No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 812: Houston Recap

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Scottie Scheffler's win streak is no more as Stephen Jaeger wins in Houston by a shot over Scheffler and four others for his first PGA Tour win. KVV, Randy and Cody make sense of Jaeger's win, Scheffler's putting down the stretch and the comps to Tiger. We also talk Alejandro Tosti and Memorial Park before we shift gears to the LPGA Tour (39:00) where Nelly Korda won for the third time this year. We look at the dominant start to the year for Nelly, Lexi's close call, and some other news and notes from Phoenix. We also touch on Chris DiMarco and Bryson making news this week(1:06:30), and wrap the pod with a fun exercise from the mind of KVV (1:21:00) - constructing our own golfer hoops squads based on personalities and athletic abilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. 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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no Lenga podcast. It's KVV here. I am substitute

teaching once again, but I got a great crew tonight. I got my man. Big Randy is here. Big Randy. How are you tonight? I'm great. It's fun to have a substitute chair in here. You know, I think we might watch a movie in class today, you know, see, see who can sneak off to the bathroom during class. It's, it's wonderful to be here though. KVV. Thank you for having me on your program. It's an NCAA tournament time. So it's like, they'd always slide the television into the room big and let people watch some tournament games. Probably young kids don't know. Somebody's excited here. People are watching on the video podcast. KVV he's got fireworks and everything going on. The voice you hear there's Cody. Cody is also here tonight. Mr.

Prince McBride. How are you doing? Very good. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate you stepping in as, as lead substitute teacher here. It's I made a joke before we got fired up that you never know which direction substitute teachers go. Some come in and follow the exact lesson plan that was left for them. But you told us, no, we're going to have fun. So I'm excited buddy. No, we're not going to talk about the bunch of sorry to solid, but not going to talk about this one to stroke gain data stuff.

We're just, this is a holy vibes a podcast tonight, but perfect Perfect. So that's we're going to turn our attention. This is going to be your live Miami preview show. I'm so excited, Kevin. Kidding kidding. Of course. I'm sure we got to pay some bills. Yeah, we do got to pay some bills guys. Tonight's show is brought to you by Titleist, specifically the new Vokey design SM 10 wedges guys. We all got fit for SM 10 wedges. And I gotta say I've been, I'm slowly coming around hitting some good shots with them.

I'm really feeling pretty good. You know, we, we went out there earlier this year and we learned it kind of everything about went into creating the best wedges in the game and making each new generation better than last. You often hear Bob Vokey say that he has the best R and D department in the world and PJ tour. I got a lesson from Bob Vokey by the way when we were out there. Pretty helpful. This week in Houston, 50% of the sand, lob, and gap wedges in play were a Vokey design. The winners of the last five events on tour have also played Vokeys. It's that constant feedback

loop with so many of the best wedge players in the world that directly leads to all the improved performance you'll experience with the SM 10. One example, lower ball flight, Cody, I think you can probably speak to this, right? Yeah, I love it. I didn't realize this because when you're talking about wedges, you're always like, I got you think that like you got to have height to the ball, because for some reason, that's going to maximize spin. But really, you're

thinking about like, this is going to land soft from it and be able to control it. But no, man, you want to be able to get that ball down low. Yeah. The new SM 10 wedges produce that control lower ball flight that tour pros love from a wedge lower ball flight translates into better control, tighter dispersion and shorter birdie putts big. I know you're making a lot of birdie putts this year. Going out.

Shit ton of birdies. I've made so many birdies down under. Yeah. I won't spoil really. We are, we are tracking way ahead of our 2023 schedule. Hell yeah. Well, that's, that's a critical card of, of hitting it close. It's keeping it close. Go to Vokey.com to learn more and you're a fitter near you and who can help you dial in your flighting, your gapping and your grinds with the new Voke SM 10s. Guys, we have a Texas children's Houston open winter Cody.

I know this is down home and in your state, uh, Steven Yeager is the winner and his first win in 135 starts on tour. Pretty like strong year for Yeager. So far this year, you actually finished T three at the farmer's insurance open this year, uh, but struggled a little bit, let that one slip away. Uh, I'm struggling a little bit to decide whether Yeager is the story here or whether Scotty Scheffler is the story. It was, uh, Scheffler was looking to win three straight starts. Uh,

it would have been the first guy on PJ tour to do that since Dustin Johnson did so in 2017. But, uh, if you didn't watch Scotty, just missed out on getting into a playoff with a pretty gross looking putt down the stretch. Just to recap the action, in case you missed it, Yeager made four birdies and a bogey on the front nine to get to 12 under through nine. And then he kind of was, I don't want to say put it in total neutral because he was clearly trying to, to make some birdies, but he made nine straight pars on the back nine.

Back nine was playing, I think about two, three strokes tougher than the front nine. So clearly like you got to kind of, uh, they had to have a playing on for dear life a little bit. Sheffield never really had his a game, uh, this week, particularly with the putter, but, uh, he did have a chance to get into the playoff. He came into the 18th fairway needing to make a birdie cause he was at 11 under and he hit an absolute dart at the pin shot. Link, uh, had it at six feet, 11 inches.

And then he stood over the pot and just completely de celled and, uh, sort of pulled it way low. Uh, like me, let's speak to the de cell, uh, an action here. I know that, uh, that, that you commented, you basically told on yourself in the Slack, uh, what does it feel like to, to completely, uh, come under a pot on yourself in the Slack, what does it feel like to completely come under a putt like that in the big moment? I've never had, definitely not that big of a moment for me ever, I couldn't imagine doing that

on the 72nd hole when you gotta make that putt to get into the playoff. But first of all, even if you're gonna decel, obviously a sign of some nerves there, you just gotta get it to the hole. He didn't even get it there. So, you know, decels are tough. It's one of the first things that jumps out when you are nervy.

I am the king of this. There's, there's videos after videos, after videos. If you go to our YouTube page of me just deceling on every single five footer, I think I've ever looked at. It was actually DJ last summer. We're playing golf and he like, I was playing awesome, hitting the ball. Amazing at one of the best golf courses I've ever been to. And I just like, could not make a putt.

And DJ literally came over and grabbed me by the shoulders. Just like I hope Ted Scott does to Scotty. And it's just like, dude, like you are D selling your putter so bad. Like just like stop thinking about it and just get the putter head through the ball. And since then I've been like, it's been huge for me. And I hope Teddy's doing that to Scotty because he definitely couldn't, he didn't roll the rock today, which is surprising because it's Easter Sunday and that's kind of what this day is known for.

Before we get to Scotty, I think it'll be worth discussing a little bit. I just want to pause on Yeager a little bit born in Germany, moved to the United States when he was 17. Never really been a particularly great, uh, tour player. Kind of lost his card a couple of times, but in the last few years, what are you talking about, buddy? Just cause he's not out there winning on the PGA tour doesn't mean that he's not a great tour

player. Well, listen, I'm trying to 125 guys in the world who get a claim that they have a PGA tour, which I didn't say he's a great wasn't a great golfer. Cody, I said he wasn't a great tour player. Please don't interrupt the substitute teacher when he's trying to make a point about the I'm trying to hold some standards here for TC and Sally. There's no way that if they were here, they wouldn't refer to him as a complete mule. So, Speaker 4. Well, I agree with you on that. He definitely is, but he was a, he like, you

want to talk about, I think he's second or third or something like that. Unlike the all-time corn fairy nationwide, whatever tour we want to call it by it. It's been truly phenomenal. I know he's come up a couple times and been sent down, but you talked about him coming over from Germany when he was 17 years old. He actually came over as a foreign exchange student. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, he came over to Chattanooga, Tennessee. That's where his American pie situation. Where his host family was out of, he ended up going to, I think it was called like Baylor private school or something like that.

I don't know if it was a all boys school or anything like that, but they ended up winning a state championship with him on the team. Like he grew up clearly playing golf, was really into it, came over as this foreign exchange student, rolled that into the state championship into a scholarship at university at Tennessee,

at Chattanooga, Chattanooga choo cho, man, KBB. We used to go there all the time when the Grizzlies was playing the national championship game. That's right. Fawn memories of Chattanooga stumbling around there after a few too many Bruce keys. He is a mule though, but he's one of those guys that we've always said, like, you know, once he gets up there, hopefully he figures it out and he's put on a ton of speed this year. Well, that's just going'm going to say. He, you know, to give him credit, this is, you know, partially, I'm going to give Adam Schupack some credit here because he kind of pointed this out, but you know, he hired Mike Carroll fit for golf. You see Mike a lot on Twitter and stuff talking about how, Hey, like you're getting older, you can get faster. There's

no reason why you shouldn't sort of be able to pick up speed. You usually think that's like kind of for amateurs and like for golf Twitter people like myself, I did the app and it did help. But like a tour player and Steven Yeager picked up 13 yards off the tee, which is a shit ton. Uh, so he's, you know, he's really kind of decided, I'm taking whatever left, uh, my, you know, prime very seriously. Also hired the sports psychologist, Julie Aylion, who has worked with Wyndham Clark and Max Homa. Uh, you know, he's clearly just made a leap, which you got to admire big.

What do we feel about the, you know, we talked a little about the mules uprising. They're just tired of being, uh, you know, dismissed, uh, in this stuff. Are the mules having a moment? I, for sure. They're having a moment. You know, I played public defender to the mules last week. I'm, I'm pro mule, right? More tournaments, the guys, you never know when it's their week. I'm, I'm pro mule, right? More tournaments, guys,

you never know when it's their week could be a life changing week, which it was for Steven, I want to backtrack real quick. And for points one, foreign exchange students are awesome. I was never one myself, but my family had one we had a really that's awesome. Yeah, when I was in fourth grade, a girl from Switzerland came over stayed with us for the year, and we're still in touch with her. We still communicate. We've seen them. She's come back over to visit with her family now. It's a wonderful thing. It's a great cultural thing. KVV, I was going to ask you, you know, I have met Steven Yeager, and I don't know if you remember at DJ's birthday party back at Sweeten's Cove.

It was really the first time you and I played golf together. That's right. A very famous case of your shanks. Stay tuned. Stephen gave us a ride back to the Airbnb one night. I don't know if you were in that car or not. Yeah. Why was he there?

