No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 928: Two Career Breakthroughs and the History of the 14 Club Rule

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

On this week's recap pod, we talk LPGA Tour Championship where Jeeno Thitikul outduels Angel Yin, and the RSM classic where Mav McNealy gets his first career PGA Tour win. We also offer some thoughts on the standings bubble discussions that played out this weekend and then it's on to assorted news and notes in our E-9 segment. Plus, a visit with NLU contributor Connor Belcastro about his time on the ground at the RSM, and KVV closes us out with One for the Road covering the origins of the fourteen club rule and stories of the rule being broken in competition. 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 Golf Resorts Rhoback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no-lang-up podcast. My name is DJ. This is a rare DJ and Randy episode. This is like season, season three. We haven't really seen these two characters together. Let's see if they have any chemistry. You know, let's write them into a, they get trapped in a mountain house or something. You know, let's, let's just see how they interact. Randy, how are you?

I'm great. I'm great. It's good to be here. I tried to go for anybody watching on the video. I tried to do a little Tanimal homage to, to the OG Tanimal, but no, things are, things are really good. DJ. I think we're going to have a fun show today. I love it. Yeah. You got some, some nice kind of soft earth tones going. I really suit you. I think I really, I enjoy it. Yeah. We do have a good show. Damn it. You know, I think it's going to be a good one. We've got a lot of stuff to cover on the LPGA. Gino Titicum wins by one shot over Angel Yin with a birdie at the last hole. She collects, I believe the first ever $4 million first place prize in the world of Caich. A lot of cash. At the RMS classic, the PJ Tour season has mercifully come to an end

with a Mav McNeely victory. Uh, the first title of his career. Excited to talk about that. Excited for Mav. Then we're going to do a little front nine, back nine. I've got, I've got the front nine. I've got some news and notes that I simply cannot get through the week without talking about with you big. And then for the back nine, we're going to throw to our guy, Connor Balcastro, who's done some writing for our website. He was out at the RSM all week. He is an aspiring professional golfer himself, aspiring tour player. He is a professional

golfer. He's going to, he's going to give us some news and notes and observations from being out at the RSM Classic. We'll do a little housekeeping and then our guy KVV is back for one for the road. He's got a good one dialed up for that. But Randy, before we get into any of it, we've got some Titleist gear news from the RSM Classic. It's from our friends at Titleist. Your newest PGA Tour champion made a significant change this week, putting the new 2025 Pro V1 golf ball into competition for the first time.

That's always exciting. New golf ball, and you go out and win the damn thing. He gained nearly seven shots on the field tee to green while finishing second in proximity to the hole, including a dart to five feet at 18 for the winning birdie. In total, 74% of the field in in total 74% of the field. In total, 74% of the field teed up a titleist this week at Sea Island, including 37 players who were already gaming the

new 2025 Pro V1 or Pro V1 X models. That always blows me away. Just like how fast these guys are put their trust in title. It's like, yeah, it's kind of the most important piece of equipment I have. If you say the new ones better, great. I'll put it in right away. It's a, so yeah, half of those guys already, already kind of put it in, which is awesome. So that's 16 players, Randy in the new Pro V1, 21 in the new Pro V1 X and for comparison, the nearest

competitor's total number of golf balls in play was 14. So I think that, I think that sums it up. On the PJ Tour. That split between Pro V1 and Pro V1X is interesting to me. I would have guessed more people in just the regular Pro V. It's the low spin boys are out there. You know, we're represented well out on the PJ Tour. We're legion. Yeah. On the PJ Tour at almost every level of competitive golf, more of the best players in the world choose the performance and Consistency of titleist golf balls head to titleist comm to start the golf ball fitting process Find out which golf ball model is right for you and don't miss out on titleist new holiday two dozen pack save

$10 on two dozen Pro V1 Pro V1 X or Pro V1 X left at left-dash That's kind of the biggest no brainer in history. Who's not going through two dozen golf balls over the course of the next year. Good stock up. They don't go back. Yeah. All right, sir.

I'm going to turn it over to you. You're your ship here, captain. We're going to talk about the LPGA first. We had the season ending CME tour championship. Please tell me all about it, big. God, where do you start? Huh? Where do you start? No, it was, it was a great, great action

today and really all weekend. It turned into a dual of sorts. Dij between Angel Yin and Gino Titicum. You mentioned up top that Gino Titicum ended up winning. She nipped Angel Yin by a single shot. She collects $4 million first place prize. Angel Yin for her efforts, runner up, gets a million dollars. So some big money on the line this weekend down in Naples. And really, Dej, the story of the day, Titicombe and Angel Yin, they both started at 15 under par. They were three shots clear to begin the round of their next closest competitor. Here's a stat for you, DJ, chew on this one. Coming into Sunday, Angel Yin had made,

according to the telecast, 498 feet of putts through her first hole. Not all at once though. Those were over, you know, multiple, multiple holes over. Do you know what that average hold putt over 54 holes is? A lot. Yeah. 9.2 feet, which I mean, doesn't sound like a lot, but think about every hole finishes in a putt of at least nine feet. It's pretty crazy. So Angel was riding a hot putter. Gino Titicombe was actually second in putting all week. This low key was a putting competition.

Actually Angel was bogey free. She would finish bogey free, but through 16 holes, Angel was 21 under par, two shots up. But I want to talk about the par five 17th and then the par four 18th specifically. And this is where Gino won the tournament to just gorgeous towering iron shots. The one on 17 was from about 200 yards out. She hit it to, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 feet in cash. The Eagle putt angel on the very

gettable par five 17th. she just missed the green left, kind of short-sighted herself, hit a pretty good chip up to maybe six, seven feet. And it was, honestly, it was her worst putt of the day. She kind of a dead push right from the start, missed that one. So they're tied after 17, going to the 18th. And I thought the telecast did a really good job. Karen Stupples was out on the course with them and Morgan Pressell and Terry Gannon were in the booth. And I forget who specifically made the point, but they're like in this type of situation,

it really pays to be the person going first. And so Titicombe was first off the tee, she hits the fairway. Angel matches her, but that key approach shot, Gino Titicum went first and she hit a five iron from 178 yards to about five feet. Just stuffed it. Excellent iron shot under pressure. And so Angel has to follow suit.

She hits a decent shot. You know, it's not bad. Her iron goes to about 20 feet. And then Angel's putt, it honestly looked really good about the whole time, just slid past the hole. So she makes par. She finishes at 21 under, setting the stage for Gino, five foot birdie putt to win $4 million and never a doubt right in the heart. So really, really fun ending. This was the tour championship, the last official tournament on the LPGA tour this calendar year.

They do have the joint Grant Thornton coming up in a few weeks, but as far as the actual LPGA tour season, this puts a bow on things. DJ, I think we start right here with Geno Titicum. I just want to go over a few stats. She's 21 years old. She's from Thailand, if people aren't aware.

She's currently ranked seventh in the world. I don't know if she might jump a spot or two with this win. We will see tomorrow. But I wanna talk about what she's done the last few years. Okay. And not necessarily on the winning side of it, because I do think that will come, but this win today was her second win of 2024.

Her first individual title, she and Ron and Yen had teamed up earlier this year to win the team LPGA event. This is the fourth win of Go Titicum's career. And it's almost weird to say this, but it's like, that doesn't seem like a lot for her because her floor is, I honestly think she has the highest floor of anybody in golf right now.

What makes you say that? Because I feel like I don't watch as much LPGA as you do, and I've never happened to time it up with a week where she's running away, but I see her name all the time. By the way, change your name if you're not watching a lot of LPGA golf and you feel like you're having a stroke. You're not wrong. It used to be a tight stick. I feel like that can always be, it always needs to be pointed out.

But what is it about her game that impresses you so much? How does she do it? She's just really good. And I say that in like the truest sense possible. So I think there are a few ways we could go about this. Let me pull up her KPMG insights. Okay. Which is like the strokes gained stats on the LPGA tour. She ranked second this year heading into this week, but I think she'll finish second to Nelly Cordo. And so Gino gains on average 2.3 shots against the field each round. But I think what makes her great DJ to answer your question, her shots

gain T to green, she is plus 1.05 per round, which puts her just outside the top 10. For comparison sake, Nellie's at plus 1.52, which is like fifth on the LPGA Tour. So she's a really good ball striker, okay? She's maybe not like the best ball striker, at least she wasn't this year, but she's a very good ball striker. And then she complements it. Her putting is, she picks up 1.05 strokes putting each round as well, which ranks second on the LPGA Tour. And so this is where like,

how does her game vary from Nelly Korda, right? Well, Nelly is gaining 0.57 shots putting per round. And so Gino's almost double that this year. And with ball striking, that is like almost on par with Nelly. And so it's just a very well rounded game. She has a great demeanor. She never really seems flustered. And that plays out in like she is a top 10 machine. This is her eighth consecutive top 10 finish this weekend. This streak has started since after the women's open championship. On the year, Gino made 17 starts. She's got 12 top 10s. And if you go back to the start of 2023, so over two full seasons, she's made 38 starts on the LPGA Tour and has

finished in the top 10 25 times. And so I get back to, she's only won twice in that span. She didn't win in 2023 and she's won twice. So it's this weird kind of like, she is so good and she is always on the front page of leaderboards that it's starting to be like, okay, we're just all waiting for her to like really start winning tournaments. And I think a win like this with the pressure that comes along with such a big purse

and just the way she went about it, I mean, going eagle birdie to win by one, I just feel like, you know, as we look ahead to 2025, Geno Titicum is somebody that could win many times. So it's exciting. I think she's a great winner. Obviously Lydia Ko and Nelly are two big names that have enjoyed excellent, excellent seasons. Lydia actually shot 63 today. She finished solo third. She was 17 under par and Nelly good week, tied for fifth, you know, 15 under

par. Kind of seems like, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. Yeah. But she caps the season, which she won seven times in 16 starts. She won a major. She was part of the winning Solheim Cup team. She had wrapped up L PGA player of the year. She led the tour in strokes gain. She just got a spot in sports illustrated swimsuit edition. She won four and a half million in official money. So like Nellie had a good year and I'm curious what she's going to do next year as an encore. I want to go back to Gino just for a second because as you were kind of talking about that, I'm trying to, you know, it can be kind of trite, I think, to compare the women's game to the men's game all the time. But I think just

with my viewing habits and probably the viewing habits of a lot of the people that listen to this podcast, sometimes that's the easiest framing mechanism. And so when you throw out, you know, plus 2.3 strokes gained per round, that can like, people can kind of glaze over a little bit when they hear those numbers, but the comp on the men's side, and I know it's not apples to apples, because there's probably not quite as much depth on the women's side as there is on the men's side. But like that's Xander Shawfully essentially, right? And when you're talking about a player who's like, man, they're just, they're pretty young. They have all the tools. They do everything well. I don't really get why they're not just winning quite as much. Like that's every box you're kind of going down is where I'm like,

ah, this sounds a lot like Xander. And we kind of saw what he did over the past year. So maybe that's, maybe that could be what we're in for next year. I think that's a perfectly apt comparison. Scotty's like Tinelli's Scotty, right? Yes. I think Gino thus far kind of fits that Xander profile where like, I don't know, Xander is sneaky long, right? I think his distance always kind of creeps up on you. I think his distance always creeps up on you. Gino's the same way. She's one of the longer, she's not the longest, but she has plenty of length when she needs it. And she just does everything really well.

