No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 918: TGL is coming, Zozo takeaways, Soly vs. the Blue Angels

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Soly and DJ recap the Zozo as Nico Echavarria edges JT and Max Greyserman by a shot. We empty the notebook from the week in Japan plus the DP World Tour and LPGA events. Then it's time to talk TGL (41:30) as we refresh ourselves on the league's format and what we see as the potential positives and negatives of the venture. We close with some news and notes from off the course, updates on our games and Soly's recent encounter with the Blue Angels during a match in Jax. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support Our Partners: Titleist Omni Generations Cup The Stack System Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another fall edition of the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here in this, I'm going to guess this is going to be our only crossover event of the entire fall. I think we are going to be passing the paternity baton here, probably somewhat shortly. Jo joined by my guy. Welcome

back to the podcast, DJ pie. How's key. Hello, teach. How are you? I'm doing great. So all the, thanks for having me happy to be back through a little rehab start with the seamsters union on the trap draw earlier in the week, but I'm ready. You know, I can get you at least four or five innings today. I think that's all you need in today's game. I mean, the third time through the lineup we've learned, you know, you just get teed off on, you know, you just, just lingering out there too much, but yeah, happy, happy to be back. My wife and I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Charlie. She did, I would say she gave birth. Your wife did most of the birthing for what I understood. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Pretty traditional in that sense. But yeah, man,

we've just been, we've been good. We're trying to, trying to keep our, get our feet on the ground and establish some routines with the guy who's a little ticking time bomb, doesn't really want to get into any routines. So we're, uh, we're figuring it out, enjoying every second. It's good to, good to be back. Oh yeah. You're a month or so and you're, you're, let's wait too early for routines. All right. That's, let's, you don't, you know, don't set your expectations too high on that one. But when they do hit, it's fr awesome. It's gonna be, it's great. So that will come.

Some golf from around the world. Everybody's just hanging on to Asia. What's everybody doing in Asia this week? So much going on. It's low key kind of cool tournaments. In the middle of the night, yeah. Yeah, like, you know, I don't, I wouldn't say I watched a ton of them,

but they're going on. I appreciate that, you know. Congrats to them for having them for sure. Ronny Yen wins the second title in three starts going on. I appreciate that. You know, congrats to them for having him for sure. Uh, running in, uh, wins a second title in three starts by one of Regina Tittekoon at the Maybank, uh, the Genesis championship in Korea. Ben on won that in a playoff over Tom Kim. You wrote in here thirsty Tom Kim, but I refuse to read that out loud. It was a producer that read that Nico, etch it, dang it. Etch a Varia. I knew I've practiced

it like five times before we go. I thought I was going to have Nico Echevarria is your winner this week on the PJ tort the zoo. So it did not take long. Also the first player to win playing a new 2025 Pro V1 or Pro V1 X golf ball. Also shout titles is just now the official like ad read of the of the winners from around the world because they have a winner every single week. It's cool. So Nico first tested the 25 Pro V1X at home in Jacksonville, which is also news to me. I did not know they live in Jacksonville. A few weeks ago while playing with Tyson Alexander, he forgot Nico forgot to bring golf balls to the course. So he borrowed a couple sleeves from Tyson

who was testing the new 2025 models and he put it in play the next week on this week at the Zozo with the 25 Pro V1x he gained over 10 shots in the field from tee to green for the week. 7.9 of those came on his approach play also one of 28 players who have made the move to the 25 V or X with last week's official launch in Vegas marking the start to a year number 25 for a Pro V1. Of course, if you remember, Billy Andre was the first to win with the Pro V1 in 2000. I went and looked up a bunch of articles from that, trying to find like, did people know that this was gonna be like a major shift?

And they did not. Doug Ferguson was the only one all over that one with the Pro V1 392 back in the day. But that was a fun little deep dive. Shallow dive, that was not a deep dive. Hoping these are gonna show up in the mail very soon. I don't know an email, little tracking coming out, coming our way. Maybe some white boxes. No, I don't think you get it. I need them very soon. Okay. I'm not going to touch them until 2025. I

don't think, but I'm excited to get out, hit some wedges with them, see the, you know, see the changes in the new ball. Stay tuned to title is social channels for continued updates on new Pro V one and Pro V one X golf. Stay tuned to title is social channels for continued updates on new Pro V one and Pro V one X golf balls. Head to titleist.com to find out which title is golf ball fits your game best. It's a highlight watching a day morning to catch up on the golf. Cause as you mentioned, a lot of it was going on overnight. Got to give the edge to the DP world tour on their highlight cuts and

packages. Uh, of course they've long since done that. It's great. They, there was one on the PGA tour, but it left a lot to be desired. I think if you will, I've tried to piece together exactly what happened last night, but I'm going to give you what I got. If that works. Speaker 4 I love it. Yeah. I was, I was trying to watch as much of it as I could live, you know, we got some, it worked out fairly well with the late night feedings, you know, we're, we're feeding around like 2 AM and I'm kinda, I'm flipping and flipping around and trying to keep my eyes open and watching. But yeah, some of it feels pretty fever dreamy. I don't really remember all of it all that, all that well. I think I'm pretty sure I saw the winning puck go in, but I can't, I can't tell you too many other

specifics. There's a lot of reading and educating myself on the tournament that was. That's, that's your life now. I don't think you understand that. I still feel that a year and a half, a year and three months later into fatherhood. But the highlights were Nico rolled in a long birdie on the 13th to take a one shot lead over JT and Max Grazerman. Grazerman actually led with three holes to go, but Nico made a birdie on the par three 16th hole to tie the lead. And then he hit, he hit three wood off the tee on the par five 18th, which maybe guys were doing that all week, but I just noted that.

He hit an unbelievable three wood from 280 in the fairway on 18. Put it on the green. That was real. Okay. Yeah, that actually happened. Two putted for at birdie on the last to win by one over JT and Grazerman. JT had many, many, many opportunities in this one. We could talk a little bit about his putter on the back nine, but the win for Echeverria takes him from 113th in the standings all the way up to 65th, obviously securing his tour card and putting him on the doorstep to getting into Pebble and Rivnexure.

Gets into the Masters, gets all the things that come with a win, two-year exemption, all that stuff. So big, big win for his career. Yeah, massive second win. I think, you know, trying to, trying to remain optimistic. We're all in this together. Things of that nature. Happy for a guy anytime they can get multiple wins. I know that's, that's a big deal to, to people out there, prove it's not a fluke. I think the pessimistic view is like, there's just so many,

the idea of like PJ tour winner has just been so kind of, I don't want to say watered down, but just like manipulated and changed over the last decade and a half as far as what that actually means that, you know, the Zozo championship in the Puerto Rico open is kind of like a weird, yeah, technically, you know, you're in the door as a multiple time winner. But yeah, I don't know. I hate to look at it that way, but I guess where I'm coming at is the fall is just, it's gotten very weird, right? Because so many of the biggest events in golf

have turned into these, you know it's gonna be a big game hunter that's gonna take them down. And it just seems like in order for guys to, like it's fun watching guys try to build into that, into that role and kind of become those people. We saw it with Wyndham Clark, might be seen with Max Grazerman, which we can talk about,

but it's always just a weird situation where you see a guy win an event like this and it's like, yeah, you know, I don't know. Does that mean he's going to go win Pebble next year? Like maybe, does it mean he's going to, he's going to be in. So that's, I guess, first step. It's a, it's a weird tournament with, you know, you get, you lose half the field to limited field event, which makes sense with the structure of the tournament and getting everybody to

fly over there and not have you missed the cut that all that makes sense. But you, so some top guys go play, but it's not like it was where you, back when you had the FedEx Cup, counting in the fall, you'd get a couple of tournaments, but everyone would come all together and you'd actually get some world ranking points that are available on this one. But it was actually just barely more world ranking points available this week than last week at the Shriners with the full field. So strength of field was like right between the Shriners and the Mexica, like a little worse than the Shriners and a little higher than the Mexico open. Yes. And yeah, higher. Again, like when this event started, like you said, it was kind of like this,

oh man, it's gonna be a limited field. It's gonna be a lot of big names. It's gonna be kind of this like not a WGC, but kind of sorta. Yeah. And now it's just kind of turned into like this weird, kind of almost casualty of, you know, everything else gestures wildly at pro golf. Yeah. That's especially with it not now, not care, which I'm fine. Yeah, that's especially with it not now not count, which I'm fine. Again, I support this not counting in the FedEx cup season for next year, but it just makes it, makes it quite skippable if you will.

But a couple of other notes from this, a sign of life from JT, I don't know. I kind of wrote that in my notes, but I don't know if, JT's game was not in a state where we needed to say a sign of life, but in contention to win a tour event, which has not happened in some time for him. He went back to his old putter, the mallet putter, ended up being the putter that led

him down on the back nine. He was easily the best player in the field T2 green this week, but lost about a shot on the greens for the week. Etcheverria gained about four, so five shots conceded there on the greens over the course of the week from JT and losing by one is a little tough to swallow. He actually lost 2.6 shots in the back nine alone. Shout out to data golf for their updated hole by hole strokes gained data, which is just OD OD for your boy here, you know,

but it does it for somebody that missed watching the golf tournament, paints a great picture on there of, you know, which, which shots he lost, you know, how good his iron play was, I think he hit almost every green on the back, if not every green on the back, but just could not make the putts from the highlights week from what I could gather. He was hitting a lot of edges. It wasn't like it was horrible putting it just like truly couldn't get a putt to fall and

you know, just that is the thing to look out for with JT like his iron play is bounced back, you know, off a tough season this past year, but his putting just does seem to be trending worse every single year. It's a serious problem with him if it continues on that path, but it has to hurt a little extra to have a negative strokes game putting we can lose the tournament by one. Yeah. I don't know. Like you said, I think from a casual, even fairly serious golf fan's perspective, I think these events, like you said, are pretty skippable at this point, but there's a couple of things to write in the notebook. casual, even fairly serious golf fans perspective. I think these events, like you said, are pretty skippable at this point,

but there's a couple of things to write in the notebook. And JT playing well is kind of one of those things that if he goes and plays, gets a win early in the year, you kind of look at like, oh, maybe that's the spot he kind of kicked it around. Maybe that's the spot he found something and you try to find these little inflection points and moments, so worth mentioning. He had a these little inflection points and moments. So worth, worth mentioning.

