No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 724: Wyndham Recap

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

The PGA Tour regular season has come to an end with Lucas Glover winning in Greensboro while Justin Thomas missed advancing to the playoffs by just one shot. We break down the weekend in Greensboro, look at how the playoff bubble shook out, the Ryder Cup chances for JT and Ludvig, and Bryson's 58 at LIV Greenbrier. Then it's on to the off-course news as Tiger joins the PGA Tour policy board and the players attempts to take back control of Tour decisions. We close with a quick look at the LPGA Scottish Open and the upcoming Women's British Open, plus the KFT in Utah, college athletics conference realignment in the scope of college golf 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. but Sally, I'm paternity leave just down the street from me. Got Randy and Cody and Rout to London for the Aegee women's open. We've got, I think he knows it Tahoe. And then DJ, who knows where DJ is. He's probably at a baseball game somewhere.

I'm joined by KVV who is himself back from vacation. Yeah, deep cuts only tonight. You see, I have been all over the land. At the last time I saw you, we were in the media center together. We snuck you in for some, some covert discussions about Tommy Ladd and the foul around to the open, but great to be back. I've been off the grid for a couple of weeks, been bouncing around Montana. My clubs have been all over the world without me, but we've recently been reunited.

So happy to talk about that too. Just excited to be here. Well, that was going to be my segue, man. We are brought today by our friends at Titleist and their new T series, Irons, which just came out here last week or two. T 100, T 150, T 200 and T 350 all dropped officially this week. We were lucky enough to get fit. I got fit out in July at Poppy Hills. I know you got fit in Baltimore. I'm at even. So I believe you're in the 150s. Is that correct? I am. That is correct. And you were reunited after they're around the world. Thanks to Yeah. Yeah. Virgin Atlantic. If anybody has been following my sports writer tantrums on Twitter or on X now, excuse me, I Virgin Atlantic held my club's hostage for like two weeks.

They won't let you talk to a person T.C. Even if you have like status on Delta, it's a furiating. My clubs went to Paris, then they went to some other place in England and they couldn't get them to be in England by the time I arrived. like status on Delta. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it I was already gone. I had flown from Manchester to Albuquerque to where my wife's family is from. So couldn't have them for a while. But you know what, got them back today and finished by wife and I played and a couple's alternate shot thing at our club, finished third.

So the T150s are absolutely vibing right now. Was that your first competitive round with them? Well, I'd played a little bit certainly, but like first real competitive round where like? Well, I played a little bit, uh, certainly, but like first real competitive round, where like everything, you know, no, uh, no give me, no breakfast balls, no anything. You know, so the haters and losers are saying that my handicap is fake. They're, they're just their tears right now. Well, you've probably got the, you know, the most well traveled set of T 150s

on the planet right now. So they were, they were stopping in a new castle to check on, you know, the Saudeon team there, all that. I'm still waiting on mine. Mine. I've got some shafts that we are waiting on. I actually lost my match this week against Blake Blake Bordles, who was a delight. We had great launch afterwards. But I'm convinced if I had my T 150s, currently in the 100s and 150s are on the way, I'm convinced that those are gonna be the game changer for me. And a little smoother through the turf, T.C.

A little smoother through the turf. And just I think, yeah, just, I don't know, I wanna see that ball fall right. I got some new shafts coming in them and then kind of changed my wedge set up a little bit too. And then I got a T203 and a half iron coming as well. So stoked for that. Even the 350s, like I hit the 350 on the range

out of Poppy, it was almost like duplicate of my three wood. I think it was going to like 230. It was crazy. So I like to get my wife in some of the 350s. So yeah, that might, she might be dangerous. That's the 36. What have you noticed, like, what's been the big change so far? Just feels like more confident for me, like, just standing over the ball, just feels like I, I don't know, can control the where the club faces going back a little bit more. So, I, yeah,

I feel, you know, we'll see, we'll get, it's time for me to maybe get some, get some lessons this year and really make some progress. I'm still hanging around at a nine, but see if I can chip a few off that over before the winter break. All right. Well, I'm hoping to go back up here. I'm currently at 1.4. It's tough. Just not good. So anyway, go get fit. You'll love them. The, like, the sound of the new T200s much improved over the sound of the previous iteration T200s Just go get fit trust us. They're awesome. I think that's tylus.com or find a fitter near you. Wind him Gosh, you know what? I I'll say it. I'm a Lucas Glover Homer

Okay, I think I you know, it's it's probably because he's a really poor putter I think I, you know, it's probably because he's a really poor putter, historically. And he's been a, he's just an absolute flusher for many, many, many years. And I just, I love watching him hit, especially his irons. He's just, like, that ball is on a string. And I don't know, to be able to have that sort of self belief and commitment and just, you know, kind of determination to overcome what he's overcome with the flat stick over the last decade is that. I don't know. I just, I respect the hell out of that. And he's always a good interview.

He's always thoughtful when he run into him. Like, the first time I met him was at Bay Hill a few years ago. And like, he didn't know me from Adam. He had just been on our podcast. And I went up and introduced myself and talked for five or six minutes. And he was just delightful. So I just got to get down to that.

For Racious Reader, T.C. That's what I love about. You know, big, big mysteries and thriller guy. That's, you know, you know, I love the reading content. The athletes are out there just diving deep into books. So big Jack Reacher guy, you know, I love the reading content. The athletes are out there just diving deep into books. So big Jack Reacher guy, you know, I guess he's read all the way through the Jack Reacher series like multiple times.

And just would love to sit and talk like John Grisham books with Lucas out there. And you know what, great scene with him and his daughter and his son on the 18th green there. Look, professional golf is a grind. These guys have to spend a lot of time away from their families. You know I'm a sucker for the family content,

especially the dad daughter stuff. So seeing his daughter kind of like burst into tears and realize like, oh, like there's been a payoff to all this for dad basically not having to practice, having to travel, having to sort of live this nomadic life and him saying, you know, now I might get to spend a little bit more time going to practices and that stuff. Man, that got me in the field. So I was, I love that.

And yeah, the, the putting thing too, like I, I was wondering if you as someone who's a, you know, struggled with putting, if you ever, have you ever thought about going to the long putter at any point in your life? And I know that's a kind of a break glass scenario, but is that ever across your mind? You know what? We were, I got Randy and I played in the Pro Am down at the CME, like the Torch Championship on the LPGA tour,

down at Tibberon and Naples. This was like, I don't know, a few years ago. And we played with Allison Lee. And she had this long putter that was aw, it was like, I don't know, it was shorter than your regular long putter. Like I was rolling it so well on the practice screen afterwards with it.

And she's like, I should, you're like, you should get one of these or whatever. Now the claw has completely. Closered, vitalized you. Yeah, it's completely resurrected in my game. But, but yeah, overall like I don't know It's cool to see guys just

Know have no shame and try anything and he's clearly not anchoring either Like it's you know the long putter guys that aren't anchoring I know there's some out out there that are anchoring, but he's not anchoring which makes me definitely not yeah exactly So how much money do you think Lucas Glovers made on the PGA tour? Official money. Oh, man. Official money. 23 million?

29 million. I'm not sure if that includes today's payday, which could have taken up over 30. But it's always wild when you hear, like he's been on tour since 2004. This was his I think it's fifth PGA tour win. Ties him with Jonathan Bird for most by a Clemson guy. He's played in 511 tour events. He's got 59 top 10 finishes, 26 top 5s. And I don't know, it's just like he's been out there 19 years now and he's been grinding for 19 years and he's and he doesn't want to go play in the mule events. That's just a big dick event.

That was kind of his thing. He's like, hey, I'm playing too much. I want to be home with my kids. I want to be a practices all this. But I thought that that kind of dovetailed with some of his comments from earlier in the week. I'm not sure if you were off the grid or if you saw these at all. So a little bit of them, but I'd love for you to review them for the yeah. So he was asked to describe the difference between this year's top 70

advancing the FedEx couple of in the former model of top 125 advancing, which we can get to our thoughts on it, but Lucas did not hold back. This is Per Adam Schupack, at golf week. He said, it's very contrived to me, the whole thing. I don't even really understand it. I think if you finish in the top 125, I don't know why you don't get to play next week. That's my opinion. I think it's silly that it's only 70.

I think it's silly that we're playing 70 in these elevated events. I think it's silly. I think it's taken a lot of these last few tournaments of the regular season, a lot of that drama. And I think it's silly. I think it's taken a lot of these last few tournaments of the regular season, a lot of that drama. And I think it's just silly. It goes on to say it feels like the toothpaste is out of the tube. Some guys who are pushing for 70 are now backtracking a little bit. I don't know if it's because they are outside the top 70 or they actually understand it's kind of silly. We're touting ourselves as the best tour in the world. So why wouldn't you reward the best 125 guys and

let them play in the biggest events. Same with the elevated events. You finish one 25th on the best tour in the world. You're in one elevated event. That's silly to me. And always has been. It doesn't make any sense to me. Shit silly, man. Not a silly.

Yeah. He says he continues. It's a it's a waste of breath, a waste of time. I've been out here long enough to know that it doesn't matter. The pack is useless. They're going to do what they're going to do. And he said, maybe now we can get some smarter people in the room and talk some sense into them. Talking about tiger getting on the board and some other kind of some fresh blood there.

I don't understand why it's going to be 70 or 80. We've seen the World Golf Championship model doesn't work. We don't play those anymore. So why that number? They have models and all this and all that. But no one has convinced me that this is better than other guys. Still there to be rewarded and most pushed for it. And our brass thought they had to appease them. That's the case. That's the case. Ta-da-da. Then he also said, which distal tide of some stuff we talk about later,

something was inevitable, whether it was hiff or private equity or something. We couldn't continue to go down the road that we were going. Anyone with a brain knows the tour didn't have the money. Live was going to drag this lawsuit out as long as they could. The tour can't prop up $20 million per person forever. Pretty sure the sponsors don't want to do it either. They're not getting the return. That's evident.

We know that too. We've got some valuations of under $5 million and you're asking the sponsor for $20 million. That doesn't work. So of course, we were going to have to do something that was just a matter of where the money was coming from. Wow. I don't necessarily agree with them on it on all of this, but shout outs of him for just letting her rip, you know?

