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[Assistant] And I think those are the two big takeaways that you just touched on.


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[Assistant] Let's call them flashpoints and the negotiations are going to be what the path back looks like if there is some sort of deal for the players who joined live and how would you in.


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[Assistant] Perfect best case scenario, work team golf into whatever, let's use Rory's word, a global schedule is going to look like. Cause I think we all feel like that's the way things are heading in. There was one takeaway that he mentioned when he was specifically asked about how in the world


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[Assistant] But the players who left be allowed back because that's going to be really, really tough because there's players, there's, there's a lot of strong opinions on both sides of this. And he said there's going to be people who are disappointed on both sides. Like there's probably going to be people on live who.


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[Assistant] Holding up these negotiations, because as we talked about before,


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[Assistant] J Monahan was asked specifically if the SSG deal, which is led by Fenway Sports, private equity, if that actually hurts.


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[Assistant] I think those two come together because what that deal did first and foremost, that set the market.


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[Assistant] If it's going to be a 12 billion dollar evaluation, which essentially is what it's going to be.


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[Assistant] And they made an initial $1.5 billion investment. Now we have an idea of what a minority investor would look like. The numbers are set. You have an idea.


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[Assistant] It's also going to make any potential deal with the PIF a little bit easier for the tour to sell to federal regulators.


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[Assistant] And U.S. Senators have made it clear, they're not comfortable with this. So you're going to have to sell them on the idea that, yes, the PIF is investing in this American institution, but they're doing it on a minority level. That they won't have the ultimate say in what happens. And that's going to be a tough hurdle. I mean, I think people sort of dismiss that because of where we're at right now and the negotiations, but that's going to be a big part of it.


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[Assistant] I would look back on that day and say both sides were playing the negotiation game. Like both sides were trying to get leverage. John Rahm was a great signing, but he was certainly leveraged in the negotiations. SSG.


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[Assistant] To somebody, to some, I think to Tiger Woods. No, I think to Tiger Woods, certainly John Rahm was personal by all accounts. And I think to a lot of players, that was personal. It should not be. To Jay Monahan and the rest of the people on the PGA Tour side who are doing the negotiating, just like SSG.


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[Assistant] Is not and should not be personal to the public investment fund and those who are representing them. My understanding is this is just business. You and I are going to look like, and oh man, they're throwing punches at each other.


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[Assistant] This is the way the world of business works. I don't think it was personal. I think this is just the way they were trying to. It's a chess game.


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[Assistant] And they're just trying to position the pieces in the best way they possibly can. And I do want to circle back real quick. And you're right.


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[Assistant] Piff probably does want to be in business with the John Henrys and the Coens of the world and the Arthur Blanks of the world. My guess is the Arthur Blanks and then John Henrys also want to be in business with the Saudis. So this is a good relationship. It's a good business deal for everyone involved if they can just get it done.


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[Assistant] I felt like even though he didn't have any answers and this went back to the idea.


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[Assistant] This goes back to the idea that the last time we spoke to him was at the tour championship last year. And I felt, I don't want to say combative.


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[Assistant] But he, the commissioner was clearly uncomfortable with some of the questions he was having to field. He was clearly not in the best mind space because of what had happened. And keep in mind, right after June 6th, he had to take an extended leave for personal time because of some problems he was dealing with with himself. And he talked a little bit about it there. This time seemed a little bit more fluid.


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[Assistant] This time, I think he projected a little bit more of leadership, which is kind of what he had to do.


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[Assistant] For him at this stage to project the idea that yes, I am the right person for that job. And I think he did a better job this time around than he certainly did last year at Eastlake.


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[Assistant] Right behind Scottie Scheffler who should be 1A and that's probably a little too high. I'm probably being overly optimistic. I feel like what we saw last week off the tee.


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[Assistant] Is Rory, I mean, he was in the second in the field only behind Scotty and, uh, strokes gain off the tee and that anytime he can do that, the rest of his game flows. Now it hasn't done that in the last few weeks. And we talked about it today on live from when you and I were talking about Rory, the idea that.


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[Assistant] He's, he needs two separate swings. The driver's swing, the three wood swing, it feels fantastic. His irons are just going left. They start left and they keep going left and you and I both are well aware that that is no way to play golf.


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[Assistant] Especially on this golf course, and so he needs to find some sort of fix. I talked to someone in his camp today that said he kind of broke it down very, very scientifically.


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[Assistant] It essentially works out as he is two degrees out, which means he's inside out, which means it's, it's a draw swing with his driver, but he's hitting up on his driver. It's pretty much level with his three wood. That works. Where it doesn't work is if he's, when he's three degrees out, he's got that draw swing and his club face is one and a half degrees shot, one degree shot, whatever the case may be.


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[Assistant] Start being a little bit more neutral with his irons and this person told me that he played a practice round yesterday and felt like he hit the irons the way he wanted to. Still have to see it.


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[Assistant] And I will point to last week and we all saw the video footage of him working with Brad Faxon on Thursday night, late into the evening, trying to fix his putting. He lost three and a half strokes on Thursday on the greens at Bay Hill and he gained three strokes on Friday. So he has it in him.


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[Assistant] To turn these types of things around, I have to see it, that's why he's 1B, but it may be a little too optimistic.


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[Assistant] Uh, why you can do it is easy. We had said all along that- Be good.


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[Assistant] He good. Uh, if we just putt average, he's gonna win more times than not. If he picks up four and a half strokes on the field, he's gonna win by five strokes. And that's what we saw.


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[Assistant] Now that was one day and of course you want to see a larger body of work.


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[Assistant] What we don't need to see a larger body of work is off the tee and with his irons, he doesn't have any of those problems that we just talked about in length at Rory McIlroy. He is such a sublime ball striker and he seems to only be getting better. I thought it was fascinating.


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[Assistant] Hearing him sort of talk about the process of what happens if and when we have never really seen it, but what happens when things start going wrong and how simple he keeps it. You and I had a chance to catch up with the swing coach.


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[Assistant] Randy Smith. He hasn't been on tour since actually last Masters was his last time he was on the PGA tour. He'd had some health issues and it's all simple stuff. It's never complicated. Like it.


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[Assistant] I'd love having a chance to sit down and talk with the Sean Fullers of the world who really break the swing down in an interesting way. And I do find that interesting. The golf nerd in me, Randy Smith is not that it's is your grip, right? Is your alignment right?


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[Assistant] Do you feel like your setup is good? Is your posture good? Then swing the golf club. And that's as simple as it seems, seems to be. And I'm sure we're oversimplifying this, but I think that's the heart of what makes him real good. Like you just said, is there aren't any.


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[Assistant] Any complicated thoughts in there? He knows he's got a very, very good swing. He knows he can do it if all of those basic pieces are in place.


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[Assistant] No, I'm not going to go with why I don't think he can do it because I think he'd be foolish at this point in time to make that argument simply because he's defending champ in what he did last week.


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[Assistant] Just be average. I will say this, to your point about Sunday, Sunday was great, but when you talk to him on after the round, it wasn't Sunday when whatever worked well on Sunday that he kept going back to. It was Thursday when things really didn't work and he lost strokes to the field and he shot a 70, didn't feel comfortable.


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[Assistant] And we were just on with Jason Sobel on SiriusXM and uh, he asked us essentially that question and you and I looked at each other kind of terrified because it's a very delicate question.


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[Assistant] Yes, of course it is. And this sparks from the conversation you and I had right before we went on live from this afternoon when you broke our microphone. Please go check that out. That was a lot of fun. Thanks Jared. Yeah, thanks Jared. Appreciate your help on that front.


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[Assistant] And the idea was, uh, I think it was Steve Borkowski who said something about, well, the world ranking strength of the field is X, Y, Z. And I was real quick to dismiss him.


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[Assistant] And I have no ill will towards the official world golf ranking. It's not a legitimate number anymore.


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[Assistant] I think that's the fairest way to say this. Like you look at the world golf ranking and look, we can all agree that Scottie Scheffler is number one and Roy McRoy is number two.


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[Assistant] So you can't make a fair assessment on exactly what this field is. Of course, it's not as strong as it was last year, nor last year wasn't as strong as it was the year before.


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[Assistant] Yes, I think if you walked around property and you and I have a couple of times so far, I think as we get closer to Saturday, which coincides with St. Patrick's Day, I think we both agree that this place is going to be a zoo. It's not going to be Scottsdale, but it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be what Rory talked about.


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[Assistant] Today and that's a really good comparison and I have been to a Formula One race and it is an event and that's what they have created there.


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[Assistant] There's a bunch of things around the golf course that are different this year. You and I were just talking with the commissioner.


