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[Assistant] And it, it, we always have to point out, he did win the hero world challenge, an unofficial event. It seems like we kinda gloss over that one. Really, really easy. But I can only imagine how aggravating it was, and you never really got the sense. I'm sure deep down inside, he and his wife Meredith had a lot of conversations about how aggravating it was. I'm sure Randy Smith, the swing coach, got an earful. I'm sure Ted Scott got an earful.


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[Assistant] But it never kind of showed outwardly. I think that's the ultimate testament to trusting the process. It's the cliche that you and I as writers don't want to hear because you don't really write good stories with quotes like I'm trusting the process. But that's exactly what he did. And I don't think you saw him any higher today than we saw him low over the last 52 weeks.


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[Assistant] I mean, I don't, I can't think of a point over the last 52 weeks when he walked away kicking his dog. I mean that just didn't happen. And today, even when he came in,


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[Assistant] It was still, it was more, he was tired. It was more, the neck is probably going to hurt really, really bad in the morning. But you know, right now I'm going to enjoy this. It, you talk about his error.


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[Assistant] Hashtag perspective. It's a funny story, but I think it also speaks to the best part of Scottie Scheffler. That he has more perspective than probably anybody in the game. You can imagine how this guy could start to really feel himself.


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[Assistant] You can imagine how he's going to walk around now thinking that I did something that had never been done before. I did something Tiger Woods was never able to do.


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[Assistant] Players championships. I'm going to go into the Masters as the heavy favorite to win back to back Masters. I won Bay Hill. All of these things that Tiger Woods did.


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[Assistant] I can't think on any level how I would compare him to Tiger Woods at all.


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[Assistant] And I think we talked about this last year when you and I sort of touched on the Netflix docuseries, the first season. And I thought the best episode by far was that episode that had Scotty and Brooks. Cause it was such a strike dichotomy. One of these guys joined live golf essentially at the time.


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[Assistant] Because he felt like he was washed. He was injured and he just needed to cash in a big check. The other guy was shown skipping down the street with his wife to go to get a cup of coffee and that was going to be the highlight of his day. And you're like, oh man, these two guys are on completely different planets. Like there's nothing that connects these two and I think you could probably make that conversation


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[Assistant] About a lot of people. My guess is he celebrates this victory the same way he celebrated last Sunday after winning at Bay Hill. I think it was burgers and sparkling water. And then tomorrow morning he'll go get a cup of coffee with his wife and they'll have breakfast and then he'll go right back at it. That is


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[Assistant] About as American apple pie as you can possibly get. It's also a little vanilla, to be honest with you. I mean, you sat through, you and I both just listened to his press conference. And again, I started this with the idea that Scottie Scheffler is the friend we all want but very few of us deserve. And that's very, very true. Nothing that he said stood out.


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[Assistant] I mean the one tiger story from Riviera is the only thing that I even jotted down in my notes because again, God love him. Like he's such a nice guy. Like he's the guy you want to have living next door to you. But man, he just doesn't say much.


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[Assistant] Well, and I talked to Ted Scott, his caddy this afternoon, and we asked him, did it ever, did you ever have a conversation about WD? And Scott's response was, if it was me, I would have WD. His quote to me was, there's not enough drugs in the world for me to keep playing like that. So I think.


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[Assistant] The quotes you're going to read in my story and all the other stories tomorrow from Scotty is going to downplay this.


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[Assistant] Very much. And I think that that's on brand for sky to Scheffler. He, of course he's going to downplay it. Of course it was just, this happens in golf. It's what he told us yesterday when he finished up his third round, you know, everybody's dealing with something. He's not that kind of person that he's going to lean ever lean into this.


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[Assistant] However, when I asked Ted Scott, like how bad did it actually get? And he said at one point on Saturday, he told me it hurt to chip.


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[Assistant] So that tells you how much it hurt. And you also had kind of have to factor in the idea that slapping it around, man, he had to use his hands a lot meant he wasn't hitting stock anything. There was no stock eight irons. There was no stock wedges. There was no stock anything. And Teddy said they were kind of having to have a conversation on every single shot where, okay, it's normally an eight iron.


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[Assistant] Are you feeling normal? And Scotty would be honest. No, I'm not feeling normal. So they had to make adjustments. That all sounds pretty simple until you're actually in the heat of a competition. And under normal circumstances, it's really, really hard to win on the PGA Tour, especially when you start


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[Assistant] Five shots back on TPC Scottsdale. Chasing down those players he was chasing down. Wyndham Clark, who is playing as well as anyone not named Scottie Scheffler right now. Xander Shafle, who seemed to find something very, very special in that new swing of his and his work.


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[Assistant] With Chris Como, Brian Harmon, who seems like he was built in the laboratory to play this golf course. All of those things are hard enough to do, but now you're factoring in, my neck hurts.


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[Assistant] And every time I turn to the target, I lose my alignment because if I can't turn my head, like I normally do, how do you turn your head? This is a visual audience thing. I apologize for those in the audio crap, but you do that. And so he asked him how he asked Teddy how his alignment was. And he said, it's fine when you're over the ball, but then you look at the target and you go dead left. Like there was nothing normal. There was nothing mundane. There was nothing.


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[Assistant] For someone that clearly doesn't like drama in his life and he just ate it all in one.


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[Assistant] Last three holes. I'm gonna cheat a little bit here. I did not. All of them. Well no, all of them. It's really, really hard. No, but I'm gonna cheat because I wasn't in on the Wyndham Clark Scrum. You were. I was obviously, I'm writing Scotty, so I was out with that crowd. You walked out and you said, you've already told me that if you want to listen to something sad, if you want to see


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[Assistant] The true pain, the true cost that losing a tournament that you feel like you should have won?


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[Assistant] Listen to Wyndham Clark's interview. That's what you told me. So I'm going to go with Wyndham. Uh, my guess is Xander probably is encouraged if nothing else because of the work that he's doing with Chris Como. You could tell all day long. I mean even really all week long. He was kind of.


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[Assistant] Still not entirely comfortable with what they're trying to do. They're clearly heading in the right direction. They're on the right path based on how we played.


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[Assistant] I think you take that as a baby step. You probably take that as encouragement. I think Brian Harmon would be 1B behind Wyndham when it comes to being hurt because


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[Assistant] It's funny, we talked about this last night. This is, this is his major championship and that's not fair because he's...


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[Assistant] Because he just won a major championship. He's the guy who most recently won a major championship at the Open. But if you're gonna point to a major championship quote, and I'm using air quotes for that one, of course that sets up good for him, it's always going to be this one.


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[Assistant] And not to, it's certainly not going to be Augusta National. Most of the US open venues are out of the question and conditions are going to dictate if he can compete.


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[Assistant] At the open championship and the PGA championship is probably out of his realm. So it's going to be this one.


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[Assistant] Because it doesn't favor a certain style of game. It allows him to do what he does best.


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[Assistant] Which is plod and putt really, really well and just be the bulldog that he is. And he had opportunities is the part that kills you. He didn't have a great look.


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[Assistant] That was some really good gas bagging by the way. I have now repositioned. I think I have a little bit more light on my face. We have called her out. We have given her shout outs on many, many podcasts, but ladies and gentlemen, this is Alex Russell.


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[Assistant] Alex Russell, of course, is, she is the vice president of everything. There's the executive vice president of everything, Courtney Holt. We just want to give her a proper shout out because we have it this week and she was very kind to us. She got us our crew gifts. So thank you, Russ. You're welcome guys. My favorite.


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[Assistant] Uh, Vice President, uh, Executive Vice President of everything, Courtney Holt, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, everything for your, uh, help this week, Courtney.


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[Assistant] Uh, Courtney runs the golf channel by the way. So that's why we're having her on the podcast. We were told we're contractually obligated. Mandatory. As we should be.


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[Assistant] I'll answer your question. I think it was surprising that he didn't putt well the last two days, given how well he played the first two days. He opens with 65-65, it seems like...


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[Assistant] There's nothing that he's not doing well. I didn't see that coming because what we have seen over the last year really since he won at Wells Fargo and of course followed that up at the US Open is if he's playing well.


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[Assistant] He, there aren't any dips, like now we have seen him struggle a little bit. Certainly we saw him struggling before he went at Pemble Beach this year and he kind of made some adjustments to his putting. Uh, but when he shows up and he has his game, he normally


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[Assistant] His respect maybe is the way to put it of Scotty Scheffler. He, he puts Scotty Scheffler where he probably should be, where he absolutely.


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[Assistant] That's what every golfer should probably want to do is be Scottie Scheffler as far as consistency goes, as far as not getting too high, as far as not getting too low.