Because he knew DJ or like what was how did he end up? Yeah, he knew DJ knew some of those tour guys. You know, I didn't really even know who it was at the time. But he was a ride to the Airbnb. So I'm not you might have been that car too. Probably I was clearly I didn't know who it was. He might have all these years been like, Oh, yeah, I remember that time I rode with KVB. And I'm just been like, Oh, yeah, this. Yeah. I

know. Well, I guess that's all. Yeah, that remember that time I rode with KVB and I've just been like, Oh yeah, this. Yeah, I know. Well, so I guess that's all. Yeah, that's, that's all neither here nor there. Yeah. The mules, I don't know. I don't have anything new or exciting to add to the, to the mule debate, I guess. But, but it is, you know, it's, it's a good thing for Steven. It was, it was fun seeing his wife and young son there on the green. I want to ask you guys if I may, if you're Scottie Scheffler, or if you put yourself in Scottie Scheffler shoes, you know that there was a conversation going around, is he better off not winning this week? So he's not carrying the burden of a three tournament win streak into

Augusta? How do you guys it's a little bit superstitious, you know, do you like going into a big event on, on a very long winning streak, or is it nice to kind of get that disappointment out of the way and he can refocus? I think honestly it would have been better. I get the, like the superstition argument, but it wouldn't better if he like just completely drilled that putt right in the middle. And he was like, Yeah, my putting was are fixed. I feel like now he gets to think about a whole week of

like, Whoa, wait a minute, like, I thought that this whole like putter mallet thing situation was fixed. I thought we were good. And now the doubt has to start creeping his mind. I don't think it would have been super great to be like, Oh, man, I gotta win yet again, for the fourth time. Uh, the, just the kind of emotional burden of that would be a little bit heavy, but man, that all of a sudden missing, especially the living looked on Saturday, we three potted from about six feet on the 15th hole there, I think, or excuse me, 18th hole. And then he just,

he kind of made a mess of a bunch of short parts this week. And I don't, I don't think that's really good vibes going into some of the slickest greens and the whole schedule this year. Yeah. I agree with you, KVB. I, I just don't. That would, the streak would have been something, I guess I didn't think about that.

I think overall he's going to walk away from this week being like, man, I probably, you know, I missed some putts that I probably should have made. I don't really think he's thinking at all about like, Oh, I could have got this other, you know, winning, keep this streak alive. I think it would have been if he was playing, uh, this coming up week in San Antonio would have been a completely different story. But now I think he takes this week off. He's not playing in San Antonio. He goes and fine tunes his putter again, which even with those short misses that we saw, specifically that stood out yesterday and then today on 18, he gave himself like,

it just really wasn't the complete ball striking tournament that we've seen of Scottie Shuffler. He was definitely loose out there. And when you shoot, it is opening around 65 and we're like, oh, okay, here we go. He's gonna do it. I would say from like where he started the week till now with disappointment, but overall, like I think he's firmly on to Augusta. He's comfortable at Augusta and like,

you know, him going back up, up here to Dallas and like hanging out with Rick and fine tuning this stuff, I think is the best thing that he he's gonna do. I truly don't think it matters if somebody like Scottie. Now, having said that, we do need to put like, probably jump up and down and be like, all the people out there who are trying to compare him to Tiger, like Tiger closed his garbage. Tiger would not have missed that putt on the low side, decelerating, like looking, yeah.

That's the iron kind of iron shot that Tiger would hit, but also he would close the deal to at least like get into a playoff in that moment. So, right, look, the that's the iron kind of iron shot that Tiger would hit but also he would close the deal to at least Like get into a playoff in that moment. So I look the tiger stuff is hard because like statistically Yes, like Scotty is the best iron player since Tiger But it's just silly bid like to even mention that they're a similar player because they're just not close to a similar player because of so much of Golf is rolling the putts in. Like if you can't do that, you can never be like a truly, truly like top five player of all time. And so like, is Scott going to

be that? No, I think that's for it is fair to say like, he's never gonna all of a sudden putt immaculate for the rest of his career. But he's still like truly the best ball striker that we've seen in 15 years or so. I think that's a fair thing to say. It's just when you start putting the statistics next to each other, people lose their minds and be like, Oh, there's this dude is no tiger. Well, yeah, of course. But like, statistically, he kind of does. But I said we're gonna talk about statistics. That's

we're just, you know, the biggest is a king of feels and vibes. And he's said that he just didn't pass the eye test. So this is another win for the eye test, I feel like, you know, this big, this moment didn't, it didn't hold up to that. Well, yeah, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm having a bit of a, of a personal revolution on Scotty or an evolution, I should say. I think it was clear today. He looked like he had, I don't know what his C game, like, like he didn't, he looked like he had, I don't know what his C game like like he didn't he didn't look, even if he would have snuck into

a playoff and somehow ended up winning the thing like it wasn't a dominant dominating performance, some whiffs of even a crowning down the stretch. I was rooting for I found myself rooting for though because I I I'm craving a true standard setter, standard bearer on, on the PGA tool, somebody that the other guys have to go chase down, right? Unequivocally. I think it's a good thing for the sport for Scottie Scheffler to be the dominant best player in the world and to go collect a ton of tournaments. Because I want to see how guys, you know, like JT and Spieth and some of these guys, we complain that, you know, what are they doing? They're not winning up.

Like, I want to see them react to that. And like, hey, you guys have one of your peers, a fellow Texan in Spies case. He's out here playing, you know, perhaps I made it several weeks ago. You know, if Scotty were to get to like six or more victories on the PGA tour, I think that's the most non-tiger win of the season outside of, of course, VJ's unbelievable season. What was that? 20 years ago or so. So I kind of want that just because I want to see what does and what it forces some other guys to do. And so I guess from that

standpoint, I was disappointed he didn't collect Twinded. But I think it is still impressive that he can show up and, you know, not not have his best game not have his a game and still be right there in contention coming down the stretch. It's very impressive. Yeah, I, you know, as we look to Augusta, he's certainly going to be a strong favorite. I'm curious how, I don't think that putt will have really any effect on him.

It might just be his putting overall, but yeah, I'm coming around on Scotty. I guess that's the big headline news. Like I, I think he's, he's good and he's any, and he makes him being dominant, I think makes the game more interesting. And, and I guess I find myself rooting for that. Well, you hear it here on Easter. Big has said that God, Scotty has risen in his eyes. Yeah. Uh, guys, speaking of down the stretch, I feel like, you know, Alejandro Toasty was certainly a super fun and compelling character in this.

You know, Toasty is someone who I'm only kind of familiar with, but listen, this is sort of my first real exposure to him as a true character. Uh, he has, you know, if you're not watching, he was, he's about five, six and he hits it a fricking mile. I mean, it's like probably the littlest guy to be able to pack a shit ton of power since Ian Woosnum. Uh, he's just like in a, in a sport where everybody kind of looks like a vice principal in Midwestern, like town, Alejandro, it's like a lot of fun to watch. Like he's constantly apparently like getting into, you know,

shouting matches with rules officials. He and Tony Finau had sort of a very icy incident, uh, earlier this week where they, you know, barely speak to each other because they were kind of annoyed and arguing over who was away at a putt. Uh, you know, he, he made a bunch of shit ton of birdies and was right in it. He made it incredible up and down and gave like the full like professional wrestler fist pump, uh, like this, this week. And he's tied for the lead going into 18.

And then he just, just bails way right on the, on his drive. It has to kind of hit a blind shot way up over the trees and kind of over the corner of the grandstand and it finds kind of the edge of the green, but he it's kind of a sloppy chip and can't make it and falls back. I would have really with Scotty not going to make it. I would have loved to see like a toasty Yeager. Sounds like a nice drink, a toasty Yeager playoff, but we didn't get that. It would have been fun to see. I doubt toasties and the masters haven't looked, but it would have been fun to see toasting the masters. I hope he's like kind of a, you know, a dude who's hanging around for a while because he's

a lot, he's super fun. He's had an interesting life. He is from the same town as Lionel Messi in Argentina. He grew up kind of riding the bus from the time he was eight years old, just, you know, across town to the golf course. I'm trying to imagine like putting my 12 year old on a Baltimore city bus and telling her like, yeah, go, go practice at the town and then come back later tonight. That's uh, you know, that takes a little bit of courage for a kid to do. So, uh, a lot of fun. I just, you know, he's,

the shotgun start has kind of detailed, uh, some of these, I don't want to steal too much from them, but like the, these toast details things, they had a great anecdote earlier this year about how when he got his car to the corn fairy tour finals, he chugged an entire bottle of champagne during the sternly, uh, while Jay was like walking around. Then then he chucked the empty bottle of champagne into the middle of the lake. Uh, so that's just a, an awesome character. We need more characters guys in this game, I guess. Characters welcome for sure. I'm, I'm right there with you. the probably my favorite thing of the weekend. Just watching a lot off this weekend. I'm all for somebody that's not out there to make friends. And I think that's totally apparent not only with his actions with with Finau and

whose ball was away on Saturday. It was a whole not really a kerfuffle. But I think it was instructive the golf central guys did a good job of breaking it down you know Toasty's a rookie on tour, Finau a very established liked veteran and Toasty kind of did not back down at all and kind of challenged him. And for anybody to do that is not a small thing, I guess. Listen, this is by far his best result of the year. So I'm not sure how much we're gonna see of him week to week.

It'd be great if he got on a heater and really played well over the next couple months. But we need more guys like him. It just makes watching golf more fun. The, the, the passion, the emotions, the ups, the downs, uh, he's got a very checkered past that I think they were saying his, his college coach at the university of Florida was like, he's definitely not out there to make any friends, like he, he comes from home beginnings, he wants to be the best

player he can be and And that's it. And I kind of respect that. You know, it's a little bit of a bit. I'm always asking for guys to be more competitors out there. We can leave the friendships off the course. But I really do think there is a little bit to that, right? If I'm just a fan watching the golf, I want to see competition. I want to see guys who don't particularly like each other,

who bring out these emotions and these passions in their fellow competitors. I think that makes the entertainment product, quote unquote, a lot better. So I love what Toasty was about this week and I hope we see more of it. Guys, hold on. I got a couple things for you and I think you're going to enjoy this on toastie. This is where I love Alejandro toasty. I'm going to get to a story about him at the end of this, but this is one of those things where I think for the PJ tour, if you had Scotty Scheffler going out there and playing Scotty Shaffer golf and being the ball striking machine and making the putts that he needed to make. And you have a character like Alejandro Tosti nipping at his heels, yapping him up everywhere

he goes, just like we saw yesterday with with Finau. Like that is exactly where people fall in love with it. And my thing with with Alejandro today is that he didn't, you know, he he's a good villain. And he's always kind of been that because he's been down on his, you know, I, he just, he's not cut from the same cloth and it's not because he's from South America or anything else like that. He's just kind of always been the outsider and from Toasty Tales. And I give credit to Brennan and Andy for highlighting some of this, but I've actually played with Toasty and I kind of have my own, I have my own toasty tail. So, so going back, and this is where it's kind of tied back into the masters and Augusta

national ended up, he was the runner up, I think in 2014 or 2015 at the Latin America amateur championship in which he should have won. He was winning that event, ended up losing in devastating fashion. I can't even think to a Dominican player, but that year the Latin America amateur championship was hosted in Argentina. And I remember it was devastating to him. The next year it was at Casa De Campo. And I used to go down to Casa De Campo and DR all the time. And with Drake even.

