No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 657: Valspar Recap + Billy Horschel on the distance debate

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

We've got a two part pod on this Sunday night as Soly and KVV make sense of Taylor Moore's win at the Valspar as Adam Schenk, Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood come close at Innisbrook. We also offer some thoughts on LIV Tuscon, the guys who will be competing in the upcoming majors, and the lackluster tv ratings.  Then in part two, (54:10) Billy Horschel joins KVV and Soly to offer his perspective on the distance debate in light of this week's announcement from the USGA and R&A. Soly and KVV also offer some reactions Billy's opinions after our conversation as well.  Episode Notes: USGA Distance Insights report: https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/advancing-the-game/distance-insights.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. always a treat to talk about the Valsbar and other assorted things. It is the two of us here tonight. We could not rally too many people to talk about Taylor Moore. We have an interview coming up shortly that we recorded yesterday,

actually with Billy Horschl. Wanted to get a tour players perspective on the distance roll back. We're going to try to separate all the distance stuff onto the back half of the pod. This episode is brought to you by our friends at foot joy, the number one shoe and golf, the number one shoe on tour every year since 1945 that includes, of course,

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Also editorializing this. This this whole part here is it comes to a cushionette, titleless foot joy, all of that. As the distance debate has come up, I want to give a shout out to them in terms of supporting us in having real and authentic conversations about that and not, you know, some people were surprised at some of our takes that were, you know,

maybe differing from the messaging that Titleist has sent out publicly in their press releases, but that was something that was obviously agreed on before we switched over to titleist. And it was put to the test this past week. It'll be continually put to the test and they've held up their end of the bargain. So I wanted to thank them for that. And the listeners think that as well because it's a very, very, very, very important thing to us.

So yeah, if you're listening on the podcast, I'm wearing a sick foot joy visor right now. And I'm going to have some takes about this and stuff later. So, you know, those things are going to go. You can have both things. You can have both. The visor is still sweet. I love it. Look, I feel bad doing this, Kevin.

The story today is not Taylor Moore winning the Valspar, is it? No, especially after his interview, afterwards, where he was basically a dial tone. I mean, what? That dude couldn't give you anything. It's his first PGA tour win, and he just was like, yeah, it was cool. It was pretty cool. I mean, what? That dude couldn't give you anything. It's his first PGA tour win, and he's just like, yeah, it was cool.

It was pretty cool. I mean, not everybody's personality has to be, just fabulous and scream out, jump up and down, but wow, I was really like, all right, I want to know something about Taylor Moore. And one question later, I truly didn't know anything else about Taylor Moore. I learned he does not have a Wikipedia page, which is kind of my cheat sheet for getting

an idea of what a player's career has been like to this point. And he has one on the corn fairy Tories, one on the McKenzie tour as well. He's had a relatively good season. He's approaching one, you know, plus one stroke skeined on the season so far, plus point 8.6. I think he was coming into this week. That's really good player. That's, you know, top 20 American player probably to this point so far, plus point eight six. I think he was coming into this week. That's really good player. That's top 20 American player probably to this point

so far this season, which was kind of a little bit surprising. I mean, no outrageous results. Nothing that's really been covered extensively on TV. Even today, not exactly covered extensively on television, I wouldn't say, because they picked them up on the back nine pretty well, but he was not exactly on a lot of, I don't blame him for this either. It's not a lot of, not a lot of guys' radars because it did not seem like Adam

Shink wasn't going to be involved in this. That spieth wasn't, that Fleetwood wasn't. He was with four holes remaining 3.8% win probability, which seems about right. Seems high, actually, because I did not see this coming dumb stretch. Yeah, he, I mean, hit some good shots. You know, making those birdies down late. He earned it in every sense of the word. Like I even thought when he hit that bad drive on 18, I was like, oh, well, maybe he won't

be, you know, in the mix, he's not going to be able to make part from there and he did just fine. So I look like I'm not going to sit here and tell you like, I didn't take a quick spin through Taylor Moore's like Twitter profile and was like, oh, okay, obviously he's an interesting cat. Not not someone I think I would probably like be a super tight with, but you know, oh, okay, obviously he's an interesting cat, not not someone I think I would probably like be a super tight with, but you know, look, like grape golfer, you know, I wouldn't have pulled for you had I known that stuff anyway. So like, you're, you know, good for you.

I hope you have tremendous success. I was, I would look like to see speed their shank win this one, but you know, that's why they play the sports right so you gotta get it done. It is true he birdied the 12th hole which was the sixth hardest today he birdied the 15th hole which was 12th hardest but not a lot of birdies there were only eight birdies total in that hole today and he birdied 16 which was the second hardest and only only only yielded six birdies. So back 932 no bogies hits in the bunker on 17 which was the hardest hole gets it up and down easily and even after driving it left, hits it on the front of the green,

rolls all the way back to the front. That's a tough two putt from down there, nailed it, got it done. Passed all the tests that everyone else failed to pass. And he is now a PGA tour winner. Kind of weird, bizarre kind of scene when he's hugging his girlfriend afterwards and is like, are you happy?

I was like, oh, that was a weird little vibe out there. I don't have any relationship or don't know Taylor Moore at all. Did go to his Twitter profile, not to bring them up the distance part of it, but his most recent tweet is should raise the goal to 11 feet in the NBA. I'm tired of players getting better at their craft. Athletes training more efficiently and team scoring 130 at night. As his understanding of the distance issue, which I think we'll we can tackle later on as maybe maybe not exactly the best analogy to use there, but yeah, that's for a different,

different part of the show. I will say some, some on the ground reporting, it was pretty good from Sean Zach said that, you know, Taylor's family was kind of realizing like, hey, you're going to Augusta and that that was like a really cool moment for all of them. So, you know, that, I think that's always a cool thing, right? Like you, you get a win, you're going to Augusta and that that was like a really cool moment for all of them. So you know, I think that's always a cool thing, right? Like you, you get a win, you're going to be in the masters for the first time. Like your whole family is going to probably get to come that that was a pretty kind of neat revelation, I think, for them.

And man, if you win a PGA Tour event this year, it does not matter which one it is. I don't think if you play decent golf and win a PGA Tour event, you're going to be playing in all the designated events next year. You're going to be finishing in the top 50. You're going to be playing the BMW Championship this year, and you are going to be in all the designated events and playing for $20 million. And that's, you play for $160 million

in the eight designated events right there. So the wins are even more valuable this year, which is still kind of an under-reported, under-covered storyline in the new structure of things. Dude, I find myself checking the top 50 every week. I've never checked the FedEx Cup standings as much as I have since they came out with, I'm sick to my stomach saying that. We've done nothing but make fun of the standings for how many years.

All the standings are super relevant. It got all these years. We finally figured out a way to make them really relevant. It got kind of interesting, right? I mean, Adam Schenk, Jordan Speeth missed a four- foot par putt on the last hole that gave Adam Schenk 55 more points. I've never looked up the exchange of points on a putt. I've always looked up the money on the 18th hole, but I've never looked up the exchange of points until this when Adam Schenk's 31st now in the FedEx cup and has a chance to get into that top 50

with some more good golf. It's a very fun storyline that is brewing for this year that I'm looking forward to following. You mentioned that Taylor Morbion, all those designated events, will during speed being the designated events. A lot of golf left, a lot of golf left. He's 38th now, he's inside the top 50s, and some cut line.

And even if he's close, I have a feeling he's gonna be able to get some sponsor exemption. So while I don't feel the same sweat, I do, I think that's interesting. I would, I would think it's interesting to see if he automatically qualifies for that. And there is a lot of golf left. And men are guys playing some golf, right? It looks really unstable. But man, he has been a, I don't know, I'd like to see an updated, updated numbers before I say this, but he's playing like plus two golf recently, which is, you know, top 10 player in the world.

So far, basically, since, since Phoenix, he has been a very, very, very good golfer. It hasn't looked great at times, but this is, he had a T6 at the Phoenix. He had a T4 at Arnold Palmer, T19 at the players. He missed the cut at Genesis, but now a T3 here with a really good chance to win. And I'm leaving this one the most encouraged, I think. It's still not obviously not there completely. As he stands up over a shot on 16, did not look comfortable at any point

and looks away, a pre-Apex look away as that ball splashed into the middle of the pond was just the perfect Jordan Speed experience today. That was like, it reminded me a little bit of the Burkdale hole where he'd like, his head was on his hands like a surrender cobra for yes, render cobra before the ball had like even reached its apex like 100% same. Like this was like more resigned. Like, yep, that's fucked.

Like I'm going to go over here and grab another probably one. But man, like what a, what a bad swing in that moment. And what an unbelievable bogey. I will say, dude, he the takeaway I had, though, was how locked in he was for that entire process of his third shot after taking the drop. There was no defeated attitude. It was like, dude, I'm making five out of this and we're going to birdie one of the last two and we're getting them playoff.

Like it was alpha, spieth, and he steps up makes an incredible bogey steps up on 17 and absolutely striped a four iron inside seven feet I think there was two birdies there all day on the 17th hole and I said this on Twitter I was like whatever like speed is supposed to do he's not gonna do like he obviously you should not have hit that ball in the Water on 16 like that was a out of character or horrific shot And then from there he was not supposed to make bogey So of course he did and he's not supposed to step up and stuff the shot on 17. So of course he did. And he's not supposed to miss that putt. And of course he did. And that part was really disappointing.

But it was fun to do the speed roller coaster ride yet again. For sure. I feel like at this moment, so I that he is, and maybe your data to golf nerdiness could kind of correct this. But he's a top 10 iron player in the world. And then when he gets to the green, he's either a top 10 putter in the world or a top 150 putter in the world. Like there's really no in between. Like there's no like, oh yeah, like I'm pretty confident he's going to be able to lag this one down. Like it's just a white knuckled like, oh man, like he's either like stepping up and putting this one in the throat, or he's going to leave this six feet short and we're going to have to do this all over again in two minutes, and that one has no guarantee it's going in.

He knocked it on the first green, just barely on the fringe, had an eagle putt on the first green. I was like, I in my head, so this is three or five. He's not, only thing he's not doing is making four. That's the only thing. The absolute only thing that's gonna happen. I don't know, I know this golf doesn't work this way, but in my speed fandom head, I'm like, let's not waste the shot completely right now. There's a bigger one here coming up in a few weeks, and I'd rather see it all come together right then, and I want to see you sniffing around.

When he won Valero two years ago, the week before the Masters, I was like, that's too perfect. That's just not the right timing. I, something I want to talk about too. This is, is clearly, it's, it's a lot clearer now that this is a very different event than the previous two weeks. This is not the players. This is not Bay Hill. It is a different talent pool.

It's a different golf tournament. It would mean less if he won this versus a designated event. It really would. In that regard, it's like, even if he won a one, I would not have gotten too hard on the hype train right now. In my spirit, will I believe until I die, of course,, even if he would have won, I would not have gotten too hard on the hype train right now. In my spirit, will I believe until I die, of course, but my head is still telling me like, not all the way there, it's still not all the way there, but I guess I'm kind of justifying that or rationalizing it with. We don't want it to be all the way there just yet. We need the hot putter to hit at Augusta.

He's said a bunch of times, like, needs to get reps in under pressure and like every even the misses under pressure like sort of help get the feeling up. So like, you know, the swimmer's always talking about like tapering. I go, I'm going to, you know, kind of beat all like 80% going into trials. And then I'm going to be at 90% like going into, you know, the next like the first day the Olympics and be at 100% right when my event comes around. I want to believe that Jordan's beat this tapering. Like if he puts just okay at Augusta, I think he'll have a legit chance because like he just sees that place so much better than so many other people. He's such a like creative iron player.

You see it every time like he's, you know, wildly out of position. He's like, all right, here's what I need to do. I'm going to turn on my analytical painter mind and I'm going to thread this ball through these trees and I'm going to not miss it here it here and I'm gonna put this in a spot. Oh, yeah, I made a birdie. Cool. That's awesome. Well, it's worth noting he was 10th and putting this week, right?

So the putting is not like a problem that it was on the West Coast. So he was very, he was not putting very well on the West Coast. This was, he drove it actually really, really good this week until 16 really, really hurt him. I mean, that's just the absolute death blow almost a two shot penalty hitting in that in the water. So some of his parts is there. It was, you know, seventh tee to green and tenth and putting. It's just gonna be a good week, no matter what you do

and anything else. And so the sum of the parts is there. The swing looks good. I'm not a swing. I don't know what I'm talking about with the swing, but I love this one way better than the late off look. And he seems confident in where the club is going. And he seems like he's on offense

and he's not out there trying to figure out what's going on. It's kind of he's figuring out how to be competitive again in these moments is what it feels like to me. So I feel way more confident when you stand on a ball of driver too. Like that swing, that was a three with it in the water, but like, you know, not with like,

it's just so much different. It feels so much like more in control. Like, you know, not with like, it's just so much different. It feels so much like more in control. Like, you know, I just know, know why exactly, but he just feels more in balance. Like he's not trying to sort of, and he's hitting it really far too. Like, it's amazing. Or it's sort of obsessed with like, this added speed that he's allegedly had. Like, Jordan's was never really short, but, you know, he's just sort of slowly adding a little bit more speed.

We can hit it down there. Like, you know, in the top 25 of the probably on tour almost. So you said you feel like he's a top 10 iron player right now. I've got him his 50 round moving averages right at the top 25 benchmark. So, okay. And, what, what, what, what, what, what I thought? But, you know, 25 round is right around that as well.

