No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 796: Mexico Open Recap

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Jake Knapp wins the Mexico Open in his fifth start as a PGA Tour rookie and our three amigos of Soly, TC and Neil fire up the weekend pod to recap everything from Vidanta including Knapp, runner-up Sami Valimaki, and the decided lack of juice surrounding this week's event. We also talk through the Masters special exemptions that were handed out this week (31:40), Bryson's bonkers interview, and Anthony Kim's rumored return to pro golf at LIV Jeddah. Also on the pod this week: (1:02:00) Charlie Woods's pre-qualifier attempt, some assorted news and notes from around the globe, a look ahead to Monday night's edition of The Match and Soly's week at the Gasparilla. Check out the full range of NLU content on our website - including the Nest member section here: https://nolayingup.com/categories/nest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kada je sve sve? than most. Expect anything different. Thomas and caballeros. Bienvenidos a la no laying up podcast. The Mexico open at Vidanta Sally here with my guys, the Carter brothers, the Schuster brothers, Neil Schuster. Hello, Neil. Bienvenidos. Ah, Hola por supuesto, K rediculo. So that was good stuff, man. I didn't see that one coming. I did not see that one coming. You were like, hold on. You kind of started this off on a bit of a pause there. I honestly, I forgot this was even in Mexico. Like this is such a far cry from the, uh,

the Mexico championship that we love. No one love at Chipotle peck. Uh, that actually had a little bit of Mexican culture in it versus this, you know, resort play, but we'll, we'll get there. TC is here after a couple of weeks off. Hello, Mr. TC. Uh, uh, Hola, Hola, my amigos. Uh, it was, it was funny to, yeah, I was tuning in various points this week, seeing, uh, Todd Lewis put his, he done to Viarta, uh, you know, like the extra pronunciation there.

You got the ski lift gondola in the back of their golf golf channel, golf central set there. Just a, what a weird, weird event. Truly, uh, this episode was brought to you by our friends that title is the number one ball on golf and the choice of this week's champions on both the PGA tour and the LPGA tour, your newest PGA tour winner, Jake Knapp made it seven wins for the titles, golf ball players through the first eight weeks of 2024 with his two shot victory in Mexico. He gained more than 11 and a half shots on the field. T degree with his pro V one left dot golf ball, almost nine of those coming on approach shots over on the LPGA

tour. Patty Tavits, H hand kit remain dialed with her probe. You want actually at over 80% of her greens in regulation in Thailand, making it back to back victories. Uh, last two weeks on the L E T and LPGA tour. And if you haven't noticed TC, Patty's got the title of staff bag now. She's also game in a TSR two driver blended set of T 200 and T 100 irons and three new Vokey SM 10 wedges. More than 70% of competitors on both the PGA and LPGA tours.

This week played a titleist golf ball that includes six of the top seven in Mexico and every player in the top eight in Thailand, the overwhelming majority of the world's best put their trust in the performance quality and consistency of titleist head over to titleist.com to start the fitting process and find out which pro v1 is right for you guys Let me just get organized here. Let me check my script the Mexico open at Vedanta was a great golf tournament I really enjoy the PGA tour. I am saying this under my own free will the best golfers in the world play weekly on the PGA Tour the fans were really into

It takes a lot it really takes a lot to have a week into yourself without a lot of sports going on. We're post football season and then have this much of a stinker. We'll get to that. I don't mean to throw Jake Naps win. Well, let's start with the positives that come. I think we can separate out like, yes, totally. Cool, cool character. We need more Jake Naps out there. Proud of him for winning. He's a, like, you know, just all the positive there. Like both things can be true, right? Like the, the macro is that this event fucking stinks. And the micro is that, you know, yeah, props to Jake nap.

It's nap time. We're going to get beat over the head with nap time, but I, I'm a big fan. Uh, kind of come came busted onto my radar screen this week. nap time. We're going to get beat over the head with nap time, but I, I'm a big fan. Kind of come came busting on my radar screen this week. You know, I, I, I followed a little bit along a little bit with the corn fairy qualifying and, and getting his tour card. But I mean, he's a stud and he seems like he's got some personality and we need more of that on the PGA tour. So, uh, so I do want to give you a shout out. Uh, I think you had my favorite slack comment of the week, which was Jake Knapp looks like he should open for country music sensation Eric Cole. That one made me chuckle. And I just want to call that out

because that's fantastic. He does look like a bad boy country music star. So he, Eric Cole, Jake Knapp, they're taking over baby. They might play the three M open festival with a, you know, fellow colleagues, trace Crow, maybe Ches old a, you know, fellow colleagues, Trace Crow, maybe Ches old school, you know, bad boy. It was a chess group this week. I hope people find this funny because I've, I don't know why I find it. It's one of my favorite ongoing bits is the, the golfers whose name sounds like they could be country musicians, but Jake Napt definitely fits. And he also looks exactly like Jake Owen, especially from like a side profile with the

long hair as well. Really, really crazy swing speed off of just a total, you know, he got the Fred couples treatment in the side by side. It reminded me a lot of camp champ. That was the name that kept coming to mind in terms of just crazy ball speed where it looks like there's more in the tank and it looks like he's not even dialing up completely. But guys calling a spade a spade. That was some bad golf today all around both him and Sammy Valamaki. Sammy came out hot. He made a little run at it. If you didn't happen

to catch this, which I'm guessing everyone listening to this did not watch the Mexico open, but he Jake Knapp started the day with a four shot lead over Sammy Valamaki, but he bogeyed the first and then duck hooked one into the water on the third. The lead was very quickly trimmed to one. It was a horrific golf shot. Valomacchi stuffed it to six feet on the drivel par four seventh made the eagle briefly take the lead. Nat matched him with a birdie. They were tied up with 11 holes to go. Nat made six straight pars after that before making a birdie. Finally only par five 14th. He was one for 11 in fairways to that point. Val Machado was not the same. After that eagle, he made bogeys on 10 and 13. I slipped in a birdie there on 12

in the par five, but the bad golf just continued. He part in to finish at 17 under nap hit two total fairways, but managed to shoot a bogey free one under 35 on the back to win by two shots. So it was greasy. It was very greasy. He was, he was getting up and down from a lot of places. Uh, it was very bomb and Galgiy. It's just, you know, I don't know.

Ballamaki. Well here, I'll point a couple of things out for you. One, I love, I'm with you. So I love Naps swing. I really speaks to me when he sets up way left and just hits that, that power fade. It kind of you, you caught a camp champ. I was kind of feeling Bubba with how long his backswing is and the way he kind of opens his stance up and, and works the ball left to right.

It's kind of like the mirror image of Bubba for me. But I really like his swing and I liked watching him play golf. I didn't think the golf was very good. He didn't play very well today, but over the course of the week, um, I hope he, you know, I hope he shows up the rest of the season because that's great. And then you compare that. I thought it was a great comparison with follow Maki, who's kind of got that Vogel, you know, my guy Vogelbach on the, on the met,

full of met, you know, maybe it's the name that's making me think of it, but you know, a little dumpy, but you know, just doing big things and, uh, you know, it's kind of a position there. I, I don't know why maybe I'm confusing with Kai Samuja, but I, I, I don't think I was familiar with, uh, uh, Sammy's, uh, his, his aesthetic. I just pictured him as like a fit, you know, kind of smaller diminutive finish guy. I'm sure I did know what he looked like, but I was just, when he came up on screen this week, I was like, who's that?

Oh, that's Sammy Valamaki. Like did not have, you can't stereotype the fins, baby. I did not have that in my, uh, in my roll of decks there of what, of what Sammy Valamaki looked like, but Sammy, Sammy Valamaki is not, not walking through that door. I mean, we're talking about the 2020 DP world tour, rookie of the year. Uh, somebody who's been on my shortlist for European rider cup teams for quite a few years.

Shut up, DC. That's all that's outrageous. Guys, my TC staff, his analytics guys have been calling out vol Machis, but they've been highlighting them for TC and his scouting reports week over week. I'm a fall John. Do you have a, I mean, do you have an apology though? Yeah. We got that question that came in. Where is that one? Sorry. I want to give a part of credit here. Greg David, 94 was, we'll solidly apologize for years of European tour

slander, given the hot start, the strategic alliance 10 are off to this season. Yeah, I will completely apologize. You know, the seven years of information that since I have virtually debuted that take throws out the window from just a few starts. Now, listen, this is a great, great thing I think for the PGA tour DP world tour alliance, if you will, kind of getting these top guys graduated onto the PGA tour playing golf on the most competitive tour in the world and getting great results is a great endorsement of the DP World Tour product. A good representation of it. And it's obviously a great success story for a lot of them, making a lot more money, getting a lot more OBGR points and announcing themselves on a much grander stage

than is provided on the DP World Tour. That's just the reality of the situation. I don't think John Huggins suite on some of the long lines of reevaluating the way the DP world tour players are judged up against the PGA tour. I'm going to go ahead and disagree with that. I mean, Jake Naps, a graduate from the corn fairy tour, 29 years old and edged out Valomauk. I don't think we're going to need to reevaluate how the corn fairy tour players stack up against the PGA tour players after this one. But no, it is not, uh, it does not change a lot other than to say, like, I think this is a success, uh, an opportunity that live has provided in terms of, you know, gaps in the PGA tour membership that are getting filled in with DP world tour members, which is a good thing. Yes. And that's well said,

Sally. I think the, uh, it's also a commentary on how much the depth of the PGA tour has been neutered by the departures to live as well, just as much as it is a commentary on that now. And it's good because it's shut up some of the mules and some of the like really, really just bitchy veterans who are complaining about guys from that tour carpet begging banging their way on to the PGA tour. Correct. That was, I hated that from, from the jump, despite my obvious disdain for all things DP world tour as, uh, as you like to highlight it, any given opportunity

in Australia, you hate Australia too. Yeah. I forgot about that. I do. I do. I hate Australia. Um, basically anything that isn't the us of a baby Lord Benny asked the question, would naps win, which is a legitimate accomplishment for a KFT grad be less derided if the

tour wasn't coming off a hugely underwhelming West coast swing. I think this is a good point. And I put this in there because there's room for this in golf. I mean, we're kind of down just because the start to the whole golf season has been down. And I think that's a really good point to say, like, this is kind of why you tune into a lower tier event. Like at least this event is pretty honest with itself There's no one mistaken this event for anything even like a medium tier event

And there's something interesting for hardcore golf fans that comes out of these smaller events like if the golf was good today I'd probably be in a lot, you know more energetic mood to talk about that tournament, but that doesn't mean it's not you know There's still something about what I like about pro golf captured within this event, even if it, you know, is a bit of a stinker. Yeah. I mean, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. I know you guys talked about on the live show last week too. It's just in night and day, almost a lot of it bad luck, but maybe some, maybe some reaping going on of, of a tough start to the year for the tour.

