No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 659: Match Play Recap + Rory Interview

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

The end of the WGC era closed down in Austin as Sam Burns defeated Cameron Young 6 and 5 to win the Match Play Championship. Both finalists needed extra holes to win their semifinal matches on Sunday morning as Burns defeated Scottie Scheffler while Young outlasted Rory McIlroy.  We show some appreciation for Austin Country Club, look back at the entire week's action and eulogize our favorite moments from the WGC era in professional golf. We also react to the audio from our interview with Rory on the MLR ball and his take on the distance debate (1:10:15). Plus our monthly Ryder Cup segment presented by BMW and some other news and notes from the past week in golf.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up live show presented as always by our friends at high noon, Sally here, DJ Pius here, hello, pie man. Hey guys, how are you? Neil is here.

He's got a suspicious lighting situation going on in the studio, but we're going to power our way through it. Hello, happy Sunday, Neil. Happy Sunday to you. I'm hoping the sun goes down here in New York City. Beautiful day in the big city. First one of spring. We're excited. We excited to chop it up with you, Clowns. I'm happy you spent it watching the the dud of the finale that we got. It's an action this morning. It was a very fun morning. And of course, It's a match in this morning. It was a very fun morning. And of course, as I mentioned, show us brought to you by our friends at high noon. It is here, the high noon tequila seltzer made with real Blanco and real juice. Listen, I've had real Blanco tequila, real juice.

I've had way too many of the vodka ones this weekend. I'm happy to be switching over to the tequila tonight. I'm going strawberry. I don't know about you guys. I'm a big tequila fan. I've turned into a big tequila fan. I've been anxiously awaiting for the high new tequila. Celts are in it is here.

It comes in four bright crisp colors strawberry lime grapefruit and passion fruit. Of course, only a hundred calories. It's gluten free. No added sugar. They have already hit the shelves in multiple locations. They're going to be fully available nationwide by May 1st just in time for summer. They really do hit different in the sun. I had them out in the golf course this week.

They were extremely, extremely popular. The halfway asked the member guest. And as you mentioned, you know, anywhere you go, the first thing they're going to run out of is high noons. So that's exactly right, especially up here. You can look for high noon on drizzly or at your local convenience or liquor store or visit high noon spirits.com to find it near you. Sam Burns is the winner of the final WGC match play. We are going to eulogize the WGC's a bit later, unfortunately, or fortunately.

Maybe it's time to say goodbye. I don't think we're happy to say goodbye to this event. Mike Wallace is your winner at the Corralis Poon Ticana. Nick Batchem, Batchem wins the Johnson workwear open in South Africa. And the LPGA is finishing up as we speak here. But Pymel, I'll throw it to you first. What's your reaction from up and down action weekend of match play golf? Yeah.

I almost felt a little hungover this afternoon after putting a ton of energy into the morning matches. And then, you know, the afternoon was burned too bright as well. I went too hard afternoon was a bit of a dud, not, you know, by the fault of nobody, but it's just the way the things go. It was almost kind of if you're looking for metaphors, I feel like it was almost kind of the perfect way for this tournament to end, which is that this is kind of the macro version of what happens every year.

It's always like, oh my God, if we could just get this and this, this could be the best tournament in the history of the world. And it just never seems to break that way. And I think there's a couple reasons for that. But I mean, the big one is just, you know, you can't play, you can optimize this thing as much as you possibly want.

But at the end of the day, an 18-hole round of golf is just gonna be a coin flip between these two, you know, between these, this level of players. And you just can't play God with an event like this and you're never going to get, you know, it's going to take 25 years and maybe you're going to get Roy and Sheffler, but more than likely, you're probably not. And that's kind of just the way things go. I got some, some ideas of, of maybe what we could do in the future if we want to go all in on a match play tournament for it. For right now, for what it is, for all the optimization that needs to happen for sponsors

and for TV and for the players and for all of these things, this is kind of the risky run. And you know, it was a bit of a dud of an afternoon, but what are you going to do? I don't really know how you how you can really change it that much right now. It's consistent though with how it's gone. It's just an inverted tournament like the excitement is usually just earlier on. There's just more chances for excitement, the more golf that's actually happening on the golf course. I still hate what they've done with pool play.

I cannot figure out what happens Wednesday through Friday. I have say this every year, like they don't cover it well. I never know who's even in the groups. What the scenarios are coming down the back nine on Friday, it's impossible. But man, when it flipped on into the quarter final play around a 16 play Saturday morning, it was like, oh, this is the only thing that matters, like in golf anywhere. Like this is more important than the majors. This is the greatest golf

anywhere played on the calendar. And then by the end of it, it's kind of like, yeah, it's just a weirdly inverted weekend. It's just this little uncomfortable for golf fans. Neil, what's your your reaction to all this? Well, I have to get out on tight right? Neil, is that your first time out? I was, yeah, coding. I were out there Wednesday. And I would say I agree with you on pool play. I don't think you need it. But the early parts of a match play week are probably the best parts because it's just, you know, there's a million groups coming through. There's just a lot of storylines, a lot of like, you know, guessing who's who's doing well, who's not. I think Saturday was, I mean, probably one of my favorite golf

watching days and I can remember for the last year. I was locked in all day. I thought the broadcast did a pretty good job of, you know, getting me shots from each match. I kind of felt like I knew what was going on and there was just a lot of high level golf thing. But this morning was awesome. I was gearing up for a big afternoon and it was almost like the golf viewing

version of a Mongolian reversal. All of a sudden, you know, we're going to extra holes. No way Scotty loses this, right? And then, you know, Cam Young's chipping out sideways from a bunker. And Rory, you know, didn't play aggressive and all of a sudden, he's like, oh my God, Rory's got a 15 footer to extend the match. Like what just happened, right? And Scotty misses a five footer on 13. Like, what the fuck, man? And so then I was kind of like, oh boy. Like, and I even feel like the two guys in the finals were kind of like, oh man, like I don't know if I was supposed to be here.

You know what it was, a little anti-climactic. Scotty missing that put on 13 was started the slow motion car wreck of like, Oh, wait, this can happen. What if they both miss? That that wasn't supposed to happen. I've already filled out my bracket. I've already already, you know, picked out my snacks for the afternoon. I'm all dialed for this great day. Yeah, it was a tough. I mean, I think, but overall, I probably as a golf fan enjoy watching match play more than the traditional format, but there it is. It's true. There's some drawbacks like coding.

I lucky enough to have some inside the ropes like passes. If you don't have those and the matches get down to maybe four, you know, matches going on in the course and you're a fan, you're, you're screwed, right? And I think Del's done a really good job with that 12, 13, 14, 15, that like alley down by the river. I mean, it is double-decker hospitality down there. And that's really the only way you're going to be able to see any golf. So I know, you know, you think about the logistics of that and it doesn't make for a great

spectating experience if you're not in a, you know, hospitality booth or, you know, you're not in a, you know, hospitality booth or, you know, you're not inside the ropes. But when you are, we followed Rory versus Scott Stallings for 10, 11 holes. There's nothing better than the ebbs and flows of match play. There's all this interpersonal stuff going on. Is he going to give this put, you know, they're kind of communicating, be nice, and then also some games and ship. I just, I feel like watching match play up close and personal is it a true joy? So bummed that the tournament is not going to come back

next year, but we can talk about that a little bit. It's such a funny push and pull, isn't it? That, you know, trying to design these things for so many different people, I think is what ultimately leaves you in this situation where you kind of like nobody really wins, right? Like you're kind of trying to design it for the sponsor and you're trying to design it for the sponsor and you're trying to design it for the fans on site and making sure they have plenty of stuff to watch. You're kind of not, you know, you're kind of sort of

designing it for the people on TV, which is the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the people who are watching it. It's just a really weird thing, you know, and especially it's almost kind of disheartening to hear you say that where it's like, yeah, I mean, if you're on site, you know, hopefully you're in the right place at the right time and it ends up sounding like the Ryder Cup, right?

Where it's just like, oh yeah, I mean, I got an Instagram picture like I was there, I didn't see anything, but here I am, you can see that I was there. But whereas the Ryder Cup is so built for TV that you don't really miss anything and it's just, you feel totally locked in, so it's, I don't know, it's a tough, tough nut to crack, man, it's kind of an unenunmach envious position trying to sell that to a sponsor. And if you can follow a match and stick with it and have, you know, the room to view it, it's very, it's one of the few times watching golf tournaments where I feel present, right? Because you're not worried. You're like, oh, God, the action, you're always leaderboard

watching when it's a stroke play event. So it's like all this other stuff's happening around the golf course. But in this, it's like, oh, no, this is just these two guys going at it, one verse one. And I find that to be a good change up. So I would love it if there was at least one match play event on the calendar. I've really enjoyed this event the last five, six years. It's to me where I end up with all this. unfortunately, it's kind of the same way I end up with TIO, which is just like down this like long winding path of like, what is pro golf, right? Like what is it, right? And the reason why we end up with 72 whole stroke play events that all kind

of look the same is probably for a reason, right? Yet at the same time, I think a lot of golf fans really love this event. I think this golf course in this event is a great marriage and partnership in terms of the quirk. It provides a different playing styles and get rewarded, the not just bomb and gouge. You know, driving distance is not just a straight up prerequisite on this golf course. There's funky quirky little pins. There's kind of part three and a half all throughout it. And it matches up really well. I just don't think you'd ever have a stroke play PGA Tour event on this golf course, but you would have match play. And, you know, yet you end up like down these all these different paths. I think every year we try to like fix the match play or why doesn't the torch championship go to match play or why match play match, but all the people. So many people on TV love watching this format in some way. So how what is the answer to all these questions?

I guess we can kind of get into that as we break down the tournament, but it is so it's I'm so torn between like, God, this was freaking awesome. Yet I totally understand why this does not sell. Well, I think you hit on something Neil, as far as the in person experience and feeling really present while you're watching it, I think there's something to that on the telecast too, where when you're watching a 72 whole stroke play event, anything before the back night on Sunday, just doesn't feel like there's a lot of gravity or consequence to anything, right? Like is 72 whole stroke play the best way to identify who's

the best player that week? I would say yes it is. And that's how you should run tournaments if that's the goal is to try to identify the best player. But when you have like so do or die either win a hole, lose a hole. This is going to impact the match. It feels so much more like watching a basketball game or a football game or something like that rather than just being like, oh, let me file away that 10 footer that he missed on, on seven on Thursday. He's gonna want that one back.

I'll remember all of that as like this big comprehensive, you know, like experience with the week. Like obviously nobody does that. So it all just kind of washes over you Thursday through Saturday and even part of Sunday. And so it's I think that's why the stuff resonates. It's just the matter of Of nailing the calculus to try to get the golf course the sponsor the field the TV the fan experience the hospitality All of that stuff like you have to check every single one of those boxes to try to get something that works and that's just really freaking hard to do.

I got one idea if you want to hear it. I keep coming back to, if you want it to be a full field, 64 person thing, like for better worse, I kind of think what they're doing now makes sense. And it feels a little over optimized and it feels a little bit like the FedEx cup and we have just whiteboarded this thing to death. And this is the way that we can make the most people at the most happy. And everybody's going to be kind of upset, but nobody's going to be super upset. And so I think if you're doing a full field, it probably does have to look like this.

