No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 588: Sean Zak

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Sean Zak joins the pod for the first time to react to Tony Finau's second consecutive win and all aspects of the past weekend's LIV event. We also take stock of what LIV has gotten right and wrong, answer your questions, and hear from Sean on his month living in Scotland including his experience caddying for Joel Dahmen in the Scottish Open.  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. The Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang-Up Podcast, Sully here. We have a recap. Sorry, this is not a Sunday night recap. We are on a different time zone, doesn't quite work.

And we're not been watching a lot of golf. Hopefully you got a chance to peep our Katrina Matthew interview that debuted last night on Sunday ahead of this week's AIG Women's Open. This episode is with our friend Sean Zock from golf.com. Sean has been living in Scotland this summer. He is covering golf on a weekly basis and they say, actually, I don't think he's ever been on the podcast, which is definitely my fault. We have a great conversation about Tony Fino.

Everything that happened at the Rocket Mortgage, all the live stuff. We talked for a long time. It's a long episode, but I have no regrets. And thank you for sticking with us as we've been traveling these last couple of weeks filming Season 8 of Taurus sauce, which will be coming to your TVs or your YouTube, I should say later this fall. Shout out to our friends at ogeo.com, ogei.com.

They have supplied us many years ago with incredible equipment to travel with. And the best testimonial I can give, listen, we travel a lot for golf. I got the Ogeo Mutant Travel Bag five years ago, five years ago in July actually in 2017 and it has lasted me. Listen, I'm just going to say we travel more than the average person and it has lasted me five years, right? So basically 15 years worth of time traveling on golf trips in this golf bag has treated me

great. TC puts like 80 pounds in his OGO travel bag. We also have the rig, these huge things that carry all of our clothes for our big trips. Again, something we've had for over four years. There's been almost zero wear and tear on this thing, so we can definitely speak to the longevity of this equipment. So go to OGO.com, check out all the golf bag offerings they have, which we've used many, many times over the years, as well as the travel bags and regular suitcases.

I got an OGO backpack I've used for four years as well. They're probably a little annoyed with us that we've not refreshed some of our stuff, but it's high quality and it's going to last you a long time. It's a quality investment. OGO.com, OGO.com. Let's get to our podcast with Sean Zock. Sean, I am missing an incredible Swedish sunset. The boys are out on a boat right now. They're eating crawfish and drinking and riding around in the north of Sweden. And here I am talking about live at Trump bedbedminster with you. So I guess take that as

a great compliment. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than sitting here with you. Someone at Noley, I've had to do the work and I think it's your job today. Someone's got to pay for this. A ridiculous, ridiculous trip here that we've had through through Scandinavia. But listen, we're as always, we're going to start with the PGA tour as we are of course big dick riders for the PGA tour. But look, I wish that Randy and DJ were here. Of course, I know a lot of the audience is wishing that they were here. I have some statements from them that we can talk about

in the, you know, when we get there, first of all, I want to know how much of the golf you're able to watch this week. You might have to carry me a little bit because I think it's a watch a lot of the golf. But Finau, absolutely stunting 26 under par. When's going away? When's by five?

What's your immediate reaction to everything going on with, as the boys would say, phony teen out, which no longer works. I know this is really unfair to Tony, but my immediate thought whenever anyone peaks like this is like, is this as good as it will ever get for them? Because Tony, if you ask him, Tony's thinking,

I can win a major, I can win two majors, whatever. I'm still ascending, but I always wonder, like, will we look back on this as the rise and peak of Tony Fino? And again, that's super unfair because you get caught up in the moment. And we always ask like every tour winner, or we ask about every tour winner,

like, what does this mean for them? And really, it's just like you've been harping on it for months and months and years now. It's like, oh no, this is just what was supposed to happen over the course of a huge sample size, a much bigger sample size, like just because it didn't happen the first two years you expected it to happen.

Now it is, doesn't mean it's gonna happen for the next two years, but maybe you'll have another flash at like 34 years old. I'm pretty much in line with everything you believe about Tony Fino, not so much DJ and Randy, but what it was so amazing was that when you sent out the request for questions for the podcast, like, I feel like I'm on the Tony Fino podcast now. Like everyone wants to know, what is the word on Tony? Well, it's somewhat of a polarizing thing, right? I mean, I've long accused Randy of being very sports talk radio when it comes to

it just being about wins and losses and golf. Because dude, I know a lot of people out there don't like to play the numbers game, but it's a probability thing. When it's like literally like two, three, four percent, the best players, two, three, four percent chance of winning when you tee it up. And then like you have some stuff

that doesn't go your way, luck wise, you have some bad performances and final rounds, all that. He's just been a model test case for this weird way that golf can work. He's been the outlier though. Like he has been the person to talk about in terms of the talent level, not matching up with the win total. And it's just starting to level out. It took a lot of patience if

you will to sit here and watch it just fail, fail, fail, fail, fail many times over. But a point I want to make here is ironically funny enough of his best three performances this year from a Stroke's Gain perspective, the Canadian Open was better than the 3M, then it's when the prior week, right? He got beat by Roy McAroy, right? And the way this works is, you know, not, you know, if you're delivering a 4.2 stroke gain for a single tournament, which is what he did

at the RBC Canadian Open, that usually nets out to a win, and it didn't, and like, he just kept kept being on the wrong end of these things. Now, look, a 3.81 strokes game at the 3M doesn't always necessarily mean a win. Like, that's not, he has a lot of those numbers. If you go look at 2021, he had a big 4.3 at the Northern Trust, which he won,

but 3.75 at the Genesis lost in a playoff. Like, the margins are so incredibly tight. Waste management in 2020, 3.69, same region, did not win, finished runner up there. 2019, he had so many runners up. He had a 5.1 at the WGCHSBC and didn't win. A 3.1, 3.2, 3.4 in there, they were all top fives. And it is a weaker field event.

Both these events are weaker fields. It's worth pointing out, but sitting here at four wins, it's a very different conversation. It's a different conversation. And I'm just glad to have this one at least push the side for a little bit. You have all the Tony Fienaal receipts. And I just, I feel like DJ and Randy, they just don't care about receipts. The receipts are important. One thing that I wonder when you just discussed luck is I think we struggle to imagine luck in golf.

We really have a hard time understanding. Like when LeBron beat Steph Curry on a fade away three pointer for like a buzzer beater, like that, there's a decent amount of luck implied in that shot in that moment. When a 55 year field goal, like doings in for the win, like there's a decent amount of luck in that. In golf, we have a really, really hard time

like, visualizing what luck looks like. And the way you're describing it is probably the best way to describe it, which is just like, okay, it's bad luck if the guy who's T7 shoots 63, the best round of his six month stretch. Like, that's just bad luck. But we think of luck as being like,

lipping out on a eight foot putt or something like that. Like it's probably pretty bad luck that Max Homo scored, made a par on 10 at Riviera last year from where he was. Like Mark Brody would tell you that that's pretty, it's not horrible luck, but it's not good luck and in Tony's favor. And frankly, it's bad luck that Tony missed the eight foot

birdie putt that he had or whatever he had there. Like it's just so hard for us to quantify visualized luck that we just like dismiss it almost entirely, I think. Well, because there's always something you can do to have made that luck not matter. And there's room in the conversation for that, right? It is not like Tony Fienel shouldn't have 12 wins.

And you know, he's been cheated out of eight you know eight wins because of luck. Like there's things you're always in control of some things that can have made that luck not matter right and it just it felt like he has done plenty of those things in final rounds. You know bad badly time bogey or whatnot but it is a I don't know it I'm sure you get this too like when you go to a tournament the reminder of like what it looks like to see a tucked pin at 196 yards over a bugger with like water left. And like when the guy hits it to 20 feet,

how good of a shot that looks like in person and on TV, it's just like, okay, yeah, whatever. It should have hit it closer if you really wanted to make birdie, should have won. And just like adding all of those up, God, it's just incredibly boring to like think about the probability and the variance in of those up. God, it's just incredibly boring to like think about the probability and the variance and all those things.

But, you know, if we're talking about these guys' careers over long-term and trying to decide what this all means, that's the name of the whole game. Like, the whole game is finding out how to get point one shot better on each shot. Right? Like, that's the whole, that's the name of the whole game. And ironically, like, the best look at that is over a tour player shoulder. And I, I think we should hash this out you and me is because the last time I had that look was cadding for Joel at the Scottish Open, which you were probably supposed to do. If you

didn't have vacation plans and so it ended up benefiting me. And I really had a look I had not had before. And yes, I caddy for Martin Trainer, unsuccessfully different golfer, different golf course, different time in his career. But I caddy for Joel a couple weeks ago, and it was on a very firm, very windy, Renee Saunce club, like hard test that like I think Xander wanted at,

I don't know, nine under, something like like seven under and like Joel shot seven over and frankly that felt like a Decent showing because it's just so damn hard and that's where the whole hitting it to 20 feet Like looking over his shoulder and understanding like where he saw the places where he could attack a golf course We could gain those point one shots per approach like that's how you understand over his shoulder and understanding like where he saw the places where he could attack a golf course. We could gain those point one shots per approach. Like, that's how you understand where luck comes into play where good shots actually are bad shots, stuff like that.

I feel bad that I had to take that job from you or rather you gave it to me, but I'll take it on the last. It was not going to work. It really was not. It was going to, I had to work two different semi-vacations around that, it was not gonna work. Also, Joel told me the job was not mine, so whatever, that's all Joey. I do wanna debrief from the full experience there,

but I wanna tell a quick, female story now that I think is a worth looking back on now. There's a legend in the Ameter golf scene, his name is Paul Simpson, and he's like 68, 69, maybe 70 back on now. There's a legend in the Amitor Golf scene. His name is Paul Simpson. And he's like 68, 69, maybe 70 years old now. He's played in I think 66 USGA events. He's won the US Senior Am, he's won the British Senior Am. The most unassuming person you'll ever see.

