No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 932: Scheffler defends at the Hero

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

The crew is back from Big Randy's wedding to recap Scottie Scheffler winning the Hero by six shots to repeat as champion in the Bahamas. We also cover the resignation of LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan and Montana's native son Ryggs Johnston winning the Aussie Open. Plus, another edition of our E-9 as we talk Tiger's schedule, Kisner getting the NBC analyst gig, the USGA's gender policy update, NLU joining the PGA Tour's Creator Council and Jordan closes us out with One for the Road as we look at the rarest and most obscure golf video game of all time. 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 Foresight Sports The Stack System Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. That's right. It's Neil, substitute teacher. It's up at the front of the class for Ready To Go coming off a big, big weekend in the Lone Star State, deep in the heart of Texas to celebrate Mr. and Mrs.

Big. Randy, fired up about it. I got a couple other people that might be moving a little slow today. KVV calling in from Baltimore. How was your travel day? KVV. Travel day was good. Voice is a little hoarse from having sung Friends in Low Places at the top of my lungs

at some point last night. I feel like Friends in low places is our true national anthem. I was right there with you brother. You know, you want to know Garth Brooks, friends in low places. That's Garth Brooks TC calling in from Jacksonville. TC I know you're burning on the TSA pre-check line at Austin airport, but we're here to talk golf tonight. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm yeah, I'm still still furious about the clear experience this morning.

It was bad as always, but no great to be home. I'm more tired than I am hungover. Just three nights in a row going out in Austin. I'm just tired. Well, we'll talk a little wedding on the back end, but we're fired up for the big man. It was a wonderful celebration tonight. Talk a little hero world challenge. Scotty Schaeffler wins his second consecutive hero world challenge down in the Bahamas. We're gonna talk LPGA commissioner resignations,

maybe some lived defections, maybe a little Aussie open recap because we put out our Jeopardy episode last week. So we're kind of covered two weeks here tonight. And then we've got an E9 prepared by Chef TC served up by KVV. I'm excited for that. Just some odds and ends at the end here. Do a little housekeeping and then one for the road. Our very own Jordan Perez will be diving into an interesting kind of golf adjacent topic. But KVV and I recorded this with Jordan earlier this week and it was very, very interesting.

I think you should stick around for it. So did you guys know there were four OWGR ranked events played this week around the world? No, I didn't know there were. Yeah, there were four and all four ended the same way with a title is golf ball player at the top of the leaderboard. It was a one, two, three finish for the Pro V one and Pro V one X players in the Bahamas. Yokeen Neiman, my guy, walking, walking, walking. Neiman, my guy played Pro V one X in winning the Asian tour season finale. Uh, Johannes Viermann took home the NED bank in South Africa, gaming a Pro V one X and down under Corey Crawford won the Victorian PGA championship. Also gaming an X. And of

course, big Randy claimed a huge title this weekend, husband, and he also plays a Pro V1 X. How about that? Love that copy. He's the lowest spin player in the world. That's right. There's a reason. It's the number one ball in golf and with gift giving season upon us, there's a reason it's also the number one gift in golf. This is your final warning people. Don't miss out on Titleist Holiday Two Dozen Pack, where you can save $10 on two dozen Pro V1 and Pro V1X models while supplies last.

Even better, there's a free standard shipping on all Titleist.com orders through the end of the year. Thank you to Titleist, as always, for their sponsorship. Golf balls are an underrated Christmas gift. They're like, they wrap really nicely. They're heavy and substantial. Like nobody's ever gotten, like been upset to get top of the line, high quality golf balls.

Like I've been upset to get bad golf balls. Sure. But. Also, if you personalize them, that's like. Yeah, the customization is sweet. Incredible. Every year, think about getting like my brother in law, my dad, a little personalized golf balls, uh,

always put a smile on their face. I love it. Alright, gentlemen, let's start down to the Bahamas at the hero. So after two months away, Scotty Scheffler won his second consecutive hero world challenge on Sunday with a nine under par 63 to tie the tournament record at Albany Golf Club and win by six shots. He started the day one back of JT who finished third, uh, and he finished six ahead of a young Tom Kim, uh, who had a good week.

Um, a couple of fun facts just to set, set things up for I get your takes TC ninth win of 2024. So seven of those were PGA tour wins and Olympic gold medal and the hero world challenge, I guess you could throw the president's cup in there if we want to count team wins. This is an unofficial win though. So seven of those were PGA tour wins and Olympic gold medal in the hero world challenge I guess you could throw the president's cup in there if we want to count team wins This is an unofficial win though Yeah But you know if we're gonna add them up nine total wins first player since Tiger Woods in

2009 to spend an entire calendar year at number one in the world, which I found to be an interesting fact I saw that on the PGA tour article or kind of right up this morning, the Associated Press right up this evening, excuse me. $1 million purse was the second lowest for a win this year, which I also found kind of interesting, crazy. The lowest was $37,500 for winning the gold medal in the Olympics. That's what the Olympic Paralympic Paration paid out. You got paid for the president's cup win too though, right? That's what the Olympic with Phil Kenyon and they just decided that this was maybe a good stress-free spot to test it out. So TC, what are your thoughts here on Scotty's back to back down in the Bahamas? Big news, no news. What do you think? First of all, great to see Dr. Munjal.

Of course. It's always a yearly highlight. His mustache and just overall quaff and aesthetic just look- You see, Dr. Benjal put up more than a million dollars for this, come on. So he's putting up a million dollars for the first prize. Last place, I think there's what, 20 guys in the field? 20 guys in the field? Last place gets 150 grand. Okay, wow.

So it's kind of a weird, like the Grant Thornton's a similar deal. It's, I think only three of the top 10 in the world showed up this year, which is it's getting weaker and weaker and weaker. I've always been pretty critical of this event, just generally speaking. It feels like there's less of a need. The purses have gotten so big across the season and the bonuses that there's less of a need to kind of top these guys up at the end of the year. I thought it was interesting with world golf ranking

points too, where it was a weaker field than last year, but Scottie actually got more points from winning just because bottom three guys in the field don't get ranking points, which was a big sticking point in years past of like, hey, why are we giving guys that didn't beat a single player or beat one player? Like, I think Tiger went, like rose up three or 400 spots in the world rankings after finishing second or third to last, uh, last year. So all that said, thrilled to see Scottie in the claw. That's sick. Like he needs to try more stuff. You know, like if you're not putting well, try something new. Try like it's the stranger man. Just try it. You know, it feels like he was putting a lot better though. Once he switched, well-known, switched to the mallet.

It seems to, you know, kind of solve a lot for him. But I saw an interview he did after his Thursday round and he was saying just mechanically the way he takes it back that the claw does a lot to get the club head or keep it on plane a lot longer is what he and as he was saying that he Phil And I have been working on this for a few months. So it's great to know that he's tinkering at home KVV Yeah for the year Scotty was 77th in strokes skating putting most of that would have been after the mallet switch gaining point zero nine five Strokes, so I mean imagine if Scotty likets where, you know, he's like a top

25 putter on tour. I was watching a little bit today just thinking, man, if Scottie gets a little bit better, everybody is in real trouble. Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think it's better. I think it's a good thing. It would set a real standard for like this is the dude, he's going to win three majors this year or whatever. That's a standard that you want to chase. He's not going to win three majors, but if he was that dude who was like dominant, I think it would really set the narrative pretty easily for this season.

Niel, are you a big hero guy? You know, it's the beginning of the seasonal depression season up here in New York City. It is a fun place to look at. And just imagine, like, I'd never been on a yacht, even a third of the size of some of those parked in that marina. I'm like, what is that place like? I'd probably like to go down there and check it out, TC. I don't need to watch all 72 holes of it though,

but trying to, you know, catch the back nine, I think there's some fun looking golf shots out there. And, you know And there still are, I know the field isn't as strong as it was last year or in years past, but it's still fun to see like 20 names that you know, like everybody there, you know who they are. Ludwig had a good showing,

they did a walk and talk with him on Thursday. So I think it's kind of that Kapalua vibe a little bit where it's, those guys seem like they're in a good mood. It's kind of stress free. And so that sometimes that feeds through the TV to me, that the announcers are happy, they're all getting a tan. So the, uh, the good mood is, is, is contagious for me. Hopefully your guy, uh, Sam Bankman freed.

He's up there in New York as well. He got, and he, he, he used to hang down, hang out down in Albany. Hopefully he got to watch some of it too. He might have some seasonal depression this year. He very well could have some seasonal depression. Especially with crypto just popping off. Yeah. Neil, one of my favorite stories, legendary story,

it's been in the magazine, was when my guy Wright Thompson got it approved to rent a yacht so that he could park it in the arena down there during Albany. That led to the famous Killhouse story, sort of spying on Tigers for a week or so. Why did he…? He basically argued with the… A yacht? Yeah. Well, a boat anyway. I don't know if it was quite a yacht, but it was like one

of the bigger expenses in the history of ESPN, the magazine that he was able to get it approved so that he could kind of be in Tiger's orbit for a week. And throughout the week, he was like texting his pictures of himself having dinner with Sean Connery and such. So I have to be on the water. I have to be the only way to get close to the cat. The tiger said, like he called down to the Marina stuff. He's like, can you secure the tennis ball? That's right. Secure the tennis ball. That's right. Secure the tennis ball. It's a legend. I mean, Tiger, you know, we'll talk Tiger later on in the episode, I think.

Anything else from the hero, gentlemen? Any other TC you want to go down the leaderboard at all? Anything that stands out to you? Uh, good to see, you know, I know JT's been speed training his butt off. It seems like this, this off season or this, I hesitate to call it an off season. off. It seems like this, this off season or this, I hesitate to call it an off season. Um, it's been stacking. Yeah. Yeah. We don't know if he's stacking, but yeah, I don't know what he's been doing. No, no, we're not sure if that we can. Yeah. But he, you know, 71 on Sunday kind of faded a little bit. Oxxay playing nice and Keegan. I remain very skeptical that I think Keegan is going to qualify for the Ryder Cup team. I want him to just take himself out of it. TC, I do not want to have this debate all year about whether Keegan should be a playing captain. I think that would be a great, I mean, you, I'm sure would love

it, but that'd be a great way for my guy to really fall on his face hard. It would be like if Aaron Rogers said like, Hey, I want to be the, like I want to be the head coach of New York jets next year. That would be very intriguing. So you're KV to be clear, you clear, you're hoping he doesn't qualify, auto-qualify, or select himself. You don't want him on the team. I think, I would say, no, I want him to just captain.

