No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 589: AIG Women's Open, Wyndham Recap + LIV/PGA Tour Complaint

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Lots to unpack on the recap pod tonight as Ashleigh Buhai wins the 2022 AIG Women's Open at Muirfield by defeating In Gee Chun in a four hole sudden death playoff. Meanwhile stateside in Greensboro, Tom Kim wins the Wyndham by five shots after a 61 on Sunday to close down the 2022 PGA Tour Regular Season - and Nick Faldo's CBS broadcasting career.  Off the course, eleven LIV players - including Phil and Bryson - have filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour with three players seeking a temporary restraining order aiming to compete in this week's FedEx Cup Playoffs.  We try to make sense of the lawsuit with Lauren Donahue, a Chicago based attorney who specializes in antitrust, competition and trade regulation and then have an extended chat with friend of the pod Will Bardwell who helps contextualize the legal implications and what's ahead in both short and long term scenarios.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Podcast. Solid here. Got a Hodgepodge episode for you, if you will. A lot of some parts coming, some parts going.

It's complicated. I'm going to run you through the whole thing. We're going to start. Big Randy was out at Mirafield this past week, A.I.G. women's open T.C. and I chatted with him and then T.C. and I talked briefly about the windum and then we're going to bring in a couple of lawyers to talk about what's going on with the live lawsuit that was filed first up. We're going to talk to Lauren Donahue who's going to teach us a little bit about anti-trust and then we have Will Bordewell on another lawyer who follows

golf and writes golf. We go in a little more detail about the case and how it relates to the world of golf. But I thought it would be a good exercise for us to go through to learn a little bit more about the anti-trust and as well to talk to a real lawyer as to what to glean from the lawsuit and all that. And then we come on the back end, TC comes back and we kind of debrief on the interview with Will and a few other housekeeping items.

So that's the run of show. It's a long one. I want to give of course give a shout to our friends at Callaway. We just got back from filming season eight of Taurus sauce in Scandinavia. We put the new jaws raw wedges in play. I have not I changed how I've done chipping in a very long time, but the new 56 degree I have, I'm actually using that around the greens. I don't I got the S grind on that and I don't know why I was working so well in Sweden on that particular grass, but I'm hitting little runner chips with

it, and I'm really excited about the Jaws raw wedges. I'm sad to replace the MD5s, but it was time to do it there. The most aggressive groove and golf, I've got them in the raw face. They're already starting to rust, give that nice, beautiful rusty look. You can customize the heck out of these things. You can The wedge features tungsten plugs in the weight port and progressive centers of gravity throughout the loft. So Lob wedge doesn't launch too high on a full shot or pitching wedge. They won't want won't launch too low. There's four grind options. 17 lofts two finishes. There's something for everyone. So thanks to our friends at Calaway for getting those in our hands in time for Taurus sauce. I'm going to put them in play in competition here very shortly. So you can go to Caligolf.com slash jaws raw that's Caligolf.com slash jaws raw to learn more about that. Let's bring in Randy and T.C. All right T.C. is here in the

Killhouse. I'm calling in from an undisclosed location and Big Randy back to his hotel in Edinburgh coming fresh off. Tell us about your weekend, man. What do you've been up to? Gentlemen, hello. It's been a long time since I've seen you. I bid you, well, sorry, I bid you a do. And I guess both of you, I bid you a do in Oslo. Um, hopped in bird. Oh, Randy, you didn't know. I know that's true. You did not. That's true. They made me guard the luggage. They put their best man on luggage to you. I'm sorry about that TC. Anyway, hot flew down to Edinburgh, got out to Murafield Friday, late in the afternoon, saw a little bit of golf and then spent all

day Saturday, all day Sunday out here. It was spectacular. It's always, always a treat to be back in Scotland. Lots of sea breeze and my first time being out at Muirfield. So a real treat to get to see that course, walked it quite a few times. Got a very, very good feel for it. And we had a great championship, a very dramatic ending today, which, which we'll get into. But, Sali, thank you for patching me in from the bridge in and rate though, just outside the Edinburgh Airport this evening. What's, what sticks out to you about in your field? It's walking in person. I've never been there. I've never gotten to see it. We've watched it on TV once every 10 years or so. But people rave about it. There's definitely gotten to see it. We've watched it on TV once every 10 years or so, but people rave about it.

There's definitely something special about it. Did it stick out to you and watching the women play at this week? Yeah, you know the common theme I heard from players and caddies was it's exceptionally fair if you hit good shots. If you're in control of your golf ball, it's a very fair course in the sense that, you know,

every hole that they have wide runways all the way up to the green, you know, you're not really subject to the extreme quirkiness that you can be even at a place like the old course. It's just a place where if you hit a good shot and then if you're in control of your golf ball, you're going to do fine. And on the flip side of that, if you start getting a little squirrely, if your confidence starts to waver, the win plays a big part, there are a lot of cross-wind holes,

which I think makes it a little different from some championship courses. Man, the bunker placement is just divine. They're seemingly our bunkers right where you don't want them to be and as a good friend, Andy Johnson said a week or two ago, they just slurp up golf balls. It's unbelievable. So yeah, going around your field, I, you know, really I got to know it when Mikkelson went back there in 2013 was excited to actually walk the course. You know, you guys know much more about architecture than I do, but to my eye, not really any gimme holes.

I mean, the most gimme hole that you could say this week for the women was the par 5th, 5th, mainly just because it was downwind. I mean, it was kind of playing almost as a difficult par four but besides that there's no bad hole out there. There's really no let up but you're consistently going to be rewarded or I should say not punished if you're in control your golf ball. So I just think it's a really good championship test. I thought it, you know, I'm curious how it looked on TV, but I thought it was a great venue for the ladies.

I loved it. I thought it was as advertised, even better. I enjoyed watching the ladies on it, because there's a bunch of bunkers that I think the men probably blow up past and the ladies are having to deal with that. You saw that right fairway bunker on 18 there. You know, the last playoff hole. I really enjoyed watching 9 and 10. I thought those holes were exceptional standouts all weekend. I didn't catch too, too much on Thursday, Friday, but yeah, I was blown away by the golf course. I was a little bit disappointed in the crowds and the kind of energy around the place.

Some of chalked that up to a lot of golf being played in and around East Lothian, Phi Pharia last six weeks or so, but kind of wanted to ask you about that, Randy. What was your read from it? Yeah, it didn't, it wasn't't like oh my god where is everybody but I can definitely see you know it I'm sure you know especially coming off the men's open at St Andrews it was a tough weekend so you have like I which I learned

about all this when I got here the Fringe Festival going on in Edinburgh which is like one of the biggest arts festivals of the year. You have, I think the Highlands games are going on somewhere in and around North Barric. So it wasn't like, you know, clear the calendar, the women are coming to town. But yeah, and I guess I'll just add to that too, Then that place, how should I say it? The people kind of just diffuse out there. It's not a natural spot where, you know, you have all these congregating points

and you can see all over the golf course. I'd heard that even earlier this year was, it's a fabulous tournament course, but it's a hard place to watch a golf tournament as a spectator. Now I didn't find it like all that hard, and I guess some of that is because I wasn't really fighting like huge crowds, but just some awkwardness

with how they have to rope the patrons and all of that. So yeah, you know, I always wish people would come out and it'd be rock-ous and whatnot, but on the ground it didn't really stick out as like, you know, oh my God something's wrong, but always room for improvement, I guess. I was just, you know, I was just expecting best fans in golf.

Right. Right. I wanted to see them flash in a little bit. Also Saturday afternoon, I was a little bit a little bit taken aback by some of the proclamations on the weather forecast. I mean, it sounded like people were going to get blown off the planet based on what they were saying. And either the wind was a little bit late to arrive or not quite as severe as they would have thought.

It still got pretty frothy. It looked like though. I'll say this. It was both not as, I don't know what they were saying on TV. It was a very sustained win Saturday. And it really picked up honestly around three o'clock, kind of right around when those final three, four, five groups were headed out on the course.

So people that went out in the morning and completed play you know around lunchtime, I think it was a little easier and then the wind did pick up but it was not gusty. I did not find it gusty at all on Saturday. It was very consistent, very sustained. It was like a west, northwest wind, which I guess if the wind was the same direction all week. And then today was more the same. I thought at times it felt maybe

a little stronger, but it was pretty consistent all in all with with what they had Saturday. Now with that being said, I walked in the final group on Saturday on Saturday afternoon with Madeline and Inji Chun. So I was a group behind Ashley Buhai. I did not see a 64-out. That was insane. That really shocked me. And she bogeyed 18, you know, it could have been a 63. So props to her, but it certainly was not the 50-mile

per hour, you know, all of that stuff. But I did hear the RNA, they didn't cut the green Saturday because they were nervous about the winds and the greens getting too fast, but they did cut them Sunday morning before today. Were you concerned when you heard that? I was slightly concerned. Yeah, Saturday evening, I made sure I was,

you know, I went into the was, you know, I went into the Mirfield clubhouse, I was having a brandy with Martin slumbers and, and the boys and we made sure, hey, guys, let's, let's get the greens cut Sunday morning. It's have a proper, proper test. It, it seemed like it was, um, it was maybe hard to kind of portray that or, I left that shine through on TV how constant the wind was and how exacting of a test that becomes. Watching the, I mean, we saw the 18th hole in the playoff over and over and over and over and over again, but seeing how they had to shape that tee shot a little bit to make sure

it didn't with the wind going right hard off the right, making sure it didn't go into the left bunker. See if those right bunkers are still in play. It's one of those things. It just seems like seems like gosh if you've played some links golf you understand all of the elements of what's going on here but I don't know if it's translating that silly dude who's watching here for how good the shot making is to get close to some of these holes and avoid the bunkers when it's going to be that firm and then when there's that much wind involved especially just with the height that the women hit the ball it's not they're not

hitting it over a lot of sand or hazards in front of greens or bonkers in front of greens and holding greens nearly as well with the same spin levels as we see on the men's side. It just seemed like a place that was perfect for if you're peering your hybrids or in your three woods. There's a lot of three woods and hybrids going into greens this week on a lot of holes, especially 18.

And it was a very demanding test, which I'm convinced with that said, I'm kind of surprised to see a relative no name win the event. I mean, just one top 10 in a career in majors going into this and just one on one of those proper tests of golf imaginable with another multi-time major champion for even down in the back.

It's just, it's very remarkable. Yeah, yeah. I mean echo echo everything you said. I almost wish they could pull the microphone covers sometimes off of the equipment just to give people an audio sense of the wind. I mean if I held my cell phone up and just took like a video, you you would hear. Being inside tents or anytime you get inside a structure, you really get an appreciation for how constant, and then check, you feel it too.

I mean, it's just constantly blowing. Now, that said, I said it didn't gust, and it was played the same directional week. So by the weekend, certainly that the players had, at least a good feel for It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game.

It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game.

It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game.

It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. It's a good game. direction that that wind is coming from, which I think is cool. Yeah, Ashley Buhai. So I hand up, did not realize that she played in the final group at the 2019 women's open, the one that Shabunal won, which, you know, kind of crazy. They were both in the final group today. And she actually held a three shot lead at the 36th whole mark. Now that was not a links course at all. Was that Uber? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tremendously popular among her peers. This was a very players caddies, a very popular winner.

I think there's going to be a big party somewhere in East Lothian tonight. For Husband Dave, who, oh God, they stuck a camera in his face. I almost felt bad for him. Like they were just five feet away from him for the entire playoff. He caddies for Lee Six. So, you know, they just have tons of friends, both players and fellow caddies. I know Ashley has won.

I believe twice on like bigger L.E.T. events and then a couple more South African opens, which might be considered L.E.T. I'm not sure. So she has one internationally, but her first L.P.D.A. victory of any kind was today. Yeah, pretty remarkable. I was trying to kind of think of an analog on the men's. I mean, I kind of hate doing that, but it's it's where my mind naturally goes. So I'm like, I was thinking kind of daring Clark maybe and just being like a very popular winner. She's 33. So, you know, I know Clark was in his 40s, but just in terms of like, I think everybody was kind of rooting for not a ton of major success at all to speak up prior to that. That was the best I came up with. But if you have a better one, I have a feeling that

people might be on you for that one. So I may just say Clark has had some very good major championship finishes and finally did get his win. I was thinking, Riley Grog through it. Or along the lines of Todd Hamilton, honestly, in terms of not necessarily popularity, but record wise, but T.C. were you going to say? I was going to say Rich Bean. Yeah. The one where you're going to go to the championship, but kind of a been around for a while, kind of a grinder, some semblance of success, some wins here or there, but nothing sustained, and then all of a sudden comes and gets it done under the bright lights and does it in a pretty remarkable fashion.

Kind of, I mean, it's like, what was the lead going into the final round? Five, five. Yeah. It was like, it was kind of like, oh my gosh. You'd almost rather have to be a three shot lead. Yes. It was crazy.