You would see this guy. If he told you he was one of the best golfers in the world, you would totally laugh. And I got it, I was fortunate to play a fraction on it with him a couple years ago, and we've stayed in touch. And he talked to me a lot about positive attitude. I kept picking his brain on how the heck you compete in some of the USGA championships.

I thought you were such an unbelievable amateur career. And he talked so much about confidence, positivity, and understanding like basically what I'm starting to call the pop-a-shot rule, like, I'm pretty good at pop-a-shot. In an arcade game, I'm good. If I miss three in a row, I don't freak out. I just like, okay, I'll actually speed my pace up a little bit here. Here's a challenge. I'll come back from this. I don't think that way on a golf course. Why is that? And he just kind of gave this whole speech and we had this big long conversation about confidence and all that. After the Genesis happened last year,

when Fina lost to Max Holman in the playoff, he shot 64 in that final round, and he said afterward in the interview on the 14th green or whatever whole that was, he said, as I look back on the week, next couple of days there will be a lot to grow from. Today's round was pretty special for me, made some keyputs in regulation to keep myself in it,

I fell short, but a lot of positives. And he texted our group thread after that. And he said, I hope you guys watch the playoff yesterday at Riviera. Finau lost, but did you see how positive he was in the final interview? It was the perfect attitude. And since then, Tony Finau won three times.

And I just, I took that away like, dude, after I experienced heartbreak and golf, there's no possible way I look back at my go oh there were a lot of positives to grow from that. No I beat myself up like six months and I just found that noteworthy that a very competitive person with a lot of success saw that interview and thought that and seeing Fienaus quotes this week too about like who has lost more than me like no one and I've kept my you know kept my cool kept my confidence and here we are and I just want to shout that out that's I'm very happy for Tony he seems like a very nice guy to root for. He's definitely a fan favorite. I like him. I think he's a media favorite.

He always levels up like your job is at times different but at times very similar to my job and some of the best moments that we can have are when people level up with us like yes Tony you're one of the best golfers in the world but you can actually like you can stoop down to my level and talk to me about it straight. That's one of the best best character is characteristics I think a tour player can have. He has to just convince himself that he needs to be positive. I think that's one thing that a lot of tour pros do like they actually might be on the inside really feeling negative.

But if they can on the outside emit positivity, they know that that's the best move for their caddy towards their family towards their children. It sounds like Tony thinks a lot about his children on the golf course. Like he has his children's initials on his golf ball. He's always thinking about his family on the golf course. And so like his post-traumatic was, frankly, it's genuine as those conversations get. He said, like, if I can fail in front of my kids and still win, Holy Cow, I've really kind

of taught them a lesson. Those post-run interviews are getting more and more emotional, the more that Amanda Renner does, which is doing a great job of them. But that one really kind of hit home for me. It's like, Holy Cow, yeah, this guy acknowledged his losing, but just in time to really acknowledge his winning. At this point, I do want to read, I'm impressed, honestly, with Randy. I asked him about it.

Do we have a statement? We do, have a statement. And his statement was, when the facts change, I'm willing to change. Okay, so that is the statement that he gave me. Privately, he said, like, look, I got to think about some things, right? And the whole point of this trip is that we're not supposed to think about ProGolf right

now, so I respect his privacy at this time and wanting to spend a little time thinking about it and how he reevaluates things. But I respected that. He may have to, I don't even necessarily think he has to admit he was wrong. He just, now, it's a reevaluation of Fino's career to this point, because wins matter to Verandia a lot more than they matter to me. And I don't know where you stand on that scale in terms of what really matters to you.

It is hard to like look at Fino, his resume, and think that there's not something major missing from it. I think it was just a matter of time before it started happening like this. Yeah, I mean, wins have to matter. They do. They, you know, tigers, we know how many he's won, we know how many fill is one, we know how many DJ and Rory,

21 wins, right? Like that's been gigantic. I just want to clarify though. I just want to clarify though that like, sometimes I feel like they think a T3 can feel like more of a failure than a T20. And like putting yourself close to it and not pulling it off is almost more of an indictment than it is a signal of good golf.

That's kind of where the argument that extends from. Well, and maybe the worst performance in one of those T2 moments or solo second moments was Riviera, but like Max should have made the three foot birdie putty. T like Tony should never have been in that playoff. The one thing that I think Randy would endure him to Tony is the fact that Tony is a hooper. He is a tall hooper who doesn't like to bang in the post and that speaks Randy to me. I'm really surprised by that. I asked Fina about his basketball game, I guess in February, it was right after the genesis

this year. And he said he would put himself over any other tour pro one on one, but he doesn't like to bang down low. He's a shooter, which is great. And now that DJ is not no longer on the tour, I think that statement really, I would take female probably against any of them. We do have another question here from De Leander Kirk. I hope I emphasize in the right points of that handle.

He says, who wins first? Cam Young or Will Zalatoris? Gosh, that is such a good question. At this point, I feel like Cam Young could bag like a FedEx cup win this fall, right? He's playing the FedEx cup. Yeah, he's playing better golf than Zalatoris. I think just consistently right now. but that is a really tough one.

I think like will his game could last. I don't even know if that's even fair to say his game could last longer, but his stroke is not there consistently enough, but he plays it like really well at really tough courses. Give me Cam. I'm taking Cam too, man. I mean, we're talking T3 at the Heritage, T2 at Wells Fargo, T3 at the PGA championship. Then he went T60 cut cut over the Memorial US Open in Scottish. And I think that threw me off.

I was like, okay, he had the hot wave. Now he's solo second at the Open Championship, T2 at the Rocket Mortgage. Like this dude is, I mean, I don't know if this is bold yet to say, I would not take 10 other golfers in the world right now over Cameron. It sounds like you're feeling President's Cup team. Oh, for sure. Yeah, we got a question there about Captain's picks

and we'll get to that on the back half. But I actually think like the President's Cup like shakes out unbelievably easy for Davis Love right now. I think it is, if you look at it, it's like the top 12 are gonna make it. And we'll get there unless you're taking Tom Hogi, like the top 12 are gonna make it. But in terms of Cam,

what I keep thinking about this whole year and this might be completely unique to me, but I went to the Evan Scholar invitational last fall just outside of Chicago at the Glenn Club and Cam won that event. I think it was his second win in a row on the Corn Ferry Tour and it was like, like that's 13 months ago. 13 months ago, Cam Young was known to just about nobody

and he was on the Corn Ferry Tour. And now we're talking about him winning the FedEx Cup as a not crazy possibility because of all the points get juiced in the playoffs. And that's just a reminder of how just how deep golf pro golf goes. We say it all the time pro golf is super duper deep. But like that week, he was beating Mito Pereira, right? Mito Pereira, damn near one of the PJ championship. Um, I believe Tron was like, we're running back those standings

for you guys a couple months ago. But nonetheless, like, there's someone on the corn fairy tour right now who's ready to come take all the money that's gonna be dulled out on the PGA tour next year. And so I know when you talk about money, it's all related to live at this point, but like, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of golfers

who are ready to try and do it what Cam Young has done this year. And for a reference point on what I just said, here's the top 10 players Strokes gained over the last six months. It goes Rory, Scotty Schaeffler, Fitzpatrick, Cam Smith, Shane Lowry, Zander, JT, Zalatoris, Cantlay, Ram, Cameron Young. So he's 11th on that list. And I'm surprised as he's Z to us that high up on it. I know he's just balled out at major championships,

which don't necessarily carry extra weight when it comes to stroke's gain. But it is just, I don't, I'm never tempted to like pick him and any pools or anything on PGA tour weeks, only when the majors roll around, do I want to pick him. And I know he had a T5, it's a memorial, but other than that, it's a weird animal.

I don't know how to describe. He's kind of like Keppka Light or Oosthazen Light when it comes to normal PJ Tour weeks and what he does in majors. Obviously, those guys have won them, but we're early in the Zalatoris experiment. Yeah, I'd like to see him. I sound like Randy, but I'd like to see him freaking win.

I know. I mean, of course, we got to give these guys a little bit of a leash. It takes everybody a decent amount of time to win, but I would just like to see him get it done because it might happen, like he might go one week and win by four. Might win by six, one week. I think he has that type of ceiling. I just don't know when it's going to happen and you start thinking, okay, there's a question in the mentions. Is Cam Young the new Tony Finau because he's finishing second

everywhere. I believe that was a bit ingest, but still, like the more you finish second, the more questions that pop up asking you why haven't you finished first. They're not fair questions. A quick break to check in with our friends at Precision Pro who happen to be sponsoring season eight of Taurus Sos that we are filming right now. They are of course the official rangefinder of NLU. They've just released the first customizable rangefinder engulf allowing you to build an NX-10

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30% trade in program and a warranty for each product. You will not find a better team to join. Head to PrecisionProGolf.com to customize your NX10 now and use promo code NoLangup to get $20 off. Upgrade your game and show your style on the course with the NX10. Swing with confidence, hit more greens, Precision ProGolf. Let's get back to Sean's Ark. We were talking about this in this similar vein with Scotty Sheffler last year and I look what happened.

Year from now it could be an entirely different conversation with either of these two guys and it is well timed when it comes to thinking about US team golf with what the US team has lost over the last you know several weeks and months and thankfully there are some dudes that are ready to step up. Now, is it nearly as deep as it was at one point? It's not, and we can, again, we'll get to that. But that's just worth noting.

Couple of other questions, cutch tee, how do big tones, balls, feel on Randy's face as he dumps all over them. Sorry, I don't need you to answer that one, but that was sent in. Tyler Muddson said, considering the course field timing etc. Is it the worst three-week stretch of the season? Well, does the season include October?