So, but that's, the eye test for me, says. Yeah, the eye, okay. The eye test, that's perfect. That's perfect. We can run with that. I need to make sure the I test is represented in podcast. See you. Yeah, you're doing that in in memory of Big Randy, who I promise we'll be back on this podcast. He's been focusing more on the LP J pods to this point. And I promise he will be back to to bring some to bring some 11. It's a much needed levity at times to this show. But Adam Schenk, man, I have no emotional feelings towards him at all, but when you go on

like a little journey with someone for like 36 holes over the course of a weekend and you watch him lose it on the last hole and make bogey in the last hole is cause feeling for him. Man, I did not enjoy that part of it. I was I guess a little more emotionally invested because I felt like I watched Schenk a stare down Jordan's teeth over the course of two days basically for Taylor Moore to kind of come up and steal it was just not what I was rooting for today. For sure.

That look of when he came up to his ball saw it like in the look of the tree and put his hands on his knees like that was such an honest like human moment. You talk about like why the PG store tour though flawed in as as a product still works for me for the most part Like there's a great example right of that if like I've over the course of two hours Whatever and I'm really sort of focused in and my wife is sitting with me watching I'm learning about like Adam shank proposing to his wife and how like he grew up on a sod farm And she grew up on a pig farm and they sort of had this, you know, farming love story. And I was like, God, I actually think that Adam Shank will be a great story here. Speed doesn't really need this win. Yeah. And then when that happened, I was like,

oh, man, like, Speed will win again. Like I'm confident of that. But like this might have been his shot. This, this, that makes me ache for him that this one bad swing ends up by a friggin tree. And he's got a, you know, pull an left handed shot out of it to just give himself a chance, which is so sick. 72nd hole trying to win your first BJ tour event, like a ball up because you have flip around and hit it left handed. And I give him credit. He backed his cat.

He hit a really good shot. He backed this caddy off set. Rather take a risk. And I think it was the right call. I really do. I think like, oh, word, I mean, if he dead shanks it off a tree and he ends up in prison anyways, like the drop was going to be in prison and really unlikely for it to get up and down, right? And he created at least some value out of that shot. It went, it was too good. It went too far into the rough. And man, he gave that par putt a run. There was no playing for second place

and whatever that that paycheck was and that those points were. So, um, kind of if that putt hits the pin, like, I think it goes in, but it just because it just missed the. I don't think that post that post going in. I think was going to even hit the pin. I just, I'm just going hot, but I maybe view it differently. Like you're obviously much better player than I, but I think if it hits the pin dead on it, just, it drops right in there because it just misses the pin. It, it lips hard out of the. This is going to be an announcer thing forever. If you take the pin out and it hits the back of the hole

and goes too far, they're gonna say, oh, it would have gone in with the pin in. And if it hits the pin and bounces out, they're gonna say, ah, guarantee that would have gone in if the pin was out. I just keep an eye on that one. I wanna see if some of these answers take consistent on that,

because I still don't know what the right answer is. Hey, the data boys don't send me the videos on Twitter again. I don't need to see any of those because everyone says a different opinion on what it's gonna do. But yeah, that was just crammed. He did not even have a look on his face. Like he thought that was gonna go in.

I mean, he was just like, he looked defeated the whole way as it was rolling out. But I had flashbacks to Max, like hitting that chip that basically like, just slipped down the hole. It was like, oh, you basically got to do this. That shows you like how when PGA tour players have to do something, they can kind of like

really put it right at the hole. And, you know, the speed is the impossible thing to control in that moment, but like, they are skilled enough to be like, all right, like we're going to take the break out of it and we're going to go right out the hole. It's one of my favorite putting drills, or not even putting like images, I'll try to imagine that there's two T's, like three inches,

like three inches left of the hole and a T, three inches right of the hole, right? And if I can visualize, if I can get the ball to roll through those two T's, I have made a, that's a good chance it will go in, or a good chance it'll hit the hole. And if I visualize putts like that, you can send it at the whole way better.

That's a good drill to do. Like, I don't care about my speed right now, but I'm gonna hit as many putts through these two teas as I can, and you can learn how putts break, and how you can trust vision and stuff. Like, that's what, it's just seemed like he was like, dude, I don't care what happens, this ball is gonna hit the hole.

Like, whatever happens after that is God's will, but this ball is gonna hit the hole. So, yeah. Well, I hope for his sake, he gets back in that position this ball is going to hit the whole. Like whatever happens after that, his God's will, but this ball is going to hit the whole. So yeah, well, I hope for his sake, he gets back in that position because it definitely like kind of earned a fan for me. And this how he sort of handled that moment. And look, like if that left handed shot, you know, hits in the rough once and then goes right in the fairway, like there's the probably, I don't know, 40% chance.

He can get that up and down and get into playoff. Like that's pretty good. You know, he probably took it down to 25% chance he can get that up and down and get in the playoff. Like, that's pretty good. You know, he probably took it down to 25% chance when he hit it over the rough over there, but still he gives up a chance, which is all he was kind of wanting at that moment. Fleetwood. Fleetwood. Tommy Ladd. Tough.

I'll start it with saying, extremely starting to be very encouraged with how he's playing. He's playing some very good golf. I guess my, my, my beef with TC has been on this that he's ridden him really hard while he's not been playing good golf. And he's not been the, the ball striker and the player that he was at his peak. And we're waiting for signs of that. And I feel like we're seeing signs of that separating that out. It, we've seen this movie from him too many times. This is 112 PGA tour starts without a victory. And I know he's got six DP world titles. I know some of them are BDE's, but man, that is a lot of starts without

garnering a tour win. And again, we've been a little hard on them just because the golf has not been good along the way. It's not been a really a fiendown situation of being close and not getting there. Now it's starting to be sniffing around, but just a back breaking bogey on 14 par five hits a, hits approach in the backside of a bunker and leaves it in the bunker. He was, he was basically screwed out of that and makes a bogey on a hole that he had no business making a bogey on and finishes two shots out just a bummer. It's, it's fluid like the work in class, Monty, like, dude, who's like just an unbelievable iron player, like played really well in Europe, was in the mix at a bunch of majors, obviously a little different personalities, like Tommy's much more kind of easy to love and Monty's

Monty, but man, like, you know, I feel bad for like saying that because, you know, Monty sort of was probably unfairly dogged by his lack of success in the States and it makes me feel kind of like asinger, chingoistic sort of, you know, I can't handle a pressure. But like went on that tour, like, not on that tour. Uh, I don't know. I mean, he got to kind of eventually like, I think it's a compliment. First of all, because Monty was freaking baller, like absolute baller. I mean, Monty's a better player than Fleetwood. They're correct.

Yes. I think he was. He should have won a couple majors, probably with a couple different breaks, but you know, I mean, Elk has to make that bomb, whatever a revier. I like you never know if he wins or the other. He was in the playoff with L's and Oakmont. I mean, I mean, he had a lot of chances that Tommy has, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, would be. It seemed like a little bit more confident, lad, if you will over the last couple of weeks,

it seems like maybe turning a corner, but I want to see him get back to a sustained level of, you know, beating the field much more consistently, right? So if I'm looking at his results, the last 25 starts, he had T27, T61, T20, the last three weeks. And it felt like, you know, it felt like he played better than that, right? He, it felt like he played better than that, right? He felt like he was actually in the mix and maybe it's just because T.C. has been peacocking

around about this. But T.C. is on vacation right now, so he's not able to be on this pod. The only thing we've heard from it on Slack all week, he's totally unsubscribed from Slack. He signs on it 430 day. He had a bet on 80 nuggets on Fleetwood to win and 20 nuggets on Speed to win and they were tied for the lead and he comes in just says gentlemen doesn't say another word and it was bone thrown at both of those dudes Fleetwood immediately made a bogey after that and Speed went ape shit on the wrong going the wrong way after that

and it was just too perfect so he should apologize to both of them, frankly, for bringing into the slack the bad juju at that moment. Yeah. In this book, it works, and I can't really tell you why. It's a good PGA tour course. I don't, it doesn't like fit my eye. Like the greens look too small and it just kind of plays funky, but I like the shot value it creates.

It kind of, I don't want to say it's so bad, it's good. It's, that's not the case, but it works for me kind of in the same way that Harbor Town works for me. What's your reaction to watching in his book? I feel the same like there's something about it that I'm like, cool. Like this is I'm not totally bored by this. People were kind of getting on me. The people were getting on me when I was saying that the bay hill was kind of a sticky course. And I was mentioning this like, I think I like the copperhead course better than a bay hill.

I'm laughing because if you're a detractor of ours, it just sounds like such hard work to ride for the PCA tour. Like, I'm not totally bored by this. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Like, look, could you make this course better with some like a little bit more interesting green complexes? I think you could but it does force guys to hit some kind of big dick shots down the stretch and I think That's cool. It's not I don't feel like the housing stuff is like you know on top of you here

It's just all of it feels like a decent course where you would play there and not feel annoyed by it, not be super memorable in it. Some of the way that holds snake back and forth is a little gimmicky, a little silly. And stop trying to make snake pit happen. It's not happening. I would say it's in the, for sure, the top half of the PGA tour courses for me. So I don't want to see him like I'm complaining about every single.

No, I'd say a tour course. Yes. This one I think is fine. Slightly above average. I think like better than PGA national, like some PGA national like tendencies, if you will, and some of those holes down the stretch, but more fun to watch. They have incredible condition with it. I mean, I know it kind of looked a little brown and crispy on there.

I'm in on that. I think that makes for any, you know, we do not need to be obsessed with golf courses being green. We've covered that extensively. And their willingness to kind of let it look scruffy yet play. I feel like when you watch this golf course, you know exactly what's at stake. I think I watch guys leaning harder on drivers in terms of like making sure they're in the fairway, which again, we can talk about distance on the

back. I feel like that's what a lot of people want. They want people to feel like there is a punishment for missing fairways. And when I see the players be that tied to the result of it staying in the fairway, I feel like that has its desired effect. So I feel like whatever reason the trees aren't so like suffocating to that when it guys would hit it in the trees, they were ways for them to sort of find windows where you could sort of like take a chance, you know, and if you didn't pull it off like you were screwed, but it wasn't like an auto like pitch into the, you know, Merle of the Fairway, it was like, all right, here's a 50-50

ball that you could either pitch out and lay up, or you could kind of go for this. And, you know, I mean, it was just, how many often do you get to see, like, speed hit driver off the deck? That's sweet. That's how it's going. And take what's an insane line, and then he gets up there and he's like,

oh, I was totally not the line. I was like, thinking, you know what, I mean, that was kind of a cool moment on Saturday. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of Chipulta Peck in that regard. Yeah. Some weird, it's maybe a little too narrow. The trees are kind of encroaching on the lines of play, but these guys just kind of find a way to figure it out. And that's kind of what the test

is. Again, I feel like I can enjoy this tournament more with the full acceptance that it's just in a different bracket, right? I mean, it's a different, it's a standard event, a non-designated event. And just like saying that out loud allows me to understand that like it's not the most consequential tournament. And I feel like I enjoy that a little bit more rather than thinking like, why is there a tournament this week? I don't want to watch these guys play it. It just, I really do think that could be a,

maybe an unintended effect of this kind of new model. So totally. And you see like what we keep talking about, like, oh, well, these non-designative ends get, you know, devastated by the lack of top 50 players. All you really need in these kind of lower tear events is one sort of spieth to be like the main storyline to bring in the sort of casual viewer. And then the rest of it sort of takes shape from there. Like we know Jordan's spieth story, but because we know Jordan's spieth, we don't have to spend a lot of time like

Talking about him. We can learn a little bit about Adam Shank You know in theory of Taylor Moore had been more involved early on. We could have learned more about him They just seem like a great like if I were Planning out my schedules and stuff and I you know, I guess in theory if I could sort of say to You know one star everyone. Hey look. Can you take one for the team? theory if I could sort of say to, you know, one star, everyone, hey, look, can you take one for the team, Sky Shuffle, and play in the 3M this year? Hey, Jordan, can you play in the Valsbar? Hey, Justin, can you play in, you know, whatever?

Like, look, do they always win? Obviously not, but like, they're probably good enough against the sort of talent around the field that they're going to be in the mix. And that's all you really need to make the tournament sort of interesting, right? 100%. 100%. It's be that and played here in quite a few years, I think. JT always shows up for this one, which again, is four in a row for, it's going to be four

in a row for these guys with Bay Hill players rolling right into match play. So it's, you know, only then only one week off and then right into the masters. It's a lot of golf for this time of year. I'm not quite sure I understand the reasoning for it, but I guess it feels like a no-skip, you know, section for one of them. Maybe they just sort of feel like they're better off playing and match played isn't really give them the same sort of prep that they want for the masters, and so they're going to just take some reps and where it's available.

A lot of guys like this golf course, and just how the tournaments run. I mean, it surprises me kind of every year, the feel that they're, that they're able to pull. So Matt Wallace absolutely laying into his caddy on 18 on Saturday was a great highlight for me. He hits it onto the car path. And I believe we found out afterwards that he was upset that his caddy was maybe like asking him if he wanted to take a drop from the car path. It just shows them getting into it in the 18th fairway. And the only thing you can make out as well is saying, shut the fuck up. To directly to his caddy, which I believe I got a lot of messages after that.

I'm like, yep, notorious for this. This is a Matt Wallace thing. This is totally a thing that happens. I tried to kind of play it off afterwards and they hugged, they showed him hugging it out. But go to an NBC, they dug in on that. They did not let that moment like briefly slide by and I greatly enjoyed that.