And then it was rock solid pretty much all that like nine kind of showing some some some flashes of maybe anxiety going she clearly didn't have her game today, but it was kind of getting away from it or getting away with it. And then nine, I thought nine was such a cool whole mat like it kind of had Madeline's number all week, you know, where it's just like, you know, compounding errors, right? You just, you get a little bit out of position, you get a little bit off balance, and it just punches you in the gut, you know, and then obviously the triple bogey on 15, but it was super, super impressive to see how she studied it herself after that. Her distance control was so good, even

super impressive to see how she studied herself after that. Her distance control was so good, even like, you know, all day yesterday and then really even today without even having her game. That was a really impressive, you know, kind of buckled down performance those last few holds. I know TC, you're a big fan of her, her husband running out on the green, 0.8 seconds after holding that final part there. I thought it was a little too see. I mean, you know, I talked to a couple players about it afterwards.

I was dealing it back and forth. And I was like, you know, he's shit-faced. Like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, I will say, there were so many beers going around behind that green. It was like, okay, first play I'll fold over. Everybody's running inside and just getting as many beers as they came from the bar and bringing them out to to everybody. It was yeah, like I said, there's gonna be a party tonight.

Tron, I think you were dead on though. I wrote down in my notes. Her tempo was so good all day, even the ninth hole that she bogeyed and she had a bogey early and around, but just didn't look rattled. And that's, you know, so I know you talk about the beauty of Lynx Golf a lot. I mean, just that one thing that just jumps up and can really bite you and start that those compounding airstron, as you said, which happened on 15. I mean, it was kind of a perfect storm at first. I don't know if you guys had a better feed. I mean, it was kind of a perfect storm at first. I don't know if you guys had a better feed. I mean, I saw the ball land in the bunker. I was just shocked that her only play was directly left into,

I mean, some of the thickest grass on the course. I couldn't believe she didn't try to just chop it over the lip. I don't know if you guys had a better look at that than I did. No, I didn't, but I wonder if there's something to, you know, maybe she just ended up in a way worse live than she was expecting, right? All the grass was laying forward. If I remember right, and it, yeah, it does in canned compound. Also, I'm sure she's probably thinking like, man, it seems like there is a mixed tape of somebody, when there's a mix tape of somebody blowing something at a British open of some kind. It usually includes a bunker face. It includes something that's hard to get out of and like, what could happen if I hit the lip and

it comes back into my own foot prints or into my own splash mark, like that's the way I could truly lose it. But yeah, it turns out, I mean, that's just just what it's just also worth noting. I mean obviously she won but just also just worth noting like who all the people that fell off the pace all the people that couldn't like dodge all the landmines that are around Mirafield and all the people she outlasted over this much time. It is kind of like a you know not an emphatic way to win to shoot 75 to win but man look at all the names that she beat and all the people that were not even in contention, not even able to put anything close to that together to this point. It's remarkable. Anytime. Yeah. I mean, massive leaderboard. Like, you know, and really not to take anything

away from from from my Inji Chan, because she was, you know, she was nails down the stretch as well. And you know, 70, 70 on the weekend, you know, couple bogies, 10 and 12. But Randy, question for you, the par three is out there, you know, like they don't really pop on TV, but Jeff Schackleford had a great piece on him this week about a how they're all slightly up hill, which I've never out about as far as great par threes go, where he had some quotes from Jack Nickless about how Jack loves downhill part three. I was closing it with that and the 13th hole out there like there's some

Tom Simpson quotes that basically you know like he just drags Harry Cole who was one of the greatest architects of all time about it. So he wanted to see like do those do those most hot for you as well. Yeah, they look great from the ground. I mean, for I loved where they put the pin today on for kind of back left and yet a huge fall off just to the as you're looking at it just to the left of that flag. The seventh played pretty short all week, but again kind of an uphill and and the pushed up green. 13 was awesome. That that my favorite part three there. It just is those bunkers frame that green so well down by the tee so they had a really cool viewing stand right behind that tee and it's's just like, man, there is not a lot of room

to land that golf ball. Now with that said, with all those par threes and they're a little elevated and they're well guarded by bunkers. But again, they do give you the, you know, the direct path, short of the green. So there's always that play to play a little short and to let the ball bounce and let it run up.

So there is a shot there to be played. It's just you got to you got to execute. It kind of reminded me trying to the part three's have a little bit, I don't know, I'm getting out of where I skis here, but they almost have like a royal dorknex feel to him in the sense that you know just just those green complexes and they kind of really fall away in the bunkering but but there's a shot there to be played but it's like you got to hit a good one. You got some scar tissue. Yeah exactly. Yeah, number 10 especially. So yeah the Part 3s were phenomenal. Most people have scar tissue at six. That's why I keep putting it up time.

Yeah, I wanted to go when you're talking about one thing I forgot to mention with puhai, I think looking back on it, the whole that made it, the shot that made it for was the 14th. She kind of ballooned her second shot. 1450 were playing extremely difficult like dead into the teeth of the wind. They were you know 400 plus yard part fours and she hit unbelievably good chip on 14 to about

three feet made the par and that's where I mean that's where I was like holy shit. she's not showing any cracks here of course she goes on to triple 15 but had she bogeyed 14 and then triple 15 I wonder if she she would have held it together there down the stretch so big credits to her she came back she hit the middle of the green on 16 17 I was both like I couldn't believe that I mean that was a birdie hole that was playing pretty downwind there and both Inji Chun and Ashley failed to make birdie which surprised me but then they both

made good pars on 18 to force the playoff obviously. Inji Chon too, I will say she got, she had some putts. I mean, she burned an edge on 14, I think, lived out. She burned an edge on 15. She was one rotation short on a birdie putt on 16. She burned the edge on 17. I mean, I think she's going to be kicking herself a little bit. I feel like not that, not that she gave it to Ashley, but it was certainly there for NG to take it. And contrast that with U-Highs Saturday, which like every time I had,

I had walked into the room and was watching it. She was chipping in, she was holding something. Amazing chipping on Sunday when she had put, or Saturday when she had put your that whole. It was just like, it was adding up to like, you win majors, like this is the kind of things that you have to have happen. And she had put or Saturday when she had put your that whole. It was just like it was adding up to like you to win majors like this is the kind of things that have to you have to have happened and she had it happen. It was on Saturday and not Sunday but and she needed every one of those shots of that lead. I will say no notes on the playoff format. I think it's great. Just send him right back out to the same hole over and over again on repeat.

That was that was fantastic. It was like it was like that European tour event they had. This was probably four or five years ago, where they just, it was in Spain, I think, and they just kept sending them back. I think they played the same whole 10 times in a row. And it was a bad hole, too. I mean, 18 at mere fields, it's certainly not a bad hole. But yeah, it's just frustrating when you see

that many good holes out there. And you're like, fuck, we gotta go play this one again. Come on, man. Yeah. And, uh, why play this one again. Come on Yeah, no, I was good. Why would this one be sudden death and the men's be four holes like I I don't really think I understand that Well, that's what that's what kind of bothers me a little bit I just think a major it I just think a major, you should have at least a three-hole aggregate to decide a major, in my opinion.

If you're not going to play an 18-hole playoff, which I do advocate for, love the 18-hole playoff, at least play a three or four-hole aggregate, I think. I agree. I think it comes down to sample size, and you just just playing 72 holes, I think you kind of deserve to have a little bit more of a sample size than one hole. And then if you go to a second hole, playing the same hole once again, that hole could favor certain shot tendencies or whatnot. Right. I don't know. I'm still shocked'm still shocked at the the 64 on Saturday. I remember like like Turning it on on Saturday and being like just like for an hour straight just being like holy shit like she's making this look so freaking easy

Shabu no played really really well as well. I mean she shot 66 Alice and Lee shot 67 like there were some other decent rounds out there, but nothing like Nothing even to that level You know at, especially like she kept doing it on the back nine, which is like, you know, front nine is much easier than the back nine, it seemed like. Yeah. But yeah, Shabu no, man, I was, I'm just, I cannot, I can't get enough of her. She rules. She's a lecher. She just got an aura about her. Yeah, she's almost impossibly nice. I mean, just reading the quotes and

and her mindset, I mean, it looks like she genuinely just like wants the best for every single person in every single instance. She just, I mean, also, she was hanging around behind 18 green for the playoff and just like jumping up and down was so excited. I don't even know who she was rooting for. I think she was truly just like rooting for gold. She is a breath of fresh air and man I love her swing. I mean as somebody who drops it and comes from the inside watching her swing is a lot of fun. She's kind of like the smiling assassin a little bit. Yeah, very fun to watch.

She makes, I mean, she makes big putts. That double on 14 was really her only big misstep today. Yeah. And then you go, but man, and like her, her smile, her attitude, her swing, her outfits, and all of it, I'm like, I just, I take it enough. Awesome. Yeah, yeah.

She's awesome. She's extremely easy to root for. Are we gonna be kicking ourselves a little bit? Is this one that we, that Madeline, let get away a little bit? Yes and no. I mean, I think she could look, I mean, God, if she just played the 14th full better, she would, you know, she'd be in a playoff.

This was a big one for Madeline in the sense that obviously she, she finished second last year at Carnus. But what was different about this year than last year was if you remember last year at Carnus, the wind did not blow at all really across all four days. So it was a very, very tame Carnegie and to see Madeline come back at again a proper, proper golf course like Mirfield with a stiff wind, she battled. I mean, she hit some squirrely shots for sure. She hit some excellent shots, but I think, you know, talking to her a little bit, talking to her, Cady Shane, trying to get a feel for, you know, what they thought about the week. She's learning to play, Lynx Golf. I think it suits her very, very well. I think what she can

take this week is she is plenty good enough to be a major champion on the LPGA. And I just think she needs that confidence. She has to believe in herself that, you know, she is a major worthy of a major championship. And I really, God, I think she's going to get one here in the next couple of years. I just think I see her game as sending. I agree. I think there's something to be said about it where she's just like, she was almost hitting the ball too well on some of those teach shots. Yes.

One of those bunkers that they're like, hey, that bunker hasn't even been remotely in play this week. So the third, yeah, the third ground number 10, it was like 313 to reach the one of the far left bunkers. And she hit it in there in Saturday, ended up I believe making a greasy par. But I asked her caddy after around I'm like, Hey, I gotta believe you didn't think that was in place. Like we hadn't been within 30 yards of that bunker this week. She just, she hits the shit out of the ball. Now she can get a little squirrely still. She had two really poor shots into the par 3 seventh, both Saturday that led to a bogey and today that led to a bogey. And I mean, just kind of like little

wedges, short irons. So there's some stuff she can clean up. You know, I think that's probably the difference that I saw watching her and Inji Chun on Saturday throughout the rounds was, you know, Inji, she doesn't hit it better than Mal and fight any stretch of the imagination, but Inji just plotted her way around. And the other thing I saw Injiew is she just had like a little feathery driver when she needed it, kind of that like 75, 80% driver, just making sure she avoided bunkers, took taking, you know, automatic bogies out of play, and just charted her way around and put together just a whole home routine 70. And I think Madeline is more like, you know,

she has the great shots, and then she has a couple squirrely shots. She'll find a bunker. I think she just needs to tighten it up a little bit. Kind of plot her way around the chorus, really, really think through the round and execute would be the final step for her. But her confidence, putty, I mean, she is putting the ball so well. She talks about like, I think she expects to make nearly every putt she takes.

So I hope she can, I hope it's, she was frustrated. I think she felt like she had a chance this week. And certainly the 10 under number, you know, that would have been a 68 for today. It was out there with a really good round, but there's a lot of positives to take away as well. Yeah, I mean, should be in peace after a 24, yeah. Or, you know, back to back top five finish, back to back years. Yeah.

And you have a champion and she's pissed. That's a good sign. But yeah, I love watching her play, man. It's like really like even when the pots aren't going, it's the expectation is that they're going to start going. So shout out to I'm not going to get tricked into doing it. We're not going to do it, T.C. But shout out to the Leona. Let's go down. Leona required Mindji Lee also with T4 finishes as well. I'm sure the Irish are going to be all over us.

We don't mention Leonis best. Best. Leonis. I thought Leonis was a little bit of a backdoor 66 today. It wasn't really involved at all. Whereas Minji was more like she shot four rounds under par. Minji did. I think Minji Lee is far and away the best ladies golfer in the world right now.

And it's like not particularly close. I think she's the most consistently great player for sure. It just seems like she has a super high floor right now. Like you said, just kind of 68, 70, 70, 69 tied for fourth. And I don't know. She probably isn't like super thrilled with their game. And yeah, you're exactly right about Leona, definitely a backdoor, but having said that, shut the round of the day today, the 66 was the low round, so props for that. But yeah, I think we're all, you know, Leona got her, has gotten her first LPGA win this year on the heels of the massive

Solheim Cup performance last fall. So we'll definitely be looking for her to make some consistent noise next year in the majors as well. This is her best major championship finished so far in her career. Yeah. Well, that's just that's no worry I think. A couple other shout out. I mean, Celine Boudier. I think she's got to be kicking herself a little bit. 74 in the third round, finished P7, 74 in third round. And then Lynn Grant, C19, she's fun around 68. She's here already.

