No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 648: Reaction to the new PGA Tour designated events structure ft. Peter Malnati

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

With the announcement earlier today unveiling the new PGA Tour structure starting next season, we fire up a midweek pod and are joined by Peter Malnati - the Player Director on the PGA Tour Policy Board - to get an inside look at the decision making process that led to today's announcement. Peter also details why he initially opposed many of the measures that passed today and what led him to change his mind. After our chat with Peter we do our best to make sense of the new structure and offer our takes on what works and what still gives us pause at this point in the process. We also do our best to answer the LIV related questions, predict what comes next at PGA Tour HQ and what they can do the properly message their plans moving forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Lang A Podcast, Sally here with an emergency podcast. We are going to lay out everything that happened in the world of professional golf today. Here shortly with a special guest here shortly, but want to give a shout out to our friends

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It is fantastic. The par three course that's going in there, the hotel, all the amenities, the huge putting green, it is going to be an awesome place to hang. It's going to kind of be a very central place in the world of golf, I think, in general. So if you get a chance to check that out, cannot recommend it highly enough. Omni hotels and resorts, exceptional hospitality and phenomenal golf book your trip at Omnihotels.com slash NLU. Let's get to the pod. Fellas, a lot to talk about today. We got an interview to get to shortly. I've joined here, of course, by my guy, TC, always ready for an emergency pod. Good afternoon, TC.

I live for the solid. I've been just free basing Twitter all day. I live mentioned already got today. It's about the tour. It's about the tour today. Come on, TC KVV is here on emergency notice. Hello, KVV. Hello, Sally.

I'm putting on hold my writing now to just be pod guy. So, uh, you know, take it out of my paycheck appropriately. But you're going through like the 2018 cycle that we all went through. Like, oh, yeah, everything gets thrown out. All the writing gets thrown out. But what it's time to podcast because it's just way easier to just word vomit into a microphone than it is. Edit a bunch of chat here.

So what we're going to cover today, again, not really originally part of the plan, but Amelinch had a scoop today, which the tour later confirmed through a memo about the new structure of the PGA tour. It's at the golf week article from Aiman Lynch again. It's at the PGA tour board on Tuesday night ratified a radical new approach for the 2024 schedule that will see reduced fields in the new designated events and the removal of the 36 whole cut fields and designated events will be reduced to between 70 and 78 players with no halfway cut. The changes will not apply to all of the elevated events, the majors, the player championship, and the FedEx Cup playoff tournaments will be unaffected. I'm going to kind of run through some

of these details. I'm going to assume that not everyone has read through all these details. And then shortly after we kind of lay all that out, we went straight to the source of some of these details. I'm going to assume that not everyone has read through all these details. And then shortly after we kind of lay all that out, we went straight to the source of some of that voted on this. Peter Mollnotti is going to be joining us here shortly. We had a phone conversation with him just a few minutes ago talking about his decision making process, how he was convinced this is the proper model and his thoughts on that. And then on the back half of this, we're going to debate and discuss a lot all of it anything we possibly can about what is going on here. So again, two sources familiar with the details confirmed all these changes to golf week designated events were launched this year in effort to guarantee the presence of the game's top stars and to

ensure they are paid more with minimum persons of $20 million in each event. And due to the haste at which these designated events came about a direct response to the threat posed by Liv Golf, no changes were made to field sizes for 2023. That won't apply when the tour returns to a calendar year schedule in 2024. Ending quote there to say, we've known that 2023 is a bit of a hybrid year to bridge us to the scheduled changes in 2024. A lot of this is very consistent with what was

discussed and reported on back in August of last year, but it is now made official by board vote today. Diving back into the golf week column, reducing field sizes is sure to cause concern among rank and foul members who will see it as a denial of playing opportunities. However, one top player who spoke on the condition of anonymity. I always screw that one up, but says the plan will have opportunities for members to play their way and it designated stops and will not create a closed system for elite stars. And the source said, we want top top players and hot players going into some of the details of how these fields will be comprised. The top 50 players who qualify for the BMW championship during the previous season's FedEx Cup playoffs, plus the top 10 players, not otherwise eligible in the current FedEx Cup points race will be in the field.

And there will be five places earned through performance in non designated events. For example, the goal is to have a cadence to the calendar that would see two designated events followed by three non-designated tournaments, then another two designated. The top five point earners from the three non-designated stops would earn their way into the next designated events. And any player who wins on tour would automatically be eligible for every designated event that season. Other qualification criteria will include consideration

of the official world golf ranking, most likely the focus on the top 30 that is intended to accommodate a top player who may be returning from injury and otherwise ineligible for designated events. Sponsor exemptions will also remain in use though with more defined parameters on who is eligible to receive one such exemptions are a controversial feature of designated events, but that free pass also represents the most obvious way to ensure Tiger Woods can play any event he wishes to choose. This is a key part here. I thought tour executives ran multiple data simulations of how a season would play out in order to ensure sufficient churn in the system proposals from top players that they're meeting in Delaware last summer called for smaller fields and no cuts, but their criteria would have seen 80% of players remain in the elevated events from season to season.

And the structure ratified by the board projects that only 60% of those eligible for designated events would remain for the following season. He said, a PGA tour spoke to me decline to confirm any details of the plan to golf week. A memo explaining the changes will be sent to tour members later Wednesday, which of course, it was. All right. So I know there was a memorandum sent out this afternoon from J Montaghan to the players. Any other changes in there, anything, any stipulations? I'm just going to go through it all there.

I mean, some of this is covered in Amon's memo, but or scoop there, but, you know, not all of it here, but it says for 2024, the number of designated events required for play will be the same as the number in 2023 with no mandatory participation regulations. Again, that's an interesting little wrinkle compared to what we Learned from last August back to the memo as we'll we will instead focus on ensuring purse size elimination of a cut and FedEx Cup points distribution sufficiently incentivized top performers to participate in the designated events Ending that quote to say it sounds like hey look It's gonna be so much money and so many points that like, you're not going to want to skip a lot of these.

And we talk with some with Peter about that. And we'll get to that shortly. This will include a total of 16 events, colon the players, the majors, the FedEx Cup playoffs, and an additional eight designated events. The schedule will distribute designated events and full field events to ensure that there are no isolated

weeks creating a strong cadence for players and fans alike. Schedules designed to allow top performers the flexibility to participate in both designated and full field events. Full field events will become more consequential as they allow new and upcoming stars to rise to the top and give the membership and ability to play their way into designated events. They're expanding the century tournament of champions which may need to be renamed to include the top 50 players from the prior year FedEx Cup list in all tournament winners from the prior year eligibility for the remaining designated events

Exclusive of the players and FedEx Cup playoffs will reward top performers provide ample opportunity for play and from season long performance and different Intervals throughout the season retain an emphasis on winning and be simple for the fan to understand. While there's still, it's important to note here, while there's still details to be determined based upon which events are designated, to follow is the framework of the eligibility system. Top 50 players from the prior year FedEx Cup points list through the FedEx Cup playoffs. So pause there to say, man, if you make BMW Championship, there's going to be some eyeballs on the first playoff event at St. Jude this year on who is making

the top 50 to be eligible for all of the desks of next year's designated events. They just changed a big thing. It used to be top 30 was like meeting in pretty much whatever you want. Now top 50 gets you into the events that you want. The top 10 players, not otherwise eligible from the current year FedEx Cup points list, as well as top five players, not otherwise eligible earning the most FedEx Cup points through each collection of standard events. So basically, if you play the standard events in between theOR members among the top 30 in the official World Golf ranking, as well as the four sponsor exemptions restricted to PGA TOR members. Field sizes will range from 70 to 80 players with no cut. FedExCut point model will be adjusted with allocations of the additional points to the players majors and designated events and

the details will be shared with the membership in the coming weeks. Also the PIP is going down from a hundred million to 50 million and paid only to the top 10 players. And so the top 20 and the remaining funds are reallocated to the FedEx Cup bonus program and Comcast business tour. Top 10 guys amount of breath too long didn't read. I would say this one is the tour is being dramatically reshapen into there's gonna be two tears. There's gonna be the haves. And there's gonna be the also haves.

And also haves can move up to be part of the haves. And occasionally, a few of the haves can slip down into the lower tier. I honestly initially, when I sort of saw it trickling out, I thought, oh, this is shitty. Like, I don't love the no cut stuff. And I still have some reservations about that. But I think it's a little bit like English Premier League. Like, there's the sort of elite teams and then there's,

you know, a little bit of relegation. It's not like a massive turnover every year. There's some teams that get to come up. Sometimes it get to go down. And there's still a lot of people that watch and are interested in both. And so I don't know that I would say I'm coming around to it's all about I think that like if you like your PGA tour you still get to keep your PGA tour for the most part. But I think it's getting, you know, at least it's sort of reshaping itself in a way that you know benefits the guys who are actually bringing in the revenue. And I think that's probably the only way forward.

Uh, the decisions that they're being made are, are probably the right ones. I don't know really how you could look at it and be like, this is terrible for the people who are actually making a tour worth watching. Yeah, it's funny. This is all, I feel like we knew most of this. I can't, I can't believe the reaction today is at all. My God, this is live 2.0. I was like, guys, this is like 90% of this or so was was reported on back in August. And the remaining like 10% is kind of like sounds even more encouraging. I think you can also like hate the no cut part and overall are hung up on really hung up on in that like I'm not like a big fan

of the no cut part and I can read this and say like this is a way better model for professional golf than what is currently at stake. But we got a lot to discuss. Does it make sense first for us to go into our conversation with Peter Maldonadi who if you're not familiar, we talked a lot, we joke about this with him, but he is a member of the board and is a representative of kind of the rank and file, if you will, of the PGA tour, who some of those people may or may not have issues with kind of the way things are trending. He made an interesting kind of flip in his decision making

and he walks us through all of that. And I would throw this out there as well if there are other PGA tour members that do not see it the way Peter does. Currently, and would like to chat about it on here, we are happy to use this platform to kind of, you know, air that side of it as well. But found this conversation with Peter very interesting, and he helps kind of illustrate how we got to where we are and how I he believes it will be a good thing for PGA tour players. So let's play that.

