No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 649: Bay Hill Recap

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Kurt Kitayama holds off a star-studded leaderboard at Bay Hill to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational and claim his first career win on tour. We review the week for Kitayama and the rest of the leaderboard, evaluate our impressions the golf course, and a thought or two on the NBC coverage (or lack thereof).  We also check in on Jin Young Ko's win on the LPGA Tour in Singapore and offer some additional thoughts on the PGA restructuring announcement from earliest this week, plus a thorough response to James Hahn's Golfweek comments and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Slash the No Laying Up live show, Arnold Palmer, invitational. I think it was MasterCard that it was presented by. I will have our producer, Cody, look that up.

I just double checked that one for me. TC is here. Welcome, TC. How are you? I'm great, except for you. It's the Mr. Palmer invitation. Ah, not the Arnold Palmer invitation. I do. I'm respect. I knew I was going to slip up on that one. Kevin Van Volkenberg, new hire to know laying up is with us as well. Hello, KVV. How are you? I have respect for Mr. Palmer. I will be taking many commercial breaks. Speaking of commercial breaks, I should, uh, should also mention the no-ling up live shows. Of course, brought to you by our friends at high noon guys.

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I got a grapefruit here. So we're hitting all the things that got a lot of different options, guys. A lot of different options. Kurt Kiddiyama wins the API. Nico at Javaria, I believe, I hope I'm saying that right. Wins the Puerto Rico open. Jin Young co wins the wins the HSBC women's world champ in Singapore. Oh, guys, it's going to be a tough one to keep hamster. Damn, I think I think we keep hamster, damn. I think I think we suspend habeas corpus. I think we suspend hamster, damn over the course of

this episode because I do not know how I'm going to be able to stop letting coverage take see through the coverage today. I thought you were going to lead with hamster, damn it. First there. I was like, well, this is impressive. And it's this is martial law. This is not in the agenda. Kurt Kiddiyama, a little, I don't even know how to do the play by play from today because it was one extremely clunky and man they struggled to keep up with all everything that was going on. But kind of basically starts with Kurt Kiddiyama piping one OB on nine. He goes just left of the path and I was watching without sound at that point. And I was like, oh,, we were on a phone call. We're doing a tech check when that happened. And I was like, told you guys,

I was like, oh my God, rules Twitter is about to go absolutely ape shit because he's gonna get relief from the path left handed, just like speed did on Friday, but he ends up being Toby. Totally fine. Totally fine. Totally fine. I mean, I had to stop you from getting upset about it, but it is totally fine to get in, and within the rules.

Kidiama makes triple, but man, it was, I said it right when it happened. I was like about it, but it is totally fine. It again, and within the rules, Kideyama makes triple. But man, it was, I said it right when it happened. I was like, dude, he's still not out of this somehow. And I believe again, he had another ball OB on Saturday. He also bogied the par five fourth. Kideyama probably should have won this tournament by like six shots. If he doesn't have these massive, massive screw ups, but just stayed steady. He had a bad three-pot par at Ken on 16,

but Knox, it's stiff on 17, birdies it, drives it in the left rough, and I mean, Zinger had a great note. Like, one out of four guys get the ball on the green from the left rough, and he hits the perfect shot, hits it pin high, lags it up to the closest I've ever seen a lag put go. I've never seen somebody mark one that close, taps in for par and wins a designated

event. I mean, it's, you know, listen, was that like the name that a lot of people were rooting for? I don't think so, but man, we got a lot of good action down the stretch today. I like the mark. The mark was classy. It was a, it was a nice homage to Mr. Palmer. I thought, no, 72, 72 on the weekend came out fire in 67 68 rounds one and two.

Man, there was some bad golf being played on the stretch, but it's a really, really tough golf course, right? The greens were completely baked out. I think at one point Zinger was saying that it was like putting on a cracker and then compounding errors, right? Like Rory trying to jam near shanked that ball out of the rough. You got a spieth kind of compounding errors, spieth misreading pot after pot after pot.

Nobody wanted this thing at the end, except for it seemed like maybe Harris English or Scotty Sheffler, but you know, I don't know, just that was, there was a lot going on there. And it's tough not to just start going down the leaderboard. So KBB pool, I So KVB was a cool result just because in the week where we've been talking about can guys rise up through the ranks and become like the next great players. Are they going to be shut out? Like, can he

almost a great example of that? You know, he struggled to get his card for a while. He scraped his way into designated events. Advance, he had a couple of near misses, it showed he had a lot of game, was as a C.J. Cup or was Phoenix, and now he won. And that, I mean, what a sort of, I think good storyline for the tour to sort of point to and say, look, if you think that, the play better thing is unfair. Look, we have a great example of someone who just

flat out learned to play better and knocked them door a few times. And now I won. Kind of seems like they've checked a lot of boxes with these designated events already. They've got big name wins. They got as soon television ratings. I haven't, you know, accumulated all that data. As soon they're getting a little bit better TV ratings in these. And now they've got the example to show the rest of the tour of like a do this.

Yeah, this is not a closed off system. If you play good, it's not a popularity contest either. I mean, I think that's where maybe some of the most appropriate beef with anything that was going on was kind of this, the pip kind of meandering its way into being maybe a part of qualification or making it. Man, it's a worry to get, if you want to get your pip, you got to play in all the events and things like that. And just giving the idea off, I don't think it's the reality, but giving the idea off that the tour is kind of turning into a popularity contest in some way when like, man, I've stewed a lot over all the changes and we're going to talk about that still a little

bit more on the back end. But dude, play better still rules the day. And like there's no better example of that than Kurt Ketayama who just went out in a designated event that look, the fields are still kind of big right now. And I want to talk to you guys about that about, you know, how, you know, the success of designated events right now again are under a different structure than they're going to be in next year. But like, he would have been in under the next year's structure and he goes out and beats Sheffler, Rory, Ron, Tyrell Hatton, you know, uh, speed. I should, I meant

speed, not Ron there's because of the booey sank this week. But yeah, it just, it, it seems like the tool as about as good of a, uh, a different box checked as far as if I'm the tour I'm like kind of can take that to the membership to be like that was probably a good thing would he have been in He would he would he would he would he would he would he would he would have been in in into this event through that and I and I Again, yeah, I don't know how to do the the math really quick on like what he have played his way in through other events Because he's had a really good, you know, start to the year and he's been involved, you know, finished second in the CJ Cup and would that have got him into some and, you know, he finished tie for 23rd in Phoenix with, I think, a tough final round if I

remember right. Like, like, he, he, yeah, he could have, he would have been there. And I think that's a feather in the in the cap of this new plan. And his move makes me uncomfortable. I can't do it. Can't do it. It's hard to watch a play golf. And yet like he led the field in greens and reg.

I mean, he's getting it done. But man, I just feel like the big right miss is lurking at every moment. It's a little like that. You like the YouTube sort of guys, like I don't know, Skankus asked where you like take the club up and then you shall the fuck out of guys, like I don't know, Skankus asked where you like take the club up and then you shout the fuck out of it on the way down. Like it's definitely not something that like is sort of old school golf instructor taught, but man, it works.

Like, you know, I love unique different swings. And so, you know, it was fun to watch that hold up under mostly pressure. I was at walk in the range of waste management and saw Tim Tucker walk by and I was like, huh, that's interesting. I thought he wasn't on Svensons bag anymore. Sure enough, he's on Kurt Kityama's bag, which if you don't remember, Tim Tucker was famously Bryson De Shambos, Cadi, who there's still a story there that I'm sure will get told

in some day, but I don't know when the NBA runs out on that story, but Tim Tucker backled the bag and buy all accounts from people I've talked to both out on tour and some people that know him off course. Like what he's able to provide in terms of, it's caddy advice, and I don't mean like, hey, keep your head up here, like, oh, come on, like we can get through this. I mean, like knowing how wind works.

Yeah, knowing how wind works, knowing how a putz break, like the integral intricate details of where the margins in golf lie, like that is Tim's specialty. He doesn't like broadcast that out to the world in a lot of ways. But people speak to that. And he makes a difference when he gets on guys bags. There was a reason Bryson was paying him like, like almost double what you pay a normal caddy week to week because one is to put up with Bryson. But Tim was the guy for that. And when he was on Svensson's bag, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but seemed

to do a lot better. And if I'm Kurt Kediama, I'm locking up that guy to a long-term deal. Dude, you could see it on 18 when you listen to that conversation. He was like, all right, we need to land this here. Take me a practice swing in here. Tell me how much is this is gonna grab. This is the number I need you to hit. Like, here's where the wind is it.

We're gonna hit eight iron here. It was like, you know, obviously the moment could have been way too big for a kidy armor. You feel like you made a bad swing off the tee. Now you're kind of screwed. You got a bad lie. And you did a great job of just like slowing it down. Be like, if you get it into that bunker,

we can get it up and down. But I think it's going to land here and it's any hit and what turned out to be a really great shot. I was going to say thank God for, you know, for Kitty Hamma too, that it was mutual, right? That the decision for Bryson and Tim to split up, that they both decided that they wanted to mutually end that the night before a tournament. Because, man, I don't know if, yeah, that would have been a tough scene if he wasn't able to secure the service. Yeah, Todd Lewis was pretty,

pretty adamant about that one. It was mutual by the way. All right, it was, it was mutual. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that was, that was fun to get your reporting discredited. That was great. Uh, but all right, talk to you about speed here, TC. Uh, I was weirdly emotionally unattached to today, it just doesn't, it still doesn't

feel like it. And I know there was some great stuff that happened for him this week and I wanted him to win, but it still wasn't like, I wasn't cashing in my emotional chips today. It just still felt like it wasn't going to last for 72 holes. Yeah, I would say you were beyond emotionally unattached. You were emotionally unavailable today for speak, and I think that definitely shined through. And I'll talk to him.

I'll talk to Michael about it later. And we'll kind of assess where your fandom lies. But yeah, I mean, four birdies in the first five holes. I thought it was just red alert. I normally tried not to tweet out the Charlie Steiner, uh, Sports Center commercial Y2K, Jeff, until, you know, things are really off the hook. And yeah, four birdies in the first five holes. And then he par six, he just didn't get in a groove, especially that like, missed a bunch of

putts. Like the stroke looked fine. It looked like they just had the wrong read, right? And somehow, I mean, like the putting stats aren't bad. He didn't really hit it well today, which is strange, because it seemed like he hit it well the rest of the week, and you know, the putting was whatever today. Let's see here, looking at, he was 17th in putting today, six then strokes around the green, 56th of the tee today.

So driver kind of abandoned him. But yeah, I mean, it just, I don't know, still, it still feels a little tape together, right? Right. Like, I, to me, like strokes gained around the green. He was first this week. That seems the least sustainable, right? Like that's the, like, the knot. What's going to project out for, you know, he's got about start pounding greens. He's got to start rolling in mid-range pots, right? Like that's the like the not what's going to project out for, you know, he's got about start pounding greens. He's got to start rolling in mid-range puts, right? Couple chip-ins this week,

you have a chip-in on five today and he did wholesome putts from the fringe in the earlier rounds, which I think really boosted that stat a little bit, but it just, it was like, all right, he's not hitting it like great, great, and not putting a great, how is he doing this, right? And it came through, you know, off-green shenanigans that we're going on here but it's also kind of speaks to Bay Hill like I feel like you just end up with way more shots around the green on this course because of it's wonderful elite design I think that's it's such a tremendous challenge for it is a challenge for all the players this is a tough viewing experience. It's definitely a tough tough course to make pots on right like I mean something this guys are

holding on for your life on, you know, they're putting on a cracker, like I said. I wonder what kind of cracker he's thinking there. I was thinking salty. I was thinking salty. A thing like a premium. Yeah. So you pointed out that I didn't realize that

Arnold Palmer did not design Bay Hill. That he just bought it from something that was already designed, which I think is important to point out. Because I was only under the impression that, and I think some people are too, that if you criticize Bay Hill, you were criticizing the sort of integrity of Arnold Palmer. No, like Mr. Palmer, excuse me.

No, he did not design it. It's just sort of like a, yeah, man, of course. Which I don't know if he tweeted enough to the point where it is considered a Palmer design now, but like it was originally had nine-hole golf course by Dick Wilson and then nine more holes were added. I think my biggest issue with it, it's not on a bay and there are no hills. I don't know where the name Bay Hill comes from and I hadn't thought until somebody tweeted that at me this week, but I think that goes to show like the entire facade that is this

golf course. I don't know why. As a kid, again, Tiger Woods winning this place all the time, I thought the Bay Hill was like a tremendous golf course. And I played it once and I've watched it a lot over the last 10 years or so, can definitively say it is not. And I don't know if that,

if now is the time to dive into that. But that is, it always makes for an exciting finish. There's like something to look for at the end, but the path to getting there Thursday through midday Sunday is really, really difficult. Yeah, it's just the really, like kind of charmless, right? Like long part threes, a bunch of weird angles over water. It's one of those courses where I'm like,

yeah, like I'm cool watching guys play this, but I have no desire to play it, right? And then I give the tour credit for how they set up the golf course last. This is what three or four years in a row now, that it's been set up very, very different than they used to. And I think there's, I don't know, like I think that makes it more interesting

than it would be otherwise, right? Oh, sure, sure. Look, I think that it's not a great course, but look at all these bays. How are you guys not saying? Because it genuinely seems to like, car wrecks down the stretch and the wind. Oh, get the hell out of the car.

I just think it's, you can't really call a great course. A great course when you have to like, take it up over people's houses to sort of have like an aggressive line and like challenge backyard pools. Like that just doesn't strike me as great golf. Somebody replied to me with that though. It's like, look at. That's our lakes. Those are. They have to touch the sea. Come on. It's those are lakes, Cody. That lake could be

the bay. Can you please could have initially been Bay Hill B.A.E. in honor of Mr. Palmer? I've said this on the podcast before I just always would like to do always remember that I had a conversation with Justin Reed once we walked Bay Hill and she informed me that the reason that Tiger won so many Bay Hills is because it was like right by his house and he could just come over and put and read all the puts. Oh, I'm and that that the puts. Oh, time. And that that was sort of an unfair advantage. Which I missed just sort of stood there.

