No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 805: Friday Players Recap

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

Wyndham Clark races out to a 4 shot lead. Will Soly's pre-tournament pick go on to win? We chat about a Friday out at TPC Sawgrass, Scottie's neck, what makes the Players experience special, Roger Maltbie, Rory, a fun trivia game, and a ton more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes! Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Better than most! Expect anything different? Dang new intro pack on the no laying up live show. I did not even see that coming baby. Here we are Hell yeah presented as always by our friends at high noon. Solly here. DJ Pies here. Hello pie man

Oh got me mid sip there. Sorry great to be with you guys. Happy Friday TGIF things of that nature. Great to great to be here. KVV is here. Happy Friday to you, Kevin. I'm so excited to see myself in the intro man. I feel like a little tear in my eye. Thanks to the Sarge for that. That was great. That was a journey. I was like, man, I used to have speed. Oh, I remember that shot, that was good. Listen, it was a fiesta out there at the Players Championship today and you can bring the fiesta anywhere you go with the all new High Noon Tequila Seltzer Fiesta Pack. This variety eight pack features two new tequila flavors, blood orange and prickly pear alongside two longstanding favorites, grapefruit and lime.

KVV, what do you have going today? Which one? I got the strawberry, tequila strawberry. That one remains my favorite of the tequilas. It's pretty delicious, I gotta say. All are made with real tequila and real juice, perfect for any fiesta under the sun. Find the all new High Noon Tequila Seltzer Fiesta Pack

nearest you at highnoonspirits.com. Also want to give a big thanks to our friends at Holderness and Born, one of our longest running partnerships. If you happen to be on site this week at the players, you can check out their offerings inside the merch tent. We absolutely love the spring collection. They have 200 new styles and colors, the largest collection drop for H&B. New pattern polos, they got sailboats, wine bottles, speed boats. They got a pop of color, they're brightening things up. The headliners are the Sunset, the Thistle Collar,

Dorset, Regent, and Oxford. Those are the headlines of the color palette. They also have a new performance paint, the Garvey traditional four pocket. You can use code NLU10 at hbgolf.com for 10% off your next order. Only discount code in the market for H&B is NLU10. Did you know that?

I bet you didn't know that. So go out there and use it. No? That's a good one to put to use, man. They make high quality stuff, not many discount codes floating around like you said. That's good stuff. Can I also shout out real quick,

obviously the presenting sponsor of our series, Office Hours that we do with Michael Wolfe. We do have a new episode of Office Hours up on our new podcast channel. We're gonna kinda pivot those to be in more like video podcasts. Get Wolfie cooking on some longer form topics this year. So go over to the new podcast. Just search No Langa Podcast. The channel will pop up. Cody has assured me of that. And go subscribe over there and watch a new video presented by our friends at Holders & Bourne.

See me without a beard, freaking people out right now. Yeah, the time periods might be really random when stuff gets posted. It might be an old episode. It could be, it truly could be anything in there. But all right, halfway point of the players championship. They went off the air despite our boy, Nate Lashley. He seemed like he still had a lot of holes to play.

He's got three holes to play as we go to say this, but I believe the cut is going to come up at one on short term rental markets falling apart in Scottsdale is getting dropped from coverage. It's tough. Tough time to be last. Cody, every time you put this photo of I'm going to laugh today. I don't know what the I don't know what the prompt was. If you're listening on the podcast, this is Johnson Wagner, the big righty coming in from the bullpen to Huck. Huck's golf balls on the bank of the seventh hole. I earnestly loved this segment. Johnson is becoming one of my favorite people in golf media. I can't believe we didn't get to talk about this yesterday. I think this was happening as we went off

the air. But Cody, yeah, just can't show this photo enough tonight, I don't think. I'm with you, DJ. This was my favorite moment of the week so far, I think, to watch this in real time, for one, how hard he was chucking up. I will not swear by the scientific nature of this experiment, because I do believe golf balls. He was sold it so hard though, every time it would hit.

See, that was pretty high. Even the one that was supposed to be the one that was below the line still showed up on the cameras. Yeah, I know. I was like, well, shit, that is kind of what it looked like. So I don't know what the conclusion was to be reached there. Other than this was, that's good content. I encourage all of that.

It's kind of a half-baked idea we would come up with. I'm stunned that that made it on Golf Channel. It was fantastic. So, Wyndham Clark, what do we think, guys? I'm stunned that that made it on golf channel. It was fantastic. Wyndham Clark, what do we think guys? Four shot lead, big. I try, I hope that after years of making horrible, horrible DraftKings picks, I hope everybody took to heart my advice

on the Monday preview show of just Wyndham Clark at what was it, 50 to one, sorry? Just astronomically long odds. Maybe for a guy that's playing like some of the best golf in the world and you know, so your portfolio, I don't know, start reaching out to your account and could be moving into a new tax bracket on Sunday. I don't know who put this question in here to be read,

but I'll read it anyway. It's at CK Spoff said, is Solly the new leader in shared prosperity at NLU? We got Wyndham, we got Bitcoin, things of that nature. Vision Fund shareholders are asking. I won the DraftKings Pick and Pool last year. I'm owed a golf trip at some point this summer with no budget. We never came up with a budget for those by the way. I can go on any trip I want to. It's going up. The more the higher Bitcoin goes, the higher the budget goes. 65-65 for Wyndham, four-shot lead.

Let's do this right from the jump. Kevin, right here, right now, does Wyndham go on to win the players this week? Yes, he does. I think TC was down on, I listened to the show last time about Wyndham stinks, whatever. I think when you see Wyndham in person you see like what 190 ball speed looks like, and it's pretty easy. I know that it was sort of T.C. was saying, oh, it's like modern drivers. And he just hits that hard cut. Man, it looks freaking majestic when you see it in person. I think it's fun to watch him play golf. I'm I'm I'm buying Windham.

I'm going to say this is this is very stupid and I know I just fluffed myself for saying that I call that he's going to go out and win at 50 to one, but I still think Scott is going to win. I know he's I know he's battling some next stuff, but what did he kind of one arm a little like 6970 today out there? I just I don't think he can like physically shoot over par. Doesn't seem possible right now. As a 50 to one ticket holder for Wyndham, I hope he does go on to win.

It is worth noting he's plus 160 to win right now. And Data Golf's got him at 33% chance to win with a four shot lead at the halfway point. Like four shot lead always looks big. Man, there's so much golf to play on a golf course that the punishments are usually two strokes, not one stroke, when you hit a really, you know, one stroke when you hit a bad shot. It can change really, really quickly.

He is leading the field in strokes game putting. He, which, you know. He's not just leading, he's like obliterating the field in strokes game putting. I think he was third yesterday and first today. Like it's, he's rolling it right now. That is exactly right. Third three strokes gained on in round one 4.8 gained today in round two

He's tent and approach 32nd and driving is just an all-around I don't know it is like I kind of get where TC is coming from on the the playing style yet I don't know man. Everyone's got the opportunity. It's not like he is some freak You know physical build everyone's got the opportunity to get not like he is some freak, you know physical build Everyone's got the opportunity to get up to 190 ball speed if they want to train their bodies to do so Rory McIlroy is in The same vein right now like in Windham is more refined with his skills right now than someone like Rory is like he is a refined iron player

He has that's a big part of his leap is a huge Elevation in iron play and then the guy gets on crazy heaters And he performs in the biggest events right now like I I almost tend to point like it some kind of weaker Venues, you know guys that just can can totally bomb a gouge and take over weaker venues that don't really have a natural defense to them And kind of classify somebody like that, but man not the places he's doing it I mean quell hollow does kind of fit that like that but man not the places he's doing it I mean Quail Hollow does kind of fit that category but LACC didn't Pebbles completely different profile maybe top of this last night and Bay Hill completely different profile and TBC obviously an extremely different

profile I think it's just time to say like I mean I'll say this right now I think Wyndham Clark right now is the second best player in the world like Scottie's a clear-cut number one but Wyndham I would not put anyone else above Wyndham right here right now. You'd put himham Clark right now is the second best player in the world. Like Scottie's a clear cut number one but Wyndham, I would not put anyone else above Wyndham right here right now. You'd put him ahead of Rom. As soon as I said that I was like damn it. Second best player on the PGA Tour. I'll say that. I think Rom. You know I'm such a big live fan. I know. I stick up for the live guys. I know. I didn't see what Rom did in live Hong Kong. Like but I mean Wyndham is playing better golf right now than, no, that was last week.

