No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 642: WM Recap

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

There's a new world number one as Scottie Scheffler goes back to back with his second consecutive win at the WM Phoenix Open. Soly, DJ and KVV break down another win for Scheffler, the impact of Ted Scott as his caddie, the "controversial" drops from the weekend, and some other observations from the week on site at another designated event. Then it's on to a quick Riv preview as the Cat announces he'll tee it up, some reactions to the Bryson article in Golfweek, the LIV hype video, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast brought to you by our friend, the booey. It is official. It is out in the open, open media. It's in the open sea.

It's in the open field, solid here and calling in from the West Coast during during the Super Bowl. We're going to talk about Nick Taylor instead of watching the Super Bowl. Mr. KVV, how are you? I'm doing great, Sally. I'm rare to go. But football is my past life. I don't need any other of that. And more, it's the first Super Bowl I've not given a shit about in a long time.

Don't have to come up with any sort of quirky feature about the winner or the loser. So I'm ready to go. That's why a lot of the reason why we wanted to hire you was so other people could watch the loser. So I'm ready to go. That's why a lot of the reason why we wanted to hire you was so other people could watch the Super Bowl, I guess, is what it is. So you got to talk about golf tonight. You know, it's funny that just a quick aside,

like Eddie Espian, they make you write stories ahead of time off the winner and the loser. And I have like three stories that never ran because I ended up writing about the loser. So I was kind of like the cooler of, if you got me, if I got your draw, like I was going to supposed to write about Kyle Shanahan or whatever, then you were kind of, you're going down. So in his hotel, with him out on the West Coast, Mr. DJ Pai, good afternoon.

Pai Man. Hey, good afternoon, Solid. Thanks for having me on your show. Greetings from Sony Los Angeles. Just painfully hungover today. I'm going to be brutally honest with you and the listeners as we always try to be. Drink about 40 to 50 bottles of wine with Mr. Pooch yesterday in Santa Barbara. Just really got away from us. And, you know, but nonetheless, we're here. We're ready to talk about what little golf we watch this week. Maybe more firing questions to you guys. Maybe more of an avatar for the audience, but happy to be here nonetheless.

There is a lot to talk about guys. And the first of all on the tip of everyone's tongue, Scotty Schaeffler, do you know what he trusted for victory at the Wasteman's Phoenix Open in Scottsdale? It's a pro v1. He was one of 90 players trusting titleists for Scotty. It's all about consistency. And in his own words, he said, I feel like you're always playing a different type of shot. Rarely am I just hitting a straight up stock shot.

You're always trying to do a little something with the golf ball. So having that consistency and knowing that golf ball is going to react that way, the way I need it to react when it comes off the face and when it comes into the green, especially when you get into a tour set up where the greens are crazy firm, the wind is blowing. You got to have total control over where that golf ball

is going to go. And I feel like I've gotten that consistency with the titles ball over the years. And I really trust how it reacts and with a handful of clutch shots, including a critical 15 footer on the 16th and a tough pitch on the 17th of birdie. Scotty trusted his ProV1 for every shot in route to victory in a sense to world number one ranking. I could have just said that. He uses a ProV1 and he's the number one player in the world.

I can't think of a better endorsement. So you tell me. Yeah, you tell me. We're on our we're coming for you, though, Scotty. We're coming. Oh, yeah, put on 16. That was that was damn clutch. Listen, we're going to talk about the drop. We're going to talk about a lot of drops. Apparently golf Twitter was up in arms. I don't think I think only the people that are on golf Twitter were up in arms about some of the things that happened this weekend, but a lot to get to with that. But for Shephler, this is fifth win in the last 365 days. The other wins are also either majors or elevated events, which is absolutely grotesque. I don't really know if there's a question that goes with this, but does this change anything with Scotty for you guys? We kind of forgot, had forgotten about them for a little while over the years,

but does this change anything? I think going through some of the, like doing, you know, quote, unquote research, I'm going to call this in the lowercase r research for the draft Kings picks. This week I was, I was looking at Scotty and looking at some of those kind of like multiple chances to win bets where they lump a couple players together and just really looking for anything that had Scotty in it. Because if you look at what he's done recently, like, I feel like there's almost a temptation to be like, man, that guy's like really cooled off, huh? And like, he really hasn't like it. It's just it's broken record. It's the things we talk about in this podcast all the time. It's hard to win, et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes it's your week. Sometimes it's not, but

like, he has not been far off. And so this doesn't come as a hot take, this doesn't come as a surprise at all. But I think it's also kind of a funny wrinkle when you start getting into the, is Rory number one in the world, is John Rom number one in the world, you know, it's clearly one of these two guys. And you could certainly have that conversation,

but it's not like Scotty was some like, distant fifth or eighth or tenth or something. I mean, he's, he's still been playing really, really, really good golf for the last couple of months. And so it was only a matter of time before he broke through and had it all sink up again. And you know, they are who we thought they were. You know, I don't think it changes much.

I think it just reinforces like, okay, this is another guy to add to your list every week. So I was thinking about this today. Does what is Scottie's weakness? I don't really know that there is one. I mean, like there is. Last year over the course of 2022 in general, he was positive in every category.

He's one of the best ball strikers in the world. He chips and puts it well. It's not outrageous, but it's a ball striking strength thing. And maybe it's driving a little. A little bit. If you had gone to your head, head have to pick something I mean right just like compared to like Rom maybe but he's you know ten yards over average and he's above average accuracy So it's hard it's hard to say it's a weakness. I mean it didn't look great today

But he's also like a very creative player. I mean kind of going to what he was talking about what he's able to kind of make the golf ball do at a different spots. He was also the guy that ironically for this one's for Randy, like the eye test, like it makes a lot more sense when you watch him hit a ball in person. Like the action looks a little funny on TV, the foot slide, we all know it, but then like you watch him hit balls on the range, and I've, you know, followed him for a couple rounds. It's like, oh my god, that thing, that comes out of the window, like every single time it comes out of the window. And it's a very consistent fade. And he just seems like he's literally throwing darts when he's hitting golf balls. And he's just so freaking skilled at all the things that I always thought in my head take like 15 years to learn. Like the, the spin needed on pitch shots and the deaf touch around the greens on certain puts and under pressure, you know, on a downhill right to left, like getting the speed

right on it. All this stuff that just doesn't seem like a young guy should be able to do, he's able to do. And I don't know, I'm just really impressed. It's these heaters, the heaters don't last forever. He won four times in 56 days last year, which is absurd. And he was like a plus 2.7-ish player at that point. And basically, since then, he's been a plus 2.2 player. Like, we're talking about a half-shot decrease per round.

Like, that's the gap in winning a ton and not winning a ton. So to your point, DG, he has not fallen off probably as much as we thought of or think. But also just a lot of comments from people of like, you know what? Like, Scotty doesn't really quite do it do it for me. Maybe that's kind of part of the reason why he falls off a little bit is like personality wise, he's not high, he's not low, right? There's not a lot of people that dislike him and there's not a lot of people that ride for him. So I think it's just gonna be a guy

that you would tend to forget about. Maybe is that fair? I mean, it was working hard in that interview after it gets up out of it. I mean, I was feeling it for it Scott is just like, yeah, yeah, it's good, you know, that's just meets my expectations. No big thing, you know, well, he's also, I mean, he's won what, $25 million the last two years. Or something like that, you know, and it's like, well, why does he have to be interesting out there? What is, why did he got to be

grinding his face off trying to win people over and this isn't a spoiler or anything But I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about the Netflix show this week and there's an episode that Features him follows him a little bit Kind of feels like that post game interview. I mean, it's it's I don't say that as a slight I people are who they are and you know, man He's just clearly like not that guy who's just gonna yuck it up and really try to Try to bring the house down, but it's just clearly like not that guy who's just gonna yuck it up and really try to bring the house down. But it's just, he is who he is.

He plays really freaking good golf and he is making a ton of money and winning a ton of trophies. And it's super admirable to watch him do it. He doesn't have to be for you. I understand that. If people feel that way, I kind of feel that way day to day. Maybe like you can convince me on one given day, it's like, oh God, that's guy so boring.

And then he makes something like he makes on 16. Kevin and I were watching it in the hotel. You know, it hits like just kind of a, not a great chip from down there, but like a sensible shot, right? Like he's, he's not going to risk watching it roll back to his feet. He's not going to try to hit the absolute perfect shot and win the tournament there on 16. He just give myself a sensible, sensible look.

And it's like, yeah, dude, of course he makes it. Like he's one of the, he's the guy that makes those puts. And of course, like no offense to Nick Taylor, he played phenomenal golf today, but like, of course, he misses it, right? Like that's just what happens in those types of moments between guys who are number one in the world and guys who aren't. I know that's, that's kind of trite and cliche, but it also tends to be true like week after week after week. And so he's one of those guys too that I think like the more

he the more he wins the more interesting he gets, right? Like that's kind of the only way you make a guy like that super interesting is he needs to shitload of trophies. I think he just to me plays golf, not golf swing. You know, he just he obviously the little driver can get wild and there was certainly times when I was looking up and was like, Oh, like he's like way off in the desert yet again. And yet like he knows how to shape shots to get him back to where it needs to be. Like it's, it never was like a huge massive mistake that was going to hurt him. It was just kind of like, yeah, I'm just out here kind of figured it out. Like I'm not, you know, getting too technical the thing. I'm just, you know, he looks like one of those dudes who's

like, all right, I think I need to hit a fade here. And I just thinks fade and it goes. I think I might have to draw just thinks draw like he's not thinking about like, okay, I need to, you know, get my elbow tucked here. Now, top. And then don't forget when you need to fade it, you got to make sure it's a little important. That's the most important thing when hitting a fade. I think he's also one of the guys that started to keep going back to it, but the Netflix show was a good reminder too. The last episode obviously features Rory and the tour championship and all that and and just watching him fade away and really like kick a lot of money away on that Sunday was 0.5 million dollars on the back nine Sunday at East

like I think that's kind of kind of like the the only real adversity you point to in his career. And I think what's kind of interesting about guys like him is, is, and I think we say this about more cow. Like we said this about more cow after a couple of, right? Where it's like, these guys are so good that they're in the hunt so often. And when you're in the hunt so often, there's a better chance that you're going to have spectacular wins and spectacular losses, right? And I think Scotty, it's, it's so funny funny in that like I don't think he's going to change his personality isn't going to change wildly

Nothing like that. It's just going to be more and more context built Every time he's in the hunt on Sunday, right? Like he's going to have a lot of afternoons like this But I think the better he plays like this the more we're going to have we're going to see ones that slip away And that's going to make him a little more interesting. And like, I don't know, I just, I'm for it. I'm for it. Let's see Scotty. I'm more. I do think in what Scotty I'm for him.