Like shaking my head, being like, oh, really? Like, you think Tiger came over and like, just rolled some puts on the 18th green, like every day, just to kind of, you know, just in case. So, I believe that somebody tweeted it, it's 4.95 with the play bail with a cart. Oh my gosh. I did not verify that information, but somebody tweeted today, it was, it's 4.95 with the play, Bay Hill with the cards. Oh my gosh.

I did not verify that information, but yeah, just save your money on that one, please. But yeah, Cody, I need you to bring up that graphic of, you know, that goes in the geography books of like what a lagoon is and what an, an islet is and what a peninsula is because I think that can bring a, it's miss miss.

Yeah, that can bring a lot of continuity to this discussion. I think we need a word for golf courses. I mean, it might be rough stopping where there is just thick rough long of the greens where it's like, oh, hey, drove in the rough. I can guess where the next ball is gonna go. It's gonna go to the back rough and it's gonna be two feet off the green. It happens so often on this golf course. It happens at Tori and to me, that's a sign of some of the most boring golf you could watch on TV of the balls. You know, there's a couple spots, like 15, as a spot long, right, where the ball can actually run away.

And they just, they need to add a ton more closely shaved areas around these greens to add what I, I don't add some intricacies to it. Because the course is just not that well designed to play this firm, like these greens to play this firm. If these pros can't hold these greens and no one on earth can and then it just becomes kind of a weird chipping contest that I don't think is that fun to watch. But it is would be fun if like it was firm up front and you could there weren't lakes in front of some holes and running shots in right that would be creative and interesting but it's not that it's not

strategic at all. It's just like dude like like the sixth hole is not strategic at all. It's like dude, hit it right here and like you get rewarded pretty much for bailing out here because you know, playing close to the water doesn't make your angle any better. It doesn't make your next shot any easier. It's just, it's kind of a backwards golf course in that regard. So no thanks. No, there's a weird approach is to like number four, you're singing weird approaches to like number four. We're kind of trying to miss that bunker. And you're just hoping for a hop. Again, though, I'd rather see it like this than soft and soaked credit to the to the setup.

Still not a good golf course. And we're probably going to go there forever. And because of because I already loved it. So Mr. Paul, can I say something extremely disrespectful? Oh, please. I love we do this live because this is on that on that. I'm at a ball. Like can we can we not make this a designated event? Interesting. Talked I think the Howls of protest would be enormous. I think honestly my solution is that the designated events should rotate. And so that, oh, if, you know, API doesn't get to designated event one year, then you can't be like, well, look, just we're sharing the wealth. Like we're moving it all around like this year, John Deere's a designated event.

So but I agree. Like I think you would, the complaints would be huge and heavy about our opponent built this tour. How can you disrespect, they feel like that. However, however, what if we took every once every five years, you take this to, you know, it's a designated event. Whatever once every five years, you go have it at Oakmont, uh, non or Mr. Paul were up there every few years.

And then you go to the Trobe Country Club. It speaks me. Love it. Be like the, uhpec all over again. And let's get weird. I was going to say this for later TC, but it's so funny to me how the second you do any kind of criticizing of this course or this tournament at all,

you are seen as being disrespectful to the king when everything we just watched today was as big of a slap in the face to the king as way more of a slap in the face than anything we're capable of, right? I mean, they just turned that golf tournament into a commercial marathon slap master cards slapping us in the face on repeat missing golf shots everywhere, making one of the great what's supposed to be and what everyone tells us one of the best events of the year, borderline unwatchable. Like what's more disrespectful than that? And it just,

I wanted this all. He was a, he was a big, come. Maybe, maybe, maybe that's, that's fine. But it, uh, it bothers me so much that I'm like, dude, everyone has the greatest things to say about Mr. Palmer. At no point did I get the impression that he was an ego maniac that needed his ego stroked in this way. So you end up in a way, just going out of your way to do all of these segments about Arnie

throughout the course of the week that by the end of it, you're so sick of it that you end up with this impression, like you get tired of it and you get mad at, you end up getting mad at Mr. Palmer about all this, which is like the exact opposite of effect I would expect you'd want to have, or the feeling you would want your viewer to have by the end of the week.

And I just, it's so antiquated, it feels like they lay it on thicker and thicker every year. And it doesn't feel like it's their idea of honoring them, but it doesn't feel like an actual honor and I had to get that off my chest. I think it's lazy too. I think it's lazy too. Yes.

Like just, it would be cooler if it was just subtle. Like everybody wears like a umbrella. Everybody sort of rubs the umbrella on the first tee or something, and we don't have to sort of beat you over the head with it, but that's not how it's gonna be. It's just, all right, it's that Bay Hill week. Let's just reboot an on a Palmer feature that we've, you know, used some B-roll from his office that we've seen like 50 times. It's lazy. I'm sorry. And I'm not even, that's not even, that's not a shot at St. Anders. Like he came in

into commentary. I found that additive. Like that was, that was good. But man, it just like I found that additive. Like that was good. But man, it just like shoe horning it in every possible opportunity on top of the insane commercial load was like, dude, this event, this looked like the antiquated PGA tour that we've been fighting against for a long time. I think every single executive and anyone on any board or anyone that has to make any kind of decision about anything about the future of the PGA tour should have to go into a conference room with no phone and no computer and no fast forward button and watch that four hour telecast with no

interruptions. I want you to take all of that in and I need you to walk away from that understanding what that looks like on this end, right? And then know that the future of golf cannot look like what we just watched because that was an abomination. Just to be clear, are we doing? Are we doing hamster now? Or we're suspending the game is corpus DC. You can do it. Whatever everywhere. I'd rather go down a leaderboard some more.

And we can do that. We can go in. We'll go back and do it. Can we? Before we go down the leaderboard, let's give some props to Kiteyama on 17. Like that was a stone cold Great shot that no one was getting it close to that pin, especially right of it. There was you know To hit that shot in that moment. I mean, I I thought he was gonna birdie 16 and hang on ended up on 17 There's much harder to do so I feel like he deserves Some credit. I keep wondering how Aaron Rogers is going to take credit for this, because they're both from Chico.

I know he's come out of the darkness. He's only given this one podcast. So hopefully he'll tweet out some credit for it. But no, it was just an awesome moment from a dude who is not anybody's idea of a superstar. And I thought it was a cool win. It wasn't what I was rooting for, but I was happy with the way it worked out. He had a cool win. It wasn't what I was rooting for, but I was happy with it.

Will Way will work out. He had a good quote. He was like, hey, after the triple on nine, I'm fine. Like I told, I feel fine. I don't think this thing's slipping away from me. It's just one bad swing. And he proved that. I mean, he had seven bars in a row, 10 through 16,

a birdie on 17, and then just an all-world, all-world par on 18. I thought that triple when he hit the lip of the bunker too might be a quad. I thought he was going to hit it behind the green, you know, and get caught up in there, and then hit it way too long and missed that putt coming back. So like in some ways, a triple after he nicked to the top of the bunker was a decent score. I do want to call out Kitty. I'm ahead of awful, awful shirt on yesterday on Saturday, the orange shirt. It was like one of the, it was the only people that are allowed to wear shirts like that

are like used load or uncle juiced. Yo, it was love. Yo, it's loud and the Dutch, that orange color was just just horrific. I think Saturday is the day, maybe it's unsaid or not, but to where you're like loudest like shit. It's right on each side. It's like the Arnie tribute stuff. Yeah, again, it's, but Arnie like Arnie like were good stuff. And he looked good like like like Ricky.

He would never. He would never want to be that fucking terrible cactus shirt that I don't like. Yeah, like like in like why is there a cactus on it? There's no, it's no. There's no. No. It's crazy. Right. And then speed is wearing another, you know, third grade clearance rack,

like youth, youth XL shirt. God, there was just, there was some bad shit going on yesterday. This is fashion quarter brought to you by TC. I'm sure talk about Rory. He comes up. Bogeys wanted to birdies four and five. Bogeys seven, but birdies nine, birdies 10, birdies 12, birdies 13, gets it to nine under par, snuck up on, I think everyone at that point, because we kind of just saw him putting for birdie on 13 and was like, okay, now this is happening. Steps up did not know he was in the lead.

I saw this from Wil Gray that he didn't know he's in the lead and hits a shot. I think he's kind of sending one after the pin on 14, hits it in the bunker, makes Bogey. Then flips over, drives it in the left rough on 15 and hits a eight foot apex shot out of the rough. It reminded me of the shot that he topped into the into the water at the Torchampage.

Have that one year out of the rough. Makes Bogey, two putt birdie on 16 and then parsed the last two had a great look on 18 and I think everyone was hyping him up to make it and it just missed on the low side. But this one kind of felt like Buie adjacent for Rory, like by far not his best stuff this week and he finishes one shot out of a playoff. And kind of looking for a little bit of that for Rory so far. He has not shown us a whole lot since he started his PGA tour season and a good sign of life without it feeling like he really missed

that much of an opportunity today, in my opinion. I think he's practicing load management, load management, tilde ministers. He's just kind of I think he's practicing load management, till the masters. He's just kind of, he's been dealing with the problems of the tour. He's just kind of like, all right, whatever. None of this shit is matters to my legacy. I'm going to reshape the tour, and I'm going to go win the fucking masters.

Guy, I'm in port with that. Guys, real quick, circling back on a previous note, Bay Hill is named for the Bay trees that were on the only hill on the property between two green and three tea. This is according to Wolfie aka Bam a bearcat and then he sent over a picture of a Bay tree looks like a mix between like a magnolia tree and orange tree. So, okay. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, it's load management season in the NBA. And you know, I think with the rib, the rib, you know, 40th and putting this week, not a great putting week for him. Hit his iron's well, great off the tee.

I don't know. Yeah, just I really, really thought he was going to make that put on 18. I mean, just after he got a little bit of the read, I was like, this is going in. This is right in the jar. And he's going to be able to just basically sort of serve notice that he's back. And it's okay. Don't need to be back right now. Very interesting here on the tour website, the infallible tour website says that

Rory number one in strokes gained for the week, which would seem to be impossible because he didn't want to turn him in. That's deep to 10.423 and Kirk Kityama also number one in strokes gained this week. And that's at 11.42. So some very strange things going on in the data lake. We'll keep an eye on that. Harris English went bogey free this weekend and almost won the tournament without being shown until the 16th hole today. It was a vintage. It was like a 2016 CBS experience today in that regard.

Again, kind of hard to comment on this because we didn't really get all that but that is wildly well impressive. Well, they was gonna say about like, it be, you know, even the announcers at one point were kind of like, sheeding on the players and like, nobody doing anything. When all of the best of like she didn't on the players and like nobody doing anything When all of the best players in the world are doing the same thing and not doing something like something's up

Right like those greens must have been just a nightmare to put like there's not that was not Everyone's shitting the bed all at the same time. It was like I don't know There was just like no way to solve that puzzle. It didn't feel like yeah No putt was made outside of like two feet for like an hour and a half. Like that ought to tell you that the greens are pretty gross or crisp. Except for all the putts that we that we didn't see Harris English make. That's true. Yes. I want point said, did maybe live did take all the good players, right? Because that last hour was was was a very tough viewing. Harris English made four fourgeys all week. That's insane.

I mean, he only made 12 birdies for the week, which he was 56 pars and four bogeys, which it's good to see him back. I mean, he was, you know, had an incredible 2021 in it in a rider cup and ended up having to have surgery after that has been injured for quite some time and it's no guarantee you're gonna make it back from serious injury.

I feel like, especially if I'm talking with smiley Kaufman, just of like the amount of things that can happen and how you're about, and watching Will's Outtourist now is like, dude, I don't know when we're gonna see you back at the full level because of kind of the injury you've gone through and how your swing is probably likely never to be the exact same ever again. So shout out to Harris for 800 performance

on a really, really difficult golf course. I was last week. So this episode is brought to you by our friends at foot joy. The number one shoot in golf. We love new shoes. Guys, I had six new pairs of shoes show up on my doorstep over this weekend. We'll be debuting. So we're going to be filming something tomorrow. I'm going to wear a new pair of shoes for that tomorrow. We got got the latest from foot joy called Hyper Flex. One of the things we love about Foot Joy, they got a wonderful range of sizes and styles, a lot of where the premier series.

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That's why they've been the number one shoe on tour every year since 1945, and that's why the official golf shoe for no laying up, check out the new HyperFlex at foot joy.com. I got some spikeless ones for my trip. Not a huge spikeless guy. I'm gonna try these out. I guess a couple of the courses were playing don't allow any sort of plastic spikes.

So I got the flex and then got some of the other ones that these guys are wearing. I'm excited to test drive them. I'm a huge spik guy. So it's gonna take a lot to get me out of the spikes. PC, I'm going to give you four minutes, four minutes. That's an extension of the usual. I think two and a half that we do for, you can use it however you want, to go down the

leaderboard to what to say, whatever you want about any players down the leaderboard. Just to be clear, since there's a, then the clock hasn't started yet because it has started. It has. It has started. It has started. It has this week and there's an opposite field event. I'm gonna have additional time on the back end to go down the field at the, you will not, you have a lot of work at the Puerto Rico.

You have four minutes in total. We'll save Pat Cantler then, the tool man for after this segment. Sheffler, I thought sheffler was gonna win this thing, like going after 16, I was like, there's no way sheffler doesn't win this thing. And then, I don't know, just didn't materialize. Hatton, love when he's in the mix, 66 on Saturday.

Davis Riley, 66 on Sunday. Train Mollinex kind of gave us a scare there. For a bit, Keegan Bradley, top 10, Cameron Young, 67, and then kind of faded. A little bit disappointed there. Another big showing from Jason Day, T10. We got to talk about Hop and we'll save that. Want to give a shout out to Ryan Fox. Shot 67 today in those conditions, minus six on the weekend. That's pretty, pretty serious golfing. Matt Fitzpatrick, 76 on Saturday, disappointing Saturday, but otherwise good week. Sohith continues to play well.

