No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 647: Honda Classic Recap

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Chris Kirk claimed the Honda Classic in a playoff over Eric Cole to win his fifth career PGA Tour event. We recap Kirk's road back to winning on tour after struggles with alcoholism and depression, relive the wild finish on the final hole of regulation, and praise Cole's perseverance to continue his career on the mini tours. Then it's on to Mayakoba and the first LIV event of 2023 and the first traditional TV broadcast. We discuss some rumblings of players who might want out of their contracts and the potential outcomes that could play out under such a scenario. We close the pod with an LPGA update, an early mock drafts of the European Ryder Cup team, 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. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Kevin Van Volkberg, KBV, how are you tonight? It's all I am fabulous. I am pink from the sun, played a little golf today, wearing a pink shirt at the match. So I feel an excellent all up and down. There's a reason why we don't post all these things to YouTube and that is the

reason right there. And joining us tonight, a big live golf fan. He is watching a lot of the coverage this week. He was sending in tweets. He was hoping to get on the broadcast and I don't think he made it. But Mr. Neil Schuster, good evening, Neil. Gentlemen, good evening. I'm the non-designative event survivor. Happy to be here. Call me in when you need me. Let's get it going. We all drew the short straw tonight. We got to talk about the hard to classic and live golf

tonight. I've actually looking forward to this one. This was this week checked a lot of boxes for me, but this episode was of course brought to you by our friends at title list and the new ProV1 and ProV1X. So this week the title of Skullfalls were used by the champions on both the PGA tour and the LPGA tour. I combined 74% of players across both events were teeing it up with the number one ball engulf. That's Chris Kirk and Liliavu both playing the new ProV1X. Kirk put the new X in play for the first time to start the year at the Sony Open and is now one victory in three top three finishes. And his first four starts this year playing the new ball. I don't know if you guys know this. He is

top six in strokes gained before this event this week in the world so far in 2023. That's before this victory. He gained more than nine shots on the field. Teed Green with over six of those coming on approach shots. Also, I believe all nine of those were gained hitting right to left shots into that which we can talk about. But that's also not even included in the final wedge at 18. Lil' Theavoo was playing the new ProV1X for the first time on the LPGA tour this week. And on a windy day in Thailand, she went bogey free

with eight birdies, including a stretch of five in a row to shoot an 864 and win her first LPGA title. Then that new ProV1X folks is the same ball that DJ big Randy Cody and Casey are all using and you got you know you got two ProV1 players here with myself and Neil KVV you just went through a ball fitting. Where did you end up? ProV1 or ProV1X? ProV1. I have been an X player just as like because I was like, oh, I kind of like the red number. I didn't really know like one way or another. But because I was like, oh, I kind of like the red number. I didn't really know like one way or another, but when I went through the fitting, they were the

my fitter very much was like, yeah, you need to be playing the probi one. Like you have too much speed to have to worry about like carry. Like we need to we need to work on the path, but you got some speed. You're too good. You're too good of a ball striker, Kevin. We can't have you in this other ball. You're using so much. So much. Oh, yeah. So choosing the right golf ball is all about flight spin and feel head over to titles.com to start the fitting process and find out which pro v1 is right for you. Let's start with the Honda classic did not get a Monday finish.

Thankfully, it looked a little sketchy there. We risked it a little bit to get two sums in today, which I got to say is worth it in my mind because two Some golf is so much better to watch than three some golf and my own is something there. Absolutely. I said that thought for sure all through the Genesis was how much more fun it is when it's two sums. I feel like we could either start with kind of the macro takeaway of what is very, very, very, very clearly not a designated event Versus or we could start with kind of the action right through it, which clearly not a designated event versus, uh, or we could start with kind of the action right through it, which gave us a lot of drama. And I feel like serve the purpose of this non designated event.

So maybe let's start there. Chris Kirk, KVV, I want you to kind of reaction to this as, uh, as a, as a story teller yourself. Tell us a little bit about what your, your reaction to Chris Kirk's victory. I just love when athletes, professional athletes are vulnerable in front of the world. And obviously Chris Kirk has been through some some stuff. He's been very open, you know, about the fact that he battled alcoholism, the fact, you know, that he battled depression. And so come down the stretch.

I was thinking like, I don't know that I care about this event when another, but I've found myself like really pulling hard for Kirk and just sort of saying like, I don't know that I care about this event or another, but I found myself like really pulling hard for Kirk and just sort of saying, like, I want this to come full circle to sort of feel like, you know, all of this was worth it in some way. And obviously Kirk would probably say, like, of course, it was worth it either way. Like, I got my life back, like, I'm a better father, a better husband, all that stuff. But to have that sort of validated by like playing really good golf and like getting into the winter circle again. And to sort of say, like, I'm, I'm thankful for this, but I'm thankful for my sobriety. Like that was cool.

I mean, like I one of my favorite artists I talk all the time is Jason Isbel. And he's like really big advocate of his sobriety and how much it's improved his life. And so I always kind of just feel like it's a cool moment when someone is willing to talk about that and say like, yeah, man, like if you're struggling like I struggled to and So to see that come to you know, come to head was awesome Not to auto plug our own content But we did a podcast with him back in July of 2020 where I don't think the world fully New like what was going on with him

They knew he kind of took time away and I think he was pretty open And honest about why he was taking time away. But what I appreciated about that episode was like he gave specific examples of what was happening to him. And I as somebody that does not is not affected, but directly by these things either by myself or by family members, it can be kind of it can be difficult to understand it, right? And he talked about it's like, I know this is sounds ridiculous, but like what anxiety is is I would like miss a cut. And I'd be sitting alone in a hotel room and I'd be like, you know, listen, you can go to my PGA tour.com page and you can see how much money I've made on the PGA tour. It's not a realistic response, but my response would be like, how am I going to pay these

bills? Like, I'm just lighting money on fire. I can't afford to do this blah, blah, blah. And that's like what anxiety is and anxiety led them into drinking. And he's just alone in hotel rooms and kind of experiencing the lonely PGA tour life and drinking way too much and realizing that he's an alcoholic and like there is such a,

to get your life back on track after that is one thing and to do it and play incredible golf is a totally just different thing. It's not, they're very not similar things is what I'm saying and It's great that he's got both those things in control of his life right in his life right now Did you hear him talk about like how he doesn't stay in hotels anymore? He like rents the house. I think he was talking about he and Sep Stracca like or you know rent a house together

And that that was like kind of there. That's how they sort of stay on top of each other and how they don't like sort of let the loneliness Kind of get to them and the anxiety and stuff. So. I was gonna say, I mean, personally, that Chris Kirk podcast is one of my top five NLE pods of all time. I remember I was alone. I was building bunk beds in the basement

of the bird house, our house up at Sweetens' Cove and listening to that pod. It's one of those pods, I know exactly where I was when I listened to it. And it was like, man, this is up there for three days, and I just thought about it for the next two days after. I was like, man, Chris Kirk's the guy you look at. You're like, oh, boring.

He's all, first team all tempo, but like, what a kind of just guy could walk through the airport. Nobody would recognize him, been on tour for 10 years. Kind of that, that, that, out of that cut from the same cloth as some other UGA guys that have put that career together of like, nah, never gonna lose your card, but not really moving the needle for anybody.

But it's just that, I think a, a testament to like, when these guys are able to share in an hour long or hour and a half long conversation, it does make you root form. Like I see him at the top of the lear board and I immediately go back to like awesome, good to see that he's, you know, it's coming full circle. So I'm very happy for Chris Kirk. It was it was fun to watch.

I was I was brutal to watch him bounce off the rocks and almost take out the windshield on the new. We'll get there. We'll get there. But it's also just worth acknowledging, I mean, you know, if you go play golf in the weekend, you know this, but as people that like working golf, alcohol is everywhere. It is absolutely everywhere.

It so many, you know, there's such a, there's a social aspect of it, but every golf term that he goes and plays in, they're selling alcohol and all the stands all around there. Some probably drunk person yelled at him while he's before he hit his third shot into the playoff today, not today, Chris, not today. It's just everywhere. And it's, you know, I was at a golf tournament this past week and there was a guy there that was opening.

He's like, I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for 36 years yet. Like, there was just drinking going on all around them and I can't imagine like how difficult that can be for people and it's just worth acknowledging that, you know, that, that, I don't know, that may be different than other sports. I know there's drinking at basketball games and baseball games and things like that, but just the social culture around golf is so heavy in that and I wanted to point that out. But that being said, what are we doing on 18?

We get to the 18th hole. Chris Kirk has a one shot lead over Eric Cole who will get to Kirk has 249 yards to the pin. 18th hole PGA national, is it like a great hole? I don't know yet, but I love watching PGA tour guys play it with the tournament on the line. The pin cut all the way on the far right part of it and he has been slinging draws.

At the whole day, if you watch Chris Kirk and Eric Cole play golf, no matter what, the far right part of it. And he has been slinging draws the whole day. If you watch Chris Kirk and Eric Coldplay golf, no matter what the pin was asking for them, they were trying to draw it in there. So I understand how like shot cones work and aiming and dispersion and things like that. And I know he's not aiming at that flag. And I know he blocked it way right. But the only thing he couldn't do right there was hit the ball in the water and it ends up flying directly at the flag, but it does not have all the oomph that it needed. Hits the rocks and almost hits the Honda out in the in the water. And I don't think we fully comprehended how funny that would have been if it would have

hit that car. And he knew it immediately. Oh, his reaction was, oh my God, I just hit it in the water. What am I doing? Like a brother I've been there. That's a tough feeling when that hit it in the water. What am I doing? Like a brother I've been there Feeling when that balls in the air. I was wondering if there's any scenario where it could have hit the rocks hit the car and then come back Is that that is that a scenario that was possibly? Somebody pointed this out the funny what would have made it even funnier is if it like broke through a windshield The alarm would have gone off and nobody would have been able to turn it off because it's out of range. You also know that there 1000% has been a conference call about how far

out into the water do we put the Honda CRV to make sure that it doesn't get hit and it's like okay we're we're 50 yards out there that that's got to be good enough and that they probably almost had a hard attack watching that. I got a DM I will will, in case this person wanted this private, I'll keep it private. It says, Haunted Nugget last year, they put that car on the water off 18 about two weeks before the tournament, but the car got too close to the green. It got peppered by resort guests. They ended up having to replace the car and move it way into the pond. Like, where it is this year so they can get all the close-up shots for the

probos. So that seems like a well-sourced information there. But I believe that 100%. You said if the alarm just kept going off and going off, will they swim out there to turn it off? I guess they could run and just click the keys, but man, though, it's sweet. I mean, that did hit a putt, like the whatever putt he had to get a deployoff of the car alarm buddy had to get a deploy off of the car like still going off. Well, I mean, so you said in our, you know, like

slack thread, it was like that this felt like a tournament that we would watch in when I was a junior in high school of like a couple just pretty milk toast, PGA tour guys, you know, trying to hang on with tons of water and just, you know, air call almost chips in the water after Kirk rinses it and the sun's going down. Are we going to get it in? And, you know, personally, I kind of took like a two, three hour nap. This afternoon woke up when they were on 14 and it was like,

oh, this is perfect. This is great. You know, we got to basically have, we've got a match play situation. This is exactly what I'm looking for. I'm hoping at least that the tour falls into this ebb and flow of really high stakes designated event last week. You know what? It's nice to have a week off. I can have this on the background, do some chores, maybe take a snooze, especially when it's February and New York and it's freezing out. And I don't want to go outside.

It was a, it was a lovely afternoon with like, am I going to say this was like a, a, a can't miss tournament? Absolutely not. But when the last four or five holes come down to this and you have some storylines of a guy trying to resurrect his career, another guy that is a rookie trying to win for the first time, like as a, avid golf fan, that works for me. lines of a guy trying to resurrect his career. Another guy that is a rookie trying to win for the first time, like as a avid golf fan, that works for me. seasons need an ebb and flow, right? You can't just have like the tension be at 11 the entire year pretending to be at 11. That's exactly the problem

with the previous version. It's the things feel bigger when they've been low, right? Like I remember seeing like Lord of the Rings the first time and like There's I would remember describing it is like oh, and there's like an action scene and then it like lasts for like two fucking hours And if at some point it's like no, man Like I need like this tension to sort of like be released and then build up again Otherwise this movie is just like one long like cool-ass action scene and it's awful And I think that's very true of like even sporting events like not every NFL game is like the most important game that you've ever been in your life. There's a discussion to be had around the Honda Classic in general about this event used to be a huge event Tiger Woods played in it, Rory played in it, Justin Thomas played in it just as a few years ago and through scheduling rechanges, rejiggering the players moving up into March, the PGA

championship moving back and elevating the Bay Hill event and doing all this the waste management's resurrection that it's had and blah, blah, blah. It's just gotten squeezed out and now it's not been a priority. And the field has not been good for several years now and it has decreased.