I'm going to say no. I think the fall season is viewed with an asterisk by pretty much everyone. I think it does. I think it might be the worst, which is too bad because I'm from the Midwest. I enjoy going to these events. I've been in the Detroit event a few times, but gosh, the field in Minnesota was really bad way worse than I thought it was going to be. And it's always kind of bad. The field in Detroit, not that great. It really tells you when Scotty Sheffler goes to Greece, when the more cowas go to Paris and London, I believe, and Sam Burns and like, like, all the best pros left the open or like, no, we're going on vacation. That should tell Jay Monahan something, right? Right. Yeah. No, I think we can talk into, well, again, we've got a lot of live stuff

and a lot of future PGA tour stuff. Well, all let's let's is it and does you have anything more from the from the rocket mortgage that you'd like to discuss I'm fine to move on to and stick to sports. Well the only thing that fits is not rocket mortgage but Sean Crocker was ripping it in the Dunvagan yesterday night after his victory in St. Andrews. That has been the best part of me visiting St. Andrews for summer. It's just the kind of people who show their face in town and then the magnetic pole of the old course and adjacent to that, the Dunvegan. You just are always going to find someone in there. And so he won the hero open and they wrote his name on the chalkboard outside and then suddenly he was just at the bar buying Corona's and I don't know it was great to see him having a good time I went in there and Introduce myself and said what up and nothing more that I could contribute other than

He stayed there until just about 1 a.m We do got to talk about your your summer in St. Andrews and how it is the set. Just like talking to you about some of this stuff, like, oh, yeah, you're down at the AIG Women's Open Qualifier today. And there's a women's Scottish open. The men's Scottish open that you've had a very, very eventful summer, which is one of the reasons I wanted to catch up with you. Sean consent it.

I've played golf with Sean. I was happy to see. He's a big personality. Happy to see him rack up his first win and it's always cool to just see somebody hold a putt and start like nearly crying, like just knowing how much crazy shit goes into contributing to that moment and to do it very near the home of golf is very cool. All right, so how do you decide how you're going to spend your sports slash golf watching

time in the current era? How does it work? How's your hierarchy work? Well, it's a lot of it is driven by my job, which I find it hard to cover the birdies and bogies of live golf right now. So I often am watching the PGA tour, but I'm really not watching on Saturday this time of year, frankly.

I'm kind of catching, well, especially now that it were five hours ahead of the Eastern time. Catching things really late here in Scotland. I'm definitely checking the leaderboard. I'm interested in who's taking the money, who's winning. I am vaguely intrigued that the four Aces are the best team and that they are they're showing us what team golf slash F1 celebrations can look like. But this answer should show you just how chaotic that experience is of like, okay, how much do I watch

of live golf? How much do I watch? And now that they're both finishing on the same day, it's been kind of easy, right? To tune in for the Canadian Open on Sunday as Rory wins without any distractions. And to tune in for, I guess, that would have been the first live event if you needed to, if you wanted to, as Charles Schwarzel wins, a day prior five time zones earlier. So yeah, it's a very convoluted answer that comes out to like holy cow. If they're actually competing now from the same time zone on the same day, you don't pay a full attention to either of them and that has to be a net negative, I think. One of the many things I don't like about it has to do a lot with the stuff they've gotten

right. And one of the things they've gotten right is going up against the right events. Like they can absolutely stunt on the fields of the John Deere and the Rocket Mortgage. And RBC was really good, but like going forward and a lot of events in the fall when the PJ Torrevents and the fields are horrible, it is, they seem to be extremely well timed. And look, was it all like a big clown show

and shit show leading up to it? It was? Yes. I have to admit almost everything from it starting, like from the moment they've started the stuff that I thought was gonna be the hardest. Getting so many the details right and getting the, you know, there's plenty

that I think I still get way, way, way, way, wrong, but I've just kind of amazed and impressed if that's the right word at how much stuff they've gotten right, sustainability, the actual players they've gotten, I have a lot of questions about that, but I'm all very, I'm very confused. I find myself very confused because so much of what I experience with live involves a lot of in-person conversations with people I know that follow golf closely and don't follow golf closely. And a lot of Twitter and I don't, it's very, very hard to say.

We got a question about this actually from Joe Corsini, he said, is live actually working or is it just a bunch of bots dominating the conversation? Also can we get more Brooks's a bitch moments, but okay, but back to his question, is live working or are just the bots dominating the conversation? I think live is marketing itself incredibly well. And what I mean, like that's a super generic term,

but what I mean is like, they signed a bunch of players or came to handshake verbal agreements a long time ago. Like there were about a dozen that were basically finalized in February before Phil opened his mouth, right? And so the fact that Henrik Stenson joined two weeks ago could have been news in April. It could have been news in May, but they have decided the slow trickle of news will create perceived momentum.

And I think that they've absolutely done that. Like, that's how you remain relevant is hosting your first event and then letting Brookline call on everything down and then announcing Brooks a couple days later. And having Brooks and Bryson and P. Reed, like the slow trickle. Wait, no, no, that conversation didn't start until that Monday that he signed. That's what he told us that he hadn't even thought about it till then, but continue, sorry.

Yes. My mistake, you know, that is how you remain relevant and I think stretching it, like you said, making the most of specific weeks. The one thing I am, I don't think that the term optimistic is not right. I'm cautious about is the team event that live is going to host the eighth event that's going to happen at the end of October. It's happening against the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. Now, the only reason I'm

cautious about this is because live will have been building for seven events for about four months. And suddenly, we're going to have the pro version of what we see at the NCAA match play, where you have these, I don't know, I don't think it's going to be individual matches, but teams competing against teams for this $50 million per person. And all of those guys are going to be invested. You're going to have these four quarter finalists matches. They're going to have the top four teams waiting for teams

to play them. So you might have the four aces walking around, like looking at the two teams that are competing for the right to play the four aces. That will be so weird that I think it might be really fun. And I think it's going to happen during a week where we generally don't give a damn about what's happening in Bermuda, all due respect. And I think that that week, it'll be right before the midterm elections.

It's going to be happening in a Trump course. That week is going to be absolutely fricking bananas. And I think the golf might be the first time we actually care about the birdies and bogies. Because I don't think we do right now. I kind of want to, like this is not going away. It doesn't, you know, you can't ignore it and pretend that, you know, my stance on this is going to change the way it's viewed and blah, blah, blah. Like, if it's going to be part of the golf world, I want to care about the birdies and bogies.

I have tuned into at least a part of probably 75% of the rounds. And it's weirdly, so how it works, like for us, this is probably not that interesting people, but like we schedule stuff opposite bad PGA tour events, events that like don't need to be covered that badly. The reason we're in Sweden right now is we pick this stretch of golf that is very missible. And when we scheduled this, we did not know that the live, that Trump Bedminster

was gonna be a thing. So if the golf world is gonna get divided like this, I'd like to be able to care about both products. But I think what we're gonna get is a 25% less interesting PGA tour and we can get to why. And I think a lot of that reason why is it's not because my favorite players or the best players have gone,

but like the villains that make golf really interesting are all gone. Like they all went to one place, right? And I've tried to tune into the live stuff and watch it and care about the birdies and bogies, and I watched Patrick Reed hit a ridiculous, the awesome three wood into the par five on Saturday or whatever that was.

That's the only shot I can recall of any of the stuff I've watched. I just can't even remember it because there's just no context, there's no, it's an exhibition. I felt the same exact way about Tigers Little Hitt and giggle at Payne's Valley in the fall of 2020. It was just like just putting in like big name golfers on a golf course and playing. Doesn't mean that much to me if there's no context to it.

Is it a five year 10 year plan that maybe at the end of six years or whatever it is? We care that the four aces have won three of the last four titles and they have a dynasty. Maybe we get there. We do, but like the beginning phase is really, really tough and it's really hard to get excited about watching this golf that I just don't know what it means. Yeah, well, I think if the live golfers started to get pissed off, they're all just so happy right now. Very, very, very joyous at the, you know, the semi-repeating phase. It's the recruiting phase. It's the recruiting phase. The honeymoon phase.

And while they're treating them great now, as great as possible, and everyone around them so that the word gets out to the other players as well as to how great everything is over here, you guys are missing out. Yeah, and since it's so happy, happy joy, joy, like, it doesn't feel as cutthroat as the golf that we've known pro golf to be. And since everyone's making money and the players are kind of lying about how

much fun they're having and David Fierty and Jerry Fultz are like, gaslighting us like, like for back lack of a better term, that's what's so tough. I'm with you like actually, I do want to care because well for one, you and I make living in some ways opining on whether 100 Extensions career as Hall of Fame worthy or not. And at this point, there's no way in hell it will be. But if you played another five years in the PJ tour and contended in more majors and was a successful Ryder Cup captain, yeah, maybe he would be a Hall of Fame type of golfer. And the same goes for a number of players on the live golf roster.

And so what's interesting though is like I just said that that's what we care about. You and I as golf media and golf media Jason, I don't know, you guys, fan a list right? Golf fans, right? I mean, it's like, let's think golf fans care about this shit. Like my friends do, your friends do. And since they can't have the same conversations that you and I have for our jobs, the whole thing is void of meaning. Are you saying golf fans do care about live

or are enjoying live overall? Is that the sentiment you're getting? No, they care about Henry Stenson being a hall of fame golf or two. They care about like, the golf that they're watching has meaning. They need it to have meaning. Like there's it's one it feels like every single week there is meaning contextualized during one of those post-round interviews with Amanda Renner. And we're not getting that. We're not getting that. Henrik Stenson used his post-win yesterday

to make a dumb little joke about losing the captaincy for writer to cup Europe. And he was asked by an interviewer that I don't recognize. And it was a kind of BS question. And so we're getting kind of slapped across the face with this fake meaning, and it's impossible for us at home to contextualize. So it feels like there's nothing to for us to care about.

Yeah, and like I said, I think eventually, maybe we do get there, and again, at no point, do we ever give off the impression that every week on the PGA Tour matters, and every week the PGA Tour nails all of these things and delivers on any of this. We've had a huge problem with this over the years. I think PGA Tour is missed out on a huge part

of the entertainment factor. A lot of the stuff that Liv has gotten right is involved in the entertainment factor. It kind of came to me this week. It feels like this will make a lot of sense for the people that aren't willing to give it much thought. And I don't mean that in nearly of a meeting as of away as it probably sounds.

