No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 784: AmEx Recap with KVV and Joel Beall

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

KVV returns to the captain's chair tonight with Joel Beall of Golf Digest joining for this weekend's recap pod. We start with the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour in over 30 years as Nick Dunlap wins the AmEx with a clutch five foot putt on the 72nd hole. We make sense of Dunlap's rise through the amateur golf scene and his performance today as he stared down seasoned pros with multiple wins on tour. We also talk JT (24:00), Bezuidenhout, Burns, Xander, Scottie and Daniel Berger's return to the tour after a lengthy absence due to a back injury. Then it's off to Dubai where Rory wins after a close call last week (39:40) with a one shot victory over Adrian Meronk and two clear of Cam Young - plus Joaquin Niemann's participation as a LIV player in the Euro Tour event (54:50). We also cover Lydia Ko's win at the LPGA Tournament of Champions (1:04:00), Jay Monahan's trip to Saudi Arabia (1:16:45), and some other news and notes and with thoughts on the events at Sports Illustrated before we close with KVV reading his latest column "Lost in the Sauce of Golf Training Aids" (1:55:25) which can be found on our website: https://nolayingup.com/blog/lost-in-the-sauce-of-golf-training-aids Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the NoLingup podcast. I am Kevin Van Volkberg, editorial director. If you are unaware of what's been going on the last couple of weeks, the boys are off filming tourist sauce. And so it is a parade of great journalists from around the country who are helping me play co-pilot. I wanted to make a joke about how I was Han Solo and my co-partner here was going to be

my Chewbacca, but I think I'm going to flip that around. I'm kind of the Chewbacca. And my friend Joel Beale is here tonight from Gulls Digest. He's going to be the Han Solo. And I'll just sort of, you know, pilot the plane while he tells me where to go and looks handsome and charming. Joel, how are you tonight? I'm doing good, buddy. Thanks for having me on. I feel, I know, pilot the plane while he tells me where to go and looks handsome and charming. Joel, how are you tonight? I'm doing good, buddy. Thanks for having me on. I feel, I feel bad that the boys miss

us. They probably thought missing Bob Hope week was going to be a sailing instead. They get this, but I, well, as someone who missed Tiger Woods is a master's way into 2019. I know that feeling well. So, you know, you know what screw them they had their chance to to be home I'm sure they'll cry themselves asleep playing some of the best golf courses in the world this episode of course before we get Into things were brought to you by titleist Titleist and it's new t-series iron models the t100 the t150 the t200 and the t350 The t-series irons are the result of an endless cycle of player input on every facet of iron performance, control, distance flight, forgiveness, looks,

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As we said, Nick Dunlap, the first amateur in since 1991 wins the PG, PG tour event, the American Express. Joel, I got to say, you know, I'm not someone who follows a ton of amateur golf, but everybody I know has been talking about Nick and saying, you know what, like this guy might be better than Gordon Sargent. This guy might be the dude just has an absolute killer mentality. When did Nick Dunlap come on to your radar? Honestly, not really to the US AM. I'm somewhat with you, like the AM game,

don't get me wrong, I respect it. I like following it, but especially those who are hardcore AM guys, I feel like every year there's always like a new shiny toy, right? And this guy's always gonna be the next best thing. And golf probably more than any other sport, the parallel, or I should say the correlation between your performance at the amateur level to what's going to happen

in the professional level. It's just, it's very tenuous, right? It's not like the NBA where you kind of know who's going to be good and who's not. So as one who covers the professional game, I always kind of just look at it as a fan without really buying into any of the hype. But you're right, there was something a little bit different

with the Dunlap tenor and more broadly the guys who sometimes the OEM agents and scouts who kind of look they sometimes sell these guys pretty hard. Even that was really the first guy since Bryson. I've heard that people really thought man, this, this, this guy's different. So I certainly didn't expect anything like that, but man, for two guys who've watched this guy for a while, it wasn't necessarily a surprise. Yeah. I mean, I think even as the week was sort of unfolding, it sort of seemed like, oh yeah, like this isn't really going to happen.

Is it? And till, you know, Dunlap was the, you know, shot 64 in the first round, 65 and then 60 in the third round, just really kind of blitz the field on the easiest course in this rotation And then it seemed like sort of things, you know, we're gonna be a little bit testy Particularly today is we'll sort of go through a little bit of what happened Done that kind of keep bringing the six but then he came out and hit what I would describe as a as a KVV Tribute shank on the seventh, like just puzzle right into the pond there.

He said he knew he'd certainly have some adversity throughout the day, but didn't quite expect it was going to be that. Joel, does that remind you? I'm you're much better golfer than I have seen you had some pure irons in your day. But does that remind you of any shots you've ever hit? You know, I played with Sean Martin a few times last week, and he had a couple of those couple of any shots you've ever hit? You know, I played with Sean Martin a few times last week and he had a couple of those shots. That was the first thing I, sorry Sean,

I didn't mean to catch a, I didn't mean if you catch a straight. But you know what, when we're talking about AMs, I think Sean deserves at least get mentioned as well. Because nobody's been more dialed into the AM game than Sean, maybe my colleague, Jordan Perez, but sorry Sean, you're gonna catch a few. But yeah, that wasn't pretty.

And I mean, just from afar, that certainly seemed to be the point where, oh boy, this thing could really circle in south. And then obviously to see him bounce. I mean, that's to me what said the most about this performance today is that forget even winning just the fact that he was able to keep himself in it after that type of moment. Man, what a testament to that guy. Yeah.

Bounce back birdie then on the, where he got up and down from front of the green. And you know what the Mx has never been like my favorite of these like early season events. I don't think anybody would describe it, uh, as anything other than an effing putting contest as, uh, Mr. John wrong, but it isn't quite that. I mean, you got to hit some, some tough tee shots off of the thing. You got to sort of squeeze it into spots. Uh, and so, you know, he, he sort of, uh, he had a few shots that I think we're coming down stretcher were pretty decent. Uh, you know, he, he burns Sam Burns, who, uh, seemed like the guy who was going to sort of challenge him much of the day. Uh, you know, he, he makes a birdie on 11 and goes, goes up by one.

Uh, and then burns because another birdie on 14 and goes up by one. Then Burns makes another birdie on 14. Dunlop had a real moment in that moment where he was like, all right, he had about a 10-footer there. He'd hit a wedge in there. It was like, all right, if you can roll this on top of Burns, it means you are an actual dog. Boy, he peered that putt right in the middle. That's when I was like, okay, Burns could have had a two shot lead there. Instead it was one.

And I was like, all right, Dunlop comes right out on the next hole and hits the stick on 15. I was like, dude, this kid has got some, some game. That reading too much into it. It almost looked like you could visibly see it, the conviction building himself too though, after those comments, right? It was, Oh, I'm, I'm actually this good and I can contend. And yeah, it's, listen, I know Sam Barnes, Sam Burns isn't necessarily like a marquee named to non-gallup fans. But

I mean, the guy's a rider, a cupper. He's been a top 15 player for the past three years. To do that, facing the guy like that, man, it was, uh, talk about proving yourself. It was just really cool to see. Yeah. Things kind of started to start to even tighten up even more. Dunlop makes a birdie on 16 to tie for the lead. Burns had a pretty sloppy shot into the par five there where, you know, if he just puts it anywhere around the green, he's probably able to sort of hold a one shot lead going into 17. But then on 17, that birdie on 16 was sort of huge because it gave Dunlop the tee and he gets the ball, you'll just kind of over onto the front edge of the green and probably rolls out to about 20 feet from the hole. And what happens with Sam Burns, just a really bad white be eight iron that doesn't

even hit the rocks, frankly, it, you know, it plops into the water. Not exactly like the kind of thing that got him picked to, to be a rider cupper and particularly to then we turns around an 18 and Just yanks the his drive left into the water You know Joel we're gonna talk a lot about Dunlap, but I want to pause here for a sec What what was going on with Sam Burns down stretch? Yeah, it Was I know we like to extrapolate In moments like this what it says about a guy, you know, where he's going, sometimes man, it's just golf, right?

Sometimes some bad swings happen. I don't think this is any indictment on who Sam is and the player he is. It's just these things happen. It's happened at a really inopportune time, but I mean, it happens as Justin, as the third guy in that group, right? A guy who was on top of the world not too long ago, who then meant the bottom, these things just happened. So it's unfortunate that happened to Sam and obviously on 18, he didn't exactly,

uh, didn't exactly make up for it. But yeah, it's, these things happen and not worried about any type of collateral damage here with burns going forward. So, uh, it seemed, you know, Burns was out of it. It looked like, uh, Dunlop was going to have a two shot lead on the, on the 18th tee, but then out of nowhere, Christian Bzadenhuit, who had made an eagle on 15, makes a ridiculous birdie on 18.

Really probably the hardest hole was playing all day. Dunlop hit not a great tee shot that he was behind one of the Pete Dye, chocolate drop, mounds, whatever. He thought he could just fire it right and be able to get up and down with a two shot lead, but when he got up to the green when he realized, oh, shit, like I have a one shot lead, had to hit what was a pretty nervy chip hits it, it rolls out to about five, I think the other broadcast I said five feet nine inches. Man, that putt that he made was just pure right in the heart. I mean, that I was like, damn, that is some stones right there to literally be 20 years old to have Justin Thomas sitting there in your

group looking on, you know, two time major winner. So probably the person you looked up to, I would think, being an Alabama sophomore and thinking about what success on tour would be like and just pours that heart, that putt right in the heart, you know, became the first USAM champ since Tiger Woods to win on the PGA tour, reigning USAM champ, and then was the youngest PGA tour winner, youngest since 1900, according to Justin Ray. He had that stat. I thought that was bonkers. Like anything you do something that hasn't happened in like 124 years, that's insane. Yeah. It's like that tweet a couple years ago about a Tanya and Mike Trout that every, every

day they're doing something bananas that, you know, Hawke's back in 1800s. But yeah, I mean, it was gosh, you know, for the most part golf outside the major weeks, it's just sort of filler. Right. I mean, the cell is something like this, that people can change their lives with one week. And I guess that's true. But let's be honest, that rarely happens. A lot of times it's just rich guys getting richer. It's pretty low on the on the meaning scale because the golf, you know, this week is going

to look a lot like golf we see next week that looked a lot like the week before. That's, that's fine. You know, golf can be entertaining. It's so fun to watch. And golf doesn't have to be super meaningful to at least, he doesn't mean it's meaningless either But man what what he did with don't not dead It's it's why we watch sports right to see something. We've never seen before that something I mean, I was legitimately on my couch just like standing on the edge or sitting on the edge of it That golf doesn't do that much for me Especially in non-major weeks and especially not much the past two years.

So to do it and to kind of do it how he did, like we mentioned after that shank, see him fall off the saddle to dust himself off and get back in doing against Burns and Thomas. I mean, that was, it was just so impressive. And it, it, it was, it was just exactly why we watch sports as moments like this. I, it's, I, it's kind of almost don't want to like project what done. Lop's going to do, right? Because I, I hate that where we can't even just like appreciate what's happening in the moment.

I don't look, you could sit here and be like, Oh, is it going to win five majors? This is going to be the next great player. Like, man, like, why don't we just let this sort of marinate for a few minutes, you know, a day or two. And like, this is awesome. This kid, I don't even, you know, I think there's probably he's going to turn pro. Why wouldn't you at this point you've, you, he is, has all these exemptions into the masters, into the US open, into the open championship because

of winning the USM, but, you know, winning this tournament will get him back into the masters anyway, if he were to give up that exemption. So I could see him saying like, you know what, I, you know, I missed out on what was a 1.3, 1.4 million dollars that I could have won in this. I'm probably pretty ready to at least be competitive in some of these things. Yes. Why not roll the dice and go? But you know what?

I also kind of think like there is a chance that he might be like, man, I could just kind of cash in on the NLL stuff right now. Like what, what Alabama boosters who are throwing around all kinds of money right now and are panicking about the current state of their athletics program with football, why wouldn't they just like throw a bunch of money my way and I could just kind of win another NCAA championship or just hang around for a little bit more and you know, at least play the masters under my USM exemption. Anything's possible now with NAL stuff. Right. And I think you hit it though, right? Like there is going to be a leap in the next couple of days

of trying to project where this guy is going to go, what he can be given the, given what he did, given that, you know, his name now evokes Phil Mickelson, evokes Tiger, what he did at the USM and US Junior. It will find out and do time. Let's just appreciate for what we had and let it soak in that. Let's not try to put all these expectations and wait on this kid. Just let him be a kid for a little bit longer. Again,

maybe he plays next week or the next couple of weeks. That's fine. But just tonight, let's just kind of bask in, honestly, just figure out how lucky we are to watch what we just watched. Yeah, exactly. Like we saw something history, something historic we hadn't seen for a long freaking time. I remember just barely when I think I was 13 or 14 when Mickelson won the, you know, Bels or what was it? The Phoenix Bell South. I can't even remember now. I have it somewhere. We know it's the North Northern Telecom Open in 1981. And I remember my dad started pointing that out and what a kind of a fascinating thing was. And it kind of tied me a little bit to Phil as a fan for a long time. And so it would be kind of cool if Dunlop goes on to have a great career, if this sort of tied some young new fans to him in a lot of ways. I was like, God, that was awesome. I have a question for you, Joel. I wonder,

there's been a lot of angst over whether the current PGA Tour model is going to work, whether these, you know, regular events and then designated elevated, whatever you want to call them, events. Are we seeing any evidence that's just like an example of like, hey, you know, like there are some grid stories that can emerge from these, you know, not exactly marquee events? There's been a two-tier system for some time. It just didn't have a formal name to it. And I think by kind of designating the signature events from just the full field events, it actually has given the full field events a little bit more meaning. They can be a little bit more of a platform into the things that quote unquote matter. I mean, the hardest part really is just the sell of tournament directors and tournaments to the towns, right? Like someone like,

I'm in Connecticut for years. There's always, you can count on it around May of, is this the year Tiger Woods comes to the travel championship? Everyone knows in the game it's never going to happen. And yet I was from like before those publications, those stores would do really well. So I get, you know, for those in reality, though, I don't think much. Is this the year Tiger Woods comes on the no laying up podcast again for the second time? Who knows? Stay tuned. I'm not, I'm not trying to downplay that reality, but yeah, I think kind of letting the fans know, Hey, we understand your time is finite. If you really needed to then here's what the best are going to assemble.

