No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 705: Rocket Mortgage Recap

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Rickie Fowler wins for the first time in four years as he claims the Rocket Mortgage in a playoff over Collin Morikawa and Adam Hadwin. We look at all the action from Detroit, and the struggle to watch the final round today when tee times were moved up. Plus some thoughts on Morikawa and the rest of the contenders this week - Ludvig included. Then it's on to the news from off the course over the past week, starting with PGA Tour - Saudi PIF framework agreement that came out on Monday (30:15). Plus, the DP World Tour internal document release from last year (58:30), Peter Malnati's GolfWeek interview (1:16:45), the players' backlash against Eamon Lynch and more. We close with a round up from non-PGA Tour events (1:34:15), a quick look ahead to the upcoming US Women's Open and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying a podcast. Sully here. We've said on our Monday call this week, TC. It's just going to be you and I this week.

We're going to do a quick one hour recap. Just listen, it's fourth of July weekend. Nobody wants to hear any more golf crap. Turns out a lot happened this week as it tends to almost every week, but hello, Mr. Tronkart, or how are you? Hello, Sally. Happy, happy July second, my friend. We have made it to July second. It has been a busy week, Ricky Fowler wins. They tried to cancel me this week, TC. They tried to give me the virus and they didn't get away with it. We will, we will get to that part in the end. Of course, please, please, please do not believe everything you read on the internet. That should be expected at this

point. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Titleist and number one ball in golf. I joined Titleist for a golf ball content shoot this week in Dallas with Scotty Sheffler. Jordan Spieth, hopefully you heard our interview on the podcast this past week. And as part of that shoot, I got to spend some time with 40 pits. He's the guy who works with all the titles golf ball players on the PJ tour, make sure they're dialed into their model, that fits their game best. You know, it takes feedback from him. He's the guy.

He is the guy. And I got to do a, I got to go through the ball fitting process with him. And it confirmed that I'm playing the right golf ball. TC, I'm playing the ProV1. I was a little nervous that I should be playing the ProV1X and I was nervous that I like a soft golf ball. I want to play the softest possible golf ball. And I thought it was kind of something I made up in my head.

Like I got to play ProV1 because it's softer than ProV1X. But it turned out, my spin profile was generating plenty of spin and I can spend the ProV1 plenty enough. I'm getting the right Apexes on it. Did all of it and it was a really great thing to walk away from saying like, hey, I am playing the right golf ball. I've not gotten in my own way. 40 was signed off on it did all of it and it was a really great thing to walk away from saying like, hey, I am playing the right golf ball.

I've not gotten in my own way. 40 was signed off on it. I cannot say this enough. Playing a properly fitted golf ball will help you shoot lower scores ahead to Titles.com to start the fitting process either with their golf ball selector tool or a free one-on-one video chat with one of their product experts. And also stay tuned for some content from the shoot. We appreciate Titles, including us in the shoot and have greatly enjoyed this aspect

of our partnership. And they brought us, they brought you guys that Scotty and Jordan interviewed this past week. They did not have to use their time on that, but they did. So thank you to them. Yeah. Well, sorry from one Prove 1 guy to another. Always good having the other team. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad I tested out the left dash, tested out the Pro V1 X. I watched some other guys do the same thing. It's it was a very informative process, but it goes to I learned a lot about what you're trying to get out of a golf ball and and what you should be looking for. So it's helpful. Let me ask you this. What was your big takeaway from the Scotty speed conversation and just and just hanging out with them together? It was kind of stark to me in talking to Scotty about his golf shots.

When we got on to the golf course and we're, you know, going through different shots, talking about things like, when he had hit a one-way word, I'm, you know, asking what went wrong there. And we kind of got into a conversation about how he approaches things, right? And he didn't really say this in his own words. Like, I'm kind of interpreted in this way of, I would, if I could buy up more Scotty stock right now, I would and that how little he plays golf swing

was interesting. I think we can kind of generalize that or kind of use that, that phrase a lot, people that, you know, I don't know why we're starting with Scotty before we get to Ricky, but listen, we'll get to our conversation. No, I think this is interesting. But it's like, it's like, germane to what? Yeah.

Like, it was a big content week for us, so we can summarize that too. Yeah. And so it was, I walked away from that conversation feeling like Scotty does everything in his power to make sure his feels are right, internament conditions, right? I feel like, and I just, I feel like I've heard Jordan speak, and maybe there's just contrast in the two. Here, Jordan speak a lot about the specifics of a golf swing. And we all heard that 2019 podcast,

where he talks about all his feels and all these things, and all that, and I feel like he's still working, he's swinging the club really well, but I still feel like he's still working towards getting his swing right, whereas Scotty is trying to feel the athletic feels in competition. And I think that that the like if I'm looking for a reason behind the consistency that he's

had, I got a glimpse into that this past week and that informed a lot. I think that dude is like it. I really do. And I think it is not just like a hot streak. I think he is the ball striker. And it might not be the most appealing looking thing to Randy or to anyone that thinks he doesn't pass the eye test. But whoa, it was pretty enlightening. I greatly enjoyed it. So I mean, he passed the eye test for me years

ago when he was on the corn fairy tour. That's right. You were that you invented Scotty Schaffer. Look what you created here. But T.C. Let me be the first to welcome Ricky Fowler, big, dick, Rick. Does he upgraded a big, dick, Rick from medium, dick, Rick, with this win at the, at the mule championship up in, up in Detroit? No, it's still, it's still medium, dick, Rick, but that's not a, that's not a, you know, a slight on him. Maybe it's, it's like the athletic fit, you know, it's like an athletic fit large or something, right?

A slim fit large. If you measure from the base, right? Slim fit large. If you measure from the base, maybe, yeah. Maybe. Oh, congrats to Rick. I mean, shit. Oh, huge congrats, man. Like whoever can't feel good about that, like it's, you know,

I mean, he beat Kalamorakawa, Adam Hadwin, you know, kind of kind of stalled out there in the final round a little bit. And then birdies to 18. And it, you know, just impressive, impressive win, especially on the heels round a little bit, and then Birdie's 18, and just impressive, impressive win, especially on the heels of, kind of the heartbreak at the US Open, and just all the great golf he's played this year.

And finally, it's pretty common for guys to play really, really well, and then not get the W when they're super hot, and just kind of burn themselves out, and he got the W when they're super hot. And, you know, I can just kind of burn themselves out and he got the W, which, yeah. Halfway through today, and we're recording this earlier today because golf got moved up and we can talk about, I mean, what's there to say really about the golf not being on TV

that we haven't said over the last five years, but I thought we were gonna be here on this pod. It looked very much looked like it was gonna be the Ricky Convo that we've had many, many times. Like it just looked like that Sunday Ricky that we're waiting for you to get it done. Please get it done. You don't get it done. And it just, he, he was three under on the day when he got to 18, which is not a great score on this golf course. If you're in contention, you needed to get out and run the playoff. Was it 24 under par? He three potted the 14th hole for par. Um, and then the 17th hole is a par

five that he also didn't birdie draw has missing had a wayward right drive going on the back nine and just look like he didn't he couldn't put the pedal down and go get the job done on this Sunday and he drives it into the right rough, uh, or I'm sorry,

it's fair about 18 and stuff. It and gets into the playoff. So he saved every flip to the bottom saved it with a birdie on 18, uh, gets into the playoff. So he saved every, flipped it at the bottom, saved it with a birdie on 18, gets into a playoff with Adam Hadwin, who had a Bogey free 67, Colin Moore Cowish, who's a final round 64 with birdies on 10, 14, 10, 12, 14, and 17,

and then lipped a birdie with a great putt on the 18th hole. They go to the playoff, Ricky Droveett and the right rough got a drop from casual water over there. It looked like he had a good lie. They had reported that he had a good lie. So I don't know how much of a break that was, but it's a really solid approach right under the hole.

Adam Hadwin from the fairway, hits a nice one, but spins it back too much. And it actually ends up giving Rick a great read. Hadwin misses his putt and then, but before that, Morakawa thinks he's flagged one from the fairway, but it goes long does not hit a great chip, but Ricky steps up and drains the putt,

makes the putt to win the tournament and just kind of like leans back on his putt a little bit and lets out like a huge sigh of relief. And it seemed like a big relief for him, but at the same time, like listening to his post round, like interview and comments, I really do think Rick is in a, I don't think time, like listening to his post around, like interview and comments, I really do think Rick is in a, I don't think he's like blown smoke up our ass when

he keeps referring to, like the fact of having a, like the perspective thing seems kind of real with Rick. Like having a daughter and a family, like I feel like he's also like totally fine. And maybe people don't, I don't that's always been kind of my impression with Ricky since getting to know him a little bit. It's like dude golf is kind of a small part of the puzzle for him. Like, truly, I don't think if he would have missed that putt, if his evening would have been anywhere.

I think that guy moves on faster from things. Winds and losses faster than anyone else. Yeah, first and foremost, what an activation. Seriously. I mean, rocket mortgage. Start to feel a little scripted. Some of this stuff. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I mean, played well all week to 67 65 64 68. I low key love that 18th hole.

I think it's such a cool like the, you know, the lake or the stream kind of cutting in down the left and you can go farther down the right, uh, or you can play close to the stream and then, you know, kind of get the angle into the green. It's such an interesting week. Like not, not necessarily in a great way, you know, I mean, 24 undergranted, it's a part 72. I thought the course actually played tougher today than the rest of the week for a variety of reasons, but the like the 14th hole, for instance, like weirdly a bunch of guys, like that kind of defined a bunch of guys tournaments, like Penger with Gosh Who Else on 14. Yeah, like Taylor Moore, Ricky, like Ricky Bogie

that on Saturday, it was just like, like, like Ludwig made double there, just weirdly, like, kind of a 555 yard par five. And guys really struggle with that. There was more bogies than you would have anticipated and let them, and like, less birdies. So I think it's one of those places where there's so much pressure to make birdies on like 9 10 11 birdies in around and if you're not doing that you're falling behind and I think there's something like pretty tough psychologically about that. logically about that. Yeah, it's, it's a birdie fest tournament. It is. I don't love that part of it. But man, the event seems it kind of box a little bit amongst the mule events. I know Detroit really shows out. Maybe we have a little bit different perspective having,

we went up there for tourist sauce Michigan in 2021, played Detroit golf club and got to experience Detroit a little bit. I feel like it's been a, that probably deservingly so at times a punching bag for amongst people in the media for quite some time. There's obviously some extremely rundown areas of Detroit, but it is on its way back in a very serious fun vibe in that city that I think we kind of all felt for the short time that we were there. And man, they show out for this tournament.

It has a real strong vibe to it. I don't know if that's just the ricky effect, but even amongst the rain, I expected to see way less people out there today with the weather the way it was. I mean, that was a downpour going on. And it just seems to work, man, it's doesn't have to be a, it's not a premier golf event. That's totally fine. But for a summer event, that's, that's, that's as good as you can probably hope for if you're rocking mortgage and if you're Detroit, I would, I would have to think about as good

as you could hope for, except for, you know, having to go to the app to watch. You know, go to six different apps to watch it. It's tough seen. At least you can watch it somewhere these days. Yeah. Five or six years ago, not be able to watch it anywhere. We were told the F five minutes, five years ago, I think the final event that this happened, if I remember right, was 2018 RBC, which was Satoshi Katairo one, and I remember this. And it was played early like this yet,

they tried to like hold you back. They couldn't, you couldn't stream it early. You couldn't stream it live. The app updated live, but you had to wait to watch it on tape delay on CBS later that day. At least there is an option to go to CBS Sports app and CBS Sports.com to go watch it. I think Peacock, like unsubscribed us,

it's some, our family account at some point. Just we kinda know if it was something we said, but I couldn't watch it on peacock this morning didn't feel like signing back up for it. It's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess. It's always a mess.

It's probably always gonna be a mess. I don't know if Yosser's gonna save us from this. If this deal somehow goes through, but I don't even fight it anymore. I guess I don't even get upset about it. It's funny to see it watch it get kind of mainstream today. I'm like, yeah, I'm trying to watch Ricky. I mean, what is such another old goal for the tour?

