No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 524: Max Homa

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Max Homa returns to chat about the west coast swing, what makes Riviera special, the 10th hole, playing with Adam Scott and Dustin Johnson, Netflix filming, chatter among tour players about rival leagues, where his allegiances lie, consistency, and so much more. Thanks as always to Max for his time.  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 him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Laying a Podcast. Solid here, not an emergency podcast that many are you calling for with Phil's statement, apology or whatever was released today, the news of KPMG dropping him. Just wait till Sunday.

There's going to be more news this week. A lot of things will happen. Did get a great chance earlier to speak with our friend Max Homa. This conversation is probably pretty obviously recorded before Phil's statement that came out today. But we talked a little bit about all the ongoing in the SGL, PGA tour, all these things. It had a conversation about, you know, what are you hearing from players? what his qualms may be, how it could possibly be addressed. Great conversation with Max. Really enjoyed chatting with him as always.

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Again, that's calwaygolf.com slash customs. Let's get to Max Holman. So tell me you walked around rid of the little bit of extra swagger as the defending champ this past week. Yeah, a little bit. We're going to be in a group with DJ and Adam Scott and not feel like weird. I would even honestly argued like just with the fans back. Like I had a maybe like the most support DJs. I play with DJ there four years in a row now and he's usually you know, got a big following and he still did. But it was different.

It was a great thing to do. I was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to the most support DJs. I play with DJ there four years in a row now and he's usually, you know, got a big following and he still did, but it was different. It was a, yeah, I felt very eerie kind of, but it felt like comfy, which was fun. But I just, I don't know, that place definitely gives me a little boost.

And then the city with all the fans, it really helps. So it was cool to like walk around with a little swagger, a little pep in my step and, you know, it was, it was a, for a 10th place as much fun as you could have losing by, I think I lost by like nine. It was the most fun I could have had doing it. But it just didn't that answer right there. It seems like you're kind of, you're trying to come to terms with your stature

on the PGA tour, right? You know, you've won three times now. You're paired up with DJ Adam Scott. It's not, you know, it's not out of charity that they're pairing there. You're defending champ there. But like, get the sense that you still don't feel like you fully belong in that group, but you kind of feel like it. But you don't. What's that like?

Yeah, I guess you're right. I think I do. Like I said, play with DJ the last four years there. Like literally at that tournament house, but it's never been Thursday, Friday, at Saturday, Sunday. But like Adam Scott and DJ are two of the best golfers ever. I was like trying to think about, you know, just putting their careers into perspective, just thinking about how they're still two of the best golfers in the world, but like they are two of the best ever when you add up all that they've done.

So that's just I think that would always be a little weird for me just to be in that group, but I definitely feel like once I'm on the golf course now, I don't feel, I don't feel like overwhelmed by like what they're doing. I think before I was probably a little bit more like in awe a bit. I remember the first time I played with DJ there. I was in awe of him, but he is, you know, tremendous golfer. But I'm definitely kind of trying to get that. It's weird when I play with the younger guys like JT, you know, burger, Jordan kind of, like I don't feel as,

I feel like that's what I'm supposed to be because those are the guys I grew up with, you know, like, I mean, JT, JT's probably, I mean, Ron's pretty damn good, but JT's like the best golfer. I've really seen day in and day out, but I've seen it for so long. And for some reason, when I play with him, I don't feel, I don't feel like I have that like kind of man. I mean, JT's group, which is good just because I mean, like I said, we we we turn pro at the exact same time, and I'm comfortable

with him. I mean, all of his golf game, but you know, it's not the same as I don't know for some reason like Adam Scott. I mean, I was talking about your guys' podcast or whatever and it was just funny talking about like how he came up, you know, as the next like Tiger and how difficult that was and it's like when he was saying that it was just put it in perspective how long he's been out here like really doing well like dominating out here for the most part or dominating the tough word when Tiger was around, but just like really like putting his stamp on the game. And so when you play with those guys, it just kind of, it just still feels a little different, but it doesn't feel like uncomfortable. It just, it's still cool, I guess to me. Like I still really

enjoy, like that pairing was very cool and it was very fun. And Adam Scott superhand some. So it's just kind of fun to like trail around with the guy. like that pairing was very cool and it was very fun. And Adam Scott super-handsome, so it's just kind of fun to like trail around with the guy. Did you ask him why he's wearing a brown sweater? Like, or the tan sweater like literally every day this week? And Monday, he wore it? To be fair, I did not see it Monday. I only play with them Thursday, Friday.

And I mean, for two days, it doesn't sound crazy. When it, it's like all seven days and then eight into his charity or into his clinic the next day. Then I would have asked him if I was with him all of those days. He did, we did have a funny one. Our lockers are next to each other and he had shaved and Sunday after the round, he's getting his stuff together.

I'm getting my stuff together. I'm like, hey, come on man, you shaved. I thought we are band of brothers and he was like, oh, you know, I got something to do tomorrow. So I shaved, but I'm going to grow it back after that. He's like, actually, I think I might grow a little mustache like you've got going. I said, whoa, whoa. I said, don't steal my thunder, man. You're already the best guy out here. I give you something. Please, though, please know what in your definition, you know, maybe, maybe some of this may be obvious,

but I'm curious to hear your answer. Like, what is the difference between you and them? If how would you define that? Either at their peak or now or what would you, how would you make that comparison in golf game, golf game perspective, of course. Yeah. DJs different than Adam. DJ has, I don't, DJ has that brain of DJ's that really it's remarkable

because this was the first time I played with him where he didn't play well really at all. He had like a three-hole stretch where it was clean, but he, he didn't play terrible, he didn't look bad, but he was looser than normal. He wasn't driving it great. But and he makes this double on 10. It got a bad lie in the short, short bunker. Kind of caught it skinny. Went in the back bunker got a horrible, like one bounce side spun and like basically buried under the lip. Pitch that out, didn't get it out, or it pitched that into the bunker, didn't get it out of the bunker, makes like a six.

And it was, you know, a long hole. And me and it was you know, long hole and me and Adam, you know, like we were fine with whatever, you know, and I think I made a two on that hole. Oh, and I was telling and I was talking to Joe. I'm like, I'm going to tell my grandkids I just beat Dustin Johnson by four on one hole. And and honestly, DJ comes over and he's just immediately like God, like, you know, like, you know, that, you know, that bunk, he was so fine. Like, he was so okay with what had just happened. And it was, he had, that is different than anybody I've ever been around because then he just went back to his business.

He continued not to play like great golf, but he did not play worse because of that whole, you know, he was the same human being. And then you add in that he has some of the most like freak talent of anybody you'll ever see. How high he can hit it? He can hit kind of every shot if he needs to. He has something about him that's a little like, we always talk about the,

there's very few things people do that I'm like, I can't do that, there's very few. There's a couple shots here and there that like, P-read will hit around the greens. That's like kind of silly. And then there's some, you know, obviously like a driver from Rory is pretty outrageous. But like DJ does that stuff and that's,

so that's different. Adam would be a more comparable person to like, answer that question too, because what Adam does is he's obviously a great ball striker. He's a good short game. You know, he's putting, he's very good outside of like six feet, but he has like an area you could see like, you know, he would like to improve as everyone does, I guess.

But the thing about Adam is that he's so consistent. When someone says, man, Adam Scott's a great ball striker, like pretty much every time I played with him, he's been a great ball striker. And for the most part, like I'm playing with him, obviously not in his prime prime. So I would imagine back when he was doing it, like at the highest level, like that was a thing that was a staple every single week. It's like kind of when I first came out and played with Charles Howell the third, everyone's like, that guy's a great ball striker. And I mean, it's every time you play with him. When I played with Rom, it's like, he pretty much is good

at everything, every time you play with him. So it's like the consistency of it. There's a few guys out there that have that kind of crazy, like, how are you doing that? But it's not a lot. A lot of it, when you get to closer and closer to top, you just see that when you hear that they're good at something, you see it like that day.