And these guys, like this is still a pretty good field this week. I had a lot of top 50 guys in it. The fact that you had burns and Thomas mixed with a college kid, what was just fantastic. I mean, this is this is actually kind of the best thing. I think last year, the Honda Classic was kind of what really crystallized it for me is it's fine to have these guys who don't necessarily see weekend week out being the mix with maybe a name, name or two, but even those big names are not, that's fine. We'll see them down the road. So I know there's a lot of sponsorship worry, especially going

for our sponsors are sponsors going to sign on to events where they aren't going to have the guaranteed top 30 30 40 guys there. But from a fan's perspective, I think this has gone as well as the tour could have hoped. If you're a golf junkie, how could you not like really feel into this? Right? You probably watched Nick Dunlop at the USM. You might have even watched him at the Walker Cup. You know, I know we have a lot of great stuff that we're still working on a film basically about this last year's Walker Cup of the Old Chorus. And so I'm really excited for people who,

you know, might not have known Nick Dumbop. They're going to get a whole another like window into him in the future when, when that film comes out. You know, it's just, I feel like if the most memorable PJ Tour, I think lost for me in the last few years was when Sahith almost won in Phoenix and he was sort of crying in his father's arms and shoulder and his family was so, and I got a little bit of vibes of that today when his Dunlop's parents were nice enough to kind of give an interview and they were super personable and his mom was like, obviously he didn't get his pressure, the ability to handle pressure for me because I'm super nervous.

She was like the MVP of the broadcast late. She was just a delight, tearing up as she's talking about him and his dad saying, yeah, I mean, I guess the first time I thought like he might be pretty good is like when he shot 59 when he was 12. Oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Imagine if they replaced the sponsorship interview with just parent cam. That would be such a hit.

What a great idea. It never fails. Say, I would also go to the wives in there as well. And yes, like there's there are moments of levity, but also it really kind of underscores the people you're rooting for that this is not just performer. There is a human being we're watching here and there's really big stakes or there can be really big stakes on the line. Yeah, I thought she was fantastic.

I, uh, I love my mom to death, but I was like, I don't think my mom loves me as much as the dumbest mom. Well, it just, it's pure. I mean, I know sometimes people get a little bit, uh, I think overdone on the whole purity of the amateur sort of stuff and the greatest of Bobby Jones But seeing someone who you know is really trying to hard to fight back tears and it's kind of just like I had no idea That it would happen this fast It was really cool. And I you know, I've heard that Dunlop is is really like like he's a ruthless

competitor like he you know He wants to f people up on the golf course, you know, in match play and stuff. And so, Hey, maybe they don't, maybe we got a future rider cupper here. I'll let ourselves peek into the future just a little bit. I guarantee you Joel, that there will be a lot of stories being like, Nick Dunlop become the first amateur to win the masters since, you know, whatever. They'll be, they'll be riding the Bobby Jones connection so hard until it breaks. Uh, come master's time.

I know. And I'm already seeing on, on Twitter and it's like, people forgot that Sam Bennett went into Sunday and that's kind of wrong. Uh, obviously a little bit different situation, but, uh, no, just, man, this was just one of the, uh, as a, as a golf fan, this is almost as good as you can get for a, for a non big week week. Yeah. Well, it's just fun when you see some potential, like I remember watching

baseball players when they would come up from the Orioles and I was like, you know, I remember I wrote something once for the Baltimore Sun. It was like, Hey, this is like cracking open a good book that you know is going to be good. And you're like reading the first chapter and you're like, you know, I remember I wrote something once for the Baltimore Sun. It was like, Hey, this is like cracking open a good book that you know, is going to be good. And you're like reading the first chapter and you're like, man, like I want to slow down almost and, and savor this because, uh, I have so much good in front of me, but, uh, it's just the beginning. I feel like that's what every time a young player get breaks through and,

and you know, that feeling of like what it was like when Tiger won, you know, for the first time it was just like, man, this is, we have so much good in front of us. And I don't think that there's no chance that Nick Dunlop is going to be tiger, but man, we could really have a lot of good in front of us. And that's, that's going to be fun to watch. He hits the shit out of the ball. He putts it great. He's obviously got a good short game. I'm excited to see what comes next, but there was other people in this tournament too. So, uh, you have any follow up there, Joel?

Yeah. This is what I'm saying. What a, what a great, uh, endorsement for the PGA tour you rank. I know that was sort of a thing put together to maybe, uh, stay awesome with the live offers, but to have what they do, what he did last year and now this, it kind of shows you, Hey, like there's some real talent down there and we need to figure out a way to funnel this to the tour and not come get lost in the mini tour Preparatory that guys can get sometimes when making that transition. So hopefully this actually really cements that program and helps facilitate more opportunities going forward

It just makes it clear that like there's so many good players who are good now and young and some of that that, I think, you know, if I'm being totally honest, like some of that is probably the equipment, you know, you can hit the shed of the ball. And if you're young and you're fast and you have speed, it is such an advantage that, that overcomes any disadvantage you have in terms of like wisdom and sort of, you know, course savvy and knowledge. Like it doesn't overcome it entirely, but it just, it makes up that deficit a lot. If you look in all other sports, like youth and speed and strength is what teams are coveting constantly. That's why running backs don't make it to 30, you know, which used to be like the time when you'd blossom as a PGA Tour player.

It is super possible that golf is going to trend in that direction where it's like, yeah, man, like at 24, that might be the peak of your like athletic, you know, powers because you're swinging so fricking hard for so long. That might be where you just fit match up the experience and, you know, and strength and ability. So who knows, like there could be, I mean, I see people on Twitter talking to each this evening saying, Oh, is an amateur going to win a major? Like, I don't know, maybe even Bennett proved that like it's in theory possible. It's still,

it was a long way from actually getting it done. Like staring down John Rom in the final round of the masters is a lot different than staring down Sam Burns at the MX. But you know, just Thomas, two time major winner there. Is there three time major winner, two time major winner? I'm why I'm using this Two. You know. Yeah, but you know. Yeah. Oh, I'm the one who wrote them off and then he won a major and dunked on my head.

So I ought to remember that. Maybe I just blacked it out. Just a couple more rabble questions. Steve Camino asked, is it just me or does Dunlop have Keegan's little long lost son? You know. He does kind of look like Keegan, but the thing that kind of shook me on this question

is that like Keegan's what like 34 35 or maybe even 36 now? I mean, don't know if it's 20 years old like Keegan still seems to me like one of the young ones and it's just like my god like Time has gone by quick Joel. What but really I had one of those moments in Maui a couple weeks ago. Uh, we were playing capital as like sister course and Kisner is in front of us and you know he just got done calling calling that it's over Saturday I think got on the round and someone from those like yeah you know like he's he's just kind of widened his career down at you know at his age you're it's kind of over I was like yeah that's that kind of

sounds right and I realized Kessler is my age. And I feel like I still have my whole life ahead and career ahead. And really just, those moments when you're like, oh yeah, that guy's my age and people are ratting him off. It really hits hard. What is that great tweet? I think, uh, I don't remember who tweeted it, but Mina just retweeted it about Joe Flacco recently. It was like, like an announcer, Colin, there he is, the oldest player in the league. He can barely walk. It's a miracle

36 years old. It's like me at 36. Oh fuck. My old career is supposed to be that of me So there were other people playing in this tournament Even though Dunlop will be the thing that anyone remembers Justin Thomas a pretty good showing from him kind of obviously last year was in the wilderness, you know, a controversial rider cup pick to say the least. I don't know if it's a surprising, you know, T3 from JT, but it's a lot of good golf out of it, especially the 61 shooting.

I mean, I know that was also on the easy course, but 61 shooting on Saturday, almost makes a hole in one on Saturday. Probably as close as you can come to lipping out without the ball going in. A little bit shaky, I would say on Sunday, a couple of water balls on par fives. But what do we like, Joel, out of what we saw from JT? Yeah, you know, I think just back up a little bit. JT did have a good end to 2020. I know it's just the end of the fall, but even kind of going back to the late summer,

you could start to see it turn a little bit. Clearly the approach game is getting back into shape. Yeah, you're right. Just the two really bad swings on his part, on those part of fives and take those away. I mean, he's probably in it right to the end, right? More importantly, it's again, not to project too much. It does seem he's got that fusion of giddiness and swagger back. And you know, when when things are going well for JT, he has that

like persona is very arrogant and almost annoyed. And I say that the best type of way, right? Like he's just he's that old school shot maker who does not want to be friends with you. And he just relishes being that role. And you're right, though, from probably southern hills to that first round of the open last year when he shot 82, that swagger was just nowhere to be found. Like, he clearly not only was a game that was lost,

like, he knew it was lost, and he had no idea where it was at. But really, that Friday after the 82, and I think that 82 was, that actually helped him find the bottom, everything I've been kind of told. Like, at this point, he goes, OK. And I give bones 82 was that was actually helped him find the bottom everything I've been kind of told like at this point He goes okay, and I give bones a lot of credit and obviously JT a lot of credit too I think there was a little come to Jesus of all right. This is it We're in the crevasse. It's time to start climbing out and you really saw it in that Friday around at Liverpool he seemed confident about where he was going and

Yeah, I know the the the rider cup was a little rough, although I think we can all kind of, there was a circumstances there with the entire team that week. But yeah, I don't know if this translates to wins in the short term, but for a guy who looked lost, he certainly has that confidence back. And I think it is going to lead to him having performances like this week where he's leased in contention going forward. I think it's because he's already in gluten again. I think, you know, as soon as he left the Ryder Cup, he put a bunch of pictures of him eating pizza on Instagram, pasta,

all that stuff. It's like, all right, you know what? Like, hey, this might work for some of you, you know, you, you health nuts, but this is just not me. And, you know, hopefully dairy and gluten will bring JT back to good things Christian Bazaiden hoot really kind of snuck up here. I know we mentioned a little bit in the beginning I don't feel like I know a ton about Christian Bazaiden hoot. Do you know anything about Christmas a dude? I mean, I feel a little bit ignorant just in general about it. Obviously like a good players I've heard his name for a lot of times hung around But not someone who I was like, oh, yeah, I'd pick him in a pick them to win on a PGA Tour event. Yeah. Certainly a lot of game. The only real interactions I've had with him was, I guess

it was the BM, it was Delaware. It was the, when the Delaware meeting was going on, he wasn't doing it. So here's talking, talking a little bit. No, a lot of game. I think, unfortunately, a lot of people just know him by that scary poisoning story he had back in the day. But, um, yeah, he's someone who's. Would you share that story if you can remember it? Cause I, you know, I think some people would be ignorant of it. And I'm, I'm actually pulling a, it has something to do with like he had an accidental poisoning that then also, I think led to a suspension. I think that suspension might actually have been severed. But yeah, like a very odd background and a guy who had a really kind of dig himself out of a reputational hit. And, but I mean, you watch him on the range and I know he says this about a lot of guys, but you, you look

at him and you go like, how's this guy not one 12 times. He's just that pure of a ball striker. Short games, always a little bit hit and miss, but um, yeah, for someone who's young at president's cup year, I would not be surprised to see his name in the mix when we get closer to Montreal. That's right. So I'm reading this off of ESPN several years ago. He talked to Bob Herrick about it. When he was two years old, he ingested rat poison accidentally.

He had started like a bottle of soda that his parents had. I think they were obviously using it to try to kill rats. And he ingested a bunch of it and had to be taken to the hospital. And it caused stuttering for years later. And so golf was kind of where he sort of sought his safe place as a kid who had stuttering problems, which sometimes I feel like I have almost when I can't get words out

in my mouth. But he just disappeared into golf, which was a sort of great way for him to kind of find out who he was. So, you know, pretty cool story. Like I, I do remember that now that, uh, brought that up. Um, and you know, it's that eagle that he hit there was obviously like, it was all of a sudden like, Oh shit, like this guy might, my, you know, and the, the birdie on 18, I mean, look, I'm, I'm glad he got the first place check.