And I think that's a great comp. Nellie and Scotty, they were so intertwined this year with the wind streaks and the amount of winds that each had that, yeah, I think people could absolutely think of Xander and Gino and the upshot for Gino is, like I said, you know, women's golf, the ages are, you know, I don't exactly know like the curve, right? When we talk about player ages, but like, she's 21 years old old and it just seems like over the next, I don't know, five years, like you picture a tour with Nelly and Gino and you know, Roning Yin, who I didn't mention, but she finished solo four. She had a great year this year. She's a 21 year old major champion

from China. Like I do think the women's game is in a fun place with like really good big names and they're all playing like really good golf so and just like heavyweight venues coming up as well as they always tend to have on the on the major side as well. So I'm I'm with you big. Hey, let me ask you this. Were you mad as hell about this Angel Yin drop? I'm just, it's all I've seen in our slack. Who was, who was the lead in that charge? TC if you can believe that. Yeah. Um, I'll tell you what the, the TV angles made it look like not a great drop. And for anybody that wasn't watching at the beginning of her third round, so Saturday morning, I believe it was the fourth

hole. Angel hit an approach shot, didn't appear particularly close, flew left, landed in a pond, kind of off the side of the hole. And I think from the angle that we saw on TV, everybody was pretty surprised at where she was dropping, which was like a lot closer to the green than it would have seemed. Almost like green side in a sense, where it looked like, man, that ball crossed pretty close after contact.

And at least again, from the TV angle, it never really appeared to like recross. So I don't know, Dej, you tell me, honestly, because they asked Angel about it in her post-round interview. She said, yeah, the LPGA, the rules officials have me come in. We reviewed the TV angles that they did have. We discussed it. Angel said her playing partner and her playing partner, Katty, both were okay with where she dropped it. She said a marshal that was with them never told her it was like a bad place to be dropping it. And so ultimately, you know,

what what are you going to do? She she dropped where she thought was proper and, and life goes on. Yeah, I feel like my stance on where did it cross Twitter is well documented. These are not the kinds of things that I, this is a younger man's game. Big, I just, I can't do it. I trusted professionals to get it right. And I just feel like the people, the invested and interested parties just probably have a better view of this stuff than I do.

So it's fun to get mad as hell. And if you want, I could be like, this is bullshit. This is bullshit. This is a stain on the game. I could, you know, we could do that if you want, but I just, I don't know, man, I think everybody's just kind of doing their best, including the unpaid Marshall or the paying Marshall, I should say that's down there that they're asking. They're asking for his, you know, his insight, his opinion on, uh on deciding this $4 million golf tournament. And I think that's, I think that's where I net out. Like, is it fun to get fired up every now and again?

Of course. Like did I have the bandwidth this weekend? You gotta pick your spots, man. You gotta pick your spots. Nah, you know, I just, and you're right, like absent, if it really is a big deal, then we would have a different system to determine where a drop should take place. But it seems like, man, if golf is okay with how we do it now, then in the end, like, who am I to say? I don't know. All right. Close this out on the LPGA side of the house.

Yeah. So a few year long races were decided this weekend. I'd mentioned Nelly Corda had wrapped up player of the year. And I reiterate that that comes with a whole same point spreadsheet player of the year, not the not the player of the year. Exactly. Those votes are still being counted. The other hall of fame point that is awarded is for the fair trophy, which goes to the season long low scoring average. Japan's Ayaka Furuway won that today. Literally came down to the final round. She clipped Heyron Rue. They both though, they both were in contention and they both trail Nelly and Gino because Nelly and Gino didn't meet the minimum round threshold.

This sounds like another great system they got in place here, big. Little scummy there, perhaps. Yeah, little scummy there. But congrats to Ayaka Furuway. Mal Sige wins your 2024 Rookie of the Year. Congrats to her. We had a surprise announcement. This one got me off guard. Marina Alex is hanging it up.

Friend of the Pod. This is a shock to see today. I know. Nobody really knew this until, I guess, Morgan Pressell knew on the telecast and kind of hinted at it as Marina was coming up 18. And then, you know, obviously after the round, they interviewed her and she was like, yeah, I just didn't want to make a big deal, put extra pressure on this week. And so-

What a refreshing tact rather than, you know, the year. I feel like you see it in every sport, right? That does not even pick it on golfers. You just say, well, we're going to talk about your law. Yeah. I was trying not to, you know, I was trying to throw too much direct shade, but you know, even in Bay, even in baseball, you know, you got the year log farewell tours and everybody's got to get a gift. And it's just, I stand with Marina as I, as I usually do on most issues. I was watching my fiance, Kat came in and they were talking about, Oh, it's like every tournament, it could be your last, but nobody knows for sure. Anyway, we're going to get there.

I think in a little bit, I forget, I'm not, I'm not known. I remember being at the, at the open championship. It must've been 2015. Yeah. I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was like, I think it was Tom Watson was going over, but he'd already done this, like look back and stop and take all the fun. He'd already done it. Like this is like the

third time he'd done it. There was some media member, I wish I could remember who it was, which is like, man, fuck this. This is such, this guy's done this like three times. Like get out of here. Like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm remember who it was, which is like, man, fuck this. This guy's done this like three times. Like, get out of here. And I just always made me laugh. Yeah. People retire different ways. And that was on full display. Ali Ewing was playing in her last tour championship. She's going to retire, retire.

Man, changing the guard here. Yeah, it is. It is a little bit. Brittany Lintz, Angela Stanford, you know, a lot of people going out. Right. Who are not in the tour championship, but, but to just stalwarts mainstays of women's golf the last decade plus. So yeah, you will see more of a changing of the guard, which I think is good. DJ, I just have to talk about one more thing. We can keep this pretty tight,

but Bethann Nichols had an interview with the CME group CEO, Terry Duffy, and people- This guy's getting a lot of burn in the world of women's golf, and I'm here for it. I think we could even turn up the heat a little bit. He seems kind of maybe, he might be a bit of like the shadow commissioner, at least definitely a power broker. I mean, he listened $11 million for the tour championship is directly a result

of his investment and his doing. Anyway, I rewind two years ago where I don't know if you remember that big controversy around one of the player dinners at the CME and how pissed he was, like no players showed up. He even spoke out earlier this week about the third round was on tape delay on golf channel. It was just low rent for a major tour, right? Right. So Bethann publishes this interview with him

and listen, Tron and Cody and myself, we've been hearing hints that, you know, the Mali tenure might not see 2025. I mean, I'm not reporting that as fact. I just, I know that there's a lot of shit going on. And so when Bethann drops an interview with Terry Duffy, I'm expecting him to like light up LPGA Commissioner Molly Marcuse-Saman. And it's the complete opposite.

To continue to continue. Right. And so one of the questions Bethann asked him, she asked, we're a little over three years into Molly's tenure, how would you assess the direction of the tour and how it's going? And this is where I'm like, Oh, God, Terry, here we go. Take it away away, buddy. Like give him the ball, let him cook. And he goes, I don't know how you could, I'm quoting him. I don't know how you could not give an A plus plus to where the tour is at today under her leadership. And he goes on to, you know, kind of explain it, but he never really cites concrete examples.

Part of it he says, I'm quoting again, Terry he never really cites concrete examples. Part of it, he says, I'm quoting again, Terry Duffy. When I look at Molly Marcuse Mon, I think, and listen, nobody pays me to say shit. You need to put that in there. I say what I want. All right. So let that be known. Don't let him tell me what to do. He goes, I signed that deal because of mo- there's a two-year extension that was just announced this week between CME and the LPGA. Terry says, I signed that deal because of Molly there's a two year extension that was just announced this week between CME and the LPGA. Terry says, I signed that deal because of Molly Marcuse Mont.

I'm gonna be dead ass honest with you. That was a big part of it. I love the trajectory of the tour. I love the way the pace has been going. If I would have saw a more radical pattern in the last few years, I would say, eh, not so sure I like what I see, but I haven't seen that.

I've seen growth. And so then, you know, natural, Bethann, good journalist, her follow up question, what specifically is it about her leadership that you appreciate? And Terry goes, quote, nothing in particular. I like the trajectory. Just lives, man. Yeah. I'm like, Jesus Christ, what are we doing?

Yeah. I remember grinding my feet on Molly's couch. Yeah. So watch this space. Who knows what's going to happen, but I feel like December could be an interesting month in terms of LPGA leadership, or not, which I guess is interesting in and of itself.

We shall see. Yeah. D, that's about all I got from the Tour Championship. Excellent. Well, thank you for that. I know you and Cody will probably get a little deeper on an episode in the next couple of weeks here, just looking back on the season as a whole. We'll see what happens. I also just selfishly, you know, I'm bummed to see Marina's playing career come to an end, but hopefully she comes on about 30 podcasts next year.

I know. I want to invite her to all our live shows already. Let's just get those on the calendar. Well, before get those on the calendar. Well, before we get into the final PGA Tour event of the season, let's hear from our friends at Omni. Fall golf is here big and what better way to appreciate the beauty of fall golf and get in a few rounds than visiting one of our favorite Omni hotels and resorts on the East Coast like the historic and newly renovated Omni Homestead in Virginia. Me and KVV W and saw that one last year.

It was excellent. Or the Oak Marsh Course in Amelia Island, just north of our former home there in Jacksonville, big, which is set to open back up for public play next month following a $7.4 million renovation by Bo Welling. And just because the sun has set on Twilight Rounds doesn't mean that play stops. Omni resorts have a ton of cool options to keep it going after dark, like the new Eagles Edge at Omni Orlando

Champions Gate with 30 state of the art hitting bays featuring top tracer technology. Or you can explore the lighted 10 hole par 3 course, The Swing at Omni PGA Frisco. I didn't get to play that last time I was there. That is absolutely on my list for next time. It looks electric. That whole facility too. They have a lit huge putting green as well if you're in that area. Don't forget there's still time to register for the Omni Generation Cup, a first-of-its-kind tournament. It 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? Big get to OmniHotels.com slash golf and play the possibilities. I can report next summer. My parents is their 50th wedding anniversary, and they're inviting the kids out to the Omni Homestead. Get out of here. Yeah, we're going to spend a few days out there.

