guys like if this was the way it was. And you get that in perpetuity for your life. Now, I think they've definitely added it in certain spots where if you want to take advantage, like the lifetime exemption,

if you want to take advantage of this, your scoring average has to do within three strokes of kind of the average scoring average of that year. The first, the very first criteria for eligibility for tournament play is a special exemption. Exemption. It's winners of the PGA Championship or US Open prior to 1970 or in the last five years and the current season. We'll take it.

We'll take them both, man. Oh, let's, prior to 1970 or in the last five seasons. And then there's a note that says, you know, if you want, if you're in on Ken Venturi, Bruce Teppka, come on in man, we'd love to have both of you guys. Winners of the PGA or USO in prior to 1970 must have made at least one cut in a co-sponsored or approved tournament within the five seasons preceding the tournament.

I don't, which seems fair. That seems fair. If you want to US open 55 years ago, but you also made a cut in the last five years, yeah, come on in. Come on in. We love to see you. So maybe, I mean, but that,

like there's this game within the game, right? To where maybe one of those guys gets to start in the Punta Khan event, makes the cut. That could unlock just a hundred percent. There's five years. Riches for him, it's crazy. And then that's similar with like,

we'll get into all this, but that's similar with like the 300 cuts made thing that there's a lot of those qualifiers about like, you have to have made one cut. Anyways, so I thought that just the sheer complexity of it was fascinating to me. It's 154 pages, which is a serious document. And 154 pages with a bunch,

like a lot of the super interesting stuff, like the media regs or anti-doping or integrity policy is all housed somewhere else. It links off to all this other stuff. Every time you get super wrapped up, it sends you to PGA tour links for the anti-doping policy, and that is something we do not have access to. Or like, you know, that's why I get why that stuff's not public. So we'll do a part two once we get access to that.

Any players that have a little beef with the tour that want to select? No, we're joking. We would never encourage such behavior. But it's worth noting, this is not the rules of golf. This is this is a player handbook for PGA tour and it includes a lot of rules for being a PGA tour member, but is not USGA rules of golf. I thought it was super interesting. The first mention of the USGA rules of golf was on page 133. Really? And also a quick control command F search does not include the terms independent contractor at anyway

Well, I did a I did a control F It includes the term conduct on becoming 15 times. Yes, that is that is a theme going to be coming in here It also kind of reads like at one giant homeowners association like that's a god That's a really good good comparison. Yeah, like we're not listen We're not doing this to like Razz you guys, we're doing it so the value of everyone's home stays up, you know. You guys play the same. But the guys that built first in the neighborhood,

get some preferential treatment, they're on the committees and all that. First, you're listening man, that ugly ass color that he has on his, it's grandfathered in. It's grandfathered out. There's nothing we can do about it. We've been talking to him about fixing it.

We don't want him to keep showing up at these events, but legally he's allowed to do it. So I We've been talking to him about fixing it. We don't want him to keep showing up at these events, but legally, he's allowed to do it. So I don't know what to tell you. Oh, the FedEx cup stopped. The FedEx sponsorship stuff. I could not wait to get to that. That entire couple paragraphs just made my heart flutter. A couple other small things.

It was just very anecdotally. It was wild to me like how long it took just to scroll past the tournament, like just a list ofally. It was wild to me, like, how long it took just to scroll past the tournament, like just the list of tournaments. Oh my God. It was just like, oh my God, there's so many tournaments. It's crazy. And I, you know, I know this is going to be a hot topic

and I don't want to, I don't mean to lay claim to talking about this, but it's my favorite thing that was in there. Somebody was writing a shitload of bad checks. Because there's a whole section. it was in there. Somebody was writing a shitload of bad checks. Because there's a whole section, there's two sections in there about writing bad checks. I think we just get this out of the way. Now, the fine for writing one bad check is $200. The second one is another $200 fine. Plus you lose your check

caching privileges for six months. Shout out to Patrick Reed. You've lost privileges. And then the third one is a $500 fine and the loss of privileges for a full season, which I hate. And if it gets too bad, they reserve the right to permanently disbar you from the PJ tour as well. So somebody probably back in the 70s, for all these administration fees, which I think we'll get into, locker room fees, somebody's writing a bunch of bad checks, which I hate.

I hate that. I will say on the check writing front, my favorite part of that was the rules official has to like approve the check. So you got to call, you know, Mark Russell or Stephen Cox or, you know or someone in and basically say, hey, I need you to make sure that I'm approved to cash this check here today, which seems patently absurd for one of those guys.

Which a lot of people with the JT, Michael Vissacchi thing, we're saying why does JT have a checkbook out on tour? Maybe JT's writing bad checks, but you know, I haven't heard of a lot of other people carrying checkbooks out there We need it. We need to look into that. We should we should effort big Mike actually see if that check cleared I reached out to several tour players just to say like hey, what's what's what's you know your favorite part of the handbook? What's something we should look out for a crazy rule? Every single person I reached out to said, yeah, I've never read that. So tell me if you find anything interesting in there or think I should know. What's the craziest thing you found in there? So hopefully listen to this and learn a thing or two.

All right, shall we dive in? Let's just say up front, we're not going to read all 154 pages. We've combed through, found our most interesting parts or the parts that you know, people might learn a thing or two. So let's also say up front, we could be misreading a lot of this stuff. You know, we're trying to understand this as best we can, but it's a thick, it's a thick dense document. So we're giving it our best shot. But I may say the language isn't consistent throughout it.

Like it goes from being thick dense to also just like basically, yo, you can't do this. Like there's also a lot of like formatting changes. Like sometimes like the headings are bolded and sometimes there's not like, basically, yo, you can't do this. Like, there's also a lot of like formatting changes, like sometimes like the headings are bolded and sometimes there's not like, it's just such a, it's such a massively dense document that, I mean, yeah, I don't envy whoever has to edit it and put it together because it would make your eyes

go cross pretty fast. I would imagine there's gonna be some very, very significant changes in the next few years with the strategic alliance and all of the, you know, the, the exceptions that guys need to get when they play overseas and all that stuff. So again, the handbook we were able to access online is the 2019 2020 handbook.

I'll, I'll tweet out the link to this as well in case you need some reading while you go through this episode. But it starts pretty, pretty basic, we're just saying, hey, here is what is changing. Here are the significant changes. If you're up to speed on prior handbooks, there's the reduction of the field size of opposite field events. They're highlighting the no-cut events.

Other changes like the Genesis became an invitation before that year, the New Zozo, the New Bermuda, all that kind of information. And then just a full schedule, including contact information and commitment date requirements for all events on the calendar. As you mentioned, DJ takes up a lot of pages in this thing because there are so many PGA tour events. We breeze past it, but I didn't even realize the field size of trunk on those opposite field events.

That's a Kudos decision, I think. That's literally recruiting players. Exactly. Look at the they were literally recruiting players. Exactly. Look at the bottom of some of those. That's where you really, the eligibility and priority ranking stuff starts to get a really good work out when you start filling up those things.

So fewer players than that is probably good. It feels death penalty adjacent. It does. Oh, I think they were calling some PGA or PGA championship in US Open winners prior to 1970 to see if they could get out and make a cut to get into events. I also thought the definition of, hey, what's a PGA tour event, what's a co-sanctioned event, what's a, I don't know, collaborative event, or like there's four or five different levels there. Like you've got to, what, like the QBE shootout for instance. And how all that factors into the career money list

and the FedEx cup list and all that stuff is, on probably honestly too complicated to really go through or, you know, it's not huge to your viewing experience. A lot of the stuff is not huge to your viewing experience, but you know what else is not huge? The dues and fees related to the PGA tour players. Initiation fee, $100.

We're gonna get to the bottom of this, which was FedEx is giving away $60 million to these players, but if you are not eligible for that, unless you pay your initiation fee to the tour, which is $100. You gotta have some skin in the game, man. Not only that, they're gonna hit you every year. Annual dues, $100. And you will do $100.

And you better not write a bad check. No, you better not. This feels a little like the gas tax to be, where it's just like, yeah, I mean, listen, it's wildly like outdated, but like you're not fucking raising the fees. You guys try to do this to us all the time. You are not raising the fees on me.

It's a hundred bucks, that's more than enough to pay for all this administrative stuff. Well, I thought a very interesting point, it's a $20 fee every year, but you have to bring your own insurance unless you're a member of the PGA of America in good standing, and then they provide that for you.

But then, reading to the PGA of America's, like the PGA championship, stuff, you have to be a reading to the PGA of America's, like the PGA championship, stuff, you have to be a member of the PGA of America to play in the PGA championship. So you gotta think your boy Omar's gotta be coming out ahead in that deal. Exactly. If he's not, no wonder he's playing all these events, if he doesn't have to pay his own insurance. Exactly.

You know, up to a million dollars and, or I think minimum, like a million dollar liability for, you know, any harm that you could cause during a tournament. You gotta supply that on own. Mandatory locker room fee of $50. Which I think is every week based on something I read later in the book, which I thought was good. Take care of the people in the locker room working hard. 50 bucks a week is a small price to pay.

I'm sure guys are happy to do that. Minimum of 50 bucks a week is a small price to pay. I'm sure guys are happy to do that. Minimum of 50 bucks a week. Question for you. You think a guy like Kutcher skips going in the locker room? Because it's only for guys that use the locker room. That's really interesting. Which isn't Phil has given out some enormous cash tips to locker room attendance in the past, as I've understood it.

Like in the four digits, you know, after a win or things like that. Well, that was the famous story. If I hope I'm not misremembering this, but when he finally wanted a gust of it, right? And all the locker room attendance in the main locker room were like crying because like, oh gosh, like Phil's moving to the, he's moving to the champions locker room. Like that sucks. We're not going to see him anymore. Before we move on, we should mention Amiters also have to pay

an administration fee of $50 instead of the dues. They don't have to pay dues, but they got to pay $50 when they register for an event. Which again, I think for an event with a $7, $8, $9 million per, I think that makes sense. I wonder what I truly don't think I understand the purpose of that. But yeah, I've been purpose of that, but.

Yeah, I've been kind of racking my brain, trying to figure that out. I don't know. Because it says, I mean, where's that entry fee is zero dollars, which means, I think that means at one point, there was a tournament entry fee as well. And that, for sure, eventually came down to zero.

So, why, why, when they brought everything under the umbrella, yeah, I think. A quick break here to check in with friends, the Draft King's sports book. It's not only my favorite sports book, but it's America's top rated sports book. It is super easy to navigate. It's very satisfying as the phrase I would use the interface and just the way the set up screens work and everything. They got great instructions for new betters and limitless ways to get in all the action. And not only that, they're currently putting you court side

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new customers only wager paid out in site credits, restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com slash sportsbook for details, gambling problem, call 1-800-Gamberler or an Indiana 1-809 with it. Let's get back to the pod. What I do get is like a lot of the, you know, if the Monday

qualifier fees and that stuff, which are pretty exorbitant, I don't know if we skipped over those already, but, you know, if you're a guy with not a lot of dough trying to play a bunch of Monday qualifiers, I mean, it's, it's whatever, $500 a piece or something like that. 450, which I get, but zero of your a tour member, but they need somebody to, you know, to go, they need to rent out the golf course They set up the golf course. They need to have scoring and they need to do all that stuff, which I get but Yeah, just like the

The amateurs paying 50 bucks to play the tournament. I mean that doesn't make a ton of sense I'm sure there was a reason, but we could probably outlaw that one That's the that's the reason why we're able to play for so much money, dude You just don't understand that's one of the many things that goes into why we're able to play for so much money, D. Do you just don't understand? That's true. One of the many things that goes into why we're able to play for so much money. That's a good point. And then, and we're not going to go through this, but basically the full, you know,

the specific eligibility for each tournament are then spelled out for unique situations like, you know, invitations and all that. And then we, we, we get way down in there. It's the rules on how many sponsors exemptions you get based on what kind of tournament you have and how you use them and how you use them on foreign players and and all that stuff and what happens if a sponsor's exemption withdrawals does it go to alternate and all that stuff.

I thought that there's a few really really interesting ones in here. I thought the new Orleans and QBE are both team events and they will likeBE, it says that the tournament will actually assign you your partner. So, you know, I think they probably override that and let guys sign up together. But I thought that was super interesting. And then New Orleans, just like how the withdrawal policy works, where if you, if you are a non-exam player playing that tournament, your guy gets hurt. Let's say he gets hurt Sunday before the tournament. It's different than, say Wednesday before the tournament. There's all sorts of, there's like a whole page of just, you know, policy for how to treat

the team competition when the, one of the team members is not a- Like the Kepp Brooks Kepp good chase Kepp goes situation. Exactly. So they can't get it And as a team and then Brooks withdraw and be like yeah, go play on your own and then there's a few tournaments where up to two foreign players Designated by the commissioner. I thought that was an interesting point Which I think those those players have to reach out to the commissioner And then the Canadian open complete sweepstakes 16 unrestricted and then the Canadian open complete sweepstakes. 16 unrestricted sponsored exemptions.