Well, it's funny enough that we're doing this. I can't tell you how many times we've referred to the quote Peter Maulonadi's of the PGA tour over the past weeks, months, and years, but figured there's no better place to start than someone that's been involved in the decision making that's going on with the future of the PGA tour. But welcome again, Peter Maldonadi. I want to know, you know, why do you think this is a good move for the future of the PGA tour and why or why not? I can see here today and tell you that I think this is an awesome move for the PGA Tour. If you'd asked me seven days ago, I was adamantly against the idea of Smallfield, No Cut,

a Vance on the Tour. I couldn't see past that, taking playing opportunities away from PGA Tour members, and I couldn't see past that somewhat resembling what our competitors on this new tour do. So that was where two hard hurdles for me to get over, but I honestly don't think either one of those points are our correct or valid and I think the direction that we just announced and just approved yesterday at the board level is going to be unbelievably positive for the PGA tour, its players and all of our partners, its dream sponsors and media partners. It's going to be unbelievably positive for the PGA tour, the players, and all of our partners,

the sponsors and media partners. It's going to be great. What changed in the decision making process, I guess, there was, DePatcher can't lay put a horse head in your bed or something like that, or how did we end up, how did we end up changing? I want to celebrate people that are willing to change their opinion on things at the same time, but kind of take me through where you were coming from originally and how you ended up, ended up where you are now. There's a really great line that my wife has taught me to say and I just does not come naturally to me it's hard for me but in light of this new information I have changed my

mind. I have new information now that I didn't have a week ago and I'll share a little bit of that with you. So one thing that I'd never really thought of was, you know, the comparison in my mind where I thought of, you know, a no-cut event looking like, you know, we're giving guaranteed money to our top players, just handing it to them without making them earn it. That was kind of the thought that I had about what Smallfield no-cut events meant. But that's really not what we're doing actually at all.

When you sit down and look at how you get into these quote designated events, you've got to play your way into them. There's no like the only category at all that can even be considered a gift is we have, we're going to have four sponsors exemptions into them, I think. I don't know for sure the details of everything that was not finalized, but I think we're going to have four sponsors' exemptions.

And that's the only thing that can be considered a gift, but even though I think we'll place pretty strong restrictions on to make sure they're only going to PGA tour members who are active and playing really well. So there's no giveaway here. To get in those designated events, you have to play really, really, really well. So there's no giveaway here. To get in those designated events, you have to play really, really, really well. So that's the first point. And then the second bit of information

that I got that really was the kicker for me to help me change my mind was the fact that keeping the field small in the designated events, not only makes them feel special and feel, you know, big to our fans and our sponsors and everything, it does something else. It keeps the rest of the full field FedEx Cup events on the TJ Tour. It keeps a strong supply of top players ready to play those events because they want to get in the 70 player fields for the eight the designated event. So if the field gets too big in the designated events which is what I originally wanted I wanted 120 then all of a sudden you've

got 120 guys to get to play and the 29 dollar per se you know throughout the year and they are gonna take all the weeks off in between to rest up and get ready. You only have 70 guys in the designated person that's a lot more PGA towards town, including a lot of top guys, a lot of big names that are hungry to play to get into the designated event. So by doing small fields in the designated event, we're gonna bolster every full field event

on the PGA tour, and I think that's so important. Peter, what's it been like to explain this to sort of a lot of guys who are, as of right now, like outside the top 50? What's the reaction been? Well, I mean, the reaction is exactly where I was one week ago. They're like, this is stupid. We don't like this.

We don't want this. And you know, I, this is such an easy place for me to be to help to explain to people. I mean, I don't have time to do it, but in terms of the actual explanation, this is so easy for me because I am that guy. I mean, I don't have time to do it, but in terms of the actual explanation, this is so easy for me because I am that guy. I am, you said you've used the term the Peter Melnaudy's of professional golf before. I am the prototype of the Peter Melnaudy's of professional golf. I am, you know, I've had to come to terms like this occurred to me as I was changing my

mind, it occurred to me in these four meetings. I've had to come to terms with the fact I may never play another Arnold Palmer imitation after this year. I may never play another memorial. I've got to play incredibly good golf to earn the right to play in those, and that's up. Those are places that we love to go. Those are legends that we love to honor. those are places that we love to go.

Those are legends that we love to honor. Those are tournaments that we love to play in. It sucks to not to think about 50 less guys being in those fields. That's a hard thing for me to swallow. And that's why it was so hard for me to get on board with it. So to the players who hear this and say they don't like it,

I say, yeah, I get it. I was right there with you. But now I look at the fact that what this is gonna do, who you'll hear this and say they don't like it. I say, yeah, I get it. I was right there with you, but now I look at the fact that what this is going to do, this is going to make, you may talk about the prototypical Peter Melnade's professional law. Well, I'm going to talk about the John Deere classics of the PGA tour. The John Deere classic may get historically two, one to two of the top 50 players in the world, but to Moline and Linoa in the Quad Cities area, that event gets millions of dollars back and it is so special, it is so important.

And this new format that we put forth as a tour strengthens the genre of your classic. It bolsters that event. It tells that event you still matter, you're important and you're going to see that reflected in the players in a plan there. You watch next year and you're going to pick out some random names, but you're going to have Gary Woodman and potentially Billy Horshield guys who maybe aren't quite where they want to be, not quite having the year they thought they would have. They're going to be playing the John Deere Classic to try to get into the playoffs and make sure that they're submitting their spot in these designated events moving forward.

And so you've taken the John Deere Classic of the PGA tour and events like it and strengthen them with this new model. And that's what got me over the edge. That's how I changed my mind and became not only okay with this idea, but enthusiastic about it. What is the right number of players to be playing in these designated events? How did it end up between 70 and 80? Why is that the number and what was close

to maybe making it in there or the runner-up decision, if you will, of what got cut in order to get to that size of field? We analyzed pretty closely. I say I need to give the tour a lot of credit here. decision if you will of what got cut in order to get to that size of field. We analyzed pretty closely. I say we, I need to give the tour a lot of credit here. Kristen Burgess and her team and competition department did an awesome job of actually giving us data to look at. They analyzed what it would look like at 100 players. What it would look like at 120 players and what it would look like at 70 to 80 players and at 70 to 80 players we get more

guys In what we would consider like the top 125 or above category playing full field That couple of events and what we currently have under our current system So that's the right number. It just say you know, I think coming out of Delaware the top players meeting They may have wanted even smaller fields You know, we don't want we don't want to make these events inaccessible Like guys have to have hope that they can qualify into them So we didn't want to be any smaller than where we are, but we don't want to be bigger either because bigger hurt the

the full field that a couple of ends and this number is actually a pretty magical sweet spot. You know, you have guys the opportunity to play their way into the designated event, but also like I said, really, really bolster the full field that it's up event that come between the designated event. Peter, I've been pretty sort of outspoken in the OWGR debate that, you know, because Liv didn't have cuts, I just didn't really feel like they could sort of credibly say, we deserve a WGR points. What do we say now in the sort of, do the people who say, well, now the PGA Tour doesn't have cuts, like, why, what's the difference? So here's the difference.

And honestly, this isn't really a talking point that we've talked about in meetings or anything. I'm just going to say the truth because I agree 100% with you. The PGA Tour, we're still not going to have nobody on the PGA Tour. It's going to be the truth because I agree 100% with you. The PGA tour, we're still not going to have nobody on the PGA tour. It's going to be at a play. No one who plays a full schedule meaning, you know, they fulfill their voting requirements as a PGA tour member. No one's going to be able to play a majority of their events in a no-cut format. We're still going to have, I think there's going to be eight events throughout their regular season that are

no-cut event. Guys are still going to have to go out and compete, make cut, earn their right to play for FedExCut points and money on the weekend, and more than half, even the top top players, the best of the best, are going to have to play in events with full fields and cuts more than half the time. And that is obviously a distinguishing factor. The other factor, which I will say I think is important, is you know, live golf players were selected to go play for money that's given away. They didn't qualify into those events with their play.

Every no-cut event on the PGA tour, that player has earned the right to be in with their play. That's, to me, is a big, big, big distinction. I definitely get where you're coming from and that was one of the things that was really hard for me too is that you know we're gonna stand up and say, live shouldn't have world ranking points and then we're gonna do you know a model that might on the outside look a little bit like that. That's very problematic but but I think I think what the PGA tour does is still extremely competitive.

And I said, we're not giving away points to anybody in more than half of their events. And we also aren't just handing out spots in these events, guys are qualifying in some. So that's a big difference. Peter, from an operational perspective, I know cuts get on wieldy when they get above 70-ish guys. Let's say we've got, you know, a spot where we're late in the season, a bunch of guys have won qualified into these designated events.