I think he should say right now, if I qualify, will not serve. I will, I am solely the captain this year. I do not think I should have a playing opportunity. I mean, part of the reason he got the captaincy, right, because he was so like despondent and hurt that he would basically never get a chance to play in the Ryder Cup. So the PGA of America was like, you know what, let's write this wrong. Let's make this guy our captain. He's connected with the youth. So I just do not want that debate to be, although clearly it will, but

dragging on all year about whether King can play and be the captain at the same time. I am fully on the opposite side of that argument. I think it would be fantastic for content and it could be a total disaster or it could lead to him being kind of enshrined as a, you know, a US golf hero. But it's so you it's such a unique situation that I don't think we'll see. Or maybe I mean, maybe we will. These guys are all playing a little bit, you know,

they're playing good into their old age, but I would love to see this type of unique situation this year and I would like to see him qualify on merit so that he doesn't have to select himself. That's the part I, I don't want him to put himself in that position to pick himself. Good for our content, but not so good for my brand, personally, but good for us in general.

Yeah, for sure, for me, this is a personal take. Yeah, for sure. Neil, the only other thing I think, let's see here, just looking, Jason Day did not play well. I think he's exhausted from the travel back from Australia. That's probably going to knock him out for a couple months here. And Ludwig, ramping back up, kind of bookend 67s there first and fourth round. So good to see that. If you see the blow pig, not so good.

Well, I think not so good. Nick Dunlap. Not so good. Dunlap shot 76 today and, uh, been getting a lot of people tagging me in some stuff on Instagram that Dunlap stole Koala Carl's girl. Uh, don't know that on the gram. Tc something for you to monitor. Keep us posted on that. We'll let you, uh, let you do some digging on that one. Uh, I want to shout out, uh, young Tom Kim, you know, a little, a little NLU

bump put out a what's in the bag video, uh, on titleist YouTube channel. And, and, and there he is in second again. Uh, and, and for, uh, it's funny to think back, I filmed that video with him during the Travelers Week and that's when he was in the playoff with Scotty. That was when the climate protesters and the climate protesters. Yeah. I was like, God, that was a wild week. But he was very dialed that week. So a good video. He's, he's, I mean, getting these guys talking about their craft is like, it's,

it's never uninteresting for me. So what a thrill. All right, let's move on. LPGA commission stuff is what it's labeled here in the agenda. TC LPGA commissioner, Molly Marcos Simone. Simone, I'm struggling with the pronunciations tonight is stepping down from the role effective January 9th, 2025, a search for a new commissioner is underway. And the chief legal officer, Liz Moore, is set to replace Saman next month as the interim, on an interim basis. And I was looking at a Sportico article, just kind of highlighting a few things from your tenure. LPGA brought in a record setting, 209 million in revenue in 2023. I think all the tax returns came out this week, which we'll also get to with Steve Mojay here in a second. And it's

the first time the league has ever hit over the $200 million mark up from 180 million in 2022. The article goes on to say though that they might run a deficit this year. They might be in the red by two or three million bucks. In 2023, they were in the black by about five million. But TC, what are your thoughts here on this LPGA transition? Yeah, I think some of the revenue and expenses stuff is tricky because I think they more than doubled the size of their marketing and content team. And I've spent a great deal more money on that. And I'm not sure it's necessarily showing dividends.

Yeah, this has kind of been, you know, not like it's been like pretty reputable rumors for the last three to six months. And it was percolating even before Solheim Cup of just Molly kind of lost the locker room with a lot of the ladies and then the whole Solheim Cup parking shuttle debacle kind of solidified things. It felt like when Terry Duffy gave her an A, a quote, a plus plus last week or a couple of weeks ago, dreaded vote of confidence. And then was asked, what do you specifically like? And he said, nothing. I just like the overall trajectory. That felt pretty like, you know, kind of damning praise. I think some of the, like there was a quote about from the, uh, a Monday CEO, cause they're

pouring a bunch of money into the, the Evian over there and just, you know, kind of, it's like this transformational moment for women's sports at large. And the LPGA just doesn't seem to have been able to ride that wave despite Nellie having a standout year and Lydia making the hall of fame and all of that. And Bethann Nichols, her column after the Solheim Cup or during the Solheim Cup, and then a couple of columns in the months thereafter, that kind of solidified it for me. Like I think Bethann's going to give you a pretty fair shake. And if you've lost Bethann, you're really, really trying to keep your head above water.

So it's a tough job. I mean, I think Juan was probably, you know, big shoes to fill there, but it just seemed like kind of a golf outsider coming into that role and not communicating effectively. Yeah, it felt like a lot of PR losses, just like, hey, you got to get out in front of this. Like, I mean, the, you know, the Solheim stuff, it was one example, but just I, over the last three years, I think I remember one or two press conferences, like hearing her speak. Now, anytime I've interacted with her one-on-one, like when we were at the Solheim Cup in Spain, she was lovely. And I thought like super, super smart, charismatic, like had good ideas. You know, it's just like none of them ever seemed to like, she wasn't selling the golf world on anything, it felt like. And so,

I didn't know what her platform was. I didn't really understand what the, you know, what do you want to attach your name to? Like you look at like in the athletic directors, I think is in some ways a similar position to commissioners. And it's like, what's their thing? They like build stuff. Like you want to get your name, you want to get buildings built. Like that's kind of was the deal.

Like when I was in college or hired coaches. I feel like missionary wise, that's where it's like, you know, you want to, I think the schedule is kind of what you hang your hat on. Yeah. Right. That's kind of what you're building. And when the schedule, I think she made some progress, but when the schedule, you know,

their purse increases, they've kind of championed that as like, Hey, that's her big thing. But that seemed like it was kind of that momentum was already going. That was almost led by the USGA. It felt like, yeah, you know, like, you know, a lot of different Chevron, a lot of the other, you know, KPMG and, you know, the, the total person, the LPGA tour has gone up dramatically. But there's something that like money can't buy of like a coherent schedule to like travel. You know, she got, she got health insurance for all the, all the players. I think that was a big, big W, but overall it just felt like when they lost the founder,

the cognizant sponsorship founders a couple of months ago for the upcoming season, or they can't, they can't find a title sponsor for Nellie Korda's hometown event in Bradenton or stuff like that. It's just like, all right, like that needs to be, you know, items one through five for you to really hone in on. So we'll talk about it more this Thursday. We've got a LPGA focus kind of season end, year in review podcast going out. KVV, any thoughts? KSK I just feel sometimes in these situations, like, you know, she didn't even seem to endear herself to the players.

We heard a lot that, like, the players didn't really warm to her or like her or whatever. And I get it. Like, as a commissioner, what Mike Wan was really good at was work in the room, man. Like, Wan is a really good politician. But also, it feels like there's a genuine interest there when he talks to you.

And I don't know that, you know, it didn't seem like Molly was able to do that. But I also think that, you know, if you're, want your lead to league to succeed, some of that is on the players too. Like what more can the players be doing to get out there and sell their stuff? Right? Like there was a big controversy where they wouldn't show up at the dinner and the sponsor was furious, whatever. Well, like, is it really that hard to get, you know,

players to come and do a little bit of like, you know, press and flesh and glad handling with someone who's paying the millions of dollars? Like, it's not like, you know, the ratings are booming in the LPGA. And so I do think it is important for the players to realize like, hey man, like you can't just show up and play and think that that's gonna be the end all be all. Like you have to, when you're in a league

that you're trying to grow, you have to do a lot of extra stuff. And I'm sure they would say, well, we are doing that, but you know, you got to do more. That's just kind of part of the overall thing. And so I don't think the players are innocent in all this. Like whatever, whoever takes the job over next, like, you know, I'd love to hear some names thrown around on Thursday about who might be a possible person, but I hope that they'll get together and work with the commissioner, be like, all right, what do you need from us? Because we realize that this is not just like a you thing. This is an us thing.

I think like I've been critical of Lexi at pretty much every juncture over the last 10 years. But one thing you can't be critical of Lexi on is she's, I think she's one of the ones that's like the perfect role model for doing stuff with sponsors and showing up to anything and everything that they've asked her to do. Acting like an owner, they call it on the LPGA.

So. Yeah. TC, Molly had 1.26 million in 2023, according to their tax filing. I saw another note in here, Jay Monahan made $23 million in 2023. Care to comment on the PGA tour? Let's transition over to the other commissioner. How are we feeling about that payout? Yeah, this was via Sportico as well. Daniel Libet, a couple of weeks ago, So we didn't have a chance to debrief this. This was in the lead up to Thanksgiving. I think Jay, you know, making 23 million while they're cutting head count at, you know, at the global home inside the moat and Ron Price,

the COO. Hey, I won't hear any Ron Price. He was, he was the only adult in the room, according to million dollars. So like Jay's making more than Adam silver 13 for 13. Ron did show up at Congress to testify. Ron was the only one that held his own in Congress. All right. He got left on the bag, man. That was actually 3 million for, for covering the, for hazard, hazard pay. Yeah.

No, I think Ron's kind of a part of the furniture from the Fincham years and it's kind of the bridge between the two. But yeah, I don't know. I think executive compensation is like you are what your shareholders, your stakeholders say you're worth. And I think if Jay made 10 or 15 million, I wouldn't even find that egregious. I think 23 million is pretty wild when you look at the size of the business and the salaries and bonuses of other sports commissioners,

setting aside Roger Goodell. Because he's kind of the outlier. I would argue TC I think that well, this is all, you know, my conjecture, but that's basically inking the you know, strategic sports group money. I'm sure a lot of it's tied to like, Oh, see, I did I got a $3 billion investment. So 23 million doesn't look, you know, that's a just a drop, but that's just a little drip in the bucket on that 3 billion. But I agree with you with all the bad, bad publicity and just where we're going this

like stagnant period with the merging the tours, it just doesn't seem like he's doing a very good job. And so this is just a tough message to, to send even to players like, man, that's, that's not that that kid can't be right. You know, it's just, he made more than bad. More than any of the players. You know, it's just, it's bad PR. He made more than any of the players. I know. That's crazy.

What blows me away is in 2021, he made about 14 million. So like, what can you point to and say, I guess other than this Tricic. I think it's the merger. I really do. I think it's the merger. And then I think it's- Hey, if you get this cash infusion,

we're gonna chip you off for like job well done. And then also it's, I think it's also like the TV deal, like he got that done and then he took a haircut in 2020 and 2021 with, you know, I think he deferred some salary and stuff like that. So some of that could have been loaded in or whatever, but man, like, kind of like you said, Katie, at the end of the day, who is he negotiating against? Imagine what a good commissioner would have heard. It's like Mike Gundy this week in Oklahoma State. They made him take a pay cut and reduce his buyout and all that.