So yeah, it does. I think you do have to view it through that lens of like there just hasn't been a lot of electricity leading up to this event. So this is just another kind of seems like more like you take away the fall season, right? Or the fall wrap around season, a bunch of the guys that have corn fairy, like your status from the corn fairy tour on the PG tour this year have struggled to get into events. And then, but also some of these guys are actually winning as well. It's a, you know, like it's, it's kind of dichotomous, I think, but, um, yeah, like I think overall, yes, context wise, it matters immensely. Like I think we're being much harder on this event

than we would have otherwise, but also John Rahman won this event last year. Right. Like a big tone one last year. Come on. Come on TC That's a big toe. They're a big meal scanner. You come on. That's where that's where he coined the name you'll skinner So your I don't know I'm struggling just with because like I'm coming off a decade plus of loving opposite field events and them adding maybe some context to the season or maybe a chance for these guys to get, but I feel like there's more of these events than ever now, right? They've differentiated the, you know,

however many signature events, what is it? 12 or 13 or 16 of those? And so, and then, you know, solid to your point of this tournament, you know, nobody's pretending it's even a like a medium tier event. It still gets 500 FedEx cut points to the winner. Right. So there's no like, you know, I was talking to somebody on Twitter earlier about like, all right, well, this is an ATP 250 event, you know, but it's getting ATP 500 points, right? And they're like, it definitely needs to be more tiered out or like, this is, this is more similar to a corn fairy tour event. PGA tour event.

And so I think there's eight signature events, TC, plus the four majors, plus the players, plus the three playoff events. I think it's just to, just to clarify that. So 16 is, I think is how you got to that number, but just to clarify for, for the audience there. But there was a comment here that came, that said, uh, from golf enthusiasts, fives at Andy from fried eggs suggested events like this shouldn't be called PGA tour events, not in a vicious way, but still should there

be a formalized slash rebranded tier between KFT and signature events called something else. We've been talking about that for years in terms of just like everything getting blended and distilled, like dumbed down together and how you kind of thought that maybe would come with signature events elevating, but there's way more of these events than there are signature events. And honestly, I think like what he's talking about here is what like the quote PGA tour as we know it becomes whenever this global tour thing actually does happen, but whatever that is happens on top of like a bunch of events like they're like this. And it's very clear that these events are like this and

the genesis is whatever you want to call them and whatever those events end up being are the tour that sits on top of that. I think that would make more sense. I don't know. It's just also weird because like the signature events aren't feeling differentiated either. No, there's no branding differences. And so it's like everything just feels watered down and that's. Yeah. And so it's like everything's just feels watered down and juiceless. And I think it's one of those things where like venues matter. And you were talking earlier about, uh, Chipotle Peck, like that

place had energy and it had legitimate fans and like that's like, you know, the first thing that changed the whole thing. He changed my whole life. And nobody rides harder for, for national opens than I do. And like, you can't just say that this is a national open. Like there's no, there's no tide of, to the Mexican national open here. It's just, it's a bunch of fucking PJ Tour mules coming down and staging a tournament that might as well be in the Quad Cities or in Myrtle Beach or any, and like, I think that's the other jarring thing too is there's just, it's not like it's a

tough golf course. It looks like a, just a bad time share play from. You mean you do not mean tough as in challenging golf course. You mean like a tough, it's a tough scene. No, it's like a tough scene. Yeah. And I don't know. I got so many questions. I don't know. I still don't know why Sammy Valamaki had to take it on playable while SH Kim got a free drop from that. Uh, I don't know. I just, so the situation just like nothing feels like it means anything anymore. The situation you're referring to the 18th hole, 72nd hole, Sammy Valmaki drives one, looks like OB hits off the cart path, goes up under the fence, which is the

property boundary, but his in bounds, there's sand right of the car path. And he ends up having to take an unplayable from underneath this fence and drop it into the sand, which then he is going to be standing on the car path or maybe this sand is a continuation. They were saying the sand is, was a continuation of the car path. But that doesn't make sense. That didn't make sense because you wouldn't be able to drop on the car path. So either the rules official messed up, letting him take the drop to begin with or it was because his feet were on the car path. But from what the guy said to him,

he was telling Sammy that it was a continuation of the car path. Like we're playing it this week, that this is a continuation of the car path. Like that's why wouldn't you've got a free drop from the fence then he would have been standing on the sandy area, which would be a continuation of the car path. So he took a penalties and in this situation early in the week, SHKM hit it under the fence, said he was going to go around to the other side and pop it back through the fence the other way. And they said, well, in that case, you get relief, which I didn't. I only saw the video clip that was posted and I don't know any more context than that. I'm trying to get an to get an answer on, on the, on the difference in the ruling of the two, but I don't, I don't know if we're going to get it.

And it's one of those things too, where NBC's got this Orlando Pope guy chiming in. He doesn't really have anything to add. Balamakis. Yeah. And it's like, can we at least get Tony Zerpley from the live broadcast? That's my guy. TZ. from the live broadcast. That's my guy. TZ. I don't know, it's just, but it's just like,

Joseph Lomagna had a great thing in the Friday newsletter this week about, there's like all these little signs and symptoms of the tour not giving a fuck about their product. You know, where like, whether it's venues or set up or these little rule, these ty tag rules violations that do matter because people are gambling on the events and all the purses are so juiced at this point.

And at some point it all just adds up to like, well, why the hell should I care? Like why is anybody invested in this? I don't know the people are. I think that ratings have been struggling and golf for quite some time, which is what we've been talking about. I do struggle with the rule stuff.

Sometimes when you feel like the rules official is just like a member of like the player council, like, you know, they're out there like almost like giving these like a union of representatives. It's like, Oh no, well, you, you know, like sharing the mo, like, I know I want to get the right ruling and the guys there to provide the information, but I, you know, I don't really ever get upset when like, uh, you know, in the past when the rules officially been like, no, you can't do that. Like that's just not how it works.

Like it's like a Morgan. In fact, I'm normally cheering at my TV when I'm like, you can't do that. Hell yeah. It's like a Morgan and Morgan attorney that's there like help them out of the situation. Like you have to represent you in this case. Any sort of loophole here. You don't know any sort of loophole here. You don't know the laws, but I will help you get the relief you need out of this. All you got to do is say the right thing. Like just call.

It's just one call. That's all may help you. There's that one guy, T.C. on all the Florida, you know, the Florida highways, the Ron Schultz, I think his name that's rolling up his sleeves. Yeah, that guy always looks like a leechman. He's ready to go to work. Well, did you guys know that Selina and Barnes broke up now? It's like Selina and then Barnes has something else. We have that down here. And you know, we got 1-800-411-Pain, Canter and Penaluga. We guys also have.

No, who are the far and far, far and far. Yeah. I think it's far as they pronounce on their commercials. It is not how they pronounce their commercials. It's Farah and Farah. Trust me. They're all here for you. Solly here for good. Okay. I mean guys Here's the deal like we're we're going to the cognizant classic in the Palm beaches next week Then we're going to the Puerto Rico open and API then we're going to players Which I don't know what like I've been watching all these, these dog shit players commercials that spew out the most generic stuff about the strongest field in golf. Ain't that anymore?

All the, you know, this is our home and all this, this just mumbo jumbo and generic jargon. And I'm like, like, there's, there's just nothing holding this thing together anymore. It's crazy. It's, it's really not good. It's really quite unfortunate. Um, TC, there's a new group of Salinas commercial on the bright side. What did you add? That's the only thing I think TC added to the agenda was new group.

No, I added a few things, but the group of Salinas commercial, it's Benjamin, Ben Humene, what's his, what's his brother's name? Uh, I think it's Ricardo. Ricardo. Yeah. Well, I thought Ricardo was the dad. Are they brothers? Okay. It doesn't have quite the same, you know, joie de vivre flair as the old one.

It's talking about, you know, athletic development and stuff like that. So I don't know. I think Grupo Salinas needs to put their foot down and bring this thing back to Chipultepec. I mean, they're always a favorite in the prestige worldwide rankings. Just off the press release about Grupo Salinas, Grupo Salinas is a group of dynamic rapidly growing and technologically advanced companies focused on creating economic value through market innovation and the development of goods and services that enhance the quality of life social value to build Social capabilities that contribute to improving community conditions. That is one sentence. That is sick

I don't know. No, I don't know what any of that means, but but I like it They could be laundering money They could there's all sorts of things and I think they dropped out of the the WGC one because they didn't want they were trying to get out of the contract So I think this is like, you WGC one because they didn't want they were trying to get out of the contract. So I think this is like, you know, but anyway, you know what? Going back to the actual golf tournament, like there's some. So first of all, Stephen Yeager, when did he pick up all this distance? That is a somewhat recent thing.

I forget who I've seen posting about that on Twitter, but yeah, he has. He has changed to his, his hitting profile just a little bit. It's crazy. Uh, CT pan. I don't have anything to add there. Justin Lauer. Yeah. Massive shout out. He's made all of his cuts this year. Uh, 66, 68, T three there for him. Best best finish of his career. TC. Yeah. Yeah. Big Bob McIntyre, T six. I know that that makes you happy. Solly.

And then wanted to give a shout out to Carson young as well. He's, uh, you know, I'm listen, I'm hoping for some churn from the, you know, top 50 year over year. Right. It seems like there's, they're at, so Rob ops, who's always a good, good follow on Twitter. So there's, they're at 40% churn right now, but that's because, you know, it's part of that's because some of these guys have won that were way outside the top 50 heading into this year.