That's great. We still get the great story out of it. You know, an amateur winning, he gets to cash in there. It feels like a fair trade. Um, feel pretty good about that. Yeah. I also think about this too. Would, uh, if you're, if you're done lap, would you rather, would you rather want the 1.5, but you were, you had to declare your professional earlier in the week, or would you rather not have the money, but you were, you had to declare your professional earlier

in the week or would you rather not have the money but now be known as the guy who as an amateur one. So I feel like to me the amateur next to it is such a thing that you can't quant, I mean, it's easy for me to say, yeah, I'd rather, right? It was said the money, but to me, it just seems like that's something that could last forever and you know, money, if he's going to be as good as he might be, he's going to get it eventually. But I don't know, is that kind of like a two-way look at it? Or? No, I think that's a perfect way to look at it. I think you to be able to be,

if you think you're going to be a great golfer, which obviously you would think so if you're like done that, you just did something that nobody's done in 100 plus years, you're going to make money and a lot of it along the way, whether it's from endorsements or whether it's from prize money, that money is going to come back to you in a long way. And frankly, over the course of his life, being the first amateur to win on tour in this long, just in the loan and speeches would probably come up, hey, can I come speak, talk to your club for $25,000 or your leadership conference, this business. I would love to tell you about how I approach this. I mean, that kind of stuff will end up in Dunlop's bank account.

And I guess, I don't know if we even mentioned this, but like, he could not have accepted the money. Like some people were asking me, like, well, couldn't he just like, say he's turn him pro now or say he's turned pro in the 18th green? Like, no, the rules say specifically you have before you enter a tournament, you have to sort of declare professional or amateur. So there was, there was no scenario where he was going to get that money. Uh, had to serve, you know, basically, I think it's a thousand dollars is the

most that he can accept in the US. Yeah. That's there. So, you know, if I know it seems like it's a bit of a bummer of a break, but I promise you that if Nick Dunlap turn pro tomorrow and I don't know whether his like Adidas, you know gear is like part of Alabama's setup or if he has his own NIL deal, but if he wanted to sign a deal with someone else, he could make that money back like almost immediately. And I'm sure there are a lot of people joking that like he could pick up the phone

and call live right now and live would probably say like, hey, how's 30, 40 or 75 million dollars that you would like? So that would be kind of a miserable outcome, I think just for golf fans. I mean, Liv fans would argue differently, but because he got famous being a winning on the PGA Tour. It wasn't like, I doubt there was an offer before this week about from Liv, it'd be like, hey, come on over and

And do what we're doing. But you know, who knows if they're all coming back together You know, who knows maybe Nick Dullump could could wager on the hey I'll take the 30 40 million and the assumption that I'm gonna be able to compete on the PJ Tour and in majors Going forward anyway. So, you know, it's a calculation that a lot of people have to make I think it's 30 minutes to water down on this really beautiful moment of volume I just said I said I wasn't gonna jump project forward and of course like I couldn't resist doing it Which is like just part of the cancer of social media is that you know people can't resist putting those thoughts in your head As we sort of work our way down the leaderboard in honor of TC here Kevin you another player who was not familiar with Joe game. Uh,

he shot 63 on the final day and came to the 18th hole, tied for the lead, blew his driveway right and kind of ended up at a bunker. Couldn't get up to the green, uh, and ended up, you know, missing a lengthy putt for a five. Uh, you know, Kevin seemed like a great ball striker and a pretty good driver of the ball. I think he, you know, hadn't missed a fairway all day until the 18th. You know, I, I don't want to say like I was reading against him, but I didn't really want him to like ruin a good story with Nick Dunlop.

Uh, so, you know, hopefully like good things are ahead for him. Michael Kim, sometimes friend of the pod finished T six, uh, you know, first top 10 of the year for him. Saw he was like hitting up in an out burger or something on the way out of town on Twitter. And a couple more things. I wanted to get your thoughts Joel on Daniel burger. I was back this week, first time in a couple, a couple of years really that Daniel sort of shown up

on the scene because of his back injury. Dylan to share wrote a nice little sort of shown up on the scene because of his back injury. Dylan Desherre wrote a nice little sort of catch up with the Sam kind of about how truly in hell he was just with a back pain. What did it feel like to see Daniel Berger out there? I mean, I think he's ended up like T-39th, like 17 under, which is decent showing for first time in a while. For a guy from all accounts, wasn't even really able to practice much to get ready for this. It's just the back is still in that, you know, anyone who has back issues,

it's a fickle thing, right? We all know that. But, uh, yeah, it just shows you how, I mean, this was a guy who was a top 15 guy who was part of that 20, 21 rider cup team. And it just shows you when you're kind of gone in the interest, and that's you're a top three or four four guy we tend to forget about you, right? And the burger was someone who was just extremely good. Yeah, it definitely is good to see him back. I was very impressive for his first start. I saw the assimilation process is never easy back to tour life.

Hopefully he's just able to stay healthy. It sounded like just the quality of life was so bad there for a little bit. So hopefully he's able to kind of continue his career and still live in relatively a pain-free existence. But yeah, I mean, honestly, the swing looks still pretty damn good from what it used to be. Um, I know the stats, you show a little bit there, but it didn't seem like there was a lot of rust.

So if you're burger, I think you got to take this week away just as a huge, not a positive getting through four rounds, but even just making the cut. I think you got to take this week away just as a huge positive getting through four rounds We even just making the cut. I think it has to be a view. So yeah, hopefully this is a starvin nice little comeback The one thing that kind of made me sad is he basically said that like he couldn't even drive around in his boat He couldn't even stand up. You know, that's how much his back hurt Like if you know, he can't take the boat life away from from burger That's that seems unnecessarily cruel by the gods. Any others kind of, you know, Xander Shopley, sneaky T three, never felt like he was in it,

but did shoot a back nine 31 to sort of make it interesting. I mean, not, this doesn't feel, it's been a while since Xander one. So it would be nice to see him, I think, for his sake, get back into the W column, but you know, anything to sort of expect from him out of this year? Yeah, I mean, he had a pretty good week at the century. I think maybe T10 finished, but overall played pretty well. Yeah, for a guy who really came out on the business end of the Ryder Cup on multiple ends,

this is kind of an interesting year for him. I think he's 30. For a guy who had a nice little four year span of it. It seemed like being in a lot of major championships. He obviously still hasn't made that breakthrough yet. And yet you look at him and you go, man, what's this guy has everything. There's no real weak points in his game. And yeah, again, I'm not trying to explain the success at the Amex to what could happen in the majors, but It's that him being in the mix. I think he I find him one of the more interesting guys on tour

So for him to kind of be relevant going into the play just going into the West Coast swing I think it will be really interesting and yeah, hopefully what we've seen is not an aberration two times last year that Scottie Schuffler finished outside the top 20, the open championship, uh, and then I believe the, uh, the CJ cup, uh, Scotty finished 20 second, I believe this week. Um, I don't, I don't know that it really is like anything new to say about Shufflers like putting it's just kind of the same sort of thing over and over.

Like it's the best ball striker in the world. You know, probably if you had anyone else, like if you could just putt average, he would be blowing away tournaments, but you know, he still has not figured that out. I didn't know what he ended up putting, but saw a stat, you know, he was again, like losing strokes on the green this week. I don't know. Anything's thinking worry about or care about or feel like your progress made with Scottie.

I do actually think there's progress because from probably May until August, it seemed like Sheffler was really pushing back on, on the assertion that the short game was a mess. He kind of looked at it as just a, you know, a little bit of a slump, but nothing was mechanically wrong. It seems like in the fall, he finally kind of came to the realization that, hey, all right, things are messed up. Let's break it down.

I know it's going to be rough until we maybe get to where we want to go, but I'm at least willing to understand we need to work on this. For people around Sheffler, they seem pretty hopeful about this. And yeah, you're right. With his ball striking, he's always going to be in it. Yeah. To me, there's nothing too worried about this. And yeah, you're right. With his ball striking, he's always going to be in it. Yeah. To me, there's nothing too worried about here. If anything, I do like the trajectory he's going as we get into February and March with his game. And again, you look at the stats,

they might not show it, but I do think he is getting better on that front. I know like it's sort of the nature of having a weekly podcast and wanting to sort of talk about stuff. But it made me kind of laugh a little bit last week when Rory, you know, he kind of punts away that tournament or whatever. And then there's like all this talk of like, Oh, is Rory messed up? Like, Ben, it's the beginning of the year. Like this is, we don't need to make like grand extrapolations on the best players in the world based off of like one or two holes within the tournament. And so I refused to sort of like if Scotty sucks putting at the Masters,

then I might be like, man, what a where are we going to go through another year of this? But, you know, I just don't feel like the the American Express makes a big difference or the century makes a big difference in the potential of what we're going to see this year. I know. And again, I partly the blame's on us, right? big difference or the century makes a big difference in the potential of what we're going to see this year. I know. And again, I partly the blame's on us, right? Because we want certain events to be windows and these people sold next to it, right? And sometimes it's just bad a bad 18 holes or a bad couple holes, it doesn't speak to them as where there are or where they're going, maybe it's just a bad two

hole window. And they were two strokes worse than the guy they were playing against. And I'm with you, especially with and we'll get to a raring in a second. But yeah, Sheffler, I'm not trying to downplay those worries. But I do think he is at a better spot than what he was. Even at the Ryder Cup, I think that's when you really start to see him buy into. Yeah, things aren't great rather than you guys don't know what you're talking about. But it does seem to be a lot of work has been done on that, on that, on that, on that part of his game.

And yeah, there's if you're a Shephard fan, there's, I would not worry about any carryover about him having issues on putting. Speaking of Rory, Rory wins the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. Not to be confused with the Dubai Invitational last week. This is sort of the two Dubai events, kind of the bigger one. It's where they end up playing in the end of the DP World Championship every year. Rory did not seem like midway through this tournament. He was going to have any shot at this.

It seemed like it was not a particularly great showing. I think he trailed Cam Young by 10 shots in midway through Friday and came roaring back the next day and wins this. He ended up sort of walking down not only Cam Young, but ahead of Adrian Moronk, who continues to just put up results on the DP World Tour. I feel bad for Adrian because it's like It was what does Adrian have to do to get taken to the ball frankly but

You know not even like it. I would say an outstanding day by Rory on the last day I think he shot 70 didn't make a birdie on the back nine But you know made some birdies on the front drove the 351 yard second hole to sort of get it and then made it a couple ridiculous putts made a really great birdie putt on eight that you know, Kim Young was just kind of slowly, slowly, slowly falling apart made a double bogey after driving it into the woods on one of the holes and being up against a tree. Another great birdie on nine that gave him a three shot lead at one point. He made bogey 13. He's kind of got a little bit of the left miss going on right now. So when he gets a little bit quick, kind of yanks across it and goes left, but was able to kind of hit a really good shot on 16 when he did another sort of yank left. He found the green from like deep into the trees, two putt par and then made a pretty kind of uneventful two putt par on 18.

Moran could got it to one after he made a birdie on 17, but just didn't, didn't have enough gas to catch Rory. Joel, what do we make of Rory's season so far? Yeah, it's, it's gotta be the highest compliment in both a source of vexation if you're Rory that he is so damn good and so consistent that you almost become numb to the excellence. And we've talked about the majors before that we tend to extrapolate so much from these 16 rounds a year that and we downplay what happens the rest of the season, especially when the latter you would think is actually more indicative of a guy's performance in just four tournaments.

Basically, I just don't think people appreciate how good Rory has been the last four or five years as to what to make of the start. Yeah, given the weight he's shouldered the past two years, it would be easy to point to Dubai this weekend. Last week as maybe an inflection point of sorts that met what he's capable of now that he's decoupled himself from all the existential nonsense off the course that he's been dealing with. I think that's just way too early to make that parallel, especially, I mean, Roy's played Dubai extremely well throughout his career. This is not a one-off thing.

That means that it's certainly something to keep an eye on going forward. Now that all this tension is just on his golf game. And yeah, that's the best start you could possibly hope for if you're Roy. In some ways, right? It's like the first time in a while that there hasn't been any like, Hey, you're going to be the next Tiger Woods. Like, you know, that's coming gone. Like, Hey, are you going to stay the PJ Tour? Like, Hey, that's kind of coming gone. Like, Hey, you know, are you going to win the Masters? Well, that's still there. And he's had six or seven cracks at it, or however many at this point.