Yeah, I want to get the other record. I'm broke. I respect him. I respect this career. We can break this down a little bit, maybe talk about these designated events. I think he fit into the landscape a lot better a year ago when there was still a cam Smith, when there was still a DJ, when there was still a Bryson, when there was still a Brooks of like a Reed,

when there was just like some interesting characters and interesting talent involved that, you know, if we're putting Scotty kind of more on the straightforward golfer and a little on the dull side, it fits into the puzzle when you've got a lot of characters out there. Now, as I look at the current state of the PGA tour, I'm kind of like, there's just a lot of Scotty's, there's a lot of Scotty's. And the more he wins, the higher he gets on the on the phone tree for the PGA tour ad shoots, you know, and I don't know that that's necessarily the best thing in the world.

But it's good for him. It's gonna make a lot of money. Make Billings great again. It's a concern. I have huge bills fan asked. I guess he's got the weekend off as a super week. I think you were saying Scotty was a huge bill. No, no, no, no. Huge bills fan on Twitter is asking how much of getting over the hump and having the

winning success can be attributed to Ted Scott on the bag. And I do not know the answer to that other than to say when Ted Scott went on the bag, he won five times. Like I would be hard pressed to say that that does not matter. And the and we can do we're going to we'll talk some coverage stuff. If you can't see like what what a good caddy can what kind of affect caddy caddy can have Joe scover and on the bag with Tom Kim on the one miced up hole in the 13th hole, they get up there.

It's whatever 220, whatever the arches Tom Kim Kim pulls four iron out of the bag almost immediately. Scarvern's like, that's too much club. Like it is, it is smooth five or hard six. You could talk me to either one of those. Tom Kim's like, okay, like 205 shot. Scarvern's like 200 shot. Not like 205, 200 shot. Tom Kim hits it and rolls it up to five feet. Like the amount of what, what a caddy can do. We're talking about a point, again, the point five difference from 2.2 to 2.7, meaning five wins. And you're telling me that Ted Scott can't save you half a shot around or that doesn't have that much effect on him.

You'd be crazy to think it doesn't have an effect. And I don't want to take credit for it, but I mean, pray for Ted Scott had a pretty darn good result for him because he would be on the, he'd be talking about the aces otherwise. We're seeing the fruits of those prayers. That's amazing. I did turn to DJ at one point today and I'll tell him to be like, how much more enjoyable

do you think Ted Scott's life is? Like on a day to day week to week basis. You know, like, Scott is just kind of chills. Maybe, you know, goes to church, has a few beers, like nothing really, you know, Ted's pretty chill or the sky doesn't have to like get screamed at, yell that, you know, get blamed for water on the club face pro and just like good for Ted. Yeah, it's, I don't, you know, I think Scott, he's going to win a lot and is going to win more majors and other things, but probably you could convince me it's not the biggest coincidence in the world that the first one

was the Masters with a guy who's already won two. You know, it's like, what a difference that has to be going in and what a difference. Like, I mean, we all, I know these guys are an unbelievably different skill level and there's more at play than just luck and confidence and feelings and all of those things. But how much difference, how much different does the confidence have to be when you do have somebody like that out there with you? I'm just like, oh no, no, no. I've been here before. I've won this thing twice.

I know this whole like the back of my hand. This whole does this. Hit this shot, right? It's just so much different than just like, I don't know, man, I'm figuring out with you. What do you think, six? That's me, yeah, man. Can I make a point that again,

I'm extremely well aware of how stark the differences are between like Augusta National and the 18 T Pebble Beach Pro Am. But like Chris Stroud telling me where to hit putts. I'm saved me somewhere between six and eight shots, right? And again, I'm not a professional golfer and I don't know how to re-greens like professional golfers do, but to have someone like with actual knowledge again, back to Stevie Williams on Adam Scott's putt that won him the Masters was like convincingly like it's a cup more than you think it is. It's more than you think. It's like have somebody that can be assertive like that can save you. Look at how many balls just like fine line. Look at Nick Taylor's

lip out on 17. How many balls on on slight slippery, slighty greens like that come incredibly close and how incredibly close gets you nothing. I think it could very well have a very big impact. And also again, this is conjecture not to put too fine a point on it, but I mean, like I almost don't think we talk enough about Scottie's quotes the, the after winning the masters, you know, he had won whatever three of his last five starts. He's, you know, knocking on being the number one player of the world if he wasn't there already. And he's waking up crying, thinking that like the moment is going to be too big and he's, you know, knocking on being the number one player of the world if he wasn't there already. And he's waking up crying, thinking that like the moment is going to be too big and he's just going to get swallowed up like how much help must it have been to have someone

like Ted Scott out there with him, like working truly as a teammate. So I don't know. I'm, I'm thoroughly, thoroughly impressed with Ted Scott. I think he's a fascinating guy. I think he's had a super interesting career. He seems to be very thoughtful and interesting. I just it's it's cool to watch the the partnership. I was gonna say members saw when they didn't want to put they didn't want to put Scotty on like the Ryder Cup team because they had one that he'd want anything yet. Just just we can just remove this that for a second. Just you know give you a chance to take a victory lap one more time. It doesn't the him beating John Robb does not look crazy. It nearly as crazy as it felt at the time when he was the 12th man onto that team, which yeah shout out to Strokes Kane for that one.

But all right, let's talk about the drop on 16 because let's just talk about drops and rules in general here because I think Mr. Reed has ruined things for all of us in that the sentiment online seems to be whenever, whenever a player is getting a free drop of any kind that they are cheating and then they are improperly rolling the ball out of their hands, that they are being total scuzzballs and I watch that sequence twice

and I cannot fathom again. All right, so we're on the 16th hole. He pulls it left, the ball rolls down into the rough. And they've got, listen, this is green breaking news. There are a lot of grandstands around the 16th green at waste management. Some might say that is the signature defining element of this professional golf tournament,

which is they are going to put the fans right on top of this green and that atmosphere is what they're trying to create, right? So it's only natural that balls are going, when they roll off this green, are going to roll very close to this thing. So it gets down there. He's taking the club back. The rules officials right there. He's getting a free drop because his swing is going to hit the grandstands that is set right to the side. So he goes to take a drop, bounce, drops it, and it rolls towards the grandstand again. And he takes his club back.

And it looks like to me again, with very little evidence, I'm going to go with the guy that's hitting the shot and the rules of official standing right there as more evidence that the grandstands are still impeding where it's going to go, where his swing at least. So then he's dropped it twice. It kept bouncing towards the grandstand. Now he gets to place it on a decent lie, a good lie,

a great lie. I don't know what, I don't know if it's that great of difference. The first time he dropped it, they all commented how great the lie was that he had. So then he chips at 15 feet past the hole. It wasn't like it had a grand effect on things and it was also not like Patrick Reed lying about his ball being embedded. I'm going to go with benefit of the doubt here until somebody tells me otherwise. I would love any pushback you guys have to this. I didn't think it was like a bad at all. DJ and I were, I didn't even really think it was a thing until you said the golf

Twitter was up your ass. Uh, send it to Tron. Tron wants these at Tron Carter N.O.U. He wants all of these. He will join you without having seen the video. I promise you on that. Do not send me. I was just thinking to be honest, if that rock could be moved by Tiger, then just move

the grandstand. Just get some people down there, put your back into it. You could also just cut the tarp, cut a cut of Scotty shape hole in there and let them go and play. I didn't think it was a bad drop at all. Can we all agree that the sanctimony of PGA Torvitz is out the window. Look at this stadium that they're playing in. People are yelling, yelling things at you as you hit this.

This is a spectacle, right? And part of the deal is going to be like, do you want fans on top of the whole? Yes, they do. So there's going to be TIO relief on this whole. Like I just, again, we're watching like one of the most man-made man-constructed things ever between this golf course in the middle of the desert and all of the hospitality.

This is a stage like this is a kind of a, I like how they've steered into this, but it's kind of a joke in how man-made and unnatural all of the hospitality. This is a stage, like this is a kind of a, I like how they've steered into this, but it's kind of a joke in how man made an unnatural all of this is. So there's gonna be some unnatural rulings with it. And different than the Xander one, which we can talk about, but TIO, take this one away for the waste management.

Yeah, much like, you know, I think you know my feelings on where did it cross Twitter. I think take another look at that drop Twitter is right up there as well. I'm gonna it across Twitter. I think take another look at that drop Twitter is is right up there as well. I'm going to trust the professionals. I'm not going to concern myself with with really you know getting involved drops. It just got to play everything as it lies. It goes up in the grandstands. You got to go up there, you got to, you know, chip it through the seats, you got to do whatever. No, but no sprinkler head drops, no, you know, towers,

hit it through the camera tower, frankly. I love that. I mean, on that. After having spent just a couple of last two weeks out on tour, talking to guys, God, what I love to see some reaction to some of that. Like if they get a wind gust during some of their puts, they're not happy out there, man, it is insane. Which, I mean, I know that like we're joking about this, but, but also like, of course, because like the more and more and more you play into, like giving these guys every favorable

ruling, and I'm, again, I don't give a shit about whether Scotty got like some, some crazy above, above board drop or not. Like I have to of course, assume that it was. But the more that these guys tend to get every ruling, like they're, of course, gonna just keep pushing it further and further and further and, you know, be more and more pissed at every little thing that pops up. I don't know where I'm going with that, but it's a, I mean, I do.

If you want to segue way to talk about this, and everything, I have some thoughts, uh, just in general about the rules stuff. Like explain what happened with this, and a drop, and then I'll kind of, uh, go from there. Saturday, um, Dan, her it's T ball on the 13th hole, par five drives it into the right into the desert, which I want to talk about the desert, the desert's sick, by the way. Uh, and it rolls up underneath a tree, and camera shows it and the ball is not sitting in a animal hole, but there's a bunch of animal holes around this or what looks like animal holes. It's really hard to tell. They did not document this very well on the television.

They were very, very, very honed in on the 16th hole and a lot of other stuff got squeezed out on Saturday. They come back and Mark Emelman says, Zander Schoffley had the ball right back up against that Palo Verde tree. And it was against a root, but he was standing in a burrowing animal hole. So did a whole lot of lobbying with a first rules official and was denied called in a second opinion and not only got relief, a swing and a shot. So he was able to get a free drop left of the tree

and he was able to hit a seven iron onto the back of the green or just over the green. I don't remember what it was. It sounded like it was a pretty excellent shot, but essentially got a free drop from behind this tree where he was totally stymied, where he would have been maybe standing in and burying animal hole and got a free shot at the green. Now that's the situation. What are your thoughts on this KVB? So I think Xander did everything correct that he should have done, right? Jenner's has every right to, if he doesn't like the ruling sort of ask for a second opinion

to sort of make sure that he's getting every opportunity has to win the golf tournament or whatever. I just am frustrated by rules officials in general not really feeling like they can stand up to players and give them a bad ruling. And I feel like I don't know. I can't say this for sure, but I feel every time it happens in this, I was true of the read thing, it's been true of various things.

I think back to the Charlie Hoffman thing, we're saying, you know, basically, we don't get the rulings that we want, we're gonna leave. We're not, we don't feel protected with the players. We're them out. And out of these are gonna answer to us, not the other way around. And that could totally be bullshit, But I think it's human nature. If you're like a rules

official and this is all a big sort of, you know, business, it's all an entertainment product. And you're feeling pressure from one of the top players would be like, dude, come on. Like, there's a freaking animal burrowing hole right here. And you're like, you know, I mean, I don't think that the players can see this sort of like integrity stuff the way that they once used to. That's why it seemed like such as like an honorable, noble thing that Justin Thomas at the, at the US Open was like, you know, every, all kinds of people would lie about that drain interfering with their shot because I'm telling the truth.

