No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 935: Grant Thornton and Q-School Recaps

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Soly makes a triumphant return to the weekend pod along with DJ and Neil as Jake Knapp and Patty Tavatanakit win the Grant Thornton while tour cards are handed out at PGA and LPGA Q-School and LIV's promotion event. We also offer some season-long Mea Culpas and offer an extended E-9 about PIF - PGA Tour deal rumors, Scottie's PGA Tour POY award win and upcoming documentary, TGL's ESPN broadcasting crew, our worst golf shots of 2024 and Neil's self-defense in the face of allegations of slow play at the Long Island Mid-Am. 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 ServPro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying a podcast. My name is DJ. It is mid December and against all odds, Neil, we are talking golf. My man.

It's good to be with you. The merch. Sorry to be with you. Great to be with you. It's cold in the big city, but fired up to talk. You know, it's a reflective period. I'm getting ready for the goals podcast on the trap draw. I'm thinking, I'm just thinking about the year and it's a great night to talk some golf, talk about 2024.

And that's a little bit what we're going to be doing. You know, there's a couple of tournaments this week. We'll, we'll breeze past those, but we've got some other big picture conversations to, uh, to get to, to help us do it. Neil, we've got a third chair today coming back. He's, he started more games, I think as a starting pitcher than anyone else in league history coming into kind of a bullpen role as he gets coming back from injury, Chris, Sally Solomon. How are you, Sally? Welcome back. I mean, right. Randy Johnson, didn't he pitch in the, in like the ninth inning of a couple of playoff games at one point after he'd logged about 3000 innings. But hey, I don't know if this is

back, but I'm here. We have, you know, it was total chaos in this household as of 45 minutes ago. Now all is calm. And I'm apparently ready to talk some golf with you guys. I love it. Rocking the Jags gear tonight. A tough loss to my jets. I mean, I'm wearing my jets green up here in the big city. God, you came in hot there, Sully. I thought your camera was going to freeze to start, to start your return. I was like, well, it might have, there he is. He froze again. Oh no, he's not frozen.

There he is. The computer just rebooted. I literally had to scrape some dust off of it to get fired up here today. It might not work throughout all of this, who knows, but I'm happy to be here. So for those that don't know, of course, Sully and his wife just welcomed new twins into the world. Everybody's happy, healthy. Well, what's the update, man? It has been a month of perspective in a lot of ways. You know, we always joke about that in terms of how it could help your golf game. I think it's perspective is the word I would use. You could trick yourself into thinking it's just been the worst month ever, or you could also trick yourself into thinking it's been the best month ever. And it's a

constant battle hour by hour on that exercise. But we are very blessed with three happy and healthy children that are all under a year and a half, of course, but it has been more chaotic than I would have thought. You guys know, it just, it's, you guys know you've, you have newborns or you have, you know, young children. It's just a massive, massive time commitment. That's just what it is. And it is even more so than I possibly ever could have imagined. We went to lunch today and some friends dropped off dinner and that was the entire day. And I've been, it's been the busiest possible day

you could ever imagine. Like that is, I've not had a chance like go through the agenda because that was the entire day. And I've been, it's been the busiest possible day you could ever imagine. Like that is, I've not had a chance to like go through the agenda because that was the, the two things I did today. Well, you like brought the whole squad out for lunch. What was that whole squad? We went and met Santa today, actually. So that was, that was a photo op then. That was a total photo shoot. I love it.

That's, that's a busy day. Two and a half hours to get out the door pretty much in terms of sequencing for the 45 minutes we were gone. But yeah, everyone's it's been great. Had a lot of support from a lot of people. My wife is just a total G and handling it with incredible grace. And we got a month down, you know, now you start to get out of that, that, you know, six weeks or so is when maybe hopefully things start to turn and they start to do some stuff and get a little bit of return on, on the time investment right now. It's just eat, sleep poop. That's pretty much what it is.

Speaker 0 4 1 1 2 3 Man. Well, we're going to get into this a little bit later, just kind of how this is going to all affect your golf game. If you have any plans around how this is going to go, I'm really excited to talk about that. But speaking of our golf games, a good one from our friends at title is here tonight. They, they said, you know what you take the ad read in whatever direction you want. We just want to know similar to kind of like what, what we do with the foot joy moment of joy. Just you, you tell us man, what worked this year, Neil, I'm going to start with you from a titleist standpoint, what worked for your game this year? I, I narrowed it down to two, but the, the easy answer is the switch that I made in May

to the Pro V one X left dash that golf ball. I took the first time I played it was when I beat Ben's ass at Pinehurst. You can see that on our YouTube channel. Uh, it really helped me off the T less little less spinning right miss. And uh, it's just been, you know, I adjusted to the firmness of the golf ball. That was my concern. I don't like a firm golf ball, but that was quickly not an issue. And it was like a good experience. I committed to using it. I was like, I'm going to use this for at least two months. And I just haven't looked back since I started using it. And