But again, I'm here to say that is going to as a casualty of the evolution of professional golf and it has decreased. But again, I'm here to say that is going to, that is a casualty of the evolution of professional golf. And it is always going to have to be this way to have growth in other areas. There's going to be events that have to recede and go backwards and go have a different identity. And now, like I said, we don't have to pretend that this event is the same as last week. We do not have to. And if I am a middle tier player, $8.4 million went up for grabs this week, $1. We do not have to. And if I am a middle tier player, $8.4 million went up for grabs this week, $1.5 million to the winner. The winner gets in the players, gets in the masters, the PGA championship, blah, blah, blah, gets in all

this stuff. And Tiger Woods and John Rom and Justin Thomas and Rory McElroy are not showing up to beat me at this tournament. I'm a pretty happy camper. Like there's 500 FedEx points on the line. There was 550 last week. Like I can make a career out of playing in these events. Why are we complaining? Why is anyone complaining about how this is structured? Let's sure if you're Honda, you're out of here. No sponsor. But if the tour can figure out a way to pay for these purses and have this event run as Jack Nicholas has indicated from the booth today that the tour has basically told him that they're going to have the event run as Jack Nicholas has indicated from the booth today that the tour has basically told him that they're gonna have the event next year

whether they have a sponsor or not, I don't know who loses here, really. I mean, the sponsor had the option to continue losing and they bailed, it's whatever. And maybe somebody else will sponsor it at a different price point, but man, this works for me. If other events are gonna go up,

others have to go down and have to serve a different purpose and they got maybe got a little lucky with how this one went, but it felt like it served a purpose today. Yeah, I feel like a little bit only sad for if it does eventually go away for like the people who lived in the community and like supported the event for a long time, right? Because it's been what was it 50 years or something that they've played in Palm Beach Gardens. Like, that's an important part of the tour's history. And obviously, like, I don't love the course,

but it has produced like some cool moments. Like I immediately when Kirk hit that shot, I thought about Rory hitting that five wood that he was, you know, against Russell Henley and that play up when Rory was like the king of the world. And you were like, oh, this is the next tiger. This is that dude. And tiger certainly had like a shit ton of like,

really good rounds here and played awesome. And we didn't shoot like 62 or something. It's ridiculous. Once the, you know, I remember him hitting like a six iron from like 230 into that green. It's just like, okay, like it's not a, like I, if I played that course, I don't think I would think it was like, particularly great. But for pros, like what makes them test them in that sense, like I, you know, the same way I feel about Bay Hill, like, yeah, it was like super fun to play, no, but I kind of like watching pros have to do it. The ending of this tournament always produces a, you know,

not always, but I have a lot of memories from it as well. So I'm kind of in on the the bear trap, a little bit. You can, you know, I don't think, you know, if you need a nickname it, but I do think it looks very difficult and it's fun to watch these guys, you know, as as our guys' zinger would say, that's just pressure, man. That's all that is. That's just pressure, man. I love God. He was a bingo card today with NBC. We had like it's darker than our cameras. Make it look. It's a match by situation and booth like, Hey, Jack, you know, how do you deal with pressure? You know, it's just, it's unbelievable that we were hitting. We were hitting all of our bingas.

That was great. I'll say the 70th hole is a bit in a way, in a lot of ways, like 12 at Augusta. I mean, it's a diagonal, you know, the front left part of the green is much closer than the front right part of the green. There's a bunker in the middle. If you go long, it is, you gotta decide on your shot shape.

And again, watching the two dudes hitting draws all day, get to that tee. It's like, you can't miss that shot. Like you are going to, if you are watching this golf tournament, you are going to time your bathroom break around making sure you watch that shot into 17. And if you are going at the pin, it's a different club than going at the middle of that green. And a lot of guys end up hitting the club that would get to the pin,

but they pull it out of just natural tendency and it goes in that bunker. And the shot on 15 is similar in that way and watching Eric Cole get into a messy situation there was just it's good theater. There's there's something about a really good execution test. I don't think it's a good golf course. I would never want to play it. I don't like watching Thursday through Saturday of this event, but man, watching the watching two dudes go ahead to head down the stretch of that one. It's like it's a pretty immediate payoff with each shot of like that's what this means right now. And I feel like they did a relatively good job with the drama today.

I like to see and do its hit draws too. I know like just even though even though most guys play a fade off the team now just because the equipment lets you just hammer it. It's fun to sing slingy draws like this is my favorite thing and all of golf. Maybe that's what also made us feel like it was watching a high school tournament. I'm a child. It's not like because that's I can almost these days when I go play with with

somebody, you know, and I never played with a former. I can almost tell immediately I was like, you were a high school golfer. Like, you know, like a decent amateur player that's hitting a lazy draw. It's like you played high school golf, didn't you? Like that's a, just something from like the mid, early 2000s of like that's just what you did back then. That's right. I, one of my, this is not related to high school golf.

One of my favorite memes I ever saw was like, it's a college golfer meme. It's like, hey, college golfer, what do you hit from 140? Like, oh, eight iron. What do you hit from 170? Hard eight iron. What do you hit from 190? Hard eight iron. What do you hit from 190?

Really hard eight iron. But no, I don't have anything to support this, but I just remember growing up watching golf and I feel like it's been neutered by technology. It was like, nervy shots happen at the end almost all the time. Like that was part of why you tune in at the end. Last three holes was like, somebody's gonna miss a putt,

somebody's gonna chunk an iron, somebody's gonna play to bunker shot. Like it just felt like the nerve stuff happened way more frequently than maybe that's just however, remember it then it does now and then sure enough today it just it really hit on the 18th hole with with Coles chip and and Kirk hit in the water there and all that put I don't know, a little good good mix of that is also just like not got something about God mode of ROM versus versus max like no one's gonna blink here no one's gonna back down here at R also it's just like not got some about God mode of ROM versus versus max like no one's gonna blink here no one's gonna back down here at rift it's not gonna end in disaster from someone and that hole just prevents an opportunity for disaster we got a little bit of it but

well on that note like I want to give a shout out to Eric Cole never heard his name before to know anything about him 34 year old tour you know rookie he's played in 11 events so far. He's made six cuts, one now two top 25s, but putt of the lights out. I think Azenger said he was what 49 for 49 inside five feet. And you know, who could I can't even count the amount of feet of putts he made. So before I took my nap on whole three, four and five, he made some really big putts. He made a really long one and then he made a really important putt to save Bogey after solid at your point, after he chunked one like inexplicably into the water. I think that was five, maybe a six, but somewhere on the front nine, he just, he was

bogey six. He made a bomb birdie on the part three fifth and then turn around and bogey six and made this. Yeah, it's just awful, awful iron and, uh, you know, rinses it and then he makes a big bogey save. And so it's like, all right, you can almost see the like, I think that was a massive putt for his confidence, but he took it all the way down to the wire into a playoff.

And, and I hope, uh, you know, he, he, he, it seems like he's building some momentum. I think his top 25 was at the AT&T pro am. And here he is, you know, with a solo second. So good for him. Crash Davis situation. Wasn't like a minor two legend, whatever finally getting his shot. I enjoy watching that guy hit the golf ball. Man, his, the three wood or whatever would he sent into 18 on Saturday, was just so fully committed and blasted and like not showing away from the moment at all. I mean, there's reason, I guess the story is about this guy or legendary in terms of cleaning

up on the mini tour. I was riding back from Tampa this past week with Justin Hubert, who you can't even form his past week and is likely not to continue his professional golf career. And it was interesting to just hear him kind of talk about a 34 year old guy that is now very, very close to winning on the PGA tour. And I'm not saying like Eric Cole specifically is responsible for like keeping careers alive. But the fact that that can happen like a guy that has toiled around on many tours for

a long, long, long time can go out can improve can get to the corner fairy tour can make it from the corner fairy tour and play on the PGA tour and can go into a playoff at Chris Kirk and lip out a 10 foot par putt in the playoff to take it to Monday is what keeps careers alive for a long long long time like that belief that your life can change that quickly and it really can change that quickly. Philip Knowles here in Jacksonville Beach, Turner's light his career around with the last event before the corn fairy playoffs got into the playoffs, got a second in the playoffs and now he plays in the PGA tour like it really can say that I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a and people are saying, well, are you guys trying to screw over the bottom half of the tour? Like, you know, these these elevated events or designated events are not going to like, what about the stories, whatever. And he's like, anybody can still make it. Like, you can, you do well. Like, we look, if someone had, if Cole had won the Honda, he would have gotten in the masters. Like, he would have gotten into the players. He would have gotten into a bunch of different places where you can go from being a 34 year old, unknown to like legitimately being, you know, a guy who gets into the frickin' designated events and you're in the rowing

for frickin' $5 million victories. I don't know that I quite buy this idea that the shuffle and the remaking of everything is going to totally screw over the little guys because this is a great example of like, he's one, it's kind of a nervy chip away from essentially like Remaking his whole life and getting into that so at least knocking on the door and opening up the door to get into the whole sort of big dogs kind of playground. Okay

I'm right there with you. I'm kind of sick of that that BS that like oh you guys don't you know that you know the James On stuff that the for telly stuff. It's like dude James Han stuff the for tally stuff. It's like dude. Like you said, solid 8.4 million dollars. Eric Coles made $330,000 so far. Or something like, you know, in that range. Now, what was the second place purse? Probably close to a million bucks, something like that. Probably 800 700 K. And now that like the security that comes with that for the next at least six to nine months, it's like we'll talk about, you know, okay, now you can start to maybe plan your schedule out a little better. do some things that that

might help you. So I think I almost, and then the other piece of this is, you know, Adam Schupack said that Chris Kirk skipped the Genesis so he could play in this event because he knows that he's got the best chance of, you know, having a great finish. Well, then he goes out and wins it. It's like, you're basically, none of the top dogs are showing up. You had him. You've gotten even better chance to win all this money and put yourself ahead now. Airco, $915,600 this past week. And I do think it, and we've talked, we've talked about this a bunch on other pods, and this is, maybe this is just kind of where things were, when things

were kind of in flux and first being discussed last August about the changes in the system that we've heard this as, because I don't think they've decided on this, right? And it's not talked about in the main ecosystem of golf media or anything about how they're determining these fields at the elevated and designated events in to next year, right? This year is kind of a hybrid year,

but next year, how do you get into them? If their limited field is it gonna be just W, you know, WGCs, or are you going to have some churn and one thing we've been screaming from the rooftops of how it's important that like how important, how sick would it be if in the Honda classic? Again, you had the leaders getting ready to come down, but also, hey, Justin saw a top five finish here, a top seven, a top eight, whatever they decide on in this tournament is going to get you into Bay Hill next week and you're going to play for $20 million. In Eric Cole, you finish runner up next week, you're still, you're going to go play for

$20 million and you're hot and you're going to go to another floor to golf course with water and you can hit your draws and do that. And again, you talk about your life changing, like you just played your way right into that. That changes the dynamic of these non designated events. It adds another layer of something for you to root for or watch for or another, you know, reason to watch instead of again pretending this is the same as the genesis, like embrace what makes it different. And that's kind of why I'm writing for like a, an event getting worse by all accounts, like if we're saying that, but it's okay for weeks a week to further to be some fluctuation. And I think this is just a

necessary change in how things are done. The key to that, that's all I agree with all of that, is you need to outline it so like very clearly, right? There needs to be a structure to it. And that's so that you're almost helping the telecast, the broadcasters, like, this is the storyline, like make it so it is, like these 10 guys, like so they can talk through that.

And then now your story lines are developing about guys that we've literally never heard of going to school like Nova, southeastern University, apologies to any Nova, southeastern University grads out there. I have no idea. I didn't know that school existed and that air cold went. I was like, what what are we, you know, this is, but to me, it's like, that's kind of fun. It's like, oh, cool. Now I'm going to look up where that is.

Monday, qualifier, Ryan Gerard finished fourth place, solo fourth place this week. Like he should be in Bay Hill next week, you know, in this new system, right? I don't, I don't know how exactly how this works for the, or where the top 10 guys this week get to use their top 10 exemption because this goes Bay Hill into players. I don't know if it's what it would be for because I don't think it gets you to either one of those. But that would be such a sick element. You had, you weren't even in the Honda and then all of a sudden now you're playing for $20 million. Like that is, that's sick, which I think speaks a little bit to a, maybe a more macro thing

of cleaning up the exemptions of always, but you have to have a PhD to understand them. Like I feel like I still struggle with how all the ways you can get into certain events and not others. If they put some effort maybe into over the next couple of years cleaning that up, making it easier to understand, I think that would help all of this stuff work together more. But I know that's like, there's probably a lot of, what did I say in the Silicon Valley, the technical debt. There's a lot of built up scar tissue there.

I'm sure it's hard to clean that up. I'll say for the designated, they need to spell that out clearly. I don't think people will care about non-designated how these fields get filled out because people don't care now about the bottom. Yeah, that's totally fair. But almost from these non-designated ones, how do they lead up into the elevated designated whatever? And then it's just a little bit the structure of it's too confusing for you to like buy into You know, I mean we've talked about this with the FedEx cup forever. It's like oh, I just don't really know how the points work But I guess you keep flashing this leaderboard up there. So I'll trust you guys on it Our down the leaderboard segment is brought to you by our friends at rowback listen

I'm actually making that up They did not offer just to sponsor the segment at all Maybe they did with TC not on they know that'll go a little bit quicker But we are thrilled to be working with them for another year I'm going to go off script we talk about the polos a lot We talk about the performance Q-zips a lot. We you know we talk about the hoodies I intentionally didn't wear rowback tonight because I feel like I'm overdoing it I got I got too much. I'm doing way too much with it.