But watching golf, especially this morning and watching yesterday and all this stuff, it's like, man, why? Pie in the sky. If we're redesigning things and the mules are starting to be put out the past year on some of these events we're starting to really like separate and say out loud this event is bigger than this event. Why does there need to be more than 16 guys at a match play event? Why don't you start with one through 16 and what I was even is like, you just cram that into Saturday and Sunday and just make that like electric. All of a sudden that carves out Friday

as you are, we always talk about like skills competition and you know, when can you do it where you have like a low stakes day where you have all these people in one place. Like do that on Friday, right? So you have Thursday is kind of practice round day, sell tickets, have your hospitality Yada yada yada Friday you can almost do as like a made for TV event just like

Pick your events whatever you want your skills challenge to be but you got all 16 guys there block off the afternoon Figure out the bracket through that as well. Maybe if you want sure that'd be great Mike everything up do a whole like big to do on that. And then Saturday, Sunday, you just have bangers only matches. And hopefully you have, that seems like it would make it much more likely that you're going to end up with Scotty versus Rory or Scotty versus Ram or Ram versus Max or one of those matchups. But I don't know how realistic that is. And that's obviously very, very pying the sky and ignorant of many, many factors.

I think that's what I would. I think though, like where I'm kind of, I haven't been overly worked up about this event going away until this week because no matter how a match play will come back to the PGA tour in some way, I refuse to believe that they won't play some kind of weird format mixed in, but losing Austin Country Club changes everything, right? I mean, Harding Park was not nearly as interesting. Dove Mountain was not nearly as interesting. Nowhere else they've played this has it been as fun to watch as this golf course is.

It's weird. It's again. So in that regard, it's kind of, you know, a Boston Country Club doesn't want it anymore. There's all kinds of stories out there of the back and force with the tour. And, you know, I can just say like, there's a small champions event at Tim Aquana every fall. And again, that not nearly on the scale of all the hospitality you're talking about, Neil, that's out there on the back of nine. It's a war zone at that goal at our golf course for like six weeks leading up to it. And this is way smaller of a footprint.

Like it's not just about giving up your golf course for a week. It's about the week before. It's about the six weeks to eight weeks before of bang, bang, bang, bang, beep, beep, beep, beep, storing all the materials out there. Trucks coming in and out and just like making a whole dent in the playing experience for months leading up to it and afterward. So if there's a club, this club has a 15 year waitlist we've heard and the people that are members want to play the golf course and don't want the event there like that, that makes sense to me. It does. That's again, where I end up down the path like what is pro golf? What is this all about? Right?

And that's how we end up going to the venues they end up going to and the ones that are the most interesting. Usually don't end up sticking around. And that's just an unfortunate reality of pro golf that I think we screamed about like six years ago and the more farther along, we're just kind of beaten down with the reality of what it all is. Yeah, I mean a couple things on the golf course. It's seeing it in person was awesome. It's the front lines a little scruffy, not quite as interesting, but you don't see a lot of that on TV. There's still some good holes. I think number two is an awesome hole. A few run together, but eight and

nine are pretty cool with the elevation change and the just, you know, kind of that signature, I guess, rock wall into into ravines, which is, you know, all over the course, which is pretty cool. I think the Part 3s really stick out and perfect for matchplay. There's just some hero shots. Eleven is awesome. And then 17, I love watching those guys. It felt like there was always a, you know, a big moment on 17, at least in the last couple of years I've watched it. So that's a ton of fun. There's something kind of fun about that just being essentially like a gap wedge. Yes, exactly. Right. And you're just like, ah, it's short, but like I kind of just want to see someone

hit it close, babe. I don't really care. But with the pressure on, it's great, you know, it's like, yeah, close to the pin challenge right here. So, and then it's hard to overstate how cool it is when you get spit out down number 12 down towards the water. I mean, we saw it when we were in person, at least two boats rolling through that. It's not so much the boats out by 13 in the river. It's when they come up into this, I think there might be a marina up there, but it's just like party boy cinch and these boats are like kind of being quiet, but they're just kind of idling by real slow. And even today, this morning, you know, worry had to step off his chip because, you know, the party boy wasn't moving his mastercraft fast enough through the channel there, you know, and it's just like such, I think it's such a good vibe when you get a very overly serious golf tournament that intersects

with just like Saturday and Sunday on the lake, you know. It's really unique, I think, on the golf calendar. And so I'm bummed that's going away. But like you said, Sally, I mean, it's big, big membership from what we, you know, heard on site and people struggle to get a T time only one course with 700 members and then you're going to shut it down and kind of have all the inconveniences of it. So I'm sure if T.C. Was here he would want me to he would want me to ride for the Austin Coach Club members as well. So that's that's what the son of him. They may, you know, F1 maybe leave in town too, right? And if you think about Austin's got UT, so obviously they got all the longhorn sports stuff, but so if F1 leaves, there's no pro sports. It was like this tournament and F1,

it felt like the town kind of rallies around it. I'm curious if those go away, what kind of fills the gap. It's interesting in the sports culture of the city, if you zoom out, it's an interesting loss for them. God, the boat's thing is so sick. It's the perfect example. Like I can't think of too many other sports

where the power dynamic shifts to where it's just like, man, unfortunately the crew in that boat right there has the power to completely fuck this up. If they want. They have the right way. We just got a hold. We just got a hold.

We just got a hold that they don't know. Three times, I don't know. That I went to a wedding in Sarasota. And it was on the, it was like at the Ritz, this is years ago. And right as they're doing the vows and everything, this guy pulls into the marina in his cigarette boat. And just, you know, even the thing idling, it's just like, you know, and all you have to do is just give it a quick room.

And he was almost like the father of the bride and him were like locking eyes. This guy's like, don't do it. Don't do it. And he's just like, don't you do it? And the guy's like laughing. He's like, oh, yeah, I hold the keys to the kingdom here. And I think about that every time I see those boats from by on 12, I'm like, God, they could just blow this up right now.

Prussia Manger, Sam Burns won the, when the golf tournament this week, won a six, was six and five? Is that right? Six and five final, final victory over Cameron Young. It's a bomber for Cam Young and that it puts a, you know, a really an outrageously good week that he had. He and Rory were the ones that, if you looked at, look at the hashtag data, were the dudes that actually played the best golf all week, and as we know, that's not how match play works,

and I'm very, very, very cool with that. That's what makes this event very fun. But just what we've seen pretty much every year with this thing, when you play 119 holes of golf or whether they ended up playing just a dud final match in terms of total fatigue by the end of it. But we had it on the calendar. I forget if we actually talked about it.

I had the player somebody that submitted a question, like, what's wrong with Sam Burns? And it was like iron play had gotten very, very, very bad, very quickly. And ever since then, he has completely turned around. He told a story about his coach, Brad Pullen drove 15 hours to, I forget which event it wasn't Florida to deal with him when he was, he said he was being a pain in the butt. I believe was the, the kind term he used used and he credited him for the win for getting him sorted and working out his backswing and whatever technical thing they had to work out. But man, he has flipped the switch and is turned on to like the gas pedal sand burns that we see in golf

tournaments where he's in contention because he wins a lot of these and Cameron Young does not, which we can also talk about, but very, very impressed with the fast turnaround for Sam Burns. Whoever's tailing my draft Kings picks just shift him two weeks, man, because I they're spectacular failures in the moment. But that's a page that's a T.C.s playbook of like, oh, yeah, I've missed every pick. But man, we're close. Gosh, we're close. So close. A lot of foul tips.

But I love watching Burns. I mean, I would I rather of course, what I'd rather watch Rory versus Sheffler, yes. But I love watching burns win. I mean, I know that's obvious, but he's it's so fun seeing him put the pedal down and seeing him like be a dominant force. And it's really good to see him playing well again. He kind of maybe a weird company, kind of almost reminds me of like what what I think everybody always hopes Xander is going to be, right? Is like, no, he's just a dude that when he gets up there, he dominates and he doesn't, doesn't go backwards and he just knows how to get it done.

Cody, vociferously shaking his head there. Thank you, Cody. You've been saying that for a while? Hell, yes, yes, yes. I could not agree with that take anymore, man. He's everything that we think Xander should be that like he aspires to be and it's just never there. And for some reason, Sam Burns like he can just rip throats out when he gets the chance.

And then when he doesn't, he's just gone. Yeah, that's true. I'm going to put a hand up here on just like I've got to need to see just a little bit more from Burns before we before we say he's more we want zander to be zander's one seven pj tour events. He's won a tour championship. He won three times last year. Sprinkled the Olympics in there. He won a gold medal in there. He's been contentioned way more in the major way more in the majors. How many wins is this now for burns? This is five for burns. How much younger is he? The Xander is 29 years old and Burns is 26. So way more. I think I think the prosecution is going to be feel just fine about this.

I mean, I would agree that they have they both have very all around games. It's just you feel like it. Xander has a maybe he's getting rid of this a little bit he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, like, oh, yeah, okay. And that's where like, that's where golf fans contend to punish a guy that's around the lead a lot and not win and not. And that's it's better to be around and also win than it is to just win and not be around. So I'm just going to, I'm not a huge zander stand. I'm just saying, he had four wins by the age of 25 as well. And has went through a spell there where he did not win a lot between 2019 and then won the Zurich, which is kind of like, all right, dude, that's a team event.

It doesn't really, and you won't with can't lay that really doesn't count. But won the travelers last year won the Scottish Open. I'm just saying, come on, let's just not get, let's not get carried away. He checked, just, I'm just he checking you. That's all I'm doing. Yeah. I think you're making my case for me. It sounds like very similar careers.

I think, I think Sam Burns has a chance to go contending a couple majors, maybe win another couple BDEs this year. And I think he's going to be right there. I'm in the Zurich. Like we're totally fons. Right. 10 major championships San Burns is competing. How many top 10s?

Listen, it's not good. I would say zero. How many top 25s? We got time. We got one T20 last year at the PGA. Listen, it's not good. I would say zero. How many top 25s? We got time. We got one T20 last year with the PGA. So, okay. Yeah, that's not great. Poundy flag throw and challenge flag throw.

Do you want to withdraw this? Andrew comment? I'll allow it if you'll let. No, we'll let the people be the judge. Okay. I do. Couple of things I noticed with Burns though. Like I said, I feel like he's got very,

he seems so solid across the board. And when he Like I said, I feel like he's got very, he seems so solid across the board. And when he's playing well, it's like he just got, doesn't feel like he's got a lot of weaknesses. And I really like his pace of play. Steps up to Puts, doesn't take any practice strokes. I feel like he's got a good tempo to when he's playing well. He's got a good rhythm to his game. So I think that's fun to watch.

You know, when I rather watch, you know have Sheffler and Rory, yes, I do I find Cam Young more electric than Sam Burns, a thousand percent, but you know, credit to him for getting it done today. I just couldn't help but notice to this finale, Sam Burns, Cam Young, two dudes that were pretty darn close to going to live at different varying times of the conversation. Same Sam Burns, same agent as Bryce and Deschambo. That, I believe that situation got into the nine figures at one point, you know, it's inching towards the goal line in some way and I believe the story is that someone

in his family kind of threw up the challenge flag. And was like, hey, no, don't do this. Like we don't want you doing this. And he's turned, he's turned back around. Cameron Young got astonishingly close to going to live and has admitted such and has turned back around to say, you astonishingly close to going to live and has admitted such, and has turned back around to play on the PGA tour. And that again, just seems like a pretty darn big,

two big names it would have been missing from this tournament this past week. We already are missing a ton of names. And again, something that we, what I think, what has frustrated a lot of us, at least has frustrated me, is like the missed opportunities to see these guys in these situations is what has frustrated me with some's like the missed opportunities to see these guys in these situations

is what has frustrated me with some of the dudes that have gone to live and just glad that, you know, two of the names, the biggest names involved in this weekend had decided not to go. So it's also fun. I mean, this is going to piss off a lot of people who are already pissed off all the time. It's perfect. But watching that Scotty Rory match today felt very much like, oh, this would have been feel like a play with the lip. Just like, I don't know, it's on TV. Look at this, man. Two stars. Look at it. It's fucking awesome.