So I think I hope to. Good bar and the whole gang is going to go play the possibilities. Yeah, exactly. I hope to play the golf course. Two golf courses. You'll you'll you'll like them both. They're really fun. Perfect.

All right, let's get over to the RSM classic where our guy, Mav McNeely, wins the final event of the season by one shot over Luke Clanton, Nico Echeverria and Daniel Berger. Pump for Mav McNeely. He has been a guy who's always been very good to this podcast. He's always fascinating to talk to. People talk a lot about his background and his dad, famously is the, microsystems billionaire. But MAF is like, I truly respect so much the way that he has gone about things, forge his own path. He works his ass off.

And he just like, seems like he's, he's really used his situation in the, in the best way possible and like never takes anything for granted. And I think a lot of that was only exacerbated since he's been battling this nasty shoulder injury for the past like three or four years. I'm sure you've had a couple of run-ins with Mav as well. We got to play, God, I'm trying to think, we played a pro-am with him when he was going out with Danielle Kang. It was myself and Tron and Danielle and Mav. My thing with Mav, I've met him in person now a couple of times. He is very, very, very down to earth and the type of person

that just seems super easy to hang out with. Golf commentary aside, on a personal level, one of the more enjoyable people that I've met. As we've been able to do what we do and meet a lot of people, Mav is like right up there, like, who would you feel comfortable just going to have a beer with? I feel like Mav is that person. And I always think there's something interesting too about, you know, Max is kind of the same

example here, not necessarily with injuries, but just with poor play as you see these guys coming out of college who are the absolute dudes, right? I mean, MAV tying Tiger's record at Stanford or breaking his record. I forget how many, how many wins he had at Stanford. Yeah. Cause then it was like Patrick Rogers was up there. I never know what the Stanford records, but you know, just the absolute guy coming out of college starts pretty quick to his pro career and then just starts, you know, getting kicked in the teeth with injuries and watching guys, you know, try to figure out whether they can put it back, whether they can kind of reinvent themselves a little bit. It's just, it's fun to see it all come full circle with a W and now he's into the Masters and he's into Pebble

and Riv and just a lot of good things come in Mav's way and it's been a long time coming because I think the last couple years have been pretty frustrating for him. So that was very fun to watch. It was a fun, it was kind of a fun, dare I say a little fun November 24th afternoon of PJ Tour Golf. Luke Clanton knocking down flag sticks and trying to be the second amateur to win on the PJ Tour this year. This is a stat I dug up here big of all the players in this field at the RSM. There have only been two, according to Strokes Game, there only been two better than Luke Clanton over the past six months. And those are that's Ludwig and Davis Thompson, which Davis Thompson was no slouch himself. So we're going to talk much more Luke Clanton

when when Connor comes on later, but another unbelievable week for him. And then the last guy, or kind of two more guys I want to shout out. First one is our guy DB Strayvibe, Daniel Berger, again, battling injuries, trying to come back. I had kind of forgotten just like how long it had been. And when he played AMEX earlier this year was his his first event of the season. That was his first event like 18 months that he had played. So I mean, the back injury was no his first event in like 18 months that he had played. So I mean, the back injury was no joke, sidelined him for a really long time. And it's not like he was playing great,

you know, after the injury and after getting right. I mean, he only had one top 10, I think, coming into this this week. That was at the Sanderson and kind of came in with his back against the wall, number 127, and just absolutely balled out, kind of runner up out of nowhere and to move inside and and get his card and this was like pressure like he he doesn't have this is where I always get so

confused in golf is I can never remember like who's on a medical exemption and so like you come to a point like like you're saying today with d at number 127 and needing a result this week. That was like he needed a result. He didn't have medical stuff to fall back on or to carry him over the first part of 2025. Is that right? I believe that's right. His last win, I think, was 21, 20 or 21, I think, at the Cognizant. He only had one win in that year. So I think that got him two years. And then I think that kind of ran out in 23. And then, yeah, so I think, I don't know,

depending on how the medical stuff, maybe he had an extra year. I'm with you, it's very confusing. There's no real easy way to see it. But by all accounts, I think this was one of the- But I choose to believe this was a result. He went and got it. And so, yeah, we celebrate that.

And I will say some of his quotes were pretty sick as well. I don't know if you saw him talking about, he was asked about the changes and it's this closed system now and there's just no spots for anybody. And I'm very much paraphrasing, but not by much. Or he's like, Oh yeah, I don't really think about that stuff. Like if I'm playing like halfway decent, like I'm better than all these guys anyway. So like, it's not going to be an issue, which is, which is delightful. It just shines a light on like, man, we've been robbed over the last two years. He's kind of one of those guys. I don't know. I'm not ready to make any like big declarative statements here, but, uh, alternate universe.

Daniel Berger is like such a superstar. I feel like, you know, I think he was, he was trending on that, that trajectory for a while. He's a really fun, like funny personality. And I just, I think without these injuries, there's a world where, you know, he's going toe to toe with Scotty and just the PGA tour is better off for it. So maybe that still exists in the future. We'll see. Let's hope so because you're right. He, listen,

we got to celebrate and hold up those, those kind of interesting personalities and he is that. And I think he's somebody that wouldn't mind seeing and hearing more of Daniel Berger. And so as he gets healthy and plays better, I think we're going to get to experience that. Not to mention his tennis lineage, which I know gets you going. Exactly. Last guy, I will shout out specifically again, we'll have a bunch more RSM stuff with Connor

when he hops on in the back half It's just Ludwig playing his first event since the tour championship, you know, obviously went and got his knee cleaned up He finished t17 pretty you know, just trying for the human spirit stuff here He was five over through his first ten to start the tournament and then clawed back and shot two sixty fours on Friday and Sunday and Guy just ran out of holes. Yeah. This was a 90 hole event.

I think you're right. Good. Good degree more. Yeah. Apparently the knee, the knee works a couple of little bubble things that we wanted to talk through. So the first one's the 51 to 60 bubble, which gets you into pebble and RIV. I was going to say, give me a quick refresher on these. So very quick everyone

after Windham or after the playoffs I should say everyone who's in the top 50 is locked right so you're not moving from 46 to 44 if you're 46 or 46 if you're outside the top 50 you have a chance to move up and if you are after today's round if you're outside the top 50, you have a chance to move up. And if you are after today's round, if you're inside that, that window from 51 to 60, you might know it big as the Aon next 10. Then you... Oh, that. Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. I'm sure everybody's been asking about that. I do lead with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you are inside that 51 to 60, you get into Pebble and RIV, not Centuryry for some reason.

So I don't know. Sure. So with all of that as preamble. A couple dope Siggy's early in 2025. That's exactly right. Who's saying no to an invite to those events? That's a good, you know, it's a Matt McNeely. That's one of the perks he's gotten.

I don't, you know, don't have to tell you how much he loves Pebble. So that'll be a good one. Joining him there will be the Soldier Boy, Kevin Yu, who moves from 61 to 58. And it pains me to say our guy, Team Rose, falls from number 60 to 62 this week. So he will likely have to rely on some sponsor exemptions if he's going to play Pebble and Rift, but we shall see. And then of course, the other bubble is the top one 25 bubble.

This is the tour card. You are a fully exempt player if you're inside the top one 25. So if you're outside the top one 25, they're not going to send you to Guantanamo Bay. Like you'll still get a couple of starts, but you do not automatically get into all of the, uh, all of the exempt events. These guys were not playing for their life. I don't think they are. I mean, it's a big deal.

It's a big deal. And I think Kisner had a tweet about, you know, once these changes go into place, like the system does get even more closed. And so it is even harder when you're 126 or 131 or whatever to get your way back in. Sure. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure there'll be a couple of guys, we will still have, but they're not going to labor camps out. Not that I know of, at least not now, who knows? Let this policy board keep running shit and we'll see where it ends up.

Henrik Norlander is the biggest mover of the week. He goes from 126 to 120 and then rounding out the top one 25 we had at one 21 Alex Smalley, one 22 David, Mr. Skins, one 23 Sammy Valamaki, one 24 Joel Damon. We'll talk more about him in a second and one 25 Sam rider, uh, which means that devastatingly somehow our guys ZB for the second time in his career is a one 26. He is the first man out, which is tough. Things you hate to see. He started the fall at number 115 and just kind of fell just enough to fall outside of that 125. So bum for

our guy there. West Brian started the week at number 125, but missed cut. So he fell to 128. One I wanted to ask you about here big Joel Damon was kind of the story of the day. It was really fun to watch. He was out early. He, you know, again, I think Connor saw some of this and talked to him a little bit. So he'll fill us in a little bit more, but just brass tacks, axes and O's here. After the season, he was 118th on the FedEx Cup, missed the playoffs, but he gets a sponsor exemption into the Zozo, which is a 78 man, no cut event where he finishes T41.

He earns 13 FedEx cup points for that T41 and now he keeps his card by seven points. So I know everything is not, you know, it's not quite that linear and all the points count the same and it's easy to look at that. Also, it's worth mentioning ZB also got an exemption into that and got a couple points that weren't quite enough for him. How do you feel about that? Is that making the tour better? Is that making the tour worse?

I'm of a few different minds. My maybe overarching reaction is like, hey, life's never fair. And so it worked out for Joel here. Great. Good for him. But I'm also of the mind, like, it does, it just kind of has a stink to it, right? And my solution would be, I have no issue with there being sponsor exemption into the Zozo or these fall events, which the fall time now is such a big deal for jockeying, for points and status and etc. Where it seems to me like let's meet in the middle, we can give sponsors exemptions,

Joel and ZB can go play in Japan, and wherever they finish, they're entitled to that money. But maybe they don't get the FedEx Cup points, which is the way they do it on the LPGA tour. The second Asian swing, the one in the fall, there's a lot of limited field events. And if players get invited who haven't otherwise qualified through their season standing, They're free to play.