And then also I think like 25 of 35 or the vast majority of the corn fairy tour guys, like aren't even getting the requisite starts to even climb into the top 70 or top 90 So it's gonna be really really interesting because the tours tours fuzzy math could get even fuzzier If the top players start playing better and you know, I tuned in Friday Saturday and Sunday for most of if some coverage most coverage Friday and it's It's nice to see a leaderboard of names that I don't recognize. Like I get excited about that. But then I'm with UTC of like venues matter. Like I would

love to see this breakout moment for, for NAP, uh, at a course with some that I have some context for with a crowd that cares, like not only do venues matter, but like the, the geography matters, you know, like if it's in Mexico, like, yeah, let's put it the geography matters, you know, like if it's in Mexico, like, yeah, let's put it like Mexico City, you know, it's just this I do think that the venue really was tough as far as just vibe goes. If this has happened in Mexico City, you know, five years ago, I think it's it's a lot more exciting and there's a lot more juice. So well, one more note. Um, he's, uh, MV 41 said, can we just reminisce about the time Phil and the Vedanta CEO were hugging

the, on the fairway, the middle of the playoff instead of recapping this tournament, which I think that was the group of Selena CEO. Maybe that was, I don't know what they all do here. T.C. Why don't you take us to, uh, to our first sponsor of the night, second sponsor of the night. I should say so many sponsors. Shout out to Brando. And we'll thank our second sponsor of the night and that is Holderness and Born. You guys listen, I'm a Holderness and Born aficionado. As you know, as you've, you've seen me wearing their stuff for gosh, since they, their first collection came out what 2016, 2017. And we've been working with them as long as we've been working with anybody on the merchandise

side. 2017 and we've been working with them as long as we've been working with anybody on the merchandise side Their new spring 2024 stuff just dropped about a week and a half ago They got 200 plus new styles colors largest ever collection dropped for HMB new pattern polos They got sailboats wine bottles speed boats pops of color The headline colors for this season are sunset thistle distle, Dorset, Regent, Oxford, Neil, I know you're all over these. Yeah, Oxford. Sometimes I don't know what the, when we do the orders for our pro shop,

I'm like, well, I don't know what color this is based on the name, but that's why you got to go to their website and check it out because they're fantastic colors. Amen. Solly, what's your favorite H&B piece? I mean, I obviously love their polos almost every video we've ever done. I'm probably wearing a Holderness Polo of some kind, but this hoodie you

got me, uh, really, really good with the skeleton with the tie-dye logo on the sleeve here. I'm, I'm greatly, and I, there's not a piece of Holderness material that I've ever worn that I haven't loved, including this performance pant, the Garvey traditional four pocket need to get my hands on one of those. Have not seen those. And Neil, you mentioned a website that website is HB golf.com. You can enter NLU 10 for 10% off your order at HB golf.com. That's Holderness and born NLU 10 for 10% off your next order. This next segment is brought to you by our overlords at the PGA tour. Let's do a FedEx cup standings check in here. I do add this in. I did.

No, no, I swear to God because I was I was live before you go down. I'm already I truly think this is the first time I've ever checked FedEx cup standings like Online, you know other than them updating me on the broadcast many many times So this is actually a fun exercise and I had a few things written down. I can kick us off. Sorry Go ahead Matthew Pavon. Listen, I know he won. I know we were in Australia, but he's been balling out, man.

You had about 78th on your big board. I know. I didn't think he I didn't think he had so many top tens going on too, man. Unbelievable. I saw I got to apologize to Mr. Pavon. I was unfamiliar with his sustainable game. You know, I thought he was just kind of a, you know, a one hit wonder there.

But yeah, he's number one in the projections right now. So that that's that sustainable game. I thought he was just kind of a one hit wonder there. But yeah, he's number one in the projections right now. So that's crazy. I mean, this reinforces Scotty. Five starts, four top 10s, unbelievable. Obviously, I'm going to mess up the name here. Byung Hun An didn't realize that he was balling out. And he's seventh right now. You see that?

He just goes by Ben An. That's pretty, that's probably easy. Yeah, Ben An, fair enough. So that's, that's exciting. Zander's doing Xander stuff guys. Okay. Five starts, five top 10s. Xander stuff, Neil. Five starts, five top 10s. Hasn't sniffed the, you know, the podium, like he's not going to win, but he's just always around. And it's, it's kind of a, I don't know if I was going to be making weekly picks. I might just pick him into top 10 every week. Right? It's unbelievable. Just in case the people listening in their car don't have the FedEx Cup standings memorized.

He skipped past Hedekie Kirk and Wyndham Clark at three, four, five, just just for, just for the listeners sake. I know they probably remember. I was just, I was giving my highlights. So I should probably should have let you, you know, go to, if you, I was going to go down. just going to go down to FedEx cup. Look, that happens this time of year. And the last one I want to point out is I really think my Jason day masters pick is looking pretty. He's playing good golf. He's currently nine. I think he's projected to be 10th in the FedEx cup standing. She's got three top 10s this year. I keep seeing

him pop up on the leaderboard. Uh, so that's all I got. You're skipping past JT post and you're right. I am. Well, I'm going to let you run down your highlights. I didn't want to go straight down the leaderboard. I don't think JT post and gets even remotely enough credit for being like just maximizing the hell out of his talent and being one of the most consistent, just average players out there and it's I don't know I just I have immense respect for his his career his accomplishments his game He rolls the rock so nice. I'm I'm all about JT postin So you know what it's it's funny to see some of these

Some of these guys that have won, you know, like Jake Knapp won. He's, he's in the top 10, the FedEx Cup. Like he, he, he didn't win a designated event or anything like that. He's, he's winning. Like if you win tournaments, you're going to be recognized for it. You're into the signature event. Was it that, but that's kind of part of your criticism, right? Of this event. Yeah. That's kind of where I'm at. It's like, this is, you know, these designated events were supposed to give us like an elevated, you know, sense of where the championship is happening. And these, you know, lower events were kind of to figure out status and things like that. And for all

the complaining, you know, all the complainers, I'm talking to the mules. I'm saying, Hey, mules, I'm saying for all the mules, uh, that did all this complaining. It's like, man, Jake Knapp made almost 1.5 million bucks for beating that field at the Mexico open this week and vaulted to the top 10 of the FedEx cop like listen, winnings hard and should get rewarded. And this is not a final standing. It's still, it's still February. There's a long ways to go, but it's just, it's not, not like early, early in the season. So I don't know. I just thought that was noteworthy. I've got a question from collard Paul. What's the strength of field for this event? Hardly any

notables on the leaderboard. The strength of field for this event this week was 181. The Asian tour event in Oman was 89. The DP world tour is 71. And again, for reference, again, 181 for the Mexico event. Genesis was 322. Phoenix, 324. Pebble, 344. Farmers, 320. AmEx AmEx 323, Sony 284, Sentry 283. So the weakest by far on the PGA toward this year. And again, an update. It's a change in kind of how this has been done as of last year of it. The field size of these signature events is really going to compress the points

that are given away in these. So you can have Phoenix have slightly more points available than Genesis because Phoenix has a larger field, right? So the, uh, the more you average, you know, add quote, average players to a field, the more points that are added to be available to be one. So it's not like, uh, as closed off of a, of a, of a points giveaway in the signature events as it is the full field events, if that makes sense. I think we're gonna get a few really bleak,

like the, from what everybody's saying, Houston's gonna be not a good field, which is disappointing, because as you guys know that that event's gonna slap, as I said, Memorial Park. Do you see season predictions? It's just such a bummer because you're coming off of what should be like the height of golf,

of professional golf season, kind of leading into the masters, like Bay Hill players, into masters, all that. And in an ideal world, you're coming off of a banger of a genesis Riviera. And then all of a sudden, you just get dumped off into this Mexican resort town with no buzz whatsoever. And it's like, who comes up with this schedule? It just doesn't make any sense.

I mean, at least it's a better transition for like cognizant slash Honda classic slash Palm beaches. Right. I mean, that field looks a little bit better coming to this week instead of being sandwiched between the West Coast and the players in Bay Hill. But yeah, I don't know. I think we I think we've covered our disdain for the Mexican open. I want to get to some of the some of the fun news of the week, fun, fun topics of the week, which Rio, his a tune hits a suit, hit his a suit. I've, I've failed every time I've tried to say that name, Dior Bjorn Olson and walking Neiman given special exemptions into the masters. Uh, this was noted on masters.com that Neiman has five, has top five finishes in each of his three DP world tour starts this season, including winning Australia

and open in a playoff last December. Neiman's first masters came in 2018 when he was the reigning Latin American amateur champion and the number one ranked amateur in the world. TC is this the the the masters rejecting the corrupt OWGR and recognizing walking Neiman's ridiculous accomplishments on the live golf tour? of ridiculous accomplishments on the live golf tour? Guy, you're you're setting me up there. So you're setting me up for the for the bots to to pick at my carcass. No, I think it's basically acknowledging a very good Australian open victory and Joaquin just generally playing good golf right now.

So Torbjorn, I think, was just outside the top top 50 and was probably going to play his way in and then hits it hits it soon. He's been playing great golf as well. So I think, I think Augusta, like anything that's going to make the field better, uh, make the field stronger, more complete. I'm in favor of. So I think, uh, um, yeah, I'm all for this one. What were the Justifications for Rio and the orb aren't getting invited so while Sally's pulling that up it's

Really said today's announcement represents the Masters tournaments continued commitment towards developing interest in the game of golf across the world Look forward to welcoming each player Augusta National this spring. It's a soon like they normally they always give a, you know, he was, he was hit to soon was the first Japanese player to be voted DP world tours rookie of the year. Um, that's, that was the, the main, uh, what, what they led with for him. And then Olson one in the UAE, uh, marking his third consecutive DP world tour season with a victory in his five top 10 tens in his last seven worldwide appearances. So they've done this then a lot in the past with international players. That's always been a huge priority for them for on a lot of, for a lot of reasons.

And Neiman being a past Latin American AM champ, as they mentioned, being the best player from South America. I think it makes total sense for them to say, yes, you are exempt into this. Also gives them a little bit of cover to say, like, look, we're not excluding live players. We haven't excluded live players. It's just you got to, if you want to qualify through OWGR automatically, you're going to have to play in qualified events. Like live events do not count for anything.