Oh, you wouldn't watch this. You wouldn't watch this? Like, yeah, it doesn't really be anything. I'm kind of good. Kind of just want to do the pod. Let's just get it. Let's just do the dot. I kind of wish I just finished it off,

so we could fire this thing up. Yeah. It also goes to show what you can't just throw golf on TV and with two guys playing and have it necessarily mean something, right? There's just something around, again, that's not to work this workshop this all the way around, but it's kind of like why I have faith

in this designated event model going to already established tournaments. It just feels like I kind of already care about these and I just feel like I'm gonna care about them just a little bit more because of the way they've structured it instead of, it's why I think the WGC's always struggled with people, you know, in people's minds is it just seemed propped up and just had kind of out of context.

And I don't really know what they mean. So I legacy not leverage was very laughable at the time, but like, there's just a little bit to it. I know they're playing for money, like, but there's at least a tiny, tiny hint of history and familiarity with these tournaments that does matter in some way. I don't know where I saw this idea if it was in the comments or on Twitter or not,

but I think it's a good one. They should make everybody agree at the beginning of the week. If you make it in the consolation match, basically we're gonna pay third and fourth place the same, and you guys are gonna be mic'd up for that match. Yes. I think would be awesome'd up for that match. Yes. I think would be awesome.

I think that would have made today a really, really, really fun broadcast if those two were mic'd up. And kind of, it's just, like I honestly don't care if it's even like a serious match. Like just teach me some stuff and crack a couple jokes. And I kind of just want to like, I would much rather get deep into your process

rather than like, oh, Rory beat him today. That means Rory is a far superior player to Scotty Sheffler. It's like these guys are exhausted. Send them to the back nine. One round of golf. Let them play the back nine. Like nine hole.

Yeah. Consolation match. It does not need to be 18 holes. And I know exactly, you know, again, the same reasons like you're trying to get hospitality everywhere and, you know, trying to stretch it, trying to stretch it out, trying to vamp a little bit. I think Damon Hack was told was, they were in Damon Hack's ear like, hey, you got a vamp, man. I know this matches over, but we got stretched this internet, this interview out like we got to, you know, come on, extend it, extend it. That was an elect, it was an electric

post-round for me. I mean, I'm just going to say it right here. I didn't know the governor Greg Abbott was in a wheelchair. I had no clue. So that kind of freaking rocked my world. And then Michael Dell seemed like he was, I don't know if he was not ready. He was like, oh, this ended quicker. But he was, seemed like he might have been out on one of those boats before he got out there.

Never go full-dianned Murphy. It was, yeah, just like, man, this is, this is, this is, wow, man. Yeah, last one. Put Sam. Hey, that's cool. That's that's great, man I want you step on up here. So that was a good trophy. Stairimony for me. It was kind of like Zandra after the writer cup It was like straights. He's like he's just got this shitty big grin sitting up there on the stage Got a cigar. He's drinking that like straight out of a wine bottle and somebody asked him a question You just can't get the smile of his face. He's just, I'll be totally honest, I did not know we still had media. I think I think you got pretty pretty slosh pretty quickly. It's like I did not

know I was gonna have to stay up here and answer some questions. This episode is of course brought to you by our friends at Titleist and the tour trusted Titleist T SR drivers. Titleist of course, the most played driver on the PGA tour for the last four seasons and counting this week was of course, no different. More players gaming titles drivers at both the match play and the Puntakana than any other brand. There's a greater speed hiding in your swing and TSR provides the means to it. Could be spin control, launch angle or impact point. A title is fitter is going to match you with a configuration that lets you max out more consistently and produce faster ball speed that actually shows up on the course that I'm going to test to

this. They fixed me in three swings. They had the TSR one, the TSR two, TSR three and TSR four. They offer four distinct performance options for a variety of players. Neil, the speed man, what did you get fit into? I'm in a TSR three with a slight bit of, I think draw bias and I think it's tuned up a degree to get my launch angle up. I'm no longer playing with the 80 gram shaft that was a bit of a band-aid I had on the previous driver. So we're, you know

what? We played like four or five rounds coding. I got a couple of great rounds down in Austin while we were in town. We're rounding in the form. You know, we still got some things to figure out. Need some more practice sessions with the sticks, but I like the TSR three. Deeds, what'd you end up in? I'm in the TSR two, just a little, a little more forgiveness. You know, not quite as much of a speed freak as the boys. And I think I'm my Hazelle. I think it's set to be two, which of course, I know what that means, but you guys should look at it on your own time. But yeah, same thing,

just hitting it. Hit it. Great. Great range session this week before a surprise eight inches of snow, which was a real bummer, but staying good things from the driver. So that's exciting. Where I was hoping we would go at some point about, you know, you made the, you guys made the very bad, of course, Sam Burns, Zander comp, but like Scotty Schaeffler being the, I said they're similar. I didn't say he's better than him. He said he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's way better than him at every stop. Scotty Schaeffler is the blank.

Like you could fill in how many different American guys we thought were going to be a certain guy that Scotty Schaeffler is. Andffler is. And I lost both his matches today. I don't put a lot of stock into that to say like he powered his way through into the final four yet again. He was a pick a popular pick in our draft Kings. And I regret nothing. Of course, this when it comes to this week, but kind of still I know more cow has got the two majors to him, but kind of who we thought more cow hoped more cow would be, hoped maybe Xander would be, hoped Cantlay would be. Scotty Schaeffler is that dude.

And I will, I mean, I know he's third favorite right now for the Masters at plus 750, and I don't really understand that because I might just put all of my nuggets on that. As he won before, he's gonna be like speed pretty soon. He's gonna have one like five of them in our minds. I'm pretty sure. That's crazy that he would be third favorite right now.

Not financial advice, but I would maybe give that a little look. See, Neil, maybe this is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy because I feel like we've kind of said it at these different checkpoints of the year. Like the more he plays well, the more interesting he gets, the more he cement himself as the dude, the more I tune into watching. And Neil, I think you were on this block at the players just talking about how much fun you had watching, watching Scotty. I felt totally the same way this week. And I feel like the footwork is starting to almost, you know, almost become like a little bit iconic, right? It's almost become like a signature of like,

oh, that almost like this is not nearly to this level, but like Tigers got his little mannerisms that you remember. Arnie's got his like, you know, steer in the thing but like Tigers got his little mannerisms that you remember. Arnie's got his like, you know, steer in the thing after Jack's got his things, Rory's even got his things when he's, he's bouncing and whatever and just seeing Scottie's footwork. I'm like, Oh, that's, that's his thing. He's the guy. That's, it's starting to take shape in my mind a little bit. I had a blast watching it.

Yeah. And that's why I was so shocking when he missed that five footer in the, in the playoff. Because like what, what, what he did with JT Poston was just like, Oh my God, this I mean, that's why I was so shocking when he missed that five footer in the, in the playoff. Yeah. Because like what, what, what he did with JT Poston was just like, Oh my God, this guy's the terminator. Like he just never goes away. And then at the end, he just steals a match, right? It's just he, he, he, he, he gets down three to, was he three down through three to burn?

Yeah. This morning. Oh, that's fine. It doesn't come back. Yeah. And, and I get, and some, in some ways, like I hear the, or you know, like always boring, right? But it's like, I think that's why some of the reason

he's so good, he's just in, he's in control. And I think we got a steer into that. I think it's gotta be like, oh, I was talking about that with somebody this weekend about, you know, he's just, he's, what he thinks is really interesting is just not. He's like, like, what are you gonna do tonight? I don't know, we're gonna,

Mike had kind of crazy, we might have cooked for heat at night, just not. He's like, what are you gonna do tonight? I don't know, I'm gonna, I'm like, it kind of crazy. We might cook for heat is tonight. Like, it might get really spicy tonight. Like, we might add a little salt to him. It really, it really gives it a kick. Like, I don't know, just, I don't know. Things get a little out of hand on no fun of time, but maybe some chocolate ice cream for dessert.

I don't know. I had no promises. Of course, no promises. But that's why I think we gotta take this thing. Cause if you listen, that's kind of, it gets really excited about these little things that aren't crazy, interesting at all. But I think we have to steer into it and make that a fun bit for the rest of the year. Yeah. Or it's like, yeah, you know, I love coffee. I don't drink it when I, when I before round. So, you know, I don't need, I don't need to crazy interesting

about Scotty Chefley. He loves coffee. He doesn't drink it before the round. Yeah. So, but on the course, I mean, he's a bonafide killer and and just Can't especially in this format. I have a ton of respect for guys that just know how to battle in match play like TC style Right, just never go away. They never seem to get down on themselves and and he is firmly in that bucket. This is Third time he's played in this event. He's runner up, won it, and now, you know, top four. I mean, that's a pretty good, pretty good track record with this event going away. And it didn't seem like he had it all working on the greens this week. There was something that was uncomfortable. I don't know what the numbers say. For once, I'm going to go with the eye test on Scotty Shephler on this one. Just say that. Himmings still hits the shit out of the ball,

but like he just wasn't quite dialed in on the Greens. I also, to take absolutely nothing away from him, he's obviously been a stud at every level possible, but I think whenever we can, I think you got a shout out Ted Scott too. For sure. And I just keep thinking about it like, man, amazingly creative golf course, the guy that's been successful with possibly the most creative player in the history of golf. Like those two just seem to work. They seem to gel so freaking well together, which is again, where I'm like, to third favorite for Augusta, like, yeah, go ahead, man.

Have fun with that. Like he's probably going to win again. It's great to see like with Cam Young and Paul Desorid. Yeah. I like seeing Caddy's almost get the evidence. And first, the evidence of like, oh man, you were kind of having a huge impact. And then the credit for being so important,

in helping a guy break through. So I mean, first week on the bag with Cam Young, it's like Cam Young different. It looked a little different too. It just did. It's kind of a tough start to the year, a little slow start. It doesn't seem to be speeding up as we have been for major season. First nine on the bag shoots 20 set.

Yeah. I will say, exact. Paul's a friend of mine. I've gotten to play a lot of golf with Paul. I will say like I don't have the PGA tour post of a clip of like them talking after the match in Paul's like, see, that is why we had to talk through the shot because we could have easily made a mistake. We didn't talk all the way through that Paul can talk my man can talk and I do I just keep an eye on it those personalities I wonder how well that will

clash that's just that's a just an observation of Paul Paul is going to be in his ear and it might work out really, really, really well for Cam and I'm excited for him if that is a case. I was going to say this I, as usual on the show, unnecessary psychoanalysis, but like, Cam, young from a distance, just seems like a guy, like that information is clearly processing somewhere, right? And so if it's all just like spinning in his own head,

maybe it totally helps to have somebody there to just verbalize all that stuff, and to almost do like the talking for him and kind of drop the playbook. And it seems like again, I don't know Ted Scott at all, but like he seems very extroverted, very let's talk it out. Scotty doesn't, right? And maybe that's, I don't know, maybe there's something similar about those, those dynamic.

If a caddy can save you a half a shot around or even a shot, a tournament that is so freaking valuable, it really, really, really is. And it's, Cam's putting has not been very good, but man, his iron play to start this year and ball striking to start this year has been outrageous. He has taken a huge, huge leap. And they flashed a statin. This is only like his 37th PGA Tour start,

which to me feels like we're in the 70s. Like it felt like it feels like with Scotty. Why is he one yet? Yeah. It feels like with Scotty, either his sixth or seventh runner up on the PGA tour already, which is just like he is, it's this is eighth top three finish in his first under 40 starts

on the PGA tour and that includes a T3, I think at the PGA finish second, the open championship at the old course, but like it's kind of, you know, we're not quite in a female situation though of like, did the ball striking is going to put him in contention so much. He's got to have hot weeks with the putter.