They didn't cover it up. I kind of figured they would just not go back to it. And they did not let that moment like briefly slide by and I greatly enjoyed that they didn't that cover it up I kind of figured they would just not go back to it And they would be like well, you know what a great round from that was but man I don't know why they kept reminding us that it was he has the only French caddy on tour like they expected to surrender or something like hey the Frenchman stood strong All right, he she made France proud They did say that like it was one of the country's great accomplishments. Like they've tried to try to try to try for so long. If that's such a great caddy program in France, France, and they've

finally got a fridge caddy over the PGA tour. Few guys, I know this just, you know, several guys drafting off some good play at the players, but some, you know, some guys kind of faded on on Sunday. Chad Ramey was involved. David Lingmer was involved there, but I had a tough Sunday as well to kind of on. Zach Blair, but Zach Blair. Remember Boyz, Zach. Zach Blair finishes, you know, tie for 10th with three bogeys in his last six holes. He got it all the way to 600 par. He bogey the difficult 13th and then bogey 16 and 18, unfortunately,

but fantastic week for Zach and did it, didn't all aspects mostly with his putter. So it's great to see him. Just opened his golf course, the tree farm in South Carolina in Akin and is back and being competitive again on the PGA tour. It is, that's good news all around. He's certainly the only guy who's opened the course this week

who also finished top 10 on some sort of tour out. Surprise, that didn't get a mention on the telecast as well. That's pretty, pretty decent-sized story that's gone on in the world of golf. But he's got some work to do. He's 117 now in the FedEx Cup. So still got a lot of work to do. But he tied with Justin Thomas this week. Again, a T10 finish for JT. But he's 60th on the FedEx Cup. Still on the outside looking in for that top 50. But I will say there is a lot of golf to be able to do. What's 60th on the FedEx Cup. Still on the outside looking in for that top 50, but I will say there is a lot of golf. What's going on with the putter

if we can just hang on a sec with JT? Like the putter is just not good. I know you had some stats or this week, just like from seven feet, from five feet, like he is just a struggle bus. Like it's, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's an alignment thing. I mean, it's certainly, like I know we tried a new putter at the beginning of the season just to sort of give himself a different look

or whatever, but man I feel like a lot of it is just all putting related at this point. Can I stand up for myself and that maybe when I was fighting him on some reads in the capital of video maybe. No God. I mean he's one 44th in Stkes game putting so far this year. And if you go and look at, you know, it just feels like he's just not holding puts from close range. And if you go scroll down through his, you know, putting page, you'll see he's one 60th from three feet, one 78 from four feet, 91st from four to eight feet, one.72 from 5 feet, 67th from 6 feet, 65th from 7 feet, 73rd from 8 feet. And inside 10 feet, he is 140th on tour. And it's just really difficult to be competitive.

It's not difficult to be competitive. You can Hadecki your way and through a lot of tournaments by doing that. But if you want to win these things, it's almost always the putter that has to get hot for you to come close to winning them or to win a tournament. And that's just not happening for him right now. He's probably never going to be like a top 50 putter in the world. He would have done that now if he was going to do it.

But if he was the 75th putter, best putter in the world right, like at this moment, he'd probably be in contention in almost everyone. Because's you know such a good ball striker such as just a generally good short game player. I mean I think I was looking to the short game stats were really good this year like he's he's just got to figure out something that can make it work and I don't I don't want to see him like go the arm lock or go to a different you know longer putter or anything like that but I mean got to figure out some sort of feel that can just release the ball at the

hole. I mean, he was the data golf number one player in the world as of this week last year. Right. I mean, and now he's 12th, right, which is obviously still incredibly, you know, install obviously still an incredible player. We can talk about Bryson's fall from being in that top five two years ago to now, but it's not a, you know, a outrageous fall. It's a little bit reversing, reverting back to the mean, but it's been a fall. It's been a downward trend for him

that is, I don't want to say concerning. It's just, you know, it's not all happening for JT right now, but it's, again, it's not alarm bells. He's still making cuts in being relatively competitive. It just like doesn't seem all that close as we head into a major championship that the masters, which he has not been overly competitive at, but feels like should be a great fit for him overall as a shot maker. So I'm looking at his comments on distance here on the back half of this. But walking talks are getting better. Hamps should have for NBC.

Those seem to be getting better asking, you know, more detailed questions about how they're playing the whole and things like that. The two commercial breaks, sandwiching Adam Schinke's 18th hole was impressive. I'm not even mad. I was just like, holy shit, how did they get? They got four commercials around that shot. It was one of the more impressive efforts I've seen. So I actually think we should turn around and start celebrating how often they're able

to jam in commercials in the finale. It's like, we're flipping the script here and it's going to be like, it's funnier that way. It's less like, yeah, I don't like pull my hair out. You know, I just kind of like, oh, okay, you don't give even a little bit of a shit about creating the drama around this. You just want, you know, want a profit off of it in the short term. Did you, I wonder how that's going to work out for you? So, did you catch the fake playing through Puma ad? Yeah, that, I don't know what, like that rationally pissed me off. Yes.

I was like, alright, you've created this whole playing through thing, like as an attempt to sort of placate our anger. And now like, as a company, someone is trying to sort of take advantage of this and make it sort of a cute comment on that. Fuck you. Like that is not, I will not buy your product if you do that. Oh, it's such a tough scene. It really is Anything else from Valspar or should we get to the main event of the weekend?

No, thanks. So I mean, you know, in honor of TC, I'll just go look down the leaderboard real quick and Nothing really stands out too much. I mean, Jason Duffner siding, T-36. That makes me happy. And he's been in the wilderness for a while. And yeah, I'm good. I'm not going to, that's my extent of going down the leaderboard. Danny Lee, meaningful, meaningful win out in the desert in Tucson, live Tucson. I can't, I can't fake it. I can't pretend to break it.

He was howling at the sky in Tucson, live Tucson. I can't fake it. I can't pretend to break it. He was howling at the sky in Tucson, sorry, what are your habits? All I gotta say, what are the cliques doing, man? They gotta get their shit together. What a bounce back for the ironheads. All right, I think the cliques should be relegated the Asian tour, frankly.

What are we doing here? I didn't see they'd have to go play in Taiwan and Singapore and all these places. They passed the Majestics. I did not even catch that. The Majestics actually finished dead last. The Cliques were way down there, but the Majestics. Why did the Majestics have three captains? I do not understand that. Three fours of their captains. You have any captains. I mean, come on. I do find myself as silly as I think this whole thing is, especially in the individual side, I find myself checking the team leaderboard.

I find myself intrigued by the week to week developments of that. I think that's kind of the only thing they've got going in my mind in terms of like week to week interest is, you know, the same way I do with forming the one of seeing how the middle, the pack teams are kind of developing against each other. The fireballs win. The four aces have not lodged a win here in the first two two weeks, which everyone's been talking about what's going on with the four aces. Everyone I go. Yeah, but they keep going ahead. What's up with the four aces? A podium finish for the iron heads when they were the laughing stock of

everything last year was like, oh shit. That that's like again, I follow my gut on what's interesting about this thing and that's the only thing that's really working for me. Because I think honestly, we get some shit about back and I live all the time. I do kind of dig that like everyone's hanging around the 18th green and like that they're all teams or bundles up together. There might be some like, people's pets running around,

their children are there, like, you know, Troy and Sueanne or like interviewing people randomly. I, feels like doing Instagram live. Like some of that is kind of funny. Like I, it doesn't strike me as particularly serious athletic competition, but I could foresee like in a different timeline of our lives had the PGA tour sort of reframed like, all right, we're going to have team competition on the non sort of like big vents. And you have like JT and Jordan Jordan like sitting there and they're like really into the idea of, you know, Ricky like making this putt because it's gonna help

their team win. Like some of that might have been cool. And you know, if live hadn't taken like all of the most miserable mouth intents to do it with, like it could have could have been a workable idea, you know. Well again, this is coming from an organization that demands that you take it extremely seriously, and it is some of the best golf played anywhere, anywhere, and that they deserve points for this, and it's a very serious competition, and they're also like suing the PGA tours, where it gets like, yeah, you're not going to be afforded that goodwill. I'm sorry, that's not going to happen.

It is obviously not serious golf. It's an incredible amount of money being thrown around, but like there's just music blaring as there's a playoff going on for $4 million on the 18th hole. Phil is walkie-dove in the ferry, which is great. Like they're getting Phil on the mic. Like the PGA tour should be doing a lot of these things. They should be bringing players in for interviews to talk about other players while it's going on. Phil said that over the last five years, Brendan Steele is the third best driver in the world behind Raman Rory. Is that true?

I'm going to know. No way that's true. I'm going to respectfully disagree on that one. I appreciated the comment, but it's like, okay, like, okay, we're just like making shit up over here. This is kind of fun. I'm sorry to hear about the ratings on Saturday. Yeah. We did get a little bird was able to get us some information about the ratings 0.14 for this

Saturday overnight ratings, which I don't know how ratings work, but 0.14 does not seem great. No, that would mean, I guess, roughly 140,000 people would in theory be tuned in in the sort of overall out of 162 million Nielsen homes that they survey. They did a little bit more kind of outreach this time around and looked in 33 markets instead of 26. And the person who sort of helped me kind of understand this information said yes, that is significantly worse than the point two that they got the last time. So it's not going great. I know live, you know, reframed the point two is like,

well, but that doesn't count. Like, you know, some of our, you know, streaming and doesn't count like the overall kind of thing. And I think James Cogin and Golf.com did a good sort of explainer of that of like, no, like, it's an apples to oranges to carrots, sort of comparison that they're trying to make here. Like, you can't take the entire like broadcast

that anyone had tuned in for one minute of that and then apply it to the larger sort of rating discussion. Like, the ratings are the ratings. Like, there's a reason why everyone he'd used to do that. I'd be like, oh, we have a 10 million, 10 million people ratings. So I think it's, it's not going great in terms of its exposure. You know, here's why I don't know how it's going to get better.

Like, at this point, I hear a lot of that of like, well, they're not kind of the streaming thing. There's all these options. Well, it's like, okay, well, again, other places are not kind of the streaming things too. If we're talking apples to apples here. Well, again, other places are not kind of the streaming things too. If we're talking apples to apples here. The COO, Autocasla, who has, of course, left since then, made the point. Speaking of the COO, said like, this has to be on television. Like, it has to be successful on television for this franchise model to work.

If you need eyeballs watching it, for the franchises to have value, for us to be able to recoup this investment that is a very serious investment that we are planning to make money on blah, blah, blah. All these things that they kept keep saying and keep having to say to distract you from the fact that it's a blatant obvious sports washing activity. So when it comes out that no one's watching when it comes out it's on the CW and I have no idea if this is why I'm totally theorizing this, but I'm guessing that also costs a new like, all right, I'm not putting my name to this. If we're going to be on the CW, we're not going to get ratings.

People are not going to be watching it. And we are going to come so woefully short, our very own consultants said to us, we had to get all of these people. And it has to be this blah, blah, blah for this to even be financially viable. This is not going to be financially viable. I'm out of here. And these television ratings are confirmation that it's not even freaking close to being financially viable To the point where that's kind of a bet of their own making like I would not care about the ratings at all I think it's still like I would care more about my whether I enjoy it personally

That's again like with the intuition that I would follow but they've made such a big deal out of that's how we're gonna Recoup our value that it becomes even more of a laughing stock when those numbers come out I'll bet Sundays are better than last, the previous MyCobas Sundays, because it ended up in a playoff and it was on the air for extra time and I'm guessing, I'm guessing more people ended up there after the Valspar ended,

I would not be surprised at all. And in that regard, it was kinda like, oh, there's more golf fun. I kind of can see a little bit of benefit for that, but for 99% of the weekend, it was like, man, it makes no fucking sense for me to have two devices going and watching two different talent groups spread out across the golf world in this way.

That's again, kind of how I've always felt about it, but thought that was interesting. I thought that I just was talking to somebody this week who I'm not gonna sort of name, but he was sort of saying that he had had some conversations with Ahtul, not before he was fired, but that he was really trying to run the whole thing like an actual tech company, like, you know, sort of move it forward. And the basically, like, the head people sort of sided with Norman over and over again.

And, you know, it's just, it just shows you, like, they had maybe some opportunities to be less of a clown show. And they repeatedly sided with the guy who is just proven that he's like It just shows you like they had maybe some opportunities to be less of a clown show. And they repeatedly sided with the guy who is just proven that he's like gonna make mistake after mistake and is not know what he's doing. And so that's, you know, a huge reason why I cost a left. The auto left is like, man, peace out.

Like you guys figure this out. Like I'm, I tried to help you and I thought I had a way to sort of make it work and you guys wouldn't listen to me. So later. Something's going on in Norman. I don't know what it is, but the promotion of him has gotten way, way, way lighter in recent weeks and months. He, it was theorized on Twitter that he had taken CEO of live golf out of his Twitter bio.

Turns out that was never actually there. Thank you, KBV for the reporting on that. Then after the tweets, sure enough it goes up. He's, it's added to his, his Twitter profile that he is, of course, the CEO of Lift Golf. But that was kind of hilariously in like insecure, like how quickly it was added to his Twitter bio. Like if it was never there, why not just be like, look, screw you guys, like I don't care. Like I'm just totally secure in my job. But as soon as like that stuff started buzzing around, it was like, oh, immediately he was added to his Twitter bio.

Like, you know, it shows you like, random like deep fried egg, you know, and like bots can sort of make it seem like, they can send live into a frenzy of like, oh shit, we have to like fix this. Which is so funny to me. There, that plugged into the weirdness of golf Twitter, you know, shout out deep fried egg.

You did a great job of looking into that. I thought it'd be interesting too. I mean, I seriously can't, I can't like seriously break down Danny Lee's win. I mean, he won one time on the PGA tour, then flips over in two starts and wins a live event. It kind of makes every possible case I've ever made for live golf of like, how the hell am I supposed to make sense of this? Like in the competitive landscape of the real professional golf tournaments, the guy was not a winner and now over there he is and you guys claim that this is all this crazy talent.