We're going max, just steady Eddie, 70, 71, 71, 72, 3 putt at 18, on Sunday, from about 11 feet, which was tough. I want to talk about Pearson, Coudy and Ludwig Aberg. I mean, what can we say, guys? It was just as impressive as it gets from these two young, young bucks. Kudy with a 66 on Saturday. He's got great things in his future. Web Simpson, K24, 76, 66 on the weekend, very, very interesting there. And then Ludwig, 73, 73 on the weekend, very, very interesting there. And then Ludwig 73, 73 on the weekend, not quite to the level that he played with on Thursday and Friday, but overall, very impressive week. And then Ricky really faded. Ricky was in the mix, 68, 73, 73, 73, 73. So a little bit

disappointing there. We can talk ROM on the backend here here. Zander really bad weekend, 75, 76. Dallasaurus made the cut, but did not break 72 for the week. I think I gave you too much time, but that was really efficient use of time. I think we got pretty far down there. That was two minutes there, but I'm going to go and cut you off, because I think we do need to dive in on a couple more guys here. I appreciate it down the leaderboard, but let's talk a couple guys. Couple guys that missed cuts. More Kawa. That was disappointing. Yeah, otherwise, I don't know. That's it. I'll see I'll see the rest of my time. Did Ludwig show you enough to make the

Ryder Cup team? He had already shown me enough. I have to do anything this week. I just wanted to double check, make sure that we did our Ryder Cup teams earlier last week without you. I know it was real tough for you to see that happen. And you're outraged, even though I tried really hard to go down the leaderboard for you. But I think I'll have the last laugh. I understand. I think it is, I get so caught between these two things.

It's extremely impressive for Ludwig to finish top 25 at a designated event on the PGA tour as an amateur one. Also, Ludwig's 23. And it's not, he's not a, he's not a 19 year old rookie out there or amateur out there, right? It's not a, it's, you know, guys get a lot done at 23 at the professional level. He's essentially already a professional is kind of what I'm already saying. It's not, know, guys get a lot done at 23 at the professional level. He's essentially already a professional, is kind of what I'm already saying. It's not a upstart young buck out there that's taking the take in the tour by storm.

He's a young buck, he's not the youngest buck. He's a young buck. Yeah. 23 is not a fawn or anything like that. Did the space have like three majors at 23? Yeah, that's, my auto-OT fault is that yeah, speed one, two majors for use 21. And, uh, speed might be like on the LPGA plan though, we're like, they're, oh, he's a spurnuck.

Really? 23 to 26. 90, yeah. And he's, he's done. That's what having kids, you know, get to be 30. Don't want to go off anymore. That is interesting. We might have to, we might have to think about that with a little bit more. Yeah, hoveling. Who hoveling. It's time, right? It's time. It's time we like see something in one of these.

He's around the leaderboard a lot. It, uh, you know, I don't know how this differentiates of how I think you versus Fee now, but man, it just doesn't feel like a threat in these things. Nothing like I've seen it enough to say I'm kind of just disappointed in how he performs in these biggest events. His short game stuff reminds me a little bit of like the Adam Scott Pudding thing where like every month and narrative is like, oh, he's got to figure it out. Like he's been working really hard. This is what's going to get him over the top.

He's feeling really confident and watch what happens this week. And then it's like, oh, well, I mean, I think they showed his one bunker shot, which looked almost like as bad as like an amateur bunker shot that went about a foot and then kind of got waged up against the lip there, Kimmer, what a whole, it was on, but it was as bad of a bunker shot as you see a pro hit. It was like, wow, like just because you chipped in, you know, one son Saturday does not make

for a great. You're talking about the guy who hold out for Eagle during the open round, how to hold one on the second round on. I am. I'm talking about short game. It's not fixed during the third round. This is a short game is not. Obviously.

It was 70, 71st of strokes gained around the green this week. With all that, it was just junk. He just had one good round. I think that's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think.

That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think.

That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's what I think. That's inside 40 yards. I could be wrong with that. But because I thought the worst shot he hit all week was, I mean, the, the approach into 16. Oh, so that's greaseless. He, I think that wasn't even in the realm.

I think he was trying to cram a nine iron. He had 178 back left flag, like trying to, you know, draw one back in there and, and stuff and make eagle, like you needed to do something kind of crazy at that point, but yeah, just dunked it right in the water and made Bogey. And that was, I'm not as mad about that one as I am, all the stuff on the front nine really, and making double on eight.

And because it felt like he was going, he was seven under par, the lead ended up being at nine, or there could be, I'm gonna end it up at nine. Like I think he thought he needed Eagle there, so I don't blame him too much on that one. Solid, your point on Ludwig. I mean, Ludwig's 23, Hovelin just turned 25 like a month,

month and a half ago. I don't know what, I don't know how to analyze or what to think about Hovelin. Right? He's won several times around the world since the start of 2020. Right? He's won the Puerto Rico Open twice at my Acoba,

weaker field, BMW, international open, and then the Dubai Desert Classic, which is a certified BDE, beat, Blandia, and playoff. And then he's the one, back to back, Hero World Challenges, which you guys know how I feel about the Hero World Challenge, all right? Oh yeah.

And then he faded at the, at St. Andrews last year, and that was by far his best showing in a major championship. He's just always around on the weekends and just seems to kind of recede from view in the weirdest possible ways, which is someone who struggles to chip and just with strokes lost around the greens, I definitely understand it. But also, it seems like he should be hitting, like he's such a good iron player. It seems like he should be hitting his iron

is better on Saturday and Sunday and not putting himself in some of these positions as well. Like he did that at Torrey, I think last year. I don't know, just I'm, I'm very befuddled by by Victor Hoffland. Yeah, I don't know how to make sense of it really either. I mean, the talent is obvious. The floor is so high. I mean, he just hits the ball so damn good. And it just doesn't feel like he has that gas pedal when it when he gets into comp, when and he gets into contention, it just doesn't feel like everything's about to go right for him.

Like some of the other dudes that, you other dudes that end up winning a lot. But again, the more I talk about the more I'm like, dude, you're talking about Finaw right now. Like, I don't know what the difference is here, but that's interesting. It is, right? It is. I don't think that he's dealt with the same bad luck

that Finaw has dealt with. But we could look into that if we need to. But, um, yeah, and, and, and, and, how about Ram? He goes out and shoots 65. It starts at 700 part to start the week and then follows it was 76. He did not have the driver working this week. He was done quite early on this day.

I'm trying to even find him on the leaderboard. What did he finish? He finished. He finished. He think T 39 still finished, you know, in the top 40. But yeah, went all the way back to even par from or one over par. He shot for the week. Throw it. He lost six, almost seven shot. He lost over six shots off the tee. Pretty wild. Be like you shot 65 in the first round. And he was 90th and Stroke's Hand Off the T. Yeah, yeah. That's insane. So the ball strike, he was not there this week. I don't love this golf course for him, but I thought he was golf course proof going into this week and ended up that was not not the case.

So not a real cost. How about this? It'll cause for alarm, but interesting. Rob, 90th in Stroke's Hand Off the T on Thursday. First in Stroke's the tee on Thursday. First in strokes gained tee to green. That's that's all good as approach and wild around the green play was. Yeah, I think it's kind of good for like him to get a reset a little bit or you know him to kind of receive from view a little bit and be able to recharge. It seemed like it was a little bit of a mirage on Thursday.

And now it's like, all right, like, you know what, you kind of coast this weekend and recharge the batteries a little bit. Big stretch coming up, you know, he's got to drive a lot better. Nothing that's the that's even during his hot streak, he at times would get a little squirrely with the driver. Yeah, be punching out, but he would just keep getting up and down for par. You know, on everything, but maybe, yeah, maybe the pressure of the Grand Slam is starting away on them at this point. And I'm starting to wonder if he can win the Grand Slam this year. I was more confident two weeks ago than I am now that he will win the Grand Slam. Somebody pulled the odds for that, which I can't remember what they were.

So completely into one. Yeah. I don't know why you put this on me, but I'll ride to the channel. I think rom too, like there's probably more penalty for missing the fairway and being pretty erratic off the tee at bayhild. And there is a, at say, Tory or reviera, right? And that's not, you know, it's just a different style at golf course, right? More bunkers, more weird, more weird shit, right? golf course, right? More bunkers, more weird, more weird shit, right? Can't wait, getting stuff done around the house. Almost weekend.

Productive weekend. We can warrior. Man, you know, he was, he was, he was, he was there early and often. Had his punch list there on Sunday afternoon. Kind of snuck in the clubhouse there. And I would say you did a little bit of inspection. There are 68, eagle 12, 33 in the back nine today. Just, you know, I would say really, really productive week. Got it, got it done ahead of the timeline and under budget was what it felt like by the end of, uh, uh of end of that project. A T4 finish, which is going to pay him quite handsomely $800,000.

This week, everybody at T4 just ate 100, stand down a few edges. Things are going to be fine. I'm just going to finish up the polishing. That's absolutely that thing is in the ether now. The tool man bit is in the ether and the wall is going to get a lot of run for that one I have a feeling. Yeah, it's just cool that he's, you know, like he can ensure absolute confidence for the that is in the ether and the wall's gonna get a lot of run for that one I have a feeling. Yeah, it's just cool that he's, you know,

like he can ensure absolute confidence for the toughest conditions. His tools are guaranteed tough, man. Even Doug Ferguson was picking up on it today. Right. I have a pivot to one thing before we move on. I have one thing I'm predicting and I will apologize if it doesn't happen.

I think Jason Day is going to win this year. Yeah. Jason Day's keeps trending. He's he's figuring some things out. Still a great putter, you know, 10th this week, right? We don't think we saw something. We'll shout at him. But I think he's going to win to be the first time in five years.

He's one. I think it's time. He's he's almost back. So some some version of back. I don't think he might have a good look next week. Yeah. At players. You know, I mean, he's playing.

He is his strokes gain this year is 2.03, which would be third best in his entire career. Like and it's not, you know, it's putting boosted, but he is big time gaining with approach, big time gaining off the tee. He's hitting the ball great and he happens to be making a shit load of putts. It's seven top 20s and 10 starts, not even kind of this week.

So eight and 11 starts. Yeah, it's very good and looks sustainable. It's not like a weird hot streak of unsustainable activity. So. I watched him a little bit of a rib and it doesn't look like he's trying to just absolutely fucking destroy the ball on every single swing anymore.

It looks a lot more like in rhythm and sustainable. So which is fun because it's like that's he's a great putter, right? Like he's he's not he's not a world class driver of the golf ball anymore. Like that's not his thing. I think the same thing with Web Simpson. I think Web Simpson we're going to be hearing from him in the next three to six months. I be remiss if we didn't mention Corey Connors as well. He was in the mix a lot those first two days.

He shut 66 on Friday and kind of faded on Saturday. But I feel like we saw a lot more of Corey Connors this week than a T21. Big of you to give respect to the Canadians like that. That's just order to not. Order listen all the big names That were in the top 15 and left out conners and that did not they didn't go well for for Porter this weekend Tough. Do we have any more hamster damn stuff? We want to get to or did we appropriately cover it fuck fuck yeah Oh my god, okay, we started. Okay, let's go bring it on

I mean that was one of the worst, like that felt like 2016, 2015, 2016 era CBS. Like just so many taped shots, no flow whatsoever, no great timing leading in and out of the shots, lingering on the wrong stuff, skipping the wrong stuff. We had this CEO interview today. Oh my god. Sorry, she was the global strategy officer. I actually felt bad for Cheryl. They kind of iced her. She was in the booth almost as long as Jack was, you know, 10, 12 minutes. They had it cut away from her because so much shit was going on. Poorly timed, poorly placed, Mr. Palmer tributes,

mastercard, just extra thirsty. Listen, I know you got to pay for this stuff somehow. CBS seems to be figuring it out, guys. NBC is backsliding. It was a fucking abomination this week. It was so bad. I just like, like I wanted to goug my eyes out on Saturday. The commercial load and the, and even when they weren't at commercial,

the amount of clutter. And then, and then the Ricky interview, they did the Ricky interview. It was terrible. No, and for no fault of Ricky's at all. But like, just asking generic questions about, about Arnie, you know, and then the important shot on that whole was the third shot. Didn't even see it. They want to playing through. It was one of the worst, I think, I think it was one of the worst regular season, like, broadcasts I've seen in a while. Sorry to say, but it just was. It was, I think that the playing through stuff has actually given them license to be worse because they feel like, well, you ask for us to show shots.

And so what happens is they come back from commercial, show four like shots that are clearly on tape, no setup in any of them. We don't understand what the stakes are in any of it. And then we go back to commercial. Like it was just a set on repeat for an hour. They have no chance to stay live. Like, you're literally never going to get live.

Like, I, I have to have a computer up to see what got like, they didn't even, they never show Kiti Yaman and Hoffman's drives on 16, like on the 17th. They missed a bunch of Sheffler's approaches. I mean, just egregious. And like, I feel bad for the talent, because they're putting, they feel bad for the talent, because they're putting, they're being put in terrible, terrible spots, terrible situations.

And it's not even Tommy Royce fault. Like, there's no, he's not choosing like, we need to go to like, double the commercial load this week. Like, let's do that. Like, he is, his hands are completely tied. It's the dam being counters. And like, I just need someone at the tour or someone at some high level to take some fucking pride in this product, right? Like every again, I feel like the mark when I'm like trying to get excited for the future of the PGA tour, I really am.