16, I mean, that's a lot. Like, Bermuda has 10 unrestricted. To those carryover being canceled two years in a row, did they now get like 48 in 2022? They're gonna have to make a field bigger. And then WGC Memphis, I thought this was a nice nod to you, Sally. There's a strength of field rating in there for winners

so that they have to meet a certain criteria minimum for strength of field to get in as a winner on a major tour. So you can't just be stacking up. Interesting. You know, European tour wins that are strength of field under 140 or something like that. That's going to eliminate a lot of people this year. It was it was interesting looking at the WGC stuff just because you know, I know we've talked

about this a fair amount, but the WGC's feel like they have such a, I don't know if identity crisis is the right word, but they just feel kind of designed by committee a little bit. And that very much is the vibe when you look at the eligibility and how people get into it. And I don't really know where I fall on that, but I think it's interesting on, you know, just seeing there's a very clear effort that goes into propping up other worldwide tours and making sure that, you know, they're well represented across the world and all those things, which I think is really interesting, but I don't know how that always jives with, you know, you get to Sunday afternoon and the bottom of

the lead. A lot of those guys tend to tend to settle down at the bottom of the leader board. So just some random lines in there, like the HSBC, it just has an eligibility category that's quote, six Chinese players, not otherwise exempt. Like, I don't know how that's, I don't know how that's, you know, filled out, but I thought that was interesting. But yeah, just a lot of kind of random nationality stuff and other tours. And it was, it was, it was worth a read. It was interesting stuff. The party dictates those six six as dictated by why the Chinese Communist Party is that right? There you go. It is, you know, as you're saying that, it's, it's clear that also within this

whole document, and it's a player handbook, I understand why, but like it, it, it's kind of clear how much they, the tour is serving the players and, and, and serving the sponsors and not thinking about like the fans, like all this time out WGC, it's all about all about how you know the integrity of how we gather this field and represent all these other places and it just kind of Hamaji not it just kind of blends together into this Tournament that also like fans are like what the hell like what about watching over and over and over Yeah, like what's special about this and we will we won't do a ton of like reading verbatim from the doc, but just for an example, like reading the, you know,

eligible players for the HSBC champions. And this is in case you don't know how these WGCs get filled up. So basically the first category is the winner of all the, the past years majors, including the players, is always listed among the majors in the handbook, which is always kind of interesting. Winner of the WGC's from the previous year, and then we get into players ranked within the top 50 of the OWGR, which I think you can't really argue with that. Players ranked within the top 30 of the final FedEx Cup points list from the previous year. Players ranked within the top 30 of the race to do buy rankings from the previous year.

And then now we get equal. Yeah, totally, totally the same. Now we get deep, deep in it here. The leading four committed players, not otherwise exempt in one to five above from the 2019 Asian tour HSBC qualification standings as of Monday, October 21st, 2019. And then there's some more notes there. The leading two committed players, not otherwise exempt from the 2019 Japan Golf Tour Order of Merit, leading two players, Yadayada Yada from the PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit, leading two committed players, otherwise not exempt from the Sunshine Tour Order of merit. And then of course our six Chinese players,

not otherwise exempt. So that's, you know, how some of these guys show up. But seeing some of it spelled out to like the the open qualifying series for the British open where, you know, the three or four events beforehand, like that, that stuff being spelled out in regulations. Yeah. It's, it's just interesting to see that. You're like, like, it feels like common sense or it feels, but yeah, you got to spell that out line by line by line. Because you do, so much of this stuff is designed around like having a procedure in place for absolutely everything, right? You can't get to this scenario where it's like, well,

shit, now we have to decide between these players on who we're letting in the field when in reality, you know, it should, you know, all these different scenarios that can create, you know, have been created, you know, you have to have procedure in place to handle all of them. It can't just be arbitrary. Frictionless, exactly. But I think another thing that was just kind of

an overriding theme of it was just how much power the commissioner. Yes, he's a busy guy. He does everything as it may have some assistance that help him with some of this stuff, but there's only a couple spots where the the COO or the, you know, policy board or or whomever makes a decision. Most of the time it is left up to the commissioner's sole discretion, which I just feel very finch-

You know. Control, control F on the word discretion, 39 times in the document. And then so keep going past and you end up in this nationality section, which is- The Sabotini. The Sabotini rules, just about how, what country you identify is what you're playing under.

And what I found is a lot in this, but I didn't, the majority, I didn't find that interesting other than, I've always asked the question for like European writer cut purposes and president's cut purposes, where the line for Europe falls, and it extends way further than I thought it would have. Like Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,

which we have run into a lot of these scenarios, or any of these scenarios over the years, but I always wondered if some prodigy comes up, you know from From Turkey is that you know, there's a European side and Asian side of Turkey a lot of people consider If you grow up, you know across the boss for us in Turkey yet are you is that Canada's Europe? Is that Canada's president's cup for international? It just Found that little section getting defined out very, very interesting. It's interesting.

They're kind of going with the, you know, more of the Soviet Union style thing than that. Yes. You know, maybe the, maybe the map post, 1991, 1992. It would be great to find just a leftover language for like a 1976 handbook. It's like all players from West Germany.

Yeah, we'll be exempt. Players of the USSR will be, you know, subject to extreme vetting before they're allowed to play in any events. So on that, the big thing was you can like a player with dual citizenship can represent either, but I think there has to be a four year waiting period. You stay with, you can't just like flip, flop back and forth.

Correct. You gotta wait four years since your last international competition representing that nation in order to switch to the new one. Yeah, and I mean, you could probably keep digging and digging. Like Justin Rose was not born in England. He was born in South Africa, but plays into the English flag. But has been consistent with that his whole career. And yeah, all that stuff is defined out

somewhat clearly, I would say. Love this next part. Credentials. If lost replacement credentials are available through the PGA tour headquarters at a cost of $50 per family credential and photo ID card. In bold, in bold. I think I might have bolded that, but no, no, it's in there.

It is very bold. It is very bold. I wonder how they accept payment for that. Right. You think it comes out either, either of course it only good checks, a good check. I doubt I got a credit card machine there. I doubt I can, you know, Venmo, I'm like out of garbage. That's winnings. Yeah. I don't know. Interesting. We need to look into that as

well. It's clear that that's been a big issue though. If it's bolded like that and you know, it's it seems like it's a bigger issue for family than it is for players. For sure. Which I could see. I can see kids losing it all the time. I mean, it's yeah. And of course that you know as everything in this in this doc represents like They wouldn't put it in there if it wasn't an issue, you know, so something must have happened Like somebody. Oh god. We're we're getting blood dry running up new, you know New credentials for for

Cooters kids we we got it. This is bullshit. We're gonna start charging these guys. Well who's catching straight? Who Was it Jonathan Kay? Who forgot his, his ID? I think this was in Hawaii. He was like one of the first events of the year. He forgot his ID and then he put his fly down. Like, they like wouldn't let him have the thing. He put his fly down and put his ID on his fly.

And, God, I heard, yeah, I can't remember where I heard that. That meg is suspended, I think. No line in here about not doing that though, which that could be. I think that would be conduct on becoming, all right? Right, I just, you know, for that, that rule specifically seems like it would have been in there after that incident.

One other thing under credentials, I thought it was interesting. Tournament sponsors provide complimentary daily admission credentials to any member in their immediate family, spouse, significant other children, parents of the PGA tour, PGA of America, LPGA, and the golf course Superintendents Association. They're looking out for the supers.

Hell yeah. complimentary daily admission credentials will be provided to any member of the golf course Builders Association of America, the golf course builders association of america the club managers association of america and the american society of golf course architects family members must accompany the player in person to change these credentials i both love and hate that because i i love that you know they're looking out for the supers but also like hey supers p g a tour golf courses are what golf courses around the world should look like. Let's make it look like this.

Sure. Maybe I've written too far into that. But I think that's, I'm coming down on the side of good, good on the map. Well, yeah. That's great. It's like one of the few times that they actually embrace the rest of the game. Yes. Anyway, so getting down into tournament administration matters, the Perse distribution formula, which

This is I'd say pretty widely known, but I'd never seen it spelled out just directly of You know, it give you an example of a purse of eight million dollars 18% of that goes to the winner every week and then 10.9 for seconds 6.9 nice for third and then so on and so forth all the way down to like 65th gets point to one five percent Which is less than 64th, which is 2.17 percent but also jarring to just see 65th place get 17,200 dollars for a week's work It's also yeah, it's just really wild to see like 1.045 percent is you know going on a hundred thousand dollars Yeah, that's the big, the purses are large. The work is good if you can get it. Yeah.

And then what led me to this document to begin with, the bad weather policy. So a lot of, you know, this happens a lot, you know, just in moving around T times, when do you move up T times, when do you, Monday finish, what constitutes a full tournament? I'm just going to read from some of this if you guys will indulge me. So if conditions exist, which prevents 72 holes from being completed by Sunday, play will always be extended to Monday if golf course conditions and weather forecast permit.

Play on Monday could include 36 holes and a reduction of the field to the score which has the closest number of players to 60. I don't know if I've ever seen 36 on a Monday. I'm sure it's happened, but I can't recall something. Do they do 36 on a Tuesday in Hawaii that one year? They did. They started the tournament on a Monday,

that one year in Hawaii, yeah. Right, but it was supposed to start on Friday. So it was kind of like the whole thing was shifted. That Monday was essentially Sunday, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. If conditions exist, which make the, the completion of 72 holes impossible, the next priority is to complete 54 holes there by the winner is credited with an official victory.

Again, play in the situation will always be extended to Monday if golf course conditions and weather permit. So that's a fallback failsafe. I fit. Last 50 for, I don't know who with the last 54 hole winner was. I know DJ's got a couple, 50. 50 hole win. Surely had to be Dustin Johnson. He's got like 14, 54 hole win.

He's got like a 36 hole win. I, I, I, I, I, which we'll get to if conditions exist, which make the competition of 54 holes impossible. The next priority is to complete 36 holes there by players receive official money, although the winner is credited with an unofficial victory. Again, play in the situation may be extended to Monday. So not official victory if it's 36 holes. I don't recall the last time that happened.

Wasn't, uh, was our boy Keith Clearwater's victory? Was that 54 or 36? I think it would have to be official. Otherwise they would put his and not to invite him back, right? I think it was 54 though. And obviously we're going to get into kind of some of these past champs hanging on for at different events. But yeah, that's one of my favorite things is I think I think Charles Schwab challenged for those listening. Yeah, I think Keith Clearwater's win in whatever year that was was like a 54 whole victory. And now he's still playing that event every year when he's like 61. So then we get into some exceptions for moving tournaments for the players championship. So except for the players championship in the event of a suspension during the final round being played on a on Monday when at least

half the field is completed play the final round will be completed on Tuesday but no later. Further in no situation would we resume play in order to have 50% or more of the field complete their round? If play cannot be completed on Tuesday's course, we'll revert back to the last completed round and the competition will be considered closed. It's a very special rules for the players, which I will say I think kind of makes sense, right?

Because you got to remember about this whole, you know, handbook is none of this stuff involves the majors. I'm sure the majors have the same rules. So I understand the PJ tour looking out for it's essentially treating its biggest event like a major because yeah, right? I mean, I think that it's definitely definitely made me happy when it said for the player's championship, the commissioner may in his discretion extend play as necessary in order to complete 72 holes. So you could be playing the players for a week. Two weeks.

That's awesome. I've missed that line. God, they should do that. Just keep going. I'll let you guys know when we finished. We've entered stoppage time. The conditions aren't quite right yet for proper tournament. I, the part that I found interesting about this last part,

though, is scores will revert back. Can you imagine a scenario where final rounds are being played and then you go back towards the, has that happened? I would be like, what people were talking about at RIV. I mean, I guess it was Saturday versus Sunday, right? Imagine you open with a three shot lead, you blow it in the bad weather and then they're like,

oh, we couldn't finish. You actually win, even though you're not winning when you turn them into it. I've seen them do it on like a Thursday, right? But definitely never, I can't remember any final rounds where that's happened. I thought actually when you were talking about the players and the commissioner's discretion,

I thought I misread it at first. Your eyes go a little crossed when you start reading this thing. I thought what you were saying was the commissioner has discretion to go more than 72 holes. Which would have been awesome. That would be sweet. You guys keep playing and I'll let you know what's we're done. I'll tap you guys out the shoulder. We'll blow the arrow or did that mean to stop. No offense Seemoo.

Totally random that we decided this year, we're gonna keep going. Need you guys to really keep playing the whistle, man. Keep, just keep going. JT, that's a wrap. We're good. It's got like stoppage time and sorry. It's just exactly. Weather decisions.