They're free to cash the checks, but the points they earn do not apply to the season long CME race. So I like that way of doing it. That seems like the most equitable for everything because yeah, I'd be pissed if I were a guy that like, yeah, Joel, you know, he's a little bit more popular. He's able to go over there and get a few points. And that's the difference between, you know, full status. And I'm over here at, you know, 127 or 128 or whatever the case may be. That's really interesting, especially when you start thinking about, you know, the what's

going to happen with the signature events and, you know, guys who are outside of that top 50 now are like Jordan Spieth and Ricky Fowler. And, you know, I mentioned Justin Rose, like guys who are going to get a lot of exemptions and probably going to follow if they have any, you know, shred of their normal form will probably follow that like Adam Scott type of model. What he did this past year where he got exemptions into a bunch of the signature events, no cut, guaranteed points, guaranteed money events. And he played his way all the way into the top 50. And granted, he played pretty nice, but coming into the season was not really on that path. And I do think that's a good middle ground

where it's like, yeah, give Ricky and Jordan and these guys who are like going to put butts in the seats, like give them, you know, access to these tournaments. But yeah, if you want to keep your card and you want to, you know, you want to get your way back, you want to earn your way back into it, then you better go to, you know, Detroit and Minneapolis and go get on that, that hot humidity tour in the summer, man. And that's where you're going to have to do it. If you're better than these guys and go beat these guys. You know what? You bring that bill to the floor. I think I might sign it big. I think we could almost whip the votes. Like let's get this

implemented for next year. Hell yeah. I'm kind of embarrassed. I haven't thought about that. I agree. All right. Well, we are going to talk a little bit more about the RSM in a bit when, when Connor hops on before we do. So we're, we're, we've done the E nine the last couple of weeks, big, we're going to, there's just simply too many golf holes. We got to play there's the land is too good. So we're going to do a little, you know, I hate playing nine. I'm more of an 18 hole guy. That's what I figured. So we're going to do a little front nine back nine here. Okay. Score. So I, the front nine is going to be, this is just stuff that I know I had to put on your radar. I, I, I couldn't sleep if I knew you missed any of this stuff. So, uh, let's get into it.

Number one, Australian PGA championship. Uh, cool story here. A heartfelt congrats to 22 year old Elvis smiley, uh, who won the Aussie PGA in Brisbane over his idol, Cam Smith, by two shots. That's cool. I don't know if you saw this big. So I had no idea that Cam Smith does this, but every year he does like a scholarship where he picks, I don't know how he picks or how people apply or whatever, but two Australian junior golfers just like get on his radar and he flies them over to the States to just

spend a week with him in Jacksonville playing golf, hanging out, going to dinner, practicing, asking questions, you know, whatever. And so five years ago, Elvis smiley, when he was 17 was one of those dudes and it just happened. I'm sure you remember, cause I think you were living there at the time too. Hurricane Dorian was going through that's when he was there. So they couldn't really play golf. So they just hung out at his house, like playing putting games and like dicking around in Tams F1 simulator. And so just kind of became like buddies and you know, Elvis like look has looked up to him forever. And then all of a sudden he's facing them down, you know, the final round of the Aussie PGA, just a

very cool, a cool heartwarming story. I was, I was way into that one. just a very cool, a cool heartwarming story. I was, I was way into that one. I dig that. And immediately what comes to my mind is, we've done a few week in the life video productions. God, that would have been a fun one, right? There will be no golf. We're just turning lemons into lemonade. Yeah. Elvis, we're going to follow your week here with cam Smith in the States. And it just turns out being F1 races and indoor putting games. I think also where my head went is you should start offering a scholarship, you know, the big Randy come and get in there, you know, we're going to get some coffee for three or four hours in the morning. You know,

we'll read quietly to ourselves. Yeah, there will be, you'll get four questions. Please use them wisely. This is not going to be an interactive deal. Certainly not all week. We will have designated times when we can open, open the floor for some conversation. You're welcome to join me for a walk. You know, I got to take the dog out. I don't know if we're going to, again, I think we can just be kind of like alone or just other sort of thing. Yeah. We're going to occupy the same space, but we don't necessarily need to. This is kind of, you know, I need to charge my batteries. Exactly. One of the times I do that. Yeah. I think people could maybe glean a lot just by watching you do

what you do. You know, I think that's something we should maybe put on our, our 2025 budget. Okay. All right. That's good. That's good. All right. Number two, speaking of Cam Smith, this was an SI golf story from Matt Vincenzi. There's an unnamed live GM whose phone is just quote, ringing off the hook right now, big. And I don't know what this means. The unnamed GM said, quote, my phone's been ringing nonstop, basically since before Dallas. Things are starting to happen from either players directly or agents calling and exploring and wanting to look at the possibility of coming on live.

Two guys had that had very big offers are now calling, wanting to be on a live team. They said it was the worst decision that they ever made not accepting the offer and coming over. I don't think these live GMs would have anything to gain from throwing false statements out there. I think we got to take this one at face value. This could be some new free agent signings coming. It could be from the promotions event, or there was a line in the story too about how so all these guys have been relegated who stink, you know, Bubba and Kieran Vincent and things of that nature. Did my guy, Huddy, did my guy Huddy been relegated who stink, you know, Bubba and Kieran Vincent and things of that nature.

Did my guy Huddy get relegated? I'm not sure. I would have to double check. Who could say? Well, there's also the open zone and there's the green zone. There's so many zones to keep track of. But the line I really liked was that teams are able to resign relegated players, quote, if there's a business case for bringing them back.

Like in the case of Bubba, who's I believe the main shepherd of the range goats, I think it's like, you know, the franchise is just worth that much more if he's involved. I think again, nothing says just like, we demand to be taken seriously. Like, you know, we're gonna wheel Bartolo Colon out there because he's gonna sell tickets is kind of a sick, sick way to be taken seriously. Like, you know, we're going to wheel Bartolo Colon out there because he's going to sell tickets.

It's kind of a sick, sick way to go about this. If they would publish said business cases, I want to know, I want to at least have access to the business cases. I know I won't get to play arbiter, but I desperately want to know what the business cases are. It also sounds like AK will be coming back in some form. We don't know how or where or what, but that's your live corner.

Real quick there though, I will say TC is banking, praying for a lived affection. So then ZB would slot upwards from 126 into 125. That's true. I didn't think about that. Keep an eye, keep an eye there. That's true. Yeah. Maybe you don't even have to worry about it if all these people are banging down the door. You know, you start booking your,

start booking your hotel room for Sony now. All right. Speaking of TC, he actually had an apology after doing something quite disgusting last week. If you'll remember on the E9, of course he likes to talk about the, the fabulous, will it fit game? Uh, he just really screwed the pooch on this last one. He got it totally wrong.

He thought that, you know, it wouldn't fit. Anyways, here's TC guys real quick. Wish I could be with you tonight. Uh, serving my suspension and undisclosed location suspended for what you may ask I made a grave error last week as so many so many people pointed out on X and DJ you know asked me to resign even it turns out four T-Rex's will fit inside the TJL screen I think they're using some pretty small T-Rexes, if we're being honest, but I was distracted when I was putting together the agenda

and I just didn't bother reading the reply that they actually would fit. I just assumed that they wouldn't fit. So, terrible error and it cost me a lot of credibility. So hopefully I can get back to everybody's good graces and be back on the podcast here soon. Guys have a great show tonight and just wanted to address that. Thank you. There you have it. TC taking the high road as always. I think he was worried, he sidebar with me afterwards that they may have stopped doing the will it fit game just with all the heat that he's thrown on it now.

I don't know that I've I saw recently, but I hope that's not the case because it's been a kind of light in the darkness. I will report to you know, it sounded very busy if you're just listening to T.C. on the podcast. I believe he's on a concourse at TD Garden, the home of the Boston Celtics. Is why you might ask, who knows? We don't know. We simply don't know. I believe TC was filming that while taking in a, just could not miss the game tonight, just had to go.

Speaking of, uh, of TGL TC also made the entire no line up team use the team selector tool, uh tool that is on the website to identify which team should be their squad. This is a questionnaire basically like, do you, are you a playboy? Do you like partying? Are you, what kind of food do you like? Are you hammering steaks? Are you drinking protein shakes? Are you having smoothies? And then it spits out what TGL team you should, you should root for. And so I can report here officially, officially that following the Bay Golf Club will be Neil, TC and Ben. Those are the, you know, NorCal West Coast living guys. A little more serious New York GC following in the footsteps of Steve Cohen and some of the more serious minded, you know, business folks is Casey and Solly. So best of luck to them and their squad. Cody was our lone fan of Boston Common.

I think that tracks, I think he's like a quiet Red Sox fan as well. Following Jupiter Links will be Jordan and our very own Randy as well. Can't wait to unpack that. And then rounding up, rounding it out, following our beloved LAGC, Serena Alex Ohanian's team featuring Tommy and Sahith and I believe Team Rose is me and KVV.

So that, I mean, I think proves the validity of the team selector tool. Question for you, Big, just what is it about Jupiter Links that resonates with you so much? Oh my God. Well, the easier question would be like, what isn't it about Jupiter Links that I'm attracted to? You know, taking the quiz, I think I'm just threading that needle between total beach vibes. I like to wear shorts and shades and, you know, my preferred meal is Taco Tuesday. Rocko's Taco. Yeah, that fits really well with Jupiter Lynx. But honestly, Dej, if I'm kind of reading what Jupiter Lynx Golf Club is all about,

it sounds like they're a work hard, play hard. And you know, we play at the beach and at Taco Tuesday with some Margs, but we work hard too, because one of the questions was what do you like about the game of golf? And, you know, I forget what my exact answer was, but it was such a dumb quiz. But yeah, Jupiter Lynx. I also, when they flashed the Jupiter Lynx team up, I had no idea that Kevin Kisner was the fourth member. There was this guy and I was like, I don't know who that is. I had no idea that Kevin Kisner was the fourth member. There was this guy and I was like, I don't know who that is. I don't know why his picture looks nothing like him.

All right. Moving on. Number four. I mean, is that fair? I think that's great. Certainly you must have some strong LA golf club feeling. Yeah. No, I think that's all going to come out as part of the next brand rollout around LAGC. I think they're waiting to create some exclusive content around that. So you'll hear from my team on that shortly. Number four, Patrick Reid shot 59 at the Hong Kong Open, which is an Asian tour event. This kind of reminded me a little bit of the end of tar when Disgrace Lydia Tar is, the end of tar when a disgrace Lydia Tarr is, you know, doing that, just conducting that symphony for that video game in like Vietnam or Thailand or wherever that is. God, that's a good poll. Makes me want to watch Tarr tonight.

Like, yeah, no, he's he's out there doing it. No, to, you know, to take nothing away. Jamie Kennedy had a great thread from Golf Digest saying 27 players have shot sub 60 rounds on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA Live or the Asian Tour, not counting the Corn Fairy Tour there where I think another pretty large handful of people have. For a week on the Corn Fairy. But in relation to the field average, like the scoring average for the day, he said this would not be in the 200 best rounds since hole by hole stats started in 2004.

