No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 751: Sanderson & KFT Tour Championship Recap

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

DJ and Soly fire up the Sunday night pod with some thoughts on the Sanderson and the PGA Tour's Fall Series as Luke List emerges from a five man playoff to win in Jackson. Then it's on to some additional Ryder Cup reactions from DJ (18:00) and some additional reporting surrounding the Cantlay and Schauffele situations. From there we transition to the Korn Ferry Tour Championship as James Nitties, Golf Channel broadcaster and former PGA Tour pro, joins us to recap the notable stories from the weekend (46:00). We close with some assorted news as notes from the world of golf including the Dunhill, Lexi Thompson's upcoming appearance at the Shriners, the recent TGL announcements and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang, a podcast, fall series edition, Sally here, joined by my guy, DJ Pye. DJ, how was Patrick Cantler's wedding? It was good, man.

No hat lines for anybody. Everybody was looking really nice and clean out there. No, I am sadly back in Milwaukee, where the weather has turned. It's a little chilly, but we're embracing it. You know, the, the leaves are changing. We've got October fest going on this weekend. It's, it's feeling like the FedEx fall over here. So I finally, you know, you just, that feeling's in the air. Fall hit today in Jacksonville long sleeves outdoors during the day time for the first time since probably March so Congratulations. Just morning. You're gonna be get a lot of text this fall about how good the weather is down here Episode brought to you by our friends at title us the new title is T series irons

We've heard from Randy T.C. and myself on how our iron fittings have gone the pie man is up next We're gonna put them on the stand and find out how his transition into the new T-series is going. The titleist approach to fitting is built on three dimensions of Iron Performance distance, dispersion, and descent angle. Finding the optimal balance of all three will take your game to a whole new level of approach consistency. Go to titleist.com to learn more and find a fitter or fitting event near you. Again, your fitting cost goes towards the cost of your new clubs. I don't know if people know that. I'm going to say that 50,000.

I don't think I knew that. Yeah, exactly. So you do got to turn into the podcast, Pymeth. Well, I mean, I knew when you said it last time on the pod, I knew it. I wasn't just learning right now, but as of recent history, I don't think I knew that. You know, sneaky a lot to talk about.

I mean, we're still coming off the rider cup. We got Sanderson. We had Cornfairy tour finals. A lot happened there. The Dunhill is, I don't know what still coming off the rider cup. We got Sanderson. We had Cornfairy tour finals a lot happened there. The Dunhill is, I don't know what's going on with the Dunhill right now. It's semi-rained out, mostly rained out. I don't know how they're going to finish that one. But as of time recording this, we have there only 36 holes to wait through that tournament. We got LPGA.

We had Epson tour finals. We got a bunch of other stuff that has happened this week. But sneaky, fun finished to the Sanderson. It happened during witching hour of the afternoon football games, but hopefully people that too did got a little tree. We got a five man playoff this evening. It was a good lesson in expectations today, I think. You know, my expectations weren't high for the golf. We've we've said on this, on this here program many times, the fall golf is what you want to make of it. It's fairly optional from a viewing perspective. Still a lot on the line and you still see guys get

choked up and tearing up and all kinds of stuff. But man, between the kind of a great double on the old golf channel today with the Corn Fairy Tour finals hosted by our good friend, Shane Bacon. Some good stuff to talk about there. And then yeah, kind of a sneaky, fun, chaotic, weird finish to the Sanderson, where everybody looked like food poisoning going on, just vomiting everywhere. People are just throwing up all over themselves, who wants it less. Always my favorite golf tournament to watch is just guys clearly holding on for dear life. It's just really funny. When you see these guys come out and they get out to 17, 18, 19, 20 under par, they look invincible and then something flips on those last like 12 holes

and nobody can hit a fairway, nobody can hit a greed, they're chippin', you know, they're trying to get up and down from everywhere it's just, it was really, really fun. So congrats to Luke List who was the you know last man standing in a five man playoff who was the last man standing in a five man playoff, not how I thought that was necessarily going to end, but just a really fun afternoon of watching golf. It was, it was so perfectly false series, which is we have Ludwig Obert, Ludwig Obert again, I don't know how to pronounce it, despite how much we've talked about him in a playoff with a former mortgage loan officer from a couple

years ago. We have a guy recovering from the putting yips. Maybe, maybe still has the putting yips who eventually makes a 50 foot bomb in the playoff to win the event. We have Scott Stallings who has not once since 2014. We have Henrik Norlander who was a Swedish guy that was Patrick Reed's college teammate. It was just a glorious mix of guys. Carl, you and dunked one from the fair, from the fairway on the 71st hole to get into what eventually you wouldn't get into the playoff. He bogies 18 or else it would have been a six way playoff. Mark's Hubbard, three puts from 12 feet to miss out on the the playoffs. I think I saw that Lukeless winning probability after he finished the tournament, after he finished 72 holes was 3.2% and Ben Griffen, man. I mean, it was

a real struggle down that back nine. He had a one shot lead play in the last hole, hit a decent drive. You could see the ball sitting up in the left rough. And I mean, as soon as Smiley said it, Smiley gets on there and he's like, it's left pin. Oh, you got to do here, man, just fine. Anything to the right and center of the green, like just cannot miss this left.

Just cannot do it. I was like, oh my God, I know exactly where this ball's going. Pulse it left, his family was there, green side, he couldn't get it up and down, it was a tough scene. I feel like I still don't know a ton about Ben Griffin. I think I would really like him. I'm kind of afraid to get into the Ben Griffin storyline, but he seems like a great dude.

I don't want to regret saying that, but he seems like a really likeable guy, and that was a tough scene. Yeah, a bit of a F Figala light experience, right? When, you know, like, oh, this seems like a nice guy, great story, and then just the driver absolutely goes away on that back night, and he's just kind of holding it on for, for dear life.

So yeah, being emotionally invested in that story would be, would have been a tough way to, uh, to spend your day. Ball strike the shit out of it this week, uh, in Jackson, but yeah, just could not find a driver. That's so it's just like what a scary place to be. When the driver just goes away, you have no prayer. You're trying to go to the three wood, three woods not working. You're trying to go back to the driver. That's not working. It's just what an uncomfortable place to

spend four hours trying to just hit fairways. And what did he hit like three fairways today? I say, how would you like to be the 54-hole leader come out and post the lowest strokes gain off the tee of the entire field, 78 of everybody that made the cut that played on Sunday. He lost 3.2 strokes off the tee alone and ended up in a playoff and lost it. It was tough.

So not good, not good. Good week for Ludwig, you know, gotta be a little jet lag to going back, the only player from the Ryder Cup obviously to, actually, his caddy Jack was on my flight back from Rome to Chicago and, you know, he's talking to him for a sec and like, oh, hey, you know, Godspeed,

getting back to Orlando, say, hey, to Madeline for me, he's like, oh, no, man, like I'm, I'm going to Mississippi. I was in my head, I was like, Oh, hey, you know, Godspeed getting back to Orlando, say, hey, to Madeline for me. He's like, Oh, no, man, like I'm, I'm going to Mississippi. Oh, in my head, I was like, Oh, cool. You must have like, I don't know, you must have picked up another bag or I guess he's caddy for someone else. And then flip it to the tournament out of like Friday. I was like, Holy shit, love me.

He's playing this event. Why? But he's got to, he's got to get a status locked up. You know what I'm saying? He's, he's a, he's took another big step that, with a, with a T2 finish this week. He's honoring his commitment. You got to hand it to him. It's funny how I view, I try to view everything Ludwig plays in with like, he might be like

Rom, eventually. I'm like, imagine John Rom in a playoff at the Sanderson. But if you view everything he does through the lens of like what he might be, which is potentially a top 10 player in the world. It becomes that much more funny. And just like, remember, when he's in a playoff in Northlander, I think one of my, one of my favorite things is when they, I think it's at my a kova. I think they have the plaque for John Robb on the first tee.

Like this is like where John Robb hit his first professional, his first professional golf shot or something like that. The fall, I don't know, the fall is weird. It's the falls everything you want to make it, you know, make it out to be. There's a lot of, there's a rich text to pull from if you really want to get in there. I thought what you were going to go with was when we interviewed Tiger back in 2018 and we were asked him about, you know, I forget about the question was something about that. But he goes to talk about the John Deere when he was like, you know, what, when I lost to the gripper, gripper, and he's very worried.

First, and fury reference here, the, of the podcast in a while. But that's, that's how I pictured that one. But yeah, he's, we're going to see him, he made me want a freaking month, month and a half, whatever that guy has had wins on the European tour. Almost wins the BMW PGA championship goes to and to it the rider cup and then heads here and almost wins in a playoff as he comes as the season comes, comes to a close. What are we, how are we feeling about the fall series so far? I think it, I mean, I tune in on Friday night and it made me a little, just made me a

little sad. It was bleak out there, like watching Nick Watney finish, like, seven shots off the cut line and stuff. As they were coming in, it was a shocking, I've rolled X Jason Duffner rolling through of just like, man, it's such a weird period of guys just playing for status. It's like an extended Q school almost as we wrap up the season. When it's I'm in favor

of it not being part of the FedEx season, but man, is it weird for the actual events once they're here? Totally. I'm just kind of scrolling through the leaderboard country music sensation, Eric Cole continuing to try to rock it up. So imaginary leaderboard. It's weird. You can convince me that they absolutely should not have the first three rounds on TV for

the reasons you mentioned, just kind of just a sad, expensive experience for everybody. But once, you know, I mean, once you get to that back nine on Saturday or on Sunday and you start to get a little bit of understanding of what things mean and, you know, the winter still gets in the masters and they're still the two-year exemption and they're still like, there still is good stuff on the line. But yeah, I'm with you on like Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I don't know that it's going to be tough for a TV audience to really get up for that. But you know, if you're putting on your optimist hat, they're still sure raising a bunch of money for charity. It's a good thing to do in the town of Jackson, Mississippi.