So I found this interesting. Also on Tuesday of tournament week, the PGA Tour Tournament Director will meet with television representatives to review air times, requested finish times, playoff holes and plans if inclement weather is predicted or encountered during the tournament at small field tournaments or for rounds following the cut at full field events. A tape delay telecast will be discussed if play can be started early and completed before

impending bad weather. Prior to the final round, the leaders may start on the back nine to provide the network an opportunity to telecast some amount of round, the leaders may start on the back nine to provide the network an opportunity to telecast some amount of play by the leaders. That was wild. Yeah. And listen, entertainment product. Yeah, I just had never heard it,

you know, the television representative's requesting the finish time, which I think I knew, but I just seeing that spelled out was interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think we saw that at the US Women's Open last week. Yes. Yeah. And finishing at, you mean, I think we saw that at the US women's open last week. Yes. And finishing at, you know, two in the afternoon, I will say in California.

I've been poking around a little bit. It looks like they're doing the exact, I'm not sure if there'll be three of them, but they're doing the exact same kind of time frame for Tory as well, which is so freaking frustrating. That's going to be horrible. Like what's the point of going to the West Coast and seeking out these prime time setups when they lick their chops at this sort of thing

and then they do it and you're doing it right up against NBA on a regular Sunday afternoon. It's just, it seems so short-sighted. On a Father's Day Sunday afternoon, also. I was already, so short-sighted. On a father's day, Sunday afternoon, also. I was already, man, I was already planning my father's day around. Go play some golf, cook out, and then you got the whole evening to watch golf, but apparently that's blown up. You and me both, man.

Hate that. I'm guessing it's, again, pandemic related in the Olympics got delayed a year, and Fox bailed on their contract, and now NBC has an Olympics and all these USGA contracts in the same year, which is not planned, but it does suck. Of course, conditions, the condition of the golf course must allow the competition to be conducted under the rules of golf, the lift clean and place rule, may be put into effect under extreme circumstances. Extreme. Extreme. Extreme.

Circumstances for lift clean and place. It might rain. Let's go lift clean and place. That's how many extreme circumstances have we had in the past year? Like 30 or 30. DJ, we're living in extreme times. It's climate change, man. I mean, it's, it's, it's just outrageous out there. Cancelation of a started round. If some players begin a round under extremely adverse weather conditions, conditions subsequently worsen and further further play that day is impossible. The round may be canceled and replayed in its entirety, which that's what happened

in Capulua a couple of times. I think they started and stopped a couple of different times. Balls were getting blown off the green and they said, you know, we're restarted. Did they restart it at Riv this year? I can't remember. They did not. I don't think they did. I don't think they did.

They were threatening it. And I think Max had, because Max had eagled one, remember, and then it got biblical. Over my dead child. Yeah. From my cold dead heads, you could take that eagle away. And then all kinds of stuff on, you know, if there's multiple courses that, you know, in the tournament, the number of rounds needed to have the players complete one round on each course will be considered. Uh, and in pro him events, amateurs may be asked to discontinue once play resumes in an effort to complete play on schedule. So, and you paid, that's the rubber degree. And you paid a lot of money for that pro spot, but if it rains, you're out.

Following a week's event decisions to extend play to Monday will not be influenced by the following week's scheduled event even when the next event is a major championship. Would love to see if that rolled into players championship week if they would still feel the same way. Indeed. Tying this in with television, airtimes, every effort is made to conclude the tournament within the scheduled airtimes. In most cases, networks will extend coverage from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. upon request.

For obvious reasons, the networks prefer to conclude the event on Sunday by playing 36 holes instead of extending play to Monday. Host organizations are in favor of this as well. Which I thought that was interesting. That pops up a couple times where it just says host organizations are in favor of this as well. It's like, yo, you're in favor of this, all right? Yeah. You're all on this team or the hey sponsor wants this. Like you guys got to do this. T times maybe change to a common accommodate television and a two T start

maybe utilized after the cut is made prior to the final round the leaders may start on the back nine to provide the networks an opportunity to telecast some of the play by the leaders, which I am not only recall ever seeing that the leaders starting on the back. So that might be a little antiquated in there, but then Monday coverage networks are given the first option of telecasting play on Monday if the event in the event the network declines cable television will telecast the event on Monday or Tuesday, which almost always happens. It goes to golf channel if you get extended.

So DJ, you want to take us in the locker room? Just a couple, you know, couple interesting things. I saw locker room access limited to players and players' sons when accompanied by the player. And then, of course, PGA Tour staff and instructors working media. I don't, I'm kind of speaking out of my ass here. I don't know if women are allowed in the locker rooms. I know that was a big thing with some of the female reporters. And I honestly don't know where they shook out on that, but the fact that players' daughters

are not allowed in the locker room, kind of maybe tips its hand a little bit. It's just a, that's kind of an interesting, interesting language there. And then of course, no smoking in the locker room. We needed to, needed to point that out as well. Players, players whose caddies enter the locker rooms, you know, unless to help them. Only to clear out the locker. At the end of the week. They were fined a hundred bucks.

If it happens again, they're fined two fifty. end of the week. They were fined a hundred bucks. If it happens again, they're fined 250. If it happens again, they're fined 500. And, you know, yeah, it's after a miscut or completion of the event to assist the player in loading the player's golf bag with contents from the locker. Caddies are not allowed in the locker room

at any other time. Found that guy, I don't know. I get why. I get why. But it's like, it's also like, you know, like some of these locker rooms are not very big. They're not and that's adding 100 and so however many people in there at a time that that's the reason why and they've gotten by all accounts better at just setting up hospitality and

whatnot for caddies over the years. So that's been a beef that caddies have had for a long time, but it almost seemed like it became on the individual events to like, you know, so and so did this. And then that made this tournament start doing this for caddies and this courtesy cars at some events and whatnot. But yeah, you can't go in the locker. There's plenty of caddy stuff later on that we'll get to this next part with Chef's kiss from a player equipment to help ensure that players competing in PGA tour co-sponsored tournaments use equipment, which conforms with the USGA rules of golf, players are encouraged to confirm with equipment manufacturers or the clubmaker that all equipment or samples have been submitted and approved by the USGA,

confirm that drivers are on the on the conforming list, all of that. I just thought it was interesting, encouraged to, not required to, encouraged to. And then, if a player fails to submit his equipment prior to the competition, he assumes all risk of a ruling that the equipment does not conform. But God forbid that the PGA tour actually looks at anything or tests anything. Which has changed, I mean, we can laugh at it and all the CT testing and all that stuff, but that has changed at least a little bit the last couple of years, right? I mean, at least they've they've started doing it a little bit. I know they suspended it during COVID and

all that, but it seems like maybe that's going in the right direction, if not totally there. It seems like they're, you know, telegraphing what they would like to do or maybe just trying to get ahead of it, but action is not following the words. Yeah. The opposite event policy, which we've run into only a couple of times in the past year, but it was. Because it will mingurt.

Yeah, he wanted to play his hometown event and rather than play the WGC, which... Or he wanted to play Sanders in forums. Because he had done, I think he had won their prior or had a great experience there and he did not want to go to China. A PGA tour member who qualifies as of the commitment deadline for a limited field, no-cut special tournament awarding official money shall not be eligible to participate in an opposite PGA tour event should he elect not to play in the limited field, no-cut special tournament for which he has qualified.

Heat that. Which I think also transfers to, you know, it's not like you can dip down and play in the corn fairy tour. If you're eligible for that week's PJ Tour event. You can, if you're, they get to that a little bit later. If you're in the one, if you're past the 125, if you're in the 126 and beyond, you can choose based, because, you know.

Well, that makes sense, because that way you don't get, you know, do have, you can kind of pick which card you're going know. Cool. That makes sense because that way you don't get you know, do have you can kind of pick which card you're going for. Exactly. Yeah. Catties. This is Cattie regulations. There's a whole Cattie regulation.

You shall employ Catties for all practice pro-AM and tournament rounds. The golf carts may occasionally be authorized by the the tournament director for practice or pro-AM rounds. We're where by Catties are not required. Catties shall wear uniforms and identification badges as prescribed by the the tournament director for practice or pro-am rounds were but whereby caddies are not required caddies shall wear uniforms and identification badges as prescribed by the host tournament and PJ tour the shall be paid promptly to I'll yeah you skip that one they got to be paid promptly did I skip that one the fees to be resolved early in the week between the player and the caddies players who wish to bring their own caddies to PJ tour co-sponsored tournaments make

do so players shall be responsible for the conduct and behavior of their caddies. Internements. Mm. Uh, caddies, shall wear uniforms, a blah, blah, blah, all caddies are required to wear solid colored khakis style long pants, which touch the top of the shoe or solid colored knee length tailored shorts or scorts and coloredared shirt while on club property T-shirts T-shirts I know I know this rings this is hard for you to read. I know T-shirts jeans Colot Colotess. What is that? I don't even know that word. Did I copy that wrong? Coolots? No, that's cool lots

Never heard that word skirts Cap caprice cut off shorts and cargo style shorts are not permitted acceptable colors shall be determined at the discretion of the PGA toward tournament director. We got a we got a pause. We got to get in a T.C.'s altercation that he got it while he was cadding on the corn fairy tours, is that fair? Listen, I was approved. I was approved at the discretion of the tournament director. That's where we want to get the tournament director on. That was the, what, the Nashville, uh, corn fairy tour event. We need to get them on the horse. I believe it's the semifing open now, but yeah.

Tron was, of course, not, not adhering to the very black and white caddy policy. He was wearing seersucker shorts got called out by another caddy. It was so hot. They were, they were, they were like the lightest shorts that I had, right? I was trying to try to stay cool out there. The caddy comes up to him and said, Hey, man, it was basically like, listen, like, I'm not going to tell anyone, but like, that shit would not fly on the big tour. You got to wear solid color shorts. Yo, man, if you ever make it to the show, I'm good, dude. I'm just out here hanging with you know, for the week.

I just, you know, I some people some caddies think they're above the game. And I think I think TC falls in that category. Caddies show where smooth rubber sole plane colored shoes, preferably tennis or basketball shoes permissible colors are limited to white and earth tones, such as navy, blue, black, brown, tan, gray, dark green, and the like. Bright colors that are intended to draw attention to a person's footwear are not acceptable. Footwear with a closed toe is required.

Flip flops, open-toed sandals, and other similar shoes are not permitted. Closed-toed crocs are acceptable. Provided they conformed with the color. It was very specific. Described about golf spikes in all capitals are prohibited. Do you think somebody lobbied to wear crocs? Oh, that's just absolutely. What a specific call out, right? That's gotta be crunchy Pete.

That's gotta be, right? There had to be a whole blow up about like, fuck this. I'm wearing my crocs, like put it in the handbook. That's totally allowed. I'm not hurting anybody. What's your deal? Alright, hey, we got to make it a moment to the handbook here. This crocs guy is kind of making big and some good points. Caddy's must conform to the player endorsement policy. Very interesting. That's interesting. Shen. Shout-out, hit putts, caddy, shout-out, hit putts or shots anywhere on the practice

areas. Or course, except in specially approved competitions. I believe that's in there for the 17th hole at TPC sawgrass. Uh, caddies may walk on a company on putting greens during practice round days. If play is not disrupted, caddies may not walk on putting greens on any day at any time before after a pro-am or official tournament round. Also, caddies shall not falsely register for accommodation or leave unpaid bills. That seems like there may have been an issue with that in the past. Kind of weird that caddies aren't allowed to hit putts during practice round. I feel like that's probably something that happens a lot.

Uh, caddies shall not engage in any contact that is prohibited for players under the PGA tour anti-doping program. Thought that was very interesting. That's, that's probably why no Caddy smoke weed. I'm guessing. Yeah. Just to be safe. Gotta be safe out there on that one.

Caddy's must carry their players clubs. Pull carts or the like are not permitted. Just, I, I assumed that was the case. I'd never seen that spelled out. So we, and we've got a conduct on becoming a professional caddy as determined in the sole discretion of the PGA tours. They can do basically a total blanket thing. Hey, yo, that's Croscus. Gotta go, bud. That's conduct on becoming a professional caddy. What are you doing? They can totally suspend habeas corpus for caddies. We're taking this into our own hands.

Where's no time to go through this're taking this into our own hands. Where's no time to go through the system of this one? Course setups. Again, nothing too crazy here. Just was interesting in how they spelled some of this out. Although abnormal conditions, adverse weather, or venue capabilities will sometimes prevent establishing the desired course conditions,

the following will normally be objectives for tournament sites. Tees, firm, closely moan, level, and adequately sized in order to provide flexibility, fairways, firm, and closely moan, varying and with according to course and year-long variety. Greens, closely moaned with firmness and speed, varying for contours, grass type, and conditions, and predicted weather. Rough, varying and length and penalty according to course and year-long variety, bonkers treated it as hazards,

but prepared each day in a timely manner with well-defined margins, maintenance and irrigation undertaken to achieve the above, but modified as necessary for consistency, adverse conditions, and predicted weather. I totally missed the level part of T's, so I put that in my notes. I'm like, oh, they didn't put level.