Like he can't be a Hadek he with the putter. He won't be for the first whole career. Everybody gets hot rounds with the putter, but like he's going to be around a lot and he's got a, that's what's going to make the difference for him. As much as I am, like ball striking is king thing. Dude, it's like the best putters of the best ball strikers win golf tournaments. And it will happen for him. It's going to come in droves, but I'm ready for it to happen.

I would say his putting it, yeah, the stats don't look as good, but he burns so many lips. Like he, it looked, the ball looks great coming off his putter, you know, unlike maybe Zalatoris or some other people where it's like, yeah, what do we do? We're, we're kind of searching for the stroke. I don't feel like his stroke has any issues. And just to state the obvious, I do not get sick of watching him hit the driver. It's awesome. Touching 192 ball speed, like routine.

I mean, like load the way he pauses and just loads the catapult. And then the most amazing thing to me is the balance. He always finishes just like perfectly balanced. It's like he was taking a practice swing. It's it's an incredible move on the golf ball. His shot against Rory in the 16th hole this morning that draw up the hill with I don't know what iron it was and to hold that green into that left pin was just like,

oh, I shuttered. I guess just freaking awesome. I need to go watch that guy play more golf in person. He was that was one of the biggest takeaways. I had the players. We talked about it then. It's just watching that guy smash it in person is just a little different than a lot of the dudes out there.

And yeah, I'm excited to watch that guy play a lot of golf for Team USA in the future years. Some guys you watch and you're just like, oh man, it doesn't look super special, but it's, you know, it gets the job done. He's just like overwhelming me with talent. Like, oh my God, that's just like, I can't do that. You know what I mean?

It's like how I feel when I watch the NBA, you know, it's a little less like attainable. We're like, God, how do you? How do you do that, man? That's crazy. That's such a good shot. He hit on 12 into the, was that in the playoffs against Rory? Right to that, the other one to the backpin

that I think Faxon, I think was right, was like, oh, Rory, like he's chipping out of the bunker here. Rory just, you know, if he makes four, he's probably going to move on. Yeah. And he had like a mid-iron, long iron into that green and just floated to that back shelf and set himself up for that 12 footer, 10 footer, whatever it was. And it's just like, Jesus, man, we got a linger on how good that shot was that he just hit it there. And was just like Jesus, man. We got a linger on how good that shot was. He just got in there. And he did make some clutch putts along the way to Clutch Birdie on 18 to force the playoff.

And there were some glimpses of good putting. I wonder if Aimpoint might help him out. That's joke. We could talk about that. Max got a little bit involved in that. But what other highlights from this past week? I could go through results, but that's available on, you know, in honor of TC, we could go through

down the leaderboard, but I think, you know, that's all easy. I would say a shout out to another guy that's done really well and that's why Jason Day seems to continue to trend in the right direction. It's shout out to Coocher for making it to the bracket play, but J.D. takes down Coocher, you know, continues to put up great results

this year after returning into the invisible man for five years before that. So that'd be one I call out. I think one thing I'd like to cause, like, yes, Saturday, the put that Rory made on 18 to beat Zander was like the perfect finish to an awesome day of watching golf, like him sinking that 13 footer. Zander played awesome as a great match the whole day and just, you know, it's kind of like Rory just, yeah, this is why Rory's Rory.

Like he just finished him off. And it was, I thought that match was a ton of fun to watch and great to Zander for, you know, taking him down to the wire. A lot of people in the comments asking for Willie Z comment. He had a tough week losing his first two matches and then withdrew. Had a listen, you can insert this audio into pretty much every post around. He had a very ugly looking short putt miss with a stroke that I think went about eight different directions.

Looks like he was signing. You may need to apologize for that. Think of that he had found long-term sustainability with the, you know, shoving them off the toe right. Figure move. Yeah. Will you apologize? Sure. I'll check you out. Hideki withdrew. I'm down at the courtyard, Mary, I get in coffee and up, pulls the Lexus and out. I think like eight guys got out of the car and and Hideki got out and, you know, I was

like, what's he doing here? Like, and didn't know he'd, he'd withdrawn. So sounds like his back's bugging him now. Not just his neck. So hopefully he's, you know, gets. It's my neck, my back situation. Yeah, seriously. Hopefully the next two things don't get checked out for the rest. Any farther down that stands. Scotty had a, you really only get a few of these a year. The true like sound around a green of the, oh, the shot he hit in the quarterfinals to clinch his match. Over Jason Day to win two and one he hit it to like legitimately three inches on 17.

And it just gave the crowd that actual roar of a shot that gets stuffed in there. And that was a really freaking cool moment. Oh, and I do want to clarify, you had it in the notes that J.D. that maybe the vertigo was back. We got where there wasn't vertigos allergies. And Cody can attest to this. Cody was getting rocked by allergies all week. So I think that's that was legit. Cody, how are we feeling now? I'm great. Cleaned up just pounded Zertech

Benadrill Allegra in the last two days. But yeah, I was feeling it right there with J. It was tough, man. The pa like, you know, in, uh, so in Texas, they have all these things called blue bonnets. They like grow on the side of the road and everything. Beautiful purple, purple flower. I know this isn't a flower podcast, but hey, you got to shut them out. But it is, the pollen is so bad right now that like any little wind, you just see it, it's, it's literally just you just see it's literally just braining pollen everywhere. You wipe your face, then, and then it was bad. So I hear it with J.D. man. It was rough.

I was like, snickering, putting tissues and everything, just a little leaky boy. I kinda, I don't think I would have felt this way, even like a couple months ago, definitely not a couple years ago, but if J.D. goes out and wins a master's, I think I would feel some pretty positive emotion towards that these days. I think I would too.

I know we've said it a couple times now, but I'm just very, very impressed at anybody who kind of has it fall apart a little bit and is able to put it back together and figured out. It really, really seems like he's doing that and not going to live. He's doing that and not go to live. But he's also, I mean, you know, we're gonna talk about some of these old WGCs and some of this stuff. And like there's not that many runs you can compare, like what Sheffler's doing right now, what ROM's doing right now, but J.D. kinda did that in 2015.

And many, many, many people forget just how fucking good he was for that stretch. And he probably didn't get as much out of it major-wise as certainly he would have liked and he's always played so freaking well at Augusta that that would not shock me if he if he goes out wins one. Be super super interesting. Shot of the tournament I think maybe the shot of the year. Rory on Thursday pulls up to his match against Denny McCarthy to the 18th green. He's one up 379 yards and tried to four feet. I believe he gained 1.71 strokes in one swing.

I don't know if I've ever seen a swing gain that much. I'm sure the Albatross is it's stuff like that gain, gain more than that. But it's really one of the most outrageous golf shots I've ever seen. I was texting them a little bit afterwards. I believe he officially has stated he's set the distance debate back in the other 20 years because it reignited a lot of bad distance takes. But what did at least get a shot at it for that shot? Because that was a true thrill, which we know could never happen if they rolled the ball back a little bit and moved the tease up. It just can't be just true. DG, he hit Danny McCartney with the the Jack Ruby ball in Texas. Just knocked

knocked him out. Oh, did not see that coming. Where did that guy come from? DJ thinks Danny McCartney looks like the hardy. That was a great take from somebody on Twitter that just crushed me. Jack Ruby ball. That was a great take from somebody on Twitter that just crushed me. Jack Ruby ball. Oh, that's so stupid. Did Rory apologize in those texts to Big Shot Bob McCarthy? There's a lot of Big Shot Bob and Rick and Tyra, I believe. Speaking of a racer, yeah, Big Shot Bob Matt is talking about things.

Right. Danny McCarthy on the brain. Yeah, Bob Matt can tire did drive the ATEW's green Green as well last year to win a match, I believe. I think maybe two years ago. Yeah, it has happened before. But of course, it, you know, set off a bunch of really bad faith takes on distance and all this stuff and not all the things we need to rehash other than to say. It would be extremely possible to do that from a farther up T with rollback equipment.

And all of the reasons why a rollback might be a good idea probably is a good idea for the opinion of a lot of people on this show. Still the same, still the same sustainability issues, still an issue of which skills are being tested in the balance of that, still an issue of golf courses becoming obsolete, still an issue of expanding every golf course is not an option. I kind of just thought about this a lot this week. I just wanted to defend it. Like the party's not over, all right?

It's just like, nobody is saying you can't party, all right? The long ball is still gonna rule. There's gonna be a lot of them. It's just like we're gonna need you to have it wrapped up by 4am. Like that's what this kind of rule is, right? And Rory driving one, 375 at 5am doesn't mean that the party's canceled. I promise you. So just I just want everyone to keep their cool. And this happens

we know the same bad faith people are going to say the same things and try to, you know, just muddy the waters of the conversation. I just want to say party's not canceled. Just please be respected for the neighborhood. There's a lot. The people got to get up and go to work. And you know, you guys are up way too late. If I may build on that bulletproof analogy, I would say what you really don't want is you just can't have 100 people at the party at 5 a.m. Like when Rory's the only guy doing it,

and he's doing it at 1 a.m., like that's still just as cool, right? When you have 100 people at 5 a.m. it's like, all right, well now everybody's hit it there. That's that's not not great. What's what's so cool about the Rory shot and it was probably the cool shot of the year is the fact that he was the only guy that could do it. Yeah, but like that's all this is is relativity and setting it and finding the line where the tippy top guys can do it and the other guys can't. It doesn't matter if it's 385 or 335 or 417 or what the number is is so arbitrary.

It just matters where the line is. Also, you can see behind me it's snowing again. I just caught that reflection. That's great for my golf. I will say. Well, that's a funny analogy of because it kind of feels a little bit to me like it's snowing outside climate change can't be real kind of way of looking at this. I really could use a bit of that climate change right now as you can see.

I would love for that to kick in. One thing though, just on worries driving specifically, when Cody and I were following him, he had the left miss and play like badly. He and stallings were just kind of, um, it don't be around for a while. And then I think 13 T, he hit one, like, I don't know, to 15, 20 feet, like right over the flag. He was also getting blown up by a Black Hawk helicopter that was circling down the river.

And so the lock going on and he just, I feel like I heard this gutter roll, you know, found it coming from Rory because I feel like he didn't miss a drive after that for the rest of the tournament. So. He looked like he was trying not to take too much energy out of himself this whole week. He was kind of like muted fist pumps, like I kind of care, but I'm not like totally invested in this tournament. Quick circle back, but we didn't really touch on this with Sam Burns, either

that like the wheels very much fell off during that that match with Scotty this morning. And that's what's so cool about match play, I think, is like nobody's gonna play perfect golf for 125 straight holes, but it's fine, like having those ebbs and flows and making sure you don't lose it, and you can keep it on the tracks and still just get the job done at the end of the day is super impressive.

And that was awesome to see from Burns, even if I was hoping for Scotty to win, was like, you know, that made the turn. And Scotty had won what, five holes in a row or something. It's like, oh, this is over. And to be able to not back down against like the literal number one player in the world is even if I'm told their friends as well. So maybe that heard that I heard that they were good friends heard that too. I will say also, you know, the revenge of the TIO, the TIO fought back with Tom Kim, Airmail 13 green and it reflected back into, and he had to take a drop on the green and putt for birdie.

I mean, the TIO really struck back on this one. Listen, my thoughts on TIO have been well documented. I won't fill a buster up here on it just now, but this is kind of the home of TIO. The arena. The 13th hole is the original is the people abusing TIO knowing that they can backboard. This is, this has been a, uh, an epicenter of that, which I didn't see a ton of it this year, but it's been an issue in the past. So I watched Roy on the weekend at the players. There's the worst driving I've ever seen.