I have to hit this like shitty shot, but I'm just going to go ahead and do it. Like that was pretty terrible of him because I don't think that every single player would do that would make that same sort of call. And I just feel a little bit like the rules officials are kind of getting pushed around. And I like, like, what's the protocol in terms of how many, you know, when, you remember the one breed said, well, can I get a third opinion? You know, it was Bryson, I think what, what a third opinion. Well, dude, like, okay, like is that even, I don't know the rules.

Can you get a third opinion? I get, does the third opinion over rule the other two? Can you get Jay on the phone and get him to come down, walk on the course? And you're like, no, no, that really, we need to give, we really need to keep John Romkas. So we're gonna make sure, and we're gonna give this ruling. Oh, we're gonna call the marketing department real quick

and see how we want to handle this. Where's this guy right now on the paper right now? Is this gonna hurt us? Shout out to F1, that's kind of what seems like where F1 got to. Look, I mean, you you talked to some some people that you feel like give better context to it. And I it maybe kind of softened my opinion a little bit, but it's just frustrating to feel like a player doesn't like the ruling that he gets. And then immediately just calls

someone else. And I don't it's pretty rare that the second official is like, yeah, first guy's right, sorry, tough shit. And never are they like, actually, I disagree with the first guy. You're taking the worst lie. And the macro, I, I tend to agree with you, right? I feel like what happened on the DP World Tour with Reed was like a rules official not standing up, like not following the proper protocol, or kind of being pushed around or led to believe a certain something By read that that he didn't challenge him really on it, right? So what as I understand what happened here

The rules official that denied in relief the first time was not a common rules official on the PGA tour or not someone that had experience in this event and In a judgment call it is a you know within protocol to ask for a second opinion on a judgment call, it is a, you know, within protocol to ask for a second opinion on a judgment call. It's not a letter of the law situation. It's like, hey, is this like burrowing animal relief? And as I understand it, the second official that came in had many years of experience on this covering this event. And that type of relief has been granted many times over the years in terms of how much stuff there is running around the desert, rodents, snakes, gophers, whatever the hell there is. I played one round while I was out there this week. I saw a lot of shit running around in there that actually kind of surprised me.

I didn't realize there was a lot going on. Coyote identifiable animals. Then you get into this conversation of like, well, what if they started digging the hole, but then they abandoned digging it? Does that count? Oh, blah, blah, blah. And you go back to like, is the rule a little messed up? Like, all right, burrowing animal relief.

It's like, if a gofer digs a hole in the fairway and it has like greatly impeded your stance or lie, that seems reasonable for relief from me. Now, if you're behind a tree in the desert and like you're gonna be standing on a burrowing animal hold, does that seem like you should be able to move it out from behind a tree? Like, is it a ball don't lie situation?

Does that feel right? No, it does not. Like, it really doesn't. So, it kind of feels just like a rule that is a unique situation in the desert just gets ruled in that way. Again, standing on a burying animal hole behind a tree doesn't seem like it seems like you should just be penalized for that. That seems like rubber the green to me, but that's not the way the rules are written.

And there is not a ball don't lie. Like does this feel right situation in the rule book?? Like rules have to be followed in a specific way. So there's a little reminiscent of Phil finding sprinkle heads in the middle of a bush in Mexico years ago. Yes. I can't. I would love to hit. I'd love to be. You know, but like the window right here. You know, but obviously I can't with this. I'll slip on this sprinkler. I remember what at the at the fjuric event this past year, I remember watching Robert Allen B from nearly out of bounds, near a range is ball in a bush.

And he was like, I'm going to hit it left handed. And if I do that, this temporary tent is in my way. I'm going to be like, dude, this is bullshit, man. Like no chance on staying for this, honey. We're staying and we're going to watch this. And he gets the rules visual did not back down, did not back down. Doesn't grandim really, if he gets up, he's like, all right, fine. Hits it, left handed and smokes it out of this bush

and almost hits the tent. Like it was a ridiculous shot. I was kind of like, yeah, these dudes are capable of some of these crazy things, but yeah, I that one, they didn't cover it well enough on TV to like gather the full amount of information, right? If they would have had zoomed in and we could see the burrowing holes better and all that like that's fine Again, I just think it's I just find that online reaction seems to trend towards this guy is cheating until I'm he's proven otherwise and I'm just gonna throw like Patrick Reads incidents of like blatant stuff that happened on camera that we have seen and can verify and this kind of thing in two different categories.

I think that's all I'm gonna ask of people is like, you know, unless you were there to see it, it's really hard to tell. And it didn't look like from what I saw that that was something that was super egregious. What else would it take away from onsite? What else do you file away from being out there the first couple days?

You know, I stopped by for a couple days, basically on my way back from Monterey. Honestly, out of like a little fear of FOMO, like a fear of like missing out, like this is the first big real actual designated event, like stuff just gonna be happening. Like I gotta get out there, I gotta like see what happens in the first couple of days.

Like I wanna walk the range, I wanna see, you know, if you get a chance to see every player there, get a chance to talk to every player and caddy, you know, all the big names, like that's just always a good thing for us. And it was, it was just a little different than what I was expecting in terms of 120 people, a lot of people in the field, whatever the final number was, it was very much a, huh. Okay, yeah, Max McGreeves here, like, Nick Taylor here, listen, we had a great week, but like,

Bo Haasler, like, you walked the range and it just, it definitely didn't feel like a WGC, right? And it is an incredible, incredible event. Like you go and walk 18, walking backwards, 18, 17, and 16, and just seeing how ridiculously large the hospitality buildouts are and how many people are there on a Tuesday and Wednesday for the pro am like, it's the one event that golf feels like a really frickin big deal. And I'm very well aware that a lot of the people that go to this event do not sit and watch the golf or care about Zander's drop from behind the tree on the 13th hole, but

it's a lot battle out more than that. And it just feels like an enormous enormous PGA tour event on the ground yet. Man, I just didn't, didn't quite seem like that different. I'm an event as a designated event. I don't know if it felt what it felt like to you guys on TV, but it just, I guess I was kind of, we've kind of had the, I've had the position that really what we can expect

from this year is like the best tournaments are gonna be like 15 to 20% better, right? With a little slightly better feel, like Rory being there makes it better. And I guess I don't know, in person, I was expecting it to feel like a little bit more and it just didn't quite fully feel that way. And I don't know, in person, I just expecting it to feel like a little bit more and it just didn't quite fully feel that way. And I don't know how that how that shine through on your guys experience the term in this week.

I don't know if my expectations were too high, but I felt a little bit the same. Like I am obviously excited for a rift going there this week. But I was kind of feeling a little bit of FOMO. I was like, oh, maybe I should have gone to a waste management instead. And then as soon as the cat like announced, I was like, oh, maybe I should have gone to waste management instead. And then as soon as the cat announced, I was like, oh, yeah, I totally made the right choice to go into RIV. Like, I definitely didn't need. But just watching it, I kept being like, okay, where's the sort of fun fireworks?

I mean, I think this gets a little into a little bit. We were hinting at about like they stayed with what happened at 16 on Saturday, so desperately wanting there to be a whole and one or there to be like people throwing stuff on the greens or there to be a similar sort of scene that we had last year that it sort of when it under delivered, it kind of felt like a fizzle like, oh, okay, like I guess there's still just like a golf tournament and cool, like the guy who is really good is going to win it, like it doesn't really going to get challenged down the stretch, like, yeah, that's fine.

Like, you know, like, I, it's just was a kind of a little bit of the balloon kind of going. Hmm. It finished great Saturday. I will say last group had went almost making the ace and rom making the 40 footer, right? But it felt like kind of a, a bit of a slow burn getting to that point.

And that's, that's what I was going to say. And again, I'll preface this with, I really didn't watch much until today. I was pretty locked in today, but the rest was kind of just catching up on highlights via social or whatever, but I know this is gonna sound like kind of an obvious take, but I think I'm gonna reheat it a couple times throughout the week,

especially when we get to some of the Netflix stuff, is when you, it's just all dictated about by what happens on the golf course, right? Like there's only so much you can do to change the non-golf aspect of things. And I think that if we're sitting here today and you know, someone makes an eagle on 15 and someone almost makes an ace on 16

and someone really goes for it on 17 or hits it in the water or somebody makes an amazing birdie on 18. Like it totally changes it, right? But it seemed to me like getting all of those pieces in place, then it's kind of just up to the golf. And when the golf doesn't deliver in like a huge way, then there's just not much you can do about that, right? But it seemed to me again, from afar, like all the pieces were in place for that golf

to deliver today. And it just doesn't happen sometimes, because it's golf. So I was, from where I was, I was kind of like, I was very, very pumped to watch today. I think I had more people texting me about the tournament throughout the week. I had more, you know, my dad's asking me more

what's going on. I'm more apt to look at the scoreboard. Like all of those things were definitely true for me, but I can't really speak to kind of how it felt Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but I also say that there's a lot of golf tournaments that Thursday, Friday, Saturday don't really have me going anyways. So it certainly didn't seem, certainly didn't seem worse than years past from where I was sitting. And the part that, I'm tend to agree to each of the part that concerns me is like we're

talking Sheffler winning, Ram JT fourth J Day fifth burns Speed up there like it was not for a lacking of a good leaderboard either, you know, it just yeah, it is maybe I just maybe we Had two big of expectations for what these designated events would look like and it's Also just saying this part again out loud like there are some dudes that went to live That the tour desperately misses like really really does and it's what A felt so different with camera and around and DJ to check in on and Keppka and things like that. Like I really do think it would have felt like a way bigger event and it just sucks it.

Like part of me thought that this year was going to be like better than the PGA tour pre anybody leaving live because like you're actually getting all the top talents together. But with the talent that you've already lost, it's still just like as, you know, maybe as good as the old events were. You're missing a few pieces from those events anyways. Like Roy doesn't play this one speed, then play this one blah, blah, blah. But this did not feel like better than old PGA tour events that a lot of people used to play.

I think there's something to be said for, again, I'm kind of shooting from the hip, but there's probably something to be said for things that are reactive or never quite as good as things that are proactive. Right? Yeah. This is a situation like you're saying completely like this entire designated event structure,

all of this stuff has kind of happened in response to live. And when you're playing defense like that, it does never quite seem like it's going to be as good as, let's all go to the whiteboard, let's drop the best thing possible with no holds barred, blah, blah, blah. It's always going to have that kind of black cloud over over it as far as like we are doing this in response to something else. I would just say too though, it's kind of like a little bit like counting cards, right? You just want to give yourself the best odds over and over.