Like even JT was was like, oh my god, I got to watch this on the app. I'm like, yeah, dude, like this is what everybody's talking about when we talk about the product. It's not about how much money you're making for, you know, a T6 finish, right? It's just so predictable. Yeah, like I said, I mean, the least they're making the efforts get it online and you can go seek it out if you want. But man, if you want everyone to support to grow, you're going to need casual fans, be able to tune in and watch live as Ricky goes to win it.

And I, I, as much as I've tried to understand that these contracts that everyone refers to, there is a channel that is called the golf channel and it just feels like you should be able to watch the biggest golf event, you know, insert live joke here if you want. But the biggest golf event in life in the world going on at the moment, you feel like you should be able to do that on your television. That's not that big of an ask. You should. You should, which is why the, you know, US senior open is being televised. The biggest golf event.

Big contracts. Uh, going back to Ricky, I think just looking at the stats, very, very well-balanced week for him. It's not like he just blew everybody out of the way. He was probably best. He was second in approach play. So Iron Play, Wedge Play, great stuff there. But he was like 30th off the tee.

He was 14th around the tee. He was 14th around the greens. He was 12th and putting. He was 30 to green. He was, you know, just really well balanced, consistent play overall. But it's like it's, it's kind of one of those courses and we'll get to Ludwig, but it puts a lot of pressure on weird wedge play, right? From, you know, their Poana greens, you got to control your spin. You're probably going to have a lot of wedges like on three, for instance. You got to have a lot of wedges from like weird distances, like 50 to 110 yards, and you know, back pins and pretty undulating greens. And like, you got to hit a lot of off speed stuff.

And I think that's a credit to Ricky. Like he played good golf this week, not just good golf swing. Well, I think I post this on Twitter and it's like, I don't know if I've been, a lot of people have been ringing the Ricky train, but I was ringing the Ricky for Ryder Cup train two months ago at this point.

I mean, I don't think people have fully, fully appreciated how good his golf has been in the entire world of all the golf played, including live counting all of that. He's sixth in the world in Strokes Gain so far in 2023, like going all the way back. And the only guys he's trailing are the names you will recognize. Scotty, Ram, Patrick Cantley, Xander Schauffly, Roy McElroy. For those curious, Brooks kept his 14th on that list. I heard a lot of people saying that I excluded him in the list No, he just is 14th on this Taylor Gucci's 40th on this list that I was also accused of Removing them from that is not the case all golf counting including live golf is counted in that in you've been deleting a lot of stuff

Oh so much stuff get deleted to Delete in players delete delete in live players delete in all these tweets allegedly. Beleding high news. We deleted some some alcohol at your house last night. Thank you for having us over. But again, referencing this, there was one deleted tweet, which we will discuss. Sure. At some point, please don't believe everything you read on the internet. Good to see more cowaback. A sign of life from him. It's been, you know, not the best stretch of golf for him, but he had a good putting week this week. I don't know if we'll ever be able to predict when his good putting weeks are coming. I'm sure somebody that dives into stats even harder than I do can tell

us what he puts well and what he doesn't, but man, it's it's good to at least even if it's a mule run, it's good to see more cow at the top of leaderboard after 72 holes. Yeah, great, great final round. Bogey free 64. God, I just, I like, watch quite a bit of him on Friday. It's kind of joyless. It's, I'm struggling to, I'm struggling to, to enjoy watching him. Did you come, what did you come this week to private equity golfer? Yeah, yeah, he's just like, like if private equity had a guy, like it's just like, you know, I don't know, just seems kind of transactional. It's not been a good

run. He top 10 at the Masters. He had a really strong start to the year. He finished second at century. He finished third at farmers. And yeah, T 13 at players, T six at Genesis, T 10 at the Masters. But since then, T 31 at Heritage, then cut cut, then T26 the PGA T29 Schwab with Jerusalem Memorial with some back concerns T14 at the US open And then miss the cut at travelers last week. So I don't really know what to take from it. The iron play is still really good off the T's just okay. I'm not really doing a whole lot around the greens puddings been, you know, kind of bad at a couple of events, but, you know, mostly just okay. But, um, I don't know, it's a, I don't know, I don't know what to take with it, you know, on a true gas pedal week. If this means great things for him for the rest of the year or what it means for Liverpool, but it's such a different style of play. So it's hard to say, but a very obviously extremely noteworthy

performance this week. I bet he plays well at Scottish next week too. I think we played a next week. Yeah, no, John Deere's next week and then Scottish. It's not it's not Scottish opposite John Deere anymore. Okay. Yeah. So coast action, baby. Come on. Yeah. Which we'll get to get in some of that. Adam Hadwin continues to play. He's had a really good season. He is now up to 35th in the FedEx cup. And he's playing faster to his wife, God on him. Yeah, that was great. That was great. He said on his interview on Saturday, he said that there were some people talking at

LACC that he wasn't making decisions fast enough and his wife relayed that information to him and he obviously took a different approach with that. So runner up finish from him. I don't know. I still think there's got to be a way to clap. This is a different approach with that. So runner up finish from him. I don't know. I still think there's got to be a way to clap. This is a weird take I have, but if you're tied for the 72, tied for the lead after 72 holes, that should be a different than a runner up,

a different class of runner up finished. You should get bonus FedEx Cup points or something for that. I think that's different than a solo second. I don't know. No, that's like everybody gets a trophy stuff. All right, that's fair. It's, I don't know, a mean, no, that's like everybody gets a trophy stuff. All right, that's fair. It's, I don't know, a T2, it just ends up becoming really forgotten man in that, you know, and it's the margin on that is obviously extremely close.

Listen, if you want to, you know, it sounds like you're coming around to some of these Tommy T4s, T5s, things of that nature. I'm talking specifically about nobody beating you over 72 holes. Don't try to shoot horn this in. Somehow you'll make this a love big take, which I'm sure we're about to get to. Yeah. We'll keep going a little bit before we get there.

Taylor Moore seemed like he was kind of on his way to, you know, another, like, one earlier this year, on his way, doubles 14. I kind of took him out of the mix. A birdie three out of his last four gets in there at T four. Lucas Glover, some signs of life from him. I mean, he's way, way down FedExCub. He's got the broomstick now, which the putting has certainly been an issue. So putting's been an issue for Taylor Moore as well. I was looking at him going into the week. The models were jumping off, but he'd missed his previous three cuts with some horrible putting weeks. I faded away from

that. But yeah, Lucas Glover didn't, didn't, didn't see that one necessarily coming with a really strong putting week. And yeah, if you look at his, his, his data page, he has really obviously struggled with the putter for quite some time. But new look for him. And he finished fifth and strokes game putting this week. It's pretty wild. Peter Quest, Monday to end, UIU product. He's got a lot of exemptions over the last few years and hasn't done much with him. And so basically gets him into next week and he should be pretty close to getting a card too. So good stuff there or special temporary, I should say. Adam Shank continues to like, it's like the summer of Shank, man. He is on a great new run. I mean, he, I should say, Adam Shank continues to like, it's like the summer of Shank, man.

He is on a great new run. I mean, he, I had, I had a play on this week. I thought we had that. He had just a couple step backwards, couple steps backward this week, which I think he, I don't know, he was jumping off the page of me this week and he's, he continues to show out in these events where you can get out and run. It's, it's the Shawshank redemption. Just a lower, former young hitter.

Once a young hitter, always a young hitter. Solo A, he played well, kind of faded a little bit today. Gosh, what else we got? Peter Maldonadi, T9 after an eight hour board meeting on Monday. Which we'll get to a lot of that. He gave a great interview to Adam Schuac, with some really, I thought some of the best insight into the whole process and kind of amalgamated a lot of player feels and how all this has gone down. We'll get to that little later in the show. Do you want to get to Ludwig? And that's what people are waiting for. Orman, right. People are waiting for no one cares. We don't care. We don't, unless you want to talk

about Taylor, Taylor Pendriff shirt. Oral, you you on, they, they faded badly. Taylor Pendroth's shot 73 today was again undone by, by the 14th hole. And his shirt on Saturday was like one of, it was a crime against humanity. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was so, I don't know how to describe it. It was like red on the 80, like the 80% the bottom of the, the bottom 80% was red and it was white on the above, like top 80%. Not like, not like color blocking, it was, it was really bad. It was really bad, T.C. I've looked something that, like a discount J. Lindbergh shirt,

which is, as you may know, that was, that's not an endorsement. It's well put. They need to be stopped. Dylan Wu also faded as well. So just, you know, kind of just some fighting amongst the mules here. Speaking of fading, will you get to it?

Well, yes, we'll get to it. Listen, all right, Ludwig, he finishes, I got to scroll away down here. He finishes T40 after 65, 67. He was like basically hitting every fairway and every green. For a while. Let the field and strokes gain off the tee this week.

Something was off, you know, over the weekend. I think something's kind of off in general with the wedges. I like he's he's hitting a ton of greens. He's hitting it to like 15 feet though. He had a couple of inopportune three pots. There's some things he definitely needs to clean up, I think, but I think everybody's seen like, yo, this is what the ceiling is. You know, there's some seasoning. There's some things that he needs to work on. He probably knows

he needs to work on them. You know, and it's one of those things where I doubt he got the chance to show off like some of his mid-iron play, and long-iron play, which I think is one of the strengths of his game. And some of this wedge play of, you know, forcing wedges into backpins and stepping off stuff and really, you know, kind of playing the off-speed stuff, the Greg Maddox stuff versus the John Small stuff. You know, he's certainly got to get better at that. So I'm encouraged by his chipping continues to be pretty good 18th and chipping he seems to have figured that out I think he's

kind of shallowed out there 80th and approach to the green though so that's that's just not going to get it done he was first in driving for the week 80th and approach to the green putting lost a few strokes here like you lost 1.6 strokes to the field, a couple of bad three puts. One on nine to finish up his first round and then one during the second round. So overall, he played two days with Luke Donald, impressed Luke Donald like crazy, I think.

I would think that this type of game as well, like, hey, he's still pretty, like he's still a little bit raw in certain areas that this would pretend well to match play. And, you know, to, you know, like he made a, he made a double on 14 yesterday, right? And it's like, hey, like doubles are okay in match play, right? Especially if you're making a shitload of birdies.

Exactly right. And he kind of drives it far enough and good enough that he's just gonna be around a lot, right? Like, and on good wedge weeks, good iron play weeks, he is going to top 10, right? I mean, it's the driving's that good. And it looks that effortless, it really does. It's, you know, there's all, maybe a little bit to learn

in terms of all the stuff we were talking about. Like I watched Adam Hadwin take the spin off a wedge to a back pin today, and was just like, yeah, I don't know if Lead lead Viggs quite there yet, right? To this like tour quality wedge that has to happen on a consistent basis to beat these guys weekend and week out. Are we going to see flashes of it? Did we see a huge flash of it in round one where he bogey the last two holes, hand up on

that one. I jinxed him after he was nine under through 16. He was in second place or third place. I think after day one, after shooting 65, we're going to see glimpses of it. But it's both here and travelers. We've just not seen the same sustained level of golf sprinting through the finish line for 72 holes yet. But I mean, he's a rookie. Well, get there. He needs he needs reps. He needs experience. But yeah, I think to your point, the floor is really, really high when you drive the ball like that. And his iron play, which is one of his strengths hasn't even popped yet.

So we'll get there. That's our guy. T.C. That's our guy. We're going to ride into my ride and this train with you. All right. We had some truth last week. We're not going to, you're not going to say, love, Vixen asses and things like that at

many more because we're both rooting for him. I'm very excited about this guy. And I think it, to your point, it still fits in the European model. I don't know what the actual model is, but I'm saying kind of the way I'm looking at the European team, like you can do some, you can experiment with those 11 and 12 spots.

Like I'd rather see you do that than someone like Yanuk Paul or something, someone with a lower ceiling. Yeah, go for something with a high ceiling. Like in Ludwig's ceiling is obviously extremely high. It's probably- In investing in the future. And it's, yeah, it's not a one-to-one comparison

to the Scotty making the team in 2021, but it's not that dissimilar. Like, what do we think is gonna be the situation in 2025? Do we think Ludwig's to be on the European team? I would certainly guess. Yes. Right. So you'd rather you'd almost rather be early on these things and laid on them. So I'm riding with you on that one. Yeah. It's like KVB.