Yeah. I spent time with Drake there. Uh, and MJ by the way, but Alejandro came and he was playing a practice round at Casa de Campo on teeth of the teeth of the dog for the Latin America, uh, America amateur championship. And this was like either right after his freshmen or sophomore season at university of Florida. And he's just a little guy and he's kind of, you know, put on a little bit of weight now

probably from drinking beers and bottles of champagne. But then he was like, you know, he was like a little bulldog. He's he's a fit dude. And he absolutely bombs the golf ball. And he did it then that's something that stuck out with me so much. But we get to the to the 15th hole on Teeth of the Dog, and it's like a 370 yard par four, but you can go, there's a route where if you hit it, you can drive the green, and there's runoff behind the green, but you basically have to carry it all the way up to the green over ocean, and nobody ever takes it on because you have to have like a 320 carry and Alejandro

gets up there and of course this is a practice round and he like just doesn't care. He would take driver everywhere and all day and he was like probably like six or seven under if like if he was counting so far in this round like truly some of the best golf that I've ever seen in my life and he he goes up there, you know, tease the ball super low and just pounds this drive. And it is dead in line with the pin going straight towards the green. And there's like this big rock wall directly in front of the green. That's protecting it from ocean spray and the ball lands and hits one of those rocks and bounces probably 50 yards directly right into the ocean.

It's a practice round and toasty sees like as soon as the ball hit the rock and he sees that it's going into the ocean, literally takes his driver and just Tomahawks it straight out into the ocean. He's starting the Latin America amateur championship like the next day and just shockeducked his driver. There's no way he could go out there and get it. No way at all. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Up until that point, he had been like,

he didn't get really too chippy or anything else like that, but there's like, there's a lot of, a lot of the Spanish speakers don't realize, they miss a putt and one of us will miss a putt and we're like, ah, you know, we might let a, you know, a bad word, a cuss word go or something like that. But we usually say it under our breath. The Spanish speakers have this habit of like thinking that like, Oh, none of these people speak Spanish so we can just rip out whatever we want. And the rest of the tournament, I remember because it was broad like part of these rounds are broadcasted on ESPN.

He was, he was cussing in Spanish. So loud, so loud. I was shocked. Anyway, he ended up finding the driver from somewhere. And I remember always being like, thinking back on it. He did not win that year. Uh, he was the favor going in and I don't even think he was in like the top 10, but following him a little bit through the rest of his college

and amateur days. And I think that he made it to the very either to the finals or semi-finals of the amateur one year. Like he's a very, very established amateur player, won a ton in college and somebody that, like, if there was PGA tour, you then, when he was coming out of college, he would have been in PGA tour. Now he's 27 years old. Like he's not a young kid and it's, it's taken him a long time to get here. He's played PGA tour, Latin America. He came up and, you know, played multiple seasons on corn fairy tour just to get to this rookie year. And a lot of it is because his, his fire, this

passion that is a good thing also is his biggest detriment at times. Yeah. That was lovely. I think this has got to be the only pod that has both a personal Steven Yeager anecdote and a Toasty anecdote.. So we're breaking news all over. Big, go ahead. Well, Cody, I looked up while you were telling that story. So it was 2015 where he lost by a stroke to Matias Dominguez of Chile. And that was the inaugural year. So to die a bow on that. I was thinking of this while I was watching him today. Are either of you guys hockey guys by chance? I wish I was a hockey guy, but I've just never been able to. Okay, well, there's a guy named Pat Verbeek, who had like one of my favorite nicknames of all time. He was

called the little ball of hate. And I would love for toast to be relevant enough where we can dub him the little ball of hate out there. Some strong Cody, as you're saying that some strong like Spencer Levine vibes I'm picking up from from our guy. Yeah, there's a lot of Spencer, I could see that. But also, I think the easiest one, and I've thought about this every single time I think of Alejandro is he reminds me so much of Patrick Reed. And it's just, it's just like that, you know, dog eat dog, like kind of the underdog, you know, we're fighting for everything we got down here. They have hell of a short games. They can absolutely pound the ball. And like, Patrick's always kind of had that, like, you know, I'm not part of the cool kid club

So I'm gonna do this but there there's also both like Accusations out there of like yeah, I'm cheating stealing like all this stuff Yeah And it just kind of these myths that are gonna continue to be there for for Patrick and Alejandro Like they're just gonna continue to grow with them over time well then Alejandro, like they're just gonna continue to grow with them over time. Well, I hope he continues to be relevant on the scene because I, I never really imagined how much I would miss the villains and the, the malcontents who went to live.

But I do realize that that is an essential part of my sports fandom is wanting people to contrast against the perfect gentleman. And so the, you know, when I think about getting the players back together again, it's mostly because I want to see like some conflict. I want to see some, some tension guys. What do we think about Memorial Park? Uh, I want to sort of pivot to that. Um, I, you know, TC was saying, obviously last week, this place slaps, uh, there was some sort of criticism amongst our crew about whether it was, you know,

a little bit too green, a little bit too overseated, but I really liked it. I, you know, I thought a place that can be a public course that can test the pros and have like a shit ton of AM rounds. I'm all in on that kind of thing. What are your thoughts? Cody, have you ever played Memorial Park? I've played Memorial Park twice. Kev, I absolutely love it.

And I don't want to dump all over your takes here, but I think this is one of those things where we got into this conversation during the players as well, is that here in Texas right now, we're right at this weird part of the season where, you know, I have Bermuda grass, the majority of golf courses that I play have Bermuda grass. The issue is, is that it is coming out of dormancy right now. So if Memorial Park was not overseated, it would, it is not the brown dormant Bermuda that everybody is envisioning that it could possibly be. It would be the patchiest nasty, there would be a bare spots all over the place just because we're not quite hot enough yet for that Bermuda

to truly take root and fire up again. So I, I love the grass. I thought it played and looked awesome. We could talk about maybe Speaker 3rd-Gen. Please feel free to dump over my takes. I'm not an agronomy person. I don't give a shit at all about any of that stuff. Like you can tell me that it was good or bad. I whatever I'm, I'm just throwing it out there because our guy TC was talking about that. Yeah. I think it's just a weird, and I know they're happy to be like back in this time period, but it's, it's very, it's just a weird calendar wise. And that's just when you talk about like grass and, and people in the North, you know, we'll probably think of this and

be like, man, I like if you got blue grass and rye, it's not an issue because as soon as the snow is gone, and it starts to warm up a little bit, it takes fire and you're right back in it. But when you got Bermuda and it's just sitting there, dormant, like it takes quite a bit of heat in order to get it to fire again. So I'm happy that it is overseated. I will say this is that it played a lot firmer than I thought it was going to be. And I've been lucky enough to play it in the fall when it wasn't overseeded. So this is two years ago when it was still a fall event. So it was just normal Bermuda. And when it was a fall event, they played it as Bermuda.

And it was before it got completely dormant. And I got the opportunity to play it when it's been overseeded. And I'm shocked both times like how firm they can get an overseated course there. Uh, it's such an awesome layout, like Doke and don't, everybody forgets this, but Brooks Kepka also gets, uh, you know, some kudos there as well. Which I don't understand how Brooks ended up being the co-designer that like did he, like, what was it that made Doke like partner with him?

I mean, this is talking about a Florida guy through and through, what's he doing designing a Houston golf course? I don't know. I have no clue what it was, but you know, there's a lot of weird backroom deals that the tour does all the time to get people certain, uh, you know, sponsorship deals or anything else like that. Maybe this was, maybe Brooks stood up one day in a, in a pack meeting or something like that. And it was like, and I'm going to get into course design and they, they went with Houston. Who knows? I personally, I would love to see dope. I don't know if this could ever host a major.

Maybe it could, maybe, you know, he could bring a PGA here at something. No, it just doesn't have the infrastructure or what? Yeah, it truly is. So Memorial park is a big park in downtown Houston and it's right, the golf course is right next door. And like the driving range is, you know, it's so cool because you talked about like, it's open to the public and it truly is like Houstonians can go and probably not tomorrow because they're still trying to charge a lot of money. But, you know, in a couple of weeks, they'll probably go and the, you know, locals can play it for under 50 bucks. Outsiders can play it for a hundred bucks or something like that. And this is a tour course that is, it's phenomenal. It has some of the best green complexes I've ever seen.

But the driving range is, is sick because it's a double decker driving range. Cause it's like, it's, it's built for like locals to go out there and like pound balls. You know? Hell yeah. Like, I would love to see tour pros lined up on a double dagger driving range, hitting off mats. Give me more of that, please. Come on. But everything around us is not enough to host, you know, something big like that.

And the reason why I like the Chevron championship on the LPGA side, you know, Memorial Park is Houston's like, it's, it's their, you know, Memorial Park is Houston's like, it's their, you know, not only their Muni, but it's like their gem and they have champions and they have all these other like, you know, very nice private clubs, but everybody in Houston is very prideful of that. And that's part of the reason why the Chevron couldn't go there is they just, they didn't have the space available even for a women's major. Yeah. Well, I mean, big, I'll ask you this question. I'm all Yannick listener has this question.