So, you know, next time, if speed puts a little bit better today, it's more fun because he's more in the mix. If Ram delivers like the badass sort of Greek God, you know, thunderbolt thrower that he is, then it's a, it's more fun to there. So like maybe Rive is that thing or maybe, you know, they hills that you're getting more opportunities for the big guns to lock horns and that this one didn't quite work out as a little bit of a letdown, but you have a better chance the next time at a designated event that you will get a sort of, you know, big clash

between the Titans. That's well said, KVV. We'll have to practice a little patience. I will say to this though, it, if I could give a little, a little swift kick in the butt to a listener of ours, I know he's listening is Rory, in that a big part of the deal is like, yeah, all these guys are gonna be there at these events, but there's a difference in like being there

and engaged and being there and checking a box, right? And even if you got a fake it a little bit, I'd rather you fake it than, you know, he opens with his press conference, he says, you know, when asked about, you know, you're looking forward to the week, whatever he goes. I'm looking forward to it this week in some ways, but it's gonna be an experience.

Like very clearly, like through his teeth, like, yeah, this isn't really my scene. I'm like, dude, you kind of, like, you kind of, you were the instigator and the leader of this, and I kind of need you to dance for it a little bit. I need you there in like totally locked in and bought in, and if you're fatigued by this process this early in the year, that's a concern, I think,

and I don't know, I just feel like there's been some seepage since August, not just with Rory, just with guys in general in terms of like, thickly all came together and they're like, dude, we're all making sacrifices, and we're all gonna make it work, like speed. I gotta play five and a row, but you know what, I'm gonna do it, I gotta blah, blah and they're like, dude, we're all making sacrifices and we're all gonna make it work. Like, speed, I gotta play five and a row, but you know what, I'm gonna do it. I got a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and it just feels like the old Torpro and all these guys is, and I'm picking on Rory in particular, just because I think our admiration and appreciation for Rory has been well-toccuited. So I feel okay to do this, but it just seems like everyone's got a little bit of that, well, this isn't great for me. This isn't great for me.

This isn't great for me going. And I'm, it just concerns me a little bit in terms of, it doesn't seem to be the same momentum and same buy-in of like, let's go fuck people up and let's go make a really entertaining product. I think Roy had some quotes too about like, maybe needing to be talked into being mic'd up for a whole is like, man, no, I need y'all dancing. You got to dance for us. All right, we have whole is like, man, no, I need y'all dancing. You got to dance for us.

All right. We have we have beard, Grindr, you know, watched golf with through Grititi for a long time. And I need everyone rowing in the right direction to make this thing entertaining. And that means all of you. And that's just a takeaway I had that was just like, oh, man, I got to have a little more buy-in from guys. Yeah. It did seem, I think, like he understood understood, like, the existential threat more than most.

And it was like, all right, this is a time to share leadership. And so, like, I'm going to rally the boys and we're going to sort of make what plan to make this work. And then the reality is, like, oh, fuck, like, I actually got a grind all these weeks. I got to, you know, I miss one of them. I got to go every single one of them. Look, I think he'll get a fire lit at him at some point over something. And maybe it's just, you know, he's thinking more about the majors or he's, you know,

got other stuff going on, but just maybe Phoenix isn't his scene. Maybe just tired of the drunks and tired of he hears probably way more shit than most people out there that probably annoys him a little bit. And so maybe it's just like, all right, fine. I have to, you know, play Capelow next share, you can skip this one. And I'll also, in the interest of like, hey, we love it when guys say what they feel.

I don't disagree with anything you said to Ollie, but just things are complicated. Trying to think about it from all aspects, but I think you could also convince me that it's still not, we're still not getting to a point where like we've fixed the issue like that the house of Professional golf has like very very bad and dangerous wiring It's not like you know, we we change a couple outlets and like there's still like a lot of work to be done here And so there's there's that too. That's just what you're saying Kevin is like all right

We did like what do you want me to do, man? Like, you know, we changed the like bulbs, we changed the outlets, we grounded that thing in the family room, like, what do you want me to do? It's like, well, no, man, like, there's a lot more to do, unfortunately, there's a lot more to fix and this current structure is still not perfect because it's like, no, you got to treat.

If you want to get paid, basically what the amount of money that we're talking about here, that these top players want to get paid, you got to treat the Phoenix Open, like it's a major, you got to treat Riv, like it's a major, you got to treat the players, like it's a major, you got to treat the majors, like it's a major, even though you're going to treat now, treat that twice as much, like it's a major, you got to treat the playoffs,

like there are major, you got to treat the travelers, like it's a major now. The traveler. You got to treat heritage, like it's a major, like The traveler. You got to treat heritage like it's a major like all of these things that like I don't know, man, it's interesting and it's going to be really weird if and I hope this doesn't happen, obviously, but like if these first couple do fall flat, right? Like it's and guys are not buying in. It's going to be really interesting to see if the daggers come back out again. And that's where I want to be extremely clear to see if the daggers come back out again.

And that's where I want to be extremely clear. Do I understand how maybe waste is not like Roy has seen? A million percent, yes. That is definitely not for everyone. I think it's just like, I don't, and again, I'm maybe talking about sides of my mouth by saying we do appreciate the honesty, but I'm just saying like, man, it's just, it sets a totally different tone. If you as a leader of this are out there like gung ho and super excited about it

First kind of like just kind of start in your press or that way and again, I'm picking here But it just kind of was like a Man, I kind of came to this event because I thought it was going to be must-seat stuff and I just it just you know Didn't feel free to play great when I'm at riff next week Yeah, and he probably will and will probably be a very short memory of all this stuff But you don't need to do dance for solid just dance for me. It was good to have Rory back. I will say you know what what else is great to have back Rowback they're back for another year. We could not be more excited The fit the feel the quality it is all perfect. I am rocking the herringbone pullover right now DJ

You got the I don't even know what color that is coral. Let's call it hoodie on right now. We are always rocking rowback. They're performance pillows. They fit way better than your typical boxy pillows. The collar never loses its shape. Their four-way stretch material is soft and comfortable. We live in these things. I saw so many people out of the waste management rocking these things.

Rowback had a video on their Instagram too of just how many people were wearing these things. You see the stripe on the back of the collar, you know it's a rowback. Again, the Q-Zips are incredible. They're great for the morning, great for the evening, great for the winter, great for the spring, great for the fall, great for the office, great for the boardroom,

whatever that may be. The performance hoodies are the most comfortable and stretchiest hoodies we've ever worn. I wore one to the range this morning. It was absolutely perfect. I got a little warm because they're such good quality, but that's about maybe the only bad thing I could say about it is it's too comfortable. It's too warm, too cozy.

You can use code NLU at roback.com for a generous 20% off your first order, rhoback.com, 20% off polo's, qzips, hoodies, tees, joggers, you name it code NLU roback.com. In honor of TC, a little bit of down the leaderboard, we probably should mention Nick Taylor a little more than we had to this point. It was, I think, a win in some way for the tour to have an average-ish player, like going toe-to-toe, of like, hey guys, $20 million per person. This guy just made $2 million bucks. See, it's not all about the top guys here, but he was incredible all week.

Man, he made two bogies on the weekend, which was some actual golf untimely there on 16, really, really freaking good putting, really consistent ball striking. I don't have a ton more to add on Nick Taylor or an interesting thing to say other than he held tough with two of the best players in the world for a very, very, very long time to the point where I thought he was actually going to do it. Yeah, I'm with you. I really don't have much to add other than just like a thorough and earnest round of applause for a really freaking good round of golf.

And I know he missed a pot on 16, but he was pretty flawless otherwise. And obviously I ended up losing by a couple anyway. So I don't think it was. It wasn't just that, but I don't know. I don't know that there's any place in the world that Canadians seem to like more than Scottsdale. I mean, just, it always seems like Canadians play well. There's a million Canadians in the gallery all the time.

It's just, it's always kind of fun when that ends up happening. So what I, listen, no offense to Nick Taylor, would I rather that have been Rory or Max or Tom Kim or someone like that? Sure, but you know, you can talk me into getting into the David and Goliath, what I'd rather that have been Rory or Max or Tom Kim or someone like that. Sure. But, you know, you can talk me into getting into the David and Goliath, coming down the stretch storyline a little bit. So, yeah, congrats, Dan. Massive week.

Yeah, I felt a little studs on because I made a crack about Canadians with Tron last week and had a lot of Canadians in my mentions. It's good to feel, you know, they got their, their, their, their, their do we. I was trying to distance myself from that in real time. You could see where that was coming. I know your big fan. Yeah. I'm just, nobody loves Canadians. One of me. So congrats to, to really all Canadians.

And I've had one had a great tournament too. T10, he, he faded to 7171 on the weekend. But he had some memorable moments from this weekend. It is, we met, we referenced it at the top. It is official Trevor Emelman gave a shout out to a popular golf podcast and saying that I forget what IBF said. Ian Baker Finch said something about like, oh, he just doesn't go away or something. Can't keep him down.

Can't keep him down. That's exactly what it was. And Trevor has said, popular golf podcasts calls him the buoy because you can't sink him. And it's out there. It's it's running. And I don't know why he couldn't give us give us shout out by name Trevor. Come on. We're shouting out all the time. Can't have it like that. But no, I appreciated that. And then Ron was asked about it afterwards. He apparently was not familiar with the buoy nickname, which breaks my heart. But now the whole world is. I mean, so many people have already been saying it. But now it's just

everywhere they go. I heard him yelling booey at him and folks are not, I don't, I don't look at that. Folks, they're not booing. They're saying booey. That's the, and to the people from the UK, that's how we pronounce it in the US. Stop, you know, you're getting all over me for the pronunciation. All right. That's how we pronounce it here. It's different than how you pronounce it.

How do they pronounce it? Boy, which I'm like, there's already a word for that. Like, why would you say it that way? That doesn't make any sense. Take that away. Yeah, miss me with that. But I don't know that I've laughed really too much harder today. Maybe this week, I don't know, but we were watching the T shots at 17.

And Rom had kind of been dropped from coverage, you know, and Kevin and I are laying in this hotel room again, hungover, just kind of narrating thrown jokes against the wall. I'm like, oh, they're Scotty and like the perfect position. I couldn't be in a better spot. Nick Taylor kind of looks like he bailed on it at the last minute kind of wife went out there to the right a little bit. And ROM we assume is down there fighting with the motorized go for that's running around it's driving around the lake there Hey, what are you doing? I said it to my face. I go to be all night. I will absolutely kick shit of you later You can see him. It was fun to watch him like looking up at the stands even on 18 You could see it. He was like just glaring at somebody. I stand the fucking lot until the fucking sun comes up I guarantee I would be here. You come say it to my face

God it was awesome. I just love the rage coming out of him. Oh God, I love Rob. He's the absolute best. He played so bad today guys. He shot 68 300 parts today. Is that the worst he can play right now? He looked awful And it was solo third. Blue whale was trying to pull the bully down. It's still, he wouldn't go down. I don't know how to tie this together. I'm gonna, but I have this instinct. Every time they cut from like,

all right, here's Nick Taylor. And then it cuts like John Rom. I keep picturing guys I used to play against in like travel basketball when I was like 14 years old. Like the dude that was six inches tall with an everyone and 40 pounds heavier and he's in the post, and like, it's just like, dude, why are you competing with us?