Yeah. Also, respect to Adam for like sensing that Lucas was like ready to go off, right? That pulling him aside and being like, hey, would you like to just basically, you know, tell tales, this spill as much as you can. That's, that's good reporting just in the sense of sensing when someone has, you know, a bone to pick a little bit. I, I don't know, I was thinking about this lot today. We can have into this a second more. But like, if you don't really have a chance to win the FedEx Cup at like 120,

like, why do I, why should I care at all that you are missing the thing? Like, 70 seems like a pretty fair. Well, and I'm sure, I'm sure Luke is like a big football fan, right? Like, you know, not like, all right. Like, if you finish like 11th in the ACC, you don't get to like make the playoffs. You know, I mean, at this point, the ball games are of sham and like, I won't go there. But like, you're not going to make the college football playoff or you're not going to make, like it, you know, like a playoff should be rewarding good play, right?

And we always say it, there's too many cards to begin with. Like there, like, you know, there's guys outside, like, all, all right, you shouldn't get a trophy for being inside that top 125. I feel like you're getting money, you're getting a card for next year, you're getting some sort of status for next year if you're between 70 and 125, and you're gonna have to play the fall events

or some of them and strengthen that or whatever. But I don't know, I'm of coming around to the top 70 thing. I feel it feels a little arbitrary for like 70 to 50 to 30 moving along. But like 70 last year at, I'd say like BMW, like being out there like, it's clean, right? Like you don't have to worry about, you know, split T starts and, you know, like you're going to Memphis,

you're going to Chicago, you're going to Atlanta. There's, there's, Randalays, there's thunderstorms, there's all that sort of stuff. Like make, you know, make the playoffs feel a little bit special. And I think that's one of the things that the tours failed so much at

with the designated events, elevated events. Now I guess they're called signature events is it didn't feel differentiated at all, right? I think to like one thing that's always bug me about the playoff stuff is just how everybody's kind of like weary and they're all kind of like done and they just want to like go out there and like have easy golf. And as a fan, it's just sort of like it's the only sport where the playoffs get easier than the regular season, where it's like, you know, I was there. It caves Valley when they were threatened to shoot 30 under. And Bryson, who did you 58 today, shot, you know, had a putt lip out for 60. And it was just

like, man, like, I remember Roy and I kind of like going back and forth a little bit. And I was like, well, like shouldn there be some sort of challenge in the playoffs? And he was like, yeah, but what can we do? The weather is what it is, the courses are what they are. You don't have to case valve. Yeah. But I mean, I don't know. You're right.

I just feel like there has to be something that makes you interested in this stuff. And I don't think I've under full field of 125 dudes is going to do it. Least make it feel a little bit special. And maybe this does. I mean, for the first time today with JT sort of like, you know, on the edge of making it or not making it was the first time it ever felt like the NFL in those last few like regular season games where a team that has been in the playoffs a bunch doesn't want to miss is like thinking like I can salvage my season if I just make the playoffs you never know what might happen they're grinding their fighting and

then they fall short and that's like great drama and this was the first time that golf has ever really felt like that at all for the FedEx stuff because JT was someone who's been mattered in the sport for quite a while. And so I think that element of it worked. The fact that he didn't make it was kind of good in a lot of ways. Because it's like, okay, there's consequences to playing shitty in the regular season. It definitely meant more that there were more consequences

inherent with that than with in the past when somebody finishes like Zach Blair, a good friend of ours, finished 126th, he still gets like 18 starts the next year, right? Like it doesn't, you know, whereas, like if you're not guaranteed to get in those events next year, that's, there's a downside there. Like the whole thing is contrived,

if it's 70 or if it's 125, it doesn't really matter either way. Like it's gonna, you know, it's gonna, there's gonna be drama on either side of that break. It's just a matter of like, I think this year would because it was JT was probably the first time that it's actually, like the margin has been a lot closer to those top, you know, those top end players. Like, you would have thought watching the tournament today that JT was, you know, those top end players. Like you would have thought watching the tournament today that JT was like that was the only thing that mattered for the first, you know, for the last like, you know, two hours that he was on the course or whatever. And props to him for fighting, you know,

I mean, it was it was it was good drama. Going back to Lucas, I think he, you know, he had he had a couple of good breaks down the stretch. 18, he hits hits it off. It's a it's a cop. on the stretch, 18, it hits it off. It's a cop. Try that. He hit a cop. Try that in a small town, Lucas. All right. You had to be sick of your Russell Wilson getting like, letting it to like, Russ, Russ,

Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ,

Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ, Russ and it rolls back into a divot. And then he has another sort of like, just a punch out that ends up buried in that awful, Bermuda sort of face. And then Lucas rips one way left and it bounces off a cop cart. So it's just oblivious sitting there. I was like, what's not even doing there? He's obviously like could be filling divots or something with saying.

Well, and then yeah, when when when Henry rolled back into that divot, that was like the size of the grand canyon because I think A couple other guys had rolled into that same divot this week as well How does that divot not get filled in at all like how was there not a grounds crew overnight like trying to take care of that Divid I don't get it and then and then and then Glover lays up on 18 Which really caught me off guard because I was looking for the ball to come out of a totally different window I'm like holy shit did he just hit it in the creek and then caught me off guard because I was looking for the ball to come out of a totally different window.

Holy shit. Did he just hit it in the creek and then when you realize you laid up and then he got something out for par. So, you know, all credit to him. I think when he came back out of the randole and had that slippery, slippery downhill error, you know, left, left the, the chip shot, a little bit short, kind of blazes a buy and then it's got seven, eight feet coming straight down the hill and jars it. It was like, oh man, that was a pretty do-or-die moment for him.

But yeah, the Randalay was just kind of a stopper for Henley. He was bogie-free and just it was just kind of a stopper for the whole day too, because Nance and Emelman and the guys had to fill an hour and 20 minutes of dead time. And it was pretty admirable. Like they did a good job, a man did a good job with interviews. They're in player dining, you know, Horseshoe, JT, a bunch of people came on, but man, it was tough. And then as soon as they're ready to come back out, you know, it goes to golf channel, and then golf channel kicks corn

ferry toward the NBC sports app and PCOQ minus or something. So first time KFTs on TV in months, and it's like, all right, cool. Sorry, guys. One more Lucas Glover thing to see. I years ago, when, not years ago, I guess it's like a year ago when I was the ESPN and, you know, the whole Phil was like had gone in cognito. He basically, you know, banished himself from to sort some things out after his comments. And he is being like, well, we got to talk to as many people as we can about Phil, you know, and see what they think about what they want and back or they don't. So I went out to, was when it was down at TPC Avenue, that whatever

that the thing that Danny McCarthy almost won, I think, are you one of the, the Wells Fargo ahead of there because they're having quail hollow. Yeah. Correct. Literally can't remember who won. Might have been Max. Could have been Danny McCarthy. No, no memory. I'm whatsoever. And so I was spent the day kind of talking to people and I went up to Lucas and I was like, Hey, Lucas, like, you know, Kevin from USPN is like, you know, how you doing? I was like, look, I got to write this Phil story.

Like, is there any way you might be able to talk about Phil for five minutes? And he was like, yeah, I don't think I'm the right guy for this one. So I'm going to take a pass. I was like, what a great answer. Like that is just some people would just bullshit you and be like, you know, well, Phil's a good dude, Phil's a, or Phil's, you know, he's got his opinions, but he was just like, nope, not going there. I was like, I love it. I think Henley, I don't know, I'm getting to the point with Henley where we'll talk Ryder Cup here in a sec, but is he deserving of a look? You know what I saw something that was interesting is that there's like this Ben Colley friend of

the program was talking about this. There's this like narrative that Russell Henley is like a great putter and it's just really not true. Like not even inside the top 100 in putting and as you know, like if you go to that claw, you've, you had some issues with the putting before it's not just, but he's a great, great ball striker. Yeah. I look, I, I don't know enough about Marcos Simone. I am excited to see this, this video that we got coming out. Allegedly, it's coming out. Allegedly coming out. Excuse me. There are some, I keep hearing what a clown course it is

from Sali who knows if his opinions are factual or if they're just this anti-European bias. But I think they got to think seriously about, look, I've been a king and Bradley guy. I know that that's not your tempo. But I think they need to bring one person like that who's sort of being on the outside of the stuff who can just drive it well, hit great irons

and then we'll figure out the same stuff. They've kind of got harmin for that, right? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I would just say, and I'm not sure, he seems like kind of a wild card, kind of a, not bad, but just kind of a wild card, not bad, but just kind of a different cat, Henley does.

So I'm not sure if he jives and all that. But yeah, I don't know. I just like to see more guys that have that grit to him and not necessarily just the top ball strikers in the world who, you know, feast on match on on stroke play. So I did love how he was basically like, I mean, he got those bad breaks and there was no like exhausted size. There was no like, throwing a fit, complaining to the rules official, needing a second ruling, whatever. He's like, okay, cool. Like this is. You know, you know, Sally's on paternity leave and he's and he's he's he's furious about him. He's like Like this is. Meanwhile, you know, Sally's on paternity leave and he's, and he's, he's, he's furious

about him. He's like, this is crazy. These rubber, the greens and I'm like, Hey, man, this is, this is why we play the golf, you know, we're so new to simulate it. Well, where's that new dad perspective? Exactly. I mean, we should congratulate. So I don't know if it's been on the podcast, but, you know, it's a, a daughter was born this week. And so I'm sure he and his wife are appreciative of all the sort of thanks and congrats and stuff that they've got.

Amen. Yeah, perspective incoming. Hey, the girl dad's all about, you know, I'm all for more girl dads, you know, you missed out on that yourself, but still time. You just make the word done. He's also blown away by the poop. Perspective and poop incoming. There's a lot of poop. You can't really like overestimate not much of the rest.

Speaking of poop, Billy Horses would have played well today, 72. But I think glass half full. Some really good form from him here. Kind of finishing out the regular season. I imagine we'll see him a couple of times here in the fall. And wouldn't be shocked if he wins in the fall. 67-62-62. I'm as shocked if he wins in the fall. 67, 62, 63, 72 seemed like he had a great attitude about it.