It's kind of a par 70, 6,700 yard golf course. I think that scoring average, there was like a bunch of guys that broke 65. So they were playing lift clean in place. I take nothing away from P for being out there doing it, beating the bushes, playing pro golf, you know, cash and checks and breaking necks all around the world. I sincerely, I do respect that. But I think that's gonna be unless you have anything else to add, that's gonna be all I got on the on the P 59. No, the 59 or shooting in the 50s has been cheapened. We got to

make, we got to make golf hard again. Like, like, corn fairy, everybody does, like, there's just too many. It doesn't mean much anymore. Here, here. Yeah. All right. This is a quick one. Number five, Luke Clanton, another runner-up finish on the PGA Tour. He has eight starts as an amateur on the PGA Tour. In those eight starts, he has four top tens, which includes two runners, two runners up, and he's only missed one cut. So the question for you, Big, is it crazy to think that Luke like might be an American Ryder Cup or next year in an ideal world? I would love for him to be in the discussion.

But yes, it is crazy to think that Luke is going to be a Ryder Cup. Or I I'm going to take the side that it's not crazy just because I think the US is scrambling for ideas and vibes and culture and all kinds of things. And I think that US team just gets a little thinner than people realize once you get down to that like eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 range. So I see where you're coming from, but I think he's, I don't know. I would appreciate the discourse. I hope the discourse sticks around and I hope his good play sticks around.

Well, let me ask you this. Do you think based, I mean, obviously a long way to next September, but should Nick Dunlap be in the conversation ahead of him in your opinion? I think that it's a smaller sample size I know because it hasn't been a full season but like Clanton's been just worlds better than Dunlap. Dunlap's had a couple of pops and obviously one at the AMEX but I think consistency wise and the Barracuda, God I honestly forgot about that. That's why I just say that because it's's like, God, they are guys won twice.

No, that's true. That's true. I think Clanton and his in his small sample size has been much more consistent. But you're right that he has he has gotten it done. I would love to have. Right. Well, and I would love for the US to kind of use the 11th or 12 spots on guys that they believe are, you know, pick them, pick them a couple years early, if you believe that they have a good chance to be stalwarts over the next decade. I think that would freshen it

up a little bit for me, some new blood instead of just going back to, you know, I could pick on some guys here, but who would be in that like 11th, 12th spot otherwise, like guys like Sam Burns and aren't really doing it for me, I guess. Soterios Johnson 10.00 All right. Let's move on. Number six. I believe you threw this one in there, Big, about tour championships, starting scores. Well, I just had me thinking, obviously the LPGA tour championship, they do not use the starting strokes thing that the PGA tour does, the scoring system. But I went back and I thought, okay, well, had they done

that, what would this LPGA leaderboard look like this weekend? And actually it's like a fantastic leaderboard. So Nelly, well, Gino would have won, which is kind of cool. She would have won either way, but Gino would have finished at 26 under par. Nelly would be one shot back at 25 under par. Lydia would be two shots back at 24 under par. And then you'd have Angel Yin and Ronny Yin at 21 under par. So could have potentially had three of the best women in the world kind of paired together had

they gone with this scoring system that the PGA Tour uses. My question to you, DJ, beyond the scoring system, do we need like tour? Like what is a tour championship? What's the point of a tour championship? And do we need it? Like, does it have to be like, I kind of hate these these playoffs? And I don't know, I it just got me thinking today, like, what are we trying to do here? I think nothing shines a light brighter on how irrational and like, uh, just a little ass backwards.

The pro golf is then, uh, the tour championships. And just the fact that these tours who are responsible for making these players 90 to 95, 98% of their money also don't own any of the biggest events in the game. Right. And the same is pretty much true on the LPGA side. On the men's side, obviously it's the majors in the Ryder Cup and, you know, pretty similar on the women's side. And so all of those tours like are getting into boardrooms and deciding like, man, we need for our own sake, like it's important to us that we have something that pays these off. And I just, I'm with you that like, I don't know that fans have ever felt that need. I think maybe the tour championship, like back in the day might've

even had a little more, I don't know. I shouldn't say it has more juice than it did because it was kind of mired in October and just kind of an afterthought. But yeah, I'm with you big. If you, you take the FedEx cup thing and you take this bill and you put those on my desk, I'll happily, uh, happily get rid of the tour championship. Yeah. Well, cause we just start with like, Hey, we need a mechanism to distribute money to what have been the best players over the course of the year. Uh, yeah, it's not, let's devise a solution in service of a problem that really isn't a problem to the fan.

Yeah. The whole thing is stupid. Like, I'm just sitting here, why can't we just have a regular tournament? And we all know it's the last term of the year. And we don't need to like go through the rigmarole of like this is the tour championship. Which I know the PGA Tour already had their tour championship. But that's, you know, that's how it was on the PGA Tour today. It was like, oh, this is it.

There was nothing more than that. It didn't need to have a special title. It didn't need to have anything from the return to golf season of championships opening drive folder. It's just like, no, it's just the RSM. It's the last one, and this is where we finalize the points. So maybe that's why I kind of enjoyed watching it today. Yeah. So I just think it's weird in women's golf, like they use such a, they use a points based system to determine player of the year, to get all the way to the tour championship.

And then they wipe the slate clean. So, you know, Angel Yin, who hasn't won this year, could have won $4 million first prize in the Tour Championship. And you're like, okay, well, she like the season long chant, like, what does this make her? It just is very strange. My humble suggestion in light of the LPGA Founders Cup, which is, I think, should be their most significant event that the LPGA itself owns. It honors the 13 original founders and they just lost their title sponsor. And so now they've moved that Super Bowl weekend in February to Bradenton, Florida. I'm like, ugh, like, why not just make the founder, combine that with the CME, make it a big celebration of women's golf.

We don't have to call it the tour of championship. You can solve a humongous purse, like make it, make it like the players, make it, make it the most important non-major. I don't know. Humble suggestion. Let's go to number seven. I love it. I, I, I co-sign it big.

I like that idea. All right. Number seven, this involves an event called the match superstars, which is apparently something that aired over allegedly a few days this week. I don't really know where it aired and I'm not truly not poking fun at anybody. I'm just in awe a little bit at how little I saw about this event because it had eight I would call pretty bonafide stars playing golf. It was kind of a post-produced thing. And I truly did not see one person talking about this. And just

in comparison to, you know, even the other matches, it was just a wild like, just a wild kind of surreal experience to have something like this going on when I'm told constantly how much the key to getting people into golf is non golfers. I just really did not see anybody talking about this. So my question for you, big, well, you play, can you name one person who was playing at this event? The match superstars. There's eight of them. Okay, I have to start with DJ call it. No, that's strike one. That's shocking. God, who else is just nebulous.

Some low, some low hanging fruit. It's a, it's a turn. You know, it's a Turner product. Okay. Let me just get you on first base here. Charles bar check. Okay. I truly don't even know what to guess. Like, it's no golfers, right? Maybe some legends? Is it like, no, no professional golfers. There are some other professional athletes, none of any kind, some professional entertainers.

My guy Larry Fitzgerald always showing up at stuff like this. Great guess. But no. It was a friend of the pod Bill Murray. Of course. Marky Mark Wahlberg. Why not? Charles Barkley you mentioned the great one. I believe he won. Michael Phelps. Wayne Gretzky. Took me a while. Who are we talking about? Michael Phelps, Nate Bargotse, Ken Griffey Jr. Sure. and Blake Griffin. So there you have it. Just wild at that. Yeah, just very strange. Didn't get it. Like I didn't see that anywhere. And I just, I call on anybody who did to talk me off this one, but just a really weird situation. Well, it's interesting. You know, we, I think we try to stay pretty in tune with the world of golf.

And if you're not hitting our radar, I just wonder whose radar are you hitting? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe just a true like scrolling channels and, you know, let me just see what this is all about. But yeah, just no push around this thing at all. Very strange. Number eight, speaking of just media conglomerates, Golf Channel has been spun off from our beloved Comcast into its own kind of, it's very complicated

here, but into its Golf Channel, along with five or six other cable networks that are owned by Comcast. These are things like CNBC and I believe your beloved Bravo might be on the list, Randy, are being spun off into their own company and basically divested from Comcast. And what that means is unclear. There's a lot more questions than answers right now. I think the big thing is that nothing is changing in the absolute immediate term. It's not like Golf Channel ceases to exist when the PJ Tour comes back around in January. But I think long-term, it's like, yeah, this is clearly not what Comcast sees as a profitable part of the future.

It's worth noting that they are keeping NBC and Peacock and likely just ramping up all of their efforts into the world of streaming. So by all accounts, it sounds like NBC Sports is on the hook to fulfill its obligations as far as rights deals for the PGA Tour, the LPGA, the DP World Tour, things of that nature. They're going to have Mark Lazarus, who's the current chairman of NBC Sports, will lead this new company. But yeah, just a lot of a lot more questions than answers right now. Big. So I can report quickly looking this up. Bravo is staying with the parent company. Is that

right? I was a little surprised because I always felt like Bravo is has to be wildly popular when I would is in my house. When I was I was doing my notes, I think that was up in the air, but it's good to have some some clarity on that. Master Top Chef as well. Yeah, you're gonna have like USA Network, Syfy, E, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC and Golf Channel are the ones they cite as being spun off. And listen, we've known that they've been cutting costs at Golf Channel, or it seems like it, you know, I'm not sure if we've ever actually had hard evidence of that, but you just watch the product. So I guess it doesn't fill me with a lot of like warm fuzzies that all of a sudden Golf Channel and the production capabilities are going to get better as it's spun off from a multi-billion dollar parent company. Yeah, it's just a weird, you know, as always, I think just calling this stuff out weird time for purses to go up by, you know,

a factor of three. Just a strange time in professional golf where a lot of shit seems to be moving at polar opposite directions, but also comes at the same time that, you know, the PGA tours massively ramping up their production capabilities and opening a new broadcast center in Ponte Vedra Beach. And so true, who knows what's going to happen, but you can't say that the boys didn't didn't report it and read it into the record big. Here we are. Finally, number nine, I just, I gotta ask you about this. I know you kind of had eyes on the LPGA today. I was watching the RSM. Are you familiar with this PJ Tour fan shop commercial?

Unfortunately, yes, because you sent me a commercial and I wish I had never seen it. This is, and I bring this up for a very specific reason. This is a commercial. I honestly almost ruined my day. This is a commercial where a lot of very innocent people who I'm not taking a shot at just doing things like riding their bike and jogging and doing all kinds of activities around my former home. You know, you should take a shot at these people.