But I guess it's 10. It is really interesting to think about him just feeling a little bit free. And I do think like, what if the first week in Dubai was kind of his floor, right? Like, what if it's like, oh man, even when I play poorly in a shitty field, like I'm going to be right there at the end. And you know, I think many, I don't know if this I want to predict like a monster season from

him, but he's just such a better player than almost anybody else in terms of like when he plays bad, it's, it's never going to be a 77 unless it's like a really bad, you know, crazy US open setup or whatever. It's just he doesn't have those like ejection rounds in him anymore. He has like, Hey, like I didn't play great today and I shot 71 and I'm still in it and I can, you know, probably shoot 67 tomorrow if I need to. And, you know, I think his, his major season last year throw the masters out, uh, is was really fricking good in a lot of ways. And no one would really look at it that way, but it was like, it was just a solid sort of thing. I, we get sort of, you know, banged on for being too pro Rory here in this podcast,

but like it just, the facts are what they are. I was like, he's, he's really consistent and it's really good. And all this talk of like, you know, oh, Rory is the most hated man at golf now. I don't, I thought such a ridiculous kind of thing, I think to say. Yeah. I, uh, and a couple of things, obviously you guys are closer with Rory than, than I am, but talking to somebody who is somewhat in the same position that Rory was the past couple of years, we can never see the amount of time that has taken away dealing with what's going on right now in the game. Just the amount of calls that is taken away dealing with what's going on right now in the game. Just the amount of calls that you're spending

with other tour players. And that might not seem like a lot or these texts, but those take away valuable hours, especially if you have a family you just don't have time to delegate to. So this idea that I know it sounds like a Rory Apologis creation that what could he be capable of now that he's free to this obligation I do think it's a very real thing we'll be discussing going forward but yeah you're right he also just seems more comfortable with

who he is now I don't think I mean he's a very likable guy who he is but I also don't think he's worried about the politics of being liked as much anymore mm-hmm and again he's been around for such a long time. We forget he's still relatively young guy. Like he's basically the at the age where Phil was when Phil started his major tear. So, you know, not to say that he would have the longevity that Phil has enjoyed, but it's not like, Hey, he only has a couple of years left. He still has a long runway if he wants to to be great. And yeah, it's, I hate to say, cause we always put so much pressure on Roy to see what he will do. But man, what

this, this start certainly hasn't downplayed expectations for what he could possibly do in 2024. Yeah. The next five years could be really fun. I mean, they could be more sort of torturous for him. Obviously winning regular tournaments is not, uh, not that important, but it's like, you want to win if you're going to tee it up. But the next five years of like major that this is probably his chance to sort of. Make his legacy, something beyond what it is now, right? Like he's probably a top 25 golfer of all time.

I think that's probably fair to say it might be on the sort of fringe of that. Uh, but I think that he probably is that has been number one for long, long stretches, uh, and has done it consistently for a long time. It's almost one majors, you know, a lot during the last 10 years, even though he hasn't broken through. If he were to sort of win a couple more or, or, you know, like you said, the, the outlier end of it is like have a Mickelson type career from now on, like when five more from here or six more from here, don't think that's going to happen.

Just like historically, like, you know, Phil's one of the few guys to do that, go on that kind of run. But you know what? The possibility is still there. I think like he hasn't, especially the last few years, his fitness has been pretty good. He hasn't, you know, been missed much time with injury. So who knows?

There's a fun, there's a fun kind of hypothetical, at least to start the season of like playing well. You know, you're right. He does always play well in Dubai. I think he likes looking at those buildings and then at distance and picking out a window, you know, far off there and just basically used to live in Dubai too. So maybe there's a little bit of home game model. Shout out to my colleague, Randy, and the home game model in that sense. So what about Cam Young? What should be sort of, I mean,

kind of a place that weekend in plus one, you know, look like he kind of had that tournament on his hands. I haven't spent a ton of time really talking to Cam Young. I can't say that I know him really well. I feel like I should try to remedy that this year a little bit. I feel like we get a little bit sort of, you know, beat on guys when they, of, you know, beat on

guys when they, oh, you still haven't won. Does that mean that it's something about your character? Like, Cammy Young is really freaking good. You know, he's obviously done really well and match play stuff. He's, you know, he's just a very, very talented player. Is there anything you think Joel that, I mean, is, what is holding cam back from being like a three four time winner on the PG tour because in my mind he almost already is Yeah, I don't think anything really is right like you look at Schaeffler's first couple years, right? That was a knock on him of why can't this guy win? He's getting in a lot of time and since not not finished in through obviously not quite as long of a stretch that can say

But this is also only his third year. He hasn't started his really his third year yet on the PGA tour. Well, I feel like Tony Finau has been the proof of concept that maybe wins don't necessarily show if you're a great, a good player or not. There's nothing to personally, I don't think there's anything to worry about right now.

I, uh, when it the buy would not have changed what I think about came young as who he is or what he could be. Maybe we could start having that talk a year now where he starts having more close calls where he falls down the stretch. I just think he's still way too young to start making any type of indictments on him. Yeah. Uh, I noticed that, you know, obviously we talked a little bit about Moranke, I don't really have a lot to say about Adrian Moranke other than like,

it must be hard to continue to be really like play really well. And also I've seen the European router cup team like go and kick ass. And you don't really have any like justification of being like, well, you should have taken me like, no, they kind of figured that out. Like they were, you know, yeah, the only, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, had to be there. Yeah. And now, granted, this could all change by next week, but you know, I think out of moral entanglement aside, Baranque would have had probably more justification for jumping to live than almost any other guy of like, well, listen, I'm just clearly on the out crowd.

The fact that he's betting on himself, not only of where he's at, but where he thinks he can still go. I mean, credit to him. I think that he keeps getting these rough goes, but I mean, gosh, this game, it's still very raw, which is really impressive. You can see how great he is, or good he is now, but there's still, you can tell potential would be a lot better.

So yeah, I mean, that's anything if you're an American fan like Giesel Pete, so this guy keeps getting better. Like what's 2025 going to look like? But, uh, yeah, I got a feel for him, but I think I would not be surprised. I can see ball hollow up being a really interesting spot for him. Cause you can spray the ball a little bit there and get away with it. It definitely rewards aggressive play, which is what he kind of excels in. That would be a spot where I feel like golf fans would really have to take note of Adrian

Moran, cause they're not already familiar with them. How about an Adrian Moran Keegan Bradley singles match to decide the rider cup at Beth page like that? That would feel, you know, appropriate to sort of settling old accounts. Oh my gosh. A saint Johnny's guy playing in the page. Too much. I feel like I've said this probably a dozen times on this podcast and I'm gonna say it again.

Like I'm very concerned that they're going to want to like, there's gonna be all this like, we should cancel the Ryder Cup talk. It's gotten out of hand after the behavior at BethMage because I think it's going to get really bonkers, like really loud and really not, and not even like a, oh, loud kind of fun kind of way, but like, I'm worried that we're not

the American fans are not going to behave themselves. And that they're going to be like, well, it sucks to play in Europe. So you just got to take it. Like they get heckled here. But man, it's truly, I remember the, the, uh, Beth page PGA when Brooks was there, Oh my God, just screaming, you know, obscenities and like getting dragged out by security. And people, screaming, you know, obscenities and like getting dragged out by security. And I was like, wow, this is the potential for this to get ugly is very, it's right on the surface. And when, when Brooks, I think it was 14, yeah, it was part three when he hit it over and people started yelling, there's Channing DJ.

That was like, it was really my first thought of, Oh my gosh, we're at that point, five years out from. Up here. This is, this is going to be too much. And we'll get to a little bit rather cup in a little bit. But my main worry is Saturday, just because the rider cups the one event that it's really not a golf crowd. It's a sport sporting crowd for a lot of the reasons why I think we love so many people love the rider cup. In this point, it does give me a little worry I'd it'll be interesting to see the campaign that goes on the next year and I have to get closer of like it was

What was it? I think it was the 2009 US Open when yeah, it was at that page. There was like that be nice to Sergio Yep, yep We're due for one of those Because it's it could because it could get real bad. Get a real bad day on the weekend. Well, and some people think like, oh, what are you, you know, why are you saying this? Like, you're so soft. Like, you know, it's not that it's literally like this screaming obscenities and like,

you know, taunting people's wives and golf. You're just so literally like you're standing on top of the players all the time. It's not like basketball or football or baseball where there's like real barriers between you. Like the ropes are just sort of like a polite suggestion. And the players hear literally everything you hear. And I think with what happened with KLA at the, you know, Ryder Cup and the hat stuff, I'm sure a lot of American fans are like, all right, it's our turn to kind of give them a taste of what we experienced. I remember Justin Rose saying to me at the Hazeltine Ryder Cup, I pulled him aside after they got, he and Stenson got heckled pretty hard during a match with Spieth and Reid.

And Rose saying like, they're going to have to like get this under control. Like this, they're going to lose control of the event. Like this is not, you know, reasonable going forward. And just in rows is pretty reasonable guy. Like you can get a little bit whiny, but you know, I think pretty, you know, even keel, not exactly like it's not, it's not, he's not a tough person who hasn't dealt with like unruly crowds before. So yeah, that's a look forward to that was that effort. Danny Wolts brother wrote that kind of hilarious note that no one took. I'm fair that satire didn't translate for Danny Wolts brother. And listen, I live just outside of New York City. I go to a lot of Knicks games.

Like it's so much different when you have 20,000 people yelling something and actually almost drowns it out versus man, even if it's just one knuckle head yelling something, it just cuts through the air because everybody can hear it. if it's just one knucklehead yelling something, it just cuts through the air because everybody can hear it and it's just uncomfortable. Yeah, there's a way and even the cantileve stuff. I mean, we were there. It was so friendly. I don't, it wasn't malicious by any means. For sure. Kind of good natured. And I think that's, that's the tone I'm worried Beth page will not have.

It will not be, Hey, this is all good nature. We're all just watching golf It will be we there'll be xenophobic. Yeah, it's Problem is that flat out American fans are not funny and are not clever in groups like European fans are it's just not part of our Culture, it's like what soccer is that you know, they're singing songs. They're making jokes like in America. It's more like and you know, so shout outs all my my people. Speaking of things that are just clearly unfair. Joaquin Neiman said he was participating in this event here at the Dubai and said, early in the week, it was unfair. It's

pretty unfair right now what the world rankings shows. It says the top 100 players in the world right now, but I don't think it is the right ranking. That's why I'm going to Dubai because of ranking points, nothing else just to try to get into the masters. It's not me trying to take the place of other players because I'm there. It's because the system is not working well. I want to be at the majors

and I think this is the easiest path is to go play in Dubai. I don't know if it's going to create drama or if they're not going to like me playing on that tour, but I'm going to go there and try to play well and get my points and then get out of there. Neiman did play pretty well, ended up, I believe, in a tie for fourth. Joel, what do we think about Joachim Neiman saying, it's unfair that we're still not getting ranking points. And that's why I have to go back and play on the DP world tour to get these points. Even though,

as what he said here, I think we have to find a way for us to get in. That's why I'm trying to play more tournaments than just live golf. Joel, I thought the point was to play less golf and be more time with your family. I love that he essentially tries to take responsibility for his decision before then immediately putting the onus on the majors for not going along. If they want it. I mean, he's certainly not the first person to make this song. I just have zero tolerance for guys not coming to terms with the

consequences of their actions. Right. Like if you are naive enough to believe Greg Norman, that points were eventually going to come like, man, that's, that's on you. And I hate the expression, hey, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Because like, why the hell do I want cake if I can't eat it? But it blows my mind that so many of these guys made the Thaustonium bargain, get our own willing to kind of account for the cost of that deal.

He is right. The majors are in business of doing what's best for them, and that they haven't thus far, I mean, it could change, but like so far they haven't given Liv a funnel. I think that's a bigger indictment than any world ranking points. And I don't know, just when Liv, if you're a Liv guy and you took the money at that point,

it meant you were no longer a competitor, you were a barn starver. I don't know. Frankly, Neiman should be lucky that even he even has this avenue from the DP world totally to himself rather than blame the system that he's trying to tear down. So yeah, I don't know. Neiman was also the guy who kind of acted like all the players

are going to hate us when we get to the Masters last year. And clearly that wasn't the case. So I feel bad for him. I do think he's a good guy and I understand maybe feeling why he is, but he just needs somebody in his life to tell him this, this is how it is, man. And you got to come to, you got to come to peace with it. Well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions, like you have a lot of money and you don't have to like grind to make that money.

You'd like literally can just enjoy the money and how you play on the live tour is just a bonus. And so I kind of, you know, clearly your legacy or whatever you want to compete and win in majors, like, you know, there are other avenues into certainly like the US Open and the Open Championship that you could pursue. And some live players have chosen to not do that. And some have, I honestly do legitimately like admire the ones who just shut up and go and like go to

try to qualify. Like, all right, you know what? I know I knew the deal. I got the money. Money's great. I don't have to like, I don't have to play as many tournaments as I want and I can just go. I think that that's what the calculation a lot of them could have should have done is

saying like, you know what? This might mean I might not make it to the masters and I'm okay with that. Cause $50 million is going to be generational wealth for my family. The masters, the legacy stuff, all that stuff doesn't really matter to me as much as $50 million. And that's why everybody admires Harold, uh, Harold Varner because he just straight up said that. It's like, yeah, I'm good, man. Like I can't pass this up.

Like I'm, you know, masters is great and all, but I need to make this money for my family and peace out. Great, I'm, you know, not just as a great and all, but I need to make this money for my family and peace out. Great, great perspective there from Harold. How Tong Li citing in this tournament, Joel, he, I believe he finished tied for seventh. I would just like to read to you how Tong Li's results from 2023 prior to this tournament. Lee's results from 2023 prior to this tournament. Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut, Miscut with WD, WD, Miscut. It has been deep into the wilderness for Houtong, but I don't know, like a pretty decent showing here in a pretty decent tournament.