I'm sorry, it's just really freaking hard to evaluate what any of that means. I will say though, it's an interesting name. Like I would expect to dominate over there are decidedly not. One of them being Cameron Smith, it has been six months basically of play where he has essentially been by the numbers as like equivalent to like an Aaron Rye, which is

decidedly different from the cam Smith from the last time we saw him in the main competitive golf ecosystem. And I don't really buy the narrative that like, all right, these guys aren't going to stay sharp over this calendar and you know, how do you stay competitive? Now that you've got all the money, I separate a couple guys out of that. I think DJ and Cam are the two that I'm like, no, I expect them to be there in majors

and be competitive when they do show up and play and to like not see anything out of them for like six months is just caught my eye. I think a little bit, I'm guessing the answer is probably like, no, this is my scheduled downtime.. I'll ramp it up, come major season, but six months kind of long period of time as well. And he's not really been involved in the, I mean, I guess he finished six in the first live event so far this year, but that's what's basically to be

expected of him. And now he finished what T 24, I think this week, middle of the pack in a live event is just kind of like, man, just disappointing. And also it was like the first two days was quite poor. Like it was way down there and you know, it had a little bit better Sunday. It looks like I think you can sit here and make the argument. I think you and I would both agree. We like Cam.

Like we probably as much as we might kind of make fun of live. Like we still want Cam to sort of be a good golfer, like he's just been a good dude, like he's an interesting player to watch, but I'm not sure that I buy, you know, the whole thing of like I can turn it on when I want to, and if that's the case, if Cam is really like just chilling out,

like hey, this is kind of my downtime, what have you bought into if you're Liv? Like if guys are basically like, yeah, man, like this is just my kind of like off season. Like I'm just gonna kind of show up here and not grind. Like I'd be pretty pissed if I was Yasser and I was like, yo, man, I gave you like $100 million. And now I got Danny Lee winning in a playoff

over, you know, Louis Ustazen and Carlos Ortiz and like, that's just a clever thing. Those are my words on just chill. Like I'm trying to justify like, if he's, you know, not in peak form. Yeah, those are not as good as that. I just like, I don't think he's probably doing that, but mentally like, I can't imagine he's like really grinding

and thinking like, oh, I've got to win this event at Tucson. But that's the thing, like if you were live, like the people who put this together and you're having to justify it to MBS or whomever. I don't think it like makes a lot of like it's not exactly what you wanted. You didn't buy into this idea of like film Nicholson shooting 74 75 70 and Bryson being an absolute dumpster fire and all this and kept it being a non factor. You you were hoping that it would be those guys clashing every week.

That was the whole selling point of like, oh, the top players should be facing each other all the time. And that's what's going to be so exciting. How will the PG tour ever compete when we have all the top players in there, clashing every single week. And then it turns out like Brennan Steel and Danny Lee and Charles Howell are dudes who are winning your events.

Like, what the hell? Seems like a bit of a bait and switch. If you you're the Saudis like I'd be pissed at Norman Be like you know like why'd you bring these guys over here? They should have got more mules right they should have like got they should got more mules to play the roles It just roll over and let these guys beat the shit out of they said mules and they literally got mules for their promotional thing instead of like You know pretend mules That was their got mules for their promotional thing instead of like, you know, pretend mules. That was their style. I want to say this like Did Phil Mccason see all the praise that he got for his calves and

Decide to turn his whole body into looking like it's the calves like just I'm gonna be Sinui and like mussely and like kind of gaunt and like I'm just gonna make my whole face look like a calf whoever Did the the the tweet that was Phil's press conference say look like an XFL coach that is trying to explain a 39 to 7 loss was one of like, that sent me into a different, like a totally different spectrum.

Like that just sent me into a different ecosystem of laughter when I saw that one. Poorly Ustaz and looks like he's wearing like, he's a big fan of like the Sycamore like minor league baseball team with that with the stingers hat on. It's just a very much a minor league baseball aesthetic. It's all so so dumb. It's crazy.

Dustin Johnson playing some okay golf, I guess. So again, 13th place, I don't know what to do with any of that, but as we go into the masters He was kind of like a guy that I think I even at one point picked him to win the masters this year in terms of like Dude, do not forget what I know is 2020. I know it was a fall masters It was weird, but like he decimated Augusta national and I just feels like he is the perfect Vibe of dude to like I don't care about any of this other drama going on. I'm gonna come out and play golf the masters He's maintained like a plus 1.7 strokes gained over the past I don't care about any of this other drama going on. I'm going to come out and play golf at the Masters. He's maintained like a plus 1.7 strokes gained over the past.

So I forget what I typed all this out. I don't remember what time period that is, but he's playing some decent golf. And I think it's not worthy. It's just like, dude, it's because it's not played enough to evaluate how they're doing going into this into this major championships. They got one more start the week before they're going to be at in Florida in Orlando for for that event, but that's it. And then it's it's major championship time. And I don't I don't really know what to take ahead of this other than Brooks has been extremely average. Phil

has been a shot and a half below average from PGA like a professional golfer standpoint. It's not good. I mean, Bryson is below average player a golfer. Now it's really sad. He finished 44th, I think this week, at a 48 dudes. I feel like we can do it all in entire podcast. I'm Bryson and we won't, but like not yet. But whatever happened in that is just, it's really kind of sad because he was interesting, whether you liked him or not, like he made it interesting.

And this whole thing where people are like, oh, you're gonna feel so owned with one of these lift guys wins like a major. No, I think it'll actually be kind of fascinating. It'll be awesome. Like if DJ won the Masters, I would love to write about that. I think that would be super interesting and compelling. It'd be fun to talk about.

So this idea that like, I'll feel like hurt if Patrick Reed or Dustin Johnson, whatever. But like, I don't see Price and making the cut in any majors right now. Like, how can anyone sort of expect that anything about his game feels like top 200 in the world at this point? I mean, he's just lost. I mean, he's fallen. And for those that think that this is just about official world golf rankings that don't count the living events, no, this is about the actual data golf rankings,

which count everything. He has gone from being third in the world at this time, two years ago, all the way down to a hundred and third now. And I mean, his recent results are he finished 24th at my Aikoba. He missed the cut in Saudi T21 at Jetta 14th T8 T17 T31. Again, these are just out of 48 dudes, right? This is not, these are not actually top 25 finishes that actually mean anything He finished T8 at the open and finished 10th in Portland

But T56 the us open and he missed the three previous cuts before that that's like that's all the golf he's played in the last year and it's It's it's kind of crazy. I know there's been injuries, but man It has been a serious serious serious decline in his golf to the point where he is it has been a serious, serious, serious decline in his golf to the point where he is. He was a plus two player as of 2021. Now he's negative 1.59. We're talking about he's lost 3.6 shots per round since two years ago. That is a enormous fall off. And I as much as I can't stand the dude, I've again never rooted against his golf.

He's only interesting. He's playing good golf and it's fascinating to watch his style play fit into You know going up against any other player. It's always fascinating to watch So like him playing poor golf is not fun for anyone at any level and I do not enjoy that part I'll be bummed if he just becomes like a YouTube driving range sort of, you know freak like that and that may be what makes him happy So if he wants to do that, but I think obviously he's going to have exemptions into majors for, you know, many years. But I just it's going to bum me out if he never finds something again. Yeah.

Shall we get to our interview, KV? Are you ready for that? I would love that. I think Billy was a very interesting interview. He made some, you know, points that we don't agree with. But obviously we had a nice back and forth. So I'd like to great convo with Billy. Appreciate his time on a Saturday morning for we do that golf. interview, he made some points that we don't agree with, but obviously we had a nice back and forth. So I'd like to thank you.

Great convo with Bill. Appreciate his time on a Saturday morning before we do that golf. Unforgiving sport, you know, hitting it into the hazard, it sometimes happens out there. Maybe we need more hazards as we go into this distance debate. It's the same is true for disaster. Sometimes they cannot be avoided. Thankfully for those situations, there's surf pro. They're the leader in cleaning, restoration and construction and experts in making any disaster like it never even happened.

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That's what folks at Surf Pro can do. They can make any disaster never even happen again. 1-800-Surf Pro or Surf Pro.com. Here is Billy Horsho. We'll be back on the back half of this to add some commentary on distance as well. All right, Billy. What is your overall reaction to the proposal that was laid out by the USGA this past week? I wasn't shocked because I was in a pack meeting last year when the USGA came and addressed the pack and sort of

gave their opinion, sort of gave what they were thinking to us. Let's just say that pack meeting was a very interesting pack meeting. There's a lot of challenges towards the USGA and a lot of sort of make, try and make our point of why are we really doing this, is really affecting the game of golf, the majority of the game of golf. And so, yeah, I wasn't shocked when the NASA was made and we're see what goes in there. Did you think that message got through?

Let me ask this for you. It's hard for you, I know, to gauge the temperature in the room. I do want to ask that kind of question as well. But for you, does the message get through at all? Do you think, do you agree with them in terms of their distance analysis, the reporting that they've done, the studies that they've done, and how it does affect the game of golf? Do you see that point of view or do you disagree with that? What's kind of your your your understanding of what they're trying to say

about how distance affects the game of golf and reaction to it? So it's when I sort of been on this for about five or seven years and they sort of talking about going back to golf ball. I mean I could go back If I had the time and I cared that much about I can go back through my tweets and and see some of those stuff that I said and some of People that challenged me on it that now have changed your views that are in the media But I don't think the golf ball should be rolled back. I don't think distance is a factor. Has distance increased? Yes, it has. Is it because of the golf ball? I don't believe the golf ball is the main factor and this is being increased. I've said for you know five to seven years now

1A is track man 1B is the golf for themselves track man We're able to optimize everything to the degree to get every ounce of yards we can out of a drive or out of the golf ball. Same thing with the golfer, we're bigger, stronger, faster, fitter. For example, his map is Patrick. He's worked his butt off to gain eight to nine mile power, you know, more club at speed. So that's not the golf ball. That's the that's the golf themselves, you know, doing the work. The golf, the driver shafts are are are are lighter so people are able to swing them faster. You know, the driver shaft is longer now than it was, you know, probably two decades ago at 45 and, you know, roughly over 45 inches is what the average golf on the PJ 2 users compared the 43.

So, there's many factors that go into this and I don't believe the golf ball should have been singled out. Yes, distance has increased on the PJ 2 or there's no doubt about that. But I think if you look at the average clubhead speed on the PJ 2 over the last five years, I would say I think it's pretty stable out of 114 average. And we are making a change for .1% of the golfers in the world. Now when they sort of talk about, you know, the sustainability of the game of golf and golf courses being built longer and the cost of maintaining courses that are longer, the watering, all these other factors that come in. I, one of the challenges that I would raise to them

and I address is why are golf courses being built at more than 7,000 yards if we know for a fact they're not gonna hold a PGA tournament. The average ammeter plays from 6500 yards is 6800 yards. So golf courses are being built longer for a couple reasons to have the major championship or a championship course name attached to it or the other factor is and it's the truth. I'm not saying every course is like this but as a developer, if you're going to build a golf course you're going to build one at 74, 7500 yards versus 7000 yards because that gives you 400, 500 yards

more to put houses on or around the golf course. Yeah, so as many factors as a wide courses are longer, but at the day it were only playing maybe 50 plus courses on PJ tour. I know some of those courses have addison teas over the years, but like I said, it goes back to my point. We're making decisions based on point 1% of the golfers for less than 1% of the courses that are in the world today. I think I find that funny when I hear courses are adding lean, regular golf courses adding lean, when those back tees are hardly ever used throughout the year, you know you play 20,000 rounds at it a course that's set at 300 yards long, that's not a tour course, you know maybe those tees are being

used 600 times out of the 20,000 rounds, so it just doesn't make sense to me that we're doing something for a point 1% of the golfers in the world when the game of golf and the average amateur is having more enjoyment in the game of golf than they've ever probably had in the history of the game of golf. A lot there. I'm excited to react all the way. A lot there. I agree with you on so much of what you said in terms of the contributing factors to what is contributed to distance, right?

And I'm going to go a different direction on this. So we're talking about a rollback of the golf ball only. I'll just state my case as well. I think driver heads are a lot to blame with this. I think 460 CCs. I've said this in the past like 460 CCs, wailing on it gives you permission to wail on it, gives you encouragement to wail on it.

The mishits are so much better. It's almost a risk not to wail on driver. I think that's probably a bigger problem. We had Mike one earlier on this week, challenged him on that, say, what's the deal with that? And he kind of laid out a timeline of like, how difficult this would be to roll back the driver head at this point, right?

So it feels like to me, USGA has tried to go down different routes of St. Luke. We're not going to ban track man. All right, we're not going to try to tell you you can't figure out how your ball is going to fly. Driver head, if we do that, we got to do this to three wood, we got to do this to hybrids, we got to do this. Like it's going to have a through the bat. Listen, just trust us, we've looked down every avenue, the golf balls are fastest route to limiting

something. I'm going to read something from the 2022 distance report you said, because you, I agree with training all of that stuff that is contributed to this. They said whether these increases in distance emanate from advancing equipment technology greater athleticism players improve player coaching golf course conditioning or a combination of these or other factors. They will have the impact of seriously reduce the challenge of the game or dumb it down in reductive terms to driver wedge. And I think you guys are so your talents maybe are not fully put on display because of how much driver emphasis there is in the game. What's your reaction to any of that? Yeah so I said this you know I've been up aonent of this for years. There's so many skills that you have to be great at in the game

agov to be, you know, to play at a high level. I think one of the skills that has been lost through all this technology advancement is the ability to hit the center of the club face more often and get rewarded for that. Now it's been great for the amateurs because they've been rewarded for that. But I think at our level that I, you know, and I'm not throwing anyone in the bus, I'm just making a point. If you look at my, I'm a tireless driver. If you look at my tireless driver, my T marks are probably about that wide, all of them,

you know, from everywhere I hit. I mean, they're very close to the center every time. Maybe a rarity I hit one off the toe or heel, very rare. But when I look at other guys, is that have a tireless driver like their T marks or from the center all the way out to the toe or from the center all the way out to the heel. And I look at that, I'm like, F me like really? I'm like, I'm happy that that's great that we have this technology that when we do miss it but it's amazing to see a professional

golfer with a driver be that inconsistent hitting the center of the face that often so you know they're able to swing harder and their misses don't go nearly as far offline so the one thing I've said is let's make the center of the sweet spot smaller where you get rewarded more often. And by doing that, I think mishits would be more offline. And that's only I've ever said, we'll reward the guy for hitting it for it. A came and young is impressive to watch, to hit a driver. And he hits it so far and so straight.