I would think, you know, looking at some of my year in review stats with the, with the gin app is, you know, the score drop. My goal this year was to not with the, with the, the gin app is, you know, the, the score drop. My goal this year was to not get worse, you know, with a, with a new child coming into my life. And, and I, I actually dropped my handicap by 50%. So how about that? I will say the runner up just, just so I get out of the way. Cause if people are wondering, which are probably not was T grind, the SM10, the new Vokey wedges, took those T grinds down to Australia. And I just, the 58 degree, I have a T04,

and I just love the way it sits on the turf. And that really has helped my confidence around the greens with that specific wedge. Fantastic. So I have a feeling we're gonna be swimming in similar lanes here. So let me alley-oop one to you. I'm gonna shout out the GT3 driver that I was

fit into this year and try not to overstate this TC spoke about this a little bit on the last week. I've heard the speed gains are incredible. There's and a lot of the reason I was able to do that was just feeling like I had a little bit of support on the forgiveness front and feeling like I could really go after it as you guys and you guys have played many, many, many rounds of golf with me. I've just always been such a tentative swinger of the driver, just always trying to guide it out there. That never goes well. You get the two-way miss and when you actually like are properly working on your golf swing, it turns out, you know, sorry, I'll pass it off to you. It's almost like the more you groove the swing, the harder you're going at it. In a lot of ways,

the straighter it's going to end up going. And I'm sure you probably saw a little bit of that this year too. That's exactly right. I it was maybe a month after we got our hands on the new GT line. It was like the first time I felt encouraged to go speed train. Like, I don't know that that can't be a coincidence, right? And I think it has something to do with the forgiveness of like, all right, man,

I feel like I can absolutely wail on this thing. And it's like improving everything when I do that, right? The good drives are even better. Bad drives are not flying as far offline and they're getting farther out there. It was, I don't know. It felt like I had been granted the permission to launch and we activated the sequence and that's been, and I got some tip. I did the title

of shoot actually this past week and got tips from two different I Russell Henley fixed my driver and Wyndham Clark fixed my irons in like 30 seconds each. And I'll probably next in February when I get to practice again, I cannot wait to put both those. God, this is my favorite. It's always back baby. Guys, I just I'm it's it's I fix it. The driver's fixed. T it lower, Russell, T it lower. Uh, and I, it prevents me to stop

like lifting up at the ball and like actually hit not physically hit down, but I'm up five degrees as it stands. So T it lower. And then I'm not, I'm less likely to do like the hump move at the ball. And I was like, Oh my God, was that a five yard fade? And it was awesome. I forget who, God, I forget who said this. Somebody had the great idea of starting a is Sully back Twitter account? And he just, they just would update it. Like every time they hear like, you know, we're getting reports, Sully's back.

And then, oh no, he shot, he shot 81 in a match against bed. Like Sully's not back. So I forget who that was, but whoever it was, please update. Sully is officially back. And it's thanks in large part to our friends at title. As if you would like to get back in a big way, I would say, uh, go visit titleist.com, get yourself kitted out, get yourself fitted out and, uh, you know, get ready for a big year in, in

2025 guys, a couple of golf tournaments that we had this year, we had Q school, of course, where Lanto Griffin was our, our champion. We had the Grant Thornton mixed event. Patty Tavitannica and Jake Knapp were your winners at that event. At LPGA Q school, we had 23 year old Miyu Yamashita, who was our medalist and is, you know, we'll talk about her in just a second. And at the live golf promotions event, of course, Max Lee, you know, won what I call a live golf comp to the Waterbury Open. I'm glad that I was going to confirm if you, if this was DJ's signature here. No, I think it's just a 36 hole tournament.

And if you, if you win it, you get a year of no cut $25 million purses. I mean, it's like the, it's the best 30s. Where's my check? I don't have any checks to go with that. I mean, I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that.

I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. I'm not going to go with that. It's just a 36 hole tournament and if you if you win it, you get a year of no cut $25 million purses. I mean, it's like the it's the best 30s. Where's my check? I don't have any checks to give. I'll just give me one of them big ones. I don't care.

I don't care. Let's start a Q school. So I know you watched a good bit of this, you know, is down in your neck of the woods at Sawgrass Country Club in Dyes Valley. I guess kind of starting with the headline Lanto Griffin one by three. I mentioned the top five finishers and ties all go straight to the PGA Tour. That is kind of the you know, everything old is new again type of status at Q school. And those people were Lanto Hayden Buckley who has played the PGA Tour the last couple years to Kumi Kaniya very big news TC, former number one amateur in the world, Asia Pacific amateur champion. I believe he's going to the PJ tour for the first time. Alejandro Toasty, the fiery, fiery young man who looked like he lost his card.

He earned it right back. That was exciting to see. Will Chandler, Neil, from shout out from the Marist school, from my alma mater, a lefty back nine 30. Unbelievable. It was one over on the front already 15 and Eagle made a long Eagle on 16. But yeah, shout out to the Marist War Eagles, man. Awesome stuff here. That's going to be an interesting story to follow. It is like he straight up like does not have the resume to be on the PGA tour.

I think he would probably even admit that, but he went full Martin trainer into the top five here and he's going to be playing on the PGA tour. I think he would probably even admit that, but he went full Martin trainer into the top five here and he's going to be playing on the PGA tour. I'm very fascinated to see how this works out. Well, he was, I remember him being a stud at in high school, like in our, in our world was like, Oh, he has this guy, Will Chandler. He's really good. He's a lefty. And then he went to UGA and I think he did pretty well. And then he's just been grinding it out on the, you know, kind of trying to make it. And here it is, man.

So like one of these awesome stories of, of, uh, and the fact that I know who is, I guys, I coached him at Marist War Eagle football camp long, long, long time ago. You might've been digging deep some of that grit that you instilled in him. How about that? Yeah. It was a light through lefty. He was my quarterback on the flag football team. Unbelievable.