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[Assistant] To do that and then to put yourself in the position where you actually had to back up, like you didn't necessarily have to do anything special today. The one thing you couldn't do is what he did, which is essentially come out completely flat. That's the price.


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[Assistant] Uh, just to clarify something right here, we kind of had to leave the media center tonight. We wanted to do this podcast as quickly as possible. So we had to leave the media center. So what we did is we came to the interview area, which is where I am, which is where you are, but they're breaking everything down. That's why there's so much chaos around us. So we apologize for all of the chaos, all of the noise, all of the movement behind us. Uh, I'm not going to play your word salad game on this one. Penal difficulty wasn't in the loser.


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[Assistant] There's eight, there's water on 18 holes. No, it's penal. Penal. I don't know that I'd agree that it's the most penal on tour. My guess is, uh, the guys would kind of point out. It's probably the one that messes with players' heads the most. Uh, that's the way I would go with it. But to your point, I will say if your messes with-


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[Assistant] Sure. Let's do that as Strokes Gain. Strokes Gain messing with guys' heads.


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[Assistant] Heads is heads. It's a fun game. I will say that it messes with guys' heads and a really good example and I agree with your points


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[Assistant] On Xander, I'm going to say that this is a step in the right direction. You're right. Xander is probably not getting on a plane tonight to fly home thinking to himself, wow, what a great week I had. No, I'm sure he's aggravated because anytime.


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[Assistant] PGA Tour player gives himself a chance to win and doesn't pull it off, that there's always going to be an empty feeling.


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[Assistant] It is, I would say it's more than a step in the right direction. That clearly you're right. He's still sort of.


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[Assistant] Still trying to figure some stuff out that whatever he and Chris Koma are working on but to do it on this golf course with these conditions with that leaderboard and I do want to get into the.


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[Assistant] This is as good as golf gets Sunday because you and I have already kind of hashed this one out.


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[Assistant] Between the two of us, what I will say about TPC Sawgrass and the example that I saw out of Xander today was on the fourth hole.


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[Assistant] And he teed off the fourth hole, which isn't a terribly long hole and it does demand some accuracy, but he teed off with a, with a rescue wood.


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[Assistant] And he missed the fairway 20 yards to the right, almost went in the water hazard, which because that fairway messes with guys, headsets, headsets, strokes, gain headsets. Um, so there are some big misses in there and yes, this golf course penalizes big misses. Maybe that's a better way of doing stroke.


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[Assistant] I just don't like your word, Salad, but yes, I'm sure he's aggravated, but when the sun comes up tomorrow and he heads back out to the range, I feel like he knows that he's headed in the right direction and the things that he are doing. Keep in mind, it's been a minute since he won on the PGA Tour.


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[Assistant] So they're probably something to be said for in rory is kind of touched on this in the past that he almost needs to learn how to win a major again since it's been a decade what's been a minute.


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[Assistant] So putting himself in a position like this where you had so many top players playing under these kind of conditions.


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[Assistant] It's probably a really good litmus test to let him know exactly where he is with his game.


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[Assistant] It was, it was quintessential Roy. He was so on point. I asked him specifically and this is one of the deals and I think we've talked about this before. I workshopped this question because I wanted to be very


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[Assistant] Like I was trying to get to a very specific answer and it got to the answer that I didn't expect in a million years. I said, Rory has met with the governor of the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, uh, Yasser Al-Romayan. It's the first time I've done it on the podcast. He's met with him before at the end of 2022. Let's build that liquid courage.


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[Assistant] Yes, uh, he met with him at the end of 2022 and I asked him since you have been, you've met him, you know what his motivations are in golf are. What do you hope?


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[Assistant] The players take from this meeting on monday and the answer went in a direction i did not expect he started the answer with.


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[Assistant] He feels like that live golf and those who represent live golf, he specifically mentioned Greg Norman, the CEO of live golf are not doing.


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[Assistant] If any favors he see his comment was he feels like they have misrepresented.


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[Assistant] What? Yes, he called it a disservice, a disservice. And then he went on to say that having the conversations with Yasser, he feels like he wants to get in the game for the right reasons. And then when pressed a little bit more exactly what the public investment fund wants out of this, he gave another really good answer about this is a sovereign wealth fund.


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[Assistant] They want to be able to park their money, his word not mine, park their money in safe businesses that are going to be around in a long time. Intelligent businesses and the PGA Tour is certainly one of those businesses. It sort of opened my eyes to exactly what the motivations are because from Rory's perspective,


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[Assistant] And keep in mind he hadn't talked the last two days, so I wasn't 100% sure he was even going to talk to the media today. He didn't have a particularly good round shot 72 on Sunday here at TPC Sawgrass, but the motivations here are clear.


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[Assistant] All along he has been against Lev Goff, all along he's been very much against Greg Norman. He's clearly made it personal, but when he made his heel turn and went to the other side as a result of June 6th and decided that okay,


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[Assistant] That uh, some sort of merger between the PGA to win the public investment fund is not only inevitable, it's probably good for the game. That he, he was kind of in an awkward position because it probably felt very hypocritical to a lot of people. But now that he made that distinction in his answer today,


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[Assistant] I sorta dissected it and kinda came to the conclusion that maybe he's right. I don't know. I've never met Yassir. My guess is I never will.


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[Assistant] But if that's truly the case, then it's a distinction that will serve the tour well.


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[Assistant] About, is it a positive step that the PGA Tour is going to get in business with murderers?


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[Assistant] I thought we'd move beyond that conversation. Oh my goodness. Yes. I thought we'd move beyond that conversation. Apparently we have not. So I just want to- It's a positive step so we can stop talking about this ad nauseam with zero progress. No, it's a positive step cause so we could reunite the game. Cause we can all agree, and this is a really good segue to where I wanted to take this conversation.


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[Assistant] We can all agree that where we are right now is not good for the game of golf. That a fractured game where you and I


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[Assistant] Essentially roll our eyes every time someone mentions the world of golf ranking because I think we both agree.


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[Assistant] It's really not a very good measure of who the best players in the game are. And it's all because many, a lot of the best players are playing on a tour that's not getting world ranking points.


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[Assistant] What I, what I felt like it was a positive step is moving towards that. I'm not judging whether or not the tour should be in business with the public investment fund or not, but for the good of the game and to reunite the game, that's the only way to do it.


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[Assistant] I think the PGA Tour Policy Board is probably worse off without Rory on it, to be quite frank with you, because I think he's a voice in the game that's important. I think he...


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[Assistant] Having, well, having the other six, the six policy, uh, policy, uh, directors on the, on the policy board, uh, player directors on the policy board right now have never met with any representatives from the public investment fund, not even the governor.


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[Assistant] Rory being the only one that would have met, I think he would have been a voice in the room that could have at least conveyed to the other player directors and the other independent directors exactly what the motivations might be of why they want to get.


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[Assistant] And the game of golf, I'm going to push back on the idea that he regrets decision twofold. And, and this is a little bit of inside baseball, but, and we had this conversation right around the SSG deal when the PGA tour announced that.


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[Assistant] Roy McElroy is very, very close. He's an investor in Fenway Sports Group and SSG is essentially being led by Fenway Sports Group and John Henry.


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[Assistant] Probably would have been a conflict of interest. Like that was sort of the conversation on the ground. We never got there because he resigned. I don't know if that was his primary motivation, but it was always going to be a little sticky. There was always going to be some questions there. There's also the idea


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[Assistant] Rory would not have been ever stood behind me right where I'm sitting right now tonight and fired those shots and made his public announcement of how he wants to sort of sway that public opinion if he was on the policy board.


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[Assistant] Because he, as we've learned over the last two days that the players were terrified to talk about this. They clearly are up against it and realize that they can't say, they can't give an opinion.


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[Assistant] And thoughtful players on the PGA tour, he was just flummoxed when we sort of all jumped around him on Friday afternoon and hit him with the news that we hear there's a secret meeting on Monday. Thoughts, please? I think all of the player directors are under the thumb right now of not saying a word because they can't. Same reason Jake, uh, Jay Monahan, the commissioner, couldn't say anything on Tuesday in his press conference. This is a active ongoing negotiation.


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[Assistant] And anything you say or do is going to impact those negotiations. Rory, on the other hand, is just a player.


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[Assistant] And he can get on the stage behind me and he can say whatever's on in his mind and in his heart. And that's what he did today. I truly believe it. So no, I disagree with you. He could not have done any of this on the policy board. So he's better off where he is right now.


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[Assistant] And we've talked about this before, the idea that Tiger Woods is leading that policy board.