But if you're like, oh, well, I wouldn't I want to watch like Phil Mickelson play, you know, a team event right here at Blubblubblubg golf course. And if you wanted to, and I honestly think like the conversations even move past all the sports washing stuff and human rights and all that stuff to just truly being like, let's talk about the entertainment value of this, right? And I think it has a chance and maybe is already succeeding at being more interesting for casual sports fans. I don't even want to say casual golf fans. I think if you like, if the result of it truly doesn't matter and you want to watch some somewhat entertaining sports, this would make some sense. Now, I think like in October when they have the team finale and it's

up against the NFL, I don't think there's gonna be many of those fans tuning in. And the numbers are not great at all at watching this. At the same time, I just think like for the hardcore golf fans, which we are, which I think we try to represent, that's who we try to like make our content for, are people that follow golf week to week. I don't think this is gonna be more entertaining. And it's a weird microcosm of like,

I feel like for years and years and years, the PGA tour has been trying to capture this fan that Liv is probably going to be able to capture. And that's been our beef. It's like, dude, just focus on your hardcore fans and they didn't do a very good job of that and they didn't capture this casual fan and Liv has swooped in and done all of this. And yeah, it's very confusing. And I get a lot of tweets and I understand them. I truly understand them for like,

well, you don't like it. These guys are doing exactly the way you said they should be doing. You're right. Like you're right. A commercial free broadcast and all that stuff is better. Like it works better. I have a problem with the shotgun start. Let's back up.

What else is working for you with live? What's working for you? What comes to mind in terms of like, you know what they're getting, either they're getting that right or it's working for you specifically? Well, like I said earlier, like the trickle of news, that's what's working, but what has me going is not a whole lot. Like, I want to come up with a better answer for you. Like, I'm not an F1 fan. It's not that I'm against F1, which probably will get me booted off this podcast forever. But I just like fell on to love with the English Premier League at the same time everyone was falling in love with F1.

But like, what could work as this whole relegation system? Again, that's just so far down the line, it's hard to take serious. So what's working is the fact that you already said it earlier, it's happening when I'm maybe not as dialed into the PGA tour. It's happening during weeks and it's gonna, like you said, it's gonna go up against football, like, well, anyone care.

It feels like the month of August is a dire important month for the PGA tour. Like, no live events, own the month of August, own the next 30 days, crown your FedEx Cup champion, and you know what? Unfortunately, the individual champion from Lave is gonna get just as much money as Scottie Schuffler's gonna get for winning the FedEx Cup.

That's what's tough for me, man. It's like, I don't really like any of the golf, the broadcasts, some of those for me. And we can see around the corner a little bit for like what this means. Like again, I've said this many times, is like what makes this work, the piles and piles and piles and piles and piles

of Saudi money, is what's also gonna make it at the end of the road be the least interesting it possibly could be, which is they can't get everyone. They're not gonna get everyone. Listen, I could be wrong there. Rory, Jordan, JT, May all change their minds and flip and all that stuff.

And if they do, it's gonna be very, very weird, but at best, we're gonna end up with fractured and weird golf happening all over the place. And listen, golf has been like that over the years. It was the PGA tour in European tour We're more fractured over the years than then they are now even in recent years before the strategic alliance and all that stuff And I understand that I understand there are people out there that say like oh you're rooting for the PGA tour monopoly or Congrats on rooting for this monopoly. It's like like dude. I don't I'm not I'm're rooting for the PJ Tour Monopoly or congrats on rooting for this Monopoly. It's like, like, dude, I don't, I'm not rooting for the Monopoly.

I'm rooting for the most interesting golf. It happens to be this, like, that's what I think is probably what's most likely to create the most interesting golf is most of the best players in golf playing, you know, a schedule that makes sense in the time period that makes sense, which I think the Tours finally got around to, and that's a big gap in this conversation,

is that it took the tour until Liv made this happen to actually change the season to make actual sense. You were a 10-year-old boy wanting a nice new bike, and your stepdad wasn't giving it to you, your real dad who left your family at two years old came back and finally gave you the shiny new bike. So you're glad that you have the bike but you got it from the wrong character and that might be too much of an analogy but it just feels like we are slowly getting some of the chaos that we pine for but we're not really liking it.

A quick break to check in with our friends at Cash App. It is the easiest way to spend and save your money. You can send a request money from friends and family when they owe you money for dinner, things like that. Big Randy and I actually have a little bet series going on this trip where you know, we, it's a weird proposal where if you lose a bet, the winner gets to pick something that you

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It comes with free discounts on places you love called boosts. If you use referral code no-lang up when you sign up, not only does it give you a free $15 that sets aside $10 for each sign up to youth on course. So the more people we get using code no-lang up when registering, not only are you getting $15, but you're helping to support junior golf. So get signed up now. We do a lot of live show giveaways with cash app. They've been a great supporter of our podcast. Use promo code NoLangUp, that's Cash App, let's get back to Sean Zuck. I have been and was an M, a big proponent of the PGL,

which includes this exact format, which is stolen from the, directly from the PGL, but what I liked about that was the thought of like, how do they actually come about forming these teams? How do they draft it? How do they strategize? If you made a Bill Simmons trade value column for all of golf, you know, is who's a good old player

in the game right now, who's in their late 30s or something like that. But let's just pretend that Phil was still good. How much is Phil worth compared to a Cameron Young? Like is who's more valuable? Like that would be super interesting. Trades, relegation, team ownership, contracts, all that stuff would be.

And it just, Neil made the analogy and it feels like they're building the plane while flying it. And the team just changed week to week without any process to it. It might supposed to be pumped for the four aces that just like, I don't even know how they came up with this team, like what does that mean? Yeah, I mean, that is sneakily gotten way less like pub than it is.

Yes. It's horrible. I want to give you one like half drunk hypothetical. Love it. Now, I wrote this down and so I have to read it a little bit. But so live golf right now, they've contracted. I don't know what the number is, like 27 to 30 players, probably Greg Norman is convinced that they'll have 48 contracted players for next year. They're trying to coexist with the PJ tour. I want this is more of a who says

no scenario. Jay Monahan, he goes, he gets Xander, Rory, Kentley, Morcao, Ram, Sheffler, Hauvel, and JT Speed fits, Sam Burns, and Finau. And he says, Greg, I want three teams. I got 12 guys. You're going to have 12 stars, but we're buying up three teams in live golf that are PGA tour teams. And he goes to those guys and he says, guys, storm that castle. Take that money. You guys earn the money. You like we're not giving you enough of the pit storm the castle. And I just want to know who says no, because Greg will say yes. And the players

will get paid. And the PGA tour will look like the superior tour to the players that are playing on live golf. That's interesting. And you would say that those players would retain the rights to play on the PGA Tour, but the other guys that left for live would not. I'm massive, massive. I want to explore this. Like it is completely unrealistic, but that does not mean I don't want to explore this, because this is a really interesting thought exercise. Because those teams would win, right? You would have to think so.

The majority, you know, of the time. This might be a question for Datagolf, but like a team of Xander Rory, JT, and Moorakawa or Rom, God, they're going to beat the four aces. I think- I almost started with- What you got to remember about the four aces though, they play really good under pressure. But it is super interesting and in terms of like, I put this question down to ask you of like, what should the tour do next?

Because I get a lot of those suggestions and I honestly don't, I think about this like all day every day, not quite literally, but a lot every day. And I don't, but have a great answer now in terms of that. And what you just threw out is like super provocative, again, very unrealistic, but tying that in of, there's still some sentiment out there that the Tours shouldn't of band players or is gonna have to come to an agreement with Liv

at some point. And I still struggle to see the downstream effect of all of that if they, if the Tours caves at some point. And I still struggle to see the downstream effect of all that, if they, if the tour caves at any point at this moment, how do you see that? Well, I think Jay Monahan has too much pride. I think it will have been a victory for Greg Norman. And I actually said this to SwanTech the other day. Like if you give Greg an inch, he might want to take a mile.

And if you concede some sort of merger, that might not be enough. I think that's the real danger. And I'm sure there are people in PGA 2 Headquarters that are saying that. Like, I actually cited the book. Like, if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want some milk. Did you read that growing up? No, I was just getting that. Either way, it's the same thing.

I don't see a scenario in which that little victory for Liv Golf in this very rapid takeover of the game is enough. It's not sufficient enough for the hungry hounds, I guess, they're at Liv Golf. What could the tour do to fight it off? I don't even know. Actually, I don't even know. Okay, so I think that's fair.

I've got like, everyone keeps talking about the world ranking points. That's a huge question mark. People keep talking about the masters and the majors. That's also a question mark. Well, I about the masters and the majors. That's also a question mark. Well, I don't think they want to money the waters. But I did talk to a tour player during the week of the Scottish Open. This is a former PAC member.

And he basically said, cancel the PIP. The PIP needs to go. And now, as far as I know, the player impact program was only guaranteed to happen for two years. So I think it can be done after this year. Cancel that. Have that money go, spread it out, and like 150 grand stipends to tour players as their salary.

Now, that is not like a, you know, that is not going to solve all the ills of the PGA tour and players jumping. But I do think that I was told by that player that the amount of money that 112 player in the world is getting in sponsorship dollars and stuff right now, it's just lower than it used to be. And so the expenses have definitely gone up in the modern world of trying to fly private, trying to all these last minute flights and everything. I think the expenditure, like salary, that you could give to her players, the top 125 and the top 25 from the Corn Ferry tour.