It's, you know, they're sure people had a good time out of the event. I don't know how they keep getting, you know, presenting sponsors to like pony up the dough for these things. It feels like just masterful sales job by the PGA tour, if you will. But, you know, like I said, I got enough energy at, you know, October 8th, 2023. I got enough energy for a good fun back nine

in front of the TV, but I'm not going to pretend like I really watch too much else other than that. I think it's totally a reasonable thing if you want to peak your golf energy to peak this fall. Like just the finishes all you need, like the back nine is kind of all you need on that Sunday, right? Yeah, usually the exactly. The Thursday to Sunday, you know, get there is great for the Genesis, but not as much

for this one. Indeed, I sent a message earlier saying, hey, the next time the mules complain about anything, just remember you can get a million bucks for winning this tournament. I do need to revise that statement because I'll edit that to say the next time the mules complain about something, just know you can win 1.476 million dollars for winning this tournament, which was a shocking amount for a winner of a fall series of it. I did not know this person was that good. What a Ponzi scheme. That's, that seems wild.

Yeah. So, huh. Yeah. Carl Uin seems dead set on like just making Instagram worthy clips. Did you see his chipping motion from early in the week from greenside? Did you, I don't know. I don't think I saw him in the creek.

I saw him hitting the shot out of the water, but I don't think I saw the chipping thing. He had this weird like take the club back, maybe 30% of how far back it should, and having like an 80% fall through. I'm, and I was just like, man, that clip kind of made its way around. I was just like, all right, this is fall series ready to get weird, man. This is it. This is what we're going to get out of this.

But he's and that's what I too. I need to get to know this too. For sure. And that's what that's what I wish the tour. I mean, it's hard to like say, oh, this is what the tour should be doing, because they're trying to like keep the lights on and make sure that like they have an organization. Probably, I'm sure they're trying to figure that part out first is just like what, what's, you know, ex-stentially happening to our, to our sport. But second on the list, gotta tell, gotta tell better stories in the fall, right?

But it's, it's kind of thinking about your question there is not gonna go. It's like, what is this thing Thursday, Friday, Saturday? Like trying to, my best to figure out what it means, it's such a weird spot right now where you have these like elevated designated signature events, right? Which is gonna be what so many people are going to focus on because those are the biggest names and you know, it's all the things

that we've been writing for, right? Like, hey, there's two PJ tours anyways. There's the upper level and the kind of quad A events. And I know it's tough, but like when you're really trying to tell this, like these events kind of basically exist now to tell the story of seeding those QA events right which as I say that out loud I'm like yeah I don't really know who I'm expecting to to really convince you know hey this is a worthwhile endeavor in October and during football season and during playoff baseball and all of these different things I know it's the 19th priority on people's lists, but the cornferry tour finals was a good reminder today too of like the way things

break, almost like the butterfly effect, right? Like if you want like delayed gratification towards some of this stuff, eventually maybe Ben Griffin wins on tour and you got to see kind of like every step of the process. I think is the best sales pitch I can give for it, right? And like Ludwig's the most obvious example. It's like, yeah, maybe he goes on and wins a major someday and it all started like here's his first PGA tour win. But there's other things too, right? There's like, you know, I'm looking at this later board

and CT Pan finished ninth and it looks like he moved up to 122, maybe he gets his card and then that means he gets into an event six months from now where he has a chance to win, or something like that. If you really want to get into. Look at Max, the back of the hotel. Corn fairy that got him his card and whatnot.

There is, there's somebody's gonna come out of this, like having done really well. Might be country music sensation here at Cole. He was the chart leaper last year. I mean, he's the dude that sticks out to me as like a merge from the pack of mules. So I think again, while like the entire sports being ripped at the seams and we're trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen with like the biggest names in the sport. Am I going to say with a straight face like, Hey, this is the most important thing that

you got to be keeping up on. No, I'm not. But if you do want to see the entire arc of some of these guys careers and you want to see kind of like how all the dominoes fall and how that butterfly effect happens, I think that's the best sales pitch for these events. And let me remind you a lot of you on Twitter, a lot of people out there, you pretended like you liked this back when they were getting ready to redo a lot of stuff on the page. A lot of people were pretending like this is why they watch golf and they care the most about

this. I think the stories man. He's great. Sorry. The stories, the story telling Hiltious Char. There are some great stories that come in and listen, we're hardcore golf fans, we're going to cover it. But yeah, just a, we see the engagement dip this time of year, right? I mean, this is not, not a lot of people keeping up with their promises on that front. Before we get into the next thing, there was a cut though, huh? Oh, seriously. The cam was elected.

That's the kind of was. Dylan Fratell telling me like a 70 foot bomb from off the green to make the cut, which was a decently big pat a little bit more of a payoff than Nick Watney, you know, trying to get it in the house at plus two. This episode's brought to you by a whoop, the official fitness wearable of the PGA tour. If you don't know by now, whoop is a sleek, screenless wearable that tracks your sleep, strain, recovery, stress, and more to provide personalized insights that help you reach your goals. Whether you're obsessed with squeezing out a little more effort in the gym, trying to

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use code N on you to save 10% off your order. PyMAM, this has been one of the more thrilling developments of my career. I think over the last maybe week, maybe week plus, if you will. We all went as a crew to the Ryder Cup at Wishing Straits and it was met with a big gigantic meh from the group in terms of the experience. I spend the majority of my golf thinking time about this event and I left that one being like, huh, am I like, am I way off on this one? Is this event way over hyped? I'm watching you get transformed and just fixated

on solving the Ryder Cup problem. This past week makes me feel so justified. I did a bit of a soul searching over the last couple of weeks of trying to figure out exactly why I do root for the US. And I feel like what you've been putting forth, both privately and publicly, you wrote an article this week about where does the US go from here basically. I feel like that's where my rooting interest comes from,

is like this solving this puzzle, like this is a massively, massively talented group of players that don the American flag, likable or not. I really intrigued to watch them try to beat Europe and having had so little success doing it over the years. And I feel like you're, you're, you're a long on that journey somewhat with me now. What's your, what's your status having a week to decompress in the rider cup?

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's exactly right. And I'm trying to think about why I was talking to somebody else and I think they kind of nailed it and that like, you know, hate to just lay all this on these guys, but a lot easier to root for a team that doesn't have Bryce and Patrick Reed on it. Like, I think that's, I think that's a pretty big part of it. When I was actually going down the list, I'm like, you know what, I like a lot of these guys more than I think I realized. They're still some that, you know, you can kind of,

you can take away certainly, but there's a lot of guys I really like on here. And I'm totally with you that what really struck me on the flight home was just like, how in the hell, how did this happen? Like what, what is going on to keep causing this? It was the first one I'd ever been to, like the first road game that I had ever been to and seeing like I wrote it, you know, in the piece, but like seeing that invasion of the body snatchers, that first day, those first two sessions,

really first like two and a half sessions, was just like, what the hell happened? Who are these guys? Why did they not get off the bus? Why are these completely different players that were like that were watching than the guys that we're used to? And the idea of trying to answer that question and figure it out is so much more interesting than you know, just kind of, I guess we'll see what happens next time. Like now I'm obsessed. Not necessarily because I'm like feel some immense pride in team USA, like I don't,

you know, I don't really care too much either way, but there's just something fascinating about all the culture stuff that the Europeans do, hearing a lot of it publicly, hearing some of it privately, like hearing all of these things that go into it from the European side to get more that, you know, increase the sum of their parts, right? And bring these rookies in and make them feel like they're 14 feet tall going to the first tee like that that quote that came out this week from Bob McIntyre about how he said walking off the range or walking off the putting green to the first tee like he thought he was going to start crying Because he was so nervous and like having the built-in kind of You know system or

Ideology or whatever for rose to go over and just like tell him exactly what he needs Have something that you know, it's all about having people you can lean on of course But like having him, you know, just have the presence of mind of like hey We're all part of like the system here. Let me tell you what you need to hear. And we're going to get through this and we're going to figure it out. And we're going to go somehow scratch out a half point is like, that's what it's all about. And so watching like the US kind of do the exact opposite of that,

seemingly show up and just, you know, almost to have this like, I don't know, just have this unbelievable wealth of talent that just doesn't make the trip seeming clear. At least arrives two days late is like, man, how do we avoid that in the future is such a fascinating, I don't know, just like cultural problem to think about. And I've. And it's been hard to turn off in my head. Yeah, I've been beating myself up on, you know, I base a lot of my golf existence around this event, covering it and trying to get as much information as I can about it. And totally, totally, totally underestimating how bad of a job

Zack Johnson could do. Like, I just, I couldn't believe that there could be that much lost between Steve Stricker's 19 to 9 win and this opening day session. Like I just could not believe that there could be that much loss because I had uneasy feelings going into Whistink Straits

listening to Steve Stricker talk about things. There was a general apathy about things and they just come out and they came out and pounced on them so hard and just absolutely stomped on them. And like we're in the room talking about like, no, no, we're going for the record. Like we want 19 points like speed telling the guys like 19 is the record. We're going to go get it. I did not think it was possible for that same ish group to come out this flat under a captain, a guy that was an assistant on that team. I just don't, I tended to believe that the Americans found the right culture environment for them.