I got to talk about their shorts. They sent us over some of their shorts. They look a lot like real actual like golf shorts, if you will. Yet they are athletic and feel and fit. TC actually wore them at Sawgrass, TPC Sawgrass, the stadium course. They did some film room filming out the video that rowback is going to be bringing to you shortly. And he's like, yeah, no one can notice. No one even knows is that I'm wearing athletic shorts out here. So they got awesome joggers that we haven't talked a lot about. I wear them in airports

all the time. Then of course, the hoodies and the Q-Zips and the polos, you've heard to say enough amazing things about those. But if you have not checked out Roeback.com, you can use code NLU there for 20% off your first order that's R-, BACK.com. You get a 20% off polo's, QZips, hoodies, teas, vests, shorts, joggers, you name it. Kick off 2023 right with rowback. Check them out, rowback.com. I do want to assure people big rowback drop in the pro shop will be in late April. So just, you know, we're working on it, but it's hard to keep this stuff in stock. But a lot of messages this week about the rowbacks go back. It is coming back in a big way. But please be patient.

Step struck another top five finish coming off the win last year. Niels Boycep, Ben Taylor, Justin S. and Shane Lowry rounding out the top five along with Ben Martin. And I, you even miss if I didn't mention Tyler Duncan's solo third finish as well. And I would like to give a massive shout out to David Lingmerth. PGA tour rookie round two. David Lingmerth T7 guy just. Which is the gamer man. He's back. I love it. How are we defining rookie here? Well, he's well, Corn fairy. I guess. I'm very graduate. I wouldn't say that's fair.

He's not a rookie, but corn fairy graduate. So, but I mean, coming back from, you know, qualifying off the corn fairy tour, massive shout out to Lingworth. Yeah, it's kind of like Virginia. You lose your rookie status one time. It's not something fair. That's fair.

That I misspoke there. Not something you get back, but yeah, he's a listen, he's a friend of ours here in this household. So he's moved up to 63rd in the FedEx cup. That's something we're watching. And we're rooting for him very, very excited about. Definitely the highest anyone has ever finished on the PGO tour, who is also like danced between Randy's legs at a wedding. So congrats to dude. Uh, that is exactly right. Yeah. I do want to kind of clear up the rest of, uh, what you were saying there about Kirk skipping

Genesis to play this as well. That decision is super interesting to me, right? Because if you really think you can top five, top 10, it can outpace a golf course. He's not, he's struggled at Genesis. The draw does not play well. It plays a bit too firm. Whatever the reasons may be, a T40 there doesn't do a whole lot for you. It in terms of earning and FedEx got points rather than come and play something like this.

That's a super interesting decision. And especially for some of his playing as well as he is to go that route. I'm not sure a lot of guys are going to do that, but that was a great, great get there from Adam Schupeck at golf week. So hamster dam stuff. Did you guys catch the walk and talk with Chess and Hadley? I only got a little bit of what did you think of it? Those are gonna only be as good as the questions you ask and it turned into a little bit of a I don't want to say bro Fest, but just wasn't it wasn't about the golf. It was just more about like let's introduce Chess and Hadley to

Everyone and I guess especially a week like this. It's like man I already know who Chess and Hadley is. And I think anybody that's watching this on Saturday probably has a pretty good idea. So maybe we can introduce him, but he kind of, he started taking his headphones out when he was hitting. It wasn't really what we were getting with the CBS version of it. That was my takeaway. I had the exact same takeaway.

Like just literally tell me about the golf shot you're going to hit. I don't need like the like your high school stuff. Like that is, look, it's a like singer, but it's probably a little bit on him. Like literally just break me down. Like what are you going through in this shot? Tell me what your caddy is talking to you about. Like how how are you approaching this whole? That's the technical nerd stuff that just is like way more interesting. Like imagine getting LeBron like as he's jumping the ball at the court and be like, so LeBron, like, why'd you decide skip college? Like, you know, just I want to

know like, how are you going to attack this defense? How are you going to go about it? So yeah, what player are you running right now? Why and why are you running that? Oh, because we've got a mismatch here. Like, that's we're watching tournament golf. I want to talk about tournament golf with the player. That's the whole concept of this for me. If you guys want to introduce another type of walk and talk, that's fine, but that's not really what I'm looking for. And I feel like that we can do that off the course, basically. I think it's interesting because I don't think the way they did it is very sustainable.

I think Chesson was great for that personality hit. And I get the angle of let's humanize these guys. Let's give a chance to kind of show off their personalities while they walk down the fairway. I think the comedy routine of the back and forth will get old very quickly. And again, that's just not that sustainable. What makes the CBS one work is like, dude, all of these guys

know how to talk about golf shots and golf specific stuff. And that's what's gonna make it easy to transition from one person to the next, whereas yeah, if it's just gonna be a ham it up. And, yeah, you take the air pods out for the shot, I get it, they're trying to probably do something a little different than CPS, but I do, I wonder about the sustainability of that. But why do something different? It's clearly working over there.

I know. Like, share a best practice, right? And also, it's ego. You know what, guarantee it's ego. It's perfect. I mean, just that's how media works. If someone does something well, like, other media is like, oh, we can't copy that exactly. Like we got to do our own version of it.

But I think the perfect example is with Morcawa last week, like I was not real into him on the Netflix documentary and know like I'm not trying to dis him. It's more just like asking these guys to be cool and funny. It's like you don, just ask them, they're really good at golf. That's what I want to know about. And so that, what he did on 10 at RIV was fascinating

because he was just talking about how good of a golfer he is, basically. And you got to kind of get a window into his thought process as he's playing a really cool whole. And I feel like, you know, yeah, Chesson's got a great personality, but that's not really what I'm looking for there. One thing I learned a long time ago as a sports journalist And I feel like, you know, yeah, Chesson's got a great personality, but that's not really what I'm looking for there.

One thing I learned a long time ago as a sports journalist is if you ask people to talk about themselves, they often are terrible at it. But if you ask someone who is obsessed with their profession to explain something about their profession, they can really go deep into that. Like if you go to a majorly picture and you're like, hey, look, could you show me literally how to throw a curveball? They'll be like, all right, come on, come over here and I'll explain this to you. And they'll get really technical and really deep in it.

Like this is how I throw it. Like when I'm, and that's can be really fascinating. So like you ever hear Tiger like talk about like, here's how I hit like a hooking pitch, right? Or like something GT does this a lot. Like he can explain so well in depth and we had a thing of a Tyler shoot last week where we were asking Jordan Spieth to explain

like all right, how do you literally hit a draw? And it was fascinating. Like DJ and I were like, oh my God, this is such nerdy shit, but we love it. And he's one of the best at it, but every golfer can do something to that effect, right? They can really get deep in the technical aspects of it, and that's that's really kind of fascinating. And I also get to take the pressure off the broadcast crew. If you put them in a sandbox and

say, Hey, guys, this is going to be about the, you know what hole it's going to be, you know who it is, you have time to prep what they're good at. So then maybe you can, you know, based on where they drive the ball or whatever, you can start to talk to them about their golf game. And that's, that to me is the purpose of this segment. So I would love to see it not veer towards the, you know, what, what, what do you have a dog? Like, what, what, what, what did you, the high school, it's like, what are we talking about? What are we doing? Eventually, we're going to get one of these though where like somebody hits a really bad

shot. And that's going to be kind of awesome. Yeah, just, well, really mess out on up. I don't know what to tell you guys about that. Just kind of came over the top of it. Just smother hook that left. And which would be awesome. It would be very relatable.

Very, very show. I will say on the, on more hamster damn front, Brad Faxon was excellent to listen to. I feel like he is a golf announcer that is not doing an impression of an announcer is just talking. And I hope it stays that way. I think that's way easier to do earlier in your career than it is later.

He has experience doing this has worked for NBC in the past and has obviously was a part of the Fox Telecast, but is now full time with NBC. And it feels like a nice change of pace for, you know, I'm not saying the crew got stale, but it's a it's a fresh voice. The one that I think is brings a lot of experience and can talk a lot about specific stuff. He gave a great story about Tom Wisecoff. I forget, as I'm mentioning,

I forget what the specific of it was, but I was like, hey, that was a nice little nugget there, talking about how to aim away from trouble or something like that. But that's someone I look forward to listening to talk about golf this year. You're writing me a little bit of bones. Give you good information. Don't seem showy or like, you know, kind of over

the top about it, just kind of really nice calm sort of way of explaining stuff. Yeah, felt like NBC is as feeling the, feeling the heat, feeling the feeling CBS, you know, the gap widening a little bit and feels like, all right, they're, they're, they're trying. They're making a little, little effort here. The commercial lobes was tough. But did you, did you guys feel like they went a little bit hard on the, like, son of a PGA to her player? Like, I had never heard of Bobby

Cole at all. And I was like, I looked it up. And I was like, Oh, like he was like one, one time. And he was from South Africa. And he was like his biggest career thing was like the British amateur. Like they must have brought that up, like three times. I was kind of like, I don't really care. Like I don't know what's I kind of I mean, I somebody who's never heard of this guy, I feel like they're doing their best. And then I think the more the storyline was his mother, right? Who's like was legit. So and she's out there. So I think that probably was a, I think that was a fair thing to be leaning on to add some kind of do something, I guess. I think you can. Yeah, and that's where I actually feel like the PGA tour as if I can put my D-Writer shoes on.

Like, it's been a slow journey. It's been a slow journey getting here, but I no longer feel like I need to go seek out this information about the people that are playing in the tournament like I once did. Like, 2016, if this happened, I'd be like, who is Eric Cole? Why have they not taught me anything about him?

Whereas, like, dude, if you like, it's not like the most engaging and most viral content ever But like if you go to like their Twitter profile while someone is making a charge up leaderboard Like they've got some like content up around the person that least gives you like a crash course into what their story is and Oxay videos that sure there's a lot but like it's just at least worth acknowledge. Again, it's kind of a backhand and compliment because of how obvious that is that it should be there, but there was a time when it was not there and they at least are meeting the bare minimum in that category now.

So I want to talk a little bit about Jack and the booth. I mean, obviously he's going to be, and this is, to me, this is a good week to have him in the booth for 30 minutes like they did, but I thought there was some good stuff in that final interview when they cut to the video of him and there with Azinger and Dan Hicks of, I get a little frustrated Jack,

is this your hometown event or is it memorial? And are we gonna have both? Are we gonna ride for both? Because I think that's just being a little greedy where it's like, hey, I also feel bad if this community loses this tournament. But at the same time, it's not, it's something has to give here, right? And it seemed like he was like, well, I have assurances that we're going to have an event here. There's nothing else in South Florida. Okay, that's a fair argument. But I feel like it puts the tour or maybe what I want as a golf fan is what is

the best place in South Florida to host an event. And I think we need to have an unbiased view of like, is it here just because it's always been here? And this is where you started your foundation. And we're just going to lean on that as like, well, it has to be here then. I think that's a little unfair, especially when like, we're going to get to memorial of a mere field in, you know, three or four months, and that's going to be Jack's hometown event. And so I'm like, well, you can't have it both ways in my head. So I got a little frustrated with that whole, you know, and not like Jack got a little emotional at the end, which I thought was very sincere, but it's like, hey, you still have memorial, like it's not like they're, they're disrespecting you. Like that one is a designated event

that everybody's gonna be at. I think it going to the Pebble Beach program this year changed my thoughts on this just a little bit in terms of like, again, like these longstanding events are way more about the charities and foundations involved with them than they are the TV entertainment product. And they've not aged great into the TV entertainment product element of professional golf in the PGA tour, right?

But it's, I don't know how to explain this exactly, but it's like the event is almost like separate, separate from the PGA tour. And like the tour tax its name on it and brings a lot of branding and a lot of, you know, okay, television money into the event and blah, blah, blah, and brings it stars into it yet the event at its core is just about like the charity,

the charitable element of that, right? And I know sitting here for us usually charities are like kind of a footnote in the conversation. It's like, oh yeah, on top of this, they raised a bunch of benefit charity, but we care about the entertaining golf, you know, as, as I have it golf fans and the, you know, the benefit of that on the back end

is a lot of money for charity. But in that regard, I know we put, we poke fun at Jack a lot, a lot. And what for this? Like, it seems, it always, his charitable efforts seem very genuine. And in that regard, I get kind of where he's sitting at to say, like, you know, making sure that this event, like, doesn't go away and they don't lose track of what the original purpose of it is, I guess. So I don't know. It's a long win. It's a way of saying.

There are a lot of people that are intimately involved with it. The charitable aspect is what they want to be doing with their time at this stage in their life. And I don't know. Somewhat sensitive to that. Yeah. And that's a little bit of a saloon, too, really.