I don't know. I've really, I've been critical of Billy in the past, just, you know, kind of be allowed mal sometimes, but so can I, right? Sure. And he's, you know, he's, he's really, I don't know, like I thought it was cool when he was super open and honest and forthright and you know about kind of everything he was struggling with the swing and he's just been been battling and I think there's some good things on the horizon for him. Be remiss if we didn't mention Ben on today to T2, which by the way, Ben on both of his parents Olympians, according to the not CBS crew today. Yeah, both both of them played ping pong in the Olympics. Wow. So both of them South Korean. Yeah. Yeah. For the first. And it was the it was the Olympics in Seoul

with the eight Olympics. So now Amanda has to him if he's a nasty ping pong player. He said he's not. Wow. It's just shocking. So wow. I would like. Have you ever played like a really high level ping pong player? Not like high level.

I've played like some friends that are really, really good and like way too competitive. But yeah, no, I would get worked. So I was pretty good like casual ping pong player because I had a ping pong table and my parents' face when growing up. And I thought I was sort of hot shit. And so when I was like a newspaper intern, and I went to the state, like Montana State Games and played the state champion, the women's state champion in ping pong to sort of like as a writer story about it, I think I might have won like two points. Like she, the spin that they put on the ball is just,

like if you don't, if you can't see the spin or like the sort of things that they do, you got no chance. Like the tennis style of ping pong that I played was like the joke to her. She had to basically like take it easy on me at the end, just for me, it just sort of not walk away scoreless. So.

We had a ping-pong table in the basement growing up, as well, Neil and I So we, we had a ping pong table in the basement growing up as well, Neel and I, we had some, I think we had fist fights at the end of the ping pong matches, broken paddles, all that kind of stuff. You know, because there was, there were certain paddles too that you wanted, like there were the soft, softer paddles than the ones that you could put spin on at the hard ones. Kind of the, the, you know, the rubber that was kind of inverted on the other ones. So, yeah, I would, like, I would pay to see a PGA tour ping pong tournament. Totally. I would pay to see him do pickleball too. Like, there's a lot of guys with like, really good hands. I think that'd be, this is what they all, they need to,

the compound can sort of throw this idea out recently about how there needs to be like a skills challenge of like an all-star weekend of the PGA tour or whatever, all of golf, since we're, you know, there's a potential merger going on. And I think that would be super fun. Like, have them play some pickleball, have them play some ping pong, have them do chipping contest, driving contest, but then also, I don't know, play three on three basketball, like all that would be awesome. You know, I bottom line though, I hope they don't have a ping pong table in the rider cup locker room because you know, it's a serious competition we can't be having. Yeah, right. Cornhole, maybe. Do you think that Ben Ben's like since both of his parents were Olympians? Does he get to skip his South Korean

military stuff? I would be that because that's a deal like if you're an Olympian or no, it's Olympic medal if you win. Yeah, I don't know. That's great. I'm not sure if the transitive property, it goes to the mother or the father or whatever. It feels like it should. If you've brought glory to your country through both of your parents and you've become a professional athlete too,

that ought to be an out there. Wouldn't ban on, I mean, he's like 31. He probably would have done it already. Yeah. This is clearly we should have researched this if we were going to dive deep into it. Crazy though. I mean, he's up to 30.

So he finished 37th FedEx Cup, heading to the playoffs. So up from 52nd. So long putter stuff. It's making waves. Yeah. Speaking of long-ish putters, Web Simpson, first, first,

resurface, first top 10 since March, I I think March or April. So yeah, little resurgence from him there as well. And one of his kids is named Wyndham, right? So playing well in the Wyndham. It was funny. We someone asked when Neil and I were doing that Q&A with Wyndham Clark in England last week, someone was like, Oh, how come you never won the Wyndham championship? And he was like, that's a great question. It's because I put too much pressure on myself. I want, I want windom to win the windom. I was like, wow. I thought he would have just like blown that off

and like thought it was lame, but no. He does really care about it. That'd be a layup sponsorship, too, you know? Totally. What else we got? We'll go down and lead a board a little bit before we get to some other kind of news and notes. Please do.

Michael Kim. T5. Did not make the playoffs 79th, but you know how about Michael Kim's career, like having, you know, resrivaled this year and become not only like a good golfer again, but a delightful, delightful Twitter follow. Yeah, he's been awesome.

It's been a pleasure to watch him kind of pull himself up off the mat and really engaging and puffing the process. Gosh, another guy who felt just short of the playoffs, Adam Scott, 63 today, go from 81st to 72nd, but does not get it done. I'm not sure if a birdie on 18 would have would have sealed the deal for him, but again, there's just, I don't know, I don't mind this top 70. I think it, I think it works. I think there's more, there's more, there's just, I don't know, I don't mind this top 70. I think it, I think it works. I think there's more, there's more, there's more guys missing that you would give a shit about, right?

Yeah. I'm Scott being 43 makes me feel old, frankly. I speak, speaking of long putters. Yeah. Maybe I need to go to the long putter. Have you seen? Good week for Cam Davis. He kind of solidified his spot. Went from 69th to 62.

Gosh, Brennan Todd, Adam Spencer, let me down this week. Sorry, was 63 and then just kind of peedered out. The fund was relying upon him this week. JT Post and kept it rolling at T7, Charlie Hoffman, T12, put from 156 to 137 in the FedEx Cup. And then of course JT, 70, 65, 66, 68, great ego on 15, Ogie 16, and then a couple of wayward drives, missed it left on 17 and 18. And then, you know, almost shipped in on 18, which was, you know, really, really cool, like hooking iron shot around the way, which, you know, earlier in the week, he was in a similar spot and tried to get relief from TIO as well. So, you know, valiant effort. I'm just, I'm just not buying like the whole rider cup thing that's, hey, this guy, like he just wants it so much.

So he should be on the team because he wants it so hard. So I very publicly during the, the open championship wrote a column, saying I'm still bullish on him, that he went out and played even worse than Mr. 3M, which made me waver a little bit. I, I will say, I think that he's figured out something to wear in the last couple of weeks of hard work,

where he's playing like reasonable again. He's not going to go out and shoot 81, whatever. He's not going to do what Patrick Greed did at the Paris Redder Cup, speaking of Redder Cups. But I don't know. I mean, I'm definitely wavering a little bit, but I do think having someone with experience who's played well really well in match play matters, I think he'll still get picked. I think that, especially with what happened that Zach will be justified enough

in his own mind that's saying, yeah, well, I just wanted to see some good golf. I wanted to see like that he was willing to, you know, put in the work, dig it out. Like, we know, yeah, I mean, and plus like, look, Speed's going to be there. So you got a pair of speed with somebody and Speed's going to hit it all over the map or whatever. The two of them can have shown that they can figure this stuff out. Their styles managed to sort of work well. They don't like, out and blame each other when they're all over hill. And or that like, you know, one of my favorite things about that, like shot that Jordan hit at the, at Whistling where it was like,

went straight up near, I almost fell in the lake is like, JT didn't make that put, you know, it's like the most heroic, amazing shot that like JT couldn't cash in on. They, they're just, they're, who, you know, they're like the most heroic, amazing shot that like, JT couldn't cash in on. They, they're just, they're, you know, they're friends, they're best men in each other's wedding. Like, that shouldn't count for everything, but it counts for a little bit.

And I think I would still probably lean on taking them. There's a reason that, you know, we haven't won in Paris in, excuse me, in, in non-Paris, in Europe in 30 plus years. And a lot of people think that it would be like a good old boys sort of kind of thing. I think that what the US did wrong for so long was like just be like, oh yeah, let's take the 11th and 12th guy

without really thinking about whether this matters for team or whether this guy's good in match plays. It's just like, well, we can't pass over the 12th or 13th guy, good in match play. It's just like, well, we can't pass over the 12th or 13th guy. They've earned it. Or they've, to me, GT's, he's cleared the bar for having enough credibility for being either our best match play player or I shouldn't say R because I know your team Europe guy.

Yeah, thanks. But the US is best match play player. And I think that, you know, he's showing enough signs of life that that stuff ought to matter. If he was, if he can't come out in Wyndham and like, Mr. Cut again, I'd be like, gotta leave him home. Like, there's no. I think there's no, I think where I'm struggling, especially with his performance even this week is, he was 47th off the tee. He lost, lost strokes, lost almost a stroke on the week in approach play. It was number one in strokes,

gained around the green and he was 23rd in putting. Okay, well those are good signs, you know? I mean, but it feels atypical, right? It feels 47th and 56 like like T to green. You know, he was he was 22nd T to green, but that was buoyed by around the green. So let's say that I'm I'm full shit. I'm part of the old guard. I'm, I'm, you know, one of the corrupt media who wants JT to come. Who should go in his place? Well, that's where I'm struggling. That's where I'm coming around a little bit to you guys, because the rest of these guys are absolutely crowning him. They're not doing

shit. I mean, all right. So you've got, you've got Scotty, Wyndham, Harmon, Keppka, Shoffley, Cantley. Those guys are on. I would assume, you know, one of the ass caps said, uh, homies built a pretty, uh, max Cameron young speed. They're on. So that's nine right there. You've got to think big dig Rick is on. Yeah. Right. I mean, he's, he's earned it. He's, he's put it putting grade like he's played great over with anybody. Like, you know, he's good in the team room. So that's 10. And these last two spots, like, I, I, I don't know. I mean, do you really want Kagan on the team? Like with, you know, still pro Kagan.

Kagan played so good in two rider cups. You know, I don't know about course fit there. Morakawa hasn't done much at all. Burns hasn't done anything lately. There's a big golfer out there. Just shot a prize. Now that's the, you let me write into it. I don't know if we're ready for this say we've got plenty more PGA tour stuff to say, but it's each out of 58 today. You know, with a bogey. Even on a sort of prefer, even praying preferred lies, even like on a course where it's pitch and putt, it's still really friggin hard to shoot 58.