Really? What? Windham's played better golf than Rom in 2023. That's not up for debate. I mean, if Windham's winning PGA Tour events, Rom is not winning live events. Like that's that's a big, big difference between those two things. But Windham is still 40 to one for the Masters. Like as of the last I looked, I mean, how much more do people need see to see this guy's a big-time player? He's literally never played there though. Did you see today when he was talking about how he purposely decided to not go visit

Augusta until he qualified, which is pretty sick. Yeah, I like that block. That block seems like it pops up like once a year, once every couple years. Like I'm not playing until I qualify for the tournament. That's a good one. I'd like to think if I was ever a tour player, I would I would embrace that block. I I do embrace that block. III think all three of us embrace that block of that's true. We we we until we get to compete there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh the time is out of respect. I I won't touch the Stanley Cup until I win the Stanley Cup and I won't play Augusta until I qualify. Yeah. Windham's Windham's an

interesting one. II was thinking about it today and you know, should he go on to win, we can maybe have a little bit more in-depth conversation about this. But I think there's something kind of, if you zoom in, it looks really good. If you zoom out, there's kind of some bumps along the way after he wins at, he wins a Quill Hollow and then he wins the US Open and he doesn't really do like a ton ton the rest of the year. He talked a little bit in the press conference today about like for a player like that, I can't imagine what it's like to have these benchmarks that you've been chasing your entire life. And so for him, it's like win on the PJ tour, win on the PJ tour, win on the PJ tour, win on the PJ tour. And then it happens has to be just like, oh my god, I can't believe that happens. Like those next couple of weeks have to be so weird. And then to win a major in the same year has to be just such a like, wait, who

wants to sponsor me who want what media thing am I supposed to be doing? Where am I supposed to I'm in a what event now? Where am I supposed to be going? And it just seems like over, you know, really since like pebble or since the beginning of the year, like maybe he's kind of like, now got his feet under him. And it's almost like the matching up of like the game is there and also like the off the course stuff is there. And maybe he's just kind of ready to go on a,

on a heater, which is, which is fun. Cause it's like in the apps, unless you're, you know, I don't even know who I would like consider interesting enough to put into this category, like Min Woo Lee. Like unless you're Min Woo Lee, it's kind of all results based man. It's kind of all like the more you win the more interesting you get and that's what's happening with Scotty I feel like is like you know Kev I know you're making the point that like there is

a lot of interesting Scotty stuff if you want to go digging for it and I do agree with that but it also is interesting to watch him win by five and to watch him shoot under par every day. And to what like a lot of this stuff is so results based. And that's where I think it is with Wyndham is like, if he's a guy that goes out and wins once a year, then he kind of becomes like a Xander type of like, oh, nice player, really good player. Hell yeah. But like, I don't know that there's too many people wearing like Xander t shirts, right? Whereas like, it's more

interesting to see him like, shit, man, can you rattle off like a couple of these in a row because then we're now we're kind of cooking now you're getting interesting you know you guys are talking about success you know as what is it is it's do it right the rent is due every day on success or whatever I got another closer Rory okay I got another cornball thing for that in that sense I was writing about quarterbacks back in the day, you know, did a lot of that NFL stuff. And I was remember saying to like, I think it was John Harbaugh, why doesn't Joe Flacco get like, why doesn't just keep getting better? And he's like, you know what success is like a staircase, man, like you go up

and then you kind of level out and then you go up and you level out. And if you keep doing that and you get pretty good, but nobody just goes like straight on a line. That was kind of what I was thinking about Wyndham today. Like at the Ryder Cup, he kind of got vaporized a couple times. He played just well enough. And then in some big moments, man, like on that 18th hole, he just ejected way right in big matches and big moments. And you know, on the 16th green in that match where Cantlay ended up later making that putt, like, he just, he bombs it way left. It's, I think like the Ryder Cup shook me a little bit because I was like, Oh, maybe this dude isn't like gonna be

the next great player. And then he comes out this year and just starts kicking ass. So like, Oh, wait, like, I now remember, like success actually doesn't just go straight up the ladder. Which I think, you know, we kind of wrote about this a little tiny bit in our AK back and forth thing, Kev, but like that's why when you have someone like Spieth or someone like Rory where it's like, oh no, no, no, see, like it does, you could just skip right to the front of the line. It's just so much easier to be like gravitated, you know, so much easier to gravitate towards

those guys. Whereas like it's just not as, you know, whereas like I think you'd have three hands up in the air to agree with this on this pod, like everything that you just said is, you know, whereas like, I think you'd have three hands up in the air to agree with this on this pod. Like everything that you just said is true. It's not as fun to be like, yeah, I mean, he's probably just gonna like really slowly, like just get a little bit better each day. Isn't that awesome?

It's not gonna be really fun to watch. I don't think we'd have a job who's like, yeah, things will work out or they won't. Like, no, it's much more fun to be like, I don't know, man, Windham Stig's. Yeah, I can't do it. Yeah, things will work out or they won't. No, it's much more fun to be like, I don't know, man, Windham stinks. Yeah, I can't do it. Yeah, exactly. Well, I feel like a huge part of just,

not just gaming and betting and making picks and setting lineups and things like that, a huge part of the fun of golf is like, even if you're not gonna place a wager or anything like that, it's talking about the weeks leading up to a major or a big event, like, who do you like this week? Who's gonna win?

I don't know, it's just a huge part of it, right? And I feel like Wyndham is in that zone where we're talking about with Hovland around in late summer last year. This just feels like Hovland's time. These windows don't, they're not open forever. They don't last forever unless you're Scotty. He's the only one that just has had a breeze

rolling through that window for 18 straight months. Rom went absolutely apeshit in this time last year and has not replicated that since then. A lot of dudes have these windows that open for a short period of time, like is it their time? And this is it right now for Windham. Get in out, get, grab, bonk, get while you can because it doesn't last forever.

It doesn't feel like this is gonna last forever. But like right now, there's literally one person I'd take in the world that's like a hotter golfer than him. can I share the stupidest personal anecdote about Windham before we move on? No, no, not at all. I was having lunch with my friends today, played a little golf this morning, having lunch with my friends. And they're like, hey, man, like, what do you think about the blow pig? And I was like, what?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, the blow pig. And I was like, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about. And like, oh, you know, when you make the emojis like wind ham, like the emojis of the wind blowing and then like a pig is blowing, like that's what we call wind, a man, the blow pig. I was like, OK, that's pretty sick. They're like, please mention that on the show tonight. So I'm like, all right, man, when it was the blow pig from now on, man,

like it's like a New York Times connection sort of a thing. How did you not get that? That's a thing. How did you not get that? That's so easy. How did you not get these two together? That's on you. I don't speak emoji that well. Does you think for a guy with two, three daughters if you would speak emoji better?

But shout out to the blow pig. I wish I had known this ahead of time. Maybe for tomorrow's show. I don't actually, I don't think I'm on tomorrow, but maybe I'll do that in my time off. We need to come up with some more emoji nicknames, I think for these guys. It's gonna be a great segment. Yeah the blow pig. That's that's got legs

Maybe flag this Cody for like a Friday Augusta live show moment, I think Right behind him we have Noted killer Xander Shoffley We have Nick Taylor the Canadian there at 10 under par Fitzpatrick and Maverick McNeely at 9 under par We didn't get really good chance to talk about this last night with Fitzpatrick and that He had put weights in the grips of his irons as via Shane Ryan put weights in the grips of his irons in 2023 he tried it for several weeks and decide didn't like it

Alright, so he liked it and then added it to his driver in March He decided he didn't want the weights in anymore and took them out but forgot about the driver until Phoenix. Is that Phoenix of this year that he forgot about it? That was more than a year. Yeah. So a lot of people, a lot of like, why were you driving it so bad for the last year?