And then I should mention before we move on Matthew Riedel also 24 year old kid from Vanderbilt who played the corn fairy tour this year also got through those were your six people moving through automatically to the PJ tour. So you watched a good bit of this event as well. Kind of a fun watch man with Bacon and James Nitties on the call and familiar golf course. That's what I was gonna say. It was fun, man. It's kind of like, I mean, you know the story before you tune in, like some guys that you you almost certainly don't have a ton of ties to

or some guys are gonna get through and some guys aren't. And it's just kind of, you just watch it all unfold. And from that standpoint, yeah, they do an awesome job of just, they don't have a ton of cameras out there which like fits the story as well. Like you kind of linger on some of these guys. You follow the emotions of it. Bacon and Nitties do an awesome job of just like setting the scene. I mean, Riddle had a nervy final three holes, hit the pin with a chip on 17, and then you had a bunch of up and downs coming in to get on in on the number. Alistair Doherty

was in the lead going into the final round. He missed out by one shot. Uh, he also missed out by one shot at the last, uh, corn fairy tour event of the year, uh, which is tough. I was reading about it. He had to basically there were two guys, uh, on the last hole that both had these like mid-length putts and both of them had to make in order to knock him out. And they both made and knocked. I watched that and I didn't even realize that was him as well. He's totally forgot.

He's the, he's decked out and all the barstool stuff. I think he's kind of the barstool version of, of Lauren Coughlin. I know they're all good buddies with him, so I'm sure they were, they were sweating watching him today. But yeah, that's a tough, tough two time beat there coming down the last, last stretch of the season. Make you stronger. That's right. Hopefully. But no, it's, I don't know. It's an interesting, fun watch.

A lot more kind of again, kind of what we think the fall should be is like figuring out if you're really deep into pro golf, this tournament's exactly for you. Guys are gonna get a lot of starts next year. A lot of interesting stories. Again, like you're saying, if you wanna get deep into it, a lot of the PGA Tour, you guys,

Crystal Lamprecht and Pierce and Cootie kind of both shored up their, their status for next year. Whereas some of the other big names, Austin greaser and Dylan Menente and some of those guys kind of were not a factor. Sam Bennett, 74, 76 WD Smell ya. And then just kind of a lot of, a lot of dudes just kind of being scraped off the shoe of, of pro golf a little bit too. Ches Revy, T88, Neil. There's just, you know, people always talk about like, man, it's just, it's so hard to lose your card. It's so hard to lose your card. And, and then you kind of start to see some of these guys start to hit those, those stepping stones. And it's like, I don't know if we're going to, I'm not saying that about Chez, of course, but it's

like, I don't know if we're going to see that guy's name for, for a while. You know, I will say just totally random, but Christo Lampreck was, he was at TPI the day before Tron and I did the, you know, those, the videos, the TPI videos we have on our YouTube channel. And so Dr. Greg Rose was comparing, he was using, he's like, Oh, let me pull up Christo stuff. Cause it was the first thing, like maybe one of the premier athletes on the planet, the way this guy's, it's unbelievable seeing that stuff in slow mo with all the force plates and how much lag he gets.

So I hope that, I hope this is not the last we see of Christo. I hope he makes the big leagues this year. Just an absolute ball speed freak. It's unbelievable. That's the stuff that, you know, that's what Randy should be doing with that big frame he's got. And he's just going the opposite direction. We would need to get those two together for a little lunch and learn maybe. Anything else on Q School from you guys? Definitely. I have one huge shout out on the eve of probably one of the biggest weeks of her year. The corn fairy tour president, I mentioned we've had a lot of support from a lot of people, corn fairy tour president Alex Baldwin made my wife and I spaghetti and meatballs and a skillet

cookie and brought it over this past weekend. It was like the best meal we've had in the past month. And it was just like one of the nicest moves I've ever had anybody do for me. So shout out to her. Just more evidence, the tour's not paying us, but they are cooking solid dinner. That's right. Exactly. She and my wife have a relationship from her previous role with web.com. Come on. That's kind of, that's really nice. That's very nice. Thank you. It was incredibly nice. She's an unbelievable chef as well.

Remember we all went over for dinner at her place a couple of years ago. That was, that was a highlight. Always good to get at the Baldwin table. At the Grand Thornton, I mentioned Patty Tavitannica and Jake Knapp are your winners by one shot over Gino Titicum and Tom Kim. Guys, I'm going to be honest, I don't have a ton from the Grand Thornton. It's one of those events that exists. I feel like we've kind of said everything we have to say about it. I wish everyone well. Everyone looks like they're having a good time, but I just, I don't know how much I need to be involved with this event.

Anybody got anything else? I'm just struggling to marry why I say all year long there should be a men's and women's crossover event. And then this one comes around and I have, I can't muster up any energy for it. It's December 15th. I'm wondering if you can help me with that. It's December 15th. It's the time of year, man. It looks like a fun event to go to in person. Totally.

I flipped it on Friday, Saturday for a little bit, and it's just not something that I'm going to watch. I just didn't really have a ton of time to get into it though. It's a tough sell at this time of year with literally no stakes. It's just truly like, we are doing this and you can watch it or not. And everything's going to march on the same is a tough sell. So it's I don't know, man. Again, I'm with you, Saliwa. It's like I love that they're trying something different.

I love that, you know, people behind it are putting their money where their mouth is and making it a mixed event and getting the ladies involved. It's just it's a tough, tough broadcast, tough golf course, tough time of year. If this was in July and it took the place of, you know, the rocket mortgage or something, I think people would be mega into it. I really, I really do. But it's like a meaningless event in December is just, it's, it's not, it feels like checking a box and that's kind of shitty for everyone involved, I think. But the parts I did watch, I honestly enjoyed. I mean, the scrambles kind of interesting, like I honestly was keen to see

which order they the players went in. I love the teams where the guy was going before the woman. Like Berger and Nelly were doing it that way. I just found that to be an interesting usually, you know, usually it's like the fairway finder, the safe shot person goes first, and then the second person fires at it. And I just I enjoyed watching kind of those relations. Hey, but shout out to Jake Knapp. Nice little year for Jake Knapp. Yeah, and a little fun fact. I think they both won their events on the same day this year earlier and then they ended up being partners, which is kind of fun.