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[Assistant] Tiger Woods' voice is going to be the loudest voice in that room. So whatever happens on Monday, Tiger is going to be the one that ultimately decides how this plays out.


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[Assistant] Plan B, the other side, the slow drip. Yeah, the ladder. I don't think it's going to be any of that because, look, this is...


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[Assistant] As I said, and apparently, uh, offended a lot of people, this is a positive step in the negotiations. Whether or not, if you agree that the tour should be in business with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund or not, this is a positive step to get to some sort of deal.


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[Assistant] Along the line, I think it's an initial step. And so there's still a lot of things that have to be done. I think what this is, what this singles, what we can read into this is that they're far enough along in the process that they believe they can come up with some sort of deal that works for everyone involved. Now the trick is convincing.


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[Assistant] All of just not the player directors but also the independent directors on the policy board that this is a good idea and you should vote for it. It's also worth pointing out.


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[Assistant] The new board of directors for PGA tour enterprises, which is the for-profit arm of the PGA tour.


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[Assistant] They're scheduled to meet on Tuesday. So my guess is that the timing of this will be they want to.


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[Assistant] They wanna have this meet and greet. They wanna be able to put a face to a name, which is the way, wow, the wind is coming up. Uh, they wanna be able to put a face to a name.


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[Assistant] Which is the way uhm, Adam Scott described the meeting. And then they want to go into the meeting on Tuesday and try to figure out where they are in the negotiations. But no, I wouldn't expect any news.


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[Assistant] You and I talked about this. This is as good as it gets. I think there was.


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[Assistant] Four players out of the top ten, maybe five players out of the top ten, all kind of vying. Yea, but the OWGR sucks now.


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[Assistant] You're right. Am I doing that right? Uh, I didn't check the data golf rankings. Maybe I should have done that. However it is you want to slice it.


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[Assistant] It had had about as good of a leaderboard as you could have expected. Now granted, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas both missed the cut, but those things- Roy was a non-factor. Roy was a non-factor, so it could have gotten a little bit better. But what the tour delivered on Sunday, the 50th Players Championship, is pretty much as good as you can expect on a regular basis.


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[Assistant] I'd read some of those texts, but you got a little blue there towards the end. So I don't want, don't want to offend the audience on that one. That's as good as they get. So I'm really, really normally I could care less about the ratings on Monday, but this one I'm really curious on Monday to see exactly how this is going to compare to last year and previous years. Cause I think this is a good litmus test of this is the product that tour can deliver. And is it going to be good enough for the public who clearly has been sort of jaded by the idea that.


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[Assistant] There's this conflict in golf and you have the stars playing two different tours and all we do is talk about money and mergers. Was it good enough to override all those things? I would be curious. What's your biggest takeaway?


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[Assistant] No, you're absolutely right and my hope, my heart tells me that they are going to be better at least year over year compared to where we were. I still feel that it's going to take a long time for the tour to sort of make up what they did to fix this.


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[Assistant] I'm not talking about professional golf. I'm talking about what they did to the fans of professional golf. Cause we hear it. You and I walked around this golf course for four days and every fan wants to talk about the same thing.


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[Assistant] You got scared there at the end. I could tell. You panicked a little and you started leaking confidence, but you put your power through it. I'm proud of you. I want to say, I want to have a broader conversation because this came up on the roundtable that you skipped yesterday on golf today. Didn't skip. Cam was sick. Had a hundred degree, 103 degree fever.


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[Assistant] Well, and then you called me and cam seemed fine. So all I'm saying is it seems like you just wanted the day off and you use your poor son, your lovely son, your magical boy of a child.


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[Assistant] To get out of work, which seems like a really lame thing for a guy to do. Anywho!


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[Assistant] I'll go back to yesterday's roundtable cause I thought it started an interesting conversation with the idea being, and I don't know.


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[Assistant] How many people have seen the Greg Norman tweet about the world rankings, but it was another Greg Norman tweet or X about the world rankings pointing out that only two players that haven't recently gone to live golf remain inside the top 50 sliding scale. So that's going to change over the next few weeks. I wanted to split that up into a twofold argument.


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[Assistant] Because the first part of the argument, the nuance part is we can all agree and it seems like now Augusta national perfectly agrees with the idea that there are players on live golf that are still world-class players just because they went to live golf. That doesn't mean they're not world-class players and shouldn't be in the major championships anymore. And I think this is an important first step.


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[Assistant] Towards doing that. And I think all of the majors is going to be a little bit different with the other three versus Augusta National because let's face it, they can make their own rules. It's what they're best at.


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[Assistant] In this particular case though, I will give them so much credit.


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[Assistant] Because you look at this important first step as yes, we can all acknowledge Joaquin Neyman should be in the Masters and you can keep going down the list of anyone else. Maybe Taylor Gooch comes into the conversation. Whoever else might be in the conversation. That is one part of the conversation. There needs to be some sort of pathway.


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[Assistant] Beyond where we're at right now in the game and how we might come back together.


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[Assistant] I don't think this has anything to do.


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[Assistant] I don't think so either. It has everything to do with Joaquin Niemann being a world class player and I think they realize that and, and Augusta National realize that. The other part of the conversation. No, no, no, no.


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[Assistant] Why would it have anything to do with LibGolf? This has everything to do with a world class player, not in one of the major championships. And again, we can go back to the idea. We all agree that there is something flawed in the system right now and we need to figure out a way to make sure that the top players don't slip through the cracks.


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[Assistant] Cause what fans, media, corporate sponsors, everybody wants is for the top players to go against each other in these major championships. That's what makes them special. And you're right. They didn't mention live golf cause they didn't have to.


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[Assistant] This has nothing to do with live golf. You're just recognizing a top player, whatever their motivations are. And you pointed out very well what their motivations on this front might be.


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[Assistant] What I wanted to point out is the other half of the equation. And again, I don't want to get into the Greg Norman part of this because it's nothing but a straw man argument. It's ridiculous. The idea that he's still pounding on the drum, that they somehow live goss to get world ranking points.


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[Assistant] To remedy this problem. That's what we're talking. It all comes back to the top players not in the majors like we want them to. For him to keep going back to the world ranking is just ridiculous. Because you knew before you started to live golf that this was going to be an issue, the team golf portion. The world ranking has made it clear each time you've approached them


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they have a problem with this. And I even went to during yesterday's roundtable to the idea. All you needed to do is look at the PGA tour. They had a built in proof of concept right there in the Zurich classic.


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[Assistant] That this is a PGA tour sanction event that gives out FedEx cut points and a lot of money. And you know what? They don't get world ranking points because the world ranking doesn't want to deal with how.


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[Assistant] They sort of sort out teams and partners and events and what's going to happen if Billy horse was walking down the fairway and his teammate needs him to do X, Y or Z. That's not what they want to get into. So that's the hang up. We're ranking. You can get by the idea. It's 54 whole events.


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[Assistant] Shotgun starts, limited fields, whatever else you want, you want to throw at them. They can find workarounds for that. The one thing they can't find a workaround is the teen concept.


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[Assistant] Greg Norman and Liv doesn't want to change that. So you can't keep going back to the world ranking. It's a ridiculous argument.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think he's got a legitimate gripe and look, he's probably at the top of the list and we can sit and sort of parse out maybe some of the others that may have a good gripe. I just don't like my ally when it comes to Taylor Groot. I don't feel great about going to the mat for him because we'll go back to last year's open and I think both of us got hung up with the same idea that


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[Assistant] His argument was the USGA has changed the rules to try to keep me out. Well, they had changed the rules months before he realized this. And if he really wanted to play in the US Open, he could have gone to qualify and he chose not to.


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[Assistant] So that one is always sort of- Haylor Gooch also thought he could just play one live event and then come back to the PG Tour.


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[Assistant] There's a lot of alarms, there's a lot of red flags when it comes to Taylor Gooch and his logic when it comes to this. So again, that's why I don't like him as my ally here, but yeah, I think he certainly does. And that's why I would, you're right, Augusta National, just like probably the USGA and the PGA of America, Seth Wall has been pretty clear about his thoughts when it comes to live golf. Not big fans.


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[Assistant] I get it. I understand they're part of the current ecosystem and they're probably going to decide with that side always. I just think this announcement should be celebrated as a bit of a breakthrough for all the reasons you pointed out, whatever the motivations are, Augusta national has realized that we don't have the best field in golf right now. Like we need to find a way.


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[Assistant] To work these players back into the fold because they want Joaquin Nieman there. I would think they would want Taylor Gooch there. I would think there'd be quite probably a handful of blue players. You want to figure out how to get into the fold. As I said, the problem is going to be what's going to happen for the PGA Championship.