Obviously, well, document, I put a new shaft in play. He looked completely freed up. I understand he had a little bit of the left's going on But it looks so damn good and I think we also probably need to talk about the putter because Like started out kind of slow and I know it's kind of questionable there But as we going on and the match after match after match he was just on fire looked really good So I was kind of like I think we were kind of joking in the draft Kings picks like Fade Roy, like too much driver stuff and a new putter, like too much tinkering going on before

Augusta. He looked way more comfortable with both of those clubs than I would have thought he would have this week. But I know this is a weird week to try to exacerbate out to what works at Augusta, but man, it's just good to kind of see him hold on some stuff in the middle and not looking very confused on the greens. Feels like Scottie Cameron and Bob Vokey might need to do a come to death row for uh, Ferrari.

Not, you know, wedge problems. You can't editorialize these. These are editorialize. It's a paid for comments. You can't, you can't live on that block that we're paid for that. We're paid for. We are paid for all that. We've, we've documented how much we're going to miss the match play, but I thought we,

I gave you a little homework assignment to the guys, we're gonna go around the horn a little bit and share, I'd wait too much fun doing this on Saturday. Go around the horn and list off. Some of our favorite moments from WGC's, who wants to go first? Well, I can go first. I just wanted to utilize the logo.

So Cody, if you can pop up the logo, this looks like 1999 clip art that they never changed. The World Golf Championship logo, like I, you know, I know that logo, I feel like it's been burned into my mind. And I just, I laughed because it's really bad. But it's been around so long that it's almost like nostalgic. And they just, they've never changed it.

It's just always been like this logo. And it looks like it came from clip art, you know, when, you know, they started them in 1999. And it looks like it came from clip art. It, you know, when, you know, they started them in 1999 and it looks like that's when this logo's from. So it's a bummer that we won't see it anymore. I'm gonna say, you know, no offense to anyone, but I'm gonna say bad trophies too. Like the clay pot.

I don't like them. I kind of like the colors. trophies. I don't think they're gonna age well, but that's a personal thing. I never knew that the trophies were named after like Walter Hagen and yeah, because he won so many WGC's. That's what I mean. I was like, well, I didn't know that they were named and Gary Player has one of them named after him. It's kind of bizarre. Speaking of some WGC trivia that I didn't know about.

The Wikipedia page for WGC's is so confusing. Like there's a championship and then there's a champions and the invetational I truly couldn't keep track of which event was what it's almost like this think they rolled the world cup up for yeah it's almost like they had a community problem uh world cup thing for a while and then they were supposed to be all over the world and then Finch him got a ton of heat because they were just in America and then they moved it to Mexico and they did the HSBC so it's's just been a, it's kind of been, I don't know, it feels like a bunch of consultants came up with this long back in the 90s, maybe to, I don't know, fight off Greg Norman's World Tour. And it was a lot of things bolted together.

And that's where I'll, to be, to be fair and balanced and to make sure we're still getting paid by the PJ tour, I will say that you can, you can pick nits with the execution, but I think the concept was in the right place. And granted it was, you know, 25 years kind of ahead of its time or, but we're, we're, there's a lot of reasons why I think the designated events are not WGCs, but it's obviously there's a lot of similarities. And it was clear the problems that they were trying to hedge off. I just think the execution, much like the FedEx cup, much like many other things that the tour tries to do, probably fell a little flat, but I see where they're coming from.

Work on what else you got now? What else do I have? I think the shot I probably think about monthly is this is from the WGC Mexico was Tigers massive cut nine iron. Oh, the fairway bunker. I think this was in 2017, something like that. I can't remember what year. No, was it earlier than that?

It's more recent than that. I think later that more recent. I think it was like, yeah, but I was watching this shot live and I think about it all the time. He hit a cut around this massive tree, hit the left side of the green, and with all the spin he had on the ball, it rolled like 40 feet to, I don't know, he had like a five footer. And that's what it was.

That was just a, like, that was awesome. So I wanted to, one of the call that out, I think, obviously. Maybe, maybe one of the preeminent protracer moments in in tour history as well. Yes. It was so perfect for what was like how broken that golf course was too. Like, yeah, it's like a architecture rule. Like you don't put a tree directly behind a bunker. Like that the bunker is the hazard. He had a bunker shot around a tree in at altitude when the ball doesn't curve as much.

And of course, the cat did it. It was such a sick shot. I think more recently, I don't have a picture of this one. You guys probably have it on your list, but DJ waving to the boat party. From 13T was, that's good stuff. And then one of my favorites is, it's DJ not waving to the boat party.

That's what made the picture so famous was like, he was just like, oh, yeah, I'm not, I don't care about any of this. He think I've never been on a boat party before, man. So I butchered that one. My apologies. And then I have a couple that I don't want to steal you guys as thunder. But the last one I'll do is Rory chucking his club into the lake at the blue monitor. Which is right. Like that was the best man. I mean, he and then the scuba diver goes out and like gets it for him. You know, and then I think like Trump presented it delivered it to him hard like it was so stupid, but I love a good, you know, if you're going to throw the club

throw the club and he he got his money's worth with that club throw. So I wanted to call that one out The other thing he's got like a hogan like position going the skipping the stone you go on with that throw I think he found it right after that Yeah, and then I was just looking up the results and stuff. I didn't realize Jeff Oglevy was such a match play killer. One of the event twice runner up once. So I thought that was interesting from some of my research. But I'll famously, I'll say famously,

at one point Tiger had 18 WGC titles and Oglevy was second with three for like a very long time until DJ busted through and finally got to six. Yeah. And DJ's he only got to win all four of the events. Guess about that. Yeah. Tiger never won all four. I don't think he played in the what about China. What about China? The invetational. Uh, well, thank you. You know, that was, that was great. I got a free out of the club.

That was, that was awesome. Uh, I don't have a great frame of reference. Sally, I'm sure some of your moments are going to be from kind of the older ones. I obviously remember the Tiger in the Dark at Firestone. One, which we can talk about, the Stephen Aimes one. Sally, I'll leave that one to you. I think it all kind of stops and starts with me on the Patrick Reed top five player in the world.

Moment at DeRal was, was just an all-timer. I guess, you know, I in my mind, I'm one of the top five players in the world. Again, I've said this before on this podcast. I don't have a lot of issue with what he said. I don't think he was saying like the world rankings are rigged and they're not reflecting my talent. I think he's just saying like, yeah, in my mind, I'm one of the five best players around and if you're if you're him Trying to become the number one player in the world. How do you not say that about yourself?

Which also not stand that is not telling the truth in hindsight also not one of the more Else outrageous things he said like not in the time it was but not looking back It's like oh man. That doesn't that barely registers. I had a lot of just really random ones I was fortunate starting in like 2012, 2013. I went to a ton of these events. So I spent a ton of time in Acherin. I spent a ton of time in the various places. The match play was unfortunately spent a lot of time

at D'Ralle, which was not my favorite place. But I really liked that there was one. Rory popped into the media center one time. I remember to watch a boxing match. That was like with San Francisco in San Francisco. I think it was like maybe a Mayweather fight or something that he like did his press conference and then everybody's sitting around watching this. This boxing match, that was really fun.

I remember I had a soap box Derby race against Billy Horsel one time because I guess that's what Akron is where they have the soapbox Derby Championship's something like that so that was that was a that was really good time and I think probably my favorite again I'm sure this is on your list so I but the Victor Dubes on Jason Day match so I was there it was that was what 2014 so I was doing like live play by play stuff on the PGA Tour Twitter account. And everything was, it was really, really fun day

to be doing like live Twitter stuff because I was going around and like he hit this, you know, he'd hit it in the shit and I would be like right there to run up with my cell phone, take a photo of the lie, tweet it before we got up to the ball so everybody can kind of see like what was coming and what was going on and all that stuff. It was like really, really fun.

And I got so like into it that I set my phone down and lost it, like got up and left and we like moved on to the next playoff hole. And I totally forgot about it until like the next shot I realized I didn't have my phone. I didn't remember where I left it. I remembered that I weirdly like, I don't know if I had a passcode on it. I don't remember where I left it. I remember that I, I, weirdly, like, I don't know if I had a passcode on it. I don't know if that's possible, but I feel like those old iPhones were just like, slide to open. Yeah. And I was like, Oh my, Oh my God. Like, like, somebody, whoever finds that, it's just going to open it. Like, Twitter's open. And

the last app I was using, like, somebody's just going to like, run wild on the PGA tour, Twitter account. And I, I will now be fired. And so in the meantime, I'm trying to like keep things going. So I had to like borrow somebody else's phone and log into the Twitter account. And I'm still following all this stuff and to make a long story kind of long. Jason Day ends up winning after all these incredible up and downs by DubuSan and all these incredible, incredible moments. And I'm like freaking out trying to get back to the media center because we were way out. I think it ended on like 13 or 14. And so there's all these like shuttles

to shuttles like players and caddies and media and whatever back to the media center. And so I was like, oh, I'm going to hop in one of these because I need to get back right away and radio somebody to see if anybody turned to my phone. So I'm just sitting in this van like waiting to leave. And Victor and his agent get in the van with me. So it's just the three of us like immediately after this match ends. And his agent get in the van with me. So it's just the three of us, like immediately after this match ends. And his agent's like gassing him up and just like, oh my God, man, they're calling you the next sevy.

You're not gonna believe, we're basically like, in his mind, just like, we're about to make so much fucking money. And Duasson is just so like just dour and just like, so French, just very just, like didn't say word the whole time, just not happy, not sad, just super, super smug. And yeah, that was kind of the last we heard from them.

So that was, that's your phone. I did find my phone. I think I finally got into the, find my iPhone, tracked it down. I think it was just, if somebody picked it up and I ended up calling him and tracking it down. So you gotta keep your faith in people, Neil.

They'll look out for it. The tie up bow on the story. Yeah. And then I guess last one real real quick was Tiger when he shot 61 at Akron on Friday. And I very sincerely, everybody thought he was gonna shoot 59. Like I think he was he was 10 under through 12 or like something crazy like that.

And I was like inside the ropes had just started this job following everything up close, like truly one of the coolest days of covering golf. And it also of course resulted in one of my favorite press conference bits, which is where he is just like, well, I wasn't thinking about 59, because I mean, I'm shop 59. I shop 59, I have worth before. So it's not a big deal for me. It's just one of my, what about all the favorite things?

That's what I can. All right. So I left a couple, couple like low hanging fruit ones out there for you. I don't think I went, I didn't go too low hanging fruit though. I, I, it wasn't necessary. It was kind of like just random funny things that I've thought of from the WGC. He's going to top my list.

But we do, of course, got to start with Tiger and the Dark and Akron. Uh, like when these events were starting, I was just an impressionable teenager and I didn't understand that they were new or whatever. And like I was from Ohio, like these tournaments when he would win were fucking iconic. Like I remember watching this in the dark and all of this happening after the rain delay. And I just don't, it's really a dark,

cameras make it look way, whatever they say is, that was like the origination moment. And I think it was, how Sutton was playing with him, if I remember right, and he had a, Tiger had a charity event the next day or something and they like rushed

to finish and somebody took a dive for Tiger. So he could make sure he could get this, get this at a time so they didn't have to do a Monday finish. But really the Akron highlight for me is Steve Williams calling his win with Adam Scott, the best of his career. Of course, Steve Williams getting interviewed on the 18th green. I still can't believe this happened. After Adam Scott won the bridge stone after breaking up, after Tiger had fired

Steve Williams, he said, I'm just so happy. I'm so thrilled that this has been the greatest week of my life. The support just been incredible. I don't have a picture of video to go with this one, but the first T announcer at Chipolta Peck, I think it's very easy to forget how fire that guy was. Bienvenidos a la WGC Mexico championship. Like that dude was hype and that tournament was awesome. Justin. Justin Thomas. And then dudes just drive the green.