At the LPGA Q school also going on this week, I mentioned Miyu Yamashita earns medalist honors over there. Big deal for the LPGA. She is number 14 in the Rolex rankings and is about to become an LPGA rookie. She's won 13 times on the LPGA of Japan and of course finished runner up at last year's KPMG Women's PGA. A couple other notables to gain or re earn their card. Azahara Munoz going back to the LPGA and 19-year-old Saki Baba, another one of TC's favorite young players, 19-year-old from Japan, former US Women's Am champion.

She is going to the LPGA, which is very exciting. Couple players outside the top 25, Bronte Law, one shot outside, Maria Fossey, Sophia Popov were kind of the, uh, the notables that I had had circled outside the top 25. So it's so, it's so unbelievable that TC shouldn't be allowed to claim all these names just across the spectrum, but it works. Like it's like, Oh, another one to Kumi Kani, another one of TC's guys. It's like, there's, there's like 50 of them, you know?

And then when the Ludwig one hits, we spend 30 minutes debating it at the start of the ride. I'm so glad you said this is not me. That might be my strategy in 25. I might just start just roulette the board, throwing out a total roulette of like, oh, I'm claiming him, I'm claiming him. He's not even fucking here and we're calling out TC's, oh,, Saki Baba, you know, that's one of TC's favorites. It's good branding, man. I don't know what that's what pops into my head.

When I, when I hear it, this is why I can't understand why TC is not into meme coins. He should absolutely be in meme points because he would hit that thousand X or and not worry about the 49 that he missed. Like he should be a meme coin. Don't worry. So we're going to get to the showdown presented by crypto.com here shortly. I'm a coin based guy. Thank you for congratulating me on the Bitcoin all time. Hi. Yeah, no, I had a whole, I had a whole segment on that. We were going to get to it's up again. One Oh five, six, four weeks before we get there though. I want to,

uh, I want to move on. I want to talk about the, something that I've been looking forward to for a while here. This is going to be our season long may a culpo section in golf when bad shots happen. There's the mulligan ball when fire water or other damage happens. There's serve pro and thankfully the pros at serve pro know how to make any mess both on and off the course like it never even happened. The NLU we have the may a culpo segment presented by ServPro to make us, to help us take some of these bad takes, make them like they never even happened.

It's the end of the year. So we're going to do a season long Mea Culpa. I wanted you guys to reach back and just find something that you're like, man, I've been sitting on this one for a year and I just, I really, I really need to make this one right. Neil, I want to start with you. What's been bugging you? What do you want to come before the council to address today? I actually spent a good amount of time today thinking about this Bryson, Bryson DeChambeau.

I feel like I didn't see it coming. I just got a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head about like, I feel like he gave us a warning shot of the Gusta. He played well at the Masters this year and I didn't really buy it. I was like, nah us a warning shot of the Gusta. He played well at the Masters this year and I didn't really buy it. I was like, nah, he's not back. And it really surprised me when he won the US Open. Had the shot of the year, you know, and just kind of stole that tournament,

like went out and got it. I just didn't see this Bryson resurgence coming on, like from a professional standpoint, I didn't see him winning a major this year. So I kind of missed there. And I was right a long time ago about the bulking and the weight gain leading to injuries. And I think he's even said that of like, yeah, man, probably all like nine protein shakes a day, like was not was not great for him. But I guess I just thought that he was a little

more lost than he was. So I wasn't really paying attention. And some of that might've been like a live bias for me or like not knowing what's going on over on that tour. And then I guess the other piece of it is that I didn't see it landing so well with casual fans. Like I still struggle with Bryson for all the reasons we've talked about here. Like it feels like it's manufactured,

the best way that I've kind of explained it feels like he's living his life based on the comments on his YouTube channel of like, Oh, you guys want me to sign more autographs? Like I'm going to do that. Like tomorrow, I'm going to sign like 55 autographs during the tournament. And but people fucking love it. It's like there's mass appeal there. That that and it's like it's very, he's very marketable. Like a good example. I was thinking about this today, I think, I don't even know if he has an official deal with foot joy. But the fact

that he exclusively wears hyper flex, I noticed that and I bet a bunch of people are like, Oh, I bet Bryson is like, he's probably tested 95 pairs of shoes, he probably did a whole physics experiment on which which ones were the best. And like, he only wears hyper flex, like that's the kind of marketing he's able to do. And then I just saw, you you know that he's doing the Reebok golf thing he's bringing that back and I think that's really smart by him like and I think he is one of the few golfers right now that can carry a brand or really be the face of a brand I'm struggling to pick out of

that many other guys that you could launch a company, a sports company or apparel company outside of golf could really hitch their wagon to better than Bryson. And so I guess my main culp is I didn't really think he had it in him in that way. And I was wrong about that. Now, do I want to root for him? No, maybe not. But I think he's good for the game.

And it's kind of nice to have for me, maybe a villain, but like think he's good for the game. And, and I'm, it's kind of nice to have for me, maybe a villain, but like just some, some juice back in the game. I mean, the hole in one over his house stuff, like candidly that was sick. You know, it's like, it's cheesy and it's stupid and all of it, but it's like, it's, it's stuff. He's just doing stuff. And so I guess, you know, that's my mea culpa. Some of this is not your fault, Neil. So like the dude changed,

right? First of all, he has to underselling. So it's just like, I guess the mea culpa is like, I he changed the hat. That's still the most important thing. Yeah, that will die on this hill. I swear he had some old highlights on from the Masters in 2019 when he had the Hogan hat. And he just like everything he does is that much more punchable. I swear.