They could, they could, they've got a total of points right there. That would be awesome. If they started doing some, some sloped T's, you know, uneven, uneven T markers, I think is the next frontier. I'd love to see that change. They did that at Chambers. That was one of the things that they were saying they were going to do at Chambers. And I think they did. There's a couple of slots out there. Yeah, players loved it. They were big fans of that. I'm sure. Hey, real quick, sorry, just keeping us honest,

you skipped past an important thing in the player family dining policy. I wanted to point something out in there too, Deach. There's a note in here, which I think is being abused. It says, if you wish to entertain a guest, such as an extended family member, a friend, an agent, an instructor or an equipment company representative.

You should dine in another clubhouse dining area. That's, of course, talking about the player dining that's set up. I think there's a lot of agents and instructors out there living high on the hog. I would love to see those guys and gals kind of scooted off to another clubhouse. The way to laws a fair in the player dining, which I know because I used to sneak into the player dining all the time when I was working for the tour. So I'd love to see them crack down on people like myself now that I'm not allowed to do that anymore.

I'd also like to point out immediate family is to find his parents of either adult grandparents of either adult and siblings. So grandparents are getting shoehorned into a media family, or two grandparents are kind of getting crowned. Mm. Player timing is so nice. It's really, really great.

But, you know, I'd love to see them keep a little tighter lock on that. Better help the statute of limitations as up on that, DG. You just outed yourself as sticking into player dining. I haven't seen anything about being card smart in here yet, DG. That's true.

That might be a, you haven't made it to that. Procedures for duly committed players. We skipped over that too. This is where the PGA Tour members in the 126 to 150 category and below may commit to both PGA Tour and Corn Fairy Tour events scheduled for the same week. If a player is in the field of both events,

he must notify PGA Tour HQ by 3 PM Eastern on Monday of which which tournament he intends to play, failure to notify will cause the player to be placed into the PGA tour event and remove from the Cornfair field. And then there's all sorts of scenarios where a player who's an alternate in the PGA tour event and is in the Cornfair tour headquarters, they got to notify by 5 p.m. on Wednesday of intention. Back on the course stuff, T placements and hole locations should take into account the following, whole type difficulty and length, including forced carries, design features, course conditions predicted whether variety of shot making and shot links required during

the round. And then my favorite part, creation of excitement and drama for television partners, sponsors and fans, particularly on the finishing holes finishing holes tell you all in on that. Yeah, I just that it was all very like, you know kind of You know vague and whatnot, but then like very much like no, no, we might do some crazy shit near the end of the round We reserve the right to do crazy shit whether guidelines pace of play tournament operations and logistics this pace of play This will not be a primary consideration. I didn't notice that it actually said that. That's it.

Termed operations and logistics. This will also not be a primary consideration. And then spelled out again on par fours and fives, one or more team grounds may be used backties will not necessarily be used at every round or at all. Creation of drama will weigh heavily in identifying holes suitable for setup as either reachable par-fives or drivable par-fours. Need to get a little bit out in the LPGA player handbook. Yeah, they might need to introduce that bullet point.

Moving around par-three, they're talking about moving around par-three Ts to encourage broader shot selection. Which I will say they do a good job. They do a good job of that. I feel like that gets pretty underrated. But there is a a lot of par threes that move around on the PGA tour that people probably don't realize that'll play, you know, one 91 day, one 40, you know, 220. Like they I think they do a pretty good job of that. So rather shot selection on both all the

par threes during each round and on each par threes during the week. So variety on both levels. It's not like Jack speech where he hit're hitting seven iron on all the part three. Because they're all one eight one one eighty one. Sometimes they're one eighty three. Next we've got anti-doping program. But hold I was gonna say a whole locations will generally be a reasonable distance from the greens edge and from contours. However, some whole locations may not be easily accessible. Requiring judgment and skill. Yeah, it's only sometimes. Would love to see a little juice pumped into that one as well.

Reasonable distance from contours I thought it's interesting too, because that was one thing ZB said to us early on that stuck out to me. He's like, I was amazed how many like eight foot puts I have on tour that are within the hole. Like you do not have to play outside the hole. I generally find tour pins to be, like they said, not easily accessible with a pro chat.

So, usually really close to edges, but also in very flat spots around the hole. Which I think probably has a lot to do with green speeds and all that stuff. I mean, when the greens are rolling at 13, you can't really put them on side. So, some of it also has to do with the courses they play too. Like, a lot of kind of bowls and quadrant of these TPC courses. Also, pace of play is not gonna be considered. Not a primary consideration for this.

So I was excited to get into the anti-doping program and then... It's in Spontort Lakes. You know, or www.drugfreeSport.com slash REC. The alcohol rules I found interesting. I didn't know some of this. Any member found to have violated any of the following provisions related to the use of alcohol shall be considered to have engaged in conduct

on becoming a professional and shall be subject to a significant penalty consuming an alcoholic beverage during any practice round or turn them around whether a pro and round or tournament round, whether a program round or tournament competition round, on the practice T or putting green. So you can't do that. Moderate, responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages after play or during social functions is permitted. But players should know that alcohol-related

unprofessional incidents will constitute conduct on becoming a professional. Shout out to Robert Alibi. Yeah, it's a big weather. I just have such as vivid memory. I don't know if I've told it on this podcast before, but the player's championship always used to do, maybe they still do this big, like Gala, the night before in the clubhouse. There was like Tuesday night or Monday night or something. I think it was like like a sawgrass members party, essentially.

And there's, you know, was like a sawgrass members party essentially. And there's 85,000 sawgrass members. So the whole clubhouse is full and it's this big. Every nook and cranny has a different kind of a face station set up. And so I was there one year and I'm walking around. And there's a bunch of people and like blazers and and and ties and, you know, just like a very kind of nice cocktail party vibe. And I look across the room and coming at me is this dude in like completely shredded jeans and like an affliction t-shirt type thing, carrying literally four beers like like claw-hooking beer bottles, just loaded up with beers, and it was Royce Avatini. And so I have this such as vivid memory of this guy just floating across the room at

me. I don't know what conduct I'm becoming was, but it was a tough look. I'd like to submit that i guess uh... pd to our members responsibility to conduct himself in a professional manner lend credit to himself and his organization extends beyond the time that the members engaging in tournament play at the tournament site accordingly the membership should be aware that depending on the circumstances being under the influence of alcohol at any time in a public place whether whether at a tournament site or otherwise, may constitute conduct on becoming a professional. If you're at the buzz, sweeping policy. It is. Anything you do consuming alcohol outside the grounds

could be considered conduct on becoming. So is that like how far does the jurisdiction go on that? Is that like just tournament weeks or Is that like, you know, if you're not playing in an event and you're just shit-faced in Scottsdale? I think it's anytime. It's a league black box man. Anytime in a public place. Yeah. The commissioner again, just.

He will conduct sway over your whole life. He will conduct such inquiries and investigations as shall be appropriate to determine whether a member has violated the alcohol policy or any interpretations thereof. Which that policy is so vague that like, yeah, the commission is gonna determine if you violated it. Hypothetically, so the tour is playing at heritage

and you are in a bar, blacked out in Scottsdale, just causing a scene and you yell at people, you don't do anything illegal, you're just kinda, you're causing a ruckus and you get ejected from the bar. Would that- That's not professional. Would that be possible?

Would that be possible? If that makes its way back to HQ, is that punishable? I would say so. The integrity program, all contestants in PGA Tor events are subject to the terms and conditions of the PGA Tor integrity program, the integrity program, among other things, prohibits players from betting on professional golf and engaging in other betting-related activities and requires players to complete certain educational requirements

in an effort to maintain integrity and prevent betting-related corruption in PGA tour events. I listen, I think that's fair. Don't bet at all. It is, but it runs a little bit more rampant than you might think in terms of like master's pools or getting involved in any kind of, any kind of little fantasy thing or any of that none of that is allowed. I can see that. I mean, listen, we're talking about a lot of cash here.

I think that's the zero tolerance policy, I guess. Any players that are listening, turn your Vemmota private. Seriously. Next up, pace of play. This part gets a little bit thick. Rule 5.6 B states in part, the player should play at a prompt pace throughout the round to encourage and enforce prompt play. The committee shall set a pace play policy. And the administration of this policy, a member of the rules committee shall not tolerate

abuse or or otherwise by a player. Such abuse may constitute, anybody want to finish in the sentence? I'm not done with becoming. I'll just show that to you. Shout out to Grayson Murray. That's... I love that that's got to be spelled out. Shall not tolerate abuse, oral or otherwise by a player.

Unless the player chooses to do so, in which case, you know, not much we can do. The first group to start will be considered out of position. If at any time during the round, they exceed the time a lot of to play as detailed on the applicable course pace of play chart, any subsequent group will be considered out of position. If at any time during the round, they A exceed the a lot of time to play and B, reach a par three hole that is open and free of play. Reach a par four hole and have not played a stroke from the team ground before the hole is open and free of play or reach a par five hole. And all players have not played a stroke from the team ground before the hole is

open and free of play. That next note, though, the committee reserves the right to time a group when the committee deems it necessary. Further, if a player is determined by the rules committee to be unreasonably slow, he may be timed individually at the rules committee's discretion regardless of whether his group is out of position. So, like, you know, everything we just said doesn't even matter if we think you're slow when you're tiny.

Anyway, it's the eye test, man. Yeah. You got to pass the eye test. When the rules committee determines that a group is starting to fall behind or is just out of position, the group will receive a warning. Such warning will be given as soon as possible and given only once during a round.

In some circumstances, the committee may commence timing. You said without having given such a warning, including when a group has already fallen significantly behind and or is affecting other groups. Which I wonder in this too, I'm guessing it falls into that judgment part of like if you got a lost ball or if you got to go back to the tee

or if you take 15 minutes for a ruling, what are the rules on getting back into position there? Cause I think there's some fungibility there, right? I mean, I think there's a little, I think there's some grace periods for stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know. It just, like if you're having a just a tough day back there and you get two holes behind, is that on you

to get back up to pace, even if you're not playing slow, you're just hitting a ton of shots. That happens sometimes. That's true. I don't know. And then just bunch of stuff on when the timing of a stroke, you get a little leeway when you're the first to play into a green, first to play on the greens. But in general, players permitted 40 seconds to play a stroke in an extra 10 seconds when

you're the first one to go. And then, getting into the penalties, the first offense, one timing, exceeding the applicable time to play a stroke, one bad time equals no penalty. One more timing, exceeding the applicable time is a one stroke penalty. A third offense is a two stroke penalty and a fourth offense is disqualification. A fine for the first timing exceeding the applicable time to play a stroke, first offense, no fine. Second offense is $5,000 and third and subsequent offense are a fine of $10,000 for each offense. That's over the course of the season. That's a season.

Yeah. And then, uh, and they accumulate, you know, corn fairy tour, PGA tour champions, regardless of which tour you're playing on, they all feed into the same, you know, kind of system here. But I just looking at those numbers and thinking about and hearing, you know, what people say, like that, I don't think those numbers are enough to scare anyone to end to speeding up, right? You're going to continue to push the boundaries. You're not fearing the cask going out of your wallet. You fear the strokes. Well, I think so on the next section, the timing is cumulative during the season. Firstly, ninth offense being at a position in time,

no fine, 10 defense, 25K, 11th and subsequent offense is 5K per offense. And then the big thing too is I think the following year, your fines get doubled, which I thought was interesting, which. That's, but timing's also not individual. Like that, if you get up in a bad group and your group gets timed, that counts individually for you. So I've heard slow players be like, yeah, I mean like six of them were my fault,

but like the other three were not my fault. And then I'm at 10 and like, I can't get another bad time. They need to amp up the amount of the fines and decrease, you know, maybe from 10 to six or something like that. It's an epidemic out there, folks. Well, and it's just so confusing because it's like time and getting, taking more than 40 seconds is not a penalty unless you're being timed.

And so we'll see answers on TV where guys will take a minute and a half to hit a shot and people will be screaming, like penalizing, penalizing, but that's not a penalty. I think another thing that's super interesting, upon reaching the 10th occasion of being timed during a season, a player shall immediately be placed within category three groupings for rounds one and two. Oh, I missed that. Whoa, I didn't realize that. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is getting into that now of how those work. So yeah, there's basically three categories. There's like dudes who have won or, you know, like Tiger, Phil, you know, top 30 guys in the world, basically. And then there's kind of the 21 through 50 who are tournament winners, but they're not quite at that at that level and then there's just everybody else basically. I mean, that's kind of the oversimplification of it, but. Category one's big. I mean, it's it's a lot of, you know, the big names and whatnot and then category two is basically like the tour members, the new the new guys almost or if you're not a tour member, OWGR, there's three. There's three. Yeah. You were saying category two.