That's basically what they've said through this announcement. And Neiman's done some stuff outside of that and it's proven to be, you know, a quality player and they want them in the field. That's, that's how it works with the invitationals. So, um, this doesn't really change anything. I, the notes I saw that were, uh, that were saying that this is, you know, them thumbing their nose at the OWGR shows a gross misunderstanding of what the OWG are is, which is Augusta. And we will get into that, but, uh, I don't think this changes a whole lot of this. Like this is great. I think this is a good thing. I think it's a very good thing. It does, like you said, TC, it makes the masters field better.

And I don't think there's going to be anyone on the outside looking in that's like, man, this is not the same because Plank is not there. Like, no, the master's going to be incredible. And Joaquin's one of the few that we've said, like, man, I miss watching that guy play. Like he's won a Riviera before. He's won quality events.

He said how important all the majors are for him. And yeah, it's telling that Augusta not once did they acknowledge any of his success in live events. Yeah. In that, yeah. And it's, you know, he's definitely put some effort into playing outside of live. So I think it's a credit to Augusta for being kind of assertive, good stewards, just kind of having a finger on the pulse of like, they're making, they always

have a knack for making an effort, you know what I mean? And this to me is like the embodiment of that of like, they're paying attention. And sometimes you can't say that for some of the other golf, like governing bodies and powers of being golf. So I think this is awesome. Well, he's, he's also the product of one of these things of what you just said there about, I mean, they've staged the Latin American amp for those that don't know, like that comes from Augusta national and that, you know, and the RNA and the RNA. Yeah.

And so like Hideki is a winner of the Asia Pacific amateur and he's gone on, you know, to win the Masters. Like I'm sure they'd love one day for Neiman to come along and win, uh, win the Masters someday and kind of be a ambassador for that event that they've put on in their efforts to, you know, to, to grow golf globally. It's, it's a very, it's a very real thing. So bottom line, I just want to see a lot of these live guys. If it pisses you off that you're not in the majors, go try to fucking qualify for the US Open and the British Open. Totally.

I'm so tired of these guys complaining and then not even showing up to the qualifiers. It didn't finish schedule. Yeah, I've cosine that TC. That's kind of what I'm saying here is like, like, Neiman's done something about it. And this is, you know, kind of a reward for that. Done something about it and gotten the results from trying, you know, like flying to Australia, getting a dub. We liked that. And a fifth at the Australian PGA on top of that as well. So on the other side of the coin here, can I, can I play an interview clip for you guys? Because Bryson went on the fairway to heaven podcast

with Jerry Foltz and Sue Ann. And he had some thoughts on the whole situation. I'm going to play that for you here. I have words that I would love to say, but you can't about it. They say, oh, they haven't done said one thing or the other. Not doing anything is deciding. And that's frustrating. You know, they said you need certain requirements. We have fulfilled all those requirements, despite what everybody thinks. If you go look at their handbook, we have fulfilled every single criteria. It's been over two years now.

What's going on, guys? And so it's a bit frustrating, but nothing we can do at this moment is we showcase ourselves in the major championships. There's no way they can keep us up. We just got to play one of the majors and once we do, they have no choice. I say we as though I'm a player. We did that last year. I don't think the OWGR matters anymore. Honestly, the conversation, if they started giving live players points now would be, they never catch back up. Right, they've won that battle as a bargaining chip, the PGA tour has. And by the way, we knew that everyone on our side knew that going into this,

that is exactly what we were going to do. Talk about that. Exactly what they were going to do. Well, I'll talk about it. I mean, we all knew. We all knew that was their leverage point. That's the leverage they had. It's the majors, it's those associations

that have the leverage and they want golf to be a certain way. And you know what, ultimately they don't decide. It's the players that ultimately decide. Cause if we all stop playing, we all said, now we're good. We don't need to play. What do you think would happen now? Yeah, and I think too, the fans suffer from all that. Absolutely. It's again, the most important thing.

It's the thing that I come back to most. Yeah, started off this this podcast has said the death to egos is what needs to occur on all sides. Yeah, if that can happen, I think that's a step in the right direction for the game of golf. That's fucking good stuff, man. What are we doing, guys? What are we doing?

What are we doing, guys? Death to egos. Fuck yeah. God, that's good stuff. Leverage points. So Bryson's talking about the OWGR and live players not getting OWGR points throughout that, that, uh, that rant. Correct.

I don't, I truly don't know where to start with this. It's like a, there's just an unhinged disconnection from reality. It's an alternate universe. He starts by saying they say, Oh, they haven't said one thing or another. Not saying anything is deciding bro. On October 10th of last year, the O.W.G. announced that live would not be getting points. They haven't not said one thing or another, not saying anything is deciding bro on October 10th of last year, you know, David, your announced that live would not be getting points. They, they haven't not said one thing or another. They said it. Like you're not getting points.

Peter Dawson said, we're not at war with them. The decision not to make them eligible is not political. It is entirely technical. Live players are, are self-evidently good enough to be ranked. They're just not playing in a format where they can be ranked equitably with the other 24 tours and thousands of players trying to compete on them And I don't again I don't know what the part is the most arranged but the next part is is is more elevated I would say it's like that they've met the criteria despite what everybody thinks like they of course just of course have not met the Criteria you need to average 75 players for tournament. They're not even trying there

You have to have scheduled 72 whole tournaments. You have to have qualifying criteria for these tours. And they try to technically sneak their way around this by giving away a few spots, but the majority of the spots are held down by guys that were handed contracts and did not qualify. And you need to comply with all these for at least a year to be able to be considered. It's all been covered and documented many, many, many, many, many times. Bryson saying this with Jerry folks and Sue and just nodding along does not change the fact that that's just straight up. That's just not true.

It's just not how it works. Two things. I think first of all, I watched that clip. Jerry Folx is little man cave down there. I was going to say PC. He's got, he's got a nice, uh, nice podcast room there. Nice man cave. He got the billiards table, got all sorts of darts.

I mean, I want to go at hang and, and you know, drink some cold beers down there with Jerry. Second of all, like, I don't even disagree that the OWGR is somewhat irrelevant. And I felt like some of the changes that they made kind of cut it off from the world being like it, I think it made it so US centric because I think even if we're having this conversation and live doesn't exist, I think we're looking at it and saying, all right, the tour is cutting off the legs of the DP World Tour or of all these other tours worldwide. Like we've talked about that over the last 18 months as

they've made changes to strength of field and kind of the way that these points ladder up. they've made changes to strength of field and kind of the way that these points ladder up. So I don't even disagree with some of the things that Jerry's saying about, Hey, like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, with you there, TC, because it wouldn't be irrelevant if they wouldn't be talking about it. If it was irrelevant, right? I think it all comes down to for me and I can forgive people for this confusion. It is not the official world golf rankings. I know that's literally what it stands for. But again, that's not what it is. Like it's not a ranking system of the best players, right? It's it's it's used, you know, for a lot of in a lot of media circles, it's used as, uh, you know, as that,

but the 25th player is not better than the 50th player. That's just, that's not how it works. It's, it's a counting stat for if you've played in qualified, on qualified tours and events for like how you earn points to qualify for the biggest events in golf, like the biggest events in golf are masters, us open, British open, pga championship championship, PGA tour, DP world tour, international federation of PGA tours. Like that is who got together to come up with the system to say, Hey, if you, this whole world, if you want to play in these events, here's the kind of golf you have to play here, the tours. If you do that, apply, maybe we'll give you points if you, uh, if you meet all this criteria, right? Like that is what, that is what has

happened. It is not meant to rank the top players in the world. Of course, like cam Smith falling out of the O W G R is not represent like his true level of play. But if he wanted to play in the qualifying system for all of these other tours, he wants to play in their events, you have to, this is the waiter and points. It is through the system. That is exactly how it is. So it is, it is relevant to exactly what these guys want, which is to play in these big events. Like I, again, I understand why that's confusing for a lot of people, but that is what these, these rankings are. That's why I was laughing at the masters thumbing their nose at the O W G R. Like the masters is the O W G R.

Totally. Them printing this out and saying, Hey, if you want to automatically qualify to play in our event, this is exactly how you do it. And 24 tours are complying with this. But it's also worth noting that that's not it's it is the main way or like the, I guess the standard way of qualifying, the automatic way of qualifying, excuse me, but it's not the only way to qualify. Correct. Like you can go to local either for each of these events, there's other ways to qualify Bryson's qualified for the you know For the Masters based on his US Open win, right?

So some of that's just I get a little just stick of the sour grapes of of hey, man You went and you were disruptive and yes, you haven't gotten your OWGR points yet that you were promised by You know live and Greg Norman, but like, you know, why don't you just fuck off for a while, right? Like that's what happens when you go join a startup, you know, you don't fucking get, you don't get into the enterprise immediately. Okay. You got to, you got to grind a little bit. All I'm saying is that, yeah, sorry. I hear what you're saying. The, the, the ODR is relevant because the majors say that the ODR is relevant.

They, that's what they came up with. Yes. Yes. Exactly. But I, and what I'm saying is I think it is, yeah, I don't think it's a good reflection of how to measure who the best players in the world are totally. Totally agree. Totally agree. It is a separate thing. I wish the name would change to clarify that. Like I wish it was called the BDE qualification system. T.C. I think that would be a difference. That would be a different scale of all sorts of different inputs. I don't help explain this next part to me. Ultimately they don't decide. It's the players that decide because if we all stop playing, what do you think would happen then? Who truly who is we here? Yeah. Well, you first off,

you wouldn't get paid if I live, right? Like I don't think they gave Bryson all his money up front. Or is he saying the day as far as the majors, like if we stop playing in the majors, like, yeah, who is they? I have no idea. Of course, they're just nodding along with them there. Like, yeah, but I feel like this is going back to what I talked about two, three, four weeks ago, where is there some sort of player empowerment thing coming against the majors, whether it's PGA tour guys or live guys saying, Hey, we want a much, much, much larger piece of the pie that you guys are bringing in on your, you know, USG ATV contract and your master's TV contract and all that.

Yeah. I don't think like the live players are in the position to bargain for that at the moment. They're the ones begging for entries into these tournaments right now. I think, you know, PJ Torr players are much better positioned to have that. And I think that I'm sure there's something that's going to change along those fronts in the years to come. But I just is Bryson DeShambo going to lead a coup amongst all tours and all players to not go play in the masters. Like, are they just going to not, not show up because, because the live golf

tour did not get their OWG our point. Is that what he's threatening here? Right? Like, can we, can we laugh at how absurd that is for a second? That is the wildest shit until he says the death to egos is what needs to occur here unironically because that was the, that was just the cherry on top of all of it. What are we doing guys? Price and a rule. It's a credible interview, man. It's just like, I don't know how we're doing this two years in.