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[Assistant] And then the U.S. Open, and then the Open Championship. They have qualifying, but as Taylor Gruch has proven, lived golfers don't have much interest in qualifying.


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[Assistant] And it needs to be pointed out. I think I saw a tweet on this from a boy, Nosferatu, who's usually pretty good with the math.


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[Assistant] Because of where the world ranking is with that field that they're playing in this week on the Asian International Series.


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[Assistant] Even if he were to one, it wouldn't have moved him inside the top 50. So that probably I would think would have been in the minds of Augusta national as well. Here is someone to your point. You're right. I'll pull that one back a little bit. Who's trying, who's branching out a little bit and trying to figure out a way to play in the year's first major. Cause it means that much to him. Then let's make sure he's in it.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't blame him if he did, but I think those guys probably have learned after, what is it now?


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[Assistant] I think most of them are figuring out that man I gotta play more than 14 times a year. Like this is not a good flow. Like it worked for Tiger Woods.


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[Assistant] And to a certain degree over his career, because less was more when it came to Tiger. I think for the vast majority of players, more is more. Like you do need to get some reps in. I'm not saying everyone needs to be Patrick Reed and play 35 times a year, but 14 is probably not enough.


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[Assistant] A lot of conspiracy theories and I did want to run this one by you. I'm sure you have somewhere you wanted to steer the pot. I apologize for interrupting you. However, when it came to Rory McRoy and we addressed his comments, uh, I think on Sunday from last week in Los Angeles about a global tour and he kind of elaborated a little bit and gave a little bit more detail. And the question in this, I, I feel,


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[Assistant] Alright, Eamon. Like, if this is wrong, please call me out next time we're on air because you're not shy about this. I feel like this came straight from, from Eamon.


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[Assistant] And my response to that was, not only is it realistic, it is inevitable.


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[Assistant] Let's try this a different way. You're gonna wear this down. Because this is what you like to do. You like to drone on a little bit. You do yammer from time to time.


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[Assistant] The domestic stops that I would take. Well, you're yammering. Let's start with the starting point of I think 24 events is what Rory sort of threw out there. And look, he's not on the policy board anymore, so this isn't insider information. This is where he's starting from. I think we can both agree.


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[Assistant] You can lop off four of those. It's the four major championships, right? Let's just include those as that's four of the 24. So now you're starting at 20.


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[Assistant] With the idea that as you pointed out, eight to 10 of those need to be international. We all on the same page here.


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[Assistant] Uh, could be because the reason I stopped you is because you had already named at least three, maybe four west coast events. Correct. And so you're going to have to, you're going to west coast is the best.


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[Assistant] Because they don't have any currently on the PGA tour. I'm like, yeah. Travelers would be a Northeast venue. That would be the obvious point. Not going to Connecticut. Nope, Connecticut.


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[Assistant] Probably isn't a viable option, as, as it stands right now. As we know, Wells Fargo is- Charlotte, huge market. You gotta go there.


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[Assistant] Huge market and look, I think Quail Hollow, the club itself is very, very popular among the players. I think Johnny Harris has created his own version of Augusta National. I just don't know if it's viable.


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[Assistant] Going forward from a corporate standpoint, from what I've been told, they've touched on and tried to.


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[Assistant] Essentially nailed down two or three different potential sponsors to take, uh, Wells Fargo place.


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[Assistant] Not a lot of traction right there. The match play has always been a problem. I don't know why you would be motivated.


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[Assistant] I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody last year looked at each other and went, man, I'm going to miss the mass play. No one said that.


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[Assistant] Listen back to the podcast. I love that tournament. And I think once a year, you never covered it. Number one. So you loved it so much. You never wanted to get off the couch all the time. Covered it all the time. I covered it three times. You did not. I loved it. I loved it. You love Austin is what you love. You didn't


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[Assistant] Sure did. I don't think I could get anybody to the top of that mountain with me except for- We were in the snow.


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[Assistant] Uh, we were in the snow together. Uh, and well, I think to address whatever combination, and you name 17 events counting the three playoff.


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[Assistant] You're not in the Northeast, that seems to be an issue. Probably the one issue that you brought up that I don't think will be a problem. Uh, according to this, so you named 17 events, so 17 international events. And we can name those.


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[Assistant] Probably pretty easy and give some pretty good options.


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[Assistant] Two or three at the, you know, before the west coast swing starts and two or three after the playoffs.


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[Assistant] That way it doesn't encroach on the idea that this is going to, and you're kind of assuming.


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[Assistant] Drink up, folks! I appreciate another fine comment about that one. Uh, whatever the future looks like, drink twice.


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[Assistant] I think we can safely assume that European players will no longer be scrambling trying to get their minimums on that tour to maintain.


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[Assistant] What you've touched on though, and I'm glad we did this as an exercise is how complicated this is going to be. I mean, you're going to be building a plane while it's in the air.


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[Assistant] Uh, actually, correction on my math here, you said Maui. And I didn't count Maui, right? Correct? Am I right on that? You did say century. Yeah, I wanted, I wanted Capuluh, yep.


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[Assistant] That's fine. So that leaves 16, uh, I'm sorry, there was 18 events that you recommended, so that leaves essentially 6 spots.


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[Assistant] For the internationals and what you named you want to give one of the Irish one to the Scottish.


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[Assistant] And so now you're looking at four spots. I think it's obvious you have to find something in Australia based on the success that lived golf had at Adelaide.


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[Assistant] Or no, the other way. Actually, actually, I would...


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[Assistant] I mean logistically wise, logistical wise, if you want to do it the right way, you would start in the middle east.


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[Assistant] Go to Australia, then go to Hawaii, and then go to the west coast.


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[Assistant] I don't mind that, I think you and I had this discussion after the nightmare that was Pebble this year about, and I've made this argument before, I've written this column before, if you, if you sat down and you wanted to build the best PGA Tour schedule you could,


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[Assistant] Yes, we do get fantastic weeks from time to time and we also quite a bit get what we got this year. So you're right. Play Pebble Beach in the summertime. We've all been there in the summertime. You and I were there in the summertime and we loved it. Play LA in the summertime again.


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[Assistant] It's very, very nice. That's when their weather is the absolute best. That's when people want to come outside.


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[Assistant] So I'm with you on that one. I think six international events is not enough for what they need, what they want to do.


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[Assistant] And he was absolutely right. And I think the best example of this would have been the President's Cup that was down in South Africa.


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[Assistant] Well, it counts. Really, really successful President's Cup. Like you look at the way it ended in the dark with Ernie L's and Tiger Woods sort of duking it out. Probably one of the closest President's Cup in the history of that event. I've been told by people who were there that commercially it wasn't all that successful. To Eamon's point, like it's hard to sell these things.


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[Assistant] Event by all accounts Adelaide last year on the live golf schedule was a was probably their most successful event either from a commercial or fan perspective, whatever the case may be. It's not, it's not going to be an easy egg to crack.


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[Assistant] These are not easy markets to break into, but if you deliver.


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[Assistant] The product that we all want them to deliver, which would be the top 70 or 80 players, including the players from live. If you find a way to unify the game.


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[Assistant] And you find a way to branch out and to make it travel. And to your point about younger players not wanting to travel.


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[Assistant] I mean, I think if this is it, if you tell a young star that look, you have accomplished, you made it to the top of the mountain and these are your 24 events, like go out and make the most of them. I don't think flying from somewhere in the Middle East.


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[Assistant] To Australia, to Hawaii, to the west coast is that demanding because it happens in pretty much every other sport. You look at tennis, three of their four major championships are played outside the United States.


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[Assistant] And, and just to, just to put a bow on this, today in my household is a national, uhm, YouTube TV day. And by that, I mean, I canceled YouTube TV, uh, after the Super Bowl, like I do every year, and today is the last day. I, I've discovered that it happens on the same cycle. So today is the last day I'm going to have TV, and I was being ridiculed by my sons.


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[Assistant] Well, I mean, if you kind of look at what we've gotten to your point so far, I made the argument yesterday on golf today that if you like storytelling, if you, if you, you know, like the heartstrings, if you like someone who pulls themselves up from their own bootstraps, you had Chris Kirk and Grayson Murray.


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[Assistant] To open the season in Hawaii, I think you've had cool stories, uh, across, you had an amateur win for the first time in decades on the PGA tour. The one thing you were missing is sort of that top player winning. I think Wyndham Clark was the highest ranked player when he won and he was just, he was number 10 in the world. So he was the only top 10 player to win so far.