And then like it's not the dude you're watching now. You don't see any joy on his face when he does anything in that phase. Like the dude changed. Like he really, you know, maybe it took him a little longer to mature. So I won't let you wear that. Well, but I'm not going to apologize for making fun of him. I'm not going to apologize for kicking you out, but I am, I want to give them credit. I want to apologize for not giving them enough credit. And I think, you know, Scotty's the clear player of the

year. And I think Xander, you know, if the player, the PGA tour, let's call it the Oscars, that's the player that, you know, player of the year. Uh, I got, you gotta give Bryson like a golden globe or maybe you want some VMA. That's cinematography at least, you know, something like, and then Deidre and I were, we're talking about this before the pod. Like I would love to know where he would be on the pit list. Cause you know, I, like, I know he's not eligible, but like, you know, they have the stats on it. Like where does he stack in their formula and maybe all the other guys that are on the PIP list owe him a mea culpa. I know. Or thank you at least because I, he has to be in the top three.

I mean, the guy's a, he's a content machine. Sally was holding up, uh, for those listening in the audio version, the, the number one, uh, and I would love to have that proven wrong that he might not be a number one on that list after everything he did this year. I mean, he was like this when he was, like, he was still the most interesting guy when he was punchable. Like the, as soon as he bulked up and tried

to hit the ball far, I mean, that was, I was designing my day around his tee times just to see the shot tracker on these things. Like he's been the kind of the center of the golf universe for a fair amount of time now. Now the injuries and going to live like hurt big time. Like people, as big as he is, it doesn't explain why nobody watches him on live.

Like that still is, it speaks to why that tour, I think has not been very successful in terms of capturing a television audience, but it is, I mean, yeah, he's nonstop entertainment, man. Yeah, so I guess to wrap it up, like the mea culpa is just like, uh, I was unfamiliar that your game was, I, that's exactly where I was.

I was familiar with your game at one point, but I just got, I forgot about it and, and, and I'm not going to do that this year. So he's, you know, that's, I think worth acknowledging. And I think, yes, Scotty was the player of the year, but I think Bryson was the biggest golfer of the year. I don't know how to put that. Like there's, there's an award for it. Influencer of the year. I don't even know what you would call it. Remember when, uh, top gun, remember when Top Gun was, uh,

was nominated for best picture a couple of years ago and everyone was like, yeah, I mean, it's listen, it's not like that good of a movie, but like, it should still win because it was sick. And like, they should do like best like blockbuster movie of the year. Just like a movie that's like sick. Yeah. It's like its own genre. Yeah. Like that's, that's basically the price it is. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's not, you know, it's not like an art piece, but like it is sick. You know, it's, it's, it's worthwhile here. It's, it's worth going to see at least that's, that's good stuff. Neil, I, I am a little curious not to, we don't have to linger on this too long, but like, when did it flip man, say other than the hat. I've swear. I feel like he got healthy, Dej at the end of 23. Like he,

he did need play well at the open in 23. Like he had a couple of good major finishes in 23. And I feel like he was, you know, he kind of gotten out of the, I don't want to call it like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, he was, you know, he kind of gotten out of the golfers or the tabloids. Like, nobody was making fun of him because he just wasn't around. And I think he kind of was able to just reset on his own.

It seems that's all projection by me, but he kind of, it seemed like he came out swinging started in April. It's like, oh, okay, but I didn't believe it. And then in the US, so we just bought out. It's crazy. Yeah. He I think he this is total guess or speculation. But I think at some point, like the last offseason, he did some sort of, I don't want to call it media training, but a very like a branding exercise, legitimately, a somewhat

formal branding exercise of like, dude, you got to smile more. You got to look people in dude, you got to smile more. You got to look people in the face. You got, if we're going to do this content thing, like a five pillar approach, like making you more likable. Cause like he carried himself. So I actually talked to him a little bit at the masters and the guy hates my guts. I don't blame him for that, but like he like shook my hand and like said hello and like talked to me at the masters, which was like, I was like, are you, are we, are we, are we doing that? Are you, like, are you sure? Do you remember me? Like you've said some things about me.

And, and, uh, it was clear like he showed up at Augusta with like a different attitude towards the game and carrying himself as a professional. The best, this is a really old random story, but DJ and I played in a hickory event at winter park in Orlando. And we had a fire ant situation. We did a little Instagram story. I got some fire ants and it hurt. They were all over my legs.

And DJ tagged Bryson in that. And I remember the DM he sent back, he's like, see, it sucks, right? He had a whole paragraph about, see, it is dangerous animal relief. It was, that's my like interaction with Bryce. That's where it started. You know, maybe that's where the sense of humor started. All right, So what do you, what do you got? Neil, that was good stuff. Mine's not nearly as dramatic. I went back and listened to my, my, my bold predictions

for 2024. I did predict that Hovland would win a major this year. He got very close to PGA but missed the cut at all the other ones and was horrible. This past year. That was just a bad call and a mea culpa. My other prediction was very bad as well. But I think it is probably going to step on yours. My third prediction on those I don't know if you want to include this in this section. But I said Scottie was going to win four times when a major and have positive strokes gained putting I don't know if you want that in. No, he wasn't like or

not. You weren't even close. Okay. It was a little light on the prediction, but at the time that sounded pretty bold. But yeah, the Victor Hovland thing just did not end up working out. And that's a, that's a meh couple of it all. I had one kind of, yeah, solid. I think your second one was probably going to be similar to this where when Rom joined live, I think I just had some really like way too bold of takes about how fast everything was going to come back together and was even like, yeah, he might play like the players, man. Like, who knows, right? Like he could he could come back like immediately. Like, that's it. Nail was not what happened, it turns out. Turns out we're still quite a ways away. We don't even know we're gonna get to that eventually.