Slack does something. He's like, yeah, like, you know, he may not be on the team, but I can guarantee you in like three years that it'll look foolish that he wasn't on the team. Yeah. Right. I mean, he's played in, he's played in four events this year and he's made the four cuts. Like the worst score he shot was 73. Five events, five cuts down. He made the cut.

Oh, five, yeah. The Palmer, the Vals Bar, the Canadian Open Travelers in this week. So. And I get the sense that he's probably gonna be better on hard golf courses than he is on birdie fast golf courses too. I think so. You know, so, um, yeah, I don't know.

I'm higher than that. Well, back down. I know you're not going to back down. Don't back down now. We're still we're still buying a accumulating stock if possible. So last note I had JT, another Miss cut after what looked like a good rebound week at travelers. A lot of gray in this right now.

I don't know if I have a black and white answer other than to say it's obviously not been a good trend for JT and one week did not absolve him of a tough stretch of play. And the birdie fest work for him really well last week at travelers and it did not work from this week. Obviously you could cite fatigue here in some way, but a lot of guys are fatigued. I don't know if that's a full on excuse, but it's not a physical excuse.

Good field this week. Yeah. Does JT normally play this event? Let's see, did he play it last year? He did not play this event last year. I think this may have been his first time playing it. I could be, yes, this looks like his first time playing this event. Yeah, I don't know, just like we're doing the draft King show.

There's weekend, I was like, oh, this is a shockingly good field for, you know, leading into July 4th and all that. So, Sam Bennett made another cut. I would be remiss if I didn't say that. Beat Ludwig, uh, do with that what you will. Ludwig had to play with him again today, uh, which certainly, you know, probably cost him a couple of strokes. For sure. That's a well, wait. I would definitely agree with that. So, waiting around. So, um, a lot more to get to before we get to that. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Precision Pro.

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Go to precisionprogolf.com slash NLU. Save $20 and get your NLU range findering carrying case with code no laying up. All right, TC just to give people a little preview of all the things we got to talk about. We're going to do cover some of the framework agreement that was released. It feels like a month ago now, earlier this past week, we have some, a tronch of documents that were released and leaked through social media this past week. We've got to cover it as previously mentioned, the Peter Maldonati interview, which was a deep brief on the board meeting from earlier this week.

A lot of players spoke out, seemingly against, quote, the media or board meeting from earlier this week. A lot of players spoke out seemingly against, quote, the media or amen Lynch this week on some social media posts, which we'll get to some of the people on social a lot going on some, you know, word out of live this week about the future of live things like that, other golf news. And then yeah, we got some other stuff to wrap up at the end. But first off, framework agreement was released this past week as the PJ Tora had to submit it.

I believe to the Senate. Do I have that right? Yeah, stolen valor, Richard Blumethal. It's getting. Was requesting it. You can find the framework agreement in its entirety. It's on our website or on our Twitter feed as well. We're not going to read through the whole thing on here.

But highlights and kind of takeaways from it. We have a written summary It's on our website or on our Twitter feed as well. We're not going to read through the whole thing on here, but highlights and kind of takeaways from it. We have a written summary that's on our website and a lot of our takeaways here are probably going to be pretty similar to what you read there. But TC, I don't know about you. I thought, no, you know, no huge bombshells in it. What was initially reported on June 6th is pretty much what's represented in this document with a bit more language around it,

not much more in terms of specifics, not much more of answered questions. I don't think it doesn't really seem like. It's a lot of good faith, not much more of answered questions I don't think. It doesn't really seem like- It's still a lot of good faith, man. A lot of good faith and best efforts. That is kind of what I want to talk to you about. Those words seem to be like the words that are going to decide the future of golf, if you

ask me, and I'm really confused as to what it all means, but there's still a ton of unanswered questions. This document didn't really try to attempt to answer these questions. You know, again, it's just kind of a little bit of old information here, right? I guess I don't know when this was in particularly signed or when when this was out. It's dated March, May 30, which is before the information was released on June 6. But this is what there was a clause in there that like it had to be released within seven days of signing. So if it's dated, May 30th, they had to do something.

So that Tuesday that Yasser and Jay hopped up on CNBC. But on the flip side, like that was one of the big takeaways for me. It was like, all right, well, if this whole thing was in the works and moving steadily towards this tie up, then why did the whole release and messaging around it feel so confused and disorganized and cluttered? Right? Yeah. And I've gone back and forth. I don't have a good answer for how things should have played out in terms of the messaging, right? I mean, listen to him. I'll not ease interviews well again.

I keep teasing that, but we will get to it. But the players obviously felt blindsided by this. But what, what would the process have been that would have included these players? Like how much of a message is to get them in the same room and all that? I think there's maybe it was a fear of a leak or maybe this was the grand plan of how they were going to announce it. And maybe maybe the tour executives wanted to kind of force the players into this a little bit, which it like ultimately this kind of announcing this and coming to this agreement before it gets voted on and just discuss with the players kind of does force the hand

a little bit. And maybe that was what they wanted to do, and are fine to take the bullets. I don't know. That's a lot to, we'll work on unpacking some of this. Yeah, I mean, totally. I think some of that is like, you know, they're, like, it just seems like a lot of poor, a, they've got internal communication

and external communication, right? And the external stuff, like, if you've got a week to do this or however long that they've been negotiating this and I know Jay probably didn't bring the rest of the team in on those negotiations, but like why, like why was it labeled a merger to begin with, right? Like they changed the language on the backend

after the initial CNBC thing. And technically they said merged operations and then that's the word that they changed and CMBC said and merger and put that again It's all like don't say the word merged if you don't want people to think this is a merger. I'm with you But they didn't they didn't the tour didn't label it as a merger to my knowledge. I could be more than that Or Jason, you know, we took a competitor. Oh, so dumb Why is or or that was totally calculated because they don't want it to go through, right? Like, I think the two biggest things here are that the litigation goes away, right?

Which leads me to believe that something had to have happened to force the issue from either the Saudi side or the tour side. Saudis wanted the validation that came from Jay getting on CNBC, sitting next to Yasser and normalizing the PIF, right? And normalizing dealings with the Saudis. And the tour gets the litigation to go away, which leads me to believe that they must have felt pretty shitty about their standing. The Saudis get the litigation to go away as well,

because Yasser, it in real, Yasser needs to sit for that position. And the, you know, the appeals were, I think it was a win that the appeal was going to drag out the litigation. And it was maybe forced the tourist hand more than the other way around. But there was no way yasser was ever going to sit

for the deposition, but the PIF could stand to wait out the tour a lot longer because of the appeal that was wanted to determine that at a later date. That's my, again, I hesitate to even venture into these waters, because I'm obviously not a lawyer, but that's how I would understand it. But.

And so basically, they've got till December 31st, 2023, to come to some sort of understanding about, you know, to move this thing forward, or else it just evaporates and they go their separate ways, but the litigation is done completely. The litigation is done and cannot be picked up. And again, as I understand it, cannot be picked up post December 31st, 2023.

That part is done completely and cannot be picked up. It is dismissed with prejudice. Now, within the agreement, there is a agreement to not solicit any other players until the end of this year, basically. And I think there's language around. the fact that they can extend that, they can come to an agreement to extend that again. That's assuming that they want this deal to go through.

I can't force, I mean, we can get into this. I don't, I can't foresee a situation where the deal not going through is good for the PJ tour. I can see how that would be very good for live. I can see how it not going through could mean that Liv exists in 2024. I don't know. Again, I haven't gained this out fully. Or I can't get there all the way. Like, dude, if I'm the Saudis, I don't,

it depends on what, it all goes back to what you want. It is, but it all goes back to what they actually want. Like, do they want to, they actually want Liv to be the future of golf, right? If it, deal doesn't go through, do roaring those guys just find the go to Liv. Like, I don't know what you do if you're the tour. You have an unsustainable model. You've like opened up all this stuff. Like, I wouldn't want to resign back up for that. Do you go start your own

tour at that point? Brogolf might be truly fucked if this deal doesn't go through. And I feel like the Saudis, I don't know, the more I think about the feel like they're in a, in a strong position, but it all comes back to again, what they actually want out of this. But either way, they got a lot of what they wanted up front. That's right, which was... But that's what makes me... It's hopeful, the word. I don't even know if hopeful.

I think hopeful is the word that the deal goes through. Like I don't know if I want to be a part of like putting the pieces back together if golf gets totally blown up. But that's the stuff that makes... If the Saudis just want to beat the P of like putting the pieces back together, if golf gets totally blown up. But that's the stuff that like makes it, that Saudis just want to beat the PGA tour for some reason. That it, then I can see them wanting this deal to fall apart. But if they actually want to get the business relationships

out of this and to be a part of a, you know, a tour that's been around for a long time, long time that has a legacy that has access to Fortune 500 CEOs, then they'll also want this deal to go through. It's been a war to get to that. I just don't know what the Saudis get out of. I get what they got out of the fight

that they've put in and the litigation, like they've gotten this seat at the table. I don't know what continuing that works for them. I really don't. I mean, gaming that out though, if they continue to go down the adversarial path and this doesn't work out beyond December 31st 2023, then like you said, the tours in a shitty spot, you know, sponsors or pissed players or pissed. They're left need the tour. We can dominate golf on our own, which, you know, that's another, you know, outcome that could be beneficial to them as

well, even more profitable down the line too. So it's, that's, yeah, that's where it gets, you get back to the, back to the framework agreement. Again, we can, there's many different ways we could go with this. The document includes some language about establishing a fair and objective process for any players who desire to reapply for membership with the PGA tour or the DP World Tour following the completion of the 2023 season, consistent with each tour's disciplinary policies. Pretty much what we expected in there with no details of as to how that's actually going to happen. There's going to be a communications committee put together basically to

determine that I think and that's where again they are very very very vague on the details because figuring that out is where like all of this will finally start to make sense and that's going to be hell working through that and there's going to be a lot of pissed off people no matter what happens. And like how do you discipline like and you can't have players on those because it says players can't adjudicate penalties amongst their peers in like the PGA tour bylaws. It has to be the commissioner and other tour members.

Yeah. So it's interesting to think of this, you know, this for profit entity, PGA tour Enterprises, all these penalties or decisions flowing down to that. So. There's an OWGR note in there, which I feel like adds to the confusion for me, but says the parties will cooperate in good faith

and use best efforts to secure OWGR recognition for live events and players under OWGR's criteria for considering live's pending application. Again, this is the first mention that we've had of using in good faith of making sure that live gets OWGR points. Again, adding to my confusion here is the fact that live assets are being contributed to this new co, whatever this company is, are being contributed to that,

which is controlled by the PGA tour, and the future decision of Liv will be decided on by the board that is controlled by the PGA tour, and the commissioner himself, Jay Manahan had said, I don't see how, I don't see them running concurrently in the future, I don't see that situation, so I don't really know what this applies to,

or this is just a kind of a make-do for live of some kind, to take them, but hey, or take this back to your players, to kind of save face a little bit. I can't make sense of this, can you? Not really. I mean, it's, yeah, that's the safe face for Yosser and for them. We're contributing something.