Why shouldn't Houston be then an elevated event? Like it's the same spot in the schedule as the match play. Great course, big market. Can we, can we at least get an L is an elevated event? Listen, you're asking the wrong guy to break down why things are or are not elevated events. But yeah, wise, it would be a fantastic. Aren't they called signature events? Now is that's part of my whole beef is like,

well, literally, nobody knows what they're called. Like Rory doesn't exactly know what they're called anymore. But but that's part of the problem. I think as a golf course, it's certainly upper echelon for PGA tour tracks, in my opinion. So from from that standpoint, I think it would be very deserving. But I'm sure, you know, Texas Children's Hospital is probably maxing out their their advertisement, right there, as is. This is the first year of having them on board, though, we go back in that the Astros foundations got all the money in the world, let alone

that family. Yeah. I think to like get around the question, I guess, is that I think they're just happy to be in the spring now. And we didn't have this event last year. Like Tony Fina was the defending champion. That was an event that was played two years ago in the fall. I think they're lucky that they got the spot that they did in the spring, which who knows, but I'm sure part of

killing Austin and the match play event had to do with Houston one to come back to the spring. And then, you know, I think what, what they probably want is that, I don't know if you guys remember this, but I always thought the coolest thing in the world was this event like the week prior to the Masters. And I remember like, Phil would, everybody would be like, why is Phil playing in Houston, man? He's like, I love playing the week before the Masters. And it was at a different golf course at the time. And they moved it to Memorial Park, but there's a ton of similarities between the Green Complexes themselves in Houston and Augusta National. Not so much the rest of the course because you can basically bomb it wherever you want, but it has some of the coolest part

threes I think I've ever seen. I actually want to bring the NLU crew. I think it would be a really fun place to hold and shoot one of our videos because 15 is so sweet. I've played it when it was back left and when it was like right up in that front, which gave everybody fits yesterday. It's such a severe false like a runoff on that left-hand side down to the water. And this is the first time that I've ever seen like that, that thick of a strip of grass They're protecting it because every other time I've been there. It's like oh if it's running down there to the left It's going in the water. There's nothing saving. Yeah, that was super fun. I love seeing 120 some yard hole torment Torporous just see them like a gas and like upset and how dare a wedge not stop And get tied to the hole

so the same thing the changes that they made on 17 and moving that T-box back up because they want people to try to go for it. Now kind of shame on the PGA tour for, I don't know, there's backboards and grandstands like completely encompassing it. And I understand you want to have people there. They can watch these cool big bombing drives and stuff come in. But yeah, it's a cool place, man. And it's like, it's so special. The fact that anybody can go out there. It reminds me a lot big of like, you know, when we're playing woking and there's like a public park kind of interwoven, because you see people just out there like walking. And like, it's exactly what you would

kind of expect from and want from municipal golf. And the fact that the city of Houston has this and like dope went out there and like brought everything you possibly can to maximize this property is like so cool. Well guys, the television networks may not have given this co-billing, but I feel like this, uh, the four championship presented by KCC is that it deserves co-billing, at least on this podcast. Uh, Nellie Korda wins her third straight LPGA event. That is the first time that's happened on the LPGA since 2016 when Ariadne Jutanegarden did it. Shot 65 today to finish at 20 under.

Birdie's on the front on five and six and nine and then turned and Birdie 12, 13, 16 and 18. Almost dunked it on 16 from the fairway with just an incredible iron shot. We didn't get a lot of coverage of this on the main network, but you could click over to the cock and check it out. With a win today. Not really.

Not really, not too much. It's a grainy cameras. It did look like watching golf in like 1992 from between the rain and the sort of two cameras set up or whatever, but at least we could sort of see it somehow or less. With the win today, she became the first American player to win three times before the first of April since Joanne Carter did it in 1980. Guys, we're buying a massive historic season from Nelly.

Cody, what do you think? I come in on our slack. It's a it's some really interesting parallels between Scotty and Nellie, especially today as each was going for their third straight tournament victory. I think there are larger comparisons you could draw between their two careers. It was a really fun, not juxtaposition, but a really fun kind of mirror of both of them today. Nellie gets it done. Cody, it's certified a big year. I mean, three wins in a calendar year is

a very good year. We haven't hit April 1st yet. I think I was actually out on a walk before we sat down to record and I was just kind of thinking, you know, this time last year, I was, I thought Nellie had a real opportunity at the Chevron to hunt down Lilia Vu and to really make a statement that, listen, I'm not only the best American golfer, I'm the best golfer in the world. Like this is, it starts with me. And she obviously didn't get it done last year. And Lillia went on and had a fantastic year of her own. She won two majors. She won four times. And I was really curious, like, okay, what, you know, again, back to the Saudi conversation, like, what's what is that? What does that do to Lillia's competitors? Nellie being

that due to Lillia's competitors? Nellie being top of mind. Like, I want to see how she reacts. Lillia took the top spot in the world. She was bona fide the best American female golfer. And Nellie's come out this year and just put the pedal down. And it's awesome to see. I of course, you know, majors are the thing and, and will Nellie win a major this year? Can she win a couple majors that that will take some precedent for the week to week stuff, but coming out of the gates and winning three straight times and three times in her first four starts, like she's done, it's, it's very

impressive to me and I love seeing it from Nellie. She said last week in her post-round interview, you know, at Palos Verdes, Ind was really up on the weekend. And she talked about how it made her hit golf shots more in like a creative, artistic way rather than a robotic, you know, kind of grooved swing sort of way. And I thought for her to come out in bad conditions, rainy, sloppy in the desert and shoot a 65 and come from behind and go win that tournament,

it's just another big step for her to take. That shows me like, hey, she's now learning and she's now capable to win a lot of different ways. It doesn't just have to be perfect conditions and runaway victories. And if that's the case and she's really, you know, elevating her game and even taking it to the next level, whoo, the rest of the tour better be on notice.

This could be a monster year for Nellie, I think. Cody, what do you think? Yeah, I think they definitely are already on notice, Big. And I just want to note if people go back and listen to our LPGA specific episodes, Randy tried to press me on this at the beginning of the year, everybody was doubting my take. I said this was going to be the year of Nelly. And they kind of laughed at me. And I, you know, we took that personal.

So now we're in this. I can't wait to listen to the receipt. Now we're in this with three wins already this year. We're going to wait and see as we got a couple of weeks away before the first major championship of the year, whatever, if we want to consider it that, or we just want to consider it an elevated event, who knows what the Chevron is. But, you know, I think the number one thing that Nellie struggled with last year was her putting. And she went through like six different putters. It wasn't good.

And at the end of the year, she finally went and hired a different short game instructor. And since then, it is like a completely new Nellie because she has all the confidence in the world. And why wouldn't you when like you hit every single shot to inside 10 feet? And I can only imagine how easy that is. And then when you like tie in the fact that the conditions that she's been playing in like this week, yesterday and today was crazy how that's not Arizona weather. And that was kind of the same thing that happened last Sunday.

Alan Palacios-Verdades, she played in a very similar, very windy, wet, damp, you know, today was obviously raining a lot harder than it was out in California. But you know, she was wearing the same exact rain gear again. Maybe Nike can hook her up with something besides the same like burgundy pants and that black vest. But maybe it's like a wine color. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's a, you know, I don't know. Maybe she's like, no, these are bringing me good luck now.

I was going to say I was just going to say that they could be the good luck fans. Yeah, I don't know. You can get some other colors. Do you know, actually, guys, do you know who has like a ton of colors and everything else available you can change stuff up in? I don't. Who's that? That's Roeback. You can change stuff up in. I don't who's that? That's Rovac. We all know Rovac best fit best feel and guess what guys Rovacs Azalea collection is back and better than ever.

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isn't the same without rowback. Big, when you're talking about Nellie hitting like golf shots, I was thinking about that River runs through it when like Paul becomes an artist when he learns to shadow cast. Yeah, we can get Nellie to just absolutely like embody her inner artist. Oh my god, give me all of that. Let me ask you this because hearing Cody talking about Nellie's putting wases right back half of 2023

and again another parallel with Scotty. Do you think I just find it fascinating that Scotty is in a position now that is pretty unique in that there aren't many people in the world that can relate to like being probably the best ball striker, but struggling with the putter and Nellie Korda is somebody that can relate to that exactly. I wonder, I don't know that this is stupid. But I wonder if like, stay having conversation with Nellie would be at all instructive or insightful for him him because I'm just trying to think like if I'm

Scotty, I operate is like I would love to find somebody who has had that same exact experience that I could pick their brain like, hey, what are the lows? Like how did you you know, what did you change? What? How did you go about trying to shift? You know how you think about it and eventually the putting itself? Like I said, the fascinating parallels between the two of them. I would be really interested to know

if like when they're away from the media, when they're having conversations with like their peers, if they're willing to be open up and be a little more vulnerable than they are with the press, because neither one of them are particularly like forthcoming when it comes to like their personal doubts. Like they kind of have that sheen of like, yeah, I'm fine. Like I'm good.

Like I'm just working on what I'm working on. They don't really like to offer up that crack of vulnerability. Uh, I understand it because that's like what you want to, as a professional athlete, you want to be, feel like you're invincible, but amongst their peers, I bet it's probably a little different. So maybe next time when they're one of those Santa toy making ads or whatever for that other golf company, they could kind of, you know, pull each other side a little bit and talk about how one overcame certain things and one bit. So, I don't know. I that's a, that's a great question, Randy. I'll say this, at least we have a little bit of we have some examples of Scotty doing this, not necessarily like reaching across the aisle to

an LPGA player. But like we have him and like Tiger and the Divots video. There's another video that's out there of like Tiger teaching or watching Scotty hit like bunker shots and stuff like that. So, you know, I think when they're at the issue, it's like talk through all this stuff. I just, it would be seemingly the perfect person to ask because they, it's crazy the similarities of where both their games are last year. And then, you know, Nellie obviously appearing

to take that step forward. Yeah, cause there are tons of people that like struggle with their putting right. But but I think what's unique about a Scotty and Nelly conversation is like how freaking frustrating is it to finish let's say tied for eighth when you know you hit the ball way better than anybody else in the field that week, you know, and and on the surface yet, you know, top 10. It's it's a good week. I should be somewhat happy and just being able to be KVV, like you said, open and vulnerable about like, this is driving me crazy. Like that's God, that's where I would, you

know, that's why I think there's been a bit of a rise of like athletes talking to athletes podcasts, whatever, like you see like like Ryan Clark, and it gets like a lot of really good guests and stuff. I think, I think athletes are just, they're willing to feel that way in front of other athletes. They don't feel like something they're going to say is be going to be taken out of context as much or they're JJ and LeBron. I think it's, it's hard sometimes to make yourself vulnerable in that way. Speaking of athletes who are great ball strikers and have struggled with their putting Lexi Thompson with a pretty good finish this week, guys, uh, you know, we've talked a lot about Lexi, uh, in the last year or so, whether she's sort of a part-time LBJ player or whether she's really wants to

play professional golf anymore. Um, what are we buying or selling Lexi after this performance? Pretty good performance except for, you know, completely rinse to drive when she was in contention there. I mean, that thing probably ended up 30 yards, right? And the Lake, uh, rig big, Cody, what do you think? Yeah. Uh, Lexi's completely turned around and she turned, you know,

started this turnaround really at the beginning of August last year. I've talked about it again. She signed up and started going to the Dew Sweeper Academy, which I also am a, you know, a former member of. But I think what they got working on is like her basics and she put that into work last fall. She had an amazing run up to the Solheim Cup. She absolutely balled out at the Solheim cup, did things that nobody expected her to do. She barely missed the cut and the damn PGA tour event, which I think still like doesn't get the run that it deserves. And then really this year has had like a pretty decent year for not playing a really a ton of golf, which she's known to.

She's like, she, the, their season is just getting started and that's kind of how she paces herself out here. But her T3 here, getting it to 17 under, being in contention, it started out, you know, her round today, just making a ton of birdies. And it's just one of those things where we always know there's gonna be some sort of mental lapse with Lexi when you're coming down the stretch.