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[Assistant] And all of them are small and subtle. It feels very Augustish where every year they're trying to tweak something a little bit better.


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[Assistant] The actual feeling on property, in my opinion, is not impacted by that statement that, oh, it's the deepest field or the best field in golf, however we want to phrase that. It's still, this is still an event. You live here, you're a knockatee. I mean, knock life. Like you tell me, how many tickets have you had to round up this week? It's a big event.


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[Assistant] And I had to correct you on this on Syllable Show. You say the deepest field of the PGA Tour season outside of the majors. Let's put that caveat on there. Like I think- PGA Tour regular season. PGA Tour regular season.


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[Assistant] Well, and this is going to go to, so you asked me two separate questions. One, what does it feel like on property? I feel like there's a really good buzz on property again.


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[Assistant] I think the other side of this equation is, and we'll have to wait until Sunday because I was just looking and I don't get into TV ratings because I don't understand them and there's always


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[Assistant] They're not, they're not good. And they were down, I think 30% on Sunday at Bay Hill. And that was Scotty Scheffler. That was the world number one. Like that's as good as the tour can possibly do. Now it was a runaway.


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[Assistant] Which, okay, that kind of bites into it a little bit. And I had someone sort of explain to me, if you look at everything else that was around it, on that particular Sunday, there was a lot of, uh, college basketball, I guess, around it, both men's and women's that were sort of eating into that audience. And so you do have to always kind of look at it with a little bit of a grain of salt. Well no, on Monday morning. Like, did it resonate?


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[Assistant] Dude, do the fans still believe in this goes to what I wanted to transition to here because you wrote, alright, you wrote, you're gonna write. Are you ever gonna finish your column?


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[Assistant] Because at this point it goes to, and I tend to agree with what Rory said this morning, and you asked him a really pointed question about how, like you, how many times did Jay Monahan say, refer to the fans? 24.


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[Assistant] It was clearly a talking point and look, I think there is a lot of fatigue among the golfing public. They're tired of hearing.


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[Assistant] Deals and live golf and money and separation and pass back and all of the things that we sort of get mired into were 24 minutes in and we've already sort of ran through all the things we've done it. I think people are.


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[Assistant] I'm popular, the PGA tour was, and now golf's in a great spot. Well, no, golf wasn't in a great spot there. They're actually losing numbers every year, the recreation game.


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[Assistant] And I remember vividly even being here and tour officials would, would be like, you know, you're conflating the issue. Like it's not PGA Tour Golf. That's an issue. We're successful. We're, we're doing really well. It's the recreational game. Well, now it's kind of flipped.


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[Assistant] And the recreational game is glowing, but growing, but yeah, I think they've become sort of numb.


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[Assistant] To the idea of i don't want to tune in in here that someone's gonna win four million dollars on sunday at bay hill that's not what i'm interested in like i want to see.


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[Assistant] The best players in the world competing against each other when we don't have it now and it's clear we're not going to have it anytime soon.


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[Assistant] Not only do I feel like they're not close to any type of agreement, any type of pathway back, any kind of deal, any kind of deal.


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[Assistant] What the public investment fund, I imagine a scenario like the buzz this week is that this could lead into the end of next year for a lot of different reasons. There's a lot of reasons why the PGA tour would be inclined to drag their feet. Probably the primary one is some of those contracts. Some of those big contracts would live.


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[Assistant] You're talking about Brooks, you're talking about Bryson, you're talking about DJ, you're probably talking about Phil. They all come due next year. And so if you would be motivated to drag your feet towards the end of next year and see if LivGolf is willing to double down and pay those guys another deal to stick around for another three or four years to press.


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[Assistant] No one wants it, and this goes to what we were just talking about. I think the idea that the fan has had it, and you and I hear it enough. When I have friends who ask me on a Sunday, which event should I watch? That's a problem.


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[Assistant] Like I would say, watch the PGA tour. I feel like they still have the best products. Certainly if it's on NBC, I'm going to be motivated to have people tune in, but it's tough because maybe you're


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[Assistant] It's been busy. I feel like I'm, I do feel like a limo driver a little bit, but some people still think the Masters is an occasion. You look good there in your green shirt. Uhm, I've been standing on the first fairway for about eight hours now, but I appreciate you calling me out on that one. I'm not going to let you


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[Assistant] Hi Jack, the beginning of this podcast with all of your golf and masters dribble and years first major nonsense and Rory and John Rahm. We'll get to that all that later. We need to get to the important stuff right now. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Ryan Labner's birthday today. Happy birthday, Ryan Labner.


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[Assistant] Uh, there's so much lead up to this event, and I'm just not even talking about this week. Clearly you've been here since last Friday, I think, for the...


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[Assistant] Augusta National Women's amateur I got here on Saturday, came out on Sunday, the drive chip and putt. It's a long week, just terminate wise, just things you have to deal with, but more so


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[Assistant] We've been thinking about this, we've been dreaming about this, we've been talking about this.


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[Assistant] Essentially since Brian Harmon potted out at the open championship. I mean, it's the last time.


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[Assistant] We really had all the top players in the game together for a major championship.


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[Assistant] And I think that's what part of what makes Augusta National so special. We get here. We haven't seen these players altogether. And what is it? Six months? Maybe a little bit more than that. I'm not very good at math. Longer than that. Nine months. Nine months. Thank you very much.


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[Assistant] So I think that's the part that kind of gets to you at this point in the stage and we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon.


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[Assistant] You just want to see the first shots go in the air and we're going to talk about the weather forecast, which is varying shades of awful for tomorrow. But all of the things that you look forward to is sort of what drives you up until this point. But personally for me, it's I'm ready to see them start to play golf.


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[Assistant] Alright, pump the brakes on split-tees. I don't think we're anywhere close to that. Let's hold off on that conversation. We're going to be, we're going to be doing mini-pods after every round, so we'll have plenty of time to talk about what may or may not happen. I will tell you, I had to kind of pinch it.


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[Assistant] This morning for Damon Hack, he had to sort of move to a hosting role for live from, so I moved to the first fairway and I was doing the reporter role.


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[Assistant] I anticipated him getting a couple questions about live golfers being in the field, some live golfers who aren't in the field. I think we're at that stage.


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[Assistant] In the proceedings where because of what's going on in professional golf, because the live.


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[Assistant] And I think he talked about the idea. They're comfortable with what the field is right now. Like they don't have any issues. They don't feel like that someone got left out. Taylor Gooch, you can come at me. You can come at whoever you want. Augusta?


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[Assistant] Choose not to give you or any of the other live players outside of walking even a special invitation that being said the chairman is really really quick saying that if there is someone that we feel deserves to be in the field they always have that option it's an invitational they have an adjustable field they try to keep it somewhere in that ninety ninety five player.


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[Assistant] Range but it's not written in stone if they feel like someone's being left out I truly believe.


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[Assistant] This event more than any other event and golf has the flexibility to pull it off the second half.


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[Assistant] Of the equa, uh, question, and he addressed many things that we're gonna, uh, uh, sort of touch on here, but the second half of the equa, uh, equation was carving out some sort of pathway.


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[Assistant] For the live player so we all know world ranking points is out of the equation and it's not going to be too far in the future.


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[Assistant] When we will reach that point that you and i and many others who have microphones will start talking about how is xyz player not in the masters and yeah okay the right outside the top fifty in the world but we can all agree they are a top fifty player just has to do with the politics of the moment and he.


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[Assistant] The chairman was specifically asked about maybe carving out some sort of exemption, whatever it is. Say the top five players off the season ending points list for Lib. Clearly!


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[Assistant] Did not like that idea clearly is not comfortable with idea kind of double down on what the world golf ranking and he's on the board. I'm talking about Fred Ridley for the official world golf ranking that they feel like there's a pathway issue that it's very much. I think his line was closed shop or shop when it comes to live golf. That's what we sort of echoes what we heard about the world ranking points.


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[Assistant] And that they don't feel like they can legitimately compare to whatever it is going on over at live golf to what's going on on every other tour that is.


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[Assistant] Closer to what we may or may not end up seeing in the future, but he certainly did leave open the option of they're going to make sure they're going to try to make sure that they get the best field they can.


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[Assistant] I think so, yeaah. I saw Greg, I was on the first fairway, which is where I was doing the, uh, reports this morning for live from, and he stopped and we had a really good conversation, probably talked for two or three minutes. I mean, nothing in depth. He said he was here just to support the live players. There's 13.


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[Assistant] I'm in this week's field and as he walked away there was a telling comment about how he felt like this was important.


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[Assistant] That all of the top players are together again goes back to the idea that we haven't had this.