He's like, well, check this, check it out. I thought I had a bunch of weights in my grips. Good news to him for telling that story. For sure, yeah. He'd be like, this is really dumb. I saw someone was like, well, you know, you won twice. Like you couldn't have been that bad. And he's like, yeah, but I probably would have won four times

if I didn't have these like weights in my driver. I followed him for a few holes today. And it honestly, like no pun intended to either of this. It looked like he had just taken the weights off the donut off of a weighted bat. Dude, he's swinging it so fast. So fast, even like his takeaway, like you could hear the sound of it on the T-box. And he was playing, it was like Mario Kart golf.

It was like when Mario gets the star and the music starts playing really fast, like he was playing really fast. He was just stepping up and pounding these drivers on every hole way down there. Like it was just, it was a 10 out of 10 maximum confidence on every single shot. Of course, I had to put the tweet out. Of course, when he gets to four, he hits it right into the water and makes double. So again, I apologize to him and his family for putting the cooler on him, but it was seriously impressive. And he's not anywhere close to being out of this

golf tournament. I'm not saying this literally. I know other people have swung it as fast or faster, but the only person I've seen go that hard or at least like look like they're going that hard at the golf ball is Bryson. Every time he came on screen today, I truly was like, holy shit. Like who? Oh my God. Of course that's Fitzpatrick. Guy is like swinging out of his shoes. I think he's like, he's like Cody's deep in the stack system. So at some point I'd like to unpack your belief that you have like this power to

like influence things through Twitter. Like it seems like almost like a movie to unpack your belief that you have like this power to like influence things through Twitter like it seems Like almost like a movie script where you feel like you have control over the universe that you could you know Affect the golfers in in I guess negative ways only is that that's your power That's what I've been accused of I would like I data golf guys. You have to be bored at this point You've kind of solved everything else out there I'd like you to look into the the immediate next hole after I've acknowledged somebody is playing well on Twitter What happens on their next hole? I promise you it's it's it's not even like a professional golfer level They're averaging like a stroke and a half over par on the very next hole

As soon as I tweet something out about how well you're playing but sounds like that movie Argyle that everybody hated Like a worst version sure you know I'm looking into the ball speed data from Fitz Fitz today it doesn't it doesn't blow you away it was it is really impressive you know in person but you know 177 kind of in that rate he just was used to not be one of the the fastest guys out there, but He talked about it a little bit afterwards too and that he's not like carrying it as far as everybody else But he's hitting these like low burners that are just rolling out to where I think he's almost like leading the field and strokes gained Or not first game like drives games roll out. He's first and showing off the team. Yeah He said 75% of his fairways while being second in driving distance on the two measured holes.

It's a weird week for driving distance and measuring it, but yeah, that's... If you hit those low burners that are holding the fairways out there, you're going to make a lot of birdies. Obviously, it's on the player to know and check these sort of things, but I would be mildly annoyed with the equipment. People will be like, oh, we just forgot that the weights were in there for 14 minutes. No, that's on the miles. That's on player. That's totally on the player. He put it in like, yeah, you have to remember that he didn't put it in himself. But he told them to do it. Somebody did it. Okay.

I don't know. What was surprising about that story though, is he said it took like a year for his grip to wear out. I would think that these, he would get in those, the things re gripped like every two two three months. Wow, KVV is not practicing enough. That's guess not. Wow, breaking news. It's kind of, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to ask you guys, what's this? What's the dumbest equipment related mistake you've ever made? Because I've definitely had my driver on the wrong setting for Oh, yeah, nine months at a time.

I did it for a whole year. Well, the dumbest I know I don't want to cast a time. Oh, I did it for a whole year on one of my first shows. Well, dumbest. I don't wanna cast too many stones is what I'm saying. It's hard to paint this as one mistake, but like forever, I thought like the, I can't even, as I go to read it back, I don't even know if I would get it right, but the draw and fade setting, I had backwards as in like,

which one you're trying to, you know, I was trying to get rid of the draw. Are you trying to exacerbate something? Are you trying to you know I was trying to get rid of the draw yeah are you trying to help yeah exactly yeah Neil's a young Neil Schuster's chiming in the comments saying he had his rangefinder in meters I've had that happen before of course done that before the NIT this year I used to pride myself on replacing my own grips. Last summer I signed up and of course I went and played in the Texas Mid-Am Qualifier and I showed up and had a great warm-up session. Everything was fine. I go to the putting green. I go to pull my putter out and it's just shaft only.

So I had to run into the pro shop and be like, please any putter that you have, I need to borrow it for the day. How'd it go? It was novel. Probably putted pretty average for me. That's a different video series altogether guys, come on. KVV, what do you got? Before the NIT this year, we did like one of those titleless check-ins

and Cody was talking about like, oh, I'm switching back to my old irons because I feel like I was fit for those. And I was like, oh yeah, like that sounds like a great idea. Like I'm gonna bring my old irons because I feel like I was fit for those and I was like oh yeah like that sounds like a great idea like I'm gonna bring my old irons to the NIT and I literally got out there and just was like and I was like this was such a terrible mistake what was I doing so that ranks high Sarge like I don't think I hit a good iron shot the entire time in Frisco. This thing this should not be happening in this day and age, right? Because we should be dialed with everything. And if we're not, we have a new partnership to announce that we

are excited for a few different reasons. No, I'm thrilled to welcome the foresight sports family into the family. You know, you think you think you don't know about their products, but you definitely do. They make the GC quad and the other launch monitors, which are ubiquitous on tour? Ranges now will be ubiquitous in our content. You've seen them the boxes that the guys stand right next to their balls I was walking with a couple players actually earlier this week Talking about how they work in or you know

What they're looking at when they're playing and how they are Figuring out spin rates on six irons and all this stuff And that is what I cannot wait why I cannot wait to get my hands on a GC quad It's because I need to learn how to hit The shot that you know when it's into the wind the six iron doesn't go too far and the seven iron doesn't spin too much That's the shot. I need to learn. I need to figure out a way to put spin on that six iron I also need to learn about flyers I really you can't like I don't know of any other kind of devices

that you can just take out in the golf course, throw down in the rough and like learn how your spin rates are gonna change. Every time I hit a ball with a fly, like, but I think it's gonna fly, just guess how far it's gonna go. I'd like to put some science behind that one. But Cody, you've been experimenting with one already.

I was lucky. I think this is part of a, you know, Neil and I on the biz ops side, we're the ones that usually get some of the first, the first goodies that come in, but I have the quad. Solly, it's gonna be in the mail to you on Monday morning. You're welcome for that. But it's truly kind of revolutionized my practice.

DJ joked about it earlier about the stack. It's a big year for me. I'm actually working on swing speed and everything like that, but just the basic numbers in like the most basic settings that it has truly puts out stuff that's like, oh, that's why it felt different. That's why it flew different. That's why it spun different. And it's finally like marrying up two and two and in my brain making things work. I love it primarily for short game stuff as well. Like trying to figure out what all the differences

between spin for chips, pitches, everything else. It's been awesome. Dej. Yeah, I'm lockstep with all that. I think it helps video stuff a lot too. Just adds a ton of context. So I'm really stoked to use it for a lot of the upcoming video projects we're doing

just to have graphics on screen and numbers and all that stuff. But the big thing for me I was I'm in Wisconsin I was hitting balls indoors I'm not shouting it this is not a reverse shout out this is not a I'm not coming at anybody but man if you have a bad launch monitor inside you might you truly might as well not hit balls it's miserable you're spending all day wiggling the golf ball around trying to get something to notice and say that the ball's in the zone.

I spent half my time doing that. It was miserable. Not a problem with the quad. Picks up the golf ball right away. So lots of good indoor functionality as well. We'll be giving you all kinds of great options and offerings that they have over time. They're gonna be with us for quite some time.