Uh, how was the rest of it? I did listen, guys, I did not tune into the stairway to heaven podcast. I was, I was, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, fair way to heaven podcast. I haven't, haven't caught the, uh, the rather, I might have to, I might have to dig into the rest of it. Cause that, that is a true highlight that leaves me wanting more Anthony Kim set to return at live Jetta as has been rumored, uh, last couple of weeks, this moving the needle for, for live golf.

I'm good on the, I'm good on the Anthony Kim stuff. I mean, I'll, I'll check the results, right? But you know, or maybe I'll be curious to see how he does. I don't know. I, I'm just shocked. I'm more curious about him, like, and where his golf game's at. And like, even though he's set to return, we haven't heard from him. It's all still feels kind of roomery to me. So it's like until he comes out and maybe does an interview or something, that's, that's honestly moreory to me. So it's like until he comes out and maybe does an interview or something. Uh, that's, that's honestly more interesting to me than, than probably seeing him play.

I think it's been, it would be tough for him to live up to the, uh, to the hype of after being gone for so long, but we'll, you know, we'll see. Maybe, maybe he comes out and lights it, lights the world on fire. I think that's the thing. There's no more, there's no more aura. If you just come out and lay an egg and you know, finish T 37 and four live events in a row and just show that you're another guy, right?

But you do get paid. That's the key part of that. The last time that Anthony Kim was good, I believe it was like 2010. I know he technically played through 2012. So long ago. I just pulled this up. Here's the, here's the top. I don't know. I don't know how many names you want me to name. Here's the top players in the world as of Jan one 2010. Tiger Woods was number one. Phil number two, striker three, Westwood, Furick, Padrake Harrington, Henrik Stenson, Paul Casey, Rory, Kenny Perry, Ian polter, Sergio, Kimer, Jeff Ogilvy, Sean O'Hare, Stuart, sink, Ernie L's, Ross

Fisher, Latif, Goose and Lucas Glover, Robert Allen B, Zach Johnson, on hell, Cabrera, Camille of a Jague, Anthony Kim. He was 25th in the world to start 2010. I mean, in 2010, Neil was, Neil was the, the starting free safety at Columbia university. That's true. I was. Yeah. That's wild. Man. That's how long ago that was. Yeah. That's wild. Man. That's how long ago that was. Yeah. That was my junior year.

So, I mean, yeah, there's a reason why we spent like most of like 2014, uh, like really yearning for an AK comeback. And that was because it was, you know, still felt possible. And now that golf has changed a whole heck of a lot of, it's a lot more of a bomb and gouge contest. And the guy's totally messed his multiple body parts up and hasn't played professional golf in 12 years. I'd be stunned if it weren't, if it went great.

I am very curious to see how it goes. But I, again, we just got done talking about like getting O WGR points for live tour and like now we're welcoming back and do that. Hasn't touched a club professionally in 12 years. You just go straight to the tour. It's like, yeah, that's, that's, that's a good point. So like that's, you know, we are kind of approaching our Jake Paul situation, you know what I mean?

Of like, and again, I know people will throw in like sponsors exemption, the PGA tour, past champion status, all this is like, look, there's not, I don't know how many live spots there are now. It was 48. I think it's like 54. Now there's not a closed 54 on that, right? There are 144, 156 person events that are trying to fill the bottom of these events that fill out the status through past champions. That's very different than getting one of 54 coveted spots to play for $20 million every week. It is different.

It's also, it's also very interesting that they've kept this whole certain till the Jetta event, which is probably going to be the most useless, which Jetta, sorry, King Abdullah economic city, which is going to be the most useless overnight. Like there's no fans out there. Right. It's not like anybody's turning up there. Like there's, there's, there's live events with plenty of fans, right? Like the Adelaide one or, you know, I'm sure some of the ones, like the one in the UK, probably, but, but man, it's just, you know, it feels like a

ploy to give people a reason to watch what'll be the worst event on their calendar. Yeah. I'm actually curious about, uh, will he wear Nike? You know, will he like, does that contract still exist? You know, stuff he like, does that contract still exist? You know, stuff like that. That's kind of where my head goes is like there, I have some curiosity about this, but it's less about his golf game and his and the result and more just like hearing from him personally is, is what if he wears Sunday red? So excuse me, Sunday.

I definitely have some curiosity about it, but it's it's it feels like a Poor job of marketing, you know, it's almost like you have to roll this out like it would be a boxing match It is where this is powerful and it's almost like being done Like you don't really know what's true and what's not so maybe In the next week what there's gonna to be a big PR blitz, but I don't know. Right now it just feels kind of stuck in the middle. Neil, on top of that, it's also being rolled out

outside the bounds of their team events, where we've been told that that's the main thing that matters, and that's, if anything, that's the thing that kind of has mattered, that guys have seemingly gotten some juice from and gotten some care from is like, hey, you know what? I like being part of a team. We travel together and all that. I think there is something there with some of the live stuff on the team front. And the fact that they're just doing this is a little side show over to the side to

basically say, all right, here's this guy that hasn't played it for 14 or 15 years that were, that were basically like nursing back to health here, but within the context of our event and he's going to make guaranteed $150,000 to be finished this last place is crazy. Yeah. Last bit on the live front. John Rom did an interview with Marty Smith from ESPN, I believe only the first part is out at this point.

It's about a five minute interview. I'm just going to play one short clip from that. There's a fair amount to react to from that, but I'm just going to play one short clip of that. The possibility for us growing up. PGA tour was the pinnacle of golf, right? This is a new change, a big change. And I don't want to skip through this point

because there's no point, a big change in the way the golfers get compensated. I'll be lying if I said he wasn't a big part of it. In a nutshell, I'm getting paid more to play the same sport and have more time. My reaction to listening to him explain his reasons for going to live golf, extremely soulless of course, of saying essentially values money above all things above his competitive golf career. But, you know, at least he didn't try to sell me on the live golf product. I actually appreciated that part.

Like he just is truly excuse making and explaining away his decision to go and not even trying to convince us that live golf is worth watching or is worth your time in any way. It's just like they offered me a lot more money to play less golf. Uh, why that that's, that's. That's the sum of it right there. It's just like, ah, that part's refreshing to hear. What a bleak spot that we're in that it's refreshing to hear that one of the best players of his generation is just calling his spade a spade and saying that,

you know what, I'm getting paid less or more money to play less golf. Bravo, congr Congrats to you. Like, God, what a what a What a shit sandwich we're eating right now Yeah, I I mean one thing that jumped out to me from the interview was and seeing some of the promo stuff for Full swing is just how all these guys now talk about how the majors are all that matters and is just how all these guys now talk about how the majors are all that matters.

And Rom having that same, you know, saying that within that interview of like, well, yeah, once I want to gust of that change to everything, because now I know I can play the masters for life. And, you know, you can just tell like, and it's interesting to hear some of the guys on the tour say that. And if I'm, God, if I'm running the tour,

I'm like, God, that's a tough thing to hear on. Or if you're investing billions of dollars into the tour. Yeah, I know. And so like, I agree with them. So in some ways, you're like, all right, yeah, I get, you know, John, I get it, man. But it doesn't look like for years. It doesn't look super joyful during that interview. Also, Los Butchers is logos just interview. Also, Los Butchers' logo is just horrid. Just the pink and I don't know. Legion 57. I don't know what like, it's just bad, dude. Like, come on, at least bring the noise on the logo. There's an interesting comment from at home Josh. He said, I find myself rooting against live golfers and majors. To be honest, it's because I just don't want them to have their cake and eat it too.

But after hearing Rom, I almost feel like a PGA star winning just gives them that free pass to go to live if Finau or Zalatoris, when are they gone? I hadn't really thought of it through that lens of like, you know, if you are, I personally don't find myself rooting against live players and majors. I think it's, it's interesting. It's like, I found myself up off my couch when Phil totally, you know, T two last year I was riding for Phil like I can't help it. You know, But if you are a diehard, you know, if you feel opposite of that, like all of a sudden

are you, you know, that's a new element of majors as well. If somebody wins wondering if that just means that they're going to jump ship. It's a guy, I honestly hadn't thought of that until, until he sent that over. Like it's just amazing to me thinking out loud of the fact that a lot of the PGA tour guys have come off as so unlikeable. And PGA tour leadership has done such a poor job that we're back to this place of like, you know, everybody seemingly gets a fair shake, right? Hey, the guys that like left for the money,

you know what, like props to them for leaving for the money. It's got to that point. Well, if you honestly, if you do this or kind of how Dustin Johnson's been about it, right? Like I'm with you. So I have a lot more respect for just like, yeah, man. It made like pour the cold water on me. Tell me it's cold hard rational cash

and that's why you left it. And then you hear the price and then you hear the G max. And you're like, yes guys, like you said, he's got a total loon, you know? So, ah man, it's just interesting. I truly wonder how Ram feels coming off of that Vegas event of like, I mean, just, it's just a, you know, it's a weird amalgamation of guys over there. A lot of personalities.

I wonder how that's, uh, cause he is a hyper competitive guy. And it's just like you just went and started playing in kind of the, in some ways, like a, it's not a flag football league. That's not right, but it almost feels a little bit more like the all star game versus like the NBA season is maybe where I'm going with that. All star game was tough. Yeah. That's what I mean, you know, but you can tell it's just like, yeah, maybe a lot easier

to go through the motions when you know, you're guaranteed the money. So that has to, that has to have some type of subconscious impact on, on somebody like Rom, not all those guys, but somebody like Rom, I feel like it does. But then, but then again, then they say like, well, four times a year, I am gonna, I'm gearing up for these majors. So maybe that's all they need to keep, you know, kind of keep the flame going. To be already rich, and to sell out everything you stand for just for more money has to be so unfulfilling. I don't, I understand how much money it is. I really do, but that cannot feel good. Like it cannot feel good at the end of the day. That's, that's the part that gets me is like,

there, it's one thing to go from totally broke and sell out for a shitload of money, but like to be already rich and sell out for that kind of money and like clearly be, have that weighing on you already is just like, it's that much more frustrating, man. I cannot imagine he feels like fulfilled from this. I'd love to hear what Marty Smith feels like. We'll see. I cannot imagine he feels like fulfilled from this. I'd love to hear what Marty Smith feels like. I mean, he seems pretty convinced it's coming back together too. So, you know, maybe he's privy to stuff that, that we don't know about. Um, I don't know.