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[Assistant] And nine months, I would tend to agree with you that there does seem to be a softening of the tensions at least between the major championships and live golf. Certainly whatever is going on between the public investment fund and the PGA tour, that seems to be a little bit.


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[Assistant] It doesn't seem like they're all on the same page and I'm not quite sure when that's ever going to come around, but I think the chairman at least left open the idea that if Taylor Gooch were to your point.


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[Assistant] Where to go the extra mile and to go play in a couple events in Australia or Singapore that do get world ranking points even though it doesn't get him.


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[Assistant] into the top 50, any kind of effort and any kind of performance is certainly going to be looked at and is going to be appreciated. That being said, this is the same guy who complained about not being in the U S open and chose not to try to qualify.


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[Assistant] So I think this is, you have to take the entire package. You have to look at everything that he does with a grain of salt. Because I think had he tried to qualify for the U.S. Open and had he tried to qualify for the Open Championship.


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[Assistant] He probably would have been viewed in a different light because he doesn't come across at least in the context of.


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[Assistant] Should he get an invitation? Should he not? He doesn't come across as a sympathetic figure in this situation.


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[Assistant] I think that I appreciated the way that the question was asked because I mean, sometimes these questions, especially when it comes to the chairman can come off as a little bit competitive. It was not that as you pointed out, it's kind of.


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[Assistant] Tagging onto the back end of what Iowa and the NCAA tournament did for women's basketball and it was an amazing run and we went well beyond just watching the final game. I think you and I have watched probably the last.


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[Assistant] A last minute November masters into something that you just said was the highlight of your career. It was magical. So they certainly.


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[Assistant] But it's not what they want to do. It is interesting because look, once you're here this week, and this is the fun part about being.


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[Assistant] There is no place in golf, maybe not any place in all of sports, where there's more rumors and ideas floating around as in what the club has in store next. Because they've always got something in store. As a matter of fact, he kind of glossed over.


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[Assistant] And he also talked at length and look, this is kind of a local issue. They have a municipal course here. It's affectionately known as the Patch.


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[Assistant] And they've gotten very much involved with the foundation behind that and they're clearly going to turn that into something special. They're bringing in Fazio and some other architects to redo it. They're going to redo the clubhouse. I can imagine a scenario, I say all this just to point out, I can imagine a scenario where Augusta National has access to multiple golf courses in the area, not just the Pats, but others.


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[Assistant] And they can find a way that if they really wanted to, they could have, I don't know, let's go back to last week and the LPGA and the match play event.


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[Assistant] Where you can kind of rotate around do like you do for the Augusta national women's amateur and then play the final round.


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[Assistant] On the golf course, I can see how they can work that in, but as you pointed out, like logistically, it's a really, really short season. They close I think the third week of May and they don't open up until I think the second week of October. So they don't have a lot of time here.


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[Assistant] To begin with, and once you start chipping away like they've already done, I don't think that's realistic, at least in the short term.


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[Assistant] Sausage finger. And I did want to, it sounds like you're moving on from the chairman. I did just want to touch on the idea where


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[Assistant] He was specifically asked, uh, let's take the new tee box on number two. I think it moved back about 10 yards a little bit further to the left. I asked Roy about it last week. He feels like you're not going to change the shot that you hit going into that hole. I think he was asked specifically about the new tee box they put in a few years ago on 13, how that sort of.


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[Assistant] Has changed things. I, I, twofold. One, I did think it was funny. Like normally we're trying to read between the lines. Like the chairman's not going to come out and say,


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[Assistant] He's not going to come out and just drop this in a press conference next year. We're going to introduce a master's golf ball, but just, you know, we've talked about this for a long time. That's not going to happen. That's not the way they do things at Augusta national, but from time to time, there will be a definitive moment where you're kind of, you're, you're almost shocked by it. And today that moment was.


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[Assistant] Be clear about this. And he said, uh, and they don't do anything. I think he was asking, can you imagine ever when it comes to a women's event, can you imagine there ever being a women's event?


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[Assistant] And his first reaction is, mm, ever is a long time. Like I, I don't know. I don't want to sit here and say forever. I really can't do that. But he did say when it came to the new quote unquote new tee box at 12, I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty it's not going to happen while I'm chairman.


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[Assistant] I don't think it hurts any of them, to be honest with you, because it seems to me they all seem to be friendly enough. If they're not friends, then they're friendly enough. There's not going to be any tension above and beyond playing the first round of the Masters. I don't see that being a problem.


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[Assistant] You're at Augusta, so there was going to be big crowds if Rory was paired with you and I.


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[Assistant] The crowds would still be massive because everyone is still there to watch Rory. So I don't think that's going.


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[Assistant] Where they do try to sort of space all that out and the idea being that because there's really no waves, you don't technically have a wave. You just have one wave of people heading out off the first tape.


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[Assistant] They, they tried to not have groups, at least marquee groups.


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[Assistant] That close together because the way it's been described to me is you, if you do that, then what happens as those groups go around and the patrons are following that one group and it was, it was quoted to me, they were like a locust. They eat up everything. They drink up everything. They buy up everything. They can get their hands on and they keep moving on. So they try to space out.


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[Assistant] I would agree with that. I mean, the way, I'm going to go back and start this new. So it's Scottie Scheffler. We've already addressed this. Scottie Scheffler in his own tier, in his own category, however you want to put it.


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[Assistant] Tier one. And then every one ounce behind him, I would say there's, there's a pretty tight group of those who are 1B.


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[Assistant] Let's call them. And I would put Xander in that group. I would put Rory.


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[Assistant] And that group, I would certainly put the defending champion, John Rom and that group as you start getting, and we had this conversation today on live from as you, but as you start getting further and further away from those that one a and one B.


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[Assistant] That it becomes so much easier to start picking players apart and I find that interesting if it's easier to find a reason that you don't like this player for whatever the case may be.


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[Assistant] Not playing well, doesn't hit his irons well, doesn't have a good record here, doesn't like playing in the mud, whatever the case may be. If it's easier in that particular case, then you're, you're probably going to end up with a field where there's only going to be 10 people who can compete. Cause I was asked today specifically about Rory's chances. And if you were to just to take Rory's name out of it.


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[Assistant] And I would just throw his resume right in front of you and all the stats that we know and what we know.


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[Assistant] About Augustin Asher, you'd be like, well, of course that guy should be one of the favorites. Like he's contended here before.


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[Assistant] You know, he played well last week. It seems like he figured out the part of his game that's most important here at Augusta national and strokes game approach. It's when you put the emotional baggage.


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[Assistant] And by that I mean when we walk into the studio and they say, hey, you're going to do great. I know you are. Immediately our minds go to, we're probably not going to have it. Like I'm going to bomb. I can feel it.


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[Assistant] Like this is not going to go well. You're not paying attention. And I think that's where our mind goes. I don't know if Rory's does. I think the baggage of the place is history here, probably weighs on more than Tiger Woods.


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[Assistant] Every time we talk to someone who's trying to win for the first time, or win a major for the first time, at some point you can only want something so much. Like, and Rory has wanted this for a long time. But.


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[Assistant] Is there a saturation point? Is there a point that he gets to where it's just kind of like, look, I can't keep putting myself through this. Like either it's going to happen or it's not going to happen. And I go back to the idea that I will give him so much credit for what he's doing and not doing this time around because he decided to reinvent the wheel.


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[Assistant] I'm going to start over and come up with a new blueprint. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but man, I think the pressure he feels is not.


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[Assistant] This feels like you and I tinkering with rubs when we're cooking ribs or whatever. Like, because you hope you get it right, but very often I don't get it right. So I think, yes, I feel like he's on Earth. Only because...


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[Assistant] Everything else he's tried up to this point hasn't worked. So you might as well give something else a try. I remember a few years ago, he showed up the Saturday or.


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[Assistant] Or even maybe the Friday before, like it was a ridiculous amount of.


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[Assistant] Of course you're gonna wear yourself out, it's gonna be overloaded, like it's, that's, I would imagine that was probably easy to figure out it wasn't going to work. The one thing that he touched on yesterday and that abbreviated.


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[Assistant] Press conference is he was kind of asked what do you hope to take out of this week?


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[Assistant] And he sort of laughed and thought about it and he goes, I want to enjoy myself.


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[Assistant] What is the simplest thing to do and it sounds so odd when you say it like you and i are making rounds this weekend talking to a lot of people who are coming to the masters for the first time never been here.


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[Assistant] Uh, once you're inside the bamboo, it creates this vortex and it's really easy to get myopic and to not be able to see the forest with the trees.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna let you deal with your pink eyes or I'll gas bag and delay a little bit here so you can.