But yeah, just a really bad take by me on that one. But I also wanted to throw out, Solly, I regret deeply not going harder at you about how pumped you were about the fact that TGL was playing off real turf. I think, I think when you, when you started saying, I almost was just like blown away. And you're like, no, no, you guys like TGL is going to be sick. Like they're playing off real turf. Like you guys, no, they're going to be fixing their divots. It's going to be awesome. I was just so, I remember that. So you were talking about them fixing their divots. It's going to be awesome. I was just so, I remember that.

So you were talking about them fixing their divots, like putting divot mix in and how it was going to be like that was going to be a whole thing. I'm going to make you find that on it. It's going to be sick. That's better than hitting off a mat. Like that's, I don't know. I'm still right. If you're watching. I don't know. Still hitting. I like that they're hitting off real turf. I think that's cool. I'm not going to have you seen the dome. It's unbelievable.

My next year may a culpa might be that I, that actually rode somewhat hard for the TGL. I could, I could pre may a couple of that for, for next year. Yeah, that's good. Put some, some money in the bank. Well, thank you to our friends at serve pro. That is our season long may a culpo section. If you, if you need to make any disaster, like it never even happened, give it,, thank you to our friends at Serve Pro. That is our season long may a culpo section. If you need to make any disaster like it never even happened, give a shout to our friends at Serve Pro. I feel lighter. I got that off my chest. I feel lighter. That was useful. If there was a best picture for that segment, Neil, I think you're a runaway winner. I think that was well done. Guys, it is time for the for the stolen valor e9 whatever we're calling at the back nine We're still workshopping. We're waiting for our brand

You know, we're gonna do a whole brand audit about the e9 and you know We'll come up with something better in the new year, but we are just nine things I wanted to talk to you guys about this week. Okay, and number one where else would we start? According to a Bloomberg story this week, the PIF and PJ Tour Enterprises are nearing an investment deal that would give the PIF a 6% stake in the PJ Tour while continuing to operate Live Golf as an independent entity,

worth noting we are almost a year past the original deadline from the hashtag framework agreement. Simple question here, can someone just level set where we're at? What? So I'll throw to you. What does this mean? What do we make of any of this?

As we head into 2025, is the framework agreement completely dead? Does any of this matter? Are we close to a deal? Does it? Does anybody know anything? What? Where are we at here? Well, I think this is important and I'm way late getting to this and technically this was a

2023 thing that I could have been my mea culpa as well because I was along the same lines you I said they're gonna get a deal done, it's gonna be a global tour and everybody's the world's getting back together and you guys like bold call man and it didn't end up actually happening. I'm done following my nose on this in terms of like using common sense, right? Because it doesn't sound like the golf world is getting back together based on this report that's out there. I know there's some I only read a couple tweets on it there like, yeah, lives not going away. All this to say, like, my stance on this for several months has been just

like, wake me up when you tell me what the schedule and the competition crossover is going to look like. I don't care what the percentage investment is. crossover is going to look like. I don't care what the percentage investment is. There's about to be five more layers of stuff they're going to probably announce that I'm not interested in. I could not give less of a shit about and most golf fans could not until you figure out how you get all these people on the golf course at the same time again. It's all

worthless. And I would think that would be incredibly like very clear common sense within. I would have thought with all the people that are involved with the SSG, all these people that are involved with these other sports leagues, they'd be like, yeah, dude, it only works if you get all the best players playing under the same umbrella. I'm guessing there's going to be some kind of benefit agreement of some kind that these players will be able to play in certain PGA Tour events. I have no clue what that would look like for

the current tours players and whether or not they could go play live and double dip like are they going to invite more double dipping and crossover? We don't have the answers to those and I'm done like assuming that that we're going to end up there, right? Because I still like I went back a couple months ago and listened to like our reaction to June 6. And like I don't regret anything we said in that because we were given and presented a and they went on television and said like this is over. And we're going to do this now together. Like there's a signed agreement

that said Liv was going to go away. And that just like didn't happen, which like makes that day look so incredibly foolish on the on the side of the PGA tour if it doesn't end up coming together. And it just doesn't seem to be trending that way. And I just don't think they could put that I don't even want to say this because I can't imagine that they don't understand how how like much of a a like bullet in the head this is for professional golf, because they do. But there's some sort of financial incentive to go this direction. And that's what's driven every decision that's been made over the last several years. And I'm just like, we're done.

Here's what I would take. These articles come out when it, you know, it's all anonymous sourcing. I think this is all it's a lot of posturing. This is like a whole thing is a case study and like game theory and like negotiating tactics. Like, on the one hand, I feel like you have PIF and they're sniffing around with the European tour and maybe, hey, maybe they want to do something over there. And I think then the PJ tour gets wind of that.

And then they kind of throw a bone out and they say, oh, well, this is what we're thinking. So they're kind of fighting this through Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal of like giving these reporters a little like little nuggets. And that all to me is a little bit of leverage. I want to kind of zoom out. I think there's two big things at play that I'm looking at. One is the timeline. Basically, in my

head, and correct me if you guys disagree, but you got about six months here before. Like, if you wanted the next season to look different, you'd have to have something figured out by what? June or July, right? Before you made the schedule. You think earlier than that? I would think, I mean, so then we're talking about 27, right?