If you give them 150 to 200K, that nets out to like $30 million. You've got $20 million from the PIP leftover. Cancel the PIP, give these guys a salary and say, okay, we're the challenging tour. Like, earn what you eat. We're going to put you out here. You're going to have earned your salary that'll cover your expenses for the year, now go and prove how damn good you are. Like, earn your legacy, earn your victories in the PGA tour, and earn your money. That might be exactly what the tour is already saying to these guys, so that might not be enough of a change. But you need to double down on where the earn it,

legacy driven tour. And if you wanna go play there and take their money, first off, there's not gonna be much left over for you. And then secondly, yeah, this is gonna be the Proof It tour. That might be too simple, it really might be. Well, and I think they have leaned on that and I just think it also comes down to like, hey, if you're Brooks Capka and your knee hurts a little bit

and like you've won a lot, but like, it might not be there anymore and I can make something that has several commas in it and a lot of digits in it and I don't have to wonder if it's there anymore. I don't think that changes the answer to that question right. The problem with the pit is exactly what's happened. It's free and clear. You dust the Johnson gets his money, you know blah blah blah. Brooks Skeppie gets his money, Phil gets his money. There is no tie to the PGA tour

beyond that and they've paid $12 and a half, whatever, $15 million, whatever, just on guys to go away. And so yeah, I don't know if that's necessarily an effective tool in retaining guys, but I do think it is enough to say to the column more cow was and whatnot. Like you're getting, that example, because he was 11th, but with Comcast and all this stuff

that comes in, you're to get paid really well. You're going to make a lot of money on this tour. And it's, we're not going to make as much over there, but like, if this is how you want to fulfill your career, this is, you know, and then enough of the dude, like, again, it's a credit to live. They've given off the impression that they've pulled off way more than they actually have. They've gotten interesting people. They've gotten big names, but they haven't gotten the big talent. And that's where I

think things really hinge on Cam Smith. And if the rumors are true, if the belief is true, that the bunch of the Aussies are going after the tour championship or after the president's cup, that is when the conversation really changes. Because there's a very, very, very current major champion and top player in the game that leaves, that's just different than everything that's happened to this point. It's not been about the talent leaving that has left a crater hole behind maybe Dustin Johnson aside. Yeah, and I think the tour as well, like the battle is of course trying to retain talent that's maybe the most singular battle

but there are just these extraneous battles like the PR battle the popularity battle that like they should be able to win They should be able to beat live golf in terms of popularity Morality like they should honestly solely they should be going to you and saying Pick two guys from our president's cup team that you wanna have on the pod. We're gonna hook you up with that. Make your stars as accessible on the PGA tour,

the people you've convinced us to say, make them the biggest stars that they can be. Whereas like, Liv Gulf is kind of doing that. Like they're trying to make Patrick Reed look better than he's ever looked. They're for sure looking out for these guys. I think the tour could do a better job of that. They need, honestly, it sounds weird to say this, but they need more Kala to spend an hour with you guys in an interview on the podcast right before the presence cup. They need

to do that with four different guys. Phil made these comments too. And I, it's one of the few things Phil has said over the past several months that I really agree with and can recognize the truth in and not see the propaganda in, although there is some I'm sure, but talking about live being a startup and being able to be flexible on some things.

Like things have changed week to week, both in how they do the teams, which I still can't really explain to you, but how they've done the leaderboard graphics and how they've done the coverage and all these things that make it make a lot more sense. And the PGA tour is not good at changing things on the fly and their broadcast partners are not good.

And the whole that is left in the commercial, like the commercial thing just becomes a totally different thing. And we actually got this question from DGVT golf. He said, we all asked for more golf shots and coverage. Liv did it, but it sucks because there's no context. No course, eval or story. He said, my take, the PGA tour coverage is better, but we just need less commercials and more shots,

just not an entirety day of exclusively shots. He says, thoughts. That's what I keep seeing all these shots. I haven't even seen that for years. Yeah, but I keep seeing all these shots. Haven't you been saying that for years? Yeah, but I keep seeing all these shots on the live broadcast and everyone be it, and myself being like, why am I not enjoying this more? Like, why am I not?

And there's a storytelling aspect that's missing from their coverage. And I think, I think you can tie a decent amount of this back to the shot then start. And how it makes sense in a way, you just want to do a countdown of how many holes are remaining and all this stuff. But for real golf fans, we are used to seeing rounds accumulate. We're used to seeing, you know, somebody three groups ahead go through 15 and seeing that

pen and then waiting to see how the next guy plays it. And I just can't keep up with all the stuff going on all at once. So I don't think the answer is just show me as many golf shots as possible devoid of context. Yeah, I mean, it's extremely dizzying. I think about what you said earlier, like a half hour ago, when you said the best shot, or the most memorable shot you saw this past weekend in Live Golf, was some shot that Patrick Reed hid into a par five. You didn't even know the whole it was. Like you didn't know the number of whole it was. I think I got one.

Honestly, I don't even think you said a number. So like you definitely didn't get it right. And that's the whole point is like you didn't know what you were watching. You of course could follow the last hour as Matthew Wolf like pushes Henrik Stenson. But that was one of the things that I thought about when I was at the Liv London event, is I walked around Centurion Club and I was like, well, where are these scoreboards?

Will there be a guy who wins? And he's on, he started on the third hole. So now he's on the second hole. Like, will he know that he's won? Because one of the biggest calling points is like, Hey, you win. You get four mil. Like that's a gigantic calling card. So that putt is worth four million dollars or whatever the difference would be between first and second. And so that's the most valuable putt that we're going to watch in Progolf this year. And he might not know that he's actually putting for that value.

Like that's what I was thinking. It's like he might finish on the fourth hole and not have a clue that he's won the tournament. We haven't seen a live-go of playoff yet. I don't know if I want to, but like- That's news to me. The context needs to be delivered.

Or does it though, but that's where I get back like this isn't competitive golf. It's an exhibition that they hand out a lot of money for. And we can give it to some of the news aspects of what they announced for next year and all that stuff as well. But I would just like to commend us on making it this far into the episode without bringing up any politics, without bringing out D.T. in the tent with Marjorie Taylor-Green, Tucker Carlson, the whole gang, the Let's Go Brandon chance. We've privately begun calling it the Let's Go Brandon tour, which literally they played

out on the 16th T. I actually know that whole number. An Andrew Johnstone asked, if Liv genuinely wanted to build a serious brand, how they made a huge error hitching their wagon to the most polarizing figure in America. Handle that one as you'd like. I'm happy to weigh it as well because there's almost no way to win this conversation. But yeah, I'll try and play a little devil's advocate to the, I think, the implied meaning behind the question. But like, yes, he was incredibly polarizing.

But as a height man, he's undefeated. I mean, that's actually a genius play, if I may say. I mean, to get a portion of the population interested in it, put someone that has that kind of leadership. I should say cult leadership. Ahead of it, you're gonna get some people to rally behind it, right? And I think, I mean, they're going all in on this thing. Clearly, it gets all one side,

which makes the PGA tour look like the blue wave, if you will, which it's definitely not. So it's very confusing in that regard, but I think that helps make it make a little sense and get some interest in it. I think at one point, Liv got Trump to sign on for two golf courses to be a gracious host, to be the disruptor that he probably thinks he is. And they love it.

I don't think it will be treated as divisive. Now it could. Like what I was saying earlier, that team events can be happening at the derailleur the last week of October, right before November, election season. Like, Trump might literally use that opportunity to announce he's running for president. He kind of teased it a little bit this week, and now we are going off the deep end, but someone videotaped Trump asking, what are your plans?

Are you going to share us your plans? He said, at a golf course, you're going to love what you see. We're going to announce soon. I could totally see him doing that at Trump D'Arral. I think they're going to be okay hitching their wagon to him because there's a lot of Trump people that love golf and they're probably a lot of Trump supporters who will view this as like golf comma for us, you know, golf but louder but also for us. At least that's what he'll tell them. And there will be all these like parallel topics that can be pulled into it, even if they don't make sense.

Like, hey, these guys are small business owners. They're just doing what's right for their finances, for their families, for, you know, this is America and free markets. Even if that's kind of bogus, it's definitely bogus. Those align with kind of what Trump was doing as a lead, was trying to lead the country with. And so I don't see that way.

I don't align myself with that side of the political spectrum. So it's gonna be hard to like unbiasedly look at what he does with Liv Golf. But yeah, it could be like a really dark fall for Pro Golf in that sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I just, it's not get depressed here.

No, it is a, it's just something that is extremely hard to discuss. There is no changing of minds on either side of that part of the conversation. And I just don't know how it's possible that to keep, like literally how to keep politics out of this at this point. When you have the scene that we just had this past week and are going to have this fall

that you mentioned, that it's not a fun area to wait into. It's just going to be incredibly divisive. And that's not how I like my golf, right? It's, gosh, it's amazing how weird this conversation has gotten, right? And how there just doesn't seem to be a great answer for any of this. And that's just where I just lose so much enthusiasm for Pro Golf going forward. But there. Yeah, I mean, Jay Monahan's going to be asked about Trump's involvement in the game.

And he's's gonna have to Sit on the fence about it like he's got that's got his job as a commissioner in this moment to sit on the fence about that But he's not gonna deep down actually be happy about Donald Trump getting back into Progolf because it's gonna be against him It's gonna be on the opposite side of the tug of war rope and Like that like if Jay Monhan speaks up against Trump, in some ways it's like speaking up against Dave Pornoi or Barstool, like you're just putting a big target on your back. It's not a coincidence that the two courses

that Liv is going to are two courses that Trump has had events taken away from. I'd be stunned if Turnberry is not in the rotation next year, which is also falling out. I don't even think about that. The open rota. It, yeah, the PGA was supposed to be a bedmins for this past year. I'm sure that, you know, they'll say that this week was better than the PGA would have been anyways.