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[Assistant] Clean up whatever's happening over there. Yes, I buy into that theory entirely because we've seen it.


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[Assistant] Like it's not what, what I think is going to happen. He has shown us that's what happened at Bay Hill.


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[Assistant] When he putted well, he picked up four and a half strokes on the field on Sunday and he won by five. Like you do the math, like that's the way it works out.


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[Assistant] You look at what he did at the players championship, he put it okay. It wasn't great.


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[Assistant] But he putted okay and he wins. You look at what he did in Houston. Didn't putt quite as well and was right in contention until the very end and yes he missed the putt on the last hole that would have forced a playoff. So it's a pretty easy line to follow even though you're being a bit of a prisoner of the moment simply because we know it's ball striking. We know what that is. That's a very quantifiable element to all this. I don't know that anybody in the field


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[Assistant] That's really, really important at Augusta National. Not a putting contest. It's a second shot golf course.


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[Assistant] That's what you need to do well and that's what he is excellent at. So I can imagine his confidence is through the roof.


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[Assistant] And again, average putting week, you have to not just like his chances, love his chances.


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[Assistant] I do like John and we kind of talked about this early in the week and we'll continue to talk about it. I kind of moved on from the idea that we don't know what to expect. Well, John Rahm is a defending champion and I feel like we do know.


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[Assistant] What to expect. He may not win. I'm not declaring that right now, but I certainly will be shocked if he doesn't find a way to at least contend because that's, that's what he does. And that's what he does on live. That's what he did on the PGA tour. He's not a different player.


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[Assistant] There's a bit of an outlier on this because he hasn't played very well this year on live golf, even though we, you know, we have a hard time sort of wrapping our minds around whatever it means if you do or you don't. But as we know, like he flips the switch.


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[Assistant] Whatever happens when he drives down Magnolia Lane and the other lanes heading into the other majors, he's just something in the way that brain is wired. He just decides, okay, this week I'm going to be serious.


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[Assistant] So either one of those guys I think would, would be right there in that second group. Let's call them 1B. There's a couple on the outskirts like Jordan Spieth. I mean, I mean, that's, you just can't ignore it. I'm not sitting here telling you he's going to contend because I have no idea. We watched him last week. I mean, I interviewed him on Thursday. I interviewed him on Friday. He got emotional talking about sort of getting lost in the process and lost in the


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[Assistant] Every tour player will tell you, you need to take the results out of anything you're trying to do. Like if you've decided to go down a path, whatever that path may be, whether it's swing or chipping or putting or whatever the path may be, for at least the short term, you need to take the results out of that. You need to try to stick to the process.


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[Assistant] I haven't looked up and there has to be some sort of line or some sort of bet on this, but I would tend to agree with you. I don't know if it's the best rookie class ever. Like that's tough for me to quantify.


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[Assistant] We have a crack research department, I'm sure they'll be all over that after they listen to this podcast just to find out. I will say that, well, two of those players, Wyndham certainly, because Wyndham has established himself.


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[Assistant] As just not the guy that won the US Open. Just not the guy that won the Wells Fargo last year. Just not the guy who won Pebble Beach. Like he's going to be a regular.


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[Assistant] I would tend to agree with that. I mean, I don't want to gloss over the player's championship, but yeah, I would tend to agree with that. I think the bigger issue with when it comes to Wyndham Clark is he clearly doesn't own a mirror.


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[Assistant] And I want to go down the rabbit hole because you got a little, little, little mad earlier than week because someone said something about the tie you had on. I believe it was Monday, was it not?


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[Assistant] I, I'm not doing that. I wanna, I wanna give BonnieBall2937, at BonnieBall2937, a shout out. She said you looked very handsome. I assume this was on Monday when we were all making fun of you about your tie. And she said, uh, she, uh, she's old enough to be your mom. So she wasn't trying to flirt with you at all.


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[Assistant] And she, she liked the suit and the tie combination. There were plenty of people who did not, including the director of the live film show we were on. I think his comment right before we came up was that the tie he's going to wear.


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[Assistant] That's why you never want to hear that right before you're about to go on live TV.


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[Assistant] I ca- no, I can do this. I think Scotty's going to win. Like, I have a tremendous amount of confidence. I- and I think, uh, Rory McIlroy and John Rahm are going to contend. And it's going to be one of the-


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[Assistant] Yes, one, two, and three. I love chalk. No one likes chalk better than me, but you're going to love this. And I had thought this through all day long because I had tried to make an argument to you that Brian Harmon should be the quote unquote dark horse. And we always struggle with this.


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[Assistant] How, oh sorry, world number eight, apologies, sorry man. Uh, I will say this though, who I'm going for, the sort of, the one you would not expect, not a bulldog, Russell, give me some Russell Henley. I like it.


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[Assistant] No, we're going to be doing mini-pots and so we'll keep you up to date. Clearly tomorrow is probably going to be a long, wet, cold day. Uhm, I think they will play a little bit of golf tomorrow and it will be interesting. We talked about this on live from if we get the amount of rain that they're forecast, which is about an inch and a half is in the forecast and look, no.


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[Assistant] Golf course in the world can handle that much amount of rain like Augusta National. So I don't think it's going to be an issue, a prolonged issue.


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[Assistant] But if we do get that much rain, I think all of the names that you just rattle off, and it seems like you rattle off about half the field when I asked you. That number is going to constrict. Like if it's going to be wet for the foreseeable future.


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[Assistant] If it's, it, it, that is going to make the bombers, the guys that we just touched on. It's going to make. Basically last year. Look at, look at, look at last.


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[Assistant] And, and Brooks and, and anyone else who can knock the cover off the ball, it's only going to make that that much more important.


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[Assistant] Uh, well first, to pull back the, the curtain a little bit, this is what, the fourth time we tried to do this podcast? This is the fifth one.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so technology has beaten Lav and I, it's defeated us, it's not an eight, we're finished, so we're finally getting this in. You look like you're sitting in some sort of studio, some sort of gym. I don't know where you are.


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[Assistant] People have made comments about this before. I have had something over my right eye for quite a while. Like, and I had to go to my dermatologist this morning and I have to tell you the anesthetic is starting to wear off. So it's actually a little bit more uncomfortable now than it was the previous four times when we tried to tape this.


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[Assistant] Uh, and, and every year I go to my dermatologist every six months, as everyone should, and every six months she says it's fine, dismisses it, and everyone else is really, really concerned about it. Well, for some reason, she was really, really concerned about it. So she, she dug in. Like, there was a lot of, literally.


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[Assistant] She took the whole thing. I don't know what it's going to look like when I finally take the bandage off. I don't want to do that anytime soon. She also froze a couple of pre-cancer cells off my face. So apologies for those of you who are watching this on YouTube or anywhere else you may be catching this on a visual medium because this is not a good look and this is why you take care of your skin.


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[Assistant] I think there will be. I was bummed and you and I have spent some time talking about the TGL. I'm kind of coming at it.


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[Assistant] Probably a little bit different from you. I was looking forward to it simply because I wanted to, like the technology interests me. What they were doing inside the dome interests me. You and I both have friends who are working on this project who are really passionate about it.


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[Assistant] We kind of had the same idea that this only works if the players buy into the idea that this is not necessarily competition anymore that you need embrace this as what is entertainment.


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[Assistant] You need to go out there and do the dance and make everyone laugh. I didn't know that all the players involved were going to be able to do that and we won't be able to see it now.


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[Assistant] You talked about the implications and ESPN, you just mentioned it. That's the first one that comes to mind because they were banking on having that early week programming. It was going to be a two hour window on Monday or Tuesday. It was going to be lead in to primetime coverage.


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[Assistant] A lot of things that clearly ESPN wanted to do with this property and they saw the value in prime time golf and the entertainment value that it brought.


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[Assistant] They're left scrambling trying to, you know, fill what is a very important hole on their roster. I think the other half of this is, is how is this going to impact?


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[Assistant] And they had hatched this plan as kind of a way to reward players. You talk about compensation and how they were going to be able to compete with the big dollars coming from the PIF. This was part of that equation. It wasn't the entire equation, obviously, but it was a big part. I mean, there are owners, there are stakes involved, there's big money involved, and now that's been put on hold.


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[Assistant] A year. You factor that in with some discontent that's clearly going on on the tour right now. I think that has opened a door probably to a bigger conversation.


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[Assistant] First off, is googly eyes a reference that everyone's going to get? I got it. I feel like it's kind of a dated reference. I don't know. Is it? Please let us know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like that's year 66 talking there because I feel like that's a really old phrase that my grandfather would have used. Making flirty eyes?