Like I think it's important to like give listeners or, or even golf fans. Like when we talk about like, oh, these guys are, they're going to, they're going to sign something and bring the tours together. Like in the ideal world, it's going to sign something and bring the tours together. In the ideal world, it's going to be one place. All the golfers are going to be playing at the same stops, whether that's global or whatever it is. I think people don't understand how hard it's going to be to reshift all that once they do sign that piece of paper. So that means 2026 is probably out the window. So we're looking at this fractured state for

at least two more years, right? 25 and 26. Let's be conservative with that. You think that's conservative? That's five, that's a half a decade. Yeah. I would say that's probably, it's insane. 27 is when we're looking at realistically something changing. When I think about it that way, then I'm like, well, then is the tour going to be like, well, our TV deal technically goes through 31. So I don't do we just kind of let it roll. That's exactly right. So then it's like, maybe we can just bleed them out a little bit more. It sounds like some guys are unhappy. So then what does live do? Well, or what does the PIF do? Well, they go hire the 76ers guy and they start to try to strengthen their management

over at live because they, they don't want to act like they're folding live because then that's going to give them less leverage. But I also don't think the PIF would have any problem in saying if they did come to an agreement and just like, yeah, we're just not going to invest in Liv anymore. I think that, yeah, it's going to exist, but it might just fizzle away. But I think that if anybody has deep enough pockets to just like run like concurrent streams of like money and strategy, like that's kind of what you have to do here. Because if you start to fold live or you give the signal that you're doing that, then you're going to lose leverage. So this is all

like posturing to me. It's hard to talk about though, because like nothing's actually going to change at the earliest. Like I guess that's a prediction I'd made. 2027 is the earliest anything will change. So we are looking at two more years of just this kind of kind of abyss where like, yeah, let's just get ready for the majors, you know, sick. You guys disagree with that? Do you think that's fair or unfair? No, contrary to everything I just said, I think there is hope for 26. Like if something came together relatively quick in the coming months, there's hope for 26. I would not throw that out completely.

Do I have like actual belief that we're trending that way? No, I don't. But I think that it's not out the window yet. I think they would need to buy themselves time because if something comes together, I think another thing that's holding things up is I bet the guys that stuck around are looking for some blood sacrifice on, you

know, you can't just let Brooks come back and play at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 26 in these signature events. Like, can you? Yes. Should they? Probably. Like everybody's making more money now. It's kind of like, whatever, man. Like at this point, y'all are making a ton of money. Those guys left and they actually probably ended up helping you guys out too, but they made more than you did. And you know, Bryson's making more than you and, and so, but, but there's a lot of PGA guys that are going to be like, no, I, they need to pay the Piper a little bit.

And I think they're going to need some time to figure out how to figure that out. And so that's why I don't think 26 is in play. We'll see what I feel like that's all they've been doing for like a year. Like I was figuring out these guys roll back in. Yeah. fucking progress on it. No, I agree. And that's where I'm like the adults in the room, like the people that have come in like that are supposed to be the kind of the owners of this thing,

right? Like, that's a huge problem in all of this is the players aren't really negotiating against anyone except the players like the executives are, you know, somewhat put in place by the players and that's all complicated. But in other sports, there's ownership group and players associations that do collective bargaining and work through all of this stuff.

It doesn't exist at the PGA tour. Until now, there's an ownership group and I don't know what the future of the negotiations of all that looks like, but that's where the adults in the room need to say, like top-down approach, y'all aren't in charge anymore, okay? You need some leaders that are gonna be in charge and are gonna view this from a funnel media production

and not just the individual careers and how many starts you get being the most important thing. This is how we have to view this if you want this product to be successful long-term. And everybody's just trying to grab what's available right now, because they're in the cash booth right now. And if you're 42, you probably don't

care what the future of the sport looks like. Nearly as much as you do what your status is for next year. There was a great story Rex Hoggard wrote on golfchannel.com or nbcsports.com, whatever it is now that Cody sent through to Slack from a couple of weeks ago. And Hudson Swofford is kind of the first time I've seen any quotes from somebody who's like, yeah, like honestly, I would, you know,

I would love to come back to the PJ tour. Like this didn't work out for me and I would love to come back. And I keep asking Jay and I keep asking Jason Gore and they're just like, yeah, we don't really know what to tell you, just kind of sit tight. And it's just a very, it's just a very funny, like, yeah, nobody had, like, they're not sitting like, no, we have the answer in an envelope, but we're just not going to tell you

what it is. It's just like, nobody has the answer. And I think there's, there's two other things I want to point out. One, the 6% stake, the six, 8%, like I've seen that number around for like six to eight months. So I think that's real. Right. I think that's probably the stake of ownership that PIF's going to get now, you know, who's on the, you know, is, is Andrew on the board? Is he not, you know, what seat is he on the board with the SSG guys? Like that's probably all still undecided. But the other thing, the other thing I thought was interesting was, you know, there's that regulatory DOJ stuff, right?

Okay. You guys are wiping a competitor off the board, Solly. That quote exists. That quote's not going away. So I think they're waiting until the end of January, when there's an inauguration that goes through and they need to get a knighted by DT. I think that's at play. DT is going to be the third base coach just wheeling everybody around the court. And in some ways, I think that's smart because you know, when, when DT weighs in on this kind of stuff, whether you like them or you don't, it'll add some juice, right? Of like, okay, we, you know, he,

he's going to call off the DOJ jogs. Like, yep, get this done. This is good for golf. And it's, it's, you know, he's in with the Saudis. He's in with the PD, you know, he loves golf. So I think that that's the, I think they're, they're slightly not in with the PGA tour. I know, but he's in with golf, right? He's in with a PGA. He loves golf. So I think that that's the I think they're, they're not in with the PGA tour. I know, but he's in with golf, right? He's in with a lot of golfers. And I think the PGA tour would probably be like, that's good for them. If he totally if he waves it through, that's good for them. So then everybody's man on their hands golf, he gets

into office, he'll get a political win. So that's all in play now, too. So I don't think we're getting any big announcements until, you know, March, April, like next, the next round of announcements isn't happening in January. I think it's February at the earliest. All right. Let's, let's move on. And when we have more information, we will be the first to pass.