There's never like, oh, you had an off day with that. I think that's the difference. And it's just an all-encompassing game, you know, like Adam Scott is, I will first time I've played with him was at the Masters last year. And, you know, you always hear about his iron game or whatever. No, it was fine. It wasn't the best I'd seen, you know, for him. Like I was expecting, you know, maybe too much. But like his short game was dumb good and I was shocked. But it like obviously it makes sense when I think about it, I'm like, do this guy's made, I don't know how much money on tour, like playing golf, like he must be good at everything. But like you don't, you don't hear about that a lot. That's

what I try to tell people about the PJ tour. What's interesting is like every single person out there is really good at something. but almost everybody's good at just about all of it, and the top guys are great at pretty much everything. And that's like the big thing, and that's a day in day out type thing. So that's always interesting, but I don't know. I feel like I'm getting to the point where like I'm not, I see where I could beat people, and this and that,

but it's the sustained excellence at those things that make people be a dust in a Adam Scott, a JT, a ROM, all those guys. I think that's a big difference. Because it seems to me, I don't think there's quite enough chatter about what I would just call like repeatability. You know, and now your very, very, very good iron shot is not different than Adam Scott's very, very, very good iron shot. Or let's take Colin Morakow, who's the best iron player on tour.

Yet if you do it 14 times around, he might be doing it 16. And that is where in my opinion, like that is where the gap is in professional at any level of golf is like you just the frequency at which you're able to do it and rely on it under the gun is just something I don't I don't hear a lot of chatter about. That's 100% what it is and that's definitely what is getting for me where I'm seeing like my growth and then where I'm seeing areas that I need to improve in like why I need to improve them because there's like my short game is what holds me back from like the next big jump right and when I watch most guys like short game is It never leaves you right like you have you don't have

Good and bad weeks you kind of just always have a pretty good week Like the strokes game would only get off if like let's say you plug in a bunker and you don't get out of the bunker And all of a sudden gets skewed but for the most part like it's always like that I'm seeing that more and more with my ball strike. I'm seeing that, you know, on days where it doesn't feel great, it's still very good with the Stroke's game type stuff and this and that. But it over the course of the entirety of your game,

like Jordan's speech, I always say this. My mom would always say, oh, Jordan is like kind of lucky. He makes so many long puts and I said, well, I said, and she is like kind of lucky. He makes so many long putts. And I said, well, I said, and she's like kind of getting, you know, in the last five, 10 years, she's gotten into like the golf thing. So I try to explain like his ball rolls by that hole, like a foot and a half every time from 40 feet.

I said, mine sometimes short, mine sometimes three feet long. Like do you know how not lucky it is that his are going in. He's giving himself, he's repeating like you said, he has the repeatability to make that, make the ball going in the hole, have the highest chance so often that it's like, dude, he's going to make more than all of us. It's not luck. It's like, he's putting himself in the position to do that. And when you watch like Adam Scott hit an iron or DJ hit an iron or a driver or whatever, it's just like, you keep hitting good drives, you keep hitting good iron shots, it wares somebody out at the end of the day.

And that's kind of what they do. And that's why talking to Adam about Tiger, I talked to him a little bit about like, you know, kind of what you guys had talked about and how hard it was kind of coming up and being compared to him. And he said, like, the thing is is, if you got close to Tiger, Tiger was just so much better than everybody at everything. And like DJ even talked about it on Friday, I think he was like, dude,

Tigers like short game, you know, he's like, Phil got all the publicity, but he's like, I mean, Tiger's short game was unbelievable. Like he said, it might have been better than Phills, and it's like in every single area, he's so good, and he can repeat that every week. That if one area does kind of fall off a little bit, you have this whole other area to pick you back up. And that's where those guys that are top 10 in the world, like to me, that's like, that's what they do. It's a weekend and week out thing. And when something's off, they have something else that is repeatable. And I don't know, that's how they do it. Like for my game, like, I can't speak to everybody for my game. What I see is like, I'm a very good driver of the ball now and a good iron player. So if I do that over and over again,

for four days, it adds up. I can feel kind of times where I'll play with somebody who I know is not, like, has been kind of struggling in the season or in their career, like a little bit. Obviously, we're splitting hairs on the PJ tour. And I know, you know, they get off to a good starter, whatever. And I just have a little bit more of that understanding because I've been watching these, you know, top 10 guys a lot more up close that, hey, just keep doing your thing for 18 holes and like, you know, you don't, you're not going to get that loose and maybe they will and that's how you can kind of have a little bit of more confidence in how you're going to beat somebody and those guys have been doing that for a shoot, like 10, 15 years. So that's what's crazy. 20 years for Adam, you know, it's wild. So I think that

to your point, it's the repeatability. It's the obviously things are going to get off here and there. But I mean, it doesn't get Adam had like six whole stretch on Thursday where he was hitting honestly, not very good. He was just hitting these high hooks. And it's first off really frustrated to watch that from that golf swing because it makes you realize that golf is truly impossible. Yes. But then he got click in and you guys watched him. He ends up getting, I think, fourth or whatever. And he played unbelievable back end of Thursday and then all into Friday and then what

seemed like the weekend. So that's the thing is that those guys are just their office, so not off. And doing that for that long is wild to me. Well, it kind of has clicked for me. I think this year we've been and I've done like a little system where you do where we go after your round every full shot you hit, give yourself a zero or one grade like and just add them up.

And like the only way to actually get better at golf is by accumulating more sustainably good is by accumulating more good full shots, right? Like you just can't rely on it. If somebody's hitting it to 15 feet all day and you're hitting it to 30, you're not gonna beat them. You can't make enough puts from further away to offset that. And it's just starting to accumulate for me. Cause I still, I followed you guys obviously

for many, many, many years. And I still struggle to like explain or understand what makes that the difference, right? I mean, because I, you tune in, you see John Rom hit a bad drive. You see him plug one into bunker every now and then you look up at the end of the tournament and he's 18 under and it just is this relentless kind of, you know, consistency of hitting it to 10 feet, hitting it to 12 feet, hitting it to 15 feet that just adds up at the end of the day.

Yeah. And I would say too is what I've seen. And this goes for weeks where like I'm assuming for, for, for, for ROM would be the best example just because he plays so well, so often and then has a week like this week where he doesn't play great, but it's still good. The difference is sometimes that if you hit, let's just say you hit in a day like 30, 35 full shots and you hit 30 of them well.

If there's gaps in when you hit them well, like they're not strung together at times, that's the part that's frustrating. You'll hit a great drive in a mediocre iron shop, but then a great iron on the next part three. And then the next hole, you'll hit like a okay drive, but you'll hit a good second shot. It's like they need to string together. So the better you are as a ball striker, those streaks come faster or come more often. And that's a big thing because you can hit almost equally as many good shots as I I hit in a day, but if they're not back to back to back for like six seven in a row, it's going to be hard to beat me because I'm'm gonna go make two or three birdies on those holes

and you're gonna still make par and it's gonna be okay. The art of golf, though, where those, like, especially Ron, like what's amazing is when he does rarely hit a bad golf shot, he has a way to make that par, get out of dodge and then start that streak over again and just get back to hitting great shots. Then you look at people like Justin

who can hit a few bad drives in Roba has all the creativity in the world and skill in the world to hit these amazing recovery shots or pitch it in and then you add like a whole new element where it's like man you didn't even hit two good shots on this whole but you just made a birdie or made the easiest party you've ever seen so that's like kind of like the nuance of them. But yeah, it's just, over the course of 72 holes, it's just, it really is keep your head down, keep hitting great golf shots and just wait for it to click where like the ball gets really close. Cause you can hit a, on Sunday, I hit a few really great iron shots that were off by, you know, especially when it's firm, as you know, you guys know better than anybody.