And it just sucks for her that it was a complete block, you know, drive out right. But really, I think outside of that, it was how she played 17, you know, the whole falling that and, and bogeying like pretty easy par, par three there. Because that's really where I was like, Oh, okay, well, we got a ways to go here still. But I'm a firm believer, like Lexi is gonna win this year. She's too damn good. She's back completely invested in the game. She has the right people around her. And it seems like, you know, performance wise, everything is

is getting there. The issue always with Lexi is that like, she needs like a four, you know, a four shot margin in order to win coming into the pack nine, she's going to give some away. I would love it if the capper to Lexi's career was like, you know, a winning a US open, right? Like finish with two majors, like, you know, get a sort of a Tom Kite esque, like late US open career in her, you know, late thirties, whatever mid thirties. I think that would be awesome. I think that would be sort of a fun.

I've never been like the hugest fan just of the golf swing. And sometimes like she can be a little bit prickly. But I also feel for her because I know like how hard it must have been to grow up like truly in the spotlight all the time from the age of, you know, 14 or whatever when she first, but she played in the U.S. Open when she was 12. It's just crazy to think about. And I think seeing her and feeling her pain like over several of those collapses

has just been tough. And I hope, I hope there's a happy ending that comes along for her before it's all said and done here. Real quick just on Lexi to underscore the drought coming up in June will be five years. She's won the LPGA tour, which is hard to believe. Um, this summer will be 10 years since her loan major on the LPGA tour, which is hard to believe. This summer will be 10 years since her loan major on the LPGA tour. So some significant droughts. Cody, it's you said it, it's fascinating.

You know, she has the game to win, but can she close it? And I just look at her week this week, you know, she had made two birdies in her first round, or excuse me, two bogeys in her first round, had not no bogeys up until literally the tournament is in the balance her and Nellie and she steps up to the to the short par 416 and rinses the drive and then three putts the 17th for a sloppy bogey on the next hole.

And it's just like, oh man, I don't know. It's not really going to show up because of the margin of victory. You know, Nelly winning by two and Lexi being three shots back. But the tournament was, it could have gone any way there, the 15th, 16th hole with Lexi and Nellie. And so I just continue to think she's a fascinating, fascinating person to watch golf and try to close a golf tournament. And I literally don't know what to expect. You can tell me she's going to win three times in a major this year, and I could see that. And you could tell me, no, she's not going to win at all. And I'd be like, yeah, I could see that and you could tell me no she's not going to win at all and I'd be like yeah I could see that too so no no prognostication there but but it is just

whenever she's in contention it's must-see television solid finish from here in the VEDE LPG to a rookie shot 65-66 over the weekend to finish solo second uh my start kind of uh faded a little bit during that back nine with the kind of costly bogey but solid finish for her. T3 and our friend Lauren Coughlin shot the round of the day on today. Shot 64 to finish T8. Was all the way up there towards T3 and then had a couple of people sneak past her at the end. But awesome job, Lauren, if you're out there listening. Awesome work, Lauren. Okay. know what? Okay. So number one, certified mutter LC gets that badge. I think we need to read,

we need to readjust the logo placement. And I think we need to, we need to put, like one of those gold star things on the middle of the wayward drive. And because she's now a certified mutter, phenomenal, phenomenal showing from her. She's like 13th on the Solheim cup list right now. This T, this T eight is, is going to just continue to skyrocket her up these rankings. That's what we like to see young hitter making that Solheim cup team. You talked about Maya. She struggled so far this year. We highlighted her play on the last LPGA podcast of like, what the hell's going on? Well, we figured out what's going on. And thanks to Grant Boone for highlighting this for us is that her putter has been completely jacked up all summer.

Oh, right. The loft was crazy, right? When she, when she went back, she spent her winter back in Sweden at home and you know, hitting a ton of, playing a ton of simulator golf and hitting off of, of mats out into snow fields and putting indoors on, on AstroTurf at the Academy. And something happened with all of her travel where the loft on her putter just got completely jacked. And she finally had it checked this week because she went, turned to her Academy. It's like something, something crazy is going on. She finally got them to look at her Potter lion loft, completely

jacked up, which makes you think of like the amount of travel that professional golfers do and they're putting their clubs and travel cases the exact same way that we are. And it doesn't matter. Like obviously the baggage handlers for like net jets or wheels up probably are handling it a little bit better than Delta or United or heaven forbid, American Airlines. But I don't understand how is this not routine for every single player to be like, go up to an event, be like, I don't know

what happened. I left the tools of my trade in somebody else's hands for the last 12 hours. Please check to make sure that I don't know what happened. I left the tools of my trade in somebody else's hands for the last 12 hours. Please check to make sure that these are precise, the way that I think that they should be. I don't understand how that isn't part of their standard operating procedure because that's literally their livelihood.

That's like a construction worker showing up and the handle of his hammer being broken or somebody else going and like, you know, the guy who came this week to fix my garage door shows up and like all the batteries for his cordless drills are dead. I'm like, you can't do that. Like how is like, it seems like such a big mental like error to do. Seems like everybody got a track man. Maybe they ought to have a lion loft machine that kind of just scratch out. We're not a track man family. We're a GC quad family.

Excuse me. We're a foresight family. KVV. How dare you do that? Everybody has a foresight. They carry with them or GC quad whoever carries around. Why don't they have like a lion loft thing that they can? I don't know.

Again, I'm speaking out of no idea what it would take to teacher. Teacher, we have a guy in own. No idea what it would take to bring Teacher Teacher we have a guy in class. He's not here today His name's Tron Carter and sometimes likes to go down the leaderboard. Do you mind if I just do that real quick? Yeah, we're a pro go down the leaderboard lecture here. Yeah Okay, right. Well, I just want to highlight, you know Cody said Lauren is a mutter. I think Carlotta Saganda and Hugh

Jukim, maybe not mutters. They struggled today out of that final group. Not their best golf. I don't know how much weather related. Carlotta is slow playing everybody. She could be the slowest golfer, men or women I've ever seen in my life. It is painful, painful, painful. Thank God they weren't on TV because it would have extended. Like then LPGA Tour would have had to go back and buy extra hours because of that's how slow she is. Alison Lee continuing to play pretty good golf, a top 10 tied for eight. Jennifer Cup Show shows up on the leaderboard. She had not had a good start to the year, so a good week for her. Sarah Schmelzel, that's one that we've highlighted on our LPGA podcast.

She now has four consecutive top tens and is somebody that's really putting herself in a dark horse position for the Solheim Cup later this fall. So a name to keep an eye out there. Gabby Ruffles follows up a very good week last week at Palace Verde with a tide for 13. She's leading the LPGA Rookie of the Year race so far. She's up to a great start in 2024. And then Lydia Ko, you know, had been flirting, just needs that one point for induction to the

LPGA Hall of Fame. I thought she might be making a weekend charge to get it. She fell off a little today, finished tied for the team, but she's continuing to put herself in spots and she's playing really good golf. So those were the big ones. A very, you know, Seville Country Club, Cody, you have some experience there, did not put up much of a fight. The cut line was four under through two rounds. You were going home packing.

A lot of people thought there might be a 59, even a 58 this week, but the weather got a little nasty. It'll be interesting. I'm not sure, you know, talking to some folks, it seems like Seville might be a one-off this year and they might try to get this event back to Superstition Mountain next year. So something to keep an eye on. I'm happy. Thanks to Ford for presenting and sponsoring an LPGA event. We need more companies stepping out there. I actually heard this week, Big, that they got rid of the Dallas event. Volunteers America, Texas event up at the colony. That's gone. It's not on the schedule this year, but I guess they're close to a big new sponsor coming in for a Dallas event at a different club. It's not going to be up at the colony. I think they're trying to get at one of our fancy pants, expensive private clubs, which would be sweet. So yeah, we'll be on the lookout for that. But I'll say this when they first announced this and Ford came on board

It was prior to the Thunderbirds being involved and that's the charity component and they did an awesome job this week There's free admission out there. I think for two days, of course military got in free. I think every day or something like that Seville is just Okay, KVV. I know you don't listen to LPGA podcasts, but it's a member club. And like, even I, during college, I had to teach junior golf clinics basically back out there. And it was right at the transition. Cause I think they built this in 2000 or 2001. And it actually didn't go private because they didn't get the neighborhood built around it to like 2004, 2005.

So it was still public, but there was very beginnings of like, hey, basically the neighborhood kids would come down. Here's a bunch of dumb kids from Arizona State. They're gonna teach you how to play golf and get back out of here. But I remember going there and like shooting even par. I knew the girls were gonna absolutely tear this place up. I just didn't think that like if you shot even par or

200 any day this week, like you're so far behind. It was nuts to see like how good they actually are on a course that I'm very, very familiar with. And I know that's like how good they are, but it was just, it was striking and crazy to see. I think the Thunderbirds, because Big, you brought up Superstition Mountain, which is hosted, you know, it was called the drive on two years ago. And they've always kind of struggled once they moved the founders out of Arizona to like, find a permanent home, find the permanent sponsor. Somebody actually told me that because the Thunderbirds were coming on board, that there was a massive amount of pressure on that they were putting on TPC sawgrass to try to get this event there, which I think number one could be like one of the most natural fitting

things for it. I think it would be absolutely amazing for this event to go there. And I understand that they try, LPGA Tour likes having community courses and clubs like that that'll come out and that's easy with not just like volunteers, but spectators and player housing

and everything else like that. But again, we go back to this of like, how many L's does the LPGA tour need to take with this great partnership that they have with the PGA tour before they like give the dog the tiniest bit of bone? I know we're not like going to go to a complete hamster dam session here, but they had bad weather. They knew they were going to have better bad weather today. They had to move T times up. There was split tee out in threesomes.

And the fact that I'm sitting here while Golf Channel, again, is showing the dudes, I don't know. I have yet to meet anybody who watches Champions Tour Golf. And this isn't about ratings or anything else like that. But it's also like, you know, isn't it supposed to be like women's women's month? Like, what are we doing here? Why? Why is the LPGA treated this way? Where even with Peacock, they couldn't move Peacock up far enough to like, you know, Nellie was already like on the 12th hole, when she's making this like truly historic run to get her third win of the year. Like what needs to happen and why are we still in this place where the fucking excuse my language, but where the Champions Tour is getting priority over the LPGA Tour.

Like why is this still happening? It's a great question and I think is a good pivot here to the only time we will talk about the Champions Tour I think on this podcast which is that Krista Marco went on the sub par podcast with Colt Nost this week and kind of stepped in it a little bit although he didn't really walk back these comments I'm credit for that he didn't really say much after him but he said as said in in sort of discussing the money in golf this year said, we're kind of hoping that the live that lived her buys the champions tour.