He had a good, really good finish to the end of your last year. If you remember he finished fifth at the four net before Rome and then went to the net bank, finished fourth and then finished third at the hero, which I know those events definitely don't mean the hero definitely doesn't mean anything, but you know, kind of go five, four, three to end your year last year after, you know, obviously the horrible year that he had last year. So we'll see if it means something. We'll see if it doesn't. But again,

another shout out to data golf page. Like they now have the sliders on there, which the baseball savant like sliders of profiling somebody's distance, their accuracy, their approach play from all different yardages. They're, you know, chipping from fairway, rough bunkers, putting from all different distances. And he's just green, green, green, green, green, green, green. And that's that putting that's red. So it's, it's, it's not, it's not any secret what the, what the issue is and what's potentially going to be the issue going forward. If he wants to win, because he says stroke is hit ballstrikes is going to always keep him in contention. Well, can we talk about one of the best putters in the world going right now, which I think is Max Griezerman, guy seems to be making everything. This is his third runner up finish in his last five starts, which is probably bordering on frustrating now, I'm guessing he's going to be starting to hear those knocks pretty

goddamn loud. I would have to imagine, but I talked about him a lot after, after Wyndham, cool story with his parents coming over to America and getting set up and just kind of turn it into like this immigrant power family. It's just a really, it's a cool story. I encourage you to look up where they from again. I think they're from Ukraine. Okay. But originally, like basically escaping the Soviet Union, I think back in the back in the day and his dad became, I think a professor at Columbia. Mom, I think was academic of some kind. I think he's got some brothers who also play golf. But yeah, playing really good and still looking

for that first win, but keeps getting closer and closer. So I'm going after your own heart here with the data golf stuff. Since July 24th, he is a plus 1.85. What does that mean? Tell me what that means. That means on average, he's beating an average PGA Tour player by one one point eight five strokes per round.

Is that right? Is that a lot? That doesn't seem like very much. That is a lot. Thank you for asking. That's essentially like if you know, data golf rankings I think go on what like a rolling hundred and fifty rounds like your last hundred fifty rounds.

I think is how they work with like an aging part in there of the rounds. Yeah. But so plus 1.85, I mean, it's a much bigger sample size, but that's basically like Rory McElroy. That's where he is in comparison to his peers. That's a small window. But since July 24, that's how good Max Grazerman's

been in relation to his peers. He has been kicking ass, probably like a top 30 player in the world at this point. When the standings kind of update, he's into all the signature events next year already, finishing in the top 50 in the FedEx Cup. So yeah, just again, kind of one of those like, don't say we didn't warn you.

I think that's what the fall is for is kind of trying to, trying to like pick horses, right? And trying to kind of find who are the guys that could break out. And I think he's gotta be on the tip top of everybody's list right now. That is well said. You want to trade shots back and forth

on Empty Gear Notebook here? Please. Joseph Lamanya had an article on the fried egg this past week, I hope I'm saying that properly, but had an article that made me think a lot this week about sponsors exemptions. The article opens by saying, someday it will be universally acknowledged that PGA Tour sponsor exemptions were plain sight evidence of a flawed business model. While it's understandable

that companies sponsoring the tour derive value from playing alongside a professional golfer in a Wednesday Pro-Am, extending that to handpicking competitors for the actual tournaments themselves betrays everything the tour should represent meritocracy. So the examples given there and one of them was Joel Damon was given a sponsor exemption this past week into a no cut event where everybody gets points. He was 129th in the standings going into this week. He is now 124th after finishing T40 or T41, something like that, and earning 13 points. Joe Highsmith gets bumped out because of that. Also in the article, Joseph makes the case for Pearson Cootie

who sits at 130th in the standings. Why does Joe get an opportunity that Pearson Cootie doesn't? And TC was weighing in on this saying, death to sponsors exemptions, all this. And I guess where, I'm curious to pick your brain on this as well, but where I don't like disagree with the premise, I think it's just a teeny and I'm not picking on Joseph necessarily on this. I'm saying this more in terms of people that get very upset about sponsor exemptions.

It's a little bit of a tiny bit detached from the reality of what pro golf is. And I just always go back to they're playing for something called the FedEx cup. Like it's, this is golf for money. That's what it is. Right. And like, I think it's in comparison to live the term meritocracy gets thrown out a ton in terms of what the PGA tour is and stands for. And I know that's language the tour has used and deserves the scrutiny in this regard. But at the same time, we're talking about filling out the bottom of the bottom of the bottom. Yeah, the careers are going to be potentially defined. One or two or maybe three careers at the end of the year are going to be influenced by the sponsor exemptions that were handed out on this. But I have a hard time, especially after doing

the deep dive into the sponsorship podcast and seeing where Pro Golf is trending, seeing what the tours are asking for out of sponsors. I have a hard time seeing the influence of sponsor exemptions going down from here to the point where it just seems like a waste of or not the best use of energy for where Pro Golf needs to change. And I'm not saying that this is, you know, the, you know, Joseph's necessarily like his top thing that needs to change in golf, but it's something I hear, I hear being discussed a lot. And I just don't know if like, we need to like reprioritize things to make

sure Joe Highsmith, who has made 25 starts this year, four top twenties, negative 0.43 strokes gained. I don't think he's getting screwed here. Uh, if I think that I wonder if it's kind of a canary in the coal mine of, or something emblematic of just how kind of rotted from the inside this whole, or the whole, the whole, the whole whole thing. I mean, I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question.

I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. mind of or something emblematic of just how kind of rotted from the inside this whole or maybe outdated is a better way of saying it. This entire system is where I feel like sponsor exemptions are a good example of when you just got to keep like duct taping things together over and over and over, that's one of those things that seems like it can't be fixed when in reality, if you were starting everything over right now, you probably would

do it differently. And you probably would do it more along the lines of what Joseph is laying out. And I get what you're saying as far as like, this is how the business model works. And you know, these pro-ams are relying on this and the TV is relying on this and blah, blah, blah. I think there's a bit of a straw man. And I guess maybe all of, I think where it gets tough is not all the sponsor exemptions are created equal. First of all, right. Joel Damon getting into the Zozo is different from a business and entertainment perspective than, you know, Tiger Woods getting into Pebble Beach if he so chose to play it. So that makes the conversation hard in general.

But I think when push comes to shove, gun to my head, I think looking back at the season here and having all the Webb Simpson exemptions and having all the weird kind of, I don't want to say wasted exemptions, and also seeing Adam Scott basically get a free pass, not a free pass, but you know what I mean, like take advantage of all of these exemptions to a point where he played really well and he got himself back into all the majors and he got himself into all the, you know, signature events basically just through those exemptions this year is where I start to, I don't know, I think I side closer to where Joseph is saying like, man, if this is going to be the thing you guys are saying is like, we are a meritocracy and we're a real sport.

Like I, I kind of agree with him that, you know, what if, what if Joe Highsmith turns out to miss, you know, this is a dramatic example, but like, let's say he, he turns into Max Homa, right? And he's a late bloomer and he's somebody who, you know, if he just would've got the chance to get, you know, get in the Zozo, maybe he wins this week. He gets into all the signature events and he's off and running. I'm not, I, I understand that can be a very eye rolly thing, but like, it's probably how he looks at it. Right.

And so it is a tough, uh, it's tough to keep dudes like that out. Just based on like, ah, yeah, I don't know. My guts kind of says like, you don't deserve it as much. You know, I don't know. It is. I don't think there's a good answer based on based on just years and years and years of kind of building the whole cruise ship like this. It's a totally different conversation. If we're talking about like a dude,

and Joe Highsmith is the unfortunate example here. This has nothing to do with him, literally. But if there was like a dude that was busting through, again, I'm gonna point to strokes gain. If there was like somebody who was above average, a half stroke above average, and just like can't get the starts and is getting completely screwed.

I mean, is Pearson Cootie in that category? He's also well below average. Like he's 0.43 strokes gained below average. Has made 20 plus starts this year on the tour and has not gotten himself into the top 125. If there was somebody busting at the seams on the outside, not getting it. So we're talking about a tour that has had

somewhere between 20 to 30 of guys that are worthy of being on this tour from a talent perspective, also leave for a different tour. And now we're like really nitpicking the bottom 125 of this. I think I'm out of energy for the anger or the angst around some of that. And just because it's like, again, if it was Ludwig on the outside, not getting in, I think that'd be a massive problem for competitive golf. What my theory predisposes, if you will, is that the system is set up like, if you're really talented, if you're going to be a different, an influential person in professional golf,

a difference maker, a true competitor at the highest level, you are going to get through. You're 100% going to get through. The opportunities opportunities are there. And we're really about nitpicking who the 11th and 12th guys are on a middling roster in the NBA, which is just a very, I don't know. It's an interesting conversation. And I know maybe it's, is a sponsor exemption deserve more scrutiny on an event like this or a signature event, I think is an interesting question. Because I think it is a different conversation

in terms of playing for careers and things like that. No, I agree. It's an interesting one, man. I agree with everything you just said too. I mean, I think that's the age old, like if you're good enough, you know, no one who's good enough has ever been kept out. Exactly. Right. And I get that. But I also, if I'm Joe Highsmith, I would be pissed. If I'm Pierce and Cootie, I would be pissed. Like I get, you know, I get that element of a two. And I guess that's the, that's the part where governance is hard. And, you know, jaymon hand or whoever's got to look those guys in the eye and be like, tough shit. Sorry. It's kind of like me being pissed though. Like when, you know, my, my putt from 12 feet hits a ball mark and lips out low, and it made me shoot 79 instead of 78. It was like, dude, I had like 12 other opportunities to really have this go better today. And like I could point off that. Well, if that ball doesn't hit that

ball mark, then who knows how that today would have gone. It's kind of how I feel at that level. But I don't know. I agree. It's a good piece. I think everybody should go seek out. I thought Joseph really made the case well at a minimum. Even if you agree, disagree, I thought I really enjoyed reading it. Point about being a flawed business model is like that's the part I agree with, but like there's no, again, do you dive farther and farther into this? Like the whole reason we're here and stuck in this is this business model is not really going anywhere, right? Yeah. You know, if you're going to keep asking people for money to put up events, they're going to want a spot or two that they can fill out and bring whoever they want to for whatever reason they want.