It's basically the rights to these players at this point, right? And then I guess, you know, the players, that was what the money was for, right? And, you know, and then Patrick Reed and others who head of Reheals and love with live, like, man, I'm sorry. Well, that's what that's why I keep coming back to like, are we reunifying the game here or do we just drop litigation? Like, that's, that's where I's where I still struggle to get to. And this next part adds a little bit more clarity, may not a whole lot more,

but a little bit more of emphasis to say, new code will undertake a full and objective empirical, data-driven evaluation of live, and its prospects and potential and will make a good faith assessment of the benefits of Team Golf in general. And PIF, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour will work together in an effort to determine

how best to integrate Team Golf into PGA Tour and DP World Tour events going forward. So again, which, if I'm reading this, a data driven evaluation of live, the league that took $2 billion to start up had in their own and their own filing said virtually no revenue have had their television ratings be so low that they don't register on Nielsen and they've stopped reporting them who is playing off on the CW on tape delay for their international events as well. I don't, again, if I'm just reading off of

this, if I'm reading a data-driven evaluation that Yosser signed on to this, right? Data-driven evaluation of live, I'm struggling to see how, wouldn't say complete that evaluation, same as we said when this went down, I'm struggling to see how they're like, oh yeah, yeah, look at the data here,

like this is where we're gonna continue this on. Because then you open up so many more questions of like, where does the talent for live come from, right? Is there solicitation from live to bring talent from the PGA tour over to live? Otherwise, like, they're already kind of have an old demographic of players there. How do they continue to replace them? The only talent they were able to recruit there was due to the billions of dollars that were spent when the business model didn't matter. Now that they formed a new co with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour that very much want to make this a real business.

How do you continue to just outspend the competitor in that model that's also your ally in this model? That's where I just cannot fathom when we get to this next part that live is going to continue on. How that, what that looks like and why? Yeah, I'm with you. I do think there's certain, it seems like Yosser's onto something

with the team golf being a component in the future. That seems like what's important to him, not necessarily it doesn't have to be live or it doesn't have to, so they look like that. And then also, I think some of the successes of few successes that live has had, or say Adelaide, Valdorama this week, like, plenty of fans there, right? Like the fans look, they're excited. They're, they're

turning up for it. It shows that like there is a market for a world golf tour, right? And so I think that's what we'll get to some of the, you know, dealings between the Euro tour and the PGA tour here. But I think that's where, that's what the future holds is, especially if, if is interested in this as like a profitable business and a profitable investment, is, you know, hey, what does profit look like? How do you unlock and untapped those profits? And that's basically through like the worldwide model, right?

Yeah, again, if we're led to, if you're going to go on CNBC together and, uh, you know, hold hands and hold them up in the air like boxers after a fight, I don't see how you're going to continue on and with these two, it does, it never made sense for these two models to be going concurrently. And it won't make sense under the same umbrella unless somebody can explain that to me that doesn't have live golf in their Twitter profile. Like, I would like somebody to make sense of that to me. You know, we've got franchises with the, with the TGL stuff too. Oh, God.

And because that lives under the whole PGA tour, you know, in a way, like 20% equity in that or something like that. I don't, I know that's not wholly owned by the PGA tour, but they have an equity stake in the TGL stuff, which, but it still releases for members to play, you know, play and that sort of thing. Yes. Again, the language in this confirms the PGA tour will remain in control of the new co.

Some expanded language on the PIF will be a major sponsor of the PGA tour, which we also reported on this back in early part of June about the fact that, the language that says, will make a financial investment to become a premier corporate sponsor of the PGA tour and DP World Tour and the tours will work together collaboratively to identify a high profile event

for which PIF or its design will make a financial investment to serve as title sponsor. A ramp. Like the Aramco, you know, the Aramco regular season top 10 and then they'll have some sort of a vent. Yeah. Does this mean I'm trying to read this language again. Does this mean there's an event in Saudi Arabia?

That's been a big thing about live. Like they've wanted a vent in King Abdullah economic city. I refuse to, you know, let's say Jeddah and have this King Abdullah economic city erasure. That is a, that's where this stuff starts to become a big issue if you ask me of like, is Rory gonna have to go play an event in Saudi Arabia? Yeah, or yeah, and like I would assume

that they would probably structure it so that it'd be a pretty important tournament. Right. I don't think they're getting a mule. That's the thing. It's like there's, you know, there's a bunch of, you know, it's like, yeah, like, all right, once you let the fox in the hen house, which, you know, through the actions of the tour, they've pretty much like backed themselves into this corner where this was seemingly

the only the only thing to drop the litigation. Now, if they really wanted to, they could take the same structure and take it to a variety of different equity investors, you know. But still be contending with the guys that can actually. Exactly. Exactly. So I'm not sure who would in their right mind want to get into that also. But yeah, like let's say, let's say a ramco wants to sponsor 10 events. Let's say they want to make the purse for that, for that event inside your area, let's say they want to make that $100 million. Let's say they want to make the last hour of coverage commercial free. And the

tour says, you know what, well, you can't do that because it's going to piss our other sponsors off. And they're essentially paying appearance fees or all this other stuff. And it's like, there's so much shit that they can do to undermine the tour, even like, like even as a minority investor and someone who doesn't have the votes, you can still do stuff to gum up the works, right? And to assert your dominance and your power and, you know, so distrust between the top players and leadership, you know, it just seems like kind of a slippery slope to be going down. And that's where I feel like the lot of this

fair amount of the discourse around this, again driven by people that have lived golf in their profile, has been confusing in that that yasser, it doesn't sound like based on this agreement, yasser gets to decide the fate of live, right? But that does not mean he is powerless within control of the professional golf world going forward, right? Like I think it is extremely reasonable to think that live goes away as a result of this. If this deal goes through huge caveat on that as always, but yasser that there's going to be some discomfort in how all the rest of

that plays out, right? If they're going to be a premier sponsor, if they're going to be the check writer, that doesn't mean you can buy votes on the board. That doesn't mean you can gain control of the board and flip the whole thing on its head, but you're going to get what you want out of it, if you're going to spend the amount of money that they're probably going to spend in it. And that's, yeah, the devil's really going to be in the details of a lot of that stuff. And what happens if Yosser, let's say one of the private, you know, the independent directors on the board, Yasser takes a position in one of their companies, right? Takes a stake in one of their companies that are publicly traded and then applies pressure

to them to vote a certain way. I think the other misconception with Yasser is like, that Yasser has 24, 7, to like sit there and think about live. It's like one of the fucking busiest guys on the planet, right? Like he's got so much shit going on. He's the chairman of a ramco. He's got a, you know, he's the governor of the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, chairman of a ramp co, chairman of Al Haali, Al Haal y'all, I can't quite, I don't know exactly what this chairman of Newcastle United, he's on the board of Saudi a ramp co, Uber, Softbank and Reliance Industries Limited, that industry's limited.

That's just on his stuff. He does a bunch of stuff for formula one too. Yeah, that's just on his wiki profile. So that again, I keep going back to like what makes the most sense for what the Saddies would want out of that. And it's not to run the day day to day operations of the PJ tour or of live. I don't think that's like what the big payoff is here. This part was a little, I don't know, concerning to me.

And I'll get to that. Why in a second, there's a line in there that says each party agrees and covenants that it will not at any time directly or indirectly make, publish, or communicate to any person or directly or indirectly make, publish, or communicate to any person or entity or in any public forum, any defamatory or disparaging remarks, comments, or statements concerning the other party. There are affiliates and ultimate beneficial owners of their respective businesses, directors, employees, officer shareholders, members, or advisors, which again, if you basically a

non disparagement clause of like, hey, you tell me, am I reading this right? I have said a big reason why I've been against live apart from the competitive aspect of it, like fucking up the entire competitive aspect of professional golf is the main reason. But another part is like watching dudes like silence get bought on looking the other way and basically apologizing for the Saudis through money has been a huge problem for me, right? And if like Max Homa and JT and Rory have to like now have their silence bought if they're

no longer allowed to say critical things about the Saudis because they're getting money from them in this way. If their words are bought, again, I've used the Lewis Hamilton example a lot of say and like, Hey, when he goes and races in Saudi Arabia, he says he speaks out against their human rights. He said we shouldn't be racing here. If these tour, tour players that stayed low to the BJ tour are put in this position where they can no longer speak their mind on that. That's a, that's pretty, that's where, I don't want to say that's where I draw the line for me, but that's like, do that fucking sucks. Like that is where

sports washing is totally winning. And I know it's going to win, and it always does, but that's the part that really sucks to me. Yeah, I mean, it's, I guess it just comes down to how you view each party, right? Each party agrees in covenants that it will not at any time, directly or indirectly make, publish, or communicate to any person entity or in any public form. Right. I think that's that's basically like how do you is the part of the PGA tour and then these are all independent players. Right. Is it monahann going on, like on whatever and saying when it's the last time you had to apologize for being a PGA tour member? Yes, that would be that would be an issue. But I would think that like let's say, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure how a board member, like say a Peter Milnotti or a Charlie Hoffman or Roy

McElroy would be, but like a rank and file member who's not a member of the board or pack or whatever, I'm sure that like they would be considered a independent contractor, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's just another, you know, kind of wrinkle in all this. I don't know, I guess what I'm getting to is like, it seems like the, the tour knew that the designated events series, they've gone to all these sponsors,

they're like, fuck me. And nobody wants these designated events. They look exactly the same as the non-designated events, but they cost twice as much. We're going around, you know, shaking the hat, saying, hey, guys, like, you guys, give us some money for this. They're saying no for the most part. Now, they still have all these 90 or 95% of contracts or long-term deals. They're in a good place from a sponsorship perspective

for the status quo, not to raise it demonstrably beyond what the current TV structure can hold. But it's kind of like an admission. All right, these guys are just overvalued a little bit, right? This whole thing is just a rational act. It's like actors have messed up the market of professional golf. That's what's happening. I think that's where the players are going to take a look around and be like, all right, do we care more about this moral high ground that we're on?

That, you know, the tour told us to take. Or do we care more about the giant bag of money that we're going to get regardless of, you know, and like the bag of money is with the Saudis, right? It's going to keep us playing our craft. And, you know, we just need to show up and, you know, and, and I think that's where, I don't know And it's going to keep us playing our craft. And we just need to show up. And I think that's where, I don't know, it's just tough. And that's where it comes down to like, all right, then you better well trust Monahan and Jimmy Don

and Tyler Dennis and Andy Pasder and Ed Hurley. A hell of a lot because there's a hell of a lot of landmines in this thing that could go wrong. And they're also the ones that have been leading for the last three years with the exception of Jimmy Don who came in, you know, last year, that like have misplaced this thing at every single turn, right? And like granted, like some of them were like shit sandwiches where like there wasn't a good, you know thing, but also like there's so much sloppy, sloppy shit that they've done along the way

that exposed them to put them in such legal jeopardy to begin with. And of course, again, the elephant in the room caveat is like, dude, we don't even know if this is going to go through. Like we don't know if this goes a huge, huge, uh, wrinkle in this that again, I don't, I feel differently after everything I read about it. Um, and we're going to hopefully have some people on the pod over the next couple of weeks and months to kind of help shed a light on that and understand why it would go through or why it wouldn't go through. Um, and again, that's assuming that it gets approved by the PGA tour players and the details of all this.

So. It's crazy to me too, that like the like, talk to players, talk to tour employees that are like in relatively high positions. And like the first time they saw this framework was on our Twitter account. Yeah. Which is like, what the fuck are you guys doing?

Like you're like, you've so distrust with the initial thing which I get, if that's how it had to be, that's how it had to be. Like if you know this thing's getting leaked and going out there, then it might as well send it to your membership or at least your people who are dealing with that. Yeah.

It does seem like currently the, the whole decentralized aspect of the PGA tour means they have no control over leaks in any way. Like, if there's any communication of any kind to any player, uh, or anyone involved, like, it finds its way to the media, like it just does relatively quick, to be honest. Um, and so I, I think that probably drove a lot of the decision to just, like, blurt it finds its way to the media. Like it just does relatively quick, to be honest. And so I think that probably drove a lot of the decision to just like blurt it out on CNBC and kind of a rushed format was like,

do there's be no controlling this in any way? If anyone was even got a hint of this, it goes a quick phone call to someone that they trust to be like, you won't believe this what they're talking about right now. Boom, it's out there and then the cat's out of the bag and it's tough to have got through. So I don't totally.