I feel like we should be going in that direction with Jay. Hey, you know, he got seven more million dollars and he was only asked to resign twice in that interim by the players, that that we know of anyway. I, I could go on forever. So Neil, keep us moving here. Okay, gentlemen, we got a few tournaments left on the TV schedule, but it's safe to say the golf season is over for most of the U S that is the outdoor golf season. It is however, simulator SCN and foresight sports as what you need for the golf

simulator of your dreams. There's Sim in a Box custom GC3 simulator package is a whopping $3,500 off this week. Yeah, we've got some holiday promos going on. Check out the Sim in a Box. That comes with everything you need to start playing golf in the garage or basement today. Hit the ground running next week by getting your reps in over the winter. Work on your game. Play some of our favorite courses like the cradle or Tara Edie, and maybe even earn a few bucks participating using the pin seeker app for close to the pin

contests is for cash and prizes. If you're not interested in a full simulator is also a great time to pick up a GC three launch monitor since the GC three essentials plus is $1,000 off for a limited time. By now you know know that Forsyte Sports is the benchmark, and they set the standard for how launch monitors and golf simulators are measured. Check out their extended holiday offers and their new ID.me military and first responders program

at Forsytesports.com. That's Forsytesports.com. You know, TC, one thing I'll note here is I remember when we were kids and the franchise got us a pool table for Christmas, like when I was like in fourth grade, we got the pool table, maybe it was a little younger. I almost feel like the simulators are like the new pool tables, you know, like for kids these days, like, oh my God, you know, it might as it's kind of like the same, same deal. Anyway, let's move on.

We're taking it down under TC, Australian open recap. I think, you know, we pride ourselves on giving a lot of run to our friends down in Australia. They're kind of earned, earned run. I mean, we love, yeah, you know, earned Best golf in the world down there. Earned eyeballs. And I think that, you know, A, we didn't do an episode, a recap episode last week, but we didn't

want to skip over it. I think there's a few interesting wrinkles from the Australian Open, both positive and negative. And I wanted to start with the positive. KVV, one of your fellow fellow, is it Montanans? Montanans, yes. Montanans, one of your fellow Montanans emerged victorious. Kind of a true-

Riggs Johnson, you have a good Danny Glover impression, KVV, I feel like you might in there. Riggs. Come on, Riggs, come on, Riggs, you know, you know we can't do that, Riggs. I'm too old for this shit, man. I'm too old for this shit, man. I, yeah, that's how I was feeling last night when you guys were headed out to the bars and I was like, I'm too old for this shit, man. I'm too old for this shit, man. Yeah, that's how I was feeling last night when you guys were headed out to the bars

and I was like, I'm too old for this shit, boys. Listen, Riggs Johnson, Montanans were buzzing all throughout this. Listen, we have not had a professional golfer of any good, basically skills ever really come along. I mean, this is but he rigs his 24. I'm going to go ahead and say he's the best golfer ever to, to come from the state of Montana. It's just a flat out true. What about Nick Faldo? Yeah, that's true. Game day picker, Nick Faldo, as you know, Cody and I were kind of buzzing all throughout the weekend locked in my dad and

actually like three weeks ago had had eyeballs. Youed, he knew he'd followed Riggs's career very closely. Riggs grew up in Libby, Montana, which is kind of in the Northwest corner of Montana, about I would say less than 4,000 people live in Libby. So Riggs really the best player, high school player to ever come, went to Arizona State, was a good player,

but didn't really like win a ton there, but could really like, was finished I think fourth at the NCAAs one of those years there and was a a good player, but didn't really like win a ton there, but could really like, you know, was finished, I think fourth at the NCAAs, one of those years there and was a, was a pretty good player, kind of got COVID in the middle of his career and stuff, but kind of just, you know, didn't, didn't quite get his tour card through PJT or you. And so basically decided in, you know, before, you know, going and trying to, to go to second stage of Q school, went over to Europe and managed to play really well in Spain over like course of a hundred holes and finished and got his tour card there and was kind of like, I don't really have a lot to do. So I think I'll, you know, go down and

play in Australia. Had never even seen the courses, couldn't even get a practice round there at Kingston Heath and then just went out and just balled out. His girlfriend had been his caddy for all the sort of the stretch of it. And then she couldn't make the trip, I think, because of I think of work. So her father who had just retired jumped on the bag and they just like it basically was like a kind of situation where he just didn't have to overthink anything. It's just like, all right, hit it here. I'm thinking man's golf course. Absolutely. And it was just awesome. I mean, like literally the Cody and I and this and

our friend Cameron Milton, who is a head pro in Poulsen, Montana, we were kind of like texting all throughout the weekend, like riveted over shot after shot. I think texts, I, from what I understand, like text threads all over Montana were blowing up with people just locked in on rigs as we were joking, you know, earlier in the, it came out after the Australian Open that he was named after Mel Gibson's character rigs from As we were joking, you know, earlier in the, it came out after the Australian open that he was named after a Mel Gibson's character rigs from lethal weapon. Uh, he says his family had a lot of our names, uh, growing up. And because he was like the third boy in his family that, uh, his father was like, I don't know. Riggs is a cool name. I don't know. He was like, he ran out of ours. Uh, and I do want to shout out, uh. I love it when people use wise as a, as a vowel, why for I that's good stuff.

So our, our Y GGS is how you spell Riggs Johnson's name. Great stuff. Riggs is a, it was like a great athlete. And he was, he was a basketball player. I think he holds the state record for three pointers, all classes. You know, if you know anything about class C basketball, it is the true run and gun. It is the absolute like, Oh yeah. People are going to put up like 30, 35 threes a game. Like there's not a lot of people to be played at that level. But so he, he got some shots off and he's about six, four. So he probably could have played like some small college basketball somewhere, but really always basically his life on goal was to go to Arizona state. So ended up, you know, going there and, and balling out. And then, you know, now

he's going to get a chance to play on the European tour. You know, I ended up kind of going to, you know, has this full card there and stuff. And is there, is there a Augusta invite for the Australian open? You read my mind, Neil. There's not. Okay. Yeah. And I think there should be a national open, you know, like, especially, all right, if somebody wins the Sanderson or the Black Desert Championship or the RSM, and they're getting an invite, I think whoever wins the, like, incentivize these, like, people to go down and play these events. Kind of like the Open Championship is done with, I think they do with the Argentine Open, a few other ones. So KVV was, were the local papers in Montana? Just, I mean, well, it's got to be some write-ups

and local papers and have been a little bit devastated by the sort of collapse of local blogs. How about the local blog? But you know, the hungry horse news river, it's a hungry horse is a real town. As you guys know, you've been up to Northwest Montana a little bit. They did a big write-up on it. The, the flathead beacon also a big right on it's a real town. As you guys know, you've been up to Northwest Montana a little bit. They did a big ride up on it. The flathead beacon also a big ride up on it. So dad, my dad was sending me these clips and stuff. But just from everything I understand, I've never met him, but Riggs is apparently just a great kid.

Cameron, like Poulsen pro there was telling me that he did like a clinic in Poulsen, which gets a lot of kids from like the reservation and stuff, kids who've never played golf before and come here and rigs came down and for two days basically just like was awesome with like all the kids like, you know, spending tons of time with them. He was, Cameron's just telling me basically like absolutely a true mensch of a dude. And so I'm super excited. I finally get a Montana to cheer for on the, you know, at least the European tour. We'll see if he can earn his way onto the PJ tour eventually. I love it. So I don't know if we mentioned earlier, Australian Open was played at Kingston

Heath. I think it was Kingston Heath and Victoria. Which both have been on tour, tour of sauce courses. Kingston Heath being the finale course of our recent season. So you can watch that on our YouTube channel. But TC, you know, that was heartwarming stuff from KVV, but bring us home with the, with the, with the Yang here. Yeah. I think this wasn't Riggs's fault.

This wasn't anybody's fault. Hats off to the superintendents down on the sand belt for getting these courses ready. They got an absolute deluge of rain, pretty uncharacteristic playing conditions down there. But that doesn't excuse the fact that I think they need to put a pin in the co-ed staging of the Australian Open. At least same courses, same days. I think a lot of pros have been very vociferous about it. I know Cam Smith has. um, and, and, you know, it's just, the setup is not explained to me the, the issue with the coed, uh, like schedule or, or set.

Yeah. So it's so pace of play issue, or is it confusing? All the above. It's a smaller field on each side, cause you got to fold to two full things in. And then just from a course setup standpoint, men and women play two very different games, right? And especially on really, really firm greens with bunkers cut into them and all of that. Like the defense of a place like Kingston Heath, when it's firm and fast is whole locations and firmness. And I think over the last few years,

golf Australia, who's the governing body down there, I think of the whole country except for New South Wales. Like it's gotten really, really dysfunctional. And Australians are like, they're to the point where this James Sutherland guy is basically, they're like, yeah, this is like our Jay Monahan. Like he's, it's like Jay Monahan and like Mike Davis put together. And they just, they hate him. The broadcast, like the broadcast has been

awful. You know, a lot of the men have been complaining just that the course setup isn't challenging them or drawing out the right skills. It's like, hey, if we're going to have this on the sand belt, it needs to play like a sand belt golf course. And then the attendance figures are way down the last couple of times they've had it in Melbourne. So, you know, I know New South Wales, like when it's up there, they put it on and it's a, you know, it's been awesome. Or like the, I think the New South Wales Open,

when they've done that, it's been really, really well run. And the, increasingly so, it sounds like the Golf Australia, they're getting so much feedback from at least the people, maybe I'm in an echo chamber of like, the people that we've met over the last five years or six years or seven years since we first went down there, many of whom have become really good friends, but they're, they're to a man, to a woman, they're, I mean. They're all just uber critical of, Golf Australia is, the purse has gotten smaller and smaller,

not kept up with anything. The commercial sponsorship stink. They're just not doing their job at all. So part of it is, we just need to tell it like it is, and hey, let's, you know, it's doing a disservice to the ladies, because the ladies, you know, it's not it's doing a disservice to the ladies because the ladies and you know, it's better to have them playing it in February when it's you know, kind of that's part of the