Like it has to be almost perfect to get a ball close. Especially at a golf course like RIV. And it's like, I hit a few shots where they were, if Joe had to ask me, how do you hit it? Like do you match everything up? I'd say it was a 10 out of 10. Like I cannot do better than that. And I have 40, 50 feet. And it's like, you know, maybe on Thursday, Friday, I hit that same shot. And it was going to like five feet, 10 feet. And it's like, that's the hard part. But it's like, if I keep hitting, making that golf

swing, I will hit it close at some point, because like, you know, obviously over the course of time, like the ball's gonna get closer, you know, if you're missing by a yard or two, sometimes you're gonna get it on the right end of that. But that's the part is like, just keep hitting good golf shots and then add them up. But yeah, I mean, to your point,

like Jordan Speeth was known as the guy reference to somebody just makes a million long puts, but he was also the best iron player in the world for two years. So it's like, he's had more opportunities than all you guys like are all of us. Like it's not. It had very had some magic was like the part of like the putting, but it was, it was, he was due for those puts ago and he has a million of them. But that makes a lot of sense.

What you just described there about Riv, how different is that from normal PGA Tour stop? I mean, it's something that it pops to me on TV only through years and years and years of watching it and appreciation for the different shots that are required when it is firm. And it may not be the most entertaining golf to everyone that watched on TV, but it's great for me.

So what is it like to play tournaments in those conditions? Yeah, I mean, it's so much fun. And I think the kind of maybe misnomer is that the pros like kind of sometimes when it's set up soft or whatever and not too hard, but it's not true because like this week was a perfect example when we saw the weather report when we saw it was kind of windy Monday to Wednesday,

everyone was like, this is gonna be fun, like this gonna be a true test of golf. And it turns out like that you see the leaderboard and that's exactly what it pans out to be it's it's it's it's great because you really do get value for hitting a shot here like when the greens are that firm and they tuck pins you could take your chance you need to hit your number and you need to it's all because you need some spin to stop the golf ball and And it really shows you guys who have the most control over their ball that week. I played in front of Colin on Sunday and JT and Scotty

Schaeffer, so three of the best ball strikers in the world. And you could hear the roars on certain pins and I'm like dang, like that was a great shot, but you also had to have the confidence to go for it. And that's what's cool about revier is you can hit that golf shot walk in show that you can hit the golf shot. But if you miss it, you're going to be in a world of pain greens, you know, like in the fairways, the ball will not bounce up. So a pin is like four on or five on, let's say, and that ball lands six short, you will be putting from the fringe from six short. But if you land it one short of the pin, you're going to be bounding past the pins. But if you had a great shot lands one to two on that ball will get close. And it's just like, do have the guts to go for that? Do you have the skill to go for that? And then the Athole, the Athole is past week. The Athole is past week.

Oh my God. I mean, you have, that's one of my favorite part fours in the world because the T-Shot sets up options and angles. I always play down the left because I believe that like the angle to the front right pin, which is clearly the hardest pin, it's still a hard hard golf shot. And you're hitting more club in. So I go up there, but DJ and I had good drives on Thursday.

He bombed it. He had like 60 yards in, but he was on a slight downslope. I was on a flat to maybe an upslope from like 80. So I could spin it more, but I was still aiming like 20 feet left of the hole and trying to cut spin it back. So I'm like hitting like a creative wedge shot but I'm also very okay with where I ended up which was like 25 feet. DJ basically had to just bail long, long left and like he had almost nothing from where he was. He would have had to hit the perfect golf shot to stop that thing anywhere near the hole if he even could have. So he has to take it way past the

hole and next thing you know now you know we both have putts for birdie, but you know, that there was, you would have had to really, maybe on a Sunday if it was your last hole, you could try to hit that golf shot, but it's typically a no go. And then you all of a sudden have a back left pin. And if you're in the fairway,

you can take it and kind of try to land it on the down slope, but you've got to spin the hell out of it to do it. And if you miss it again, if you're short, it's going to roll back down the hill, you're going to have an awkward pitch shot. If you don't spin it enough, it's going to go kind of over the back of the grid, which would have been okay. But it's like all of a sudden, you're thinking about all these things and it's just a wedge, you know?

So that's the interesting part. Whereas when we play a course for, we get a lot of rain, like one of them's Minnesota for the three of them. Like, it's a pretty fun golf course, but we always just get rain that week. And anywhere a pin is, if I'm in the fairway, even sometimes in the rough, I could be like, Hey, if I feel like I can hit my number, I can just go right out this thing. And if I miss the green, because it's still soft, it's like, I don't have a huge penalty. Whereas here, you know, because chipping is so awkward around the cacouille or whatever,

you really don't want to be off the green too much. And it's just, it's a constant battle, but it's also you know that good golf is going to get rewarded. You just have to keep doing it and keep being smart, but it's just so much different. You know, like your land numbers are so, so important. And the execution of hitting the golf shop pure is so important It is amazing that Tiger never won here when I every time I walk around this place I'm like man like the best guy should win this week like typically and he obviously had plays the best golf The most often of anybody ever so it's like you know the quality of his irons or whatever But you know I heard he said in the booth, he just played like, like shit. So every time he played here, so I guess that makes sense.

But I would have thought, you know, this place would be a stomping ground because it really values so much good golf. Or some of the course, you get away with hitting one skinny. It lands by the whole takes half a bounce and stops. Like you can get away with that and then, you know, roll in a 15 footer out here. If you don't hit a great shot, you will not have 15 feet is just not going to happen. You even look at the most remarkable thing. JT lays up on 10, which I didn't even think was a thing anymore.

And he hits like this unbelievable cutty, like 60, 70, harder. And it just shows just how skilled he is at everything, but at that right there, because that is that is abnormal, man man to be able to do that. Like that that takes I don't care at 70 yards. You need to hit your number. You need to hit your line and that thing better be spinning like crazy because you know every shot out every shot in any green is hard to stop and that one especially so that's remarkable in its own right so but yeah that's everyone I think that's why Riviera gets so much praise, but the cool part about rib is even when it rains and it gets a little soft

It's still hard because now it's playing longer and And now you're you're having to hit those shots with a little bit more room for air because of the the softness of the greens But you're hitting a seven iron where you might have been hitting a nine to the same size sections obviously and it it's tough man It is difficult you get a little ocean wind and all of that becomes very daunting, I guess. A quick break here to check in with our friends at CashApp. You can use code NoLangUp, all one word at CashApp and get a free $15.

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Let's get back to Max Holman. There's some hard, hard, I mean, that was the thing watching Neiman come down the stretch from like even as good a golf as he played for three and a half days was kind of like, dude, you better hit this T-shot on 13. Like you hit this fairway on 15. Like you're gonna drop shot there, you're gonna drop a shot there. you're going to drop a shot there

Like there's just nowhere to hide. Let's go to 10 what tell me about the strategy of playing number 10 Should that whole change what is it if I'm looking at it? It seems like it's the ultimate fun to watch but kind of unfair hole at this point But at the same time I can't wait to watch guys come through. What. What's your thought process on how 10 plays and how you play it? Every time I think of it, I just think of DJ Pi, the, the go. It's the, it's the, the whole that's the king of chaos. So I, you know, I, I answered it this week in some interview. And they said, is it, you know, what do you think about 10?