Any concerns on the weekend on a Saturday or Sunday about pace of play and getting, you know, 75, 80 guys around the course. And, you know, many of whom are 20, 25, 30 shots off the lead. I don't think I, I mean, if you probably will see it, the very bottom of the field comes to And many of whom are 20, 25, 30 shots off the lead? I don't think, I may, if you probably will see, it's a very bottom of the field, come to Mike. I don't think you'll see, like guys are qualifying in these fields, I mean, there's not gonna be, there's not gonna be anyone in them

that isn't playing well. Like, they're either gonna be coming off at very, just a year of the year before or hot play at the time. So I don't think you're gonna see a ton of, lagging performance at the bottom of the field. Obviously, someone's going to finish last every week, but I don't think it's going to be just guys playing terrible golf and slapping around. I don't think that's going to be an issue. And it's fine. I mean, we play every single weekend with somewhere between 65 and 85 guys. I mean, it's not, I don't know, I don't see a big issue there. I mean, you know, the whole west coast with short days early in the year, we play three seasons on the

weekend anyway. We can do that. I just don't be, I don't see an issue for, you know, there being too many people in the course in the weekend because this is the same thing we've always done because the 65 and high events we play on the weekend with somewhere from 65 to 85 guys. So that's that standard issue. But from a product perspective, like, wouldn't it be better to be able to play two sums like the whole weekend and lock off say the 20 guys were clearly out of the tournament, say, you know, even if it's after Saturday, if you want to give people a chance to come out, see their favorite player, like, I don't know,

it just feels like to me on the product side that that may be somewhere to tweak, I guess in the future. Yeah, are you suggesting by chance? I mean, I actually think something I brought up in and in meetings is, yeah, I've never played a master. The Peter Melmalli's the PGA tour don't play the master's very often. And I've never played a master's, but it seems like it's a popular tournament that people like.

And from a fan perspective, world play perspective, and they seem to do a pretty small field, and they cut to a lesser number. So I don't think it's impossible to think that one day this could look like 70 to 75 guys start, and then we cut 45 in size or something like that. I don't think that's impossible. I think we certainly We have a model that we're really excited to go roll out for for 2024 that doesn't involve that But I don't think that's out of the question. I personally think that's a great idea That's a really good point. How well can you tell us a little bit about the data process in terms of models that are run to figure out the

Turn I think it, you know, just in reading Twitter reaction today, which it's going to shock you, but people were very quick to react with maybe not the full set of information, but it seems like there was a lot of thought that has gone into how these fields are filled out and how the events that are in between them matter in terms of who's going to get into it as well as how, you know, how they're going to be replacing making sure that this is not a closed off system and making sure that it is competitive, which is what I think makes it distinct from other ones. But how can you give us a little bit of a glimpse into how this will work with FedEx cut

points? How do they get elevated? I don't know if World Ranking is too much to try to lump into all that as well because it does seem like there's kind of two tours happening here in some way. And I'm just curious as to how the points are all going to shake out in that regard. Yeah, so I mean, obviously, I don't want to just, I don't want to deflect away from that question.

I don't know the answer to that question. Is this something to say the real truth? I've seen, you know, the modeling that the tour did reveal some pretty cool data. And I don't know how much stuff, I don't know how much stuff they want me to say, but I'm going to say what I think is important and okay here. So two things that came from the model they ran a thousand simulated seasons, and they were able to show that with getting a slightly elevated FedEx cup distribution at the

top of the curve for these designated events, they were able to keep a retention rate in the top 50. So this is the average of a thousand simulated seasons. A retention rate in the top 50 is 64%. Which means you have 36% turnover, which means 18 new guys in and 18 guys out at the top 50 every year. That is a pretty fair number from from one of the Peter Melmotties of the tour. That feels like that gives me a lot of hope. That feels fair. If the turnover rate was seven or eight guys or even 12 guys, I would feel like we've got

to work on the system guys because that's just not enough mobility. It does create a two-tour system if you have no mobility into that top 50. But 18 guys have a chance to play in and out every year. That to me seems like a very fair system. And you got to, and that's just to get into the top 50. The other, the other metric that they were able to model, they were able to give us with this modeling is 71 unique players, not in the top 50 from the previous year, will get at least one star in an elevated event through current year or current swing of full field effect, the full field, that a cup event qualifying point.

So that means 71 players in addition to the 50 who are exempt from their play the previous year, 71 unique players will play their way into at least one designated event so between 18 18 guys coming in or falling out each year and then 71 spot qualified for during the course of the current season. I Feel like that's a pretty fair system that really kind of You know disavow that too tiered pretty fair system that really kind of, you know, disavows that too tear, too tour system that we were trying to avoid creating.

I think we have enough mobility that that's okay. I think we have kind of squelched that fear. Peter talking about the, like, when this started, this whole conversation, the scene when we started, you know, in Delaware last year or even before that, it was all revolving around the idea of mandatory starts for the top guys. Everybody's showing up at these designated events and playing those. In the new memo today, there's no mandatory starts. Where is that gone?

And is the hope that things things are, you know, that the point distribution system will be so strong and the person will be so strong with these designated events that that guys will feel like they're just leaving money and points on the table if they don't show up. Yeah, I mean, like clearly, I think realistically, we know that not every player will play every single one of these, but it seems like they're going to be so good that we would, I think we would anticipate no more than a 5% of the top 50 missing. So no more than two or three guys from the top 50 missing from these events, this is they are gonna be so attractive. In the mandatory participation, that has never been in the DNA of the PGA tour.

And that's something, as a player, like I'm in my ninth season on the PGA tour, and I think I can count, you let me use both hands. I think I can count on my fingers the number of events for which I have been in that I have skipped, for which I've been eligible that I have skipped. I play when I get in. That's the nature of being one of the Peter Melnaudys of the PGA Tourist. You don't get in everything.

You want to get in. So you play everything you do get in. That's just the nature of that. But mandatory participation, even to me, seems to really attack the DNA of who we are as an organization, what we're built around. Like we're built around, we're built around autonomy and the ability to, I hate to term independent contractors because I think that is the myth, no more. I mean, we most independent contractors don't have the best, you know, retirement plan, professionals for it, then, you know, health benefits and stuff like that. So to call it independent contractors, I think kind of missed the point of who and what

we are. But the independence to set our schedules and play where we want to play when we want to play has always been part of the deal with the PGA tour. And I think, you know, I understand why the meeting in Delaware, you know, was willing to take that away for a year because you've got to give sponsors some guarantees to ask for the kind of money they wanted to play for. But that's just, that is not, that's in the nature of, of maybe some other tour that might be forming. It that's in the nature of, of maybe some other tour that might be forming. It's not in the nature of the PJ tour. So I think getting away from that is, is only healthy and, and only a good honor to the, you know, the legacy

that the tour has, has built. Peter, it's not too often that a professional sports league, like dramatically reshapes its future. I guess I'm wondering, as I started listening to you talk, like, did you feel it all? You've said, you know, I might never play in a bay hill again. I might never play in one of these larger things. And I have, I've okay with that. Did you feel it all like I'm making a sacrifice personally for like the greater good of the future of golf?

I mean, not really because honestly, I don't know that I have, like, I think if we make, you know, so I went into this argument, I went into this argument, adamant that the idea of a small field, no cut event, was just completely antithetical to the PJ tour and what we do. And I was going to fight and scrape and claw until my fingers led to convince people that we needed 120 fields. I was going to do that. But now I realize that's fighting against me. That's fighting against me. Because the events that I play are, you know, the events that I play, the events where I have

made the vast majority of my earnings on tour are standard full field, beddock cup events. And if I fight for 120 in the big field, I create the two tour system that we're trying to avoid, where I no longer have a PGA tour to plan. I'm now playing on some relegated minor league tour. And I think with the smaller fields, I think by being willing to sort of wrap my head around what we're looking at and change

my mind and support this model that moves forward with Smallfield, I really think that I am supporting me and all the Peter Melmottis of the tour as well as the top players. It's really, do I love the, honestly, I kind of like all the tournaments on the PGH where I still feel like a little kid in the candy store when I get to go play any of them. But like, you know, Riviera, Say Hill, your field village, like I want to play in those places. I want to play in badly, but guess what I still can? I've got to play a lot better than I ever have, but I still can.

And because we've made this decision to move forward with this model, the other places that I love too, Jackson Mississippi, Molina, Illinois, all the stops on the PGA tour are going to be stronger. So was it sacrificed? Actually, no, it was in my interest, it was in the interest of every Peter Melnaudian tour in the interest of the entire organization. Like, I kind of, kind of weird to say because it sure didn't feel like that for me a week ago, but it really is, okay. Well, I gotta say I got a convenient for that stance, right?

Because I think it is pretty easy to have dug your heels in into kind of what it has felt like your class you know, your class of player would or even maybe should have done in terms of fighting this. So it's kind of the 180 there is it's not the easiest thing to do and recognize. So I appreciate one, you know, kind of you, you explaining all that to us and spending some time with us on top of, you know, kind of being willing to do that. So with that, we, we thank you for joining us, Peter, best of luck this week and And hope to see you in some designated now. I got I imagine some people are going to be rooting for you to be playing in some designated events because you gave a pretty passionate speech there. I appreciate that. Absolutely. And it's possible that that that's the reason

the system is okay. Just so there's there's, you know, there's a handful of reasons, but that's the reason if you leave with nothing else golf fans out there who think this is awful because it doesn't look like the PGH or leave with that. That's good life for them. But I'm the most motivated I've ever been right now. Because if I get to the top 50 this year, I know I'm in every one of these designated events next year. If I go into next year and I'm not in the top 50 from this year, if I go out and win a full field test cup of M. I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this. I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this.

I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this. I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this. I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this. I'm going to be able to do a good job of doing this. I'm in every one of these designated events next year. If I go into next year and I'm not in the top 50 from this year, if I go out and win a full field test cup event, I'm in the designated events. Like, I'm the most motivated to be good at golf that I've ever been right now, and this model is going to inspire that in all the Peter Melnallies of the PGA tour. So that's pretty cool.

Thank you to Peter for that. Again, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Woop, the official fitness wearable of the PGA tour. Woop is a wearable health and fitness coach that specializes in tracking and improving your recovery, your sleep, your activity. So if you're hoping to sleep better, exercise more, reduce stress or just lower your handicap. The daily insights from Woop are tailored to help you meet the goal. 87% of Woop members say they feel healthier with Woop.