season. And then for the men, it's like it just doesn't make sense. Everybody's giving up stuff without actually getting any benefit having them coed at the same time. So there's my soapbox. I know I know it cuts close to you with with how big of a supporter you are of National Opens. Exactly. And Australia. It's like the Venn diagram of like, this is right in the middle of what's important to me. I don't know if I should have been, but I was quite surprised that 200,000 was the winning

thing. I mean, in golf, that's pretty paltry these days. And I know Australia has been through a difficult time with a lot of natural disasters last few years and their economy wasn't great. And so obviously, like I think on a podcast year ago, I was kind of like, hey, I mean, you want people to come down there, like you got to put up a purse that's going to entice them in some ways, and then we'll be happy to be critical of the players. I mean, we've known in just recently said, like Rory needs to get his butt down there and play play it again if he's going to talk about the importance of it, the importance of golf. But you also look at the Australian Open from a tennis standpoint. Like, I know it's, I know it's a different league, but in some ways it shouldn't be. It's like, clearly there's a market for like a tennis purse that's, you know, every top tennis player is getting on a plane to go down there. Obviously, I know it's a one of the four majors, but there's no reason that the Australian Open can't be on like this should be an elevated event if it's going to carry that name. When you say when you say a national open name, it has to feel

bigger, especially it feels big in Ireland, it feels big in Scotland, it feels big in Canada, like these are the golf playing countries, Australia is right there with them. It is a bummer that it's a bit of an afterthought. John Huggins had a big article about it, making Australian Open great again. He had some quotes from Carrie Webb about how it's no longer an LPGA event. That's heard it drastically better in February than it is in December for them. And then, you know, it's like, you know, Adam Scott, pretty level headed, thoughtful guy, right? Like one of the classier guys, he's like, format isn't ideal for the men or the women. And the two cut thing didn't work. Could have been 32nd on Sunday and not even playing in your national

open. I don't care if you're Cam Smith or a 16 year old hotshot. Don't want to be sitting out on Sunday. I would have been gutted if that was me. Overall though, there's a place for different formats, but your national open is not the place for that. Which I think is bang on. Like they do the Victoria open down there, and that's a co-ed, you know, all sorts of,

and that's awesome. And Klaits and Ogilvy do their thing. And you know, I think that's bang on from Adam Scott. Like there's, there's all sorts of room to do. I mean, shit, let's do something at the hero, right? Like not at the Australian Open, especially when they're trying to market themselves as a prestigious historic golf tournament.

I think the history thing, Neil, with the open in tennis is an important part of like, they may not want to go all the way down there and always complain about the jet lag and all that stuff. But if you want to be weighed in history, you're going to go to go. So that's where I think apples to apples comparison, but I was using that when you talk about the purse size, there's money down there for a purse. It's just we're not doing a good job of putting a, you know, selling it to somebody and be like, this is worthy of you sponsoring clearly. Well, that's where I think the masters could really help and just say like, you know what it is, you do get a entry into the masters with this and the masters could do global good there. I mean, they've always kind of had that. They, one of the reasons that Joaquin Nieman got a chance to go to the masters last

year was because he won the Australian open, you know, it was like factored into, you know, the decision to invite him. So we'll see if Riggs Johnson, I mean, maybe they do the same thing. They don't really publish their criteria, but I think it's one of those things too. All right, if the state of Victoria, it should probably pop over around the country more. I know they're Victoria, you know, it should probably pop over around the country more, right? Like I know they're getting ready to reopen Royal Sydney here in the coming years. Get it out west, get it back to Adelaide. Like there's, it seems like there's plenty of enthusiasm there. And some of these state governments down there are paying for, they're underpinning the purse.

And if they only had to do that one every five years or six years, you know, that's good for everybody. Yeah, you know, that's good. Yeah. You can consolidate the funds. So I might hop on with, uh, with Malika and Scott on their Australian golf passport podcast and just get them all riled up about it. Please report back if you do. All right.

Well, I want to give a shout out to another partner. The stack, the stack is the complete system for bio hacking your club head speed gentlemen. You've both heard Sally, specifically Sally and DJ are swearing by this thing, this golf training system. And if you haven't heard it already, I'd go back and listen to Sally's conversation. The stack founder, Dr. Sasha McKenzie, it seems to be extremely impactful. I have not started my speed training yet. I've been working through my TPI stuff and my mobility stuff, but it is going to be on my goals list next year. Not so much to chase speed, TC, but to just, you know, so that

you can cruise a little bit higher and almost feels like it's just a good golf workout. So I don't know, you were down with DJ playing some golf last week. Did you see any, uh, yeah, B differences? Yeah, much like you, I have not started my off season program yet. I'll be doing that, you know, starting in about eight days. Um, so I, I'll report back on that, but I saw the results of DJs thus far. Uh, I felt like I was watching a different golfer. I didn't play with him. I just warmed up next to him. He's like, yo, TC, check this out. The fall is coming out of a radically different window. He's driving it 15 past me. Truly shocking, terrifying, and ultimately frustrating.

Like, all right, I gotta get my ass into it. Well, as people will learn in a couple of weeks from Tron's TPI video, we need to get him to disassociate the core and the hips if we're going to chase down DJ's newfound distance. The stack may not even work if you can't disassociate anything, right? Yeah. You might have to do the mobility stuff before you do the stack.

It's a phased program for me. KVV, any experience with the stack? I have. I've been doing the stack a little bit. I haven't really been as good as keeping up with it, but I am up like three to four miles an hour, uh, in just in the initial doing it, which is. You know, in theory, like 10 yards longer, I'm, I'm still, I've gotten a little bit like perplexed about whether I should, you know, trying to get lessons during

this, this break so that I can just stop like swinging the stack over the top really hard, uh, but, uh, I don't know if that's going to help me in the long run, but on the radar system right now, I'm up a little bit. So let's put a pin in that right now and we'll circle back come January, February, because I think I'm finally going to get some lessons. I think my wife is going to give me some lessons for my birthday here. I love it. Lessons, customized golf balls from Titleist, lots of options. All right. Thestacksystem.com forward slash no laying up. There's a code no laying up for 10%

off the stack. And also Nest members get 20% off the stack system via a code in your member profile. So go to nolayingup.com forward slash profile, and you will find a code for 20% off the stack system in your discount section. That code is good through December 31st of 2024. So go use it if you're looking to do some off season grinding like TC is. Gentlemen, it's time for the E9. KVB, turning it over to you. What do going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat.

I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the chat. Not that many pithy, you know, golf golfy stuff. That happened to me. Like I did a mystery box thing with the pro shop, like promos where I, you know, I was like,

I'm just going to pick a random order and send them like a, pick out, you know, send them another order of stuff that I picked for them. Like, Oh, we know Riggs does that over four plates. Like, I don't pay attention. I didn't know. I'm not trying to copy anybody. You know, there's nothing new out there.

So yeah, E9 for now, but music and a new name coming, coming soon. If you are the kind of person who polices that kind of stuff, you're a big fucking dork. Like just, just move right along. I have someone on my friend says maybe we should call it the Twilight nine. So we're open to any and all things if you're, if you're out there listening. All right, let's kick it off here with the, what the down at the hero world challenge before the golf guys,

there was a time when Tiger Woods taking the mic would have led this show would have sent shockwaves throughout the golf world but I think that time is kind of sunsetting a bit Tiger talked a little bit about how his his back is just not quite ready to compete just yet says as far as the recovery process going out there and doing it again and again and again at a consistently high level, for some reason my body just won't recover like it used to. That's part of age and part of the journey. I didn't think my back was going to go like it did this year.

It thought it was going to play once a month. It was quite painful throughout the end of the year and hence I had another procedure to alleviate the pain I had going down my leg. And so what are my commitments going forward? Is it once a month? Yeah, I could say that all over again, but I truly don't know. I'm just trying to rehab and still get stronger and better and feel better and really give myself the best chance I can going into next year.

He has not ruled out playing in the Hero World Challenge with Charlie. TC and Neil, I turn it to you. Wait, you know the PNC. People will lose their minds in the title. Or if Charlie played in the Hero World Challenge and got world ranking points. You know Charlie's going to play in the Hero World Challenge at some point. No, I messed up my NC sort of combination of letters there. Boys, what should we think about Tiger in this moment? Is it still news that Tiger says that he's sort of hopeful and looking ready to compete in the year to come?

I mean, I don't know. I think it's business as usual. I mean, the guys, his body's broken. So, but I have no issue with him using every single exemption that he earned over the last 25, 30 years, whatever it is, going back to like what Monte said about him at the open, it's like, he can play as long as he wants. I don't care if he doesn't compete like it's still because if he does, if he does find it, you know, over the next three or four years and any, you know, lightning in a bottle and he, and he does, you know,

make the cut and he's on the first two pages of the leaderboard. That'll be a ton of fun. So I'm, I'm happy with whatever we get from tiger. Truly. Like I would like to see him tee it up. I don't know if I need to see him tee it up once a month. I kind of just need to see him tee it up in the majors, to be honest with you. Majors and maybe pick, you know, if he wants to play at Riv or something, but

you know, pick your spots, man. I don't, that's totally fine with me. Less is more, I think at this point, he didn't play enough or it's like, Hey, play, figure out which courses you want to play on to like what, you know, whether it's like, I know TGL who said, Hey, I'm not ready for it yet, but I think I can get there. Uh, you know, which who knows how demanding the, the acts, the temple, the temple hole could be brutal. But I think Tiger too, even if he's not playing, I'd like to just see him out there and involved

a little bit of like, Hey, pop in and hang out on the range or something with the guys. It's like being out with the guys. I'm just not with the boys. But I also think that he's probably the type of person that hates being out there if he's not competing. Yeah. That's probably like, I would think that that would drive him nuts. Probably just doesn't want to be around if he's not going to be playing.

And he was wearing his, you know, it's clear he's been doing some fishing because he was wearing the biggest set of Costa Del Mar fishing glasses I've ever seen. Just hater blockers. My only comment is I kind of wish we could just sort of stop asking him like, oh do you think you can win? Oh I wouldn't be out here if I didn't think I could win. Like yeah yeah, I think we've done that dance several times. Yours truly has written multiple columns

about that. I think we all kind of know that Tiger deep down probably still thinks he has one more good sort of flash in him. But that's going to come more as a surprise than it is going to come as any sort of like, Oh, Tiger, can you win Riviera this week? Like probably not. Like that's probably going to go to one of the top. It's going to be a lot more what we saw at, you know, Ballhalla and, and Pinehurst than it is like, you should play Harbor Town. Yeah. It's the perfect course for him now.