And I said, it's either the best hole in the world or it's the worst hole in the world. And it's nothing in between. It's one of those two. And, but it doesn't mean I don't love it. If it is the worst hole, it's not, I don't love it because I think we could use a little more chaos. If they are going to change something all like what they have to do is they, they really just have to, you can do both of these or one of them, but you almost have to raise like a slight like lip in front of the back bunker because the ball just like it just keeps trick you it's not like you need it. I don't I hope people don't think I'm like saying you need it to stop it. It's just you could hit an unbelievable pitch there like in the

tournament and it just gets under the fringe and then rolls into the back bunker and then rolls kind of down on the downslope and that bunker shot is a nightmare as it is. So the second part you could do to fight that if you're only going to do one is if you just extended that back bunkers depth just like a two another two steps so that you had just some form of like a flat lie. I think that would be another way to do it. But at the same time, I love it because it's just crazy. I mean, we literally just hit it into the trees some days and just take it. Like it's the only time I hit a driver on a Sunday and Joe, I didn't quite cut it enough, but that's kind of what our miss was because you can't be right. And Joe's a great shot. And we get in there. I have to hit a flop shot over a tree from like 45 yards.

If I hit the tree, I'm screwed. leash was right next to me. He didn't get it far enough. It trickled because the severity of the green, it looked like it stopped. And now he's like in a most dead spot ever doesn't get that on the green make six But I love it because you can always pitch it to the front right of the green and then work your way around But that picture whatever like calling makes that chip right on Sunday I watch the video it was going in the back bunker

I would say like almost guaranteed which is an okay spot all in all the very back right bunkers actually kind of the best leave if you're If you're going to if it's a pit pit in the back bunker. I would say almost guaranteed, which is an okay spot all in all the very backright bunkers actually kind of the best leave if you're if you're going to if it's a pit pit in the back. But it's I think it's a fun hole because it scares the hell out of you and it's 270 yards the front. So I think that's good. There's definitely some parts where I'd be like, I'd be nice. It was like a little bit softer, not softer, but like a flatter in the back part of that green for like being six to eight paces wide back there, you know, it's also on a downslope and the greens are firm. So it's like, if we want to match all our favorite things,

it's like, we all love firm, but then you add that element. It's like, well, now I don't know what to do. You know, if I'm gonna like not get it past pin high. So, but I love it. It's just, they could change. I just think back in the back in the day was softer and like hitting a wedge in there wasn't outrageous. Now, JT hitting a 60 yard wedge shot that goes onto the green. You're like, wow, that's an amazing shot, which is cool. But it's like, maybe it could be a little bit, a little bit more room for

air, but I don't know. It's a fun hole because anything can happen. I remember two years ago when Adam Scott won, Harold Varner was leading. I was the group in front of him. And we're all kind of chasing Adam and Harold at the moment. And Harold, I think popped up his T-shot on 10. We waited, we waited behind the green to watch what somebody looks like hitting a seven-hour

into that green. And of course, I think he made Bogie. But it's like, all of a stop to watch the Skull Shot. Because we know how impossible it is. So I think that's the fun of it, but yeah, I mean, it could be a shade. I don't know how, like the, I heard you guys podcasts talking about like that whole in T.C. saying,

I don't know what he, like I really don't know what he would make from short of the green without just using a putter like a round thing. Because the quality of shot you have to hit to stop it on the green from anywhere is like high, high, high. Like it's freaking hard. At least, man, it's got one of the best short games I've ever seen in my life. He clips this his third shot from behind the bunker off the fairway. He clipped the hell out of it. It was pure, but it came out too low and spinny and it goes in the

bunker and he makes six. And it's like, geez, like, it's not like he really hit a bad shot there, but he just made a six. And that's why I can't tell. Uh, it seems I can't tell if I love or hate this, but it seems like it's not a great test of skill. Like I've actually kind of like, you know, you're kind of just hitting something towards the front left, hoping to end up in a great spot.

As good as you guys are, you do not have precision from 290 to hit it, like right to this spot where you're going to have the best angle to chip up that green. And that's where it's, you do not have precision from 290 to hit it like right to this spot where you're going to have the best angle to chip up that green. And that's where it's, you know, I don't know. It's kind of fun to watch just kind of randomize situations to be like, all right, how does he handle this? Let's see what happens and everyone's got to go through it four times. I like it because it may see.

It also shows you how you handle like a little bit of adversity to because it is, it is like I'm going to use this word because and I don't mean it this way, but just lack of a better term. It is unfair at times, like, but again, the fair part is you can always go short right again and start the whole over and just add a shot. Like, you can just add a shot to your, but like, it takes like some, like, wherewithal and it takes kind of some maturity, I guess, to do that. So I like seeing that. But yeah, I mean, at the same time, the whole is like, it's legitimately outrageous.

But I mean, you, I don't know, you get to see some really cool shots there. I mean, Scotty Sheffler on Sunday, hit in that short, short bunker and hit a beautiful bunker shot to like 12 15 feet. And that's a lot of skill around the green slot of skill off the tee. It's not, I mean, it's really don't neck it and hit it right and then and then if you hit a great Quality shot you could have a putt for birdie If you don't feel like you can you kind of then have to take the long way in and try to make a four or five But I would say that's one of the interesting holes right I'm on that tea trying to make four and After I hit my T shot then I reassess and be like, okay, you know, maybe we can make three now.

But most short part four is you're like, okay, I need to make a three here. Where do I leave it to make a three? This one, you're like, where do I leave it? Where I'll have an option to make a four, and if things go really well, like I'll look at three. It's a tricky little hole, man. What are you packing a little extra distance so far in 2022?

That ball and Phoenix, I know it wasn't humid out there and that makes the ball go super far You look like you're sending it a little bit more this year if I'm looking at the data on data golf as well You're gaining distance pretty much every week now. Yeah, we Obviously we work with blackburn for a little over a year and he long-term wanted to get a little more distance I have like the levers, like I'm pretty tall and I got long arms where I should be able to get it out there pretty good. I've never hit it that far. I've always been above average, but never in that next echelon of distance, which I'm still not in, but we've all wanted to, but'd never had like great range of motion in certain areas, I

guess, for distance. I started working with Colby, K Wayne, K Wayne fitness. He's got, you know, JT and Taylor Gooch, I started working with him because of Taylor. You know, he's the guy who you'll see in pictures with Tiger. That's his trainer. And I mean, we started working together right before the Fortinet. And it's crazy because I haven't really felt like I've done anything different in my swing.

And I'm getting it out there a lot further. I went to title this like three weeks ago before Tori. And there's pretty cool JJ who always fits me. And he's on the road with us, had like a spreadsheet of like my comparison to people on the PGA tour and then the top 50 in the world. And it was in a lot of areas like apex of iron shots this and that, but we got to driver my my average ball speed was actually really high. I think I was like 15th of those 50 and you know the top 50 typically for the most part minus maybe kids hit it hit it.

Pretty hard. So I'm like pretty close to the top, but my launch angle and my spin were like damn near the worst. I think I was like 48, 49th. So kind of fitting. I got a different shaft in a driver that would launch it a bit higher and spin it a little less. And all of a sudden, like for those two, three weeks, you know, I started seeing these great results and like maybe some work paying off, but without doing anything differently. But it's been fun because I do feel like I can vomit now. The thing was, as I play with Adam and DJ Thursday Friday, I felt like a child.