It's not going to be like the Europeans do it. It's not going to be the same raw raw. It's not going to be the same season long approach to it that they take, but what they found, whatever it would be to make work for them. I scoffed at competitive rest because I was like, Hey, dude, like, how long on an advanced you know, it's five weeks off between before the tournament, like, I bet these guys will show up prepared. Like, they're very well prepared.

That were not, wasn't worried about the jet lag. Like, you know, you have plenty of time to adjust and all that. Nope. And I weren't ready for that. And I, it just kind of blows my mind how things could crumble that far. Like a couple of things that were very much in their control, figuring out the pairings earlier definitely seems like something they could have done. It's just mind-blowing. And the biggest regret I have is talking myself into Ricky.

I don't know where that came from. Everything in my head and heart would have told me like, Hey, dude, like this isn't it? It wasn't it before he's returned to playing like the same kind of golf when he was already losing Ryder Cup matches. Why will this way be different on the road? And I don't know, I thought about a lot this week. I'm easier on myself than I was a week ago, but the Ricky one and an underestimating ZJs in capabilities is where the things I regret the most. It's almost like, it's almost like what happened with the US analytics team, right?

Where it's like, okay, well, we've got like, we know Scotty's the best driver in the world. We know that his iron play is this. We know his puttings a little shape, like, you have this whole data set of about these guys that like hey We've we've tracked every fucking shot they've hit in the last 17 years we have all of these things. Well, it doesn't really matter if like Totally different players show up. That's a little bit of like how I feel about the team at large, right? We're it's like well, we know that like they're gonna figure out the jet lag thing We know that they're gonna figure out the pairings thing, like those are assumptions, like of course,

they're gonna do that stuff. They're like, well, what if they don't, right? What if they shoot you? What if they shot you in the face? And that's a little bit of how I'm feeling guys, I'm like, really, I don't know, just kind of taking it all in and listening to, like, listening back to Max's interview that he did

with us last week and hearing hearing some of that stuff was really helpful. Thinking back on like, I don't even know that we reacted enough in the moment, but when KVV dropped down to the Sunday pod and was like, Oh, hey, you know, according to like reporting, I did out there, Brooks and Scotty had absolutely no idea that they were going to play for some together. They didn't know what golf ball they were going to play. All of that thing't know what golf ball they were gonna play. All of that, is like, how the fuck is that still happening, man? Like that's like a meme.

That's like a meme of the event. And this one. And this one. And I'm talking about me for play. Like how far back, like they, going back and doing those last four European radicals, which isn't even the full extent of the losing streak that they've been on that podcast was like,

all right, guys, I mean, you've lost this every which way you possibly can. You had to have learned these lessons, like Jim Furek, you were on all, on are captaining all of these teams. This had to get transferred over. And it just frickin' didn't, man. And I think that was like the crux of,

you know, what I wanted to write this week was, was a little bit of that and a little bit of like, what we talked about on the shows throughout the week. But it was like, man, I know the task force, like everybody kind of scoffs at it, but man, what a giant L to have those, like why are those guys in the room? If they're not preparing this team for like,

exactly that stuff? For exactly, nobody has more experience losing a way, RyderCups than every fucking guy in that room. Man, talk about just not even being able to lose the right way. What the hell were they doing to prep these guys? man, it struck me as just such a missed opportunity. And I'm with you. It's like, I don't, I want to be very clear. Like I don't think it's, you know,

off the US was like singing more songs in the team room. Like everything would be different. Oh, if they had their own Ola chant, like it would be different. If they had better social media videos, it would be like, it's some of that stuff. But man, it's, it's more just like figuring out any kind of culture that is, you know, it almost seemed like the rally and cry from reading all the interviews and seeing all the press conferences and stuff

was like, oh, you know, we're just going to make these guys as comfortable as possible. And we're going to treat this like it's any other week, you know, we're just going to let these guys go do what they do. And, you know, that even to me, I was like, okay, well, sure. Like, that sounds like a good game plan. And, you know, that, even to me, I was like, okay, well, sure. Like, that sounds like a good game plan and there's a different group of guys. But I was glad that we like, also kind of hammered that on our preview pod,

which was like, all right, just hand up, just raising a flag here real quick. Eight of these guys have still never played one of these things in Europe. What if they suck? Like, what if they, what if they just like glitch out a little bit? And I think, you know, from some of the press conference stuff and some of the stuff that's come out the last couple days, it's like, I almost wonder if those eight guys, which are like big names, right? Like the horses that you've really needed to show up,

can't lay standard, Scotty, Max, obviously, but he ended up playing pretty good. Scotty, Max obviously, but he ended up playing pretty good. You know, a lot of like Sam Burns, a lot of these guys that you really needed to show up and get some points. Like I almost wonder if they needed to go through that experience this week to actually take it seriously. And again, to borrow a phrase from you, maybe that's when he put in the clown paint back on because what I think realistically is going to happen. He got you something into 2027 yet.

No, for sure. For sure. But only if like some things change culturally. And I think that includes the prep. That includes like the mindset and like the rallying cry. What do you guys actually playing this event for? Because it just wreaks right now of playing it to like not lose. And I keep coming back to the line you said on Sunday, which was like all the all the preparation

and culture stuff that Europe does seems to lead to confidence and everything that US team does seems to lead to pressure. I think that's shout out Zinger. I think that's exactly exactly right. So I don't know. It's like what I realistically think will end up happening is these guys will be like, man, that's sucked. We're going to fix it. We're going to dig our heels in. We're going to really, you know, make some changes. And then it's going to be right back to like, you know, well, the PJ tour versus live and the PIF and the Senate is doing this. And here's how field sizes are changing. And here's what's going on with the majors qualifying, you know, WGF, there's just going to be a million

other distractions. And then we're going to get, you know, a month out from Beth Page. And it's going to be like, Oh, fuck, we forgot to like make a culture. Watch this video. You guys fired up. And then they're going to go out and they're going to beat the shit out of them in Beth Page. Although maybe not, that's a whole other conversation, right? It's like maybe Europe is really making that their rallying cry now. It's like, hey, we've got the home ones dialed.

Like, let's go, let's take this system and let's go like beat them on the road because that's kind of the, as Rory keeps saying, like that's the most important thing kind of in this event right now is which team can kind of figure out that break point and that's where it's like I Do not do not think we're over reacting to this loss in any way But it is still still to me. It's two separate things home in a way, right?

I I don't feel any differently about about Beth page. I really don't I I still don't think they should have it there I think they should move the location of that rider cup. I think it's going to be that bad. If they, if that's really close or if they definitely lose that, then it's time to panic for sure. But once that one is in the rear view, and again, going back 2008, US one easily, 2012 outside of one of the most miraculous sessions of any sporting event I've ever seen, the US dominated that one.

They dominated Hazel team and they dominated in record fashion at Wistengstrains. Like that's, that's a 15 year sample size at this point, right? And that's, that's not small to say like it doesn't mean everything needs to be fixed for Beth Page. They know how to do forcibly at home. They don't know how to do on the road. That's the summary of the last 15 years of the Ryder Cup. So that's just is to say like, hey, which writer comes. So that is to say like,

which, sorry, on that note, it like, I think that's what's so fascinating about this, right? Is like, clearly, once they got like a day or two into this competition, like, they're back into feeling themselves and they're back into being like the swagger American team and they're feeling comfortable and they're doing all those things, which is where I just keep coming back to like, what the hell happened? How did you waste an entire day's points? Like, oh my God, man. They, the, I keep going back to like the first session was obviously domination, but having three matches flip in the afternoon, you go five, three into the next day. If that means it's nine, seven, and then all of a sudden, like

that singles board looked way different. I know it ended at six, six, but that whole day would have been so different. We would have viewed this whole thing differently. I'm going to throw a stat at you, Pie. Man, I just looked this up while you were talking. The top two qualifiers on each of the last three road US teams, okay? The top two points getters, right?

Like the top two dogs on each US team. They have played 24 matches in the last three rider cups in Europe. How many do you think they've won? Uh, six, three. Come on. Ricky went, oh, two and three. Bubba went, oh, and three, uh, Brooks and DJ DJ went one and four, Brooks went one, two and one. And then a top two qualifiers this time around were Scotty Sheffler and Windham Clark. Scotty went O, two and two and Windham Clark went one, one and one. Like they just, again, I, it, but it's, it's too big of a sample size of like your top dudes shitting the bed now to just pretend like, hey, next time it's going to flip.

Like it's totally going to flip, guys. It's going to flip. It's like, all right, maybe we can try to answer this question as to why it is this way. And yeah, there's a lot of stuff to pick up on. A lot of, I think, good experience that can come from instead of, I feel like the previous group, again, this is clown makeup of here's a new way of convinced myself of this. The previous group just kept the kept thing and like, oh, we'll try it again. We'll do it again.