One of my friends is from that area. And she was talking to me, text me a speak about like, it makes me really sad that it's just get sort of dismissed and written off, and like I used to skip class so that I could sort of go to this tournament, you know, in high school, and like all of our friends would be buzzing and talking about it. And like, there's a whole community of people

who like looked forward to this, you know, back when it was a thing, and it's like part of their traditions, part of their lives. And that's the ripple effects of that are like, okay, they're willing to give money to charity, they're willing to be volunteers for the tournament. I think we can get a little bit sort of snarky

and dismissing some of these little events where we're like, oh, this has to go, or this is dumb. And it has really mattered to those communities where it's kind of been a part of the fabric of that place for a long time. And I think it's always important to be cognizant of that. Uh, anything else from, uh, Honda Classic this week, I, I, my only final hamster, I'm thing, uh, the commercial break before in the 18th hole led to a cascading effect of like,

Oh, and here's Chris Kirk hitting a shot into 18 and oh my God, it's in the water without ever setting up like here's where he should be aiming. Here's the only mistake he can't make right now. All of the drama of the entire tournament coming down to that shot and getting rushed into it was just awful and so bad and they just got to get figured out. So that's so well said.

Like I got up to heat up some Thai food, some reheats in Thai food and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, and I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, what happened? You know, like through me off, I didn't get a chance to sit back down bad pacing there. For sure. Not good. Not good.

Can't have it. Shall we get to the fun stuff? I know Neil spent a lot of his weekend hanging out on this on the CW checking out. I did not. I spent two hours to I sat down and watched it for two hours yesterday. I flipped over a couple of times today to the live myocoban, the kickoff. You were one of the point.

You got two moves that the four aces, I can't even believe it. Offseason. Oh my goodness. And some of the trades they pulled off everywhere I go, people are talking about the four aces. I just had a few observations. One, it is a golf tournament.

So, you know, it's still fun to watch some of these guys like hit the golf ball. And I forgot, truly, it's so easy to forget some of the guys that went to live. I totally forgot the Paul Casey went to live. So the first thing I see is Paul Casey on the 15th at where they had club 54. Did you forget because he once said it would be hypocritical of him to play for Saudi Arabia

or play in Saudi Arabia because of his own stuff? I was like, oh, yeah, Paul Casey's gone. I could understand if you were confused, but I forgot about that. That's what he's saying. So you know what he said? He said, fuck them kids. So he's hitting it on Saturdays. He didn't like the 15th green. And he's got a 15 foot.

He, you know, it's a good shot in. You got the ambient music in the background. So I just wrote this down and said, you know what this is right now? Arlo White is still trying to tell us about the results. And we're just like, we're just laughing. They're taking the golf way too seriously. And we're just laughing about what's happening. That's Neil right now.

No, but I had, I just want to get this out because laughing about what's happening. That's deal right now. No, but I had I just want to get this out because I think it summed it up perfectly for me. Like this is Paul Casey, the guy that was like kicking fans out of the Dell match play for you know, talking in his backswing, takes himself super, super serious. And he's over there has a 15 foot putt and club 54 is raging. The soundtrack is 1993 Robin S. Banger, you have to show me love. And he just three puts from 15 feet and, you know, just he's furious and it's just, you know,

two chicks are making out in Club 54. The guys struggling with the credit card processor. They're, because the broadcaster like throwing in all this B-roll, like right after this putt and they're like, oh, check out how much fun they're having in Club 54. And it's just very disjointed. Like everything, you just, and then they throw the overview, the drone overviews, I get a migraine.

They've got like the FGV drones, like doing the whole like F16 fighter pilot thing. They've got the cup mics juiced. So anytime like a guy like Noxen in a tap in, it's just like, it sounds like church bells in my house. It's crazy. Before I chair it, a few more thoughts. I want to kick it to you because I know you watched a little bit of it. Just I just peaked in a little bit. I mean, I just still think like I've made this point a few times, but it's just not different enough from now that they have commercials and now that it's just like a regular golf product, what is what is inspiring me to tune in?

Like I'll tune in a little bit just because I wanted to see like a little bit of DJ and a little bit of cam Smith, but that's just not interesting enough for me to especially if they're not even like leading the tournament, like Charles Howe wins and you're telling me like this is your, it must grind. I got to think like every time like a Charles Howe or a you know, Henry Dupesie or Peter Yeline like is in contention that they live like Greg Norman has to be like, oh fuck You know like I really it would be so much better for us if like Can Smith or DJ was like dominating this and they're just not and so I don't know mean like I

it was like dominating this and they're just not. And so, I don't know, I mean, like, I tuned in, it was more interesting to me a little bit to tune in the press conversation at the beginning of the week where, you know, Brooks is trying to sort of explain his way around his portrayal and the Netflix stuff. I'd be like, bro, like, I appreciate your honesty and all that. I really glad that you opened up like that,

but there's no explaining away. Like, there's no context that was gonna provide you, make you look better in all that stuff. So I don't know. I mean, look, it's, my club is not like a great course and just sort of hear Pat Perez like, you know, it's being smart me about like, well, I like that we're here and the tour. The tour is done.

Oh, okay, like, why was that sick? That's a viewer, do I give a two shits at all? No, I don't. It didn't make any sense. No, and the live bots Didn't make any sense. And the livebots being like, ooh, Pat Frizz firing shots. Dude, like, what is that even mean? What is the shot? Yeah, what?

No one pretended when it was on the tour schedule. No one pretended like this was a great golf course at a great event, right? Now all of a sudden, you're getting a knock off PGA tour course and event and you're going to try off PGA tour course and event and you're gonna try to pretend like you have like you're just it's all so fucking fake man. It's all so fake every all of the juice is fake and it just watching a little bit it was like man. This thing is way closer to the slime cup than it is like the Honda classic and they

just like don't know it yet. They're still like trying to be the Honda classic way more than they realize, whereas like, dude, it shouldn't matter who the players are out. It doesn't really matter who the players are out there. Like you just have like your the Kevin Nas and Jason co-crax and all that are just not going to change much to the point. Like it's kind of when we're in Korea, they have legitimately have night golf. That's like men's and women's league that's just on TV.

Like and people watch it. And the people like plus eight and plus 12 And but it's golf on TV and people I assume are watching it That's more of what this feels like it should be versus like all the best athletes in the world should be competing in this Environment with music and teams like it's not the test It's still not a test of who's the best of anything. It's still just the best of the sellouts. Like that's all that really, that's all you really are. So why are the best players playing there? And we all know the answer is money.

So I'm sorry. Which is a farmer that you got to flip back and forth. I can see though, like there's a bit of, for me watching it, like I wasn't disinterested. And maybe it's because I'm a pretty knowledgeable golf fan of like, oh, it's fun for me to see, like, oh, there's, you know, Charles how? I haven't seen him in a while. Like, how's his game look? Right? I'm just, you know, if I'm actually watching it, there's a curiosity for me to watching

it. But what really frustrated me was I felt like the broadcast was trying to trick me with some stuff. And like, saw your point fake stuff. Like they ran this segment of Brooks and DJ smack talking each other about the trades they made in the off season. It was just fake juice. It was so obvious. It goes back to what we were saying earlier.

They're putting these guys in a position where they're supposed to be charismatic and funny and have good smack talk. And it's like, well, they're just good golfers. That doesn't mean they're gonna be good like comedians or good, you know, boxing promoters or whatever you're asking to do here. It just comes across as fake period.

And then the like right after that Paul Casey scene that was just like, you know, Chef's kiss, they cut to Troy Mullen doing a profile like the, one of the par threes. And she's like walking through her shots. And she's it's just like stock B roll. She like hit a chip and it was like almost supposed to be like a playing lesson. But then they would just roll.

They rolled the same B roll clip of the ball coming down to the hole. She's like see and see how well that one went when I used the leading edge and see how well this one went. And it was like, you didn't hit that shot. You didn't show me the real shot. You just showed her hitting the ball and then like a B-roll, a stock footage of some, you know, assistant producer, like rolling the ball towards the hole.

And that's the kind of stuff that pisses me off. It's like, you're treating me as a viewer like I'm stupid and I hate that. Well, also in our Airbnb this week, Hubert flipped on fishing and like I just haven't literally never, ever, ever watched fishing and like I just have literally never ever ever watch fishing and we just like we're kind of watching it whatever. Who's this guy? Oh, this E1 last week in blah blah blah and the other over in this part and they're covering it. And at

no point was I like, oh, is this like the best league or is this the best fisherman in the world or like I it was just, you know, it was about like that event. That is like lives only hope on the CW is just like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, that's like on TV and it's like on in the background. I'm like, these guys are on this team and this might be going on. They're them marketing this to golf fans. I don't think is ever gonna work.

I just don't think golf fans are gonna be like, this is what I want out of the game of golf at the competitive level. It should be like this with music and shorts and all this other shit going on. And I think it's way more of like trying to capture like the TV crowd in general. I think they're going to fall short of that, but I think that's a way better hope than all of this is a better product than what already exists in golf.

The point to rating that they got was actually better than some of their terrible shows on the CW. So like it was in line with, it looks like, you know, if you go scripted shows, if unscripted shows, I think it's pretty, but it was a beat out world's funniest animals. So that's a good kung fu season three, Pell and tell it pen and tell our fool us. So there's something we could build on here. I guess your debut. I'm telling you, catch and strays. Hate that form. What's a point to rating mean?

Can you explain that? A couple of people asking me and I was like, I think like I knew, but I can't explain it. I don't know enough, but well enough to speak. It's like of the percentage of households like point two people are watching it. Other things. So like looking at the lives of here, like a point to rating for all American homecoming, got like 600,000 viewers. I doubt that live is actually getting that many,

but maybe, I mean, that would be a huge, huge bump from what they were getting when they were on YouTube and like 10,000 people were tuning in. So, I mean, it's just, it's just pretty much in line with like, you know, a test pattern on the CW, like people are watching it out of, you know, habit or whatever. It is fascinating to think about like,

I would love to see how many downloads they had. I guess I saw Greg Norman was talking about how the app was like the second most downloaded app or something for the Friday prior to it. So, who knows? Apple Store does not work on most downloaded. It's like the most out of, you know, all the new stuff ends up rocking to the top to encourage.

Yeah, that's all fake. It's all fake. It's not real. It's not how it works. That's just not how it works. Well, I was I was paying attention to the advertising a little bit too. Like, I know they am still ultra seems to be the only, you know, sponsor billboard they they have on the course other than just a live golf billboards. I saw a Citizens Bank ad. I saw news nation a few times. A lot of CW house ads, which is great. Looks like some bangers on their scripted shows. Popeye's chicken, bet MGM, and bett and already putters. Those were the only real national ads I saw. Otherwise, it was like local TV, you know, car dealers, law firms, stuff like that. So

I got to wonder if they're, you know, because I think that what the deal is they're doing like a rev share, right? On the on the broadcast, it's not, they're not getting any rights fees for this. So they have to sell these ads to somebody or else it's just a total money pit. But what if it's a total money pit?

It gets this hot. I would get this. Again, they just have to pretend like it's not a money pit. Like they don't have to actually make the money, but they can't say the quiet part out loud. Loud that this is a giant sports washing exercise, right? So they're going to pretend like getting on TV as a big deal and they're going to pretend like it's churning out a lot of money. We know in the legal documents. They've said they've been barely able to generate any revenue yet. Yet they're still spending $350,000 on a shrimp cocktails for every party. I may that don't please don't report that track or accounts, but you know, spending all this money on the shrimp cocktails at the parties that they just dying to tell us that they're having. Like we don't get invited to the parties. I don't know why I see a video every week of your damn parties. It's the same at it every single time. We're good. We don't need

to see this. The other thing that in theory, I think that the team golf stuff is interesting, but the delivery of it is really confusing. Like the leaderboard, I don't have a problem with the full screen on the left side, the full screen leaderboard. I think that's, you know, a decent graphic, but the way it's organized with the individuals up top and the teams below is confusing and there's just a lot of colors. So that's the whole different story. But the team format in theory is good, but it's not very good because none of the teammates are playing together. Right. So it's like, it's never going to be very exciting because to me, the whole value of the team aspect is like the Ryder Cup guys celebrating together or like playing together like two versus two or like having some type of camaraderie.

And so it's just this abstract team component of like these guys are all over the course on a shotgun start. And there's not it's not adding anything to the viewing experience, I guess. And I didn't realize that until watching it, because in theory, I've always thought, like, team aspect to golf is something that I think would be interesting, but it's just not being executed in a way that's interesting to me right now. What if you could rethink all of live, right?