Like I think there is a lot to be excited about. And I've tried to give them a ton of leeway to say like, Hey, 2023 is the bridging year. But like this is the kind of stuff that I'm like, Oh, yeah, dude, like you tried to like hype it You know for years we got so much feedback about being way too negative on everything we said and like all right You're right. I'll try to look at like the positives going on here and then a day like a weekend like this happens And it's like dude. I don't know if it's a solvable. I really don't It just it's just embarrassing and it was not how I would definitely not how I would choose to spend my weekend

if I didn't have to. Also, like being off like this huge moment of like, all right, you got this Netflix show, which is like my kids are watching the whole thing twice. All right, so that'll show you like there's all this like, you know, you're new interest in golf. And so you have all these potentially new eyeballs. Imagine like trying to sit down if you weren't really in the golf previously and watch this broadcast. It just, I don't't really into golf previously and watch this broadcast. It just, I don't, we don't want to bitch about this stuff. Like, people are like, you guys can play in a bottle of shit. Yeah, I would rather talk about literally anything else, but it's become really frustrating

to sit there and not be able to watch golf. I don't, look, I understand you got to have commercials and I understand you got to pay for this. Soccer found a way, it's a different sport sport obviously, but to have the stuff ongoing. Just give me that for the last hour. Put some bunch of commercials in at least. You can do whatever we can do playing through the whatever, but give me an hour of uninterrupted coverage or something at the end so we can actually appreciate the most interesting part

of the sport, but they still will not do that. That's like, whoa, that's prime time to jam more of these in. We had that in Hawaii. Just what happened? Where did Cali go? We started out so promising with this whole thing. They answer that is that was golf channel. And network is a different cost of that.

And I somebody tweeted this out. I forget who said this today. I would I want to give credit. But somebody said like, all right, if you buy a title sponsorship for designated event, you've bought the last hour like you that you can't double dip here. Like put a damn mastercard logo that takes up the whole thing. The screen. I don't even care at all.

Like superimpose it so that it's it's like it's basically like a filter on the whole screen. And the whole screen is make a mastercard. Yeah, it's unbelievable, man. Like I just and that's the whole thing with how it fits into the larger ecosystem. The whole point of the designated events is to improve the ratings and to make these, to make these contracts worth more.

All they're doing is just racing to the bottom, trying to squeeze every little bit of commercial inventory in. And it, like it blows my mind that, like, it's basically commercials with a side of golf. And like in the golf is just there's no there's no emphasis on the actual golf. Either it's just a loose collection of random shots. Well, I get it. It was tough this weekend because there's eight to 10 guys, you know, in the mix, probably more than that. But like that's a lot of guys to track. Well, but man, it was,

that was one of the poorest performances from a network golf broadcast in the last decade. Well, it didn't even sound like they were excited either. Like it's, it's very hard when Dan Higgs, it just sounds like they weren't up for the event. I don't know how many times I heard smiley, but it wasn't a lot. Woody did an awesome job. Every time they went to him, clearly setting up shots and everything going there, but it seemed like they were just so rushed to show these shots that were clearly on tape that like Smiley or whoever else it was

had no chance. Like it was just flat the whole time. And it's the first time out of one of the designated events this year where you like really felt that way. It's worth noting, is going to be different. Players is a different model, different telecasts. It is less commercials. I think they do do the last hour commercial free and always have.

I think if I remember right, we probably did a very similar segment at this time last year to be like, watch how different this next week will be. And the load is not like that much different. It's just a actual television product this coming week at the players. It is something they've always done really well is it is nice to watch on television. And they hell is not this week was supposed to be that from last week to what is the point of doing these designated events because last week was supposed to be the shit product. Not this week.

So we can't always kick the can down the road and say, but the, the players is our crown jewel because that's what this is supposed to be to do. The craziest part is, like, it's a bad look for the title sponsor. They're jamming all this extra shit in there. And the title sponsor is the one that's getting boned because the overall ratings are probably going to go down at least in the macro sense. And then like, they keep doing all the, that I saw more damn promo for the voice.

The controversial studios. The fucking universe, I saw six or seven roller coasters this weekend, ridiculous. Like Brian Robertson, the gang over at Comcast, NBC, get outta here, man. Like have some pride. It's a disgrace or hell. Yeah. Just make me pay like, I don't know, $400 a year so I can get like a better feed for this. You tell me what I pay for peacock. I pay for peacock and it's got, it's even worse. You don't even get playing through when I'm watching it while I'm on the road

or something. I had to go to a coffee shop and watch something this week. And I pay for that. And they just go straight to commercial. They don't even get playing through on it. And they come back and say, you saw Victor Hovlin and playing through, no, I didn't. I didn't. Sally's paying for the cock. God, KVV, I'm dying.

Somebody commented, alpha move from KVV calling in from his steam room. I really got to get the lighting because where do I, you guys got these fancy cameras? You lighting because I'm going to wait. You guys got these fancy cameras. You know, I joined a podcast company. I don't know we were going to be like on camera every week. I don't know if I'm pretty enough for that.

Gosh, yeah. I felt like an enormous step backwards. And yeah, the walk and talk was a total miss. And I'm just kind of amazed by it all it's it's it's very very tough stuff Walk and talk was bad. I'll say this too on on golf channel like Pre-network coverage It's sans was tough to listen. I thought Sam Saunders did a really good job But Steve Sands was it's it's too much man

You you lay it on way too thick on how big and grand like everything is. It's too much. I don't want any more of it, which, you know what? I give, I give Steve Sands a pass because he's like a long time golf channel guy, Arnie, you know, Orlando guy, all that. I thought, yeah, I thought Sam Sanders was, was fantastic. I kind of do a double take. I'm like, wait, like, why isn't this guy a commentator?

Like he's doing a fantastic job. Because he doesn't lay it on thick. Like he just, like that again, like that is if I was Mr. Palmer, if I was the spirit of Mr. Palmer, like that's the way I would want to be honored. Like my grandson going up there talking golf and just like being about the product versus like, you know, shoe horning everything and shoving Mr. Palmer down everyone's throat. Like, come on, like, there's a huge difference between the two. And again, this just reeks of like mid 2000s to like 90s PGA tour golf

that has never evolved. And there's a bunch of like good stuff going on. The Genesis seems to continually get better. A lot of the California events and West Coast events, waste management just seems to get better. And this one just seems so stuck, so, so, so stuck. That was the first thought I had, the first time I walked into Bay Hill was like,

oh my God, this is places dated. And everything about the broadcast and the way this term presented is dated. And he's moved on. Which again, it just doesn't, the entire system and the entire evolution of the tour does not make sense unless they fix this.

Exactly. It's all for waste. It's all wasted unless this gets a lot better, like a lot better. I said this really to us like, John Rom should come off the golf course today and he should go get in the booth and he should go talk golf for 15 and 20 minutes.

And all of the replies I got on Twitter and text messages I got from other tour guys. Well, Ram would never do that. Ram would never do that. It's like, one, I have heard that he was interested in doing that at some point this year and it didn't end up working out with one of the networks, whatever. But I would say that that message is directed at both Ram. It's directed at Ram's team. It's directed at the tour. It's directed at the networks. I'm like, everybody's got a give in here, everyone's got to pitch. Ooh, you want pip money?

You got to start making this more, you got to stop telling me why that can't happen. I do not give a shit anymore, why that can't happen. If you cannot tell, there's been somebody knocking at your door for a long time and has driven a lot of good change that's gone on the organization, but like, I got to stop here and know to an answer like that because I'm sorry, listening to John ROM talk about golf is more interesting than anyone else that's on the air

doing it. Like it would just be better television. And that kind of stuff is like, I don't understand the people on Twitter. They're getting mad at me for suggesting something like that. And so that would never happen. It's like, can't you, why won't you just challenge people involved in this to give you a better entertainment product? Who is, what's the reason for sticking

up for these people at this point? It's kind of a cheat code for PIP. A hundred percent. Part of the PIP calculation is Nielsen. How much time you spent? You know what? John Rom finished what? Forty-fifth or fiftieth this week, but you know what's going to help the hell out of his Nielsen ratings? Being on TV for another 12 to 15 minutes, always in the booth. Right. And that's that's all going to come from like a group by in, right? I was I was texting with Harry Higgs this week, um, kind of talking about he said he had dinner with Rory and Max before the Seminole pro member. And he's like, one of the biggest takes to take away as I had, like do the,

the energy around that table was all about like the ways we can evolve the entertainment aspect, right? And I was like, all right, well, shit, you're kind of giving me a little hope here in terms of these guys are gonna start getting it. And here I am, I'm just throwing out an idea of here as a way you guys can accomplish a lot of things when it comes to the entertainment aspect of golf. And gosh, it's just really frustrating

to get hit with a note without even giving any thought. So. And you know what's life from doing these major deep dives? Remember who used to get in the booth like right after he'd come off the course? Is Jack Nicholas? Yes. And he would break down golf like,

well, you got to have that shot here and this is like, that's a really tough thing. And I was awesome. Like, you know, we all have complicated feelings about Jack, but like, it was really cool in those old ABC broadcasts to see him like break down like, well, you know, this is a tough shot that you have to kind of, you know, do this on.

And I would love that if Roman do that. Gary player did it the masters. I remember one year when somebody was like, Hey, Gary, what do you think of all these foreigners up here on the leader board? He's like, well, I'm a foreigner. I mean, double game, but like it, like it, teeing up KVB. Yeah, I know.

That was too good. Too easy. I'm trying to do less impressions here. The people are. Real quick. I want to call one more thing out just from the actual goal from the tournament. Gerald Hatton. Hmm. Playing some very, very, very good golf right now.

Yes. T4 this week. T40 at Genesis, but T6 at Phoenix, T7 at Abu Dhabi, T2 at the DP World Championship last tournament and played last year, T13 at the CJ Cup, T7 at the Dunhill, solo 8th at the Italian Open. That's all he's going through all the leaderboards. Yeah. He's been playing very good golf since about mid year last year since like the PGA.

Yeah, he's great. I think he's just a fun character to have around. I very much love. I don't want him to change one bit. Please do not stop doing your thing. To somebody tweeted the gif of Dennis Rodman doing the rebound thing and said to your laughter every misbutt. Oh, yeah, with that way, it went that way.

Yeah, I had him to win this week. That would have been a nice little, nice little boost, almost three weeks in a row, but like we're getting there. We're getting hotter. Solly, do you want to shout out JT for winning? I think we went through all the events this week, but JT and Wal-Rath won the seminal pro member. I knew that. I didn't know that we didn't shout them out. So good for them. JT won another living field event. Is that what you're saying? No live guys at the seminal pro member too. Bring it live.

Come on KVV stick to the real sports here. Speaking of commercials, it's time for our yeti coldest moment of the week. The rambler 18 ounce bottles, your must have cold drinking vessel that should be immediately added to your bag, the tough bottle, double wall vacuum, insulated to keep your water ice cold until the last sip. It's crazy how long your water will stay cold. And this is dishwasher safe for easy cleaning comes with the standard chug cap lid, the shatter resistant drinking spout that allows for easy pulls on the go. I love, I use so many different kinds of goodies. I got one right here. I got the 20 ounce twist topple, all the good stuff.

I got one. I just club championship one. I got yetties popping up everywhere. If you don't have one, you're truly missing out. Coldest moment of the week. This is a very, we are doing this segment this year and we will continue to get extremely loose with how we define the coldest moments of the week.

But I'm gonna go with the MasterCard interview right as the tournament got good. This was cold water on the entire tournament. It was so comically poorly timed yet again. It was again, like I said earlier, just going back to the era of golf when this was this fit in to the telecast somehow. And it definitely no longer does in the social media era.

And that was the coldest moment of the week because it just, it was like jumping into 38 degree pool and it just ruined the entire vibe of the afternoon. T.C. what do you got? Gosh, a lot of different ways we could go with this, Sully. I was gonna go with Kamayya Johnson signing for the wrong score.

That was really, really tough. And then some of his Twitter replies afterwards were even tougher, just on it, dude. But I'm going to go at Danny Mazarin in the New Zealand open. According to the New Zealand Open leaderboard on their site, he shot 71-70. And then he cooled off drastically, going into the weekend, he shot 105 and 78. 71, 70, 105. It could be a glitch. There was some other like crazy bad scores. I don't know why it says he missed the cut, but whatever happened. This is on the official site. So go at the New Zealand Golf Association and the Asian tour. Uh, you know, if this is false, but I'm just going off of what's on the what's on the internet. The internet's never been wrong before.

I want to write a story about this. This is amazing. Could it have been that he like had a like his driver was non-conforming got a two-shot penalty on every hole or something like that? Like that's the only way you can explain 105. But does that, but, all right. Yeah, but like wouldn't you just be de-cued? I don't know. Like if you teed up again after the first round with the non-conforming driver?

I don't know, that's impressive. That's cold, TC. I'll give you that one. That was a good one. KVV, what do you got? That's cold. I'm gonna go with Jordan's speech, putter. Oh, it's a story. I mean, I know it's spieth putter. Yeah, sorry. I mean, I

know it's an eye testing. I mean, we could start a debate whether it was reads or whether it was their shelves, but speaking of the five footer on 14, three and a half footer on 15, a five and a half footer on 16, why he was still tied to lead an eight footer on

17. He didn't made enough cuts early to make you sort of believe that, oh, it's fixed. It's fine. He's't make enough cuts early to make you sort of believe that, oh, it's fixed, it's fine, he's good. But no, narrator, that did not turn out to be the case. So cold, the cold, but beef probably could have finished that 10 under, I think, fairly easily with just an average putting performance on the back nine,

but it was pretty bad. Yeah, that was cold. I hate you for that KVV. But I know, I'm sorry. At the Puerto Rico Open, Niko Etchivaria, again, I hope I'm saying that right, wins. Akshay Batia finishes second and gets special temporary membership on the PGA tour as a 21-year-old. That seems quite noteworthy.

So you want to go a little, you went under time on down the leaderboard on the mainboard on the main event of the week. I'll give you 30 more seconds to shout out anything else you'd like. Yeah, that's big of you. Akshay, you know, first, first in the social media rankings this week though, the tour just continues to post about them incessantly. They're obsessed. Nate Lashley, the pre-tornament favorite, again, Nate Lashley, the tournament favorite. Favorite. Nice.