And the word two is like PGA, tour members in the top 125 of the FedEx cup. So Harry Higgs is category two, I would assume, right? A, you know, not a tournament winner yet. But but there's also stuff. If you get into like the top 60 in that current year's FedEx cup points, you can, you can bump up to, I don't know if you bump from three to two, I guess is how that would work. But anyways, the point behind a lot of that stuff is the way they make T times is by category. So you're grouped with other people in your categories,

which is where a lot of the, you know, why don't they just manipulate the T times for PJTWR live or like, hey, this guy, you know, like a Will's Allatoris, like, hey, this guy's, you know, super, super interesting. Why doesn't he, you know, pair him with so and so on, on, on this day on PJ Tour Live, like by their own kind of bylaws are not allowed to do that because he might not be in the right category. So that's why you end up seeing a lot of the same guys on PJ Tour Live, I guess.

Yep. Charlotte Ricky. Getting that hit money. So the PJ tour creates a section within PGA tour.com with information about each member. This is the internet policy. Each player site. About it, ah, the PJ tour recognizes that in the age of the internet, PJ tour members may be launching or relaunching their own websites to support

their fans, their sponsors and their personal business ventures. At the written request of a PGA tour member, PGA Tour.com will link to such players official player site from that particular page on PGA Tour.com. So long as there is a reciprocal link back to PGA Tour.com from the official player site home page. That's huge. That's all SEO, man. You got to get the back links.

You got to get, back links. You got to get, you know, you scratch my back will scratch ears. In addition to linking capabilities in the use of PGA 2 or more, it's PGA 2.com will attempt to assist any member in his online adventures. Please contact player relations. That was a big, that was a big web.com thing, wasn't it? When, when web.com took over is the, the, the, the umbrella sponsor of that tour, it was very like, we're going to set up websites for everybody and they did that's why a lot of the player websites look Really identical and the next update. We've got the one fairy tour exemption for former fully exempt pdator members You got that kind of I think that's a one one time use, right?

It's just kind of floating here on its own where basically if you've been fully exempt for a season For like five seasons. Yeah, five consecutive seasons and fall back on a corn fair here. Yeah Like where did that? PGA tour policy for payment of prize money to players who make the cut but are unable to complete the tournament So this this stuff. This is I found some interesting stuff in this I think Any professional who is disqualified or withdrawals for any reason from an official money tournament after making the cut shall be paid

last place unofficial prize money as determined by the final cut the player made. So that blew me away. I didn't know that if you withdraw, you get the money. If you withdraw or you get de-cued, but after the cut, you still get last place money. You get last place money. I thought everybody is so well.

Everybody's bitching about John Rom. You know, he got his last place, buddy. He got 100 K to for a positive COVID test. You get a high. I wonder if you did it on purpose. A professional who begins play at an official money event without a cut and is disqualified or withdrawals for any reasons shall be paid last place on official money. So again, I thought they kind of did away with this with the burger rule. Like if you hit one shot, no, well, there's there's a further any professional. There's something going on here where they, again,

they throw it back to the commissioner and say there's some, there's some other stuff later on with WGC's in the, you know, like ways to conduct tournaments, I think at the very end, it basically says, hey, this is like page 73, Daniel Berger. Well, so in basically this is for playoff events or any professional is qualified for an official money event without a cut or an alternate list shall as the tournament of champions or such as the tournament champions or BWB championship, but it's unable to play due to serious personal emergency injury or other disability, which requires ongoing medical attention, will receive last

place unofficial money without being required to register on site. The commissioner in his discretion may require a player to provide medical reports or other documentation, substantiating the seriousness of the injury or other medical disability. So the commissioners, youers, a doctor in this case, he said, if you skip a FedEx event, you just want to receipts. If you skip a FedEx event which has been done in the past, like you don't get paid for it unless you have

a medical excuse of some kind. Like if you're fifth and you want to skip BMW or Northern Trust or something like that, you don't get paid unless you have a medical excuse. But then it also says if you qualify, oh, this is just WGC's I guess. So then the next one. So I qualify for a WGC,

but you're unable to play due to an illness injury or serious personal emergency. You are not entitled to the prize money. Instead, you should be permitted to designate the last place unofficial money to a charity of your choice. Which is interesting. But then I still don't see what's preventing you

from going hit one shot, being injured, and then getting the last place money for yourself. I think that's where the commissioner discretion probably comes in though. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, the burger, you can't be as blatant as burger was a couple of years ago. It's a gentleman's game.

Yeah, you got it. Dude, I think. You got to pull that muscle on that opening swing. Oh, yeah, I can't go. We got the mobile and electronic device policy for contestants. Where essentially don't use phones on the course. That's illegal.

A lot of questions about Ian Polter blatantly like streaming the F1 race a couple of weeks ago. How that's allowed. I think that might happen more than people might realize. That's a lot. And even during programs, you're not supposed to, you can use your phone. I don't think you can talk on your phone, though. But yeah, I find that interesting with two, yeah, I don't know.

Some smaller events, or if there's not enough leaderboards out there trying to figure out what cutlines are, what's going on in the golf course, you can't, you're not allowed to do any of that, which is, yeah. You go out to a corn fairy event that's had a weather delay on a Friday afternoon and guys changing flights or on the cut line or guy blows up and like, dudes are booking flights from 14T. Right. But the rules of golf... So I did find this and I always wondered,

what can you do during a round? What can you look at? What can you, you know, who can you call? And the answer is pretty much within the rules of golf rule three, a, what, four point three, a four, the use of equipment to listen to music or other audio to eliminate distractions or to help with swing tempo or to view video showing play of player during the competition that helps the player in choosing a club, making a stroke or deciding how to play the round. That's it, that penalty for first breaches,

general penalty's second breaches disqualification. So basically you can't watch coverage while you're playing and be like, oh, that putt breaks left on the 18th green. But I almost, when I started reading that before you start playing it. You can, but I almost read this, started reading it as, so you can't watch videos of your swing to like help you with something,

but I don't think that's not allowed. Now that I read it closely, I don't know. This part was confusing, because it being the mobile and electronic device. You're not allowed to use any equipment to listen to music or any other audio to eliminate distractions or help with swing tempo or to view video showing of a... Yeah, I would say, of a player.

It says making a sound. I mean, that would be. Yeah, I'm not really sure. That's a, yeah, I would say of a player. It says making a show. I mean, that would be, yeah. I'm not really sure. That's a good question, Sally. But like just off the bat, though, it's being allowed. The electronic devices are prohibited for use on the golf course by players and caddies.

Why do you need the specification that you can't, you know, do something like this? I think it's kind of carving out, hey, there's like the wink, wink. Like you can, you can, we're not gonna, we're not gonna bust your balls here on this, but also like you gotta, you know, there's stuff that wink wink, like you can, you can, we're not gonna, we're not gonna bust your balls here on this, but also like you gotta, you know,

there's stuff that you legitimately can't do. You really can't do that. That's a rule of golf you can't do versus like this is our player policy. That's what I'm guessing the difference is. I was very, very stoked to read about the player's social media policy again. Paywall.

PGA Tour of the Links. Endorsements. This section. This is interesting. This is a, I got sent to this one again with, when Speed showed up at the PGA tour links endorsements this section. This is interesting This was a nut I got sent to this one again with when spieth showed up at the PGA championship with a giant X on his back People saying yeah, that's not that is not allowed and I was like wait. Why is it not allowed? We're about to find out so Generally all sponsorships must be tasteful and in accordance with standards of decorim expected to professional golfers be tasteful in an in accordance with standards of decor and expected to professional golfers.

Sponsorships that may reflect adversity upon the image and reputation of the PGA tour, cast the PGA tour in unfavorable light, insult or offend the community or any group within the community or be viewed as hateful, abusive, obscene or divisive as reasonably determined by the PGA tour are prohibited. First question I have there,

obscene or divisive, the word divisive. Does that include bracelets? Ooh, that's interesting. That's, that is interesting. I mean, it's not an endorsement, but I assume you're referring to Richie Werencki's Blue Lives Matter. I am.

bracelet, yeah, that's interesting. I don't know. I don't know. I have to. I asked if you were in by the P. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know. I don't know. I lost it. You're gonna buy the PGA tour, though. Yeah, that's true. That's up to that. So, maybe the best part of all of this, I knew this rule existed.

I've never seen it spelled out. Season Long Points Competition Sponsor, FedEx. This is the piece that resistes. This is it right here. In recognition of the unique standing of FedEx as the sole sponsor of a season-long points competition on the PGA tour, so long as FedEx is the season-long sponsor of the PGA tour, no sponsorships are allowed by FedEx competitors

United Parcel Services, UPS, or DHL Express, DHL, that involve displaying the name, logo, or any product likeness of either company on a player's apparel, headwear, golf bag, or golf equipment. However, players with existing sponsorship agreements as of January 1, 2017 with either UPS or DHL will be allowed to continue or extend such relationship but may not expand upon the contractual branding or endorsement obligations in such relationships. Which, again, of course makes sense,

like the FedEx sponsors so much on the PGA tour, like I get it, but it's very funny and easy to laugh about. Which, like if I'm Lee Westwood, man, I am, and Louis Ustazen, I'm holding UPS's feet to the fire. We are the only people that you could sponsor out here. This thing is 20 million bucks if you want on my left chest. I'm surprised nobody's wiggled in.

I know they're not a direct competitor, but Amazon Prime. I was gonna say the exact same thing. Yeah. I'm surprised nobody's gone after them. It's like, hey, sponsor the hell out of me. You know, and that's allowed. Yeah.

That's interesting. They don't spell that out. I'm guessing that might be something that gets changed. tobacco marijuana, no sponsorships of any sort are permitted by companies selling tobacco products, mockless tobacco, uh, tobacco smoked in pipes. Yeah, I can't do that. However, a player may make appearances for any such company as long as the appearances are private and not promoted or covered publicly. appearances are private and not promoted or covered publicly. Which is, which is pretty sweet. Some cloak and dagger stuff.

You could do bad shit if nobody does. That's fine, but just make sure they don't tweet about it. That should be the same thing with conduct, unbecoming. You could, you should be allowed to have all the conduct, unbecoming professionals you want, as long as it's not covered or, you know, don't just drive it. Yeah, did Tiger get fired, a conduct on becoming for, for everything that happened, But as long as it's not covered or, you know, just private. Yeah. I just got to get a fire conduct on becoming for for everything that happened around 2009 or came out around that time. It's private. So it's yeah, that's interesting. I got to think Billy Payne was riding pretty hard for some conduct on becoming.

Maybe writing a couple of letters to Fijiatory HQ. Our hero did not live up to his expectations. letters to Fugitory HQ are here to not live up to his expectations. Alcohol, a player may have a sponsorship by a beer wine distilled spirit or other alcohol companies subject to, you know, it's got to be included with a social responsible message direct call to action. Hole one in 109 with it. Yeah, it's one hundred nine with it. We'll get to gambling here in a second.

No visual representation of any alcohol product. Maybe you want a player's head wear, a peril golf bag, or golf equipment. So you can have like a liquor bottle on there. Which is interesting because there's there's shirts out there that have, you know, like martini glasses or kind of repeating logos here and there. You know, none of that. And it was the same thing later on with like gambling. You can't have cards or dice on that thing. So like for Vegas, you know, if one of the putter manufacturers wanted to do a special edition head cover with playing cards on it or dice on it, that would be... Well, shit. Now, I think about it. The trupas, cowboy balls with the diamonds and spades and all that stuff. That's...

Huh. That's interesting. Interesting. I haven't seen any tour players use those, you and you cannot display more than one name brand logo Of any alcohol company on on headwear a peril any of that. So shout out to honesty Yeah His mezcal that's right Which not even the official mezcal of the PJ tour which was such a slap in the face Which I also was surprised that the Mick Ultra does not have like exclusive beer rights. I guess maybe I shouldn't be. They're not like a FedEx level sponsor, but you

know what I mean? Like you can have other beer sponsors, right? I just don't I've got to see a lot of beer sponsors on guys. Game still with Phil. I think something that that was super interesting too was it seemed like beer and wine were relatively kind of anyone's game as far as tournaments are concerned. I think this was later on, but tournaments must get written dispensation from the tour to serve liquor in spots. So it's very, it's a lot more heavily regulated than beer and wine as far as the PGA tour is concerned. Which I'm sure liquor license stuff

for things like that is. Just liability, yeah. Probably a lot more difficult and whatnot. The gambling stuff. things like that. Just liability. Yeah, probably a lot more difficult and whatnot. The gambling stuff. Oh my God. They're chasing their tail in this section. I am so confused on this whole section. It is just if they've got it out for bet 365.