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[Assistant] Wanted to send the probing question out that the Mexico opens of the world over. No, I don't think they are over because there's still a lot of professional golf. There's still a lot of real estate.


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[Assistant] I think it was Johnson Wagner during the round table who brought up the idea of just look, just take whatever's left after you've cherry picked and come up with this 24


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[Assistant] Where everyone starts at the bottom and you aspire to work yourself up to the top. And that means you play in the Mexico Opens of the world.


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[Assistant] Like you do now, with an eye towards, don upon my invitational, right? If you're in the field this week at Mexico, you know exactly what a good week would mean. It probably means you get into that next signature event. And I think that is motivation in and of itself. Is it going to be a sustainable product that people are going to watch? That's the million billion dollar question, whatever it might be.


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[Assistant] It's entertaining. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop you there a little bit. Like it's entertaining. If you weren't entertained watching the Canadian Open just to throw something out last year, like you don't like golf, man.


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[Assistant] If you asked me to highlight from last year's Major League Baseball season, I'm probably going to say Game 7 of the World Series, because nothing's more magical than that in all of sports, but especially in baseball. There was also 162 games they played just to get


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[Assistant] You kind of ruined that for me. But alright, I see what you're saying. I see where you went there. Yes, I 100% agree. Because you couldn't just pick the two teams you thought...


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[Assistant] Spring training's just getting started. And we can't be like, you know what?


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[Assistant] The Yankees, they're gonna be pretty good. Let's just pick them and let's go with the Dodgers. And let's just go straight to the World Series. Like you can't do that. That's not the way it works. And it's very, very similar to golf. I think you're right. I think there will be.


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[Assistant] Compelling storylines, I think it will be compelling television and compelling things for you and I to talk about. We can only hope that someone gets DQ'd for another stupid rule, because that seems to be the one thing that moves the needle in golf.


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[Assistant] No, it's probably not going to kill it when it comes to ratings. It's probably not going to kill it when it comes to clicks on websites, but you have to have these. That's sports.


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[Assistant] I actually have something tonight that I'm very excited about and I actually had to order. Do you have like a taco rack? No.


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[Assistant] Like when you make tacos. Anyway, uh, someone sent me this link and, uh, I couldn't, I wish I knew what the website is because I always want to give credit, but someone sent me a link, a link of someone making a smash burger tacos.


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[Assistant] Oh, it's such a fad. Oh no, it's a fad. It's terrible. Do not do it. Abort. It looks delicious. I'm, I'm doing it. I'm totally doing it. Anyway, I'm doing it tonight. So we'll have something to talk about on Sunday night. Apparently mine just fell flat. What are you doing this weekend?


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[Assistant] The Texas Pete is really good. Maybe a tad too spicy for you, but that's what we use. The Texas Pete is delicious. Alright folks, that is a


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[Assistant] Depressing stretch. I was going to start with a lot more energy. I was going to hit you with a very happy new year.


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[Assistant] How was Christmas? Did you enjoy the family and you're gonna go with the most depressing stretch? Well, I'm gonna guess it's the most depressing stretch for you because you killed Christmas about five hours after the kids opened the presents, which sounds to me like the most insane thing you could possibly do. It sounds psychotic that you break down Christmas on Christmas Day. Uh, it was definitely less than


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[Assistant] Uh, this year I got a tie from my son Cole. Thanks Cole. It's a very nice tie that I'll never wear. Uh, and then I also got like a roll cart.


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[Assistant] This is kind of cool, like a roll cart for the Blackstone, for the smoker, everything on the outside. It's like, you know, like you have a kitchen area, so you probably.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't fall into this, but like I don't have the kitchen area you do. However, I have all my things together. So it's just kind of a roll cart where you would put, like I made breakfast yesterday on the Blackstone for my son's 23rd birthday.


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[Assistant] It's not easy having a birthday on the 26th, by the way, which is why I probably don't break down Christmas on the 25th, but so it was nice having all that stuff there. And if you do like anything.


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[Assistant] Anything that's complicated, like when, when I do Mongolian barbecue or hibachi or anything like that, like you have to have everything pre-positioned. And so it's nice. That's, that's what I got from Bunk. Would you like to know what I got her?


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[Assistant] Please. Well, only because this got brought up I think last week in the podcast and someone correctly pointed out that it's going to be a trip to Iceland. But the way I did it, you can't really wrap up a trip to Iceland. So the way I did it is I bought a like a Iceland tourism guidebook or you know, just like a guidebook and then like a fluffy warm hat and just put it in a box and let her figure it out. Wow. They say romance is dead. Yeaah, there it is.


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[Assistant] No, I think they had a huge effect. I think the rollback was a little muted because of everything else that's going on. It's worth pointing out that we're, we're taping this pod on the 27th of our Lord.


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[Assistant] And it's important that we're clinging, like our fingers are clung to the cliff.


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[Assistant] Trying to hold on to see what's going to happen before the end of the year. As we all remember, December 31st is of course the deadline between the PGA tour and Saudi Arabia's public investment fund to come up with some sort of agreement between the two. I would not expect.


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[Assistant] News before the 31st, but if it is, if it is, this could be a dated podcast very, very quickly, just so everyone knows. Also, before we get started on number five.


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[Assistant] I also did a, uh, what I call an ARV and also receiving votes. I'm going to go with Tiger Woods. We sort of touched on him last week. First time he's never been a newsmaker, probably. It's the first time probably since we started these silly things, I think that he hasn't been a newsmaker. So I thought that that was important to point out and look, it was nothing he did.


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[Assistant] On the golf course that was particularly interesting or newsworthy. It's everything that happened off the golf course and really he did everything off the golf course.


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[Assistant] Literally behind closed doors as a member of the policy board. I would also want to point out LACC.


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[Assistant] Which, you know, I think both of us had mixed feelings. I think it was a very unique US Open venue for a lot of different reasons. Some good, some bad. Cool golf course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being inside a major city was really cool. It did not have a major championship field. It felt more like a country club golf course. I think the USGA can probably adjust that going forward. And then my final ARV is a University of Georgia Losers in the SEC Championship game. Do you want to comment on any of those before I finally? No?


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[Assistant] No, let's move on. Let's move on immediately. We're gonna move on. Yeah, I think that the governing bodies, I think you touched on it perfectly. They're not going to go out of their way to create a pathway for the players to play in their major championships.


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[Assistant] Essentially the Lid players ran into, let's call it that world ranking Roblox.


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[Assistant] And the world ranking sort of drew the line and said, look, we are not getting world ranking points as constituted right now. They didn't say that you're never going to get them. Like there was room for negotiations and some tinkering that could change that could give them points. But if that roadway is, is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good in there and good and blocked off then the only alternative would be for the major championship bodies. Let's say Augusta national to decide. Okay, we're going to give spots to the top four.


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[Assistant] Points getters on last year's live golf list. They're not doing that and it doesn't look like they have any interest in doing that.


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[Assistant] Anytime soon. So that is one part of the equation. It's the rollback though that I keep going back to because we talked about it. It feels like for a decade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now we've been talking about it. We've been playing cat and mouse with it. There's been rumors that it could happen. They actually proposed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sort of a bifurcated plan that would roll back the golf ball for the elite players and not for us. That didn't work for everyone. So what we ended up with is just sort of this blanket rollback that will be instituted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For us by 2030, which is kind of hard to wrap her head around. And I think that's why it was muted a little bit because it's not something we have to deal with on January 1st.


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[Assistant] I think had they said that, okay, this is going into effect next year, it would have been a much different reaction, especially from players like you and I, the hacks, where if you tell me you're taking my golf ball from me, I'm not going to be happy. I look for a golf ball as a prop, couldn't see any.


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[Assistant] I'm not gonna be happy, but 2030 is so lo- I mean, it- it's-


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[Assistant] I'm an elder gentleman. I don't even know if I'm going to be playing golf in 2030. So it's hard. There was some members at my club who were even more elder gentleman than I am, who were all up at arms and angry about it. And I'm just shaking my head like you guys don't need to worry about it. It's fine.


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[Assistant] You won't be playing golf by 2030. Don't worry about it. And if you are, then play whatever golf ball you want. Where it's going to impact is at the highest level, but even that is a few years away.