That was the best way to start a golf tournament. I loved, loved, loved that scene. You had to be in front of a TV for that one. Did you have Geronimo on your list? Did not Geronimo did not make the list, but JT holding out from the fairway to force a playoff at Mexico just spoke to the craziness that was that event. I already said this, but the fact that Tiger 118 before anybody else, one four of these was very, very, very sick.

Of course, of course, when Keegan and Miguel got into it at Harding Park, I was hoping you'd touch this one. That was, that was, that was, that was, that was awesome. Again, only happens in match play. Just Keegan not looking nearly as intimidating as he thinks he probably looks. And I think Miguel would absolutely, whoop his ass.

I don't care how old he was at this point, but. No, that was a week we met, nearly remember that? That was, yes, I spent followed Jason day for most of that might time out at the Harding Park. Of course, maybe the most iconic Akron memory of them all Ashley Bansi Ovani trying to get Roy's attention from the front ropes in 2014. I forgot that was a WGC. That was a WGC. That's when Roy was winning absolutely everything. He went on to win that and the PGA championship shortly after that. I couldn't find the picture of this, but Phil putting his arm around

the group host Salino CEO during the playoff in 2018 at the WGC Mexico. But I did find the photo, of course, because the photo of Phil from D'Arral with the Marshall grimacing in the background. After the year all out is one of the most iconic images from WGC's ever. And of course, closing it out with Patrick Reed claiming to be a top five player in the world in 2014 is one of my great memories as well from the WGC's. Oh my God. I realize this picture was from a WGC.

That's good stuff. I assume it was. It was from Dorao. I would be almost chipped in. So I think that must have been the WGC. So anyway, so that was fun. I'm glad we did that. Why don't we transition that right into the Yeti coldest moment of the week? The Rambler 18 ounce bottle. Your must have cold drinking vessel should be immediately added to your golf bag. This tough bottle, double wall vacuum, insulated, keeps your water cold until the very last sip. It's dishwasher safe for easy cleaning. Come standard with the chug cap lid. The shatter resistant drinking spout that allows for easy pulls on the go.

I love this thing. I've got like eight of them. I throw that in my golf bag right around with it in the golf cart. I use it absolutely everywhere. It's not say enough great things about the Yeti rambler. If you're new to this segment, you coldest moment of the week can mean absolutely everywhere. Can't say enough great things about the Yeti. Rambler, if you're new to this segment, you called us a moment of the week. Can mean absolutely anything. It's up to interpretation.

So who wants to go first? I can kick it off. I had two and I told Cody it was going to be a game time decision. The first option, which is not what we're going to do, is going to be Mackenzie Hughes, Max Icing Mackenzie Hughes with Aimpoint for two minutes. But we're going to move on. And we're going to go with NBC doing Cam Young dirty every time they showed the match profiles. Every picture of Cam Young is him just with this thousand yard stare.

Everybody else is smiling in these pictures except for him. And I feel like I saw this graphic graphic with different pictures like four times this week And they always kind of gave them with this thousand yard stare no smile almost like dumb look on his face And I think that's that was cold blooded by NBC I'll pick it up there But I believe it was came young to hit this one as well on number 12 this one's personal I know for Neil I had to ask him if I could take this, but just absolutely smoking our guy Is a former CBS guy, I believe we didn't even believe it was him because now he was working for NBC this week

But just completely Nuking him with that drive on 12 right the shoulder really I mean, of course, it's hard to see on the monitors I'm sure but Made only that much better by Zanger back No, I didn't hit him. It's like that ball ricocheted off the guy. A human body. That's never seen a more clearly somebody can struck with a golf ball in this video evidence.

Just absolutely just decimated him. It was it was great. Then a fun little wink to it afterwards. But I thought that was that was my coldest moment of the show. Shout out to my god. This guy is this Greg Parker. He's a spotter for CBS. I think now NBC and he has like aspirational aesthetic.

He's got kind of a light subtle goatee. He's got the flow coming out, always wearing the visor. And he's just, he'll just show up in big moments. You'll see him in the back. You've seen him on TV. You have seen him. If you're missing this, you've heard, you've seen him. And also he's a pro's pro.

So I'll say this. What was he doing standing there? He's right in the zone. Yeah, he was in the wrong spot. You've seen him. You've seen him. And also he's a pro's pro. So I'll say this. What was he doing standing there? He's right in the zone. He was in the wrong spot. That's bad spot. Bad spot by the spot. We can't have that Greg, but you are a legend. My coldest moment of the week, a pod bump, Billy Horshaw got out of the group stage, made

it into the sudden death match play. He is losing a match I believe to Cam Young by quite a bit. He missed a putt. I don't know if you guys saw this. Missed a putt and pulled one of the coldest moves I've ever seen. I mean, the baton boy, I believe he's been referred to in on the shotgun start. He picks up the ball with the back of the putter and with the ball still attached to the back of the putter. Did I full flip with the club and the ball stayed on the club? That was about the swiggy. It's way to lose a hole. So I watch this many, many, many times.

And initially I thought that he scooped it and it was like the centripetal force that kept it there. I think it's like a forked putter and he jammed it down on top. But still, still impressive. I just, you know, it had like impossible bottle flip vibes to it for a second. And I think the ball stuck in there pretty good. But I would love to try something similar. Yeah, that is our yeti coldest moments of the week.

All right, let's get to Rory. Rory had some before we get to Rory. One other thing I want to call out is that I love about match play. Very stupid. It's the one time we get to see pros quick rake. And they go some really good ones this week of guys missing short putts and then doing the quick rake it makes it very relatable for me. That's why you don't see dudes with mallets make it very far in this event because you just can't you can't pull off the scoop with the mallet and you lose

your confidence that's maybe why Rory switched putters, because he was using that stupid spider where like, when I see like 15 handicaps using the putter that you can't scoop with, I'm like, man, you're not good enough for that. Like that's gonna hurt you back. Rory McElroy gave some comments exclusively to the golf blog, No Laying It Up, this past week about distance.

We've trimmed some of these comments down the article was on our website as well. We trimmed some of this down. He kind of leads it off by saying that he's happy they're not touching the amateur game, but just kind of speaks to the new proposed model local rule from the USGA and the RNA and how it will relate to the top level of professional golf.

And here's the first bit of that. We'll react to it in the back end. All right, it's been about a week since the announcement, USGA, RNA proposal, model local rule. What is your reaction to what they announced and proposed? You know, I like it. I went on a little bit of a rant, I think, back in Phoenix

in 2021 when they made their first proposal, which was basically affecting every golfer that plays the game recreationally and at the elite level. I've been pretty adamant that I don't really want the governing bodies to touch the recreational golfer because we need to make this game as not intimidating and as much fun to play as possible possible just to try to keep the participation levels at an all time high.

So I'm glad in this new proposal that they haven't touched the regular, the recreational golfer. But for elite level play, I really like it. I really do. I know that's a really unpopular opinion amongst my peers, but I think it's going to help identify who the best players are a bit easier, especially in this in this era of parity that we've been living in over the past couple of decades. I think it'll, you know, you guys use the term like golf has been dumbed on a little bit at the elite level. I completely agree. And I think you're just gonna have to, you're gonna see people with more well-rounded games succeed easier, I guess.

Then sort of what the game has become, which is sort of a bit bomb and guard over the last few years. And are you saying that, as in, I'm a fan of this change because it helps me, or do you, how do you see this helping professional golf, or do you see it helping professional golf? Selfishly, I because it helps me or do you, how do you see this helping professional golf or do you see it helping professional golf? Selfishly, I think it helps me.

I think this is only gonna help the better player. You know, it might help the longer player too in some ways, but I think overall, I think it's just gonna help the overall professional game. I think, you know, and look, we're, I'm the CMJ Chris,, like, I'm a massive fan of the game, and I'm probably too, too much golf nerd to, to maybe know what really, what the casual fun wants to see. But, you know, I think, you know, making guys hit some long irons again,

and some mid irons, and making the game, you know, being able to hit every club in your bag and run to golf. Like, I can't remember the last time when I've had to do that. And I think, I don't know if this, I don't know if this change in the ball will, will, will make us do that, but it certainly is a step closer to that.

And there's a ton of other stuff. There's the sustainability aspects of it. I think, honestly, for the long term health of the game at the professional level, I think this is the right thing to do. Has your view on this evolved at all, and if so, how? It has evolved. Yeah, I was once of the opinion that they don't try to make formula. One cars go slower. They don't, you know, innovation is a part of every sport. It's a part of every industry. But whenever that innovation outgrows the footprint of the game, that's when I think we have a problem. And, you know, I had a really good chat with the chairman of the All England Law and Tennis Club when I was at Wimbledon a few years ago. And we were just talking about a few things.

And he said, Rory, back in the early 2000s, when, you know, men's tennis was predominantly serve in volleyball. It wasn't very good for the entertainment aspect of the game, you know, like rallies wouldn't last more than three shots. So he said, we can't make the court any bigger. So what we did do is we slowed the ball down and we changed the grass on the court to make it a little stickier. And then you fast forward from that change three years later and you've got Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal plan probably one of the best finals of Wimbledon ever. Right? So just from, you know, they didn't make a big deal of it. They didn't, you know, they didn't have to go through all the the things that

the RNA and the USJ have to, but there's just another, you know, it's another example of another sport slowing the ball down and making some changes that I think has certainly benefited that sport. So people can talk about in this country, about the, you know, going from an aluminum baseball bat and college to go into a wooden bat and the pros and this isn't unique to golf. This, this happens in, in other sports as well.

A lot of stuff that I think we've, we've said and commented on. That's pretty similar, but I think it means a little bit more. It's just, it's a little bit different coming from a player of Roy McElroy's tattoo joining the likes of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas that believe a, a rollback at the professional level would, would serve a lot of needs. What's your guys reaction? What Mr. McRoy had to say? A couple things. Stick out to me first off, the tennis match, you reference was, God, I watched that. What a good tennis match. And the other thing that he mentioned that I've thought a lot about lately, I know that this isn't possible, but the fact that, you know,

Wimbledon and tennis was able to do those changes almost quietly, or maybe they weren't quietly, but sometimes I wonder if because it's been announced and it's been a big deal, I almost thought you could do this rollback and not tell anybody and nobody would notice. It's like people just want to get all riled up because it's being publicized if that makes sense. And I know that's what's the right word, like wishful thinking, like, oh, I wish they could just do it quietly and just do what's right for the game,

but it seems like tennis may have been able to do that and three years later, like he said, like you get just awesome, like better tennis basically for at the professional level. So I like the analogies he used. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's a lot of the same stuff we've said for quite a while.

I think it's, I appreciate hearing his self-awareness about like, hey man, maybe I don't know. Maybe people wanna see more, like maybe I don't know what people want, but like at least, hey, I'm gonna tell you what I actually think. I really, I really, really do appreciate that, right? Even if it's something that I'm sure many people even listen to this, like would disagree with or equipment companies would disagree with

or the PJ tour at large might disagree with. Like, I do appreciate that. At least he's telling you what he actually thinks. And, you know, cue all the takes of Roy's getting paid by the USGA, Roy's a puppet for these people, Roy's whatever, but like, I don't know, maybe I'm naive, but I listen to that clip and talk to him a little bit, and it's pretty hard to think that he's doing anything other than Tony, what do you think?