You know, I think we all were kind of thinking like, oh man, like back when, you know, he was leading, which I can't remember which he has opened it was, what he was pounding balls into the, you know, into the darkness late that night. And you're thinking like, man, this is finally going to be the, you know, the great player from China that we've been talking about for years It's gonna break through and it's gonna make the game explode in China And they're gonna build thousands of courses in China and this is gonna be you know next What's happened in in South Korea is gonna happen with China and It just hasn't quite happened for how long like he's been he's currently ranked

476th in OW been, you know, he's currently ranked 476th in the O.W.G.R. But, you know, this is a pretty good result. Maybe there's good things to come. I just hope he plays well enough to get back in the president's cup because if he produces any type of stories like he did in 2019, actually, I'm not kidding you. So I have a putting green in my basement and I have photos from different events kind of scattered below a photo of actually me and you were at Giving you too much information. You and I were sitting on the 72nd green of a US open and it was when Will's Altaurus missed the putt. So it's been the playoff. Will's Out Taurus missed the putt, so he's gonna play off. One of our colleagues who had bet a lot of money on Zao Taurus is like, his hands bearing in his face.

And another one of our colleagues is trying to yell into a camera, but a camera's turned the other way and me and you are just looking at each other like, what the fuck? Below that photo is the hang-tongue photo of him at TPC Harding hitting balls into the darkness. So That's why I really have to head about hang-tongue. I love he's got a really when he's on He's got a really fun game because he's a little bit sense of I mean this sounds blasphemy must have roared

but like he makes it look really easy when things are going well and When he is the wedge game figured out man man, you just you just watch him. You go to house this guy now, like a top 15 player. So, yeah, hopefully, hopefully he gets back on because he legitimately is a character both on and off the course and we're kind of short of that at the moment. So hopefully, hopefully he gets this game back on the study. Oh, I don't remember that presence cup where like, you know, they had all the strategy like worked out or telling the guys like, Hey, a first tee, like everyone

needs to hit iron because you just don't want to, you know, you can't be in a spot where driver's going to build ever. And he just like, Lee Roy Jenkins, like on the first tee, like just boom hit driver and just completely getting ejected that whole day. Like just completely ignored all the advice that L said had sort of methodically like worked out to, you know, try to win that presence cup. I think it's probably still on YouTube. There's a great video of that first, when he's the driver where Ernie L's almost like comes from the crowd.

It's like a Red Sea parting and L's, you can literally see him saying, what the fuck? Oh, it was so good. It was one of those things where I hope ever because, you know, he's, we don't get to see him much as American golf riders, but that's definitely who he is. So to see everybody else see what we'd see was, it was just perfect. Well, Jill, you know, what else is perfect is rowback. They got the best fit, the best feel.

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with the code NLU. Great ready for a golf season. Roback, Joe, I'm going to have to just send a big box of a row back to your house. So thank you for doing this podcast. But let's turn it back net our eyes now to the LPGA with Grand Hilton's vacations tournament of champions Lydia co back in the winner circle wins by two She becomes the seventh woman to reach 20 LPGA wins before the age of 27 This is the first time that Lydia wins has won a tournament by herself since 2022 she was able to capture the Zurich with Jason Day a few a little bit ago I sort of that was in Zurich. No is the sorry Grand Thornton. Yes. Yeah, the

We need if it was a Zurich man, that would be a big story but This gets Lydia she finishes two shots ahead of Alexa Pano Which if you have little girls who like golf, you are well aware of since her appearance way back when in the short game, the Netflix documentary about sort of youth golf. This gets Lydia one step closer to being automatically entry in the Hall of Fame. She now has 26 points, 27 points gets you automatically in the Hall of Fame. I watched a good chunk of this today as I was sort of getting ready

for the amix to come on. Uh, Lydia just, you know, roping like low bullet penetrating driver, uh, you know, taking the sort of wind out of it. Obviously is a great wedge player. Seems to have like figured out putting again. You know, Joel, what do we make of Lydia Co's career at this point? Uh, I, It's hard to believe that she is 27 years old and first became the number one player in 2015.

Aside from the career, just for today, I don't think it's a secret that the team around Lydia is very involved. Similarly, there have been a number of ex-catties and teachers who have expressed concern for that. From what I gathered last season was really the first time in her life that she's had some sort of autonomy and really given the chance to, I mean, unplug something right word. I think she just realized there's more to life than golf, right? And maybe that was a detriment to her game, but I think ultimately that was healthy for who she is as a person. Now, judging this from a golf standpoint,

there is worry that once you sort of leave, especially once you've been, that's the only thing you've known your entire life, sometimes you wonder, are they going to come back? So I know this course is, I mean, it's friendly confines to her, but when you had the season that she had in 23, you needed to start somewhere.

So to see her do what she did this week at Lake Nona, I think it's a really great sign for what she could still do not only this year, but in her career. But yeah, as a career, I feel bad. I feel like she's not been given the proper due. She was like, so much noise was made when she came out and she was so good that her very goodness

almost wasn't appreciated because what we thought she was gonna be, it was almost a little of a letdown. So I kind of now that she's had the year that she had and she's able to come back, I think hopefully more people ever appreciate just the work that she's put together almost for a decade now. And yeah, I mean, she's still 27. There's still a lot of time left. And this was a great first step to kind of maybe getting back to that person we saw even just a couple of years ago. Yes, when we talk about amateur is winning golf tournaments, professional

golf tournaments, Lydia Co is certainly someone who did that. You know, this is when we say that stuff about Nick Dunlop, of course, we are ignoring the fact that it happened in the women's game. You know, Lydia Co was really almost one majors before she, you know, turned professional when she was 15 and 16. I spent some time around Lydia. I wrote a feature about her, her ESPN, the magazine back when ESPN, the magazine existed. And it's, it's funny because part of what you said is exactly true. When I originally got assigned the piece, the hook of it, the editor wanted me to write about it was like, she's like potential to be the greatest golfer of all time. Like she's so, you know, she's

had this unbelievable career and she, she'd almost won a US Open, you know, the year before it would have been her third major. She kind of kicked it away a little bit on the back nine that year. And oftentimes at ESPN, like we would write pieces and they would hold for a long time and you have to kind of update them and do more reporting. And so it ended up kind of holding for almost like, I think it was a year. And by the time that I, you know, it ran the kind of tenor of the piece had changed very much because she was in a pretty big slump and had, you know, fired a ton of caddies and had switched coaches and all these people were starting to criticize. And,

and the very first thing that we kind of talked about when we sat down was, you know, her saying, yeah, I just, I think I'm probably going to retire by the time I'm 30. Like that's enough. I don't really want to play golf forever. And I was like, Oh, that's crazy to think about retiring at 30. Like how good, but she was very adamant about like, yeah, that's, I'm good. Like I don't need to play past 30. I don't care what comes or doesn't come in my future with this. And you know, I don't know if she's st that was probably four years ago, five years ago, I'm certainly like followed

up with that. But I have like talked to her when I took my daughter to the US Open, we're walking along the ropes and walking her. And of course, Lydia, who's like one of the nicest people in all of golf, like waves us in as like, Hey, do you want to come and walk with me? And my 11 year old is like, just completely your mind is blown. And you know, Lydia Co's, if you're familiar with this podcast, you probably heard me like getting all weepy on the podcast last year. I was talking about Lydia Co, like complimenting my daughter's freckles and saying, like, Oh, you know, what's your favorite club to hit? Do you want to come stand on the tee with me on the seventh tee at Pebble Beach with me? And, you know, she's just was really like, unbelievably nice and really kind. And I

it's really hard not to root for Lico when you have like an interaction with her like that. But like from if I step back from it and like do my golf analyst thing, I started to sit and think like, God, her swing was so pure and so unbelievable. She's 1516. Like if no one had ever touched it, you know, would she have had a better career? Which, you know, it wasn't that long ago that I know this is a sensitive subject with the lead betters, but that, you know, David Ledbetter had her doing the A swing or whatever that he was kind of, you know, trying to have a whole different kind of swing philosophy that he was marketing and she was willing to go along with it.

And then she was with Sean Foley and then left on Foley. So it's, it's hard to know because she was such a graceful, amazing wedge player, like an absolute maestro with her wedges. And that went away for a while. And you know, I guess the hope is like that, that natural skill comes back. I think you hit on a really important point about who she is as a person because that's been used against her. Well, she's not a killer. She's not a psychopath like you need to be. And I think that's just such an antiquated way to look at it and just a healthy way to look at it.

You don't have to be. I get there's the examples of Jordan Tiger. I mean, you can go down the list, but there's a lot of other guys and a lot of athletes, excuse me, that had well rounded life. So I always point to him was the guy who arguably the best power forward of all time. And it was just dude. And that example that you just gave with your daughter, that is not that is not a lone story. I can't tell you how many people have told me very similar things of, oh, hey, I met her six years ago and she remembered by name and we literally just talked for three minutes at a driver. She's just a very, I think that stuff matters a heck of a lot more than how many, you know,

if you're going to be a great player or not. And even today, she kind of said she was at peace, not making the whole thing after she won. Again, I am a firm believer that with what she's kind of done with her life, getting married, kind of understanding that there's a life outside of golf, I don't think this is going to necessarily hold her back for the next couple of years of what she could still do. I also don't think if she doesn't get there, we should term it as a disappointment. She's just someone that we, again, just don't give

enough credit to. If she does stick to that 30 aspiration, that's someone we should appreciate because I don't think we really realize how good she is. And to her, to me, getting that recognition of it just kind of stinks. I always have very conflicted feelings about the LPGA's Hall of Fame criteria, right? Like, it's very black and white. It basically is, you know, there's no committee that has to weigh it, right? You just, you either are or you aren't, in according to them.

And I don't know, like, I guess, you know, you don't make it any kind of popularity contest. If you do that, it's like your accomplishments, the criteria is laid out. It's, you know, a point for a win, two points for a major. And I think you get a point for, you know, maybe it's one or two points for being player of the year or whatever. I just think it get a point for, you know, maybe it's one or two points for being player of the year or whatever.

I just think it's hard to, when you see people who you feel like, Oh, obviously, like Lydia Co is a Hall of Famer potentially getting left out. Like if she decided to retire tomorrow is like, Lydia Co, not a Hall of Famer. Like that seems like a pretty dumb argument. Uh, you know, there's a reason why in like the NFL that like Gale, Sarah's is a Hall of Famer, right? And we only played four years in the NFL. It's like, well, yeah, because it was so incredible and these circumstances

happened, blew out his knee back when there was no kind of like reconstructive knee surgery. And I don't know. I just, it strikes me as a little bit off, I guess. Uh, but if you're someone who was like, never the most popular player and you just went out and racked up wins, then it's probably a good thing for you. The Gale Sayers as well as the Bill Walton are the two examples. They always use the Hall of Fame standard because yeah, I'm with you. Like I understand the rationale behind it, but you're also trying to quantify something that is not quantifiable.

That's the whole point of being a Hall of Fame is about my standards. Is this someone you're going to tell your kids about, right? And that's not something that should just be a formulaic. And I, by the way, everyone gets in the Hall of Fame anyway. If you fall, so I understand maybe trying to bring fairness to it, but it's just unnecessary to my view. You're right. Like Lydia, if you ask anybody who follows golf is a little you call all the answers. Yes. If they say no, they're, they haven't been following.

Yeah. As I said, you know, pretty good showing by Alexa Panno, who was, you know, as we said, a phenom back in the day of when Netflix was, you know, looking around for golf stories to tell and put out a interesting documentary called the short game. But I always think it's kind of amazing that both she and Amari Avery were like the best seven and eight year old in the world back in what it was 19, you know, 2014, whatever that came out. And now they're legitimately like, you know, two of the best 19, 20 year olds in the world. And or at least, you know, in the top, you know, would you say top 100, which is a remarkable thing to like, the funnel just keeps like going, you know, in the top, you know, would you'd say top 100, which is a remarkable thing to like the funnel just keeps like going, you know, getting smaller and smaller and

smaller as players get older. And then I guess, you know, use the Tom coin pyramid analogy. And for those two girls to become women and still be really fricking good at golf and for Alexa Pano to, you know, only lose an LPGA tournament to Lydia co by two shots. She birdied 14, 15 and 17 to kind of at least make Lydia I have to work for it and the glidae had a five-shot lead at one point No, you know going into back nine, but that's pretty impressive And I think I don't know what Alexa Pano ceiling is. I don't really care

I just it makes me it makes me smile to see her and her dad who was like a true character in that documentary Still out there. He's still cadding for her still, you know, I kind of was thinking today, like, does he make her like ride in a different cart? She hits like an out of bounds ball. Does he make her do like all these weird, quirky, like, you know, superstitious things that he was doing in the documentary? Or is he kind of loosened that grip a little bit? I don't know. It'd be a great sort of thing to check in on and find out. That's, that was unfortunate. It was going through my head too. It was, I mean, she's 19 years old. this woman's 19,

and she seems so professional. And I mean that in a good way, but also like, oh man, it seems like this person has been preparing for this the last 10 years. Let her be a kid a little bit. That's just my main worry. I was extremely, I mean, Lake Nona's not, I know they set it up with the celebrities and amateurs.

It can be, Lake Nona's not an I know they set it up with the, with the celebrities and amateurs, like it can be garbage. Lake Nona is not an easy course by any means. So for, yeah, that type of performance against the LPGA is best. It was very impressive. But yeah, I just watched that thinking like, oh my gosh, please just let this person be, let them enjoy whatever's about to happen. Right. So, uh, again, maybe everything's good, but just watching it from afar.