Like next time we're going to play better. Whereas this group, it sounds like they're already trying to put the pieces together to be like, here's what needs to change. Here's exactly what we need to do. And here's how we're going to tackle it. But so what do you think needs to change? I think there is a lot of culture stuff

that needs to change in terms of pairings. It's hard. It's such a deep conversation, right? Because I feel like whenever you say culture stuff, people's minds, in my mind, even goes to like song singing and dancing and having fun and liking each other, which is, it's just way more complicated than that. This whole entire structure of It's just way more complicated than that. This whole entire structure of knowing your role, knowing who you're going to be playing with, having a incentive and a desire to sell out for your team and be, again, all the things that Europe does to elevate their play is just so not in their nature. I just don't look at JT and I'm like, ah, yeah, I think he's totally going to flip on

his head like his, the way he views golf and the way he views this competition. I think that these guys are not doing their best job of checking their egos at the door and, and sacrificing for the team. I think you've hit on a ton of it in your article and I just don't, I still think they got to find their way. It's not going to be a full copy of Europe, but I don't know. I don't know how you can show up and and shit the bed and eight straight time. It's not going to be a full copy of Europe, but I don't know. I don't know how you can show up and shit the bed and eight straight time. What do you? Yeah.

Well, I think like, I think there's a couple of things. I think energy thing too. I think, but I think a lot of energy comes from like what that rallying cry is because right now it feels like in the crux of what I wrote and I said this a lot on the on the podcast with Max too, but I think a lot of the European players are there to kind of like write the next chapter in this book that they've all they're all aware of, right? Like they've all read the same book. They all know the history. They all know like Sevi, Oli, Fowldo, Wuznam, all these guys. Oh my God, these lions of the Ryder Cup and they've got, you know,

their lockers in the team room to just remind players, like they have all this history to build on and their whole thing is like, we are playing the next part in this. I feel like the US team doesn't have any of that A because the history sucks, right? And like, there's just not a lot. It's just like a losing culture in this event. Be, I think like all their horses, like all the guys that would be those lions all stunk in this event.

And it all like, it's kind of the rare like mar on their records, right? Like nobody wants to talk about Tigers, Ryder Cup record, which is why I keep coming back to like, I think the unifying thing for this is like, all right, chapter one starts now. Like, fuck that, man. Like, I don't want to hear from any of these vice cap. Like, no offense to anybody. Everybody in there's great. But like, we're starting over. Like, I don't want to hear from Zach Johnson, Davis love, Fred Couples. I mean, Stewart Singh, I'm a fioric striker.

Like, again, all those guys are great. But like, what energy are they bringing to this event other than this like, specter of, oh man, this has been going on for 30 years. I gotta keep going back to John Rom's comment about, you know, all week, Ollie is like, Jose Maria Olethalbles just following me around, telling me stories about the Ryder Cup. It's like, man, what stories do those guys have that are not is like, Jose Maria, all the fobles just following me around telling me stories about the Ryder Cup.

It's like, man, what stories do those guys have that are not just like, well, yeah, we came in as the overwhelming favorites. And then we're asking, we all turn on each other. And you know, just like, turned out, it wasn't great. That's right. Yeah. Like, what a weird energy that must be. And it just feels like they have, like it's very clear, right? And

maybe I'm just been watching too much baseball, but it's like, you know, you got a lot of guys under team control right now. I think we probably know it's going to be Zander, Cantley, Scotty, Max, JT. You know, it's probably going to be those guys for a while. So it's like, just start over, man. Figure out what it is that is going to make those guys feel that some sort of unity and some sort of like common goal. And to me, it just seems like I kept writing it in there, but it's like, Hey, Tiger could never do this. Probably whatever you guys do in your career, like nobody's going to measure it up against

Tiger. Here's one thing you can do that like he never was able to do. Like go take that forward and work on that for the next two years, the next four years, the next six years. Like that's your thing. Like you guys are the squad that's going to turn it around. Like go start over. Chapter one starts right now. Part one of the many reasons I stumbled through my last answer to the question you asked, he just what was going through my head was again, I've recommended this a lot. Chain Ryan's Ryder Cup run podcast, talking about 1983 and the birth of SEVY. Like go listen to that episode. If you want to understand culture and you want to understand

the team aspect of this and how it all works and why there is a locker for SEVY in the 2023 Ryder Cup, that's the answer, right? Like it's it's it's it's not a simple podcast answer. It is like really complicated how that works. That's one thing and two, the energy has to change. Like I think they're I out I'll I'll I was gonna be coy and not say the name, but I think there's a name. I ran into him in the Philadelphia airport. When we landed from Rome, we had lunch together.

We talked Ryder Cup. I wanted to come on the podcast soon and make the case for this. I want 100 Mayhan involved in the US writer cup team process. He had it pinpointed. He had an understanding of like exactly what kind of energy, what like the Paul Azinger energy did. I mean, we hear a lot about the pod system, whatever blah, blah, blah.

He kind of was like throwing that aside and just like the energy was just different in there. Like what Paul Azinger did from a pump up and motivational standpoint is like what that team needs. And like that's not going to come from Davis love. And I think there were some quotes out there this week. I don't know who got them first, but the Davis said like there needs to, there needs to be a turnover. He himself said it needs to be a turnover and insisting captains, right? And like that energy is just not seeping through a group of guys like ZJ stricker, Furek and Davis love. Like I like and appreciate all those guys except for ZJ. And I appreciate like the effort that goes into this

and the care that goes into it, like Jim Furek has dedicated a huge amount of his career towards just like winning this event that nobody gets paid for, separate conversation. And I appreciate that, but it is time for that turnover. And it's good to hear them acknowledging it. So is it the cat? I think it's the cat.

I wrote in my piece, I think you offer the cat the next two. I think you treat Beth Page and a dare manor as as a one term. And I think Tiger, you know, of course, we're so close and, you know, I've who knows Tiger better than me, of course, but it just seems like he's in a place in his career now where he's obviously not going to be playing very much competitive golf, maybe plays, you know, the hero and maybe the majors next year. But it's like, I think what you need and all the glowing, you know, profiles and stuff that's coming out about Luke Donald in the past week is so clear that he treated it the

same way. Paul McGin he treated it the same way. Paul McGinley treated it the same way a lot of these guys have treated it on the European side, which is like, man, this is a job. This is an actual like actual job that culture stuff doesn't just happen. You know, just pull it out of a box and you don't figure it out on Tuesday night. You don't figure it out of a three day scouting trip. Like that stuff has to have one person thinking about it constantly and thinking about every detail.

And that person also has to have like gravity, right? Like some of this is again, I'm just projecting and, you know, trying to think through this stuff. I feel like the raw, raw pump up stuff, like I think guys would be more into that than people probably think. But it has to come from somebody that's like no offense is Act Johnson. It's got to come from somebody that's not Act Johnson.

It has to come from outside speakers. It has to come, and if it's coming from internal, people like the cats, the only guy. Who else are people going to like put their phones down, listen up, I'm fucking talking. Like he just, he seems like the guy and not in like an ego way. Like I don't even know if he's, you know, I don't think he's, he would be the type of guy that's like, hey, let me, you know, tell you about my PJ Tour victories and all the majors I won. I don't mean it like that. I just mean

like whatever he brings to the table has so much more credibility because of all those things, even if he doesn't say I'm out loud. Yeah. I, I'll say closing the book on Hatgate, but I think we're probably years away from closing the book on this one. There's an article in the fire pit collective this week from Michael Bamberger, citing three different people that heard Patrick Cantler say, you know, when asked by Steve Sands, no hat.

He said, I'll wear one as soon as I'm paid more than that guy pointing at Julius Mason from the PGA of America. It, it, does that change anything for you for anything we talked about in the last week? I know we've talked about the kind of the way things went down the last week. I've spoken with Jamie Weir today. We are potentially going to be having him back on the podcast to do a writer cup round up on everything. But I'm wondering if that really changed anything on how you viewed how things played out last week. I don't know. It's a hard one.

Let me gather my thoughts a little bit. What did you change anything for you? Let me start there. It doesn't. I said this last week, and I saw it say the same thing. There was a story there that Patrick Cantlay and then another story that came out this week that obviously the Xander Shoffley and then Stefan Shoffley, the ogre, has said, has, has made it very clear that they do want paid for this event and PGF America is not communicating very well

on where this money goes and a lot of other people are making money off this thing, blah, blah, blah. All that stuff is the story to me. I still think the link between the hat and the, you know, story to me. I still think the link between the hat and the, you know, the, the, the protest or whatever you will or showing the disgust in it. That link is still a bit tenuous to me. I still don't know the context of Patrick saying this, you know, there's all kinds of comments. You could, you, you know, all, all different ways you can say a comment like that and not have it be a, a protest of some kind. I still have a lot of issues with the use of the word fracturing the team room. That's the part that the team has steadfastly denied.

If all the rest of the team did not know that there was a link between the hat and this money thing, that I tend to think that that was not a thing that was fracturing the team room, which is kind of the link of the whole thing. I think it was extremely messy and I still and I've mentioned this to Jamie as well. I think they should have been a chance to comment from that team to be able to comment on it before it got out in the public and had tens of thousands of people waving hats at them. So I just saw some people kind of taking that as kind of the, oh, man, wow, this everything was was right here. And I still feel pretty much the exact same

way having read that story on the fire pit. I don't know how you feel. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's, do I think that that's is accurate accounting of a recounting of what Patrick said? Like, do I think he said that comment? Definitely. Yes, I do.