They were so far ahead of me on some holes. I was like, Jesus, Joe, I'm like, so I'd go back on, I sometimes go on like that data thing, getting their PJ tour pass, and it'll show your ball speed. My ball speed's still like crazy high for me, and I'm like, God dang, they hit it hard. I just can't keep up, but it's definitely a part

of the game I think I need to have to jump to the top 10 in the world. We talked to Brody in the off season and he said basically like, you know, certain areas I could pick up the stroke's gain stuff. That's kind of how he works is if I could gain, you know, three more yards off the tee. It would boost that stat up a lot, even if I lost,

if you know if I missed one more fairway, it just gave him a little bit of distance. So I've been seeing that, you know, my driving has been getting a lot more accurate and you add a little bit of pop. So I've been seeing that, you know, my driving has been getting a lot more accurate. And you add a little bit of pop into it and all of a sudden I can, you know, turn these par-fives into really scoreable holes and feel a little more comfortable trying to fly a bunker. I believe that on this tour until they, unless they change something like the 310 carry,

300 to 310 carry is a big deal because I think it opens up the fairways enormously. And, you know, I was always sitting in that 295-ish area of carry, and the fairways feel like they're the smallest. You have a few guys who can always fly that, and it feels like you can really take advantage of a golf course compared to your counterparts. And I'm getting that a little bit where I feel a little more comfy.

Joe will look at a bunker and be like, that's no problem today. And I can remember back in the day, I have to think about that thing getting over it. So it's been a boost, but I haven't done much difference except honestly, Colby has just a little of stuff, hip stability, a little bit of hip strength, a little more range of motion in my arms and shoulders and all of a sudden, like I can, it's fun to see.

I mean, I know you did this speed thing. Like it's it's honestly fun to to do, just to see improvement in that and throw down some sort of launch monitor and watch yourself be able to pick up some speed. But you got to be careful because I know a lot of guys, not just tour players, regular people who I'm like, oh, I heard you're smashing it and he's like, yeah, but I can't play from that.

So it's a learn how to play from it. You watch JT as a great way to do it. He gets his heel off the ground. I'll do that here and there. So learn in new ways to do that without being crazy. But yeah, it's definitely a, you know, it's a shout out to the guys fit me, Mark and Colby, because I haven't really changed a whole lot. But is it about having a better cruising speed than it is a higher max speed? I mean, that's, that's the only benefit I've seen. it's like, all right, well, my, my cruising drive is maybe three mile an hour faster. And that helps so much. It helps me feel like I don't need to wail on one

to crush one. Is that fair at the eight year level? Everyone's different. I know that's why I'm pretty sure that's why Bryson does it, which is, and it's really smart. I never thought about that. But like when I was at Title S, Mark had me hit like five to 10 drives as hard as I possibly could. And then I just went back to the normal ones just to keep testing the driver and all of a sudden my speed was up like, you know, a couple miles an hour. And that'd be cool. But I don't do it for that. I, I've always played in like a, a, a, a smooth kind of like tempo feel of driver because I, when I hit it out the middle,

like again, I'm kind of lucky with the length of my arms in this and that, that I can create a decent amount of speed. I like it more because I'm getting more comfortable swinging hard at it and having a second gear to like fly something, or when I need one to get out there, like 18 at Wasteman's was a perfect example on Sunday and I think Saturday, I mean, I, I, there's, the water is, you know, 295. I should cover this other bunkers like 305 310 and it was a bit down

wind and it's hot and not humid at all. And, and but I was like, man, like, if I, you know, I'm going to give this one a ride and cut it off that bunker. And I, the, both days I'm going to flew the little corner on Sunday. I had like, you know, 75 AD yards in. And like for me, I use it more as like a booster because I like playing in that, in the, the, my cruising probably isn't much higher than it typically is. I just have a little bit more go.

But again, I think most people are probably using it so that they're smooth as a lot faster, but it feels under control. But part of that probably is, you know, when I'm practicing more with a little bit harder one, I imagine that, you know, I'm less fearful to go at one, maybe even increasing maybe a little harder, I'm just not noticing it.

But yeah, that's where all this speed training stuff does make a lot of sense. It's like, it's, you know, same reason why, you know, baseball players would swing three bats. It's like, you just want it to feel a little bit easier to get moving, feel lighter. But, you know, it's an interesting thing out here because you, I think there was a huge hype on the distance. Sorry, the players gaining distance and like getting into it and you still see it now, but so many of those guys come back and be like, no, I actually like the way I was playing. Like,

this is, this is messing up little things here and there. I made sure to it can mess up your iron game. So it's a very, it's a fickle business. Yeah. Dude, yeah, it's a, you know, there's some downstream effects to pretty much everything. You do in that. Changing gears here completely. It's been a lot of the topic of conversation around golf is not been around it. The golf that's being played on the golf course. I just wanted to talk to a tour pro this week about what, you know, the last several weeks and months have been like, especially, yeah, you have a relationship with Phil Mickelson. I'm curious if you guys have talked much lately. What's it been like to be among these rumors and stories and smoke and is there fire there of everything that's gone on over the last

weeks and months? I mean, yeah, there's been some smoke and, you know, I admittedly don't know a ton. I've been trying to ask around a little bit. I've had more like conjecture with, you know, Taylor and I will talk about it a lot. We always joke pretty much for the last month. Every time I see Taylor, he'll come up to me or I'll come up to him and be like, hey, do you want a talker? Have you signed a NDA?

So we don't know a lot. We hear things from other players. But what's that conversation like? What are other players? I'm so curious about that element of it. Well, I'll just ask that. So I've just been very curious about this personally. I know, and I think I know as much as you guys do

about this whole, the captains and what they've been offered and how that's gonna work. Like I get that, but that's not new news. The thing that's been kind of interesting to me is they're saying how close this whole thing is, but if they haven't called me and they haven't called Taylor, then they can't be that close. I mean Taylor's one of the best players in the world.

I'm 30 something in the world. Like, we would be in that next conversation. So if we don't know anything, I don't know how close they could be. So we've just been so curious, we've been talking about like, you know, would you do it? What would you do it for? You know, how would that work?

Is it worth it or do you just want to take where all these guys leave? And now we're the headhontos of the PGA tour like we have those conversations a lot and then we both have a conversation of like oh I talked to so-and-so this week and I heard that you know how the money is going to be distributed but everyone's different and like so I know like little things like that or I think little things like that but we also hear the smoke and the fire of like the Bryson and Phil stuff like we we knew that they were heavy on the on the on the topic and heavy on going to that tour. We don't know what that means because again, I don't from all accounts. It's it can't be that close. Like it can't be that close to being ready because they need more than 12 guys. And I still don't know

who all the captains would be because I know a couple that people have been offered captains captainship and they're not totally sold on the idea. So it's like, it's never felt that close. It just, it did feel close to something like what just happened last week happening. Like you knew somebody was kind of come out and say something. I didn't think it was going to be that. But we kind of knew it would be one of those couple guys. I was pretty surprised to hear the Dustin Johnson come out and kind of pledges his allegiance to the PJ tour

just because Rumor had it again not talking to him, but like that he was gonna be one of the guys to jump ship So when he says no that I'm like man, maybe all this info I had Is it isn't valid at all? but Yeah, it's a It's fun to talk about because because the guys who don't have the info, it's all conjecture and it's kind of hilarious because we can play the fantasy game of Taylor and I would

say something like, how much money would they have to offer you? And both of us would say something like, I need more time than money. Really? I don't want, even if they gave me enough money in two years to kind of retire I don't want to retire when I'm 33 years old like I love playing golf and then but then you'd be like all right What if they give you 40 million dollars and it's like all of man, you know now it's a hard harder question, right? But obviously that's not realistic. So it's like us playing that game But at the same time like we always have the conversation of as I mentioned earlier