A player may have sponsorships by casinos and other legal gambling companies except for a sponsorship in the United States by a company whose primary purpose is sports betting as reasonably determined by the PGA tour. For example, a player may have a worldwide sponsorship by MGM resorts or Caesars or a sponsorship outside the United States by bet 365, but not a sponsorship in the United States by bet 365. So again, to illustrate a player could have United States by bet 365. So again, to illustrate a player could have an agreement for bet 365

to use this name and likeness in an ad for its sports book that runs in Asia as long as it does not run in the United States and there's no promotion or activation in the United States. Okay. Yeah. The following terms, all sponsorships by gambling companies require the prior approval of the PGA tour,

all sponsorships must be submitted to the PGA tour competitions department in advance for review and approval. Which I love the idea of Charlie Hoffman submitting to the PGA tour, monkey knife fight. Having to get approved. Is that gambling company? Some kind of gaming, some kind.

Yeah. Originally, I think it was a Simpsons joke, but that's neither here nor there. The gambling company must be a compliance with all applicable gambling laws. Listen, for sure, of course. We don't want scumbags out there running around. Daily fantasy companies, example,

Draft Kings and Fandall are treated as gambling companies for purposes of this policy, but not companies whose primary purpose is sports betting, which that, I don't know, I'm a little confused there, but I get it. So they're loud, they're loud, then obviously. I mean, Bryson Scott is big, draft Kings logo. They're treated like MGM resorts and seasors, not bet 360. They're playing for the bet 360, five in particular.

They're 65. Accordingly, draft Kings and Fadal would treat it for. Yeah, like you just said, not bet 365 million. Seems like the biggest thing is the differentiation between someone who does some other business in addition to sports betting. So if you're a daily fantasy company, you own or operate hotels and casinos and shows and that sort of thing, you're exempt from this.

If you're bet 365, you're not exempt from this. You just got to do something else. You got to have something else under your umbrella. No visual representation as we set up any game related product on any headwear, a pair-all golf bag or golf equipment. You can't do more than one gambling related identifier in the aggregate at any time. You got to pick a lane.

You can publicly appear and otherwise be used in ads and other promotions for sports betting in daily fantasy, generally excluding ads and other promotions in the United States. If the company's primary purpose is sports betting, as we just said, we need to determine by the PGA tour. You can promote daily fantasy golf, but not promote betting on golf anywhere in the world. For example, a player may appear in a worldwide ad

for MGM Resorts encouraging consumers to download the MGM mobile betting app at a or a worldwide ad for draft kings, encouraging consumers to play daily fantasy golf, but not an ad to bet specifically on golf and not an ad in the United States for bet 365. It's just funny that like that you can you can advertise for It's just funny that like that you can you can advertise for Draft King sportsbook Like not their daily fantasy you can you can Advertise for that, but you can't you can't do anything else. Do they do that though? I know I think about it is the Draft King sportsbook part of the air is it like it's always fantasy games that they're I mean it says above though like you can do

Draft Kings or D draft Kings sportsbook, but not William Hill or bet 365. Maybe it's just like you have to spend money with the tour to be allowed. Maybe that's the difference in 365, bet 365 does not. And they've figured out, all right, they don't have daily fantasy, so that's the delineation, that's where we can get around this.

I also thought it was interesting, they can't make any money based on the handle. Yeah, on any, there's no revenue share of any kind with any gambling companies, which that makes a lot of sense. Logo mark size location and quantity. So this, this was a fun section in particular.

I've always wondered why players aren't plastered with more ads and it turns out there's rules. All names, brands, logos, and other marks and identifiers on a player's apparel headwear golf bag, golf equipment must be in good taste as to content, size, location, and quantity as reasonably determined by the PGA tour. And Mark may not exceed three by five inches. So back on the speed thing with the big X on his back, I don't know if that qualifies as something different. If that's, was that a logo?

Was that, I don't know exactly what that was? He's probably arguing that that was a stylistic, you know, element of the shirt versus, but yeah, I mean, three by five. How big is that Sebastian Munoz flex seal? Exactly. If you're like a manufacturer, how have you not made a game out of

just trying to break everyone of these rules? Right. Right. And just like seeing how far you can push it, what you get away with, we snuck that one in last week. And then it just becomes like, well, you let us do this, you know, it by renounce. And we had this shirt. What's wrong with this one? I would, I think get pretty good measure out of that. The repeating logos is kind of a way to get around that, right? If a guy's wearing something that has a bunch of swooshes all over it or, I mean, I know. Can they do that?

No, I think about it. Do they do shirts with a bunch of swooshes? I don't think you can do that. I think they did hats with those, didn't they? I don't know. I mean, I know. I know. I know double swooshes on them.

I know penguins, penguins, done that. It's three inches tall. That penguin on cam Smith, you know, which it's like, Hey, use your space. Come get me. It's a built home. Yeah, it's within the rigs. Mark's on upper torso apparel, including shirts, sweaters, out-aware, and upper torso underwear, but excluding for clarity belts and headwear, may appear only at the following seven locations right and left breast, right and left sleeve, right and left collar, and the yoke of the back just below the collar. Only one mark may appear at each such location.

IE seven logos total are permitted for upper torso apparel. Shout out to Zach Johnson. Which I was going to say to begin to see who's really maxing it out. Which I feel like I've seen Tor Pros with two logos on their back before, and that's a big LPGA thing. A lot of the LPGA stuff. Yeah, marks on their back. But marks on belts may appear only on the belt buckle

or front buckle area, only one mark may appear on a belt. So it's a gentleman's cave. That's an interesting thing though. Like what, you know, what is, what is a mark on a belt? Like what if I go, where's the smathers and Branson belt? Yeah. What's in technical mark versus how much that's allowed? Yeah, Anthony Kim, you're only allowed one big 69 belt buckle.

You couldn't wear one in the back if you wanted to. Mark's on lower torso apparel, including pants and outerwear, but again, excluding belts and footwear. Man, up here, only at the following locations, the right or left back pocket area, but not both back pocket areas. And below the right or left knee, but not below both knees. Only one mark may appear at each such location. Two logos total are permitted for lower torso apparel.

I'd love to see somebody with a big ass logo on their back right behind their knee. I've seen a couple, there's a, like underarmors got some stuff that's logo at the bottom, yeah. I know like the blue lemon or underarmory, you've got those little marks there, but I'm talking about like, if three by five, you know, let's max it out.

So anyways, that section's not too lengthy, but I've found all that interest. And they give the commission or now here, the location of the marks is otherwise not restricted But all marks must satisfy the good taste requirements set forth above so we're bringing it back to hey We just laid out all these objective guidelines, but yo if it's subjectively just doesn't jive with us. Yeah, we can do away with it I think because yeah, there's nothing like there's no there's no porn rules or anything in there, but I'm guessing that's good that rule is gonna catch all for that. But anyways, also worth pointing out no no marks on the butt as well, you know, you can't you can't get any

words across across your butt. Yeah, just, you know, pointing that out. H.A. on one side. It's your enough P.P.Y. right there on the other. So, moving on, appearance fees are not allowed in any way, shape or form. They spell out all the ways you would try to get around it, but are not allowed. This feels like total bullshit, because you look at a company like RBC. Yeah.

It's like, hey, this is baked into your appearances. Or your endorsement is you have to appear at these, at these, you know, RBC sponsored events. Yeah. Which I wonder if those are even explicit, or if it's a very like, man, we'd, we sure would love it if you, if you played the RBC heritage.

Like that would really, that would be really cool. We can't, we can't ask you, we can't require you to do that, but man, we really would like that if you signed the steal. It would be in your best interest. Yeah. This was interesting just to see kind of how they how they lay it all out and how they, you know, they say, you know, host organization, any, any event or activity conducted from

Monday of tournament week through the, the day following the, the conclusion of the tournament. So tournament period or in general proximity, but that kind of gives some wiggle room outside of that. Yeah, but you couldn't come in like play a Monday event for $200,000. Like, you know what I mean? Like a special separate pro-AM almost kind of thing. I think that's what that means. But if you wanted to come in Sunday, do a clinic for a million bucks.

You know, and if you happen to stay for the tournament, that'd be great. You wanted to come in Sunday, do a clinic for a million bucks. And if you happen to stay for the tournament, that'd be great. That'd be wonderful. It basically just reads like, yo, don't make this complete quid pro quo. Just skies it a little bit, right? Exactly. On the FedEx cup stuff, it, you know, not a lot in the section that we don't already know other than I don't recall if I've seen an updated version of the payouts with how

much is paid in cash and how much is deferred. I know this was a big thing when the effects got first came out. It was flipped almost entirely the other way. Almost all the money was deferred and players bitched. You know that they were advertising paying out $10 million to the winner when in reality you were getting one million and nine of it was deferred. Some of the guys making the deferred money were, I mean that deferred money is like insane now.

Oh God, they gotta have, it's gotta be worth so much more now. Now the big bonus is paid out most in cash. 14 million in cash for first place and one million of that is deferred. Second place gets four million cash, one million deferred and so on. Starting with the eleventh place,

your bonus is more deferred than it is in cash, and then everyone that finishes 31st or lower, any FedEx cut money you get is all deferred. So, 34 million dollars goes out in cash, and 26 million is deferred, grand total, of $60 million of FedEx cut money. Which this is really where I'm super curious, and this goes back to made cuts

and the way the pension works and all that. And you know, five years and you're fully invested. There's this whole other side of, you know, probably the, the members only handbook here that's like only published for them. But I'd be fascinated to know, all right, how much goes in, you know, how much goes into your pension for a made cut, how much vests, all this stuff, and then what does that look like? What are your investment vehicles that you can put that pension into,

all that kind of stuff? So. Which again, just, you know, I know this is stuff we know, but just seeing it all spelled out again, you know, the $60 million a year paid out just in bonus money on top of all the prize money and all the purses is very like, yeah, you're not getting a fucking UPS sponsorship man. Like, you got to think that's pretty reasonable.

Yeah, we're good here. And on top of the regular season, like the $10 million regular season bonus pool too. That's the Comcast business. Yeah. Whatever that is now. Which it's super interesting, like, reading this now and still, it's still listing out like the, the military tribute at the Green Briar,

just saw the other day that Jim Justice is, is I think in a rear, he's personally guaranteed loans for up to $700 million that are defaulting. There was a big, I think it was Credit Suisse, like there's a big, massive black box there, they're starting to dig around. And it's like, yo, Jim Justice hasn't paid his bills,

and I heard that about the PGA tour event too. Like they almost didn't have it. He got bailed out by the flood that one year. What a pan. Cut, you know, jump cut to him walking around the grandstands and handing out a hundred dollar bills for all the people who they made those aces. It sounds like Jim Justice could have gotten

nabbed for conduct on becoming. For sure. Well, I guess a lot of that stuff was done in private, though. Definitely, bad checks. Yeah. Which I think kind of takes us into the next, that's where we get to the the check caching policy here. After this kind of next up, and then we get into, you know, a couple of awards, the courage award I was before we came on.

I was, I was suggesting maybe TC should put his name in the ring for PJ Tour Courage Award. I know they don't give it out every year, but just what he's done playing lefty, really. I think that's, that's an interesting conversation there. I think they should have to give out a Courage Award every year. It says in their discretion, the commissioner and the player directors may determine that the circumstances do not warrant the selection of an award reception in any given year,

which I think that's BS. Everybody's showing courage every year, may and be in differing levels and amounts. The PXG's adding troops every year. There should be an endless amount of people that they could honor every year. The biggest thing that I noticed in this award section, I never realized this, so the Vardentrophy,

touring professional with the lowest adjusted scoring average, minimum 60 rounds, no incomplete rounds. You can't, you can't like, you know, WD during the middle of a round, and you're ineligible for the Vardentrophy at that point. I read that as, that's a cast. That's a cast. No, any player with an incomplete round

is ineligible to win the Vardentrophy. I think that is too guard against somebody trying to protect the points, protect the scoring average. You know, let's say you make a 12 or something like that. And you withdraw, and it's not an official round, it doesn't go into your scoring average, but you know, there's some funny business there. So I applaud them for putting this in there.

Wow, that's great. Which like that was manipulated somewhat, right? The A on Risk reward on the LPGA tour, who was it that was, I forget who that was. That was sick. She like sat out in a vent because she was like, yeah, I'm going to make more money from winning the A on risk reward challenge than playing the event. Now the Byron Nelson award, which is also the player with the lowest adjusted

scoring average minimum of 50 rounds, you do not have that qualification in there. So you can, you can withdraw all you want. So the fact that there's two, you do not have that qualification in there. So you can withdraw all you want. So the fact that there's two, that's not a bonus for this award, right? Two trophies or two awards that basically reward the same thing. I think the Vardentrophie is more of, is the Vardentrophie more of like a USJ or an RNA thing?