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[Assistant] Well, and I do think it's important. And again, this is very convoluted. It's very in depth and it's a long ways away. So for all of those reasons, this one is number five on our newsmaker list. However, speaking from the other side, I've talked to people on the other side of this, obviously the manufacturers, the PGA tour, they were all against this and they questioned the data.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is his spin and this is his launch angle and it's not scientific. This isn't sitting in a lab in a sterile atmosphere, getting the proper result every single time. So that's where the first problem comes into play. And the second problem that comes into play, look,


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[Assistant] I've heard this a lot from people inside the game. We're taking the USGA and the RNAs word for this. And there's no reason not to believe that that 5% of the five yards or whatever the number is going to end up being, but we still have to see it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm still curious, I'm going to love to be able to do the first experiment to walk out on a golf course with a tour player and hand him the dial back golf ball.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And see him play it and actually see the difference and see that, okay, it doesn't impact the driver by more than, I don't know, five yards if you're one of the longer players and it doesn't impact the five iron at all. I think it's important going forward that we understand that we don't know exactly what's going to happen. There's a lot of data and there's some questions if it's the correct data.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did we not do Georgia losing in the SEC Championship game? Alright, moving on to Brooks. That's fine. I'm good with it. Uh, I'm going to say he should be higher than four, but it was a crazy year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I agree with him being forth, only because from a storytelling standpoint.


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[Assistant] I find Brooks fascinating and look, he can be aloof and difficult with the press sometimes and he's not very open all the time. But knowing what we know now about his move to live golf, and we know that now only from the Netflix special, he did it essentially because he thought he was washed and he needed a payday and you know, he lives in a very, very expensive home and he has things to pay for. He didn't need a payday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanted a payday. Wanted a payday. So whatever the case may be. Now you fast forward from what we know or what we think we learned about him in that Netflix special. And you're right, finishing second at the Masters. I'll push back a little bit on the idea that it was validation of some sort. There had been lib players who had played well the previous season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the Masters, if I remember correctly, there was a couple that finished inside the top 10 at the Masters the previous year, including Phil Mickelson. So I don't know, at least in my mind, if it needed validation. Maybe there are those who, including you, who did need it. I will say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That this in my mind was more validation of Brooks Koepka. That he was able to get through and you and I spent a long, long time talking to Claude Harman last year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting through those injuries and I don't know if we ever really plumb the depths of exactly how difficult.


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[Assistant] I ran the idea by Brooks down at their tour championship at Doral.


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[Assistant] And he sort of dismissed the idea for a lot of, for the reasons that you and I both did that I'm not going to get the boat, but he kind of knew that he wasn't going to be the guy, but he kind of paused and he goes, come back Claire here. And I think that shows in his mind that he was able to overcome all of these things. And here is this.


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[Assistant] Here's this guy who has this very carefully crafted image. He wants to be...


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[Assistant] The athlete, he wants to be bigger, stronger, faster than everyone else. He wants to prove that he is indifferent to all of the things that make golfers fragile, that he doesn't get in his own head, that he just goes out and he's a machine on the golf course, particularly in major championships. And that wasn't the case. We learned that last year and he was able to sort of package those.


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[Assistant] And improve himself to the point that you come out the other side and you get the second place finish at the Masters. You get the victory at the PGA Championship. You get two victories on live. You make the Ryder Cup team and a very limited number of starts. All of those things are amazing.


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[Assistant] This feels like the same conversation we always seem to have in recent years about Tiger Woods. Yeah, the talent is there and he's proven he can win major championships. But as you pointed out his body.


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[Assistant] Is not what it was 10 years ago when he started this major championship run. Also the level of competition I would argue is only getting more and more difficult. When you look at the landscape now, it seems like there's so many players 25 and under.


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[Assistant] Who have the ability to, as you pointed out, your boy Obear. He hasn't even played in a major, and I think he's going to show up at the Masters as one of the favorites, and for good reason, because of what he's done in a very, very short window. You would think that Victor Hoblin.


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[Assistant] Is poised to finally win a major championship. So I think double digits is probably on the high side. I'm definitely taking the under on that. That being said, I mean, I can imagine him.


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[Assistant] Not only winning multiple majors, but I can see him completing the career of grand slam visit. In my mind, that's something that would motivate him.


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[Assistant] Taking on a role that we've never really seen, at least in the modern gamagraph. I guess you can go back to Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer when they actually created the PGA Tour.


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[Assistant] Anyone since then, even Tiger Woods hadn't sort of taken on the mantle of sort of this agent of change, which is what he had really become. And I will say he did walk away and I don't know if it's.


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[Assistant] If it was by design, I don't know if he had enough. I think we had this conversation about when he stepped down from the policy board and someone asked me why and I'm like, look at him.


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[Assistant] He looks exhausted, like he looks like a guy who just had to sit through 12 hours of meetings that were going on on the other side of the world.


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[Assistant] And it's just not a sustainable model going forward, not for someone who wants to be a world-class golfer, not for someone who wants to be a world-class father and husband, not for someone who has so many other business interests right now that we know about. So I am fascinated by this idea of how he has morphed and this is more, and I even hesitate to do this, but the way his,


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[Assistant] The way his persona has changed is at least on social media where he has gone.


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[Assistant] From that day in Mexico when he said I want to be on the right side of history and he sort of became.


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[Assistant] The shining white light for the PGA tour to where he seems to be now where.


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[Assistant] It's kind of split down the middle. I mean, I think some people look at what he did and what he tried to do as maybe self-serving.


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[Assistant] As maybe he was only worried about the top players. As if he was only worried about himself. I don't believe that.


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[Assistant] I don't think that was his motivation here. I think he truly wanted what was best for the PGA Tour in the game of golf. I think June 6th changed all that for him. For most of us, I think June 6th changed how we viewed at least the professional game. But for him, it was personal and you can look at what he did on the golf course.


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[Assistant] And it wasn't a terrible year. I mean, you look, I mean, he seems like he was in the hunt.


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[Assistant] It's what happened off the golf course. And you're right. He had never, I had always been, we have a golf writers association award that essentially goes to the player who's the most media friendly. And I have thought with our friend and colleague Doug Ferguson at the Associated Press for years now, probably five years to be like, it's time for Rory to get it because he's always been accommodating.


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[Assistant] He's always been welcoming. He's always been insightful. All of the things we're trying to recognize and appreciate.


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[Assistant] And players, and Fergie always pushed back to be fair because he felt like it was too early, he was too young. This year we didn't get that, that Rory, and I think it was a self, it was a defense mechanism, particularly after June 6th, where what was he supposed to say? Like what am I supposed to say about this? Like I have, he clearly has strong feelings.


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[Assistant] About it, but now I've been put in a position where I have to tow the company line.


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[Assistant] And try to say the right thing even if I don't believe it. I think for Rory.


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[Assistant] Off the golf course, it was a much more difficult year than it was on the golf.


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[Assistant] In any other universe, he's number one on this list. Now granted, we're in a weird time, so I understand and I agree with where he fell on this list, but in any other universe, what he did this year, I hadn't even thought about him, that forfeiting $3 million seems like a lifetime ago, but we prodded on for five minutes and never got to probably what was


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[Assistant] If we break it down, if our bosses break it down like they like to do by clicks, that had to be the most clicked on story of the year. No, I mean, what I, if I remember correctly from the meetings a few weeks ago, that was the number one blog, right? You wrote that?


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[Assistant] Two things in that opening that were journalistically wildly irresponsible. One, you're quoting some source of six million, six hundred million dollars.


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[Assistant] I've heard everything from 200 million to 600 million. So that's a really, really big win. That's why I said upwards.


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[Assistant] Let's just say he got a lot of money. I feel that's where I feel comfortable drawing the line. The other half is the GWA male player of the year has not been announced. It will be Jon Rahm. Thank you for breaking that news on our podcast. I believe it'll be announced later this week, but good for you for getting that inside scoop. That's amazing that you were able to pull that off. Let's hope that doesn't come back.


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[Assistant] I don't know, I mean we've talked about this before, it was funny at Eastlake at the tour championship, I kind of poll players like I normally do on who they think


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[Assistant] It was going to be, and everyone recognized John Rahm season for what it is. It was a dominant season for wins, a major championship.


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[Assistant] Uhm, everything that he was able to accomplish, certainly we don't factor the Ryder Cup into the PGA Tour Player of the Year conversation, but it needs to be in that conversation. I think there were a couple things that sort of held him back compared to Scottie Scheffler, because it came down to those two. One is the fact that John didn't win.


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[Assistant] Apple, uh, after the Masters in April that he contended he had a fine season, but all four of those wins came very, very early in the year. And the other half is that he did join lip golf and by.


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[Assistant] Certain degree, this is a popularity contest. We've seen it in the past. I think it will be telling when these players.


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[Assistant] Place their votes, and my guess is most tour players.


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[Assistant] Being who they are being the type of personalities they are they wait until the last minute like the rest of it so it would have been in that three day window.