And I think it's the sky's the limit. I can't wait. I can't wait to follow her career of the next 18 to 24 months. Yeah, I got to, I'm in a point to follow her this morning, actually, tried to catch her for most of her front nine. Just like really good, you know, I, you know, I didn't see enough or learn enough to really give you too much specifics or what not, but certainly looks like she belongs carries herself, like she belongs. I think she would like to play the LPGA. There might be some

outside mitigating factors on whether she can play consistently in the United States. Read into that what you will. Two shots outside the cut line. Yeah, hopefully that kind of takes care of itself by next year. We can see a lot more of her in the States. Selfishly, we'd love to watch more of her play go. Big when is Rose turning pro? That's a great question, TC. Nobody knows. She's definitely going back to Stanford for a sophomore year. And that Stanford team is adding Megagane and another, I believe, Emily, Kelly shoe, Emily shoe, I got to look that up, but another top 100 amateur.

So you're going to be stacked. This is purely, purely guessing, especially if Stanford wins another team title, depending on how Rose does to. I got to think maybe after two years, it's like, okay, not a whole lot more to accomplish and amateur golf. So I would maybe look after next year. I think I'd be pretty shocked if she stayed four years. So I think maybe in the next year, definitely too. Last question from me on LPGA. Any any Charlie Hall sightings out there? Did C Charlie Hall always great to see Charlie Hall?

Charlie Hall's sister was on the grounds this week. Just a fascinating family. Love, just love their aesthetic, love their attitude. Always, always a treat to see Charlie. Did not really get to watch her play at all, but she was around. I think she may have bought, yeah, she's had 74 today, finished even par, but it had a pretty good week. I mean, I'll

told type for 22nd, but how'd it go through three rounds, especially? I just had to bring that up because our guy, our guy Ken sent, he sent a really nasty email over to you. So this guy's, this guy, a ranny that you've got. He's not well informed. I listened to the Evion pod. He does not know anything about women's golf at all to say the pretenderson was on death watch. Is an abs joke? She has won three times in the last two years

and 12 wins overall. And then he went on to be really upset about, you know, you pumping up Charlie Hole. No. Well, I want to apologize to Ken. And I think people misunderstand what Death Watch is. I mean, Rory won a bunch, but he's been dead for ages. It's not about regular tour wins.

I mean, that's what we expect out of some of the best players in the world. It's can-you-in majors. And listen, all credit to Brooks. She answered the bell. Four rounds under of this week. I happily will eat my words. I think I will never speak ill again of Brook Henderson.

Two majors is a lot different than one major. So good on her. I appreciate that, really. It's very big of you. I know it's going to be close to bedtime for you. Anything else from the week at your field? I just want to say it was, you know, if you allow me to get a little sappy,

it was really awesome just to have the women playing there. You know, it's a club, oldest club in the world. Their history stretches back over 250 years, which is just, you know, before America was a country, they were recording golf matches and club goings on. And so to finally have the best women in the world play that golf course, it was a good thing for golf. And I thought they put on a wonderful tournament.

It was a championship worthy of the women's British open. And so really, really look forward to getting back there sooner than later, but just really happy that the women have played in your field and we can kind of move forward and hopefully it becomes part of the road up for them. You're here. You're here. And they got,

outrageous lineup coming up. You know, they got Walden Heath old course You port call coming up over the next several years. So this no more no more well bird thankfully Yeah over whales on the way on the way out of London We flew over whales. It was a clear day Man, I was looking down on some cool golf courses I'm excited So we gotta get our boy glory in the show surround. Yeah, well boys. I'm gonna pack up. I'm coming. We got to get our boy, Florida, and the show is around.

Yeah, well boys, I'm going to pack up. I'm coming back stateside. It's time for me to get home, but appreciate you having me on. And yeah, I'll bow out before you guys talk about so much live stuff here. Cheers, buddy. Charles, safe.

I tell you guys. See you guys. A quick break here before TC and I chat about the windum. Of course, our friends at Roeback have been great supporters of their show. We've been wearing their gear for a while. Now, maybe it's just because I wear it so frequently that now I notice it so much more frequently when I'm boarding planes or if I'm at golf tournaments. That's all a lot of it over in Europe.

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Are you emotional? Are you getting emotional on me? It hasn't really hit me yet. We will not longer be having Sir Nick on the on the broadcast. There's been way too much going on in golf to care who the actual commentators are on PGA tour golf But it's it's time I thought we were gonna, you know, have him on for many many many more years to come But it is time the time to move on and I'm not upset about it And I'm sure a lot of people out there feel the same way as I do. How do you feel? I mean a lot of it a lot of longevity there. I don't know if it's it's well-earned longevity, but it's longevity nonetheless. It feels more and more like a push to side versus a retirement. If I can say like, you know, everybody seems to be treating it much more like, hey, we wish you weren't going kind of thing versus, hey, you know what? Like, have a great time up fishing in retirement, you know,

up in Montana. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't really, I don't really want to, you know, up in Montana. So, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't really, I don't really want to, you know, kick him to. No, no, no, I don't have enough, but it's one of those things like the last, last few weeks on the PGA tour have been, have been tough, tough as it is. So it's kind of, you got to find something to kind of hang your hat on if you're CBS. Yeah, it's been, uh, it's been a tough, tough little stretch and golf tournaments, it's an interest level and all kinds of things. And we can talk about that as we, as the regular season wraps up here. But first of all, we are officially in the Tom Kim era.

He was at a blazing hot summer. It's kind of coming to a bad time for us when we've been kind of all over the place and haven't been able to probably closely follow this as much as we probably should have. But 20 years old and two months, PGA tour winner has been, has been balling out for a good six weeks, really seems like had a great finish to the sky to show up and had another, I had it in front of me now. I don't know another top 10 finish, I believe at the rocket mortgage. And goes out shoot 61 today, opens a 27 on the front nine. And I totally missed this while it was happening. I was was watching the no women's British and shoots eight under on the front goes out and shoots 61

today to win his first PGA Tour of the absolutely outrageous. Yeah 61 with a with a bogey on 10 as well. That's that's pretty strong. He opened the tournament with a quad. He made quad on the first whole the tournament, which and it wasn't an egregious, like, or maybe it was even more egregious because he didn't hit, like, you know, didn't go on a water right in my office. No, it was, it was just very benign quad right up front. And then, you know, kind of a, you know,

playing Planko around the greens and, and, you know, just kind of a weird, weird way to start the tournament. And then, yeah, boat raised, everybody greens and, and, you know, just kind of a weird, weird way to start the tournament. And then, yeah, boat raised everybody and still one by five. One by five of the quad. I mean, what's this case? David Thompson, remember when he made quad on the 18th hole on a Sunday at the Wells Park Hill?

I was with the first of the edit at Aquila. He made quad on 18 to win by four. Like, this was a little bit flip of that, but I, I wonder, I'm sure Justin raised all over it. How many guys have, uh, won a golf tournament by five shots after making it quad? That's, that's, that's, that's our reason. The thing about one of you guys is like, won a golf tournament by five shots period. Oh, it's like, it's crazy. Uh, his game is interesting. He is not hit it very far. I mean, he was hitting like 160 ball speed coming down the stretch today and

If you look at his data golf profile, he is not a long hit or at all and I don't know I just I feel like I didn't really hear a whole lot about this guy coming up Until maybe two or three months ago and he's taking the call for home pretty much by storm I mean It's earned special temporary membership even before this and goes out and wins it. Now he's in the playoffs. Now he's a PJ tour member and off to the club. Who knows what the hell is going to happen in the playoffs for him?

Yeah, I wasn't familiar with him at all until until the Scottish, you know, finished, finished 23rd, US open, I guess, but, but otherwise it was pretty much all all Asian tour stuff. All Asian, I mean, looks like he's won a couple, a couple big dick events on the Asian tour, big dick events on the Korean tour. But yeah, you could, you know, Sally, four or five months ago, you would have been labeling this guy a manipulator. But he comes out and comes in on the KJ tour. You can share the manipulator status very quickly. And first of all, I would have said, the guy's freaking 20. Like, this is an enormous story.

I mean, maybe it is, I don't know, I feel like we should have been, the golf world should be more excited that myself included it to what just happened. If it was, you know, a college kid, a college, you know, kid, and their 20s winning a PGA tour of that, we'd be freaking out a lot over this. But I don't know, I guess time will tell. We got to gather a little more intel on him,

but he's now a regency accurate driver and not a long hitter and seems to have, PGA tour released a great little video on him, a little profile one. He speaks great English, like he seems to be exceptionally well-rounded person. He was talking about how he comes to the US. the US and he gets fatter every time he comes here because he eats a chickful head, Taco Bell, and Del Taco, and he lists the Panda Express. He lists in this off and

I was like, okay, and this dude's extremely young because I hear these things and I'm like, oh, okay, well that would be five pounds for me. He's gonna stick her out of that. Yes, that'd be diarrhea for me if we're going there and he's hailing it with with ease and what a golf tournament is, but he's at least aware that what is some of his decision making made up he could for the long term.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think today to do it against Sungjae as well, you know, to come out and beat Sungjae by seven in the final round. It was kind of the pre-evident Korean golfer right now. It's just, it's wild. And Sanjay is starting to play some really, really,

really good golf. I think he's gonna have a big, big, FedEx cup playoff. And I don't wanna go to, I don't wanna go to Carol Bevins on this, but I think Tom Kim has a chance to endear himself so much better to the like American golf public than like somebody like Sungjae because he's so open and speaks English,

right? I mean, we've never really heard Sungjae do an interview in English, which is understandable. I think we've always been quick to commend, you know, foreign players that come over and don't speak English when they do make attempts to do it and understand this extreme pressure and challenges that come to that. But I think it's going to be a pretty easy for people to root for this guy because he seems like a delightful dude to work root for. Yeah, you know, Wyndham, I like this tournament overall.

I think it could be a really, really good solid tournament. It's kind of a shame that the tour hasn't elevated it more or like figured out how to elevate it more. It's the end of the regular season. There's a lot of a line and over the last years, they just, they cannot get guys to play this event. I think that's more of a reflection of like dude, we're not going to play for an arrow. Like we're just not. So we're not going to show up for this one. I think they've done a decent job of elevating it by basically saying like, hey, we're just going to be a big bonus to the dudes that finished the top 10. Like you can go show up if you move up from fourth to third in the in the Comcast business

toward top 10. That's big extra money. Like that's nobody actually the dudes that all skipped it win, wind him was sponsoring the wind him rewards. And none of the top 10 showed up. Like that was the death blow. It was very much just like, like you just can't, I don't know, you can't ask maybe you need an off week after it before the playoffs.

Yeah, well, that would be my thing would be just just layering an off week, right? And because, you know, and you've got the, the corn fairy tor finals don't start until two weeks from now, there's one more week going on corn fairy tor as well, especially because they used to have the four playoff events on tor as well. I don't know. We can get into this schedule stuff here in a bit, but you know, it's just kind of an endemic of like, this tournament should mean something or this spot on the calendar should mean something and it doesn't at all. Right. It's like everybody's already clinched up there. You know, it's like a playoff team. You know, it's like an NFL playoff team that's that's 30 clinched home field advantage and they're shutting it down and resting their starters in, you know, week 17, I guess week 18 now.

And I can't tell if it's just a reflection of all those other stuff we've had going on outside of the pro golf world of travel and all that that makes it pretty easy to drop out, but it just seemed like the drama around 125 and who's going to make the playoffs and keep their card was just not not quite delivering the same level of suspense. And we had a strong stake in one of these. One of the guys we sponsor being Justin Lauer. Yeah, gosh, Lauer misses a putt on 18. I mean, I was like a 70 foot, you know, two putt. He had to do on 18. Didn't hit a great, great shot in there. But, you know, finishes, I think 127th. now, he would have gotten knocked out anyway, I guess, because Tom Kim as a non-member, winning the event, he hops into member status immediately and then takes one of the 125 spots.

So even if Justin would have finished 125th, which he would have if he would have made that put, he would have gotten bumped back to 126th by the end of the day. That had been tougher. That had made the putt and fist bump did, and all that had been, yeah, sorry, no. The vagaries of the, you know, PJ tour categories and, you know, membership bylaws and everything.