And just do it as like, all right, it's four sums, two guys are on each, like the Aces have two guys in a pairing, they're playing against the cleaks. They have to beat the cleaks in this match to get a point, you know, and they have to play. I think that would be so much. If they had gone with more of more Ryder Cup formats and more four ball, four sons type, if it was about the team, they're stuck in the middle. Is it about the player or is it about the teams? But the two combined, it's just, I don't know. I guess I'll, I will actually stick up for live in this a little bit. I think at minimum, it gives you two chances for an exciting finish, right? Instead of just

one of just stroke play, right? And this week was zero. Maybe that's just this week. So that's just fair feedback, Solid. Like I have not watched a lot of live. So I'm parachuting in here. Listen, it also might not be interesting, even if it is close, but it's gonna take time for the team stuff to kick in if it ever does because I still know how the teams are made. Like I don't understand why Taylor Gooch is not on the four races. Is it contractual? Is there a salary cap?

Is it, you know, did he not get along with his teammates? Did he get traded? Did he, you know, could he get not get a long-term deal? Are they, did he lose his bird rights? Did he, you know, he gets swooned. The range goats just, they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Again, who the hell knows? But it's not like a strategy thing.

Like they're just moving people around from team to team. Like, you know, because there's, I don't know. Anyways, that's gonna take some time, right? Until we learn like, oh shit, the four aces should have locked up, blah, blah, blah, to a long term deal. Or they locked up, read to a long term deal. And he's playing terrible. What do they do with them now? Then it kind of starts getting interesting. But in the beginning, it's going to take a long, for a time.

Well, and they're trying to almost fake it till they make it on like that's where that smack talk segment with DJ and Brooks. I think they're trying to almost create this team rivalry stuff, but you can't fake that stuff. It's got to actually, they actually have to care. And I don't think those two specifically, I don't think they fucking care. They just want the check to clear.

Like those are the two are lone wolfs. They always have been, and they're team captains. It's like, damn, man. Last thing though, and I'm curious to get your feedback on this, I, the biggest bummer for me is like, I like Faraday. And I, his stick never really got old for me. Like, I wish he was still a part of week to week, like, you know, professional golf. And he was another one I kind of forgot.

I was like, I have Faraday left. Like, and you know, I kind of miss him, I guess is where I'm at. And I don't know if you guys feel the same way. like, and you know, I kind of miss him, I guess, is where I'm at. I don't know if you guys feel the same way. I feel like his thing got a little bit tired and just general, like he was kind of, I don't want to say coasting, but like all of the funny things that David Farrity said seem to be, like they happened like five years ago or 10 years ago,

whenever people were like, oh my God, David Farrity, so funny. They're mostly talking about stuff that happens quite a while ago. And so I get why he decided he wouldn't want to be a part of anymore because he was wanted to be something else. Like he didn't do what you want to be the guy who, you know, came on the broadcast four times or like he wanted to be in the studio. He wanted to have a bigger role. And look, all more power to you. I just, I know, didn't seem like super like a huge additive thing to me. Like he was supposedly this big get, you know,

Ferdinand McCord was the thing a long time ago. That was CBS. That was, you know, when Ferdinand was walking with Tiger Woods and he had a great relationship with Tiger Woods and he's down on the course, given you on course reaction to what's happening. That Ferdinand was a long time ago. And I thought he was a total male in at NBC and did that was not his best work. And then it's a chemistry thing or what. And I

don't necessarily miss miss here in ferriti on the broadcast. But yeah, I'm a court war on me a little bit more than ferriti did. I think that he did not fulfill his potential. I thought his his career track would have turned out differently. And I thought like even on the, you know, on the lift stuff, like, not ashamed to say it like I was like good to hear his voice.

I was like, oh, yeah, a thirdity, you know, like I don't begrudge him for going over there. I mean, if I'm, he probably is like very freeing for him. So, but I was curious to get you to take, because I feel like I might be in the minority on that, where people are probably very tired of a stick. I don't think that I thought the studio show is decent, but not great. And I didn't think that he needed to be like a talk show host. I just wanted them to cover golf in a more, I don't know, in

a bigger way, I guess. Speaking of, of analysts covering the live stuff, Jerry Foltz had gotten us. So I think he stole our soapbox Sunday in there and went on a two and a half minute rant. That was a lot about the OWGR that I would recommend finding if you can. I don't, I didn't want to post it and get in trouble from the live folks. But he lead it off by, again, Jerry Foltz, a paid analyst of live golf is commenting by calling the golf media decidedly biased, which again is an interesting chair to be sitting in, saying that talking about the ODBGR and talking about how the world, people are taking to

the streets to rally against the injustices, the OWGR. They showed a screenshot of John Robb calling the rankings laughable, ignoring what Robb's point actually was about the OWGR. Robb was not saying that as in they need to include the live guys was very much. I should be number one player in the world, but and then went into a very bizarre thing of like talked about how basically all the OWGR is good for is qualifications for the majors. And it was only a matter of time before the majors revisiting the system because, you know, it's not counting the best players in the world, but whatever. Conveniently ignoring that this is literally the system that the majors came up with.

Like, that's what the OWGR is. It is the majors coming up with a system to determine how you evaluate golf around the world to figure out how you qualify for their events Pretending to act like the OWGR is something different than the majors does the viewers at great disservice and again is just it's all fake It's all lie. It's all a campaign. It's all propaganda and Look, if you're trying to get the decidedly biased golf media to treat your product like it's somewhat serious. You can't just blatantly do false things like this and pretend like the new sports illustrated rankings are the new world rankings or that T.U.G.R. or even data golf, I believe he said, are what, you know, is what's going to take over.

They're just trying to will this thing of like, oh, yeah, the OWGR is irrelevant now. And it's very much like, no, you want to play in the majors. You want to play in the biggest events, and that's the way that they are going to let you in. You can't just keep saying they're irrelevant and change how the majors decide on it. But if you get in, that's fake. It's just fake.

It might work on something that just not randomly tuning into this, but it's not going to work on anyone that follows the game of golf in any way. And it's just like, man, I'm like trying to give you guys fair shake. I'm watching this. I'm watching this to like hear what's going on here. And like that's I'm this. I don't know if this is going to surprise you guys. He was not challenged on that point after he made his rent, which was I was stunned that Arla White didn't hold

his feet to the fire there. And fairity. Come on. I guy. There you go. Come on. We're doing guys. I just I mean'm the thing that just keeps tripping me up with the rankings is just the constant like whining about it. Like again, you kind of knew that this was part of like the issue and this is what the money is for. And legitimately, the only fucking players that anybody wants to see are already in the majors. That's already one one. No one except for Taylor Gooch, who probably is still in the top 50, who I give a shit about, like that I that is going to be excluded from the majors. Paul Casey, I don't care.

Hendrick Sensen, I don't care. And you plus you won the freaking open championship not that long ago, so you're probably still have exemptions from that. Like name a single live player who you're going to be like, it is so such a bummer that they're not going to be in the, you know, the masters of the US open. It's just, there isn't there. So you're, they're, they're ranting about stuff that no one else cares besides them. And if there was this ground swell of, of people being like, God, it's so unfair that Peter Uline is right, 300 in the world when he's a legitimate offer. I just don't think I would like,

I could see that and if that was something I just but I just don't care now. Part of that fault rant was all about how Charles Howe's house like 390 fifth in the world. And it's like I think we have a pretty big body of work to show that that's it. Like he needs 600 more starts on a tour and then we can make that one. We can lay that one to rest my guy. Like, okay, and then he ran away with the tournament today. It's like, okay, that's not doing it for me, Jerry. I mean, this is the James, I feel like sometimes they're picking on James Han,

but he's been very vocal about this stuff. Like James Han has missed like six of the last eight cuts. All right. So James Han would obviously love to be in live and live does not really have any interest in him. Like the idea that Jameson is like ranked 300 in the world seems like a pretty freaking accurate thing. Like who is, I just don't understand like who is being sort of screwed here in this like and also you're more than welcome to it take your amazing games and go through qualifying. Like you were great. You could absolutely walk your way through qualifying, but they're like pissed about this idea of like, oh, you know, that's so

Benetha's or just crazy shit could happen. Yeah, man like you know who used to have to qualify for the British Open Jack fucking Nicholas and then Arnold Palmer and all these people who they literally they'd have to go over there and Qualifying was like a Monday and they would you know, they'd 50 guys would get through whatever but it wasn't just a walk and walk through it, you know, they'd 50 guys would get through whatever, but it wasn't just a walk and walk through it, you know. 100%. That's my biggest feedback. I well noted on this part of just like just shut up and just do. There's a process. It's been in place for a long time. Like, yeah, there's some probably some issues with the OWGR, but one of them is, one of the issues is not just like nighting a new tour that doesn't meet the qualification system. Like that's not, that is not the issue, right?

And yeah, you guys are making it harder. You know, where do you put someone like Dustin or Bryson or whoever, like, okay, that's a little more complicated. But again, I'm not really worried about it. Like you guys got all this money, just go and take the money and have fun and play in your exhibition. It's great. And if you're helicoptering into this conversation and are confused as to why live events don't get O.D.B.G.R points, there is a set set of criteria that says you must play

this amount of holes, you must blah, blah, blah, you must be in compliance for this period of time. And all that is in place to be able to evaluate a lot of different golf tournaments that happen all over the world. The PGA tour is not the only place where golf happens. There's a D.P. World tour. There's the Asian tour. There's blah, blah, there's 33 tours, whatever that happen all over the world. The PGA tour is not the only place where golf happens. There's a DP world tour. There's the Asian tour. There's blah, blah, blah. There's 33 tours, whatever that are members of the O. David J.R. and they all play under certain guidelines, all of them.

And one again, I've said this so many times, way too many people are focused in on the 54 holes, no cut as being the reason why, you know, that all that's the only reason why they don't have points. It's like, no, it is so freaking critical that like Chase Keppka, who finished 47th this week, his, his spot is not under threat. There's no qualification under him that is going to eliminate him from playing there. We don't know what his contract looks like. I'm sure it's tied to his brother also playing there, but like he is not under threat to

have his spot taken by someone else because there's no qualification for this tour. It is just the tour of the dudes that sold out to go play there. It's not one of the best golf tours in the world. It's where a lot of players went because I got paid a lot of money to go do it, but there's not a competitive network upholding this that you can evaluate players. Eric Cole is the product of an extremely competitive environment and he beat out of shitload of players for the opportunity to do that. And I I'm sorry Peter Uline did not do that Peter Uline over the course of his PGA tour and Cornfairy tour career proved that he was like a quad A player and was like not

good enough to cut it on that tour consistently. And now he finishes second at the live event and we're supposed to pretend like that means something Charles how played 600 PGA tour events. He won three times he won once in the last 15 years in the PGA tour, goes over there and wins one of his first starts ever on live. Sorry, we were going to have struggled. If you want to have trouble evaluating that, I'm sorry. I believe Soli and I went like 45 minutes on the OWGR and the RSM pod last year. Maybe we should, we could lift that section of that pot out and put it out. Yeah, I hate repeating stuff, but not everyone listens to every pod. And so I try to revisit and summarize it as often as I can. But, um, will we see a live player try to bail out of

their, their deals to share? Well, they will, someone tried to eject from what they've signed. Yes, I think, I think so. Yes. And I think Brooks Capco is number one on that list. The rumblings out there are pretty real. They're not coming from, from, I don't think they're all the easiest. That's a guess. That is no sourcing on that.

That's just my go trackers. I'll trackers. Don't do it. I can see him being the first guy to say like, Oh, yeah, I'm out. I'm out of this. This is bullshit, man. This isn't what I thought it was going to be.

You know, then, and like, trying to like, No, I want, you know, I want out of this. This is bullshit, man. This isn't what I thought it was going to be, you know, and like trying, you're like, no, I want, you know, I want to come back. The thing I wonder though, it's like, it's not like you've made a deal with a business. Like, you've kind of made a deal with like a gangster state. Like, well, I don't know that you can just walk away and spend the rest of your life like looking over your shoulder wondering if the things are just going to be let it go. I want to propose a little game theory here, though. And we talked about this a bit last week with the Livs lawsuit against the PGA tour and how the judge ruled that Yossir Avramayan, the head of the Piff, will be deposed or needs to be deposed.

I'm not a lawyer, I'm gonna screw something up in this, right? But the gist of it is the 10,000 foot view is he needs to get deposed, right? Which is essentially testifying not in the courtroom, but A whole lot of shit. He's susceptible to discovery and all of his messages emails all this He was not did grain a diplomatic community and tried to argue all this bullshit of that he should be and it did not work So again, I've I've read some lawyers talking online and the opinion seems to be like he's never gonna set for a deposition They're gonna appeal the shit out of it. And if it gets down to

that day or whatever it is, they're going to drop the lawsuit. Like that is what a huge the huge win for the PGA tour in that lawsuit is the fact that they can get discovery on all of Yosser's communications with PGA tour players, what they've what he's discussed with sponsors and tour venue, tournament venues, all kinds of things that I think would greatly help the PGA tours case that they've not committed to that trust valuations and all that blah blah blah. Anyways, this this was floated to me by Twitter user 77 Magalicious. I want to give credit to this idea because I don't say I haven't thought of this perspective until he brought it up to say like, all right, so if it's the ruling is that Yasser needs to be deposed. And after the appeals and the ruling stays and live with draws, it's lawsuit can't like all the players. Don't you see like an offer amp to say,

like, Hey, I was, you know, promised all these things by Yasser and one of these things that was promised was that I'd be able to play in these PGA tour events. And I was promised this by Greg Norman. And we have all this communication of all these things that were supposed to happen for me to have signed this contract. And they're not happening now. I would like to file a lawsuit against you. And I would like you to be deposed, Yosser, in this. Would you like to sit for that deposition?