Hopefully if we don't screw this up, they seem like a fantastic partner. They're the benchmark. Their products are the measuring stick by which other launch monitors are evaluated learn more at foresight sports comm That's F O R E S I G H T sports comm foresight sports. We thank them for the new Partnership excited about that one What's that? Someone in the comments says we should have got should have had a quad out there for Johnson firing those golf

That was going past the camera system Someone in the comments said we should have got, should have had a quad out there for Johnson firing those golf balls. See if we could have. Radar took him. How fast that was going past the camera system. How fast do you think he could, he was hucking it. Like truly, if that was a baseball or something, what do you think he's, he's north of 70? It's always much, it's much less than you think. Like when you ever go to the fair things and you're thinking,

oh, I'm going to touch 75, 80. And it's always like, I'm 57 years old. We should move off this topic because like, oh, I'm going to touch 75, 80. And it's always like, fair seven years old. Yeah. We should move off this topic. Cause I know where Sally's going to go. Wrigley field, DJ threw one was at 58 or something like that. Yeah. I'm like, try it.

When I'm trying to not throw it out of the stadium, you know, I'm trying to keep it somewhere in the zone. I was like, what was that one? But yeah, I was like 59. I'm like, oh yeah, I probably got another, you know, I got some, I'm like big tone. I got 10 more in the tank if I need it, but you know Are we worried about scotty schaeffler?

Obviously it got was getting some treatment when he was on I believe the 14th t earlier today He had a neck issue pop up. He was doing the my favorite part he was doing the uh, the old man turn that i'm very familiar with now at some points whenever I get something acting up but Like went to go turn to say good shot to somebody in four fairway but couldn't turn his head he did the did the move the entire body to turn around and say but you know when you play golf into your late 40s and waiting for Champions Tour these are the kind of injuries that will pop up from time to time so I'm surprised it's taking this long for Scotty but are we worried about

this? You know anytime you know a tournament contender is saying they're having a hard time quote, bringing the club back. Yeah, I think that's concerning. You're still picking him to win. But also like, yeah, I mean, what did he shoot? 70? 69? Like, I think it's like, I don't know, didn't seem to affect him that much. I mean, the whole joy finished going on. How is this the greatest golfer in the world? What a truly amazing, like truly visual that this is like, I just unbelievable. That's why I think like when you say his personality is boring, like, yeah, he's a little bit milk

toast, but just like everything that he does is is kind of unreal, what a good athlete he is, It just I cannot wrap my brain around how this dude is like the best ball striker of, you know, the post tiger era. I know why I know why you're so in on this. Because it reminds us of a seminal moment of watching golf channel coverage. And that's another hurt Longhorn. Yeah, another wounded wing. That mangy dog out there just

I want to put the club back. 100%. Bo Haas are you referring to? That's yes, of course. Bo Haas are for people don't know playing. I can't even remember what year it was but the national championship. I think quarterfinals or semifinals or something like that trying to get that University of Texas team into the finals match and just throwing wings everywhere. I mean, I think the difference though is like, Scottie just came out and shot three under.

It's just like, well, cool, I'm just gonna do it. I don't know. He's a bad boy. He's doing bad boy stuff. Get this guy a chiropractor, man. That's what we just getting a little. That's what they did. They got, you know, how do you feel?

Is there anything weird about, uh, I was reading, I think Joel Beale had a good rundown of kind of the day and how it went and you know, you're changing up honors, you're letting guys tee off as you're getting treatment. They're already walking down the fairway. Is that, is there anything weird there? I'm just, I'm just asking, can you, can you slam on the brakes to, to get treatment during a round of golf? I don't know, it's like how on the brakes to to get treatment during a round of golf?

I don't know. So like how important are honors? Would you say in a competitive round of golf like can you always if you always wanted to hit second? Could you defer like every single time? Uh, I think it front thursday friday. It is kind of I mean, I don't know you should Follow it unless there's like a pace of play reason why you wouldn't right to you know Especially if you got guys on both sides of the golf course keeping pace of play is really important So in this scenario, obviously he's gonna get some treatment as far as I know this is allowed within the rules I don't know what the actual look I think you still got to keep pace like if they fall behind pace of play they're gonna get put on the clock and you Know they would have to pick back up there

I don't think you just get a total pass on that But yeah, it gets the gets a little massage and gets back out there a few minutes later. So odd scene, very odd scene him sitting in the chair while he has the physio just you know getting a little getting a little treatment on him but and the rest of the playing partner standing by but steps up hits one in the fairway right after it hits it on the green and continues moving on. He does have a full-time chiropractor. It's also his, uh, full-time physio. Unfortunately, he stopped traveling with them this year because he took a

full-time job for the Dallas stars. So I don't know if you guys, if you followed Scotty on social, but he's always like in this little tiny boutique gym, it's actually the chiropractor studio where he works out on, uh, yeah, on yeah, very very tied in with the hockey organization But maybe you make a play through your throw that Cypress Point hat in the ring You know, you're you're always working on mobility stuff. You're you know, you're an aging guy like Scotty Maybe you'd say hey, you know, I've been the plex hit me up I'll show you my stretching routine. Nobody monitors the socials better than you.

You know all the dirt from other socials. This is our job, Kevin. You're like a teenage girl. It's impressive. I'm just saying like you're out there being like, oh yeah, I've listened to this pod, got this, saw this on the gram. I was like, God, Scottie, you have an Instagram?

I didn't even know that. I never thought of that. Not a lot of action going on there. Go ahead, Dej. No, I was gonna ask you about the just in-person experience out there today. I know you were out there sucking down Margs and Rays. I got bad news to report on that front.

The Marg was a disgrace. It was not very good. I was looking forward to that. As you could tell all last night, had one, it was too tart. It's not what I'm looking for. You know, I'm a big I saw a guy with a hat that said I'm in my Marg era. And I was like, I think I need one of those because I'm definitely in my Marg era. But

you think that didn't just like, come with the baby. What do you have? What do you have? Would you become a dad? They just also give you that hat. I think Jay put the hit out on your Marg. He was like, after this week, I don't want those guys getting good marks. This is he's gonna have to he's gonna have to you know, poison that that guy poisoned a bunch of marks if that's the case. But now it was an awesome, awesome day. I'm going to put the call out right now.

In past years, you know, we had more people living here. We've had some people travel in in the past. I'm calling it. Somebody's got to come in town for this next year. We need we need more people here. It's it is truly In a class of its own as far as PGA Tour events. It was absolutely popping off. I've been to this event It's my seventh straight year going I think I've never seen it like it looked today and in the past couple of days I don't even know if it was technically sold out. But like if you had a ticket you were there I mean everything was 15 20 rows deep around the greens.

Everybody hanging, there's just so many cool areas outside of just watching the golf. First of all, the stadium views of everything are just fantastic. You can see, you see shots on every single hole that you go to. You can even follow guys way better than you can in other tournaments.

And then you venture out of it and there's just like, oh, there's an awesome like dining area right here with like beanbag chairs and picnic tables and chairs to watch A live feed of 17 and a live feed of the NBC broadcast going on all at once and a leaderboard right there It's just it is called the players championship, but it is like the most fan-friendly thing I think the PGA Tour does and to see the weather hit the way that it has In these past this whole entire week. It's just been it's been 10 out of 10 It's been awesome, and I I'll save this for we're gonna it's just been, it's been 10 out of 10. It's been awesome.

And I'll save this for, we're gonna do surf pro mea culpa's on Sunday, but I definitely got, you know, I got a little sour on this event, just like knowing what it was to what it now is, like the whole strongest field in golf and it not being that, you know, just kind of is like, this is the event

that has been hurt the most by everything going on on the PGA Tour. At the same time, you truly don't feel any of that when you're out there in person. And like, do I of course wish DJ and Rom and Camsmith were all playing in this? Would it be even better? Sure, but like the vibe has been awesome on site

and I've really had a great time and I'm gonna have a great time in these next couple of days as well. Did anyone ask you about the OWGR while you're out there? Couple people had problems with the mo lines. What are we gonna do about this shit, man? The mo lines. I didn't even want to come today.

The rough was just like, I don't understand what they're doing with the rough over here, Sal. What do you think over here? That was the only negative feedback I heard. I do love that you can, like on 17, if you just want to go sit in the grass and see like shots all day, you don't have to pay $6,000 or whatever. You can literally just have a general admission ticket and hang out there.