Like that is just kind of the name of the game. So, anyways, good article, not provoking. That's where I wanted to discuss it. But moving through the notebook, just worth mentioning on the Xander front, kind of a bummer, first time he's really like laid an egg since Pebble Beach. I think he finished in the like maybe mid fifties in a Pebble. He finished T 41 out of 78 players

this week, made a quad on Thursday. Just, it's a travesty for that, for that, you know, season long results page because it's just on data golf. I mean, there's just so much green and yellow on there of just like top 10, top 10, top five, top five, top 10 win, win, win, win. And it just, you know, it sucks to see the, uh, see one, one stinker up there, but you know, worth, I'm just going to say, I'm not concerned, you know, I'm not concerned about it, but it's worth mentioning. I think we're going to be okay. Uh, we're going to shout to our friends at Omni hotels and resorts. Fall golf is here. What better way to appreciate the beauty of fall and get a few rounds in than visiting

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to register for the Omni Generation Cup. First of its kind tournament aims to grow the game by bringing together golfers of all generations. Find your nearest Omni course and register today at OmniHotels.com slash Generation Cup with no shortage of offerings. What are you waiting for? Get to OmniHotels.com slash golf and play the possibilities. Anything else from your notebook from the ZobZob? Just a very random one. I just enjoyed this from from Kevin Price. I saw this Ricky Fowler. Now he finished fourth this week. He had not had a top 10 this year, which now means that he has had a top 10 on the PGA Tour for 16 consecutive seasons. I include

that just to point out that Ricky Fowler has been playing golf on the PGA tour for 16 seasons. Like that stopped me in my tracks. That made me feel like the David Private Ryan just aging dramatically from a young man to an old man GIF. That's wild That it's been 16 seasons now. I can't even, I don't have a joke prepared for that one. Like, I think Ricky is at least partially responsible for me like getting, you know, re-energized into golf. Like in 2009 or 2010, what was it the year he started blazing at the Memorial?

I was like, who is this dude? And, uh, you know, I, I can't, that was, I guess that was 15 years ago and going on 16. That's wild. That is wild. Crazy. Yeah. The last thing I had was I, I missed this, but, uh, there was an article in golf week just about JT dropped in the booth, I guess, after the Zozo, which weird TV hours, a lot of the stars on Wednesday night were like done with their rounds before TV even came on. It was, it was quite weird, but weird. But JT came into the booth, which by all accounts, it sounded like it was a good visit. You know, in Shupac's article, he just wrote about how,

you know, how good he was when he during the match, when he was going up, when he did the on course commentary back in 2020 when Tom Brady and Peyton Tiger and Phil were playing and how good he was back and forth with Charles Barclay. But just like we're kind of doing some different things with the podcast this fall, mess around, guys. Go nuts. In the fall, there is truly nothing you can do to cost yourself viewers in this time period. So do get weird with it, innovate, whatever you want to call it. But I know they've done different parts of the CBS has done this, but I haven't really seen that from golf channel and fall events in a situation like this. The thing that I would ride for Sean Zock spelled out a lot of these thoughts in an

article a couple of weeks ago, I guess it's probably more like a month plus now ago. But the thing that I just don't understand why somebody doesn't do on any tour LPGA would benefit greatly from this as well is at some of these events, I obviously would be great during the big events too, but at an event like this where it's like, hey man, it's out in the middle of the night, most of our core audience is probably not watching. What I would love is take JT after his round and sit with him for 15, 20 minutes and just have him go through every shot and just show them all in line on a YouTube video. All right, hole number one, here's what I'm hitting this club. I obviously left that one out to the right a little bit. So now I've got this shot from the rough, but like do that for 18 holes. I would learn so much more about JT, about the golf course,

about what clubs he's hitting, about like, God, that feels like a fucking no brainer that just would make me like golf more. So I hope somebody does that. It would be great. I would agree with that. And 16, 17, 18, 20 minutes, I would love to see that.

I would love to see that. I would love to see that. would make me like golf more. So I hope somebody does that. It would be great. I would agree with that in six, seven, eight years, uh, DP world tour. Well, I'm sure we'll get to it. Simply not possible. We, uh, in a podcast episode that has not come out yet, we, uh, did a look back at the 1983 skins game. Would you believe if I told you they had players mic'd up in the 1980s on television in 1983, we can't do it now?

They lost the blueprints for all that technology. There was a fire, you know, they just, they can't, they couldn't possibly recreate any of that tech. The Genesis championship on the DP world tour, this was a really freaking good tournament. Again, a great one to catch up with on the highlights. Ben On beat feisty young Tom Kim in a playoff. First of all, the fan clubs were out in Korea. That's an important thing to take away from this. We got caught up in this at the BMW Ladies a few years ago where Korean fans, first

of all, they're a vibe out there. And if you go to a tournament and you are, especially on the, on the female side, like if you're a fan of Yoju Kim, like you, you wear matching colors and you root for Yoju Kim. Like you do not root for Sonia and Park. Like you do not root for any of the other players. And like, you could hear the different factions of fans cheering when Ben Han would make a birdie when Tom Kim would make a birdie. Not as much when some of the European players were making birdies, which was very, very parsing. We know you just don't do that. But it was great to watch back.

There was a great energy out there in that one. Tom Kim birdied four of the first seven holes to take the lead from a big pack. Guys, there's a five way tie at the top at the turn. Antoine Rosner took the lead. Tom Kim almost hold out on the 11th hole. He stuffed. He stuffed. Tom gave stuffed it made birdie on 14 to get to 17 under par. Then Ben on who is two shots back 265 meters out in the fairway. Did you see this shot to I did 291 yards out over

water pulls driver from the fairway to an elevated green hits it to 13 feet hit it just past the pen almost perfectly in line with it did not make the eagle made the easy birdie bogeys the 17th all birdie 16 bogey bogey 17 then birdies 18 Tom came in at 8 footer to win the tournament. He's pimps it. He thinks it's in and lips out on the high side. Ben on one it with a birdie in so it was, I was excited. Ben on was very emotional afterwards, uh, living in his home, winning in his home country, uh, in Korea and, uh, a great turn to catch up on this morning.

Love it on the LPGA. Rooneyining Yin wins by one at the Maybank. Her fifth win since her LPGA career kicked off in 2022, her third win of the year. She won two weeks ago in Shanghai as well. Just a fun kind of thing. She won by one over Gino Titicum, who was her partner earlier this year at the Dow LPGA. I mentioned that because Grazerman and Echeverria were also partners at the Zurich. So kind of a weird, you know,

kind of a weird little partner, partner Kismet going on in the world of pro golf this week. Only other note, Randy's girl Bailey Tardy was kind of right on the edge of the, of getting into the CME group tour championship. Just in case we would need to touch on why it's Randy's girl. Like she had like a 36 hole lead and Randy's like, I don't think she's going to last and we won't let him hear the she didn't last. She I thought she was like Tasty, Randy. Yes, she was. Yeah.

She came back out of heart. Anyway, she finished in the top five. She's now comfortably inside, probably punched her ticket to the tour championship. So fun week on the LPGA. She's now comfortably inside, probably punched her ticket to the tour championship. So fun week on the LPGA, some big names playing well. What's the catch up process been like for you for your time away from golf? Any observations or topics that we've covered in recent weeks, months that you've been dying to discuss?

I think you guys did a great job covering all of it. I listened to the pod every week. It was very fun to just be like a consumer of the content. You know, you can kind of get lost in your own head or lost in the sauce. I'm like, oh, God, is anybody going to like this? What's, you know, why? What are we doing here? And then you get on the outside and you're like, oh, what the hell, guys?

You know, it's something I like. What time, you know, I'm going to be up with the kid. Like what time is the, come on, Phil, pose the pod. Like what time is it going up? I need to, I need to fire it up. So very fun to, very fun to listen to. I guess we kind of talked about this, this first note I had, but just a little struggling with like where to look, you know, during the, during the fall, what am I, what am I supposed to be paying attention to? I didn't mean to take such a big backhanded shot at our guy, Nico Echeverria, but it's just kind of this weird like guys playing their way into events that they're probably going to be in like

the lower third of next year, you know, is like kind of a little bit of how the, how the fall feels. I don't, I don't see a lot of dogs coming out of the fall. So it just becomes kind of this weird thing. I don't know if that's a, I don't know if that's a by-product of, you know, we need to split this into two tours. If it's a by-product of just the best have kind of never been better. And it's just very clear when we get to signature events, when we get to the majors, like it's going to be the big, big dogs that win those and how hard it is to break through. But it just struggling, struggling with that a little bit.

I don't think that's your fault. I don't think the struggle is with the, the big picture of how pro golf sits right now, again, a fractured landscape, which it was a lot easier to be like, man, it would, it means the world here to be 125 into like make to get your PGA tour card when the PGA tour had all of the top talent in the world, sans a couple guys,

top Europeans that don't play the PGA tour. Now it's like extremely fractured. It's just like really a lot harder to get super jazzed up about quote unquote, the lifeblood of the PGA tour, which is, you know, the Mule SCN. Like it just, people aren't really paying attention to some of the biggest events on the PGA Tour.

So it is very reasonable that some of these fall events are going to struggle a little bit with keeping people's attention. Which is a bummer because I've always, I don't know, I think I have, I don't think this is revisionist history. Like I have enjoyed these events in spurts in the past when, when they did mean something, uh, or there were some, you could kind of see the path a little bit. It just feels like a lot of that has kind of been lost. So just kind of a, I don't know, general thing. I think the photo of Yasser wearing the giant cowboy hat at live Dallas was like, I think that's a good enough run. That did not get enough run. That's, and I know we're a podcast, we're an audio medium. That's tough, but that should have been everywhere, man. That was,

that was one of the drew just like, is this AI? Are we living in a simulation? Like what, what's the hell is going on with anything? I just really enjoyed that eight, seven, eight years ago, that would have been what we would have like memed him in the head. Like, I mean, I think that's, I think that's the hell is going on with anything back? I just really enjoyed that eight seven eight years ago That would have been what we would have like memed him into but now everything's so weird both in real life and in golf That you can't even like parody some of this stuff

Yeah, and it's actually happening and Twitter's not the same anyways, but like that was it was funny of just like oh, yeah Y'all just wear a cowboy hat and oh And I have the world might be ending if I keep scrolling on my Twitter feed, but yeah. I was, I was a little, uh, not shocked, but it was wild to see all the run that Rory's comments got in Porter's newsletter about the, you know, why is everybody being negative? We're all in this together. I thought you guys covered all that really well. I agree with, with most of what you guys said. Yeah. Just color me in the camp of pretty

despondent and pretty disillusioned by that whole deal as well. And I was thinking about it today. I'm trying to explain what I mean. And it's just like, it feels like golf fans have kind of just been going to this same restaurant every week and every week you get there and it's like, Oh yeah, I would love, you know, this like now we don't have that. Get something else. Okay. Well, I would love this.