And then the WGC that was once at Dural, will now be the team event there. And he's out there publicly saying, players should take the money because the very disloyal PGA will leave you hanging in whatever the exact quote was. And it's like, all right, cool, man, how the hell are we supposed to separate politics from this? Like, literally dividing the game,

how the hell are we supposed to navigate this? What's so funny about this is that, if you look back to February, mid-February, Genesis, invetational, it felt like there was this like little crack, right? Fills comments. We were as journalists, we were asking all the players like who do you side with? Everyone's side with the PJ tour. And then it just like divide got a little bigger and it felt like oh there might be like a war on our shore. And then it got a little bit bigger. And then like each month, the war has felt bigger and bigger. And if you think it's big right now, again, like let's just wait until October is done when when Trump has decided what he wants to do,

taking a stance against J. Monahan, like the war will be twice as big as it is then, then it is right now when you and I are spending 45 minutes talking about it. That's where like, I just think that, you know, Ken lives Starv out the PGA tour, right? I mean, they can make this thing last as long as they want and how tempting is that gonna be for, again, I think so much hinges on Cam Smith or guys like Cam Smith.

Once the really active talent start going there, then things really change. And look, the only thing I'll promise to the audience is I'm going to tell you how I feel. I get a lot of people saying, how can you not see the great... The people that are challenging us on the idea that we're not in control of what we enjoy or what our opinions are is what really frustrates me because like people are like oh yeah why is anybody going to be neutral on this? I'm like why would you want us to just be neutral? Like don't you want to hear like what we actually think about it and how we actually see this playing out? If I'm wrong, I'm happy to say I'm wrong about it and if I end up loving live golf

three, five years from now, then the sports washing is definitely working on me. And I'm willing to look past all the other things that make it what it is. But as of right now, like Patrick Reed and Bryson and Keppka and Pat Perez and all of these dudes that are doing it, like, definitely don't do that for me. So from ZD Dog's Golf, he said this in DM

because it's a very long question. He said, question for the pod, too long for one tweet and the trolls are lurking. That's another aspect of this. In a weird way, did any of you want to see Barkley go to live? I know it would boost live, but I mean from a perspective of expanding the conversation, it would get us closer to questions you've asked in the past. Like, if Dak Prescott took a billion dollars to play in a Saudi-funded rival football league, is that same cowboy fan who fully supports Liv defending Dak and saying how great this is for the NFL having a competitor? Barkley isn't apples to apples, but it would go from niche golf fan debate to much bigger.

It's also a shame how this has devolved into red team, blue team politics. So maybe any reasonable answers are elusive forever. Great question. It really is. I'm glad they went into the DMs for the length of it. But I think losing Barclay, forget that, I think if they would have got Barclay, it would have been a win for live. And people, like I think Shipnuck said that maybe he said it was a win because they avoided, like just dumbing down their product to be a baseline level of fan who's going to only tune in for Barkley. I just think that in this current moment, they are trying to continue to build hype, continue to ascend. And Barkley

would have been a really big get because not only that, you're pulling him from his love, you're pulling him from TNT. Qu, what he said, uh, what's given him his entire life is TNT and basketball, like pulling him from that would be like a gigantic win. Um, and I think what it would have done is if you pair him with ferriti and Arlo White and Jerry Faults, like you have the biggest, just mishmash of nonsense that frankly kind of appeals to a little bit of like the Bro culture that's taking over golf and I do think that people would have shared those clips on social media a lot more and like it might have been strictly a momentum play During a week in which live isn't building like a ton of its own

Genuine player momentum, but like go to the live golf handle and look at the social media videos that they have been sharing. Pretty damn boring. With all due respect, completely unbiased, the golf that's being shared on those on in those videos is extremely boring. But if you just lay over a little voice over from Charles Barkley, it is exciting in a weird kind of way.

So I didn't, I kind of sat on the fence. I didn't really care if Chuck joined or not. Like it would have been a bunch of more money, like frankly, just going to somebody who doesn't necessarily deserve it. But it would have been a height little bit more momentum, I think, for live. And so like it's, it's really a win for for nobody and the tiniest of loss for live. It feels kind of inconsequential. It would have been really interesting

to see the rest of the sports world. I think it could have been bad for live in a different way than Chip described. To see the rest of the sports world, sports world, turn their head towards what's happening here. And you know, wait a second, the Saudis are doing what? Like they just bought Charles Barkley, like the most colorful commentator,

the most well-liked guy. They bought him away from basketball, talking about golf, the sport he's famous for being horrible at. I think that could have been bad, because that would have been kind of a DAC analogy. Right, like a lot of these people that, you know, don't actually care about golf, love this thing, or I think it's great.

Like, oh chaos, like oh fuck the rich up in tidy, elite golfers, blah, blah, blah, like more chaos, blah, blah, blah. And I think if that would have happened again, yeah, it's the easiest analogy ever. It's like, yeah, Seth Curry left to play in the Saudi basketball league, try to be like, oh yeah, he should go pursue, oh, you wouldn't take a 5x raise, I'm sure you wouldn't take it.

I'm sure that's how basketball fans would react to this. And that's where I'm like, dude, how can that at least people be human that are responding this way? Like, I don't think you're actually, I'm talking to humans on Twitter, but I thought that was a very interesting question in terms of, you know, how that would have changed this, how the sports world views it. But it is starting to make a few, but Bob Cost has kind of making some statements on it. And, you know, I feel like I see, you know,

other networks, you know, kind of starting to pay a little bit of attention to it, like call it out, be like, do what the hell is going on here? Boomer Sison, I know he's not as big as Bob Costes, but he made a pretty big statement. What is interesting to me is, I just wonder how long the questions about the morality will go for because at some point the journalists are we've tried. Look, there is a really good effort put forth in London and a really good effort put forth in Portland and it frankly less of an effort for better for worse.

Oh, it's worth. No fault of anyone's. It's working. It's just going, everybody. My own, like, angst about it or, you know, uncomfortable and feeling I have about it is waiting every week. Like, that's what's working for live. The sports washing is working.

And so what I thought, I mean, we always, I think we always knew that was going to happen. But right when the questions about the Saudi connection to 9-11 really jumped up the week of Brookline, I thought that that was going to really, really poke a hole and live. And I think it really remains to be seen that it will happen. I mean, like the connections between 9-11 and Saudi Arabia are

extremely direct. Much has been discussed about it and proven and reported about it, but pro-Golfers are clearly not going to answer to that. And so, like, the protests that 9-11 families are hosting, the press conferences they're having in these cities that live is going to. Like gosh, I really thought that that would really kind of knock around the live golf scene a little bit because there's one thing in our country that people care about more than anything else. It will be what happened on 9-11 and I, it's not that we need to lean on that to prove that what's happening might not be the best thing,

but it just really felt like it would be more impactful. And again, maybe just the pro golfers just being like robotic duds in press right now is working. Yeah, I know. I can't, sometimes I feel like I'm depressing you. No, that makes so much sense. And I feel like at this, like I'm back and forth on like,

are we making too much of a big deal about the Kishoggi thing? Or is it not enough of a deal made about it? And it just goes back to like, yeah, this whole thing, that happened in the fall of 2018, like the government at the order of MBS murdered somebody that was speaking badly about Saudi Arabia. That happened six months prior to the first Saudi international put on by the PIF in February

of 2019. Like that, the event was already in the works. They're planning for like, here's what we're going to do to, you know, diversify our economy, all this stuff. That's what, and improve our image around the world, Child's Group of Solinas. We're gonna do that. And also, we're gonna kill this guy at the same time. Like, it's not actual change.

It's like, we need to put up this facade and we're gonna do this. And I just, I'm not Kolf. I hear that sentence that I'm saying. And I'm like, I love golf. I just want to talk about golf. Like that is somehow part of the golf experience now in talking about golf.

And, and yeah, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, it's been tough. Yeah. It's, it's hard. It's been tough to like be, uh, it's been tough to be like a really good guy at parties with this. Yeah. Because a lot of people want to know what's

going on in golf. But in order to really know what's going on in golf, you have to be pretty well versed on like the 12 different topics you and I have discussed now for over an hour. And you have to like, you have to know like a couple layers deep of information about a lot of things. And so yeah, I've had to watch and read a lot about Saudi Arabia. I've had to watch and read a lot about anti-trust lawsuits and what happened in 1994. And it's become exhausting. It's been good for website traffic,

but that's not fulfilling to me in any way. What will be fulfilling to me is to really tell important stories about why golf is the greatest sport. And gosh, we have taken a hard 90 degree right turn away from that right now. It's a short term spike is what I keep describing it as too. Like I think golf is as it gets less interesting. It's just, you know, there's a recreating potentially creating a whole generation gap of

golf fans, right? Like I think I view this a little bit bias, biasly. I don't think that's a word, but in a bias way, in terms of, there's a PGA Tour of End that came to my hometown, growing up. And it was a big deal, because Tiger went and it made me a bit much bigger golf fan. Like that's the effect that professional golf can have on the golf world. And if we have, if there's not that representation and there's not that interest level in it,

and maybe there will be. Maybe Liv brings more tournaments to more places in the United States and it creates more golf fans. I'm willing to acknowledge that, of course, but I think that diversifying in this game is not going to necessarily create the strongest momentum for it. But maybe the game is a shrink because every golf course I go to is overflowing with people as well. So only the only other remaining things I had in my nose was read ejected a guy for saying that he should have fluffed his lie.

I don't know if you saw that with somebody sent me that with two holes to go. I don't know what hole that was on, but somebody said you should have fluffed your lie. He's mic'd up. He's like, oh yeah, tall guy. You're out of here. Well, he's got slugger making the rulesiked up. He's like, oh yeah, tall guy, you're out of here. Well, he's got slugger making the rules for him. So, I mean, he's comfortable. His kids will be put through college. Also, the first T-shirt that Phil got,

do it for the Saudi royal family, and he had to back off that shot. That was really impressive. And I was really bummed about the chain smoker, said, cancel their concert because of an illness. That was a big bummer and also a little bit ironic. I mean, I mean, it could have been the most perfect like cyclical story. If it's a COVID case, obviously, we hope that they are doing fine, whoever had it.