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It seems like they've sort of gained out the mandatory thing. Like, hey, we're going to make this incentivized enough or we're going to make this attractive enough for you to, you know, you're going to have to think twice about skipping one of these. So I think that makes sense. I'd like to see some sort of mandatory like, Hey, you got to add one, two, three non designated events a year to play. And I think that makes sense.

I do worry a little bit about, you know, I know he talked about some of the cut stuff, as far as, you know, we play 80 guys on a weekend all the time. Like, yeah, when you do that, like the pace of play suffers, you know, you got to play in three sums. It's not as good of a product, right? I don't know. I've got a ton of downstream takes that that we get. Yeah. so any initial thoughts from Peter? I was just impressed that Peter could sort of, I think, distill it down to like what he understands the reality of professional golf to be. Like I'm still not entirely sold that it's the best

mall forward that sort of kind of in line with the traditions of golf, but I also am a realist and I think Peter probably came to this attitude too. It's like, this is what was necessary to sort of shape golf going forward. It might not be beneficial to him, but he's, I mean, we always joke about like, Peter leads the tour in Strokes' game to attitude.

Like, he's already reframed it in his mind of like, yeah, this is better for me in the long run because I know like what the stakes are. I have to be in the top 50 if I want to make this amount of money I can't ever just go on one heater and win a bay hill or win a memorial, whatever. I actually got to earn my way into that stuff. So I give him credit for that.

It must have been, I think, hard to... I don't think Peter's kind of person who got bullied into this or was like, hey, like do this or you know, you're going to be left behind. I think he did examine it with logic and reason. It's still hard for me to swallow like the idea of, you know, for me, it's, I really believe that cuts are an important part of professional golf. And I'm honestly more open to the idea of the live guys getting

world ranking points if PG George guys are going to, you know, play a lot of events without cuts. Now he was pretty clear about that. And I thought it was a good answer of like the majority of the golf that you play, the designated events is still going to be cut. It's not going to be all of them. So that that was good. But, you know, I just feel like that was an important part of the debate was like, yeah, if you're not going to have a cut, then I don't think

you have enough sort of, you know, to stand on in terms of getting these WGR points. So maybe that's a small win for live if live is around in here. I'm going to push hard back on that. Yeah, I'm not following the majority of the events that you play having cuts in the designated events players majors That's five, but otherwise there's no there's no other cuts that we're talking about right century Well, there's no talk about having like cuts at the Genesis potentially because of the tradition of cuts at the memorial I think Rory was pretty and Max said this too like not all of that has been decided if traditionally I guess that that event has been around the long time and the cut has, I

don't know, that mean Roy brought this up at Genesis, like the LA open had a cut, you know, forever. And so it wasn't an invitational always. And it was like, this is an important part of the tradition. And so we'll probably look into keeping some of those. So maybe that's where some of that comes from. I do not think so, KVV, just based on, on hashtag sources, I do not think that Genesis and the player run ones will have cuts. I believe that was kind of floated around out there.

I, I don't know the math on, you know, the, him saying the majority of events will have cuts. I do think where I'm going to really push back on the live part of this KVV is like, there is still, whether or not it's the word cut here is relative because there's a lot of cutting done before this event starts, right? The field is basically cut before you get there. The only way to get there is through qualifying.

Again, the only way to get to live, I guess there's many ways, but it's through shaking hands with MBS and signing a multi-million dollar contract, or some of these more recent guys didn't even get a million dollars to sign. So it is so vastly different. and signing a multi-million dollar contract or some of these more recent guys didn't even get a million dollars to sign. So it is so vastly different. I do not think I think a lot of people online get hung up on, lived does not get OWGR points because they don't have a cut.

And I do not think that is the main driver of why they do not. It is because it's a non-competitive environment to qualify for it or to get there. And then once you're there, there's no churn. I mean, the relative churn there is so minuscule compared to what we're talking about in this system that it's just, I'm not calling what you're saying disingenuous, I'm saying there's a lot of

disingenuous conversations out there in relation to that that I can't make it much more clear that these two things are vastly different. The Lee Westwoods, Ian Polters are going to try to pretend. They already are trying to pretend like, oh, funny idea you just got here. Guys, I mean, there's been no cut events on the PGA tour for a long time. There's the CJ cup. There's the Zozo.

There's been for three WGC's a year that are stroke play that have no cut. I don't love this part of it. I don't think it's like amazing. I don't think it's the highlight of it, but it is not changed the fundamental underlying competitive structure into what makes this not a free crack giveaway with OWGR points that live would be, which I feel like they need to make a stand and say last place in a field, you're not getting. You're not getting fed at these points or when, because there's a real conversation that's going to have to happen around No, to be our points where they're going to probably have to gerryman or this thing again.

I'm going to put my live hat on for a second. They're probably going to have to gerryman or the points because if you look at examples from last year of You know, hey, here's here's the amount of points available to a 70 man field versus here's the amount of points available to a 150 man field. It's radically different and they're going to kind of cut their nose off despite their face, right? Which my question there is does that mean you're going to go play more full field events, right? Because if I'm if I'm adding this up, I mean, it's 16 events right now and I know that right now there's a rule of, you need to play three non-designated events, correct? So does that rule stay?

Does that now become four? Are guys going to be incentivized to look three weeks off might be too many for a lot of these guys. And if we're talking about a schedule of, you know, back-to-back designated weeks and then three full field events, like aren't guys going to go play that middle one? Like, I would have to think so, right?

I don't think these guys are necessarily looking to take three weeks off in a row too often. True, but I think, I don't know. I just, I struggle with the idea of the rankings. If, the ranking, like, if we're setting up these events to be the best players playing as one another and then guys win those events and they're not getting the most points for beating a field of the best players, right? It's kind of a fundamental flaw in the ranking system. And that's what we've pointed out. And I think you can address that with redistributing how you pass out the total amount of points

in those events, right? Right now it is spread too thin and the guys near the bottom get too many points and guys at the top don't get enough because the way OWGR points are, if you're 150 man field or a 20 man field, it still gets distributed around the same percentage. Whereas like, hey, there's a big difference in how you achieve that. And I think they should have addressed prior to today. And that's a point I'm consistent on. Kevin. This is a downstream thing, but it did strike me when we were sort of listening to Peter and talking to each other throughout the stuff on Twitter today. It's like, okay, so 2024 is going to look radically different

than 2023. And the decisions for that are going to be made pretty soon. Like what happens in 23 is going to shape 24. I really wonder like what some of the live guys are thinking right now as they see this play out today. I'm like, oh shit, the decisions, what's going to happen in 2024 is being made right now. I don't know that I'm 100% confident that live is going to be around, it's certainly not in the same way that it is in 2024. And so I wonder if it gives any sort of like panic to some of these guys being like if I If this league collapses or if this you know is sort of completely diminished in terms of that money's going out

If I miss my chance at what was it gonna look like? I'm gonna be shut out till 25 in this stuff I'm gonna the whole sort of future of my professional golf might be being shaped right now before my eyes and maybe you don't care But if you're one of these people who we've sort of heard is like having some regrets, you might sort of like start to kick the tires a little bit on like what would this potential be for me to come home. It's a crazy hypothetical, total hypothetical that you just threw out there, Kevin. I mean, total hypothetical there. I wonder if that's going on. I mean, that would be sick if they made the live guys. All right, you can't play a designated event.

You got to earn your way on through the, you know, the genre classics of the world. I think overall my high level takeaway is like, I think Honda was a perfect example. And you guys set it on the pod on Sunday. That it's a good example of how like there's context now. Like what, what do these tournaments mean? We don't need to, we don't need to pretend like 46 or 44. However many tournaments they have on the PGA tour

that they're all created equal, because they're not. Right? And now, fans can digest it. Fans can know, hey, you know what? This week, I can, you know, I can block in or, you know, Honda Classic Week or John Deere Week. That means more than it did before, because there's something to earn your way into and there's something to promote your way into. I do have some

concerns that a guy that wins a tournament later in the season has much less of an opportunity to parlay that success into a guy that wins early you know, early in the season because, you know, there's like, he's going to get into less designated events. So it's going to be who, guys, to win on the West Coast swing versus say win in Detroit because you're only going to get that many more cracks. Maybe the guarantee ought to be that you get into eight designated events or something with a victory on one of those. Yeah.

And I have no idea like what they're going to do because like the whole selling point on the fall series was making the fall series all about priority and jockeying for priority and you know, like, all right, you finished outside that top 70. Now you need to go jockey for priority within that and that's going to get you into elevated events. That's no longer the case, right? So it's like everything's flattened from 70 to 150 or 70 to 170, right? Like you've got kind of a total, you know, I'm sure they'll do some things with PGA

tour you. So that's, that's a consideration. Can we go way way back like way back and zoom out for a second? Just because I let's all remember like why pro golf and why the PGA tour looks the way that it does. Let's say prior to this year even right the Tour is mandated to create as many playing opportunities for as much money as possible right like we don't have 48 events because that's what fans are asking for or this makes the great the best Entertainment product we don't have a hundred and fifty six people in the field because fans want to see that many pro golfers compete. We have that because that's what the PGA Tours mandated to do, right? And in that through that, like the Peter Maunatti's of the world, get rewarded handsomely for playing professional golf while providing

what I would call minimum entertainment value to the overall golf world, right? The TV networks are going to show the main guys and there's just there's way there's a so much galt like there's two T starts at 6.45 a.m. at the players championship warming up under the light so you can fit a ton of players in that have zero shots televised. I would not consider that to be the best thing for entertainment. That's an antiquated model that has gone year after year after year and rolled forward year after year after year. So just become the status quo and it it very clearly a huge curveball thrown in the landscape

means that status quo has to change. And human brains just fixate on what they know and change can be uncomfortable. And I do not think this new model is perfect. I think the PGA tour should stay mobile and agile, something they have not shown that they can be over the years. But also to their credit, they've tweaked the FedEx cup a lot, right? It still ends up kind of in a very silly way.