It's like T if 30 guys leave this tour like we always have the conversation of, as I mentioned earlier, it's like, Tee if 30 guys leave this tour, like we become like Dustin and JT and Rom, like very quickly, and that would be really cool also. You know, I thought I answered it all right in like what the, kind of my view on the whole tour itself. I think it's a really entertaining idea. I think it would be, if it's done properly, it would be good for golf because I do think the team thing is really interesting. I've always thought that having maybe jerseys for teams and other sports is what we

lack in golf. If you're rooting for Dustin Johnson to win the golf tournament, you want to see him in person Saturday Sunday. Well, you missed the cut this week, which is rare, but you missed the cut. Now, as a fan, you are missing out on one of the most interesting greatest players to ever live. And in this case, it would be, you know, everyone's playing all the days. It'd be easier to sell. So I think that there's a lot of interest there. But at the same time, like for the rest of my life, every single time I play Riviera and the Genesis invitation or whatever ends up getting called in 20 years, it's like, I'm going to have the chills. And I don't think gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system,

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the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, the gender system, That's why. And it's so you would miss that. And I hope, I hope people keep leaning on towards staying on the PJ tour. I don't personally believe all these bad horrible things people, you know, a couple of people have said about the tour are really that valid. They may know more than me, but I don't believe that I've enjoyed my time there. There's definitely things I'd like to change, but they're not things that I would compare to, you know, serious crimes against humanity. So that's what I, you know, you mentioned they're kind of the fun game. You know, you guys are kind of joking about $40 million anything like that. I don't get the sense that there's a lot of chatter amongst tour guys about like, hey, just like quick pause on this, like, is this too good to be true?

Like because it kind of sounds a little too good to be true. And like, you know, we talk, we talk about that. Okay. But it doesn't seem to lead the conversation, right? So that's what I'm trying to get at is like, all right, one, it just seemed too good to be true. Two, like, have we fully thought out about the sustainability of this league? Things like that. Three, like, I think it's quite obvious what they're doing with this money and the goal of it, like, is that a concern among players? I think as I'm sitting here not being offered that money, it would be, I would can say, like, it would be a huge concern of mine.

What's your perspective on that? Okay. Yeah. So we do talk about that. Here's the tricky part. And I don't want to come off as like, you know, there's never enough money, right? Like, I get it. I'm leading this is I'm very happy. I think most of us are very happy with what we make. The issues I think people have with wrestling this idea of like guaranteed money is we do not get guaranteed money out here

Like the the tour is done an amazing job last couple years, especially this year of pumping money into terms We just looked at walk in just made 22.1 million for winning the Genesis. That's amazing. The players is up a bazillion dollars. We're going, if you play well there, you will make bazillion dollars. But if you miss that cut, that money does not matter at all.

Like it doesn't matter at all. I'm not blaming the tour, they have to look out for everybody. But the thing is we have no guarantees that we're gonna get any of that pie. If I get hurt, if I just have a rough, you know, a couple of months, I'm getting none of the benefits get any of that pie. If I get hurt, if I just have a rough couple months, I'm getting none of the benefits of all of that money. So the idea for a professional golfer to get guaranteed money,

like another sport where I got a buddy who plays baseball, he's sound like a $220 million deal a couple of years ago. And I'm like, damn, he didn't even have a great season last season and he's still getting that money. And he's still annoyed and played great baseball, but at the same time, it's like yeah, but at least you got that, you know, you proved what you were worth. And I think all of us out here, if you've had a good career somewhere, you've proved what you're worth, but you still don't just get that

money. And that's a one, it is the beauty of this game. And I do like that. But if you're gonna, if you're gonna kind of tease me a guarantee to amount of a lump sum of money that could, it's not changing my life as Rory said, but it would make things like comfy, I guess. It's hard to just be like, ah, no, it's comes from a bad place. And I get that, that sounds stupid. I wrestle with that thought in my head that, that I would just say, oh, but it's enough money. You know, but I, we don't get guarantees out here. You know, you could hurt, I could hurt my wrist tomorrow and never get to play. I have a buddy Scott Pinkney who's a tremendous golfer. Heard his back can't really play much golf anymore. It's like he was never guaranteed a dollar. And that's tough. So it's just like little things like that kind of keep lingers in your head. But so the

guys do talk about that. We do talk about the two going to be true because it does sound like it's a hobby for these this group doing it, the SGL. And that's scary because if I've heard rumors that the way you get paid is, you know, you get a lump sum for the first tournament. And then the next term, you get a little bit more and a little bit more. Well, if they bail on that after one tournament, yeah, you probably got a lump sum. But those guys have so much money. Like, that's not enough to like basically end your golf stuff, you know. So it's like that that people are

definitely like a little bit, a little bit leaning on the fence on that and you definitely questioning it a bit. And I think that's good because again, I don't want people to leave this the PGA tour. I don't want people to jump ship. So the fact that more guys than not are pretty aware of the kind of like, icky factor of like, oh, we don't really know how this is going to work. But I would say that the, the, the, some of the top guys, like, they're, they're qualms with the thing with, with the tour and the, it's just the payment. I guess it's, you know, I, I know that Phil talks about the, the, the rights to his media and whatever. Like, I don't, me, I don't have any value in that.

I don't have golf shots that I would be selling. Like, so I guess that's just maybe a top, top guy thing. But there's just some stuff like, hey, when a purse goes up on tour, we are all kind of like, oh, that's amazing. But it's like, eh, we didn't actually continue the same percentage that it should be. You know, with the, I know the US open a years ago, there was a big kind of frustration with the players because they got that new deal from Fox. I think it was, whatever it was, our person went up a bunch, but somebody in the player meeting stood up and said, Hey, just so you guys know, like,

we should be making $3.5 million to win this tournament if we kept the scale the same scale. And that's just the stuff I think people get bothered by. I know back in the day, you know, the WMBA, there was, yeah, they were talking about how they're underpaid, underpaid, and that's the, how the headline goes. And I'm thinking man, like, you know, I don't, I don't watch much WMBA, like, you know, how, how could they be underpaid if they're not bringing in the value? Then I actually read for once because I wanted to learn what I was missing. And it wasn't that they were saying that they just deserve more money because they deserve more money.

It was that they were making a lower percentage for the whole nut of the WNBA than like the NBA made. Like, you know, let's just, these are horrible numbers. But let's say that the NBA players make 20% of that money. Like the WNBA was making 12.5%. It's like, that is being underpaid. Like, you deserve your cut. And so our cut every time these deals go through from what I'm hearing is not the scale is not the same.

So yes, we all of a sudden make a bunch more money, but it should be more. And I think that's the big guys kind of problem with it. But I mean, at the same time, it's a lot of money. So it's like one of those sticky things. Like I don't, I don't care so much. But yeah, that's not even what I would change as much as anything. But that's where the guys who are making a bunch of money and honestly, for what they do for the tour and for me and all the players, they deserve more money in that. If that's how they deserve the same

scale for however much going forward. Well, and there is absolutely something to like, yes, you guys make a lot of money, but you don't want to be underpaid, right? If someone else is making a lot of money off of you hypothetically, or if you are, you know, let's just, let's say it's not Saudi, if it's the DP World Tour, and you know, whatever, you got 300K that you's not Saudi, if it's the DP World Tour. And, you know, whatever you got 300K that you made this week, but if on the DP World Tour, that would have been worth 700K.