Finish T3, friend of the program, Carson Young, T3, 71, 71 on the weekend after his 63 to open up. Kind of some blast from the past. I just had some, a lot of guys here to shout out on that front. Michael Kim, up to 104th. He finishes Solo 5th at Puerto Rico and he jumps one spot in the FedEx Cup ring. 105 to 104. Wesley Brian, solo 6th, Cody Gribble, T for T7, the big rig, Harry Higgs, T7. Saw a lot of Harry Hall this weekend. He was T7, Bill Hoss, Ryan Gerard. He's got a great story. Still kind of the Cinderella story goes on there. He was T11, Jeff Oglevy, T11, kind of a great, great week from him.

KVV, your boy, Grayson Murray, V15, along with Chris Stroud, Solid's Boy. And then just to go down, this was a really bleak field. I mean, I don't think we can overstate that. Omar Yerresti in the field this week. I didn't see if Glenday teed it up. I know he had gotten in off the alternate list at one point. Jonathan K, Rhajiji Amata, Ted Purdy, Cameron Beckman,

Carlos Franco, Frank Licklider 2.0, Jeff Overton. Why do they need this many spots opposite another event that's happening that has 120 players in it? I don't understand that. It just makes for such a joke field at the bottom of it. Yeah, you got to call up pretty much anyone that has ever had status on tour to be able to fill out the rest of this field. I I don't understand why that's crazy. But can they just put like everyone in the corn fairy tour like on this in this event? Like wouldn't that be a better sort of more fun thing? It would.

It would. But they got to figure out a way to blend corn fairy and FedEx point leads and stuff like that for that to end up working out. But it's a it's a PGA tour start though. And you know what, James Han wants to talk about how the tour is set up correctly right now. Cool, here's a great example, bud. Like, like, you know, Jay and the,

Jay and the crew are being boned and stuff of total starts available on the tour. And this is total starts, right? This one counts just as much as a start and an easelake, you know? I think it goes something off of like there's a minimum threshold of starts, but it's actually off of money given out per start or something along those lines. But it's again, like we've covered in recent weeks, it's like, I think they changed that. Okay.

Like here in the last year too. I'm all for Puerto Rico getting some charitable donations but whatever. What is the history of the Puerto Rico open? Is this like a long historic event that the tour needs to sort of stick with? I guess I'm totally ignorant on this. And so please fill up my inbox or whatever

anybody who actually feels like, no, no, like we have Tribunal one here and such and such. Like I have no concept of why this event needs to exist other side. Other than I can't I concede, the charitable moment is probably great for the community and a place that has been beat up pretty bad by various natural disaster events and stuff. So it's a territorial open, you know, you're kind of opening up a can of worms. Somebody in the comments is saying Roberto Castro couldn't get into the actually Alex. I'm saying, Bruno Castro couldn't get into the champions tour event this week. But he got into the Puerto Rico open. Which like,

that's that's jarring man. Like Roberto Castro is 50. Does he mean? No, no, no, Roberto Castro is my age. Yeah. Did he mean Carlos Frank? Oh, maybe. Yeah. Come on, Alex. Get it together. Get it together.

We're putting you up on the screen here and you're giving us horrible information on the LPGA front. Jin Youngco returns to the winter circle for the first time since this event last year. She wins the, what's official? HSBC Women's World Championship in Singapore. Singapore, not the what aboutBC Women's World Championship in Singapore, not the what about China Women's World Championship. This was their 14th career LPGA tour when she'd fallen to fifth in the world after being number one for almost all of 2022. This was made for some

nice evening viewing, nighttime viewing this week. Man, they had a lot of weather issues this week. It was so wet. They were squeegeeing the greens during play yesterday, and it hadn't even rained that much during the final round. The first few rounds were drenched city USA. They're at Santosa, but Jenny on co, just sharp, man. She's got that high finish. There was, very good to see her back and lead in the winter circle. Nelly, a little bit rough around the edges, didn't have her best stuff at least last night. I didn't watch the third round, but Nelly just kind of dumped one in a bunker pretty early in the round and just never really found any flow. Made a couple late birdies to kind of get things going a little bit, but yeah,

it was just a really tough week. It didn't seem like there was much flow at all. I hadn't seen that much rain in an event since like the Byron Nelson, when those last Byron Nelson's they had at Trinity Forest. They got more rain in like two days and they get for like the entire month of February or something like that.

It was like 14 inches of rain. It was insane. Awesome leaderboard. I mean, just, you know, Alison Corpus, want to give a special shout out to her. She's playing excellent golf right now. I thought Lynn Grant, I was expecting more from her in the final round.

She shot 73 in the final round, but great leaderboard, Danielle Kang played well. You just sasso, flash in some form there. Our friend Madeline played well. So excited for the LPGA to kind of get rolling, get some cadence going to their schedule. It's tough, these first three months of the year. It's a tough, tough, yeah, tough.

It's kind of like the tour, just the super staggered, like all right, the year starts now. All right, the year starts now. Yeah, this one kind of feels like the beginning of the tour of it. I've got to give a shout out to we've added a couple to so far, these special LPGA episodes that big rannies has the lead on Cody's a big part of those TCU been on those of you guys have a great discussion on following the Saudi ladies international just about the complicated feelings all around that as well as kind of profiling some new cumbersome tour and those have been awesome deep dives

If you're looking to get further into the LPGA tour I cannot recommend those enough you guys are making me drive around in circles as you guys go go about finishing those I couldn't I was shook when Cody said that loosely might be the number one pay in the world someday That was his prediction. I was like whoa. That's that's a bold We can say whatever we want on this podcast. It doesn't matter So I'll give me a couple of, and we'll see where we're at. Cody was catching a lot of flack for people, people saying that he didn't thought as top 10.

He only got like seven, seven people down the list. And then, and then just gave up. It's a bad week to joke about counting to seven. We're all saddened, jumped all over that. But with respect to Mr. Johnson, I will not go down that list. So we had a special emergency podcast come out Wednesday when the changes to the PGA tour, the designated event model was rolled out. I'm not sure exactly how we want to do this tonight, guys about, you know, I don't want

to rehash a ton. I'm going to assume not everyone has gone and listened to that one, although it was pretty highly trafficked. But I'm curious as to, as the week has rolled along, as we've maybe learned a few more details, we kind of recorded that shortly after the announcement, we're reacting kind of in real time. If you guys feel any differently based on kind of reading some people this week, hearing some feedback from people, some of the announcements, based on kind of reading some people this week, hearing some feedback from people, some of the announcements, and any kind of updates to what our thoughts were

to the changes to the tour structure for next year. I'm curious as to how some of the details are gonna work out. I mean, I think we still don't know what events, if any, you're gonna have cuts. I mean, mostly obviously the cuts are gonna be eliminated in the disneyed events, but there still seems like some of that is up for debate. Maybe some of the pushback will create

some more discussion around that. I mean, I think I don't feel like the cut stuff is the most important issue to focus on, although I would like a little bit of clarity about it. Yeah, I don't feel, I still feel like it mostly is a great way to sort of look around and be like, play better. That's ultimately what will win the day.

And I think we're gonna have to talk about Mr. James Hans comments here to talk a few minutes, but I think that for the most part, this is an opportunity to actually help out in some ways the lower tier events. I think that the narrative of like, oh, they fucked the lower tier events to me, it feels totally backwards actually because I think, you know, you and I talked to Sally throughout the week about, look like not a single person in the top 80 went to the John Deere last

year. All of a sudden, if you cut that at 70, that's 10 more guys who might say, all right, I'm gonna add the deer because that's an opportunity for me to play. And so I'm ready to kinda tee it up here. And you know what, this idea that like, oh well, if the guys who are in the designated event

start to play poorly and they slip down the list and they have to add some more events, like, okay, you go to the deer now or you go to the frickin' TPC Craig Ranch. There's gonna be definitely opportunities for those events to be able to sort of showcase like, yeah, actually we do have more players in it this year that we wouldn't have had in previous years. So, I'm skeptical but also kind of optimistic about some of it in the war. First of all, nobody needs to be able to play TPC, Craig Ranch. Nobody.

Okay. You have to go over there, we start to slide down the list of potentially missed people. Like, where was everybody complaining when they, when the tour oversaturated the schedule? Right? Like, like, was everybody wistful and, pouring one out for all of these lower to your events when they kept adding and adding and adding and adding the fall series and added just and just kept glomming on to the schedule. And to me, it's like, you know, James, I want to argue that that guys are and we'll get there, but that, oh my gosh, guys might drop down and add an event to their schedule and then play well in it and earn their way back.

And it's like, yeah, that's the whole point, man. That's what they're supposed to do. That shows that the system works. If a guy drops down and then doesn't win or doesn't play well, then that's not going to benefit him. Like he's getting it through competition. They kind of already screwed over the lower tier events, where it's like, now this is a lifeline for them.

It provides context. There's just such a, I don't know. The ecosystem was so broken already to where it's like, I feel like we're fixing it. And we've been talking about the death panel for so many years now. And there's the tours bloated, the schedules bloated, the, the member list is bloated. There's, you know, 125 guys with cards, but there's really 215 guys with cards and guys can't get into events and all this.

And it's like, cool, well now, you know what? Everybody has a pretty clear picture of where they're gonna start their season. And then there's relegation up and down week to week, which is all we can ask for. And this whole pods thing that they're gonna kind of do, shout out to Kirk Triplet, where like, two events on or kind of do, shout out to Kirk Triplet where like, you know, it's, it's two events on or,

or, you know, kind of taking like from the two or three non elevated events, taking the top five guys from that and putting them into the next elevated event, like, that's sweet, right? That's, that's more, that's more interconnectivity than there is right now on some of these, you know? So I don't know, I'm excited about it. Like, yeah, there's, there's some elements that I don't love. Like I think there should be a cut. I think, I think the messaging around it so far has been pretty poor. We'll see if they can improve that this week. This is a big comms week for the tour with with the players. But yeah, overall, it's like, man, like, let's clean it up a little bit. Let's tighten it up. And there's, there's, you know, I think the whole 12th man on the NBA bench is a pretty apt analogy for this. Like, yeah, you know what? Kevin Durant or LeBron or

Johnis, like, they're not like, yes, they have more power at the table because they are who they are. It's the same thing with Rory or spieth or or Kawa. It's like dude like like James Like that's the fucking way the world works man. It's a meritocracy. Play better. Yeah, we'll get to we'll get to some of James Hans quotes From from this past week. I think where where I'm at is I've really enjoyed the designated events so far I think it's it's gone really well and they've they've been bigger fields Yet I don't think they've been great because of the bigger fields, right? I think it's gone really well. And they've been bigger fields. Yet I don't think they've been great because of the bigger fields, right? I think they've been a success.

And I don't know what the right field size is. Is it 120? Is it 78? Is it 70? I don't like have the answer to that. And I'm just a cautious thumbs up to it being smaller fields. I do think you should have some kind of cut for Saturday. I just don't think we need to base the final round pairings

based off being able to squeeze guys in in different daylight periods and things like that. And I think that need two sums. Need two sums on the weekends. Like that helps the flow of everything so much better. And it's not, I said this earlier this week though, it's not, I think there's a lot of grandstanding going on. A lot of people are pretending

the cuts are way bigger deal than it is. Like I'm sorry, it's just not that big of a deal. It's guys that are performing pretty average to mediocre in that week. They went off the air before the cut was settled on, I didn't even get settled on Friday night. It went to Saturday. There's not like a real actual cut watch cut line.

That's not a real juice that goes into a tournament. Like sure Friday afternoon, like you might have a chance to like follow speed when he's having an off week and see if he makes it, but like do like more cow and miss the cut this week and it just didn't like matter that much. Like did you know the sell cast is so bad in the weekend anyways to even notice who did or didn't make the cut probably not. So that's to say like I don't

I'm surprised at the reaction that seems very... Oh, they ruined everything because they took the cut away. And I'm like, dude, way, way, way more people care about what happens at the very end of the tournament. And if you're 30 shots off the pace, that does not factor in when you get to that point. And who knows, man, let's pretend Ron would have missed the cut this week.

And you're going to go out on Sunday pretend Ram would have missed the cut this week. And like, you're gonna go out on Sunday and you have a chance like with, you know, with your kids, like, go out and watch the number one player in the world play for nine holes. Like, you get to go watch John Ram. And otherwise, he wouldn't have been there. And, I don't know, that just seems like,

it seems like that has been something that people have honed in on so much. And totally ignored that we're gonna get a whole new structure that has the best players in the world playing together way more frequently. And it just like those two things are not, you can't just put like one in the positive, one in the negative column and pretend like those things are kind of offsetting because for me, like 99% of the deal here is the competitive nature of this structure and one is like, all right, some of these details might not be like perfect.

So there was a good cut story this week with that club pro. The club pro guy that made the title of the number. Yes. But like, again, question for you. Yeah. Like, do you think that guy,

if they said, all right, well, we're gonna have a cut, it's gonna be 12 people. The lowest 12, like what constitutes a cut? Is it, is it lopping off? So 72 guys made the cut this week. James power finished 12 over par and finished 21 shots off the lead. So the last guy that made the cut finished 21 shots off the lead, can't imagine, like

tough golf course guy that didn't make the cut, like if they didn't have a cut, it would have been, yeah, it would have been 40, 45 shots off the lead, right? But how many guys do you have to cut off the field for it to be considered a real cut? I think, I mean, can I say the different way?

Can I say the different way in terms of, I think what's important with these events is like you can't hand out FedExCup points to everyone in the field right so let's just say if there's 78 people in the field let's say maybe only top 50 get points right so is that we're going to play two sums. It's going to be 25 groups. And that's like where the cutoff is. Like that to me seems like a compromise. I'm willing to try this no cut thing. Like I I don't I don't think it's going to be an enormous effect that people think it is, but it's it again, just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I would just rather they they folk like the product is, you know, I know people hate it when you say product, but like,

like what we're consuming is golf fans is predicated upon two, you know, two sums on the weekend and decent, you know, TV hours and that sort of thing. And like this does have an effect on that. That's my big thing with the cut is like, it doesn't need to be 75 guys or 80 guys playing on the weekend, at least on Sunday. I think too, like get where you can get the daylight in, like you, they need to be able to get through the whole field. Yes.