Like shouldn't you be playing up a grade, shouldn't you be playing with somebody like your own size? Like you just look out size and out, out talented for this skill level. And that's every time they cut to him, I'm just like, this dude is a freaking unit and is so physically gifted that it doesn't seem fair that Nick Taylor has to try

to beat this guy and did beat him this week I should. I think I've your like my mustache, but you wish it was a girl like this. I don't know if that was Neil or you saw him on Slack this week they called him Daniel Monta. Yeah, exactly what it seems like. He's just mowing people down. It just just pitch it every day. You know, I don't need any rest man.

Just put me out there for, I'll throw a complete game. Let me just keep, keep going. He looks like a CC sabati of it. You're in the brewers. Yes. So complete games on three days of rest. Those arm falls off. It's like 12 ending complete games.

Yeah. Now I'm just going to keep going out there, man. Keep fucking moan people down. My birth certificate. I'm telling you that last week with that. Don't you, I will go to my house and get it right now and pick it back and shove it in your face. Yeah, he was, you know, seventh and potting this week,

14 strokes, gay, tea to green. He's just, he's just freaking incredible, man. As an incredible start to the year, it's so hard to beat. Like just beat JT, I'm just naming, beat JT's and her at speed, like every time you tee it up, like every time he beats all of them, every time. And you know, this we got clipped by two guys, but it's just outrageous how long this run is lasting.

And it doesn't seem, it doesn't look like he's hanging onto it. It just seems like we are watching, we see so much of a very average round for him that you're kind of like, ooh, is he losing it? It's like, no, no, when he plays good, he's gonna win a tournament by like eight. Like, he is that much better than everyone else right now. Scottie's number one in the world.

So the rankings say, I think John Ram is the best golfer in the world right now. I'm super excited to see him at the players where he was as been in contention and didn't win and at the Masters where he's been in contention and didn't win. Like, those are two places where he could really like fuck people up.

And again, I think he gets, you know, it's kind of what I was saying with Scotty, where it's like the more you see these guys in the heat, the more you, the more context you build, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, if he goes this year and wins two majors, he gets infinitely more interesting. And if he goes this year and wins no majors, he gets infinitely more interesting. Like I, I think truly either way, I just, I, he's kind of the guy that I'm like, man, I cannot wait to see what happens this year with him, which is really fun. It's, if, if Speed wasn't going to win the Masters, it would be wrong. I would say so.

Sure. JT signs a life signs of life shot 67 65 on the, he just, look like he just started playing offense on the back nine today and just a total ears pinback situation. Plants are really good golf. Solo fourth, he lost strokes to the field putting this week as well with second and strokes gained T-degree, which is a theme we're going to run it with the next guy we're going to talk about as well as I just I don't trust him and his best friend from that like four to eight foot range right now.

And I just I don't know they it just worries me a little bit. Yeah. A little suck between putters. Seems like the, uh, the, the, obviously JT is a cash machine at Phoenix and ROM plays well here every year. Scotty obviously is in that mold now as well, going back to back. Do you guys like the courses like this? Where it's, it's complete horses for courses. It's, it's very predictable. Like it just seems like some guys, this has probably got to be the best example on tour, right? Of like, I know some guys just absolutely,

it is minus 5,000 that they're gonna finish in the top 20. And it's, I think that's really fun, but I'm curious how you guys look at that. I think it's kind of fun that like you can drive it a little bit wild here and you can get back into holes like I the most boring golf to me is like hit in the fairway, hit in the green, two putt, maybe make an occasional, you know, birdie on a two putt par five. Like I love like that's why like Jordan's showing signs of life here was so much fun because

it was like, oh yeah, like he didn't really like hit it in the fairway. Like he just basically did like his magic tricks came back and then he made everything. That was super fun. I don't know. I think it's just, I've, it's course has grown on me. I used to think it sucked and now I kind of think like, no, it's actually like kind of set up really fun for pro golf, like especially down the stretch, you think, okay, I can anticipate what these holes are going to be like. Yeah. I know how much fun it's going to be. It is a really, really good pro golf course. I think it I can anticipate what these holes are going to be like. I know how much fun it's going to be. It is a really, really good pro golf course. I think it has so many layers to it.

You want to drive it great. You don't want to be in the rough because, again, it goes back to firmness. They got that thing so firm. And it all goes back to contouring around the greens too because, to me, this golf course is a quick line between, a close line between Birdie and Bogey, which I think is the most interesting golf.

And a lot of like the golf to this point of the year, you know, Kapilua, Sony, AMX, Farmers is excluded from this, but you know, even Pebble in the right conditions, like it's like Birdie or par. All right, maybe you make Birdie here, maybe you make par, but like Bogey takes a pretty darn good mistake to do to make.

And that is not the case with this golf course because the contouring around the greens is so good. It's so firm. Even the gettable holes, there's such great consequence to your shots. Like if you miss in the wrong spot on 17, it's not like there's not a bailout spot. Like you're going to have a tough up and down. And a lot of that has to do with like some of these hollows where the ball ends up around the green. You're actually chipping onto down slopes to green, you know, how many times we see ROM in a greenside bunker this week with a bunker shot

that he couldn't really get that close and you know, he's one of the best bunker players in the world and he's just on the wrong side of a slope and the ball keeps running out. 13 is a really interesting green that par five. I mean that whole play is easy, but you got to hit the right shots and and then you mix in the desert. And I want to talk about the desert. I think it is one of the best elements of any pro golf course is like the land minds that are, you know, maybe I'm not talking

about the brewing animals really if you can get over there. But the cacti, the bushes, the trees, the ball rolling on it, the creative shots that are required to hit, you know, you can shape shots off those hard pan lies. You might hit a person, you got to move people around, you got weird angles and you can hit crazy fun recovery shots from those trees. That is such a fun element. That is way more fun than ankle deep rough or just grass in general.

It reminds me of Pinehurst a lot and that, you know, it's got sandy areas that, you know, are just like, dude, I don't want to go in there because I might get something really, really bad over there. But also, I might get a nice break, but like, probably just becomes a numbers game. And if you're in there 20 times, you're gonna eventually pay a price. And I've grown to really appreciate this golf course and that it's a fun golf course to watch for four days, too,

because, like I said, it's just, there's just consequence to this shot. Media-ocor-shots, average shots, don't end up anywhere near the really good shots. And I think that's a sign of a good pro golf course. I think too, like they're, especially around the greens, like the fact that there isn't like rough to hold the ball. We'd always talk about that. If you hit a shot and you saw that on 16 today, all those shots hit the green,

but they just weren't going to hold that green and they weren't going to stop like right on the collar. They're going to roll all the way out towards, you know, the boundary there, essentially. And that was what's kind of fun, right? That forces them to make different choices with like, all right, I had a high flop here. Do I hit it into the hill, let it kind of release a little bit? Like those are fun decisions to make. And there's a lot of courses on tour where obviously it's not firm.

So it doesn't bound and go far. But even when it is, like it gets, sort of courses on tour where obviously it's not firm, so it doesn't bound and go far. But even when it is, it stops right near the hole instead of running away from it. And so that's, I mean, not only that's huge. That makes such a difference. And like, I know casual fans probably don't, but like coming off Tori two weeks ago where, again, you can hit a screamer through the green and it stops two feet over the green. Like, this is way more fun, I think, and way better of a challenge. And I think the leader board reflected that. I mean, look at 16 is the perfect example, right?

How close were those three shots were all on the green? You can almost throw a blanket on them where they ended up and you kind of seen three different shots out of there, right? I mean, I guess Scotty and Romss were kind of similar, the like kind of scooters through the hill and bouncing up on the hill and try to get to stop. But then Nick Taylor has a completely different shop because he's just barely on a different surface and he's trying to hit the little higher like one stop, you know, one bounce and stop type thing. So any good win, too. Like you're a factor. That's what I I was gonna ask. I didn't get to watch much on Friday, but was that looked like Christmas morning

from the videos that were coming across my desk? Scottie Shepler had a ball stop like 12 inches from the hole on 16 that eventually blew off the green. Mapping nearly putted into the water on 12. That was sick. JT had a ball roll and roll and roll and roll on 12. He's like, fuck off. It was just perfect. Like it was,, fuck off. It was just perfect.

Like it was, I shouldn't say it was just perfect. Like it kind of speaks to like green speeds getting out of control. And the tour is running to issues really two weeks in a row of green speeds, not be able to hold, you know, hold up with the the wind speed that they got. And I just, it's kind of a, it's been a tough training pro golf for a long time. And they, they seem to have more of an appetite to push things though, to push a pin a little closer to the edge. And they got their hand caught in the cookie jar a couple times here to start the year. But I think in general, I enjoy that they're pushing it to the edge, but I do just wonder about these green speeds. And if they're going to have further issues,

that's a benefit of the designated events thing though, right? Because like, you can push things a little bit more because the players kind of have to come, right? So there's no, like, I don't, I hate what they do to this thing. I hate the conditions for this place. Like, tough shit. Like we're giving you $20 million. So you, and so we can have a little tougher pans that we can make, you know, piss you off

a little bit. If you don't want to come, like, no, you don't have to play for the money, I guess. You know, you're not eligible for the bonus thing. So quick hamster dam segment. Hamster dam, if you are a new listener is where we try to isolate any complaints. We have about television coverage to one single part of the show. So it doesn't bleed into the rest of the show. I don't think we have to worry about that as much in this year and the coming years

because it was a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge problem in pro golf. It seems to be mitigated to the point where it's not like we need to, you know, complain about everything every single week, but they did go really, really hard on 16 on Saturday. Obviously they were rewarded with the huge moment last year with Sam Rider making the ace and putting Amanda Brenner and Colt Nost down there on the on the scene to kind of give you appreciation for the atmosphere, but filling a lot of stuff got squeezed out on Saturday, the 17th hole in particular got completely squeezed out. Jordan Speedhit,

what Michael Greller called the greatest bunker shot he's ever seen from 76 yards to two feet. And we had to resort to finding that on on social media. It was tough. It was a decision to do that. I get it. You know, they're trying some different things. They're going for what, you know, celebrating what does make this event unique. And again, just with the commercial load that they are, they're saddled with,

you're gonna sacrifice something to do something like that and bring it to life. But just a little heavy on 16, I thought, on Saturday, in my personal life. I thought Amanda and Colt had a pretty good rapport. I said that on Twitter, I thought they had sort of a fun back and forth. Colt's just really good at picking up

like whatever somebody throws a mojoke or throws them a setup or whatever. And you know, he and Amanda just, they didn't try too hard, I think, and it was a fun energy. It's good. I like it. I think again, it just comes at the cost of something else, right?

And you don't want to miss a live moment, they missed it live when when writer made the haste last year and they were again, you just got to also appreciate all and one's extremely unlikely and like banking on showing all the shots live is is a lot to settle the rest of your telecast with. But that was kind of and then Sunday it felt like the commercials as the leaders were going into 16 and also immediately after they hit their shot, we're just back breaking, just crushing it reminded me. It felt like a huge step backwards. I don't, I don't know who's to blame.