This part, it seemed like he was mostly joking, but then he kind of pivoted and seemed pretty serious. He said, let's play for some real money out here. I mean, this is kind of a joke when we're getting to seven guys last week from TPC who made more than our purses. Uh, Cody, I know you did some investigative work and watched this video of him to make sure we were joking. I just saw the quotes originally when I was kind of annoyed by the whole thing. But what do we think of, uh, of Chris DiMarco basically saying like, Hey, where's our money on the grandpa tour? Yeah, I would just say look around for a second and realize where you're at, because

I think Chris DiMarco has been like, compensated very well for where he's at and kind of what he is not only provided to the game, but continues to provide to this game. And I'm at this point now where I'm sick of saying like the game of golf that like everybody thinks that specifically men's professional golf for some reason is like the linchpin of golf as a whole. And that's just not what I see every time like I go play golf and I watch a ton of golf and I watch this podcast. And I know Colt, you know, churned back at a couple people of being like, oh yeah, people

couldn't tell that this was a joke. Like if it was a joke, why did he continue on with like very specific details, like describing not only the purses, but like the events of it, and then continued later on in the podcast and said, oh yeah, if Liv came around in like 2003, 2004, I definitely would have gone over. Well, that's fine. I'm not here to say that anybody going to Liv based off personal decisions or anything, that's their decision. That's not the conversation that we need to have right now. There's hundreds of other podcasts where you can go back and listen to those takes of those decisions. But he was pretty serious when he was talking about this specifically.

And I would say like, dude, the fact that there is a champions tour when the main tour is like, you know, Ben in dire straits the last couple of years is good enough for you. It should be good enough for you anyway. Like the champions tour was all started because the guys from back in the day got

together and like, Hey, we, you know, guys on the main tour are making a ton of money now and we need to figure out a way to be recouped. We're so, so far past that now of like, what, what are they actually doing? Who is watching this? Who, who is going to these events? Because I know I go to every professional golf event That's in like where I'm living at and I'm not going up to watch Dallas and no offense to flasky because I know that's his Event but like I'm not gonna go watch those dudes. So who is You don't usually say when you're joking you don't usually say it's kind of a joke

like if you're inserting that word into it, you're probably, there's some serious near take. Like I'm always torn in these kinds of things because I admire when professional athletes speak their mind. And I think it's sort of sometimes unfair when we then shit on them as soon as they say something sort of interesting. So I don't wanna go too far over this,

but so much of professional golf, I think has kind of like lost the plot in terms of how they understand they're coming across to every day people who play golf and you know, might get to play twice a month or once a month and they're desperate to kind of get out there and they're playing with discount balls and they're having a few beers and they don't really want to hear any more like 55 year olds bitching about how like, man, million purse is pretty shitty like we need some more money that so if it was a joke it wasn't told particularly well as a joke. Say that the hero Indian open was took place on the DP world tour this weekend and a sort

of but familiar name Kida Nakajima blew everyone kind of away. I ended up winning by four despite shooting 40 on the back nine. Nakajima spent 87 weeks. It's a tough back night at that course. You never know. I didn't mean the pictures. I can't say that I watched it. Maybe he bounced it off the face of some of those foam bunkers. Shout out to my guy. Gary still on my floor, though. Yeah.

Shout out to my guy, Gary Player, for one of the world's most iconic designs. Nakajima spent 87 weeks as the world's number one ranked amateur in the world. I don't know a ton about, Keith, I mean, I know this certainly was like dominated the amateur ranks for a while. Are we seeing any promise of this come of age? He's now 23 years old. He's got his DP World Tour membership and it's got some corn fairy status. Like, uh, cause we'd be seeing the next, you know, Hideki was certainly

like the next phenom to come along kind of after Hideki at this time. And shots fired at, uh, Takumi, but yeah, he's definitely in that, that lineage. Uh, goes back. I think this is just one of those things of like Japanese golf and it's kind of just behind development of every other big country. I know, we'll shout out the Asian Pacific Am and, you know, Keita won that in the past and has had a phenomenal, like was, how many weeks was it KVV that he was number one amateur in the world? 87. He was number one amateur in the world.

And that's like the most all time. I think he like clipped Rom who's Rom's like number two on that list now. I think it just takes people like I couldn't imagine being like some of these foreign born players where they have to travel like so far away from their home, their comfort in order to choose the profession that they want to do. And I think some people, it just takes time. And hopefully that's it, because you want to talk about good things for golf, like having another rock star Japanese player is really good for golf. And he is right up there. It's taken time. I don't think people expected it to take this long, but it's been a ton of change

in the Asian tour and everything else like that. I think it's awesome that finally got his DP world tour first victory there. And then, you know, he's going to be on the PGA tour. It's just it's just only going to be like a matter of time, but he wins so much. It's crazy. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that live is back next week. They're playing in Miami. So their master's prep will be at Trump national Doral. Watch out for the bed bugs. That's all I got. All right. You know, I, I once got bed bugs that, uh, at Trump Doral, I just

hope if people are saying, I think it was the player. So again, shout out to your podcast, keep your politics out of my podcast. This is a health and safety message. We have to put a banner on this or something like that. Watch out for the bed bugs. Kind of a slow news week, but Bryson made some news this week on golf Twitter by going out and on his own website, you know, something that wasn't like he was entrapped to do this played with a golf ball from sort of the,

I guess we'll eventually call the rollback era, but I think it was a 2007 Nike golf ball, and decided he's gonna play nine holes with this just to sort of show what a rollback golf ball would like, and spoiler, he did not like it. He did not really appreciate it when hitting it off the heel made it only go 305 yards as opposed to 340. I don't know if you guys caught any of this but it did put a smile on my face.

It wasn't, Berson wasn't entirely negative. He did sort of have some nuanced takes but mostly he was sort of pouting and saying that you know sort of just is really stinky that you can't just absolutely mash on the golf ball and hit a 350 which you know gave me hope But some people maybe would see this and be like, you know what? Maybe I am pro rollback big Did you get a chance to catch any of this? This is I say teacher I did not do this Don't worry I watched the video and I thought it was fascinating. KVV. I was right there with you. I think the thing that he was mostly shocked by was how the guidance that was put out by the USGA

about potential rollback ball, which he wasn't using. Like what is nobody knows what the proposed rollback ball is going to be. This is just the best guess at whoever gave him the data, something that could match that. But he thought, the USGA says it's going to be like a 5% to 10% reduction in overall distance. And Bryson, of course, out there mashing in a Daoist National where it's like they're on perfect Zoysia grass, like everything's teed up for him. He's seeing like a 10% to 15% reduction. So he of course didn't like that. But what I thought was most fascinating is not so much the driver stuff, but when he was hitting like his irons

and then really his wedges, he was complaining a lot through it about different spins, different spin rates. And he had his GC quad out there with him the whole time. And like a couple of times he's hitting his normal left dash versus what the, you know, the ball that he was playing with that Nike one and just kind of showcasing the numbers of it. So I thought it was fascinating. I think that's, you know, he obviously doesn't like it because he wants the ball to go further and do cool shit with it. But I was like, yeah, that's

actually like exactly what we're looking for. Outside of like you hit it offline, I actually kind of want it to spin more, man. Like you're saying that it was too much. I actually think you can turn it up a little bit more because if you're hitting it that like bad, not at all close to the center of the cufflinks, like you shouldn't be rewarded for that.

And just to be clear with the Nike One Tour, he, this is Will Knight's documented this from the Friday. He was hitting the ball with like 187 mile ball speed and it was going 315 yards. So like all this crying about how, you know, we're not going to see the ball go, you know, it's going to be 260 yard drives. It is not going to be that like they're still going to be able to hit it over 300. It's just the amount of people who are going to be able to do that are going to be fewer. And so the honestly like Bryson ought to lean into this and be like, yo, I'm gonna be one of the seven guys on the thing who can still hit

this 100 to 310 yards carry. I'm signed me up for that because I you know, I would like to live in a world where Bryson was winning more majors. And I kind of do think that it would increase the talent gap between guys like Bryson and Rory and guys who are not as good because I do think Bryson will probably figure out how to hit it in the middle of the face more often, but he doesn't have to do that right now. He can just absolutely whale on it and hit it anywhere over the face and it will go forever.

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think with time, he'll realize that this is actually a benefit to him specifically. And that's not because he's just a dude out there whaling on it. He hits the vast majority of his drives, like Bryson's catching them out of the center of the club faces, those squirrely ones when he actually tries to like gear down on it and like absolutely swing out of his shorts that get all, you know, they end up going all over the place, um, because he should be rewarded for the skill that he has.

And that's like through both working on his swing, but also like mastering his numbers and getting like his butt in the gym and like bulking season and then non-bulking season and figuring out his gut health. And I love the fact that there was an AG1 commercial sprinkled in there as well. And him like being like, yeah, I used to take horrible care of my body, but now I'm getting these greens in my life and we're on the straight and narrow. But it is a, it's, this is a benefit to Bryson first and foremost, and he will realize that over time. And these guys are like, they're the best golfers in the world.

Give them a couple of days and with the technology that we have from monitors and everything else, they're going gonna get it figured out. One last news item here this week, the USGA announced the US National Junior Team, which mostly these are names who might be big deals someday, but right now are just kind of sort of anonymous. But I love that we are coming into the era now where kids who have like sweet names of like people who grew up in the 90s are now coming. So there's a kid

named Blades on the US junior dash phone team. There's another, there's a J P Jordan's going to be so upset at you that you don't know who Blades Brown is criminal. I've heard of Blades Brown. There's a girl named Astrick, Astris. There's a, there's a Riley with Astris. Just she just won a massive, massive amateur tournament like the precursor to Anwalt last weekend. These are great. I'm sure that Jordan is going to write some amazing stuff and fill me in on all this. I'm sure she's smiling behind the scenes right now listening

to me talk about Emory shirts. E M E R I E. Hold on. Hold on. Do you know? Jesus and cousin of friend of the program Lane charts. Yeah, did not know that at all. Yeah, hand to God. Yeah, shout out Lane. That's his second cousin. Yeah, well, okay. I know Gianna Clemente is great. Shia Lebron, I think I've heard of. So some big names on here. Some people who are, I'm sure, to be studs of the

future. There's studs now, especially on the women's team. This is awesome for the USGA. I think we've been waiting and saying we need a development team for a long, long time. It's, you know, we're trying to match other nations that are around us when you talk about like, specifically on the women's and we can even go to the men's team. Like the Swedish national team is, is the example for the rest of the world. And if the, if America and the USDA could ever get close to that and that's what the U S USA development team is going to be like, we're going to be

sitting in a really, really good spot. Jordan is saying in the chat that I'm canceled. I'm not sure if you can cancel the teacher, but perhaps we can. All right, guys, I want to close here. I give you some homework this weekend. Incidentally, tournament time, always one of our favorite times of the year. They got me thinking, like, uh, watching some of these, these squads gel, both on the men's and women's sides. If you were going to throw together a basketball team made up of golfers, and I'm not talking about like whether the golfers are good at

basketball, but just you know, kind of based on vibes based on personality, what would you do? Who would make your squad who would coach your squad? This would be a very fun exercise to sort of to talk about who you'd want fill in buck buckets taking charges for you. Since this was my idea, I'm happy to go first or I can go last if someone would like to go here. But we're going to basically put together our own squads of who we would take on the world with.