You know, I think there's something to be said as well for it seems like this year of all years, like, hey, you know,, like I mean, Zach Blair, friend of ours, he finished 126 a few years ago. I'm not sure if there's just a curse that we have going whatever, but you've finished 126, you know, back three or four years ago, ended up getting like 20 starts. Yeah. So it's like, just gonna get plenty of starts out of that category. It's like, yeah, you can't quite, you know, you're you're you're coming out of a slightly low category. But but overall, I think he's he's

he's gonna get plenty of starts. Plus there's there's gonna be more guys leaving after the tour championship who, you know, are gonna open up even more spots in, you know, like because I feel like that's been the theme of the summer. It's just been how weak some of these fields are on the lower end. Like, you know, the top end's still, still strong in certain cases, but they're scraping the bottom of the barrel with the John Houston's and the Omar Eurosti's and hold that to, to kind of fill out these fields a little bit, you know, and it's, it's a tough look. Yeah. So Austin's mother man is now Mr. 126 with, with, with Ken.

It's gosh. Yeah, he played well. Like, he kind of had a really really strong back into the year I mean there were some other guys as well that like didn't get their cards like Nick Hardy and then I'm getting his card Harry Higgs he missed out earlier when I was looking at Ricky was out he's back in Yep Ricky's in okay, so I'm gonna end Matt Wallace slightly, I think he finished. He was 125. So he's in. Okay. But was he finishing one? I think he was in that 125 spot and then he bumps to 126, right? I assume the, the list I'm looking at now has Kim in it. I think you're

giving the tour way too much credit to have that. The one thing that they're actually pretty good at is keeping the FedEx, the projected FedEx kept pretty darn up to date. I could be wrong there. Who could say, and I don't, I don't, I, I, I, I'm at my limit in terms of what I can care about at the BGH or level in that regard. But yeah, like, you know, some other than missed the card after, after shooting a first round 65, this week, like that you know, some other than missed the cut after after shooting a first round 65. This week like that's tough. Charlie Hoffman finished 146 Nick Hardy 131 Martin trainer your boy 134.

Kelly Kraft, Doc Redman kind of a really, really bad season for him kind of after a good good start. And then Sabatini finishing the 140s. We got are we going down the leaderboard on the Fed X couple guys that did make a lot of noise. I always think I always do this. That's why I like about this event. It's kind of, you know, it's like it's truly all right. It's dictating where these guys are going to be. More so for the next four to six weeks than then necessarily next season, because most of them are gonna have to be playing mostly PGA tour events, because it's like, you know,

once you have relative status, it's fucking hard to get rid of it, you know? And then guys that played well this week to get inside Kramer Hickock made the cut. I think he finished like 124. Ryan Stewart, he was in the cut. I don't know if he saw that video from earlier. That I tweeted him. He spent 47 seconds over the ball. Just like I think there was one earlier in

the year where he did it around Brooks. Same kind of thing. Just like almost tricks you into thinking that the video is on loop, but the but you know, I was just, you know, talking over it and it's like, all right, clearly, like, this is a live shot. And it was one of the most egregious displays of pace of play I've ever seen. He dropped out, I guess, Chess and Hadley went from one 21 to one 12. So like, just big like, make the cut and have some, some peace of mind going to the weekend. Kevin Twey is inside the top 125.

I don't think I've heard his name in months, if not years. And then Max McGrievey was, he was 126 going to the week and ended up finishing, you know, really, really good finish and put it on the line. I like it. I always have respect for the guys that go out knowing what they have to do this week and get it done. It's just a line. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's impressive. It's you know, it shows some stones. It shows some grit. So

And now it's playoff time. Now I think it's your point early about an off week. I'm sure the tour would respond to that saying we are trying to be football like the whole goal is to get get all this in before football season starts and we can kind of take some off weeks in the fall but it's a tough tough time to do it. But yeah, it seems like there's something missing from this event and I don't really really know what the answer is but it's just it's just tough little stretch, you know, after the Christian Andrews and pretty exciting the stretch there leading up to it. It's just that just three weeks is a really tough stretch. I think this playoff says a chance to be somewhat interesting. I think it the big questions are going to loom as to, you know, whoever it jumps up to the top. Is that mean their price is going up for for live stuff and things like that?

But I'm excited to see Wilmington Country Club and the BMW Championship and then this new setup with FedEx and St. Jude, all that into the playoffs and what not is. We're four out of ten excitement, I guess you could say, which is up from 3.5 from previous playoffs years. Yeah, I agree. I think, you know what, I'm looking for Victor Havland Yeah, I agree. I think you know what? I'm looking for Victor Havland to like to step up in this playoffs. I think he'd love it. Like he tweeted out or put something on Instagram that he loves Southland. It's like one of his favorite favorite venues of the entire year. He's fresh off set in the course record at Lufits and Links, T4 at the open. I don't know. I think it's time for Havelin to kind of, you know, ascend to the throne a little bit more than he has. But yeah, I would love to be more

excited about, like I'm excited about FedEx and it'd be a much more southern torch-y championship. I just, I'm so over East Lake, man. It's just such a hard course to get up for. Yeah, it's just feeling really repetitive. Yeah, it's just, I don't know, it's just not a good, it's just not an entertaining golf course, in my opinion. So, just watching guys chase huge amounts of cash on that golf course is just in the, in the dead of summer and, you know, when football's right around the corner,

it's just, yeah, it is one of the, one of the many flaws in the, in the PGA tour, if you will. But a couple of other guys, uh, solid that, that, you know, notable is missing the playoffs and some of them by a mile. Cameron champ, 132, Harris English, 185th. Now, I know he's been hurt. Yeah, it's been tough injury year for him. I'm sure he had two wins last year. So he's, he was Yeah, that's been tough injury year for him. I'm sure. He had two wins last year, so he was stacking his eligibility there. And then Web Simpson. I know he's been hurt as well, but 121st made it.

So inside the line, but, man, Web's fallen off with that neck injury as well. Anything else from Wyndham? I know it's been good to get a little break on our end from From phone this week to week, I guess and we'll dive back in as the playoffs get fired up here But biggest thing on my end is just it comes back to schedule like you know tour release their 2020 to 2023 schedule I know they're nooking you know like basically. It's the exact same as before I think rocket mortgage moves up a week or two earlier that's really the only change and I know they're nuking, you know, like basically it's the exact same as before. I think rocket mortgage moves up a week or two earlier.

That's really the only change. And I know that that means they're kind of putting all their eggs in the basket of we're going to make wholesale changes in, you know, it for the 2023 or really 2024 season because they're going to get rid of the fall series or kind of do something else with that. But my hope is that like they really, all right, we're giving you the latitude and the patience to go do that. But like, you better fall it through on it. Because I thought Andy Johnson and Joseph Lomagna over on there,

Joseph wrote a great piece on the Friday side about just like how bad the schedule is and how they've let it kind of deteriorate and get like this. And they had a great, you know, great talk about on their pot as well. And it's just like, like nothing means anything. And when when you're when you're quote unquote, like, you know, big events are kind of struggling along or kind of plotting along, it cheapens everything else as well. And when there's only a dozen times that the top guys really tee it up against one another and you don't own any of the majors, it's just, it's the same stuff we've been saying

for the last three or four years, but we're just kind of cogently summarized and there's some good ideas in there, just about like kind of incentivizing guys to show up, you know, whether it's 12 or 16 or 18 times at the same events, like it seems like they, there kind of needs to be a tour within a tour. Sounds like they figured that out though. I mean, that's, we've been screaming this from the rooftops though, like it just doesn't make sense to start your season with 13 events in

the fall that like nobody really actually wants to play. And now it's like your season starts in January and we have eight events now that are big-ass money that like no one's gonna skip. Maybe like 5% of the top 50 are gonna skip. But like the, I think they've finally gotten through, the point is finally gotten through of creating a tour within the tour is what is gonna happen with these,

with the schedule in 24. We gotta put up with another year of the same old thing and same old shit and it's going to feel even longer than ever with everything else going on. There's going to be plenty of events with horrible, horrible, horrible fields. But I don't know. I initial reaction, I was kind of,

I thought their changes were kind of dull, but upon more thought and DJ kind of hammered in the thought, our DJ hammered in the thought as well of just being like, hey, like a lot of the things that we've been calling for, they've done. And it's just, it's still, I mean, as we sit here in July or August of 2022, it's almost 18 months away before we actually see it come to fruition.

So. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, it's something to where, like just seeing this play out in slow motion, where you've kind of, at the expense of the tour at large, for the benefit of the guys in that 75 to 150 range, you've pissed off, like you've managed to kind of alienate and piss off

some of the best players in the world. And it's like, why? Like, what's the point? And I know, you know, it's kind of, from a membership perspective, it's probably not readily apparent until it's too late or until it's a glaring issue. But man, it's wild to me that they couldn't see around the corner on this.

And that, you know, a total leadership had such perverse incentives to just maximize starts and cheapen the product to the point where, you know, here we are talking about ostensibly the windum and we haven't talked about really a single shot of the turn. No, yeah. No, it's just when you have this many golf shots played out and they're all supposed to be important like how can you, how can you even get excited about the birdies and bogeys and all that stuff happening in the short term.

But, T.C., why don't we take a quick little break here and bring in some guests to talk about a big development in the sports world this last couple of this past week regarding the lawsuit. So let's do that and we'll catch up with you on the back half here. We're going to take a break here and bring in Lauren Donahue and Antitrust lawyer here. Before we do that, I want to give a shout to our friends at RAPSOTO. You can go to RAPSOTO.com slash NOU and use promo code NOU for $100 off our favorite mobile launch monitor. These things are incredibly accurate.

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Now bring in Lauren Donahue here to talk a bit about antitrust and how it relates to the PGA Tour of Versaliv. All right, Lauren. For the listeners, say, can you All right Lauren for the listeners say can you tell us why you're here and what you might be helping us with today? Sure so I understand I'm here to try to give you a little bit of an overview of the antitrust law and how the complaint kind of fits into the framework of antitrust law. I'm a partner at K&L Gates in Chicago office and I've been the antitrust

group so I deal with a lot of anti-trust issues. What is, and I promise I swear I'm only asking this for the listeners, not myself at all. I definitely, I understand all this. I think this is all really, really easy for me. But explain what anti-trust is and how it, how it may relate to this case. Sure.

So anti-trust, kind of boiled down to its basics, is the goal of antitrust law is to kind of maintain the free market. So to promote competition, right? The idea is that competition provides for better products for consumers, lower prices for consumers. So it's kind of ensure that the free market remains free. So the whole goal of antitrust laws are to promote competition in the market play.

So you said that you mentioned the consumers there. And this case, at least as it relates to the PGA tour and live, seems to be a little different. And maybe you would not define it as different, but as you describe it that way, this seems to be about, you know, it's about PGA tour players being able to play where they want as independent contractors and is the PGA tour's actions of restricting this play, is it anti-competitive, is it an anti-trust violation? Does that make this case unique in that regard?

Or is that pretty typical of an anti-trust case? It's not necessarily unique. There have been a lot of cases and a lot of emphasis lately on labor markets and ensuring that employees in labor markets enjoy competition in who they choose to work for, in their employment opportunities. So in that sense, you can kind of compare the consumers to the employees in that sense as well. One thing I've kind of struggled with in this regard

is that one, the PGA Tours essentially had this policy regarding how they manage their competitions and how they allow releases or donor-dolal releases in particular instances with their players. And I'm just curious as to why maybe this hasn't been tried or brought to light in the past. I know that the specific league that is being where players are being denied access to go play it is the one bringing the action on it. But this has always been the policy and it's never, you know, there were some rumblings

of the FTC getting involved and looking into it in 1994, but this has not been at the front burner until recently. Why would that be in your opinion? You know, it's a good question. I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't come up before. I mean, one theory is that, you know, often employers, especially in this area where there might be one main employer in a market, there's a lot of pro-competitive justification for why they might have certain rules in their contract. So certain provisions in their contracts, right, of not only, there's often like non-compete provisions in an employee employer contract,

that there are employees agreeing not to go to work for a competitor or something about nature. And there's a lot of pro-competitive reasons for that. And that's kind of a big part of the analysis of the antitrust laws as well, and these types of complaints. Because how a restraint is analyzed under the anti-trust laws, you know,

the big question is whether or not that restraint is an unreasonable restraint on competition. And whether or not a particular restraint is unreasonable or not, on there's kind of two areas, two ways in which that can be analyzed. There's certain types of restraints that are considered per se illegal. So they are

the courts have basically deemed them to be so inherently anti-competitive that there can be no pro-competitive justification. And that camp, it's your kind of like hardcore cartels, price fixing, did rigging certain types of group boycotts. But in another analysis, it's that if it doesn't fall into that kind of hard core cartel conduct, then it's analyzed under a rule of reason. And what that is is that you take into account all of the facts and circumstances of the competitive restraint and you weigh whether or not the anti-competitive effects outweigh the pro-competitive benefits.