I trust the people that have sources. And I, you know, I think it's all like, it's all very serious people involved with this, all of this reporting, which is what's kind of tripping me up a little bit about my next point, which is like, do I think that there was some sort of calculated protest with the hat? Like I don't, man, like that sounds so,

I just sound so farfetched and like candidly like stupid to me. Like I don't think this, I don't know, we get just trapped into like thinking everything's a written like a movie or something. And it's like I don't think he's sitting there, you know, writing out his formal protest for this reason, this reason, this reason, like I think he made a flipping comment

that might have been a joke or maybe wasn't a joke or maybe there was some truth to it. but like to take that as kind of something, you know, that people overheard and then spinning that into like a very like making that connection to make it a very serious accusation is kind of where I start to the thing starts to kind of fall apart for me. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's been litigated at this point. I still think you can do it. To your point, like, that's where I would keep coming back to you. Like, the money stuff is absolutely a story.

And I think, you know, Patrick's agent didn't comment on it. We have all the stuff and shop-free stuff. I think Patrick even kind of no commented during the press conference about it. Like, there's clearly, clearly, clearly something there that's very, very, very interesting and it is a very real story. And it just gets thrown into this blender of like, who said what and what happened. And he said she said stuff when you try to tie a stupid fucking hat to it, which makes no sense. Like, it just is like complete, pointless smoke screen

on like the whole like actual story. So that's, I don't know, that's what I'm at. I, if you all allow me, can I do a transition move here? You're talking about stories. We're going to tell some stories today because today was a corn fairy finals and there were some stories happening. This is not a transition into an ad read. This is a transition to introduce our guest who was calling it today on golf channel, Mr. James Niddy. So how are you James?

Good evening. Thanks for joining us on a Sunday. Hello boys. You must have been scraping the barrel to get me in on the show. Glad to be here. Wow. James is not wearing a hat. Here is what the protest could be.

Here is what the protest could be. Here is. Yeah. It's interesting. That's off to that comment. Head to. James, congrats on a fun day, man. It was really, really fun to watch you and Shane tell the stories of kind of one of my favorite

days in golf. What was what was a big takeaway from you? Is it your first year doing it? I believe, right? At least in this kind of expanded, expanded role. Uh, second year. So last year was my first year, but uh, this't know that DJ, come on now, it's pathetic. Come on, we're trying to get as much viewership

according to free tours as possible. Look at, as a pass player, there's someone that's been in this position, look, I think I finished 26 back in like 2012 when they gave out 25 cards at 2 or. I miss by a shot. I was depressed for around about 12, 13 years. So you think you finished 26? I feel like you would remember if you finished 26. Yes, I think and I still am waking up in a hot and cold sweats thinking about that day. So I don't know if you watched the broadcast, but a couple of my buddies text me and they

said, did I could tell you you were pretty excited. I'm like, yeah, because I actually felt what these guys are feeling and looked the whole shared-tudent story, the two-shot penalty. We saw it happen in real time. It wasn't delicious. It was just a reaction. It was a lift clean and place. That was what happened. That's all the whole story. Set the scene for everything

that happened if people didn't see it. Yeah. Okay. So if anyone wasn't watching Shad Turt and the player that's been inside the top 30 all year, kind of a grinder, gritty kind of guy, you know, not the prettiest swing, not built like a Kevin Doherty or other guys like Greyhands that just hit it a mile. So just one of those kind of loaner stories and I've got to know him, he's a really good good dude. He was right in the thicker things, he's playing the 15th hole par five needs a birdie, hits it in the left junk, chips it out, great shot just to get it out. You know, then hits it till about 15 feet on the fringe, makes a part where we'll go and wild, because now this gets him inside the 30.

And then the Tourer National, where they had the Tour Championship this week, it's one of the toughest courses on the Corn Free Tour. Probably the toughest five hole finish on the Corn Free Tour. So, which is great for viewing for this tournament, but so he's gone par, par, thinks he needs a bogey going down the last, hits it in the trouble, punches out, great shot to get out once again, hits

it short of the green, gets up and down for a huge, actually now he hit it to the front right of the green, two parts from like 50 feet. So we think he's in on the number and then it comes down the pipeline, there could be a rules altercation with Shad Tutin. So he was in the middle of the fairway on the 15th after he pitched out par five, had about 150 yards in, lift clean and place, went down after he cleaned his ball to put the ball back down, apparently it rolled, but we didn't see it on the telecast, so he quickly grabbed it and then changed positions. And if you don't know the rules of golf with lift clean in place,

it's almost like playing chess, where as soon as you take your finger or hand off the ball, it's in play. So I think it was just a reaction. He just grabbed it. The ball might have been rolling and he moved it to two inches right of it. So it came down to him not knowing this.

He must have known there was something going on because we heard it pretty quickly after he tapped in on the 18th hole but it comes down to him getting a two-shot penalty. He goes from 29 out to 30 second and Ruff and Cumpos moves inside. So it was just heartbreaking. So look at least even if he got told but hey it's a two-shot penalty at the moment, at least he could have known if he had to finish 30-burti or, but it was brutal. I felt sick on air. I was like, this is just, it's not what you want, especially when you've grounded out all day. I led to just an unbelievable interview with Rafa Compos too, who thought he was out for, you know, for 20-20, I guess, actually probably a longer than that, probably an hour or so, right?

Since he had finished, he had missed that put on 18 that he thought he had to have. And it was just, it, the Cornfairy tour posted a great interview with him afterwards. And if you, you know, it's easy, I think, for us to, to get very lost in the day to day of like, what's going on with the tour, what's going on with elevated events, what's going on with the piff, what's going on with field sizes, what's going on with elevated events, what's going on with the PIF, what's going on with field sizes, what's going on with all this stuff. And it was just just a great reality check of, you know, the bulk of ProGolf and what most ProGolfers

are going through. And it was just an awesome, awesome interview with him. And it's compost one of the nicest guys on the corn free tour. Loves a chat, could chat underwater with a mouth full of marbles, but he, entering the week, I kind of said to Shane when we're on the telecast, so he was 23rd on the pointless entering the week. So, seven clear of the bubble, and you'd think, okay, there's no way I'm going to drop eight spots and miss my tour card. The most movement

we've been seeing week to week was five spots. So he comes in, he finishes Bogey on eight and then this is a short birdie part on nine and we've got all the numbers in front of us. So you can kind of see, all right, what happened, you know, where obviously he's gone to 31st, but if it was a Bogey, he would go to 30. 30. If it was a birdie, he'd go to 28, whatever. So we see it kind of live happening. And I said to Shane, I was like, he's gonna do real well to get in. Like, he's gonna need some real help from the guys out there.

And like you said, he had to wait like an hour and a half. So he was crying when he came off a green, like tears streaming down, he thought he was never gonna make it. And yeah, it truly took something freakishly gut wrenching to happen for him to get in. And you know, at the end of a bad story and you know, a tough story, there's always like some light with Rafa. So it's pretty cool. He gets to go back to the PGA tour now. We're not going to make you do all 30, but I highlighted

just a list of guys to kind of the jumped off the page from me the, of the 30 guys that are graduating from the Cornferry Tour to the PGA Tour. I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on just what sticks out to you, you know, as somebody that has been as balanced between these two tours, if you could help us identify what you think, what are qualities in these players that you think might help them stick or maybe might not stick, right?

Well, who are the guys that kind of jump off the page and the names that I just kind of go through that either had a personal reason that I think is interesting or a lot of potential. Ben Coles, he wins the list, he finishes first and is fully exempt. Alejandro Toasty has a lot of fun stories about him and his personality that's coming to the tour,

he was disqualified from a playoff event for basically just disciplinary reasons, which is pretty shocking. We have Rico Hoey, who is, he finished fourth this year, Pearson Cudi and his brother Parker Cudi are headed to the tour, Grace and Murray heading back to the PGA tour.

Adrian Dumont, Dates your SART, a PGA tour you graduate that's on his way. Jake Napp, absolute banger, the panda, Norman Zhang, Tom Whitney,

a former Air Force nuclear missile operator, Chris Goddard, who won the Haskins and the Nicholas award. That's just some of the names that are kind of jumping off the page to me. But who are the guys in your mind that come to mind of like, okay, look for, look, these are the guys that are ready to make the leap. They're getting out of the corn fairy tour where everyone gets kind of blended in a little bit. And once they get to the PJ tour, they're going to be able to separate. It's, you kind of hit in a little bit. And once they get to the PGA tour, they're gonna be able to separate.

Yeah, you kind of hit on a couple of names, and you probably know some of the names that will win on the PGA tour. I think Shane was giving me a little crap today because he's like, yeah, he ended out wins like Oprah. And I'm like, yeah, this guy's gonna win, this guy's gonna win.

Obviously, the quality is you're looking for are the bombers, guys that hit at miles and can put. It's pretty much what I was looking at. The stats were amazing with some of these guys, but for me Goddorup was a guy that I think is gonna win next year And he had a he had to suck up today. He had to he shot two like coming into the week He had to finish top 20. So you think and okay? Probably gonna finish top 20, you know, only 73 guys playing. But he had to shoot to under on that course to finish right there inside the top 20. Double 17, too. He doubled 17 to the point where he bogged 18.

His projected was 30. So with what was going on behind him, he comes up in birdies the last, which is a toughest hole in the world under those circumstances. So Goddard, I like Pearson Coody, he's already proven at a pretty high level, played pretty well at the Arnold Palmer this season. I think he's going to go close toasty, tell you what, there's some story circulating about this guy. Obviously, I haven't met the guy, but tends to win and play well on top golf courses.