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[Assistant] Maybe that's better. I don't know. Maybe it's just better to throw up the emoji of the googly eyes would probably be a better way of doing it. I would say that I think what this is going to do is if someone is leaning in that direction, I'm just going to throw a name out there. Let's say Patrick Cantlay.


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[Assistant] Is leaning in that direction, just to throw a random name out there. I mean, I'm just thinking.


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[Assistant] This was part of the equation that was keeping him anchored to the tour, for whatever reason.


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[Assistant] And now you've taken that away. You've also added to the equation that it doesn't seem like the negotiations between the tour and the PIF are moving in the right direction. We don't know for sure and it seems like they're getting better offers from other private equity and if that's the case,


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[Assistant] Then that's probably just going to intensify what Liv Goff wants to do. Talking with people a few weeks ago.


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[Assistant] Dan at the Rowl, I think everyone at the Rowl on the live side had pretty much signed off on the idea that this was not going to happen.


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[Assistant] That whatever the framework agreement was, we weren't going to get to a definitive agreement between the two sides. That they were simply too far apart on too many issues. And that if that were the case, Liv Goff and specifically the PIF were just going to double down. That, okay, let's just go our separate ways and now we're going to come back, come after the players that we didn't get last time. It's going to entice.


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[Assistant] A player, again, randomly throwing, Patrick can't lay out there. A guy like that.


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[Assistant] To probably lean more in that direction than he would have before.


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[Assistant] I think even getting the tiger in the second block is ridiculous. I guess that's just the day and age we live in, uh, and my bloated face probably added to that as well. I'm gonna say, uh, I have no idea.


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[Assistant] Because the only, and I keep going back to the idea, it's Tiger Woods, you can never doubt him, I know that.


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[Assistant] I've stapled that into my life as this is what I'm not going to do anymore.


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[Assistant] I don't know what all of that means. I think the motivation here is just to see where he stands.


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[Assistant] Like if you're, if you're going into next year, which is a big year on a lot of different levels.


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[Assistant] Yes, exactly. I don't, I have no idea how he's going to stand. I guess that's the million dollar question. He wants to see what he's got going into next year. He wants, and look, we can all assume that he's going to play with his son Charlie later this month, or later in December at the PNC. That's just 36 holes and they can take a cart. And so this is probably just a litmus test.


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[Assistant] That he feels like that I've gotten to the point where this is probably as good as it's gonna get.


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[Assistant] And I just need to test it. Can I walk 72 holes? That's it. I don't think the swing is going to be an issue because it hasn't been an issue. If you could just like, that was the beauty of TGL.


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[Assistant] We're ever going to see him more than four, five times a year. Tops, I just don't see how that happens. He's proven us wrong in the past, but when you look at his body of work over the last, I don't know, pick a time frame. Year? Two years? Three years? We can keep going back. There's nothing to suggest to me that somehow that surgery in April was the miracle.


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[Assistant] I know better than that. And so at this point, it's going to be about managing pain and trying to manage expectations.


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[Assistant] I think you touched on it, like what are the state of the negotiations and what are your thoughts on possibly either some sort of definitive deal with the PIF or private equity? How does he feel the fundamental DNA will change of the PGA tour when it essentially moves to a for-profit model?


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[Assistant] We're not talking about a simple change. We're not talking about adding some sort of department or hiring new employees.


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[Assistant] Talking about changing how we've done this since really the beginning of time, since even the PGA tour, since the beginning of that when it was still the PGA of America, it's been non-profit and all about charities and that's the way it was going to work and volunteers at golf tournaments and these guys are good. Like I really want to get his, his ideas because he's going to be the one.


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[Assistant] More so probably than Jay Monahan, if I'm being honest, that is going to direct this ship. He's going to be the one that dictates how the tour is going to move forward because no one, at least of the six policy board player directors, is going to go against him or the other five.


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[Assistant] Eventually, they're all gonna go in that direction. And he may not be speaking for the masses. I mean, I think we've seen that over the last couple of weeks. But yeah, there's probably 10 questions. I can come off the top of my head long before I ever get to. Oh yeah.


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[Assistant] I think you're right, like in, if I remember correctly, didn't Davis Love tell us the same thing last Monday when we sat down with him at Southern Soul, like loose lips.


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[Assistant] Think ship. So it seems to me they're telling everyone to like, let's just, let's just lock this up until we get further down the road.


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[Assistant] I will say, in Tiger Woods' case, the question I just didn't ask very well. I have a week to figure out how to verbalize that a little bit better, but


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[Assistant] Are you comfortable with the direction the PGA's tour is heading towards a for-profit model? That it's going to change everything the tour has fundamentally done. And I think on that front, that doesn't require any inside information. That requires him just to be honest with himself.


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[Assistant] And to say no look his charity is at the top of every list when you talk about what he's done in his career and the things he's really proud at it's the tiger woods foundation he always goes back to this change is going to impact that he has multiple tournaments.


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[Assistant] On the PGA tour. So I think on that front, we could possibly end up with a very meaningful and insightful answer.


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[Assistant] I would absolutely love, you and I are sitting here debating all of these serious golf subjects and if an entire spin class came in behind you and just got to work.


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[Assistant] Oh, so we gotta move this along, is that what you're saying?


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[Assistant] Oh yeah, why talk about Tiger? Uhm, I think, and again, we've rehearsed this, so I'm gonna try to button up my answer a little bit better on this front. No, I don't think anything happened in that marathon 12-hour policy board meeting last Monday. I think everything happened on June 6th when they announced the framework agreement.


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[Assistant] And Roy McElroy, who more so than anyone else had put his face, his reputation, everything on the line to side with the PGA tour. Irrational threat. I want to be on the right side of history. Pick whatever quote you want from him. He had been the voice of the PGA tour and the framework agreement was negotiated behind his back.


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[Assistant] And we can, you can paint over it and you can try to gloss over the edges and pretend like we were just trying to do what was best for the PGA tour. But if I'm Rory McIlroy.


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[Assistant] I think everything changed on that day and my guess is he was ready to step down from the board on June 6th and he was convinced to hang around until the end of the year. And I do think, and I'm not going to be the cynic in this crowd, I do think there's something to be said for


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[Assistant] And Jon Rahm said this and I actually had to double-check. No one's ever won a major while serving as a player director on the policy board.


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[Assistant] Rory is a decade removed from his last major and he's got a lot of things in his life. He's a father, he's a husband, he's a businessman, he's a world class golfer. Being a player director was probably going to be the one that had to give.


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[Assistant] In this particular case, I don't blame him. I like, I look at the body of work and everything he tried to accomplish and I can certainly be like, yeah, I'd probably be the one heading for the door as well. Now that being said, I talked to a lot of players last week at the RSM Classic.


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[Assistant] I was surprised how many went back to the idea that yes, we understand where he's coming from, but he also knew what he's getting himself into.


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[Assistant] And I remember talking to him when he decided to run for the chairman of the player advisory council, which essentially creates that pathway to become a player director and asking him why.


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[Assistant] And being, him being really passionate about, I want to be part of the change. I want to be part of this process. I want to make sure the tour is moving in the right direction. So I can imagine, I can only imagine the amount of portrayal he must feel.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I guess to a certain degree, I still lean into, I'm pretty sure he was done at least checked out mentally on June 6th and maybe it was symbolic, the timing of it. I mean, it was overnight after that all night meeting and my understanding is they got there.


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[Assistant] I would think it would probably be a combination of yes, he's not comfortable with the direction of the PGA tour. And he certainly isn't comfortable with the idea that the framework agreement was negotiated behind not just his back, but all of the players back. And look, that's a universal feeling. That's not Rory. That's all of them from Tiger Woods all the way down to number 300 on the points list. And I think there's probably also some personality.


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[Assistant] I don't think it's any secret. Well, he said as much. Like he and Patrick Cantley simply don't get along.


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[Assistant] He called him a male organ, Rex. He did. And, which is, I mean, that doesn't happen in golf. Like, let's face it, for him to have done that, in print, with his name attached to it, shows his level of distaste between, uh, for Patrick Cantlay. And I'm sure that Patrick Cantlay also has his level of distaste


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[Assistant] Let's be honest, I have nothing but respect for the six player directors, but none of them are qualified to sit in on these negotiations for a billion dollar deal.


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[Assistant] Either am I. Like this is a very, very narrow lane that only a few people in the world are qualified to do. And you're asking these players to become experts or something. And on top of that, he's having to yell probably at Patrick throughout the entire meeting. Because they don't get along. So I think all of those things probably factor into it. I went on golf today last Tuesday.