Yeah, we don't have that either. I would love this. Cool. We'll make it for you, but like, it's going to suck. Okay. And we just have to like, it's the only restaurant in town, I guess. Like we just have to keep going to it over and over and over and over. And that's what like, Is this, are you getting this analogy from the video that was going around or the guy

going to the mob restaurant? Oh, I'm not. Was that, there's a dude. Yeah. He's like, I went to this restaurant. It's like, okay. And it, he just walked in. There was two Armenian dudes in the back. It said grand opening in April. The first seven things on the menu they didn't have. So they gave me a terrible tuna sandwich and I came back. No, that's okay. That literally saved me a lot of time. That's exactly what I'm getting at. But that's where I'm kind of like to, to then kind of hear Rory just be like, man, why does, why doesn't everybody, you know, why aren't you guys like more pumped about this? I mean, cause it's this restaurant fucking sucks, man. Like I hate coming here. And that's,

uh, I don't know. That was just kind of a bleak, a bleak moment, I think. But, you know, you guys covered it well. A couple other takeaways. I don't know what, I don't know what to make of Min Woo Lee, like at all in general. I feel like this is also not getting enough run just because I see him on my phone every time I open it. It's always just, you know, the Instagram cut-ups, he's all over YouTube. I see him. I see him everywhere. Don't know if he's a good golfer or not. I

think like the president, I'm thinking of all this because of the president's cup of like coming into it. It's like, man, this seems like he's supposed to be kind of like the dude. He's supposed to be like this exciting kind of like flamboyant leader type of guy. Like this could be his week and he was just completely anonymous for what did he play the first session second session and then didn't play again I don't think till singles and it's just yeah you dig into the stats it's just I just don't ever know what I'm going to get it's very very weird so I think it's hard to be

an elite player without being an elite iron player right hits it and it's the opposite all up his approach page. And there's just no, there's no elite players that do that. And there's not one, there's not a single. No, that's where I'm kind of getting to this point where like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills a little bit from, from a lot of the other players that I've played with. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've ever seen. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've ever seen.

And I think that's the biggest thing that I've ever seen. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've ever seen. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've ever seen. And I think that no, there's no elite players that do that. And there's not one. There's not a single. No, and that's where I'm kind of getting to this point where like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills a little bit from, from a lot of the like, you know, let them cook crowd. It was like, yeah, no, I, that's fun. He's fun. Yeah. It's just like, I don't think he, I don't know if he's good. I don't think he might not be good. So I want to watch that. And then, uh, TC should really just, if he dislikes Taylor Pendrith, he should really dislike Ben Woolley. Yeah. And so I'm just kind of,

I don't know, just trying to breathe a little oxygen into like maybe someone can investigate this or, or watch this space because I want them to be good. Like I, nobody was rooting harder, you know, that, that players where he came out with the, you know, surfing rashie on like the weird like mock turtleneck. I'm like, this is it. This rules, but yeah, I just don't know

if the game's quite there. Last thing, I think you guys thought I was joking about this. Here we go. Tom Kim should have demanded to go out on Friday at the President's Cup. I think you guys did me extremely dirty on that, just waving that away.

I was so, I was pacing around. I didn't have a cigarette outside. I was pacing around my house. I'm so mad. They just get their pants pulled down in round one and you have this guy that's supposed to be just like the emotional spark plug of this team. Isn't this amazing? Look at him. He's putting his hand to his ear. He's revving up the crowds. He's what? 23, 24 years old and he can't, he can't play 18 holes back to back like that. Like get out of here, man. Is this, is this at, at Tom Kim or Mark or Mike weird then both of them, both of them, I think Mike weird might've been challenging him. And I think Tom,

Tom Kim just be like, okay, cool. Guess I'm not playing. That's, you think that's how Kobe, think how Kobe's going to handle that one? Like get the fuck out of here. That is the that is the best. Thank you for that, because you just compared Tom Kim to Kobe. No, that's what I'm saying is like, and the fact that they went five and oh, without him, four and oh, whatever, without him. It tells me all I need to know.

That's take it away. No, thanks. I stand with TC. It was a very TC segment. TC finished to that segment. One more thing about Tom Kim from the President's Cup, if I may say. That was disgusting. I can't believe he didn't demand to go back out. Well, I think I have a feeling we're about to continue to disagree. But before we do that, Dej, I threw a little story up on my Instagram today of me getting my stack session into my newly finished backyard, which I'm stoked about, but got a ton of questions about it. You know, just, is it working?

How's it working? I want to point everyone towards our episode a couple of weeks ago with Dr. Sasha McKenzie. We break down all the details of the system, how it works, some of the benefits of it. I have been doing the program since early July. My distance and speed are way up. I can't even really describe it.

I've had a ton of fun doing the workouts. They're easy. It takes about 35-ish minutes to do both the warmup and the workout combined. 16 minutes to warm up. Maybe about 20 minutes or so to actually do the workout. The speed gains are immediate. It affects it down the bag.

You swing the club better. I'm releasing the club better. The benefits have just been incredible. I can't believe it. I touched 127 miles an hour with swinging Speed. I'm struggling to get back to that. We're working on it. The ebbs and flows of the system are interesting. You'll gain, you'll plateau a bit and you gain again. It's kind of like Bitcoin, if I may say. But it's fantastic. It's an incredible product. They got a putting apparatus within it as

well that I'm working on. I've done six sessions of the putting. I want to keep putting some work in on that before I can give kind of the full review of how that's helped my putting, but it's been a great system as well getting you working on different styles of putts. So go to the stack system.com use code no laying up. You get 10% off the order. It's incredible. It's one of the coolest things I've done with my golf game. Hoping to keep it up even through paternity leave. We're going to talk a little later on when we get into our golf games about how that's been treating us. But thestacksystem.com code noleg up for 10% off. Go check out that episode with Sasha McKenzie. It's going to answer

all your questions. All right, Dej, the TGL is coming, whether you like it or not. It is on its way. I don't know if you've forgotten about it. I don't know if you had listeners have forgotten about it. They announced their schedule this past week. I was going to go through the schedule, but the graphic was so small with all the teams. I could not tell who was actually playing who in that one. And it would be confusing if we, if we went through the entire schedule, but week one, January 7th, Tuesday night, it'd be of Sony week is the debut of the TGL. The season is going to run. I'm just going to go through some of the facts because honestly I was reading about today.

I kind of, oh, I kind of forgot about that. I forgot about that. If we forgot about it, I guess a lot of listeners have as well. The season is going to run from January through March. It's going to have 15 regular season matches before a four team playoff. Sounds a little bit like some of my fantasy football leagues, maybe too many teams making the playoffs, four out of six teams. Matches are going to be on Monday or Tuesday nights on ESPN. They're

going to last about two hours without looking. Could you tell me a complete set of any of the, any one single team, all four guys on one team? No, I have looked and I can barely remember, but I know the tiger one is tiger max thirsty, Tom Kim and Kisner Kevin Kisner. That's exactly right. Can I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one.

I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one.

I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good. Like I think he might be a menace in that.

Let's go through some of them for the listeners sake. So the Atlanta Drive Golf Club is Lucas Glover, Patrick Cantlay, JT and Billy Horschel. Boston Common, I don't need to go through this, I'm sure. Keegan Bradley, Roy McElroy, Hedeke Matsuyama and Adam Scott. Jupiter Links is Tom Kim, Tiger Woods, Max Homa, Kevin Kisner.

Los Angeles Golf Club is Sahith Tagala, Tommy Fleetwood, Colin Morikawa, Justin Rose. New York Golf Club, Matt Fitzpatrick, Ricky Fowler, Xander Chauflay, and Cameron Young from the Mean Streets of the Bronx. And the Bay Golf Club is Min Woo Lee, Windham Clark, Ludwig, a Berg and Shane Lowry. Yeah. I don't, I gotta be a Jupiter links guy. That was going to be my team. We can both root for him. I mean, with Tom Kim, how was I not supposed to, how was I not going

to take that? That's true. He might be keeping me off. I don't know. Hard to to root for the small market team. I feel like amongst all these other, you know, just behemoths, Atlanta, Boston, LA three things. We each had to come up with three things. I'm going to go three things that TJL has going for it. You're going to do three things. It does not have going for it. I think is how I would define it. But again, just reminding folks, if you're not familiar, so teams are going to play head to head in 15 whole matches.

Okay. 15 whole matches. The match will be divided into two sessions. Session one is on holes. One through nine will be triples in which three players on the team play alternate shot. So there's four guys on each team, but only three play on any given night.

So as I understand it, there's a massive spreadsheet that like schedules out all these guys when they're gonna be there, what tournaments they're playing and why they can't be, you know, so not all four guys are gonna be there on a given night. Yeah, sorry, we're out of that dish. I don't know, maybe you could have like some ravioli instead.

Session two of the match is going to be on holes 10 through 15. It's going to be singles and players are going to compete one on one. So like a player versus a player play on the 10th hole, B player versus B player compete on the 11th, C versus C on the 12th. And they all go through again each. So each player is playing two holes in singles. There's a twist with the hammer. I honestly did not know about this until I read the Golf Digest article. If a team wants to raise the stakes on a hole, they can throw the hammer. If the other team accepts it, it raises the stakes of the hole by one point. If the opposing team declines the hammer, they can seed the hole.

The hammer rotates from team to team, allowing for quick comebacks. So interesting element. Love it. There's a 40 second shot clock. There's limited timeouts available. There's referees on the field. It's meant to make it feel fast paced and closer to a typical stadium sport. Okay, so here's my here's my things of why I think the TGL has going for it. Number one, I think it's unburdened by what has been in terms of all the reasons why golf on TV is sucking.

