OverDrive - Hoggard on the PGA Championship storylines, the stars faults and Scheffler's elevating momentum

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Golf Channel Senior Writer Rex Hoggard joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines from the PGA Championship, the play of the course at Quail Hollow and the conditions playing a role. the mud ball conundrum for the golfers, Scottie Scheffler set to unleash his skill, Rory McIlroy carrying from his major win, the PGA-LIV Golf negotiations and more.

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and on the free I Heart Radio app. Rex would, Rex probably interviewed him after the round. I'm guessing, here he is from NBC and the Golf Channel, here's Rex Hoggard. Rex, can you break down Ryan Gerrard's game and how he looked today for us, please? Because we can't. He looked amazing today on a very difficult golf course. I actually have had a chance to meet Ryan the last few weeks. A very interesting player, young player, just kind of found his way onto the tour and I

would say this is probably about it unexpected you could anticipate on this particular golf course because of course really identified the best players there's a reason why rory macarons when here four times so it it's interesting to see the leaderboard but my guess is we've got a lot of doctor play no shake itself out rexy why were the guys carver like there was seem to be some hatred towards

the golf course before the tournament even started. Was that just the Hunter Mahan comment or is that the majority? Like why was there some hate directed at Quail Hollow? I always thought Quail Hollow was held on the highest regard from the players. I think it identified a very specific kind of player and when you started the week with the way we did and I think we had five inches of rain in the whatever, the four days before today's opening round, it was going to be wet, it was going to be long and it's just a big ballpark as I just mentioned. If you're a player like Rory McIlroy who hits it a mile and hits it a mile in the air and

has a very particular skill set when it comes to golf, then yes, you can play well here but not everyone can do what Rory does or Scotty Scheffler or Xander Schaafle or Bryson and I and keep going down the list so I think I'm not quite sure if I would call it hatred but it's certainly an acquired taste because I think a lot of players realize that this probably is in the course that they're going to have much success on. What did you make of the decision not to put the hand on the golf ball today it just seemed like there was some complaints there was a lot of mud on it like

paul mcginley was saying the other day he didn't know how they were going to get those fairways playable and today they weren't playing left clean place what did you make of that i wrote a column on golfchannel.com just now earlier today and i would say it's short-sighted and i understand it and it is interesting that none of the players we talked to today about it, they all didn't like it, the fact they weren't playing preferred lives given the conditions but none of them were surprised that the PGA of America chose to do that because they don't do that.

The last time they allowed for preferred lives was 2016 at Baltasaral and that was only they needed to finish 36 holes on Sunday just to get out of there before Sunday. So it needs to be very extenuating circumstances for Terry Hay, who's their chief championships officer to even consider it. He is an old school guy and he believes in the history and the traditions of the game. And I think most people expected it. They didn't like it. And I will point to the idea that what you're doing is you're putting a randomness into the game that dumbs down skill sets and I will point exactly to number 16 the par four today

You have Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Shafla playing at the world's number one two and three players who are all playing well And two of the best ball strikers in the game hit snap hooks from the middle of the fairway into the water They don't do that ever and it's both of them were because of mud balls and you're taking a skill set like Scottie Sheffler Something he has perfected over the years to do better than anyone else and you're taking him out of his hands That doesn't seem right to me Rex any Canadian that's intrigued you today. I Mean, there's a couple Corey Connors. I was so interested I was talking to the legendary Bob Weeks about it this morning

It's just the idea that he has that type of game that I just described. I could have easily thrown him in there with Rory or Zander or Bryson or anyone else, because he hits it plenty far enough and he has a decent enough short game. I went immediately back to the 2022 President's Cup. And in defense, I'm not going to pick on the Canadians here,

the international, no one on the international team outside of Tom Kim played very well that week. I was shocked though that the canadian did not perform in the seems to me this is the perfect kind of golf course form so one of two i would point out that in court a good take a detailed and that would be an amazing picture and i wouldn't be surprised by it

yet and reprisal of course is to honor right now uh... and yeah he's by me he bombs a ball of all the canadians he hits, he hits it the furthest. He can mash drives. I'm curious. You mentioned Scheffler and his frustration on 16 and the mud ball and all that. You look at him. He gets through all this and he's too under. How terrified should the rest of the field be with that? I don't think terrified is the right word but you only have to look two weeks ago in Dallas at the Byron Nelson when he won by eight and it seems

like after questioning Scottie Scheffler all season long and how we all knew the injury he suffered in the offseason had put him back he was behind where he wanted to be and we all know he's a creature of habit and it took him a while I think what he did in Dallas two weeks ago sent a very clear message so I I don't know if panic would be what I would put it, but when he shoots two under on this golf course with clearly something less than his A or his B game, you're certainly going to pay attention. With Rex Hoggart of NBC and the Golf Channel. Now conversely, McElroy did not, Roy didn't have himself a great day.