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[Assistant] And they were running sound from Rory from Dubai the day before.


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[Assistant] And as Damon brought me up, his comment to me was, Rex Rory sounds tired. And I go, of course he's tired. He just sat through 12 hours of policy board meetings on the other side of the planet. Like he's sitting up.


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[Assistant] At 2 a.m., all he wants to do is go to sleep, and he's having to talk about these things, again, not qualified for, and he's probably just zoning out, because they're probably throwing nothing but numbers at him, and I can see where he's coming from. Now look, they, they replaced him. The player directors voted to replace him with Jordan Spieth. Jordan Spieth will serve out the last year.


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[Assistant] Of Rory's term, Jordan Spieth has served on the policy board before and that was a good move.


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[Assistant] Well, I think what's going to happen is right now you probably have better offers. Let's say Fenway sports has given the tour a better offer, but.


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[Assistant] Knowing what we know again, not experts when it comes to these things, but there's no doubt in my mind that the PIF will be able to at the 11th hour to offer the best deal. Like they will, like there's no doubt about that. They can just step in and be like, yeah, that's a good deal, but we can, we can do this X amount better.


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[Assistant] And at that point, it's going to kind of come down to how comfortable the player directors and independent directors on the policy board are with.


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[Assistant] Going that route with the piff and I think you might be right that Rory simply is not comfortable with that inevitability.


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[Assistant] Yeah, to make it simple, uh, and I did not get out on the golf course to see a golf shot until Saturday. So that explains why it wasn't the worst week. It was just not my best RSM classic week. It was cold. It was rainy.


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[Assistant] For a lot of days, we had a lot going on and there was a lot of breaking news as we've covered. So I didn't actually get around to covering the golf tournament until Saturday. And I, I had, you know, obviously watch Ludwig at the Ryder Cup, but I wanted to, alright, let me see what's special. Let me see exactly. So I spent two days, 61, 61.


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[Assistant] And I watched him warm up and I talked to Peter Hansen, the European tour player who's kind of his performance coach. And my takeaway was, well, a couple of things. Yes, he has all the tools. Like Peter Hansen sort of marveled at the idea that he's sort of the modern tour professional. He stands on tee boxes and just sees opportunity. And I think the best example of that is the fifth hole.


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[Assistant] On the seaside course, it's this long, it says 450 yard-ish dogleg around sort of this marsh and he cut the corner every day and on the last day he actually drove the green.


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[Assistant] And Mack McKenzie Hughes was paired with him the final two rounds and made the point that like that's just a level of, of.


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[Assistant] Confidence of power of, I have some, I can do something that you cannot that the great players bring to the table. I will say this, my biggest takeaway was on Saturday I asked him, you know, clearly driving is your strength.


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[Assistant] And you're really, really good at putting. What do you feel like you need to improve? And he actually said his wedge play. And I was taken by that.


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[Assistant] Because if you look at what he did over his final 36 holes, he played the back nine on the seaside course and 10 under par and he had just two approach shots that were over 150 yards. So his wets plays good enough to pull that off.


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[Assistant] And yet somehow he sees it as something he needs to improve upon. I hate.


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[Assistant] Doing this, that he's the next fill in the blanks, Tiger Woods, Roy McElroy, John Rahm, whoever we're going to pick because those always lead to unfair expectations. But I found it impossible to overstate what his ceiling could possibly be.


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[Assistant] You were so offended, so we've covered this ground, I apologize. So we're not gonna do, my wife's family's from New Orleans, and so for the, for 20 years, 20 plus years of our marriage, every year we've gone to New Orleans and spent it there, and look,


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[Assistant] Thanksgiving in New Orleans is different. They have a lot of different foods and it's just, it's delicious and it's fun and we really have a good time. We've decided not to this year. Two of our three kids are actually working so they can't make it and we're trying to figure out what we're going to do. I think we've just spent Thanksgiving at home just once. It was the COVID year, uh, during our entire marriage.


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[Assistant] And so we're trying to figure out what we're going to do. And no, I, I, I guess I thought about doing a turkey like you did and look, you sent me a snappy chat of your smoked turkey.


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, I don't have that gear. So we're going to do steaks and lobster, like we're going to do surf and turf. And that, that offends you to no end, but I mean, that's, that's what, and then on Friday we're going to have like a friendsgiving and a bunch of us in the, in the neighborhood.


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[Assistant] I guess, like I don't, I don't feel like I'm at the level yet. Like if you wanted me to do ribs or a pork butt or wings or whatever, I could lean in.


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[Assistant] And maybe I'll certainly give it more of a thought when Christmas rolls around and we'll be home for that and I'll have a better answer for you then, but I have no interest.


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[Assistant] Uh, might, might do, uh, actually Italian. We, we, we picked up a bunch of cool recipes after the Ryder Cup. So that, that's something we talked about. Like they did a, in Venice, they did like this linguine and clams that was really light and like salty. I loved it. So I'm gonna try to do that.


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[Assistant] Zero matches. Thank you for helping me out. Thank you for jumping right in and being a good teammate for that punchline.


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[Assistant] It was a historic day as you pointed out for the Europeans.


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[Assistant] Went their way, as you pointed out, they got up to a lot of early leads early in the foursome session and never really gave it back. Like it seems like there was never any kind of light at the end of the tunnel whatsoever for the American team in the afternoon. That was the curious part. And I kind of did some rough math. If you look at what happened in the four balls.


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[Assistant] There was, you guys had a lead in three of the four matches in the afternoon. Now the last one got out of hand really, really quickly because of Matthew Fitzpatrick, which I'm sure we'll talk about later.


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[Assistant] It really came down to those last three holes, like it does at every Ryder Cup. And I kinda did the math. I think the Europeans won the last three holes on seven occasions today in the four ball session. The Americans won it twice. They just didn't perform coming down the stretch when they needed to. Every putt went the Europeans way. Every bounce went the Europeans way. They just seemed to perform better.


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[Assistant] Under the pressure that that's a it's what the radical always seems to come down to is you point out this is the first time ever that the european squad has swept the opening match it's never happened in.


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[Assistant] Two hundred, a hundred years of playing this thing. And you kind of try to put that in context. I do think it's interesting.


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[Assistant] Cause we're going to talk, I'm sure we're going to talk about the idea of what's wrong with the American team. You have kind of a thought that I'm sure you want us to get to about how you define what happened today. I'm going to say this. When we left Whistling Straits two years ago, we were kind of saying to ourselves, this is a dominant team.


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[Assistant] It's going to be hard to imagine how they lose once you get to Paris. I think the margins are so much tighter between these teams than we either saw at Whistling Straits or we saw today.


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[Assistant] And I think what's going to end up happening is we're going to have this home and home, home and away thing.


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[Assistant] Happened more often than not, at least in the modern era, because, uh, Luke Donnell was just talking about it during his press conference. The home course advantage, the home crowds being comfortable, having everything behind you, it's that one percent you need to push it over the top. Now that one percent paid off huge today for the Europeans.


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[Assistant] American somehow stayed some sort of miracle comeback. We're going to start second guess what Luke Donald did. Certainly you look at Zach Johnson's lineup today. There are plenty of things.


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[Assistant] Play it out because I made the argument last night that statistically they are their side's best alternate shot team. And man, they just got boat race, but it was clear why they got boat race. The reason you put them together is Brian Harmon finds fairways.


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[Assistant] They need to change the date of this event. It's been five weeks since I think nine of the twelve players on the U.S. team have played competitive golf.


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[Assistant] That's just not a good formula. We used to run into this before the FedExCup playoffs sort of mitigated those concerns. Five weeks is too long for them to have off. If you're not Tiger Woods, you can't be at home for five weeks and then show up and expect to be 100%. As a rule, that does not happen.


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[Assistant] Biggest surprise that we're 10 minutes into the podcast and you haven't told the fine listeners is the first time we're bringing you the golf channel podcast with Rex and live from a rave.


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[Assistant] Some one official called me kind of a destination rider.


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[Assistant] Like, not a lot of Italians were looking forward to coming out to this. This was, hey, let's go to Rome and then the Ryder Cup's going on there. So it is going to have a different feel. I will say this, as the day wore on.


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[Assistant] And we got to those late matches, especially in the afternoon four ball session. It was loud. It was raucous that the European crowds came out and certainly the European team gave them something to deliver on. I was surprised by some individual performances. I was surprised at Zach Johnson. I mean, we knew we had talked about this, you know, who are you going to put Scottie Scheffler with? Sam Burns was on the team to play with Scottie Scheffler.