These people have free will. They have choice. They, you know, I'm sure they weren't being paid enough to justify their participation. They're running around Atlantic beach, Neptune beach, a lot of sites I recognize in this commercial and they're just wearing like gear from like specific tournaments. So there's someone on a beach cruiser wearing like a John Deere classic polo, PGA tour specific. Let's be very clear. There's someone out there just, you know, walking into pose wearing like a Wells Fargo'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm a professional. I'm the reason I bring this up big is because I think the chief complaint of this podcast is how the fuck are there so many commercials on the PJ tour broadcast? And is there any you can give back? Is there any that we just don't need to be doing? Right. And this is

the kind of stuff where I'm like, man, I know the barbarians are at the gate. And I know that like, we need to really rethink the business model. And we need to flip over every couch cushion to drum up some cash and keep these guys around and keep them happy. I just don't think selling 13 John Deere Classic Polos is the way that we're going to flip this thing. It kind of feels like we need to build a new hospital and we're having a fucking bake sale outside trying to raise the dough. It just is a really, really, really frustrating type of stuff.

And that's where I think I saw that commercial probably five times today. And I'm like, all right, man, like, you know, in the grand scheme of things, is that, is that a huge deal? You know, probably not. But man, just little chunks of time that we could have been given back to the tournament, extrapolate that over a season, extrapolate that because then it's like we're also seeing golf breaks by PGA tour. We're also seeing commercials for the I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point.

I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think that's going on big. It sucks. Listen, it sucks. The commercial has an aesthetic of like a very bad knockoff prescription medication type deal where everybody's a little too polished. And you're right, they're wearing just run of the mill PGA Tour tournament gear, as they're seemingly loving life down in Atlantic Beach. It just that you want to talk about the sweet spot of stuff that pisses me off. That was it. I just I yeah, I don't know, you're gonna have to share it on social. You know, I'm, I don't I, yeah, I don't know. You're going to have to share it on social. You know, I, I'm, I don't want, yeah. I'm not sure if people, I don't know. If you are looking for one of these polos, I take nothing away from you. Maybe you do just want to wear a, you know, like fuck me. It'd be sick to have a Valspar championship hat. But if you're making that decision, no, if

you're making that decision in November of the year and not tournament week, then I do have a problem with you. I do. Oh, like that sucks. What are you going to give a gift? Don't give somebody like that. Nobody wants that. And if you're getting it for yourself, then yeah, it's like, man, you know what people do probably want for the holidays? Big discussion. Yeah. What? Row back hoodie. Yeah. You know, cooler weather. It's time for cooler weather, which means it is time for Roback. You all know how much we love their hoodies. You can see Big has a beautiful tan one on right now. The best hoodies on the market and between their hoodies, Q-zips and crewnecks, Roback does not miss with secondary layers. They're fresh off new releases for the season and Roback is

ready with your favorite colors and designs. They are also fresh off the release of their new Fulton Hybrid Jacket. You have one of those Denver. It's like got to be the I need one of those things. I know that in the pants. Cheapishly, I do not have either yet. You took the words out of my mouth. They just restocked the Delta pants after selling out almost immediately for their initial release. It's easy to see why they have really nice stretch, really nice stretch waistband with belt loops,

making them ideal for the course or just for your everyday pant. Roback is having their biggest sale of the year, 20% off their entire website for all customers as 20% off all hoodies, pants, jackets, and more. No code needed big. Just go to the website, R H O B A C K.com and introduce others to the most comfortable active wear in the game this holiday season. Shout out to Roebuck and thank you for the support all year long. Big that's going to do it for the front nine. Let's grab ourselves a little transfusion. We're going to head to the back nine and to do that, we're going to bring in our guy,

Connor Belcastro. Connor is someone who's writing, you may have read on nolayingup.com. He is the recently graduated captain of the Princeton Golf Team and now is giving it an earnest go to play professional golf. He just moved down to the Golden Isles of St. Simon's, Sea Island, things of that nature. And he spent all week out at the RSM.

So Connor, how are you? Welcome, hi, hello. What's on the mind? Doing well. Doing well. Yeah. Good to, uh, good to be here. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for hopping on. You spent the week at the RSM classic. You, you moved down to join the sea Island mafia to hone your craft down there. So we figured as long as, as long as you're there, we might as well send that, send out a probe, you know, and see what they come back with. Right. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, you know, home game models and all that jazz. I play these golf courses multiple times a week. And so to be able to go out there and see what the best players in the world,

you know, kind of get out there and do it's kind of a hypothetical until you see it for real. Right. It's like, man, it's a tough day today that these guys aren't going to go low. And then you watch them go low. It's like, oh, okay, sweet. That's awesome. You know, I got to go shoot 64 in this condition. Like, awesome. It's great. Like every day. Guys are really, really good. Connor, how much, sorry, quick question here before you get going, but how much did you sense these courses being toughened up in the lead up to the event? Or I guess another way to ask that, how different do the courses play this weekend compared

to what you've seen since moving down there? Yeah, I would bet that, so some of them have been a little bit shut down leading up to the event. So I haven't seen them super up close and personal. I would say playing plantation, it definitely got a lot faster. All of a sudden you just kind of show up and like they, I think they top dressed the greens and all of a sudden it's like, wow, we're hitting pots way past, like stuff's ripping.

But as far as I'm not sure it's necessarily tougher, I think it's just in better shape. If they, you know, I think that's probably a better way of looking at it. Pins a little, you know, teaser all the way back pins a little closer to the edges. Yeah. Things about it. But I only ask, I guess I only ask, it's not like these guys are playing a super tricked up version of the courses that you're playing, which I guess just makes that appreciation for what they're able to do that much more.

For sure, yeah. And I think if they were putting pins in the, hey, why is there a pin here spot and then going out and shooting 63, that would be even more alarming. It's a good, fair setup, you know? And the scores that they're shooting do make sense. I mean, it was windy out there for a lot of the week, especially on Friday, and it was cold and windy on Friday

too. And so some of the numbers these guys shot, it's like, wow, like you're just in control of your golf ball at that level. Like that's just really impressive. So it takes nothing away from any of that. Backing up to the start of the week, you went out to Brunswick country club, which is, I, I, I, you know, have to mention one of the illustrious Monday qualifiers that I actually have cat eat in. Yeah. And so I, I'm curious the scenes there because, you know, you always run out of daylight.

You always have to like bring out the bagger Vance lights at the end of the, at the end of the, you know, the end of the day. So I just paint me a little scene of what that was like and what you're thinking about out there because that's one of those things very few people get to see. Yes. I picked up my media credential right before and then show up thinking that I was going to have to tell somebody what I was doing or something like that. And it's truly a just like, oh, there's another person on the grounds. Okay. Like

it's truly at everything they say about sectionals where it's like, yeah, there's no ropes. You can just watch your favorite players playing golf. It's like that times a billion. It's just like, oh, there's another dude here now. I've ever go into like a, uh, like a us open sectional qualifying like that. I was like, oh my God, skip Kendall. This is crazy. I can just give up close. This is DJ Trayhand. I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't say Brunswick Country Club absolutely slaps

in terms of like just really cool, fun Ross's where they kept the plateaus in good shape and like it's it's golf as Ross intended it. It's really awesome golf. But you get through the first two holes, I think. It was a seven for four. Two guys ended up getting spots. So now it's a five for two. Just watching those guys make the phone calls to their parents walking in from the green

was just so cool. Like, you know, hey mom, I'm in a tour event now. It's just such a good sun setting. That's an important, like beautiful, beautiful lighting for the first two holes. And I just, you know, I'm not a good photographer, so I got like a bunch of phone stuff that looks terrible. But it's like, oh my God, this is so sweet.

And then pretty soon it's like, guys, the sun's gonna set. I'm like, what are we gonna do? What's the plan here? And this is where I'm not sure. We talk about the tour is just running so much stuff and they've got so many balls in the air. They're just like, oh yeah, we've got like the gas powered lights.

We're just gonna light up the eighth hole. It's fine. We just got a bunch of like highway side of the highway, road work, night suns. And it's like, like that's not going to work. And then you look, it's like, Oh my God, it works. It's straight and fully works. It's just like, yeah, it's just a par three, get a clubhouse and you've, it's gotten a lot better. I have to say, because we,

I catty for a friend of the program, Luke Guthrie, and we made it into the playoff and it was as a light was running out and they I'm not seeing, I'm not really seeing the shades of stuff. See the topography with just the, you know, but no, it's like, they have a whole bunch of stuff that they're doing. Like, I mean, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not seeing, I've not really seen the shades of stuff, see the topography with just the, you know, but no, it's like, they have a whole, I want buy them. I wonder

what those are for. And it's like, they've, they really have a lot of their stuff together in terms of these day to day stuff. I mean, think, think whatever you want about the top level, Wall Street Journal headline Department of Justice side of the PGA tour, but the daily ops are like, they're really good. And then just watching, there's something about going out and saying, all right, I just shot 65 in, I got 65 to get through the pre-queue, right? The pre-queue, the Thursday pre-queues, you gotta go like five or six red. And then you go another, I think it was ended up being five red

on a tough setup at Brunswick. Hold on, when did the shorthand five red? When did, I've never heard this before in my life. Is this a sea island thing? Is this a, what thing? What is this? I don't know. I've heard people calling it red for... We also just don't have it turned under par. So maybe that's why. You should start saying that. I didn't go to that. I was like 17 black, man.

That's one of... Oh yeah. I think it was when I turned pro, that was in the onboarding process of turning pro. It's like, you check that box. Yeah. Now you sign up as a professional and then it's like, Oh, by the way, like here's your new terminology. And you got to call it, you got to call everyone pro as well. Yeah. That's actually really fun. Honestly, it seems, it seems so corny for so long. And then I turned pro and people started calling me pro. Like'm like, this is awesome. Actually, this is really fun. But I mean, you think about going 11 red through 36 holes. It's like, Hey, how about you go play eight more playoff holes?

And it's like, Oh, you repot your eight playoff all to make like your first bogey of the week. Yeah. You know, you're not playing. Yeah. Thank you for your $500 and better luck next year. It had to be some, uh, maybe some feelies in the air about Monday queues going away a little bit or not on the radar. Yeah, it had a hundred percent was. I mean, it's just one of those like really cool aspects of golf where on the Tuesday I got to, I just tracked down a couple of the guys

that I had seen in the Monday Cube on the range and just asked them for a couple of questions. They all had cool stories. Marcus Byrd was talking about just he had, I think he'd, I really hope I'm not just crossing streams on all three of the guys, but Marcus Byrd had corn fairy status and was talking about just working on his body some more and just all the little things that go into making that jump up to being able to play in a PGA Tour event. And then Reid Davenport talking about how he's getting ready for... I think he maybe missed his corn fairy card this year. Now he's just gearing up for stuff and this was a huge confidence boost.