And especially when we saw on that Netflix series, that was kind of everything. That was the only thing I was thinking about today, watching it. The curse of being a star when you're young, right? Is that you get to basically be around your neck for the rest of your life in a lot of ways, whether it's good or bad. I'm sure there's opportunities that, you know, Peno and like Amari Avery have gotten, you know, whether it's sponsorship stuff or whatever because of that.. But, you know, I don't know what it's an interesting trade-off. You know, we, it's funny cause like I didn't, it's not like Nick Dunlop

was eight years old and we knew who he was. Like, you know, there's a lot of people who are finding out about who he was probably tuning in today for the first time at, at 20 and like Alexa Panno, like I've known who she was since she was seven, eight years old, which is crazy. In other news around the golf world, Joel, uh, Jay Monahan visits the kingdom, uh, to sort of try to bang out some details, uh, on a, uh, I guess, uh, this is still a framework agreement or a, a cooperating agreement moving forward. Uh, sports business journal reported, uh, I think last week we heard that Jay and Yasser spoke on the phone for the first time since June 6th.

Now they're actually meeting face to face. It turned out to be an interesting week for Jay to be meeting with Yasser because of a story that the Athletic came out with that in Canadian court, Civil Court, Yasser El-Ramiyan is being accused of having carried out the instructions of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with malicious intent of harming, silencing, and ultimately destroying the family of the country's former intelligence chief, Dr. Saad Al-Jabari, Al-Jabiri. The claims were made in legal papers that were dispatched to Alramayn in various locations. I guess they as a process server had to go find Yasser. That'd be an interesting job.

I must say, but essentially accused of attempted or kidnapping of Mr. Aljayeir's family. Joel, there's a lot to sort of say or a lot to think about this. I don't know where we want to go with this, but I guess my first thing would just be like, this is always what I have sort of kind of, I guess, had frustration about or is that it's not even what Saudi Arabia has done in the past. It's what potentially they might do in the future. And how do you sit there and smile and shake hands and have them be directly involved in when it is clear that like mbs is not really changing his behavior In any way and so for all the what about ism and all the kind of people who are really want to deflect in a lot of ways about

You know, well, the america does bad things too, whatever What is it going to look like when the pga tour? America does bad things too, whatever. What is it gonna look like when the PGA Tour has a tournament someday in Saudi Arabia, assuming this Freedmen Work Agreement becomes a real agreement, and we have like 100 gay people executed for protesting or something in Saudi Arabia,

or we have another journalist who gets kidnapped and dismembered because I don't really feel like golf is going to deter the crown prince from doing what he wants, despite what Dustin Johnson has maybe said or somebody else said, like, oh, well, you know, golf could be this force of good. They can really change the attitudes of the people over there. I know that is a lot of word salad to throw at you, but where do we, what do we think about this news this week? No, I mean, to me, it's the reality check that's well past

two, right? Because as bad as June 6 was, I think most of the moral outweigh was actually muted a little bit, at least compared to the noise of just the surprise and shock of the deal. Maybe you're not muted. It was just more of, do we really need to re litigate a topic we spent the past 18 months discussing, not just the ethical concerns, but then of course, the more nuanced arguments of operating in a global economy and the counter arguments, all that nonsense that just many sports fans do not want to talk about with me the other

out of sports. I mean, that's, that's why athletics is propaganda works, right? It just wears you down until you're numb and you don't want to talk about it anymore. So I don't know this story and you know, it is just an allegation, but it is, it's the gut punch that underlines the new reality facing the tour Because I mean far it's very easy to just distill this down to like what are we doing here? Are we really?

We're really doing business with somebody who's been accused of kidnapping and The problem from the tour is I'll probably write this tonight is the story really The problem from the tour is, I'll probably write this tonight, is the story really crystallized that the tour has backed itself into like a no one situation, right? Because if you're a tour, you're about to partner directly with this guy and a regime involved with everything that place and those people are involved with. Maybe not even involved with. That's who you're answering to now. That's who you're going to hit.

That's, these people have a major say in how you run and where you're going and who you're answering to now. That's who you're going to hit. That's these people have a major say in how you run and where you're going and who you're about. And it's a partnership that to a not insignificant amount of fans really raises questions about your own judgment, integrity, morality. Now, on the other end, the tour can't not do the deal. It live has shown they have blank checks. Yep. They have an endless runway to take off and they're willing to take the tour down just so they can get flight. Right? So these are also not people who lose. So this idea that the backers are just going to go, ah, well,

you know, four billion down the drain, you know, time to move on. Like everybody who I've talked to with the past almost three years now who's covered Saudi Arabia and cover this regime, this will just make them more emboldened. If the deal does not go through. They'll just keep throwing more money at it. This is not something that's going to go away if the deal falls flat. So and now as the tour, you have just normalized doing business with your enemy. You've turned off some of your most loyal backers, both players, sponsors, because of the deal, the June six deal itself and the secrecy around it.

And you've already publicly, if you're Monahan, you publicly say your motto is not sustainable. And now you can't play the moral card after June. So I know that's a lot of words as well, but that's kind of where I'm at. This is, I feel everyone got upset when you would yell the moral entanglements, the sports watching stuff, but like

Not to downplay the shogi or anything It was that these things a lot of things are ongoing in that kingdom are problematic and a lot of things are still gonna be Done and what happens not from the past what happens on the next thing and here's the next thing And it's not just this it's gonna be something else. So It's such I mean, and you know what? This is honestly, it's a lot of it has to do with the greed from both the players. It has a lot of it from the, the hubris from the PGA Tourfront. A lot of blame goes around, but like we're in this spot now. And there's just, unfortunately, I do not see a good way out. Yeah.

No, I think that that, like, this is just the reality of what sports are. And that's, you know, I've read a couple of times about this kind of thing of like, it's you can feel turned off by the whole greed of this stuff. And you can just tell yourself, like, I don't want to be involved in it. I want to support it. You know, I'll just watch the majors and that's, that's your choice.

Like there are great stories that are still going to come out of golf. You know, today is a great example. But I, for me, what's hard is like, where the moral line, where the players have sort of decided to just basically ignore the moral line, right? Like if, if anyone was gonna like kidnap one of their own children, they wouldn't be like,

oh yeah, well that's okay. Like I'll still, you know, do propaganda for you and take your $250 million. They'd be like, no, that's, that's a porrant. Like there's no way. Like there's no price that I would sort of, you know, accept for like my own children being kidnapped. But like somebody else's kids, well, I don't know, like, I don't know that person. Like, I don't have anything to do with them. And for me, like, I just, I don't quite understand

how they make those moral justifications is a lot of just like saying, well, you know, it's just, it everybody does it. Everybody, the money's there, or somebody's gonna take it, might as well be me. I can do good with that money if I want to. I just don't know that I could stomach that, but you know what? I didn't, no one's offering me $500 billion like John Rom. So, I guess it's maybe it's easy for me to say I wouldn't, but I just feel, it feels gross to me that the possibility

of those kind of like Things of further important things like they when you heard those guys and those pressers, you know in london say everybody knows the judge The kashogi situation was reprehensible. Was it nobody supports that or whatever? Well kind of by the fact that it's continuing you are kind of supporting it going forward So you don't really have that card to play anymore. Like, hey, we think that they'll behave. We think that they'll do good. Like, you know, if like charges like this kind of hold up,

and I think the civil court is one of the only places where you can sort of, you know, pursue something like this. It's not like there's like a head of DA that you can ask to sort of charge MBS with a crime in this situation. It's just, it's got to be, it's got to be super frustrating for a lot of people who have been directly affected by this stuff. And I've talked to some of those, you know, people whose families

that were tortured by, you know, this stuff. But anyway, it's, it's, it's such a frustrating thing to have to talk about this like all the time on a golf podcast, but you know, it is, I feel like it is important and it is like, at least you're understanding and aware of what's out there. Like if you want to put your head in the sand and just enjoy the golf, that's, you have that right, but I feel like at least not to have the information that's out there. Bernard Longer announced this week that it'll be his last masters. So like, I think we both all really, truly enjoyed when Bernard, uh, one of the most memorable moments in the last few years, not to pick on Bryson, but when Bryson said that, uh, you know, Augusta was a par 69 for him. And that year, uh, it came out and,

and look, was beat by a shot by Bernard Langer, who's essentially having to hit three wood into every one of those greens, uh, everyone the par fours. Nobody, like as an older golfer, I think has been, and by older, I mean like, you know, 55 plus has probably been as good as Bernard Langer has been. You know, it's just, you know, racked up. I think he's tied with Hillar, one of the most wins in the Champions Tour history. He's one of just a ton of majors has been competitive in some respects, like at the Masters, at least like made the cut a ton of times. It's super fun to watch Bernhard Langer. I guarantee you on Thursday, I'm going to want to go out

and see him play a nine holes just to kind of get one more experience of that. What do we think as Bernhard kind of hanging up? Two time master winner this year will be his last go round. Well, sorry to correct you. It was actually par 67. Oh, excuse me. Par 67. Thank you. I've never been more delighted to be corrected in the midst of the show and error like that.

It, uh, it's, you know, at least for me, the longer was always like an avatar of as a regular goal for this idea, chasing that you can still It's you know at least for for me longer was always like an avatar of As a regular goal for this idea chasing that you can still Be good or still better yourself as you age that you don't have to just accept your game going to hell And it was really you just saw this like very youthful guy and I remember so last It was last year I was at Anwa. And between ANWA and Monday of the practice round, they had the drive-trip and putt. And what's cool though is that the course is mostly closed and you'll have, at the end of the competition, you'll have a lot of players start coming out to the range as these games

are going on. And Longer was out on the range for like four hours just going at it preparing himself. And I kind of caught him briefly on his way because that day were not the riders are not allowed on the course, but I just kind of briefly caught him. He was just like, yeah, you know, like, Mr. Cut the last two years got to fix it. It was so awesome to see at that. I guess he was 65 at that point. That was, it wasn't just like a line. He was saying like I could tell he to his core Really wanted to make the cut and and compete and to me that like it just Again, not not to get a hug's essential

But for all the past couple years it does make you wonder how much these guys truly love the game if it's just a business for them I can say with longer It really was his passion over his profession and that was just really admirable and that what he was willing to do everything Everything to possibly just milk everything out of his game for possible It was really admirable and I think he's a guy especially his peers will say just a gentleman carried himself extremely well I always thought the USGA should have just used longer driving distance stats to make their point about rollback But we'll say the ball farther at 62 than he was at 22. But no, it's just, it's really cool to see.

And yeah, I know he's probably a guy who doesn't, you know, he's never a superstar. When he was in prime, certainly his champion's career is almost gained like a second career on that. But yeah, hopefully I'm with you. I'm really looking forward to seeing him on Thursday and Friday. And honestly, I would not be surprised if he makes it to Saturday, just because type of that's the type of fire that guy's got. Totally. The last major winner to win with a persimmon driver,

which is always kind of a neat, an unbelievable stat. I think it was 92. It was the one of those last masters. So we had a persimmon driver. All right. So speaking of master's and driver. Uh, all right. So speaking of masters winners, uh, our oldest living masters champion, Jackie Burke Jr. died, uh, this week. Um, Jackie Burke Jr. won 16 times in the PGA tour, including two majors in 1956, the masters and the PGA championship. He was also the Ryder Cup captain in 1957. Uh, I, you know, I, I gotta be honest, I wasn't super like familiar.

It wasn't like someone who had read a ton about Jack and Brick Jr. But it was fun to kind of see some of the tributes, some of the way the players spoke reverently about him. And not only what a good player he was, but what a good teacher he was. And players would go to sort of see him for various points and ask him for some advice.

I know he was a big mentor to Hal Sutton and some of the other players of that generation. He did have one of the best sports quotes, I think of all time. He said, Jimmy DeMarrit and I had the best sports psychologist in the world. His name was Jack Daniels, and he was waiting for us after every round. It's, I thought it was just funny.

Then like in the era of like going to see your psychologist, like I have a big believer in like all that. And I love, you know, when players are willing to talk about that, you know, Wyndham Clark talked about how important that was for him this year. But it was funny to see that, you know, greatest generation just literally been to war. It was like, you know, Jackie Berg Jr. like went off and was in the Navy and it was like, yeah,

I'm going to go back and play golf. And it was like, ah, professional golf like that's just not that important. Like let's have a drink and like let's laugh. He, he was like that badass with the heart of gold grandpa. We all wish we had my favorite two quotes from him. And one I saw from, I think he might have said this a couple of times, but Doug Ferguson from the AP recycled over the weekend was, you know, why did they have 34 rules in golf?

Like there's only 10 commandments. And like that was funny that I thought like, actually that's quite deep. Like that is, man, why do we have that many rules? And then another was when some Houston Chronicle reporter asked them about Champions Club, which he helped found of, hey, is it rare you have, I think it was either five PGA championship winners

or five major winners. And the reply was, we've had three guys who've walked on the moon on our club. That's a dumb question. I just did not suffer fools. And yeah, they don't make him like at him anymore, but man, I hooked me in a couple of days, I think 10 days out from 101, just what a, what a, what a life will live.