With a bogey and no Eagles. With a bogey. Yeah. He's he's figured something out of this golf swing recently. I don't know like if the other guys on the team can stand him, I do think it matters like having sued the tour, having your name lawsuit and those guys, you know, I don't think is it any way they're going to put them on a team? I don't think so either, but I think I can sort of understand

the argument of like, well, you, he was on your most dominant team ever. Like you managed to make it work. Like maybe just silo the live guys together, basically make him and Brooks just play on the same squad. We're like, all right, you guys just go and bash and win your matches and, you know, we'll drink champagne afterwards if we win. It also makes you wonder too. I mean, Bryson, you know, Bryson wins going away and the Crusher's

can't even get it done today. It's disgraceful. They finished, you know, they were there were three back of Torque. Minus six and three back. I noticed that Matthew Wolf, you know, when he was playing so well in the week, Brooks was like sharing some clips on his Instagram about, you know, how well that was going for team smash. I wonder if maybe that Matt Wolf, you know, maybe he's just the ass kick in and he needed

from Brooks to light a fire under him again, play well. Yeah, Wolf, you know, tied for third, three way tied for third with Blandy. David don't call me Yasiel Puegg and Matt Wolf. So, you know, minus 16. I think Blandy's playing well enough probably to get a look for the Euro rider cup team too. Yeah.

The Euro's are not taking any live people's TZ. It's just not happening. You're on set. So before we give like, you didn't, you went all the way down the lead aboard and you stopped short of Ludwig. I know. I know. I feel like maybe you should at least answer whether you still

are bullish on this. You still feel a bullish. I mean, he finished T 14 minus 10. He continues to play like absolute dog shit on Saturdays. And we can't figure it out. We can't figure it out. The whole team shot 66, 66, 71, 67. Stats wise, he was first,

Shokesy enough the tee for the week. He was six around the greens. His chipping's gotten so much better than it was, when he was at Texas Tech. Pudding, he was positive, gave him almost two shots, putting, and he lost two, almost two and a half shots in approach play this week. Which, I have a question just logistically.

Is he even like a European tour member? Like, is he played in enough like European tour events where he's an affiliate member. So he's that question has been answered, I believe. Okay. So he's eligible to be picked. There's no more. Like, bottom line though is like he's been in this funk with his wedges and I don't know. If if I'm him, he needs to go over to Europe. He needs to go over the DP World Tour and let me see what they've got coming up on their schedule. God knows what they have coming up. But like, I mean, he's finished in T-14 with like his B minus game. Okay. Right? Like, I don't know. I like, I find it, I find that to be compelling.

Right? I mean, I, look, and I, I made this point to you in Slack. I think if they don't take him five years from now, it will seem absurd to the intake. Because he'll be like a truly really freaking good player. Like he has the sort of rory potential to be like that next great European dude. And so will it look, you know, I often think back about Hazeltein, like Justin Thomas was probably going to be on that team and then Ryan Moore went on that run.

It's like, okay, we're not going to take Justin Thomas. But like, how much better would it have been for the US long-term if JT had sort of been on that team? Got another Ryder Cup under his belt. You know, like Ryan Moore being on that team didn't make any difference one way or another. But that was just like kind of a little bit what we talk about the old way of thinking of like, oh, well, the hot guy needs to get in on the end. So we're going to take the

hot guy with us and that, I mean, Ryan Moore wasn't a good fit for Hazeltein. I mean, he was, he was a good putter, but other than that, like what was that doing for them and that, you know, Ryder Cup? So I don't know, maybe, like if you're, if driving the golf ball is like super important, I would find out we're Luke Donald. I'd be like, yeah, we'll figure out the rest of it. And you know, he's gonna be like a cornerstone of the team for the next decade, right? I have him hit 14 fairways and give, you know, somebody like a shit ton of looks or seven looks and you know, when he's been all in the shot or whatever. Yeah. And this putting is not a liability. Like, I don't know.

I can't figure out the Saturdays. The Saturday scoring averages like two and a half are three shots higher than the other days, which is crazy. The frustrating thing about the Euro schedule is you've got it like the you got this ISPS Honda world invitational at Gallgorm Castle, just the absolute dog should have been. That sounds me know. 17 to 20. Like they're off for like, they invitational at Galgorm Castle, just the absolute dog shit event. That sounds weird.

17 to 20th. Like they're off for like, they straight up like don't have an event like, you know, other than like the Scottish open for like seven weeks. It's crazy. And then they've got the the check masters, the 24th to the 27th and then the European masters. And then I think I'm assuming that they probably close selection after that one because the Irish open and then the BMW PGA

or after that, but I don't know. I'm not sure when when the the captain's picks need to be in. I know for like it's after the tour championship for the US side, right? Yes. Yeah, so I don't know if that, you know, I don't know when that, when that lapses there, but. Well, you are your European correspondent. So I should probably know that, but yeah, you would think, you know, Irish open BMW PGA would be,

because it's like, I guess if he goes over wins the European masters, you have to pick him. Play your way on. Yeah, right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, I don't know. We can't figure out what's going on with him, you know, on the weekend, uh, specifically Saturday. It just doesn't make any sense. He was paired with Sam Bennett three times this week. You know, it's tough. It's tough for you. Well, it's tough for him too, because Sam plays slow shit and Ludwig's probably like top 10 fast. He goes on tour. Yeah. Okay. Which by the way, JT got put on the clock today. Tinny. Yeah. Yeah. How about, yeah, I mean, we hope we get into this, but how about Celine Boutier getting, getting clocked and basically refusing to sign the car.

I think I know that was, that was Carlos. So who do me? Carlos got to say, Celine's one two weeks in a row. Okay. That's why she was on my brain, but, yeah. Yeah. That was sick. Sam Burns, T 14, Nikolai Hoygard, T 14. Robert Streb, T14. He got, he was 190 second. The FedEx coming into this. Where does Strebber?

SungJ, T14. SungJ needs to kind of, I'm getting to like shit or get off the pot territory with SungJ. Interesting. A little bit, right? You feel like he needs to make like a like show who he is, who he really is or what? Yeah, he probably needs to win, you know, and then people are going to flip that like, oh, like Tommy hasn't won. That's like, well, Tommy's want to launch on your feet tour. I don't know. And then, yeah, Eric Cole and Steven Yeager rounding out the T14 group there. So, which by the way, Yeager, do you see him? T14 group there. So which by the way, Yeager, do you see him? He's made this massive leap this year in driving or in like you know, Stroke's gained Yes, I did see this like it just was basically like I'm gonna hit it as hard as I can every time He said quote the key has been quote super uncommitted swings

All right, which is like it's such a depressing reality in the modern game, right? Yes. That, uh, you see Bryson's comments about, I'm so excited because I can hit it anywhere on the face and it'll end up in the fairway. And I don't have to spend hours and hours after practice like working on, uh, it's like, oh, cool. Like you, like the technology has gotten so good

that you don't have to practice as hard anymore. Like what are we doing? What a wonderful statement about modern sports. It's crazy. Shout out to Luke Donald, by the way, T22. Yeah. This week. Love that.

I'm kind of curious what, like, what his motivation is, is still like, you know, doing this. I mean, obviously the Ryder Cup captains play a schedule allegedly to get like a better look at. Yeah. Much of guys, but, you know, Luke Donne doesn't need to be schlepping it to Carolinas and like, you know, grindin' over. You know, I mean, he's probably, he, Luke Donne's probably hidden in it, like, 26270 at this point. So he's got a, he's got to top up the bank account so he can, you know, probably funnel some more money to the Northwestern. They offered to pay for

all those losses. We're so much to really get comment from him and Fitsy, like there should be like Northwestern, you know, Northwestern journalism students should be grilling them every week. Yeah. Do you support the administration, Dan? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's got to be exhausting, right? I mean, Zach's complaining too. Gosh, any other kind of notable performances here? I see anything that really jumped out. You know, I saw-

Did you see Matt Wallace's comments? I don't think so. Did you see who please share with our listeners the Matt Wallace's comments? Yeah, this is regarding a sedgefield and Donald Ross's work out there and some of the run-offs and the surrounds and all that. Someone asked somebody thought of the course and it's set up. He said, a bit pissed off, actually, with the finish. Yeah, just frustrated. I don't like this golf course. The run-offs are just absolutely ridiculous.

It's just not fun to play. Hit a shot out of the rough in the last and it landed on the front and runs backward 40 yards. Like, it's just not great. Yeah, I shouldn't be in the rough, but it's difficult to hit the fairway all the time, especially like this, just for me. But I don't have to come here.

I wouldn't, but I kind of need to right now. So, you know, play better. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he finished T 45 did not get in the top top 70, but you know, I would say his kind of maiden voyage on, I think, kind of committing to the PGA tour, finished inside the top 100. I mean, a successful season for him.

Shane Lowry missed out on top top 100. I mean, a successful season for him. Shane Lowry missed out on top. Top 70. He started 76th. 5th, 51 this week. He has been going so much drama going on with the US Ryder Cup team that I feel like some of those Euro guys have maybe started to slip a little bit in the last couple of weeks. So I was thinking that was Shane Lauer. I was flying under the radar. I was thinking that a little bit with Shane Lauerie of like, all right, like, you know, I'm going to get chippy with some of these guys and kind of pull their, pull their spot like fits, right?

I'm like, all right, it's, you haven't had a great year or whatever. Lauerie, I looked into it. He's like T12 at the Scottish Open, T19 at Hartford, T20 at US Open, T16 at Open, T19 at Hartford, t20 at US Open, T16 at Memorial, t12 at PGA Championship. It's a lot of like just really solid finishes. His floor is pretty high, I feel like.

So I'm not ready to pull his thing. I mean, we can do. He's gonna have the disastrous J JT 81s. Yeah, than the major studies had, but you know, it's still similar to what the kind of player JT is at this moment. He got Rory, Ram, McIntyre, Hovelin, Hatton, Fullywood. Got those six. You've got Fitzpatrick seven, Lowry, there's eight. I think Seps on the squad. That's nine. I think Team Rose is on the squad, that's 10.

And then you got, yeah, you got two more. And I think, you know, a lot of people want our clamoring for Adrian Moronk, Yannick Paul, things of that nature. I think you have to go Ludwig. I do think they will though, because I that's where I just, I think I understand your logic.