I think our designated basketball guy, big the coach, come on coach. Well, I know I think we kind of go position by position. Okay. I don't. Yeah. So let's start at, I assume we all kind of follow the traditional five spots in basketball. KVV one center is your point guard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went with Kurt Kediyama. That's, I need a dog running my squad, Randy. I mean, I need someone who's going to just slap the floor, get the crowd into it,

pop his Jersey with the student section. We he takes a charge, uh, this guy, you know, Kurt actually did used to hoop way back in Chico. Uh, and he went by the name quadzilla cause he had those big ass legs. That's awesome. You know, look, he's only five, seven. So he, we might, we might get hurt on some switches. Uh, some people might be shooting over us, but I feel like I want a scrappy guy who's going to lead us, uh, push the ball up the floor. Okay. Maybe that's, that's such a good opening pick.

I kind of went to a lot of the same attributes that I wanted to somebody who absolutely holds her own, but, but seems to have a good eye on everything that's going on. Doesn't care what really is going on around her is just solely focused. Uh, I already said her and that's gonna be my, I would say my point guard, my number one guard on the court controlling my offense and defense, just scrappy, you name it, she's all over the place, Charlie Hall.

Sure, I like that, okay. Like some attitude, like some big F-U to people, yeah. 100%. Maybe pushing people after a jump ball situation. Yeah. Wonderful. Big. Who you got it? It got run a point. Why am I reasoned to bias, but I was, I was looking for that, you know, the, the hateable Duke point guard mold and give me Alejandro toasty. I mean, you want to talk about that will get under the opposing

team skin, will not be afraid of playing in the big gyms all across America. I think it's Alejandro would love, would love to put the ball in his hands. I thought about that late this afternoon, Sunday, and I really kind of just felt like I couldn't quite go there just yet, but I'm glad that you did because I really want to see him like throw a punch here and there like, uh, and then, and maybe like reverse jam because the dude, if he can hit it three 80, he could get up there and like, absolutely just dunk over the talk or something like John Starks used to do. Cody, how about you start us off on this one? Who's your shooting guard?

Yeah. My shooting guard. I just needed somebody that was clutch. And today, you know, watching Scotty, I know he used to hoop back in his day at whatever private Jesuit school he went to in the Northlands of, uh, of Dallas, Texas. He just wasn't it. He wasn't clutch. I need somebody who's going to line up and, you know, we're thinking about these comparables all the time to the big cat. And you know, I just need a guy that you're going to pass a tune. He's going to, he's going to drain that rock man. And that's's tiger woods. Oh like it okay maybe some knee trouble probably not gonna be able to give you 40 minutes but uh we're pushing the pace on the Cody team. You said

this is make believe man come on I can take tiger in his prime. Okay well even then like dude probably ran 25 miles in a marathon in army boots before the game. So you just need to keep that in mind as your factor. I mean, you know, this is your squad. So I don't want to do being who you got at the shooting guard. I like, I like veteran leadership of tiger. That's, I don't want to shit on Cody. I'm sorry. Well, I got to see this guy's shot up. Oh, some personal several years back. I'm smooth jumper, a little bit of a diva, you know, as as your star kind of two guards somewhat tend to be, I guess. But isn't afraid of the big moment is not afraid of the big moment has missed as many times as he's made when the game's on the line. And that's Mr. Phil Mickelson.

We're going to get him the ball at his spots and we're going to have that sweet righty jumper just lacing the net. Okay. Just watch out for point shaving. That's all I'm saying. I went with Min Wu Li here as my shooting guard here. I'm looking for a guy who's just going to fill up the stat sheet. I mean, somebody, I want him to get 25 shots a game. I don't care if he's going 10 for 25 some nights, cause they're going to be some nights where it's tough for sure. Some nights he's going to get me 30 and 10. Uh, so I'm thinking like kind of clay Thompson before the injury is just like firing up shots. No conscious, like absolutely just taunting the crowd. Yo, yo, Min Woo, stop taking half quarters,

dog. No, look on our squad. He's allowed to, he's got the green light from anywhere. Min Min Woo strikes me. Min Woo is a basketball player strikes me as exactly the type of guy that can, can, can shoot you into games and can shoot you out of games. Oh, and those are sometimes my favorite players. Exactly. I want to, I want the squad to be entertaining big. So that's why I decided to go there. Maybe you got a small forward for us there. I do this. This is a Hooper. I went with true basketball skill here. Sick one out of Kansas played a little college ball, Gary Woodland. I think he's prototypical small forward. You know, he can probably guard

four positions. Um, we can post them against some smaller guards if, if we get the correct matchup. I like Gary's game and I think he's a small forward for me. Love that. Uh, all right, Cody, I w his is we're here. I went with Nelly Cordo. Uh, I'm a big anti analytics guy, but I want, so I want to like a catch and shoot mid range player. I'm bringing back the mid range game. I'm tired of this. Like layups or threes.

I think Nelly would be like a poor Zingas type, you know, I don't need her to bang down low. I need her to like elegantly, like just spot up and catch and splash and shots. I don't even need double digits and rebounds. Okay. That's not what I'm expecting for. I want to be like a graceful fade away. Maybe like a baby hook that she catches down low. Like I think she, I think she could get me 19, 20 points between her and Min Wu.

Like she's going to be the anti-Min Wu. She's going to shoot 60% from the field and just be a very elegant up and down the court kind of player. Well, you brought up tiger and injury concerns. I just worry that Nellie up there, you know, in that high post, she might get beat up a little bit. She might look with that's why as I'll tell you my next pick here in a second after you gave me. I was gonna say, Katie, you better have some beef here at the four or five spots. I have some mouses in the house, Katie.

I know, I know. I was a small ball here. I went, uh, you know, my, my small Ford, somebody who's used to, to being in the blocks, doing the hard work. He's, he's kind of left out of a lot of teams, but he's always, he's got the heart of a line. He's always working. It's absolute tail off. And you know, he might be the only person who's played in like pickup back up basketball games with MJ Brady. He's a proud, proud Nike guy. He's just rocking his dunks all over the place. And that's Eric Keegan, man. Oh yeah. That's a good pick for there. I feel like, yeah, I don't hate that pick truly work hard. He would, he would want, he would have a lot of pride. Let's see what. Yeah. And that's why, you know, I don't know if we're,

we're picking five or if we have somebody coming off the bench, but I also have this caddy Pepsi on the bench, just in case something happens and he needs to go out and fuck somebody up. God, I'd like an inner squad game where Keegan like just dumped over Justin Thomas and like you're going to extra long stare would be absolutely Mike Pepsi would be in the arena for sure. All right. I, I heard the criticism about my lack of beef down low. So I'm going to, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm putting Shane Lowry in the block down here. He's going to be my guy

who just, I don't even need double digit points here. I needed some to bang, to throw some elbows. I, he's going to get me 12 rebounds and use all six files throughout the day. I thought about maybe co-crack here, but I just don't feel like he'd work as hard as Lowry Bryson was also a contender, but you know, chemistry issues. And I love the idea I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, anything else just go hit some people. He'll get some garbage points. He'll get some put backs here and there, but that's not what I need. Alright, so I'm I need an enforcer. I need someone to keep him. Keep the thugs off of Nellie

so she can do work down the road. Alright, Cody, who you got it to power? Oh perfect. Thank you, Kev. I kinda again very similar. I think I went down and was thinking really hard. Like who do I? Who do I need in that position?

I need somebody that can get their elbows out there. They can still be light on their feet, definitely hold their own. But also, you know, I like my guys, if we got to play dirty, we're going to play dirty. All right. And if we're going to need to throw some elbows, do some hip checking, stuff like that, we're not afraid of skirting the rules. All right. And that's why I brought in the big Fijian. VJ is going to be down there for me. I like that. Yeah. What would he be kind of a store? Would he just be kind of a tough guy? Whatever he, whatever we need of him that night. All right. If there, if there's potential allegations going on, we need him to take somebody out. We need him to play hard D we got that. All right. He's just, he's just kind of that guy. He's our big dude down there.

I love that. Big who you got at Power Forward. I have three Scottie Scheffler. You know, I think he's athletic. There's footwork there. I think there's a solid base. Listen, he's going to be an undersized Power Forward. We know that.

But I think we can get him in the block. We can isolate him. We can count on that footwork and athleticism to hopefully get us some buckets around the rim. I like his body. I think he can rebound on the defensive end. I think he can guard the forward position. I feel good about Scotty. I like that. I actually had Scotty as my pick at center. So I'm going to go ahead and switch up and take my backup pick here. And I'm going to, I'm going to put Dustin Johnson at center. I think big laconic guy don't need to like, you know, get a lot of effort, like full out going on the court, but I just need him to kind of score in his spots. I need him to be like kind of the law centers in the league today. They're not like the

scream in your face like dunk all over you. They're kind of more the chill dudes, the the yolk X and such and embedes. So I did. I will say this about Scotty. Have you ever seen that video of Scotty playing pickleball? It's unbelievable, like how good his hand eye coordination is. But like, if you think about like, why doesn't that translate to putting like, Shaq was the same way, like Shaq is like a truly gifted athlete, right? Remember,

there'd be like the occasional bouts where Shaq would like, he'd make like, nine of 11 free throws in a game and everybody like, Oh, Shaq's got this free throw thing figured out. That's to me, like feels like Scotty right now is like, everyone's like, Oh, yeah, he's the mallet. He's like, totally fine. He's a great player. He's getting he's totally gonna be putting now. Now, like, it right now is like everyone's like, Oh yeah, he's the mallet. He's like totally fine. He's a great player. He's getting he's totally gonna be putting now. No, I'm like it's that kind of stuff just like stays with you forever.