Hitting little, you know, three irons off the tee and it would be sick if he just started, picked a tournament a year, didn't tell anybody he was playing and kind of just, you know, yeah, that was one of my favorite things when we did that with like your Greensboro, right? Like he showed up at Greensboro or Greenbrier and like that was great. Yeah. All right. That's, is that evidence that he is no longer quite the straw that stirs the drink. We will move on from the cat. Uh, number item number two, the bake off is over at NBC. Our friends at NBC have chosen, uh, Kevin Kisner to be their color commentator for,

uh, majors and writer cup coverage. Uh, ain't no hobby no more. Uh, Kevin gives there'll be a full-time gig for him, although he will play some. Says he wants to continue. The golf sounds like it is turning into a hobby. Yeah, that's true. He's going to play part-time. Life comes first fast for us all, TC. He wants to play part of the schedule and will rotate

analysts when he is competing. Neil, are you bullish or bearish on Kevin Kisner? I think I'm bullish. I think he did a good job last year. I think the fact that he didn't have to go week to week helped him a lot. So it'll be interested to see if I get sick of him if I hear him every week. But overall, I thought he did a good job. I didn't think he was trying to pretend to be an analyst. I thought he was himself. I thought he offered good commentary.

But yeah, I mean, it's a safe pick from NBC. Like this was, it's a safe pick from NBC. It's kind of obvious. Why'd you guys take so long? He was the best candidate you had all year. Haven't heard any new names lobbed in. I don't think they should pick Brandle to do it. So it was basically between him and Brandle

is kind of what it came down to. So yeah, this is the right choice. I don't know if I'm not fired up about it, but I would say bullish more than bearish. I think in hindsight, probably the doing it sporadically both hurt both, both helped him because it kept him fresh, but also probably hurt him because he, like, you're not just diving in headfirst and able to kind of find your voice or feel like you have job security

to, you know, really, really put yourself out there. But I do wonder, hey, if he's going to be out there playing a lot, is he going to kind of soft step certain things or not want to piss certain guys off? I know he had kind of his fiery take about the PGA tour becoming a closed shop. And then he replied to that same post. He was like, yo, I'm just asking the question. I don't care how it ends up. I just, I just think it's interesting. Well, the fiery take stuff is the kind of thing that I think, you know, worries me the most is that he won't actually be honest because he's out there, you know, wanting to still

be buds with the people. I think, uh, you know, I always wonder in retrospect, if we don't appreciate Johnny Miller enough because he just truly did not care about being friends with these guys. And that's what made him such an honest, uh, you know, broker of, of the commentary out there and wish we could get someone who would do that similarly. I think Johnny, yeah, I don't think we realized quite what we had when Johnny was at the peak of his powers until he was, until it was too late. And I think with Johnny too,

he gets reduced in hindsight to like a hot take guy. When really I think he was kind of all of the above, right? He could dish the hot takes. He was really, really quick on his feet of telling, hey, here's what this guy's probably thinking right now, or predicting certain things in a non-annoying way of like, oh, not like a Romo way where like Romo is like, you know, trying to predict the next four play calls.

You know, Johnny's like, oh, like, watch out for this kind of thing. I think he was really well balanced as he got into his prime. One thing that I've learned doing these major deep dives with Sully is like, Johnny knew really like what was asked of in the player at the moment. He got like, he became one note in the sort of sense of like people thought, Oh, well he ever talks about is like, you know, this is, this is going to be a choke or this is, you know, it sucks. But he knew like, Hey, you've got to hit this putts going this way, or this is what this shot requires.

And he was very good at golf and could translate that to the screen. One thing on the last thing I'll say is the announcer, Kisner or whoever, that's not the issue. We can't have four guys in the booth in 2025. So if I just, just Kisner and Hicks, like, let's just stick with two. That's all I'm asking for. Just get no, no too many cooks guys, too many cooks. Didn't Monday Night Football tried it when they brought Dennis Miller in.

It was kind of a disaster. They tried to have a four man booth for a year. Is that a four man or a three man? I think it was a four man after Miller was kind of a disaster for a year. If I'm remembering that right, I mean, I was definitely a man with with Miller, but I don't know. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I thought that Miller was great, man.

In hindsight. Yeah, babe. He would have been made for the social media era. I thought that Miller was great, man. Like in hindsight. Yeah, babe. He would have been made for the social media era, you know? All right, item number three, something that would certainly interest Dennis Miller these days, the USGA and the LPGA have announced a new gender policy.

Overview of the policy is, under new gender policies announced Wednesday, the players must either be assigned to be female at birth or have transitioned to female prior to undergoing male puberty to be eligible for LPGA tournaments or eight USGA Golf Champion Association championships designated for female competitors. This is set to take effect in 2025. The policies are the result of more than a year of research encompassing medicine, sports science, physiology, and gender policy law.

Mike Wan, the USGA's head said that it starts with competitive fairness as our North Star. We tried not to get into politics or state by state or any of that stuff. We just simply said, where would somebody, at least medically today, where do we believe somebody would have a competitive advantage in the field and we needed to draw the line. Guys here, any thoughts on this TC? I know this is something that we've talked a little bit about, but I haven't really talked a punch about on the show here. Yeah, I think it's interesting to see the USGA coming out with it and then the LPGA kind of piggybacking and using them as kind of a shield and saying, yeah, we're just going to go along with what the USGA says.

You know, like I know Juan basically said, hey, we were hoping to get something from the Olympics. They didn't step up to the plate. They left it up to all the individual sports. We were hoping to get something federal. That hasn't happened. So to me, it's like common sense. And you know, I'm sure it's a hot button thing.

And I'm sure there's people out there that disagree with me. But I think objectively speaking, like, you know, I'm sure it's a hot button thing and I'm sure there's people out there that disagree with me. But I think objectively speaking, like, you know, is it an advantage to be born a male and be able to hit the ball farther or have, you know, like there's just there's just physical differences. Right. And, you know, that's yeah, it's pretty cut and dry from where I stand. you know, that's, yeah, it's pretty cut and dry from where I stand. I read that like, that's just, this seems very rational to me. And, and I appreciate Juan like saying like, yeah, we need to draw a line. And it's like, you look at golf with all the distance stuff, it's like, nobody's been willing to draw a line. You know, everybody kind of avoids the line drawing and it's like,

well, that's what you got to do as a commissioner. And it's just kind of, yeah, we were talking about the LPGA commissioner, like transition. I think that's probably a reason there is a transition right now, because lines aren't being drawn. Like you gotta, you gotta govern. You gotta be like, no, we gotta, we gotta at least make a policy. Doesn't mean they couldn't change it, but I'm, you know, with TC, I think this

makes sense and it seems like it's, it's well thought out. Like, it's not like, it's not a full band. It's not try to be hot, like a hot button thing. It's just like, no, we're gonna, you know, this is where we're gonna draw the line. And I think one is always good at kind of bottom lining stuff. So I appreciate that.

The important thing I think is that they, you know, they sort of used medicine and like science and physiology and they looked at that. I think that from my perspective, like, and a lot of people wanted to predict how I was gonna sort of react in this based on what they think my politics are. But like, I think that if you, you can be very supportive of, you know, rights for trans people and still like want to sort of set up certain, you know, guidelines in sports. Like there

is no connection in my sense of like the two. I want trans people to live healthy, happy lives. I want them to have the same rights as other people, whether it comes to voting or bathroom stuff. And I can still sort of say like, essentially, what are sports, right? At some level, you can make the case to me that, hey, like sports in high school or sports at the sort of lower level, that's about like inclusiveness and making sure everyone feels involved. But eventually, when we get to the level of like professional sports, we're sort of deciding who is the best person amongst this set of standards. And the one flip side of this, I guess I will just kind of raise this as the devil's advocate point. Is there a lot of people who are saying that because the rule is saying you have to have transitioned from female to male

before undergoing puberty, a lot of the states are basically outlawing that and say that that's not going to, you know, be allowed. And we can debate, you know, not certainly on this show, but like whether that's, you know, a medical reason or a political reason or whatever. But there's sort of a basic saying that these kids will never have that chance to get to sort of compete in golf. I just think that the percentage of this being such an issue, such a small thing, like I'm totally fine with like drawing these lines here. It's when people kind of like try

to make it into such like their whole entire personality that they're going to sort of raise money off this and get famous off this and just like these people don't care about women's golf. They don't have any interest in actually protecting the game. They're just trying to sort of use this as a political issue and so ever. So I totally agree. These are the right rules, the right way to sort of move forward with it. And I just think that like, now we can kind of move on and we can sort of feel like, all right, like, you know, let's be inclusive in society, but let's also like set standards for what sports are. There's an, and it's, I think the smart thing that Juan and the USGA did was like, hey,

instead of waiting until there's like, there's Haley Davidson, she's a transgender golfer. She got through, I think, first stage or second stage of Epson Torque School and all of that. And I think instead of just letting that snowball down the hill and turn into this crazy hot button thing. And then, like you said, KVV, invite all these people from outside of the golf who don't give two shits about what we're actually talking about here. And they just want to, it's like the, you know, the fringes on either side of society. It's like, Hey, no, let's make this decision as golfers before it comes to that. Right? Indeed. All right. Number four, the old course reversed is coming back for a second

consecutive year. TCU got to participate in this and so someone along the line will get to participate in this just as you did. It's April 3rd through the 8th in 2025. We like this. We think it's a good thing to continue to sort of this tradition of playing the old course. You actually even wrote about this as well for the Yet Eddie magazine. What are your thoughts here? I think it's a great thing. I think it's one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. I would encourage everyone to sign up, enter the lottery for it. It's a three day thing. I think you get the castle course, then you get the regular routing of the old course and then the reverse routing. Hopefully your weather is better than what we had this year. Yeah, it'll put your brain in a pretzel a little bit. So,

I would beg to play it again, but I would also beg for you guys to be able to play it. So, I don't know if you're allowed to play the old course in reverse twice before I get to play it forward once, but we can take that offline. I think also people were a little fired up in our planning a trip to Scotland thing about Carnoustie being left out of tier one for Fife. Again, I'll turn this to you since you were sort of ahead of a charge a lot of that. What's what are your thoughts? How can you defend your positions? Yeah. So Sally kind of came up with these tiers, which I'm not a big tier guy. I'm just like, Hey, I like, I like kind of thing.