I think I might do a while. I just, I, I had, I don't know, it was 26th at the earliest, right? At this point. I mean, it's, yeah, maybe 30th year list. I know. I mean, there's just, there's nothing going on. There's no, there's nobody home on either side. It's crazy. Got Carson asked me a couple of days ago. She's like, what's going on with this? You know, and I was kind of like, honestly, I don't really know a nothing's really happening. I think they're, they're maybe trying to announce some before the masters, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

And it, you know, yeah, like some of these billionaires said that they're like hyped up to find some synergies and pour some money into, you know, it's like a, their version of a sailboat, a sports sailboat, you know, the only hobby. We don't talk about this enough somehow. How fucking stupid all of June 6 looks now. Like just a few months later, I mean, the whole thing was no more poaching players. Well, they got the biggest one that possibly could. The whole thing was like, Liv just kind of folds up and goes away. According to this piece of paper. Well, obviously that

didn't end up happening. Like they got on TV. Jake stands up and says, uh, take a competitor off the board, raising all kinds of stupid. It is J. Look, like every, every single one of these things is an L in the J column. It is such a massive redig like what was the rush to get out in front of everyone to announce this worthless piece of paper that had no chance of standing up to any kind of scrutiny. Like, and here we are trying to react to it in real time. Like I, I couldn't get through my head that these people hadn't fought this through to this level, right? That I, I was like, all right,

if you're going to go on TV, if you're going to have this signed piece of paper, this has to be the true intent of what's going on. And it clearly has. They just straight up didn't want depositions. That's all that they that they didn't want to like the Saudis didn't want to open their books and didn't want to go under oath. And the tour didn't want to have discovery either. That's all that was about. It's insane. And we just sit here as golf fans, just totally and completely fucked.

Anyway, and then, you know, Ed, Ed Hurley, he's back to back to doing deals. He's he just, he just put to back to doing deals. He just, he just put together the capital one discover deal this week. The Mexico open podcast presented by Grupo Salinas, share prosperity baby. If you're this far in, I think the next ad read is going to be for you. I really, you're enjoying this. This next one is for you. Well, TC was talking about getting hazard pay for having to be on the pod this week. So maybe this will, maybe this will help us fulfill that, which is, uh, this podcast is also presented to you by the nest. No laying ups community of avid golfers.

That's right. This is a house ad. Uh, quick update last week, we released an exclusive behind the scenes video of strapped Louisiana. And we also just released the February NEST pod where Cody and I interviewed NEST member Pete Cooheig, the CEO and part owner of League One Football Club, Wicom, the Wicom Wonders. All NEST exclusive content can now be found on knowlayingup.com under the content menu labeled the NEST on the homepage. So easy to listen to the podcast and watch all the exclusive video. And we'll be releasing a lot more Nest exclusive video, at least one a month throughout 2024, including behind the scenes footage from Torres Sauce season nine. Those episodes premiere in April and some directors cut commentary on old Torres Sauce season. So if that's of interest,

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That's no laying up.com forward slash join that guys, that was some all really depressing golf news. Let's get into some really uplifting stuff. Uh, Charlie Woods shot an 86 in the cognizant pre-qualifier is a tee shot on the fifth hole went sailing out of bounds and several fans went rummaging for it as a souvenir. A lot of the fans were ignoring requests from tournament officials to stay off the fairways. A disgruntled fan asked one official, who are you? The fire marshal. And as Charlie's following increased to more

than 50 fans as he headed for the back nine, including one grandmother who learned that he was competing and pulled her granddaughter out of school in the hope of Woods noticing her. Uh, and after Woods left the 12th green, another fan approached him with a pen and a copy of Tiger's book, how I play golf, uh, demanding Charlie signed the book when an official told the fan it wasn't allowed. She made a commotion of shushes and yells, including I live here as Woods teed off on 13. That is from Emily Smarr at the Palm Beach post for the on the ground reporting. Good stuff. Good stuff. Everybody support your local newspapers.

Okay. That's, that's disgusting. So that, that of all the things tonight, I wasn't in a bad mood, but that put me in a bad mood. That and, and how I play golf. That's a heavy ass hardcover book. I have that book. If walking around the golf course with that, like. Go back to your shanties people. This is, it's disgusting. Or, or in this case in Palm Beach, go, go back to your large gated community.

Sure. Uh, I mean, tough, you know, and tough for Charlie Woods. Hey man, respect to him for, for playing even though he shot 86. But that sucks, man. That really sucks. I hate pretty much all of, all of that summary. Yeah. I mean, the PGA tour was promoting this on its, on their official account as he was arriving for the pre-qualifier, which, you know, of course started the whole discourse online of who's posting this should it be posted, all this stuff. Itifier, which, you know, of course, started the whole discourse online of who's posting this, should it be posted

all this stuff? It just, I don't know, man, I'm kind of torn on it. Like Charlie seems to kind of welcome a lot of this stuff, but he's also 15. And does he know what he's doing when it comes to this? And I, I certainly apprehensive about his, uh, his potential as a, as a golfer, but it seems like he wants to pursue this. I, I give him credit for going and signing up and, and like, it's good experience. And you learn kind of the hard way how, how it goes when the ball's offline and when you got to sign a card and you got to play with a lot better competition. Like that's kind of part of the deal when it comes to what I assume he wants out

of a pro golf career, but yeah, he obviously was not quite ready for the moment. That's not the problem. I don't have a problem with him shooting 86, like a 15 year old playing a pre-Q like that's going to happen, dude. Like that's it. But just kind of what you're going to deal with. This is what you're going to deal with. And that really sucks. And, uh, yeah, the whole thing. And some of the people, some of the people commenting in on Twitter and

decrying all this are also some of the people that are part of the problem. Do it's kind of like that. You know, like we're all looking for the person who did this. And like they're wearing the fucking hot dogs. You know what I mean? Like some of those same people are talking out of both sides of their mouth here. Yeah. So, so anyways, anything else you wanted to add on random tour bits? TC, before we moved on.

Yeah, I just saw the Genesis ratings. They weren't good. They were really bad, right? They, the Sunday rating was they had 3. They weren't good. They're really bad. Right? They, the Sunday rating was they had 3.245 million people. That seems like that seems good to me. I don't know what the comparable was, but that's the best they've had on a Sunday by far so far this year. Waste management was like 2.4. It wasn't a versus last year or like, like, like year over year, it was down like crazy. I think, I think so, but there can be a lot of noise in year to year. Um, tie, I don't remember how Tiger shook that didn't even withdraw.

I don't remember if he played on Sunday or not, but there could have been anticipation that he was going to play it. There's a lot of noise in year to year stuff. I think it, uh, the early week stuff was definitely bleak. The Thursday rating was like 450,000 people watching it on Thursday. I don't know how 25 years into this, we still haven't figured out how to get Tiger Woods to play golf on TV. Like that's pretty, uh, pretty, it's pretty just unlucky. Really. I mean, you know, any, it's just unavoidable, uh, figure in 25 plus years, uh, to get figured out. But, um, and he had, he had withdrawn when he was getting ready to be in the window, uh, on Friday.

Yeah. But Sally, what you don't understand is these 19 archaic rules and regulations that the PGA tour was founded upon that we could never, ever change or, you know, figure out a work around for totally. And then last thing I had was just the Saudi Arabia vision 2030. There was a big article in the Wall Street Journal this week, uh, about the, you know, mega projects, uh, like neom and things of that nature, kind of draining their cash flow.

Getting ready to, uh, they do another, uh, offering of a bunch of Aramco equity as well as starting to borrow money to replenish the coffers. Part of the big reason that PIF has such access to such money is because of the dividends from the Aramco shares. So they're raising short-term cash to, they're going to cut off some of those dividends in the future to themselves. So I don't know, it's just very, very interesting as far as they're doing all the live stuff. They're spending $500 million on NIO. They're buying up a bunch of jets to start their own national airline and go after

Emirates and Etihad and all that. And it's like, all this is happening in the context of, you know, at some point is they're going to be, they're essentially halfway through this vision 2030. At some point is they're going to be the appetite for these pet projects like, like live golf, right? Well, on that note, I also see you have a note in here that you want to compliment the CLEEC social team. So I don't know if that is tied. If those two things are tied Right. Well, on that note, uh, I also see you have a note in here that you want to compliment the CLEAK social team. So, uh, I don't know if that is tied. If those two things are tied to each other or not with this pet fraud. I do.

This is guys, this, I got such a kick out of this, uh, this post this week. Uh, they were, they were congratulating Richard Bland, my guy, Blandy Dick Bland on top 14 finishes in six of his last seven events. It was just they put a whole graphic together and they found this picture of Bland that makes it looks like he's at least 70 years old. I mean, it looks absolutely ragged and it's it just, I was howling when I saw this. It's planemonium. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to, I just like, I, I genuinely get such a kick out of following each of these teams and their, their little, you know, social, uh,

brand identities. It's very funny. Uh, the magical Kenya open another, another, another national open as DC would call it. Darius Van Dril won one. Of course, the magical, the magical Kenya open. And Ronald Ruegomeo became the first player from Uganda to make the cut at a DP world tour event. It was a very, it was awesome. I mean, like a 10 foot curling putt on Friday, uh, way outside the hole, uh, curled and then made the putt. They posted all the video from his club, uh, in Uganda watching,

watching it live. And, uh, it was a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh There was, uh, we had both of the Elvira brothers in the top four there as well as, uh, there was a nice story in the BBC about a guy named Joe Dean finished, uh, T two, yeah, T two. And basically he had qualified for DP world tour, but didn't compete, uh, for a few events because he just straight up couldn't afford to travel to the Middle East and other places. So this was the first event. So he was basically delivering groceries for Morrison's grocery store back in the UK and makes this check.