However, if it is, holy cow. That's all it's. Finally, a chain smoker's concert got canceled because of Vildes as well. A great question. Shanky McShank, Tueer Falls, we will see a live player or players tee it up in the in-room in 2023 at the Ryder Cup. Well, if you listen to what Luke Donald said today, I don't know. I know you're on, you're on a tourist

specification, but he basically said, I have no idea. It's a possibility. Jamie, we are asking the questions. And Jamie said, look, I know this sounds crazy, but could Henry extension be a player on your team? And Luke Donald just basically said, like, there's going to be a lawsuit or there's going to be lawsuits. And that's going to decide this thing. Now. Now, that's a long time from now. It's 13 months from now. I think Luke called it 14 months from now,

but it's almost 14, whatever. The president's cup is before them. And Louis Ustazen's been on many presidents' cup teams. Like him and Brandon Grace have both said they would like to play in the president's cup as members of the Sunshine tour via South Africa. And like, is that different than what Luke Donald's gonna face? I don't really think so.

Trevor Irvaman has a lot of decisions to make. Zach Johnson's made pretty clear what he's gonna do. But like, as soon as these things enter, we've already seen there's precedent in a small claims court here in the UK. Ian Polter won his way back into the sky to show been and sort of Brandon Grace and Adrian Odeke and Justin Harding and so there is precedent like it's hard to look away from that. I would say I would say yeah it's gonna happen if you hold a gun in my head but gosh it's 13 months from now. I would agree I think it's weird right because I think it's weird, right?

Because I think it's always important to keep the context of what is PGA TOR and what is not. The majors are not PGA TOR. And from the US side, the US Ryder Cup team is PGA of America and not PGA TOR. So put that aside for US, it's a lot more complicated on the European side where the actual DP World tour is the representation in the Ryder Cup. So, do there policies on what those players are allowed to do in European tour events also carry over directly to the Ryder Cup? I think it's a different question for those two teams. I don't know what is stopping Zach Johnson from taking

Dustin Johnson. If he wants to, is a captain's pick. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know what is stopping Zach Johnson from taking Dustin Johnson. If he wants to, is a captain's pick. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think any live guys will qualify. His morals, dammit. Very well could be it, but like what would this, you know, maybe the PGA championship, maybe all the majors,

bind together and say these guys aren't playing any of our events. I don't want to think about what that would look like from a legal perspective. It doesn't feel like the right move from there from their aspect, but I think it's likely that we'll see live players either in a small or somewhat medium-sized capacity playing in the Ryder Cup next year. I don't know. I think a lot can happen between now and

then. I just would, I'm the same way as you. I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but if I was to bet now, I'd say it's probably likely. And Presidents Cup, man, that's freaking confusing, coming up, because another thing about the international Presidents Cup team is how the international is qualified for it. It's through world ranking.

Like, it is not through FedEx Cup points. And so that adds a whole another layer of how, you layer of what's Trevor Emelman's grounds to say you can't play on this team, but why would he want to do that necessarily? He doesn't work for a pro-cars partner of the PGA tour. He doesn't work for the PGA tour. I don't know. I don't know how that's going to work. Everyone is afraid to make a move.

Jay Monahan, I think legally, can only make so many moves. And Mike Wann did not want to make a move because he didn't want to have to be the person who made the move. And then Martin Slumber's very similarly. And Fred Ridley, he doesn't have to host a tournament for another eight months.

He's not ready to make a move. And so, he's up next though. He's up next. That's the hard part. so he's up next though. He's up next. That's the hard part. Ridley's up next. We've got plenty of time to figure it out. It's just like, I feel like there's going to be a shoe that drops somewhere, probably courtesy

of the PGA tour. And again, this is all about precedence. Like, we talked about it in February, March, April. Like, oh, this is going to end up in a courtroom. That'll be the, you know, the glut of it all is just getting figured out by lawyers. That still could possibly be the case. But what happens in matters in the courtroom is just weird precedence that happened elsewhere. So if you bring in all these precedents of, well, the Scottish Open allowed it because

that claims court in the UK made it happen. Does that have any ground to stand on? Is there any other ground to stand on? Like, I am, I'm not the person to ask for that, sorry. I'm not either. I'm, there's a lot of very confident people on both sides as to exactly how this is gonna play out, which makes me more and more confused every single day.

Like, that's where I will never say like, what I think is gonna happen. So, oh, that's not gonna hold up in court. Like, I don't know that, maybe it won't. Maybe it won't. We should have seen this coming because Joel Beall did a great story for Digest that basically said, the tour is gonna win the legal game

and like a day later Josh Sens did a similar story for golf.com that said, the tour is gonna lose the legal game and I'm like, okay, what's going on here? Both sides are incredibly confident and it just, Monhan's about as conservative of a guy as little of a risk taker as possible as you can have in that role. And the one thing he's been so adamant about is his position in all of this stuff. And he very well may be wrong, but I just don't see like the one thing that

he has been so dead set on seems like, all right, if he is wrong, he loses his job. That's very clear. And maybe he has no other option than to have this stance. But that's just, that's the one thing that holds me together at least a little bit in terms of like, God, just don't think that these, I've challenged the BGA tour folks a lot of times and a lot of their thinking and a lot of their credentials and all that stuff. I don't think that they're all this dumb to just blindly say blah, blah, blah, this is anti-trust,

I'm gonna personally commit these anti-trust violations and put myself at risk here to protect these million hour golfers. Like I just don't think that that is. I just, that doesn't add up to me. I could very well be wrong because I'm not a lawyer, but that's where my mind goes to as a golf fan. So gosh, Bubba announced it's signing this week.

That seems like a long time ago. They announced a new league for next year, 48 players, 12 teams, 14 events. Seems like they're working their way around the qualifying part of it. That's kind of what it this, qualifying part of the OWGR in terms of a feeder tour as some kind. But, you know, now they're talking about live golf will deliver 25 events worldwide in 2023

that includes the Asian tour events of their sponsoring, plus the 14 live golf league events. And all of a sudden, this, you know, we want to play less golf thing is probably going to go out the window next year because 25 events is a full season of golf. I still think the world ranking points thing is going to come down to y'all are hosting three round tournaments and golf has always been always four round tournaments. You don't have a cut, you're giving away money. Like I think those are pretty substantial assets, I guess.

Yeah, totally agree. And the OWGRs are basically to figure out major championship golf. What do they play in major championship golf? They're big fields, masters decide. But they have a cut. They play four rounds. So, I... This seems to be like something they're going

for in terms of taking one little thing off the table for when this does go to a legal fight to say, no, no, we do have this and I'm sure they're gonna start chipping away at the other stuff, which is average field size is 75. Well, maybe they, I don't know, they end up buying the Asian tour and saying like this is a function of the Asian Tour, much like the WGC's are a function of blah, blah, blah.

And that we can get around that one. That way our average field size goes up and there's qualification for the Asian Tour. That's the 800 level class that I don't think we have time to get into. But anything else on live after an hour, they were leaving behind because I got some other stuff to ask you. I don't know, man. I think we covered live.

And you know what, you're going to have to do another live podcast in like three or four weeks. I think we've successfully pissed. I think it's breath for that one. Piss people off. Didn't answer questions. Did all that. What's your plan for the AIG women's open coming up this week?

Sounds like you were down watching some qualification today. You spent the week down in North Barrack and going to that? Yes, I am at a bed and breakfast here in North Barrack. As great as St. Andrews is, this town might be just as good. Like if the old course was here, this would be a more famous town, I think, than St. Andrews would be. I've never been a mere field, so I'm hyped to go there. We've been doing a decent amount of ranting.

I think it's awesome that the women are going there, and I'll try not to make it a rant about why it's good that they're going there, but it's historic. That's the best way of putting it. It's historic that they are hosting a pro-women's event when they were pulled kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And so that's awesome. Like I can't wait to be there for that. And like even like if you pull away that crap, like it's one of the best golf courses

in the world. And I think a refrain we continue to hear from the best women in the world is that we want to play our major championships at courses where history has been made. We want to play at Olympic Club. We want to play at Pebble Beach. We want to play at St. Andrews. They're not being allowed to play at Augusta National, but they get, you know, there are

women open, female opens at Oakmont and at Marion. And like, that is a huge thing. You need to be an equal playing field in front of like, what courses we allowed to define history in this game. And so if Lydia Coe, who is freaking due, if she gets it done this week at Mirfield, that will be a gigantic stamp in her career passport. Like, that's massive. And so I think that's what I'm most excited about. Yeah, I, I, we're going to be traveling during some of it. I'm hoping to catch the back half of it.

It's a huge moment. It's exciting. It's been circled on the calendar for many years, for a lot of these women. And it is a representative step for, I hate to give it too much credit in that regard. Like it's ridiculous. It's archaic that it has taken this long for it to happen.

I don't want to overly celebrate it because it's, we had a Katrina Matthew on the podcast this week and if you haven't listened to that yet, please, I advise that you do in terms of just looking at, it's not, Mirfield is not representative of golf in Scotland. For the past many, many, many years. At one point, it has been, but many, many, many clubs, almost all of them have evolved over the years and it took me, I felt way, way, way too long to do that. But bringing the women's open there is an enormous step

in terms of getting past this era of exclusion and golf. And hopefully this is, I don't know, it's not all taken care of, but it is a big, big hurdle to clear. So I greatly appreciate your comments on that. Tell me about living in Scotland this year. What brought that about? What the hell that experience has been like? Okay, so I think you'll acknowledge, or at least at one part of your life, you'll

have aligned with this, but I was 29 years old about a year ago. And I watched the Gulf Channel documentary, a story, the story of St. Andrews, whatever it's called. And I was about to turn 30 and I was single. And I was like, I need to do something with my life that's actually kind of big. And luckily I worked for the same company for seven years at that point and had a little bit of a leash. And I said, hey, I want to go spend the summer in St. Andrews because this is the summer to be in five. You have the open at St. Andrews, the Scottish open, down at Renaissance Club. You have the women playing at Mirfield, the seniors are at Glen Eagles.