It hits a mile, like he's top three on the call free tour and he distanced for a guy that's barely over five, six. Pretty impressive. So I think he's gonna break some hearts and do pretty well on the PGA tour. ADDC, I thought he might have even stuck into the right of Cup team if he kept going on with his form when he turned pro. Norma Jong, the panda, like he said, he won a couple weeks ago at the Scarlet

course, which was kind of US open like, and he just boatraced the field. It was impressive, obviously, you know, how good he was coming out of college. I think he could just get a hot one week and win by four or five. And then Chan Kim, another guy I think has got the tools you need to do it on the PGA tour. I don't think the corn free tour is kind of suited towards his game. He played well in Japan, won a billion times over there, played a bunch of the majors, played in a fair few PGA 2 events the last couple seasons.

So look out there, I mean, I could go, I'm very biased. I could rip go, he's one of the best ball strikers I've seen. So yeah, I could go down the list and I'm a little bit chuffed because I've been covering them all year, but I think this is going to be one of the best cornferry graduate classes of the last couple of years for sure. I think one of the things that sticks out too, I think seven of the 30 guys are PGA tour you guys. I was wondering if you could kind of speak to that a little bit. I think that was a couple of years ago,

there's a lot of chatter about how do we kind of improve these pathways? How do we get these guys to the PGA tour faster? And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems like kind of a bold faced exclamation point like mission accomplished on that front. Yeah, it's kind of proven itself. The waters were tested when, you know,

Hoveland and I think Wolf came out. And then when you had Pearson Cudi and then Oberg or Obeir, the last couple of years, kind of proven the fact when you had Pearson Cooty and then Uber or Uber, the last couple of years, kind of proven the fact that it's something that had to be done for a long time. I mean, these guys, they're traveling on private jets. The practice facilities are better than midi to a level. They're playing 26 to 27 events a year in front of TV cameras.

Obviously, where the game's gone in with technology and how far they all hit it. It's, I think, college golf right now for me feels like college football, where it's almost a draft to the PGA tour. Every year you're gonna get five guys that could walk straight onto the PGA tour. So, I think it's an amazing program.

Highsmith, Jaiasmith, graduating in 2022, and this kid just got his PGA tour card today. And also, I mean, he finished second two weeks ago, and then should six under today to get his PGA tour card. So there's another guy that's just walking straight on to the PGA tour, Mack Meister, another guy that got his card today. He was PGA tour you two years ago.

I love it. It's kind of cool keeping an eye on that program. And there was a lot of mini tour guys. There was a lot of veteran pros that weren't happy. I had a lot of whispers. A lot of guys are like, you know, this is bullshit. They can't do this sort of stuff. And I'm like, well, you know, these guys are walking on and winning straight away.

So it's kind of proven the fact that the program needed to be in place. This is, I think that was the other number that stuck out. The system against these guys. Come on. This is a bad out us. We need tour guys, right? We need to hold back the youngsters. So I was going to say, I think that's the other number that stuck out. I think 18 and the 30 are rookies, which is kind of like that perfect number, right? Where you have, you know, a couple guys that we cite Max. Homa all the time is a perfect example of a guy that got the card, flamed out, needed to work on some stuff and got back

and made it a lot better in his second act. It's great to have a good mix, I think, of those rookies that you're having a pathway where they can get right up there, but also these guys that can go create a second act for themselves and go do things a little better the second time around. Yeah, and you've still got the stories of the guys that have been scratching the mini tours, the mules that you boys call.

I mean, look at Ben Griffin, probably should have won today and Carl Yuan, he's right there and then Eric Carl, another example of a Mule guy played mini tours for 12 years and now he's going to probably get rookie of the year on the PGA tour. So there is still the avenue for the mini tour guy that's going to create a dream or get onto the PGA tour and do some special, but it's just been proven now that the youngsters coming through and especially through college yet, they just are too impressive to hold back the opportunity for those guys getting more starts on the PGA tour. Also, I know this is not like the most elegant stat ever. I can't imagine, can you imagine the odds of both of your twins making it to the PJ tour?

That's on fucking believable. I'll be out of give you those odds. It's there's only ever been another two twins that have ever made it on the PJ tour. I know. And I know I had to learn this. I didn't even know it. I don't know if you guys know who it is. It's, you know, I looked it up. I had no idea he had a twin brother.

Curtis Strange. So all you know it. Yeah. Curtis and Alan string. I had no idea he had a twin brother Curtis Strange. So all you know it. Yeah Curtis and Alan string had absolutely no idea. I did too. It was crazy. I mean Derek and Darryl fat Our played in events On the PGA tour but both of them didn't have full cards. So the fact that it's I mean in parker Coody what a story like your brother goes out, he's already won, I don't know, four times on the three times on the call free tour to this season. And then Parka starts a year with conditional status has to start Monday qualifying

and then turns it into a PGA tour card. It's impressive stuff. Yeah, it's awesome. Well, James, I think we're going to invent a new award on top of all the fantastic knowledge you've dropped, Mule of the Week. And then we're going to give you the honorary first award, right? So James did he say, we really appreciate you joining and dropping some knowledge on us. We'll have to have to do this more frequently throughout the fall. We really appreciate it. So take care, man. No worries. No worries, boys. Thanks. Any time.

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Max Grayzerman is, of course, I'm just kind of scanning some of the media guy stuff from Short Hills, New Jersey. So shout out to the Short Hills Sharp, the beluga, the merch. I know that'll be a new favorite PGA to a player of his. And I think we, we breeze past a breeze past a couple couple quick things. I don't know if people with all the Ludwig hype. I don't think that our guy ADDC got quite the credit for what he did on the corn fairy tour. This year he came out and won his first start. He lost his second start in a playoff and I think he had top 10s in his first six

corn fairy tour starts like freak, freak, freak stuff. And of course, the, the, you know, latest and the long line of, of University of Illinois Belgians. So, you know, that's, that's close to my heart. And then the only other thing was Jake nap. You mentioned him as, as a real ball hitter. I believe the clocked clubhead speed is 126.7, which is slightly faster than the fastest on the PJ tour, Brandon Matthews last year, 126.6.

So that's a, I think we've both seen Brandon Matthews and what he does to a golf ball. So another one of those come and it appears also didn't want to do the, the Alejandro Toasty story fail to do it justice. Just Google Alejandro Toasty story failed to do it justice. Just Google Alejandro Toasty Monday Q info. He's got a great article, which is titled, we have a book on him, which is, it just, it goes into some details of, again, how you get yourself de-cued from an event just for disciplinary reasons. But yeah, sounds like a worse version of Patrick Reeve, which is sick. Look forward to me. I look forward to sharing some TV time with him.

That's a big white of thrill. As mentioned, the Dunhill is rained out as of now. I did get to watch a little bit of that coffee viewing. It was as a delight as usual, but they truly got absolutely run over by rain. Don't have a lot to add to this. Another Yasser was playing it under a pseudonym, which was Andrew Waterman. Then he was his standard bearer sign said, he, which was just fantastic. But what are we doing? Come on.

Well, the positive team in that they kind of did themselves dirty early. Uline was tied for the lead. And the DP World Tour tweet said two other guys, I forget who it was at the time. I'm like player one and player two are tied for one of the one of three people tied for the lead and just left you lying out of the tween. Like, guys, come on. It's it's I don't know what we're doing here with this merger thing. It doesn't sound great for what we're hearing, but I think we're past at least doing that

cut of petting this, which is only going to fire up the bots. Of course. Sounds like we've got some resolution coming on the OWG R stuff. Shortly, I believe I saw a report about that that they're close to making their decision on live status with OWG R points. So look out for that. And then, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what else. It's kind of a weird one with, you know, those guys playing a lot of the live guys playing in the Dunhill. It was kind of a weird situation where they they had to be non-members in order to be able to get the sponsor exemptions, right? And they got sponsor exemptions from the guy who is kind of the the kingmaker at the with the field that the Dunhill just a bit of a weird, weird situation all

the way around. Yeah, it's weird. It's, you know, individually, it's a weird glimpse into like the frustration of this whole thing, right, which is, hey, there's this whole, I don't know, agreement that nobody talks about. If you're a member of a tour, which is like, hey, we got to like all follow by the rules and regulations, right? So they can sell these mass, media rights, on all these things.

Whereas, individually, the sponsors of these events don't really care that much about the whole overall package, if they can say, I want this person at my event, right? So if they want to extend, you know, if you can look at it through a through, you know, you know, the, I have a needle, it's really simple. Like, hey, do you want blah, blah, blah on your event? Of course you do. Like, why wouldn't you? Whereas if you zoom out to understand why that's not easy to apply, it makes a lot more sense

from the DP World Tour scale as a whole. But yes, there's invites that were extended. And yeah, I hope they, I don't know how they're gonna finish this tournament. I honestly not read up enough about that. Is she the photos of Carnus? Oh my God, Just totally underwater. Just burns connecting to burns.

I mean, it was just abysmal looking. I've never seen anything like that on any in that part of the world. I do not see how they're going to play more golf, but that would be a surprise to me. God, Andrew waterman's so good. I just, we got to, we can't forget about that one. We got to keep that order out. That's what I think. A W. Yeah, I will not be calling a vios here for now.

He's if you're going to pull stupid shit like this, you're going to be referred to as your waterman, I believe, going forward on this podcast. On the women's side, H.J. Kim, we have the meets. Provide context for that. No, people definitely remember that me, a. The her parents Korean barbecue place in one year last fall. How could you ever forget that? But no, that's what a week.