I feel like there's just all of these stories on the peripheral that you just get from having more people in golf. Let's say that you have 20% of a field are like, wow, that's crazy cool. Let's go write a story about this. It's probably more than 20%. I'm just making the numbers. But if you shrink the field, then you're shrinking that 20% also. And so there's fewer people to write about.

There's fewer people to get invested in. And obviously, there's the, hey, if you want to be in this field, then how about you just try to be one of the best 100 guys instead of 125? Like playing better tends to solve everything. But thinking about why it's getting cut and if it's for, yeah, we want people to be able to still play in five and a half hours without worrying about daylight. And actually, we want play to speed up. we're also just using that as an excuse to protect some guy who is still going to be getting a massive FedEx cut bonus from getting an extra $32,000 playing the 3M in June because some mule didn't go beat him out.

I just don't know if everything adds up to be like, let's just get rid of a whole bunch of personalities on the tour. That just doesn't, it doesn't sit great with me seeing how cool that whole scene was. So I think that's very fair. And I will have to admit, I used to think of it more in regard to like PGA tour cards, right? Going from like 125 to 100. You know, I'm over here thinking, well, what's the big deal?

You're still gonna have kind of those same storylines around that 100th card and you know, some people will slip in some people, you know, yada yada. But I guess it hits home here and you talk about I should be more thinking of it in terms of like, no, if you get rid of, you know, a significant amount of people week to week in these events, then you're right, like just the human backstory, the potential for really interesting things to learn about people decreases.

So I appreciate you stating it in those terms because I hadn't really considered it that way much. Yeah. I mean, it's end of the day, you just have more guys to go talk about and dig into. And you can talk about, oh yeah, we'll just move it up to a hundred guys, top hundred. And we're fighting for that number 100 tour card. It's like, yeah, we can start talking about that conversation, but you're also losing the whole Joel Damon story from this week. Joel Damon would be cut if we theoretically just

said it's a hundred now. Let's go there. I know that was probably one of the highlights of the week too. You got to talk to him after the round. Were you out there following him at all? What was your interaction with Joel? Yeah. So I followed him on Friday. They kind of had that featured group together with him, ZB, and Wes Bryan, who were I think 123, 124, 125. And then you've got, you know,

Thor Bjornsson and Berger are gonna jump up. Then like it's, so none of those guys are safe, right? All those guys are playing for cards. And followed that group. And Joel was the last guy to the tee on Friday morning. And as he was walking by, I was, it's weird, right? I'm like, Oh, I've seen a Netflix show on a bliss new, like doing a whole bunch of podcasts. Like I know this guy. I'm going to feel like, Hey, Joel, like we're pulling for you, man. Like something like that. Yeah. Throw some knuckles on the

way up. Exactly. Yeah. And then you see him and he's just like the most locked in that he's ever been about to play one of the most important rounds of golf of his life. And he's like, I have no idea what the fuck this guy is. And like, yeah, no, I'm not going to tell him anything. Like he's got this like, cool. I'm gonna let him go. But yeah, you see him walk and he's got the, he's got his sunglasses on his hat. They're just like the, the side pieces are hiked way up. It's like tilt for lacrosse elements or something. It's like the intimidating visor look. It's just like, wow, this dude looks absolutely locked in. And it was sub 50 and blowing 25 all day. And he's playing

seaside, which is the tough side of the draw. You know, it's the tougher course that he's playing in the tougher conditions and he's one over outside looking in at the cut and goes out and goes three red on the back. Three red on the back. Three red. I always say if you can start three red, you give yourself a good chance. Yeah. But just watching the whole thing get put together and I mean, that was so cool. And then I was able to bug him for a couple of minutes after the round, which I always think is nuts that he like goes and does 45 minutes of media. And then some dude with a press pass and an iPhone is like, Hey, can I like get five more minutes of your time before you go back and like stretch and like prepare for the weekend where you keep your PGA to our car?

And he's like, yeah, sure, man. You know, just really cool that he's giving me the time. But he's talking about how he had this up and down on 11, and then another putt, come back or putt he made on 13, which were both like 10 to 12 footers. And then on 14, he hits a four iron to 15 feet and makes the birdie. And that was just kind of like, wow, okay. I to 15 feet and makes the birdie.

That was just like, wow, okay, I actually think he's doing the thing here. The interview after he's talking about, I wouldn't have made that 15 footer if I hadn't seen those two putts go in on two of the last three holes, which I always just love stuff like that for the guys who are like, no, no, no, footer has a has an 18 percent big percentage like that's you know, that that's how often those putts go in it's like there's there's something else to it man, like he just he saw to go in and If he didn't see those two go in then he we probably aren't talking about him He probably loses his card and goes back to conditional

Yeah but so I mean that was that was the the Friday story and then doesn't play great on Saturday and then comes out, comes out today and gives a couple of putts good runs and then just hoops a wedge for Eagle on his fourth hole and it's just off the races. And I mean, that's just the thought of like actually doing that, right? You think about it, it's like, it's a, it's a theory, it's a concept for a while, but then you're in that situation, you go on your fourth hole. It's like, it's a, it's a theory. It's a concept for a while, but then you're in that situation. You go on your fourth hole, you hoop a wedge and you go,

you go six under and keep your car. I mean, that's six red, six red. Exactly. I was trying, I was trying to mix it up. I was trying to speed, but yeah. And then just talking to him, uh, talking to him after the round today, he's holding a beer, enjoying having his card, like hanging out with his wife and Gino and signing hats and once again, just kind of comes and talks to me,

which if there's something I'd want to tell everybody about him is that I think there's, I wonder if he's kind of become a little bit of a parody of himself in some media circles of like, oh yeah, Joel Daymon, the full swing guy took his shirt off at the waste management. Like that guy's the man, right? Like I loved him on like whatever podcast with my boys

and all like it's, he is so good at golf and he is such a just awesome person. And I would hate for either of those to be kind of lost in the shuffle of all of the clipable social media moments. Like this is a human being that everybody should be rooting for because the dude just absolutely rocks and he hits some golf shots where it's like, that was insane. I was so good. Well, a few quick ones on the way out here. What biggest kind of macro takeaways from just watching these guys go about their business. You're coming out of the world of college golf,

where guys are obviously very serious players as well, but this is a bit of a different animal, I would have to imagine. What were maybe or three like takeaways you had from watching the guys out there. I'd say the whole, yeah, there's a whole bunch of different swings out there thing. Like it's true, but every single dude's tempo is incredible. Like really just beautiful golf swings to watch. Their routines are super precise and repeatable. Like they're, they're professionals, professional athletes. So they do everything super repeatably. And I think if there's a take that I had coming away, it's that I think that... We think about golf sometimes as guys hit a ball with a bat towards a target. And I really think a better way to think about a lot of golf is that these guys are launching small aircraft

with very specific spin and speed and launch conditions. And it's like, yeah, okay, cool. It's like still air, cool. I'm gonna hit it and it's gonna land there and it's gonna stop. It's like, oh, all right, cool. Now the wind's blowing 20 into my face. I'm gonna launch it lower and it's gonna land there, all right, cool. Now the wind's blowing 20 into my face. I'm going to launch it lower and it's going to land there and it's going to stop.

And this is a very, we got to take off either way. You know, we're, we're doing it no matter what the weather is. We got to, we got to keep these passengers, man. Yeah, we just, we adapt, you know, we figure it out. I think what really struck me is just how comfortable everybody looked doing everything all the time, which I think you can get into like, good professional athletes be that comfortable playing their sport all the time. But you know, that's, that's just kind of a whole

set of rabbit holes to go down. I think the big takeaway is like these, these guys, it's just, it's such a level of consistency that it's mind blowing. I practice on the same range as a lot of these guys and you think you get it and then you see it in competition. It's like, wow, like if that's the level I got to get to, it both seems that much more attainable now that you've kind of seen it. It's like, okay, now do that, okay? It's, you know, it's a lot more visible and you can kind of wrap your head around it a lot more.

But it's also like, however good you think these guys are, like, I know it's said a lot, but however good you think they are, they're definitely better than that. And the amount of inside baseball that goes into, oh, yeah, we can take a swing video anywhere and just the the guy's sternum doesn't really move the center of mass stays in the same place. He's got great low point control. It's like, no, like those things are really impressive and just launching balls perfectly and landing them in the right spots. Like there's a lot that goes into that. Raising consistency. So well, we don't have to get into it now. But I do think when you say should should professional athletes and professional

golfers specifically, look and feel this comfortable all the time, I think is a very meaty discussion. And I, I certainly would come down on the side of it's more interesting as a viewer, when I know that the people playing golf are a lot less comfortable. And I think that shines through in a lot of the majors and you know, when the conditions get really iffy and or like just super firm turf sometimes when you know, they lose control of that ball bouncing on the ground. So I do think that's a good insight there. Yeah, I think it's a great point.

As much control as they have and the ball's in the air, they lose it when it's on the ground. Then it's just up to the golf course. And then, yeah, and I guess idea I had and some agronomy nerd is going to tell me why this could never happen. But into the grain Bermuda tripping is something that you hear about. It's doable, but it's definitely on somebody's mind and I would love to know if it would be possible to just have all of the grain of Bermuda greens, Bermuda fairways just grow away from greens

and towards the tee so that it's just another thing that you're thinking about of like I actually do have to pick this like the bounce isn't going to help. Nobody's coming to save me. Like if that's just another, I mean, thinking about me chipping and the amount of control that I have chipping, it's a weak part of my game and I'm working on it. But then you go watch these guys just picking balls and it's, it's chipping really does kind of become glorified lag putting for a lot of people. And it's just, yeah, I'm just going to make a super easy, consistent move and hit it inside of four feet and make it like, do you have any hard games? And if people felt around the greens the way that I felt like circa 2022, then I think that there would be a more interesting product

in terms of just watching guys be uncomfortable on the golf course. Well, we're going to have to enlist our agronomy squad to see how possible that is. Yeah, let us know if that's possible. Reach out. Reach out. I love it. Well, Connor, good to have you, man. Thanks for spending the week out there and thanks for sharing some insights and best of luck with what's next.