That's not me defending the decision making process here. It's just, again, it's choosing between a bunch of bad options that I don't think we could ever fully understand what all the bad options were and what the best options were. And like, I get it on the front end of like that initial thing and it's very, very clear from these documents that this was, this was hurl-a-he and done going,

going and doing this. And then monohan came into like rubber stamp the deal. Yeah. You know, like that's, that's that. And now monohan, you know, like there's no clarity on whether he's coming back or not on his role in any of this moving forward as well, like whether he even wants to return. So, you know, that's just great. Like nobody has any any information, you know, I've heard things here and there, but it's like it's not all needed to betray his medical privacy or anything like that, you know. So, yeah. And then, yeah, and then we've got

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kind of the baseline strategic alliance, beefing up the strategic alliance, all sorts of financials relating to that, a merger strategy, and then some internal comms stuff as well. This was posted to Twitter to the socials by Duffer from the LiveLafque Off podcast. And from what I can tell are authentic, the Guardian also reporting on the DP World Tour of Financials at this point that we're posted, as well as some what looks

like internal thought exercises from the tour as far as messaging around things. So this is all mostly from June 22nd last year. So this is kind of in the lead up to June of 22 or June 22nd. June of 22. Yeah. So this is all kind of in that lead up travelers. This is pretty much the same sequence we just got through. Travelers, Canada, all that stuff. There's the exploration of a formal merger, which the PGA tour board seems to have recommended. And I'm assuming that the merger between the PGA tour

and the DP world tour. And the DP world European tour. Correct. Going beyond the initial strategic alliance, the PGA tour would have owned 100% of the European tour with no purchase price, simply 13 years of taking on obligations and then freeing clear after that. Basically, underpinning purses, providing a reserve fund, they could pull money out within five year cycles, basically around Euro-hosted rider cups. That was kind of like their kind of to alleviate the risk of this investment. Hey, we could, we can, there's a floor here that, you know, can't reduce

purses below 2022 levels. So, so again, underpinning those purses. So it's basically a cumulative guarantee on the purse front of $1.749 billion. Now granted, that's if no sponsors completely evaporated tomorrow. And then taking over debt obligations to IMG, which looks like around $100 million currently. And the tour went so far as to take

on a $300 million credit facility at a favorable like 3.25 interest rate to kind of facilitate this potential. And just if you're driving and missed the beginning part of this or just to be clear, this is an option that was on the table that did not end up coming to fruition, but this is information that was leaked in court from court filings, I believe, that this was an option that was on the table. And I think it's from court filings here in Florida, which from another case,

that's not really good to, the, all this stuff, so you can maybe pee involved in that one. So basically, the tour said, we have to treat the European tour like an under invested or borderline distressed asset. The event model may be unsustainable or at minimum represents an unstable foundation.

This is from the executive summary. This is kind of why. My assumption here is that this would have needed 75% of European tour membership to approve it, which did not happen for the details laid out here. If I was a European tour member, I probably wouldn't have approved this either, but it would also have led me to believe like, why did we not talk to the Saudis in the first place or follow through with that? Because something else, it

seems like kind of a game of hot potato or kind of how to treat the rider cup because there's all sorts of clauses and provisions, some of which are mentioned in this document about what happens to the rider cup if there's a change of ownership or a change of kind of control of the European tour and that those are, you know, in agreements with the PGA of America, PGA of Great Britain as well. So, but basically this merger would have looked like the structure and governments would have looked similar to like how the PGA tour treats the corn fairy tour and the champion's tour. So essentially a sub tour that they're not

actual PGA tour members. And so it's like, they have a policy board basically, but it's not like a direct governance there. So it's not like a player run tour. They're basically telling the European tour, hey, this is what you're going to do. There's mentioned right up front of gaining the rider cup, but also the significant financial resources it would require, including the additional $40 to $60 million reserve fund.

And then there's a plan B which seeks to amplify existing relationship but stop short of a full merger. The board recommended plan A and the plan was to recoup the investment over a 10 to 15 year period between accomplishing strategic objectives, controlling the rider cup, and continuing with global pathways to the PGA tour. It said, from our due diligence to date, many of the same issues existed on the PGA tour 30 years ago that the European tour is currently facing. Overreliance on agencies for lead generation, so the kind of the sponsor,

or the host organization model, hiring full-time teams to reside in certain key markets. Currently, the European tour only has a team in the Middle East and everything else is done out of Wentworth. Outline risks, the expiration of guaranteed revenues in media and sponsorship. They basically have no guarantees past 2026 with their current deals. So like they could be basically driving off a cliff in, you know, 25, 26, a massive churn year to year as far as, you know, the schedule and sponsors and all that. There's been seven event cancellations, three replacements and two hopeful replacements, just since like beginning of 2022. So they basically said there's like $112 million in profits on the upside or max downside would be $394 million,

but that would be like basically limited by the these five year cycles that go with the European hosted rider cups. So basically 13 year term, all sorts of oversight on voting, schedule strategy, best practices, even if they don't merge, which is essentially what they did. So summarize that for me. That was a lot. Well, what's what's what's should the listeners take away from all that? Basically, like the PGA tour essentially buying the European tour, but not even buying them. Basically, just assuming the debt, paying that debt off, most of that debt seems to be with IMG, but it was all a contention upon 75% of the voting membership of the European tour, provingving that which I don't think they

Had a chance of doing because that merger did not go through at least initially until this you know until everything happened over the last few weeks So here the disc this is what I think is really interesting the discussion points for the merger FedEx cup evaluation of WG's, it would have replaced the rocket mortgage in John Deere Classic or other similar events with the Irish Open and Scottish Open leading into the Open Championship. So three week kind of European swing, which would be very exciting. Right. And then they would give another look to WGC's as a pathway for Euro-Tor members. So they would do five elite events in the fall, branded as international series, basically limited field events.

This was what was kind of rumored, you know, last year. Like there were some rumblings of this coming through, basically limited field events for the top finishers in the FedEx Cup, like 60, the top 60 players essentially, guaranteed paydays, large bonus pool, would be blocks of events prior to Thanksgiving week, would include BMW PGA, which both tours fully intended to host it went worth moving forward. Two events in Asia and one or two Middle East events with the option to add another Europe event and have

only one Middle East event. Each event in this series would feature total comp of $12 million. So essentially that sounds like Zozo, CJ Cup, you know, the maybe it's the DP World Tour Championship or whatever, all those kind of rolling into this sub-series. The European Tour would then be held from mid-December to August and consist of approximately 25 events, subject to further due diligence, board approval, we will recommend that the PGA Tour underwrite these 25 events with a minimum purse of $3 million each traditional cadence and locations South Africa and the Asia or Shia and then to traditional European markets to close out the season. golf tour consisting of the following key elements. PGA tour, FedEx Cup season will be the focus for the world's best, including Europeans. We'll continue as a true meritocracy with no parents fees paid, competition is fierce each week for large persons plus bonus pool January to

August. International series like we just talked about. So that's the top 60. And then KFT and PGA tour members who do not qualify for the international series will qualify for the fall series, which is 12 events, no less than 12 events, no more than 6 states side or blocks of 3 events, acknowledging whether constraints rotating between continents and finishing and either USA or Europe rotating, competing for positioning and access into next year's FedEx cup. They would incorporate FedEx and DP world into these. And then so basically their goal was to try to move FedEx cup qualifiers from top 125 to top 100. They would be exempt for the following year, and then they would have a minimum of 40 spots for European tour members in the Irish and Scottish open with the goal to bring that eventually to 50 or 60. So TC, I'm driving in my car here and I'm saying, hey, this merger didn't go through. This is why it's so, why is this important?

So basically, so it said only the top three to five European tour members would be guaranteed full FedEx cup season exemption for the following year. And they would slot in basically after the top 100 in the FedEx cup from the previous year. Like there's no chance that the European tour members would have ever voted for this, which I think is probably an under reported element of like this merger that or this, you know, this whole thing that is going on now is like, why would they ever vote for this whole thing that is going on now is like, why would they ever vote for basically, this is the tour putting all their cards on the table of, hey, here's what things are probably going to look like moving forward.

And I think it's either like, hey, the European tour, there needs to vote for this or like kind of evaporate. Yeah. Right? Because it's putting them on the same standing as the corn fairy tour, essentially. Yeah, so I Because it's putting them on the same standing as like the corn fairy tour, essentially. Yeah, so I think there's, you know,

there would be, there's a note in here about discussing best strategy to employ Saudi Arabia as interests to invest more aggressively in the sport. There's a strategy to employ with UAE as it relates to Abu Dhabi's investment in the sport as well as the contemplated prominence of DP world on the European tour. Further due diligence on rider cup

and opportunities for commercial improvements, both sides will continue to learn and explore, proposed solutions related to change of control language in the rider cup agreement between the PGA of Great Britain, the PGA of Europe. So that's all the stuff, like that's all the merger stuff. And it basically lays out like it wouldn't look a whole lot different. Like the PGA tour schedule, it's like that's the golden

goose, that's the sacred cow. That thing looks pretty similar to what it currently looks like from January to August. And, and then there's, you know, this bolted on international series, there's the fall series that's kind of the, you know, the up and comber series, there's the fall series that's kind of the, you know, the up and combering young guys versus the mules and some of the international guys coming in, kind of a battle royale in the fall, and then you graduate up. So it's kind of a similar thing, and I imagine that, you know, this is, this is what the PGA tour had in mind as they were like laying all this stuff out. I imagine this is similar to what they still have in mind. Right.

I think that's why all this is useful. It's like, you know, granted like reintegration of all the live guys. And I'm sure maybe you make that international series in the fall. Maybe you make that a team event, right? Or you know, some sort of team component. But it's just where it's like it, all this looks pretty fucking similar to what we've seen prior and less like a world tour than anything.

And more of like, hey, we're just going to have the regular PGA tour season. And then we're going to sprinkle in some global stuff in the fall. You know? Yeah, I think it's that or you like, I guess I don't even, the hardest thing to picture is like blowing up everything, blowing up the history of a lot of these events, blowing up the sponsor contracts, that blowing up the TV contracts that are driving all the revenue of the PGA tour,

unless you wanna make the Saudis a sugar daddy of it all, like how do you, unwinding some of this stuff is like a risky thing. I guess there's no promise that you're gonna be able to piece it back together, right? And that's- I guess that's just the tax that the Saudis are paying to be part of the ecosystem is they're going to get a lot less for their her dollar on a dollar for dollar basis, then say FedEx or Comcast or designated sponsor like a BMW, you know, or RBC, I suppose,

because like they're you know, they're they're paying for a designated event, they're paying what, 30, 35, you know, 28 to 35 million dollars, I think. And, you know, I assume the Saudi army paying upwards of several billion, several billion investment into the new co plus the money, plus the sponsor money that's going straight to the 501 C6 in the competitive side, right? That's the thing that I think a lot of listeners can probably be a little confused on is the $2 billion dollar and the number that's been thrown around a lot is that $2 billion. It could be I have no idea what it's going to be but let's say it's $2 billion. It's been used for a lot of examples is going in as an investment into the new co

like the private equity fund essentially of professional golf slash PGA tourist slash, slash DP World Taurus, slash PIF. Plus on top of this, there is a sponsorship element of actual tour events and top tens and whatever you want to call it, a PIF risk world reward challenges, which can mean a lot of things. That's going to go straight to the players through the purses and through promotions and things like that on the actual PGA tour is what's in the proposal.

So yeah, and I think that's where it gets back to like, I guess it comes down to what you think the profitability of PGA tour enterprises is, right? If most of the money as it stands now is flowing to the players, right? So all that, you know, it's a member-run organization and, you know, to serve the best interests of the players, all that, all those profits are heading to the players. At some point, if you're investing several billion dollars into it, unless it's the total sunk cost for them and they just want access to fortune 500 companies and CEOs and the credibility that comes with it, at some point they're gonna wanna start siphoning some of that stuff off, right? And, or you have to change the product so demonstrably

and make it a global tour that's extremely profitable, that it's gonna start spitting off far more cash than it is now, which the people that, you know, with Jay Monahan as the one in charge of all this and the current people at the PGA tour, I have zero confidence in them. now, which the people that, you know, with J. Monahan as the one in charge of all this and the current people at the PGA tour, I have zero confidence in them to, you know, and as they've just laid out in that spot in that in that whole framework and that whole structure that I just went through, like zero confidence that like that's on the table at all, right?