And if the pro-competitive benefits outweigh the anti-pattern effects, then it's deemed that illegal. So I think in that sense, I think they're, you know, one of the reasons why it maybe hasn't come up before is that there might be some good justifications for why leagues like this might have restraints like this on their players. Do you have, are you familiar with any other examples in sports of how antitrust exemptions work, what those examples are, and why the PJ Torg doesn't have one, should they have gotten one,

could they have applied for one, I don't even know where to start with that, but I'm wondering if you have any experience there as to what antitrust exemptions are and why that does or does not apply here. Yeah, there are certain sports that do have exemptions. I am by no means an expert on it and couldn't give you all of all of the history on it, but I know, you know, baseball has an exemption of the antitrust laws. I believe that Supreme Court precedent actually, you know,

there have been cases against other sports. The NFL has been subject to the number of actions. There was a recent action, I think it was by the night circa case came down against the NCAA and student athletes in this area, so they don't have an exemption. But certain sports have exemptions. I don't, the PGA does not, the golf does not. I understand, you know, whether or not they could have applied for one.

I just don't know all the background on that. The tour has been incredibly committed to its policy in this regard. It has been very direct. I would have to imagine knowing this coming. And I know this is going to fall outside the scope of of your expertise here. But I'm curious as to a big reason of why I've kind of had a little faith and a little bit of faith in what they've been doing is that they must know something. They must know something to help their case in this

regard because if you just look at the facts, it does, there's a lot of flags that go up in terms of things that may seem anti-competitive and that's again where I just don't know that, but why they've been so committed to it in the face of this being obviously going to be coming down the road at them. Why would they be so confident so directed how they act and I'm wondering if you have any insight into that? You know, I don't have any direct insight into that, obviously. But it might go back to just their justifications for why they have these types of provisions restricting their players. The fact that if they have been enforcing that consistently, that could be in their favorite.

They obviously believe they have some justification for it. So whether or not that justification can overcome the anti-competitive effects of it, that's going to be probably an issue of fact for the courts. How will this all play out at least timeline wise? How will it affect golf fans at least? I know that there's a temporary restraining order within this complaint that's been issued as it only relates to three players. And I'm guessing that's gonna be resolved here in the coming weeks, I believe on Tuesday,

but what is the timeline really for settling the rest of this, you have any idea? I cannot imagine the entire trust up moves too quickly. Yeah, it'll just keep us doing that and it's really moving quickly, they can last years. And I think you're right, the TRO schedule I had taken a quick look and I think that's up for in person hearing on August night on Tuesday.

So those get resolved very quickly. But as for the rest of the complaint, I mean, they filed their complaint, what happened now is that the defendants and the PGA will have a chance to either answer that complaint or file a motion to dismiss. It's either within 21 days if they don't wave service or if they do wave service, it could be up to 60 days

or sometimes they can reach some type of agreement and they get an extension on that. But I think you should probably expect to see a motion to dismiss I would imagine within the next few months. Then the plaintiffs will have a chance to respond to that motion to dismiss. That will be within usually 30 days. And then 30 days after that, the PGA will have a chance

to reply. So there's a long briefing schedule for the motion to dismiss. Then the court will consider it and will usually schedule a hearing. So I would expect if you add all that together, maybe within the next six months or so, emotion dismissing six to nine months, it depends on the court's court schedule.

And so the court will decide the motion dismiss and what the motion dismisses is, it's a, it's a pleading rate says taking, assuming everything is true, all of the allegations are true. So taking them for the word. So just assuming everything that the plaintiffs have said in their complaint is true, have the plaintiffs asserted a cause of action? Have they alleged sufficiently the elements of a cause of action based on the Sherman Act? They brought five different counts. So they have they alleged a cause of action. And the court will determine whether or not they have, you know, motions to dismiss are, I would say,

in antitrust cases very, rarely granted. They are often denied. So then if the motion dismiss is denied, then the parties will proceed to discovery, discovery involves in our agitories, production of documents, depositions. The court will set a schedule for how long discovery will go for, then there will be most motions for summary judgment likely, which is basically moving, saying that there's

a matter of law, one side can't prove their case or can't prove their defenses. And so there's no genuine issue of fact. So basically saying that wouldn't need to go to trial if the summary judgment version is denied then those will go, then the case will proceed to trial. So these can have a long timeline. And I suspect, within the next coming months, there'll be some type of scheduling order

by the court that will give you out a little bit more of a layout of how things are likely to proceed. Lauren, thank you very much for confirming exactly what I thought and that this is not going to be exciting at all. It's going to be a lot of red tape and a lot of conversations like this as time goes on. But we may be leaning on you as well in the future to help us through some of the legal leads of these. So we greatly appreciate your time.

And I would say hope to speak to you soon, but I hope we get a little more time in between this before we, before this comes right back up. So thanks for your time. That's so great. Of course, my pleasure. Next up is an interview with Will Bardwell from the Lying for Blog.

Will is a golf writer and a lawyer and helps us kind of have a little conversation about everything that's going on within this and helps me with my total lack of legal knowledge and how it all works, but it doesn't even feel like here's what. A immediate reaction, you read the 105 pages of the complaint. What was your biggest takeaway, immediate reaction?

Where's the, what's the big story here? It's a real case. You know, I know people have kind of been, people have known that this is coming for two years now. I think there was, there was always a question of how compelling it would be once it hit the ground, it's compelling. I don't know if they're going to win, but it's a real case. I don't read a lot of these types of documents, but I guess I was a bit surprised in reading it

at how I don't wanna start with this necessarily, but how weak a lot of the claims are in it and how politically charged, politically, maybe not the right word, but how, again, as I say, it's probably really stupid. I'm really nervous to talk to the lawyers about this kind of stuff. No, no, the lawyers are the ones who screw it up, man.

Human beings are the one who are able to talk about this stuff like real people. But there's a ton of stuff in there that seems really easy to shut down. And from that, it makes, I don't know, that's a question for you. Is the goal of this to throw as much stuff at the wall here and see what sticks? Because I definitely see some stuff in here that should stick, and I want to get to that. But I'm kind of just a little surprised by the tone of it considering everything else that they've put out there. I'll throw that at you. Well, definitely that there are things that if you don't include it in the complaint,

you're screwed, that you start losing opportunities to include it in the case. And sometimes you can amend your complaint down the road, but your only guarantee of getting certain legal claims in is through your complaint. So yeah, it's not unusual for somebody to throw a lot of stuff at the wall to use your terminology. Which parts in particular did you not find compelling? I found it compelling. I just, I found a lot of fields claims

along in the months and years that have led up to this to be pretty easy to shut down in terms of how the PJ tour distributes money. How, you know, how a lot of this stuff works and I just it just read almost like a lot of the quotes that he gave to Alan shipnook and the things that he's said in other interviews and how the tour is robbing them of money and all the media rights and all this stuff that, you know, I was just amazed that they went for the PJ tour players are not compensated similar to athletes and other sports. Because listen, big three basketball just preempted the, the third round of the window as we go and go to record this. No one's watching this stuff. And if they really want to compare themselves to the NBA at NFL. I just, I get out of the lawyer, but I find that part to be really easy to shut down.

Yeah, one thing in the complaint I did sort of snicker at myself was the suggestion float around in the background that lives response to all this has had to be to throw tons and tons of money at these players and that that might not be sustainable. You know, it might cost live the opportunity to remain in the game and it's like, who are you kidding here? You know, this is not being bankrolled by, you know, the AT&T and and windom hotels, you know, this patchwork of sponsors. We know who's paying for this. That part was, it's buried a little bit near the end, if I may say, and that, well, I was very surprised when I got to that part too. And it is a little, they buried a little bit near the end if I may say and that was very

surprised when I got to that part too and it is a little they have a little bit of you know crying for it for how boastful they've been in a lot of ways a lot of crying foul and blaming the tour for things not being as good as they could be in this and we can get some of that but what when you say it's a real case what makes you what what what about this sticks out the most to say and make you say it's a real case, what makes you, what about this sticks out the most to say, and make you say that? Well, I wrote about this in November that the tour strategy just seemed to invite questions

about antitrust violations, which is not the same thing as saying that there were obviously antitrust violations, but the questions were serious enough that, I mean, at this point, the the questions were serious enough that, I mean, at this point, the Department of Justice is investigating. You know, that's not a group that's accustomed to wasting it's time. The claim in the complaint that if I were the tour, I would be the most worried about,

the tour. I would be the most worried about is the group boycott claim under the Sherman Act. Generally under the Sherman Act, group boycotts get a lot of scrutiny. They are subject to a type of review that the the courts call per se, you know, automatically, effectively, this type of behavior is automatically an antitrust violation. And when you're working with another entity to preclude competitors from entering the market, that's a gigantic antitrust problem. Now, that's not the only problem they've got, but if I were them, that's the one I'd be the most worried about. This is admittedly probably the most flawed logic

I could have had over the last several years, but part of what has driven me to think, like the tour has to know something here, there has to be something here, because I read, like every time anti-competitive behavior, anti-trust behavior has been explained to me, I'd be like, oh yeah, the tour is definitely doing that. For sure, but my reaction to it, like monaheads,

not an idiot, right? Everyone that is working on this from the PGA tour perspective, I would not consider to be idiots. their chest out more, and if I'm, who do I believe more like Greg Norman or Jay Monahan? Like, I'm going to lean on Monahan based on what I know. Is that, is there anything to that? What's your reaction when I say something like that? Yeah, I have also wondered about the strategy and not just the fact that they have engaged in what is at least arguably an antitrust violation,

even as simple as continuing to encourage their members to speak publicly on this. You know, whenever a company is under investigation or maybe looking at potential litigation, what is the first thing that General Counsel always tells the employees, shut up about this, do not say anything about this publicly, even if you're trying to help, it's just too easy to say something that can be twisted that hurts the case, so don't say anything. And the tour has said since the beginning,

yeah, we hope you speak out about this. Speak publicly about this all you want. And then the day before the lawsuit drops, Davis love has this statement about, well, we don't care what the courts say. And if they say we got to let them in, we're just going to boycott. Well, Jesus, man, you just can't say that. I don't know.

Don't say that. Now, which is, and then the day after that when the lawsuit drops, Monahan puts out another letter saying, yeah, well, if you want to keep talking about this, please feel supported in that. Dude, this was exhibit A, and why that's a bad idea. So I don't know where this is coming from. I know they've got super smart people advising them. And I guess there's got to be a strategic reasoning there, but it eludes me, whatever it is. And it is easy to read this as 105 pages from live. And when you read it all, you know, stack them top of each other,

it's of course gonna, it's gonna, you know, look and sound pretty bad for the tour. But I'm sure if the tour came up with 105 pages as to, you know, will we be able to read something like that soon? What is the, what's the sequence of events or what happens next here? And there's a lot more we got to break down within it, but I want to know how this will play out.

Yeah, that's a great question. So usually the way this works is the plaintiff file a complaint, which is just the document that starts a lawsuit. And 21 days later, at least in federal court, which is where this is, the defendants have to file a document called an answer, which just responds to all the allegations in a complaint. And after that, usually, the civil litigation in federal courts pretty boring for a while

until discovery starts and you start getting depositions. There are a lot of fun. This is going to work a little bit differently because three of the players who have sued the tour have asked for a temporary restraining order. Usually when people hear the phrase restraining order, they think of they want some sort of protective order that keeps someone from being within a thousand feet of something like that. Temporary restraining order is not like that at all. The temporary restraining order is just a short term order from the judge to tell the defendants to either stop doing something or to keep doing something in order to just preserve the status quo for the sort of rapid arms around this problem and see if there's a there there. Because you can imagine situations like this where you

sue somebody, you want them to stop doing something, but in the meantime, you have suffered some sort of injury that can't be undone through money damages. It's just got to be quick or you're going to miss like whatever you're trying to do. And so that's what they're arguing here. And you know, on Tuesday, there will be a hearing on this. So look a lot like a many trial. And at the end of it, the judge will rule, you know, presumably their Tuesday

or Wednesday. And when that happens, we'll have a pretty good indication of at least early on how she views this case. What do you think are these three guys? It's Matt Jones, Taylor Gooch and Hudson Swofford are trying to get into the the Fesca playoffs. Total, obviously armchair legal expert here. It sounds like if I were to guess, I would say they get in based on Polter and how the the British finding was for the Scottish open. If it's anything along the same lines, legally, I would guess that they're

going to get into the facts couple of hours. Is that fair estimation? Yeah. The so anytime a judge is asked to grant a temporary restraining order, there are a few questions that she has to answer before doing that. One of which is are the people asking for a TRO likely to succeed in the lawsuit? You can understand how if Taylor Gooch and these other guys wind up winning a TRO, they got to walk away from that feeling pretty good about their chances in the whole lawsuit.

I definitely would want to hear what the tour has to say before handy capping which side is likely or to win. But you know if you're sort of if you're balancing the equities here, which is what courts call when you just kind of compare it and like okay which side has more to lose here if they if they lose this TRO fight. We certainly seem like the players have more to lose than the tour has. So, you know, just based on that, I would say that the the players have a little bit of a lag up. You know, and of course that depends on what the the tour has to say about the legal merits of the case, but I would at least say that the players have a fighting chance. Yeah, to me, it just seems like, you know, it would be safer for the courts to allow them to play in this and say, we'll figure out the rest of this later, but like, well, in the

meantime, we're going to let you play. That seems like a small stakes decision on the courts side. The ramifications would be worse if they denied them that opportunity. It would be my guess. That's not to say that I think that it's, again, I don't know enough to whether or not to say that, it just feels like a different decision than the case itself.