So yeah, cause it was fun to see some of the tributes. I, you know, that's, that is what part of what makes sports like kind of cool. Right. It's like just the connection to what's happened in the past. And like you, you see the way that, you know, players who've played now, like revere people who've come before them and walk. That's, that's kind of why the Masters is meaningful, right?

Is because you can connect the history of, of what it was. And you can see like, Oh yeah, this is the where Jack, you know, Jack Berg Jr. You know, hit this shot that won this, you know, tournament, whatever. It's a, it's a cool thing. Um, speaking of the masters again, on hell, Cabrera, I see is working on getting a visa so that he can come back to the United States. The master said, uh, apparently through channels that he will probably be

allowed to play if he can get back into the United States. Uh, what do we think about this? Yeah. I mean, at one hand he was convicted of doing terrible things to women. I also get the argument that he served his time. I was a little, I don't want to say surprised, but you know, I think legally that was the response Ridley had to give on the question. I would not be surprised if through back channels, if this visa does come to fruition,

that maybe word is passed along that, hey, it might be best if you sit this one out on hell. But yeah, that's, that's kind of really like on that one. Yeah. Hard to know. Like, I mean, it's probably becomes a bigger deal, right? If the master says like, Hey, you're not going to come. Then, you know, is there, is he trying to sue the masters or some sort of, you know, it's just maybe like,

let it go a few years and then eventually like, is he shown that he's not that person who spent, you know, a couple of years in prison that he did his awful things? Is there some sort of attempt to reform himself or repent? I don't know. Those are probably more important questions for Augusta's membership than you are.

So, yeah. Just to kind of, I don't know, I saw the tiger filed a, a trademark with the tailor made for the Sunday red clothing. Looks like a, like a skeleton of a tiger almost. Um, I gotta be honest, I don't really care about this. Joel, I mean, I was surprised by the amount of tributes that came out after. And it was like, I don't know, man. I'm, I feel like I'm still a sports fan.

I've been a sports writer for almost 15 years now, but ultimately I'm still a sports fan. But I'm with you. I just don't care. It's got, I hope, I hope people like it. I hope it does well. I could not care at all though. Yeah. Speaking of sports fans, you and I I I think probably both got into journalism and got into wanting to write in a lot of ways because of sports illustrated

Some I would say pretty depressing news about the future of sports illustrated came out this week It's sort of unclear whether there's a lot of people basically saying rip sports illustrated looks like it's dead the Some people basically saying RIP Sports Illustrated, it looks like it's dead. The brand that owns the Sports Illustrated brand basically said that because the media company that's sort of running it couldn't meet its debt payments, whatever, that they were essentially firing the entire staff was leaked. But then it turned out maybe that wasn't the case. A lot of the people there still have 90 days. You know, I'm a little bit like, the nostalgia that's been illustrated is super meaningful to me.

And I want to talk to you about that for a second, but I do really want to emphasize like, I don't think it was like super helpful to all the like current staffers that's were illustrated, like literally people that we sit alongside and press box with every year to see like people being like, oh man, like why couldn't sports associate be like it was in like 1986? This Frank DeFord story like meant so much to me. And like the, the curious case of Sid Finch, what a cool story.

That was 40 fucking years ago. Like what this like waxing the salvage over that kind of stuff. I do not think it's like super helpful and does not exactly like have any relevance to like what Sports Illustrated is today. And so I just, I feel deeply for the people, you know, obviously we cover golf, but we know closely, but like the people who've been at Sports Illustrated for a long time, one of my really dear friends is a senior writer there. It just, it sucks in a lot of ways because this is such an iconic important brand. I know that there are challenges in the NVIDIA and the delivery model of magazines is really troubled,

but there had to be better ways to run this company in a way that could have not only paid tribute to its legacy, but move forward as a media brand. And it just, it really bummed me out to think about a world where sports illustrated doesn't exist. My wife was like asking me like, what's wrong on Friday? And I was like, can you imagine she's worked in higher education? I was like, can you imagine if like Harvard just said like we're closing? Like that's what it is to me. Like it just, it's unthinkable that like the pinnacle of my profession would just be like, yep, we're

maybe done. And that's, I just don't know what to, how to wrap my brain around it. I felt the exact same way. And to get to your first point, if you do read Spilts, I know people met well, I think with these, oh, the Frank DeFour talk about the pieces they read up. I get that. It's also we're looking that this site

still did a really good job, even till now. Michael Rosenberg kind of parachutes on golf. So I think he's one of the best sports writers out there. On the golf side, Alex Miscelli, Bob Herrick, Gabby Herzig, these are all people who do really good work. So if you're hearing this, please shout one of those people out on Twitter. Let them know that you appreciate their work.

They're all really good people and really good riders. But yeah, you're right. I mean, it's, I mean, to me growing up, it, gosh, it was just, I mean, shipwreck and Bamberg obviously they're still around. But I mean, Rick Riley, John Gertie was a guy to me who never had the credit he deserved. He was just so strong every week. I mean, Steve Rushton didn't talk about golf much, but what you do is, I mean, Steve is the guy I don't think I've ever read a piece from a Steve that wasn't beautiful. Is someone now in the profession, it's like actually infuriating going back

because he's just on a level that none of us can ever get to. But yeah, he would do this stuff. I mean, we mentioned Riley. It's funny, Riley, I think a lot of people on our 40 don't realize how good Rick Riley was. His gamer from the 86 Masters was something I go back and read before majors because he does. It's a good lesson of starting small to work to something big.

And it was, there was not a wasted word. And it, yeah, just every week. I mean, yeah, it was, you you know what I loved about their covers too is I always I always got a story that was never that I never got watching TV and if there there was a connective tissue through all the different writers in the work it was feeling like these writers had a true love for what they were doing which is something you know we know being in the industry that's not always what you get sometimes from sports riders, the longer you get in it. So, and also heck, as a guy who was in golf before, or was playing golf before Tiger,

like golf wasn't always cool. And when there was golf in sports illustrated, it kind of, it made it felt like the sport mattered. And more importantly, it felt like these guys were speaking a language that maybe a lot of people around me at least didn't really speak. So yeah, I, at this point, I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be as sensitive to, I mean, the current me, I mean, obviously a lot of stuff happened with the LA times last week with the Baltimore Sun. This is

not, this is not alone, but just what sports illustrated meant to me personally and what it meant to a lot of people. This one was, this was a tough swallow. Yeah. I hope that they can figure out a way to sort of make it work going forward in some capacity. Like, you know, my bedroom wall, like my wallpaper in my bedroom was Sports Illustrated Covers. I just, I would cut off covers and I had, you know, 400 of them covering the walls or like various pictures. And that was just, I grew up, I grew up with that in my bloodstream,

really, and Rick Riley's not only writing about Jack Nicholas, but his story about Ian Baker Finch, which Sally and I have talked about a ton, about it made me realize how compelling it was to write about someone who was sort of a loser, right? Someone who had struggled, someone who was heartbroken, and you're not just having to write about the heroes and people who are on highs. Like the most interesting stories are often about the people for whom it didn't work out and

greatness wasn't necessarily assured. And that's a lesson I've tried. And I think you're 100% right about the most memorable thing about the stuff is that you could watch so much golf on TV and you could even golf TV now. You could try to keep this in mind whenever I go to a major. Your job as a writer is to show people something they cannot get on TV. And so it means like, I remember Dan Wetzel saying to me, when somebody wins the masters, you follow them for as far as you freaking can. You follow them to the parking lot. You've, you know, and so one of my favorite stories they ever wrote was like waiting for Rory after he kind of, you know, kicked away a chance to win the masters and Patrick Reed one, waiting for him in the players parking lot to try

to see what that walk would be like to his car. And he was such a like a crushing sort of thing that his agent went and got the car and brought it up because they didn't want Rory to have to like get on a golf cart and go down to the non major winner, the non champions parking lot. And that was like the end of my story. And I was like, that's the kind of thing that's what's illustrated taught me. It's like those details of after the cameras are gone are so much more interesting than what you see necessarily like, you know, and I just, I don't know.

I hope media is in a strange spot in this country. And I really, I really hope they can figure, we can figure something out because even if you are feel like your politics aren't being properly represented in certain media things, like the flow of information and like the idea of institutions needing some sort of check on them that's not beholden to them is not a business partner with them partner with them is so important. And we've got to find a way to figure that out. Amen, brother.

And I would also just say like if you, cause it's something I'm in, I'm late 30s now, right? So like I've been through a lot of it before. I came to golf digest. I was at Fox Sports and I got lucky in that I left right before I saw a bunch of layoffs and a lot of creative people left. Same thing when I was at the Cincinnati Enquirer like months before or months after I left, excuse me, just a row of people lost. I mean, again,

for us, I think it's without overstating the obvious, like, it's our job. But man, we love our job. So it's like equally painful when these happen. So if you if you can support any anyone that has either a pay site or just whatever you can do to help the business that it really means a lot and even if it's just a note to someone you follow and like reading their stuff just just a simple note can go away. So I know as bad as it be the landscape can be right now there's still a lot of talented people especially in our game I think we're kind of blessed right now with a lot of different voices.

I'm not really covering the same type of things, but it's a really, really interesting crowd we have right now. So, uh, obviously if you're listening to this, you're a golf fan, whoever your favorite person is personality writer, let them know. Cause you've never know what that can do for their day. Yeah. Uh, I, you know, it's funny, July. I was thinking about this, like you said a note from somebody like, I got a

really great note from a woman named Sally Tilden a while ago. I hope, and she said, she listens to podcast fairly regularly. I wanted to shout her out. She said that she's 86 years old. She's never played around a golf ever, but she really loves the, the no-ling up product. She's been an avid sports fan since falling the Indy 500 and the Cleveland Indians as a youngster. She said, I don't always get your inside jokes, but every podcast brings me an understanding of the great sport. Thank

you for that. Uh, one thing I find is if I keep on the latest sports, I'm also keeping up with my children and their children. It keeps me relevant and keeps me it. Uh, I just do like little notes like that can obfuscate to just make you feel like you are, you know, you're going to make it to the next month, right? You're going to make it to the next year of being a journalist. It's like you've done something that made somebody smile and resonated with them. So I wanted to give a shout out to Sally. Thank you so much for that. No, that was awesome. I hope you're connecting with your grandchildren and you got to enjoy the Nick Dunlap victory. If you've made it this far into the podcast,

I wanted to end with something that would be a little bit of fun. Joel and I were kicking around the idea. There's so much talk about, you know, the business of the PGA Tour and the business of the PIF. We thought it would be fun to decide if you were going to start a small business with a PGA Tour or professional golfer,

doesn't that have to be a PGA Tour player? It could be an LPGA tour player. Anyone, what golfers would you choose? Joel, this was your idea. Thought up over a few beers and made me laugh immediately when I saw it. I came up with some of my own, but I want to hear yours first because I think this is a fabulous thought exercise.

Yeah, there's the short genesis is last night, watching football at a bar. There was, it's a newer place and there's the short genesis is last night watching football at a bar. There was it's a newer place and there's clearly a disconnect between the staff and the owner. And it was great because like you expect that kind of frenetic just that that energy of everywhere. No one quite knows what's going on. But it just kind of led the idea of who would I want to start a business with as a player? So our first guy this is I'm going from four to one. So this is like more of an honorable mention Medrick McNeely a very

Very smart guy. I honestly the smartest guy on tour to me a very genuine guy But you know the smartest guy and I I think if you're looking at the current couple players who would one day Maybe be a good commissioner. Yeah. I'm not even sure who would be a second. I do want to make clear. I'm not banking on any money from his dad. They've made it very clear he wants to be his own. However, I think we can also say like he probably has some, you know, relationships. Yeah. With some well off folks. So I think seed money or financial backing could come pretty easily. So McNeely, he's number four for me. Okay. Was it, we were talking like a financial business or did you have any kind of thoughts in particular about what kind of business it might be?

At the, at the, so for my exercise, I did actually bar, but you know, for yours, we can go ahead and just do any type of, Oh, it's just a bar. Okay. I, I, I, uh, that's an excellent qualifier. I did have a bar in one of mine. So, uh, okay. So I, uh, my number four pick was Mathis Patrick, I, that's an excellent qualifier. I did have a bar in one of mine. So, okay, so I, my number four pick was Mathis Patrick, because I feel like, you know, we would really money ball that shit. Like he would be writing down like all the, you know,

the stats of where could we get like better? And let's, if we say it's a bar, like, where are our suppliers going to come from? What was a crowd like this time? Like how many people had this interact, was Waitress interact with this How many people had this? Was Waitress interact with this person? Servers or this?

I feel like he's exactly the kind of guy who you'd want to sort of be a detail oriented sort of grinder. And I'd just be like the idiot out front who was wiping things down. Well, every day, Matt was like, Kev, we got to get a cheaper peanuts. I got these really great donut holes from this new supplier down the road. So I love the pic. My only worry is he's such a hard worker that like he might shame you if like you're not there at 6am and are you leave before 2am? But if from a partner, I agree that he's he's he's someone I think would be in the circle.