Okay. We're not going to miss any action. There's not thousands of miles of cables that need to be laid out there. There's no playing through I hope there's not playing through. There's no awful television deal that we know of. It's confined to a certain period of time. It's prime time. That's that's point number one. And point number two, it's harmless. It's players mic'd up

it, you know, it can be complementary to the main course, which is the more competitive level of golf. I do not expect this to be game-changing. I don't think this is going to blow people away. I don't think golf nutsoes like us are going to be like, holy shit, you got to see the future of golf. But I think we've seen in a lot of other versions of green grass golf, a lot of different ways that golf can be enjoyed. And I think we've seen in a lot of other versions of like green grass golf, a lot of different ways that golf can be enjoyed. And I think this can be complimentary to that. And it is just a very different product. I'm probably going to agree with you on some of the things that they don't have going for it in a minute here.

I agree with you on all of that too, right? I don't think it's like an argument. I'm with you on all that stuff. I mean, I think the fact that Tiger Woods doesn't have to walk 18 holes and can sit there and hit golf. Sorry. Yeah. This is, this is where you're going to see tiger woods play golf. This is the needle is not coming back to play PGA tour golf. I don't think I'd be absolutely stunned if he did.

He's said he's going to play once a month. That did not happen this past year. He just had another surgery like, yo, we're not going to see that dude outside of Thursday and Friday of majors. And, uh, he, whatever, he still carries a lot of clout. I don't know how great he's going to be miked up. I don't say it's going to be like wildly entertaining, but if you want to watch Tiger Woods play golf, this is how the format's got to be in a format that did not exist prior to when they debuted this here in a few months. So if I can give you a bonus one.

Please. The format might be sweet. Like. It's interesting. I'm with you. Yeah. I mean, all shot is the best version of team golf

that we see in president's cup. And, and it's the best version of like the live playoffs. Like they, that one team match they play where, where guys got a team up to play all shot triples, like doing it one every three shots is an interesting little wrinkle to it. And it's all very well confined again. I think we underrate or people get tend to underrate like how hard it is to watch match by on TV through NBC. And this is not going to be that like,

they don't have to bounce around between different matches. Like it's all going to play out all right in front of us. And I don't know. I guess I'm a little, I'm I'll let, I'll let you get to yours. I was getting ready to say, I'm surprised at some of the pushback, but I'm also not because I have a feeling your first point is going to be why I'm not surprised at some of the pushback. So I'm doing the pushback because that's the assignment of the way we structured the conversation. I'm with you on, no, I'm with you. Like I'm not, I'm not Ebenezer Scrooge on this. Like it might not be for me, which is totally fine. That does not mean I'm

trying to stop anybody else from enjoying it. I love thinking outside the box. I think it's very great that we have, you know, an avenue that we can watch Tiger Woods play golf. I think that's awesome. Also, like, of all the ideas, like this is a kind of stretchy connection here maybe, but like, one of the reasons I don't think Liv works is because it's not different from the PGA Tour. It's just a worse version of the tour and you got some, you know, some teams kind of cobbled together and there's that element of it, which is kind of interesting. But like the product is actually it's the same, right?

It's just, you know, other than the tippy top guys, it's a lot of just like watching either players of similar quality or worse playing golf courses that are of similar quality or worse. One main difference, though. Louder. It's a lot louder. You're totally right. Whereas this is totally different. Right. I mean, like you said, it's getting rid of all the downtime between shots. It's getting rid of like a lot of the things that just makes

golf really hard to watch on TV. So I'm I'm for all of that stuff. And I think it's I also think it's probably the best example I've seen of something that makes sense for kids. Right. Like to get kids into the game. Like try to, you know, my son's six weeks old, so he'll watch whatever we want to watch. But I cannot imagine it's an easy task to get a five, eight, 10, 12, 15, even 20 year old to sit down and just watch a four hour

slow slog of a commercial fest on a Sunday afternoon. This feels very watchable from a kid's perspective. So on that front, I'm all for it, man. I think that works. However, what I think they probably have going against them is I was trying to consolidate all this into one point. I'm just gonna call it the stink of the golf industry. I just don't know going to call it the stink of the golf industry. I just, I don't know who involved here deserves the benefit of the doubt. I don't know who in the world of pro golf gets the benefit of the doubt right now on anything. And maybe

I'm just watching too many election commercials right now, but I'm just like, man, look at, are you better off now than you were four years ago as a golf fan? Like, get these people the fuck out of here, man. Like, do not tell me you're fixing anything. You guys do not like if you would have if you wanted to fix it, you would have fixed it by now. Like, get out of here. So that's that's I think number one is like just color me extremely pessimistic that we're going to, you know, have something that is truly designed for fans to be an

engaging entertainment product and not just like another cash redistribution system for guys that didn't go to live. Maybe it will be. I'm open-minded. I hope it's great. I am rooting for its success, but I'm going to feel a little scarred by the last four years and I just, I'm in a wait and see mode. And I don't disagree with any of that. I would, my only like opposition to that is, I think my like hate tank is empty. Like I don't think I can pull over any farther.

Like I don't know if I have energy left to hate anything else at pro golf. Honestly, it's how I feel of like, I don't know, man. Fuck, this is obviously terrible over here. Let's try the simulator league. That's kind of where I'm at. I know. I know. It's, yeah. I just, I feel like I could get a lot more excited if it was like, you know, the product that we had on a Sunday afternoon was just like, we got

that, that's so dialed that we think we can do just as good a job with like something else But instead it just feels like it's like oh man That's irreparably broken like the thing you guys all like really love is like so boned That we're gonna try to do that I don't know maybe this video game thing works the e-gamers are all getting paid out the ass So maybe we could maybe we could tap into that which again We'll see I think the teams are kind of a good illustration of what I'm talking about here. You know, you had a kind of a chance to horrible everything that lived did wrong.

You know, they kind of repeated the same mistakes just with like some better graphic design and, uh, and team names, maybe, you know, no draft, no rhyme or reason to like how or why anybody's on any teams. These like thirsty associations with cities. They're totally going to get caught in between being just like, hit and giggle and competitive and competitive would make, if you want competitive, you had to have a draft and like that would have been easy way to generate interest in totally like totally interesting. Who was the first overall pick in the history of the draft of this league?

Yeah. Instead, like Kevin Kisner is a part-time announcer and he's on one of these teams. Like that's a problem. If you want to be serious, like I think they would be more successful more in the hit and giggle part. But, uh, and that's what I was, that's what kind of brings me to point number two is like, if I would strongly, strongly advise not being serious and not taking this seriously. And if you're going to do that, then they're kind of in, they're going to get stuck in the middle here. I think Ryan Lavner said on his podcast,

there's no color commentators, uh, that are, it's probably just going to be like open mics, uh, for all the players. I don't know what upside the players have to really, you know, kind of sending it or, or just being funny. I just, I think it's setting up the players to fail spectacularly to just fill all that air time. I think it's going to be, I don't know, either boring at best or kind of cringy at worst, but we shall see. And then I guess, you know, just add it to the heap of tickets, right? I mean, if you want to go watch, it's like almost 200 bucks to go, to go watch this thing inside the simulator dome.

So I don't know, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I'll throw that in as a parting shot. I also wouldn't, without having seen, I've only seen graphics of what it's gonna look like. Two important, someone, maybe important things, I would think they're somewhat important as of now. One, you do play off real grass to hit the shots. Like that is, and it's not.

I know you love that as a big, you know that's a huge turf guy. And it's also not the dreaded like boom, boom, hit immediate into the screen. Like you play from somewhat far away from the screen and the screen is massive. Like that part is, I don't think that's coming through on TV.

I think that's better than just like, dude, just hit it right at this screen, you know, directly and like 10 feet in front of you. Now I have my doubts on like the putting green and the, you know, the different shapes that they can do on that. I don't know if that's gonna really captivate people. I don't know, we haven't seen it, we don't know.

The whole designs could be fun. I mean, like they could, it's very gold. Yeah. Just totally can fuck around and do whatever you want with the design and not have to worry about how guys get from spot to spot as another, you know, unburdened by what has been element of all this. So I, I don't know. We'll see, man. I, I will be watching. I'm interested. I'm rooting for it, truly. I just, yeah, I'm in wait and see mode, I think, right now. They should be very prepared to be, players especially, be heavily scrutinized with this when it becomes like,

we know at least on Twitter, I think it's fair to call it X now because it is no longer Twitter. But the Everything app. I think it's fair to call it X now because it is no longer Twitter, but it is going to be so distilled down into like, there's going to be so many own goals on the live front of like, copying the team golf thing. It's like, well, these guys playing in a fucking simulator. You just compared live to a simulator league here. There's going to be so much of that going on as everyone races to get the worst, worst take in about this. But yeah, I don't know what the, I don't know what the reaction will be. I'm more interested in the reaction just kind of from the general public, right? I mean, cause it's, I don't know what you really compare this to. I mean, it's almost like if the, a bunch of NBA players

wasn't played slam ball, you know, like I don't even know what what other comps there are. So I could see it either being like people kind of being morbidly into it. Like this is super, I can't believe that this is a thing. And I'm, I can't look away. Or I could see people just kind of being like, Oh, okay, no, thanks. I'm gonna go do something else. I could see it. The interest interest dying pretty quickly, right? Also, Tiger and Rory aren't playing in the first week, which is kind of strange.

Which I think is kind of smart, honestly. All right, debut week one, we'll see. And then like to avoid the week two letdown, they're playing in week two. Even that just feels like too clever by half of just like, no, we've already thought of that and we're outsmarted you so that like, it's like, yeah, get out of here, man. Just, just get me excited in week one. We'll see.

Also work out some kinks in week one, cause I think there's going to be a little bit of awkwardness in that first week. It's very strange that I just feel like, unless I've missed it, I feel like we just haven't, other than the whole designs, I feel like we haven't seen too much is from kind of like a demo perspective, right? No, I totally agree. I think that would help the conversation I think at this point. So when the roof got blown off,

that was sick. Gosh, what a weird, what a weird couple of years. I was gonna put in my positive going forward of like not affected by weather. I was like, Oh, that's already been delayed a year by weather. I was like, oh, that's already been delayed a year for a weather. So that's true. We'll see. I'm, I'm, I can't, I truly like put me in the like wildly curious camp.