But if he hits it offline or mishits it, he should be penalized for the ball going curving more. That's always been my argument, is let's not penalize someone for developing their skill more. Let's penalize the person who wasn't able to be as skillful and hitting it in the face and penalize them for the ball going more offline. So I agree with you in that sense, in the sense of the driver. Would you agree that something should be done about the highest level competitive golf right now? Yeah, I mean, yes, like I said,

I mean, I'm not going to consider and say, no, I think guys, the thing I see day and day out on the PGA tour is that we're not penalized for having missed hit shots as often anymore. And this rollback does not address that, I think, often anymore. And this rollback does not address that. I think it's maybe- And this rollback doesn't address. Everyone thinks this rollback is going to address the ball curvy more.

No, it's just bringing back the distance of the golf ball. And from what I've sort of talked to some manufacturers that it may make the ball go even straighter because of the compression of the golf ball, what it needs, the compression needs to be. So it's going to be less spain, which makes the ball go straighter. But I think, like I said, I just believe that we're so talented as golfers. Let's make it a little bit more challenging it and add that one skill that I think we've lost throughout the decades. We've been able to gain so many areas of skill, but the one skill that I think has been lost at the professional level is the ability to hit the decades. We've been able to gain so many areas of skill, but the one skill that I think has been lost at the professional level is the ability to hit the ball in the

center of the face on a repeated basis and get rewarded for that. And that's what I would, you know, if there was some way to do that, that wouldn't have a dramatic effect and a cost effect, listen, there's going to be a cost effect that any changes that are made, that's just a fact. But if there's any way that to do that, that players would, uh, to her players would approve of it. I think that's something I think all to her players could get behind. Um, you know, just hearing what they say is that, you know, the guys that, you know, my like, business, I, I average 297 on the rain, 295, but just on the 300, my entire career on tour, you know, a lot of those guys and some below me have always said, you know, they're finding

with the guys hitting it far. They just want it when they miss hit it to be, you know, penalize the way they should be. So yeah, that's where I would stand if there was somewhere to do that in a way that we could all get on board with it. I think this rollback address is whatever 20 to 25% of the problem. I don't know what the actual number is. I think it, I would rather what you said

get addressed more than just the ball go less distance. I also recognize the challenges in changing all that. And I think if I were to just summarize USGA's point, it's like, I hear you on all that. We'd love to be able to address that. I don't, you got to understand how complicated all that is. Can we just limit how far it's going for right now?

Let's do this for right now. And then we can start to work on complicated all that is. Can we just limit how far it's going for right now? Let's do this for right now, and then we can start to work on these one by one, because I'm curious kind of how you see this, a benefit of this, like the long players are still gonna be the longest, they're still gonna get rewarded. It's still a skill, you're not limiting driving distance skill.

I think there's a lot of misconceptions about that, but where you're sitting, I would think a benefit for you potentially is, all right, there's a bunker at 305, Kerry. Rory probably isn't thinking about it in most launch conditions, right? He is gonna be able to cover it. He's probably hitting it to a wider spot.

He is exacerbating his driving distance advantage over you in that scenario, whereas now with a rollback ball, 305 might mean he has to play to the same part of the fairway that you're playing towards. He's still going to be ahead of you. There's still going to be an advantage, but he's not able to exacerbate that advantage on in as many situations.

Do you see that as a potential benefit to your game at all? Does it allow him not to carry that bunker possibly going forward? You know, that's a real possibility. But, you know, he still has the advantage of 20, 25 yards in front of me. He's still going to hit a short club in. He has to worry about that bunker that he possibly can't carry anymore. So you already see that now. You already see that now with certain courses that are designed and bunkers positioned in

the right way, where if they possibly can't carry that bunker, you know, that does bring a challenge to them, but even if they don't, they're still 25 yards in front of me and they're hitting a couple clubs less than me. So yes, I mean, I understand your point, but they're still an advantage to them by being 20, 25 yards in front of me going forward. Yes, it just may not allow the carrier to a certain me going forward. Yeah, so just may not allow in the career, a certain bunker going forward. I guess my reaction to that as I just remember watching DJ Rory and Fleetwood play in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi and Fleetwood's playing out here and by cutting the corner, Rory and DJ could get an 80 yard advantage, which is not consistent with how much farther they hit the ball than Tommy

Fleetwood at that time. So like in theory, you're going to to that part of the fairway anyways, you might as well get, if you get joined by the longer guys playing to that way, that helps you a little bit. But it's, it's a perfect point. You know, it's a perfect example is 13, I guess, my favorite part five in the world. It's all, I mean, when I first played it in 2014, I was like, man, this is the greatest part five.

I love the watcher on TV and it just playing it added to it. But when I play it, I can't take it over the trees that the Bubba Watts and the Bryson D-Shambos, the Royes, the DJs could. So I had to play out and around. And if they could cover that, you know, they got advantage. But as I tell people is, if they pulled it, they were in trouble. If they mishit it, they were in trouble. So they had to hit that line and hit the perfect shot for them to get full advantage of what they were trying to do. And if they did it, they got penalized for it. So that's why I was never a fan of moving that tee back at 13. What's for the fact of, there's very few guys

that are doing what, you know, something that's taking that line. And if they don't pull it off, which is a very high probability because it has to be struck perfectly, it has to be launched perfectly, the wind has to be done, you know, the right way, they're going to be penalized for it in some way or another. Billy, I've covered a lot of US opens and I feel like there's a distinct lack of trust between the players in the USGA. How much do you think that factors in to sort of the feeling about this and why do you think that lack of trust exists? Yeah, you know, that's a great point, Kevin, and I think

you're you're pretty much spot on. I think the trust between the USGA and the players has has dwindled over the years. You know, there's a multitude of reasons for that. I think the trust between the USGA and the players has has dwindled over the years. You know, there's a multitude of reasons for that. I think it has to do sometimes with possibly setups of certain courses over the years. US opens, you know, I'll bring up a perfect example, as Chambers Bay in 2015, my little snake little thing. I think that, I'm not going to say that was a starting point, but just being there that week and talking to the players and the way the USDA and the way the coverage on Fox, really tried to say the greens were perfect. There was nothing no issues wrong with the greens

that guys were missing three and four footers because of the pressure. That was just, three and four footers because of the pressure. That was just, you know, I think that was a little you know, notching the trust of the USGA. I said, multitude of players, you know, behind closed doors were not happy with the way the USGA addressed it. Obviously, I said my comments afterwards and a lot of my comments was because of the way everything was being addressed and the USA wasn't being truthful and the Fox coverage made us look awful. I've said this a couple times and a lot of people won't know about it still. Mike Davis called me the Tuesday after the US Open and apologized for the condition of the golf course. He apologized that they didn't do a better job.

And I just said Mike, I said this all could have been covered if you guys would just came out early in weeks that hey listen we messed up the greens aren't what they were they're not championship caliber condition greens away we normally would have it the US open and and we understand that and and you know we're going to do better next time and he admitted they should have done that I said the PJ tour I think did that earlier that

year at the players championship when the greens were really bad and not one player said one bad thing when the greens were really bad, and not one player said one bad thing about the greens. We all just said, hey, the tour address that they know, they messed up, they know they f'd up, you know, done deal. And so I think, you know, a little bit of that. And then the other thing I mentioned to Mike Davis years ago was for so many decades, a USGA was seen as the influence in the game of golf where golfers look to for advice and the way to play the

game of golf and all these other things. Well, that has changed. That has switched and that made a major switch to the PJ two and the PJ two employers over the last couple decades. And I said, Mike, the PJ2 and the PJ and the players on the PJ2 have the power. They have the pool. They have the influence with the golfers now.

And I said, I'm not saying we're trying to pound their chest on this, but we need to work more together. We need to get together in on this and work more closely with us and bring us more in on your discussions and everything else. I wasn't on a player saying this. There was a lot of other players saying the same thing to the USG at the same time. That's one reason why the higher Jason Gore and Jason Gore were so great. I would say that over the last several US Open T's been a dramatic It's been a dramatic change in the way things were done the way the courses set up just by moving in placements a couple of paces here or there you don't get those crazy ones that you would see at Shanacock and certain other places over the years. So that trust in that factor with the PJ two and the US shea just isn't there and I feel like we need to try and regain that somehow.

But I think the players are willing to, and the PJ Tour is willing to come to, I know the PJ Tour talk to them, but I'm just saying the PJ Tour and hold the entire PJ Tour family. We all just need to somehow come together and have more discussions about this. Because I said, the USDA just still wants to be the lone horse out there on the own when right now the PJ tour and the PGA America have this great alliance

together and working so well. The USGA needs to somehow figure out how to do that with the PGA tour going forward in my opinion. How do you view the role of the USGA in terms of a governing body? That's something that an exercise I feel like we're all kind of going through in terms of, you know, you know, should the PGA tour be making all of the rules as it comes to the game of golf, right? And so, yeah, I'm just not a fan of bifurcation. I've never have been, you know, there's been discussions over my 14 years on the PGA tour of players talking about it and players meetings of talking about impact.

And I'm just never bit a fan of it. I follow the rules. I follow, I'm a man of tradition. I like keeping things away. I've always seen them. I follow the rules, I follow, I'm a man of tradition, I like keeping things the way I've always seen them and I have had them. I want to keep it unified. I think that's the way the game of golf should be. I think that's the way everyone can work together and hopefully harmony.

We don't have two sets of rules and we're players and people in the game of golf, especially new people coming or trying to figure out what set of rules are played by everything else. The role of the USGA, what is the role today? That's a great question. Obviously, them and the RNA are the ones who set rules and oversee the game are going off just as the PGA America does and as a PGA tour, you know, does in a certain way as well. You know, I stopped having, you know, that question I've never even put that much thought into. But, you know, I'll just say what I said earlier, I think there's, there's got to be a way that the USDA, the RNA, the PGA tour and the PGA America, and if there's another body or two of organizations that I'm missing out, need to figure out some way to, there's got to be a way that we can come together and work, you know, like I say, more efficiently, more, you know, better for, you know, the next

several decades because if we're still going and tugging at each other and we're not going to do this and we're not going to do that, we're going to implement this, you know, and we're not going to do this and we're not going to do that. We're going to implement this. We're not on the same page. It's not going to be great for the game of golf going forward because you've seen it throughout the history of time when that happens. Nothing works well and it's a hindrance to the growth of anything. I'm wondering out loud if the new regime at the USGA with Mike Wahn can lead to that. I think that slowly building the trust back up, and I have a lot of faith in Mike Wahn

on this. But you mentioned not being a fan of bifurcation. I want to take you through my little flow chart on it, right? And it's like, all right, the question is distance and issue and golf. I would say yes, some people would say no, but I would say yes. Okay, how do we address it? Should we roll the ball back for everyone? We ran a little informal Twitter poll.

14% of our audience, the hardest core golfers out there want a rollback for everyone. So we have a very unpopular thing would be a rollback for everyone, right? So flow chart again, is distance still an issue in golf? Yes. Where is that distance exacerbated the most highest level? Okay, should we do something about this to bring this in, to prevent the kind of dumbing down of the game

and the challenges that have gone wrong with that? Is bifurcation the best option? I don't think so. I personally think rollback for everyone would be the best option. I know people don't want to hear that. I think the gains that have come from distance for amateurs are offset by going back to far and tease anyways.

Like the footprint just doesn't, of golf doesn't need to be big. That's kind of my thesis overall, of summing up an extremely complicated topic in as simple terms as possible. So all that to being said, I'm down with bifurcation, like I'm down to limit this. I'm down to say like, Hey, like we can go around it in a lot of different ways, but I promise you will end up with you and I agreeing. The ball should go a different a certain distance, like it shouldn't go 450 yards and it shouldn't go

150 yards, right? So we can agree it should go a certain distance. We might disagree on what that distance is, but in some way, the USGA and RNA are already regulating how far the ball goes. We're talking about a change in that regulation of how far it goes. And for reasons they've listed out on multiple of ways. And I think the best case against any of this

is your 0.1% of golf courses that we're talking about, 0.1% of talent. But I maintain it. I, it's something that I've seen throughout all of this is your 0.1% of golf courses that we're talking about, 0.1% of talent. But I maintain it. It's something that I've seen throughout all of this is many people stand up and saying, I wanna play the same rules as a pros. I wanna play the same ball. This is a unification game.

That's what it is. And so that I'd say, the game of golf takes its cues from professional golf. And we've seen that with the golf, you're talking about, yeah, shouldn't build golf courses that have teas that aren't for pros. You can't regulate that, right? You can't. You can't. You can't.