And it's kind of like plastic surgery on plastic surgery, all plastic surgery on plastic surgery. Talk a lot about cuts here, man. Cuts everywhere. You know, Dr. Bob's going to come in here in a sec. But to at least have this discussion, we have to work from a place of recognizing that the major, major flaws in the current setup as it is have brought us to where we are. And as we've said

since August, like the status quo of of normal tour life is out the window and not the backup option here. It was not an option to run back the 2021, maybe that's a bad example with COVID, the 2019 PGA tour schedule and that structure was not an option here. So something had to change, a lot had to change. How do you take care of the top players that have indicated they want to stay on this tour under this circumstances yet? I got to give the top players a lot of credit too of like as much as it's been painted as a closed off system that screws the rest of the tour. Like we just heard it from Peter Moundotti, then I'm pretty darn convinced that

they just made it a lot better for the rest of the tour as well. And so I, again, I don't think it's perfect. I don't love the cut part, but I think it just is important to note like this was needed to get drag drawn up from scratch without actually being able to unwind their actual structure. And I'm, I struggled to come up with something off the top of my head that seems like a better idea right now. I'm curious your guys take on that.

This is something slightly like a little bit of a departure to this, but what struck me honestly is like golf always prided itself on this idea of independent contractors and we're all sort of allowed to make our own decisions or whatever. But for the most part, golf actually has behaved like the players were part of organized labor where like the one vote was sort of like equal amongst all the people and so they this 12th man on the bench of the NBA had the same power as Elbron James and really that what we're sort of shifting to now is a model of like the actual sort of you know Hashtag play better like if you're one of the people who draws in the revenue, then you're gonna benefit more from the revenue. And it's funny to think that a very conservative sport

has gotten into this, in a lot of ways, socialist sort of plan of like, oh, everyone's sharing all the money. It doesn't matter if you're good or not, like a really great player. And so moving away from that is kind of funny. And there's a part of me that thinks like, oh, I wish for the good of professional golf, like that a top player, you know, might sort

of say like, oh, no, it's important me to protect the jobs of these, you know, people. But honestly, like it is still doing that in a lot of ways. It's sort of siloing off this area of like, look, here's your opportunity to make more money. And here's your opportunity to sort of win events that you're more likely to win. And that will, in itself, protect your job. And you know, it's the ultimate, like, you better be good enough to shoot the scores or not. That's the meritocracy part of it. So that kind of a, that someone who came from football and watched the model of like, yeah, like the, the union sort of for a long time trying to protect everybody's job. And then it kind of evolved into like, now actually the quarterbacks are more important. That's maybe that sort of golf is moving toward our steam.

Colleague DJ had a really, really good point on Slack earlier. He said, this might sound too glowing brain, but I think selling the promise of guys getting into elevated events is way, way more interesting than seeing guys in those elevated events, which makes the Honda better, which makes the Sanders and Farms better, which makes the Ford's net better, like all of those. And yeah, if there's some guys like Peter said, like a Horshull or a web Simpson who's trying to fight his way back up to the top, that he's beating in those fields, even better, right? But, I think the notion of underdogs getting onto the big stage

is oftentimes a lot more captivating than watching those same underdogs get, you know, probably finishing the bottom half of the leaderboard or the standings, you know, if you're a Justin Rose fan and you've been a Justin Rose fan for a long time and then he was playing in the lower tier events, you still get to go out and sort of see him try to kind of salvage his career. Like you're probably a huge fan of like what happened this year if it occurred, you know,

two, three years in the future. Like, oh, man, I got to see Justin Rose like revive his career and get back to the big leagues. That's exciting to me because they've always been a Justin Rose guy. There's a question from Taylor Todd 609. He said, if everyone hated the WGC's, is it a good idea to make half the events WGC's? And I don't think they're not WGC's. Like I think part of the issue with WGC's

was like shitty, shitty venues, right? Like, all right, that was one of them. Well, they were just bolted on, right? They were just tacked on to, and DJ said this early on Twitter as well. It's like, it was bolted on to already like existing season, right? It was like, all right, well, how do I differentiate the WGC work day with like, you know, Bay Hill that's coming up here?

It's just kind of those two things together. Whereas now it's like, no, these are the season. This is the season now. They're going to be keyed around these big events, not just these events that are bolted on and taking these legacy events if you will, which I know you can roll your eyes at that, but there's way more context into watching Bay Hill, which I think is not a very good golf course, but we know that golf course.

There's some history to that event instead of just some random pop up cash grab and dudes way off the pace in these events that like, it didn't really fit into the overall season of the full field events, whereas now it's like, no really fit into the overall season of the full field events. Whereas now it's like, no, no, this is the cornerstone of them. This is what's going to define the season is these events. I think that's a big, big, big difference. And I think a fair amount of people are either struggling with that or choosing to struggle with that by being ignorant to kind of what these changes actually mean. That's just my thought. I agree. People didn't hate him when Tiger was winning 18 of them.

So that much. Let's go down some of the actual like criteria that the changes that are made and I kind of want to silo them out one by one and say like Why are why not do we like this or why are we not are they doing this 70 to 80 guys in the field? I've seen some a lot of people standing online for 120 person field or full field I've seen some, a lot of people standing online for 120 person field or full field, you know, full fields in these designated events. Where do you guys stand on what the field size should be? Sally, you said it earlier before we were on, like, I hope that they're flexible in this stuff.

If that doesn't, like if 70 doesn't work this year, 75 or 80 or whatever it is week to week, doesn't work, I hope that they are willing to go to 90, right? Or if that's too many, go to 60, right? But like, be willing to be flexible. I think some, you know, the more churn the better, in my opinion, I'm a pro pro death panel guy. I think this is kind of the next best thing to the death panel. We're going to get some guys in and out. Like, it's going to be fascinating if you see a guy like, gosh, I'm trying to think who would be a good example. I mean, Web Simpson, like Web Simpson was playing some of the best golf from the world three or four years ago, right?

And now it's like Web Simpson is going to be well outside the top 50 guys and playing the John Deere classics and the Amax and all that. And it's like, there's something captivating about watching guy climb his way back in, you know, just as there is the underdogs and everything. So I think the number wise, like, wait and see. Let's see if it's good this year and then go from there, right? I would say I'm with you there because I went to the waste management. I walked the range and I was just like, and I'm just going to pick out like two names,

like Bo Hossler and Max McGreevy were warming up amongst like a lot of dudes, like there's just a lot of dudes out there. And I thought to myself, like I'm here because this is a designated event, elevated event, and it doesn't feel that way, right? Because the lines are getting, it's getting blurry because of how many guys are in this field, right? And if you go above this 80 thing, I hate 2T starts with three sims. I just don't think that that is the best. You know, if you look at

what live has done, this is one of the things I've complimented live on is like, hey, we put we'd see off at like 115 and we're done at six. Like that's the window. Like everyone's going to be playing. I don't really love the shotgun start, but like, hey, there's not their need for an afternoon and a morning wave. If there's one wrinkle of weather that gets thrown in, it doesn't throw off everything that's going to happen in the rest of the week. It just the viewer at home, I think,

this is my opinion, does not need that many people in a field for an interesting golf tournament. I think from a lot of the sentiment I've gathered online, I think people in their heads think that number 71 through 120 in the field is way more valuable to the field than it actually is. I think if I was one of player, you know, the 71st player through 120, I might think very differently. But again, from an entertainment standpoint, I don't know what really those those that rank of player brings to the field on a consistent basis.

That's my opinion. And it's really taking something off the table in certain regards where like it's harder to get a featured group on the weekend. If you have always, you know, so many more guys in. If you went back, would you try to jam as many people on the golf course as possible? Like if you were trying to create the best product, I don't think that's the answer. I think there's certain events where like maybe Phoenix doesn't make sense as a designated event. Like there are things seems to be like, let's pack as many people onto the course as possible, create the longest possible day, sell the most possible beers, and create the most entertainment,

right? Like, so maybe, maybe farmers is better for that or maybe pebbles better for that or whatever. Pebbles got its own set of things. Like, I'll be really keen to see what they choose as some of the, you know, some of the permanent designated events because it sounds like they don't want to switch them up year to year. But I just don't know who it behooves, going back to the cut thing.

I don't know who it behooves to have somebody 25 shots off the pace because like Peter said, it doesn't happen. It happens all the time. It happens at the torch championship every year or the BMW every year. Like, there's nothing fun about watching somebody go through the motions, 30 shots off the lead and and just play like shit. And like in the heat of Memphis or, you know, it's, it's just tough, right? Like one year at the Torch Championship, I remember watching Tiger. It was on Halloween and Tiger like dressed up for the front nine and like put a wig on. And he was he was like 18 shots off the lead and like even

Tiger, it was kind of depressing watching Tiger go through the motions on a Saturday or Sunday. When like just cut him a check, cut him a last place check and be done with it or do it after Saturday even, you know, so like everybody has a chance to see their favorite player on Saturday and then Sunday, cool. We're stripping it a chance to see their favorite player on Saturday. And then Sunday, cool. We're we're stripping it down. We're going to some suns Sunday. I think that the the idea of a cut is probably a lot better than like the actual focus on like who's going to make the cutter who isn't like.

The programs have never actually focused on. And it's celebrated. They don't. It's they don't they don't capitalize on it. That's not part of the current structure of golf for us to like sweat the cut line. If there was like a channel that was like the red zone channel of like actually focused on the cut like people still would like probably only the people would watch it were the absolute truest of sickos like I you know, you'd be the three of us and like you know a bunch of other like golf putter nerds like that's about it It's not like something I don't know know. The idea philosophically of like,

hey, if you don't, you know, there's a reason why they repeated it 15 times in the Netflix thing. If you don't play well, you're not gonna, you're 65 times, you're going home and like you're trunk slamming. Yeah, that stuff, I mean, that's just part of the long tradition of golf.