Yeah, fantastic week. She dominated one by five, I believe. Bianca pagged it on it and Ate Tittacum finished second place. Lexi fifth place finish on her way to the Shriners this week. Tasted haters. What are your thoughts on this? I don't know. I don't, I don't want to brush it off.

I just, I don't have that many thoughts. I think it's a net positive probably for the event. I'll be honest. I know Mel Mardi had some, some comments, non-comments, rescinded comments, poorly chosen words. Did you watch it? Did you watch the video? No, I know.

He kind of got done a little dirty on, you know, I think he let the gimmick word slip out and then I think quickly corrected himself. He did. It was as soon as he was like saying, you know, I don't think tournaments, you know, need to, you know, resort to gimmicks. And it was me. He was like, I shouldn't say that. It's this is actually not a gimmick, but, you know, kind of viewing it through that lens

of pulling kind of stunts to get to drum up attention was kind of the point he was trying to make. Which I would refer people to the first 20 minutes of this podcast where I'm kind of like, yeah, I don't know. There's not really any reason to watch Thursday, Friday. Am I more interested to watch Lexi or, you know, some of the aforementioned mules? Yeah, I'm probably more interested to watch Lexi, to be honest, I'm at least curious what she's going to shoot. I know there's plenty of criticism about, you know, why now and she hasn't really had her best year and she hasn't been, you know, really want to one of the like

at least birdies and bogies wise, one of the stars of the LPGA. She's, she's, you know, always going to be one of the biggest draws as long as she's in the field, but hasn't really been at the top of her game. So it's kind of a weird timing. But I'm, listen, man, I'm for it. If it's something that she wants to do, if she wants to, I think she obviously has the length to make it somewhat interesting to see what she can do and see if she can make the cut and see if she can hang and I'm sure it gets the juices going in a very different way for her. So I'm very much for it. I would rather just competitively,

would I rather see a couple other players? Yeah, probably, but you know, I think if female players are you saying? Other female players, I'm saying that are a little more relevant probably from a competition standpoint this year. But then listen, all the haters come at her and she comes out and has a great week this week. So

maybe she's on the cusp of something. I'm curious to see how it goes. And I'm interested to see, uh, interesting to see. I'm in support of this in concept. I think it is, uh, I'm worried about how it's going to go. For the reasons you mentioned, like it really has been a strong year, played great this week, played decently well at the Soulheim Cup. But I don't know how well it translates for her when she's had massive, massive, massive issues under extreme pressure.

Play, if you listen to Anika talk about what it was like to play in a men's event, this is a pressure that's unlike anything. I mean, you almost have like the pressure of women's golf waiting on you and that if it goes really poorly, you just, I mean, sure, you feel the biggest losers on the planet, but you, you fueled a lot of people that are going to get pretty like, you know, well, you wasted a space on this blah, blah, blah, which is not how unrestricted sponsor exemptions work. I'm weighing on this.

Steph Curry, given all the spots, Tony Romo, given the spots, like, it's an interesting use of a spot. It is, I just hope it goes well. Because again, there's other, there's better years for this for her. I worry about her on really fast greens like they have there. So I, I don't know. I hope it goes well, but I'm worried. Yeah.

I think the pressure to things interesting to where I almost look at it as like, I know not a ton of women have done this. I think she's what like the fifth or sixth seventh seventh seventh. So it almost to me feels a little like the the 59 thing, right? Like you remember when we were when we were like first, probably started watching golf and it was really only like Al Guyberger and David Evall were like the only guys that have ever done it. Now all of a sudden I couldn't even come close to naming the people, you know, that it's

not like quiz. Yeah, it would be a good sport of quiz. But I think the onika things are a lot different when it was like, okay, she's the first one since I assume Babes of Harriest to do it. That was like a media circus. That was stop everything. It was at colonial regular season event, you know, kind of like in the midst of the summer, I think this is gonna be so much quieter.

That's true. Right? There's already so many fewer people talking about this than I think it all, which is weird, right? It's almost just been kind of a little bit of a shrug, right? Which is where I think there's probably limited downside and just like massive upside. Like if she? Which is where I think there's probably limited downside and just like massive upside.

Like if she does play well, I think it'd be great and people will be really stoked to watch it and it'll be, you know, really exciting. But if she doesn't play well, I don't think it's getting like, you know, bazillion eyeballs on it. So I think it's, I don't know, it's a big net positive, I think. There was also the 10 LPGA cards were handed out on from the

Epson tour today. Gabriel Ruffles, better known as Gabby Ruffles. She won this year, one three times, I believe, on the Epson tour this year for three wins and 12 starts. Austin Kim was your Epson tour championship winner. It's kind of cool that those were basically held on the same day, right? You have the yeah, it's every equivalent to the corn fairy tour finals. It's just not on TV, but I mean it's same pressure and fewer cards and you know a lot of that stuff kind of going on on the on the women's side as well, but 64 65 65 in rounds two three and four for Austin Kim. That's serious golfing of the golf ball. Uh, 29 on the front today. So congrats to her. And then yeah, I'll be fun to see Gabby Ruffles

with kind of full LPGA status next year. That's a lot of golf play on the ups and tour for 10 cards. That's, uh, that's a narrow little, uh, a little passing through there. This is a runner up was Natasha Andrea Un from Malaysia. She's headed to the LPGA tour. We had G1 Yoon. I hope I'm saying that right from Korea. Minji Kang from Korea. Agatha Lasney from Paris, France. There's zero percent chance I'm saying that one right then if she's from Paris. Jenny Coleman, 31-year-old from California. Then rock that one. Roberta Lita from Italy. And then we have Isabella Fiero from Mexico, as well as Kristen Gilman from Texas. So those are your 10 ladies headed to the LPGA tour. This is the first

year of this event that I haven't made it out to it. The Furea Consolation Energy Furea confronts held it. I was like denial to me. It's not that you tried to create an alibi. Not at my home course, Tim Aquatic Country Club, there was a massive, bad, bad evangelism of greens as I've seen. There's a lot of those videos that tend to make their way around social media of greens getting vandalized. I've never seen greens get vandalized two nights before. A tournament starts. Looks like somebody took a shuffle to four of the greens. There was an incredible, incredible effort from the grounds crew at Tim Aquana, Alan and

shout to our guy, Alan Brown, the TPC sawgrass crew came by, the Macira golf group came by, do some great videos that came from the the the champions tour that showed how they repaired those greens and how it was very unnoticeable watching on television. I'm sure in person you can still probably tell, but it seems to have had a minimal somehow a minimal effect on the tournament, but a pretty wild story of somebody breaking in two nights before the tournament starts to to, you know, mess with that event. I feel really bad for Jim. The guy puts so much effort into that event and has a really strong passion for his charity and has put on many iterations of that event. It's only been a champion's event for three years. It was formerly a pro-AM,

but watching that went up close and watched how much effort goes into it was a major bummer for that to happen, but it looks like it was handled as well as it possibly could have been. Still no clarity on the perpetrators? Only a reckless rumor so far. I'm looking to dig in farther on that, but I do not know, I don't know if they're waiting till after the tournament to release that information or what, but no idea who the perpetrators were.

So, if you don't hear me on this podcast for several months, just assume they caught me. Yeah, you need to, you know what? This kind of thing didn't happen when I was living down in Jackson. I think maybe people are walking all over you down there. So you can start rolling with an iron fist. Let them know the shit is not acceptable. I think it's the same day of the massive, massive fire on the hospitality off the first tee at Marcos Monet. That was wild scene. Thankfully, nobody, nobody hurt in that one.

I, this is, I'm sorry, we didn't start with this. I know you're the most excited about this one, but Tommy Flea would Tyrell Hatton, Shane Lauer and Tom Kim join the TGL. So what works, what's your, what's good on DJ Pi on the ground for his immediate reaction to this? That's great. That's great. I'm thrilled for that man. I'm thrilled for whatever team they're playing for. I can't wait to watch them do whatever this is. I think my whole thing with TGL right now is still cautious optimism. I think I've said this a number of times. I love the idea of how they're going to package it. I love the idea of like kind of making it feel a little more like a video game. Like I think kids are gonna be into it.

Obviously with the ESPN announcement, like the distributions, not a problem. It's gonna be on in some households, but as people have pointed out, like so is slam ball. And I don't hear a lot of people, you know, they're not really coming up to me with tears and their eyes talking about the slam ball results. So what's weird about it is I feel like every, this is probably just a conversation for

like some specific PR people, but it's like every note that I hear about it is like some business development, like announcement, right? It's like, oh, such and such has taken a key ownership stake in such and such team. And the naming rights for the stadium have been announced. And, you know, this is what this logo is. And this is what the, and I'm like, I still know what the fucking thing is. I don't even know what the sport is. Like, can we, can somebody start there?

Somebody explain to me what the hell this thing is? Like, is it a, it's a, it's team sort of, but like, are they playing, are they, is everybody playing at once? Are they playing it like one team versus one team? Is it games? Is there a season? What, like, what is any of it other than just like, it all just feels like a one big sports business journal announcement without any actual details. So that's my, that's my rambling analysis of congratulations to Tom Kim and, and Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrell Hatton and Shane Lowry. I'm excited to see them jump aboard. I hope it's an entertainment product to answer your question.