And I think that's one of the cooler things in golf period because it, you know, a Phoenix or some of the other sort of famous holes in the world, those are all kind of corporate buyouts. And there's actual energy at 17 throughout the day because of that, because there's actual every men there. And that's what made the happy hour thing, I think kind of fun and lively and stuff

is that you were getting crowd reaction, we're getting for the jokes felt kind of fun. And it just felt sort of like the right vibe for that. It's not forced fun either. Like, I don't know if waste management's like forced fun, but it's just like people just truly, it's not chaos there, it's just people truly enjoying themselves, right?

And it's not like, look, it's overly manicured. It's a little creepy out there in terms of how much incredible green grass they have everywhere In the similar vein as Augusta without the same course mystique Like I'm not elevating the players anywhere near that Augusta is but I would say it is a tournament You should probably make an appointment to come at some point in your lifetime, right? I mean, I I think you everyone would probably like to attend every major championship, excuse me, at some point in their lifetime. And I would add the players to that list. And if you if you catch it on a good weather week, if you catch it on a bad one, it can be a pretty hellacious week. But man, this has been this has been

super fun. If you get the right wins. One of my best memories ever is like if you could bring your like full rain suit, like watching I will never forget it gets weirdly brought up all the time but JT's round during that like horse shit players was like some of the best golf I've ever seen in my life So she get fun both ways. You just gotta lean in either way JT or Ken Dukes around each for your all-time players rounds It's up there. God. I think the Ken Duke day I I think I was out there with my guy big Play Ray, and we had gone down A1A

to the Chili's at Marshall Landing, where I believe they had some sort of bottomless beer situation. I think I like almost blacked out the Ken Duke day. It was so a day to remember and not remember for many. It's a tribute to Ken Duke, he blacked out. He was blacking out throwing birds and you were blacking out. Well, and then we went to solid,

they still have the little mini replica of 17 thing over by like the turnstance there. Cause we went there, it's such a stupid story. But we went there and like, there's this little mini 17. It's like largely for children, I believe. And you get to go up and like hit a little wiffle ball up there to try to like make an ace on 17. And we like, elbow kids out of the way, like, not at all.

It was very cordial. My guy, big play Ray wanted to do it. And so we're like, Oh God, okay. Like let, let's go do it. So we, you know, we're waiting and they stop us when we get to the front of the line. We're waiting in line for maybe like five minutes. We're like, Oh, we'll be up there and we'll, we'll leave. And they stop us when we get to the front of the line. They're like, Hey, we got to pick the balls off the green. You guys got to wait here. If you want to wait, if you, if you want to hit, oh, we'll be up there and we'll leave. And they stop us when we get to the front of the line, they're like, hey, we gotta pick the balls off the green. You guys gotta wait here if you wanna wait,

if you wanna hit balls. And so we're like, this is so stupid. We should leave, we should leave, we should leave. Like, no, no, no, they're gonna open it back up. It's not gonna be long. It ended up being like 20 minutes. We've got all these bottomless spheres. We're just like super wobbly, it was awful.

But now there's like this huge line backed up and big play race steps up. One swig, we're both kind of like wobbling over the ball. One swing makes it ace. Everybody goes nuts. It was unbelievable. So shout out to big play, right? I thought that sir was going to have a let down yet ahead of crescendo. Exactly. That's the only reason I brought it up.

Thank you, Dej. What I'm going to say is you should go to the players. And chillies if you have time. It's hard because I struggle to marry up. Thank you, Dej. What I'm gonna say is you should go to the players. And jellies if you have time. All that it's hard because like I struggle to marry up. I mean, I don't love overseed, you know, all the mega green is the part that again, that creeps me out a little bit. Like, do I think this course would play better if it was just dormant Bermuda? Of course I do. Do I understand why they don't do it? Of course I do. At the same time, it just feels like when you're out there, it's like, I'm not mad about this.

If I had to watch it on TV from, you know, a thousand miles away, maybe I'd be a little annoyed by this, is it too soft out there? Yes, we've got multiple sources have told us that the precision air system, aka the subair system, there has been decommissioned, it no longer functions and they no longer service it and do not use the precision air system, which

may a couple on me as well for reporting that they had one and that they would be using it this week because they really could have used it this past week because balls are still backspinning way too hard and Has led to some of these bumpers that are set up, you know around the 17th green that people are having some issues with this is this is a you know a Popular refrain I feel like on a Friday show. It's like, just have a little patience. You started to see it on 17 this afternoon. The bounces start to get a little bigger.

The tournament tends to go like this as the week goes on. Saturday, Sunday, I think it'll still be firmed up. I'm picturing some poor vice president having to go into Monahan's my hands office be like mr. Ronahan the precision errors no more sir cannot The bush with the bush meme with we read to the kids The second green is too soft oh Yeah, I I don't know if they haven't gotten its any firmer I did that one spot on 17 was starting to bounce, but still everywhere else it was still Ripper Magoo, Sench.

I don't know, I'd be surprised if they can get it dried out at this point, but really don't know why they would have decommissioned the Precision Pro, Precision Pro, the Precision Air, when they're spending as much money as they are on overseed and maintenance and on all the rest of the course. Kind of seems like the most important thing out of all of them. But I'm not agronomist, What do I know? What else we got?

I just put a note in here. Most disappointing person to see. Missed the cut. I mean, these are, you know, we kind of talked about this with Bay Hill. You know, I think if we're going to say these are the events that matter, then these have to be the events that matter. And there's a couple pretty notable MCs. I think mostly just JT and Spieth are the events that matter, then these have to be the events that matter. And there's a couple, a couple pretty notable MCs, I think mostly just JT and Spieth. Uh, I don't know if anybody else you guys wanted to, wanted to add to that list, but I think two guys, like both of us were kind of expecting to see play some nice golf.

JT has been playing pretty good. Uh, Spieth's obviously been like playing pretty good as well. And, uh, just kind of a bummer to see both of those. But if those are the only two names on the list, then largely I think our stars are playing, like, but that take is kind of withering, which is good. Zeltors. If I offered to give you a million dollars

if Spieth would win this tournament at any point in his life, but you have to give me a million dollars if he doesn't, would you take that bet? No, no, definitely not. This is not- That's a you own the bank situation there, I'm sure. Look, I don't gamble, so I maybe didn't think this through,

but I just, I'm baffled at how bad he is at this tournament. You think that precision iron shots would be awarded here, maybe it's just, it's too many things that can go wrong. Can I stop you there? Yeah. There are no precision iron shots right now. That's a big part of the problem.

I think there's something too, like this is a flat golf course. This is thick rough and things like that. We plays ball to Gusto, which is not thick rough, very not flat golf course. There's a golf course that inspires a lot of creativity and inspires, hey, with this ball below your feet, can you hit a little draw nine iron skipper Not thick rough very not flat golf course. There's a golf course that inspires a lot of creativity inspires Hey with this ball below your feet

Can you hit a little draw nine iron skipper that doesn't spin off the front of nine green like yes We can do that now when he has to it gets it dictated to him what he you know Go through these moguls or whatever on this double black diamond golf course It's not his not his strong suit and he just doesn't Doesn't seem to have a lot of positive energy right now around him. And it's, I don't know, I'm not buying right now. I hope to be wrong come Augusta time,

but it's just, there's not a lot there right now for me. Feels like, I mean, strokes gained, we're trending up. We talked about that a little bit last week. He was right around two, which was like one of his best that he's been in five years. And yet, like, I don't know, they just, I never any, just seeing him from the first day, watched that whole round. I was like, yeah, no chance, none. So, so if I have this right, there's two guys that didn't finish. Uh, Rio hits a two hits us soon. I'm never going to get that

right. And Ben Silverman and they're both outside the cut line. Uh, and they're the only two two guys that didn't finish so the cut does not happen tonight and we won't get t-types tonight Does that sound right in the comments if you are following this at all? But that looks like the only two guys that did not finish. Maybe they're still playing. No, it's really really dark out now Maybe they could just play the fake hole DJ that you were just talking about big play, right? I mean, it doesn't matter. Guys, why don why don't you just play it twice and yeah, net pars. So sounds good. I'm gonna see I will go throw outro Keegan out there as a disappointment since I've been pro Keegan. If you're gonna be

pro Keegan, you got to be you know, calling him out when he doesn't doesn't get it done too good of an iron player to just MC year like that didn't didn't love that. What is Al Taurus to you? Plus three. He was a non-factor this week coming off of a nice performance. And look, I know he's still getting some starts under his belt, but I was willing to jump on the bandwagon pretty hard and say he's strong and he's back. And I don't know. This event does, I think this is a rarity when it comes to players championships in terms of big names that have not missed the cut.