All right, it just seems weird to have like two awards for basically the same thing. But it would be very interesting to see if there were two different, you know, two different winners of those two awards in the same year. Now that you say, I'm kind of in on somebody trying to manipulate the the Viral Nelson award. It just WD it every time they don't have it. I think that would be sweet. You still got to play 50 or 60 rounds though, you know. All right, So that takes us to the big one. This is eligibility for tournament play. This is who's allowed to actually play in the tournaments. This is how they fill up the fields. It's, it's a massive hornet's nest. It's like 20 pages of the of the document. But again, as we set up for on, I mean, it kind of makes sense. It's not like you just call, you know, there's 125

guys who can, who can show up. And if a hundred and 19 make them that week, we'll just have a tournament with a hundred 19. Obviously, that's not how it goes. So there's a bunch of things that go into this. We'll just kind of hit some of the high points because it's, uh, it's complicated. But essentially, the way it works is that there's a priority ranking. There is a bunch of different categories. And

in the sheet, it basically says, you know, the first people who get in are eligible players listed in the order of the priority that should be used to complete the starting field in open, co-sponsored tournaments. So important to remember, this doesn't include invitations. That's events likeial and Riviera and Arnold Palmer and Moral. A bunch of those. These are just your three M, your rocket mortgage, travelers, events like that. I'll just hit the high points here.

Again, these are in order. This is the way they fill the field in order. First one, we mentioned this upfront winners of the PJ Championship or US Open prior to 1970 or in the last five seasons. So essentially, of course, the last five US Open winners, last five players championship winners, last five masters winners, last five open winners, last five, sorry, last two tour masters winners, last five open winners, last five two, or I'm sorry, last two

tour championship winners, all the WGC winners from the previous year. The last three Arnold Palmer, invitational winners, last three memorial winners. I believe this has now been changed to the last three Genesis winners are going forward. That's a three year. It's the last three years worth of WGC winners. Not just last year. My bad. I'm going too fast already. Thank you. The winner of the FedEx Cup, FedEx Cup is a five year exemption.

I didn't realize, so I guess winning the money list gets you just from four, just from four. Yeah, I don't know. 2014 through 2016. Yeah, I didn't know how that worked. They got rid of the money list as a qualification to keep your card. It used to be a top 125 FedEx

and also separately top 125 money list. Oh, right. And they got rid of the money list as an extra way to keep your card. So I'm guessing that's a grandfathered in thing. You know, probably it'll probably lapse after 2020, yeah, or 2025, right? So after that, and then of course we have, you know, if you win a PGA tour event, you get a two-year exemption, that's that's well documented. Some of the more

interesting ones. So there's an either or here, there's a couple different exemptions. If you're on, you know, the top, you hear people talk about career money list exemptions. If you're in the top 25 on the career money list, you get one year. If you're in the top 50 on the career money list, you get another year or TC's favorite, if you've made 300 cuts or more on the PGA tour, that's also another year. So that's that's somewhat controversial one that it seems like some people who made 300 cuts who are on the PGA tour policy board, probably snuck into there. But there's a couple interesting things in there. There's some language about, you know, seems like the, the commission's really got his eye on some of these guys. There

were some strong language around like, if you use that 300 cuts exemption and you're trying to file for a medical extension, like there's a bunch of stuff in there about like how much documentation you have, the commissioner has final discretion over whether, you know, basically whether you can suspend that 300 cuts made exemption year, all that kind of stuff. I thought that was, that was kind of interesting. This is such a hornet's nest. You could, I mean, I could foresee in 10 years, we could be looking at, uh, at something where it's career FedExCup points. And they just accumulate everybody's FedExCup points and then there's another exemption

and if you're in the top 30 career for FedExCup points, which we should probably look at awarding FedExCup points retroactively to Arnold Palmer, one, six FedExCups. And then... That's the analysis I really want to see. And I think that'd be really good stuff. Moving on, invitations of the tournament sponsor, sponsor exemptions, maximum of eight players,

which may include, I didn't realize this. It says, if you are an amateur getting a sponsor exemption, your handicap is supposed to be zero strokes or less. Is that common knowledge? I did not know that. Because in other words, is Tony Rema a scratcher better? I did not. I think he's scratcher better.

But I mean, he's got 70 on a tour event. I think that's, you got to be scratcher better. Listen, I'm just looking out. But I just want to say, on the cuts made thing, like there's also a lifetime membership category, right? Where if you win a certain amount of times, 15 times on tour, 20, like 20, yeah. That, you're pretty much like a made man.

Like there's plenty of ways to become a made man for making 300 cuts and so arbitrary. And I remember when they changed that as the JJ Henry Rule, but I knew you were looting to the name, but it was like, yeah, you know what? He said, like, I deserve it. I was like, I think 300 cuts, mate, is the reward? Like, I don't think you need to be rewarded for that. Yeah. I think there's big rewards in winning and keeping your card. Like, I think if

you're making that many cuts, like, you probably should keep the car, right? I mean, I think that's, yeah, eventually like the career just ends, man. Like that's, that's the way it goes. But yeah, anyways, the next one is kind of the one that Toronto alluded to earlier, very vague, two foreign players designated by the commissioner. I don't totally know what that means. I think if you're, if you're essentially like not, this says no, PGA tour, PGA tour champions, corn fairy tour, Latino America, Canada and and PGA tour China members are not eligible for such an exemption. So I think this is kind of, you know, if you're a teenage phenom in Japan, essentially you can apply for this exemption and the commissioner can really like bump you up

ahead of a bunch of other guys on the on the priority list is kind of the way it reads Which is interesting Then we get into some PGA national professional championship stuff Some winners of the PGA local PGA section current PGA section player of the year. This is all the MR Eresty stuff There's a couple a couple of those top four finishers that open qualifying. That those are your Monday qualifiers. Yadda, yadda, yadda, we get into a couple more.

This is a good one for particular tournaments. One, previous winners of the PJ tour co-sponsored tournament with the same tournament sponsor. So if the same tournament sponsor has stuck on, apparently that impacts whether you get into the tournament or not. There are some qualifications, you know, much like the 1970 stuff you have to have made a cut by a certain time.

All that stuff. Just so outrageous that you can, let's say you won a tournament like three years ago, but the change, you're not eligible, but the change in sponsorship happened in the last three years versus somebody won something 22 years ago, but the change in sponsorship happened in the last three years versus someone won something 22 years ago, but still the same sponsor, man, you're, come on back. Yeah, crazy. So then we get into lifetime members is next. So that's the people of one 20 times. So that's what that's 18 different categories. And now next we get into, okay, now we're into the top 125. So after all those guys have gotten in now, now we're into the top 125.

So after all those guys have gotten in, now we're into the top 125. Then we get into the top. On the previous years FedEx. From the previous years list, right, which is where when we get to wind them and everybody's trying to lock in their top 125 for next year, that's trying to lock in their status.

But just worth noting that the current FedEx cup standing does not get you in events. Correct. Corey Connors was in the top 10 of the FedEx cup last year at my point and wasn't getting in events. It's wild that like the the the J.J. Henry exemption gets you in ahead of a life member. Like let's say. That's fucking insane.

I didn't think about that. I didn't think about that. Yeah. Like those guys should be at the top. Like you're like you're the made man. You're the life member, right? I think there's no event where both of those guys are not going to get in. If you're in the exemption categories, you get in any event, except for the match. That's true.

You're just kind of a philosophical thing. Totally. Then we get into top 125 non-members. So basically, I think guys who have earned enough points to have been top 125 non-members. So this is, you know, basically I think guys who have earned enough points to have been top 125 last year but weren't membership blah, blah, blah. Then we get into major medical, which I'm honestly not even gonna dive into because it's four and a half pages.

That's its own podcast. It truly, it might be its own series. That is unbelievably dense stuff. And there's minor medical too. And, you know, and then you've got all sorts of commissioner discretion now on that stuff. Yeah. So all those guys have gotten in. So this is where I think some players start to get a little frustrated is, okay, so now all those guys have gotten in. Now we're down to the person who won the, the guy who won the Cornfairy points list, the guy who won the Cornfairy finals, like those guys, the top dogs from the Cornfairy tour, the previous year, then

we get into top 10 from the previous tournament. Okay. Now, if there's any guys who are not otherwise exempt that finished top 10 last week, now we'll get them in. Then we get into the top 25 on the Cornfairy tour from the previous year. So this is why when you hear guys, you know, the guys who have this top 25 on the both on that I think on the regular season and on the points, you know, for the finals last year, when they still can't get into events, it's because all these guys are up ahead of them and including a lot of the major medicals and stuff like that. And we're not even talking about reshuffling. Like that's a, that's probably the whole and stuff like that. And we're not even talking about reshuffling. Like that's probably different.

Right, that's the whole other thing as well. This is just the initial list and then they'll reshuffle within that category, basically. So next on the call sheet, the phone tree is the battlefield promotion guys. If you are Steven Yeager, if he ever gets that third win, I know he keeps losing in playoffs, but if he gets that third win, he would slot in next behind all those guys. Then minor medicals, then minor medicals, which again, we're going to skip because that, that's

very complex. Then we get into, okay, now we're, we're the next 25 guys down on the FedEx couple list. So 126 to 150. Then we get into a whole other, like now we're back in another kind of medical medical, like non exempt medical family crisis, mandatory obligation extension holders. You can read about that at your own leisure. Then we're into past champions, team tournament winners and veteran members, not within the top 150 on the FedEx Cup points list. Then we're into the past champions category. So the past champions category is is kind of interesting. I think that's one of those ones that you know, you kind of hear people talk about and basically what that is is if not otherwise eligible and if needed to fill the field, past champion members in the order of the total number

of PGA tour co-sponsored or approved tournaments one, excluding team or other tournaments, not awarding official victory status. If two or more members are tied based on the number of tournament, it's tournaments one, which of course, a lot of these guys are, one win people, the member who is highest on the official PGA tour career money list

shall be eligible. So the reason I think it's interesting to go through all this stuff is to basically look at, you know, what happened in a congary this week. And some of the people who got into this field, because it's trust me, like it sounds absurd, but it comes into play. Like these, these things are here for a reason and occasionally like they get used and what honestly we're not even there's another what one two three four another four five categories behind past past champions.

So it's it is a dense dense list man. It's it's crazy. And that's where I was saying if you go into the inside the field every week on the PJ tour, they list this all out in order. You can see exactly how guys slot in. They're pulling guys from the 126 to 150 on this week's Paul Meadow Championship and then all of this. Omar got it.

DA points, George McNeill, Andreas Romero from the reorder category, category 34 through 38. They're all in the fieldorder category. Category is 34 through 38. They're all in the field this week. It's just basically if you played on the PGA tour, at some point you're eligible, in some way to get in some of these events. And I feel like they're adding certain things here and there, like certain little qualifiers.

Hey, must have played in Cornfairy Finals, I mean, one of the last three years to be eligible for this. That sort of thing. I feel like they're trying to wean some of these guys off. And then we've got all sorts of, you know, pro-AM eligibility, medical provisions, non-member qualifying, which is a hot button right now with Zalatoris.

You know, I think everybody's, everybody's relatively familiar with that. And then other eligibility requirements, I thought this was interesting. The one new event played per season requirement, which I think during the current PGA tour season, any regular member of the PGA tour required to play in at least one tournament.

He has not played in previously during any of the preceding four seasons. So, I'm interested to see if that's been tracked somewhere. You know, I'd like to like to see who owes an event still or who hasn't done it because it's a, I think that's a almost it's coming close to being four years old now. So yeah. It seems like it's been successful. I mean, it's a great role. Yeah. Good rule. All right, we're getting down there guys. What else? What else? I've got a, yeah, I think we can skip through some of this stuff. There's a lot of like, fill your paperwork out stuff.

Yeah. That's pretty, did you want to talk pro-amp stage? I just, there's a couple of weird things that stuck out to me about programs. One, the max number of strokes you get in a pro-amp is 21. Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And if you're a plus handicap, you go to zero. You go to zero, which is exactly that.

So if you're playing a pro-amp, don't bring really shitty players. It's not going to help you, because they're going to get capped to 21. Bring really, really good players, because your plus fours are playing off zero. So that seems right for manipulation. I hate that.