He might get a carted at the door too often too, because he still looks like he's you know, 19 years old. Well, in that same wavelength, I have Tom Hokey as number three. I also say very fiscally responsible, a guy who famously rides and coach despite making millions of dollars to save. So I don't have to worry about any weird things going on at the accounting books. You're very good with people. What I've noticed with Tom over the couple of years, he's a guy who is very good at listening and then with two sentences can get to what everybody has been arguing for for the last 90 minutes, which I think is very good if you're a business owner.

Selfishly too, I just want it for the sandwich portion of the menu, bar menu. Do we call it Tom's hoagies? Do we call it like my frienders? I spent way too much time on this last night. And realize Tom's hogeys is a winner. Yeah. So, uh, or does he not, is he just over the sandwich buns? But uh, hogeys and hogeys and heroes or something? Or I don't know. Yeah. Hogeys, hogeys number three for me.

Okay. Uh, my number three for me. Okay. Uh, my number three was Shane Lowry. Uh, you might be on your list if we're talking pubs, but I feel like I could do all the books and ordering and he just would need to be kind of like a bartender slash like personality slash bouncer, which he showed at the Ryder Cup, like that he could throw people out the front door. Uh, if need be, I would think if there's, I really, if there's any PJ to our player who would be a great fit for just a good, like a genuine Irish pub, I would think that Shane Lauer would be number one. I'm legitimately like at this point, like if you told me he was just done with

golf and just wants to open a pub, like I'm surprised that hasn't happened already because he just, he just looks like a guy who should be in a pub at all times. I mean, honestly, like he should buy a pub like in, you know, St. Anders and just basically like run it, you know, I mean, I guess he's Irish as opposed to Scottish, but you know, at least show up for like the, you know, the open championship every five years. That'd be everybody would want to go to old Lowry's pub. I feel like you just gave away a business idea for free there. I did. James, if you're reaching out, I need a finder's fee.

James, if you're reaching out, I need a finder's fee. So, all right, what do you got? Two for me. Now, have you watched Parks and Recreation? Yeah. I say, yeah. I say, yeah. So I'm picking Mark Hubbard for my number two, because I feel like this would be the closest to replicating Entertainment 360 or Entertainment 720.

720, yeah. Yeah, with a Z's and John Raphael where Mark for the here's my personal say, Mark is Joel Damon without Joel Damon's publicity. The funniest guy to me when the funniest guy's out there, someone who you would have the like who would be the guy you want to be here with. Don't know. I also feel like that we would burn the place to the ground within months, but we'd have like a really good time doing it. don't know. I also feel like though we would burn the place to the ground within months, but we have like a really good time doing it. So if, as long as we're just in it for

the good time, not the long time, Mark Hubbard, it's my pick. That's great. Also like has his brother who hosts the, the podcast about Taylor Swift with Nora Pernikati, like he mark, mark Nate, his brother, former like CEO of a ticket master. So like you got some connections there. You can really make some inroads and a lot of different entertainment elements of things. I think that's an excellent pick. All right.

I, my number two pick, my little bit of a curve ball here, James Hahn, you know, he has experience selling shoes, the grind, feel like he knows what it's like to be hungry, all right? When you talk to like business people, like billionaires, they always say, and I've heard billionaires give this advice to athletes, it's basically like don't give your friends money for their businesses.

Wait to start a business until you are retired because your friends, when like the wolf is at the door and they will not work as hard because it's not their money. They will let that investment go down, and they won't care as much as you'll care. And I feel like James Hahn would be my guy. He needs to fight hard. He knows what it's like to have been poor,

to scrape through it. No, he might be a little bit, he might not be afraid to put himself out there and accuse the competition of unfair business practices or, you know, go after the regulatory committees who weren't giving us licensing when we needed them or whatever. But I think, I think we can make it work. You know, I know James is not a big fan of the NLU podcast, but throwing you bone here, I think you'd be a good business partner.

I'd feel like you have a whole line of like Moscow mules too, right? Just so that would be his thing. I can see him being, too, of like, where were you at dinner last night? Who did you go to the dimwit? It's, I don't know. Good points. Yeah. I'm a little worried about that one. I like where your head's at, but I don't know. Okay. Did you just try the curve ball in there? I wasn't trying to, you know, pick the obvious. All right. What do you got for this? This one might seem obvious, but I feel like it needs a little bit more explanation, especially with the bar setting. Uh, number one for me is Harry Higgs. I get it. It's exactly the type of person you would want behind a bar.

Very lovable, relatable. I don't think he has given enough credit for how introspective and astute he is. And he's really, he's really savvy. And I think he has, he's a really good business since I remember, I don't know how this even happened. I was out at Band and Dun savvy and I think he has a really good business sense. I remember I Don't know how this even happened I was out at Bannon dunes and we I played with him and he this was right before everything kind of broke It was in 2021 But we kind of knew what was coming down the line a little bit with the with the Saudi back circuit And he really kind of had a clear vision of how things were gonna go

He had a clear vision of how like money works in the game But just as a mode emotional intelligence is off the chart, which I think is what you really need in a business like this. So for reasons obvious and maybe not well known, Harry Higgs is my number one pick. So we were doing a podcast or a live show from the Masters this year and Harry was our guest on it. So I was reporting live from the Masters and I joined the thing and I, I just, I was, you know, Harry and I, the player that I get most compared to like by people on Twitter is Harry Higgs cause we're sort of similar build or whatever. But obviously like I'm older. I've, you know, a graying beard, whatever. And so when I hopped on the podcast, I was like, Hey guys, it's Harry Higgs calling from

the future. And there was this brief moment where I was like, Oh fuck, like if he feels like upset about this or like offended by this, like I'm going to feel like such an idiot. I know this guy's been nice enough to hop on our live show during the masters, which he's not competing in. And it got such a like a big laugh from Harry. And I was like, Oh God, if I felt such a sense of relief of like, Oh, he did. He is okay, like okay with like joking about himself. Because I, I wouldn't really know him, but I was just like, I'm going to go for this joke and hopefully he'll like it. And he did.

So I love that. Similar kind of vibe here on my final pick, Joel. I picked Keith Mitchell and Sanjay M a little bit of a cheat because, you know, he gets as a team, but I really, you know, especially if we're in a bar setting, like very personable, Sanjay is going to work his ass off. He's never going to take a day off. He's going to be in that bar like every single night, probably till close, get back out there. And Keith is just going to be like my front man who's just going to be like your charming,

you know, he's going to, he might institute a dress code. He might, you know, need to talk to some investors about some capital. You know, he's going to get us like on the map in terms of the scene. So Keith, Keith was into my honor. I had actually him and Mark as well, which one of them I want to roll here with. And I felt like Mark doesn't get good enough love as he should. But I totally, I totally second that pick and Sungjave's just great. I overlooked the work ethic, that's on me. He's probably already started to bar before we even know it right now. If we aren't sticking to bars here, I do have one honorable mention.

I feel like I could sell like reverse mortgages with Phil Mickelson or maybe like one of those cryogenics businesses where they like freeze your head and hope that someday they'll be able to reattach it to your body kind of like Ted Williams and his son. I feel like Phil would be able to talk anybody into the idea that like your head lives on in a freezer. But your body will come back and you will still have all that knowledge of you know what it was like when you were alive. If anybody could sort of make that happen, it'd be Phil. I'm nothing else to add because we have to just go out on a high note. Well, thank you for listening. We're going to have me reading a little narrative column at the end of this, if you've made

it this far in the podcast. But I appreciate you. Thanks again for tuning in this week while the boys are down on tour of Soss. And especially thanks to Joel. It's always a pleasure to talk golf with you when we get to do it at majors or tournaments. I'm always feeling the way coming away. I wish I got to do it more. So thank you for making it part of my professional week this week. Yeah, really appreciate the invite. Looking forward to seeing you again in person, bud. All right. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you. And we'll have a little calm for me to follow us up and then catch us next week with the,

the farmers. We'll be back for the farmers. It rained recently in Baltimore and it was the kind of rain that lingers like a bloated literary novel, one that isn't subtle or particularly well reviewed. For days it was heavy and intense. Then it would lighten up for a few hours, only return to its previous parade of miseries. When it rains for days on end, that's when I tend to miss golf the most. When it snows, I retreat into a state of resignation and acceptance because I know I won't be hitting putts anytime soon. But when it rains, I often look out the window and tell lies to my golfing soul. If it just lets up a little, I tell myself. I could throw on my rain gear and pretend

like I'm in Scotland. I could throw some darts at soft greens. I could have the course to myself. This time, however, I couldn't even fake it. There were several small rivers forming in my driveway and a fetted swamp forming in my backyard. By nightfall, my wife had informed me that our basement was leaking, and the mountains of boxes on the floor that I had spent months promising I would deal with were about to meet their predictable and perhaps literary end. We spent a full Saturday sorting through the mess, building shelves and swapping out soggy cardboard boxes for military-grade plastic bins. As the day

went on, I realized that in addition to old newspaper and magazine clips, the time had come to deal with another haunting element of my past. The overflowing, embarrassing box of golf training aids taunting me from the corner. If you're a golfer and you've spent any time on Instagram the last few years, there is a 100% chance the algorithm has tried to get you to buy a training aid of some kind. If you never purchased one, you're made of smarter stuff than I am, and I recommend that you don't give in to the temptation to do so. Think of them like an addictive drug.

It might be fun for a while, but it will fade. You'll feel compelled to chase that high, and you might end up doing more damage than good. The people who make them, the instructors who swear by them, know this. Even if many of them swear they have good intentions. That's why they keep churning out new training aids every year. A 10 handicap and his money are soon parted. Second and third homes have been paid for by suckers like me, the kind of foolish golfers who can't resist believing that someone has invented a magic wand, typically made out of plastic, fiberglass, and velcro, that will turn them into Adam Scott with a little solitary practice. In my basement I have training aids that are supposed to help me keep my left arm straight, ones that promise to help me bow my wrist, and others that have something to do with radial or ulnar deviation.

I can never keep them straight. There is a belt with fabric boxes attached. It sounds insane just saying it. Meant to help me rotate and a boot that looks like a medieval torture device, vowing to help me load weight into my right side. There is another belt, yes, a second golf training belt, with rubber tubing attached that I'm not sure I could even bring through TSA without ending up on a watch list. There are tempo trainers and putting mirrors and inflatable beach balls attached to a lanyard that you wear around your neck like you've won the Olympics

of shame. Remember that scene in 10 Cup when Kevin Costner has the shanks and Renee Russo catches him in his trailer, shamefully draped in the same training aids he took from her during their very first lesson. That's me. Hi. I'm the problem, it's me. I don't know when that sickness overtook me, but I do know I'm not alone. My colleague Cody McBride suffers from a similar affliction, and he's a far better golfer than

I am. We are drawn to snake oil, and on the gram there is always a charming Harold Hill figure in a half-zip, promising to unlock something in us. If we click twice and use Apple Pay, a package will be on its way, probably from Taiwan, almost instantly. I recently had a marketing person slide into my DMs and offer me a free training aid, the kind you stand on and use to help you shift your pressure

to your left side during transition. And I had to sheepishly admit that I couldn't accept it. It wasn't because I had ethical qualms about getting one gratis. It was that I'd already purchased one months prior. On our Goals podcast this year, DJ Pajowski said something that made a light bulb go off in my brain. And I knew he wasn't just speaking for himself.

He was speaking to thousands of idiots like me. Hey, what if I just stopped trying to web-MD my own golf swing every year and actually sought out professional help? I never imagined I would be the kind of adult male who was stubborn enough to believe I could fix things I did not understand. I never liked the cliché about men refusing to stop and ask for directions, but I understand it now. I realized that I buy golf training aids for the same reason I occasionally walk into the hardware store and politely decline when someone who works there asks if I have any questions.

I'm here to buy grommets, I want to tell them, and even though I don't know what those are or where you might stock them, it will somehow be more satisfying to me if I can locate them myself before I contemplate purchasing at least three of them, all of them different sizes. There is something alluring about trying to be your own savior, but I never understood how the companies who make training aids preyed on the insecurities of people like me until I added up the wreckage of the last five years. There had to be more than $1,000 of plastic and velcro and misery buried in my basement. Had I really purchased all this crap because I felt uncomfortable getting a series of golf

lessons? That I didn't want to ask an expert for help because I was embarrassed that they would judge me as they tried, likely in vain, to help me? If I'm being honest with myself, the answer is yes. It turns out, rather than doing one hour of golf therapy, men will literally go to the driving range with an inflatable beach ball dangling from their neck and stand on a bright orange seesaw. I want to believe that all changes this year.

I may never have a pretty golf swing, but this is the year I stop looking for those answers on YouTube and Instagram. I've got to find an instructor, so pray for both of us. It's time to unload all these fantasy fixes on someone else, likely for pennies on the dollar. If you're in the market for a G-box or a G-Snap or a ProCinder or a Pressure Plate or a Tourist Striker or an Orange Whip or an Impact Strap or a Smart Ball or a Pivot Pro, you might be in luck.

But caveat, M-Tour. I might keep one training aid, however. I have a set of yellow pool noodles attached to a tripod that was supposed to help establish a path that would shallow out my swing. I think it's called the chiliwacker, but I've long since lost the box. It cost about $175 and it was totally worthless. But I feel like the pool noodles could still come in handy if my next basement flood turns biblical. Music

Music Be the right club, Be the right club today. Yes! That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most!