It's just the status quo with some some more involved and a couple extra bells and whistles in the fall. Yeah. It's a lot. You shall see. I can't predict what's gonna happen in the next coming weeks, much less that far down the line. But. And then there's some scripted stuff in here too.

Like suggested script and talking points if Tiger were to address the membership and Hartford at the Traveler's last summer, which was rumored at one point that he was gonna go up there. I'm assuming these are suggested script and not that they actually sent these to Tiger. I'm not even sure if this part is like, like I haven't authenticated that this part

is even an actual Torah document, but based off of that last one being authenticated, I'm assuming that this one is there's also a suggested script for board members Randall Stevenson, trying to get them to support the strategic alliance and more specifically the Co-Sanction event in Scotland, the Genesis Scottish Open. And it's like, quaint to think of that now as like a hot button topic. I'm like, oh yeah, like, you know, like, man, book this, like we're gonna sponsor this and all these 40 European tour players get in. So like one of the quotes,

without our investment, the Saudis will have their pick of European tournaments to invest money in, which they've done in droves in the past. For instance, a financially insolvent European tour would provide 10 events to be picked off quickly by the Saudis and instantly if they're in business. And then I appreciate the way Ed has framed our decision. Those are a couple of the quotes from those emails. Some of the stuff points provided to the board members you're saying from the tour. Yeah. And then, you know, like some of the ones are from like the Tiger Monahan ones hilarious, but it's kind of a window into assuming that this is accurate. It's a window into the PGA tours, internal communications

to their stakeholders and to just their internal psyche, I guess. So. Yeah, I don't have enough experience in this part of the world to know how common a lot of this stuff is. And again, if you're an exec in one of these companies, you have to work always under that. That's what mile job you worked under the assumption

that everything you ever sent or everything you ever put in writing might be read aloud in a courtroom. If something goes awry or anything you put in your files and when I worked in auditing was like,, might be read aloud in a courtroom. If something goes awry or anything you put in your files is when I worked in auditing, it could be read out in a courtroom if things go wrong here. So just always think about that. And this is an example.

There's a lot of examples of some stuff that's gonna come out that just don't want out in the public, but it's part of doing a job. But that's, you know, that's to sit there and take a lot of flag for it no matter what. Totally. Peter Monotti, who was a guest on this podcast after changing his vote on the approval on the designated event model, thought spoke very clearly and rationally about that gave a great interview credit to Adam

Schupeck at golf week from the reaction of the the five hour long, I believe, board meeting that took place up in Detroit on Tuesday. I'm going to read some of Monottiies quotes and we can react to somebody. He said, I never wanted this deal to happen, but now that we're apparently in a position where it was needed for some reason, I want to see the PGA tour succeed. And there are smart people that are telling me that this deal is going to set up the PGA tour for long term success. It's still a hard pill to swallow because like I never turned down an offer from live

and never had an offer. They never had any interest in me and that's perfectly understandable on the 250th ranked player in the world. But even hypothetically, had live made me a significant offer. It was never on the table for me to accept that offer because I didn't want to be associated with the Saudis and the PIF.

I never would have accepted an offer there and people have said, well, everyone has a number. I didn't have a number. So the fact that unbeknownst to any of us that that choice was potentially made for us that we're going to partner with Piff, that was really hard to swallow for sure. I feel like that kind of bottom line is how probably a lot of people feel on this, right? Look, I didn't want this. I'm being told this is probably our best option. This is hard because it's getting forced upon me now, but I don't see a better option for looking into this.

This is my kind of read on that initial paragraph. I mean, we can keep going on some of this, but that kind of bottom lines it for me right there. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of guys feel that way. Yeah, and, you know, like that whole change in under a year. Yeah. So you continue, Zonnie says,

so your question was, do I want this deal to happen? I think ultimately now I'm in a place where I'm going to say yes. I think I understand it more. I think I want the deal to happen because I think it's long term what's best for the PGA tour. I don't think it's much of a merger. I don't think we're going to be controlled by live. In fact, that's one of the principal elements that the board is going to ensure if we

go forward, that there will be protections in the agreement, that PIF can never be anything more than a minority investor in what we do. With those safeguards in place, I think, yes, I want to see a good deal done for the PGA tour and its members. And if you're just getting caught up on this, Peter Monardi is one of the five player directors on the board. He has an elected policy on the policy board, elected person to kind of, I believe he would even say this to represent the mules on the PGA tour, but he is a decision. He actually, he said it in this. He's like, my job is to represent the bottom half of the PGA tour. So it is, he is a key voice in all of this is the reason why, you know, Adam. So it's, it's can't lay Hoffman, Mulnoddy, Rory, and Web Simpson at the moment,

and then you've got the, you've got the five independent directors at Hurley, Jimmy Don, Mark Flaherty, Mary Meeker and big Randall Stevenson. And then you've got a, what I believe is a non-voting member in John Linder from the PGA of America. So yes, 10 votes on that. Continuing on a little bit, he said one thing that is very clear is that PGA tour players feel betrayed and feel like they don't have ownership or control the tour that they should for a member-owned organization that was extremely clear on both sides. Understand that the player directors in the room and the tour itself and the

independent directors on the board. That is very well understood right now. And I felt like there was some genuine contrician on the part of the tour. Like they understand that the players feel like they've been betrayed let down in a position where they have absolutely no control of an organization that was supposedly their own. So that was the first thing there wasn't a mood in the boardroom like we're gonna shove this down your throat. There was very much a mood of we put you all in a bad spot. We've made a unit a lot of decision

that affects every single member and employee of the PGA tour and we realized that no one feels like they had any say or control in any of it. So that was kind of the starting place. How can we move forward from here? What can we do? I thought that was a good start. That sounds like a major, major governance issue. To me, I'm like, Hey, our membership organization, we had no fucking idea that you were doing this. And it's crazy. It's worth, again, noting that the membership organization still has a vote on approval of this, right? But I think the comment stands as to being put into the, like, basically, your hand kind of forced now. But once you've announced this, it takes other stuff off of it. And I get strategically that like, yeah,

you're not going to like say, all right, do we want to deal, like do a deal with the Saudis and then bring it into the public forum and let it be debate in there. Yes That's a very good point on discipline for those that left he said there's certainly some guys who are out for blood They want vengeance, you know, whatever Especially the ones who sued that had their name in the lawsuit against the tour they set themselves up as adversaries to us They are the ones who took money directly out of the PGA tour There's a desire to have some feeling of fairness if guys were to come back onto the onto the tour. Again, not saying I feel one way or another, but he's representing a lot of guys. Feel about this,

which is completely understandable. From my viewpoint, a few other quotes he said, I heard a great quote from a player who was definitely in that top player group, the Delaware group. He said, I was shocked and I was mad, but now I kind of understand what's going on. We need to get out of the way. Let smart people do their jobs and we'll all make shit loads. I feel like that's kind of where everyone's going to basically end up in this. Of like, dude, it is going to be a tough pill to swallow. And it's like not anyone's ideal solution,

but your threat goes away and the money comes in. Like, present me a better option here. Please, I'm all ears. I'm all ears. If you have a better option, we'll go try to get that done, but I don't see one. We just have, he continues. We just have to wrestle with those questions that our commissioner even asked last year, when he went on CBS and said, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA tour?

There's no good answer to that one. That one's just going to have that's's gonna linger out there forever as it should. And then lastly, he said, but my thought walking out of the board room yesterday was that there's a lot of work to do to show the PGA tour members that this tour works for them. They do have a say, they do have control because that certainly hasn't been the case to this point.

So I suggested everyone go read the whole thing. I summarized it as best I could, but there's a lot more to it. So yeah, I just don't understand like after the last two or three years, and even like if like Jay's not the one even doing this deal, right? He's just signing off on it like, and he's also not good at public, the, you know, communicating this stuff publicly.

It's like what, like what is he good at? Like the players are pissed. They're fucking livid at the internal comms and not feeling like they have a say in their own organization. I guess he's really going to keep in sponsors on board. I'll give him that, right? That seems to be his bread and butter. But like at some point, like we need a, we need a visionary here. We need somebody to basically marry up. Hey, this is what the PGA tours looked like in the past. We can try to save that and save certain vestiges of that and save the current schedule, but honestly, if you want the, it seems like the priority here for the players is to have the biggest bag of money possible. In my opinion, you need to go to a global tour,

the schedule needs to look different. And there, like there needs to be a better incentive structure. So maybe is Jimmy that visionary in this, I think, is the question, right? Somebody from the outside basically came in and did this deal, right? Is that I don't think Jenny is the one that like wants to like figure out like what the, what a world tour schedule looks like and what the particulars are, you know, and it's like you've got people there who like who are good at the minutiae of stuff, the comp, you know, some of the competitions people are like by

all accounts, like Tyler Dennis does a really good job of like figuring out how to make stuff equitable and fold some of the new stuff that's come along in the last two or three years into like very procedural framework type stuff for, you know, point structures and, you know, membership categories and all that stuff. It's a Byzantine complicated tour, right? But like at some point you almost have to just say, hey, here's what shit looked like in the past or here's what the, what the, the kind of that fall series can look like with, you know, like high end corn fairy tour events and low end, like the Sanderson farm and the, the, the Napa event and all those or even Detroit this week, right? It's like, Hey, here's what these events are going to keep going. But on top of that, we're going to have this world tour. It just seems like they're trying to, trying to thread this line between having the exact,

like this exact schedule with designated events and trying to make a big deal out of these, but not differentiating them and bringing all this extra money into it. I just don't see how that works. T.C. I don't see how any of this stuff works anymore. The more weeks that go by, the more any of this stuff works anymore. I'm confused. The more weeks that go by the more I am confused by all this stuff. I just want to talk about golf. I know. We can't. That's too much going on. Many players took to social media to exclaim their disappointment with media slash Aiman Lynch, I believe. I think it where it started was Adam Scott posted this statement on his Instagram, which I do have to say is poorly written. If I may, I don't really know what the big takeaway here's the end of this, but the quote says, these are serious times for golf and there are many serious matters. Should articles like this form part of the debate and he is referring to,

he has a screenshot in there of Amon's article, which is titled, referring to, he has a screenshot in there of Amon's article, which is titled, J. Monahan's retreat at least spares him the spectacle of Patrick Cantler's artless coup. And then he, the, the quote continues, putting aside personal barbs and fluffy adjectives will be helpful, dealing with facts presented with integrity far superior. Talk of a, a Cantler coup d'état. Really? really perhaps with perhaps some proof rather than a spate perhaps some proof rather than faceless speculation. Cheap shots at players value of charisma. Clearly many companies value the players.

Those players must be entitled to some time and information to decide what is palatable and what is not after an about face of tour management policy. The process will likely be best served with objectivity and truth. I don't disagree with anything in those last few sentences. Like, you know, players must be entitled to some time and information to decide what is palpable and was not.

Absolutely. I don't think even saying otherwise or anything would have been the same otherwise. Or the process will likely be best served with objectivity and truth. Absolutely. But also like when you can't rely upon your own toward, communicate effectively and you know, like matter effectively,

then like how is that process supposed to happen, right? Yeah, I think it, you know, a fair amount of this goes back to, you know, I am an original article that that intimated that can't it was staging a coup of some kind that the details of which were not presented, you know, I am an original article that intimated that Kante was staging a coup of some kind that the details of which were not presented, you know, I'm not doubting aiming sources on any of this or any of his reporting, but the details of which were not communicated largely to the public, right? So you're left to speculate and fill in the blanks on this and that I guess I guess is where a lot of the angst is coming from, but I think this was repost, it kind of became like a formality, like a repost, but I saw Ricky reposted it, Max, JT, and others all shared this.

And it's like, guys, I don't know if like taking on the media is like the way your way out of this in some way or like standing up against Aiman is, is I don't get the purpose of all this. I don't know. There's some stuff going on with Cantler, but can't really get to the bottom of it at this point. I know he has basically sought out some advice from outside counsel on this from a player's representative perspective and like,

footed the bill himself for it. I don't understand it. Yep. So I don't have a problem with that. I don't think, I mean, if there's more details that I don't know that I've reserved the right to do have a problem with that, but that seems like a fair thing to do. It's also kind of like, if you can't trust your independent directors on your policy board

to do that, I don't know what role they're really serving here. But I don't, I would need some more details of the coup before, you know, jumping on board with either side of this. I don't even know what they're trying to say though. It was just a weird thing happened this week. Yeah, and I'm probably the wrong guy to address. Yes. Any sort of allegations against Patrick Klee.