Cause this place can chop you up and it normally does, normally has way weirder leaderboard through 36 holes, a lot of Chad Ramey stuff usually going on at this point. And it's about as good of a 36 hole that you can have with this field currently that we could have expected. So, I don't know, I'm excited. Me too.

I'm glad you said the drive-by of Chad Ramey there because one of the things that, you know, you always hear about this golf tournament is like, it's a place where anybody can win, doesn't favor any kind of playing style. We kind of felt like we were scraping the bottom of the barrel for topics tonight. So while you guys, while Saul, you were out there parned pounded bad margaritas.

I was like, you know what Cody and I came up with a fun game that and there we go. Cody and I came up with a game solid. I think this is gonna be near and dear to your heart. Again, reflecting on the like anybody can win. Let's take a look at some player skill profiles. So these are the scatter charts, or not scatter charts, I don't know what you call them, kind of like skill visualizations from Data Golf

of how do you guys, skills really, like what are they good at, what are they bad at? I pulled a bunch of contenders here. I think there's what, eight of them, Cody? We're gonna see how many of these you guys can guess purely just by seeing the distribution of skills. Cody, anything to add there? Nope.

That's very good. I started with, this is a very easy one just to see how the game works. And for those that are listening on the podcast, this is somebody who drives the shit out of it, who drives it very straight, who appears to be the best iron player in the world. Also the best shipper. Who also ships it great. And it is kind of a little bit better at putting than maybe people give him credit for. He's about PJ Tour average.

Who would you guess that this would be? I have one guess but I couldn't possibly steal this from KBV if he's ready. I thought it was Scott Scheffler. Is it not? That is Scottie Scheffler. All right the next slide please, Cody. Number two, somebody who drives it quite straight, drives it with pretty good length, appears to be an elite, elite ball striker, and just around the green is a complete disaster, but seems to be playing pretty well this week. Solly. Oh, well this week. Well, these are all contenders. That was kind of the wholelly. Oh, well this week. Well, these are all contenders.

That was kind of the whole point. Oh, okay. Well this week. Corey Connors. Corey Connors is exactly, exactly correct. Hold on one second. Is he looking at the chat? I just realized what is going on here.

No, he's just looking at the leaderboard. I looked at the leaderboard. Okay. Good. Yes, because I see- I did not know we were doing contenders. I looked over at the leaderboard. Thank you. I keep my hands here if you need me to. I can't, how could I, I don't know how I could even cheat this. How do you, do I go into each individual player's profile to guess on the spot? Come on, Cody, you know me better than that. Come on. All right. I think you're good.

I let's, uh, let's see if you can get this one. Kev, I'm gonna throw this one to you. This is somebody who clearly does not drive it far, drives it really, really straight, pretty good iron player, and then just kind of chips and puts the lights out here. But again, kind of getting in that world of like, you know, somebody who's a lot of different players can win. I believe maybe pound for pound the best golfer in the world. Oh, this is JT Poston. maybe pound for pound the best golfer in the world. Oh, this is JT Poston. Yeah, you've got it before that. I don't think so.

I was gonna guess Tom Hoagie maybe because he doesn't drive it very far, but it does play good with his irons. But throwing that out there that pound for pound, that was the easy one. That's kind of unfair. This is we're in rookie mode here, DJ. I can handle it.

All right, I'm not a child. All right, Solly, tough one coming up here. Come. I'm nervous. Did we lose Cody? Next please, Cody. No. Longest driving distance, very normal driving accuracy,

above average approach, above average around the green, above average putting. We're calling the green, above average putting. We're calling this a contender this week. Is he kind of far down the leaderboard? Probably further than when I actually pulled this. Okay, that's Rodrigo McIlroy, I would guess. Yeah, it is. And also I probably shouldn't have pulled the thing

that says McIlroy's profile on it. That's what I've been trying to say. Oh, I did not see these. All right, that's my bad. I know KBB has though. I did not look at those, no, I was totally clueless. I thought you saw he was looking in the chat of the people were throwing out.

No, no, no, no. There's a lot of ways you can cheat at this. I'm gonna see if you can't, I'm covering up that part of the screen now. I will not let you see it. Cover that part of the screen. Don't look at it. All right, just above average in that driving,

well, decently above average in the driving distance. Drives it about normal. Kind of a mid, you know, just above average approach player. Again, just chips and puts the lights out. I think I got that. We've already talked about today. Oh. Is this Wyndham Clark?

No, the distance is way down, so no. God, that's what we talked about already. Is this Fitz? This is Fitz. Okay. You thought he would be longer, right? I did think he'd be longer. That's what I'm saying. He's only 177, 178. I think we just, you can, it's easy to forget how slow he was. He was below average. He was like the Brian Harmon speed, and now he's above average speed. Okay, next please. Covering the screen. Somebody that just does everything good.

Truly above average player in everything. Xander. That's an easy one. Xander's so good, man. I know. I really like, I hate, I kinda dislike how. Xander is so good, man. I know. I really like, I hate, I kind of dislike how good Xander is. He's really, really good at everything.

I'm going to be so mad if for all the times I've ridden for Xander on here, he ends up coming back and this is one that he actually comes back and wins against my Wyndham ticket. That's going to be really, really frustrating. Yeah. I didn't think about that. I know you guys talk about this, but how about Zander's quote about Monaghan on Tuesday? Like that was a pretty vicious life. That was a cigar.

That was a big bad Zander with that huge stokey. You're gonna have to earn my trust. Zander might be, I don't know, Zander might be more interesting than people give him credit for. All right, this one's cropped right. All right, this one is cropped. Okay, above average in distance, pretty significantly above average in distance, drives it all over the fucking property.

Really nice iron player, really nice chipper and putter, solid, beaming, beaming. He's about to do the chant. He's about to put his t-shirt on. He knows exactly who this is. I'll give KB a chance in case he wants to wants to come in here Is this Wyndham Clark No, this is no, this is my guy. This is like my true number one. Yeah, this is saw it

That is exactly who it is And I got one more one more here just again a lot of different a lot of different skill types can play well here A lot of different skill types can play well here. Another short knocker. Doesn't appear to have missed a fairway in the last like 13 years. Better iron player than people probably give him credit for and obviously just makes a ton of putts and gets up and down from everywhere.

Is he doing stuff? So always seems to be doing stuff. Always doing stuff. A lot of talk about the Clarence Jug out there this afternoon, which his name is now on. Just a nice little 65 from him today. Mr. Brian Harmon. Brian Harmon, that's exactly right.

Always doing stuff. He's always doing stuff. Can I just say, we got a question about this too. Let's see, I'm working some questions in here. O'Leary Tyler 66, do we need to hear more from Brian Harmon? Good on the pod, good on the coverage. Two thumbs up. I think he's a super smart dude.

Yes. Always love hearing from him. Yes, I need to do, well, I wanna do, the next pod we do, I wanna do in-persons with like a true, like a Yeti packed with beer. We like, we'll put 12 of them in there and we cannot wrap up until we finish all of them. Like that, that's the next pod

I wanna do with Brian Harmon. You might need to do it. I know the hunting thing becomes like a, you know, a one note thing, but truly just like get in like an ice fishing house. It's like, man, we're not leaving for 14 hours. So like, let's just, what do you, pull a topic out of the hat.