This immediate, can you play the FedEx Cup playoffs? And that's, yeah. Right, well, your intuition is right. I mean, one of the reasons that courts want to grant to prairie restraining orders is to preserve their authority to grant meaningful relief, you know, to issue a decision at the end of the case that matters. And it would be easier to imagine that if you get to the end of the case and these three have not been able to play in the FedEx playoffs, they have they've suffered an injury that can't be undone by a court order. So that's why I say if you sort of balance the equities of the players not being able to play versus the PGA Tour not being able to keep them out of the playoffs,

I think the players have got the the better equitable argument there. So I want to back up through all this and kind of at least try to view this through the lens that I've viewed it through, or ask you about it through the lens, I've tried to view it through. And it's does the PGA tour need to let anyone play on the PGA tour, right? And like to me, this whole thing hinges on whether the tour's policy of hey, hey collectively we are going to group all of your guys Marketing rights and sell that to sponsors But you have to be committed to us. You have to be playing this tour

If you want us to group this together and get you as much money as possible you got to be committed to us We can't sell your rights for millions if we don't have control of where you're going to play You have to seed this control to us and allow us to do that. And if we give you the rights to play everywhere, the rights lose value and we can't give you that money. The question I believe is, can the toward do that legally? Is that this policy that they have, is that that's been in place for a long, long, long, long time?

Has it been illegal this whole time and this only now coming to light? It's funny you asked that because I did not realize until the last few days that this is not the first time that this policy has come under scrutiny. In 1995, the staff at the Federal Trade Commission recommended that PGA Tour be investigated for antitrust violations for this very policy. And ultimately, the FTC decided not to follow its staff's advice and not to investigate, but it wasn't because the FTC believed that this was all above board. It was because the PGA tour lobbied members of Congress

to lean on the FTC and it was successful. So the toward dodged that bullet but not because the FTC was convinced that this was okay. So it's, you know, has it been illegal all along? Arguably yes. The analogy I keep going back to is like a college fraternity, which has a lot of characteristics in common with the PGA tour and not just that there, you know, people who have been there too long in need to believe. But I think about it, a college fraternity is a membership organization.

It's member run, member led, a college fraternity has rules that its members enact. Membership in the fraternity is conditioned on following those rules. Some of those rules about meetings you've got to attend. Doos you've got to pay? What you can't do in public. What you got to wear to a football game. And a lot of those are fine,

but they're not okay when they start to conflict with the law. You know, there are laws now in most, if not all states, prohibiting hazing. And fraternities used to have policies written or unwritten that your pledge you've got to go through hazing. Well, just because you're a membership organization and you remember led, that doesn't excuse you from violating the law.

You know, being in a member run organization isn't an excuse to get around legal rights of your members. So that is where I personally as a golf fan draw the line and they're like, I'm straight up not rooting for the law here, like I'm rooting for the most entertaining golf product, right? And that like, I know like I get so many lawyers that you just have very strong issues with what I'm straight up not rooting for the law here. Like I'm rooting for the most entertaining golf product, right? And that, like, I know, like I get so many lawyers that you just have very strong issues with what I'm saying when I'm like, you're not following what I'm saying here. It's basically like if this gets less,

if golf gets less boring and let's ignore my job that is involved with like watching golf and talking about it, like let's ignore that for a second, I'm gonna watch less golf. Like if it's less boring, I'm gonna watch less golf. And I think a fractured golf world where guys go everywhere that they want, I think that for a second. I'm gonna watch less golf. Like, if it's less boring, I'm gonna watch less golf. And I think a fractured golf world where guys go everywhere that they want. I think that's a lot less interesting.

So setting aside all that, like legal aspect of it for a second, I just want to pause on that to say, like, these 11 players, like straight up are assholes because it is an agreement that these players have come to to say, and maybe it's like an illegal cartel. If you want to call it that, okay? I sure that may be the case, but they've all come to this agreement of like, hey, we want to play for this tour.

Like here's we have to buy by the rules of this tour. And we want to do that. And a bunch of them have left and are with understanding that they were not gonna be allowed to double dip and are still now going to double dip. And it may very well lead to the whole thing crumbling where a bunch of dudes that probably had much better grounds to go leave and make more money elsewhere

have tried to stay behind to protect the collective effort of these tour pros. And it's just like, again, they have every right to go do this, you have every right to go pursue it, every right to take the live money, every right to try to sue the tour to play both. But fuck, it is such a middle finger to the peers that have held up their end of the deal,

have committed themselves to the tour and to the collective effort to create a competitive golf product. And that is where like, that is my stance on it. I, that, listen, is that gonna hold up in court? Yes, I know. Well, I don't know. It's, it's not a legal point, but you're, you're coming around on what I think,

maybe the biggest problem that these 11 plaintiffs have, which is like, if you don't know about the ins and outs of any trust law, you know, imagine you're just a prospective juror and outs of anti-trust law, you know, imagine you're just a prospective juror and you get called into the court house and they start explaining this case to you and you don't know anything about it, you don't have any, you know, affection for either of these golf tours. Like, from 30,000 feet, this case is 11 multi-millionaire Saudi-backed professional golfers suing an American nonprofit. That is a bad visual. Now, I'm with you 100% that these guys on the Libsides suck. I think it's

terrible for golf. I think the suggestion that this is about creating a more entertaining product is laughable. It's completely about sports washing and nothing else. But even hypocrites are entitled to protections of the law. And that may be where the rubber meets the road. And that for me, that's where it's, oh, take it away. I got like, take it away. I don't, I don't want to be a part of the Let's Go brand and tour. I'm sorry, I just helped it. You know, that's one of the weird things to me about this case is that if you look at this and you're sort of a cynical court observer and you think everything is politically motivated, I don't know where the politics in this case lie because if you're, you. Because if you're a person who considers yourself

a liberal, you generally are in favor of expanded interpretations of antitrust law. You generally like to see antitrust law interpreted pretty broadly. If you're a conservative person, generally you like to see narrow interpretations of antitrust law that are more permissive of corporate behavior. Under that rubric, you might expect liberals to favor the Lib side of this and conservatives to decide with the tour. background that live for whatever reason has become an attractive landing spot for a lot

of the red cap, Maga crowd, and liberals are pretty salty on Saudi Arabia these days, just a fobally for long history of human rights violations. And so if there's no clean cut political divide here, it's a very weird case. Just chaos. It's agent. I get the sense that most people rooting for live are rooting for chaos or just want to watch the world burn a little bit. And maybe, look, we have been agents of chaos.

When it comes to PJ Torgall, PJ Torgall has needed a shake up. We've been screaming that from the rooftops for as long as we've been doing this podcast. I find myself somewhat rooting for them here because I just don't think this is the chaos. People struggle with that concept. What you wanted to change, it's changing, here we go. It's like, well, it's not like every change I think that they could have made is the right one and sustainable and great for the long term sustainability and health of the game and all that. And that's where I, again, I just, I don't even know if I'm thinking in terms of law or if I'm taking, and thinking in terms of what I'm rooting for and how this is gonna play out. But I wanna know, does the TORR's 501 C6 status help or hinder it in any way through all

of this? Is it, does the antitrust element of that help at all because they are a nonprofit? Does it hurt at all? I'm just curious as to if they can hide behind that in any way. It's definitely gonna help from an optic standpoint, even if it isn't relevant in the litigation. If you're trying to do public facing messaging on this case, and you can say, look, we're just

a non-profit organization in Florida that tries to raise money for charities across the country. We're up against this gigantic legal team backed by the coodles of Saudi money. You know, that's a pretty attractive narrative to play if you're the tour. I'm not sure it actually matters in a court of law.

I do wonder how safe the the tourist five o'clock status is here. Now these are as far as I know separate questions, the you know the live players don't have standing to bring that into this case, but you know for a nonprofit that claims its purposes to a Ford professional golfers play in opportunities. It certainly seems inconsistent with that to the denying players play in opportunities. The anti-agual tree story to me is maybe the most compelling part of the complaint. That's a tough one for the tour. Reading that one, it was kind of, that one was, you know,

he basically are denying him releases despite not being qualified for PGA tour events. And that, to me, feels different. And there's a couple things within this that I think are, you know, that I had marked down here as not good that the tour has been doing necessarily. And not, you know, I mean, in terms of like very much more clear violations or good evidence against them, rather than just banning players from playing in the events. Again, I don't know if that's legal or not, but I can understand why they would do that. I think the tour pressuring sponsors to drop players, that seems not good. And then Ogletree won. That one feels like it could cause some major issues for him.

And I don't know if they should have handled that one differently, but if he could not get in Cornfair events and you denied him releases, that just seems like it might open a door for them to wiggle through to get the rest of the guys in through. Do you see it that way as well? Yes. The other part of the complaint that I found most compelling was The other part of the complaint that I found most compelling was the explanation that by banning top players, you know, you may the strength of your own fields. If you're the tour, you're necessarily not strengthening your competitive position here. What possible justification could there be for that other than that you believe, even though you're injuring yourself, you're injuring live

more. Can I push back on that one? Cause I actually see that one differently. I'd like to hear the explanation. If you look at it in a vacuum, I would say yes. Like, and how they've presented it in the complaint. Yes, it looks very silly that you would just say, I don't want Dustin Johnson in my tournament.

I'd rather hurt us both than, you know, something that has helped you. But I just don't think that's quite the reality. Because if you, the alternative here is that you allow players to come and go as they choose. And I think that greatly hurts your overall field strength throughout the year, because guys are going to play a lot less tour events and way more live events if they can come and go as they choose. And this is my thought I have no inside info on any of this, but I would say look if Rory had the rights to come and go as he chooses

I and it fits in his schedule I don't see what would really stop him from going to go play a few live events and therefore That's probably gonna mean less PGA tour events that he would play I just think that there are as a group of guys that are willing to stick to this thing of like look We've pulled our rights. We've done this. We've agreed to this, I wanna play here, let's do this together. And that if you could come and go as you choose, I think that hurts down the line fields in a lot more events and guys are,

and then again, you're dealing with such an irrational actor that like, yeah, now live scheduling stuff opposite, like horrible events, but what happens when live really makes their power play? You think they're gonna like be like, no, we can't do it, it's opposite the players. We can't do it that week How about this week? We'll put up a $50 million tournament opposite the players that seems way more likely than I just don't think the tour

Seating ground in any way I Think that would have really been damaging and look they may have been said all right We're gonna we're gonna risk it all on this antitrust thing. And if we fail that, we were going to die anyways. I don't know if any of that makes sense. But to me, it just seems like it, they've protected the guys that have wanted to stay with this policy of banning people. And yes, on a one off basis, it would make sense to want to add DJ to your fields. But if you let guys come and go as they choose, I think they're going to not like how many guys are going to be willing to skip PGA tour events.

I think that's a really good counter argument. The number one reaction I had listening to that was that the tour has made exceptions before, that the tour has granted these waivers pretty permissibly to our history. Other tours, a limited amount and usually with conditions in it, yes. Totally. But why has lived being, and I'm not trying to pin you on this question, I'm grappling with. Yeah, but so the question I'm grappling with is what is the

straight-faced explanation, what is the non-anti-competitive explanation for allowing guys to go play the Scottish open five years ago when it wasn't co-sanctioned. But now you can't go play the event at Trump-administer. What is the explanation for that? And that is where it's like, yeah, anti-compete, it sounds anti-compete of a shit to me because like even the reason they give for not allowing guys to go play in London was like, well, this tour is also setting up North American events

and that's against our policy, right? Which like if you, like, it doesn't take a genius to read the non-competitive nature, read the non-competitive nature into that, right? And so yeah, like legally, is that the right move? I can't say, I've never thought of it from that perspective until the last few months, of course, because it just has not been the way I viewed the game of golf. But it seems like, again, I just seems really dumb to me for them to have put that as the reason is to why the releases have been

You know denied if they didn't think they could stand on that What you said there About their sort of all or nothing strategy to me is very is completely plausible that they may have said look that We are up against two powerful force here, two well healed, a tour for us to do anything but use every tool in our disposal. And if we wind up getting in trouble for that, so be it, but it's our only chance.

Maybe that's the strategy. I don't know. That's pure speculation, but it's certainly flawed. What happens? You mentioned depositions, discovery. When does that start? What gets uncovered there? That stuff kind of scares me just in general. I'm not saying even with any rooting interest here, just saying like, gosh, the idea of lawyers combing through every word that is communication between Fred Ridley and Jay Monahan and all that is that what discoveries like tell us what that's like. So discovery usually starts a few months after the lawsuit starts because there's some

very boring hoops to jump through before that about agreeing on a scheduling or for discovery, exchanging some preliminary documents. But then discovery starts. It usually starts with written discovery requests, which consists of questions called interrogatories where you ask the other side, you know, what, who are all the people who you know of, who have knowledge of conversations that Fred Ridley had with Jay Monahan about this, you know, that's just an example. There are requests for admission. Like you might say, please admit that Fred Ridley had a conversation with Jay Monahan about this on such and such date.