But he's like, Hey, tier one is like not to be missed kind of thing. And by definition, like I've been to St. Andrews probably six times now. I've been to Carnoostie two of those times when I've been to that area of the country. And so by definition, like when I go over to Scotland, you know, I think Carnoosi is a great golf course. Do I want to go out and play a championship test with, you know, that's very, very difficult, not the most scenic, you know, and just, just kind of a, you know, they do a really nice

job of the Carnoosi, but it's definitely kind of a tourist factory up there and a little bit impersonal with the hotel and all that stuff. So I think there's like, I would rather go play Ely. I would rather go play Dunbar, like, you know, places like that, you know, Dunbar is not in Fife, but you know, I don't know. I just think my reasons for going like, Hey, this is what I like. This is my tier one, right? Go play Panmere. You know? Yeah, exactly. Uh, you know, I like weird shit. I'm much more keen on like, Hey, I want to go play other courses off. Like next time over, I want to go play Lady Bank, you know, I think, but it's just, Hey, it's like, we're not doing a ranking.

This is like a personal opinion kind of thing. And so it got reduced down to, I can't believe these guys, it was like the worst of social media. I know old guys. Yeah. Yeah. Basically. I think the no old head thing was much more like that was me putting my stake in the ground of like, I think that place is worthless. This wasn't a slight on car news. It's more just like, Hey, that's not why I love links golf. I think our news is a little nervous about their spot in the like the sort of overall feelings things, you know, the hotel situation there is in flux and they're just kind of a little bit, they don't want to lose their status.

I loved Cardinustee, but I like TC, I have not, I do not have the perspective and experience. You know, I've only been once to play golf and, but I would highly recommend Cardinustee as a novice Scottish golfer. I've only been once to play golf, but I would highly recommend Cardiosti as a novice Scottish golfer. Yeah. It's like I live two miles from TPC Sawgrass. Like I play there maybe once a year, if that. And that would be the tier one golf course,

going by the rankings here in Northeast Florida. But I don't need to go ski double black diamonds every day of my ski trip. I just want to go chill and hang out and relax and have a nice leisurely walk. All right, item number five, the New York Times this week wrote about the golf simulators are booming in New York City, Neil. All the fancy cheese shops and all the artisanal mayonnaise places are disappearing and golf simulators are popping up right and left.

We even had someone email us, Neil, and invite you, give you a free membership to one offered. You didn't take it. You didn't take it. It was very nice to come off of. I do belong to one of the ones that was called out in there, but I pay my way. It's the Gowanus Golf Club.

That's very respectable. The issue for me has been there hasn't been one that opened very close to my apartment and I'm a big fan of five iron. I think they do a really good job and they're always packed. And so this article, the piece was a little sarcastic about, uh, you know, it wasn't the best. Times sarcastic about something that they think is beneath them. I don't know. It kind of became a little bit point.

The point piece was almost pointless to me. I'm like, but it was trying to argue that like New York's, you know, becoming for rich people's I was it's that's kind of been the gaze for a while. So do I think it's going to last though? Yes, I do. I think especially and I've said this on this year podcast, when you compare these simulators and the business model and the, you know, what it takes to build out a five iron, probably a, you know, one to $2 million versus a top golf of 30, you know, $30 million, there is definitely a business here. And it's a great, honestly, I, in practicing for some of my, the competitive stuff I did this year, the simulator was like really, really, really valuable for me. Now I'll always want to go play real golf. And the thing is, it's still expensive. So you get, yeah, you valuable for me. Now I'll always want to go play real golf.

And the thing is it's still expensive. So you get, yeah, you kind of get, I don't want to say taken advantage of, but like, you know, you go, if you want to go to Five Iron, hit balls and watch some football, like walk out and you're like, whoa, man, you're gonna look at the bill.

It's like not cheap. Can you go in there and grind or is it just like social stuff? So Five Iron is much more social, but it depends on what time of day you go. Because when I've gone there during the day, it's just people grinding really hard. And then the place I'm a member at, it's like, there's no bar or food. It's just like, I got a key fob.

And so you just reserve it. And it's just like the dojo. Like I'm in there doing my TPI workout and then I'm, you know, I'm hitting a bunch of like, I'm doing like drills on the, on the simulator, you know, like trying to do like wedge work and stuff. That's what I'm looking for is like, I don't, I'm not looking for a happy hour spot. I'm looking for a place to practice. That's, that's my biggest issue. It, you know, with New York is very hard to practice. It's, you know, cause you can make the trip to go play golf and there's a lot of good golf around. It's worth, you know, worth a day driving there

and back, but what gets left out living here is practice. And so I think these simulators are starting to pop up because there is a need for it. There's a lot of people that are like, God, I really want to just hit balls right now. So talking about practice. Yeah. It's a good thing. Watch, watch this space for further updates on New York city golf as we are working on some things in the background. Item number six, guys, Noling Up was announced as joining the Creator Council by the PGA Tour this week. This caused a bit of a kerfuffle on social media. TC, I'm going to turn this to you as the sort of coordinator of kerfuffles when it comes to us.

Why did we decide to join the creator council? What did it mean? Are we dick riders? Is this the end of, and NLU is an independent voice as we know it. What's the... They're paying us hundreds of thousands of dollars to be on this council.

No, I think people, Neil, I'll let you kind of... Oh God, all right. It's my favorite. People, it's because people don't understand. They act like that there's going to be some like in-person summit with all of these creators that were out. It's like, no, hopped on a phone call.

They're just asking for feedback. There's a new CMO at the tour. They've got this fan for they're trying to solicit feedback from the audience. Are we a little like, OK, you know, does it look like are you going to do anything with the feedback? Like am I a little cynical? You really wanted to send a press release?

Sure. I'm cynical about it, but I'm still like, you know what? That's a bad attitude. Like at the end of the day, I want, I want to help. Like I have, we have ideas for the tour, ways that you could make it easier for us to cover the game, which hopefully will help, you know, grow the PGA tours audience. Hopefully that's a win-win for everybody. And just things that like we say on this podcast, like,

so I don't, I think we all agreed that we did not want to, you know, we want to be critical, like authentically critical, not just critical chucking them from the cheap seats. And so it's like, yeah, if you want my feedback, I'll hop on a phone call with you. I'd be happy to do that. Now, I don't know if anything's going to happen from it.

We're not getting paid for it. It's very, it's very low stakes. Of course, you know, one of our first recommendations like, Hey, maybe we like shouldn't put out a press release until like we, there's actual like action items or change is like, nah, we're definitely putting out a press release. And so I, we didn't know when the press release is going out. Of course they, you know, it goes out across like blasted across all platforms. We didn't even know it's coming. And it's like, you know, it looks like a bigger deal than it is. Let me put it that way. It's more just like, Hey, yeah, I, I'm, I appreciate that they are asking us for feedback. I don't feel like it doesn't mean we're not going to be critical. There's no like, we're not trading access for like good PR or anything

like that. So that's, that's my take on it. We're still pulling on Steamboat Jay. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to know the truth right now, our like, participation is limited to DJ being like, Hey, like, what's the deal with like using players in videos? Like, do we have to get your permission or not? Like, could you just make a clear policy on that? Because we feel like we're following the rules and some other people aren't. Is it should we not do that? Or? Or like, hey, could we get access

to more like stats like the MLB has, you know, like, outside more like data golf type stuff. One thing I said was, it's easier for us to cover PJ tour golf from home, which is like kind of a knock on the tour. It's like, no, you should like you should want people like the media to go to your events. You know, you should make it like easier for me to like what like the, the, the being on site should provide more value than it currently does. And I don't, you know, I'd have to get more

specific about like, well, what kind of value do you want? It's like, I don't know. But right now it's just easier to watch, watch it on TV, because like being there, I'm not really getting anything extra. Well, they'll give you a great example is like, if, if I I wanted to go to a tournament and I hadn't covered them before, they would be like, what are you working on? I'm like, I might be working on long term, long form stories might be working on a long for thing. They would want more like, well, can you cover the actual tournament? Well, I might if something interesting arises.

But like I went to a lot of NFL games and I didn't have to like show them my work like what I was doing Turn around like you should be pretty excited that some you know, I know it's like they Doing you a favor. It's like We are what are you? What are you actually? What are you shooting out there? I'm not I'm just getting some freaking like Instagram pictures to make it like look like it's like people are having fun out here Basically, yo check it out, our main quote unquote product is hopping on every Sunday night talking about golf for 90 minutes. Yeah.

Like, you know, I would think you would want us to be as clued in and personally experienced at your events as possible, right? So, you know, anyway, it's been in years past, it's been, you know, the funny thing is when we get called D-riders, it's been pretty hostile with us in the tour over the years, you know, things have thought a little bit and now they're, you know, they're asking, I think they're genuinely asking for feedback from a

diverse amount of creators. And it's like, great. If you would, I'm happy to give you my opinion. The jury is still out on if anything happens with that opinion. And, you know, I think history would tell me like, don't hold my breath, but let's, you know, let's see what happens. All right. The puts a wrap on that. Item number seven. Let's talk a little live golf here. Uh, since you know, we're such D riders, TC, the, the live gang basically is announcing

that new CEO, uh, take over for, uh, Greg Norman, despite Greg saying, you know, he was going to be in that position basically until he had to be dragged out of it, Scott O'Neill, uh, the former 76 years executive, uh, overseer of the process. Uh, I guess overseer of the overseer. Overseer. That is correct. Hey, what Harris blitz executive producer of the process didn't direct the

process, but he had a hand in producing it. He certainly signed off on the process, which is an interesting look for Liv. They've similarly been losing massive amounts of money for four years, and now I've seen a couple hints that is this a make or break year for Liv? I don't know if break is the right word, but basically is Liv going to grow or are they just going to be what they are TC what do we think about Greg Norman? Maybe stepping aside whether he wants to or not and handing over the reins to someone else Maybe we have more professional and about they're going about their business. It sounds like we're gonna get a deal in the next

Three to six months like everybody you talk to is like, Hey, there's going to be a deal this spring, basically. And I think that was a key concession point from the PIF side. And PIF has been negotiating the deal, not live. And so that's a key distinction too as well. But I think there does seem to be, you know, Yasser and excuse me, H.E. because with Dick Riders, we have to refer to him by his proper nomenclature. H.E. and the gang, they've seemed intent on continuing to build their revenue kind of model and their personnel on that front. So I think this is the second or third former 76ers employee that they've hired.