Yeah, not only speaks freely and gives his opinion, but has the awareness and the feedback loop to be like, I know this isn't going to be popular with my peers. And I've thought this through, and it's evolved from what I used to say. Like he rancid about the distance study two years ago in Phoenix and said it was a giant colossal waste of money. Yeah, so I just think that that's a that that little line that you put in like, I know this isn't going to be popular with my peers and he still says it anyway, like I appreciate that as someone at the you know, kind of you know, at the top of his sport. He strikes me as somebody though that has put in a heck of a lot more thought to it than

a lot of the quick knee jerk reaction that has gone into it. Like I, again, I've said this like 95 times now, it's like I've not heard any pros that have spoken on it or anyone that has anti-rollbacked like address the sustainability part of this. Like I don't know. I just brush right past that and want to ignore that part. And like worries like kind of uses that even as a footnote because he knows, I think he knows like, even trying to make his case. Like, I can make five other cases why this is going to be a good thing.

I, we've talked about this parody thing that has gone on in golf. And I think whether or not people at home realize that I don't think, I know, we, we can tend to be romantic about it. And he kind of refers to that there as well about the shot making aspects of golf. I don't know if people at home will say that out loud or know that they think that out loud. Like I wanna see more crafty shots. Not a lot of people watch TV and say that,

but internally you do want less parity. Like you do want more superstars battling it out, right? And that also is an aspect. If the rollback is to be believed, would be exacerbated by this. And I think that's one of the more the more understandable cases someone can make about it. And I appreciate Rory kind of going with that. Yeah, benefits him. I know. So you can throw it out if you want to. But also what benefits him is probably going to be

pretty darn good for the entertainment aspect of Pro Golf. And that's what like kind of starts to get me like pretty excited about the rollback idea is when you start looking at some of those downstream effects. And it's like, okay, if people are hitting longer clubs into greens, then they're probably missing more greens. So who are the best chippers on tour and who are the best putters on tour? Who are the best comeback putters on tour? Who are the best people that just like, you know, refuse to make bogies? Like who are those guys and how are they going to separate themselves? Because that to me is like, Rory Justin Thomas, Scottie Sheffler, Jordan Speeth, all these guys that I'm like, man,

it seems like they're just gonna separate even more. And it kinda, it seems like you don't get to that point unless you've really started to give this a little bit more thought. And I think the sustainability thing is the same where it's like my gut reaction on the sustainability front was, oh, we're changing this for 38 PGA tour courses. Like, that's not really fixing anything,

but then when you start thinking about like, no, we might actually be using this ball at the USM and the British M and all the qualifiers for that. And then that means we might be doing it in college golf. And that means we might be doing it on the age of GA. And that means we might be doing it blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of a sudden you're like, I don't know, we're kind of talking about like thousands

and thousands of golf courses now all of a sudden. Yep. Unless, unless all pro golf is just going to build stadium golf courses that have all the events, like the problem permeates in a lot of different ways. It's likely only the beginning. Let's get to the second half of this, which I found to be quite controversial. What he has to say to close us out, I was not expecting this statement. What do you think the PGA tour is going to do?

Do you use for C.A. situation where they maybe reject this model local rule? Do you feel any duty to provide any influence in that? How do you see that kind of playing out? Yeah, so as I said, I think my opinion differs from my peers and probably the PGA Tour as a whole. And obviously, look, this is just my opinion and I'm only one voice. But I think, honestly, if I'm taking my PGA Tour hat off here, the major championships are already such a big deal in the game of golf. And if the major championships

somehow adopt this ball change and the PGA Tour doesn't, it just I think widens that gap between PGA Tour Golf and major championship golf, which, you know, if anything, the PGA Tour are trying to get, you know, trying to make up some sort of market share, trying to get a little closer to the major championships in terms of the interest that that we create within our tournament. So I'd hit to see a scenario in 2026 where I start the biggest deal. So if the PGA Tour doesn't implement it, I might still play that the model local real ball because I know that that'll give me the best chance and the best preparation leading into the major championships. And again, this is personal preference and personal opinion. At this stage of my career, like I know that I'm going to be defined by the amount of major championships that I hopefully will win from now until the end of my career.

And that's the most important thing for me. So if that gives me the best chance to succeed at the major championships and feel as prepared as I possibly can be, that's what I would do. That's Sally Hittin' with a, with a MAC a deep, build magazine. Really, really. I did not expect my exact reaction to that too. I still don't, you know, obviously it's a hypothetical, but I, I don't know if that's a strategic move with his to kind of put pressure on the PGA tour or, um, it was just a, I can kind of see where he's coming from on that.

Like dude, when I'm 37, whatever that age, I'm going to be at that point. Like dude, whatever happens from there is all about the majors. And I will use the PGA Tor events as prep for the majors. I'm going to play this ball in competition. And that's going to help me hopefully give me an advantage in those majors. I, it's kind of a weird marrying of like he's ridden really freaking hard for the PGA Tor and set out the future of the PGA Tor. And at the same time saying this means so you have any idea how little this means to me guys. It was kind of a shocking statement I guess, but I still very much is kind of a

TBD to be seen kind of situation as well. I think Jimmy Lusk in the comments kind of read my thoughts exactly. Maybe Roe is watching too much succession. Maybe he's trying to make a big bold play and getting the boardroom and start making some people call his bluff. So I don't know. I'm kind of with you solid. The more I thought about the more I'm like, man, the 37 year old, 38 year old, 39 year old,

40 year old, Rory, like, is what's the difference between, I mean, how many PGH or wins is he have now? 25, something like that. It's like, I don's the difference between, I mean, how many PJ tour wins is he have now? 25, something like that. It's like, you know, I don't think it's controversial to say he's probably not getting to 82. So what's the difference between 25 and 30 and 35 and 37 and I mean, I get like, you know, there's a lot of freaking money at stake here, but Rory also has a lot of freaking money already.

And I very much get where the inversion happens and the, you know, he starts focusing on doing every single thing he can to max out those major chances, which are very, very minimal. So I started it with just like, all right, come on, there's no way this is true and have come all the way around to like, he might be crazy. Now he was, he's crazy. I feel do it. He, he, he might do it. Uh, so who does it going to be fun to watch and see? Well, and one other thing I'll point out similar to what I said in the first clip is I really appreciate you, you can hear Rory. He's almost working this out in real time. Yep. Right. It's not talking points. It's not rehearsed. It's, it's he's thinking about the issue. He's thinking about the question and I don't know if I

wish there were more professional athletes that were doing that. I'd like to see like him like chat about this with other top players. Maybe some guys like a back and forth between them would be super interesting on the topic and them would be super interesting on the topic. And again, I just not just because I think he views it very similarly to us. It's he's like I said, he just seems to have done the most thought and read put the most thought and research into it into that opinion. And it's going to be going to be talking about a lot going forward. So I think there's I think there's something very very interesting and notable and fascinating about Rory having the 18 months that he's just had and having every word that he said picked apart and probably losing more fans that he's ever lost before and having people, you know, call them all kinds of PJ tour names and whatever and come it like you kind of have two choices when you come out on the other side of that, right? It's like I could either like, all right, I'm just gonna not say anything and I'm gonna not give any interviews, blah, blah, blah,

or you know what man, I don't give a fuck and I'm gonna say what I wanna say and I'm gonna double down and people are gonna get mad and that's fine and it's, I think, incredibly admirable to come out on that side rather than just throw your hands up and not say anything to anybody. So it's impressive that he's out there doing it. I respect that a lot. That'll come up at a gust of press conference. I imagine as well. And that's going to be a topic for for Fred Ridley for his press conference. And there's going to be a lot of freaking storylines

here. I kind of got chills a little bit when Damon Hack closed his interview with Roy today. He's like, all right, We'll see you in Georgia. He was like, oh my God, this shit is coming very soon. Eight days away from Master's Week has got a while. What else from this week? Johnson Wagner had some takes. I don't know if you guys caught this on the golf subpar podcast. He was asked about the new designated event structure.

I'm a big fan of Johnson Wagner's work on golf channel and whatnot, I was very surprised, taken back by this take, I guess. He said, I'm furious about it and he was referring to Nick Taylor with the waste management. He said, Nick, Matt is hell. Next year, we aren't gonna have that story

and Nick Taylor is a baller. He's a two time winner. I love me some Nick Taylor. I think what makes the PGA tour so great is having those guys in those events and I'm shocked and disappointed. I'm a company man and I love the PGA tour but I cannot believe they made this decision. I think Liv was dead in the water and it's like they went down and resuscitated it with this decision. Completely bone headed to

me. I just think you are getting to the point where you have two tours. Yes. Rest of the page. Rest of the class has been on this page for quite a while. Appreciate you catching up. And, you know, I can't stress enough how entitled GR to your opinion on this front, but for I host a golf podcast, weekly, watch that entire tournament. If you gave me $100,000 to tell you who the third person was in that, like, you know, I knew Scotty's coming down the stretch. Who what God I know it was a it was a guy.

He played really well. I think he's won before. I don't know was it like Chad Remy or something. I couldn't I wouldn't have gotten to Nick Taylor and that I think is his kind of the point. I love me some story for Nick Taylor. I love me some Nick Taylor, but yeah, you know what? I can watch Nick Taylor at the Honda. And if the Taylor balls out of the Honda, then I'll give it a

doesn't bring him on. Man, let's go. It's not like it's, it's not cementing two tours. It's just, I don't know, making it a little easier for us to get, you know, the top dudes, the hottest players in the world together and showing, you know, into a showdown format more often. So I think the resuscitating. That's the part. That's the part to stick it out to be a revenge of the mules. You know what? Like this, I, you know, mule by mule. We're built this tour. This plan that like all the top players

came up with to stay committed to the PGA tour. I think this plan that they put together, the guys that drive 99% of the value proposed this thing and eventually got pushed through. Yeah, that is what is going to resuscitate live. There's one of the all-time takes in my book. I was just, my job dropped when I saw that this is going to resuscitate live. I was like, no, I think literally, man, this is the move to counter live. And I was just like ready for, I was ready for some pushback to that part of the conversation.

Because it's like, yeah, I don't know, like Ryan Armer seemed to think of like, yeah, well, I mean, why wouldn't guys go to live after this? I was like, dude, I think they're extremely comfortable with that range of player going to live. I think everyone is extremely comfortable with that. Would encourage Liv to set up a Nick Taylor all you can eat buffet. Just take it. Take as much as you want, man. It's all all yours.

All yours. Go for it. And then he added in something, unless they come up with some kind of qualification status where the top 60 get in or top 50 get into those designated events and the other 20 to 25 spots can be filled up by current year guys that are playing well. That could make some sense, but still I'm shocked. Yeah, it's going to be like an or a part of the system of mules going to live, you know, just Dusty, you can see it from miles of caravan of mules. Just heading out to the desert, up broken axle $200.

Eastward. Oh, here we go. So much dysentery. Yeah, to that, I'd say, yes, there is a clockers out there helping him forward the rivers. There is a qualification system among the current year guys that are playing well. I think it's got another shocking part of that. But you may just get a shot into us for our critiques of TV coverage as well.

So that was, it's really comfortable with that. I do like him on golf central. I think he's been a great addition. But yeah, it's tough, tough scene on the takes. LPGA is wrapping up as we are finishing. Georgia Hall has a one shot lead and Celine Boudier is trying to track her down. Mike Wallace wins on the PGA tour,

some other two PGA tour events this week. He wins the Corralis Puntacana championship by one shot over a bunch of guys including Nikolai Hoigard, much to TC's Shagrin. Uh, I didn't get a chance to watch a lot of that because there was another PGA Tour event going on at the same time. But, but, uh, taking clock on, on the podcast board. So we can fire that at any time.

Mike Wallace is in the hunt. Uh, guy that played great at Valsbar last week and didn't quite get it over the hump and then goes down and wins at Boots Gone. I guess Niklai Hohigard's second Tyler Duncan and Sam Stevens finished T3 down there. Don't listen to their music, but the fact that they're out there making it respect that.