And so I get why letting some of that go stinks a little bit. And it's an easy way to say like, oh, this dude's MC six of the last eight rounds. He's obviously, or the term, he's not playing well. So some of that going away kind of is going to force us to rethink things and that that's tough sometimes. But I get it. It's just there's no, is the entertainment product? There's no value in it.

No value in cutting people. I think there's no value in like sort of pretending like we care about the guys who are sticking around like, you know, or not to be honest, because they just never really been part of what we've focused on. It doesn't bother me to have guys out there, 30 shots off the lead playing golf. What does bother me is when it adds logistical issues to it. If it means you have to play in three sums or if you have to go off two T's and it means, you know, we went to the BMW Championship last year. It was 70 dudes and it was two sums off the first T

if I remember right on every day. And I know that's kind of the most daylight time period of the year. And that's a difference, but it was kind of like, man, 70's a lot of guys. 70's a lot. Like, a difference. But it was kind of like, man, 70s, a lot of guys, 70s, a lot. Like I, I mean, I'm just going to go to the, oh, David G are this, well, Ricky Fowler's the 70th ranked player in the world. I can, there'd be a lot of people that want to see him. But JJ Spawn is 69, right?

And I don't, I don't know who's like showing up in his like upset that JJ Spawn is not there. Probably JJ and his family, I would definitely agree with that. But again, it's, I think people can conflate how many needle movers and I hate to use that phrase. There are in the game of golf. And I get the sentiment of, hey, no cut is a bad vibe in terms of like, dude, you're just going to have dudes mailing and in, you know,

cash and checks, all that stuff. Listen to Peter Monaghi talk about this structure did not have me in any way thinking like this, this structure is not going to be competitive. And it doesn't seem like you can rest on your laurels like I think probably part of the issues we've had with PJ Torcards have been very easy to keep. That didn't seem like overly oh my gosh JT doesn't even have to try in these events and he's going to be in them for the rest of his life. That's I don't feel like that's the vibe of this competitive structure. I could be wrong on that, but I'm amazed the people that have jumped

to thinking that that is all right. That's what's gonna default to. Some of that though, some of that comes back to like scar tissue from the tour, right, of like the tour, the tour, the devil's in the details, and the tour has gotten details wrong for so long. As far as, you know, they'll they'll add the JJ hunt the JJ Henry

exemption in there or, you know, you got the career money list exemption, you've got the, the, you know, the 300 cuts exemption, all that bullshit. And it's like cool, like don't layer that stuff in here, like don't water this down. Yeah. Make sure that this stays the principles and the philosophy behind this stay that like we're taking care of the best players. But to be one of those best players, you have to earn your keep every single year. And I will say I'm impressed with what's in in Monahan's memo did not leave wiggle room for any of that, right? There wasn't like a some subjective changes might be made in this in terms of like it lays out exactly which criteria are going to be in this event plus the four sponsors exemptions, right, which I think four seems like a proper amount of wiggle room to be able to like,

let's throw Ricky in the field. That's fine. Like, let's throw Tiger in the field if he's not qualified. That seems fine. I have no problem with that number. I don't think that's going to, you know, I don't think like there's somebody that's getting really cheated on the outside of that. They should straight up like, you don't have to mention Tiger by name, but they should do something to where like 75 plus Tor wins. Yeah, like a certain criteria that sits above everyone else. Yeah, you know, like nobody else is even coming close to touching except for Tiger. I do wonder playoff swi. Like, all right, you were talking about it, solid of like, you know, top 70 to top 50.

Like, all right, the guys that get into BMW next year, that's going to be a big deal. Right? I guess the guys that get into BMW this year, that's going to be a big deal. Right? But like, what's the difference between finishing 50th and 30th other than being able to get into the the torchampion ship. There doesn't seem to be much differentiation at all between like the first playoff event seems to matter a lot. And then the third playoff event seems to matter a lot. And I know that they're they're putting another $50 million. It seems towards the FedEx cup.

I was gonna say I could answer that one. Yeah. It making the tour championship money is like the 30th verse 31st tour championship money and FedEx cup bonus money is that's a there's some incentive there. There's a lot and there's major exemptions that come with qualifying for the tour championship as well, which they've not told that story very well at all. So if I had to come on to be like, yeah, I got a two-year exemption from making the tour championship last year. Which do and do we have confidence in and I guess CBS is doing it this year. Do we have confidence in the networks to tell the story of like, you know, that 50 bubble being almost as important as who wins the tournament at Memphis this year, right? Weirdly with CBS, I have more like coming in fresh and not having kind of the static, you know, energy that they've had for, you know, that NBC's had in the playoffs for a long time. Yeah, I feel weirdly better that they would approach that. They seem to be open to ideas at the moment, which

is a major change. Three content idea. Like, do us do a dedicated stream for that. The top 50 line that doesn't even look at who's leading the tournament. It's just dedicated to. All right. Here's, here's all the guys on around this line. You know, live is going to take some credit for what happened here. Do they deserve any? That's a complicated question, Kevin. I'm going to say yes to this in a much more indirect way

than they probably will take credit for it. Max actually had some great quotes on this. If you'll allow me a question that was asked, lastly, is it fair to say we're not here today without live? Max said, yeah, possibly. I would have hoped that we would have got here. We would have got here at some point. So I can't make, I don't know about that.

But yeah, it does seem like it does seem like the emergence of live forced us as players and executives of the PGA tour to look at their product. I think that there are things that they have done. They got to make something from scratch, which is a lot easier than us building something that has been around for so long. It's been on the shoulders of someone like Arnold Palmer who has built a lot of what we have today.

They don't have to deal with tradition, so they kind of just got to set out a piece of paper and say, what should we do? And I think one of the things that they have, that's great that they will provide now is a guaranteed product. You know who is going to be at each event. I think that's important for fans, especially the ones who come to the events who are on that this will provide now as a guaranteed product. You know who is going to be at each event. I think that's important for fans, especially the ones who come to the events

who are on site because you know, hey, if I go to Mexico for my Acoba, Dustin Johnson will be at that golf tournament. Dustin Johnson is my favorite golfer, and I want to see Dustin Johnson in person, whereas some events, it's how we've done in the past, it's tricky. I joke to my friend Steven

as a humongous Roy McAroy fan, and I got tired of listening to his, is Roy going to play in the event questions. I was just thinking he should know that if he's going to be an event just like Roy said about Tom Brady when he turns on a Bucks game. He knows he's going to watch Tom Brady play football. So I don't think we would have been here this soon without live but I would hope at some point we would have looked at this and said, Hey, there might be a better way to do it. That last line does a lot of work there. I think the tour would have taken forever and maybe never gotten here without this, without the top players, like finally

sticking up and being like, dude, we're not doing this anymore. And again, it's long been my theory that the tour has been held hostage by to now give him credit, the Peter Monauties of the world to that have greatly outnumbered the top players, but have paled in comparison to the entertainment value they provide the sport. William McGurt, things of that nature. Exactly. But I think some of it comes down to like leadership too. And like nobody at the tour was going to stick their neck out and propose moving things forward like this either. And I think, I mean, shit, like DJ posted it earlier, which is, it, like, it's a good exercise.

It'll be different because the FedEx Cup point distributions will be all, you know, all sorts of different stuff. But like the 2021-22 FedExCup standings, they weren't available on the tour website, which is for websites. It's gotten worse. Fucking outrageous. Do you guys have to live for five years to figure this out? And like the apps gotten worse, the websites got worse. I thought we had a fucking data lake. I guess we don't, but you're running all sorts of simulation. Run of the models. But Tyrell Hatton was 49. Adam Hatton was 50. Chez was 51, Chris Kirk 52.

So it's like, no matter where you set the benchmarks, it's gonna be interesting to watch guys jockey to get into those spots, right? But to that question, to the KVD's question, TC, do you think lived deserves credit? Or I forget how you phrased it, it was an interesting way of phrasing it. I think that's cool to do. I mean, it's, you know, take credit anyway, do the deserve any other credit. Yeah, no, and I think there's something to be said for like, this could have been a much bigger victory lap for the tour today.

If like they didn't like, if Amon's not leaking it and the tour gets ahead of it, like as soon as this gets ratified last night, why aren't you sending out the fucking memo at 7 a.m. this morning and getting ahead of this and not allowing everybody to nitpick it based on incomplete information, right? Like, Jason down the New York Times, like literally 10,000 glass of water. He over 101, like they're not telling their own story, they're not, it's this over and over and over and over again.

Like it's just, there's no communication whatsoever from the tour, there's no leadership, there's no, like they need to take control their own story. I Think some of that is like the fundamental fact that you know the players like some of the top players are the ones like making so many the decisions So they don't maybe Jay doesn't feel any agency to really take the lead and be like all right now you guys worked this out So now I'm gonna go and be on you know CNN or I'm gonna do a Fox News hit or I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna talk about how we're changing things like. I've even I joked about this.