And then there are requests for production of documents, which is exactly what it sounds like. You hand over all the documents you have related to such and such conversation about, you know, about this between Fred Ridley and Jay Monahan. Now, after that come the depositions. If they get to that point in this case, those are going to be insane. Yes. Because everybody on both sides of this case, I can see them all being terrible deponents. Michelson is going to be awful. Greg Norman is gonna be awful. All these guys think they're the smartest people in the room. Monahan, I don't know.

There are gonna be a lot of people shooting themselves in the foot and depositions and the transcripts are gonna be hysterical. But if I may say, if you are an executive of a company or a major, major, major sports league like this, you are, you are at least acting or hopefully acting from the day, from day one in that role, but the understanding that I might be called into court for anything I do at any time, right? Any email I send every, like you know that, right? Going into it. So it's not to say that they've, you know,

that they have not made any mistakes that they're going to regret. But Phil, Mikkelsen and Greg Norman have not carried themselves in that way throughout their entire lives, right? Of like, oh, anything I say or do might be used against me in court. I could see that the tour being more protected in that regard than some of the live guys. Is that fair? With, yeah, with the exception that, that Phil has a documented history of choosing not to speak and incriminate himself in court. Yeah, I mean, we'll see.

The tour, one thing they've got is they have an exceptional legal team. So do the plaintiffs, but the tour is not gonna be hurting for the very best legal advice it can get. So if they'll, my advice to them would be, listen to your lawyers do everything they say. Sean Zach had a great article on golf.com kind of highlighting 11 surprises, I guess, and I kind of wanted to go through a few of those with you in it, but just worth noting

not all the live players were involved. No DJ, no Brooks, Sergio, Westwood, and Stenson. I believe those are the guys that gave up their membership to the tour, thus cannot go back and sue them, right? But figure that was worth noting. Mikkelsen was suspended on March 22nd for attempting to recruit players to live. It sounds like that's a part of their case

in terms of he should have never been suspended or I We just did not have that information. I don't believe until this this came to light Bryson had already signed with live by the time he made his coerced into Or forced to publicly declare loyalty to the tour On February 20th or whenever that was he had already signed with him They they especially especially note that in there that he had already signed, which I would like to get this in on the record at this moment. It's very interesting that that comes to light because we were planning to go forward with

information on February 24th of this year that both Phil and Bryson had signed with Liv. And this was already after the Michelson stuff came out and and Bryson had released his statement saying my I'm not the PJ tour. We had info that they had both already signed being the hardcore journalists that we were we reached out to comment on from both Phil and Bryson's team and Bryson's team categorically denied our information at that time which, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, at that time, which we respected and did not go forward sharing that information as I was want to believe that and figured we'll let this play out over time and see how it works out.

Sure enough, it was accurate. Never heard back from Phil's team after reaching out for comment as well, but just found that very interesting, that it was official that he had sides. I'm beginning to get the impression that Bryson is not always what he claims to be. Just throwing that out there. I was expecting a no comment.

I really was and the category, you can't really run through and reporting that. And we're not journalists and this shit scares me, you know, to begin with. But if they're gonna deny it, like I'm not gonna report that information, because I'm, I'm usually one to believe people, but that turned out to maybe not be the most accurate, just one, that's not that interesting. You mentioned Davis love his statements.

What, okay, so that's included in this, and he's called a tour representative here. Is he have any executive power in any way or is that just a convenient thing for them to throw in to say, hey, this guy that played on the PJ tour for a long time and lifetime member is saying they're going to, oh yeah, we don't care about the courts and we're going to boycott majors or what not. Does that actually have any real legal standing? Or is that just that kind of help contribute to the story? I kind of wondered about that too.

I, the second time I read it, I started to think, well, maybe they're using the term representative loosely here. You know, maybe they're just, they mean someone who is speaking with knowledge of, of the tourist thought process is here. It's certainly relevant. You know, if he has insight into the tourist strategy here, that it's certainly relevant to what they're planning. But, no, I, you know, in terms of whether he's got, you know, an official representative or he's just speaking in his capacities, a member, in terms of whether he's got, you know, the official representative

or he's just speaking in his capacities, a member, I'm not sure it makes a hill of beans difference, but I would sure ask him to not do that anymore. Please, yeah, please, they'll do it. The fact that this all dropped and that a couple of hours later, he tweeted that he was doing and asked me anything on Reddit. I just like, I almost fell out of my chair.

What are you doing? Stop. No. Don't ask me anything. Go to the house. Take a nap. We had heard some rumblings that Fred Ridley had said, live players wouldn't be allowed on the grounds

and a similar, you know, for, you know, at Augusta and a similar statements included in the complaint as well. And also seems like they're leaning pretty hard on the PJ tour, T.P. World tour alliance being unlawful. They use that word a lot. Any insight into that? Does it, is that kind of a product of all things we've already been talking about to this point? Yeah, that's the part of this that would worry the most if I were the tour, because group boycotts are per se unlawful under the Sherman Act, meaning group boycotts are always violation of the Sherman Act.

That doesn't mean necessarily this was a group boycott, but it certainly looks like one. So I would be really worried about that. And then Sean also noted that the tour's previous decade of performance will be analyzed. And I'm curious on this one because they talk about like, yeah, the person's only gone up by two and a half percent. NFL has gone up by this blah, blah, blah.

And they also contribute, you know, the person's haven't gone up enough, but they also say like, hey, there's nobody like watching this thing. Like the tour's not putting out a good product. And I just, there seems to be some contradictory stuff in here of why aren't purses going up, yet also the tour is not performing, not been creative enough.

I don't know how to explain that. I'm not explaining that very well, but it seems like it's not like they're saying, hey, all these people are watching it. Why isn't the money flowing in? They're basically just saying, like, we know like no one's really watching this, but why aren't we getting more money?

One of the arguments floating around back in the 90s about folks who said that the PGA tour wasn't being anti-competitive. One of the arguments was that, well, the tour is increasing its revenue. You know, it's bringing a lot more money and therefore, this can't be anti-competitive. Of course, it's pro-competitive.

And I wonder whether these allegations are aimed at nipping that argument in the bud to say, like, look, the difference between now and the 90s is that Your viewership is declining your fan base is declining and you know, you're not raking it in the way or at least at the rate You were 30 years ago. Yeah, I guess I just get you know Confused as to why they want to come back and play here when they have a better option now And if they're not, you know, innovative enough, I don't know that part just and then they say, yeah, number one player

on the tour money list in 2019 was Brooks kept at 9.68 million. His winnings were equivalent to the 129th highest paid NFL player and the 121st highest paid NBA player and the 128th highest paid MLB player. And I'm just wondering why that what that is is saying like is basically are they trying to say like the tour is stifling the earning possibilities of these players and like live is proving that look how much we're able to pay them. Yeah, I think the argument there is that live is you know the rates that live is paying are demonstrative that these get the market rate for these guys is actually much higher than what the tour has been paying.

And that the reason the tour has been able to underpay them is that it has been the only game in town. Got you. And I think that's where they're going with that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just hard to look at the 125th player making a million bucks more than that out there Just be like yeah, they're just not not bringing in if I'm getting a point six rating and I don't know that that part is just is strange to me

Part that feels very not good and I don't think I'd heard this was that the tour had threatened to withhold vested retirement funds if guys were going to join live. I had, correct me if I'm wrong, I hadn't heard that anywhere. That's not been publicly stated and that seems like, guys, what'll be doing here? I can get future playing opportunities, yes, but vested interests in the retirement fund seems like a immediate no-no. You cannot possibly do that. Yeah, I had heard that through the grapevine, but this was the first time I'd heard it. the retirement fund seems like a immediate no-no. You cannot possibly do that.

Yeah, I had heard that through the grapevine, but this was the first time I'd heard it said publicly. Yeah, that seems like a gigantic problem. And I don't know enough about the ins and outs of what sort of legal exposure they're doing there. There's a federal statute called ERISA, that it's ERISA, that controls pension funds, and it's a massive, huge mess

that I hope I never have to do anything with. But yeah, I mean, it starts screwing with people's retirement. Again, what justification could there be for that other than that you are trying to keep them from going to live? Yeah. And the last thing I really have here in my notes and I, I've taken up a lot of your time, but it, and this is not why I got into covering golf.

But the last thing I really had in this, I don't know if I'm going to ask this in the right way, but help me understand this. So the tours, let's just say the tours not is uncompetitive, blah, blah, blah, but as far as I can tell, the tour provides releases for players to play on other sanctioned tours quite regularly. So I'm wondering, does live lose any client? Yeah, the tours behavior towards live has been uncompetitive. Let's just say that for the sake of this argument. Does live lose anything to say like, hey, the tour is not the only game in town. There are other tours around the world

and they are allowed, you know, possibility to participate in all of this and the tour has not acted like a monopoly when it comes to other sanctioned tours. Does that help the tours case at all against lives specifically? Does that make sense? I'm sure that the tour will argue that. Lives position is that the tour has been comfortable granting releases to

play on other tours because the prior to live, uh, the other tours out there haven't been real competitive threat to the tour. Exactly. What does it matter if Jason Day goes and plays in Australia next week? That's fine. On the other hand, if Dustin Johnson wants to go play on live next week, well, that is a problem.

And so I think Liv would say that you're treating us differently because we're different than those other tours in that we are a real competitor to you. Yeah. That's where I impressed, I guess, with how live has managed to do this in terms of, I'm very much of the opinion, and I don't even know if it is opinion, it might just be fact that they want to sink the PGA tour, right? And they've eased their way into this, if you will, with this international series

that they're calling it and the league not starting until next year and going opposite all these other events and all that. And that's where I guess this isn't even a legal question that where I have, I tend to take the stance that I do is like, if you give ground, give them any kind of ground, they're gonna plan to run over you. They're gonna try to run over you regardless, and any ground you see is just a ground you're not gonna be able to make up in any way.

So I don't know. I've spun myself into a web with all of this stuff and I'm all over the place with this, but I'm just trying to make sense of it. Well, the tour has a lot more to lose here than it does. If live loses this lawsuit, that's not gonna be great for how they'd like to do business going forward,

but as long as you're willing to throw nine figures at players, you're gonna be able to peel one off every now and then. If the tour loses this lawsuit, it's the end of the PGA tour as we know. It's going to be a developmental tour effectively. And so the stakes for the tour could not be higher, live could sort of deliver the death blow here,

but if they lose, they probably have a path forward. Any idea on the timeline for, if we say the death blow to the PGA tour, what's the soonest that could happen? Discovery is going to take a long time in a case like this because these sorts of cases are really fact intensive. The judge will probably set a trial date sometime soon. You should expect that we push back at least a couple of times.

Assuming it goes through trial, obviously there'll be an appeal. And after that, I would, I think this would probably be an attractive case for the US Supreme Court to take a look at. So it wouldn't be surprising to me if we're still talking about this case four or five years from now. But I also would be a little surprised

if they don't come up with a way to settle this case before it gets to that point. Because again, the tour, the tour cannot afford to lose this. And if there's some level of coexistence that you can imagine living with, if you're the tour, then I think you you want to land there because hanging in and over to a judge and jury, could be the end of life as you know it. Yeah. See, even I think even any concession is the end of life as you know it. You know, I just think it might be right. Anything that allows coming and going, I think then I wonder how many sponsors they lose. I'm like, if I'm blah, blah, blah, like, why the hell am I going to, you know, if I, like, let's say, I'm trying to think of a non-premium

event, but non-joke event. Let's just call it, if I'm AT&T, they, why the hell am I gonna, you know, if I, like, let's say, I'm trying to think of a non-premium event, but non-joke event. Let's just call it, if I'm AT&T, they, why the hell am I sticking, like if I'm not one of these bumped up major huge purses, purse events, like JT and those guys aren't gonna come play there, right? If they're gonna be allowed to go back and forth between Liv and the PJ tour, they're gonna play the Genesis

and then they're gonna go play Jetta and then they're gonna, and so that's just why, yeah, maybe that is why the tours pushed all their chips in and maybe it's not nearly as strong of a case as I would like to think it is, but I don't know. I can't like must-wrap that much enthusiasm to root for the PGA tour that isn't that interesting to start with. I think it's just, it's kind of grasping at the little bit of straws that we have. But yeah, it certainly if you if you like pro golf

and you like federal litigation, you're in the Vendigran right now. But in terms of like what it means for the future professional golf, there are not a lot of good options here. Nope. The the extra frustrating part is it's brought a lot of people in that do like this VED diagram and they get super passionate about it and think that that is, you know, what what some people watch golf for. It's just not the case. But no, I will. I'm going to let you go.