Yeah, that would be hell. What the hell is going on here? Like, how was that, how is this happening? Like, there's something to, and some people can label it as greed of like, not wanting to be underpaid in that regard, but I would say the same thing. If there was a podcast that was making way more money,

like, than we make and getting way less listens, I'd be like, what the hell is going on here? Yeah. That's not apples to apples, but there is an element to that. And I think that's a hard block for you guys to be on because it can get, you can get labeled as greedy, very, very quickly in that regard. We look like assholes when we talk about how we don't get paid enough. And and that's, and I totally trust me, I get it. Like I, I think I get paid plenty, but to your, to that analogy, like, so I was talking to another,

one of the, they had a bunch of, you know, athletes or whatever at the waste management for the pro-M day. And I was talking to one of my buddies about this lockout and one of my problems with lockouts in the sports world is always that people always jump on and say, man, so and so is overpaid. And I always say, if you took that guy and paid him less money,

let's say, whatever you think is his value, that money just goes to the owner. Like, you want the billionaire to make more money. And he made a good point. He said, you see, you want the billionaire to make more money. Exactly. And he made a good point. He said, you know, all of our as athletes income is very public. Like, you, I can click two buttons on an app right now, and you can see how much money I've made in my life on the golf course.

But I don't know exactly what everybody at, you know, the tour office makes. I don't know what the CEOs of certain companies make or of owners of teams make. Like I don't know that exact number because it's not as public. I'm sure I could find it, but it's not as public. So for some reason when the athlete talks about money, we come off as greedy because I get it. There's people at home working their ass off to make, you know, a very, you know, very normal and not expensive. I know it should be, yes.

Huge amount of money. So I get that. But yeah, so it's like this fine line we have to kind of dance from because yeah, to your point, if I was, let's say I was working at in and out and the guy next to me is working at in and out and I'm making $10 an hour and he's making nine

and we're doing the exact same job. It's like, whoa, like, why? That's frustrating. And then I find out that it's because the owner's taking that extra dollar for himself. Now, I don't know how all that's working. All I know is that the scale of how things are being paid out isn't increasing at this same level or at same speed.

And even if it was, if I complained about money, it's just more we get hammered so fast for it. So we just kind of avoid it. Like this is probably the most I've talked about it, like outside of like just talking to friends, but it's not that I think that I deserve more money or that whatever. It's just that you just want it to be like quote unquote fair.

Like you want it to make sense, you want it to be even. And maybe it, honestly, maybe it is, but I'm just hearing from what the players who have looked up and like done the research or whatever. Like that's what they're telling me. I'm not freaking out about any of it because again, I like my life, everything's cool. But yeah, you just want it to be whatever. And that's why you have a league like this with a little carry above you. And it's like, man, that does sound pretty nice because it feels like, you know, you're kind of getting your worth I guess but if my worth is what it is right now I'd be stoked for the rest of my life. So it's a very fine balance but I

just never understood why the athletes get hammered for talking about oh I need more money it's like you guys are so greedy it's like the person who's getting that money has billions of dollars and they're like scraping around like a little bit more. So but that's just I mean that's just life everybody would like a little bit more money for the but that's just, I mean, that's just life. Everybody would like a little bit more money for the comfort, but Rory said it perfectly. It's not going to change your life. It's it'd be nice, but it's not going to change your life. But it's also, you know, in a curious, you don't sound like you're, as you're not, you're not a ringleader or an any of this, you're just kind of hearing what other people are saying. And I'm honest and curious to hear that because I've looked at

the PGA tour financials and I've heard what Phil Mikkelson is saying about how much they're paying out and there's a big big gap between what he's saying and you know, so like is the sentiment or what is the sentiment among tour players like about like do people think that the tour is just sitting on a huge pile of money that they're not giving players for some reason that they're the executives are hoarding too much money that they're not giving players for some reason that the executives are hoarding too much money that the, you know, the headquarters, they spent too much money on the tournaments cost too much money to what is the, what is maybe missing there? And this can be your words or what you're hearing from other people there.

Yeah, no, I don't know. That's a great question. I haven't heard people like exactly say, like, what we think they're doing with the money. Again, my, my problem is not, like if I had to change things, mine would not be the money part. Like I don't really, I think we get paid fine.

But when people tell me what they think, then I'm like, oh, I get, you know, I get their point of view, but that's not what I would change. I mean, I would definitely say that when you build like the super building they have, and you build the players driveway for however, or sorry the TPC Saga's driveway for however much that

was. And then we find out that we're making our purse went up 500,000 million dollars at an event. Like you're like, okay, that doesn't seem even, you know, like, like in both worlds, like that doesn't seem even, I don't think that the executives are making too much money. I don't, I don't know where that money would be going. It's just if I'm being paid, if I'm being paid 50 percent, let's just say for even because I'm not great at math, if I'm getting paid 50% of all total revenue, and let's just say that's $100. And then we find out that we've got

$50 more more into our bank from some TV dealer, some whatever, anything it is. And now I'm making 35% of that dollar, which again, none of this may be true. But I'm just saying, then you'd be like, well, that's weird. And I think that's where a lot of the guys have a problem is.

The numbers they look into, they don't believe the exact numbers that maybe the tour is showing. And they have all those kind of problems with it. I haven't looked into it, so I don't actually have a problem with that. If I maybe I looked into it and I believe what they believed, yeah, maybe I'd be a little bit more perturbed about the whole financial situation. But I'm just hearing what they say about that.

But no, yeah, great question. Because nobody ever says like, oh, that, you know, Jay's making too much money. I've what they say about that. But no, yeah, great question. Because nobody ever says like, oh, that Jay's making too much money. I've never heard anybody say that. Never heard anybody say like Tyler Dennis making too much money. So I don't know where they think that money is. But there's definitely, there's a couple of terms

I know that we want to pump more money in their event, but they can't because the toward doesn't want that event elevated above. I mean, that was the whole thing when I think with the US open is we could have got paid that money. But it's like now all of us in the US opens double as important as every event because, sorry,

but like the money does make the tournaments. I mean, the four majors are legacy and they're the majors, but they're also more money. Like, that's why people work just in general. Like yeah, we all would love a legacy, but at the same time one person wins a week. No one gives a shit if you finish 12th, but you do if it's for me,

because it's a little bit more money and, and I don't know. Maybe if they made the understanding of how many points you get for each finish on FedEx-wise, it would help a lot, because I get start to value 10th place in points instead of, but points are money. Points are money, but it's hard. I don't, like I always, I'm trying nowadays,

we get a sheet at the end of each week and you see what place pays what and then you see what place gives how many points I'm trying to get an understanding of. Because you know, Kevin Chappell, who's a buddy of mine, has been on a medical and at waste management was his last start. He needed X amount of points.

I can't remember what it was, like 12 points and I was like, I have no idea what place that is. So I had to go up, I went home and like looked up what he needed to finish. And it was like, it was so, it's so funny that I've done this for so many years. And I have not one clue. So maybe that would help a little bit. But again, I'm cool with the, the money. But I know that the top top guys, I get it. When you're like the CEO of a, basically a fortune 500 company as a, as the athlete that they are, they have to start looking at things in a way. I mean, I have to, but they look at things a little bit differently than me. No, I, I greatly appreciate the

perspective there because it's a, it seems like there is a gap in understanding how things flow amongst tour players and information flowing. I'm not, I'm not saying that's on the tour players. I'm not saying that's on the tour players. I'm not saying that's on the tour, but there just seems, I think it's starting to close a little bit, but I don't think Phil has helped with. No, but I would say, yeah, honestly, Phil didn't help that at all, but I would say that there's more people

than you would, than are being said or that you would think that are actually looking into those numbers, sitting down with people running through like, hey, are we kind of not making the same scale we should be? So people are looking into it. And those are the people I'm kind of talking to. Now again, I will not going to have these big qualms about it

until I do it myself. But again, I don't have that big of an interest in it at the moment. But so you're hearing it from other people. But people are looking into it, man. Like it's not, it's not where I'm not just like following Phil's leadership of we are owed $20 billion dollars. Right. Whatever the hell it is.