I also thought it was interesting. They called out an amateur who's playing in the actual tournament. I hate that. I also thought it was interesting. They called out an amateur who's playing in the actual tournament. I had this as well. Is allowed to play from the professional tease during the program? In case there's any confusion. You know who's really taken it on the chin in these programs is PGA professionals. Also, they get kind of the worst of all worlds here, where they have to play out zero. So no matter what their handicap is, they these programs is PGA professionals also. They get kind of the worst of all worlds here where they have to play off zero. So no matter what their handicap is, any PGA pro has to play off zero. But they play the amateur tease. So they play up, but their scores are not

allowed to count for the team score. It seems like again, there must have been some people really, really running up the score on that possibly Omar, on that front as well, just cleaning up in a pro-way. I was probably already trying to explore that space and I had to cut down on him. Another thing I thought was interesting, sometimes they had this rule in there, sometimes they can't safely use a forward T for women. It might be infeasible for the way the golf course is set up. It might be, you know, there might be crosswalks. There might be like who knows. Sometimes the forward T is just not able to be used. When that's the case, the women have

to play back at the the ameter T's, but they get six more strokes on their handicap with a max of 27. So keep that in mind if you're having any female pro am partners. Going back to pro am's, what's the second is a celebrity professional? What's a celebrity professional? Yeah, I'm not sure how that. I don't know what that is. There's a couple things that yeah I think it was hoping like if Peyton Manning shows up you can add an extra person to your group or I don't I don't know exactly I was a little confused there. I I was kind of hoping there would be some some details. I'm like, you know guys get paid to play in the programs And they they get paid to play in the Monday programs and and a lot of that stuff But that that wasn't in there

in shorture links. Yeah. I thought withdrawals, interesting. Fatigue is not a valid reason. Not a valid reason. That's a no. That's been added in there. So on that note, I was wondering about DJ withdrawing

from AT&T, Bryson withdrawing from RBC, week of without really specific reasons. What punishment there was or why that was allowed to happen? That stuck out to me after reading the withdrawal policy. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff in that best effort category. In making a commitment to participate in a PJ Tour event, a player thereby obligates himself to attempt to exercise his maximum golf skill to play

in a professional manner, which is basically like, yeah, you can't just WD for no reason. And there's a lot of stuff in here too about when you do WD after the tournament starts, it has to be for a valid reason and you got to prevent, you know, you got to, the player shall immediately notify the PJ tour of his reason for withdrawal and within a period of 14 days submit written evidence supporting such reason to the commissioner. So yeah, a lot of just like, you can't just WD for no reason.

Yeah. And if it's for injury or illness, it must include additional documentation from a medical professional, substantiating the nature of the ailment and the prescribed treatment. Need a doctor's note. Not necessarily a doctor,

just a medical professional. That's a good point. You know, chiropractor. Position assistant. Yeah. Which I wonder how like mental health fits into this, right? Like if you're just like, I don't know, if you're totally completely fried, yeah, you got to show up and play.

I don't think that serves anyone's interest. But I think the, the last one that really kind of stuck out to me was the conflicting events, media and marketing rights, and they just say over and over and over again, note, no conflicting event releases will be approved for tournaments held in North America. Like, folded. Yeah, it's interesting. And it's, you know, to fulfill, it's for the tour to fulfill its contractual obligations concerning representative fields, no members shall participate in any other golf tournament or an event on a date which a PGA tour co-sponsored tournament or event

for which a member is exempt is scheduled except for the following tournament. So it's a tournament or an event where a member obtains an advance written release for his participation from the commissioner. So if you're a PGA tour member and not a European tour member from, however, you need to get a written approval

from the commissioner to play in the bone saw invitation. Yeah. There's a couple exceptions to that. Attainment or event co-sponsored are approved by and held in the territory of the PGA section with which the PGA tour member is affiliated. So that's, you know, shout out to Omar. The PGA National Professional Championship and PGA winter tournaments for professionals,

which I would love to see somebody skipping, you know, skipping the Honda Classic to go off and play in, you know, their section event. And then golf tournaments on the home circuit of a foreign player who is a PGA tour member. And home circuit is the country where the player is a citizen and that circuit plays some portion of its schedule in that country. The one place that seemed a little interesting that it wasn't really covered as much was the Middle East on this, right? Whether it's kinda...

Well, I think it's, so like if you are from Europe and you play the European tour primarily, that circuit, you don't need a, you don't, like Paul Casey does not need a waiver to go play the European tour event. I think that's where that's coming from. But if you're American...

But it says geographical region, like home circuit, geographical region for the PGA for the PGA European tour, countries within the continent of Europe plus Morocco and Tunisia. Interesting. Does not give any carve out for the Middle East there. Which even if it did, I feel like Phil's always considered

Riyadh a second home. Anyways, I feel like. That's where he'sadh a second home. Anyway, that's really felt at all. That's his whole circuit. Yeah, I feel like he'd get a pass there. So each tour member is eligible for three releases per season based on participation in 15 PGA tour co-sponsored events. The request can be denied. And I have it somewhere in here that you could basically like after three times

of going to an event, they can make you play the opposite field, the opposite event. So if you go play three bone saws, they can be like, all right, well, now you have to play Phoenix one year if you want to keep continuing to play in that. I may have that wrong on paraphrasing that, but it's something along those lines. And then I think another thing that's interesting about this is how it pertains to like some of these exhibition matches and why those always seem to fall on weeks where there is no PJ tour event, you know, because the PJ tour obviously has to have a pretty big hand and releasing guys to go play in those. It's not like those organizers, at least right now, it's not like they can just kind of go willy nilly and and say, hey, you know, we're doing this. Willie Nilly and and say, hey, you know, we're doing this the Thursday of memorial, like tough shit, you know, this player said he wants to play. It doesn't, as of right now, it doesn't really work that way. So it's, it's again, more of a symphony that has to keep,

keep conducting and all these pieces need to keep it. And it's not only like in any week when a PGA tour, PGA tour champions, corn fairy tour, Latino America, Canada or PGA tour China, co-sponsored tournament scheduled, a PGA tour or PGA tour champions corn fairy tour, Latino America, Canada or PGA tour China co-sponsored tournament scheduled, no PGA tour members shall participate in any golf activity, including public exhibitions, clinics and programs in the same geographic area as any of those events without the prior approval of the commissioner. Which is actually interesting that the match four point I was going to be during a tournament week.

I'm guessing they you know siphon of some charity mind the tour to make that happen or yeah i'm not sure not sure media and marketing rights uh... the television digital radio motion picture and all other media rights of all players participating in p j tour co-sponsored in coordinated tournaments pro-am's or any other golf event conducted in conjunction with p j tour co-sponsored blah blah blah

or any portion of our here by granted and assigned to the PJ tour based upon this grant and assignment, all such rights shall be the property and expressly reserved by the PJ tour. And any use thereof without the express written consent of PJ tour shall be forbidden. That is all encompassing. That very much is. But also whenever I hear expresswritten consent, I always expect to hear Major League Baseball after that. But that's just a mental thing. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of the gold, the gold-plated statement. That's why all this stuff works the way it does.

And then there's a couple more after that that go into instructional stuff, the premiere of stuff, you know, kind of getting into on-demand stuff and how you treat on-demand stuff since it's not really live or anything like that, but as long as it's not debuted during live coverage, then you can... This is what applies to us with Wild World. No tour member shall participate in any live

or recorded golf program without the prior written approval of the commissioner, except that this requirement shall not apply to PGA tour co-sponsored coordinated or go holy instructional programs or personal appearances on interview or guest shows. So, you don't need approval to go on a podcast, but if you're playing golf on camera,

and it's gonna be debuted opposite, even a recorded tape delayed, you know, a rerun of a PGA tour coverage that is not allowed. What's again, like it sounds absurd, but it, especially when you see all like the premier golf league, you know, stuff, like it makes sense why these provisions are in place. It's not like they haven't thought about the idea of, you know, oh, well, like if another, you know, upstart league comes in, they can, these guys can just play in their free time. Like of course they're trying to lock that down.

So it sounds absurd on the granular level of yes, this includes wild world of golf, but expanding it out to what it really means. Yes, it makes a lot of sense. And then you've got, I mean, there's all sorts of little things. What's this fairway agreement? Are you familiar with that at all?

I don't think I got that far. I think by the time I got to this point, the fairway manual tournament courtesy vehicle agreement, there's all sorts, articles six, there's all sorts of just crazy under the radar shit here. Like you could keep digging on this for years. You could teach law school classes in this. Public comments, public attacks. That was the last real thing I had highlighted. The favorable, yeah, I thought that was kind of our, I think that's our grand finale, right?

I mean, what could be more topical than this with all the Brooke stuff going on? The favorable public reputation of PGA tour, its players and its tournaments are valuable assets and create tangible benefits for all PGA tour members. Accordingly, it's an obligation of membership to refrain from making comments that unreasonably attack or disparage others, including but not limited tournaments, sponsors, fellow members slash players, and or PGA tour.

Speech that could be reasonably viewed as hateful abuse of obscene and or divisive is expressly prohibited. Responsible expressions of legitimate disagreement with PGA tour policies are not prohibited. However, public comments that a member knows or should reasonably know will harm the reputation or financial best interest at PGA tour, a fellow member player, a tournament sponsor, or a charity are expressly covered by this section. Any violation of this section shall be considered conduct, unbecoming of a professional. Which, like, God, I'm, you know, Brooks had to get fined, like crazy, right, for the for the Bryson stuff. Well, I would think, I mean, Mick Ultrapry just paid the fine for him.

It's indirect enough that I, you know, it's not, I don't know. If you're reading that to the letter, just like anything that will cause harm to the reputation of a fellow member, like how could you possibly, for a better or worse no matter what you think about, you know, who deserved it or whether it's right or wrong. Like, I don't know how you could possibly look at Brooks,

essentially saying like, good stuff. You guys were yelling at Bryson and you got kicked out, like that's sick. I don't know how you could not argue that that causes harm to Bryson's reputation. This is the Class X article. I thought it was interesting. Further, a player should not do any of the following. Gamble or play cards on the premises where a PJ tour tournament is being played, associate or having dealings with persons whose activities have involved trafficking or administration of substances

or methods prohibited by the PGA tour anti-doping program, which going back to the cat, Dr. Galea. I'm sure they handled that, you know, privately. The classes of penalties I found interesting, there's minor penalties. It's a fine of not more than 10,000 intermediate penalties are fines between 10,000 and $1,000 and 20,000 and then major penalties are penalties in excess of $20,000 suspension from tournament play for more than three tournaments and or permanent disparment from play and PJ tour co-sponsored or coordinated. And then there's there's the punishable by death. Caching. And then there's there's the punishable by death caching a It was it was interesting to see you know, of course the the tour for

Basically the reasons kind of outlined in the public comments public attacks Which is very like we keep all this stuff in house. We don't need to be Sullying the reputation of our league or anybody else, which is why they don't release any disciplinary stuff. It was interesting to see that intermediate penalties and kind of speculate on how many less than three events suspensions there must be, right?

I mean, and just thinking about how like, you know, if a guy gets suspended for one or two events, like does anybody really notice? No, I mean, yeah, you could easily explain it away. Even three events, you can explain it away as an injury or a jet ski accident or something like that. Sure, I totally have pathetically. I did.

One sentence I thought was interesting, which I read wrong the first time until I was corrected was responsible expressions of legitimate disagreement with P.J. toward policies are not prohibited, which at first I was like reading as are not allowed, like, you know, even if you're totally respectful and you have totally legitimate concerns, don't do that shit either. But to their credit, they're saying, no, we were would welcome welcome a very, you know, respectful discourse. Just so open and honest, the PJ.

Yeah, I love it. I appreciate that. It got more granular than I thought on practice rounds. Yeah, about bunker shots. You love it. Yeah, you can only hit one bunker shot towards the pin. Yeah, more than one ship shot outside of bunker, maybe played, provided you're not damaging the course.

But if there's people waiting, you can't play more than one ship shot outside a bunker, maybe played, provided you're not damaging the course. But if there's people waiting, you can't play more than one stroke, which I found that interesting. Very long story short, there's a lot of rules in the PGA tour and you're welcome to read them anytime you have a question. And at least, I think we've answered at least some of things like when things will pop up

as to what the rule is, but also there's a million granular things like when very specific things happen, we can, you know, consult this book and give you the exact answer. So, the, I think also just like with regard to meetings, you know, like you got to have a quorum, you got to notify everybody, like written notification, 14 days prior, you've got to, if you don't get the quorum, you can't have another meeting for 10 days.

It's truly HOA shit, man. The pack, we didn't get into any of all that. There's layers upon layers upon layers. Appeals. And this isn't even the rules of golf. This is just player handbook and conduct. Voting membership, reinstatement of voting membership, you know, notification of discipline, appeals on discipline,

termination of membership, reinstatement, all that stuff. It's, it's lock going on, man. Lock going on. Lock going on. Anything else in conclusion? Are we good to wrap this up? I can't think of anything. I think we got it all.

Well, cost and expenses of litigation. I think we got it all. Well, it costs an expensive of litigation. If you do go to the end, it's a cool one. Because you're too good to war with the tour and you lose. You gotta pay them back for all their legal fees. And vice versa, if you win, they'll pay you back. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I thought that was delightful because I'm sure they've got some high priced attorneys.

Well, thanks everyone for tuning in if you made it this far and for indulging us as we dive into the player handbook Hopefully you learned a thing or two and maybe had a laugh too along the way and maybe we'll do something similar this in some other Different topic in the future, but back to your regularly scheduled program this coming week US open week live shows slash podcasts every day and Programing this coming week US Open Week live shows slash podcasts every day and Ready to fire up another major seems like we just just got back from one, but here we go again. So excited Cheers boys enjoyed it. All right good stuff. See you guys

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