That's pretty important. You know, like that, the guys have to finish in the dark, like, that's pretty fricking frustrating. Well, this good comment here from Caleb Donnelly said, I think the blowback was because that was a big criticism of Liv. And like, I get that sentiment. I, again, just think it's so vastly different for like, and we, again, we talk about this on Wednesday,

but like the cut just kind of happened before the tournament, right? It's essentially cut a field in half to start the tournament, right? And this is, you only get to, there's four sponsors exemptions into this. Liv is 48 sponsors exemptions, okay? The whole league is a sponsor exemption. This, the designated events are 98% only get there through qualification of your accomplishments on the golf course, your score. It's not a popularity contest. Sponsors exemptions, those are popularity contests, whatever, put those aside. 74 of 78 of the guys

that are going to be in these fields have earned their way only through play on the course That's an enormous difference. You're not talking about the same thing when it comes to a cut at that point And again, like I just don't think that live not having Cuts in their events is as big of a deal as like it just being a totally closed-off system that you know if you you know I don't know it just very very very different in my mind from what live is putting out. I don't know how you guys feel about that. The devil's in the details, right? Everything's going to be predicated upon how they set up the point structure, how they induce churn, right? Like the fact that, you know, if after the first year or the second year, we talked about this on on Tuesday or Wednesday, like they need to be able to make changes. They need to be flexible

They need to be nimble. They're not going to get it perfect right from the start Based on some of their track record like I don't think that They've gotten it perfect even close to perfect as of right now like to have all these bullshit exemptions They have the top 25 career money exemption. They got they got all these get out of jail free cards And I think the only get out of jail free card that they should have is like Tiger. Like cool. Has anybody won more than 75 tour events?

Cool. If not, like no, no special exemptions or no, you know, like their sponsor exemptions that are up for grabs, maybe due two or three or whatever. But there's just something to be said for like, like it's gonna be tougher to stay in that than it is to beat this other number of guys in the non-designated events and earn your way back up.

I mean, beating the top 30 guys or top 40 guys in the world and staying in that top 50 is gonna be really fucking hard. Like very difficult, you know? I, there's a romantic element to me that I think I'm, I think we're gonna lose a little bit of it. It's not like we're limiting cuts in all of golf. Like there's gonna be US Open Cut, it's gonna be a master's cut, all that stuff.

But like there is something that I think is kind of, sort of, you know, cool about the idea of your trunk slam. And you might not make any money if you're not playing well for months at a time, missed cut after missed cut after missed cut. And so there's an element of, well, that's going away. But I was thinking a lot about this weekend, sports have to evolve in some ways. Like, you know what, there's 17 NFL games. And baseball is talking about bringing in a pitching clock.

And, you know, football is vastly different than it was when I started watching it in 1985. Like, the idea that golf could just sort of stay the way that it was forever because of this, like, oh, well, aren't you, Jack, did this? Like, that isn't going to fly. And so if the answer to, like, the answer to fixing the PJ tour for the Roy McElroy's and the Jordan Spees and

Skydish Elfors and John Roms of the world is, hey, the upper tier wants some sort of guaranteed, if we're going to all play together every week and we're going to have less freedom over setting our schedule, we want at least our expenses covered. We want a minimum salary in this stuff. And that look, there's minimum salaries in every other sport. You know, you make, you make a million dollars to be the 12th man on the bench in the NBA. That's the minimum salary for a rookie. And it

goes up from there. So the idea that like golfers don't deserve some sort of, you know, stipend essentially for being some of the best players in the world when the broadcasts are or trillion dollars, like a billion dollar deals that are going around. I think it's probably kind of antiquated. And the people who are hanging on to it are the same people who said, well, of course, why wouldn't Phil and Dustin Johnson go to do stuff because it's guaranteed money. Like, wouldn't you take the guaranteed money? So I feel like there's a little bit of arguing out of both sides in the mouth in that sense of like, well, you said, you said you know yeah I did say and I agree I did Like the idea of a cut because I felt like you had skin in the game. That was part of the sort of OWR stuff I don't love it. I hope there's still some cuts, but I also realize that there are bigger issues in play

It's so funny to me that we're sitting here talking about cuts and the legacy of the game and the history of the game I got two things for you So funny to me that we're sitting here talking about cuts and the legacy of the game and the history of the game. I got two things for you. For championship, is it fucking staggered? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, it's a handicap to vent. All right.

So that's the first thing. And also the FedEx cup playoffs, like the season long thing is called the FedEx cup. Right? So it's not like anything is really sacred here. Yes. Also, buddy, what's your favorite Miss cut of all time, he's a just stupid thing to like Jack Nicholas 1978 season. Buddy sent this to me. He played in 15 tournaments. You won four times. They were all full field events, three averaged 142 players. British Open had a field of 117. He played in two events with no cuts. Those fields had at only 29 and 26 players.

They also played in eight tournaments that had a reduced field. They averaged 81 players and those tournaments had no cuts. Usually the low 70 players were paid. There were some events such as Nicholas's own memorial that had a reduced field of 76 and it cuts to 73 players. Eight, eight tournaments out of 15 that had reduced fields and average 81 players in those tournaments didn't have

a cut. And people want to talk about fucking history of this thing or the legacy and all that. Like the legacy that Tories used to be that everybody Monday qualified every single week. It's true. And again, like if you were designing golf, there's no way you'd look at it and be like, dude, more, more of these guys should be out here. Like we need to add numbers 125 through 156 in the world to this.

Like that means, me, last year was not in the tournament this week. How could we possibly consider this a designated event? It's an asterisk for Kurt Ketayama because of the guys that did not get into this field. It's it's a joker. Let's you want to get into some of some of Hans comments here. I think there's it it's it's a struggle. I think what we're going to do is I'm going to read James. I'm going to play the role tonight of James Han. Okay. And I'm going to read his comments. I'm going to ask you and T.C. to react to them because I think it's an important look.

James Han was on the player advisory council. James Han was involved in decisions to shape the future of the PJ tour. And so James Han is now continuing to put himself out there. I think we all agree with some comments that seem a little bit ill informed or perhaps a clarify. He was a player director on the board. He had a vote. He was one of nine guys that had one of four players that had a vote on policy at the

PGA tour. So if you didn't see, just if you're coming to this podcast without being deep into the morass of golf Twitter, James gave an interview with golf week, Adam Schupack, again, Adam doing a great job of getting to people to talk to, you know, broke the Bryson stuff and equipment stuff, you know, last week, getting this James interview, really one throw shout out to him, because we're a level scoop this week.

Talk about, yeah, the level scoop, we're allowed to talk about the limit of stuff because, you know, someone like Adam is out there doing reporting, so shout out to that. But talk to James on the phone, and James really kind of went off about how terrible he thinks this New structure is for players like James Han and basically

We're gonna sort of dig into his quotes here First one right off the bat. I would like you guys to respond to his James says right now They're just covering their ass and saying everything the PGA tour has basically trained them to say Have taught them to say and try to make it not about the money. When everyone knows 100%, it's about more guaranteed money being funneled to the top players in the world. We've been talking about money for the last two years. For them to say that it's not the number one reason why they're making these changes. It is very, very hypocritical.

So I try and I turn it over to you now to please respond to that first part. I don't even need to respond. I'm trying to give some sympathy here and saying I understand that Han was on the policy board specifically to represent like his class of player. Right? The reason why he says these things is because he feels a responsibility to represent the rest of the tour that he represents. I'm excusing that. I'd say that does not excuse the ignorance that comes with where 99% of the value of

professional golf is created. I think that comes from the top players. I think one of the issues that the PGA tour has had is those top players have subsidized the rest of the tour for a long period of time. It is, of my opinion, that the rank and file of the tour has essentially held the rest of the tour hostage. And it's greatly contributed to the very diluted product that we see every week, right?

So in my opinion, things desperately needed to change. A lot of the leadership at the tour agreed with this and what live has given us is, has given the top players is some leverage to finally say like, hey, James Hans, like this is how you've wanted it and had it for a long time. You know, I've seen your plan. My dad's plan is better. And let's go think about how we actually grow the pie here. You can leverage us. Like, if again, if I'm looking at what Rory has done, does Rory stand to benefit a lot from this?

Absolutely. He does. I could get way down with what Han is saying if I felt like Rory's robbing from Han to pay himself. When if you really dig into it, sure, freaking seems like those top guys have given a shitload of consideration to the rank and file membership of the tour and how they've gone about making these decisions. And just doesn't seem to me like, Hey, yeah, we are talking about more money here, like

James, we are. Like, I don't know what the point is of saying that out in public. Like, that's not really the vibe that anyone's looking for, but that also means more money for you. That also means the pie grows. Like, if overall, if more people are playing together, more money comes in. You guys are going to be playing for still plenty of money in the standard events. We're going to be playing for more money in the elevated events.

Like everyone should win here. Should the top players going to win more than you're going to win? Yes. Is that fair based on every like the way things currently are in golf? I would certainly say so. So I, it just is kind of frustrating to read that and just be like, dude, like, there are people working really hard to try to make this a lot better for everyone, for fans and for players alike.

And I don't think that attitude really helps that. And then this that like you said it a bunch of times. So the status quo isn't, isn't workable. It's not like the other option. It's not the other option. It's no long growing up. And the whole, the whole reason that live had the window to do this in the first place was because,

like the, the tour setup was fucked up to begin with, right? And it was way too, way too spread across. Like in James, James seems to want one of those McDonald's apple pies. It's really, really small. And he wants a really big portion of that where like, you get a, you know, a big extra large apple pie, but give him a small sliver and he's still getting more apple pie, but he doesn't, doesn't seem to understand that. Something else

I'll say too is like it doesn't, it blows me away that everybody talks about the top players as like this, this, you know, cabal or this, this, this, this, this, this, you know, cabal, or the, this, this, this, this, this, you know, mysterious group that's like operating, seriously behind scenes, like the fucking Rothschild, right of the Rockefellers, like, no, guys, like, it's literally just the best play, like the guys who played the best this year. And yes, I know they're making a change for future years, but like, it's not like this isn't closed off. They don't get to keep their spot. Weird. Yeah, they're not right.

It's not like a Supreme Court nomination. You get to stay as one of these top players as elite players for the rest of your life. It's like, no, like, like, look at Ricky Fowler. Like, you know, he would have been one of the guys five years ago. And now it's like, it's not sniffing that right now. You know, he'd be playing in all these Lord's Year events and he still supports that, right? And not to mention, they're doing away with half the pip.

They're bringing the pip back down to 50 million. They're making it more about on-course performance and everything. So. I want you to keep going, Kate, because I think we're going to be under on a lot of stuff here, but keep going here, KVV. All right.

I'm later said that they have created these elevated events, which significantly impacts other full-field events, sandwich in between the full-field events. The solution to their problem is to limit the number of players that get into elevated events and force the other players to play in other full-field non-elevated events. I'm just going to stop there because I feel like that's not really a complaint. That feels sort of like the solution, but I'm going to go ahead and pass it up to you guys because I'm just the reader here. I'm not the answer. Again, maybe I was overly convinced by Peter Melnotti who came on our podcast this past

week and talked about why he changed his mind. I think he thought very similar to James and has changed his mind, but I don't get the sense that like forcing the other players to play in the other full field events is a bad thing. Like it seemed like a concern when this, all these things were being talked about was like, how well, how are the other events gonna survive? Like, they're gonna get decimated to that. I would say like one, look at what's already happened

to the Honda classics. Look at the Puerto Rico. They're already decimated. And two, it's like, hey, no, no, like this is, you know, I got a chance to look at a little bit of data that I know the tour guides are looking at when making these decisions. But essentially, it's like, all right,

the downstream effect of this is, if they ended up with 120 guys in the designated field events compared to this 70 to 80, whatever it is, they would basically be filling out the standard events with about 50% of the field coming from the FedEx Cup, Top 1, 25 from the prior year, right? Like half the field would come from Top 125 players in the PGA tour.

Yet if you limit the designated event to between the 70 and 80 number, they're now expecting the standard event feels to be filled out by about 72% of that field will be made up of top 125 players, right? So instead of like worrying, like, who's going to sponsor these lower tier events, all that? Like, no, no, no, we are going to force you. Again, that quote being that word being doing a lot of work in there to say like, Hey, like, I don't know, name 51, 53, 55 on the previous year's FedEx cup, they're going to go play that event. And that is going to be helpful to some of these events that don't pull anyone. And so to me, and again, now when you talk about those standard events, those sound competitive as fuck to me.

That sounds like some of the guys I've been texting with and asking about are like, dude, like it's, I wanna complain about this, but it's a pretty much, it's a play better situation, right? Like I have a chance to play for money, I've never gotten a chance, I've never played for before, and through good play on the golf course,

I'm gonna get there. Like it is open, it is possible. I think they could have made the system way more closed off and I think they could have had legitimate complaints about it. I think those concerns were heard and factored in and ultimately reached a decision that like, I don't know if it's gonna be great. I don't know if it's gonna be perfect,

but I don't really have a better idea than what they've come up with, which we throw a lot of ideas on. Step in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't know, like people are gonna what they've come up with, which we throw a lot of ideas on. We throw a lot of ideas on. We throw a lot of ideas on. Yeah. No, I don't know. People are going to accuse us of daycriding or whatever.

But I'm a member of the local six, 13 chapter. But yeah, I mean, it's like, yeah, yeah. I'm probably the most critical person of the folks down the road at the global home that there is, right? And I have no doubt that they're going to fuck some things up on this and not get the details, right? And I think the communication's been awful. I think Monahan is just completely absent.

And, you know, but also he's done a good job of keeping some of these sponsors in the boat. But just going down, like, I mean, earlier this week, we couldn't even get 125 from the FedEx couple last year. We couldn't get the, because the website doesn't work. So, Sal, I know we're gonna lose some work, guys. Yeah, but they're going to lose, because of that. I mean, the website doesn't work. So, I know we're gonna lose some more guys. Yeah, but they're going to the websites. I mean, the app doesn't work.