I don't care who's to blame between CBS and the tour here. But like just for you, this being your big designated event, I don't know what you got to do to cut the commercials down the final few holes. But like this is like what you are trying to celebrate was this this scene and your guys are arriving there. You don't show it there like basically in Scotty shot as they come back from commercial and then cutting right away to go into commercial after they hit. It's unexcusable. If you've decided that this is your moment that you want to focus on this or whatever, cram the commercials into other stuff, whatever, and then let that moment breathe.

Yeah. Like let them walk all the way up to the thing, let the fans go bonkers or boo them and just kind of make feel the energy of what it's like. Don't, they did that last year. They saw her. Yeah, they did it. Yeah, that was, that was what was frustrating.

Is it like they clearly had said, all right, 16 is going to be like a big deal and then didn't let that moment That's all I had for hamster and I mean missing the speech out was was very tough, but Missing the Xander stuff was a little bit frustrating. That was they never really like gave any sort of I think nobler has with like one line later to say everything was up on the up Yeah, everything was You heard about that if you heard about that on social media, don't worry about it because college is fine.

I'm not in these places. Max had a sick club throw after a bad fairway bunker shot. That was sweet. There's a tree fire. Yeah. You're talking about Roy not showing fire like that was like Max is like fucking pissed that he would do. It wasn't, you know, in the mix.

And that's pretty awesome. Like from where Max has come to this moment where he's like, just it's not clicking and working this week. And I'm mad about it. That's what I was gonna say. I mean, you know, from the got a column like you see in department, I mean, Max is clearly elevated his stature on the PGA tour to a point that, you know, you kind of expect him to play well every week,

especially at a place where he has played really, really, really well, super disappointing week. It's, it was a bummer to see, not see him in the, uh, in the mix. So I don't know if that's just a, you know, just one of those things. It's hand up. So I'm me, uh, I have not hit a single bet single one in our draft King. Uh, this year, not, not a single one. It's honestly hard to have been unsuccessful as I've been.

And I picked him to top 20 this week. So I will own that one, Max. Yeah, I didn't realize you pushed it in that one. Yeah, that's all me. I will bet on you to miss the cut next week, Max, because I am officially the cooler. Last thing I have is this week in James Han tweets. It got a lot more direct this past week.

I couldn't help but notice that I tweeted this. I said, James Hahn was the lone dissenting board vote against the new structure of the PGA tour with these elevated purses. He's currently slated to make 265 grand for his T18 standing. This spot would have paid 125k last year when he got off the golf course, James replied and saying, ha, ha, what a joke. Do you even know what we voted on or do you make this stuff up to fit your narrative? If we voted to not raise the pit money, we could have had 50 million more in purse money. Facts don't come at me with your bullshit. I'm a fan, but you should have laid up on this one.

And my response in realizing that we are going to be wired in a multi, multi, multi reply Twitter thread. I said, yeah, it's almost like the PGA tour was in an existential crisis and has been held hostage by the rank and file for decades. And then in which Han has replied, existential crisis, held hostage, calm down their big guys, just golf. Sorry, my dissenting board vote got you so triggered. If you only knew what was said in those meeting, you wouldn't be talking out of your arse, which I think to all this, again, James, there is a request in your DMs for you to come on the podcast and

discuss all this, but probably a high probability. We're just not going to see eye to eye on this issue. I, again, it is of my opinion. And please, both of you gentlemen, feel free to push back if you disagree, but that exactly what I said, the the tour has been held hostage. Maybe that's a little dramatic phrasing. Sure. I'll give you that held hostage by the average to mediocre PGA tour player for a long, long, long time. And yes, in the course of in the interest of like retaining talent on this tour, the tour has decided to give the most impactful players a lot, a big share of off course revenue. And I think that was a very good decision to retain the talent. And as somebody who's not going to receive that money, he's probably

going to feel very differently about it. I definitely do not think it's apples to apples that they could have just added the $50 million to the purses. Nor do I think that would have solved the issue at all. I think it would have only compounded the issue. But yes, I have a feeling we're just not going to see eye to eye on this one. And yeah, I feel I feel quite strongly that you will as an you know, an average, ish tour player benefit greatly from this new system, even if you did not vote for it. James, I don't know if you've heard we have a website now and I'm writing about it on it. So I'll be at RIV if you want to chat, I'll come over and tap you on the shoulder and

just say, if you'd like to explain what happened to those board meetings and I'll give you full say and full ear to hear you out. And so I want you to feel unlike Sally. Yeah. Creating the narrative. Creating a narrative. Big guy. I mean, he's a fan.

And listen, he's speaking of his art. His quotes are out there and I've read them previously. Adam Schupac report back from August about, you know, when he, when he did cast this dissenting vote against it, that, you know, he said certain changes were made to combat the live tour, not necessarily to make our tour any better. To prevent more players from leaving our tour, we are ending up paying the top players in the world guaranteed money that has increased exponentially. Yes, I believe that's a goal of this. He said three years that's a goal of this. It said three years ago, we started implementing

this new PIP program, which has grown to a hundred million. It seems like the people who have the most influence of how much money is distributed to the top players in the world have a much stronger voice now than they've ever had. Yes, yes, I would definitely say that's probably the goal of this. I don't understand the next part. I understand the reasoning that the money is used to keep top players.

And without them, we have no tour. Okay, then I don't know what we're challenging here. But my question to them is when is enough enough? We've gone from 50 million to 100 million. When 100 million is enough, will they ask for 200 million? How will that impact our business? Well, I would say, you know, two time WM Phoenix Open Champion,

Bruce Keppga was in a dystopian tournament of turn of events, missing the cut in Oman this week. So like when you talk about how it's going to affect your business, like that's how it's going to affect your business. It's just it would have been a slow bleed and I think the Scotties and all of these people who are putting these hundreds of thousands of butts in the seats are going to slowly disappear. Or quickly disappear.

Most of my background, maybe if you've familiar with me at all, is like uncovering football. And there's just not really a scenario where like the person who was, you know, the special teams player would have a lot of, you know, pull over what the future of like NFL contracts would be like. And so I find it a little bit sort of strange that golf. I mean, look, are there great stories out there about guys who grind their way through, you know, to be the 125th player to work their way up, like, yes, absolutely. Are they are they already upset about the idea of next year that only 75 players are going to be in these, there does doesn't advance out. I kind of know the exact number, but it's going to be less than 125 right?

Yeah, but I don't really as a fan, I don't know why what the compelling argument is for me to like want less of the superstars and more of the journeyman. Like, I just isn't a really a winning argument. No one in the NBA is like, you know, like, John is on the broad stuff or sweet, but you know what I really like to say is like more pat badly. Like I think pat badly should have like more of a say in like what happens because like he's a great story.

He's a great story. It's a great story. Yeah. Yeah, dude, like, you know what's also a great story is like, the best guys like being on your story. Yeah, dude, like, you know what's also a great story is like, the best guys, like being on your tour. To me, it's also incredibly simple, maybe too simple, right? All these issues are more complicated than I would like to make it, but incredibly simple of like, hey, dude, all the best players in the world slash all of the guys that create all of the value,

have an option here of like, hey, we're going to maybe go form our own tour. We're going to go join live or we're going to stick with the PGA tour. Let's just call those the three options, right? And what they came up with was, we're going to stick with the PGA tour. Like we're going to stick with you guys. James Hawn, you need Rory McElroy. Like, you need that guy for your career to be valuable, right? So they also came to you and said, hey, we're going to redo how things are done, but in

order for us to all state here, stay here and retain the value of the FedEx cup and all these sponsors that have signed up, like we're going to rearrange some things here. We're going to have elevated purses. We're going to do more pip money. We're going to do this. But that's going to incentivize all of us to play and stay and play here more. The lower tier events are still going to get paid the same amount of money. You're going to have opportunity to play in all these events. But this is what this is how we're going to bring value to you guys.

What do you think to that? And James nod to that said, no, put the money back in the purses. And it's maybe just not that simple, man. And I think, you know, I think James is getting brought up here constantly because he speaks on this issue, but it was on the board. That's why I've picked on him. It's like you were responsible for the policy making of this tour and have been for the past. I don't know how many years, but I do think he is like staggeringly in the minority also.

Yes. Right. So like, yes, it's good to like keep piling it up. But I also think it's just like, eh, he doesn't get it. And that's, that's fine. I will say I want to hold out the possibility to like he obviously probably knew that the thing was going to pass, but it was basically like, this is a protest vote for like all the little guys out there, and I'm just gonna be on the record to basically saying like, you know, you're fucking us, but like we understand we need you, so like we'll go

along with it, but I'm not gonna vote for it, you know, so I mean, look, if that's, if you really felt principled about it, then respect, do what you gotta do. He's also applying for live exemptions and releases while he was on the board of the P.J. tour. Like it also just might be wine to have some cake and eat it too situation. He really wants to be on live. I don't know. Well, he's very bad. I mean, he's, yeah, he's a, he's a lot better player than some of the dudes who are playing live. I don't know if he has a certain number that they haven't met yet, but like, yeah, man, like I, I'll put in a word for Greg with his Greg. I don't know what's, again, kind of ironic when you start to look at like the tour that you're openly cheerleading for isn't willing to give you more money. So like I wonder why the

PJ tours not willing to get you more money as well. I don't know, maybe I would put those, connect those dots, maybe. And if you don't tune into every podcast, I've been trying to make this point recently in like the light bulb that at least has gone off for me recently. What something I wish I've said a long time ago was like, I kept hearing about this leverage thing, leverage leverage. The players need a leverage. And I'm like, dude, the players do not need like leverage over the execs of the tour, like the execs of the tour as to the best of their ability. My understanding, like, execute on what the players tell them to do. But the problem has been that the average player to mediocre player has held too much weight in that room of like being in the commissioner and the leadership's ear of like what should be done.

It's the reason why we have 47 events and why we have 156 people playing in these events is like, it is all with the incentive of like create as many playing opportunities as possible. Do this for the PJ tour players. Do this for the membership for the membership, all this blah, blah, blah. And finally, with this live thing, the top players who bring all the value to those guys have the leverage in my opinion over that middle tier player to be like, listen, it's been this way for a long time. But if we're going to stay, it's going to change.

And here's how it's going to change. And I, I, I get the resistance to it on the surface, but on an actual conceptual level, it doesn't make sense to just be like, oh, yeah, I know you guys are creating all the value, but nothing can change here. Status quo is totally fine. Everything's fine here, which anyone that is even remotely up to date on this situation knows the status quo is out the window. So it's not like it's this cousin played out in golf history before.