And I would assume this both sets up his season as far as eligibility status and priority ranking as well as gives him the funds he needs to, you know, keep going. It's just a matter of like, it's crazy to me that a guy that's on what's ostensibly the second best, you know, like, or as of three or four years ago was the second best tour in the world has status out there

and can't afford to travel to the events to go play and use that status that blows my mind when you think about just professional golf at large. Yeah. Carlos Ortiz won the international series in Oman. A few of the live guys traveled there to Hoover up some OWGR points there. Louis, who stays in finish second, Neiman finished third, Mito, Perera fourth, Peter, you line six, Matt, Wolf finished in T seven, David, Pueig finished 10th.

And for some reason, people online were declaring this as the live statement of, uh, of their prowess in non-live events, which I was them, I would probably just point to the majors last year. That probably makes a lot more sense than, uh, an Oman event that I think had two players inside the top 300 in the world that were not live guys, but, um, that at least seeing some guys travel around to get some, uh, to get some o WGR points is, is You know, putting their money where their mouth is, uh, in some way. That said, it did have a stronger strength of field than the, the magical Kenya, which it's worth pointing out.

So how this is done now is it's not a circular thing that comes with the world, with the, uh, ranking, their OWR ranking, it comes from their strokes gain. So all of these live guys going to there, that is what's giving it a higher, um, field rating, higher points rating. And that's not, if that makes sense, it's not getting discounted because they've fallen in the rankings, right? It takes a stroke, gain rating, which is their actual results in measured events. It doesn't age that. I don't know the exact formula, but basically it would say like Dustin Johnson, what do we want to call him? Probably the 30th best golfer in

the world from a just golf standpoint right now. And if maybe he's 80th in the rankings, and again, I'm just pulling it. I have no idea what the actual numbers are. That's probably not right, but it would basically pull from that 30th of what your actual golf school score is instead of your corrupt golf ranking, that all makes sense. Does it in some roundabout way? Yes. But it just, yeah, like I just, again, like we can't have nice things. Totally. Yeah.

I'm, I'm, I'm on that. What are we doing guys? What are we doing guys? Patty to have a Tana kit wins in Thailand. She wins back to back after winning in Saudi last week very emotional After holding the putt on the final green She was of course the winner of the 2021 go ahead that right now Chevron championship was the a and a

Back when it was in in Palm Springs major champion that fell on some pretty hard times very quickly after that and has fallen off the radar. Pretty hard. She's bounced back prior to this, but this is a pretty, pretty strong statement in terms of her return or potential ascension back towards the top of the game. Amen. And then bronze, a good one. Yeah. Bronte law one on the, uh, on a similar path. Bronte doesn't quite have the full resume and ceiling, maybe the patty tee had, but solid player, soul, I'm cut player that had really lost her game. She she won on the L E T this past week. Maria Fosse had a four shot lead going into the final round and up losing by four.

Unfortunately, Bronte shot 64 Maria shot 76. Well, so good for good for Bronte law. Happy for her there. Coming up this week, we have the cognizant classic, formerly known as the Honda. Maria shot 76. So good for good for Bronte law. Happy for her there. Coming up this week, we have the cognizant classic, formerly known as the Honda. They got a little better field this week. Ricky playing Rory playing this week. Uh, it's got a slightly better spot on the calendar. As we talked about earlier, Luke Donald's going to be in the booth a little

bit for it's coming week, TC's boy. Um, so it's good to, good to, I don't know. I have some good memories watching this event. I think it's a back nine Sunday watch, right? It's not a fun Thursday, Friday. I want to see this whole golf course. There's some really screwy holes and not my favorite course, but come down the stretch on the final. It usually delivers a really good finish, especially that AT hold does. So I'm, uh, I, I usually enjoyed at least watching that part of it.

Not a big thing of it. I'm happy, uh, like they're changing it up with Luke Donald, like giving, uh, Kisner kind of a, you know, putting him in the cooler for a little bit. I thought he did, I thought Kisner did a great job, but it's nice to get, let's see what if kind of freshening it up every month or so is, is kind of the ticket for NBC before they, you know, pick a pick one guy. I think this is great. Kind of doing the dress rehearsal live is good stuff, NBC. I like this.

Or if they were, I think in true NBC fashion, if they do find the right guy and that guy asks for more money, they're just not going to pay him and then they'll just go to the next guy down the list. Maybe. Yeah. So they're kind of covering it from both sides, right? Sure. Oh, what an industry.

Uh, we have the match on Monday night. If you're listening to this, it probably already is Monday. Um, the highlight, of course, DJ Khaled will be serving as the cart commentator, uh, driving around and providing analysis, which, um, I know Nils, that's got you excited about that, but this will be at the park. The best down in West Palm. It is Rory. It is Lexi Thompson.

It is Rose Zang. Who's the fourth? I can't. Why can't I? It's a skin's game, so it's not a partner competition. I'm a little, I'm excited to see the park. I've seen that place looks awesome. So that'll be fun.

But I just feel like the match is having an identity crisis, man when they when they flip the format up like that, I know this is probably not for me, you know, but I There's no through line anymore. And I'm I'm kind of You know, and I'm a little worried about the banter like Lexi and you know roses kind of an unknown as far as like Because they're going to want to try to draw the personality out of them all. Like, I don't know if this one, like I'm really happy that LPGA players are involved, but the independent skins game, I don't know if that's going to bring the, the banter out,

right? More than like a team game would if you played a team game. So I'm not sure about the format is what I'm getting at. Yeah. I'm keen to see how this one goes. I think the DJ Khaled thing has me very, very, very, very concerned. Christina Kim being involved. There's just, it's like, Hey guys, like you got Rory Max, Lexi and Rose involved at a really,

really cool looking golf course on a Monday night when nothing else is going on, like it's better be good. Right? Let's not, let's not, let's not over complicated. Well, of course, debrief on it next week. I open mind. We'll definitely watch it. And I, I, I don't know what to expect, but, uh, you know, I, I think at least this is like, all right, very clearly not serious golf. Right. I think some of the, some of the identity crisis has been kind of a foot in two camps, kind of trying to be somewhat serious, kind of somewhat bantery. And I don't really know what the question is. Like usually there's a fair question. Like I was super intrigued by Steph

Curry, Peyton Manning, Phil, Charles Barkley of like, you know, if you pair Phil with Charles Barkley, can you, that was interesting to me. Whereas I don't really know if the question that they're answering is with this one, but that's also doesn't need to be like, I thought it was going to be more interesting. I thought it was legitimately just like Max and Rose versus Rory and Lexi. Yeah. Like I thought that's what it was. That's kind of what I'm getting at. Like the team, the fact that they're moving away from the team game is like, what are we, why are we doing that?

Why are we trying to change the format? Like there should be some type of through line with these. I mean, I think that's, that's, that's, that they're moving away from the team game is like, what are we, why are we doing that? Why are we trying to change the format? Like there should be some type of through line with these. I feel like good news here, TCM. I'm assuming you put this in here that, uh, on how Cabrera is in the field on a sponsor's exception in the Argentina open this week.

Yeah, not, I mean, I didn't put in those good news. I just put in the rest of the news or it's noteworthy. Uh, again, we're just tracking the national opens because that's what we do here. The Argentina open visa Argentina open. It's a corn fairy tour event, uh, on how Cabrera is in the field. So, uh, more to come there. And I'm sure I assume he'll be in the field for the masters this year as well. So assuming he can get back into the country. Yeah. And the last part, um, Neil doesn't want any spoilers on that.

So we're going to skip past this next one. TC had a little bit of updates on our personal golf games, but TC has an update for us from this past week. Yeah. I played golf with John Minium, a JDM year in real. Yeah. You know, who, uh, he sends his regards. Uh, I got him his first, first free round of the year as well.

You'll be, you'll be glad to know how to find a major in club. So if you're unfamiliar, this is the guy that sends us annually sends out his, uh, his golf year review in review. Yeah. Neil went over it on the pod a couple of weeks ago, um, and Tisi got to play with them last week. So his game is so nice. Like he hits this kind of.

Like really, really, really consistent cut. And he's a delightful guy. He said he's he's gotten dozens, if not hundreds of invites since you talked about it. He can play now. He can play. He can play the events he wants to play. That's what that's what he's playing. The he's playing this signature, uh, schedule.

So John, you're welcome down here in Pona Vigia, Jack's Beach area. Anything stick out. Had he lose any balls? I know it was, he was, his lost balls were up 15% year over year. Yeah. Which was, we kind of blew me away cause they were up 15% and he didn't lose that many balls, uh, you know, full year. So yeah, he lost the ball on, uh, I think he actually lost two balls,

lost the ball on three and then he lost one OB as well. So was he just, was he just keeping stats on a card? Yeah. So I was kind of asking him about his process and stuff. He does stats on a card and then, and then he writes down some stuff along the way. He takes a few pictures and then, um, his putter, like he's, he's got this old school. I think it's a paying putter. It's, he's so nice with it on the greens.

His chipping and putting is just like surgical. He's got just, it's like this dead old putter and he, and he, he makes everything inside of 12 feet. I love it. Really cool. So, and I couldn't tell if you're being serious on our slack, Neil. You, uh, we're, the, uh, Ben was sitting along updates from the, uh, from the gasparilla, which I played in this past week and you said you wanted nothing. You didn't want to hear him. You, you want to wait for the film room to come out. I didn't see any updates. Uh, I, I know that you had a tough first day.

Uh, but that's all I know. So I want to be dismissed for this section. Yeah, I'd like to opt out. I think that that's that makes sense. I want I'm going to watch and commentate on the on the footage and I you don't want to know any spoilers. Yeah, I should see it for the first time. All right, well, we'll dismiss you with that. And for anyone that would like to, there'll be no other golf talk after this.