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[Assistant] So we knew it was going to work out, but we had discussed the idea that do you really put Sam Burns, a Ryder Cup rookie that is not their best ball striker, at least statistically, and this is relative to the rest of the team. Are you really going to do that?


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[Assistant] Breaking into tears. Walking from the range to the first tee. That's the emotions of the moment. It's hard to understand.


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[Assistant] But that's what happens. That surprises me a little bit from Zach's point of view. Like you put him in a really, really difficult situation. As far as performances go, I was surprised that the United States didn't close out at least one or two of those masses in the afternoon four ball session. We're talking about Justin Thomas and Jordan Speed.


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[Assistant] He had the idea of a game plan and the Mike Tyson line always comes up when we talk about that. Like you're always going to get punched in the mouth and you have to decide what you're going to do. It's Zach Johnson.


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[Assistant] That I'm curious about. Like, he sent out probably.


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[Assistant] I would argue that's his best lineup, like JT and Jordan, even though Jordan.


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[Assistant] Didn't play great today. I get it. I thought Scotty and Brooks after watching practice rounds earlier in the week would make a good combo together simply for no other reason than they should be intimidating blocking on the first tee. That doesn't necessarily mean that's going to work out. I've made the argument of why I think Homer and Harmon should be in a good alternate shot.


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[Assistant] I just, I think his best bet is to get on, maybe get on the phone and see if Keegan Bradley and Cam Young can get on the red eye and get over here on time. I mean, there is, there, there's no, no escape now. I mean, I'm, I don't doubt that the United States.


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[Assistant] stage some sort of comeback. I don't think we end up with the same scenario tomorrow with a clean sweep in the morning and some close losses in the afternoon. I, that would be.


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[Assistant] I mean, we've already said historic, I don't know another way of saying that. What I think is going to happen though, if they split the session tomorrow, that's pretty much going to do a man. And it's easy to panic right now, but as I said earlier in the day, we haven't even played for one third of the points available.


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[Assistant] So the American side still has plenty of opportunity, but man, it's gonna get hard.


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[Assistant] Well, and I can imagine a scenario and Luke Donahue was just talking about this in his press conference that his plan has pretty much gone according to exactly what he had done. I'm sure he hasn't adjusted much through tomorrow morning.


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[Assistant] It's the afternoon where I think things will get interesting. If they split you're right. He's probably going to make some adjustments for the reasons you just pointed out. He would rather put this away sooner rather than later. If they win the session tomorrow morning, I can imagine a scenario.


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[Assistant] Where he might rest some of those guys, he might rest Roy and John Rom. It is a tough walk. You and I both were out there today. Like it's just draining and we're not even playing golf. If you can rest those guys.


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[Assistant] And give them an afternoon off and tell them to get ready for Sunday. That's such a huge advantage.


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[Assistant] I will counter with that and say, who are you guiding against? Like, who do you think the weak link on that team is right now? I mean, I think the idea was maybe Bobby Mack?


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[Assistant] Is the Wink League, Justin Rose, and yet they went out and forged probably the biggest tie and the biggest momentum swing for the European team in the afternoon. So who are you guarding against? It's not as though anyone on the team is struggling. So I guess my counter to that was I see what you're saying.


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[Assistant] You know, put the hammer down, but if you're a captain and you have the luxury of resting your stars, I don't know why you wouldn't do it Friday afternoon or Saturday afternoon.


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[Assistant] I was taken tonight by, the sky is always falling when it comes...


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[Assistant] The sky is always falling when it comes to this particular event because depending on how it plays out, you're going to be a prisoner of the moment and you're going to play the result and something's wrong with the American system. Just like we talked about two years ago, there was something wrong with the European system. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just really, really difficult.


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[Assistant] I don't know the difference between these two teams is decimal points and what really makes what can separate them is golf course setup.


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[Assistant] Do the best you can for the team you have and the crowd. You and I both heard the crowd out there and they certainly the John Roms and the Hattons and those guys fed off of that. I think that's the difference.


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[Assistant] Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. Rex, you are on site at the Herbal Challenge in the Bahamas. Unfortunately, no fun in the sun for you.


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[Assistant] With that skin cancer, I did not actually believe until I saw the replay that you are bandaged up this week. Has that been a tough scene? Seeing Tiger Woods, Will Zell, Taurus, Jordan Spieth, and others completely bandaged above your right eye?


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[Assistant] It is, it does look very hot. It does look very sunny there. So we do appreciate you braving the elements, potentially adding more cancer to your litany of other issues. As you mentioned, Rex, this was a big day. As big a day as you can get on November 28th.


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[Assistant] Of the year, the Tiger Woods press conference, the first time he's playing in a tournament.


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[Assistant] Since the Masters, and we'll get to that, certainly, his expectations this week in 2024. But this was also, Rex, the first time that Tiger has met the media since that June 6th deal between the PJ Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. We were all wondering what a Tiger would think of that secret agreement, and we now know the answer. He was pissed. Plain and simple, he was pissed.


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[Assistant] We did this podcast, Rex, last week from the Spin Studio, which I believe was our fifth attempt at doing the podcast during Thanksgiving. When we were going over the list of questions that Tiger Woods was going to be asked and potentially previewing some of his answers, he was a little bit more forceful, as you say, in his condemnation.


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[Assistant] Of how it all went down, that I was protect, uh, uh, perhaps anticipating.


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[Assistant] He was clearly not happy with Jaymon and I think that's, that's the reason, uh, for his silence over the past five months. He was clearly, uh, angry. He felt betrayed. Uh, he felt blindside as many players did, uh, particularly the top players of the PGA tour in, but he was also predictably coy Rex. I thought Tiger was on.


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[Assistant] On some of the details on what that actually means and what he actually wants the governance structure to look like of what won't and can't happen next time he expressed.


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[Assistant] But this press conference with the June 6th fallout in the future of the PJ tour was interesting because Tiger was...


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[Assistant] He just sounded like disdainful of how long it was taking when you have four to five weeks until you get to the December 31st deadline.


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[Assistant] Incredibly ambitious, wasn't it, Rex? I mean, the idea that the entire future of the PG Tour could be decided in basically six months since the deal was announced.


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[Assistant] One of the conspiracy theories that we posited last week on the podcast was that Roy McIlroy left the day after that marathon board meeting, uh, it was during the RSM Classic was because perhaps the private equity piece


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[Assistant] That it doesn't seem possible yet. Maybe you do have some idea what you want to do with the financial backing, but what the PJ tour is actually going to look like.


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[Assistant] In twenty twenty five i mean tiger broach the topic of how do you incorporate team golf which would seem to be some sort of merger.


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[Assistant] With live golf that would potentially be down the road or having, you know, co-sanctioned events. Roy McRae talked about it a couple of weeks ago in Dubai about how do you make some of the biggest events on the European tour part of the PJ tour schedule as, as a whole as well and having kind of 20 to 25 events on the PJ tour that make it the absolute best place to play golf.


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[Assistant] That, that, those sort of conversations appear so far off to not even mention how you would bring back the live players. Uh, and so,


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[Assistant] Tiger wants, Tiger's expressing urgency. Tiger wants answers. Uh, it just doesn't seem like we're poised to get them.


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[Assistant] In the next four or five weeks. Rex, what else, what else stood out to you about Tiger's kind of future look of the PJ Tour or kind of how else the June 6th deal went down?


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[Assistant] In ongoing negotiations, and I think that was very appropriate.


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[Assistant] For where we find ourselves on November 28th. One of my favorite things to do, Rex.


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[Assistant] After a big press conference like this is kind of peruse the headlines that you see around the world of golf. And here's a sampling of those non-June 6, non-merger, non-live, non-pif related headlines. Optimistic Tiger ready for return at hero. Tiger Woods make shock declaration.


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[Assistant] He can play every month in 2024. Woods aims for monthly tournaments in 2024. Come back and Woods says he'll quote walk away from golf when he no longer believes he can win. Not run. Nah, definitely not run.


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[Assistant] Uh, walk probably with a significant limp.


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[Assistant] To me, Rex, jotting down notes from the press conference and there's a bevy of content up on the site, mbsports.com slash golf is Tiger Woods said in a perfect world, best case scenario, he can play four to six times.


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[Assistant] In 2024, it's pretty easy to see which tournaments those would be. You look at this schedule, and it's the way it's laid out in the pageant tour, that would be the Genesis. That would, in February, that would most likely be the Players Championship.


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[Assistant] In March and then you have the four major championships. It seems unlikely barring some sort of, uh,


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[Assistant] Was that, uh, setting the bar too low? Where did you kind of fall on Tiger Woods' expectations? The fact that he could play monthly, monthly wrecks from February until July.