So like there's a little bit of a parallel set. So I'll nod to Shaffer, but I'll put DJ in and as a nod to the lift gang to sort of have a fully realized squad there. All right, who got it center there big my. My center, listen, he's raw. And candidly, I have no idea if he plays basketball, but he's somewhat young and you can't teach height. So I'm going with my, my, my man from Georgia tech, the rambling wreck of Georgia tech, Christo Lampreck. Listen, he's 6'8", he's 220, and he's got a frame to put on another 20 to 30 pounds easily. If we can teach him an outside shot, I think he's a nightmare,

facing ball on offense, good size to guard the ball on defense. And honestly, we want him away from the basket to give Scottie an opportunity to get down there and use his footwork and creativity in the post. So I'm going with my guy, Christo. Love that. Cody, who do you got in the five?

Yeah, it was a man. There's a lot of, a lot of, uh, directions that I was going to go here. I thought about DJ, I thought that would have been too obvious. So, but we know, you know, he's hoops. He can get it done. Um, there's kind of a different direction I was going to at that for a second. I thought I was going to go with the big suite and an orquist, but you know, she kind of has the yips every once in a while.

I played, uh, you know, definitely free throw percentages would have been a concern there. Uh, I think she's like one of those like foreign centers that used to play in the league in the nineties, like kind of not quite fully formed basketball was still catching up, but they had some game like that for sure. Yeah, for sure. You know, height was a concern. I thought about putting the big golfer in there, but Bryson, you know, he would have, again, heart would have been there. We just height just didn't have it. And that's where I ended up going. My next

one is we was still kind of on the shortest side for a center. But we're coming at like six, three, close to six, four, weighing 15 stones. And that's Ernie else. I think that he would absolutely control. He'd be a rebound machine. He'd be able to ditch it out. He's a big team guy. You know, there's all these stories of him on his jet flying around everywhere, just pounding beers with the boys. He would have looked out for them. The biggest defender of golf in South Africa. Uh, you know, I think he would have just rounded out that squad for me. That's great. Ernie and BJ is a formidable front court, Cody. That's, that's no

joke. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that we didn't put a time on this because otherwise you'd have some kind of old, old squad, but if these are all back in your prime, then I think you're, you're golden. You're maybe thought, you know, my, my point guard at the beginning was Lee Trevino. I thought he was going to be kind of slick. He'd be able to get it out there, be fast talking to the king of shit talking, you know, we would have destroyed everybody just like mentally. That's true. Cody's team is built to play, uh, in the NBA score, but the short courts that run across the main court, that's,

that's what Cody's team is built for. Tiger V a, we don't, we don't need to be getting up and down much guys for coaching. I couldn't resist going with, with Phil Mickelsonkelson here. You know, and I think the current Phil Mickelson that you know, as we're going to choose era is like he could totally pull off the Pat Riley thing with the slick back gelled hair master tactician would be able to kind of work both the media and the refs you know, Mike get suspended from the league for various like things here

and there but he's he's going to have these guys ready to play. He's going to get the best out of some of them. I think he looks and he's gonna be working like, you know, Shane every night to tell him like, like, I don't need points from you big guy. I just need like, I just need rebounds. All right, he's gonna get the best on Nelly. So fills my fills my coach. That's a good pick. That's a good pick. I, my coach, I went with a guy, you know, we're, I think in the coach position, we're looking to set the tone, right? We're day after day. Who's showing up? Who's got, I like coaches with discipline in their own lives. I think, you know, it allows them to come from a place of authenticity.

Let's guys buy in men and women. So I'm going with Scott Stallings because listen, basketball is an ultra physical sport. You got to be in peak shape. And nobody has displayed the amount of discipline and work ethic that Scott Sellings has shown over the last several years, not only to transform his own body, his own figure, his own mindset. That's what I'm looking for, for him to give to my team. Well, shout out to Hard Work Pays Off.

I love, that's such a good pick there. You know where I was going? I was looking at somebody who's gonna like, I got some characters on this squad. So I need somebody who's like Ben in these backdoor meetings. If you say like Ben Hogan, I'm going to just revolt. No, no, no. And like can provide cover for everybody. I think, you know, somebody who's like been there, but hasn't been like the guy yet, but has been in charge of developing a lot of things. You know, my coach, he's basically just going to provide top cover to make sure that the guys can and gals, they can do what they want, whatever we got to

do to get them, you know, the best performance that we, that we possibly can out there. And that's a gentleman by the name of Ty Votaw. Right. And if people don't know who Ty Votaw is, he used to be at one point in time, commissioner of the LPGA tour. And then it kind of got run into the ground. Maybe that could be under his direction. But he looked out for everybody around him. After that, he came over to the PGA tour. And I think he probably is a person who holds all of the secrets for everything that Fincham and you know, anybody anything that's happened there.

He has their bodies are buried. Yeah. But ultimately, he's looking out for everybody. He's like, Hey, as long as I'm still getting my paycheck, we're good guys. And we just got to keep this thing going. So hopefully, he brings that same thing to the squad that we've assembled. We actually had drinks with Ty Vota that one night. We did a grand McDowell's place. And he and I talked about Jason Isbell. Apparently, Ty Vota, big Jason Isbell fan. So we got to sort of break bread over that. Any honorable mentions you want to throw out? Any six men, six gals that were helpful? I had one. Cody, you want to go or you want me to go? No, you go ahead, Biggie. Listen, I think six men,

what's the most important job, right? You're looking at a boost of energy when that person enters the game. Okay. And I saw something last year out of this woman, the most heart the most tenacity, somebody that will absolutely run through a brick wall. And that's Caroline head wall. She is my six man, and I know she's not in the starting lineup, but I'm building it around Caroline. She's the heart and soul of the team. Love that.

Yeah. Okay. Cody, any, any six person or, or honorable mention you want to throw out there? Yeah, I guess I had mentioned already that Bryson potentially could, could be vying for a spot. Of course, the big sweet Anna, she, she, she's a great, great player.

She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. She's a great player. or honorable mention you want to throw out there. Yeah, I guess I had mentioned already that Bryson potentially could be vying for a spot. Of course, the big sweet Anna, she's in there looking for something. But ultimately, I got a lot of elderly statesmen and I knew when I was talking about my bigs, they might get banged up.

And I think that's why I, you know, I, I'm thinking about step Straka, you know, if I need some extra beef down there, I think he's going to be able to come in, be a great sub when the other bigs get, you know, banged up. He could be my guy. I love that. Uh, I'm going to throw out, I want a Suzanne Patterson on my squad. Uh, going to come in and throw some elbows, gonna get me 10, 15 points off the bench, start a fight, use up her fouls. Like she's gonna be taking off in a stretcher

if she's coming off in a do or die game. So absolutely ready to go to war with her. I'll say this, her and Phil Mickelson would either be an unstoppable combination of like player coach, or it would be the most toxic. Well, the team environments or fired or whatever. If I need to go a different direction, Suzanne can sort of step into that player coach that rolls. Yeah, I feel like we're good there. Did you

guys know that James Hart du Pres is six foot 10? I had no idea though, European tour players. I thought about him at center, but I feel like I didn't really know enough about him to come Did you guys know that James Hart du Pres is six foot ten? I had no idea European tour players, so I thought about him at center But I feel like I didn't really know enough about him to to come listen on him for big minutes Yeah, did I did I googled tall golfers? Yeah, I did Well, I this was a very fun exercise Perhaps the as the tournament goes on maybe we'll punt it to the boys next week if they want to try to put together their own squads because I very much enjoyed this and very much enjoyed this

Sunday evening with you boys. Thank you very much for watching the golf with me and thank you guys at home for tuning in and listening for us. Cody, any parting words there? Yeah, we got a big week coming up KVVV. I'm finally, you know, I'm excited for like these big tournaments to actually start. And it feels like this is the week where we're finally getting ready for doing that. People be on the lookout this week. This podcast right here. I know you and Sally did an awesome historical masters, deep dive, Randy, I, and our own Jordan Perez. We're going do a little Anwa, Anwa, we'll get into that later,

and LPGA Match Play's on their way back to Shadow Creek, which I think could be like probably the second best event that the LPGA Tour puts on every year outside of Founders, and a new place in the calendar. New format. New format too. We're gonna get all into that. We talked about it on the last podcast though,

but so we got Masters historical, we got Anwar match play preview, all leading up to a big Anwar week, we're going to have a written piece. What did what did Jordan write for us? Jordan did a really good profile of Amari Avery, who you know, some people might know if they follow the amateur game from how much she's played great at USC and, and in some of the Curtis cups and she finished fourth at ANWA two years ago. But also you might know her from her time way back when Netflix was doing a documentary called The Short Game, which is like the best,

honestly, the best way to get your kids into golf is to plop them down in front of and watch like kids their own age like play golf. So a lot of times dads asked me like, How did you get your daughter into golf? I'm like, yeah, dude, we just watched the short game like five times. And now she watches it all the time on herself still. So I really proud of Jordan for this profile. It's going to be pretty awesome. I think that we'll get that out, you know, on on Tuesday. So look forward to that. I did a really fun,

perfect club that's coming up about tin cup. And I had two very fun guests with me, three very fun guests actually. But the sort of the most interesting ones were Adam and Jessica had one joined us to talk about 10 cup, which I thought was really great. Jessica was nice enough. I reached out to her on Twitter because I thought, you know what? It's one thing. It'd be really cool to have a tour pro talk about what they like about a tin cup, but to have a tour wife who talks a lot about like being a tour wife, talk about the renewed Renee Russo character would be really fun. And they were great.

Adam was so insightful. Jessica was awesome. And then, uh, my friend, Kyle Bandu, who wrote a book, uh, that's coming out, uh, called sports with balls. Uh, he, he joined us for the podcast too. He, as it's all about movies with balls, excuse me, I messed that up. It's all about like sports movies.

So if you've ever wanted to know the backstory for, you know, Bull Durham or Tin Cup or Happy Gilmore and stuff, all those things are covered. So he had some really great insights into Tin Cup. So big week for us and then spilling all the scene to Masters, So thank you. We did a real cool nest, our monthly nest podcast last week too. And we actually was the first time that we did live trivia. I want to thank Casey for coming on and kind of arranging that while

sweet baby Neil is of course out of office with his sweet baby. And we're just trying to make sure everything continues while the dads are seemingly away in Scotland living their best life. So that, and for everybody who continues to ask about Solly's performance at the Gasparilla this year, that film room, I have the final copy of it. We're going through final reviews right now. We're gonna get it posted prior to the masters.

So be on the lookout for that. But that's everything we got. If you missed it, DJ has played 10 of Wisconsin's top public courses in about 36 hours. It's crazy. Did a video with that. And so you can check that out on our YouTube channel and expect lots of more of that to come.

We have some fun stuff in the tank that's coming out soon. So thank you all. Appreciate you boys always for spending this time with me. And we'll guys see you all next week. Cheers. Be the right club today. Better than most. club today.