If you want to opt out and wait for the film room to come out from my experience, the 2024 gasp, you have the option of doing that here, but we will be spoiling that result from here on going forward. So with that, I'll bid you a do for the evening, Neil. And thank you very much for the hazard pay. You'll be getting your hazard pay for the Mexico. It's always good being with you. Thanks for all that you do for the game, guys. Thank you, Mr. Neil. All right, TC. We got a debrief on this. It didn't go great. Solid. First, before we get into it, there's been a couple of haters in the Instagram comments

getting on you for taking a sponsor exemption or getting an exemption, getting a special invite to this, not having to go through qualifying. What do you say to those guys? Uh, I would say to them, um, first of all, it's, it's a mid-am event. This is not a PGA tour event. It's an invitational. Uh, you can invite whoever they want. Um, this was, uh, listen, it's kind of a, uh, a, it's, it's a, what, what's the, what's

the phrase like a snake eating itself at this point? It was, I got invited this play in this tournament for the first time in 2020. Uh, we've since produced a lot of content around it. We've made a lot of YouTube videos around it. We've talked about on the podcast every time their applications have gone up, like multiple, multiple exponential since then. And, uh, so it gets a little bit more attention every time I do get an invite to this, I will say I've had some pretty solid success in this event over the previous four years.

I missed the cup. I won my first time, uh, got in contention the second time was in like, in the top five halfway through the tournament and ended up finishing like in the mid T thirties, uh, missed it by three, my next year, but I hit four balls. OB that was actually the best I've ever played in this tournament. I was very competitive and then I made the cut last year. So, uh, I've done pretty well over four years and it's been a really, really awesome supportive community of all the people that the very real mid-am players that play in this, I kind of thought

would have that attitude and honestly being there of, you know, just kind of looking at me like, what the hell is this guy doing here? I, this is like probably the one tournament I play every year. It's really, really hard to, you know, to dial your game up when you don't have any tournament reps, but the support has been ridiculously strong from so many people. And it has been so welcoming to that. I say like, yeah, I mean, you're probably not really fully grasping the whole mid-amp vibe if you're, if you're mad at me for taking up a spot in this tournament. So, uh, good. I'm glad. That was the, that was what I was hoping to hear. I think, you know,

the haters can get lost. So I've gotten invites to events that I do not belong in. I've got one coming up for this summer and I'm gonna say no. Like there's events that like I can't be competitive in. This one I can be. Like if things go right for me, I can be competitive in it. And if I can't be, I'm not gonna take the invite.

Like I'm just not going to. The name of the event might shock people that I got the invite to it be I'm not gonna take the invite. Like I'm just not going to. The name of the event might shock people that I got the invite to it. I'm not gonna take. But I, so what happened this year? I would have thought, if it was gonna happen, I would have thought it would have been year one. It was a total and complete freak out, a total and complete shitting of the bed. It was, out a total and complete shitting of the bed. It was, uh, I, I had tons of practice coming in. My health is totally fine. There's no excuses. I was playing really, really good golf, uh, before the week started and I 1 million percent put a ton of expectations on myself and let like a few squirrely shots in the practice round kind of stick in my head and I just played tournament golf. The total, totally wrong way you should, like total

abandoned my feels pictured every way every shot could go wrong. No routine, no real process, just like stood over putts so jittery, so nervous, and just was totally not myself. And I shot 81 in the first round on a very relatively benign day. Pins were really tough, but the wind was not even there. I knew that was the day to get it because we were forecasted for 20 mile an hour sustained winds and 35 mile an hour gusts the next day. I knew it was going to get biblical the next day. And I just totally psyched myself out, man. The footage is horrific. I mean, it's embarrassing. Like, yeah, there are some got I'm excited to watch really tough moments. I mean, it's embarrassing. Like, yeah, there are some got, I'm excited to watch really tough moments. I mean, wedges going out of bounds. I missed like a 15 inch putt

on the second hole. Like I went to go tap one in and like on day one or day one, second hold tournament. I mean, it was like 45 degrees and I just didn't want to market. And I was again, there's like, say it out loud. It's the dumbest possible thing. I rushed it and I don't even know if I hit the hole. It was so just yippy. The greens were over 13 and started to get baked out. And I just, I totally self-combusted. I mean, I would have a 15 foot birdie putt and I would three putt it and it was just embarrassing. Day two, I beat the field average, which I was really proud of, uh, for how bad I still put it on day two. I scrambled my ass off and had some, had some solid moments and fought all the way to the end, but, um, missed the cut by six or seven shots. First time I've been uncompetitive in this event. And, um, again, same exact, I was really just,

you know, we walk in afterward, after the round, I'm thinking that people are going to, you know, think differently or whatnot. Everyone couldn't have been nicer. Everyone that's been there. The dude that won the tournament three years ago shot two shots higher than I did on day one. I mean, it, it can totally happen on that golf course. I said this, like when you play Palma Sia and you're on, it is like, you have

blinders on and it is go time, man. You don't even see shit. And when you lose your orientation, it looks like the hardest golf course in the world. I felt like not literally dizzy, but like golf dizzy out there. I just saw everything that could go wrong. And the bet, the frustrating part TC is like, I know how to like approach golf mentally and I'd still did everything wrong. Like that's the really frustrating part is I know all the things you're not supposed to do. And I did all of them. And

I'm, I don't know, I'm walking away from this one pretty frustrated. Some of the scores, I mean, the second day it looked like, like you played, like you said, you beat the field average, like the field average was very high. The conditions looked extremely tough the second day. Oh, so hard. I mean, the, I mean, the greens just got so baked out and 35 on our wins when the fairways are 20 yards wide are really, really difficult. And, uh, I just, I just couldn't make three foot putts. I mean, it just was, and then we're not talking like, Oh, you just got robbed by tough greens there. I mean, really bad strokes that I was not doing leading up into

this, but it was just a, I don't know how to simulate that tournament field without playing way more tournaments and I don't, I'm not afforded that ability. And where do we go from here? I don't know, man. I'm going to keep trying. I mean, I know like, I want to work with someone on the mental side. I want to like, I want to re get in touch with how to approach tournament play. Like what happened this week was like straight up performance anxiety. Like it was how did I get into a like work on eliminating the left miss and get over balls and just like shove balls right because I didn't trust it. Like what's the point of that? Like I was just not taking the right visualization approach to my shots and let so many, like instead of, instead of playing for success,

you're playing away from failure. Totally. And I, I, this is the first time we've ever filmed any content and like I had the walls start caving in on like, Oh shit, I got to relive all of this. Like, Oh my God, this is going so poorly. Like, and just knowing the mountain that was ahead with the wind coming. And I just panic, man, it was the most, uh, uh, I don't know. I don't want to say the most embarrassing golf I've ever played on camera because the reality is like this does happen to, you know, to almost anyone that plays tournament golf at some point. And I just don't get enough reps to, you know, to, to, I don't know. It was, it was really frustrating at the same time. It's just like, dude, that last scorecard I signed, I think was this event a year ago. And, uh, I just need to find a way to get into one or two day events.

If I can, it's we then just to get some sort of rep and some sort of feel in there. But, um, pretty disappointed feeling the pressure too. Ben came and filmed it. Yeah. The, he and his wife had a child like six, seven weeks ago. This is his first trip away from his kid. And I'm like, this dude's got to watch me play. Shitty golf the whole time I'm out here.

Like that was way. And I'll be feeling in the world. Oh, it was especially when it's a good player. But I mean, again, it was like 20 minutes after the round, I probably had forgotten about it just because it was such a great hang watching dudes try to get the ball in the 18th in the hole in the 18th hole, which was really, really difficult. And people are just buying drinks and hanging out. It's the most wild, wildly fun mid-am event you could imagine. Like hundreds, if not thousands of people come out to watch the golf on the weekend, to watch it wrap

up and the whole membership is so invested in hosting this tournament. And they've ropes up. They have volunteers. It's just like Shane Bacon played in it for the first time this year. He was just like blown away by the whole thing. And he was, he was really glad he made a trip. He missed the cup. I won. He leapt out of birdie on the final hole playing in the harder wave too. I was, I was bummed for him, but, um, gosh, dude, it's just, it's so fun. It makes me want to do it more often.

I know it's unrealistic. It works so great in my schedule just because this time of year is, is decent to do. It's not major season and, uh, you know, it's actually peak kind of peak golf season for me down here, but man, I was, uh, shot a bunch of rounds under par to start the year and just kind of thought I'd never been more ready for this one. That's the, that's the really frustrating part. I've never walked into that tournament feeling better and I've never left

feeling more embarrassed. So what's, uh, what's your plan for mid-am stuff? I haven't looked at all that stuff. I know that came out, um, this year. I had maybe to run it back at that disaster of a course that you caddy for me at in Ponavigia for the US open. I like, I never want to see that place again. Watch the list.

The prop again, this is just like the reality of how all this stuff works for us. Is like the, the Jacksonville mid-am one is the Monday that we have an event in Denver. Um, so we'll be missing that one. So it means we got to travel for that one, which is always tougher. I love St. Jose, the course that the medium is at the qualifiers that this year, but I won't be able to play in that. So it's just tough and stuff, especially with a, with a young one at home to justify the nights away required for a practice round and all the things that go into these things.

But it's competitive golf is, you know, as somebody that's doing it from like this opposite side, like so much of the mid-am golf scene is guys that are former pros or former college players that are kind of falling back into, you know, this competitive level, like trying to get up to their level, um, without having that same competitive. They've got it in the tank. Yeah. It's, it's a challenge, but I really enjoy that challenge. Like I've gotten so much out of that.

And I've had some really good moments that I don't want to give up just, just because I had a bad result this week because, um, it's golf. Golf truly is not about how bad your bad is. It's about how good your good is. And I know my good is good. I just got to, got to not get in my own way, man. Cause, uh, I really do like the feel I got going. And I just ran out of holes. TC just, just ran out of holes. It sounded like you needed a 54 hole event.

Oh yeah. It is a 54 hole cut. Yeah. It is a 54 hole event. But yeah, it was just the reality of it. But thank you to, to everyone that was kind and supportive and, and sent notes of, of condolences for the high scores and, and for everyone that, you know, around the kind and supportive and, uh, and set notes of, uh, of condolences for the high scores and, uh, and for everyone that, you know, around the club and whatnot that supports the event. Yeah. It's we're going to, we're going to, we're going to try again as long as they'll have me.

So sweet. Well, you know what? Congrats on putting yourself out there. Thank you. Thank you. It, uh, you know, it's, it's still a lot of fun. I enjoy that. I definitely, the challenge is the best part.

So, uh, without any further, I got nothing else. If you're ready to call it for Mexico open week. Yes, we are. Should have a fun interview. Again, again, gracias to a group of Salinas. See their supporters, of course. And the shared prosperity to you and yours tonight, TC. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back here next week. Cheers. is better than most. Better than most.