I've been listening to it for a month. I just don't know if like that is the way Luke doll. I just like, okay, so Raspus Huygar, probably two Feastor Famon. Otago, I don't think he's in there. You got, gosh, Jordan Smith, Horan, Campio, Victor Perez, all right, we're good on the European point side. So you've got Maronk, Noren, Shamist Power,

Thomas Dietri. He's played really solid. Like Dietri would be an easy pick. See you, filler. I don't know. I think, I think, Bob, I think for me, Bob's in. Bob's in on points. Yeah. Oh, I think so.

Yeah. So you've got, I don't know, I think you've got, you've got Ludwig and then, because it think you've got, you've got Ludwig. And then, cause it's just a total, total dice roll anyway, right? You've got Ludwig. I would go Ludwig or in like Adrian Dumont, Dates and Sharp. And just that's it. That's what I would do.

I would invest in the future. And you know, they're both gonna be playing a lot this fall. You know, they're both fresh. I don't know. That's that. So, or you go Hoigard, I just, I don't think, I don't know. You know, or it's Moronkin Ludwig. I think that's probably the, you know,

that last spot is totally up for grabs though. I think Moronk's going to make that team. I agree. I think so. You know, so anyway, what else we got on the agenda from Windom anything? We've got Anybody else you were surprised to see kind of outside the top? You know, like I hate talking FedEx cup standings, but this is like the one week of the year where it's actually relevant.

Right? Because it's kind of like the report card from the year. I would say, I was hoping ZB obviously would, you know, sneak up in there. Where's the, I mean, I saw Hedecky miss the cut, but I don't think Hedecky made it up outside the, yeah, he's 56. Yeah. It's been a sort of uninspired season from Hedecky.

I'll tell you someone who I feel like played really well this year. It just didn't quite get it over the finish line on the weekends. Justin saw. Yeah, he did. He had some really good rounds. Justin saw finished 81st on the year. And I don't know. Just felt like he got off the big stars.

He was in the mix and some big events and just kind of faded. So probably played better than the scorecard would indicate this year. Yeah. Gary Woodland, what an uninspired season that's been for me on. I, 90, finished 97th. That's no good. I don't know. It just feels like Gary Woodland should be better than he is always.

Like he's, he'll always kind of like pop up on later boards at majors and then, you know, like obviously like he did pretty well at the masters. He did pretty well at the PGA, I think. I just, I always feel like he should be a better player than he is. And I agree. Um, the, let's see who else we got. Um, my guy, I agree. The, let's see who else we got. My guy, Nore, my guy, Nore on a 101.

Yeah. I hate that for him. I want to see him earning more time out on vis-b. Trey Mollenax would have been Mr. 126 this year if that was still a thing. Thank you. Scott Stallings, 128. He's tailed off since the, the, the Halcyon days of 2022.

What do you think? I'm curious about this. Because we talk about him fair, probably more than he deserves on this podcast. But what do you feel like Akshay's long term, like abilities are? Like is it is Akshay a potential star or potential seat filler or somewhere in between on the tour.

So you won a few weeks ago at Barakuda. He's played really well. He's still very young, right? Very young. I mean, how old is he's now 20? Right. The same age as Tom Kim. It's like a decade young. He's 21. He's a decade younger than a Ludwig, you know? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I feel like it's strange because I feel

like I haven't watched him play a whole lot in the last year or so. So I don't know if his distance has improved and all that, but he's a very good iron player. It seems like he's raised his floor with the driver. But I was worried about him. But 20-year-old putting with the arm lock. Like, if that's where you've begun your putting like journey, how, like, what is that going to be like for the rest of your? I just worry about his frame to, like, back issues and that sort of thing.

That's kind of where I'm at. It's just kind of a slight build. You know? But like maybe that's the thing. It seems like that's gonna be a thing for a lot of these guys who are moving forward. It's like more stress on the joints, more stress on the back and you make your money and then get out.

You know? T-ject. So just looking through other guys that have kind of finished. The Schlong, 141, Cameron champ, 142. Like Cameron champ should be. Cameron champ needs, like I, if you're still like, you drive it so much farther than everybody else.

Like you're legitimately one of the three longest people in all of golf. And you are consistently like 125th of tour or whatever. It's time to figure something else out. Like a new coaching, new approach, new something. Like he ought to have so much of an advantage over the shorter-ader guys. And just, I don't know, was the putting

or the approach or what, but it's crazy to see Kisner, because there's one ninety-nive, which I'm assuming those guys still get into the fall, you know, like through two hundred, but yeah. I'd be slipping slipping away a little bit from his just not having the length that can be. Agree. Camilla was in the booth a little bit this week. Randy was quite soft. I listened to some of it.

It was good. I thought it was good. I think it's funded here a different accent in the the booth. Frankly, just not the same kind of inflections and tones and stuff. I thought he had some good insights. I didn't watch a ton of it. I probably, but I did after Randy pointed that out, I kind of, you know, let him roll for 20 minutes or so in the early part. I mean, look, some of these players who are eloquent and can give like really good insight, I think that's so valuable. It was

like, it's the big miss on like, if Phil could have, you know, had the chair after Fowler, like Phil would have been really freaking good at that and would have made a lot of money at doing it. And, you know, we'll never know, like, probably what that would be like going forward. Because we've been like Roma, though, where like you love him the first two seasons. And then, yeah, and then you're like, God, fuck this guy. Like, he's trying to to, I mean, predict everything and just talk to him. What a, what a quick summary of Phil's entire personality, right? God, I love this guy.

Wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no, that I do. I don't know. I mean, I think he, he does have a way of explaining things that I think is always kind of really compelling. He was doing it at the Masters this year, even when he was such a sour person early at the Masters,

and was like, we refused to speak to anyone as the Champions of dinner. And then when he played that early, like Thursday, good round, and he had like driver off the deck into eight. And he kind of kept prodding him and prodding him a little bit during the media session. And he just lit up finally. He was like, all right, look, I've been everywhere on this course. And let me explain to you like why that and it was really fun and really insightful.

And I just I feel like those are kind of lost opportunities. I mean, who knows, you know, life is long and there may be many kind of maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, you know, who knows? I mean, if what we're hearing from some things, you know, he lost a lot of money gambling as his book is going to come out soon. And I think it's going to detail just how much was lost in the gambling with Billy Walters. And wow, from some of the numbers that we're hearing, pretty staggering. So, you know, I feel says he's not gambling in that way anymore and who knows, but yeah, I'm excited for to do a whole pod about that book when it's ready to drop.

Maybe maybe a multi pod series. We got Tiger joining the board this week. Well, was that Tuesday, news drop there? There were a lot of nuggets in that press release. Let's dig into that a little bit here because I think there's some interesting stuff. This is on the PGA tour website. PGA tour agrees with players on new governance

and transparency measures. Welcome Tiger Woods as a policy board member. That was the headline. You know, they all sorts of stuff about being a player driven organization for the players by the players. Da da da da. So Tiger will be the sixth director. So the new board will be six player directors,

five independent directors, and then the PGA of America director. So he joins Kintley Hoffman, Maldonadi, McRib and Web Simpson. And then they've got Hurley, Jimmy Dunn, Mark Flarety, Mary Meeker, and then Big Randall Stevenson's replacement and then John Linder from the PGA of America. So let's see here. So it says, first, the players and Commissioner Monohym will work together to amend the policy boards governing documents to make it clear that no major decision can be made in the future

without the prior involvement and approval of the player directors, which sounds like, I mean, that's kind of a repudiation of that entire process, right? I mean, Dave, that there's a clear, like, you better effing do this, or we are not moving forward with any of this stuff and you all be looking for work. That's what's crazy to me is like the fact that that statement can even be made and J. Monin still has a job. I wonder if you know there's a sort of a deal here being made essentially that like,

okay, like if you want to keep your job, Tiger has to be essentially like one of the major decision makers going forward and you have to sort of go, you know, you have to come out against the rollback. And you have to do this for us or else we're outsting you in like whatever way we can. Like I have no insight into whether that's true or not, but like it sure smells like, well, Tigers pro rollback. Yes. But so who knows like, you know, who knows what Tigers like private position is. I mean, I don't want to suggest that he's like, he puts just about it, but like, obviously the, a lot of the most of the players are not on Tiger and Roy's camp on that.

But I think like Tiger, you know, if they didn't sort of have Tiger become in a position of power, you have to think that like Jay wasn't going to be keeping his job. But that's the thing. It's like, what is Jay's job at this point? Is he just a, he's like just a puppet now, right? And I don't know. It's like, all right. So we'll continue on here.

Second, the player director's special advisor, Colin Neville, we fully aware of the state of the negotiations contemplated by the framework agreement. And as such, Neville would be provided with full access to any documents or information that he requests as being necessary for him to carry out his duties on behalf of the players. That's column Neville of the rain group. Again, all this shit would have been a lot easier if it just would have talked to column Neville like two or three years ago. Is everything's coming full circle here, right?

like two or three years ago. Is everything's coming full circle here, right? Yeah, but I don't know. Like I feel like, all right, you've got an adult in the room there. You've got someone who lives outside their echo chamber. I think is an important aspect of this. It's like, hey, I've dealt in the real world, I see that what the private equity world is like,

how much money is or isn't available out there. and I can help you if you listen to me. Yeah, he's worked on selling NBA teams. He's currently I think working on selling Manchester United. You just finished selling Chelsea like I feel like we're getting out of before I was like The worst of both worlds, right? It's like it's a player-run tour But it really wasn't a player-run tour, but the people in charge Didn't like we're too arrogant and too Like they just they just had no creativity or foresight so Now it's like all right the players know they have the power, but they're also like Hey, we like I would assume that

Them bringing Colin is like hey like it's there's there's there's certain Things there of like hey, we like we're bringing in an expert here like we don't have all the answers you know and but you guys don't have all the answers either and you've let us into this terrible terrible scenario and misplayed every single hand that we've been dealt But you guys don't have all the answers either and you've let us into this terrible, terrible scenario and misplayed every single hand that we've been dealt. And so like that, that's my thing of like, at some point, they just need to fucking clean house at the tour, right? Yeah. I mean, that's how it works in most businesses.