And I think with Roy as chairman of the pack, like, you got a pretty good, uh, and transparent person that can help bridge that gap among the players, I think. Uh, yeah. I don't really know how all that governance works exactly. It's, it's also the very odd part is because you hear it's a player run organization, and I kind of get it But like at the same time I have a lot of buddies that are on that and it's still pretty hard It's not like if it was purely player run

Like there's a room or Harry and Joel are gonna get fine for having their shirt off Uh on 16 at waste management and like we would vote on that and I think that they wouldn't get they're than fine you know I don't know if they're going to but like we don't I it's hard to have a big say has been fine it's probably not the easiest name now to use is like a fun person to to learn from in these meetings but Charlie Hoffman's a good friend of mine and you know he would kind of funnel information so I would know what's going on with the play around organization because I don't know what's going in all these meetings. But it's nice knowing what his angles on things because he had basically a first-hand experience of hearing what the executive say and then he would ask us what we thought and then he'd bring that to a meeting.

That's the tough part is we don't, I don't have a huge voice in this thing, but at the same time, I'm also allowed to just run and try to be on the pack. So I'm allowed that opportunity. So maybe I'll do that at some point to be able to complain with actual reason, because I'm actually doing something about it.

It's like complaining about the president of the United States and you didn't vote. Like, I feel like you give up that right. So I don't complain about, I have things again, I'd change, but the finances and the little ins and outs, I don't have much, much to stand on because I don't really know anything. Right. That's where like, I want to have to check myself every now and

things. I feel like I'm taking the side of the tour way too often. But it's like, you know, imagine that you're one of what 200 members or so like your interest versus everyone else too. It's like, it's got to be so hard to satisfy everyone involved with it. But so the the Harry and Joel thing, it might where I'm sitting, it was a great highlight. It was entertaining. The tour steered into it and generated highlight for it and posted it yet I still think they should probably be fine.

I think Harry even said like 100% I should be fine. Like, it kind of, I think they actually played that one decently well. As soon as they do get fine because it's kind of like, yeah, dude, you probably can't like take a shirt off and whip it up and beat it up. But on the green, but I mean, the story, the story as it goes is, Joel's story is one of the funny things I've ever heard because just at the very end, he's like, you know, me and Harry get in the tunnel

walking to 17 and we put our clothes back on. I just started, I'm like, yeah, man, he's like, yeah, it wasn't great. We looked around like, what the hell just happened? Well, yeah, I mean, they both are taking it in stride. It's all good. I had a problem with the fact that the TOR's Instagram is posting it like for two days.

And it probably, you know, it did probably great numbers for the event. And again, do I think that they should have done it? No, do I think it's hilarious? Yes. Do I think it's bad for the game? No. But, you know, you got to set up a precedent at some point

of like, you don't want people doing that all the time. It's the same with the beer throwing, Justin Thomas chips in from the back, the green, and gets the beers thrown at him. It's like, that's ridiculous. That's too much. We need to set some kind of boundary or some kind of wall as to when you can go insane.

But it's just like, they were keep posting about it. And every time I see it, I'm like, I know what you guys are about to do, and it doesn't feel fun. But I know that there's also a disconnect from the tours, a social media team to the higher ups who make these rules. So, but yeah, I mean, that it just came off as kind of ironic, I agree.

Contradictory that you guys are praising them while taking money from them for it. So it was Iki there, but also they 100% deserve to be fine. One, the money goes to charity, right? For fines, one and two, like it, you know, generating the highlights might bring more people watching it, which might bring more spots. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about I told Joel, like, you're, we're going to make more money. You're going to make more money, personally, because of what you did, then the money

you might get fined. So, but it was man, that was all time funny thing. It's great. We got to wrap here soon. What's Netflix involvement been like for you so far? Have you shot much with them? Have you got an idea of what that's going to look like? Yeah.

It's weird and cool. I still love it. I didn't really know what it was going to entail. I don't think anyone did. There was a wives event at the Wasteman where the pros and the husbands or boyfriends caddy for their wives and girlfriends. So we did it.

It was so much fun. So Lacey and I were mic'd up for it in our group. I think that would be, it's not going to be the greatest content we've ever seen, but I thought that was really cool that they did that. And then our one regret so far is we haven't been mic'd up for a round other than a practice round yet. And they wanted to do it Saturday, a Wastemanagement. and I wish I would have done it because it was the most fun round of golf I've ever been a part of it was real it would have been really cool for people to see and I kind of they're still going to footage but it was it was bananas so so that's been cool I did a practice round mic'd up at Riviera I did a lot more content Riviera just because it was kind of, as they told me prior,

it was gonna be kind of my, a little bit more maybe a me heavy week, just giving my ties to the city and what happened last season. But yeah, I mean randomly, like I went to a little Taco Tuesday at Joel's house and I kind of walked in, I'm eating in the corner, I have my dog, and you know, Lace Er, eating with the,

there's a lot of people there and we're kind of just hanging out and then I went over to say buy the Joel and thank him or whatever and there's like cameras around and Mike and I'm like, oh, this is weird. Like I'm not ready. I'm not, I don't know if I'm ready for this one, but trying to get a little more use to it. But on the golf course, that's fine. You don't notice it too much. I mean, when I would come off the course this past week, I have a camera follow me. Why kind of sign autographs and said said hi to my friends and family and all that. So it's different, but at the same time, I think they're doing a great job. You're going to see some really cool stuff. I think

that that waste management week is going to be pretty cool, whatever episode that gets put in because, you know, if people haven't been there, it's the craziest thing you could ever experience. And that Saturday was the craziest day I could have ever imagined. So I think it's going to be cool. I think, you know, they're doing it the right way. They're very polite and ask if it's cool to do things. I'm not super comfortable yet with like all of it, but I'm definitely open to it. But, you know, I know Joel's been super open to it. And I think they've been doing a great job getting content and whatnot. Cool. I'm excited to see it. But it's going to be cool. to it and I think they've been doing a great job getting content and whatnot.

Cool. I'm excited to see it. It's going to be cool, man. I really think they're going to do a great job. I agree. I think, you know, we had the guys on and chatted with them about it and they're vision for it. I think it's going to be good content for golf fans and casual fans as well.

Absolutely. I think it will be more lean for the casual. Yeah. But I still think that the hardcore fan would enjoy it. From what I'm hearing, but I think the casual, how I view obviously the drive to survive for Formula One, I love every episode of those things.

I'm not sure if it's in the golfer, I'm gonna be obsessed with each episode of each thing because I'll probably know a lot of it. But for the casual, God, that F1 stuff now, I'm like, entranced by it, it's1 stuff now, I'm like, and transpired. It's so cool. Sweet.

All right, well, let's go, buddy. This was a blast. Thanks for sharing some stories and perspective on some complicated and not so complicated topics. It's, it's greatly appreciated. I know the list is good. Next time there's a dumpster fire of a week. I'll hop back on it.

Please, anytime, man. I'll get checked off with you any day of the week. So thanks for the time, buddy. We'll get checked off you any day of the week Thanks again for the time buddy. We'll chat soon. All right. See you silly I Love today That's better than most That is better than most better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most.