What's next on your, on your golf calendar? You know, holidays kind of schedule dies down a lot. I think guys are just kind of hanging up for a month. And so I'm probably going to try to get down to South Florida to do some one day stuff some point in December and then otherwise, and really just prepping for January, February and stuff really ramps back up. Awesome. Awesome. Well, people can read Connor's writing at nolayingup.com. I'm sure you'll have a little piece about everything you saw and thought this week. People can look out for that. Connor, thanks for hopping on, man. Yeah, no, thanks for having me. Big, I think that's going to do it for us tonight. Just a couple of quick housekeeping things,

be on the lookout for a, I recorded, I've been podding my face off, man. I've, you know, did an interview with Martin Slumbers as he goes out the, you know, heads out the door at the RNA, you know, reflecting back on his 10 year, a little state of the game stuff. I think you'll enjoy that one. And then got to talk to Luke Donald with my guy TC this weekend about a new film that Ryder Cup Europe is releasing called Una Familia, which is awesome. I had a little Twitter thread about how much I enjoyed it. I think even you, Big, even a cold hearted guy like you, I think would really, really enjoy this film.

Listen, your opinion carries a lot of weight, but Deeg, no offense, I'm gonna wait for my guy, Richard Brody at the New York times to review it before I decide whether to watch it or not. But thank you. What an epic follow he is. Just the hot, hot takes on film. What else? Only other thing to mention from our friends at the shop, we've got our Black Friday Cyber Monday sales, which is a great show. Hot, hot takes on film. What else? Only other thing to mention from our friends at the shop, we got our Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales, both run through Monday, December 2nd.

You can take 20% off of orders of $100 or more with the promo code, get involved, all one word. Enter that at checkout. Nest members get a 25% off any order with the standard Nest discount. And, you know, any more, any more you want to say about the Nest big? The Nest is cool. Listen, I, we probably don't do near a good enough job

of like promoting it and really giving it color, but the Nest is the first step. If you are in an area and you might not know a lot of people, perhaps you moved, you're looking for just golf games, I truly believe the Nest can be the first step on the path to finding a golf group. And why do I say that? You can join the Nest,

you can get involved in our message board, which is our online community. Through that, you can join a Roost, which are these in-person real life golf clubs that we have across the country. We have one in the UK. Through that, you can sign up, you can get involved, you can go out and play in events that your Roost puts on.

You can qualify for NLU events. There are a number of other benefits outside of just playing golf, but I really do think for those such as myself, when I moved out here to Denver, I immediately kind of got involved with our local roost here and that's who I play the majority of my golf with. It's a wonderful thing, but at the minimum, you know, if you buy merch, if you want an extra podcast each month, there are tons of good benefits that come with it.

No laying up.com slash join if you would like to do that. And again, 20% off orders of $100 or more with the promo code get involved through Monday, December 2. Big thanks for thanks for hopping on. Last thing we've got, I'm going to throw it over to KVV. He's got a little history lesson, a little one for the road. And then we will we'll shut it down on the back end of that. So big thanks for being with me, man. Speaker 0.(1h 1m 5s): Sounds good. Happy Thanksgiving.

All right, KVV let's land the plane here with one for the road. I tried to fill in last week. It didn't quite have the same panache. So we're going back to the bullpen. We got you on a day's rest here. What, what, what do we got? Speaker 3.(1h 1m 9s): Always happy to come in and be the closer here, the Rivera of such things, Dej. All right, so this week, Dej, in 1936, the USGA officially set a limit for how many clubs you could carry in your bag. 14 clubs. Do you know the origins of the 14 club rule? I know that, you know, all I kind of know is guys used to have rut irons and like little things to hit it out of troughs and all kinds of different different tools. So I

would have to imagine they were trying to rein that in a little bit. Yeah. So part of it is because in 1929 the steel shaft was approved for use in golf clubs. But a lot of players had been playing hickories prior to then so they didn't really know how those clubs would react. And a lot of them just started carrying like a shit ton of clubs. Like according to a piece that I read by Mike Johnson. Soterios Johnson Like redundant clubs? Like you'd have multiple

seven irons in case one broke? Jaren Verrilli Correct. Or you'd have a seven iron that would react one way in the wind with the hickory shaft or you'd have a seven iron with a steel shaft. Because you know, there was a little distrust. They couldn't quite feel like they knew how the steel shafts were going to react after being. They couldn't quite feel like they knew how the steel shafts were going to react after being hickory boys for so long. Cornupeice, I read in Dolf Digest from years ago, Mike Johnson was a writer. The really wealthy players would have like two caddies carrying like two full bags. Some guys would

have like 30 clubs. In fact, a golfer named Lawson Little, who won the USA M and the British M often carried as many as 30 clubs. And this was kind of seen as elitist because it would sort of mean that the well-off players could purchase more clubs than the poor's. And this became an official rule in 1938. Weirdly, in the 1938 PGA Championship, Henry Picard was playing a match against Dick Metz and Metz was four down when all of a sudden Picard realized that he had a 15th club in his bag. You know this

is back when the match play used to be 36 holes and they were 23 holes in. Metz told him you know what forget about it who cares rules were a little bit looser back then of the day and Picard wins the, their match one up, right? That's had a little bit of a rally, but you know, McCards still wins and he advances to the finals of the PGA championship where he fucking wins against Byron Nelson. So I guess maybe there's some weird justice to the whole thing because the club that was in Picard's bag, it was later determined to be Byron Nelson's for whatever reason Byron Nelson like snuck a club in or you know had a club in Henry Ricard's bag. Anyway now the rules kind of

the way I don't know who you know I don't know that you could just be like now we'll just ignore that rule like just don't count that one agree but that's apparently how it was done back then they just didn't care it just was like you can kind of you know what this is play on so now you have more than 14 clubs in your bag you can kind of, eh, you know what, let's just play on. So now you have more than 14 clubs in your bag. You can be slapped with a penalty that carries a maximum of four shots.

That's what happened recently to Joel Damon at the Shriners when he realized he had two four-irons in his bag. It's actually, there's been a lot of incidents over the years that it's happened. There was another weird incident at the 2012 Houston Open, where Mark Hubbard was hating his driver that he was playing through the front nine. So he just put a new driver in the bag on the second nine believing

that all he would sort of do is be hit with a four shot penalty. But because he didn't declare his other driver out of play, he got disqualified from the tournament. Minji Lee actually had to take a two stroke penalty earlier to share the Pelican when she left a training aid in her bag, which was deemed- That's KBB's worst nightmare there. Oh, God. Yeah. How many training aids are in my bag right now, Deitch?

It's just immediately I show up on the first tee and just I'm already three down. And of course, the very famous incident where Ian Woosnum at the 2001 Open Championship, he comes down, he hits his first shot on the par three to like six inches and he has a birdie putt to tie for the lead, but he has to record it as a bogey when he realizes on the second tee that he had an extra club in his bag. So it happens every few years to somebody. I found an instance of Jim Furyk in 2009. There's various kind of instances that just, sometimes people just forget they're testing

out different clubs. But the reason why we share this story today, one of the most interesting instances I found was Sam Snead realizing in a world golf championship match against Mason Rudolph. So he realized midway through the match that the 12th hole that he had 15 clubs in his bag, but he didn't tell anyone. Why didn't he tell anyone? Well, because NBC rumor was threatened to have blackmail him from the future World Golf Championship matches if he walked off on the 13th hole because he had his club in the bag the entire time. So he would have essentially said, well, I lose 10 and eight,

like it's over. I'm done. So he decided amongst himself to do the honorable thing and throw the match deliberately. He started deliberately missing putts against Rudolph so that Rudolph would still be the winner because he felt that was the honorable thing to do. Well, he just was in 1959. And if you can remember what happened in 1958 was those great quiz show scandals of the 1950s where participants were getting their answers

ahead of time on quiz shows. There was a lot of anger about, you know, whether or not what the stuff you were seeing on television was real or not, and whether participants had been given the answers. So NBC, when they broadcast this, decided not to tell the audience what had happened in the match and just broadcast as though it were real. These usually remember the movie quiz show, you know, Robert Redford depicted this. So when Snead admits to this after the match, he decides to declare him to lose. Essentially, he lost one down in the match, throwing it, you know, missing it, putts intentionally.

And then he disqualified himself after the fact. Well, the WGC is so like embarrassed by this whole thing that they essentially pull their sponsorship from the whole thing that they essentially pull their sponsorship from the whole thing. And it kills off the world golf championship series for many, many years as a result of this. And Rudolph is pissed. Like we always think of Sam Snead as like this, like genteel, like good old southerner, you know, it's always a friendly to, you know, peasants and kings alike. Rudolph was basically like, you'll fuck this guy. He basically said, and this is from the news reports in 1960, the way I feel about Sam Snead now

is that he'd better have some excuse ready when we play again. I've had enough of his excuses. Before I get on the course with that guy in a match again, I want him to sign a statement saying there'll be no any kind of alibi if he loses. Asked if he would ever play him again. Basically, it was just like, you know what? I don't want to, I would rather not play with him ever

again. To be truthful. I don't know when he actually first told anyone about it. All I know is what I read in the papers. And to this day, Snead has yet to talk to me about it. My grandfather told me once, if you can't say something nice about someone, just stay quiet. And that's the way I feel about Sam Snead. I don't care to have anything to do with the man." Which I was kind of stunned at. The one other thing I sort of unearthed in this is that the media coverage of this was pretty like angry towards NBC, which I think this might be the first ever incidents of Hamsterdam. I love it. It brings me to my eyes.

People just ripping, ripping NBC for not revealing this behavior. We have a column here from the Nashville banner saying, the PGA's mild rebuke of Snead's behavior was satisfactory. A rebuke would seem due to television. A larger rebuke would be seen due to television. Screen Gems put out a newsletter for release the day after the match describing the Rudolph victory. No mention of a violation is ever mentioned in the letter. The industry television that is has another black

mark against it. Sneed need not be made the whipping post for TV. Certainly Sneed's actions cannot be whitewashed, but there is a feeling in this corner that there is more than meets the eye that has become voice when it comes to NBC. Golly, how about that? Yeah, so there's your history lesson and your first ever incidence of hamster. I love it, man. I did not picture the game shows being brought up, quiz show being brought up, Robert Redford, even Mason Rudolph. I wasn't quite sure where you're going, but I appreciate you bringing it full circle, KVV. What a great way to end. That's quite an anniversary. We love to bring things full circle on for the road, Deitch.

Thanks for another great episode. Alright, well I hope everybody has a great week. Thank you for listening. Thanks to everyone for hopping on. Thanks to KVV. Thanks to Connor. Thanks to my guy, Big Randy. And we will talk to you guys next week. We got a good one next week. Stay tuned. Watch this space. It's going to be a fun week on the No Lying It Up podcast.

Cheers, KVV. Talk to you soon.