You know, I just like, I am pumped to see what it looks like and then what happens. I'm curious at absolute minimum. Well, you want to give us some, some headlines from around the world of golf of golf this past week as we? Yeah, just a lot of stuff going on. I figured we'd just do kind of a grab bag of headlines. Each of us could kind of pick one story to dive a little deeper into. So if you want to pause me, you want to say anything, please, by all means, but I'll just run through some of these. Cleaning out the inbox here, the RNA released a golf for smaller spaces study. I thought

this was relevant for our TGL conversation. Big long study digging into the history of short courses, kind of running down some of the stuff that they're doing in Glasgow. They bought like a kind of defunct 18 hole course in Glasgow, turned it into this kind of community short course. And it seems very clear that they're bullish on doing more stuff like that which I think is great. Very clear the future like that's just unavoidably the future. So I would encourage people to read up on that if you like. Ratings for the Shriners are in from last week. There's 160,000 people that watched the Shriners on Golf Channel.

Again do I think TGL is going to get more hundred thousand. So like, you know, the champions tour is, is just barely lagging behind the PJ tour at this point, which is kind of just a water. What is anybody doing? That's just like TVs that are accidentally on. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, this is a good one. Thanks to our friend, Jay Revel has been following this story for a long time. He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show.

He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show. He's been a huge fan of the show. What are, what is anybody doing? That's just like TVs that are accidentally on, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. This is a good one. Thanks to our friend, Jay Revel has been following this story for a long time. Dream Golf coming to the Florida Panhandle. This one had been kind of whispered around,

around Florida for a while, but Michael Kaiser was on hand at a board of commissioners meeting in Washington County, Florida, which is right near Panama City beach. It looks like there's gonna be a new Kaiser property going in. Yeah, just north of there. There's like a little airport by Panama City Beach. It'd be kind of just north of there. It sounds like the working titles, New Hope Dunes. So that would be, it looks like one golf course now, but I think it's same model as they always run, a ton of space for more golf lodging all kinds of stuff. That's like two hours from

Tallahassee about four hours from you in Jacksonville. Love exciting stuff. This is a random one I saw in Jeff Shackelford's newsletter, the St. Andrews links clubhouse is planning to expand. So just file that away for anybody going to St. Andrews, they're adding a new restaurant, new locker room, new roof garden. That's the clubhouse that's kind of just to the right of the second fairway at St. Andrews. Sully Sweeten's Cove is expanding thanks to its partnership with Reef Capital Partners. Everybody's favorite nine hole golf course is adding a short course, like short par three course

along with an array of additional amenities is from Josh sends at golf.com, including stay and play cabins in elaborate putting green, a fishing dock, a skeet shooting range, and a restaurant and distillery. Your thoughts on that one. I mean, every time I go to Sweden's, I think I've looked around and be like, is there any more land here we could use? Any more expansion we could have? I think some of the reaction might be about, it's a very different place from when it was written about

in Golfers Journal as the little course that could. It's a massive operation there now and it represents some of the maybe natural evolution of it. And I mean, anything those guys have touched has turned to gold in my eyes and I'm excited for them. So, you know, anything to increase their offering, I think is going to be a good thing because still no matter what, there's going to be nothing like playing that nine hole course from all the different ways you can do it.

And you know, some more things to supplement and I think is a good thing. Here, here. Yeah. But kind of the opposite of what I was saying about no one in pro golf getting the benefit of the doubt. I think Rob gets the benefit of the doubt, you know, as long as I'm, I'm around. So I can't wait to see what they. When was the last time you were in Sweden? Dude, I was just going to say.

Four years for me. Yeah. I need to get back. Was that when we shot the Jason Bone thing? Whenever September, 2020 was. Yeah. I think that was the last time I've played the golf course. I have driven through because it was like exactly halfway between Jacksonville and my in-laws in Bloomington, normal Illinois. So we would stop at the birdhouse like halfway through on the drive, but haven't played the golf course in a very long time. I need to get back.

All right. So this one from Dylan to chair golf.com. Live golf has changed its qualifying system. Of course, you might remember the promotions event that they did in Abu Dhabi last year, where three guys got through, you know, it's kind of the, the happy Gilmore. If you come play this event, we'll give you a spot on the PJ tour sort of event that they did last year. The three guys that got through the water, very open. Yeah. Calis Samuja, Kieran Vincent, and Jinchiro Kazuma, where the guys that got through two of them were immediately relegated and Kozuma finished 45th, probably will not be resigned according to my sources. Just kidding. That was in Dylan's piece. Not only one guy getting through the promotions event, I think why this matters, and Dylan spells all this out in his piece as well, is it seems like

they're pretty clear on giving up on the OWGR front. You know, I think this was a big reason. This promotions event was a big like, no, no, no, see there's a pathway into the tour. It's not a closed shop. They're pretty obviously like, all right, that ship is sailed. Let's just make this a full, you know, free agency. Try to get some splashy signings going, which I don't know what is happening on that front. But signings going, which I don't know what is happening on that front. But I would push back at that. The reasoning being the two appease the OWGR. It was like to appear to appease the OWGR. It was not a serious attempt. They deep down knew that they had no shot at it, but for dumb ass political

purposes, that was for campaign reasons. That's why they were doing that. And nobody was buying that shit. So if you would like to go to Saudi Arabia and play in the promotions event, you can there's one spot available. I don't know how your game's looking right now, but get there. Maybe put that on your calendar. All right. What do you got? What's your main event? What's your main event headline? The story you enjoyed enjoyed this week. So there was a great article in the athletic this week from Gabby Herzog. It was titled how the US election could shape the future of the PGA tour and PIF deal. So just kick it off. DJ, who are you voting for here? I just, I thought that would be an interesting,

kind of reminds me of the, the Chappelle white people. I hate to tell people who they're going to vote for part of the conversation, But it was a really interesting look into a lot of stuff that I probably hadn't fully thought out of how this election could influence things. And just some really honestly, good 10,000 foot view lines in there that just made you literally laugh out loud reading it. But from the article, it said, the DOJ is a creature of the executive branch and with its law enforcement and prosecutorial role, it can exercise significant discretion and pursue the priorities of the current administration. That's from Brooklyn Law School professor

and sports antitrust expert, Jody Balsam. So when a new administration comes in, whether it's Harris or Trump, they can dictate the priorities of the DOJ. Pausing there to say, of course, we know that DOJ appears to be the big holdup in this, and it seems certainly like that the TOR and PIF are waiting this out to see who the new administration is.

Of course, this wild thing about this, is they're one of the candidates for this US election has a financial interest in one of these tours, which is just a, again, a comical thing that I knew, but just to hear that spelled out was another thing that just made me laugh. Another incredible paragraph. Experts say that Monahan's initial comments surrounding the agreement alarmed the antitrust community. During a CNBC interview, the commissioner stated the PJ tour live golf deal would take the competitor off the board. We all know that happened at the time, but it was just like in a very well put together

article. She's very much like, Oh my God, did he seriously do that? Signaling a goal of limiting competition, reclaiming control of the industry language, preventing the leagues from poaching talent was included and then dropped after it raised immediate concerns from antitrust officials due to its clear intention to stifle opportunities for the golfers who are considered independent contractors. Those red flags raised by the DOJ around the deal have not disappeared. So all that to say, a new administration that is prioritized as something else than this administration could have an effect on things.

I think if Gabby was not the respectable journalist that she is, she could put it another way. You could have said if the guy from Bryson's breaking 50 video gets in, like that could prove very good for, you know, live golf and its leverage in the in the PIF PJ Tour conversation. And last slide I had there was the antitrust laws are a weapon to Trump, a thing that you use to create a merger that would be a monopoly set a prominent sports antitrust lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity because they had been previously involved with the PJ Tour legal matters. And the quote is, he's all about trying to use these sorts of processes.

So I still don't know what it actually means other than a change of the guard here can have an effect on all of this, right? I mean, I- I think the big thing is this is much more trap draw Randy Tron territory, but largely I think the Biden administration has been cracking down on a lot more antitrust stuff

than in the past. And the thought would be that if Harris gets in, they would continue that. Because that's kind of what's at stake here is just trying, you know, somehow in this conversation where these guys are just making a trillion dollars a year, it's, it's trying to make sure that they're not anti labor, anti worker. And that's what, you know, the anti-competitive stuff is revolving around. So if- I get that. What I don't like, again, putting the Trump element

back into this of previously in his eyes, spurned by the PGA tour and having an event taken away from him and having multiple events at live golf courses at his properties, does his personal interest in that give, live more leverage in the negotiations is an element of this that, you know, the antitrust stuff I think is the easier part of that,

of like, where are his interests gonna lie on this is, I don't know the answer to that, because I don't really know what Biff wants out of this either, so. We'll see, stay tuned. We will definitely see what happens. What stuck out the most to you of any of these other headlines?

I loved, this was, Tron sent this one over. This was a golf week piece from Adam Schupack, six speculative names to be the next PGA of America CEO. Schupack dove in here and basically pointed out it's been about three months since Step Waa. Seth Waa stepped down. We have not really heard much from the PGA of America since other than Kerry Haag, I think taking over as kind of acting CEO and just it's very much worth a read. Look it up. Some anonymous sources in this piece just like really letting it fly, which I really enjoyed. They were talking about the chances of the PGA of America's current COO, Craig Kessler, just said, he could be a good internal candidate, but quote, he just doesn't come in to room when he walks into it. I just thought that

was extremely funny. The six names that Shupac lists off that could be the next PGA of America CEO, according to him, Chip Brewer, CEO of Topgolf Callaway Brands, John Padani, Chief Commercial Officer of the USGA. He's already kind of worked in some high profile jobs at the PGA Tour and the LPGA. I think he was one of the guys that was up for the LPGA commissioner job. Dave Pillsbury is the CEO of Invited, which took me a while to remember that that's now the name of Club Corp. I forgot that they changed their name to Invited. He was a big time executive at the PJ Tour during my time there. I remember he ran Nike golf for a while, ran PJ Tour

golf course properties, ran championship management. I think it was kind of a, I think there were four or five people all kind of vying for that replacing Tim Fincham role. And then I think as soon as it became, as soon as the tea leaves became clear that it was going to be Jay Monahan, I think he left and went and did something else. Jim Richardson, again, good anonymous quotes here. This was a former PGA of America president, current GM of Riviera. Quote, this is from the story, during his term as president, he was known for an abrasive personality. And one source said his hiring would be deemed, quote, polarizing. Quote, said his hiring would be deemed polarizing, half his staff would leave before he started, source said. So we're not super promising there.

Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, founder and CEO of Folds of Honor. I think that was just one of those left field nominations that maybe some people were talking about. And then Susie Whaley, another former PGA of America president, currently the PGA director of instruction down in South Florida at the country club of Mirasol. I think the other one that was thrown out was Derek Sprague, who was a former PGA of America president and now runs TPC Sawgrass. I think I saw a Josh Carpenter post about that. So yeah, I don't know. We'll see. The big reason I think I bring this one up is just the PJ of America has been in the news recently, I think, just with Ryder Cup ticketing prices and just kind of some really bad

optics and whoever this next hire is, is going to be the person who's in charge of putting a little bit of that back together. And I guess this is another one of those. You know, I was on paternity leave and wasn't really on the pod to discuss, but part of my issue with the Ryder Cup ticket pricing thing was, I get all the econ majors who are like, hey, it's a free market and this is comparable and this is the comp sets that we have. This is in line with all that. I get all of that and I get that people will buy them and they'll probably sell out all the tickets, yada, yada, yada. I think what's really tough about the PGA of America and

the USGA, I would lump into this as well, is I don't ever know where that money is going. I know intellectually and inherently, it's going to good places, the USGA especially. I know it's doing all kinds of grow the game initiatives. They're doing all kinds of turf grass initiatives. They're doing all kinds of things behind the scenes. I just feel like they're painfully bad on both fronts at telling that story to where, yeah, man, that's why people get pissed off when they see $750 tickets to the Ryder Cup is because the vibe that it puts

off is just like, yeah, I guess it's going to go to all these kind of faceless executives that are handing out the trophy at the PGA championship or, you know, and lump that in with like the whole squad going out to where they go national golf links or whatever. When the PGA, when the PGA was at Bethpage, is that what it was? It just, I don't know, just very tone deaf and doesn't do a good job of like internal calm stuff. I think. Yeah. Neil and I talked about that last week of just, you know, it, the other side of it being like,

are they trying to maximize potential for selling the event, you know, potential revenues to sell the event to PGA tour enterprises and share the unavoidable stink of what's going on in pro golf and all that. But, um, yeah, it's interesting. Did you, on the more fun side, you play any golf this week? What's going on with, uh, with, with new dad's golf game? The haters and losers said it couldn't be done. I played twice this week. Uh, unbelievable. Yeah, it was great. The weather has been a joke up here.

I mean, it's just like low 60s, not a cloud in the sky. All the leaves have turned. I mean, it's like, it's really, really, really good stuff. So yeah, kind of crazy week playing partners wise. But I got out, Brian Anderson from TBS Turner Sports is a good buddy of mine here. He's kind of the only person I knew in Milwaukee when we moved here and has since kind of introduced me to everybody almost that I know here and just been an awesome friend. So don't get to play golf with him because he's usually making unbelievable sports calls as we heard during the John Kenzie Noel and the yeah, he had an awesome postseason. So fun to see him. And then he invited me to play with this guy, Craig, who works in baseball, used to work

here in Milwaukee and they got a new job in Chicago this year. So yeah, I got to talk some ball with him. That was pretty fun. And then the other guy I play with a lot is another one that another guy I met through BA, AJ Ellis, who Southern California fans may recognize as the former catcher of the Dodgers, but lives a very fun life raising his kids here just outside of Milwaukee. Post-retirement, we play a ton of golf together because I don't have that many friends that don't have real jobs that can go play at odd hours. And I bring all this up only to mention that he's now beat me six times in a row. Like the first two times we played, we were both six handicaps. We had these like, I think I won the last hole to tie the match the first time. The

second time he won the last hole to tie the match. So we had this like epic 36 hole dead tie, no strokes match. And then since then he's just beat me six times in a row. So I thought I was going to have this like really good lifelong kind of a sparring partner and it's just, it's gotten out of control. And so I bring all that up to, yeah, just give AJ a little bit of do for, for playing some nice golf. It's not good. But you know, we're going to, we're going to keep getting back on the horse as much as we can so dad back yet Some couple little tinges of the dad back but nothing nothing debilitating trying to help

You know headed off at the pass trying to stretch Trying to do all kinds of things to really stay loosened up. So I've been okay I've been I don't have to ask if you've been keeping up on the stack because I've been tracking you on the app It's been some some alerts going on. Yeah. I, man, my stack progress was jarring. Unbelievable. I started early on and you know, the first assessment is like, all right, let's just see where you're at. You know, swing it as hard as you can. And you know, seriously swing it hard, dude. We need you to swing it hard. Yeah. Quit joking around. And my max distance, you know, seriously swing it hard, dude. We need you to swing it hard. Yeah. Quit joking around. Uh, and my max distance, you know,

is one of the numbers it splits up. It's like maximum potential distance was like two 59 or something like that, which is like two 32 or something. My carry, my carry was max potential. This was like two 59, which is pretty close. I mean, I maybe hit it five, 10 yards farther than that on the golf course if I catch one, but that's, if it were being realistic, that's about what I was driving it after like, I think four or five sessions, it was up to like three 10 just because I think it was making me really realize how terrified I am to actually like swing the

club and how much I have just been guiding my driver for a decade, fearing the two way miss, probably exacerbating the two way miss by trying to guide it. And yeah, I've just been able to You're watching on YouTube. I'm going to flash up just on my phone, like DJ's chart here, just to show that he's not lying about the numbers that have come up. Yeah, crazy. So yeah, I was cruising, cruising, cruising. And then, you know, baby Charlie comes into the world and all of a sudden we're sleeping about three hours and we're sleeping on the couch.

And I'm like, all right, I'm not doing myself any favors by continuing this right now. So I hit pause, but I am about to get back into it. I'm gonna kick it back up this week. I'll start it tomorrow for you, Soly. Nice, thank you. Appreciate that. I was so stoked because in between trips to the hospital, you were talking about sneaking a session in right after he was born. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started.

I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started.

I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started.

I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna honestly, I get as much out of the warmup as I do.

Yeah. Anything else, right? Just continually like stretching and moving and getting a little sweat going. But yeah, that's my week. What about you? You played any golf? I played once, played on Friday. The weather here has also just been incredible. I took like five weeks off of playing golf, not by choice, just wildly busy nesting and getting work in a place that is ready for me to take some time off.

I just shot a horrific 82. Like I am like, it was so bad. It wasn't even the back teas either. It was just so fricking sloppy. And I just haven't played much golf at all. And I played one round in the course of not playing a lot and played great and shot a 71. And I was just like, okay, I don't need to much golf at all. And I played one round in the course of not playing a lot and played great and shot a 71. And I was just like, okay, I don't need to play a ton anymore.

I got my stack in between session. I don't need it. I got this. And I just don't got it. I just don't have, I think I've hit balls three times over the last three months. And I just am in a bad place with my, with my swing. And it's, it's, it, well, it's just Tim McQuanna woke up since the last time I played it. The sleepy, sleepy summer softness was just like, I could kind of hit it anywhere and get it on the green

and make easy pars. And now it's like, dude, you're aiming at dime size places on the green and you better have the right spin coming into it. And if you're off, you're rolling off the green and it just exposed your boy. Like he just, we weren't ready for that, for that glove. This is that, that, that fall period where like, I still have my summer handicap and I am just so

fricking vulnerable right now. I think I'm plus 1.4 and anything under 80 would be a good round of golf on that course right now. And so I just, I need to accumulate rounds, get rid of that. And that's absolutely not going to happen. So I'm just going to sit there at this inflated number for a long period of time. But I got some new wedges in the mail. As soon as like I was hitting some wedges into some of these greens and they weren't holding, I was like, I need some fresh grooves because the game done changed. We're playing real golf now. The fall and the winter is upon us down here. So, God, that's good. I got to, I need to get some, get a match on the books with you. It sounds like, it sounds like the, you know,

the handicap and your game are just like both trending in the correct direction for me. I had just figured out who Kaiser Soze was, dropping of the coffee mug of how things got off, off the mark for me. And it was tracing back to my wrist injury of like what that did to how I started rolling the, my hands inside and how I've been trying to undo that for like three years.

Cause I'm watching all these 2020 swings. I'm like, dude, I just fricking slotted that thing and you couldn't hit it offline. And I was like, why don't I do that anymore? I was like, oh my God, I've just now realized I go through little periods where it doesn't bother me that much, but every time I take time off, I get back in these horrible habits.

And I'm just like, holy crap, that a hundred percent has to be it. But you and you and the links master. I know that's, you know, it's similar, similar downfalls. Yeah. I can come up with, if you let me keep talking, come up with six more excuses. Well, I'm just not good anymore. But did you tell the story about blow that lead? Oh, I think I mentioned it, but club championship. So Timaquod is located right next to the Naval base here in Jackson. And every October the Blue Angels come, they come to the Naval base one year

and they go to the beaches one year. I know you're not gonna use the Blue Angels as an actual excuse here. I'm putting for the win on the 14th hole in the first round of my match against a US mid-amp qualifier a former club champ, this was going to be an upset for up. And the blue angels are fucking barrel rolling down the 14th fairway. And I couldn't get like, we played the day before during a practice session.

Couldn't get my heart rate down for the remainder of the day. I'm dead serious. No, I don't think you get how low they were flying on the 15th tee. We had to back off because we were in, play back. Some of those British open live shows for the other day where they're flying, flying over my house. I know how low they fly. We were literally inhaling the fumes on the 15th tee from these planes. Like it was just, and it never stops and you don't know when it's going to anyway. So like I three putted 14, I lost 15, I tied 16, lost 17, lost 18. And he made a hundred foot putt from off the green on the first playoff hole with

like 40 people from the club watching me blow the lead. Uh, and he went on to win the club championship shout to Graham. Congratulations for it. But, uh, I had him on the ropes and he ended up winning the whole damn thing. And it was an epic choke. I mean, he played awesome. It was blowing 25, 30. I had a whole story ready for that too, cause 12th hole par five, I'd lost two holes before that. I was on two up, I had 257 into the par five

and it was downwind. And I was like, I go over that green way too often. And I was like, you know what? Like trust the work you've put in on your distance here. Like I went for five iron and I hit a fucking five iron 260 yards and it went in the middle of the green and held a firm green and to put it for birdie. And I thought that was going to be like, that's my story. I'm not telling the pod for the stack and all this.