But I will say like by all accounts, he's been this squeakyest wheel for the last three or four years of like, hey, where's my money? Hey, where's my endorsement deal that the tour is providing me with? Hey, Pipp is the worst thing ever. How are you gonna net me up?

Da da da da da, where's like, so I don't think that like, hitching your wagon to Patrick Cantlay is like, it seems to be more of a reputation of Amon's stuff than it is like, hey, we believe in Patrick. At least that's what I'm hoping. Because I would say to those players, he seems like,

even if you do believe that he's working hard for you, the track record's not great. Yeah, and I don't know. Saying anything more on this would be venturing into speculation more so than we've already done, I think, from at least from my perspective. And then like, who knows? Maybe the, you know, maybe there's all sorts of misinformation coming from like the SI article, live is full steam ahead. Players assured of league's future, even with PGA tour lions. Maybe the live guys are trying to sabotage this because they feel totally empowered, they're like, well, fuck this.

Like, we don't want this merger to go through or this, this tie up to go through because it basically just crushes our power. And we're back at the, you know, right back at the feet of J and Ed and Jimmy who hate us. Yeah, it was Alex and the Sally article at Sports Illustrated that I had a little problem just with like, I know if you use like the single quotes in a headline, it is meant it's representing a quote. It says, live is full steam ahead. Players assured of leagues future, even with PJ tour alliance. A lot of people just read headlines, man. A lot of people just read headlines. And you can read that and say like, oh, okay,

live is continuing on when it is. And if you read the article, it gets into like, yeah, that is what is being communicated to live players. It said, and the article said, the answers that are that live is not going anywhere, which Al Ramyan has communicated to his players and executives for weeks, including before the June 6th announcement. Dustin Johnson said obviously live is full steam ahead. He said, when asked about stories regarding the tours running the show and controlling lives future, Johnson was firm that those comments

are inaccurate and all the conversation Wednesday was encouraging. Again, just go back on this. It's a agreement. It's an agreement that says the PGA tour is going to control this. I don't know what he's referred to as comments and that being inaccurate because that's what's in the agreement. I mean, otherwise, Yosser is basically, excuse me, H.E. is basically telegraphing his, you know, like maybe all of this was done in bad faith and his, all right, he's brought them to the table and we're going to force their hand and go back with hey We need more concessions if we're going to sign this thing

You know, let's say in November or December and lose one of those things live gets to keep going maybe that's part of it but like in that case I don't know it's just like that that even leads me to believe like if you were to go to that route The tours just you know more precarious position than they would have been even with litigation. It's crazy to me. DJ continued. It was all stuff that I assumed, but just was good to hear it from his excellency. Obviously, just makes it me a lot more confident in his what I thought, but just gives me that

much more confidence in where we're going and what we're doing. I think lives in a great spot now. It's only going to get better. And then also noted, both Johnson and Deshambot took away from the meeting that our mind wants to unite and not divide the professional game and the actions going forward are toward that goal. I still am struggling to marry the two things

and I again go back to good faith and best efforts and all the things that are in the agreement and what's coming out of the live side. I don't know if it's like a general again, is it a general understanding amongst the, you know, everyone involved the deal like, hey, I got to go over and say some things on the live side. It's going to help me say face back home, but like I'm committed to this agreement. Or did you also just sign this agreement and then turn around and say something completely different to the live people? I can't, I'm struggling to find the common ground in all of this.

And it's such a strong divide in the golf world and in the discourse. I don't feel like anyone's actually out there trying to answer that question. And again, I can see live existing in 2024 if this deal is not done. And obviously the deal is not done in time, but I don't see it otherwise.

And I'm struggling to find somebody I trust that does see it that way. But- I'm also struggling with Randall Stevenson's role in all of this. It's not like Randall did a bang up job of the last five or six years with AT&T, like just mired in the debt of some disastrous,

disastrous mergers and acquisitions that they've already like thrown up a massive L on and like, you know, they spun off the the Warner media thing to discovery. It's just like, God, what were you guys doing? Like, you know, just a complete lack of strategy and understanding of like different corporate cultures and all that stuff. It's, I don't know, that's not right here nor there. But of like different corporate cultures and all that stuff. I don't know. That's not right here, nor there. But finally, time to get the DP role tour. Daniel Hillier wins the Betfred British Masters American and former club pro Gunnar Weebe, I assume as I say, finished T2. Weebe.

Yeah, excuse me. Good story. He's like a, he's like an actual blockie. He's like the real version of blocky. I'm just gonna read this because this is my favorite thing that T.C. put in the agenda, which is the belfry remains ass and put ass in all capitals in our agenda. So bad. It's so bad.

I watched a little bit of this morning. It's so bad. But yeah, that we be guy. He was like the club, he was one of the pros at Bel Air, country club, and some members, like after a few years, I think some members got together and they were like,

hey man, you should go try to give it a run on the pro circuit and played well earlier this year and then T2 and he's like well in his way to a full card on the distressed asset tour. David. Taylor Gooch wins Liv and Alucía. A third win of the year, I believe. According to my Twitter feed in the replies,

one of the best players in the world currently. He edges out Bryson to Shambo and Brooks Keppka finishing second and third. Take away from hovering up money. He is making so much money. That's 12 million and just in wins in 2023, which I think we've gotten so used to saying the numbers out loud that you forget how much fucking money, 12 million dollars is. But man, encouraging from from Brooks and Bryson, like on a, this is like a big boy golf course Valderama. And so it makes a little more sense that a little more cream would rise to the top than some of the other courses They've played, but it's also a it's like a big boy golf course and it's like you can't just bomb it everywhere

Yeah, you got to think your way around and you got to like be pretty pretty patient and conscientious off the tee Well, it's just it's demanding right and I And I mean, the scores are relatively low for 54 whole tournament, but those three really separated themselves out. But it's it's just good to see like Bryson's like return to golf. Be you're looking for at least some signs of life. I still still maintain that it's hard to determine what the hell these events mean. And if the lot of people seem to put the same stock in winning a live more stock and winning a live event than they do, winning other events that are set up with qualified

individuals. But it is good to like at least see something, some sustained ability of form between majors for two of those names, Bryson and Brooks, who should be involved in Liverpool for for all we could tell I would expect. So. Yeah, they were on the podium. Co-crack finished sixth after a whole debacle getting there as well. Flight cancellations. I'm assuming we've united on a new work ended up having to take. I think four flights to get there as clubs got lost all sorts of stuff. There P finished fifth really on the team side as well.

Torque just continues their their their magical run this season. Range goat's second, crushers third. Cleaks a distance. Well, he's got it. It's just figured out, man. We got to get see. See, we only finished last place again. Ripper, Ripper GC 10th. Not good for Ripper. High Fires eighth after their whole cape reveal earlier in the week. Stinger, Stinger night. Stinger is really falling off. So Fireball is majestic. It's kind of the midfield battle there.

Blandy. Blandy got a stroke penalty for slow play. How about that? Setting aside like all joking and stuff like sincerely like props to live for giving a guy like a one-stroke penalty. So, Blandy, Dean Bermister, Sergio Garcia where their group was warned. And then Blandy took 84 seconds to hit a T-shot, which that's pretty egregious. Yeah, do it.

So, like that's kind of a bizarre world thing of like, yeah, you know what? Like lives applying the rules of golf in a way that the PGA tour is not. So hats off guys like sincerely. Uh, DJ said this through on our chat earlier. So I'm going to, uh, I'm not going to take credit for coming up with this, but he uh, he said these two things back to back, uh, quote from Phil Mechelson says, I think actions are a little bit stronger than words. I think if you just look at what live is doing and what we're doing, I think that is more of a statement side by side with excited about playing this week and about the future of live Michelson's team. The high flyers is introducing a cape for younger fans to buy the merchandise. I got a very good.

I'm growing the game. Man. Come on. Looking ahead. Yeah. Two less women's open. They're growing the game, man. Come on. Uh, looking ahead. Yeah. Two. Less women's open. You guys are making the trip out there. We'll have shows after every round this week.

Pebble will be on in prime time on your television. That will be awesome. Very excited about that. Yeah, Randy sent over the forecast, like made the low, or low to mid 60s all week. And he went. And he went. Just delightful.

Uh, TBD. Okay. TBD on the wind. probably too early to really gauge. But yeah, and then we'll have a big slate of content. We had the big film room episode out last week. Randy battling Hubble, please watch that if you haven't already. Battling a lot more than just no. Spectacular stuff. And then office hours, Wolfie brings Neil into the classroom to kind of explain history of the US women's open. And some of the cool stuff regarding women's golf at Pebble Beach, Mary and Hollins. It's really cool footage from way back in like the 1920s from, you know,

a women's event that they had there. So be sure to check that out. Sally, I'm not sure to check that out. So yeah, I'm not sure if you saw a Nicholas design is the announced that they're designing a course in the metaverse. I chose to miss that this week. I thought you were a big metaverse guy kind of goes hand in hand with the Bitcoin. We're not doing this. We're not doing this. Let that quote, just let that quote be up there on its own. I don't even need to refute that one. The match, did you watch it?

Not a shot. I choose to set out the ones that don't have the pro golfers in them. But it just, I like the ones there in the fall when my golf is kind of starved for something a little bit different. And I'm not starved for any more golf at this time of year. There's plenty. Yeah, what? It was Steph and Clay versus Kelsey and my homes.

Yeah. My home and, you know, Kelsey busted out a tangible outfit. It was hard. Who knows if Patrick's brother was there. I'm kind of getting some my homes fatigue a little bit. Just those two in general are not really the most likeable characters. Kelsey and my home. So, uh, and then big, big news breaking the Rory drop. The US open. Rory took a, uh, under the instruction of a

rules official, uh, did not properly locate where the nearest point of relief was when he took that drop from the embedded lie on the 14th hole. Which I'm still very unclear like where that lie on the 14th hole, which I'm still very unclear like where that spot would have been. Directly behind the ball, like in the bank, is I guess where they should have measured from, but I don't know how you take full relief from that. But I think if Roy would have gone on to win, if he'd got it up and down and gone on to win, I think this would be a huge story. They messed it up, but he ended up making bokeh anyways. I think the drops still would have been really close to where it was. That's the thing. I don't like I struggled to care about this. Like how is the USGA? Like not a

adjudicating the rules properly. That's tough. And I'm a final round like with the most famous player in the like who's playing in the tournament. That's tough. And they're lucky it didn't end up deciding the tournament because that would have been, uh, God, that would have been chaos. We had to ask. And it was like a seasoned rules official to it wasn't even like some newbies. Like this is the most important event that you guys put on. Crazy. So I think that's it on the golf stuff. Uh, I have one last thing to thing to address if you'll allow me here, T.C. I would love to allow you the floor here. I'm hoping that the podcast listeners have no idea what the hell any of this was referring

to. If truth mattered in this, I would have addressed it on Twitter. There was a tweet or a series of tweets. I'm not even positive where it happened this week where I was accused of deleting all, I think it said all tweets related to live, all tweets criticizing live, also deleted all tweets about live music because the Ryder Cup signed a deal with someone related to music with DJ Colin, I think, right? I truly don't know.

That was the first time hearing of this. So I'm here to clear up any misconceptions that there may be about this. Again, it was done by a one of the live bot accounts that has, it's like, God, I hate even addressing this because it's so silly. Like we're in a post-truth world. Like the baseline here is not the truth.

Like if these accounts just thrive on being able to throw whatever they want out there and getting the interaction out of it, it's, I legitimately kind of think a lot of these accounts are parody accounts. Like somebody's just like fucking around, like for sports. There are some, there's one that's like a total parody account, but everybody thinks it's like the nick Adams,

like alpha male account. That's kind of why I read some of this. It's fucking with everybody. But there's plenty that aren't as well. So, so I will be the prosecutor here. Did you or did you not delete many tweets? I did not delete many tweets, T.C. I deleted one tweet at some point, and I will tell you exactly why I did that.