We're like Arnie and Jack were like, look, we don't want to be like given teaching lessons to like 15 handicaps. Like we're making money. Like this is different. Yes. Then the actual teaching pros, how about we just split off into our two different things and, you know, that one out in the sense of like that's the creation of the whole modern tour. And maybe like the modern evolution of that is now we've splintered again is like, Hey, like maybe we don't need like 125 exempt guys to you know, fill out this tour. Maybe that you should have to sort of be better than 125th to kind of like earn a living at this. Like, you know, it's a tough thing to sort of tell guys

who are awesome and we all like love hearing their stories and are infinitely better at golf and we could ever imagine we could be. But like, I'm not really tuning in to see the guys at the bottom of the list, you know? I wanna see like we're talking today, like, ramen, Scotty, going at it. Yeah, there's no good way to do it

because I mean, it's, we could have sat if this was a preview podcast, we could have sat and said why the hell is Nick Taylor in this field, this is bullshit, what an absolute waste and over the course of 18 holes over the course of 72 holes. I mean, these guys, the difference between these guys from a golf skill level is, is not very astronomical, right? I mean, it's pretty interchangeable. Uh, over the course of a season, over the course of a career, I think it obviously starts to separate, but yeah, it's hard to draw that line. I don't know. And I think the final point of this would be, I think he was, and I do not know how the voting works on this, but I think he's trying to at least position in his tweet by saying, I was, I just voted against, I didn't vote against elevated purses. I just thought the pit money should go into the purses.

I just want to scream from the mountain tops. That's part of the problem. Like part of the problem is when you tie Rory in a tournament, you walk home with the same amount of money when you have provided vastly different value to that tournament, right? Like my position all along the golf on the PGA tour gets rewarded really well, compensated really well compensated really well FedEx money earnings from tournaments. That's really fine. And the top players are not getting the value commiserate with the effort, the value that they bring to the tour and

sponsorship dollars they bring in. So we're not going to see eye to eye on that. It just it's all right. We don't have to keep belaboring this point. But it just James Hansen what I never know about it. But it just calls to mind like the way you're saying it's all, is like, in a perfect utopian world, like it operates under the assumption that like somebody is putting up this person's money and saying like divide this based on golf skill level. And like that is not what's going on. Like that's not what's happening. It is media money that's being put up and saying like divide this according to like who brings in the most eyeballs and make your product as good as possible. It's not a true meritocracy. I mean, it is to a point and and you know, they do have to divide the purse up a little bit, but like it's all the money is not being brought in because of,

you know, the sanctity of rewarding people based on who gets the ball in the hole the fastest. It's much more complicated than that. And if you don't get that, then you don't get that. The cat is back this week at the Genesis. Guys, I did not see this coming. I didn't even know my radar that he would potentially be playing next week. Was this a surprise for anyone else? Kevin and I do, you know, just in a couple of weeks since he's been working with us,

is, you know, we do a little like editorial kind of check-ins and meetings and I kind of texted him the other day. I was like, hey, this might be like a stupid question, but we're like putting together our plans for like, what are we going to write about it Riviera and blah, blah, blah. Like, wait, like is Tiger Plan? Like, do we know? I don't know. Like, don't laugh at me for like asking this. Like, is this obvious? Is he definitely obviously playing or like, definitely obviously not playing? Like, it's just weird how it's, I don't know, this is a whole other media thing,

but I think we've just very much become a culture of like until it's tweeted, there's not really any information out there and Tiger doesn't tend to tweet very much. So it just kinda, we get stuck in limbo as far as any new information. But yeah, I had no truly 50, 50 jump ball, no idea what was gonna happen and obviously thrilled

to hear the result. It did, I think maybe represent a little bit of like the ball has moved forward a little bit in terms of he's not the only game in town because like I think in the past, if there was a chance that he was gonna play, that would have been like the story, like everyone would have been,

there'd been all kinds of those about like about Will Tiger play. What will that mean? And then it was just like, oh, wow, he's actually playing. We've been focusing on all this other stuff about what the new events are going to look like. And so even within the golf world, which is obviously very Tiger focused, it was a little bit of a surprise. I I didn't, I mean, I don't know that I ever thought like he wouldn't play, but I definitely wasn't like thinking I was going to go out to LA and men absolutely get to see two Tiger Woods rounds of golf for the first time in a PGA tournament for several years. I, it like I had a rush hit me all like for the first time in a PGA tour event in like almost three years, I guess it is, of like, oh shit,

I got to rearrange some plans. Like, he's the only guy, still the only guy that every shot you need to watch. Like every shot it's gonna be a story, right? If you play horrible, that's a story if you play is okay. That's a story if you play is great, that's a story. And it used to be like in the, you know, whatever, 18, 19, it was like, make your plans around what time's Tiger Teen?

Like, you can't miss it. Like, you can't be away from Twitter while it happens, at least in my role, right? Like, I can't do that. And majors are easy. I'm watching all the golf anyways, but this was like, oh shit, dude, I wonder if he's early, late, or late, or like, no one else in golf has that.

Rory, as much as we root for him, doesn't have that. Speed, I can get caught up on your round. Like, that's fine. And Tiger, it's just different. And I don't have high expectations for the level of golf. I'll be very pleasantly surprised. If he makes the cut, I think that'd be an incredible achievement. But he's going to be playing PGA Tour event.

And that's exciting. That's a really, really good news. And I hope he doesn't further hurt himself. Also, it's the only course he's never won. I believe on tour. So, you know, maybe he's still grinding. It's really burnzassity. But what if you want, but what if you want, but what if you want to talk about like what would make a fun designated event Tiger in the mix? I mean, come on. I love these designated events. They nailed it. Is this a, you know, is this a, a just flex PGA tour move by Tiger? Is this him giving a boost to these designated events to

start? Is this a ceremonial occurrence? I think he probably just wants to play at his own event. Like, it's a course that he obviously has an architecture door like Likes and he's, you know, it's the place where he has a lot of history going back to being, you know, debuting here. I don't think he's specifically being like, okay, like Jay, I'll throw you one here and I'll tee it up. He's probably like, yeah, you know what, I feel pretty good. I'm gonna go and, you know, just really, really good at it. This is the condition. It's so good. Which I wonder if this means players for him or not, or if that's too close to Augusta in terms of it just takes him, I think, a while to power down after these in recoup.

But I wonder if this is like his pre-agust to start and the only one he's going to make prior to that. Or maybe does he play, go play Bay Hill where he's 11,000 times. That could be interesting. I'm intrigued to see what this means, right? And can he get through four rounds, right? Because he only did that one time last year. And I'd be, I'd be, I don't know.

It's a true who could say a situation. But God, I just, he's still so fun to watch. I mean, watching the Masters and all those Masters podcast last year, we talked about this ad nauseam, but he's still just so fun to watch hit iron shots and watching him hit iron shots at Riviera is just a treat. It truly doesn't matter if he shoots 75 75 misses a cut like who cares? It's just it's really fun to watch and play, you know, hit the shot into two hit the shot

in the three hit the shot into the part threes hit that like it's just it's going to be awesome. I absolutely can't wait. One of the coolest like shots that I have ever seen in person was him at rives several years ago. He it's the I think it's three the par five, whatever. Maybe it's not was he sorry. It's on the back. He hit it left in the trees and he like didn't really have any kind of shot standing like right next to him. There's a branch hanging over and he hit like this low sort of hook that like like didn't rise in the air until after it had cleared the tree branch and it would just look like it seemed like he'd take a magic wand doing it. I was just like wow, like I get like why you know it's so much different to see him in person. We'll just see something like that.

And it just TV can't really translate it. So of course, rib is like a cool, cool place to get to see that kind of stuff. Yeah. I'm jealous you're going to be there. There was a great article, a banger of an article in golf week, this week, which shout out to Adam Schupack with some tidbits on Bryson and his live golf contract slash Cobra contract and all that. I'm just going to read a few of these here. A source said that as part of the Shambos live golf contract, the upstart league had to sign off

on the equipment deal as it relates to this relates to Cobra and allow Cobra to use his likeness from its tournament footage. Live had a proposal since at least October had been unresponsive according to multiple sources. Put a pen on that because there's just way more fun stuff to come. And then this is from cobra Puma, PGA Tour at Ben Showman. It says, I wish him all the best, but it's going to be a struggle just because of what he wants to do.

And Ben had said who had been at Bryson's back in call and bent it over backwards to accommodate every request. He said there was such an ass in eye statement for Bryson to have made it in that he was looking for a driver that where you could hit it anywhere on the face and find the fairway. He said it especially for a guy perceived to be knowing it all when it comes to science and physics.

With increased speed, demands increased precision. It's just like a race car. You got to be a better driver when you're running it 200 miles an hour than you do it 75 miles an hour going down I 95. He doesn't believe that he thinks there's a magic bullet out there. He's looking for a unicorn and another, an executive of a big four competitive firm said, we don't have the manpower to deal with him.

And then also Bryson shed tears when the first batch of Cobra single-leath irons single-length irons were presented to him. He put them straight into his bag commemorated the moment by signing the frost at Glasswall in CEO Bill Bob Filion's office and permanent in saying the day the game changed July 13, 2016. Oh my god, I need time to go through everything in this article. That was what that was what Tron wrote on Sully's wall the day we posted that journey of Tiger Trafford where we talked about all the times his dog head surgery

and what movies he was watching and you know all that stuff. You know the game will never be the same after this. So shout out first of all just Adam I know you said that like but like I you know I love people who out do like, but like I, you know, I love people who do like independent reporting. Like that, it allows us to talk a lot of a lot of stuff that, you know, we might not otherwise know. So great tidbits and that love the way the article was just laid out. No opinion, just kind of one fact. Next like how do you keep us straight face in this? Yeah. You know, he shared the tweet in there from the my golf spy people will be like how, you know, Bryson using, you know, project X shafts when he's, you know, like, signed like all. Cobra guy playing a stealth to LA golf using a project X shaft, flight scope guy, often captured on camera using a GC quad to this Bryson guy

might not be the best brand ambassador money can buy. I think I'd ask for a refund. I think we should call him the big unicorn. Who now on? Because I think that, you know, the big golfer, he's not quite as big anymore, but like the big unicorn could, you know, could reflect some of these things. I mean, Bryson is just, well, the funniest thing to me is like the idea that like this request was sitting in the inbox of whatever executive it lived was supposed to sign off on these things seems like a pretty easy decision, right? Like, hey, can we just literally use like footage of one of your players in our freaking ads so that, you know, we can promote him and you, it's like a mutually beneficial situation. And someone at live just is like not even responding to this email. Like, you know, there's a thing in Gmail that says like, would you like to reply

if it replied for five days? Maybe I should turn on that function. Get this KVV. That person might not be there anymore because there's been a lot of turnover at live in the last several months. I was, I was told I was led to believe that Greg consolidating more power was there's like a big, a great thing. It was just going to allow thing that's process to be that much more streamlined. So, you know, maybe he needs to spend some time down in

the basement looking through contracts and. I'm going to follow their email switch over to at the cw.com. I don't know where I always say this, but I'm curious if you guys see it this way that. Bryson is the perfect kind of and I think there is a ton of validity to a ton of the ways that he's pushed things. And I'm not painting with a broad brush and saying that he does this with everything. But it's so fucking funny to me to hear Ben Showman say that about the driver, because it just encapsulates

like a complete narcissistic ignoring of like the facts, right? Where it's like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like if I, let me explain it to you, if I hit the ball harder, it's gonna go farther. And so what I'm going to do is hit it as hard as possible. Therefore, if so facto, I'll be able to just push every golf course to its knees. And I'm like, yeah, no, we fucking get it.