If you like are in a huge, you know, cluster fuck of a situation. Like I, but I mean, until the players like demand as such, like, who is there out there to basically, you know, clean house and say, I mean, what I get took away from the CDC is like tiger now has, it's not going to play a lot going forward, but he has tremendous power going forward to shape the future of golf. Because who is really going to sit in those meetings and basically say to Tiger, like, hey, you don't know what you're talking about on this. Like, you need to stand down on this.

We've got this figured out. Like, they're all gonna, like, he's gonna have not only enormous sway over the players who are ultimately have the majority now, but also the sort of other executives who are still like, look at him like he's a deity. Like Tiger in a lot of ways is gonna end up deciding what a lot of the future looks like for golf.

Tiger and Yasser probably, like I can't imagine that, you know, two other people matter more than those two, right? In terms of, and if Yasser can like, I mean, I do think that maybe we were sort of a little bit, you know, dismissive of like live in the past. But what I think now is that like Yasser, I'm certainly the Saudis want to be in the Tiger Woods business, right? Whether it's having a Tiger Woods design course or having Tiger potentially come to a clinic

there, I don't know that Roy will ever do anything that in fact I doubt it But I think Tiger has always sort of shown like yeah, I'm willing to sort of go to them at least and you know Make my money and do things that way so it's like if the Saudis say to him like hey We would love to have you design a course here. We'll have to do this and Tiger says okay cool But like I don't think that live is gonna be a part of like what we want going forward Man, if you're the Saudis that seems like an easy call to be like, okay, cool. Like we'll have a team series and we won't call it live. We'll call it something else and you can have your own team.

You don't ever have to play and, you know, we'll tailor it however you want, but like whatever we can get Tiger, like to have you involved, like we're, we're on board with that. So if I were like, if I were Phil, like this, this Phil tweet about, you know, oh, it's so great that Tigers involved. No fucking way, man. Like come on with that. Like I don't think anybody hates to live more than Tiger.

100%. Yeah. So this idea that like that made Phil happy. Like yeah, the player is having more control might have made Phil happy. And then look, like, is there a scenario like if you go back in time where Phil could have played this Tiger role where he was the person who was like, look, I'm

willing to be on the board. I mean, maybe Phil felt like those people weren't willing to listen to him ever. And this was that was what made him so frustrated. But, you know, now Tiger has the sort of power that Phil wanted, which is to say like, Hey, we don't care about the mules and hey, like we are going to shape golf to how we want it as the players. That's what a player run organization is about. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's basically, you know, I don't know. Tiger said, I'm honored to represent the players, the PGA tour.

This is a critical point for the tour. Da, da, da, da. Players think Commissioner Monahan for agreeing to address our concerns. And we look forward to being at the table with him to make the right decisions for the future of the game that we all love. He has my confidence over with these changes. And it's basically saying to like,

the player director has a lot of full transparency in the authority to approve or to decline to approve any potential changes to the tourist part of the framework agreement discussions. So I don't know. We'll see what that means. I mean, we saw like the leak of the schedule this week. Damon reported on that. No huge bombshells. I think everything was pretty much, you know, but it's kind of another instance of, it's just the same shit over and over and over again, right? Like there's no, all right, we're losing match play.

Houston moves to the spring, which I actually, I think Houston's going to get a pretty good field in the spring. And they're kind of sandwiched between Valsbar and Valero. And I think, you know, so Pebble becomes a signature, a quote unquote signature event, which would be interesting. That'll be 77 or 75 spots, notably Tigers event. So Genesis, Bay Hill and Memorial stay as cut events. So I think that'll be like 95 cut down to 50 or something like that So that'll be interesting. That was a big thing for Tiger Jack. I think I

Think the biggest news here is the CJ cup honoring Byron Nelson You know Like what the fuck are we doing guys? I mean In all seriousness, I'm excited that Pebble is like a designated. So we're going to see Rory at Scotty play Pebble and stuff and much people who otherwise wouldn't. And a smaller field too. I assume that'll be probably what, two days of, I'm assuming it'll be two days of program then instead of three and maybe maybe spyglass and

you know I'll be keen to see how they do that and fold the celebrities in and do all that stuff while also making it like a 20 or 25 million dollar event right that's kind of an interesting dichotomy there. Yeah your friends in Canada get kind of you you know, also bones by the big after the masters. That's how about that, man? I mean, it's the poor Canadians just take, they got to stand up for themselves because they keep taking like all the lumps here. Oh, they're, they're so it's so it's so it's heritage after masters. They're still, they're still, they're still there. And then they're, they're, uh, so it goes PGA, which the Myrtle Beach classic opposite the Wells Fargo championship, that's pretty dystopian. So that'll feel like that'll be a top scene.

But the so it goes PGA colonial, RBC, Canadian, open, and then Memorial, US Open Travelers, three, you know, either major or doesn't need an event in a row. No, nobody's playing Canada. No, nobody's playing Canada. It's just like, it's Sunday, maybe. If he can get in, you know, maybe that's fitting of like the Ontario Open, you know, but yeah, I mean, it's got it.

It's like, like the tour goes out of their way, seemingly to shit on RBC and the Canadian Open and they just keep coming back from more. It's their glutton for punishment. Yeah. I mean, maybe they should call the Canadian should call the trap draw hotline and they should let their concerns be heard. Otherwise the only one that's really sandwiched between two designated events is the Phoenix Open, which I feel like that can probably survive on its own merits and they do a good enough job. Yeah, right?

I mean, that's already like an event and that's going to be a party event that people are going to, you know, you're going to get wrong in that. You're going to get probably Sheffler in an anyway. And I think Roy's going there, but you know, you'll get a lot of the top guys anyway. So yeah, and then of course next year's an Olympic year as well. So you got the little break there between three and in wind. Barbous saw does not have a sponsor right now opposite field event TBA opposite. You and I might you and I might have to go to the Paris Olympics just, you know, take in Paris. That's your I'm not always in the golf at like golf, nasty, now, I do not know the answer to that. I that's a good

question. We should look that up. But they should they should play it at more Fontaine. They really should play. Let's see here, 2024 Olympic golf like golf, national. There we go. That's that's a bummer. Because you know, what a thought. Maybe you and I go over play a little more fontaine. It's a top. It's a top. It's a mix. Yeah. It says cool with with golf national 120 players from the Olympic tournament. We'll find a setting and a course to match their ambitions. And then yeah, I think only other notable thing that Palm Beach event does not have a sponsor. No carrier, the AC company was interested in that one, but nothing as of yet.

Raytheon hasn't signed on for anything yet either. Which we have, we heard, I don't know if we ever talked about this on the pod. I don't know what we did. So we had to hear about Ray, Raytheon. It wasn't the tour though. They wanted to be or they like was was afraid of being associated with the Saudi. Raytheon me not wanting to be associated with the tour. Raytheon did not want to mess up their relationship with the Saudis potentially because

you know, listen, there's one thing the world has shown there's a lot of weapons to be sold around the world and you don't want to piss off defense contractors in that way. This is there. Other schedule stuff, the Irish open is going to Royal County down. Oh, so excited about this week. That'll be awesome. So, you know, props to the Irish for finally, you know, getting back to it. It's been, it's been a few years. So KBV, anything else you want to

riff on with live, you know, I know that Aces are finished last place. Torque is now on three to the last four events. Anything else stick out to you? Not really. I mean, I do think like, we talked a little bit about Bryson earlier. That feels like, you know, it does feel like we underplayed that a little bit just because it's, you know, it's Bryson. And I mean, look, Bryson, I have been a little bit more sympathetic to Bryson than you. You've tried to remind me that he has treated a lot of people poorly throughout his rise and that he's not always the sympathetic figure that me who overdoses on empathy sometimes try to make you out to be, he's more like golf is more interesting when he's around even if he's kind of obnoxious, but

kind of obnoxious, but I, 58's pretty good. And I hope he's like back at being a good player consistently in majors because that would, you know, be fun for all of us, I think, just to have Bryson as someone to talk about. You know, nobody's only one guy's ever shot 58 before in a, I guess, I guess this is not quite fair because like, if you're like really did it in a PGA tour event where we know the standard was and that we know that no one's ever done it that in a PGA tour event where you know, we have certain standards for what the course setup should be. That's the thing like, like I'm super,, like what was the setup at Greenbrier? Right? Like, did this?

It looked like, I mean, a lot of guys were shooting really low scores. So it did not seem like it was, you know, totally out of the ordinary. Uh, I'd be super keen to know like what, you know, what was the setup? And comparing contrast to that with how the PGA TOUR set it up, they were there. And not, you know, like not being facetious, like maybe it was the exact same set up. And if that's the case, more, you know, more power to Bryce, and it's also interesting. Stuart Applebee shot 59 there, a green ryer, and then somebody else did too, right? I think that is correct. Third sub, sub 60 score there.

I thought I was interesting, Brooks, coming back from baby, leave, minus three for the week. Beat his brother by one. Love that, for him. I mean, glad that he was able to, you know, get that done. I'm sitting here on the live website. I'm trying to like literally like be able to go down the leaderboard and I can't even effing do it.

It's like just all this team stuff. Like I got you got to click around and then you get to go to all rounds and all that. But I did think it was interesting. Matt Wolf beat Brooks by 13 shots in three rounds. That's looks and suck it. Brooks like he called out Mattfe and, you know, he delivered. I look, the corrupt, the anti corrupt golf media is telling us we're not talking enough about live. Make your damn website a little bit easier to read. I'll go back and watch

the highlights. I'll report back to see on what the highlights were like. Maybe, you know, maybe it's time to write a price and call. Yeah. Just to see. I love that. Also Ron Cross, chief like events officer who live getting forced out this week. Yeah, I wonder, I have no idea what that means. I saw Joe Bill referred to him as one of the few serious voices in the room, which sent the live voice into a tissue. X, X, PGA tour, X, Augusta National, or Master's Guy. So interesting. We would be remiss if we didn't give some love to the women Scottish open.

I watched quite a bit of a yesterday. I didn't see too much today. Celine Boutier is in Fuego right now. She wins by two. She won last week at Evion. She won this week by two. Wasn't really all that close. Hugo Kim, shot 65 to finish two back. Maya Stark and Hinaka Shibuno were both kind of really like played really really nice first two days. Maya shot 69 65. This was a Dundondled links which not a fan of Dundondled, kind of really like played really really nice first two days. My shot 69 65. This was a done Donald links, which not a fan of done Donald kind of a fake links, if you will.