Just to make very clear on the top of this, the assumption made amongst this was that we changed or I or we had changed our minds about all of this and we're scrubbing things off our profile. After hundreds of hours of podcasts, that would take a lot longer to scrub. And also, there would be a lot more evidence of that. If you could search our profile, if you'd like,

I'm sure there's plenty of tweets that I regret out there, but there are many, many, many anti-lift takes that are still out there. So again, it's like very silly to address this because we're not dealing in truth to begin with here, but the part to concern me about all this TC was I got a lot of text from people

after this went somewhat around the internet. For people that I trust, like to be able to sift through this information, they're like, yo, is this true? And I'm like, fuck me, man. Like, how did it get to this point that people that I would count on not being idiots are agreeing? I got our, our, our, at least our questioning

whether or not this is true. And I'm like, it left me in a pretty tough mental space this last week because it's just, it's weird to like get your shit fucked with that hard on something that's just not true. But back to your question, Mr. Prosecutor, what I deleted. At some point, I honestly don't remember the history of this. Somebody made the point to me of saying like,

hey, I've heard you say like blood money a lot when he comes to this out, he's like, just so you know, like blood money is money you give to like somebody to go kill someone. Like you can say what you want about the money, but it's not like blood money. That's not the right thing to say. And you're like, ah, you can say what you want about the money, but it's not like blood money. That's not the right thing to say. And you're like, ah, you're exactly right.

Like that dirty money. Dirty, you can call it any kind of thing. I still have the same exact concerns about where the money comes from. None of that has changed. None of that has changed with the new agreement. None of that has changed. But it's simple.

So I did a search on Twitter. I was like, did I ever say that on, I know I've said on the pod, I'm not gonna delete any of that, whatever. I don't care that much about that. But like, did I ever say it on Twitter? did a search, couldn't remember if I did, I said it at one point in one tweet in February of 2022, about a joke with Bryson that wasn't even that funny,

that didn't just didn't need to live on the internet forever. So without thinking much more of it, I deleted it. If you wanna like disagree with that decision to delete it and think that I should have put my hand up and alerted everyone that I deleted it. Fair critique, I'm fine. If you think I should have never said that, fair critique, I totally accept any of all that.

But it got turned very, very quickly into that I deleted many tweets and that there was a whitewashing of tweets of some kind. And it was picked up that, you know, my golf spy amplified it and it just became this enormous thing that I'm like, a lot of people got to be a lot better about a lot of things in relation to this because I can't, it's hard to describe how many hours we've put into explaining exactly what our positions are. And just because the baseline, this is one troll account says that we've deleted all these things that does not make it true.

Like there was literally one tweet, and even after we were explaining, a lot of you guys were sticking up for me in a lot of ways explaining to specific people, like, yo, there's just one, here it is, like you want the explanation, we got it, but like don't try to make this something that it's not. I know I'm preaching to the choir,

the listeners of this podcast in the two-hour mark are not the ones that I hopefully fall for this stuff on social media, but it was tough. It was really tough to see like see your shit get blown up like that. And this won't be the last time it happens like the Twitter has gotten rid of, and this is pre whatever Twitter mess ups happen this week, but yeah, there used to be like an art to like having a check mark like that used to be some kind of signal of this person is vetted and it's going to give you good information. Now you can just pay for one of those

and you just, there's so much shit that we've had to sift through over the last year that's just so patently untrue. This exact account that did this has tweeted about ROM going to live a million times and says, this is why I thought it was parody. It says, trust me on my sources, I'm never wrong. That's a tweet that they had about ROM.

This is the same account that quote tweeted Max's photo when he had a baby with like saying like, you're not going to be able to afford formula for much longer. The same one that says, Zander signing with live. Like, that's why I think it's legitimately parody. Like, they're just throwing shit out there as like a parody of other live accounts, I think, but we got caught up in it. It probably won't be the last time that we get attacked and caught up in it. But let me vehemently say that a lot of what was reported reported to theemently say that a lot of what was reported, reported something, right word, but a lot of what was said this past week of the internet

was, it was not as funny as I'm making light of it right now, because it was, it was not that fun. It's a weird aspect where I've always run the Twitter, but like, I don't love the fact that I represent the whole brand on Twitter, because we disagree about a lot of things and all of that. And I felt like an idiot for something that I shouldn't feel like an idiot for, because I didn't do the fact that I represent the whole brand on Twitter because we disagree about a lot of things and all of that. And I felt like an idiot for something that I shouldn't feel like an idiot for

because I didn't do what was said. Yet a lot of people out there now believe that and that's just a frustrating reality of this current state of golf that we're in that people get a kick out of behaving this way and fucking with people's livelihood in this way. But, prosecutor, I don't know what under which a question was, but that's my answer.

I mean, apology accepted for whitewashing our Twitter account and, you know, doing all that solid, like, you know, unbeknownst to any of the rest of us and all that. I think the guy that, the guy that really got me was that Jeffrey Feinberg, the DFS, I'll toss it in there, loser who backtracked immediately on his stuff and it was like, yeah, man, like, a lot of people could benefit from deleting some tweets.

I run it. I know this is he could definitely benefit from deleting some tweets. But we're not going to go there because that's not really what we do. You know, bottom line. It's like also like Twitter, man, like I've picked up so many followers of the last like 10 to 12 weeks,

like in all of them are like bots. It's crazy. Like it's so fucking. It's so broken. I mean, there's in like every, every tweet you throw out, there's the porn bots. There's the, you know, crypto bots. There's the sports book bots. There's, it's crazy, man. It's so broken. And I also want to like iterate like I'll take criticism from anyone you can imagine that like has a track record and has skin in the game, right? Like I will take that right. I'm happy. I'm not gonna take it from like parody accounts We're like if you get one thing right out of a hundred and the one little part of this that they got right about it They turn into something that it's not and just to blur the lines and flood the zone and do all the same shit that have been done

On Twitter for months and now years to this point. Like, I would have loved to have addressed it on Twitter, but like again, the truth doesn't really matter there. Twitter is now a choose your own truth adventure book. Like, if you just wanna be amongst people that just say things like this, you totally can. And the people that enable these people and give them the cloud that they're looking for

are a part of the problem, but it's truly a post-truth world and it was just best to sit that out and watch it just unfold, because it was wild, man. It really was. And there's certain, you know, like it's worth saying, like there's plenty of people on Twitter that support live and their legitimate human beings that, like,

with that opinion, and they're totally right to have that. I think what we're saying too, is some of this stuff is getting so amplified, so much louder than just that cohort of people to where there are like it is truly like bot forms. Well, that's not there. The old Twitter just you would just toil around in this forever. But now there's like all this four you stuff that gets promoted out there as well. And if like if you ever go, or if you read a reply from somebody that's hating on you and you're like, oh, I want to see what this is all about, then all of a sudden those tweets get recommended for you.

And like all these people are doing is creating chaos and now those tweets give, it's just a totally fucked algorithm now. And not a fun place to spend time. And again, it's probably not the last time something like this is going to happen. Oh, I mean, I have also deleted other tweets along the way. Like if I have a typo in a tweet, obviously, I'll delete that.

If I, you know, if something gets horribly misconstrued, I will tweet it and usually, or delete it and usually acknowledge saying, like, hey, this, what, I don't know, whatever, I don't know what you say. Do there's probably a dozen or something a year? Yeah, it's not to say, like, I've never deleted any tweets, but there was no going back in whitewashing

anything about where the money is coming from. I definitely know whitewashing about music. That's how people should have known it was parody or not true was the fact that we went and deleted all tweets about music on live because of the writer cup now. I truly, I don't know. That's where it's just like dude, we're not dealing in fact or true here.

Shit on the writer cup all the time. That's what pisses me off is all these people who are like, you guys are on the payroll of Torra, I'm like, no, like all I do is shit on the tour. That gets more hates me. Like, why hates me? Can I see some of these live-bought accounts criticize live? Like, we criticize both tours all the time.

We criticize the PC tour for 10 years. We criticize live for basically its existence. Like, hopefully, I don't know. Again, we're not dealing in truth. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. I think I was like, I'm very comfortable with the things I've said.

Like, that I've said about the tour along the way. I'm very comfortable in some of the things that I've I think I was like, I'm very comfortable with the things I've said it like That I've said about the Torah along the way I'm very comfortable and some of the things that I've stuck up for like People like cam along in the way and I'm very comfortable in like the criticisms of live along the way And I'm also comfortable in spots that I've evolved Do that like my opinion has changed like yeah, it's like this is a pretty pretty you know crazy time period and like Of course, there's, there's shit that's going to happen that you couldn't see coming or that happens. You don't agree with it, but it's the best of two shitty options, right? So, yeah, I don't know. I'm worn

out. Man, I want to talk about golf. I do too. Man, it was, it was, that was tough day. Thursday was a tough day. I'm not going to. It was it was wild to to kind of be a I don't want to say victim of a vicious attack on line But it was not again not rooted in fact and still put in the piece of it back together and I don't want to spend much more time On that app because it's truly been ruined and poisoned by a lot of things like that and it's unfortunate because you used to be a lot of fun It really did it was kind of how we all got started in this and how we've met a lot of friends through it. And it's really trending the wrong way. So we're on Blue Sky now. If maybe that's where it will take, we'll take things. And hopefully they are able to moderate a little bit better

than the current current bird app. So we're still on Twitter. We're just not, not there. You know, we're just, I'm not on blue sky. I don't even have an invite. I can get you on. I can get you on if you need one, but no, I haven't tweeted anything out there yet or blue sky to anything out there yet. But, yeah, hopefully, hopefully that there's a better answer. My thing is like, I just can't even see tweets. Like, who cares if tweets were deleted or not?

Like, I can't, I log on and I can't, I'm trying to track what the fuck's going on in France. Well, I like the great lemon exceeded. Yeah, they're like descending into civil war and like I can't, you know, track that or like, you know, this week was a disaster for my hitters at United. And I can't track that, you know. That's big of you to say, T.C. I'm really glad you brought that up.

But yeah, I mean, you almost got arrested at the DFW airport. We don't need to get into that. This is how rumors get started. That's the police were threatened to be called on me for looking for my bag, despite again, did nothing wrong here, totally innocent, totally exonerated. But anyways, thank you for allowing me to address that because I did think it was important to at least get that on the record. In this medium, I doubt it changes much of anything

on this social media. Or maybe, maybe I'm wrong, maybe all the body council issue a huge apology tomorrow and everyone that published and ran with this false information will issue a huge apology. My golf spying included, I'm sure, and all of the guys that blew up that sent me DMs calling me a coward and a pussy and all the things you could possibly imagine when I woke up Thursday morning. That was fucking sweet. That was awesome. I love it. I love it.

That'll be big of them. Yeah, so that's a wrap on what was supposed to be an hour closer to two, but I think we did well to keep it under two. I think we did too. I'm proud of UTC. We kept it down the leaderboard short, and yeah, we did all we could. So thanks to the the tour for ending early today was was helpful because now it's dinner time. So thank you everyone for tuning in. We'll be back. Like I said, with we got a lot of pods this week. We got hopefully an interview pod out Thursday. We'll have a preview podcast for the US women's open out overnight Tuesday. I believe into Wednesday morning live shows Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night as well.

It may have two bonus pods of some different topics this week as well. So stay tuned. Stay subscribed. If you haven't, we have the YouTube version of the Scotty and Jordan pod is up. And that has done quite well. That is a lot of a lot of recommendations to get stuff up on YouTube for our pods. It's harder. It's a lot more. It's a lot tougher logistically than you might imagine to do,

but we're working to get more of those up there and it helps us out a lot of you watch them there and want to see those as well. So thanks to our friends at Titleist, thanks to precision pro, thank you to Roeback, thank you to TC, thank you to the bots, and thank you to everyone for tuning in. We'll see you back here plenty of times. It's coming week. Cheers. Crack on. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about it? That is better than most.

Better than most. Better than most. Better than most.