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[Assistant] After he was announced as Liv Goff's newest, uh, signee. So that I think is going to impact it. I, I find John interesting because, and look, it's easy to go back and to say, you know, you, you pledge your fealty.


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[Assistant] Crushed it. Guilty. Although, leaking confidence the whole way. There was no, there was nothing. I'm, I'm Rex Hoggard. I'm Rex Hoggard.


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[Assistant] Even though he was on that side, as Roy would say, and to make that turn, I can only imagine that when the book is written about what sort of got this deal done, and we've addressed it, like this was,


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[Assistant] One of the greatest leverage moves in the history of leverage moves that the PIF and its governor were able to sign John Rahm at just the perfect time.


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[Assistant] To make sure that the PGA tour stayed at the table and negotiated in good faith towards whatever agreement.


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[Assistant] Sit and shake our heads and say, you know, oh, we went back on his word. Well.


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[Assistant] I mean, we all got a number and I've made the argument all along that all of us have a number in the back of our heads. And apparently John Rom's number, they finally got to, because that's the only explanation, whatever that big number is.


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[Assistant] That's fair. That's 100% fair. And look, we can sit here and have this argument.


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[Assistant] About how his signing hurt the PGA tour. Obviously the timing of the negotiations was huge. I think it said a very, very clear message.


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[Assistant] This isn't going away anytime soon to get that particular player.


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[Assistant] Because it's one thing they probably weren't going to get Scottie Scheffler. So we can go down the list and we can start deciding, okay, who would have gone and who wouldn't have gone in that situation. John Rahm going, I think was such a seminal moment and it was really the tipping point and whatever it is we're going to be going forward.


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[Assistant] And be like, yup, that's the day that everything changed. Cause you're right. June 6th was an eye opening experience and we're going to get into that.


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[Assistant] But to me, I can't understate how big this was because he had been


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[Assistant] Such a large part, large part of the process. Go back to the Delaware meeting two years ago. I mean, he was a voice, a big voice in that room. I would say after Rory and Tiger, he was probably the biggest voice.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and to your point, I mean, can you imagine if we do have some sort of agreement that begins, I don't know, 2025 seems early, but 2026, where it was a one year rental, essentially, and they


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[Assistant] Whatever the number is, I'm not going to be journalistically reckless here, but whatever the number was, it was probably worth it. Live golf to get him for that one year rental and then just to turn things around on that front. You're right. Going forward, I mean, he is a particular kind of player who likes a particular kind of rhythm.


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[Assistant] And I will go back to the idea that I remember, I think you're the one that asked the question when we were going into last year's designated event schedule and the East Lake before the tour championship before.


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[Assistant] It was kind of ran by him that oh, well, you have to play in these events now and him sort of pushing back. He was one of the only top players who didn't like the idea. Like I don't want to be told where to play. Now he's put himself in a position where.


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[Assistant] He's going to play these 14 weeks plus the four majors and there's not going to be any way around it. He doesn't strike me as a type of person that's going to enjoy that type of lifestyle, but we're going to have to see. That was Evan.


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[Assistant] I think it's both actually to go back to your original question and it was a bungling of the way it was rolled out and it was a bungling of sort of how you handle just PR 101. I remember our colleague at ESPN Mark Schlabel actually had something


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[Assistant] Along the lines of, you know, PGA tour lift off merge and there was hundreds, if not thousands of these headlines and the PGA tour pushed back on him saying it's not a merger. Like, can you please fix this? And his point was if you look at the release you sent out, it actually says merger in your own headline. So yes.


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[Assistant] To both of those questions. It was terribly rolled out. It was terribly thought out. I mean, now that in retrospect that you look at what transpired, you get an idea of how hurried and how desperate this really was. When you sort of break it down, and I did this the other day, for easy reading, I still go back to that document and just sort of check on some things. And I was looking back at,


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[Assistant] Sort of whatever the wording was on the deadline, which is, as I mentioned earlier, December 31st, it was a really soft deadline. And there was parts in there about not poaching each other's players. Well, that got stricken from the record because the Department of Justice didn't like it, so they took it out. There's plenty of things in there.


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[Assistant] That I think, and now that we've sort of seen the inner workings of it.


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[Assistant] It was a living, breathing document for weeks leading up to this announcement.


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[Assistant] And in fairness, and I know this because I talked to someone in Ponte Vedra tour headquarters the day it happened and June 6th at 9 a.m. is when senior management found out about it. So that's not even the people who are rung below that actually would have been writing the press release an hour before the announcement was rolled out. So it's not as though.


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[Assistant] The folks and, and there's been a lot of people in Ponte Vedra who've gotten called out on this. I don't know. I don't pretend to understand how to do that job, but I do know that trying to do that job given just 60 minutes.


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[Assistant] Before it's rolled out, before CNBC essentially announces it with Jay Monahan and the governor of the Public Investment Fund sitting next to each other, it was never going to be seamless. And again, there will be classes held on how this was handled. Poorly, I don't know if it's fair to dump it on the PGA Tours management shoulders.


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[Assistant] Cause I'm not quite sure if they saw it coming and even if they did, how they could have handled it better. You're right. There's a, there's a ton of ways you could have written around it. I'll go back to just the general idea.


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[Assistant] Of this was the PGA tours, I believe it was Jimmy Dunn, a member of the policy board who said that this was their best chance to get any kind of deal whatsoever. They were at the height of whatever their negotiating power was going to be. And this was going to make the lawsuit go away. And as you pointed out, both sides were highly motivated to make that go away. And they needed to come up with some sort of way to get to a point that maybe there can be some sort of strategic alliance. And I'm not quite sure if that's a given.


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[Assistant] Even at this point, this far down the road, I feel like some sort of alliance with the PIF is not only.


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[Assistant] Likely, but necessary for the PGA tour going forward, but I'm not going to be surprised if between today, the 27th.


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[Assistant] And a few days from now, the 31st, that we do get some sort of update and saying that things didn't work out. Like that's not going to shock me.


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[Assistant] Because the sides are too far apart and this transitions to the other half of the slash. It's June 6th slash Jay Monahan. I don't know and I'm so bad at this and I've been very, very clear. Everyone, I've gotten a bunch of texts actually over the last few weeks about this and I don't know why. Everyone who wants to fire Jay Monahan. And it's really, really easy.


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[Assistant] To do that to a commissioner of a league. I mean, Roger Goodell gets fired all the time. I understand that's the way it works. I'm not comfortable firing someone. My only comment in all of this is I don't know how Jay sits in a room, in a boardroom, where major decisions are being made across the table from the governor of the public investment fund after everything he said. I don't know how you can.


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[Assistant] I don't know how you can have some sort of working relationship. You and I have said some mean things to each other.


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[Assistant] But we've never really said these types of mean things to each other. I can only imagine how difficult that is for two people who clearly don't like each other to try to collaborate and work together in some sort of constructive way.


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[Assistant] If we're not sitting here five years from now, like feeling like the ACC and ESPN deal, like if it's a good deal going forward, yes, you're right.


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[Assistant] And it's just not players, not like, you have both sides of the, and there is a player divide on the PGA tour. That's another conversation for another day, but the top players.


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[Assistant] Don't trust him in the bottom half of the field. Don't trust him. So that's a problem. It was one thing when you had the top players on your side because clearly the tour is leaning towards this, you know, we're, we're just going to do the top one third of the tour. These are the guys that matter. These are the guys that were going to get the resources that I understand completely, but it's both sides that have this lack of trust.


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[Assistant] Right now, I don't know what it looks like going forward and you're right. If he can orchestrate some sort of deal. And I think.


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[Assistant] The news from last week that the group led by Fenway Sports is going to be a partner of some sort. I think that's going to help Jay. Let's be honest, he essentially came from Fenway Sports when he came to the PGA Tour. So there are some allies on that front, but it remains to be seen how the players are going to view whatever the final product is going to be.


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[Assistant] More upheaval, I think, in the short term. I think next year is going to be more of the same, simply because


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[Assistant] Even if there is an agreement over the next few days and they come up with some sort of model at that point.


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[Assistant] That's just another piece of paper like this document I keep referring back to, which was the framework agreement from that piece of paper. Then you have to actually have to make all of these things.


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[Assistant] We've got some general ideas, but they're just sort of, they're in that gray area right now. Like they're talking about equity grants for players who stay loyal. Sure. How do you do that? Like what does that look like? And if Roy McElroy is getting


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[Assistant] X number of equity grants in the PGA Tour. How many is Tiger getting? How many is Jack Nicklaus getting? Like there's so many.