But you know, I think Hanaka shot like 77 on Saturday. So not great there. Maya finished T4. She had an ace today. Still shot 71. finished T4. She had an ace today. Still shot 71. Patty T continued to share some signs of life. T6 for her. Madeline Sackstrom, T9, headman to next week at Walton Heath. For the women's British. And then we've got Minji played quite well. Stephanie Kiyaki. He's heard good play this season. So Lynn Grant, T20, I would be remiss if I didn't, didn't mention her as well. So always a good event.

I would love some more working diddies though. Any picks for the women's British opening? We got some of our haters going over there to do some radio. A new, new venture for LU to be calling live radio. Live golf on the radio. Yeah, open radio. Cody and I was supposed to be going over. It's first week of school for Freddie this week.

I wanted to be home for him with that. So you can tune in. They make it super easy on the app. And on the website, tune in radio wise. We'll tweet when they're live and all that. But yeah, Randy and Cody joining that. I'm stoked. I think Walton, he's going to be great.

Proper ball strikers, golf course, lot of elevation change, a lot of Heather. Yeah. Have you played Walton Heath? I have not. I have not. I watched the, I watched the way too much of the British masters a few years ago when they had it there. The weather was awful. Um, kind of, it's has to be the kind of enjoyment and the rare, the rare course that I have played that you have not really. What do you think? Yes. I liked it a lot. It's all I played 36 there after the Burkedale open in 17. We did a little tour of the Heathland lands and played St. George's Hill and played

Walt Neath and had a lovely time there, had it with a proper lunch in between. So I've heard from people that it's more, you know, big ballpark, plenty of space to put grandstands, plenty of space for logistics, not quite as much soul or as much, you know, atmosphere as some of the other Heathland, Surrey kind of courses, but, you know, proper, proper Heathland course and kind of holds it so and it's, it's, it's a really good tournament golf course. Yeah, this is cool. I mean, you know, they have the sort of the purple, you know, flowers that bloom there and that kind of makes it, you know, you hit it by the pound.

Yeah, you hit into that stuff and it is a total, like guessing game, whether you can hit it out of there, or whether you're totally boned, and you're gonna break your wrist trying. So I liked it a lot. Still have a pullover from there that I wear a lot. That this was a very cool stroll that day. So yeah, we'll have a preview up this week of that as well. Yes, we will.

Had some quick hitters here real quick. Western Am. I had a lot of fun watching this. Our guy Gustav Fremout played quite well. We had this point. I see Gordon Sargent skipping that one. Kazuma Kobori from Zealand, 21-year-old, one, of course, Akshay's the same age.

Tom Kim's the same age. It's really not that impressive. But very, very short hitter, I think, which is always in play. So played quite well. Westerns are an impressive win to, you know, between stroke play like that and then like, it's like a, it's a slog, man, you have to play a lot of golf. So what else have you got? how Cabrero was released from prison? You know, apparently I was I was joking that I thought he should just get to be the honorary starter at the masters, you know, like he served his time. What what a better testament to the fairness of criminal justice system.

If you serve your time, you can go back to your old life. But apparently he cannot like get a visa now because it's a convicted felon. So it's unlikely that he'll be able to play the masters. This is mostly speculative from what I did some reading on it, though. So, but I would, you know, look, obviously, looks like what on Hill did was some horrible shit. So definitely like in real life, you should not be allowed to come back to the masters after assaulting his partner or whatever,

but part of me thinks that on-hels are just trying to show up. Like, you know, sneak them into the country in a private plane. Who, cause, what is Fred, really gonna bar him at the door from showing up. Like, you know, it says lifetime, until you're 65, you should get to come to the masters.

Why not roll the dice and try? He should all over. He should all over at Wayne player. He should. I think Wayne's got some experience to doing travel company. Wayne could at least get him some counterfeit tickets to get him up through the gate.

Allegedly, allegedly, excuse me. That's right. Cornfairy just wrapped, Roger Sloan, is your winner out in Utah? You know, it was like a hundred and thirty at the start on the Cornfairy Tour. He's thirty-six. I'm kind of like, like, if you bounce down enough times, like if you have your PGA to work hard,

then bounce down enough times back to Cornfairy. Who? Like, that's it, man. Or you should have to take a year or two off. And then... I love this idea. You threw this out on our talk about. to Cornfairy. Like that's it, man. Or you should have to take a year or two off. And then I love this idea. You've just had an hour to talk about if eventually you should just have to go play on another tour.

Like you shouldn't get to keep bouncing up around. You can still play Pro Golf. You just like you can't plan on going to the world. You should have to go play in Europe. That would be great. That's how we, you know, you used up your eligibility. Yeah. More Americans should have to go over and play. Yeah. More more Americans should have to go over

play. Yeah. There were a few guys. I think I should be about this week that, you know, like Roger Sloan, Jamie Lovemark, some other guys were just like, man, like, you've kind of got you took your shot. Yeah, it's just not there, you know, like, you know, people are tossing like Tom Leaman at me or Spencer Levina, I'm like, Spencer Levina, is that a very successful PJ Tworkour era? And she shy of 125 corn fairy tour starts. So I've often thought that that would be sort of an interesting book of like life on the margins of like the corn fairy tour, but like about 10 people would read it. So yeah, I don't think I wanted to dedicate a year of my life to writing about that.

Actually, KVD, I wanted to get your take on this. So this college conference realignment debacle. No, I think, I haven't seen anybody look at it to the prism of college golf as of yet. And Cal and Stanford are both very good collegiate golf programs, as well as Oregon and Oregon and Washington are gonna be Total like fish out of water playing Playing in the big 10 We have an in conference match against Rutgers this week. So we're gonna need you to miss seven days of school for

I mean, I saw TC something, I don't know if you saw this, that Cal has $439 million in athletic debt. I mean, I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. you see something, I don't know if you saw this, that cow, cow has $439 million in athletic

debt. Yeah. Because they built it. They tried to, they said knocking the stadium down, they tried to renovate the stadium and it sits on the fault line. So cow, one of our premier athletic, excuse me, academic institutions in the entire United States, like anybody who sends their kid to Cal would feel pretty proud of like, hey, you know, my kid went to Berkeley, they're going to get a great, you know, degree of great education

that can get a job in a lot of places. They so got caught up in the arms race of college sports, mainly football. Yeah. That they're now almost, you know, half a billion dollars in debt, which is just fucking stupid. At what point do colleges just need to truly get out of the minor league sports thing? They'll never do it because of it's being such a potential moneymaker for the winners of the deal. But it's just gross to think about, I mean, like, the way that the Pac-12, like, fucked up their thing so badly, like, that is one of the, that

should be like taught in business classes. I'm sure it will be. I'm sure there'll be a whole Larry Scott case. I've heard some stories about that dude who like he just is so clueless, but did not know at all how like, you know, TV rights and stuff worked when he decided to kind of Leroy Jenkins his way into like projecting ESPN steals and stuff and going on their own. I thought the handshake agreement that the other guy, the current guy, Clive, Clive Cover, whatever that he, you know, had with the big 12 in the ACC. Like, I looked him in the eye. Glad he's a good man.

But I mean, like, it's like Stanford even. Like, I was reading a Pat Forty column earlier about the effect that this will have from a Olympics perspective too, because Cal and Stanford produced so many Olympians and so many sports, you know, track and field and swimming and water pool and all that stuff. And it's like, you know, it's like, what does Stanford do? I mean, like that's a, they're like one of the best athletic programs in the country.

You're in, you're out. You know, Cal's got kind of an interesting, I mean, Cal probably has too many sports too, but like some of these programs, I think, are going to probably move to like Boston College has like, like they're swimming is like, cool, like you want to swim here. It's like, it's a D1 sport, but we like basically fund it like a club sport, you know? So you can have the same collegiate experience, but we're not going to put any money into it.

You know, I don't know. I just think about like, like the pack 12s, right? Of like, you know, I mean, I know like that's like so far down the, the priority list and the ladders for as eyeballs and, you know, but it, like it sucks that like UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, like aren't playing golf together anymore and Stanford. Like it just doesn't make any sense. And then Oregon state and Washington state, it completely fucked. And then it makes me wonder too. Like, you know, you see what's going on with Florida state or like you wonder what,

like at what point do schools like Alabama or Georgia or Florida get together and say, you know what, fuck Vanderbilt? Fuckmas. Like, what are they bringing to the table? You know, let's increase our share here. I mean, look, at this point, make them into a 20 per, you know, team super conference, leave everybody else behind, let everyone else go back to sort of sanity. I just think these people who are fucking with the Golden Goose of like not, like always thinking we need more, more, more more we need to get involved in

You know our own regional network we need to basically like you know be getting $50 million our distribution per school of all this stuff like it ruins The basic the thing that makes college sports special and tolerable to a lot of people is like hey You know, I realized this is essentially minor league sports. I mean, it's so funny to talk to people in Europe, like I was talking to Jamie Weir about this, about college sports in Europe. They're just like, what are you talking about?

Like there's none of this makes any sense. It's just minor league sports, right? But in America, we have this like, sheen of like, you know, oh, like it's no, it's special because it's like my school, it's my old modern, it matters, you know, the rivalry is what matter. If you fuck with that, then what is the difference

between, you know, it being minorly exports and not? And so there's the greed and the sort of lust for more money has grown so much that they are fucking with that. They are tearing up the tradition and the rivalries of it. And eventually, I feel like the backlash isn't gonna come, or it's like, hey, what do I care about this? If Oregon and Oregon state aren't going to be playing each other, why would I bother to worry? I mean, I grew up, you know, in the same town as the Amherst Montana, I played two years of college football there. Montana, Montana state still means

something to me. I wouldn't care if Montana was like a bigger, better school and was suddenly like, you know what, we can make $20 million playing Idaho or playing Wyoming. None of that would mean shit to me. I just be like, I don't, nothing matters of that. I want to see them play Montana state, want to see them play their traditional rivals, Eastern Washington, all that stuff.