Then what is lives appetite to fight the player on that or let them leave and go back to other avenues of professional golf. That's a, that's an interesting game theory, isn't it in terms of wait a second here, if live is going to be done fighting this thing, which has, you know, they've been so incredibly confident that they're going to win these lawsuits. And if they don't, what do the players have to fear? And that's where I do not fully understand the law or how that would be ruled on. But I think that's an interesting off ramp, an interesting idea floated of how these guys would begin to back out of this. I mean, it's a scary thing to like say you're going to sue

essentially the, you know, head of state, like the, uh, I don't know. I, but it's in US court, right? It's in US well I the one thing I did read is that the that even though yasser had to be deposed that they That they could potentially choose the venue for where he would be posed So you might have to go to like re odd and depose them there and do you have like enough kind of Stones to do that or you know like because if people get like arrested on trumped up shit all the time in South Arabia I'm like, oh, you're up. You're a terrorist to the state. Like, I don't know. You have to have pretty big balls as a lawyer. We could create a huge like international incident. If you like rolled in there and like, they would go, no, like, they would never do that.

Like, or an embassy or anything like that. It's a lot more intimidating, right? No, to the roll up in there and be like, ah, all right, we're going to sit here for six hours of deposition here. There's no precedent for any of that. That anyone would have any fear of being, you know, being, should be afraid of that. I think though, when you game theory, though, like, all right, let's say that Brooks and Bryson or whomever decided that they wanted out. And they were like, yeah, we'll sue these guys.

And they'll say, we'll let you go. Where do they go at that point? Like if you're Jay Monahan, and I guess you can theory could say, like, all right, we'll let him back because there's a destroy live sort of its credibility. But if I'm Rory or John Rom or Scotty Schuffer and Jordan Spieth, I didn't take the money to go to live. And I'm now the sudden Bryson Brooks get to come back. What do you do? Do you basically say, okay, well, you can come back, but you're not eligible for the PIP for five years.

So you're not eligible to be in the tour championship for two years. So there has to be some sort of financial penalty paid, because otherwise, like your kind of membership is going to be an unrupproar. I think that's exactly right. But I think there's a second piece to this. I don't think all these guys, this is speculation for me, but I don't think all these guys have gotten all the money up front. My guess is that there's a lot of like over four years, we're going to pay you the 50,

100 million, whatever the number was. And I think that pre like your game through on the lawsuit stuff is good. Solid, but I think there's probably a situation where they're they're hemorrhaging so much money that if a guy like Brooks that they promised, let's say, it was a hundred million, was like, Hey, I just want out. And he was like, I don't even want the rest of the 75 million that you owe me. They'll double it. They'll just like, Oh, well, how's double? Well, but I also, but I part of me thinks that they, the they may be looking for a way to cut costs where it's like, okay,

fine, you can leave like, you know, but we don't have to pay you, right? Like I could see that starting to happen a little bit where everybody just says like, let's go our separate ways. And then with the PGA tour, it's interesting, but there's probably some language in the handbook that says like, cool, you broke player. Yeah. So you broke your contract. So you're suspended for a year, and then you can come back after that. Or whatever.

I was trying to look up the exact spot in the handbook, and I couldn't find it, but I believe the official rule on this is, you have to be, I don't know how to phrase it, but like, not out of compliance, basically. So the second you're done playing with Liv, I think the clock starts, and once you are not out of compliance for a year, you are then eligible to return.

And I don't know if that means you pick your status right back up or if you go back to qualifying or what that means exactly, but I don't know if they also issue a one time. Do they just open the floodgates for a minute? Is it like opening the sweetens house up? It's like, okay, it's open. And it's going to be close in five minutes. Whoever wants to come in that five minute period, like you can come, but that's it. Like and if you're five minutes too late, you're you're Mr. Window. How many people could the tour get back? I don't think that's a realistic solution. But it there's the rumblings are real. They are. It's going to keep happening. It's going to keep leaking out. And I don't know if there's going to be action to follow those rumblings, but there's some well-play stuff that would make us think that there's some unhappy campers over there and how things are playing out and especially the way that lawsuit is trending.

I know for a fact that a lot of the players are not thrilled about the fact that they got to have to go back to play a tournament in Saudi Arabia, that that's real. So anybody who says like, oh, you're just repeating, no, that's, that's real. Like a lot of them thought that that was sort of a one-off deal. So. And we said this last year, we were like, hey, this is the recruiting face. Cadi fairs being paid, Cadi hotels being whatever, we're topping up the caddies on this parties on the planes, all this stuff. That has dried up. That is all I believe on all teams all dried up and it's all very much a, I think the teams were given like five million bucks, whatever for to finance travel and to get things moving

and to set up franchises and whatever, you know, you need to use that money for it, but it's not all all paid for on the road now. And that's just going to be an interesting leg of this to follow, I believe, because it's, you took a coffee out of the break room, Niels favorite analogy. And it's the, you've bought some, you bought silence a lot with the, with the mega planes that there were parties on. And I don't think that's going to be the case going forward. So the cleaks can't even afford four hats all right according to that picture we saw the cleaks

they're you know martin kymers not even wearing a hat obviously they had to do some tough choices in the budgeting and felt like the hat budget was too much it's also worth knowing this this I saw this thread got 2.9 million views on Twitter this week. This is from John Nucci, who is an attorney and a chief golf law correspondent at Condé Trimental. Am I saying that right? And he had a tweet thread that based on recent, he said, a thread of restrictions included in certain live golfers contracts according to recent court filings.

One, players must play in every lip event as a fundamental condition of their contract and live, retain sole discretion in the number, location or dates of events. That's, you know, an example he gives there is that they've already gone from eight events to 14 and that's not including the four majors. And I believe the original plans slated for 18. So I don't know if that's what the plan is for 2024 or not. But again, live, retain sole discretion in the location of events. Players, you're unhappy about going plan is for 2024 or not, but again, live, retain, soul, discretion in the location of events, players you're unhappy about going to Saudi Arabia, tough shit, you signed this over, and we paid you a lot of money to sign this over.

So all this stuff, it's interesting, as Phil helped, you know, dial up these the rules of this league, it's very interesting that he would include some of these causes in there, but players grant live an exclusive perpetual royalty free worldwide irrevocable license to exhibit exploit and otherwise use players identification and connection with any promo activities apparel and all content created by lived during the term of their contracts. So those cringe worthy videos that came out when the teams were announced a couple weeks

ago, players can't say no to that. And I don't think that's exactly how things work on the PGA tour. They have their own version of cringe worthy stuff that comes out. But I don't think that I don't think the no level exists at the same level. Shout out to the FedEx Cup rap. Some people should have said no that three players must wear live team apparel in live events, non-live tournaments and other events in which they must participate. I heard about this one about a year ago. Couldn't believe it.

It's just going to be hilarious if they're going to sell so much merch, man. Let's get this as a revenue stream. Come on. Players agree they will not enter into any conflicting contract. Again, although not directly on point, this one is particularly interesting, given that the PGA tours competing event policy is the foundation of Liv's anti-trust claims. Man, it's almost like this is all bullshit. Players are required to use their social media platforms to promote Liv. That's probably open doors out the ass SCN over there at Liv of just all this content going up on player

player channels, which again has been bought. Players are obligated to make required appearances, including multiple sponsorship activities, receptions, meet and greets, and appearances that each team's draft event. You must lend your likeness to content creation, including photo shoots, video content, blah, blah, blah. Prohibited from providing exclusive interviews with

or appearances in any media or social media in relation to any live activities without first obtaining live or team operator approval. That's the megal one that we've talked about many times that we have tried to get guys to agree to come on and that it's gotta be approved by the league and we've not gotten that far. Required to participate in this assist live

with meetings, negotiations, and other activities with corporate sponsors, including team promotional activities and league activities. Easy one here. There's barely any corporate sponsors. So I don't think they have much they need to do with that one. At Lives Requests players must introduce live representatives to the players existing or prior sponsors to facilitate sponsorship discussions for live and other live players. So interesting seeing guys, some guys get dropped from certain contracts. Maybe those sponsors didn't appreciate being forced to be introduced to live representatives. Must not make statements or commit acts in public forums that are false to Famous Landrace

may adversely affect reputation or public image of any relevant person, relevant persons include, live shareholders like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So when you see them squirming and press conferences to be able to answer questions is because they are not allowed to say anything bad about murdering journalists or anything else that going on over there. No one here approves human rights violations. So I can't be any more clear. That's correct. And so in short, again, this is John Nuchis summary. In short, at least some of the live contracts appear more restrictive than the competing event policy that live is challenging on anti-trust grounds.

Additionally, live players may not have full control of their likeness, which was the public gripe of Phil Mickelson against the PGA tour. And then again, in August 2022, Beth Judge Beth Freeman, who my wife was for Halloween, is overseeing the case remarked the following about live contracts. These contracts lock up players in ways that PGA tour never imagined they are so restrictive. That's just, that was a lot to take in to say, yeah, these guys have kind of sold their soul, which we knew.

It looks like John Newtie works for Conduct Detrimental, which is a sport, a podcast about the intersection of sports and law. So shout out to those guys, because that's an excellent thread. Gotcha. Conduct Traumental was the Twitter handle that's I miss sight of that.

Yes, not Conduct Traumal. Conditrimental. The social media clause in there, it's all I mean, I haven't gotten to weigh in on any of the the full swing stuff, but for me, like literally the funniest thing in the season of full swing was in Polterbyg just like, credulous about the fact that Ricky Fowler has more Twitter followers. He never tweed. You just never tweeds. It was my prayers. My past. I do everybody's.

He's like, yo, he's got like over a million, 1.5 million. You know, the holy Polters working so hard to pump this, you know, this Instagram and Twitter profile up and Ricky just kind of just chills there and just gets followers. It drives both crazy. I love that. Gosh, this feels like a million years ago when we're almost

done with live stuff. Sir Joe Garcia said, Roy McElod was lack of maturity ended our relationship. I don't think we even need to comment on this. That's not yeah. I know it's getting I just my comment there is literally what I said on Twitter is like man, this thing moved way too quickly into the hard to parody. Like it's just really hard to parody that stuff. That's it. Anything else from live because I know that went a little long. Lot going on. Lot going on. You had a note in here about Pulter, and he didn't interview with the telegraph.

I do want to know because I wasn't on the full swing documentary. I actually found Pulter to be one of the most interesting profiles. And I think it was because he was the most like himself, and I actually appreciated that. I thought he was pretty genuinely, whether you like him or not, I felt like he wasn't trying to act for the camera like a lot of those guys were, or maybe put in a position to act. And I thought that came across in a good way for him. So I would just, that's that's kind of what I wanted to note there. I tweeted something and got a lot of the run about it. Just that I thought,

you know, whatever it was a performative or not, like he came across as like a good dad. And, you know, I like seeing dads like who are sort of tender and loving to their kids. And so like the scene of them playing, you know, the whatever, this is the 40,000 foot putt challenge or whatever on the plane. Like that was cute. That was really fun. A lot of people kind of push back and he was like, yeah, but like, you know, he's obviously like a good dad in the sense of like with his kids one on one that that comes across, but like at some point are you making setting a good example for your kids of like what you actually do with your choices that when by doing this, like, uh, it's a fair thing. I mean, I'm sure

Polter would say like, it's not my job to, you know, police like what the KSA does. Uh, and so I'm just, I'm here to play golf and I'm sure that's how he justifies it. So I think those two things kind of seem in conflict. Like yeah, you're a great dad, but also you're making choices that are gonna make your kids kind of not see the world as like a morally, you know, place where there's right and wrong choices.

But you know, it's still, he did come across to me as like, ah, like I could see like talking to me and Poulter about like having a teenage daughter, which I have too. Yeah, but that's where it's like Poulter DJ same thing in full swing when they're those does are almost like Poulter's goal is generational wealth. And I think he says in this article, it's like, I don't just think about my kids.

I'm thinking about their kids and their kids and that's what I work for. Like he's, which is like hit, that's his motivation, that's his goal. Whether I agree with that or not, it doesn't matter. But I appreciate that he's at least open and honest about that. Same with DJ and full swing.

It was like, you know what man? Somebody came along and offered me like a lot more money to do the same job. Like you'd be stupid enough to take it. And it's like, well, we don't value the same things, but like I appreciate you just at least saying that, right? Like, I think that like, I'm willing to like say, like that's that to me is like, I don't know, refreshing a little bit. When you compare it to all these other clowns that are trying to explain it the way with all this bullshit, I'm going to, I'm going to

fight you on this one, Neil, because I definitely, I definitely did think it was performative in that do enjoy the Ryder Cup? It's a bad shit in the woods. It's a bad shit in the woods. Do I enjoy the Ryder Cup? Laughing off a comment that he chose the money over the Ryder Cup. I have no sympathy for this pity act that he does in this article with the telegraph.