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[Assistant] Questions I see in the short term and maybe that's six months that maybe that's the next year. It's just going to be more upheaval. We've gone through two years of this. We went from.


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[Assistant] Moving to a designated schedule where everything changed to this year, moving to a signature event, single calendar schedule where everything has changed.


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[Assistant] And I would imagine more of the same going into 25, 26, 27, 28.


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[Assistant] It's a very distinct way and my youngest son Luke actually gave me, like I didn't really, I've done it camping before, but I'd never done it in this thing. I mean, what you essentially do is you lay it all out and kind of flatten it down.


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[Assistant] And you let it cook to a crunch on one side and then you have to flip it perfectly and cook to a crunch on the other side. Worked out well and then just basic eggs and bacon.


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[Assistant] And it was delicious because there was nothing better than cooking everything in bacon grease, but dear God, that's not healthy.


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[Assistant] I got, I had to get a tire on my son's car and so we decided to go to Costco.


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[Assistant] I don't want to speak ill about Costco because I don't want to offend any potential sponsors. Did not work out as well as I thought it was going to be, so I ended up essentially having to spend three hours just wandering around Costco.


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[Assistant] Probably is not the best thing to do. Anyway, after walking by it about ten times, I finally bought a brisket, and I'm going to go- Oh! Oh my god! Oh wow, that-


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[Assistant] We do it for Christmas Eve dinner. I didn't, I didn't. We have Christmas Eve dinner at my sister-in-law and we do that, but my wife and my mother-in-law do it. And it's a very in-depth process.


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[Assistant] I have not made the purchase. I think there's got, well, I was, I was assuming you were going to talk fantasy football here just cause we're at the end of the season and I did lose in the first round of the playoffs.


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[Assistant] And I just want to point this out. I lost in the first round of playoffs by less than one point. And it's a two week.


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[Assistant] Game. So it was 203.1 to 202.54. You know the difference in that, what it could have been, and I'm just throwing this out there, the difference of that could have been, had you not talked me into taking an offense last week that got me negative five points. Had they just got, I don't know, negative four points? I would have won.


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[Assistant] I don't think that's asking much. Just don't go in the hole 5 points, just go in the hole 4 points.


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[Assistant] You think we'll be busy on Saturday, December 30th now? Just football? You think all we have is football and cooking and friends and beer?


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[Assistant] Based on my experiences so far on this Anthony Kim comeback, someone's going to have to explain in detail to Cam Smith on that first tee. I'm sorry, he's been away for the game how long? And he did what 12 years ago? And he hasn't played since.


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[Assistant] And he didn't die? Like all of the things that you would think that someone of that age, and I ran into this that, I think I said this during the podcast on Monday morning, that my son is a junior in college.


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[Assistant] And like it was crickets, like we were driving up to Hilton Head and I asked him like, give me everything you know about Cam Smith and nothing, just crickets. He thought he, you know, he might play basketball.


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[Assistant] For the New York Knicks and I'm like, nope, try again. Like he's in golf. I'm going to help you out along those lines. So I think there's going to be a link.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I mean, I kinda, I'm with you on that one, kinda question that one. But, uh, the one that stood out, and twofold that stood out to me. One, I think we've both seen the videos, which by the way, were kind of a low rent.


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[Assistant] Organization when it comes to this, I would love to be able to slap some videos in over top of this because


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[Assistant] The video of him hitting balls and doing, you know, the brief interview walking down the fairway in a girl dad t-shirt that looks a little bit too big for him and vans and a hat that was clearly just handed to him off the shelf and a ponytail coming out the back like that is


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[Assistant] He seemed like he had to kind of stop and do a double take and here's Pat's a man of a certain age.


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[Assistant] Okay. So that took a minute, but I will say this just to finish this, this kind of funny segment off because I do think this is the funniest part.


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[Assistant] We have a mutual friend that's in the golf business. He just graduated from the University of Florida. He's probably mid twenties, 26 maybe. What's up Joey?


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[Assistant] What's up Joey? He loves golf, like he's passionate about golf. And he called me this morning and his comment to me was, what's wrong with Anthony Kim's face? And I go, uh, age.


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[Assistant] See what time hath rot is essentially what's wrong with his face. And I go, think of it this way. Exactly. And I go, imagine me being on a podcast 12 years ago, 12 years younger, all of the things, all the life experiences and headaches and everything I hadn't dealt with. And I just fell off the edge of the cliff. Like you never saw me again for 12 years and suddenly this pops back up.


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[Assistant] Everyone's going to be asking the exact same question. What in the world is wrong with Rex's face? The answer is H.


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[Assistant] Uh, this is why I think this is going to be difficult for Anthony on a number of levels. And you pointed out this morning when the press release came through that he's playing the rest of the season, which is a little curious to me as well.


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[Assistant] Because you don't know, he doesn't know what he's gonna have. Physically, he doesn't know his game, he doesn't know.


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[Assistant] And again, this is just 54 holes and a bit of a lighthearted environment more so than what he would face on the PGA tour. But still, 12 years away is kind of tough to come back from.


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[Assistant] If he thinks whatever's happened up till this point is hating and he shows up this week and lays a big egg and shows up in a couple of weeks in Mexico and lays a big egg and this goes on for a couple of events, then he's really going to learn what hating is. I mean, then social media is going to turn on him. Then it's going to get very, very ugly. And I'm curious how long he has any interest in that.


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[Assistant] Whatsoever, because it's nice to get paid at this point in your career. And I will give live golf points for winning this one. This is another win for them, in my opinion. Totally.


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[Assistant] You're buying a personality here. You're buying a reason for people to tune in to an event that's going on on the other side of the globe, at least a certain segment of the audience, because I want to watch. I'm with you. Like I set my alarm clock. I'm like, yeah, I kind of want to see how this turns out. Like is he, is he the same guy? He clearly has the same swagger, but does he have the same sort of swing and everything that goes along with it?


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[Assistant] I will say, and our colleague Doug Ferguson, who usually is the no fun league and he kind of takes the fun out of everything, in this particular case he did provide some interesting context. When everyone was saying that, oh, he won three times, Anthony Kim did, before he was 25 years old.


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[Assistant] Fergie was real quick to point out that Colin Morkawa did that more so.


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[Assistant] I've said it a couple times. I said it on the round table on Monday when Eamon brought up the idea. Like I can't find another comp in sports of someone who walked away after 12 years. And you're right, that might be the best one. But then after I said that, someone who had been watching our round table mentioned it to me right afterwards that Dave Chappelle is probably the best comp. Like here's a guy that did walk away.


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[Assistant] To quantify exactly what he's trying to do. And to your point, it will be interesting. I don't anticipate this happening, so if AK wants to dub me as a hater, I guess I'll go down that road. But what if he does come out?


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[Assistant] But even that I think would be a bit of a testament to live golf as well. Because here you have a guy that's been away from the game for 12 years. And it was clearly dedicated and worked really, really hard to get back to where he was when he left over a decade ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And suddenly he lands and he's winning or playing well or contending or whatever the case may be. Then everyone's going to turn the microscope back on the other players on live. Like how come you're not- These guys stink. These guys stink.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're right, it could go any number of ways for LivGolf. I said they got the win, and I do think they got the win on this one because I know for a fact that AK was in negotiations with officials from both the PGA Tour and LivGolf, and he was trying to get the best deal possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, clearly, LivGolf offered him the best deal possible, money-wise, but I also say it's probably the best landing spot for all the reasons you pointed out. Because it's 54 holes, it's relaxed, he can fly a little bit under the radar, at least right out of the gates. I don't think that's gonna be the case when he plays in Miami in a few weeks, uh, in the next Liv event. I think then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, when you say un-serious sideshow, I would argue that's kind of LibGolf's lane, and that's not entirely fair. Please don't come at me all the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get what you're saying, and that's why I think right now, LivGolf takes the W, because right now...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is no chance for them to lose because this is going to go any number of ways in one way is probably the easier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Way to predict, which is he's going to struggle. No one comes back after 12 years away and finds a way to compete against the best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. So I think right now is the perfect time for them to leverage him. Uh, I am curious, like they could have owned this narrative. They could have been the ones with David Faraday or whoever else who sat down and had this story ready on Wednesday of this week, where you sat down into the 30 minutes deep dive with AK like, all right, let's, let's pick up where you left off in 2012. You walk away, you get surgery. First question. What happened? Second question. Where'd you go? Third question. Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you could just kind of wind him up and let him go. That to me would be number one, really good storytelling that all of us


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would, would tune into watch and aggregate and put all over our websites and all over our airwaves.