And that's at a larger scale. That's what's gonna unhappen, I think. You know, look, you want a high estate to play Alabama in the championship game every year. Great. Go off and do that and leave the rest of college sports alone so that, you know, there can still be a golf match or swimming match or water polo match between Cal and Stanford. Well, there's certain stuff too that, you know, it's like it's all about this inventory, right? And you know, all these networks want inventory at some point like Nobody's gonna give a shit about half this inventory

right like Maryland You know Maryland versus Washington who cares right or like like nobody cares about half these matchups that were taking place anyway and then lump more on to them. You know, and it's kind of the same thing with like their PGA tour schedule, right? Of like it's like the full series almost. It's like, yo, like these tournaments are happening. Nobody gives a shit It waters down the product and the best players aren't playing against each other. The conferences are able to hold like, you know The TV networks hostage in the sense of like, all right. If you want like Alabama Auburn, you got to give us Vanderbilt, Kentucky, you got to put that on ESPN 2, where you got to put that on the SC network, you got to put that

on ESPN, you know, but that's where some of this stuff is so tiered now to where the big 10 has their partner with CBS, NBC, and Fox. Now, and it's like, you know, some of them get the best games, right? And it's like, at some point, like these lower tier games even within the big 10 aren't gonna matter or mean anything. I don't know. I will say though, like, you, I've,

I've joked and joked about this with the live stuff. And this is, it's not just live, it's like PGTWRSTOP2. You can basically put any football game anywhere and it will draw a higher rating than any golf matchup. So, like at least football is being driven by demand. Whereas golf is being driven by fantasy and like the reward of it financially is driven by a country that's once to improve its reputation.

Yeah. And the football at least can sort of say like, yeah, well, there's a lot of people who are going to watch this. And so we'll put it on television for them to watch. And though we can sell commercials off of that. That doesn't exist for golf. Well, it's funny too. If like if golf gave a shit about the product, you know, you look at baseball,

like baseball is having a massive comeback season. They had a huge weekend this weekend, right? And it's like, it's like, it's a 12 to 12, like a 14 sellouts or something. Yeah, like what they do, they they for hold back the ball and they started enforcing pace of play. Right. And you know, like what does golf need to do? Probably somewhat similar stuff. And then they didn't let themselves be held hostage by the biggest hitters and they let like skill like sort of, you know, be differentiated between like different kinds of players and people. And then they, and then they, you know, and if golf just did that, then we could go to more interesting venues and we could, like, it opens up so many more interesting things. So I don't know. All, I think all that to say too,

is like it's funny too. Like, I'm a little bit, we're heading into like FedEx playoff season. Get excited, right? We got the next three weeks or Memphis, Chicago. I'm actually excited for Chicago. I'm gonna, you know, I'm somewhat excited for Memphis too. Like I think there's gonna be,

I'm keen to see like who comes out firing if speech playing well or who's kind of back to the grind a little bit. But even in August, even before football starts, I still feel like this shit gets washed out to the point of like, doesn't even matter trying to stay away from football and steer clear from football. I would rather have the playoffs in September, October, you know, or even earlier on in Doom, and you know, Doom in early July or something like that. But I just feel like everybody's on vacation,

it's August, kids are going back to school soon. It's just like everybody golf is the last thing on people's minds right now, you know, at least watching golf, playing golf, yeah, like sign me up, you know. Yeah. I still think it's the Shane Bacon's idea. It's like if you just flip the whole thing,

we could rethink the whole thing and have it build throughout like the winter to like where, you know, the players is the Super Bowl of your PJ Tour season, whatever. That would mean something, right? Like kick off the, like made, it would build interest up into the major season and the majors could sort of, but they won't, you know, it's part of the problem

with the PGA tour, like, being sort of, you know, insecure about not having a major. Like, they want to sort of be on the same level as the majors instead of like realizing, like, maybe we should be different, like, differentiating ourselves from that product and build turns something else. It's being a golf that I am actually excited about this

week though, US women's am at Bella. Oh, love that. Yeah. Primetime. I mean, uh, Bella is freaking wild. Uh, it's going to show so well on TV. I'm, I'm really, really stoked for that one. It's been awesome.

Last couple of years. Chambers Bay was sick. Nice. Got any, uh, any, any ladies you're watching in particular? That's right. Saki Baba, as always. Defending, right? Yeah. I don't know. It's always something like I try not to research too much. I like to be surprised. Sure. You know, Davis, you know, Morgan, we'll see what happens. I got to go to the field a little bit. I'm not even sure who's qualified or not qualified. So, um, we'll see on that front.

And then KVV, last thing I had on the, uh, on the agenda, Jack Nicholas lost, what lost his case, uh, name image likeness. He lost the claim to his name. I hate that for, for he should be previously known as Jack Nicholas TC. It's tough. You know, we got all these call that. Right.

You can't even let me use my name anymore. You know, all these Ohio State kids, they can use their name, make money off of it. I can't even, I can't even do it. This is ridiculous. I mean, Andy Katzenmore, he got to sell his name. And I was like, I'm back in the day. Yeah, I've never heard that name forever. Love to have the Katzenmore, he could sell his name, and all that. I'm back in the day. I've never heard that name forever.

Love to have you, Katzenmore. Like just cowboy collar. Like if you were going to invent a Ohio State linebacker from scratch. Yes. But yeah, I think Housekeeping was, NLU was, like we said, Cody and Randy over in London. We'll have some videos coming out.

I think the Italy videos coming out this week. I promise people can yell at me online if it's not. I think we've got another film room coming out this week as well. One of our other Omni film rooms as well. And then we'll have a trap draw record in owners pod this week. Hell yeah. I'm stoked for that.

Yeah. I'm very excited for this honors pod. It's been it's been in the it's been cooking for a little bit. I don't want to reveal who we're taking into. But I know you and Neil and I are pre jacked by the three, three very, very strong candidates here. So and that's some point. Thanks to the people out there who who heard the first honors pod and called for more. I've been clamoring for it. It really is. I'm going to be a little bit more. uh, candidates here. So, and then at some point, thanks to the people out there who, who

heard the first owners pod and called for more, they've been clamoring for it. They've really been clamoring for it. Yeah. I think assuming the success of this one continues will, uh, you know, will continue to take some, you know, input, but probably just do what we want. But I think this will be a series that continues throughout the, uh, the fall and, and beyond. Yeah. And then I think we'll have a matchup is this week or in the coming weeks, something to look forward to, a little Neil golf adjacent video from Hoi Lake. It's sponsored by. I got to see some of that up close,

just painted in only maybe 10% of it, but it was very fun to see Neil out there glamping and and talk to him every day about how that experience was. He saw, he saw how the other half lives, you know, there's, there's a lot of interesting characters you meet at three in the morning at the campsite. I will say, open championship, one of the best deals though out there going, like you can get your whatever, if you want to go to the open championship and you can get picked in the to be in the campsite. It costs like, you know, 50 bucks or 50 pounds a night.

You're going to find that you're going to either a single place around an open championship for, you know, under 200 pounds a night, whatever. So it's a hell of a deal. If you can, you know, get get a nice little set up there. And we met tons and tons of people were very, you know, super enthusiastic buying us beers like wanting to, you know, we were joking that we were going to like end up singing karaoke. That didn't happen. Thank God. But they had a nice scene there at the

campsite. Well, it's a run-up back at true next year, you know? I think the only complaint about the open Championship was the merchandise this year was just ungodly expensive, right? Yeah, I did one dip into the merch tent and was not really impressed with the selection and also the prices seemed pretty high. Usually I try to get like one thing from every open at least, you know, because it just feels kind of cool. Like people like, oh, you would know how I like cool. Like just didn't, I couldn't find anything in there. That was, uh, tell you what was fire.

They had those yellow umbrellas. Oh, yeah, those were great. Those were great. It would rain so much early that I was, there was, they were totally gone. So you couldn't get any umbrellas. But if I, if I could, I want to say real quick too, over on the, I want to just say thank you to all the people who like offered to like go and get my clubs

out of the Newcastle airport. I must have 15 messages of people be like, you know, Kev, I'll, I'll go do this for you. What a nice testament to the Anilio community that someone was basically going to go and storm the luggage department in Newcastle on time and get my clubs and a pond time. A pond time. Thank you. They're gonna come after you. I know. But that was that was just very very cool. So yeah, I mean, I think some people were we're threatening to storm Necker Island down in the Feeville ice, Richard Francis, personal island. Bob Herrick just sent me a thing about a woman who the airline said that her bag was lost.

And so she she knew where it was because of an air tag. She went and flew to it and got it. Somebody tagged me that this week and and the person in luggage office was like, we would have sent this to you. Like, we have to comment. She was like, I couldn't get this to you. Like, you know, I have to comment. You're like, I couldn't get a hold of you. They wouldn't tell me. Exactly. You can't get all of them.

That's the most of your anything. There might be, I'm tempted TC to use whatever journalistic powers I have left do an entire like story about golf club crimes committed by airlines. Just on pros are on. For just on everybody like this. Oh, we should I should open this up to people to send me an email. If you're listening, if you've listened to the end of this pod, you're, you're true believer. And and you send me an email about what happened to your golf clubs on an airline and how like helpless and angry you felt because it's time to put some of these people on notice that we are gonna rise up

and we're not gonna take this anymore. You know what, and the trap travel sponsor that. Thank you. Might as well be the first, like deep, NLU deep dive investigative project. What to do when the airline just absolutely shits all over your golf vacation by stealing your clubs and lying

about where they are. Well, with that, thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you for hopping on KVV. Good to have you back from your travels out west. And thank you to everybody who bought something in the N.A. ProShot this week. A lot of our fall collections stuff starting to drop, a lot of our H&B, foot joy, head covers, all sorts of stuff. So thank you to the board, something should be arriving here

in the coming days and we hope you enjoy it. If you haven't yet, just check us out, small shop. Two of my friends, Corey and Amanda, they played in the couple's tournament and our thing in our country club today and they had matching NLU outfits. Just incredible. Yeah. About that. So.

Stuff for the ladies in there too. Yeah. That's right. So good stuff. Crack on. Get a right club. Be the right club today. Yes.

Be the right club. That's better than most. How about it? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.