I was like, I just got so many hate messages and I don't understand it. It's like, well dude, your league is suing the PGA tour and also you're suing your way into European tour events when they've made it clear, like, hey, you are damaging this tour by going over to this other rival tour. You are damaging, you're not, you are, again, going back to like pooling media rights, like you're screwing all these other people that are left behind. This is not a zero sum decision that you've made.

There are punishments to be handed out to other people because of you deciding to take the money. And pretending like that's not part of the equation and this old woe is me sympathy, Graham McDowell did a little bit of that. Don't Gary Williams pod this week. I'm like, I just don't understand why people are so upset about this.

You're literally fucking suing the PGA tour. Like it's not, this is not, it is such a, they've thrown such middle fingers at people on the way out the door and are still trying to sue their way back into events and not understanding why their media rights have to be pulled and playing dumb on all of this to the point where it's like yeah dude you got paid a lot of money like we get it DJ on one hand shut the hell up and took the money and has not tried to screw over other people in the way out and I don't think

anybody has any problem with that whereas whereas I just have no time for the disingenuous kind of, like, what is everybody mad at me? That's, I think that's a totally fair argument, and I would agree with that. My comment was more about the full swings of, I guess I was so surprised, I was like, oh, you know what? I just, Polter just strikes me as someone

who's pretty comfortable as a skin, and that surprised me. Like, when his episode came up, I thought I was going to hate it. Yeah, I was actually like, oh, you know what? No, like he's a schnitz, but like he's an authentic schnitz. I think you'd be a great hang. I said this on the pod too.

I think you'd be a great hang. I think I would enjoy hanging out with the impolter. Yeah, but all the things you said are very valid and you're absolutely right. The pity party. I'm not I have no sympathy for him at all, but it is nice when someone actually lays out their motivations like pretty clearly in a black and white way of like guys just trying to make as much fucking money as he can I know it's kind of funny to me like

Basically what he's saying in this interview is like I don't think you guys understand how rich I could be like I could be really rich Like you guys just don't seem to grasp this like that's why I'm doing it. Do you understand how rich I could be like Yeah, but it's like for my great, great, grandkids, but like do you understand it? It's like, okay, no, we definitely totally get it. Like we really, really do. So somewhere there's a person in England thinking about the wealth tax and being like,

all right, we're going to tax the fuck out of Ian Polter. Yeah. Whether you can become like somewhere a political like bait topic. Like look at this. This, this is what we have to prevent. Jeremy Corbin's going to stand up and bang a picture of Ian Polter and Parliament. American Liliavu started the day six back at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

She brought it to her first three holes. She made five straight birdies on holes eight through 12 and chase down 20 year old Thai rookie. Now, Takri Ta Vanta Flipp, I think I did it. I practiced that one earlier, but that was earlier. That was a little rusty as we've been on this pod for a long time, but she was really, really impressive. I actually watched a decent amount of this this week. I caught more of this than I did the Honda

just the way my viewing windows worked, but I think I might be like a night golf replay viewer. Like I think I worked too hard to try to make golf to watch it live, whereas like Thursday through Saturday, you can watch the replay and kind of get the gist of what's going on. I got a lot of this tournament. That was really fun to watch. You know what I found you could do is I have YouTube TV free, no free ads, sorry, but and you can like literally record every single like golf thing and you can like zip through

them or they even have like a key plays thing that you could push and it will literally show you like key shots. It's like a great way. It is a nice to buzz through a tournament. Interesting. This is Liliavus third season on the LPGA tour. She has eight other career top 10. She was a 2021 Epson tour graduate UCLA graduate as well. And that's an enormous, enormous win for her to start off the season. Aotea Titacum finished third, Maya Stark fourth, Celine Boutier rounded out the rest of the top five in Thailand.

So I kind of watched mainly just highlights. I didn't catch a lot of this, but a couple of things that stuck out to me. One great crowd, like, seemed like people were out force. More people than we're at in my Acoba from other than Club 54, which was absolutely popping off. But I felt like the crowds were great in the limited coverage I did watch. And Lilyavu had an awesome, awesome post-round interview. Did you guys catch that? Did not. We'd love to see that though.

She just talked about how, you know, year three, and they asked her like what you know what's changed and she just went into like it's all mental and I was beating myself up and really struggling and I think she had a can't remember if it was a father or uncle or somebody that it passed away recently and how they were very supportive of her and she felt like that helped give her some perspective of like I need to start like believing in myself more. And honestly, some of it like talking to Lauren Coglin about like how hard it is as a rookie on the LPGA, how she felt like she didn't belong. And Lily O'Vue was saying some of the same stuff of like, I just never felt like I belonged out here. And then I finally just kind of flipped it and

and you know, started being a lot more positive and how she treated herself, which I thought was, it was very vulnerable and it was a really good interview. So if you have a chance to watch that, I would. All right, our next segment is brought to you by BMW Worldwide Partner of the 2023 Ryder Cup BMW will be electrifying the Ryder Cup with a fully electric fleet of vehicles for players and officials. This September, we're gonna do these every single month. Last month, we drafted our own of vehicles for players and officials. This September, we're going to do these every single month.

Last month, we drafted our own United States rider cup teams. We said we would do one in February, drafting the European rider cup teams. Of course, of course, T.C. not being here is an enormous loss for this team. It's kind of like losing Thomas Peters to live, if you will, and that we don't we're not, you know, we're fighting with one hand tied behind our back. T.C. wants the ball in March for our segment. He's going to take up the whole thing going way down the leaderboard of all 38 guys he's going to take on the European

Ryder Cup team. But that's the disclaimer to say, we're each going to go around the table and list off our 12 guys that we are sitting here now. We would be taking to the Ryder Cup in September at Marco Simone. Who wants to go first? I'm terrified right now. I feel like I got some scar tissue from calling Andy Murray, British a long, long time ago. This is not my wheelhouse. I did put some research into this, but I'm just I might not open up Twitter for the rest of the week after I unveil my team. Okay. I'll step up to the plate, Tully. I think I'm ready. We're just going to go from top down to bottom, right? Like last time we tried to rank it as like who was the safest to be there all the way to who are you filling out at the bottom of the roster. I don't feel like horribly confident in my order in that, but I have it ranked in some way that would reflect that.

Okay. Start off with Rory. Probably could start off with Rom, but I'm going to start off with Rory just because he's been a stalwart of many, many victorious European Ratter Cup teams. John Rom coming in next. Tommy Fleetwood, I'm going to pretty much guarantee that Tommy's going to be involved in the team some way. Victor Hoveland, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Alex Noren, Tyrell Hatton, and then it starts to get a little bit interesting. It does. I think I have like eight names here. I'm going to go ahead and put Justin Rose on this team.

I think you need some sort of veteran leadership. Him not being on the last one was understandable, but I think the win and just his relationship with Luke Donalds and the fact that they're both English is going to get him on the team. That's you need another guy to sort of steady the the bottom of the list here. I'm going to go with Shamist power number 10. Feel really comfortable with that. Been playing really well. You know, he's 28th in the world kind of weird to think you could leave him off. He was 14 of the Phoenix 12 that the US Open last year. He was finished fifth of the RSM.

You know, Data Golf has him 23rd in Storks gained. So I feel like that's a pretty good metric there. I'm going to say Stabstrakka is my number 11, all right? Like, I think it's a little bit bold, but he hits a long way. Like he's he's 31st in the world. Has been playing great, but played, you know, pretty well at the Honda.

So I feel like that's, you know, and then, God, I really, I want, okay, I wanted to put, like a ho-guard, a Rasmus ho-guard in this. I wanted to put an Italian on here. I looked hard at Guido Big Lod. T.C. is here. T, this is T.C. I probably should spiritually represent him. I wanted to get Frank and Valinarian there. Bob Magittar couldn't do it. In the end, I have to, this is hard,

but I got to go with Victor Perez. He's going to be my 12th guy. So I be leading the freaking race to Dubai. Like, there's a good chance he qualifies anyway. So, like, I feel like I don't love that pick. Like, thought hard about Thomas D.T. Uh, thought hard about Bob McIntyre, Danny Willett. Thorborne is one, just recently. So, like, maybe he could get in the mix, but that's my team. Second with it.

Uh, I would just say, like, looking rider cup.com rankings. I mean, it is so like different. Like you want to hear the top 12 and like I know it doesn't really matter, but it's like it's Rory, Rom, Yonik Paul, Victor Perez, Alex Noren, Adrian, Otegu. Well, but you got to be careful because there's two lists for the rider cup on the European side. There's the world list and the Europe list and they take a few questions. Like how their qualifying is different than the US one, right? That is correct. They take three guys off of the Ryder Cup Europe list, I believe,

and three off of the, basically, the world rankings essentially. So if you are dominating around the world, you're going to make it on the team. And if you're dominating Europe, you're going to make it. And then there's six captains picks. Got it So do you want to go with your list deal? Yeah, I can go I would say

Man I kind of was thinking that a little differently in KVV so I'll prefer to say I think you got to go Young I'll be with some youth okay, you're weird and punchy. I think you have to I Just don't know this gonna happen. But yeah, I've got Rory rom obviously one two. That's the no brainer. I think Fitzpatrick for me is three. Like I just think he's been on the team and also young enough

to be like probably maybe carrying the torch forward as a regular in the future. At hovelin four. I had I was forced you kind of just shook me with the shames power stuff. Like I had him way, way down, but I've had Shane Lowry. Let's say Shane Lowry fifth and then shames power sixth. I threw Yannick Paul on here. I have, I have him, like I keep seeing his name pop up and I feel like

He's number three now that you explain the rankings to me. I feel like he's probably gonna make the team if he keeps playing well on the DP world tour um Then I have Tommy Fleetwood and lulled T-Rell Hatton and then it gets tough for me after that. It's it's um I've got I've got four let's say one two three four five I've got five options for three spots. I've got Victor Perez, Alex Noren, Rasmus Hogard, Bob Mac because I love that he said he wanted to play more DP World Tour events just so he could be on the Ryder Cup team. Like you got to love that as a captain. And then I have a wild card,

but I really want to get on the squad, which is Ludwig Aberg. I feel like he's gonna come out of PGA Toru, and that's the kind of guy. It's like get him on the squad, like Scotty Sheffler style, like he is the future. So I would love that, those last three spots to be Ludwig, Bob Mack, and then either Victor

Perez, Alex Noren, Rasmus Hovergard would be like pick one of those guys. Right now, if I had to pick one, I'd probably take the Frenchman. As we talked about it a few months ago, Sally, I think Victor Perez could be the best Frenchman of all time. You know, name me a better Frenchman. I love the idea of picking a young wild card. I just don't think that Donald will have the balls to do it because it's a, like, it's at home, it's a home rider cup.

They're going to say, like, all right, if you just give us a chance that the, the home court of anage is going to give us, get us over the top. So as much as I would love to see, like one of the young wild cards, I just don't know that he's got the balls to do. So, so here I am. I'm leaving Sep Strock off the list and I'm leaving Justin Rose off the list, which those are two that you brought up was like,

damn, I wasn't even considering them, but that's tough. That's tough look for me. It's, look, Europe's got some team building to work on here. It's no, I don't think there are any wrong answers at this point. So I don't hate your team, they at all,

even though it's different than mine. I think the way I put together my European rider cup team is how like the US was putting together their rider cup teams in like 0 4 and 0 6 and like, ah, I mean, like this guy makes sense. We should probably put them on, right? Like, I mean, Fred Fung should be there, right? Like Chris Riley makes sense, I guess, right? Like, that he's on the team. And those teams got waxed, right? So like Riley makes sense, I guess, right? Like that, he's on the team. And those teams got waxed, right? So like the teams that have gone all the outside the box and come up with a specific strategy that in a specific approach that, you know, it you think about who is paired with who and that guy is going to play this exact role. And that's

what you guys are going to do. And we're going to take a risk on this young guy instead of like going with a bunch of safe picks. I think they're apt to do that, but they just need like two youngish punchy dudes to have great summers to enter the picture, right? Because I'm looking at the Hoi Guard twins not seeing the numbers right now. I, Aberg, you listen, I think if he shows really any sign of life, when he makes it there, like do it, like do us put them on the spieth track. Like, spieth was on the 2013 president's cup team as a 19 year old or 20, maybe it's 20 at that point.

Like, do it. Just freaking do it. You got, you have some spots to play with because you don't have like the incumbents sitting there that it's their spot to lose. It's kind of like, ah, do I like need Thorbeur and Olson on the team? Or do I take a risk for the future or give somebody that has a chance to have a crazy good week? Like, it might not go great with Ludwig Aberg, but like, it might be the lightning rod that everyone needs and rallies around. So that being said, I took the opposite tact at this

point. As you're sitting here, I think you would probably struggle to take a risk like that, but you're looking for signs of life over the course this summer. So, Ron Rory, Shane Lowry, who's kind of backtracked a lot more than I think I realized over the last three and six months, because he really was really hot this time of year last year and through the Masters. But Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Tirol Hatten, Victor Havlan, and Alex Noren. And Noren's been playing a lot better golf than I think a lot of the world recognizes. World rankings recognize it, but the rest of the world, I don't know if they don't, but that was a little, that was an old oldie, oldie and goodie there. Great to see you squash your beef with Noren.