Where do you wanna go first? Let's do it all. I think that'd be good content. DJ, great game. Anyways, that's my game for today. Great game, I love that. That was fantastic. I'll crop it a little better next time. Probably not as fun for the people listening, but hey, that's my great game for great game. I love that. That was that was fantastic I'll crop it a little better next time probably not as fun for the people listening

But hey, that's why you got a so you got a tune in the live show. I like that Another question from jay wilhelm 5 why can't all golf tournaments be like this? It's so good It's almost making me mad thinking about how the rest of the events are so mad Is it really that hard double triple question marks? events are so mad, is it really that hard? Double, triple question marks. A lot of ways we can go there. One thing I didn't, I was going to say when you were talking about the players

in-person experience earlier is we bag on the tour a lot for very deserved, you know, well-earned reasons. For people being paid by them, we really bag on them a lot. True, we push it, we push it. It's not comfortable performance reviews. But one thing I will say is like, what the players look like today, like it always looks pretty good, but like that doesn't happen overnight. Like that takes a really freaking long time to build this tournament into what it is. And I think that's always been like the knock that I think we've had on it is like when

the people who organize the tournament, the people who work for the tournament whatever Try to skip to the front of the line of just like telling you how important this is and telling you that this is the only Thing that matters and why are you not you know, what did J say when he came in the other day? Why are you guys all not wearing your hats? I don't know what that was But clearly some sort of like media giveaway thing 50 Player's yeah, but that wouldn't have been that much of a joke. Maybe 10 15 years ago but clearly some sort of like media giveaway thing. 50, they gave us 50 hats. Yeah, for the players, yeah. But that wouldn't have been that much of a joke, maybe 10, 15 years ago.

And it feels like they have kind of like gotten a little hands off on the messaging and a lot hands on, on just like making the tournament a little bit better every year. And I think it really shows. And so that would be my one answer to that question. And the other answer is just like, I mean, you can't have,

it all can't be the same volume, right? Or otherwise everything's, nothing is that volume. I think that's like the fatal flaw is like trying to make all the events the same is when they all feel, you know, kind of skippable. So I don't think it's like totally possible to replicate this that much. And also the golf course is awesome, man. And everybody knows all the holes and it's just really fun to watch

I think to teach that any golf tournament can feel fun in person But most people are consuming the golf tournament on television and the way that the TV product is during players week Versus other PGA tour tournaments is just so dramatically different. Like other than the Colin Markow shooter McGavin commercial that is like imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. The TV product is so much more pleasant during players week because they're just basically limiting the commercial load. They're being like this is our signature thing of the year. We want this to to shine as a product and you can see how different it is on the other weeks how just it's not as fun. It's just you get absolutely punched in the face over and over and over again with commercials in

a way that you do not during this week. It definitely like to build off this, I really want to get this question because I think it is like very very very important for the future of the PGA Tour is to say like we said this last night, the elevated events need to come up somewhere close to this level. I'm fine with this tournament being the pristine one and the best case and the most technology, the least amount of commercials, whatever, but the elevated events need to follow

some of the lead on this. They need to look more like this than they do normal events. And as of right now, they look way too much like normal events. They don't feel elevated, they look way too much like normal events. And they don't feel elevated at all. And that's why people are having trouble with the field sizes and the whole idea of these things is really struggling to get off the ground

because it doesn't feel any different on television. And this one always has and it, I'd be curious how the finances look for this tournament. I don't pretend to understand them. I know they have proud partners in them, but I don't know if you're, did they run this tournament at I don't pretend to understand them. I know they have proud partners in them, but I don't know if they run this tournament at a huge loss. I don't know how all of that works. To say like maybe it's a very unsustainable-

I can go to the $25 million purse helped. Right. That didn't help the bottom line. I'm looking around though with all the people there and I'm kind of like, yeah, this kind of starting to make sense. I mean, there were a ton of people out there today. Maybe this tournament is sustainable on ticket sales and set whatever all that to say like if you really want a

Tour that people are gonna You know walk away with with this feeling and want to tune in more instead of one to claw their eyes out it needs to look a lot more like this and To your point like I'm not saying on the ground like on the ground and like the community way They've they've done this tournament is special and they have a way bigger team, I assume that runs this tournament than other tournaments. It's not that easy to replicate everything

other than you guys, you gotta find some television partners that are willing to invest in their product and elevate your product on television. So, and God, the frustrating part is they show you literally this week how it's possible, right? And that's probably why we've spent too much time in the past harping on this. On this note, Roger, Roger Maltby made an appearance

along with Gary Coke. Of course we gave him a shout out last night, but I don't know if, is this Roger's last time doing a show ever? Because they were following him, did like a little teary tribute as he was walking off the 18th green. He kind of looked at the camera and said,

this meant a ton to him and he misses this a lot. Totally projecting here, could not be projecting any harder, felt like shots across the bow from the entire production team back at the C-suite at NBC and Golf Channel. Otherwise that was just kind of a, I don't want to call it bizarre, it was bizarre setting for that kind of scene because Rodgers just back for this week. I'm curious if you guys had any reaction that was similar to that. I was thinking maybe it was because they didn't really get to say goodbye right? Like they just sort of like didn't renew their contracts and then they were gone and so this was at

least like their chance to sort of have a send-off and get some sort of like you know the equivalent of a gold watch to be like hey we really appreciate all your years of service and so I think that I would bet you that that's what the executives were like, all right, fine, you can have your little walk off of the players, but then you're gone. And I think you're right. I think there was certainly some bitterness a little bit probably deserved that this is what they had to sort of fight to get this piece of goodbye for these guys

who basically gave all this time for 30 whatever years to you know NBC Golf coverage and you know they're just... Raj is really like insightful and fun. I mean that you could say that they you've said this much that they worked better with Johnny. I think that's right and true but like they were still like familiar fun voices that had a lot of insight and history and you know I used to love just watching Raj, you know, out there smoking and talking with fans and laughing it up. And I saw him once, like, you know, somebody was taunting Bryson at the BMW and Raj just like went after that person

and was like screaming in their face. And I was like, all right, Raj, let's go. Let's do this. So it did. It did smell like cigarette smoke when he was yelling that in my face. I can't confirm. Yeah, it's, I don't know. It's tough. One of the moments that stuck out to me today was very simple, but Hovland stepped up to AT&T with Driver and Raj just very simply was like, yeah, don't like this.

I don't think this is going to the right trees. And maybe it was on tape or who knows, but like it, it's like, no, the NBC's not the color. Bounced into the right trees. And at least it was on tape or who does but like it it's like now the NPCs not the color bounce into the right trees and at least it was like I think John Woods great I think smiley's doing a good job like trying to fill the role of kind of being like a fun character but I don't know Rogers like at least like kind of says what he thinks and and gives you an opinion and it just makes it such a small thing but just like yeah I'm not wild about this club choice is one of those. Like I'm going to lean a little closer to the screen and watch what happens on this shot. That's good.

You know, just add context and like makes it more fun to watch. Yeah. So I welcomed, welcome, welcome, uh, kind of surprised to have them there this weekend. And yeah, as far as like the C-suite goes, it's just such a funny, such a funny kind of middle finger to like, you know, so often I feel like these guys are, you know, hey, it's time for me to hang it up. This is my farewell tour. We're riding off into the sunset. It's been so good being with you guys. And this is clearly Rod, just be like, no, I did not want to leave. This was not my choice. Like, I don't know why I'm not here anymore, but this all seems really fun

and I would love to keep doing it. I don't know, see you later. Was like such a different vibe than that usually is. And I don't know, it sucks for him and it sucks for golf fans, but I'm glad at least he had that moment today. Speaking of different vibes, happy hour. I think Smiley continues to crush these.

I agree. I thought it was fun. It kind of, they can only do so much. Like when the energy of the golf gets low, it started to get a little jebby there late in the afternoon when a lot of guys have already come through and you're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to get some stuff to talk about.

It's, that's not as fun, but I thought they were really cooking when they had like, Keith Mitchell was in there. They're making bets about I'm going to jump in the water if this goes in. Anytime it's close, that stuff is really, really fun. It's hard to do it for three straight hours or whatever they're trying to do, but I think it's very admirable what they're doing. It is a tough setting.

I really like the Harmon part. I like the Keith Mitchell part. It does feel like a big challenge for them. I said this last week, but I wanna see them get out of like, I almost, when they go to other holes, just have kids and Smiley talk about it. Just make the whole thing an hour.