It's almost like there's two tours. Yeah, keep it going. Yeah. You guys ready to have some Ryder Cup fun? Let's do it. We are doing these monthly segments that of course brought to you by our friends at BMW, a worldwide partner of the 2023 rider cup BMW will be electrifying the rider cup. They fully electric fleet of vehicles for players and officials. This September, listen, our previous segments in January, we drafted a US rider cup team. I think I would have some changes to my team already two months later, which I think we knew we would happen. Last month, we selected a European Ryder Cup team,

probably would make some changes even to last months' team. We're still waiting on TC's team. We're gonna get to it, but we're gonna mix it up a little bit. We're gonna do a little story time, if you guys will indulge me a little bit. We of course did a deep dive podcast episode about the 1991 Ryder Cup with our thanks to our friends at BMW actually about the war by the shore And there's a great shame Ryan's done a bunch of great rider cup run episodes of the kind of the run up to the 91 rider cup

That kind of set things off and whatnot, but it really was a a a Particular rider cup that changed the the course of history in one. Do you guys know what year I might be talking about when it comes to that? It's a very painful, 1983. Painful loss on the American side. I know you probably want to think of Medina when you think of painful loss on the American side,

but on home turf, they won an 83 at PGA National. But what was the next one and do you know where it was? Oh, I don't. Just tell me. PGA national, but what was the next one and do you know where it was? I don't just tell me we are going to Mirfield Village in 1987 is this team is captain Biden none other than Tony Jacqueline. Well the US team is captain by oh Jack Nicholas Jack and Barbara Nicholas were the captains 1987 Remember so in 85 Europe won the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1957.

It was 16 and a half and 11 and a half that they won at the Belfri. It embarrassed the US golfers, writing for sports illustrator Jaime Diaz, said that the loss at the Belfri engendered the persistent taunt that Sevy by Astero's and Bernhard Longer were better than any American pro. A lot of the Americans were convinced it was a fluke.

They had more talent, having Captain Jack Nicholas on their side on a course. He designed it's gonna definitely restore the American dominance. The Europeans laughed, laughed at the team atmosphere on the US side at the need for the extra motivation to play well. Nick Fauto said, we don't need any motivation.

We are playing for history. It's like playing for your life. It was also Jose Maria O'Fable's first Ryder Cup. Sevi took him under his wing and acted like a brother all week. He said he showed me the spirit of the Ryder Cup. Going into this, Nicholas was a little skeptical about his team's chances. He said to him, he has, they had a bunch of guys

who get the most out of their game, but we can't have any, don't have any kind of player with the game that can be dominant and I don't see him emerging right away And so Europe jumps out to a 10 and a half to five and a half lead After two rounds that had people questioning whether the cushy life of the PGA tour I'd made players soft and the exempting 125 guys every year had given oxygen to the sentipin that most Americans didn't know how to win tournaments. And God, that's such a sick.

It is. And the catalyst for that was they kept losing matches on the 18th hole. So the take was that the Americans just didn't have guys knew how to win. You know what's a bummer that seems to have gone away in sports riding is just like no consequences. Hyper aggressive, no consequence takes based on 36 holes of golf.

Like, well, these last two days, I just, I don't know, I think we got to blow up the whole entire system. If you hear like Nicholas describe his team, it makes it sound like he had a bunch of like Camtron Gollies on his team. It's like the problem with the American golf system is because it's so difficult to win our guys rarely get into position to contend on the stretch. And instead of being aggressive, they develop a percentage type of style play. I'm actually kind of like actually,

you know what, that kind of does make a little sense over 72 holds a stroke play, but he said, on the European tour, there's less competition, which puts players in competition more often and makes them better, more aggressive finishers, which is kind of hard to argue with that. That's like Jake. In that time period.

So going into Sunday, the U.S. needed to win nine of 12 singles matches to win back the cup, but Europe came out shaky. The Americans grabbed the momentum when Andy Bean beat Ian Wusnum, and it was very clear as the day unfolded that Ben Krenshaw versus Aiman Darcy was going to be a huge match. Have you guys ever heard what happened in this match? Do you have any idea where I'm going with this? I don't think so. So Darcy was 35 years old.

He was generally thought of as Europe's weakest player. Tony Jackelin once described his swing as agricultural. I don't know what that means, but I know that's not a compliment. That's the only thing I do know. He was a gatherer, not a hunter. Is the hundredth ranked player in the world. Crenshaw was 35th on the sixth hole. Ben Crenshaw missed a short putt that put him two down in the match. And in his anger, he slammed his putter down a putter that he'd had since

he was 15 years old and snapped the shaft in half. He said he later claimed he tapped it down on a walnut and it snapped. It was like somebody shot me. It took four holes to recover. I love the exaggerations in this time period as well. It was like somebody shot me prior to this match. Aiman Darcy had played 10 rider cut matches. Can you guys tell me how many that he had won? One, zero.

He was zero eight and two, but now crunch out to play the rest of the round, putting with his wedges and the irons. In a fan heckled, Aiman Darcy said, if you can't beat him now, Laddy, you're never gonna beat him. Crenshaw made it work. He made a three foot par putt with a wedge on the 11th hole to win.

He made an 18 footer with a one iron on the 13th. And then he used this one iron to get to make a six foot birdie putt on the 16th. And Aiman Darcy said he thought Crenshaw was putting with his irons by choice, not by necessity. They said it basically, he thought it was because the greens were so fast, it was used to sl, he was using irons to slow down the pace on the greens, which is again, also a very sick take. Krenshaw was one up going to the 17, but Darcy ended up winning that whole Krenshaw hooks his drive into the water on 18. I made a seven footer for Bogey to force Darcy

to make a three foot putt, but close it out to win the Ryder Cup. They wrapped in a huge celebration. There was just like something happened and after that, I couldn't find the documentation of this. Like, Nicholas took his guys into a villa or something and just laid into him, just totally lambasted him. It's it's sent to the American soul searching. They begin talking about reshaping the entire format of the PGA tour based on this loss. And Nicholas would say there are a lot of guys who sit on our money list from about $2.30 to $200. Who will say, there goes Nicholas again,

but I'm gonna keep preaching. You've gotta have winners, you've gotta have heroes, and you gotta have superstars that people look at. And so even as of 1987, it's not getting that job done, man. Even as of 1987, Nicholas was still beating down this, like, breaking off the PGA tour thing and proposing that, which I did not know that part

of the 1987 Ryder Cup. Oh, like, how? That's amazing. No ice cream for the American team after that. Well, you can get going on these things and like, I, it's really hard to summarize that in five to 10 minutes, because you could do, like, Shane's done an hour-long podcast on this one,

like, the underlying themes of all these things is what makes, again, what contributes to making the rider cut my favorite. Favorite event in golf? Well, you know what, shout out to Crenshaw too. Cody and I got a chance to look at his kind of home track Austin golf club. Awesome. I mean, and kind of here in stories of gentle bend around

Austin, he's a legend in those parts. So, you know, you guys have any T-toes after the round? Yes, or maybe during, you know, great. It was a great day in Austin, Texas. So, appreciate the hospitality down there. What do you think, Cody, anything to add there? No, it's amazing. It's a prime example of what really, really, really good green complexes can do. And also, I want to shit say, when we're at Austin Country Club watching Matchplay, we were walking around. Tom Kite was right in front of us looking very spry.

Rockin' a pair of Jays. I was like, what? It's got a rockin' kick. You look pretty swaggy. What's up? Shout out to Sports Illustrated and various other US newspapers for the research and Ken Van Volkberg, who helped me of course accumulate that story.

But any other housekeeping stuff for this week week or Cody, anything that we missed? Go ahead, Deeds was housekeeping. Wait and wait for this final round of the LPGA to finish up right now. We're chipping for it. Got an eagle chip right now. She has to birdie the 18th hole in order to tie Georgia Hall in the clubhouse. So we can bootie out your stuff. Yep, at 20 under. So I'll wait until you guys wrap up. House.

Keep me at the end. Not too much video front. I don't know the exact dates yet. We're figuring out where things are going to slot in. But we tweeted something this week. We're going to have a new series coming out with our good friend, Michael Wolfe. You might know him as Bama Bearcat on Twitter and Instagram. He refuses to call himself a golf historian, but I think he's about as close

as anybody I've ever met. Surely. He's like, I'm not a historian. He is. Okay. I celebrate talkments work on the Great War. That's exactly right. And so we've got some really, really fun stuff. He put together a great video, basically on how the masters became the masters, what the

history of it is, what levers they pulled to really kind of make it into the biggest golf tournament in the world. So really excited for that. We've got a fitting video, a full fitting video with KVV from our friends at Titleist. That will be coming out shortly. And then we've also got another film room from the Gasparilla.

Looking at up close and personal at Soli's round with Justin Heuber on the bags. There's some great player, Caddy stuff, a little bit of a different spin on a tournament that we've covered covered in the past. And then some other video stuff that'll be coming soon. We're not, we're not quite ready for you yet, Neil. We're not quite ready to talk about it yet, but we'll, we'll, we'll let you know when you, when we know you'll know.

But big, big, big week in the pro shop, we've got the master's collection, some more spring, the first major collection. I don't think it's, but don't we have affiliate point, first major collection. Okay. Exactly right. The first, first major collection newsletter, first shot. Nest members get early access. Nest newsletter, we got Tuesday. And then the bigger wider newsletter will go out Tuesday and then the bigger wider newsletter

will go out Thursday. So easy as place to stay up to date on the merch newsletter dot no laying up dot com. Neil, what's your what's the next man? What's that? The nest is our our, you know, kind of the center of the maze. I think is the best way to put it. So if you want to learn more about the nestess, no laying up.com forward slash join

You get a lot of extra perks if you're a Ness member big and I'll be back this week with a LPGA pod recapping the tournament that's going on right now the LPGA drive on championship Celine Boutier putting on 18 has to make drains it to go to a playoff at 2,000 with Georgia Hall. So we're not going to finish this in time for succession to start, but we'll do a full recap with the big guy. He is alive. I know people have been asking, where's big, where's big?

He's alive. We actually recorded an episode, a section segment earlier today with young Rosang, a little anewa preview. So excited for that. It'll be included there. And that's it. It's all I got. Shout to Lauren Cogling for almost the McKenzie

Hughes this weekend, 67, 67 on the weekend. I believe she was T21 last I looked. So great weekend for a young hitter there. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in to get another live show shout out to our friends at High Noon and the brand new tequila seltzer Please go check it out. It is very very very much worth your time Shout out to Yeti shout the title of shout the BMW shout everybody And for listening tuning in watching tweeting harassing us on Twitter all the good stuff

So thank you all for being here on Sunday evening wrapped up in time for succession excited for this Thank you all for being here on Sunday evening wrapped up in time for succession. Excited for this. And oh, would would be remiss if I didn't mention if you'd like to hear an hour and a half on succession with Rory McElroy, that is on the trap draw podcast. That's a real thing that happened this past week. That's a real. You guys put us in a tough spot. Neil and I coming out with an episode of the booth next week.

It just it's hard falling over. Rory, man. Tough act of fall. I know. But we did it live first, first, not live, but in person. So it's good to get it literally, literally, Cody set up like an interrogation booth in his hotel. I was welcome. Hey, welcome in. Neil, please have a seat over here. So that'll be out this week. And press with our timing here. Thanks again, everyone for tuning in. We'll see you back here.

We'll be not live next week, but of course we'll be live for the Masters shows. After every round, we'll have a Masters preview, we'll have all of the works. So thank you for tuning in, we'll see you back here next week. Cheers. Cheers. Be the right club, be the right club today. Yes. That's better than most.

How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.