We're great friends. Shamest power, I think has done a lot in the most on the most competitive tour in the world and has earned recognition for that and earns a spot there. Justin Rose revitalization. Look, I'd be curious to see how long it lasts. Like he is, you know, he is definitely trending and of course winning at Pebble. Does that last all the way through the year and with his experience, I think that makes it ton of sense and can kind of play with anyone. The last two spots I don't feel great about. I think they're totally up for grabs and can change so much. And if I'm picking right now, I'm taking Victor Perez and Thierry on Olsen who have a good, have had a good last three months. And I'll put in my disclaimer there that I think those two spots are for like, Hey, when August

rolls around and who has had the last good last three months, who's had the best run over the last three months and is a hot-ish hand that we can start to ride into this because it could be a totally, totally different person by that point and I don't think anyone past Shemus Power has earned a spot on this team or can be really considered a lock. I went with Seth just because like,

you feel like you can hit it a long way and like that would at least give you some very chances. Like I totally like him on board. I couldn't make like I like you I wanted to make Bob Mac and Tyre work Neil, but the results just aren't there. Like he's been restinky lately. And you know, I was a hard, that was a chess pick. That was like, man, I wish I had 12 bobs. Yeah. You know, that we could go, we could go to the battle with, but he's also on the JV squad right now. KVB, I got to push hard against the SEPS trucker pick and you're saying he hits it far. He's below average distance.

Wow. And it's essentially like a zero strokes game player. Like he's a very neutral player. Like he has some crazy hot streaks and like maybe it's worth riding that and maybe, I know, maybe it's not. I mean, like Sebastian Munoz would not have been like top of my list for the international president's cup team. And he was freaking awesome in the president's cup.

So it's not to say you can't have a great president's cup, but I think these things are very, especially on the European side are very data driven. And maybe there's a great pairing that jumps off the page for him, but I don't, I don't know if that is the case was. And I don't know what Marco Simone favors. I don't know if that is the case was. And I just don't know what Marco Simone favors. I don't think anybody. How about this? Like Thomas D.T. is like 30th in stroke's game on the PGA tour of the share. He's been playing a lot of PGA tour stuff. Like he's, he's almost a full stroke. He's like point nine, which is pretty high. Like

there's a lot of guys on the US team who maybe don't aren't going to rank that high. So I don't, I don't, nothing about Thomas D.T game like blows me away, but this stuff say like maybe he should be in the mix. He's in there. I mean, he's, he's plus, I mean, again, this is boring to people, plus point two six over the last three months worldwide, plus point six nine over the last six months, like totally fine above average player in the world, but not the numbers aren't dropping off a page. And at no point in the last three, six, 12 or 24 months, as he ranked in the top 12 in Strokes gained for any European players. I'm telling you what used to take me like months to like accumulate all this

stuff is all in one page on data golf now. Like they track the three, six, 12 and 24 months runs for each player on both the US and the European side. And it's staggering one the gap between the two teams right now and just like to look at it against like what you think a guy is doing worldwide. It's kind of jarring. You're gonna have to teach me how to really get deep in the data golf world. Like you're gonna I'm gonna need like a solry you thing that when I come out

of Jack's lead for this. For these shout outs, like it's on like you know what I really don't. I am a big fan for this. For these shout outs, it's on, like, you know what, I really don't. I am a big fan of like content that just is great for the benefit of. If you're doing good stuff, you deserve a shout out. For sure. For sure. Do we take enough time to make fun of the new SI rankings? Because I don't know if we really have.

No, we didn't. Please. It's all true. This was very much nobody. Sports Illustrating. Hey, we made a world ranking system. I think you guys are good to love. Yeah, I was a little like, I was all set on this one unsubscribe before I even read it.

So I'm not, I'm not well. In a week when they laid off like 20 people to like, I know like the numbers don't always like work out in terms of like it just was like really a weird narrative. If like, hey, we're getting rid of 20 employees. And also LA golf sponsoring this fucking right thing. That's kind of a clown show. Which like isn't like Bryson and DJ aren't they like on the board of LA golf. Right.

It's it just seems a little pandering to live in this, including in the article that they wrote, all men's tours receive points for SI WGR, including live at all non-cut events, including live top 75% of finishers will receive points. So if you play on live, you just got to beat like 13 of some of the absolutely not best players in the world to get some ranking points for this. They factor in strength of field and award bonuses for the majors similar to the OWGR. But the kicker for me, because Stroke's gain is not calculated by all world tours,

just ignore that that's not true. We're using a new metric called Distance Pershot, DPS, which will appear a separate list just as OWGR does with Stroke's gain. Distance Pershot becomes a bigger factor when ranking players outside our top 100 as our strength of field calculation covers the majority of tournaments, those top 100 golfers enter. So basically like the high altitude events are going to be the ones that determine the like it's live just going to go to the highest

possible. The new. Are we going to, are we going to include the long drive guys to with the distance per shot? Like what, what is that measuring? What's not how far they hit the shots? It's how long the call, like how many points get awarded or whatever is based on how long the courses are, like how much distance is covered? Oh, okay. The course you might. If you shoot a 72 and an 8,000 yard course and you shoot a 72 on a 73 yard, 100 yard course, like the 8,000 is much more valuable, the 72 that you shot, which is just deeply unserious, as I think Joseph LeManger said the Friday this week,

like it just, it fundamentally misunderstands like what distance to play. I mean, I remember the few years ago when the BMW was at Medina and it was like, oh my god, it's 7,900 yards, just 7,800 yards, it's one of the longest for end they just tore it apart. And Justin Thomas was like, look, it doesn't matter how long it is. We will destroy it if it's soft. Like you have to make it firm or else we'll tear it apart. And that's just the truth about professional golfers. Like the distance stuff is just kind of silly.

Like, yeah, you can hit an eight iron, 190 yards if you're a professional golfer in a lot of silly. Like, yeah, you can hit an eight iron 190 yards if you're a professional golfer in a lot of ways. So, you know, also at this ranking doesn't really take into like the issue right now that we've discussed maybe too much. It's strength of field is the one that's the hard thing to understand, right? Like the argument of like, do you want to a bunch of duck sized horses or one horse sized duck, the whole, that whole deal. It's like the, and they're still using the same strength of field calculation. It's, you know, so it's not really solving any problem here. I don't know.

They're both, my thing is they're not first to this again, shout out to Data Golf of like they have their own wrecking system. That's one, you're both not first and also just not true to say that there's not strokes gained around the world. Like, yeah, they don't have shot link to calculate individual off the tee and approach and putting strokes gain, but like strokes gain is a very simple calculation of like how you're beating the average, like how much you're beating like the field by, like the average field. And it's ignoring both of those things for this record system that I don't understand why a publication needs to come up with.

Well, that's a great point, but I just embaffled by it. It's like, what is the reason? Why is Sports Illustrated deciding they're going to come? It reminded me of like when the college football coaches were like really mad about the media and their sort of rankings in the like the 90s, it's like, oh, we're going to come up with the coaches poll

because these are the people who really know, like what what ended up mostly just ended up being kind of similar to the two college football polls at the time. It just don't quite get why a media entity would decide, all right, this is super, other than like it's sponsored, right? It's like like, like, all of a saying that if you do this, like, we'll, you know, we'll help you out a little bit with some, some money because that's the only reason really why I like, like, it's worth it. It shouldn't be like entering into this like, look, we at Knowing Up here are, we're analysts, right? We can take a sort of like position of like, hey, this is such a stupid, but like, it's worth it. It ought to sort of say, like, we're kind of a neutral party in this.

We don't really think that, you know, we should be weighing in what we're just going to cover the news. And yet here they are saying, oh, we're going to help determine, we're going to give live a great talking point about like, oh, yeah, Kim Smith is definitely like a top three player in the news. And yet here they are saying, oh, we're going to help determine. We're going to give live a great talking point about like, Oh, yeah, Kim Smith is definitely like a top three player in the world. Yeah. And sponsor, just that it's sponsored by LA golf is just, just like chef's kiss. All things for me, what I saw is like, thank you. So that was interesting. But I will not ever look at this again. Like it will not settle any argue. That's the thing is like it adds nothing to the discussion. Again, there's other stuff that exists that can tell you like how good

Kamsmith is at golf. It's not the official world golf rankings. Like it's not going to change qualification for majors. It's like we covered earlier, but like, yeah, there's a met there's a much better metric out there to tell you like how good at Cam has been playing lately. Is it harder to measure? Because he plays way less frequently. Yes, of course, but that there's zero percent chance that this is better than what already exists on multiple fronts. So thank you for that. Last thing I have this week in James Han

tweets is liberal golf pundits rushing to post a video of Sergio Garcia just because he said Roy's lack of maturity ended their relationship. Golf media added again, pushing the divide for a few likes and follows. I just want to read one quote in response to this and we can move on to the segment. This tour is shit. You're all fucked. Sergio Garcia, and that was two fellow European tour golfers after joining Saudis live golf. So shot to the liberal golf media for pushing this divide and definitely not Sergio Garcia. So it seemed like a direct sub tweet of Jamie Weir because Jamie was the one who posted

like a video of Sergio like half of Sergio's transgressions. Exactly. Like let's never forget about Sergio. This is a person who suffered no consequence, whatsoever, for saying that like we'll serve fried chicken when Tiger Woods comes over to my house like fuck you like just you know, whatever. All time. Well, Neil, you got anything to wrap us with. Yeah, man, just a quick house at the shops pop and we got the spring collection out store.nolangup.com new H&B stuff is in some new hoodies from H&B that are great along with a little gold boy capsule. If you're into that kind of thing,

will gold boy be back, Sally? That's my question for you. I wanna say yes, but like in a cheeky way of like, hey, we're kinda in on the bit, guys, it's weird and that terrifies me. So, but I have no insight information on that, but I could see that happening. They're not allowed to become self-aware. No, That would be a go boy cannot become self-aware.

He's going to become sentient. Like the terminator. Goldboy just turns. Goldboy is going to come sentient this year. Now, I was on my honeymoon last year, so I missed the whole Goldboy thing. So I got a hope he comes back so I could share in the in the fun. I had no idea what anyone's talking about when I got back. But otherwise, yeah, we sent out the newsletter last fun. I had no idea what anyone was talking about when I got back. But otherwise, yeah, we sent out the newsletter last week. KVV featuring heavily in the NLU email newsletter these days. That's newsletter.nolangup.com. If you want to sign up for our buy monthly,

I guess buy weekly email every twice a month to make it easy. KVV, you got anything on deck this week? You're writing about? Yeah, I got in writing a column this week. I'm not going to reveal just what it is yet, but feel, you know, feel like good about it. And I'll be at the players coming up the week after that. So, you know, we had a fun run at live. I'll tell you what these mailbag things have become pretty fun for me because he just allows me to riff on a lot of different topics. And a bunch of my friends were like, man, I haven't read a mailbag in like years. And this is like super fun to dive into. So our rule is if you're a Ness member, you can ask a question

in the mailbag, but free for everybody to read. And so I think we're going to keep, you know, doing two of those a month. And it's just a fun way to kind of have a fun role in conversation about all the shit that we either cared, don't care about in the world of golf or outside of it. Yep. Speaking in S members, Ness Pod KVV was our special guest. Came into the funk tank this month with Cody and I recorded that on that third now Friday. We recorded that. So it should be live. It's not it'll be up tomorrow. And if you're interested in becoming a Ness member, you can find out more at nolayingup.com.

Or word slash join. It's all that's all I got. You got anything in the pod world coming up that you're excited about? Gotta get that figured out still. But I'll say we got a lot of messages this week about Justin Huber was on the bag for me this past week at the gasp gorilla,

invitational and questions about what will be coming of that. There will be a film room been made the trip and filmed it all and we will have a deep dive into how what will it be like to have a professional golfer on the bag at a prestigious mid-air tournament and what kind of impact could that have on my game. We will I kind of spoil a little bit on Instagram this week but I won't spoil the results here but I think it will make for some very interesting content as we go down the stretch of that tournament. So, look for that in the near-ish future.

And you may see me get fit for some clubs in the nearest future. The Pymann is working on that at it right now. So, went out to the titles people came to us. Actually, I didn't go out quite to Crosbad, but they came to us and got me in the fitting chamber and, you know, hit some good shots in it. So it's to be fun to get deep into that and see too much speed. That was the only problem. You broke the track. You broke the track, man. So guys didn't think we'd go two hours, but there's

just, you know, it's what happens. The professional golf road gets divided like this. There's a lot of professional golf to cover. So thank you everyone for tuning in. Thank you guys for being here on a Sunday evening and we'll see you back here next week. Cheers. Cheers. That is better than most. Better than most.