Well, he won the Masters. Well, and there has been some discussion on this show the fork in the road for Rory did the Masters does it motivate him to run off major after major after major or is there an element of Satisfaction now that he got what he really desired and maybe it goes the other way and the majors you know I'm not going to say they don't mean anything of course they do but does it mean as much because he finally won and he won the one that he wanted the most what do you what is your projection for

McElroy in the majors moving forward that topic is like gold for folks like you and I sports radio folks who just love to be able to dig in So this and I see both sides of it and it will be fascinating. It's such a small sample size I don't have a very good answer My knee-jerk reaction was and the days immediately after that victory that it could free him up as we know now The burden that he was carrying trying to get that grand slam the career grand slam when the green jacket everything that went into it Of course, it's going to free him up. However, everyone makes a good point

that on the other side of the coin, and he actually kind of leaned into that a little bit. Early in the week, he said, I have nothing really else to prove professionally. That to me is fascinating. We, you and I, we all do the same job. There's nothing I can accomplish in my job where I could just take a deep breath and went,

nope, I'm done, I'm out out i'm finished i got pulled off everything that i possibly wanted to it's such a unique mindset and to me that you can do that and then how are you going to motivate yourself so i think it is a weird paradox that he's in right now rex apparently it's still to me weird like seeing guys with live gear and live hats and i don't know I just find it to be bizarre that there's not one big happy universe with all the money that's available to be made playing golf do you have any update

apparently and who knows with the Tiger Woods meeting with Trump and Trump kind of trying to direct traffic here that's a spicy meatball by itself but what do you think the future looks like in a couple years, maybe a year from now? Are they going to figure this out where it's the best players playing golf against each other? If you would have asked me this six months ago, my answer would be absolutely yes. And not because I think they're close to a deal, but because that just makes sense to me. Because what we are right now is not sustainable for either side.

That you have two tours that are fractured and the best players, the truly the best players in the world only get together four times a year and that's not good for the PGA tour, that's not good for LiveGOP. Now six months later if we'd had that conversation I would have told you it's not happening anytime soon because it's pretty clear even though there's been no official announcement that the talks between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, I don't want to say broken down, but they're not ongoing is probably the way I would say it. That they reached an impasse and decided that there's no way to get around this right now. And I'm not going to say that that's not going to happen.

But we're still in the same situation where you're right. The average fan is looking at this trying to figure out how come I only get to see Bryson DeChambeau four times a year? How come I only get to see Brooks or John Rom or any of the other players that went over there? But I don't see a simple solution because both sides seem pretty entrenched Yeah, it's interesting when you look at you know, the leaderboard and and Tiro hatton's up there. John Rom was under par today But really it's, it's become the Bryson DeChambeau show more than anything else. Like he is that, does that surprise you at all? Rex, that like, for me, if I think of live, the first name I think of is Bryson,

where originally it was Phil, I think Capca, I think DJ in a way. Well, the reason you don't think of the other guys Brian is because they don't like play well enough to notice them. Like you would never know if they won a great golf tournament yet when Ron went there he was if not the number one player in the world real close to it you never hear his name you never hear his name and you never consider them even we did our picks yesterday Rex and we get goofy with these we get seven eight picks deep neither of us even talked about john ron

i think that argument all the time it's become a big cliche if you were a top five or top ten player when you left the pg a tour to go to live i truly believe you are still a top five or top ten player john ron didn't lose his talent just give me to take a big paycheck to go play on let gov and i would make a statement of brighton issue in the or any of them it is interesting though to go back to your previous question and you brought up Bryson. Yes, he's the face of the league which makes the next trying to do the math here real quick about a part of eight months so fascinating because this is essentially a contract here for him.

His deal is up at the end of this deal at the end of this year. Given his popularity, given the fact of everything that you two just talked about, about he is the face of the league, imagine the renewal check that he's going to be able to command from the Public Investment Fund and LiveGolf if they want to keep him as that face. We have heard silly numbers when it comes to signing bonuses and these players. I can only imagine what that's possibly going to be. And if they don't sign him, I think it's fair to view that as maybe they're pulling their chairs and going away that's a very good point and something definitely worthy of tracking as we move

forward but uh... as of now we're focused on the pg a down a quail hollow he is wrecks hard of uh... nbc in the gulf channel great catching up with the racks enjoy the rest of the tournament appreciate you guys having me on, thanks. You got it, Rex Hoggard. Bangers powered by North by Northeast taking place June 11th to 15th across Toronto. I heart new music Discover new music stream now online on your smart speaker and on the free I heard radio app