So that'll be interesting. In other news, KBV Big Tone, the oft rumored Big Tone not leaving. Not leaving. Yes, you broke that news amongst our slack at least. He's, oh my gosh, he's not leaving despite what TikTok might've been telling you. Which Big Tone and his wife put out a banger of a, uh, you know,

a reel on, on TikTok and in the Graham basically grilling out and he said, you know, I'm not leaving. I'm happy. I'm fucking leaving. Yeah. I think they got a, they got a stiff arm from this really highly touted European amateur as well. He said he's not going. And then this is kind of live adjacent, but Adrian Otagwe, former, you know,

for the first year of live, he's now a citizen of the United Arab Emirates. And he's hoping to compete for them in the Olympics. It's kind of a la Rory Sabatini with his beloved Slovakia. So I had the question in here, who is the funniest change of citizenry possibility out there? I mean, Rory could become an American.

That would be very funny. I don't know why this, like this is not golf related, but always Mike Piazza playing for Italy in the Olympics baseball. When the baseball is like, the Italians are very excited about that possibility. God, great question. I can't, nothing pops to mind. Nothing jumps out at me.

Yeah. My thought is like, uh, I mean, I guess tiger, like, you know, I guess Tiger, like, you know, Coblin Asian or like, you know, something to play for. I would have on his mom from Thailand. Right. So, yeah. But also like had some Filipino, right. I think some like, so yeah, I think Tiger with the party, like, yeah, just, I decided to take my talents to the Philippines.

Tigers should just be a citizen of the world. He plays under no banner. I think he would love that for tax purposes. I think he would. Of international waters. Yeah, I don't know who mine would be. I think it would be like posthumously giving Seve American citizenship or something. After all that stuff.

Or Monty becoming a US citizen. All right. Let's keep it moving. We're dragging here. The E9. Come on. I threw some. I threw this. Not a whole lot of TGL corner today.

Yeah. Other than guys, the screen is huge. I don't know if you've seen the stuff that they've been put out. It's huge. It's like, will it fit? Everything. Camera angles look. It kind of looks stupid.

I don't know. It's going to be. Yeah, I'm going to withhold judgment. I just want to watch it. I don't want to talk about it until it actually happens at this point. Yeah. New York golf club. They hopped on Jimmy Fallon. Just a very lighthearted thing. And then I'll be going out to the, or I'm not going out to it, but I thought about it to the Vegas, the crypto.com, you know, match and showdown, whatever we're calling it, not the match. You see, I thought about it too, but I just can't swing it. I it's been a long, honestly, it's been a long year and I just can't, I can't make it work. Putting these events like right before Christmas is tough.

It's like, yeah, Mr. Biggs wedding was kind of like put, I'm putting a period on it, man. Thinking around here for the holidays. Do you see you in a number eight here? We have a weekly rider cup kind of discussion. I know that you had some thoughts here. Uh, mainly the PGA of America extending with Delaware North through. Yeah.

Neil's Neil's guy, governor Hocker, her, her husband there. Yeah. I think they own, do they own the Boston Bruins too? I don't know. They're kind of like a sneaky influential fellow. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, they're re-upping this on the wake of, you know, gestures wildly and everything that happened with the ticketing fiasco and all that. Pay for play. There was a lot of, a lot of the chatter down there was pay for play stuff with, you know, gestures wildly and everything that happened with the ticketing fiasco and all that pay for play. There was a lot of, a lot of the chatter down there. It was pay for play stuff with, you know, I think Scotty pretty eloquently addressed a lot of those questions and stuff. And then, uh, did you guys get a chance to watch the DP world tours rider cup European team documentary yet?

I am watching it with my, my daughter this. That is on my list of musts. So I'll report back soon. Very good. All right. Of course, TC, for hole number nine, TC just literally in the agenda says, dumping this stuff in for placeholders slash parking. You got to pick one of these, TC.

Bryson going nuclear, Joel Beal's piece on Grayson Murray, personal golf stuff. Where do you want to go with this? You got to pick one, though, because we got to keep moving. Let's see. Yeah. There was the murder at the North Palm Beach country club. Caitlin Carrick had 15 clubs in her bag. TNT ran an ad for the match five days after the fact. I didn't even know there was a match. I'll see. He's a Trojan horsey. He's doing all of them.

If I had to just pick one and, you know, listen, congrats to Bryson on getting the hole in one over his house. That was like genuinely impressive. But DJ sent this along there. It's from the Costas and McCord podcast. Peter Costas from golf.com's Instagram account. Peter Costas is wearing a Costas and McCord hat, mesh, you know, side of the hat is mesh in this Instagram reel promoting their podcast. And the cardboard is still in the hat. I will say, You didn't know why we put that up there, did you?

I did. I forgot about this. I remember him saying, he said it like a week ago. In defense of Mr. Costas here. I have done that. Protect the hats from the sweat for longer that the cardboard will on purpose. Yes, on purpose. It will cause it doesn't, my head is big enough to where it doesn't, it doesn't make the hat. Yeah. We have to get different kinds of hats for you. We do. Uh, and so that my hats will last longer and not get the sweat stains.

If I have the cardboard kind of tucked in there. So it's it might be weird, but my hats look cleaner as a result. It's tough to see the cardboard sticking out in the mesh though. It is tough. Tough look for our costas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I will say to the Caitlin Clark 15 club, this was in a what's in the bag thing guys. Did you not know better? T-Sign. Graph graphic? Yeah. But like whoever's doing that graphic should probably just be like, Oh, this adds up. She's got like seven wedges. Like maybe we should take one of these off, you know, maybe she's so good. She's going to take the four stroke penalty and just, just be the asses anyway. So, all right. I'm taking us to the housekeeping

section. What do we got coming up? We got, we got a VJ sing pod going out next week. KVV. We'd working on a little narrative about VJ sing and his 2004 season. Look for that. Uh, probably Tuesday night. It's all in. I've been working on that for a little bit. You might hear some familiar voices in there. TC is in there. Uh, some other sort of more famous people in there as a fun one. We'll, we'll, uh, we're enjoying, churning these special projects out. I know that we've got a lot of people out there who have appreciated the kind of

time and takes with them and Justine. Kind of topical. Yeah. With Scotty winning unofficial win, but ninth win of the year. That's kind of what it sparked the idea TC was all his victories this year made me realize like maybe we don't appreciate VJ's 2004 season enough when he truly won nine official events. So look for that on Tuesday. All right.

We've got an LPGA episode coming out. So TC, I'm sure you'll be on there with Cody and Randy or is it just those two? Yeah, I've called for I said, Hey, I'd love to love to chat with you guys on that. And then we're getting the ball knowers together this week too. The ball knowers on the, on the heels of our person over the weekend, KVV first time ever. I love seeing that happen. Got some good pics of the ball knowers. Um, it was, it was a summit down in Austin, Texas. Randy did his video. He did.

He did have that. He did his paid. Yeah. Uh, yeah, we had that. And then, uh, you know, Niners kind of righted the ship against KVV's bears today. Okay. He's got Kevin Warren. They were averaging two inches per play the first half bears. It's bleak. I've already said, I'm already mentally trying to like prepare myself for coach Cliff Kingsbury to come in and put in three years before he gets fired because the Bears just cannot get it right. Neal's Jets lost again. Oh God.

And another like fourth quarter loss too. So stinky. But your guy Aaron Rodgers for the first time in three years threw for 300 yards. I know he looked a lot sharper today. I watched most of the game when I got back from the airport. We also got a what's burning at the kill house going out. Just a round table, year-end round table. KVV is going to quarterback a little written piece. And then, yeah, we got a mulligan sale going on in the pro shop. Ness members 20% off through the end of December. Just use your Ness

member code with your Nest email address. Get in there. We got some good, we got some t-shirts coming in, some kind of specialty stuff. We made some retro like bomber jackets that I'm really, really excited about. So over the next two or three weeks, some of this stuff, the shipping deadlines

will probably hit. It's kind of Letterman jacket season with live announcements and stuff like that. Yeah, I know. And it's kind of a sweet like letter jacket that we got cooked up, but some of this stuff won't, you might miss the holiday shipping deadlines, but good time to join the nest. You get the 20% off. We've got the annual member gift for all 2024 members going out in January. Consider joining the nest. It helps us out. We appreciate it. NoLayingUp.com

forward slash join. Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I think we moved the runner over tonight. Like that is a fantastic effort. You know, the three of us maybe drawing the short straw after a big weekend. But that was a fun one. Let's kick it over to our very own Jordan Perez. She's going to chop it up with KVV and I about golf and video games. I'm going to let that one hang there and we will see you next week. Cheers. Crack on. Bangalang! Okay, we're going to dive into our final segment tonight, the one for the road. And we're bringing in our very own Jordan Perez with a little piece on video games. KVV, what should we be expecting here?

I mean, we love the kind of these history deep dives, these quirky little parts of golf history. I'm excited Jordan dug this one up, pitched it to us, and I was like, let's do it. I love golf video games. Gentlemen, I'm honored to be on your program, but I have one question for the both of you. What is your own personal history with video games? Ooh, Neil, let you go first there.

That's a heavy one for me, Jordan. A lot of scar tissue there. I am not a gamer. Ron and I didn't get a video game console until I was a, uh, an eighth grader. I was never good. Uh, actually some, some moments in college after morning workouts, all my buddies would want to go play Mario Kart or call of duty. And I would just get waxed and I'd be off the

controls after one game and they'd all I'd be like, what? I'm out of here. I get all mad and I'd leave so video games are a bit of a sensitive topic for me. I can go a little deeper than that. I was definitely like a Super Mario Brothers guy. But I think you know, the legend of Zelda is what really took me to the next level. I have a very distinct memory of my grandparents were visiting from Gray Falls, Montana.

And I was like hard into like trying to finish a level on a Legend of Zelda. My dad was like very impatient of that. I was, you know, playing video games. I think maybe a little bit embarrassed in front of my grandparents. And so he just reached over and just like turned it off and like lost all my progress.

And I was like bursting into tears and stormed out. I was probably 10 or 11 now, which having a 12 year old makes sense emotionally. But the real true like obsessive part of my gaming came when like Tiger Woods, I think it was 2005, PGA 2005 came out. I got really good at that. I mean, I could shoot in the mid-40s on all those courses.