We get that. And the problem is that like when you do that, it's harder to hit it in the middle. It's no, no, no, no, no, no, that will, we'll, we'll hack that later. I got people working on that. Don't I got that shit? Don't worry about that. And it's the same with the dot. Stop asking for about the economy.

Stop asking about the world. Yeah, I got that shit. You know, you don't understand. If I just eat 15 steaks a day, I'm going to get have more muscle therefore I'm going to be able to hit the ball far there. It's like, well, that's going to fuck up your stomach. No, no, no, don't worry about it. Yeah, my homies at Oregon got me dialed on that, or we're going to be totally fine.

And then a year and a half later, just like, yeah, you know what, I was feeling like shit all the time. So I kind of pumped the brakes on that. It's just so funny to see that happen like multiple times with what seems like the same way of like narcissistic thinking. I would just like to renew my sympathy for the SMU physics department,

which have its most famous, I don't even know the alum as a writer. Not an alum, never graduate. You're not thinking graduated, but everyone who is social. Oh, yeah, he really learned physics in college. And there's some poor like physics professor in there who's like literally like, you know, like this is so frustrating.

And we talked about this. I literally try to tell him that like, you know, four times mass is, I mean, come on. This is the most basic concept. And he's out there talking about terminal velocity. It's just so fucking. So I hear you. concept. He's out there talking about terminal velocity. It's just so fucking I hear you. I hear you. So I see me with this experiment. The rest of this again, kind of, I don't know how you guys feel about this,

but a lot of like the live news, like the CW stuff and the stuff that came up this week. Just by the time it gets to the pod, like it just kind of feels like, dude, I don't know how to make a joke about the video they released this week. It was one of the least cool things I've ever seen and that doesn't just mean golf. Like, it was almost like a SNL parody of just like Louis stays in. Just like dust and off his shoulder and like walking Neiman or who was it? Broke's Capka doing the Rick James like come here. Like come here.

Let's like, let's go. And it was Just the cheesiest thing ever like it's not it guys. It's just not it. It's not at all it I don't and again, you might get more and down here like the range goats not that bad of a name I actually kind of like okay, I'm here to say that as well. Okay, I'm not gonna stay. We can't make fun of everything that they do because then it then it loses meaning. We got to we got to admit with the range goats is kind of a funny name. I'm kind of in on it. It wasn't for the like they were sponsored by like someone who murders journalists like I could see

like a range goat Like kind of gear would be kind of cool totally. Yeah, I mean, I mean on that now again Bubba explaining it as Goat be standing for golfers on a team again just ruining the like the one cool thing you had going here Bubba needs to absolutely shut up God the line delivery on time to graze was truly one of the great Also pricing in that video playing air guitar with a Cobra driver haha haha

haha And DJ just absolutely wanted nothing to do with any of that like 175 million does not by me featured in this video. I'm not I'm not gonna do this. I'm absolutely not gonna do it and watching Capca do it again is just so sad. It's just so freaking sad four-time major winner should still be at his prime just out there like Flexing on care. Oh my god. Take it all away. Fill holding up like a Callaway driver despite the fact that they that relationship has been paused Not even the new Callaway driver. I think they fill in this back in like September I'm pretty sure not even the new cowboy driver. I think they've filmed this back in like September. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I was wondering if he didn't get the any shipments anymore because of the pause. Like if you're just playing the old driver. Brooks also shot 74 78 in a month this week. That's not

good. They're like, what if what if the live golfers are properly ranked? There's all this talk about like, you know, the world golf rank has lost all credibility. And then there is all that, yeah, I think someone in the hotel lobby was talking about that thing. All credit really. I was walking by the like, you know, the thing is with the divisor, what people don't understand is, like, nobody gives a fuck about this. Is that the God that's such? Sorry, I'm not trying to derail you, but nobody fucking cares about this.

But then like, you know, you see an event like, you know, not exactly the super strong feel. I know that like conditions were probably a little tough out there because a lot of bad scores are a lot of guys just get absolutely ejected and like claiming that like, oh, you know, these guys, how could it possibly not, you know, like other than cam, maybe DJ, maybe like a couple of the others. I don't really feel like read, obviously, like, I don't know, they're not really showing up in some of these like non-live events and doing. I feel like, I feel like, Blandy, like, yeah, I mean, they had say what, um, Saddam, guys in Abu Dhabi. Saddam allegedly finished, or his body double finished second.

This was the new minute of winning who I didn't see. Takumi Kanaya ended up winning. Walking Neiman and Sergio finished time for fifth. Andy Ogletree finished time for seventh. Mito Pereira on his way to live finished 11th. I mean, it's just a live, it's basically a live, it's basically a live tournament, essentially, as what it is with a few extra guys. Oh, a ton of live dudes, as you see,

when there are cuts, they definitely miss cuts. That's it. That's it. I can see why you wouldn't want to have cuts. Looking at the assation event here because you miss cuts, a lot of you. Takumi Kanaya won 12.7 points for winning this week's event. Walking Neiman got 2.8 points.

What it's got you in? Scotty Schaeffler won 65.2 points for winning the waste management. So Takumi did get more points than Speed got for winning that one, but for finishing T6. But it seems about right. Interesting. Seems better than it was.

I made this point in the mailbag this week. And please send some questions for the mailbag, because it's kind of a fun thing to get to refund different stuff. But you know, I think the biggest flaw in all this sort of discussion is that like so many of the guys that you actually give a shit about and live, they're still in all the majors. Like what if if they were actually being shut out of the majors, then I could see like they're being some actual like frustration or outcry, but like they're all going to kind of be there. The ones that you care about, like, you're not going to get me that worked up about Taylor Gooch missing any majors. Like just don't care. But like if DJ or Cam was really not going to be in him, I might,

you might be like, yeah, that just doesn't seem right. Like those are really good players. They should still get in. But they're going to be in for another five years or something. Some of them are going to be in for fucking life. Would these live guys are going to be in for another five years or something. Some of them are going to be in for freaking life. What do these live guys are going to be rolling around? They're gold plated, you know, Bentley's forever. I mean, driving them down freaking Magnolene. I think, I think one of the things it does do though is when they do and please do not read this as any kind of like sympathy, but you just see it bear out with someone like Sergio, right? Where he's clearly dropped out of the top 50 and is going to miss out on top 60 and he's gonna miss out on qualifying for a lot of these things.

And so it's like, unless he's going international qualifying for the open championship, like he may have played his last open. And we're talking about like one of the great international players of certainly his generation, you know, in the question for like one of the most famous international of certainly his generation, you know, in the question for like, one of the most famous international players

kind of like a whole time and he just kind of like slowly disappears. There's no send off, there's no anything. He's just, oh yeah, he's just not gonna work here anymore. It's kind of weird. It's kind of like, it's kind of eerie to almost like see it. You're just totally out of sight out of mind.

I know that we've just talked about how the margins between like a great player and a average player, not that big, but like if Sergio's still really one of the best players in the world, I don't think it's that hard for him to like go qualify. No, I agree. And it's an ego fight. There are pissed about the shame of having to go through qualifiers, not that like, I think that they're and if they don't go through, they don't make it, then it's like even more embarrassing for them because it's like proves the point of like, well, you're not that great anymore. But I really think like if Sergio rolled up to, you know, Westlinks or wherever, you know, some smaller like British open qualifier that he would open championship qualifiers, excuse me, that he would probably get through like all you got to do is shoot 69 probably is not like a bunch of plumbers and you know, corn fairy to a players and stuff or like have your experience playing tournament golf, you should be able to handle that pressure.

Yeah. All right. Just a couple of things here to wrap because I know we're going to miss a half time show, which is more important here than the Super. I think I know I can tell you guys are watching the game. I have not been watching the game here. So we are. No, you've been making a budget. Good point. Lake say trust of St Andrews removed the stone patio from in front of the Spokane bridge.

RIP it lived a great week. Rock them. Why the banner? I was sad to see it go. I kind of enjoyed that in the chaos it created. We posted a new film room follow up on Coppola with JT and speed. We let a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor You know in that episode that we turned around really quickly and so we kind of record a little reaction video That's on our YouTube page if you want to check that out. Yeah, we're milking the hell out of that one. I got no problem saying it Did a podcast this last week with Colt knows if you haven't heard that one that was quite enjoyable That was great a lot of if you haven't heard that one that was quite enjoyable. That was great. A lot of great stuff. Really enjoyed it. On that one, KVV dropped a mail bag on Wednesday and he gave out some, like he mentioned,

some free nest towels to those who get their questions picked. If you need some information, have a join the nest, go to nolangup.com slash join. You must be a nest member to submit a question for his mail bags. And you get free towels if you get your question selected. The trap draw session coming with Tron and Randy, they're enjoying the voicemail hotline. If you wanna leave a voicemail and become part of the show there,

that number's 18333-08725. Again, 18333-330-8725. Anything else from you guys? Trapped draws. I mean, I say it all the time. Trapped draws is reaching exit velocity at this. Five minutes. It's in the ether and, you know, much like other UFOs that are being shot down all over North America,

which I'm sure they'll touch on shortly. So can't can't say enough good things about that. Randy and I have been out in Los Angeles all week, just recorded a, a our annual Oscars podcast, which stretched out just north of four hours. Oh my God. So if you don't want it not to not like to hear we could play about it. I thought Avatar was too long. Please skip the three hour three of the Oscars podcast. And what else? We got KVV out at Riviera this week. Can't wait to read and get his writing up on the website. I'm sure there'll be all kinds of

good stuff both kind of throughout the week and then kind of a big picture Sunday, Sunday gamer to kind of wrap things up. And then what else? On the YouTube channel this week, we've got a little kind of something special, a little one-off submission from a good buddy of ours, Patty out in in Belfast, did a little feature kind of little feature at short film type thing about a golf course in Belfast. It's so good. Really, really cool spot. It's a super fun video.

Yeah. And then we'll have a podcast this coming week detailing our thoughts on full swing, the Netflix documentary that comes out, Docu series, I should say, that comes out this week, which I've had a chance to watch once. I'm gonna watch it again before we record on Wednesday and post that Wednesday. So just get everything aligned here. So I don't know if we're allowed to say any spoilers yet,

but we'll embargo that until it all comes out. Yeah, I like it. Okay. All right, well, you guys go enjoy the rest of Super Bowl. I know I'm in the stage. We got to wrap this up. All right, we got to wrap right now. So I got to go. We got to go. Thank you everyone for tuning in on Super Bowl Monday. Thank you guys for tuning me joining me

on Super Bowl Sunday. I think I'm the only one that gets stuck with this one every year. I think this is six years in a row that we've had to do Super Bowl pods. But we'll enjoy this. I can talk about Phoenix. I've talked about Phoenix a lot. I'm with you, brother. I'm happy to have left football behind, solid to join you on these Sundays. So this was a lot of fun. So thanks for watching. And we'll see you back here next week. Cheers.

Cheers. Get a right club. Be the right club today. Yes. Yes. Daddy, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most.

Better than most.