But I'll just run through some guys that are outside of that. Like, Hatton was 49th. Metaproero was 50th. Christian Bizzadenholt 51st. Tommy Fleetwood 64th. Chez 65th. Alex Noren 70th. Chris Kirk Kirk 68. That's another point. DC I think people think there's way way bigger names that are sitting outside of the top

of whatever engulfed that are absolutely not that's that's it's really not the case. But it's like all right. So Joel Damon's not was was 90 second last year. Had a great year. 90 second. That's pretty crazy, right? Like he's he's going to have to play really well to get into these. That's interesting in and of itself. Yes. Right. Like the the jockeying to get in to these events is as interesting as these events

themselves. And again, like I haven't modeled all of this out. But again, it seems more competitive than what the current structure of the Tories are less flat, right? There's like, it's just a lot more consequence from week to week on, you know, instead of it being just a total FedEx cup summary at the end of the year and kind of relying on a lot of last year stuff, like there's stuff to play for week to week that just seems a lot more interesting.

And man, it's just like the more I think about it, the more they're just lobbying for like literally for like the not as good at golf players. Like they're just like, yeah, I know this is going to get more competitive, but like I'm not as good and that's going to be harder for me. It's like, well, what the fuck are we doing here guys? We're talking about again, trying to make the best events better and we're sitting here saying like, all right, well, no, I'm not as good. That's going to be a bad thing for music. Yeah, it might be, it might be and guess what the solution to that is play better. I'm sorry.

It's not like it's, it's not my problem. I mean, Ricky Fowler, Justin Rose, Jason Day, Brooks, Kebka, all those guys would have been playing the John Deere last year. That's a bad thing for the tour. That's fucking awesome. He's young deer. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm the, I'm the tournament director of the John Deere. I'm freaking pretty thrilled. The Ricky Fowler might have to come to my Terry Woodlands T and up in your tournament, right? You get you get some of these these star players and then you also get the up and comeers. It's the best of both worlds. I also think like the the biggest point that you have to make in a lot of ways. Like it might not the lower tier tournaments are not getting less money. It's that the biggest tournaments are getting more money. Like if it would one thing, we're like, all right, look,

now purses and the lower tier tournaments are gonna be like, I know, like million bucks. So here's your 300,000 bucks if you win. No, that's not happening. It's just they're staying the same and more of the money is going towards the people who are actually the reason that you tune in every week And if you win those tournaments, you can get up into that upper tier and

Like the person's have doubled have like doubled over the last eight to ten years. Why because of tiger? Yeah, right and guess who's in favor of this tiger? So everybody shut the fuck up All right speaking of TC James to me. I don't want to take a run at Tiger because but he did bring up Tiger in this said I use the word popular player instead of best players because granted Tiger is one of the best players to ever have played the game, but he just won the pit money two years running without playing any golf without being ranked in the top 1000 without keeping his card. I would never have imagined growing up that someone could make more money

just for being popular than how good they are on the course. And I say that as one who believes pay that man for bringing all the stuff to us. We're a business. We're a company. We're not spending money to provide the best playing experience for our members. We're all concerned with just pushing money towards the top players on the tour.

That's where we're getting this great divide, because you know, the elevator events and non-elevants, the players who play on two different tours. I now turn it over to you, respond of someone who is suggesting that perhaps Tiger Woods should not have been paid an enormous amount of money. When, in fact, he probably did more for anybody, including Palmer to build this tour, what it is.

Guess when that got approved, James Han was on the board. I think he voted against it though. He was the, he was the lone vote against it. Was he vociferous then too? I think he was, but it was Jordan Speet's eyes that convinced the vote here, which we'll, we'll get to that. I just want to skip to that. That's okay. Look, I don't think it. Go ahead. I don't know that that would really,

I mean, that's so kind of absurd and like suggesting that Tiger doesn't really, that the pit money in general is like a bad idea if Tiger is getting it for not playing. Like, you look, Tiger's still the reason that we're all, the Tiger's the reason we're doing this podcast. He's the reason that like, we have our jobs that we do. These are the reason that James Hans certainly has his job.

He's the reason that tons of guys got into golf. I think you could really not pay him enough money to sort of make everything like we're good on the contribution that you've brought to the game of golf. I think it of all of his points like hip being a concern is the one that I think is maybe one of his better ones, right? And I think I'm pro, like paying a lot of these top guys, like entertainment dollars, the dudes that, you know, put the butts in seats, put viewers, sign the sponsors up,

like they should get chipped off something. They shouldn't make the same amount of money as William McGurk makes when you tie that guy. Like it's just a different, you're providing different value, right? So in the old flat environment of all of these events, like some events have a little bit more money to them, but not really, like the the pip made a lot more sense and the the pip going from 50 million to 100 million

still made sense to be I don't know what the right number is. I don't think they executed it right, but whatever like it makes sense on that front. Now that we are restructuring this so these top players and and by and large, mostly the popular players are gonna have greater chances to play for more money, like more frequently, less pit money makes sense. I think it going from a hundred million to 50 million makes more sense in the new system than it just continually going up. So in that regard, like I don't fully disagree,

I still think he grossly misrecognizes the value that those guys bring to the sport and to how the, I don't know, gestures wildly here. The entire landscape of professional golf has changed in the last three years and like paying those guys and retaining their talents on the PGA tour was very big deal. Look, did they execute it great? No, like half of the first round of PIP guys left for live anyways, but like that idea makes sense. A factor in your decision, if you're Patrick Cantley, if you're Zander Shoffley, is, hey, I'm also,

I'm gonna make this much on course and also this much off course. Like, look, it's lived probably more money, yes, but hey, it's also still paying me very handsomely. I'm probably gonna stick with this tour. It's hard to tell how much work that pip did in that regard of, you know, when things look pretty darn fragile as of August

last year how much work the pipped it there. There's also some some things going on with live where like all right cool your your endorsement deals aren't going to get reupped right or your teams getting your endorsement deals all that stuff you're gonna you know they're they're talking about these team budgets are are now going to be subsidized by the team payouts. Like there's some money being left on the table if you go to live as well. And this stuff compounded over 5, 10, 15 years of a good DJ tour career. Yeah, of course it's not going to be given to you. You got to go earn it. But man, it's gotten a hell of a lot more compelling. I think something else too is going back to the early 2010s,

when Bill Haas, no offense, I love Bill Haas. No offense to Bill Haas or Brant's Nettaker. But when those guys were winning the FedEx Cup and that's the big pile of money at the end of the rainbow, that's not necessarily the best use of funds either. There should be, I think, juicing up some of these regular season purses is a massive win because like all, you know, and all the everybody should be stoked about it. And so I had the top 50 of the top 70 and all these guys think that they're good enough to be a top

50 or top 70 player. That's why they're out there, right? So I think there's, there's definitely like increasing the sample size of, hey, if you win a tournament, you're going to get three or four million dollars. Seems like a more equitable and fair way to do things than, hey, you know what, you got hot at the right time of the year and you're going to win $10 million and all the other tournaments worth $800 grand. Now granted, there also, I think the FedEx Cup is also going up as well, so you can kind of have your cake and eat it too. But I think in order to get there, it does place more emphasis on the regular season. Next James expressed some frustration

that he had raised some ideas about the PIP and that no one had listened to him, that what Patrick Cantler got on the board, that he didn't want any PIP money, even though he won the FedEx Cup. And he sort of said, you know, look, I'd rather we played for it and those the PIP. And James said, why would they listen to him and not me? The message is the same. It's because he has a higher world ranking than I do.

He has one more golf term that I have, and his net worth is triple what I'm worth. Does any of that matter when the message is the same and the correct message? It happened before when Jordan Speeth was on the board, and the four independent directors listen to players that have a higher world rank than those who don't. That's just my personal experience. After my first year on the board, I wanted to resign because I didn't feel like my voice was being heard. I felt like they were listening to Jordan, which granted, he's very smart, very well spoken, he articulates his words in a way that I never could, and he gets his message across. He's very likable in person in those meetings. On and off the course, I have nothing but the most respect for Jordan.

But you can see how when he talks that everyone's eyes in the room is just glimmer, he's the protein that everyone wants to ask her out for the dance. When Jordan would talk about an executive in the board's meetings, the independent director started blushing, oh my gosh, Jordan's talking to me. How awesome is this? Well, as I turn it over to you, and if you can explain how the real world works to James, and that stars.

And we need, he explains it. Like he thinks he's making a point, but he talks for long enough that he comes around to be like, well, listen, he's smarter than me and speaks better and also like as a higher ranking in the game. But like, yeah, for some reason, like all these like titans of industry that, you know, like understand a lot about business and a lot of different parts of business. For some reason, they really liked his plan a lot more than mine, which I really don't know why.

I think it's just because of his eyes. I think it's when he flutters his eyes at these, these people like they to fall in love and they listen to what he says. It can't be the merit of what he's saying. I'm sure it's just like him, you know, just because he's got so much star power. Which Jordan had some great, great points this week. Like in shoe packs piece about pebble, right? Jordan was riding from making pebble one of the designated events next year.

And it makes total sense of like, yeah, like Jordan seems, seemingly has good ideas and has some good perspective on things. Also, like I don't think anybody listens to Patrick Cantley according to a lot of the other players we talked to. So, you know what James, you and Patrick are actually in the same boat. You know, I mean Patrick's subcontractors may listen to him, but not, you know, not any of his fellow players. I think he's just conflating like the fact that he has representation in that room does not mean that like people are gonna agree

with your points or that they're good points or that it's good for the tour. Like again, you're there to represent you writing as hard as you can for your class of players. I don't think you are viewing this through the best possible thing for the PGA tour. That's where if I listen to your quotes, it seems heavily motivated by what you think is best for the middle to lower class

player and not what is best for the tour. And also like separate note, I just also disagree with what is actually better for your class of player because I don't think you're really listening as to how this is going to work well for you guys. Even like making the case, he's just not doing a good job making the case. No. Like if you were, if I was one of these, you know, 110, 120 players that wanted, it was vehemently against this, I would have a big problem with James Han representing me

because he seems like a fucking idiot. Yes. And I've got that, I asked like six, seven different people around Hans class of player this week via text for something we were trying to write and didn't end up publishing, but just like, what do you think? On a scale of James Hans, to Peter Maldonati, where are you on the changes? And some of it was like, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty skeptical, but like whatever to like, yeah, that he's an idiot.

Like, that's this is way off. And so it's interesting to, I just, I don't really know who he's representing which I think in the next quote He may indicate at least one guy that he's representing because there's there's good points to be made Right, he's just not making them. Yeah, that's part of the problem. It's like James like you need to play better on in off the golf course James obviously did not appreciate Peter Monardi going on a couple of podcasts this week and basically endorsing the plan after sort of submitting that he came around to it. Said, when I see Peter, I'm going to tell him exactly what Lanto Griffin told me when I was put in that position.

And my mind was swayed by the executives on the board. He said, you were put there for a reason to voice the opinion of the majority of the players in the PGA tour. If he doesn't have enough balls to sack up and vote against it, then I don't want him on the board. We pick the wrong guy. He was put there to argue our side of the discussion. If it's going to pass regardless, but he doesn't have enough balls to vote against it and take a stance that I did for what he believes in, then he shouldn't be on the board.

We don't need another person like that on the board if you can't stick up for us. Let's be honest, it would have passed. They had enough votes to pass. It's just a cop out to prevent the media, yourself, Alan Shipnuck, so the world, we're asking him why he voted no. If he doesn't have the courage to do it, go into the lion's den, then he should get out.

We need somebody else in there. I did it, right? And everyone saw how I was treated. James has big coalition of the willing vibes. And it's like, like who? Like maybe the majority of the tour has shifted, right? Maybe, hey, maybe there's too many, there's too many mouths to feed at the table,

which we've been saying for years. And B, maybe most of those mouthsows have kind of come around to this, just like Peter did, I would say pretty courageously, right? Like it's a pretty humbling thing to change your mind on something that you've been staunchly against and publicly against. It's a pretty humbling thing to do a complete 180 on it and say, you know what, hand up, I was wrong. I thought about this a little bit differently. I've thought about it a lot, and I'm going to change my mind on this.

That's not an easy thing to do. The easier thing is to just dig your heels in and keep going, keep throwing good after bad or bad after good or whatever it is. But man, it's like, like, like, James, maybe the tour is just moving on without you, dog. Oh, he admits that later on. If we'll get there again, he's all over the place. But I think like this is a very telling quote in general, you know, to what you're saying there, T.C. He's essentially saying in the face of information that would, you know, potentially change his mind and better serve his class of members, he would still vote no. It's like, dude, if you want to debate Peter Montenegro on the reasons of why he flipped, like, I would listen to no. It's like, dude, if you want to debate Peter Montenegro

on the reasons of why he flipped, like, I would listen to that. I would love to hear exactly why, but putting your fingers in your ear and stopping your feet and throwing a tantrum for the sake of holding your ground is, in my opinion, exactly why you should not be driving policy on the PGA tour, right? I mean, again, if I if I really thought if he had his way that the middle class player was better served, I could understand this. I could really understand it. You're fighting and clawing, you know, but again, I just don't think the top players are reaching into your pockets to rob you out of anything related to your career. And you know what? Refrancing Lanter Griffin. And you know what, referencing Lanter Griffin, who's one once out there in his 34 years old and his best golf probably behind him. It's like it, it feels a lot like James is, he thinks his constituency

are guys like the top 125 on the PGA tour in 2013. And all those guys are still pro, most of those guys are still probably playing golf. But like, man, like, you know what, like that's not the future, that's not how the tour is gonna look in two years, much less five years. And at some point, it's like, like you gotta represent the guys

that are on the PGA tour right now, not the guys that were on the PGA tour five years ago. Well, and don't you think there should be a pretty big hurdle to clear in terms of like, dude, you don't understand like these are the worst players. Like this is what we need to be doing for them, right? Like in this extremely competitive sport, like I know, like there should be a big hurdle to clear for like why less talented players should be getting more of the pie or more consideration in all

of this. Like that's a pretty big hurt. All right. I gotta say, it sounds a lot like James really wants to form a union. And listen, if you're gonna go down that route, let's have a conversation because, you know, I'm a big fan of an organized labor. But I don't think that's what the BGA tour was built on. I don't quite know how all these libertarian guys have suddenly just discovered socialism

and they really feel like, ROM and Rory should take less to sort of help them out and boost up their careers, which are definitely as they will admit, like on the way out. But you know what, like if you were saying that the gov are all good of golf, that that's what you want, then make that argument. Don't tip to it. Say it with your whole chest because I'm here for it. If you want a union to, you know, collective bargain against yourselves, there's not a group of owners that you're bargaining against like at other major sports, but it's a player-run

organization. But yeah, anyways. The whole thing of just like, like, like, oh my gosh, it's crazy that the best players, the most successful players who've earned this have this big seat at the table. It's like, yeah, like, sorry, Lanto, you're, you're world number 194 right now. Like, your opinion doesn't count for as much as world number four. All right, we're going to wrap it up with his last tonne quote this in this week in James Hans tweets or talking discussion, whatever.