You can say, hey, Tiet forward. They bring a Tiet forward campaign. Everyone should be playing further up teas than they do. People don't really respond to that, right? So again, it's like a, a million different ways of the flow chart that end up with like, all right, let's just let the ball not go as far. Seems like the best option for me. You know, you're right in the, in the subtle things, but let me, I'll, I'll address a couple that you said, you can't regulate what someone's going to, how long are you going to build a golf course? But if that person's going to build a golf course in that architect and the people put behind the money of building that golf course, then my opinion is you can't,

they can't complain about the cost of maintaining that golf course because they built that golf course. They were the ones who built that golf course at that length and they knew what the maintaining of that golf course was going to be. So, you know, I'm not blamed that person, I'm just bringing out, you had the option to build a course that was going to be maintained at a lower cost and they didn't do that. The thing about the USGA and the golf ball and limiting it, the USGA's Oh yeah. They messed up. They messed up. They kept the swing speed. They kept the launch conditions and balls and everything else, you know, at a spot that,

you know, they, it was their fault. Their fault. And a lot of this, I'm not saying, not like I'm not blame. I'm not saying it's all the USJ's fault because the players have gotten longer and there's been technology advancement and everything. But some of this is, it falls on the USG's fault because the players have gotten longer and there's been technology advancement and everything but some of this is he falls on the USG's shores for not doing their job

what they were have done throughout the history of time and now they're trying to make up for the issues that they made. I like Mike Wong. Mike Wong at LPGA was unbelievable. I thought he killed it there. He's done so much for for those women and I have a several friends lots of friends out there And what he was doing and the momentum that he you know brought to that tour to her is awesome And I'm excited at Mike one still am excited at Mike one is at the USGA and is that the USGA but The question I have is that I've never seen this in the Game of Golf where something gets announced in every organization, every manufacturer, every, you know, you know, important entity in

the Game of Golf is on the same page about what they want to do. And they all may have different reasons for, you know, being on that same page about what they want to do. And they all may have different reasons for being on that same page, but it just doesn't look great. I haven't seen one top tour, manufacturer, even the AJGA came out and mentioned that they weren't in favor of this rollback because of the cost effects it was going to linger down to to the golfers beyond the professional ranks. So it's one of those things like wow, did they just not look at everything and sort of feel things out which I know they which isn't true but did they just not see the bigger picture and the effects it was going to have going down further to the lower ranks.

I'm just going to stop you on that because I think they were pretty adamant about this is what the proposal and this is what the comment period is for, right? Mike Wahn was like, I haven't the way that order of operations here is I present this and open up for comment. I haven't had the private conversations I want to have in relation to this because I got to get the proposal out for it to be the comment period, right? Great point. Great point. If it ends at the end of that where they just truly didn't listen to anyone's input And they've listened to input from last year

There was different proposals last year that they've land on on this proposal So Kevin, I know you had a question. I know you got to run here Billy But Billy we have a five-month comment period here and you know, obviously these changes aren't gonna be for a while In 2026 how likely do you think it is that the tours players are going to go along with this? Could we see different set of rules for different championships and different tournaments? So I don't know this for a fact.

This is just my opinion. And I want to be clearing out the floor to state this. And it gets out. Oh, yeah. Well, context is there. If this is implemented, I'd be hard-pressed to see the PJ Tour adopted. Over the several years of the USDA doing this distance report and everything else, the tour has, you know, when the USDA brought stuff to us to look at it and view, the PJ Tour

has countered out where there are studies and their evidence. And let's just say the PJ tour is not in favor of any distance rollback. Up into as far as I know is sitting here right now. So, and I don't think the tour players would be in favor of it. I don't think the majority of tour players would be in favor of it. Obviously, we have a top players that are, you know, in the pack that are involved in discussions on the tour on many different cases right now. But I just like said, I just don't see it happen on the tour in 2026 that this was being implemented. So, yeah, that's where I think the tour

and the tour players would stand. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am in stating that. It's really interesting because back in 2002, the USGA made, I'm gonna kind of paraphrase the comment, but like any further significant increases in hitting distance at the highest level are undesirable. And in the 2003, the PGA tour said, we will work with the USGA and be in alignment with the USGA.

I'm paraphrasing that. So, lots change in 20 years, like, you know, in the specifics. Exactly right. Need to be worked out. I think, you know, there's many different things. Obviously, yes, the tour rules say, hey, listen, yes, there were distances that have been increased, but it's been less than one yard per year over the last 12 years. And like I said earlier, I think when you look at the average club at speed on the PJ Tour has been the same about one-fourteen. The driving distance has been about the same. Giver, take different conditions, whether

years. And, you know, I consider and say, hey, listen, we play fairways that I mean the ball runs 20, 30 plus yards every week. I mean, I played TPC Monday of player championship and the ball was running five yards. It was leaving a pitch mark and five yards the ball was rolling out. By Thursday, the ball was running out 25 yards in the fairway and I didn't play the weekend but I just played TPC yesterday

and the ball was running out 30 yards because it's so firm and so burnt out and everything. So I can say there's many different factors that go into the distances and everything. But at the same time, you know, the TV is looking at, I mean, TV, the tour is looking at the TV and the value and entertainment value and the TV numbers and seeing how many people watching game are golf and tuning in and people enjoying it. And, you know, I consider and say that as a golf fan, and I'm a tour player, but as a golf fan, I am marveled by the way, Cameron Young can hit a driver, and word macrory.

I love it. I love playing with them because they're great guys, and it's impressive season of drives they hit. But I'm also pissed off at the same time when they do miss hit a drive and don't get penalized for it and not find they hit it offline. So, but I think golf fans love seeing something that they can't do. That is something that I think is in any sport.

I think it's impressive, you know, fans love seeing a home run in baseball. They love that, you know, They love seeing a quarterback though, 50 yard pass down the sideline, the wide receiver jump over the corner back and make an impressive catch. That's something that the regular fan cannot do. So my worry is that if we roll back the ball,

will fans still have that off factor of what we're able to do because of how highly talented and skillful we are? My challenge to that bill is 100 million percent, I think they will. If a 5% rollback is about the same in like launch conditions in TPC Scottsdale versus Torrey Pines, right? And I'm not, you know, I'm a fairly good player. I don't launch it like a tour pro at Scottsdale and that, Pines, right? Like, and I'm not, you know, I'm a fairly good player.

I don't launch it like a Tor Pro at Scottsdale and that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not comparable and I think distance is relative. I think that's the important thing. It's not fun being on the pro row backside and have it, you know, we're supposed to be the edgy golf guys, whatever. Oh, you old fudds. It's not fun to be on that side, but like I think people, you know, home runs are exciting and baseball, when everyone's hitting them. It's not that exciting, right?

And it's the relative distance that's still going to be in all when Cameron Young wails on a driver. Like we're, I do this for a living. I can't tell you the difference to my eyes between a 310 driver and a 340 driver. I can't, like I can't and I get I walked on the players. I guarantee most of the people there with, you know, they're not going to see Cameron Young hit a ball and be like, I could do that. Like that wasn't impressive at all.

It's still so insanely impressive. And like you guys have gained like on the average golfer more than like the 5%. You know what I mean? In terms of like the benefits you've seen from distance of just your skill level and things like that to say like this actually isn't that big of a deal. I think this rollback, I don't think it's that drastic. I think people think we're going back to laying up on par fives and all this kind of stuff.

It's just a little shift in how in the inputs in it and I think it can lead to a more interesting game. That's a really tough thing to convey on social media and convince people that have made up their minds. But I think it's an interesting, definitely an interesting debate to have. And I do think this changes a lot of what you think is exciting about golf. That's my personal opinion. I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree that it, you know, sometimes it would be nice to,

you know, play courses where everyone's hitting more mid to long irons in the greens and seeing that skill level instead of hitting wedges of short irons, you know. But at the same time, I look at them like, well, those weeks I'm not hitting it great. It's nice. I don't have to hit that five iron five times during the round, and I can hit five nine irons into the green. So, you know, it's a catch 22. I can get... What I want to see, I'm happy that I don't see when I'm not playing well and everything else. So we're... it's a tough situation that we're in. And I know there is no right answer in my opinion that everyone's going to be on board. My entire thing for the last, you know, handful of years just, you know, just let's just penalize guys that mishit, mishit, mishit

the center of the club face more often. And when they do mishit it offline, they get penalized for that. Whether that's designing courses,, whether it's growing, putting trees, rough, whatever it may be. No, we made it this far without grow the rough up. I thought I was just kidding. I'm not saying grow the rough up. No, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I think, and I'll say this,

I don't think the rough needs to be stupid long. But I think there is a certain link that does make a certain different factor into play. And I'm not saying it needs to be chop out rough, but there is a certain link that where you take it just a little bit longer, it does bring a little bit, you know, makes it a little bit more tougher to control a shot out of going forward. That's what I find RIV to be interesting. The cut of RIV is, and I granted that's a genius design

from Green's. Yeah, but it causes it. But it causes it jumps a little, right? You know, you can hit any shot you want, but like controlling it when you get to the green is the penalty that you pay in that. I find that style of golf unbelievably appealing. I know I'm a hard-o, but like,

there's a sentiment online of just grow the rough up, narrow the fairways, that's gonna combat distance. And I've been writing this on repeat. I'm like, I don't know who, like do people not watch the 2019 PGA in the 2020 US open where like, Beth Page was a true bomber's paradise, wing foot, a true bomber's paradise to say like that, that in my opinion is not a way to combat distance.

What you said is very different though, I think in terms of how it can prevent different challenges. The rough can prevent different challenges. Yeah, so, for example, as Han and this year, last year, the rough was really long. And when you hit in the rough and you got to carry the water, you know, that, you're not going to take that opportunity because that lies not as good. This year, they cut it down where it's more or less somewhat of a flyer lie where you knew you could get the enough club on it, you knew you're going to carry it, but you couldn't, you know, you weren't sure what's going to fly, was it not going to fly so that brought a challenge in for that course, which was perfect for that golf course. TPC shots that on the other hand

this year, they've cut the rough down again this year compared the last year, which made it easy because when you missed the fairways, you know, You had great lies and yes, it may fly out over that that overseeded, but very often does it It doesn't really do it But the year before they had it up a little higher and It's one of those things where I say it's not so much that it makes it you're you're getting chopped out rough But it just sits a certain way that you lose a little bit of control in the sense of hey, I've got to muscle this out a little bit more. So now, you know, I know I can get it to the green, but now I may not be able to control whether it's going to help you know, my dispersion left the right on it. So I think every course is different. I'm not saying every course needs to have long rough, but depending on how the course is designed and you know, what other hazards and penalties they have,

a course should have a ruffling that is perfect for that. My example to the PGA Tour this year with TPC Scottsill was, it was the windiest I've ever seen in my life at TPC Scottsill for four days. I've never seen wind like that anywhere, and I've talked to people in Phoenix. I've never seen wind like that anywhere and I talked to people in Phoenix. I've never seen win like that for four straight days there. And Scottie Schuffler won at 19 on the par. And last year he won at 15 or 16 on the par and a playoff over Patrick Cantley. So, and there was no win two years ago and there was a ton of win this year and the only difference really would have been the rough link a little bit in my opinion

that sort of made that that that's going you know that much different in my opinion. I may be wrong or I may be right, but that is what I what I you know have finalized. Well, I think this is not even counting anything you just said, but my main counter to you know, you talk about higher rough. What what it does is it the closer you get to the green, I'll butcher the way to phrase this, but like a wedge out of the rough for Rory is way different than an eight iron out of the rough for you, right? And it exacerbates that difference of the driving advantage.

When it's narrow enough that everyone's going to be missing fairways, the best bet is vomit as far as possible and figured out from there, which is a dumb down game that I, you know, again, it's reductive kind of way of freezing it, but that's kind of where my position in this is. One of my favorite courses in the world is Harbor Town. Well, I can tell you a couple of me. I love TPC Memphis. I mean, I'll say on the world,

favorite course on tour at TPC Memphis, or at TPC Southland, Harbor Town, Colonial, Sedgefield, and it's funny because I'm not a big fan of 20 plus on the par winning, but what Sejfield is so great about is that yes it's short, yes it's got some great greens, but you cannot shoot 20 in the par if you're not hitting fairways. If you hit the fairway you're gonna have a scoreable club, you're gonna have a wedge in or a short iron in, and so it gives you the

opportunity, but the big thing is you have to be accurate off the tee to be able to have that opportunity to make those scores. And if you aren't, you're not gonna compete there. And that's why I think it's such a great golf course. I have no problem with a 20 on the par winning. Like I said, it's a challenge is putting the ball in the fairway. And then, you know, then obviously it gets a little easier, but you still got to hit a great wedge shot or iron shot in there and make the putt.

But you know, like I said, I'm never a big fan of turning the part winning. I love 8 to 12 to 15 really being the winning score on a regular basis. Because I think that challenges all aspects of the game at every wards. The players that are playing great that week and everything else. But I think like said, every venue is different on the PJ tour and even their majors at that. like set every venue's different on the PJ tour and even a major's at that. To me, there's golf course on the tour that Bogey is very prevalent at. And there's some that it's not right. Like Sony, it's just, it's not very prevalent.

Like when you get, you can pin your ears back and go. Whereas Scottsdale, there's bogeys to be had out there. There's, there's a lot of bogeys to be had. That is the most entertaining golf. So I don't, I don't care as much about the final scores. I do like, do you, is there some mystery in what's about to happen? Whereas if you got a two shot lead at, at Sony and the other guys in the house, I don't think you're going backwards. I just do not too worried. Yeah, exactly. So exactly.

Billy, thanks so much for the time. And this is an awesome conversation. I'm pleasure. Guys, great to get some some tour insight into this and the audience. I'm sure we'll greatly appreciate as well. So thanks for your time and enjoy your weekend. Appreciate it. I'm gonna plug you guys. You well. So thanks for your time and enjoy your weekend. Appreciate it. My pleasure guys, you too. Have a good one. Thank you again to Billy.

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your game to a new level for 2023. A lot of people ask, what trolley I have when I'm out there, you know, I'll meet strangers like, what is this thing? It's Walker Trolley. You know it's a Walker Trolley. Check them out, walkertrolley.com. I might need to get one of them Walker Trolley. It's no that I'm fully on board here.