I don't know if joke to the right word. I think I actually just flat out said in my review, Arapie said, Rory's kind of the shadow commissioner in a lot of ways. He's the one who is really the people that he's being asked constantly to explain what's going on. He's the one who's having to negotiate with various people about whether it's his own players or whether it's kind of talking with partners like we're always doing a lot of that work. And it's kind of it's just wild to me to think about like

imagine if Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady were like we're going to remake the NFL and then basically like it came out in a leak to Adam Jeffer like it's different off his different than the NFL. But that's kind of what's happening in golf right now is that Tiger and Rory and you know, some of the other top players being like, all right, this has to be the way that forward and Then it's happening and the doors kind of like, okay, great. We'll sign off on that Well, the players are using the press. It seems like to get the messaging out there to you know kind of force action from the actual Executive leadership of the tour like that's how I interpret situation. It's like they're not it's you know, kind of force action from the actual executive leadership of the tour. Like that's how I interpret situation. It's like they're not, it's, you know, it's,

it does seem like I think we've going all the way back to when this started was like, man, did, did like monahan and his team make a ton of sense for this job back in 2017 when it was like, hey, can you get the FedEx cut money up? Can you get our new TV deal done and keep all our sponsors on board and do all of the things that finch them like laid out? And like, here's the plan for the PGA tour. And these guys are going to keep making money. We don't care about the actual product on TV at all.

People still keep signing up for this shit. And I don't know why, but just keep that gravy train going. That seemed to make a lot of sense. And all of a sudden, when it was time for like innovation, these were not the people that were the most prepared for handling all this. But despite all of that, like, if Liv continues to trend, the way that it is and the way that we're hearing that it's trending, and now that the tour,

like it might, like, might have been that you've failed, a task failed successfully. Alert that pops up is like, it might be by accident, but they might end up with something way, way better than they could have imagined as of three years ago. Totally. And I think Jay, I mean, Jay deserves credit for like sponsors keep signing up It might be by accident, but they might end up with something way, way better than they could have imagined as of three years ago. And I think Jay, I mean, Jay deserves credit for like sponsors keep signing up for these bigger, you know, or granted, they're, they're netting some of these up, but I guess where

the rubber meets the road next year, like we'll see if sponsors are kicking in the extra money to be one of these elevated events. And he's in an unenviable position of having to go back constantly to these sponsors and tell him, hey, you know, things are changing. Like, I'm not, you know, I think he's doing some of the work behind the scenes. Do I think he had any of the vision or any of the strategy or, you know, any of these scenarios game down his head?

No, do I still think that? No, but I think he's being a good soldier behind the scenes. But what the tour needs is like, whether it's his idea or not his idea, they need to take control of the message and the comms. And like if Jay is not the guy to do that, then get a CEO or an ops person in there that's like his deputy that is out front, you know, kind of talking about this stuff and selling it and getting people on board. Because I think like, yeah, it's great that Rory's out there selling it. But like, at the end of the day, like, your job as the tour is to run the tour. That's not Rory's

job. And I know it's the player's tour, but at the end of the day, like, if it wasn't his job anymore, exactly. You know, and so it's yes, yes, the players need to take an interest in it. And they need to, you know, be out there selling it and probably publicly countering all the private bullshit that Patrick can't lay is spewing and, and you know, being a massive roadblock in this. I'm totally with all that. But at some point, like the tour needs to, like get their shit together and get out front with it, have press conferences, talk to the right stakeholders in the media, outside of the media, all of it, and just look like they know what the hell they're doing.

Next week's going to be interesting, with the Jays Press will be on Tuesday next week. And we're going to wait to record our preview plot. I think until Tuesday evening, just to kind of make sure we get that state of the union into that and how it gets announced and rolled out and how he answers questions to the media is gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to say the least, I think, because it's been a, God has it been a wild, a weird ride.

I mean, Anne Sali, back to your point of like, if it's players leaking this stuff, like cool, then like they have to anticipate that because these leaks have been happening for the last 18 months. Like this is the way it's playing out every single time then like they have to anticipate that because he's leaks have been happening for the last 18 months. Yeah, that's true. 18 months. Like, this is the way it's playing out every single time and leaking it to the same person. So, you know, like, I'll say him and like he's doing a he's doing his job and he's doing

it well. But like, man, at some point, if you like, if the tour is not the one leaking this stuff, then like maybe adjust your playbook a little bit, right? Yeah. It do. If you keep getting caught flat footed, like you got to understand that whatever information you're sort of discussing is not going to stay private.

And so try to better to get out ahead of it. I mean, maybe that's just sort of inside baseball stuff that only we really give a shit about as we follow this like day to day minute to minute. And if you're the average fan, you're probably going to show up next year and be like, wait, things are different. I haven't heard anything about this.

Like, what's going on? Okay, cool. So, what the core of your work is, right? Like it's, you know, like this festering out there for six to eight hours today, without them, you know, having any of their information out there and just people running wild

with rumors or speculation, that's not good for them, right? It's like, play, you know, like take your own advice, play better. Earn your keep. I think one of the things that, uh, I, it's not going to ever work, like the, but one of the things I want to get out in front of is, I, how would you guys respond to this? Okay, let's start with you, Kevin.

Yeah. The, if somebody starts a, a Twitter reply with sounds like live, what, what is your, what is your response to that? How would you respond to that? I would say, first of all, this seems like an impossible conversation for Twitter because you're not going to listen to what I have this. You're not going to get it. So it's kind of a waste of my time.

And I sort of like fired off something today like, oh, if you can't really tell the difference between like riding in a doober and cutting off people's hands, like there's no point in having this discussion with you anyway. But I guess I would just say I mean your point to the P.J. Tour is set up so that there's already a ton of different levels that are weeding out players like Phil Mickelson is never going to lose his job for playing poorly it live because he's part of a sort of larger messaging structure that is really the reason mind live which I think is to just sort of increase the opportunity for the Saudi Arabia to get Western investment. There's no actual point in a competitive golf tour. So the whole point to me is, yeah, they're dramatically different just because one is set up to determine who's the best golfer in the regular season of day to day week to week

golf, and the other is set up to be a propaganda machine. And so if you think like they're the same, then I can't really, you know, break down the difference for you because it's pretty fucking obvious to me. I would, first of all, Sally, I would announce my qualifications as a number of the local writers, the, the, the, the, the, the, the writersider's brotherhood local 613 I would first of all get that out there and then Yeah, I would say similar to KVV like there's an entire ecosystem structure like of hey man If like if you get a bunch of the top players in the world that are you know beyond the top 50 in the world like the 50 through 350 you get a bunch of those guys playing the

like the 50 through 350. You get a bunch of those guys playing the Minator and the Asian tour and and then you're constantly relegating guys in and out from a live and you're playing better venues with live and you're setting it up accordingly and there's all sorts of competitive elements to it. Yeah, then let's talk, but we're not there. It's like, it's fucking apples and oranges, right? Like, why is James Piot playing live? James Piot can't even get a fucking corn fairy tour card, right? Like that totally defeats the entire argument, right? But there's people out there that will tell you that, that yeah, you have to finish top 24 this year to keep your status for next year.

It's like, okay, if Phil doesn't finish top 24 this year, does he lose his live spot? Are we seriously going to pretend like this thing is any different than what we know it exactly is? It's, it's, yeah, I'm just, I'm amazed, I guess, I know I keep saying this, but of how, how fast and how, like the vitriol of the reply to this of just like, just totally dismissing this, like, I think interesting competitive golf structure more interesting than PGA tour golf that we watched over the years that we have had raised many many many many many issues with over the years I I'm not a derider by saying hey I this had treaks me a little bit more than you know watching these 156 man fields where we don't know if we're

going to get you know rom first max battling down the stretch. I've said hundreds of times that like, there's too many tour carts, there's too many guys in these tournaments, there's too many like, you know, is this moving too far in the opposite direction? Time will tell, right? But I think-

Maybe. But it's at least moving in the right direction. You know, maybe too far in the right direction. But- And I think that's what like, we have to give a little leeway and credit to like, I don't know how you crunch the numbers to end up at this, right? Like I think we can agree on the overall big picture of like, here's the way golf needs

to trend. And it seems like a shitload of work went into figuring out like, I'm impressed by that churn number. If we're saying like a maybe like 40% of this of the top 50 will churn year to year, like that's, that's a lot. Like that seems like a lot, and that seems, you know, if the original structure was gonna say 80%, that seems like a problem, where as 60% seems like

a way better number of making sure it's not a closed-off system. Like, it has the guiding light in all this has to be that this structure has to remain extremely competitive. Extremely competitive. That's what Liv does not have. It does not have an underlying structure of people that are vying to compete on that tour and spots that are readily available

through, because we don't know how people end up on that tour, whereas the underlying part of corn fairy into the lower level PGA tour and the middle of PGA tour up to the upper is so freaking vast that it's hard to even take seriously anyone that wants to compare the two. You know what I think is funny too, is you could say let's say you're live and you're like you stole our ideas whatever. Okay, you got me like what now? Like you stole your whole fuck.

You stole it from the BGL. So like what did you copyright these ideas? Did you you know is there sort of an intellectual property issue here? I don't think so. You didn't invent shotgun starts, you didn't invent, you know, sort of you didn't even event no cut. So I don't really, I mean, at this point, like I would just say to live people like good luck with your league. Like, you know, I don't really think it's a threat anymore, to

be honest. And maybe that will make me look like an idiot a year from now. Go ahead and clip this social feed if you want somebody who's a live boy and say, you know, oh, look how stupid Kevin looks. You'd be my guest. I don't know that I believe we'll be seeing you around in a year or two. Unless, you know, you're just going to stubbornly dump money into a dumpster fire because there's a lot of indications that it's not going great. Yeah, things aren't going great, guys.

Yeah, I've got to let the replies go because I've just like, dude, I want boy, like, keep going because this is going to be really funny to look back on here in a few months. Like, maybe, just maybe guys, maybe we know slightly more that we're letting on or can say at this point. And oh, my God, is it maybe going to get very interesting here in the coming weeks, months? I don't know when, but it's going to get a lot more interesting.