I hope it's, uh, lighthearted and they all, I think the other way can go wrong is if they take this competition thing to seriously. I'll say the same thing. I've, I've said, uh, frequently on this, holy moly gets like two and a half million viewers per episode and which is a lot more than the PGA tour usually gets most events. So there's room in golf for more a better entertainment product than what the PGA tour puts forth. I think this is going to be very, it's golf adjacent.

I mean, it's golf, but it's on a screen, right? So I hope they don't take that part too seriously. Like it's not pretend, like this is a real serious thing. If you want to watch Tiger Woods play golf, this is the capacity it's going to be in. Like it's just the reality. It's going to be in prime time. It's at night.

It's on Tuesday. It's to start. I don't know if it eventually goes to Mondays once Monday night. Football is over, but ESPN is going to have the distribution. I'm holding out optimism for it to be entertaining. The players are going to be mic'd up. They're really hyping the technology aspect of this, which I, again, we've had track

man for a long time, and there's been screen golf for a long time. I don't know what the variable is there, and I hope that is not a big, you know, a whiff on that front of overhyping the technology, but again, this is not really even golf. I am not all that to say, like, I have some hope that it could fill a niche. It could be an interesting product. That's where I'm at, too. And I think there is a lot of positives to the, like what I think is the concept.

Yeah, I just don't know if I'm on the right page or not, but I think one of the things we complain about all the time, and we don't have to do 20 minutes on the TGL, but one of the things we complain about all the time is like, man, I don't know what makes this guy different from this guy, right? Like all I'm trying to catch snippets of these guys golf shots between commercials

is basically my experience of watching pro golf. I don't really know that much about Terel Hatten. I don't really know that much about Shane Lowry. I don't ever get to see them mic'd up. I don't really get to see them interact with, you know, we get to see it all maybe a little bit in practice rounds and press conferences and but like most people don't get to see any of that stuff, right? Unless somebody has already won the tournament and you might get to talk to them after in like a winner's immediate reaction thing, like we saw with Luke List today.

So my hope is like maybe a little bit of the shit talking, maybe a little bit of the like interacting with people. Like that seems like it's just good context builders for, you know, for just pro golf at large, which I think is a big positive. And like I said, it's probably a good way to get kids involved and help them create favorite players and figure out who they like to watch. And maybe it's all one big bridge.

But as the telecasts continue to remind us, like there still has to be a there, like the product still has to actually be good, otherwise it's all kind of like this weird, you know, pyramid scheme towards something that never actually pays off. I'll say this too. I mean, I preach a little patience with it. I doubt the first iteration is gonna be like mossy TV, right?

I think they'll hopefully take what works, chop out what doesn't and build it from there. I think maybe. I guess devil's advocate, I would say, what, among any of the people involved, who has earned the benefit of the doubt at all? What do you think? Like, when it feels a little, I don't know, you're starting to feel a little dare banner. Maybe this one's the match. I think there'd be a lot of culture, culture building going on behind the scenes. I don't know. Maybe the match iterated, you know, like it, it got better and the mic'd up stuff got better and that flowed differently.

I don't know. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know, man. All right, let's wrap it with this. We teased it earlier. I know people cannot wait to get to it. I'm sure maybe we'll fast forward it wait to get to it. I'm sure many people fast forwarded

just to get to this part of the show. DJ, tell me through your iron fitting process here, how things have evolved for you over this past year and what you ended up in. Spoiler alert, I think it's what everybody else has ended up with amongst us. Almost everybody else, yeah, except the big guy. Initial, so when we first made the move to titleists,

I think we've talked about this and we did a video about it But we we all went out to ocean side went to the TPI out there worked with their fitters Which was an awesome awesome experience and I got fit into the T100s Which I absolutely loved Still love they're they're still in my garage, but they I Think I had kind of like a bit of a,

come to Jesus moment when, because I had the same miss, I think you probably had to, as I know we talked about it, was like, when you would miss them, you felt like you really missed them, a lot of them short-right, right? And it wasn't just like a,

you know, there was like awesome workability with the 100s for me. I felt like I could work it both ways and when I flushed it, I felt like the best player in the world. But when I did miss it, it was, I wasn't consistent enough to really like avoid those, those kind of like big short misses. So it was like, if I needed it to fly 165 and I missed it, it might fly 140 and that was putting me in a lot of trouble spots.

And so I was really in need of just a little bit more consistency, distance wise on, you know, what were like more of the miss hits. And I think that come to Jesus' moment, I was referring to is when we got to Hawaii and we're looking at Jordan Speast bag. And I'm like, oh man, we're playing the same irons. Like one of us, one of us is probably playing the wrong thing or like, you know

I don't think this is how this is supposed to go so you know, I trust Jordan like you've probably got your stuff dialed or at least mostly dialed me, you know, maybe there's some room for improvement and mentioning some of that To the titles people they're like, oh my god, you were going to absolutely love the 150s, which was kind of the, the solve for a lot of, I think the issue that we had, which was, you know, kind of those short-right balls and maybe some,

like more inconsistent contact. And the 150s are a good bridge between kind of the T100s and the T200s, which I have at the top of my bag. Do you have a combo set at all? Or you play one of these on the street? The fitter gave a famous line, a now famous line. A lot of people come up to me and say this all the time. I was like, yeah, I use a T202 or four iron in my fitting and goes, not anymore.

You don't, here's your specs with your T154 iron. I had no idea that's where that like gave from. Yeah, I hear it all the time. So I have a mix, a mix set. So I had the 100s up until four like the through the five iron and then my four iron was the T200. T200s are rocket launchers. So they explain all this stuff really, really well in the fittings

and you know, the kind of snowman, they call it like the snowman approach where they measure everything by ball speed and you're just, I think it's five mile an hour difference in ball speed between each club is what they're looking for. So eventually with the 150s, I was getting such good ball speed on like my six iron that I wasn't able to keep that up with the same 150.

Am I explaining that the right way? I wasn't able to get five miles an hour more out of the 155 iron. So like, okay, we're going to need some more weapons grade stuff. So they put me in the 200s for my four and five iron to keep those gaps all similar. But the 150s, what I've really, really loved is I've mentioned that kind of weak right miss that has been totally eradicated. I feel like my distance control is much, much better. I feel like I'm even when I feel like I miss them a little bit and I'm expecting to see the ball kind of plug in the face of a bunker or whatever. I still feel like I'm getting it to the front of the green, which is that massive,

massive change and just kind of makes a lot of doubles go away. I don't know if you've had a similar experience. Yeah, just the just piercing, man. It just, I can, I can hit a, a better controlled, kind of knockdown with it too. It's spinning less for me. It's flying really far. It also, when I need to get it up in the air, it can do all those things. It just feels like it's got so much flexibility. The T-100s, for me, it was just like, I still feel like I need an iron that I can mash on and get a bonus five, find a bonus five yards out of when I need to. And I couldn't do that with those for whatever reason. Like I think, but if you ask Max about his iron fitting, he's like, dude, I want a nine iron that like no matter how hard I swing and they can't go farther than in like that's how they play it.

And I just not how I don't hit it consistently enough to do that. Like I need to have that boost on the slight mishit that's going to cover a water hazard if we need to clear that. And I don't need to feel like I'm holding on for dear life. So that's definitely got that out of him. Yeah, it's been, it's been fun to see. I've invited handicaps down. I'm down around like a six now after being,

and I was, can I share this? Yeah, can I share this? There was a text I got, a Slack message I got that said, I don't know if I can make the trip to Rome. This was right before the right, and I was like, oh my God, this kind of throws all of our plans for a loop. Like what happened? He's like, yeah, man, I'm just playing too good. Like I can't lose right now. I'm playing. I'm hitting the ball too good.

I can't leave right now. I was like, ah, God, you had me like a half a second. But the, yeah, the club changes is a big, big part of that. The, you know, shout out to the trap draw, we always do our goals podcast at the beginning of the year. The birdie, the birdie chase thrown a number out there of just like, I really am trying to get to 100 birdies has, nothing has made me want to go play more golf than that. I don't know that I'm playing any better and I hopefully I'm not like freaking out every time I have like a good, you know, makeable birdie putt, but that's

been a really good, you know, you bet. Um, right around like 80 right now. So it's good. It's going to be tight. It's going to be tight. Uh, I've got the NIT coming up. We've got another golf trip in December. And then I was literally, I was talking to Justin today.

I was like, you know, I might, I don't know what the sweetens house is looking like. I might need to just go camp out for like two, three days and just, you know, try to play like a hundred holes a day and, you know, just try to knock them off. But it's going to be tight. We're going to, you know, I'm going to make my best effort. But if it comes up short, it's not for lack of trying this here. I promise you that. I love it.

Well, I hope we get to play some golfs because I've seen it's been quite some time. But we only hang out in Rome. It's very true. It's only a place I've seen you in the last like six months, like apparently, but all right, we didn't do it. We thought we'd do an hour recap in the fall. Just doesn't happen anymore too much to too much chat about.

We thank James Niddy's for jumping on. We really a lot of golf this week to cover. But, hi, man. Thanks so much for the time. This evening, thank you to everyone that is tuning in during football season for an hour and a half of golf talk. We will get to some more topics as fall. I know I threw that out last time to say

we need some topics for the fall. This week ended up having a fair amount to still chat about off-rider cup and things like that, but it will run dry this fall. I could rob us you that. So keep setting those in. We'll get to a bunch of those this fall, and we will see you back here next week. Thanks for tuning in, cheers.

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

Better than most.