He says, I'm going to play the remainder of this year with full status. And then next year, I'll probably end up with conditional status, past champion status. And I'll play in those opposite field events and then retire the following year because I mean, I'm older. I can't really hang with these younger stars of our game. I mean, they're really good. They're really good. But also, I don't feel like the tour is going in the direction

that the majority of the PGA tour players like. That speaks for itself, right? Like there's not even the point where you really need to say. And you know what? Since he said that, let's get rid of the opposite field events so that James Han can't play in them. Because you know what? Nobody's gonna be playing in the non-designated events according to him anyway. So why should we need opposite field events so that James Khan can't play in them because you know what? Nobody's going to be playing in the non designated events according to him anyway.

So why should we need opposite field events? Right? I, I can, I'm going to give him big benefit out here and that I'm giving him credit in terms of like that he is also like sticking up for like future players that are not himself directly. Right. Like that's how he views his role. Do I think his path of getting there is like the right one and do I think he's making

good points? No, I don't. Like there's something noble to that, right? Like he's taking that part of the role seriously. And to that, I commend, I guess, if you will. But like, again, like we're talking about the bottom half the tour. And when he talks about like majority of PGA tour players,

part of the reason why we got here is because the majority of PGA tour players are not the ones that drive the majority of the value. And that had to shift and that's what has shifted. So like if he says that I don't feel that, you know, the majority of PGA tour players like the direction it's going, one, I kind of believe him because two, I think like if they are think like James does, I don't think they're very well informed about what direction the PGA tour is going.

And maybe they do end up getting totally screwed. I, I don't want to sit here and promise that they won't, but I've not heard it spell out that way. If you listen and talk to Roy McAroy about this stuff, like probably more concessions made than they would like to give, you know, to the rank and file members of the PGA tour. And again, those purses I've not seen, I do not think they're going down. I think you're going to play for eight and a half, nine million dollars in standard events on the PGA tour with the opportunity to get into 20 million dollar events through great play. I don't, unless you're just not good at golf, I don't see who doesn't ride for

this. I, I, yes, look, the way I viewed it was like, if somebody random came up to you and said, KVV, I'm going to buy you a million dollar house. Here's your house. Go move into it. Go enjoy it. You're going to love that, right? And they came up to me and we're like, Sali, here's your two million dollar house. Go enjoy it. Go live in it. Wouldn't you look at it a little bit like, Oh, well, shit, man. Why did he get a way better than me when you already got something great? That's what this thing feels like to me of like, yeah, it's gonna get better for the top guys

and that's what he can't handle. That's what he can't grasp is like how much better it's about to get for them and despite it not getting worse for him, it's a reallocation of how things are gonna get distributed. Your piece of the pie is gonna be a lower percentage but in total it's gonna be as good or better probably. Let's move on and let's all agree that that's the best thing possible for golf.

I honestly think you're point about Rory. Like, Rory, you could have someone much more ruthless and much more sort of dickish in that position. Phil. Right. And Rory's, I mean, look, Rory's kind of like, all right, look, we're trying to figure this out so that people feel like they're being listened to in respect to it. Like, possessions we're making like we could go and leave and there will be no PGA to her left But we're let's stick it here and let's figure out a model that works for everybody and then still like I know you're screw it I don't know me. I'm like maybe not like do you really want to know what the alternative is here like because it's that your class of player doesn't exist anymore That's probably the other all three right like. Right? Like, all right, cool.

You want to talk about live, James? Cool. Like, all right, there's 48 guys on that. And they've all, none of them have, they've all been asked to go play that. And then the other ones are planned for a pittance on the Asian tour, right? Or like, Sully, in your house example, the reason that you were given that $2 million

house is because you played better than KVV. Well, like it's not like you were just giving it just arbitrarily, right? Although, I mean, you know what, like maybe, maybe James is just coming at it just from like a mega, mega left liberal socialist point of view. Maybe he's truly just like a cow bear through and through.

Right? I mean, dude reads Elon Musk way too much. Right. That'd be true. So, but it doesn't like the liberal golf pundits either. No. It's just funny to me that like, you know, these purses and like the money out there has just proliferated.

And it's like 10X what it was 20 years ago, right? And so somehow, you know, like, and it's probably out of balance, all boats rise, and but they didn't funnel quite enough to the top players. And I think most guys out there would say, like how many guys that we have on the podcast that have said, like Tiger, Tiger's the most underpaid athlete in sports, or Tiger,

you know, like, like I owe this percentage of my career earnings to Tiger. All that. And it's like, all right, well, like what drives the value, what drives the revenue? It's stars. It's guys that are teeing it up week after week that people are tuning in to the NBC and CBS to watch. And the way out of this is like more stars playing in these events.

So the ratings go up so that, you know, the rate like those commercials are worth more. is like more stars playing in these events so the ratings go up so that, like those commercials are worth more, you don't have to play as many commercials. And it's like when James, James, when you're on the leaderboard, those commercials are worth less. Straight up. Like nobody gives a shit about you,

except for the gang-nom style dance that you did on the 16th green and Phoenix in 2013. That's the only notable thing. You've won twice, good wins, but like nobody gives a shit, nobody's tuning in to these tournaments. You've been one of the most overpaid athletes on the planet over the last 10 years. I've just been right. I'm just scared to say, man, we don't mean to make this personal. Like, nobody reality like a lot of my, we're directly a lot of this ad hit, but it's like, it's directed at again, Tor inertia and

Tor policy and the rank and file members, the tour. And again, like shout out to him for like putting this out there. And again, if he wasn't a policy driver, it probably wouldn't be worthy of conversation. There's just a lot of this out there. And again, if he wasn't a policy driver, it probably wouldn't be worthy of conversation. There's just a lot of opinions out there. But it's, you know, he puts out a lot to react to. And again, it's just like a great, I think it's an incredible window

into how all of this has worked over a long period of time. And there's a new world order. And it's gonna change. So. Yeah, and you're setting it up for guys to bet on themselves, right? Like, like young guys are gonna wanna come to the. So yeah, and you're setting it up for guys to bet on themselves, right? Like, like, like young guys are going to want to come to the PGA tour, bet on themselves,

make a shitload of money if they play well. That stems the tide from guys going to live that are that are attracted by dollar signs. It's, it's just crazy to me that like, that. I guess what is the definition of a PGA tour player? Is it the top 125? Is it a lifetime member? Is it a guy that finished 176th on the money list? Like what's, what are we talking about when we're talking about a PGA tour member? Yeah.

And I don't know. Yeah, right? I'm asking the question. I don't. That's part of the problem, I'd say. So that's a long pod. You all have a. I hopeful that that's the last ever this week in James Haunt,

to take with you, we have to do. But I was a good one. Yeah, it was. Let that be this sort of the final word, hopefully. But you never know. He could fire off a series of anger tweets. Cody Bord over there. Riveting stuff, gentlemen, just so such an exciting listen.

A question here from Connor L. Has he responded to coming on the pod? Has not. Didn't seem to be a fan of some of some of the tweets, so I don't think that I'll necessarily be the case. I should send a miss on this. I'll get to a question here from Ian McDermott. Is that he's? Oh, and Owen McDermott. Is that he's? Oh, and Owen McDermott. That's the Irish spelling. I always mess that one up.

And you're not the Irish. You're going to get sure. I am trying. I'm trying. Any news on DP World Tour getting anything out of this? What happened to them getting a designated event? Rory commented on that this week. I don't know if that's going to happen in 2024,

but I think that that is at least on the radar. I think, and I hope that to be the case. I hope they get to. I think there should be back least on the radar. I think, and I hope that to be the case. I hope they get to. I think there should be back-to-back designated events. One thing that came out of that too, I don't know if it's public knowledge that people realize or it's been talked about that. Everyone's like, what is DP World Tour getting out of this?

What are they getting? What are they getting? What are they getting? I don't know if I knew this that PGA Tour is guaranteeing purses on the DP World Tour. That seems like a not small thing in terms of this development. Why are they doing that? I knew this that PGA tour is guaranteeing purses on the DP World Tour. That seems like a not small thing in terms of this development. Why are they doing that?

Part of the strategic alliance. Strategic alliance, baby. Strategic strategy. But that just seems like, you know, everyone seems like the DP World Tour is getting totally screwed. I feel like that is like the DP World Tour, like being able to pay out the money for the scheduled events. Like that seems like a relatively good contribution in the PGA tour is making to them.

I think they're probably could and should be ways to qualify through the DP world tour for the designated events. There should be more continuity and kind of, you know, maybe coast sanctioned events, Scott has to open something like that. But at the same time, that was kind of something that was like, oh, shit, I don't know if that's really fully out there. So I want to get at least a bit out there.

Very WGC thinking of you, Sally. Well, how so? I think a little bit of it is the tour could be doing more outward. They could, again, communications. They could be telling this story better. They could be, why isn't this on their website? I got to say, maybe they're gonna announce the next week, obviously, but like,

it's out there, we're talking about it, and people will wanna go and read this stuff. There's nowhere to go on the website. No communications information. Which is gotta be frustrating. I know people have said, like, where can I go read about this stuff? If you got to come to like,

knowlingup.com to figure out what the PGA tours next does need to schedule is going to look like next year, that's a mistake in messaging. Totally. I mean, or it's just, it's not even a mistake. It's just an absence of messaging. Yeah, this entire week's been a shitshow when it comes to messaging. And hopefully, I don't know. Maybe the Tuesday presser clears a little bit of it up, but it's nuts. Maybe the Tuesday presser clears a little bit of it up, but it's, it's nuts. But it's like we're going, we're going four, five, six, eight months without seeing Jay Monahan in front of microphones, like even just casual meetings with the media.

There's no line of communication between the tour and the fans except for the worry. I think I told you this strong one. It's like, I went to write about Duane Wade. It was like a young reporter. I was like, Rewade was a rookie. And David Stern was at the game. And I was like, can I talk to David Stern? And he was like, yeah, wandered all over, talk to David Stern for 15 minutes. Like that's kind of a commissioner's job. Like if you're sort of seeing yourself as like promoting stuff, I think it's time for, you know, that sort of thing to happen. If he's not comfortable with it, then he needs to get more comfortable with it, because that's part of it.

Yeah. And it's, I mean, I couldn't even find the fucking FedEx cup standing from last year on the website, guys. Also, question, why isn't there, why isn't there a, a big ass tournament in London? I know we got the BMW PGA. Maybe that's the future elevated designated event. But like, how is there not like a Heathland? Let's do Waln Heath. Let's do it. Walden Heath, Sunningdale.

You know, there's any number of places. Shit, take it to Walden. I don't even like Walden. We're take it to Walden. But like London, it's like one of the biggest markets in the entire fucking world. And we just haven't had any any big golf tournaments there. This is going to be DC's version of down the globe in terms of places where there should be there should be golf events for two hours. Yeah, we talked about Albert and all the you know all those places but like no like all right London's a pretty pretty easy easy win I think. Any housekeeping before we wrap I'm going to I'm going to start waving the flag at 210 here.

Big big big. I just big week coming. Big week coming. Big week coming. We got to do some film and tomorrow. Then we have players week here in Jacksonville looking forward to that. Love of players championship preview podcast out on Tuesday. We will have live shows after every round of the players championship.

We are very writing. And so forget writing writing going on with KVV. I hope you have time for that. every round of the players championship. We are very excited. And so forget writing, writing going on with KVV. I hope you have time for that with all the live shows we're gonna be doing as well here. Hope that, but we will, we'll be out in full force and we're very, very excited for all that. We had a robust trap draw,

drop overnight last night. We've got Oscars trap draw drop in tomorrow. Got our goal boy merch collection in honor of our guy drop in this. All right, I think it dropped last week. And then guys, I just want to say to Aimpoint, it's a disgrace. Hell yeah, let's go to see. I mean, how come on, like 90 seconds on one of the green's aim pointing. It was so bad. And then I don't know if you guys saw the video of The young lady in the collegiate event this week Stepping in lines aim pointing. She was stepping

Not only stepping on the lines stepping on the whole stepping on the cup What's great. What are we doing? Take it away. It's insane. Take it away Take it away. There will be there will be a Perfect club pod coming up just coming out to what Monday or is that right? Oscar's pod. And then there'll be another one later in the month about succession. I know Neil is psyched. He's been doing the rewatch. He's getting deep into the rewatch. He's getting giddy. Thank you everyone for tuning into another live show. Thank you to our friends at high noon for supporting the live shows.

We will again, like I said, we got four more coming this week, a lot of content and very excited for players week. So thank you, everyone. Are we doing the ice for players week? We probably should. We will fill up the Yeti. We'll make sure it stays cool through the whole week. And we'll keep you posted on that.

We'll be doing the show's live from the kill house. So we actually are very excited about that as well. We'll be sure to. Pump to get to Florida. Can't wait, man, we'll see you this week, buddy. Ring it, safe travels. And again, thanks everyone. We'll see you next week.

Cheers. Good right club. Be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most.

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