I'm concerned it might not last long enough. I'm getting a lot of entertainment out of it. One thing I think is important on these elevated events, especially if they're not going to move around, is making sure that there's like requisite variety in the venues to make like to where when you do set up, you know, like that's another way to make sure that it's not a closed system, right? Is is if you've got a bunch of bomber friendly golf courses or a bunch of, you know, like picking truly great venues that that require a bunch of different skills and a wide variety of skills that don't, you know, places that you can't just,

that, you know, aren't gonna basically eliminate the guy that hits it 290 instead of 310, right? I think there's a very intrinsic value in that. So that'll be one of the big details to come to, I think. One of the big bummers in all this, honestly, is seeing Lee Westwood on Twitter just like denigrate people's work and like the people that are bringing up very fair questions about all this stuff and how he, it just, it's like, harassing journalists online, he's been doing it for months now, it's just like, that's a bummer, like, that's a really big bummer for a guy that I feel like a lot of people rooted for

over the course of his career. I feel like Lee needs to get his own house in order. What's going on with the majestic, you know, you got three captains. You guys are playing like shit. Totally different question here. What is up with the strategic alliance? How does the DP World Tour fit into anything that happened today? Because that seems to be a darn big question right now.

That's another thing that like, you know, first of all, I think you guys own apology to the viewers. I don't think Marcel Seam even got a shout out. Forgot to get a mention of Marcel Seam. Which is just disgusting. I want to apologize to everyone. I will make sure that this doesn't have to be a bad name. I try to go down the leaderboard for you, man.

I tried. But I do think that that's a massive question and a massive failure by the tour of like, they, they, like, the European tour, DP World Tour was on the doorstep with the Saudis. The tour does the strategic alliance, like puts up all this window dressing, all talk, nothing's come out of it.

I know it's complicated. I know it's two different membership structures, but like, that's kind of a black guy. It makes everything that was said during those initial press conferences look like total bullshit, right? Can I just throw a question out there? Could it be, there's no mention of it anywhere in anything.

Could it be waiting for the lawsuit settlement? Is that so there's not a way for live players to gerrymander their way into these events? Like, cause, as of now, live players can play DP World Tour events and they're figuring that out as sometimes soon. Maybe, I don't know the answer to that, but I'm guessing they're not trying to open their doors up too much

to get, to get kind of attacked from the, from the flanks there. But also, it feels like there's, you know, it's kind of a dam, if you do a dam, if you don't think it's like there's, you know, it's kind of a damned if you do a damned if you don't think to like take kind of that was advocate here of like, all right, if you're taking the top five guys or top 10 guys from the previous, you know, four DP world tour events, put them into the PGA tour event, all you're doing is further weakening the DP world tour as well,

which I think is what they're doing with some of the eligibility stuff. And we're going to pull the top five over to the PGA tour, give them full cards and everything. But I don't know, all this would ring a lot better to me if some of at least one or two of these designated events were played worldwide, were played globally, moved around. I could go and ask Jay a question to that in his press conference.

I honestly think it would be better if one of the European journalists put it to him and be like, how does this partnership benefit the DP World Tour right now? Because they would hedge just a much better grasp of like, you know, the financials of the DP World Tour, like the way that guys, you know, coming in out, I mean, I, look, if no one asks it, I would be worth asking, I think, to Jay, but I think I would love to hear someone who just has a really good grasp of what the future or this current status of the D. P. World Tour is to put it to Jay and say, how is this benefiting the or how is it a partnership like how would you classify this as a partnership versus just a hostile takeover. So you said it earlier, the PGA tour, you know, being nimble, being agile, we'll see they are certainly hostile though. They basically like grabbed the DP World tour and then has had stand in front of us and take the gunfire from Lou. You can take the

brunt of the lawsuits and the sort of, you know, the players sort of forcing their way or complaining all the time about, you know, it's a bummer to me because, yeah, I mean, we all grew up like in the little, in some ways, like seeing the Deepu world, there's a European tour, it was like this cool, mysterious place that we didn't see on TV much, but we knew like, Sevi was awesome and we knew that there were all these great players who'd kickass and rider come from and now I just, I'm worried that it's going to whither up and go away. I just, I was worried that it's going to whither up and go away. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, that's a question to be answered here.

And it did not slip by me that there was nothing in there, nothing in the qualification criteria for DP World Tour players for these elevated events. So there's something interesting, like going back to something we've said a lot of like there's the Sanderson or the Barracuda or any number of these kind of lower tier PGA tour events, Puerto Rico open, which who knows if that even needs to exist anymore, right? Of like, they're filling that field out with Frank Licklider and Glenn Day this week, right?

So I like horseshoe. I'm not the playin' at this, I'm just. But we were saying there's, there's more similarities between the top tier corn fairytore events, like the, you know, the BGRity Pro Am or the nationwide event up in Columbus or, you know, the Portland event when it existed or Omaha, those events, then there are between the barracuda or the Sanderson

or the Puerto Rico Open and the Onal Palmer or Riviera or something. And now it's like, I feel like we have such a stronger, like those events actually do mean something now versus, you know, like they are differentiated more from an upper tier of court fair event. Well, and it's, man, I hadn't really even thought of it until Peter was kind of talking about it in terms of some of these regular standard events. I believe it was what they're officially called now are absolutely going to have better fields than they normally have.

Yeah, without a doubt, right? And I think it in my head, it was going to be like, yeah, they were going to get the fields were going to get worse, but they were already bad. Who cares? But it's like, no, actually, like, you're going to get better players at these events events and more of stars are gonna get sprinkled in if they're not overrun with too many designated events. And some of those fields have been so shitty, like there's no way for them to get worse. Exactly. Exactly. You don't have to go. Like the system was broken.

Like that's the whole fucking point. Like we're not going back to the 1995 PGA tour and everybody's showing up at the Chrysler greater Greensboro Classic. Like that ship is sailed guys. I think what played out at the Honda is like a great example of like how great it could be in the future. Like if you have like a journeyman who's has a chance to sort of, you know, cash his ticket and a guy who once was a really good player and it sort of had a lot to overcome, like those stories are going to play out each week. It might be,

like, you know, some of the aging vets are trying to hang on, whatever, but that's just another element of it. I don't know that I buy the idea that, like, the neatness of the Monday qualifier story is no longer, sort of, you know, special because it's going to be there's more opportunities for it to be special now. I think what's what's confusing, I guess to me is there's a lot of people have, I've dedicated a lot of energy into ragging on the tour and at structure. And then when they change it, they also rag on the changes involved with it, whereas like we have ragged on the tour and at structure for a long time to the point where like change is almost only going to be good. structure for a long time to the point where like change is almost only going to be good, right? And a shitload of thought of like the most integral players in the game and stakeholders in the game has gone into this. Like if they can see this being, you know, if they're excited about it, the entertainment product is likely to be better. They're more likely to

steer into entertainment aspect of golf. I think, you know, that's been a, again, we've said this a million times. I got a been a sticking point coming out of the meeting is like, hey, we all need to buy in a little bit more and do our part in the entertainment aspect. The walk and talks and whatever's asked of us to kind of create some buzz around our product. And that has me at least curious and hopeful that this will get passed a four out of 10 on the entertainment level,

which is pretty much what I've considered PGA tore golf to this point despite being a certified card member of the B rider commission. Local 613. Kevin, I think your local chapters is local 542. Check with the Steve Adorfs. Somebody was mentioning on Twitter earlier that like have those last place guys, you know, the guys in that last group, like, all right, you're in last place on Saturday, your last place on Sunday. Cool. You guys are Mike, double day. We're

throwing you on. Yes. Yes. Why not 100% you got to serve. Well, I get cool play better like you got to go play with the CEO. Like you, if you, yeah, play better, you got to go play with Thomas. Thomas is going to have to make this put to avoid the mic tomorrow. I know he doesn't want that. Yeah, and I am solid that could play into your your idea of you know having like a random three handicap out there just showing it how freaking hard it is and how good these guys are. Weird. I've got I've got to play with JT 80s got to read putts for be all over again. I think I've got I've got to play with JT and he's got to read putz for be all over again.

You have a solid read. So anything else before we wrap this, it was a long emergency pie, but I think if we had a way until Sunday, it would have been kind of too late to address a lot of this stuff. I my primary thought is like I'm excited for the majors to get here because I've sort of exhausted about talking about the changing structure of the part of golf that we're kind of like, we're luckily accept as part of our lives, whereas the majors are like excited. So, one month in, we've exhausted KVV.

That's an accomplishment. Yeah, KVV, I feel like you're like the new guy who I'm like, I've been doing this for eight years now. Buckle up, big boy. All right. I'm going to have to reset my expectations. I'm going to earn my way back into the designated pod events. Well, it's just so funny.

There's so much other, there's so many layers to this where it's like, all right, they're throwing another $25 million. Let's say at the Comcast of Business, Tor top 10. Does that mean that like, you know, they're essentially juicing that to where if that's close to being a, you know, close race going into the last two weeks or more guys going to tee it up, like, is that going to make it worth it for guys? You've got again, the alternative is like, no one's showing up for Wyndham,

despite like literally the top 10 don't show up to even try to bump up a little bit for that. And I think again, we're under rating another part of this of like, we haven't even mentioned that this is January through August. Again, like this is, the schedule is not the wrap around schedule anymore. Like, we haven't even gotten to that part of it

that's gonna be extremely different about this. Well, then not only that, also they were talking about those big money, no cut events for the fall, that like international series that they were gonna do. We've got all the indoor golf thing called TGL. TGL, we got all that shit going on. Like there's like five other things happening too. Shout out again to Peter Monotti for joining. That was really, really helpful. And thank

you everyone for for tuning into the emergency pod. We'll be back live on Sunday night to recap the Arnold Palmer invitational at Bay Hill presented by MasterCard and the the derider commission. So thank you everyone. And thanks for the questions. Thanks for all of the, all of the listens that we'll see you back here thanks for the questions. Thanks for all of the all of listens and we'll see you back here next week. Better than most.