Instead of kind of weaving the other guys back out and back in, it's really, really hard. And I don't do television, but it's really hard to like weave in and out and like come back and be like, okay, guys, be zany, go be nuts. And that part, it just, that's where it kind of loses a little bit of flow to me, if you can kind of tell they're looking at each other like,

uh, uh, I don't know what to say next. Whereas when you just kind of let guys flow and rip off each other and watch golf together, they don't need to only be commenting on the stuff that's just in front of them on 17 would be my takeaway and just let them let them go because that's just gonna let more natural stuff happen instead of you know, you know, alright now we got this segment to roll in we got this one to roll in and I like that they're trying something I really do and they should continue to tweak this and experiment with it They got the right guys for it

And we're a far cry from some of their earlier efforts in previous years around stuff like this. So encouraging it, want to see him keep tweaking it. There was, you know, there's always that that one old guy out there that's just mad as hell all the time yelling it, you know, yells at the clouds, get off my lawn. This is what he had to say about it. From, we're the fifth major to three GA, meaning Georgia players, yucking it up on the 17th tee. Golf and the golfer should be the focus. Never the announcers. Of course, it's from Peter Costas. My favorite thing here, and this is why I wanted to weasel it into the show, is just Smiler's response. Just, yeah, okay, We're not happy with that.

Keep it moving, buddy. What was it? Three Georgia golfers? Yeah. Smiley never went to Georgia. Smiley, yeah. No, and I think when they were talking about when Harmon came back around, they were talking about it.

Harmon, actually, okay. Okay. Yeah, I agree to disagree. Unsubscribe me from Peter Costas' takes in general, other than face collapse, which is still in on, which is a great take. I would also argue the focus, Smiley Kaufman and Kevin Kisner are golfers, right?

Like they're not announcers. Like that's literally their, you know, that's, they fit that role. Also, it's Friday. Yeah. It's, it's like the one guy has a five shot lead, four shot lead for most of the day. Like we're trying to figure out a fun way to get people to still give a shit about this.

Like, sorry Peter, but like the era that you're talking about is an era where Tiger kind of existed through and was a magnet that pulled everything into golf coverage. That is not this moment anymore, sorry. I think, and again, like you said, it's all is a far cry from like what we do. But you can even feel it when we do these types of shows like the energy on Thursday is here. The energy on Sunday is there you go is here. And there's like always gonna be a little dip on

Friday where it's like, you know, you just you've got whatever 40 straight hours of golf coverage, like maybe maybe we don't need to be serious like the entire time. And also, also like they're talking to guys who are playing in the golf tournament. About the course and about the conditions and about their fellow players and like, yeah kind of have a, I care what those guys have to say.

When SunJay almost hit that in, I was like truly excited. I was like, are they like jumping water? This is gonna be such an amazing moment. Exactly. I thought about texting Keith, like do not jump in that pond. Don't, do not do it. I've seen dead fish floating in that pond.

There's so much fertilizer in that pond. Do not, do not in any circumstances jump in that pond. Outside of Ben On's disappointing 69, following it up with an 80 today and then just crushing people on Twitter and being like, yeah, I don't care, man. I'm just chilling at the beach now. The rib, we haven't talked about Rory yet, guys.

Can't be happy with today. Rory did not look good today. Yeah. The left miss is concerning with the driver. Like the iron has bled into the driver, which was supposed to be the feel that he had going on. It was some of those were just absolute nukes left. Like not even like, Oh, I drew it too much. Like, just Yeah, it's going left from the way it

exits the box. Yeah, apart from number seven being one of the coolest shots I think I've ever seen. Like over that water through the bunker onto the green was was wild. Apart from that some some really like shots I don't wanna watch again. I'm not having a good time types of shots. Yeah, I said he's thrown for 476 yards,

six TDs and but four picks, including a pick six. And then he made a double after I said that because he had 15 birdies, I think through his first. They also got the leading wide receiver like out for the season. That's led him into the wrong cover. It's the James Winston special basically. He had 15 birdies through his first 31 holes I think

or something like that and was only eight under. And he's now, yeah, he shot one over today. He's now six under for the tournament. That was, yeah, sustainability models didn't love it. he led the field and Shokes came putting yesterday and he fell back again today but yeah concerning left miss off the driver the whole Roy considerably better golfer than I am of course but the whole like yeah no I've got one feel for my driver and I've got one field for my irons. Like brother, I know that. Yeah, no, you played well today.

You're on day one of a six day golf trip. That's not gonna last, man. We're gonna rebuild the house. That's not how we fix it. Wanna give a shout to Joel Damon. He made 16 pars and two bogeys yesterday. No bogeys today. Five birdie 67 t

34 I believe as we go to record this play in the weekend Excited for him. I want to see him go make some money this weekend Joel Last thing we didn't even put this in here But aim and Lynch had a story today unless you have anything players anything else players related We can move just very briefly to say that it sounds like Yasser might be coming to Ponovedra on Monday, apparently, allegedly, maybe, unless he cancels, which I think the article

actually also said as well, but for a chance to meet with some of the players face to face for the first time on the policy board. Not sure, some private residents in Ponovedra, which I've checked out most of them on Zillow, so if we ever do find out what the address is, I'm guessing I could spot where it is. I think they're planning to do it at TC's house

was the last I heard. Backyard barbecue. Between the two sides. Freddie'll have a dunk contest while they're going on, get Andrew Waterman on his squad. I regret to inform that allegedly somebody broke their basketball hoop. I will not confirm or deny if it was me. I know that the kids think it was me,

but I don't think it was disgusting behavior. There will be no impression from that article that it was sort of like the players kind of wanted an end around to meet, to meet Yasser. I, I don't know if it's like, it's not stated in there, but reading that I was wondering like, are they basically demanding like, hey, we would like to meet with him.

We don't wanna have this go between stuff. Maybe it was just in my brain from all this stuff this week about the players frustration. I agree. I feel like if the article like specifically calls out like, yeah, we don't know if Yasser is gonna show up, he might cancel. Like it doesn't sound like Yasser's setting up the meeting.

It kind of feels like it's a reach out from the players, but who knows? I don't know anything more than what's in there. I mean, I could see them basically being like, you know what, we have a majority on the board now. We are gonna be the people that you deal with. We are frustrated that you are not moving forward or that our administrators are not moving forward with. why have they taken so long to meet with you?

Why did you only go, what did Jay say? I went to Saudi Arabia what like a month ago, we're, you know, a year into this almost since the framework agreement or nine months into it. Like it's, I think it's within their rights. I could absolutely understand like Patrick Cantley being like, how about we talk to the money people? Like, how about we just bypass all this stuff? This is gonna be a projection. This is not sourced information. This is me trying to connect a couple of dots on some of this, but we know that this is public,

that Rory has met with the officer, has had conversations with the officer. It would not surprise me in any way if it wasn't Rory telling some of these guys, like, you should like talk, sit down, talk with this guy and hear what he has to say. Like understand what he wants out of this and negotiate. Like at least have a conversation about what he envisions

for the future of pro golf as you guys go through all this stuff. That would be my guess is to say like, you guys should at least like talk with him directly in some way in there. So I don't know if it's necessarily the players pulling an end around on Jay and the board and all that, or if it's just like, hey, if we're gonna be seriously negotiating with this guy, it doesn't have to be in secret at only the executive level.

Like we'd also like to just hear it instead of hearing like you passing along the information to us. That's that's my total total guess. I think that's a good read. Yep. So on that note, I'm gonna move to wrap unless you guys are flagging for anything else we got. This has been a fun Friday evening. A lot of people watching tonight. We really appreciate you spending your Friday evenings with us. If you can't smash that subscribe button as well, we will add a link in the in our description to the new No Lang Up podcast channel, we'd love for you to subscribe there as well. Throw a like on there, it helps other people find the show. We'll be back Saturday and Sunday, of course, live.

As we move to crown a champion of the 50th players. So, I wish we had tee times, I could run a little poll to see who I should go out and watch tomorrow morning. But we'll be heading out tomorrow to watch some more golf. And Cody, thank you for on the ones and twos high noon H&B foresight KVV DJ pie and all listeners thank you very much we'll see you tomorrow Cheers