Let me go to St. Andrews for three months. And I guess the three months I chose were June, July and August. And it's kind of like this perfect bell curve where it's like you you go up you're leading up to the open and town is getting extremely excited and then open week It's chaos in the most beautiful chaos and like we get we're we're delivered such a ridiculous open and again beautiful beautiful chaos with camp smith beating rory and now it has, we're coming on the backside of that peak. And like the town has quieted down and has receded back to being owned by amateur golfers, frankly, like,

it's, it's, it was so fun to see it be owned by pro golfers for a very short period of time. And then learning a lot about pro golf that week and then kind of seeing the town come back to normal. And yeah, I have, yeah, today's August 1st. I've got another month here in Fife. I've got some work travel to a couple of the open hosts. Probably not a ton of writing. I've kind of written my way through seeing Andrews at this point, but

plenty of women's open coverage this week. And it's just been a ton of writing. I've kind of written my way. There's any entries at this point, but plenty of women's open coverage this week. And it's just been a ton of fun, man. I know you did a lot of traveling in your 20s, and it's probably been the best trip of my life. So we've checked that box, and now I can move back to Chicago. Like you failed to do. I did. I did.

I was excited to hear you were going back to back to Chicago as well. But there's something about going outside your comfort zone and living, even if it is for a three-month period, somewhere else, that just scratches a totally different edge. It'll change you forever. I was excited to hear you were doing that. I'm thrilled. That's a great, great move.

I'm sure you've gotten to play a lot of great golf. I'm wondering what some of the highlights of that have been. Well, I shot the round of my life at North Barrick, which is, you know, kind of a crowning thing. We had really great weather day, and that was probably a round I'll think about forever. But then the next day we played Trudin Bay, which could not be a different, more different kind of Link's golf test. And I, I I had a great day up there with Rume McDonald, but I felt like those two days back to back, just kind of encapsulated, like,

link golf can look like this, and link golf can look like this, and like there's so much on the spectrum in between, one of which is the old course, and the castle course. And, you know, I know a lot of people don't love that golf course, but like there's just so many different courses here. Scott's Craig, I got to play with, you know what,

you know what, frankly, I'm running into, is I'm running into a bunch of no-ling up fans here in Europe. There's so many freaking no-ling up fans here. They are, they're all, they are always like, what do you know those guys? I'm like, yeah, I know them, but you could also know them too. Like they're not like slippery or something. But anyway, it's been a real blast to like not know what course

I'm gonna play this week and then like have another invite come in or reach out to another club. And frankly, I'm gonna miss this a lot when I go home because we're gonna to be playing on really soft green, over-watered golf courses that are really expensive and if they're privately owned or privately, they have a private membership that are just out of my pay grade. But riddle me this. If the cost to join a club, you were living in Chicago. If the cost to join a club was a thousand pounds, like it is oftentimes here.

How many clubs would you join? I asked Joel Damon this question, asked Joel this question that week, and he said he would join a club in every single city that the tour stops in. Yeah, it would be in Chicago alone, I'd probably, like, six or seven, maybe eight or ten. I mean, it's a total joke. I mean, yeah, I could join ten clubs in Scotland probably for what it probably cost me for

my one club in Jacksonville. The whole golf culture is astonishing. It's jarring. It makes way more sense. The whole way they treat the game competition-wise, exercise-wise, and just junky-wise. The golf judges. Where did we go wrong?

I know, I've got to go wrong. Dude, I have a whole big theory on all this and how real estate works and how cultures work and society and environmental protection and all that stuff. It's just a totally different thing. I mean, it's a miracle to me that these courses still exist on these coasts and have survived. Erosion and environmental aspects and real estate projects and all this stuff. Like it's just a totally different animal from what we experience in the states and how

our culture works and it filters all the way experience in the States and how our culture works and it filters all the way down into golf. I find myself struggling to describe both golf and Scotland and how it all works, how it is managed to be maintained that cheap, how friendly the golf culture is, how welcoming and how non-elidious the game is there. And it just kind of, I don't know if it's a thrill for me, I'm excited for you in terms of to engulf yourself into the soul of the game for an entire summer, amidst all the turmoil of what's going on. I think it is, I spent 40 days after I quit my job

and was supposed to move back home, traveling around England, Scotland, and Ireland, playing golf and following the European tour around and meeting people in random cities and just seeing what golf is like in different parts in the world. And there's a reason why I dedicated my life to it. It's my favorite game. And there's so much inspiring stuff there.

Does it make for an interesting podcast every week? No, it's why we got to talk about ProColf a lot, because it is usually more interesting to talk about layers upon layers there, but the soul of where it's at and why we all do it is what you've hopefully been able to experience this year. Yeah, it was kind of great to have the live golf event. Like literally the second week I was here,

it was just, I took a train back from London up to here and I went for a run around the old course and it was a Sunday and everyone knows that on Sunday the old course is just a park and it was like holy cow, I have detoxified my body, my golf body. And so I've written a lot about it this summer. I got to knuckle down and like create a book proposal

and try to get it to someone and maybe turn a book and out of it but maybe maybe not maybe it's just a bunch of great memories and a reason to come back every single year So I might need to be an annual pilgrimage. Tell me about caddy for Joel How that came about and what the what you learned there and what that experience was Yep, as we discussed you played a role whether or not you want to like downsize your role I was listening to your podcast while playing the dukes course here in St. Andrews. It's the least lengthy golf course here. It's the most Americanized.

But anyways, that's where I was on the Monday after Brookline. And I heard him come on there and say, Hey, Sully, I need a caddy. And you know, Joel and I are friendly. We follow each other in social media but like that's pretty much it and when you said I have vacation plans. I immediately DMed him like dude, I'm here I know it's expensive as hell to travel right now and Last minute hotels are very expensive if you need a caddy let me know and he got back to me a couple hours later and said

Here's my number. let's talk this through. And I've just learned that Joel is a pretty dry texture. And so the next text was, how much do you want to get paid? And I was like, oh God. I like, is this a bartering system? Is this one of those airlines trying to bump passengers, like the lowest price wins? And so I

don't even remember what exactly I told them I basically told them like what Martin trainer paid me and then he gave me a really really generous deal and I was planning on covering the event as a journalist anyways and so oh gosh sometimes you just need to level up and learn how much you don't know about golf and I think that was my week of leveling up. Like I said earlier, I'm an 8 handicap, right? And I hit like two golf shots that are perfect every round. Maybe one golf shot that feels perfect every single round. And when you are cadding for a player of that caliber, you all have to believe because they believe you can find

the perfect shot every single time. You can find the perfect, you know, analysis of the wind and the place you're going to land it and the amount of spin and the trajectory and the club, whatever. And so it was such a fun challenge for competitive people to do that on a Lynxie Golf Course that was extremely firm and the wind was like way up. You know that set up actually got players extremely riled up because they couldn't carry to the fair way on on Thursday. What was which was so sick because like I had caddyed for Joel and we were in the morning wave and played like that was bad

like we played bad in the early wave, which was nice. And so I like went back into the press room, Joel went home, got dinner with his wife, and I like kind of like, I fell asleep for like 10 minutes and the press, I was so tired. But then I went out and I started like writing about it. And I found Fino, and I found Mackenzie Hughes, and I found Mackenzie's caddy and Cantlay, and all these people were coming in off the golf course Freaking pissed off and I was like what what's going on here and like what the setup was bonkers It was horrible and I was like gosh Joel and I didn't have a really bad setup in the morning. We played horrible golf But yeah, it was so enlightening

To see how a very like Joel to be successful has to just be a smarter golfer, right? He has to play the ball low, he has to play the ball on the ground at a firm set up, and he has to be a smarter golfer than some people who are just gripping in, ripping it. And so I feel like I learned a lot and then you know, he missed the cut, but the real treat of the week is when those guys came over here. And I walked around North Barric with him and Luke List, Luke List's Cady, and Ted Scott was, I think, playing a couple of groups ahead of us, Brian Veranish, his C. Wu's Cady.

He was a couple of groups ahead of us. Keith Mitchell had come over after his third round. And I really got baptized in the tour stop hang for bet, like for better term. Like, they were all staying in the marine hotel and we ended up taking it like pretty deep that night and I was supposed to be back in Edinburgh and so I ended up getting a hotel room at the marine hotel like at frankly at like three in the morning and you know, there's a lot of like people yelling, Sean, this is off the record at me. So I can't share like too many details on the podcast,

but it was a hell of a night, a hell of a weekend, and like the absolute worst way to get into open week, which is when you're like working from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. I took up all my energy like hanging out with Joel and got properly zapped up in St. Andrews. Again, absolutely no regrets. Joel is a class act and then he went and just had nice little Italian vacation with his wife. God, man, I'm envious of your youth. I'm envious of your youth and all of your experiences and so right. I would read that book if you did an operating the book.

We may have to do a whole another podcast when you're done with it all to break it all down. But anything we left on the table today, I'm taking up a lot of your time and it's weird covering golf in Europe again, man. The hours of the day don't quite work. I thought we were gonna do this Sunday night and I realized it was gonna be like a one o'clock recording

and I was like, how did I do this for how many years? I have no more notes. It's a pleasure to join you and I hope to, hopefully your homies aren't too drunk off of their little boat crews. I saw Neil on Tron's story. I think just eating fresh crab like off the boat as it was moving.

So they caught that this morning. They caught it this morning, steamed it on the boat, and then that's what they're eating tonight. They had some snacks earlier, and then that's what they're eating tonight. The boat was maybe going to come pick me up to pick them up, but I don't think that's going to quite work out. Do we blow through that?

No, I didn't think it was very, once we get going on live, it's pretty hard to have a 15-minute conversation on it, so I was not in the budget for me. Sean, thanks so much for your time, man. I really appreciate you taking us through this last another weird week in golf, and we will have to do it again sometime. You got it, dude. be the right club today. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anything different?