I really appreciate you helping, helping talk some sense in a me on a lot of these things. And the back and forth was greatly enjoyable. I'm hopefully the listeners are better off and understand a little bit better thanks to your insights and not my rambling, but I appreciate your time, but my pleasure, man, anytime. All right, so that was great. I think, I don't know, it's always both refreshing and terrifying to hear lawyers put things into the laments and boring. Like this is not what we want to do with our golf fandom. No, but also it's, you know, it's kind of like, oh shit, like, yeah, like the stuff that we were saying that like, this isn't antitrust case. And, you know, the fact that, you know, people within the golf space, you're like, you guys don't know shoot about antitrust. You know what I don't, but I

talk to some people who do, you know, over the last 18 months, 24 months, and they assured us that this was a real issue, and certainly it is. And this is before we even gotten to the world golf ranking because I'm sure there's gonna be lawsuits flying around at them, right? I'm sure there's gonna be lawsuits flying around it

at other governing bodies. You know, oh, by the way, the USJ, if I can roll back the ball, we'll see. Like, there's gonna be so many fucking lawsuits flying around it at other governing bodies, you know, oh, by the way, the USJ, if I can roll back the ball, we'll see. Like, there's going to be so many fucking lawsuits flying around in golf. It's crazy. A downside of talking with Will was making me realize that I'm just like, I'm grasping at something that's probably illegal, but I don't even love that much. But like, that's kind of what I've, I want to be rooting for and like that sucks. Like I'm rooting for like Lawson's are not fun to follow. This is gonna take forever to play out. That's not fun.

It certainly doesn't appear like the side that I find myself rooting for is in the right with a lot of the stuff in it. And the downs, the guys that are probably gonna win are the bad guys in this regard and how I view it. And it's all just very, very, very depressing. Yeah, that was the big takeaway I had too. It was like, hey, like kind of the light going off in your head of like, oh shit, like the tourist, kind of on the anti-competitive side. Which we know.

But like, it's here and it like spelled out is like, oh shit, like our suspicions were right, you know? Yes, and I think it's not that that was a shock. It was just becoming a lot more real in terms of, again, just like how I enjoy sports, right? Like, again, I don't really care about the law. I just want, I would like the law to give me the most entertaining golf product.

And in this regard, I think the law is going to help take away the most entertaining golf product. But, and this regard, I think the law is gonna help take away the most entertaining golf product. But, Well, it was just, it's stark when you think about it from the perspective of, you know, because like I'm kind of resigned to the fact of, if the tour loses, like the tour is gonna lose either way here.

Right? If the tour, let's say the tour wins some of these lawsuits or wins some of the, you know, like hearing the Supreme Court, you know, thrown in there, I'm like, whoa, like the, like hearing the Supreme Court, thrown in there, I'm like, whoa, like this could go with the Supreme Court and the four or five year timeline that we'll throw out, like, holy shit man. Like, we are so early on this thing.

But just, the tour has everything to lose here and live has everything to gain. And I feel like there's, even if live doesn't get the the verdicts or the judgments that they want, here, I feel like they're still it's still buying them time. Right. It's it's buying them time. It's buying them all these in you know, all these temporary stranding orders that are probably going to allow these guys to play in the meantime. You know, it's just making all of the tour stuff seem more and more toothless and more and more take attack

to where it's like, like the live guys can kind of, it's just buying them time to set up their own ecosystem and keep chipping away here and there, which sucks. Now, I will say, I think the discovery part of this is gonna be sick, because like that was, I was so hyped when VJ was suing the tour because I think that was the dear antler spray thing. And VJ was suing him and I think there was,

it was still some residual bad taste from finch him and all that and the tour, like they always did for everything, they settled, right? And like, the tour was terrified of opening up any sort of books or any sort of transparency as far as punishments, as far as discipline, all that stuff. Now, I can't imagine like how, you know, how much of a risk discovery is for them, which, again, being on like the tour's side weirdly, it's also like talking about it in that sense and saying, oh my gosh, like the tour's bad.

Right, like, you know, that's like, oh, like, like, like our side is the good side here, and we don't want them to have to open up their books for discovery because there's probably a shitload of skeletons in there. Like, that doesn't make me feel great either. But it's also, and where I was trying to make this point with Will as well is, again the the tour over the course of

this and I'm putting that in quotes. The tour has taken on this personality that somehow doesn't represent PGA tour players right. It is seen as like the execs, the bad guys, the guys that are like allegedly hoarding tons of money and not creating the the plague opportunities and all these the stuff. When in reality it is the group of players, the collective efforts of the groups of players that have, look, if it's illegal to be this anti-competitive with this policy, like they were all doing it together, right?

And the only way it was gonna come tumbling down was if they started backstaffing each other. And that's the reality. It was for their benefit. Yes, yes. It's great leaving the group. I think that's the reality. It was for their benefit. Yes. Yes. It's a great leap of the group. I think that's the biggest distinction here, right?

And I think my issue with the tour has always been like, I think I've always made Finchum out to be Finchum and one price in those guys, kind of the guys in the back room with the tour, out to be the bogeyman. And that's just been fun for me and find out how you know, kind of how I, how I can find jollies. But like, I think there's a certain truth to that as well.

Like there's, you know, like the tour is not always extremely above board and they're slow as hell to change. And, you know, I don't think the, like, I think they've capitalized on the players not exactly knowing how the tour operates or how the tour like what their levers of power are You know like the tour like the the players. I think they've added a spot or two more on the board for the players over the last few years But like you know, it's still not like it's still mostly non-players right on the on the board Which like judging from like James Hans recent tweets like more players might not be the right answer here Because they might be James Hans might tweets like more players might not be the right answer here because they might be. James Hans might be a fucking moral straight.

I mean, it's just like he just keeps digging and digging and digging wild. And this guy was on the pack. Exactly. He's on the board. He's a player director. He's on board. Yeah. It's crazy.

It really is. It's just insane that it's come to this and how it's all going to play out. It's crazy. It really is. It's just insane that it's come to this and how it's all gonna play out. It's just. There was the, you know, like, I think Will was saying, you know, how, you know, basically telling, you know, telling guys to shut up, like, hey, shut up. Like, don't, you know, like, like, whenever you're litigation, like, shut up. And so I get that with, like, you know, I think, I think some of my criticism of monahen as well could be can shoot as like, you know What I'm to talk a lot about this or about that. I was like no, it's like honestly like my criticism of him wasn't like talk more It's just like show your face more like be out there in front taking you know, even if you can't say anything Just be a shield for your players a little bit more instead of kind of going underground for

Four to six months while all this stuff percolates, instead of kind of going underground for four to six months while all this stuff percolates, you know, kind of below the surface. A couple of the other things that stuck out. I hadn't heard about the tour threatening to withhold vested retirement fund earnings. And I don't know if that's true or not. That's listed in the complaint, but that I had not heard that at all either. And I again, I don't, there's no possible way we can take 105 pages that from live as gospel in any way. And that's, we have not heard from the Taurus response, and I just, I want to reiterate that. Like if everything went as spelled out in that complaint, yes, Taurus in big time trouble. I just, those guys are, the lawyers are arguing it for a reason.

There's a reason why that's how that works. Yeah, no, I'm super curious just from a lawyer perspective, like I'd love someone to lay it out for me and like, all right, you know, the live guys have hired this law firm and they are like the equivalent of the Boston Red Sox. And then the tour, you know, they've got their in-house guys, but they've also got access to, you know, if it's king and spouting or, they've got their in-house guys, but they've also got access to, if it's king and spouting,

or just like some high powered law firm, and they're equivalent to the Dallas Cowboys over here. And this is kind of their culture. I think that would be a super, super interesting kind of perspective on this, I think. But yeah, just on the tourist front, too, it's like what does coexistence look like? Kind of towards the end when you guys are talking about that, like, that's what that's what I struggled to get my head around is like, there's, you know, I think the

best thing that live could possibly do, like the most damaging thing that they could do to the tour would be getting rid of Greg Norman. You know, where because then I feel like then it's like they're they're stripping away, like Greg Norman's a a fucking buffoon like he's a he's a moron he's acting emotionally he's always seemed like a bad faith kind of, like, it's not for the good of the game as long as Greg Norman is involved. And I don't think it's ever going to be for the good of the game as long as the audience are involved as it is. But at the very least, like, I think getting rid of Greg Norman would be a step in the right direction as far as live showing, hey, we are serious

about being part of the ecosystem and creating a great product that grows the game of golf. And so that's like, I think that, you know, kind of counterintuitively, I think the best thing that they could possibly do would be to say, Greg, you're out of here, pack your bags. And they'll play it off as this was always the plan, you know, this was, you know, for me to get it started,

somebody else take over and blah, blah, blah, yeah, I totally agree, I think it, they got, I got serious leader involved there. That would be, you know, that isn't tweeting. You like them apples at PGA tour on Instagram or whatever he's doing. It's it's vengeful. It's it's petty. It's just like it's makes for good content. the ball is definitely rolling for them and I think he has served his role and is not required going forward. But just as far as like cogs, like kind of going back to cogs, this is going back to like what the, you know, how, how much the tour can kind of at some point, what's thinking small and what's thinking big, right? Like can the tour be creative and can they move quickly enough to adapt when the entire system and the entire

ecosystem at the tour is set up to kind of a not change, to kind of be a, you know, be a foundational structure that's very, very, you know, inflexible and, you know, it, it, it definitely requires a big portion of the membership to ratify anything and all that. Also, I just wanted to call out, Rice and's agent, his name's Brett Falkoff. I'll just leave that there. Yeah, it's tough. Just all very tough, man. It, we're trying to do the right thing in that regard

and they publicly denied what we had said that Bryson had reported. And then in private also did not tell the truth as to what Bryson's status was. And let's just say it's extremely, extremely, extremely on brand. Couple housekeeping items as well. So I'm not sure if you caught any of the Western AM

this weekend, a pretty good final four there, but Austin, Greaser won great interview afterwards. And then on the amateur front, we've got the US Women's AM at Chambers Bay this week. I'm excited for that one. I think that's going to be a great, great venue, both overall and especially for the ladies. I think playing the ball on the ground and showing off the new greens there as well. I think it's, you know, that place deserves another shot in my opinion.

And then, yeah, I'm still buzzing. Like the Kizu classic was a few weeks ago. We had the Kizu open at Kelton, the manner this past weekend, Calum Shinkwin won. And then I'm not sure if you've been following the slink.io stuff at all, with them not making payroll. They're a big DP World Tour sponsor. I think they sponsor ROM or a few other guys as well. They did not make payroll a few weeks, I think, and their CEO played in the JP Manus Pro Am. And, you know, it's just, it's been a, it's been a relative shit show of sorts. So things seem to be going great on the DP World Tour of these days.

Yeah, it makes, it makes the PGA sort of look like a real paradise. They have, they have, they have two events on the calendar for October that are to be announced not even a country, just to be announced, and you somewhere in Europe while. And then lastly, Luke Donald, being named the Ryder Cup captain for Europe. I think that broke after, after last week's pod while we were in Sweden. So, you know, I got a chance to talk to my guy Ludwig about it and he's excited. You know, I think we're stoked for our chances at Marcos Simone. I think the move makes sense. He probably should have gotten it in the first place and they could

have avoided some embarrassment. But yeah, it's just there's a lot of drama to play out. I'm sure I'm the whole Ryder Cup front as well on all the everything else going on in the lives and who's gonna play and what not. But yeah, I think that move makes sense. And I hope he now doesn't go leave. I hope I drive his price up to go to live. But I think that's it for a sneaky long podcast

for a week that we are kind of been in transit, but good to get back in the saddle. We'll be coming hard here through the rest of the playoff stretch here and putting a close to this never ending season. Sully, last question. Who do you think wins the FedEx Cup playoffs? Scottie, Chef. I'll say he holds on. You? I'm not saying Victor Oveland. OK. I'll put my holds on. You?

I'm not saying Victor Holland. I'll put my mind on my mouth is. Well, you've been that's been quite successful for you in our weekly DK. You didn't you didn't somehow didn't hit this week because we didn't have picks this week. I know I didn't take the week off because I figured it really it just gives me another week that you guys can't catch up to me. It's very true. It's kind of like playing the four corners off, and it's a little bit. But we'll be back this week with some picks.

We will. We have wrapped up filming season eight of Taurus sauce. We got to give us some time to edit that, of course. But we'll do a podcast about our experience as well in the coming weeks or months. And share a lot of details from that trip. It's been a great, great stretch and glad to be to be home and yeah glad to be back on the pod and TC we'll see you back here next week. So all I was classy of you not to not to air out my friends at United the other night as well. You bought my silence, you bought

my silence thanks to your upgrade that you gave me so I will not be mentioning anything about United. So I shall air out of the PGA tour. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We'll see you back here next week. Cheers. I'm going to write club. Be the right club today. That is better than most. How about him?

That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most.