I bet to join a new country club, I want to pimp with, I want to show it off, make sure all the other members know, hey, I got one, I have one of those Trolley. We all get you, we're going to get of those. We will get you sort of, we're getting you up to speed here. Any other reaction to it? Listen, we're gonna talk some distance here. Probably gonna rehash a couple of the points

we made there with Billy Boah. It was important for us to bring someone on that maybe had a different perspective. We've heard your calls for that. We wanted to find a sensible person that can present that case. There's a lot of not sensible people out there saying a lot of things that maybe are not agreeing to come on the podcast

I've tried but I thought Billy represented a torp the tour, you know, Torp player's perspective very well there I Just wish that people would do the reading all right like if you would listen to the points for why they've Decided that the ball is the thing to do other than you know, they they can't figure, like, the driver is not necessarily the, there's ripple effect. We talked about that a little bit with Horseshal, like, what do you do about three wood? What do you do about hybrids all the way down? You know, I wish where everyone would just, at least feel educated before they came into the conversation. That's obviously never going to happen, but like, I have tried very hard to read everything

and read all the points. And there's sometimes when people on the other side make points about stuff that I'm like, yeah, like, okay, I hadn't really considered that. And that's gonna be something that, you know, will need to be figured out. But for the most part, I feel pretty comfortable with where I am that I feel something should be done.

And because not necessarily like at this moment, but like 20 years from now, I would like there to be some people keep saying What do you think like what course right now can't host a major that would want to? But like well, how about courses that you know used to host majors? You know 40 years ago and now can't like what happens if you know 25 years from now like we're already sort of run into that with Marion People who think that like the Marion is sort of a you know Just because it's on the docket for 2030 to us to use open, that that means that it's

played, but they had to trick Marion up so badly to make it, you know, any resembling of what it was in the past. And there's just isn't room for to build more like T-boxes backwards. I just, I don't find that argument to be particularly compelling. You know what, they used to play part of the Crosby Clam make it cypress. And even though the cypress people probably don't want to have it be a part of that anymore, you couldn't do it there because of how short it is. And so I don't find that argument particularly moving. What is the best case? You said, you know, that you hear some takes that you're like, yeah, you know what, that is a good point. What do you think the best

case against not doing something is? I think, you know, that's such a, like, hard thing to say because I feel strongly that you should be rewarded for being able to hit it far. I do think that that is a skill. I think, you know, Rory has talked about it in the past, like he's five foot nine. Like there's something to him that makes him able to hit it as far as DJ air, as far as some of these other guys. And so I don't think we're trying to take away, you know, hitting it far for like the longest hitters

necessarily, I think the longest hitters are still gonna be the longest hitters. I think that there's just value in preserving the sort of hitting five irons into greens occasionally or having to sort of take on chances instead of just everybody bangs the same shot that they do or every it's a wedge contest for a lot of different people. So look, do I think that it would be the best case scenario if the PGA tour didn't adopt the thing? I actually think that that would be sort of interesting in some ways. That's sort of, we've here and we asked Billy, do you think that they'll adopt this? And I think he was like, well, I think a lot of guys

are going to be against it. I don't know necessarily what the vote would be or whatever, but I think a lot of guys would sort of vote no. And actually, I think in some ways, that might be the best case scenario because it would sort of force them to kind of figure out, like, all right, can I figure out how to play a different ball when I'm going to the Masters?

And is that going to piss me figure out like, all right, can I figure out how to play a different ball when I'm going to the masters? And is that going to piss me off enough that I'm going to, you know, is it really that difficult to figure out the different, how the ball goes six, seven yards farther this time? I don't really think it's going to be, especially now how easy it is to plug yourself into trackman and figure that stuff out. So that kind of, to me, like, to see guys being really pissed off because they feel like the ball is fucking with them, actually that sounds awesome because they they're gonna throw tantrums and the guys who are gonna not be able to handle it, they're gonna eliminate themselves from the tournament.

And that's like a mental test as well. So that's kind of what I'm rooting for in some ways. I've got so many thoughts, man. And it kind of, you can distill it down really easily with like, dude, it just doesn't have to go 330. All right. A far drive can be 310. And that's what we're talking about with this rollback is if a far drive goes from 330 to 310, it changes so many things. It does.

It makes so many different things better. It does not. I said this to Billy. It's like, dude, I promise you when Cameron Young wails on a golf ball with the rollback ball, no one's going to look at that and be like, that wasn't very impressive. Like that, I can tell that ball only went 305. Like I promise you that's not the case. And again, we're talking about rollbacks that are the difference in the launch conditions

between TPCs, Scottsdale and Torrey Pines on a daily basis, right? So again, I get some of the feedback I've seen this week is like, well, then why even do it? It's pointless. It's like, dude, okay. If you're asking that question, I would like you to please do the required reading, all right? We can talk about footprints. We can talk about the balance of skills in the game. Like we can straight up talk about the statements made

by the USGA and RNA. And I'm just going to read some of that stuff to you, right? And I have included in the show notes to this show, um, to this episode. If you go on your Apple podcast, wherever it is, just links to the USGA and RNA distance reports and all of their information that they have published in relation to all of this. So just background information again, so much work has gone into the statement of saying the RNA and USGA believe that further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable whether

These increases in distance emanate from advancing equipment technology greater athleticism improve player coaching course conditioning all that whatever these contributing factors are we can debate that but we're they're just saying Whatever it is it should it can't continue to go this far, right? There's a ton of stuff in there and I won't read all of it about what it means for footprints and what it means, like the size of new golf courses that are being put together compared to old golf courses but you know, the average course

was used to be around 150 acres if it was built between 1900 and 1980. Now at average, 205 acres, like a 33% plus increase in acreage, hey, how are land costs trending in the game of golf, right? And golf has just vast itself in its recent success. And it just had itself on the back and congratulated itself for how popular the game is right now. Go look at the trends of participation and golf course closures prior to COVID.

Golf has boomed during COVID and it was suffocating during this distance boom. And I'm going to read some quotes from Bill Field who wrote a great piece. He said, nowhere on the golf landscape is growing the game mantra more nonsensical than it was when it was thrown around in conversations about distance. Golf's popularity as a recreation activity waned not spiked in the years when equipment advances were most evident. Golf participation surged because a global pandemic gave people more time to play a fresh air sport and socialize safely with friends in the process and in the process, not because golfers suddenly picked up yards from clubs and balls and delighted in the game. They had previously

ignored our younger golfers more enthralled with tech. And does that draw them in? Yes, but that tech is not necessarily about longer shots. And the belief that fans of whatever age will turn away and draws from watching the professional game, if the longest hitters lose a fraction of their distance, if they hit the length of three American football fields off the tee instead of three and a quarter such spaces is more baseless than the argument about why everyday golfers pursue the game. And it's just like, again, you can find all kinds of information of how there was, you know, US golf participants in 2006 was 29.8,000, whatever that means, number 29.8 million participants. That dipped all the way to 23.8,

it dipped every year leading up into 2016, 2017. It's seen a little bit of a bump and kind of leveled off around where it went down to 2014 at the 24 million mark But it went it was absolutely decreasing before COVID hit and it's not like we can bask ourselves and like hey Distances why the game is booming so well right now It's all I want to redo just a line from Rick Riley's famous gamer about Jack Nicholas winning in 1986 What knickles was four back of Sevy. He came to the 15th hole, and he was desperate to get something going.

So he let loose. This is a rally riding. Let loose a mammoth drive, 298 yards. So big that it's surprised even him. Like think back then, 298 yards was a huge drive, and golf was more popular than ever. So don't, I don't think you can flip this around and be like, oh, how dare you attack golf in its most popular moment. It was way more popular than ever. So don't, I don't think you can flip this around and be like, oh, how dare you attack golf

in its most popular moment. It was way more popular than than it was back then. And guys weren't, bomb it. The 300 yards was like, whoa, that's a huge drive. It does, like, it, it, yeah, I've said this in a million different ways now. I've just like, it's not fun to be like, you know, it, they've done a good job of like,

the detractors of this have done a good job of like painting the rollback guys as old fuds and being anti-fun when it's like, actually, like I think what we're talking about is more fun and there is a balance of skill to this and again, and all of this reports, all of the distance reports from there, they talk about how golf is trending towards it

and has trended for a long time. Like it basically since this is not a recent thing in the last 20 years. This goes back to titanium drivers in the 90s rolling into the 2000s in the shot link area. It's not like it's greatly gone into shots that are way closer to the green. But over the last 30 years it has turned way more into a wedge and short iron contest than it has been a test of all skills. And that is something that Martin Slumber has talked about in the press conference last week. more into a wedge and short iron contest than it has been a test of all skills. And that is something that Martin Slumber has talked about in the press conference last

week. And I totally completely agree with that. And all they're talking about doing now is making it so nine iron shots are basically going to be seven iron shots, right? And when you talk about, and we've talked a lot about the homogenization of this product, golfers, when they're hitting nine irons, the top players in the world are not going to separate themselves out nearly as much as they will when they're hitting seven irons in the proximity of these shots gets way different as you get to that 175 to 200 range, which is like what they're trying to create more of those shots. And when you get in that area, it's a different club that you're probably hitting with a rollback ball. The game of golf changes to a better balance of skills as all that this is really about.

It's not as drastic as people think. It's not gonna roll it back to everybody laying up on par fives all over again. And it is changes so many things that I, the more I've thought about, the more convinced I am, the more people I talk to, the more stuff I read. I've read everyone's Twitter threads, I've read all the data.

It has led me to a conclusion that's like, dude, this is a good start for addressing a problem that is only going to get worse as all the documentation shows. This is the way we get to TC's prediction that more cow in Zay majors too is like if you give Colmar cow a like 106 irons versus everyone else, like he's going to hit it a lot closer to the hole than they are. I mean, I just, if I were a top player at this point, I know we're going to talk in the second about Justin Thomas. I would sort of maybe see this as like a huge opportunity. If I could step outside myself, but it retained just a hint of selfishness to be like, yo, I'm way better with a seven iron than most

guys are with a seven iron. I'm better than them with a wedge, but not so much better than them that I can see the difference show up like over and over again. But man, like that's what I think, you know, the thing I said with Horserale, like, I would love to see him, you know, because it's a pretty good long iron player, competing against more guys with long irons. And, you know, I think I would be interested to hear what Rory's thoughts on all this are because I think Rory's a great long iron player. God, this would be a huge opportunity for him to be like, yeah, like I think my skills is going to show up a lot better. Honestly, like if the ball hadn't advanced the way that it did, Tiger might have 22 majors or something because nobody was better at hitting mid-Irns than he was throughout the course of his career compared

to the relative, you know, the rest of the guys in his peers. And again, this is like I'm not even going to get into the details of this because Mark Brody published a white paper that is even by my nerdy standards, it's extremely nerdy. It is a statistics nerd. I'm not going to break down all of this, but basically it says golf courses have increased by about 40 yards over the, you know, per decade, basically over the last two years. And but scoring has declined at almost a little over half a shot in that time period basically. And a lot of those gains, like improvements in driving contributed to 43% of total score decline, which is that may not sound like a lot, but the rest of the game

approach shots short game and putting only making up 57% compared to the 43% is enormous. And talking about players averaging distance going up eight yards per decade. Again, I don't know if that sounds like a lot. That is freaking enormous. That is such a big gap. The it is led to the top 40 players gaining like again, 4.5% per decade more and an increasing rate of 4.5% per decade more value, off the tee. That's the trend that it's going. It's basically becoming more and more of a driving contest as time goes on. So if nothing gets done, golf is going to turn more and more into a

driving contest. And look, I think one of the best cases against all this is in the why now is like, why will we do this now? And the answer, that's a good question because the answer was, it was time to do this 20 years ago. Like, we've gotten too far into this that makes all of this unwinding really difficult, but the answer, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do nothing now. And now that there's new leadership at the USGA, there's new appetite. I know the USGA looked into this eight, nine years ago. I forget one of the timeline was checked with the tour on this. The tour was pretty adamant. I'm like, nope, not going to do it. And it died pretty quickly. And now we're kind of paying the, you know, paying the debt on that and letting that the interest run up on this for another few years to the point where it's

like, dude, it's not sustainable. Like period point blank, not sustainable. It can't keep going this way. I don't know how and we'll get to JT's comments here. I don't know JT can say it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. When he's going to walk off the 12th green at Augusta, and he's gonna go stand in what used to be the ninth fairway at Augusta Country Club to hit his T-shot.

Like, they've moved a road for a new 50th at Augusta National. And I know there's a sentiment of people out there that like, do let those courses figure it out. But the USGA and RNA are not just responsible for like, golf at the highest level, they're responsible for like elite competitions around the world. Okay, so some of Thomas Pegel's comments about Japan

and Argentina and all the places they're hosting elite competitions is like, this is not a problem for 50 golf courses, it's a problem for so many golf courses. And I really, I know I doubt people are listening to this part two hours into this. I doubt they're like, oh, I'm just now learning about this It's the people that need to learn about it are probably not here listening to it But man, I think it's a lot of our duty to get this information out there

Well, it's funny to see the Taylor Moore's quote about this, you know, he wins and four days ago He's tweeting about like, oh, what are they gonna do? Raise the rim to 11 feet like dude like they've art That is the equivalent of like moving back Augustus T on 13. That is literally what it is. So like, of course that's happening in golf already. And that's what JT had a comment in this as well. And I'm gonna pick on him. He made these, you know, he made these comments

very committed and very publicly. He said, I mean, what are people are running faster? So what are they gonna do? Make the link the mile longer just so the fastest mile time doesn't change? Dude, they're making your golf courses way longer. Like, they're, they're, they're lengthening the holes. That's exactly what they're doing.

And he said, or are they going to put the NBA hoop at 13 feet because people can jump higher now? It's like, dude, there are people in the NBA aren't jumping higher because of the shoes. Like, that is not, again, we're talking about changing the, if there was equipment gains that were leading to people jumping way higher in the NBA, they would probably regulate the shoes and they do regulate shoes in some way.

So listen, we can, no one is trying to screen this from the rooftops. No one is trying to stop your track man gains, your athletic gains. No one's trying to stop distance being a skill and distance being rewarded. Some of the takes I hear about grow the rough or, you know, the farther you hit a shot, make the rough more penalizing down farther down the fairway. That is actively combating people with the best driving skill. Instead, if we change the whole scale of how t-shots are hit, now we're talking about the skill is going to be rewarded. It's going to be slightly different, probably even more rewarded, but it's just about protecting footprints. It's about bringing the game a little bit closer together.