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[Assistant] For the past two years is, is to play the major championships and maybe something else, maybe a tournament like Riviera, which benefits his foundation, maybe the player's championship, the crown jewel and the PGA tours flagship event. And it obviously has not come to fruition. He's played just five official events.


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[Assistant] On the PGA tour, including the major championships since he came back from the car crash in 20.


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[Assistant] 2021, it's not just the fact of, of playing 72 holes of competitive golf. It's the practice rounds, the pro-am, the work that he has to do at home leading up to those tournaments. I mean that takes


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[Assistant] It's toll on a player who's soon to be 48 with a body that probably feels at times like it's 78. You look at the best players in the world, like they don't have these physical restrictions or limitations when it comes to the practice.


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[Assistant] And preparation time, like Tiger Woods just can't do it anymore. And he's not, he's not playing in the sea level events. He's not playing in the Nelson. He's not playing in the Zurich. He's not playing, uh, at.


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[Assistant] At the Sony open, like he's going against the very best players on the PJ tour every time.


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[Assistant] He tees it up and he's obviously not going to sacrifice an opportunity to play in a major championship if it means he can squeeze one more tune up start right at, at a Riviera or a TP Sawgrass. Like he's going to put all of his eggs in a major basket and see how it goes. I'm with you. Six feels incredibly.


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[Assistant] Ambitious. It has been ambitious over the past couple years. However, you saw him up close and personal. How did he actually look? He says he does not have any more pain.


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[Assistant] Rex and his fused ankle, obviously there's other parts of his body that become sore with the, with the kinetic chain, whether it's his back or his knee.


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[Assistant] Tournament infrastructure appears to be now going up. It's not like they haven't had an entire year.


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[Assistant] Uh, to get ready for the hero world challenge. And here they are, signage. Must go up on Tuesday of tournament week. I will say, Rex, like,


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[Assistant] To hear Tiger now, walking is not going to be as much of an issue.


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[Assistant] As it was, like, we remember the scenes from Augusta National this year, and the masters, like, it was, it was hard to watch him literally dragging.


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[Assistant] His right leg up, up some of those. I mean, I mean, that was one of like the scenes of the year. It was just, it was just so sad. It was so dispiriting, uh, to see, uh, what he, what he put himself through, uh, just to, just to make the cut at the master. So I don't think this is any longer going to be an issue of pain tolerance, which is great because now we can just focus on Tiger Woods, the golfer.


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[Assistant] In answering the question, can he still hack it? Can he still cut it against players who are in some cases half of his age?


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[Assistant] Uh, who are just as fit as he is, who can hit it longer than him, who are faster than him.


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[Assistant] Who are better drivers, better iron players, better putters, better around the green, can Tiger Woods


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[Assistant] I think it's going to be a fascinating question to see answered in 2024 as it relates Rex to Tiger's expectations this week. I mean, it's a 20 man field. We're going to get into some of these players who are coming off a stint on the injured reserve list.


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[Assistant] Players are basically collecting their holiday cash, they've either played


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[Assistant] Victor Hovland is going to win by 27 shots, but do you think that Tiger Woods can win this week?


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[Assistant] Excuse me. Excuse me. Tiger Woods cannot win this week. Can Tiger Woods top 10 this week? Tiger Woods is not going to win this week. Can Tiger Woods top 10?


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[Assistant] Top 10, like I, I still come back to the idea.


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[Assistant] Walking was the hard part. One of the foundational aspects...


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[Assistant] Of tournament golf, of competitive golf Tiger Woods struggled the most with.


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[Assistant] It wasn't driving a golf ball. He still had plenty of speed. He still had plenty of power. His iron play was predictably sharp. Uh, you know, maybe he's not as good of a, a pitcher of the golf ball or a parter like he was in his heyday, but he was plenty adequate. I go back to the fact he was making cuts in major championships, Rex.


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[Assistant] He was making the cut in the Masters. We go back to the PGA, uh, a couple years ago, like he made there, he ended up withdrawing, uh, before the final round, but he made the cut there.


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[Assistant] No. Exactly, like his game is still plenty good, even now going on 48. And so if you can eliminate potentially the idea that actually just getting through 72 holes, the endurance and the stamina, that that is no longer a chief concern for Tiger and really all he has to do is focus on his game. I'm still kind of bullish that he could be competitive.


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[Assistant] Even in his limited action in 2024, and I think he'll be potentially sharper than maybe we're giving him credit for this week in the Bahamas as well. Tiger Rex is not the only player who is a part of comeback season.


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[Assistant] Will's Altour is making his first start since he withdrew from the Masters and as you mentioned, on with the microdiscectomy. Kalamorokawa.


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[Assistant] Has some sort of back issue. He played on Monday. He hit balls on Monday for the first time in a couple of weeks. He withdrew from something called the Netflix Cup a couple of weeks ago.


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[Assistant] Following his win at the Zozo championship, but even Jordan Spieth, my precious Jordan Spieth, said that he re-injured his wrist.


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[Assistant] And had to, uh, sit out for a couple of weeks following the Ryder Cup. Let's talk about these comebacks either as a whole or individually. My, I mean all my attention.


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[Assistant] If it's not on Tiger, it's going to be on Will's alt horse. I absolutely nailed Rex, my 2023 season predictions. I said for my player of the year, my player of the year in 2023 was going to be Xander Schauffele.


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[Assistant] Uh, he's still winless, he's still winless, and he's not playing this week, so he has no chance to make that right. And my breakout star, the player who's going to have a big impact on the PGA Tour and become a household name is... Will Zellatorz. Will Zellatorz, who played a bunch in the early spring.


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[Assistant] Ended up being too much injured his back and has been out for the past seven or eight months. You just sat in on the press conference with Willie Z. How did he look? More importantly, how did he sound?


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[Assistant] I'm doubling down. I picked Xander Schauffele to win major championships for like, ever since his Aaron Hills breakout, the 2017 US Open. I picked him to win a major. That hasn't come to fruition. I picked Xander Schauffele to be player of the year. That hasn't come to fruition. I think each and every year, for at least the next five years, long live MBCsports.com slash golf. I will continue to pick.


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[Assistant] Will's out tours as my breakout star. I think he's an incredible asset at the PJ tour. I think he's a future world number one. If, if his health can.


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[Assistant] Cooperate, let, uh, Rex, last we left these folks, these fine folks, uh, on this podcast, we were talking about Thanksgiving. We were talking about our meals that we were having, uh, we were talking about our processes.


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[Assistant] You had, uh, what I would describe as a peculiar choice, uh, for Thanksgiving, but I am curious.


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[Assistant] How did it go and did you overcook the ribeyes?


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[Assistant] Butchered the lobster tails in, in what way and would you please be specific?


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[Assistant] I mean it is, as I went through the entire process, uh, on this podcast last week, from, from selecting it, to spatchcocking it, to dry grinding it.


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[Assistant] Uh, to getting the smoker ready, to injecting it, to seasoning it, to smoking it, to resting it, to carving it.


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[Assistant] It's a whole thing. Like there's a reason why we should probably only do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One time a year, I do, I do enjoy it because again, you're not doing this on a weekly basis or even on a monthly basis. And yes, you're right. I did my very first Tiki talk. Uh, we put it up on at GC Rex and lab on Tiktok. I believe Rex, it has 2,500 views.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which to me is pretty good for someone that I believe at last check has five followers. Uh, hashtags play a large part in that. Uh, if I was smart, I would have done the TikTok.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a week in advance when I did the practice run for our, for our friends giving. That way people can, can scroll through it on Tuesday, Wednesday. I actually think that could have gone viral. It came out very well. Uhm, the actual process of making a TikTok


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I found it to be quite illuminating. Uh, you have to remember to take videos of everything. Like still, still photos are not gonna work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and so that was always, I kind of like had to do things over because I would forget to take a video. And then the voicing over at the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like you're, you're like narrating something but you have to do it very quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you will be following Tiger Woods nonetheless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're not at the golf course, are you, are you playing golf? Are you wearing one of those stupid sun hats, uh, to gorge yourself?


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[Assistant] Uh, Justin Thomas and I graduated from Alabama.


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[Assistant] I caught myself just to be clear. He had to decorate a career with the Crimson Tide and won a national championship. I mean, that was just an incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, finished to that game. It does not help Georgia. However, literally nothing that happened last weekend helped Georgia, and now the distinct possibility exists that Georgia could lose its first game in Lily Lavner's entire lifetime


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet they somehow miss out on the college football playoff. We can talk about this next week. It could be a very surly podcast. That could be going 60 minutes or longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next week, that's a good reminder to make sure you subscribe to this podcast. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to make sure you're getting