I remember my ex-wife was covering, we were both journalists, she was covering a hurricane down in Texas and she had no cell phone service and so we were really like kind of stressing over it. And the way that I dealt with the stress of not being able to contact her as she was like sleeping through the hurricane was to play Tiger Woods for like 11 consecutive hours through the night until like she was able to contact me that she was okay. So I've been deep in it Jordan. The only thing I'll add the two games I did get into was 1080 on N64 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Oh my god! But playing in sixth fifth and sixth grade at my buddy Trey Barton's house would

go over there after school and play Tony Hawk a bunch. So that was, that was maybe the, the spell where I was like, Oh, I'm getting okay at this game. Find the secret tapes, you know? So not a lot of experience with the tiger woods game, but Jordan, we're going to give you the last word here. Neil, you were shredding. I love that. What a specific genre to get into. For sure. I was an aggressive inline skater there for a little while. Almost went to Camp Woodward, but that's a topic for the trap draw. We can get into that somewhere else. I'm so excited to hear that episode someday. Well, I'm charmed by the fact that you guys are both kind of the opposite ends

of the video game spectrum. I think that's really cool. But part of my intrigue into your own personal video game history is the fact that what we're going to talk about today is predates me. I was not alive to even be in the peripheral or interest of this topic. So we're going to get into it by covering something a little bit broader. The video game crash of the early 1980s led to kind of the ecosystem of video games we kind of know and understand today, which is total market domination of console gaming. And that kind of came around in the late 80s. And that set the path for one of the greatest rivalries really of all time, which was Sega versus Nintendo. If you were alive in the early 90s or you know a thing or two about video game history,

you've probably heard the phrase, Sega does what Nintendo don't. I think about that a lot. But before Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo's biggest rival is now exclusively software publisher Sega. And their fierce competition in the early 90s kind of spurred some really interesting innovations. And by this, I'm talking like weird gizmos and add-ons and accessories that were either ahead of their time, super strange commercial failures or just both.

So some of these included Nintendo's Virtual Boy, which is a virtual reality headset, kind of thinking like the Oculus, but in the early 90s, which if you could imagine, it's like this headset that you would put on and all you would see is red. It totally bombed. And then at one point, I bet Sully wishes he had this. I bet Sully wishes he was deep into this. Oh yes. There was a golf game for it actually. Sega came back at one point and came up with something called the heartbeat catalyst. Thinking of all, by the way that's like a very short list of these like peripherals and weird add-ons, thinking about all of these makes me

really sad because I think about in how many landfills these are probably in or just existing in people's basements or are just simply paperweights. Pawn shops baby. Pawn shops indeed, pawn shops indeed. But what if I told you one of the rarest video games of all time was created for one of these ill-fated paperweights and what if I said it was a golf video game? Whoa. I'd say please tell me more. Yeah. Back in the early 90s, golf games were kind of gaining some steam, kind of gaining some popularity, but PGA Tour 2, which was released in 1992, was probably one of the Sega Genesis most best-selling titles. That ended up inspiring a development of a version for this heartbeat

catalyst, which was an exercise peripheral that would read your heart rate, motion, and your skin salinity. So you'd attach it to an exercise bike, a treadmill, and essentially would feed feedback to the game. Like, your progress in the game was dependent on the quality of your exercise. So if you over exercised or you under exercised, that would count against you. The goal was to get a perfectly stout, steady, consistent workout. You know, this was kind of interesting.

It was a fun response to basically like kids just kind of sitting on their couch for hours and gaming. But who wanted to get up and exercise? That was the entire point of gaming. I love this idea that you could like make yourself a worst golfer by over-exerting your heartbeat. This is, I'm sure you're too young for this Jordan, but there was a controversy back in the 80s, early 90s about golfers taking beta blockers to try to slow down their heartbeat

so that they could putt better. This is very, all the rumors, oh, this guy taking beta blockers, he's too good of a putter. I could empathize with that a little bit because I feel like trying to exercise and like think about the mechanics of playing a golf video game are extremely stressful. I just I that doesn't really vibe with me. Okay, guys, I'm going to read some of this ad copy for the heartbeat catalyst because I think it is absolutely hilarious. for the heartbeat catalyst because I think it is absolutely hilarious.

One piece says on this ad to order it. The fact exercise is good for you. The fiction I use my exercise machine all the time. It's fun. Exercise is good for you. It increases your circulation, can improve your heart strength, plays a role in maintaining or achieving your correct weight and reduces stress. Great. We all know that but using exercise machines is boring. Not anymore. The

heartbeat personal trainer. 199 plus shipping and handling, which by the way is $440 today. Good confirmation. Are you with the PGA 2 game? Are you playing the game while you you playing the game while you're on the exercise bike or is it strictly just you're exercising? So you're doing both at the same time. You're doing both at the same time.

Got it, okay, I love it. Yeah, your progress in your exercise is influencing the game, which I'll get into a little bit more in a second. And on the back of what was supposed to be the copy of this game, it says, experience the future of fitness with the heartbeat personal trainer. Hit the links with PGA Tour Golf 2 and get a great workout. The only fitness video game with all the sights, sounds, and shots of the PGA Tour. And some of the some of the

bullet points they have listed on the side are heart rate interactive, dynamic wind conditions, special shots, chips, punches, and fringe shots, multiple camera angles, instant replay, unique 3D putting grid. Anyway, oh, and by the way, on the cartridge of the game itself, it says, consult a physician before starting a fitness program since exercise could cause physical harm. So all the right legal. I want to hit some of these fringe shots, KVV.

Yeah, look, I'm going to work on my punch shots. Fringe shots. You can do that all while getting some good cardio in. Okay. So what would actually happen in this game was it was exclusively driven by your heart rate. So forget the skin salinity, motion stuff. This game was focused on your heart rate.

So if you over-exercised, the white swing bar would double in speed, which would reduce your accuracy. And if you under-exercised, the swing bar, quote, can move only about 50% increasing the likelihood of a hook shot. Do we see how this is like so stressful? What are we doing?

So it had no bearing on like, it was just like if you're cranking along on the exercise bike too high, then you're definitely gonna hit a hook. Yep. It's not that you're gonna your hips are gonna go earlier, you're gonna hit a hook. It's not that your hips are gonna go early, you're gonna hit a massive slice. See, that would've been better if you had the two-way miss going, but I think that's kinda sweet though. It's like, ah, I hit a hook.

I need to go down a level on the exercise bike. I think this would be tougher for you, Neil. I think it'd be very hard for you not to push yourself and to put the bluffness in play. I'm trying to get my cardio going for the year, come on. Come on. I'm a pretty horrific multi-tasker. I just, I can't think of me,

of my own like physical process on, say like an exercise bag and be like, all right, I'm doing great, I'm feeling good. And like, oh my God, I'm slicing it everywhere. I can't, I can't, I can't. I just think this would be a nightmare for myself personally. Was, Jordan, do you know, was this game popular? Did it take off at all? So I'm getting to that. Okay. This very, very stressful for me, possibly not stressful for Neil,

where I don't think, uh, experience never saw widespread retail release. So what ended up happening with the Heartbeat Catalyst is it only saw a production run of a thousand units and this specific version of PGA Tour Golf 2 was delayed enough that it fell into this like, exclusive club of software that just never fully saw the light of day. And the reason we're even talking about it now is because one Reddit user by the name of Video Game Experiment

found, I guess, the only known copy of this. And he posted it about eight years ago. And I can read out of his post, because I think there's some interesting tidbits in there. Sure, sure. So he says, so I was going through a bin of Sega sports games I bought in a store buyout. I was surprised when I found this in there.

I can't find any info on this other than they plan to release a PGA game. The only other heartbeat game that I can find as confirmed release is Outback Joey, which, side note, Outback Joey was the game that came with this peripheral, so that did get a retail release. Back to his post. Something screamed prototype as the artwork is inkjet printed and the label on the cart

seems the same. But then it also has a UPC and some sticker residue that implies it had an anti-theft security sticker on it. It's in a standard cart, not the yellow-tabbed EA, which was the publisher of the game. There is almost zero mention of EA as well. The cart feels heavier than a standard cart. What a day to discover I've misplaced my bit driver.

I tried booting up in a Genesis and just get a beep and a blank screen after the licensed by Sega screen. I hate it when I misplace my bit driver. That drives me nuts too. So this is like a, I don't know, like discovering the arc of the covenant for like video games, Sega nerds, right?

Like this is, you know, one of one essentially. Yes, as far as we know, this is one of one. And you might be wondering, I mean, like, how would it, with the video game market, retro gaming collectors being everywhere, eBay being a thing? How would a copy of this super rare game just go nearly two decades without being identified? Because keep in mind, this was the early 90ss and this post on Reddit didn't happen until like 2016.

When it comes to video game preservation, sports games always kind of get the short end of the stick, mostly because there's a lot of repetition in year-in-year auditions, the Maddens, the NBA 2Ks, all that. And honestly, the golf and retro gaming communities have a lot of, have almost no overlap, like very little overlap. And so there's strange people on the internet like myself who are looking for these weird, obscure golf games. There's just really not many of us.

It's, you know, it's a lonely, it's a lonely place to be. And as video Game Experiment, the original Reddit poster said in a video he later recorded, he said, quote, there's a lot of interest in the uncovering, but not a lot of interest in the product itself, which explains why it took seven years before anyone dumped the ROM of this game online for public consumption, which finally happened in 2023. Wow. So yeah, if if what's the guy's name? Video game experiential video game experiment.

It's all one word. Spearman would love to get an update from him. So did he ever find his driver and play the game? I don't think he did. Okay. Well, if he has now, I would love to, we would love to hear from him if anybody can get in touch with video game experiment. So if you have like a dusty Nordic track in your basement that you can send to him to

say you can do the exercise portion as well. That would be a completely mindless experience. That too. I feel like instead of relying on the ROM, we definitely need to see the actual cartridge and heartbeat catalyst and Genesis in action. Well, Jordan, I'm glad that you have outed yourself as a gamer girl because we've known this about you for a while, but now our audience does. So please send all your gaming tips to Jordan to teach you how to defeat those various sticky

levels and various Fortnite things. Any strange video games lying around, specifically golf video games that are acting as paperweights in your basement, in your attics, anywhere, please let me know. Love it. Jordan, thank you. Love a good time capsule in the one for the road segment. KVV, thank you again for your participation and knowledge on tonight's podcast. Thank you to our sponsors, of course, Titleist, Foresight, The Stack. And one last shout out, we've got a

mulligan sale going on. If you've ever considered joining the Nest, now is a really good time to do so. Nest members are getting 20% off throughout the month of December in the NLU Pro Shop. You also have the nest member gifts going out for all 2024 members in January of 2025. So www.nolayingup.com forward slash join. You can also gift the nest to an avid golfer in your life. Go check that out. You can see all the benefits there. It's 90 bucks, you know, and there's a lot of good stuff in there. So appreciate everybody listening. Appreciate the support and we will see you Tuesday and then next week. Cheers.