It's a small little fix to a giant problem that if we're fighting this much about this part of it, I have very little hope for, you know, the education process that's going to go with what probably has to happen after this. I just, it doesn't the other comparisons to sports never wither saying like, Oh, you know, they don't change other sports. Of course they do. Like they change baseball, you know, the baseball right now, they regulate it right now. It's changing that regulation. I, I, I, again, just, I wish people would do the reading. Like then we could have an actual discussion about, you know, this. And again, like, per DJ's point, and it's called

this week, if you don't believe that the USGA and the RNA should govern the support of golf, then we're never going to agree on any of this stuff. We're never going to be able to even read some sort of compromise. And that seems to be what some people feel like that they that they don't feel like the USGA should have that role for professional golf in general. And look, if that's your point, like, I guess, you know, you can ride with it, that you can argue why you feel that way, but I feel like they've done a decent job

over the course of time with some mistakes here and there, and with being asleep at the wheel and some things, but I kind of feel like there should be because golf is so fractured, they should have a role in this. And if PGWORT Tour wants to have different rules for their events, great, but as I've said a couple of times on Twitter, I think if that's the case, then the USGA should eliminate the exemptions that get into the US open.

If they're going to say, all right, like you, your top 30 in the tour championship, but you're playing a totally different ball, like you can qualify for that or you can get in, you know, in other sort of ways. But we're no longer going to sort of just wave you in if you're not going to sort of play by the rules that we see I think that'd be a fair compromise if you want to keep playing the ball Then it's gonna be tougher for you to get into majors and if you're really good at it at golf Which you obviously are you can play your way right through sectionals

You can get in through like all the other sort of you know guys do or live in the dream that but make the US open in the open Chambership special There's cause and effect to all these decisions, right? And I think one of the strong, unifying anti-rollback takes is like we want to play the same equipment that pros are playing, right? Which, again, my combating that is you don't play the same teas, you don't play the same rules, not even close. Unless you are the guy that is walking back to the tea

when you lose your ball and are taking all of the proper reliefs and people just don't play golf that way. 99% of golf is played extremely casually. And that's kind of the goal of this is like, dude, none of that's gonna change. It's not. And I promise, I think it's gonna be uncomfortable for people at the fringes of the competitive golf world.

It's gonna be uncomfortable for me. Like, I, but I am adamant about that. Something needs to be done. And at this point, we're choosing between a bunch of bad options. Like, there's gonna be a a price to pay no matter what. I really do not think that a very pure five iron for a 10 handy cap to the center of the green is going to be diminished even 0.01% by the fact that the pros play a slightly

different ball. It's not currently diminished when you're playing a different T like if you crush a drive from a different T, do you sit and say like, ah, but the pros will play it from back there. No, you don't. Like 99% of golf is gonna stay exactly the same. And if golf gets too easy for you, from, you know, whatever, you can always move back a set of T's.

And if it's too easy for you then, you'll be able to, you know, there's places you can go to go test your game that will be played with a slightly different golf ball. Like should you play in those competitions, right? Should you choose to wanna play competitive golf? And for those in that bracket, like I do feel for you that. I hear, we hear for you. For those that aren't, I just don't have the same sympathy. I adventure that there's

like too many amateur golfers clubs and courses have taken too many cues from the professionals. And any trends like away from that will be ultimately good for the game of golf. It's long been said that what's going on at golf is unsustainable. That just means you can't do what we're doing forever. The ball can't keep going farther. Something, so what happens when something's unsustainable, something has to change, and this is the beginning of that change. So I think to what people keep saying,

what if I want to play like a pro's? You can, that opportunity will be there for you to play, and here's the, I will say the caveat, is if a ball company decides what we're going to charge $65 for the pro ball or whatever, there's an opportunity in the market then for another ball company to be like, you know what, we'll make a similar ball, but we'll make it 30 bucks. Like, that's basic capitalism, the idea of like, yeah, if that market exists for people

who really want to test their game in the same way that the pros do, I don't think that people really want to do that. I think that they want to pretend that they're testing game in the same way that the pros do. I don't think that people really want to do that. I think that they want to pretend that they're testing themselves in the same way that the pros do, but they're just too much ego involved to sort of be like, no, no, no, wait, I can't play like truly the same ball that they do.

They think that they hit it 300 yards, but mostly probably the people who hit it 300 yards hit it 275, 280, and it's just never quite the same. It doesn't stack up and aren't playing the same tease as you said. You're just people are gonna have to kind of like take an ego check in some ways to sort of be that same thing and they don't wanna do it.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of questions to be answered. How do handicapped systems work? How does it, you know, is it gonna be, I saw a couple tweets that were like, what's gonna, if I go say I shot 72, somebody's gonna be like, oh, was it with the cheating ball? It's like, well, it's the same way people are like, oh, was it backties, or was it, you know, the white tease?

Like, where did you shoot that from? Like that, all this stuff already exists, it just doesn't really exist to this knowledge, like to people's knowledge around equipment. And it's uncomfortable, but man, it's complicated, and I wish it's way easier to sit on the other side of this and just be like, oh, you want funds? I guess the problem, one of the main problems

I have with JT's comments was saying that the USGA has done things that aren't for the better of the game although they claim it and it's selfish decisions. And I don't know what that means. I don't know what's going on. I'm just like out there trying to make this like, oh, I'm really gonna make a name for myself the USIA By just sticking it to the pros and this idea that like you know

These I think he said these so-called like attended 15 handicappers deciding the rules for us How good was Roger Gidele at football? It's all yeah, do you think he was a pretty good player? Do you think you know Rob Rodmanford was like a great baseball player Back in the day like this idea that to govern the sport that you should have to have like been one of the greatest all time at it. I'm not sure. Like who would be a good then like usga sort of person? Should Jack Nicholas be the head of the usga?

Jack Nillis believes in the rollback. Yeah. Jack's talking about rollback for Tiger Woods. Those guys have been talking about rollback for 25 years. It's also the people making decisions. Probably need to be a little separated from the like JT is too involved in this. The PGA tour players are like the the stakeholders in this and probably shouldn't be like making the decisions, right? It's someone else's jobs like do all of the research like based on his comments. It does not sound like he's

done all the research. I'm not saying he hasn't, but he's job to do all of the research. Based on his comments, it does not sound like he's done all of the research. I'm not saying he hasn't, but he's not displaying a knowledge of what is at stake here. We've already gone over the bad analogies he's used. He talks about, he said, they want it to be okay. Well, the pros play this way and the amateurs play this way. I don't understand how that's better for the game of golf. The amount of time money that these manufacturers have spent to create the best product possible. Now you're going to tell them we have to start over for potentially if the PGA tour,

PGA of America don't adopt this rule. So for two of the four biggest events of the year, we're going to have to use a different ball like explain to me how that's better for the game of golf. To that, I would say I don't think it's better for the game of golf. It's why I think you should be adopted across all levels of professional golf because that's who we're that's who needs rained in the most. That's who's causing a trickle down effect of all of these, causing huge footprints already and a huge trickle down effect of that. I saw some really misleading data stuff,

really dishonest Twitter stuff out there of saying, like, if you're looking at a subset of the data that says, like, oh, actually adding teas has decreased acreage, blah, blah, blah. It's all like super dishonest stuff to fit in narrative. But if you just read the report to say, this is how much the footprint of golf has increased and this is exactly why it's unsustainable.

It tells the story right there. Like why adding these teas and why golf courses have trended the wrong direction. Okay, good luck trying to govern golf courses and just tell them, hey, don't build the back teas. Like no, that's not how golf works. So I'm all over the place now, but I get worked up about this now. Look, change is coming.

It's coming one or another. This not going to, the fight has been sort of laid down. And I just, I really do think like it's less about this current moment that it is about, we have to draw this line here so that 25 years from now, like, you know, we're not having a tee out on Washington road at Augusta for the first tee because there's just no other way to sort of You know handle with the way that we want the course to play I just don't believe it like there are Courses really are that are straining I mean the reason why Aaron Hills got picked for a play a US open There's cuz it could push it back to 8,000 yards

Talk about how much land that took to sort of figure that out. And the reason they're building Frisco, the way it is down in Frisco, Texas, for the PJ future PJ America's, because it can be pushed back to 8,000 yards. What happens in 20 years if those courses are 9,000 yards? Like at some point, it's just sort of going to be a little bit silly. It's not going to be like, there's no historic tether to things that have happened in the past. And that's kind of one of the biggest appeals of golf. I'm not heard to anyone make the make the point that a bigger footprint of the courses is

good for golf, right? I mean, you could, you know, I, you could avoid answering a lot of the questions that it comes to us. I've not heard anyone try to make that point. I'm like, no, it makes, it makes total sense. So as I keep going back, I don't understand what the problem is here. Oh gosh, Bryson had some comments. I'm like, no, it makes total sense. So that's like keep going back. I don't understand what the problem is here. Oh gosh. Bryson had some comments. I think it's the most unimaginative, uninspiring game cutting thing you could do.

Everybody wants to see people hit it farther off the, that's part of the reason why a lot of people like what I do. It's part of the reason a lot of people don't like what I do. I don't really know what he means by any of that, but Bryson's on the side of pro rollback, if you needed another reason to, or anti- pro rollback if you needed another reason to, or anti-rollback if you needed another reason to be on the other side.

So, he's, I mean, what he did at Bay Hill would have been just as sick from the tee that was right up front that didn't have to use to play have that back tee before distance got so big. And he took that line and it was courageous regardless of what tee it would have been. Like nobody takes that line from the forward tease, regardless of what T would have been. Like nobody takes that line from the forward T's

and no one's taken away that skill. That is what is so freaking important to remember here. It is that this particular rollback keeps everything that all these guys have worked for. I feel like people feel like what they've put in, work they've put in towards gaining distance is gonna get taken away. I do not think that's the case at all.

I really, really, really don't. I think Justin Thomas is still going to drive it farther than Adam, Adam, Adam bad example. Adam Schink drives it really far. He's going to hit it farther than Taylor Moore probably does and Zack Blair, like you're still going to hit it farther than you're still going to reap the benefits of it. It just, there's a lot of reasons why we got a dollars back a little bit. So that's all I got. I can't ran on this topic anymore. We'll probably continue to cover it. We'll continue to bring on different viewpoints as the weeks and months go along. And we can,

there's a still way too much to cover. Like there's a lot, a lot, a lot we could still break down here. So anything else. Shout out to Billy for like coming. Yeah. Shout out to Billy for coming in to. Open my talk with us and obviously yeah, it wasn't like, didn't feel like it was an attack. Just felt like here's my points that I want to make. And here's hope what I hope you guys will consider and hopefully listen to some of ours.

And definitely I think did sort of agree with some of the things that you had to say and stuff. And so I appreciate that at least like if we can, we've been fighting with people about live for the last year. Like, this is nice if we could have like an actual discussion about, you know, the distant stuff instead of just like screaming at each other and like, we're trying to screw over. I mean, the one thing I just can't stomach is like this idea that you're trying

to make the game harder for amateurs. Like this is not there. People keep saying, well, the creep will eventually trickle down to the amateurs. Why do you think it'll stop there? Because there's no fricking point to like making my dad hit it shorter. Like no one is going to sort of do that. No, his country club isn't going to do that. I'm not going to do that to him.

My mom's not going to do that to him. He's, you know, whatever Chapman or whatever, you know, sort of whatever silly thing that he plays in. No one's going to be like, whoa, man, you're hitting the ball too far. That's not happening. So stop using those scare tactics to sort of, you know, try to convince people to join your side. And I'll also say to Billy, it's like, I'm in for that conversation on, on changing the center hits. And the, he brought up a more complicated topic that I think is the bigger problem.

Like a bigger issue as it relates to driving distance and golf and like we discussed with him, one of the harder ones to fix, but let's revisit that conversation because that is the bigger part of the problem and that's gonna really start to make some people uncomfortable when we get to the point. You know, think about that Skyshelf or Commercial

where he's hitting it purposefully off the center of the face and it's still going 305 yards. Like that to me is like damn like that I don't know that's something we should be like celebrate that's gonna. I was gonna. I was celebrating. Yeah, I'm You're celebrating for the amateur, but I don't that doesn't make me think about like more about Skydashoffer skills a golfer. Yeah, I totally Different take I think pro should not have four 60 CC drivers. That's that's my going okay. That's my going to make comment It should not be controversial in my day. So we didn't have we had just a wooden brick title the end of a string And I had to pack it in my bag and draw it 50,000 miles all over the earth

I've traveled more more miles with my brick in my bag than any man in history the earth. I traveled more miles with my brick in my bag than any man in history. I don't even have to ask where Gary is on this scale. I don't think he let's roll back. Just grow more trees. No one talks about growing more lakes. There are there's a lot of pro tree people, but like, you know, add more lakes. You know, the fish is an interesting part of Brody's white paper was more hazards in landing zones with deterred driving distance. But again, I think that's course setup in driving this and how far the ball goes are two totally different topics that people want to have be exchangeable, but they're just not.

So anyways, KVB, thanks for a wonderful chat. On a Sunday night, we'll be back live for a recap of the match play coming up this week. I will have a guest interview, of course, on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, probably Tuesday. And what else we got cookin' this week? Oh, we got some fun stuff. One thing we're going to keep secret that we're recording. We're going to release later this week. A guarantee people will be excited. But I have some writing this week, as always. And if you have missed our writing from last week, make sure to check out the Mailbag, check out DJ's column about governance and stuff. And it's been fun to see the writing machine getting fired up

but NLU, it's really been enjoyable. So send me Mailbag questions if you're a NEST member. And if you're not a member of the NEST, join the NEST. NoLangup.com slash join, learn all about it, and you can help support the show. So thank you everyone for tuning in. We'll see you back here next week live. Cheers.

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