And then I went and choked it. So God, the blue angels excuses at all. Timer that's sick. I mean, it, it, I, it, we joked about itoked about it to he was like, I need something like you needed to throw some dirt in my eyes. I needed a variable. Shouldn't have. I would if I was four down, I would have wanted

that to happen. I would have wanted something something. Maybe he called in the airstrike. It might have been it, but it's interesting. Well, good luck getting getting out this week Maybe the you know, who knows maybe the kids will will delay a couple days You could say you can go flush the system a little bit who could say we've got a great some great shipments in the mail From foot joy as well. These are the that's some grounds collection. Yeah, I called my shot on this one

I wanted to wear this one. I know I was gonna wear that hoodie and you're like now don't wear it I'm already got it out. I got the beanie. If it's going to, I don't know if the weather is going to dip down low enough around here. It's like going to be the seventies next week. It's crazy, but I'm looking forward to putting the winter cap on from our friends at foot Troy. All right. I'll start, I'll start landing the blue angels here. I put this in here, a little extra credit session and anything you want to, you want to shout out some extra reading for, for anybody.

This seemed like it was made for me in particular, involves strokes gained in and drops, involves baseball involves tools, statistical analysis. Jamie Kennedy from golf digest had an article called the who are golf's five tool players. Just looking at, you know, obviously with baseball hitting for power, hitting for average, running, feeling, throwing, you know, who are the guys that are, you know, above a standard DVR, I forget what metric you use, above 0.25 strokes game putting in all, in five different categories.

Who are the guys? And it was a great look and I'm gonna spoil the whole thing, but it was great looking, different guys, skill profiles, who actually the guys are that are able to separate,'s who's some are that don't separate themselves at all. Like Eric Cole, being a zero to tool player was interesting. I think Max Homa was a zero to zero tool player. Really? I think so. Which again, is just kind of, yeah, shows. It's just it's a very interesting look. I'm with you. I don't want to

spoil it. But there was some just interesting insights on guys that you know, what it means to be kind of lopsided on one skill set what it means to be balanced. It was cool. And I think you I've whatever you think the number is of how many five tool players are are on the PGA tour. I think you would be like you'd be shocked by the time you get to the end. Yes, you would. I think I would have gotten that one actually though. Because that's, that's the that's the thing I've been touting with that, with that one dude. So I will shout out a friend of the program, Will Bardwell, uh,

his lying for blog that he writes. He wrote an essay about Golsby golf course up in the, the highlands of Scotland that I just freaking loved. Uh, I love reading about people, uh, the outsiders going to Scotland is kind of one of the, that is like, Spotify would have that in my algorithm of like, we've identified that you enjoy things like this. It's always good. It reminded me a lot of Jim Hartzell's writing. It reminded me a lot of To the Links Land, Michael Bamberger's book that I love so much. Just really, really great. I would recommend people seeking that out. It was awesome.

And I mentioned this earlier, but the updates data golf has made in terms of getting even more granular and just the representative going to go into a guy's profile and see what they're good at, see what they're not good at, see where things are going wrong. It's just never been easier. It's just, I know not everyone's into the strokes gain stuff, but like it's kind of strokes gain for dummies now. When you go look it up, you don't need to know the

1.45 just to know that like, Oh, he's like the 98th percentile in that he's very skilled at this or this is going very wrong for this player. It just tells a great, great story that's additive to the cover, especially on a week where I didn't get to watch a lot of the golf. Just like being able to go back in and see how guys rounds flowed with that presentation was really interesting. Totally.

Anything on the non-golf front before we wind it down? Yeah, I'm kind of upset. We don't get a world series game tonight as we're recording here on Sunday night. I really don't know what to do. So deep in baseball playoffs. They've been incredible. We did a pod this past week on the scene on the trap draw or seamsters union kind of little subset with Brent Rooker from

the Oakland A's, uh, avid golfer. And just like, I think you call them the Max Homa of, of MLB in terms of his future media, possibly. I was fricking buzzing off the walls after that pod. I think I listened back to it twice, just peppering him with questions on how things work. We threw some takes at him, how to evaluate our baseball takes and just a fun dude to chat some ball with and kind of reminded me of the early days of interviewing golfers of, you know, what's, what's travel like out there? How does this work? It was just a fun, fun thing to do for a baseball fan to chat with them. Please check that out. Cause it was a lot of fun.

I think not that, you know, they need the plug from us, but I think he's doing some, some takeover stuff for MLB this week for game three as well. He's gotten a lot more active on ex formerly known as Twitter, just sharing all kinds of insights on as he's been watching games. And yeah, he's great. Very funny. The story that he told about Fernando Cruz's splitter, I don't know why it reminded me so much of Neil where he, it's this one of the top pitches in all of baseball, this like just disgusting splitter. And Brent talks about being in the box and, you know, figuring out like, oh my God, I just clicked. I just figured out how I could pick up the spin. I just figured out what's making it so good.

I've got him. And then you said between that pitch and the next pitch, you forgot what it was. That was just, that's one of my favorite stories. I think I've, I've heard golf or not golf. I just, I loved that. And on the take front on that, I'm going to put an entire league on, on the hot seat or on notice. The American league, uh, has a lot at stake on this little three games in New York. If it goes wrong, I think I can work my way back into a lot of my takes about the playoffs being spot on

and just maybe the American league was a bunch of frauds. We'll see, we'll see. Yeah, I think these next three games are gonna be awesome. I think New York's coming back. I don't know if they're gonna come all the way back and win it, but I think they're- You worry about Judge? It's been really bad.

It's been bad, yeah, I don't know. Almost as bad as jazz, but not as bad as jazz, of course. But judges, I mean, it's like a serious, serious problem. Yeah, I don't know. It's not good. It seems like, I don't know, we'll see if the, we'll see how much the, you know, I know the Dodgers starting pitching gets a little thin, which means now you're going to get into the bullpen, which then you get three bullpen games in a row is going to be, you I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game.

I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game.

I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game.

I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's the thing about the game. I think that's going to break out. That was the glowing brain, Aaron Boone move. Like, well, I mean, don't you see, Joey doesn't use Tim Hill too many times. I'm pitching Nestor Cortez with the season, with the game on the line. I know. Brilliant. Now he's just got the whole deck. You know, he can, he can play any card now. It's amazing. Uh, God, that was weird. Wasn't it? And why did I don't get why Shohei was, I don't know. I don't get why they let Kainly face Shohei when it's just like, no, I've thrown 60 change-ups in a row, and it's righty lefty, and you're definitely going to hit one of these super hard. The only thing I was listening to Rates and Barrels,

they're talking about how the thing with Kainly does have two different change-ups, like a varying amount of movement. Yeah, it'd be like 83 and 86, right? But they're varying around movement. Like the profile of how they move is different, and. It'd be like 83 and 86, right? They're varying about a movement. Like the profile of how they move is different and it's just enough to keep guys off balance if you're guessing on which one it is.

But still, yeah, Ohtani was just like, dog, that don't work in here. Get the shit out of here. Soto was playing like on the track and it still got over his head and off the wall. I can't get it off. Shout out to again, Rates and Barrels. Like they've just greatly enhanced my, like what I'm watching now. What I'm watching, also John Smoltz, like walking you through at bats of pitching and stuff that's

going to happen. Holy shit, man. I'm just like, I can't look away. It's good content. Any predictions you want to take in Dodgers? Yeah, I don't think it makes it back to LA. I think at five at most. I think I just don't think. I'll say Dodgers in six. I'll say it goes one more. The reason why I was just anti-Yankees was just like,

dude, you got the two dudes and Stanton has stepped up big time. But like, if one of those two dudes gets in a slump, like you are boned and judged being this bad and looking bad. Like it's not just, it's not like hitting the ball hard at guys. He just cannot hit a breaking ball low in the zone right now. Scouting report seems to be out and it's just like, man, was he just feasting on bad American league pitching this bad?

So I'm saying the whole league is on notice these next two games. I'm searing it. It was so much at risk. I might be in the hospital texting you guys in my takes for the final seamsters. So I love it. Yeah. Not much else. I had a quick RIP to Phil Lesh, bass player of the Grateful Dead. Many, many, many amazing tributes this week that can probably do a better job than this year golf podcast. But all I would say is if you are a Grateful Dead fan, if you're not a Grateful Dead fan, just spend the next week listening, you know, picking out live shows and just

the thing that makes the Grateful Dead so fun is, you know, there's five, six instruments going on at once and you can kind of pick one to focus on and just follow for seven, eight, 12, 15 minutes at a time. And I think the most fun person to follow is always Phil. He is the one that makes it sound the way that it sounds. It makes you dance the way you dance and just a tremendous loss for the, uh, the world of music and, uh, in my favorite band. So a life well lived. That's beautiful. I have no, I have no experience. I have nothing,

nothing I can possibly say to that. Cause I just said, I need you to teach. I need like a one Oh grateful dad. One Oh I'm sure all this free time that I have you know what if you got a lot of watch the Amazon it's a weird recommendation but the Amazon like lengthy documentary does an awesome job I think it's a big like I think it's six part documentary on kind of the history of the band and how they became what they are both like literally and kind of philosophically, culturally. And it's, it does a really good job. Have you watched that would be, have you watched the Mr. McMahon documentary yet on Netflix? I started it and fell asleep the other day, but I need to get, need to get back on it.

Neil recommended it. I, I, we were captivated by it. It was as somebody that did not watch pro wrestling. Really? Oh really? Oh yeah. Who was your guy? I liked sting for a long time. I was there for the whole Goldberg phenomenon. Uh, I was much more of a WCW guy during those, those formative years.

I'm sure it does. So yeah, I mean, a lot of, a lot of those guys, kind of a front runner now that I hear myself say it out loud, but I was also, you know, 10, big undertaker guy. So, yeah. Uh, all right. That is going to wrap us. Uh, Deitch, great to have you back. I don't think I'm going to get the chance to do this too often with you this fall, but, uh, great to catch up and like, good to be here. And, uh, yeah, well, best of luck to you and Hannah and bringing a couple multiple additions into the

world. Can't wait. We world needs, the world needs multiple. We don't know if it's coming. I mean, it might be this week, it might not. Just for those, you know, in case my family is listening, it's like, yo, why didn't you tell us? We don't know yet, but we're just playing the odds here. But thank you everyone for tuning in. We'll be back here this coming week.

We'll have an interview, of course have a recap. There's no PGA Tour event next week. I don't believe if I have my weeks correct, but we'll be back with a weekly recap next week and every Sunday throughout the rest of the year as well. So thanks for tuning in. See you back next week. Cheers.