I feel bad. Like we're just, you know, we're, we're chucking them right now because we don't have any more information, honestly than, than anybody else. Like, and we haven't talked, we're, we're chucking them right now because we don't have any more information honestly than than anybody else. Like, and we haven't talked about this as a group in a while. I think we've done a good job of like laying off the live PGA TOR saga. But like, it's a good question. Can we level set where we're at? It's like, this is where I think we're at. And I, I, it's a shit show. It's just like, it's

ridiculous, man. Number two. Yeah, let's talk about the's ridiculous, man. Number two. Yeah. Let's talk about the grant Thornton for the third straight year. Neil, Scotty Scheffler was voted by his peers as the winner of the Mr. Nicholas Award as PGA Tour player of the year since he was just a couple of fun facts for you here since the award started in 1990.

Only he and Tiger have been the people to win it three years in a row or more for the first time. This was interesting for the first time the tour announced the vote percentage. This has always been very cloak and dagger. We're not going to tell you who won or how like we're not going to tell you by how much they won or who voted our whatever. Scotty got 91% of the vote, which is very interesting. So a couple of things. I want to throw this to you first. Scottie's at three Player of the Year awards.

Tiger's got 11. From the Nellie Korda School of Actuarial Science, how many Player of the Year awards you give it to Scottie? And how do you feel about Scottie versus the field next year in this award? How old is Scottie? He's 27? 20, no, a little older, I think.

29, maybe? He's 27. 20 now a little older, I think 29 maybe. I mean, I know he looks like he's 57, but I can get you that answer. He's 28, six months. 28. Okay. So he is 27. There we go. 28 and six months. He is 28. Oh, he's 28. Six months. God, I think he's 28 in six months. I'm fair enough. That was the wrong way. Okay. I, I'm fair enough. That was the wrong way to, okay. I, I'm going to say nine, nine player of the year. Are you setting the over under at nine or you say,

and a half or nine and a half. I always do that wrong. So eight and a half, I think, I think over the next 20 years, I mean, he's proven like three in a row. Like, I don't know if he, I'm, well, let me back up. I'm surprised that Xander didn't get more votes from his peers. Well, that was gonna be my next question. Is this- That's an interesting, interesting topic.

More interesting than my stupid line setting, honestly. I disagree with that. I disagree with that vehemently. But that was gonna be what I was gonna ask you guys. Is this, is there a little ding? Also, no. Is there a little ding in the, you know, majors are the only thing that matter conversation here when you could guy who wins two majors only gets 9% of the player of the year vote and he like has a massive career year

outside of that. I think it'd be I'd struggle to go back to a one major season that trumps zander season and from any prior year, right? Like this is kind of a unicorn year. Like, like, would it be VJ 2004? We just released a KVV narrative podcast on that. Like, would VJ's 04 beat Zander's year this year? It might. Like, it's truly, you know, it maybe answers the question of what the exchange rate is on PGA Tour wins to majors. And maybe it's three to one. I think also these guys are so in on the stats and stuff.

When they see how well Scotty strikes it and how easy he makes it look, I think that makes a big impact on his peers as well. It looks really, really easy for him where it looked like, Xander also makes it look easy, but I had to rise to the occasion this year. So I guess it still surprises me though, two, two majors for Xander and he, you know, I don't know, that's, that's interesting that he doesn't get maybe this is 30. It's the Jill Stein vote to me. It's crazy. Yeah, maybe it's

nothing. But I also think like Scotty getting arrested at Valhalla and they're going to win that one. Yeah. It's not nothing. That's true. Scott is probably going to win that tournament without that. All right. So do you guys disagree with my eight and a half? You think that's high? That's so many. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's sick. I mean, he would have to, let's just like game this out. He would have to win probably like if you're going to win player of the year with limited, you know, limited field, no cut events, kind of smaller schedules, you probably got to win at least four times in each of those seasons, right? At least.

He's got a new putting grip is supposedly even better now. And I mean, if we're giving him two more years with no more live guys, doesn't seem like there's anybody on the PJ tour that can. But that would be four, and just think about when we come back around on some of these major venues that he sees for the second time, he's obviously gonna win then. It's basically, what does he have total right now?

Probably like 14 wins, 15 wins, something like that. So this would be, Neil, you're basically essentially giving him four times six, 24, put him at like 35, 37, 38 wins. That feels pretty, kind of feels about right. I also look at Scotty and I think he doesn't have a lot of other stuff. It seems like that he's interested in, like he's not trying to train with the Navy SEALs. He does. He has a swing that I feel like is because it's so fluid and is he doesn't lock his feet in. So I don't think he's going to blow his back out. He seems to take great

care of himself in the gym. Like I, I see longevity here. I worry about that game. You're not worried about the neck. Uh, I'm not as much so I'd be worried more if like, like he doesn't have, you know, the guys that have the bad backs, the low backs are the ones like Jason day that have like the real like solid base with their feet in the ground. Like the guys that let their feet roll, it feels like they're they age well. And that is truly me talking takes here. But I'm just trying to back up my longevity that it's a longevity play here. I think that, you know, yeah, I'm sticking with eight and a half. And I agree now that you've laid that out these and it's a, and it's from your peers that is high. It is, it is high.

Uh, if I asked you guys at the age that, uh, so Scotty has 13 PGA tour wins at the age that Scotty is now 28 and a half years old, how many wins did, uh, Justin Thomas have? That's probably pretty close. Nine. 14. Really? If I'm doing the math right. He has 15 total.

He won the 2021 players. That's three years. Yeah. I think he had 14, maybe 15, if I do the math right. That's kind of the quiet part is it can go. It does not last. It rarely lasts forever. It rarely rarely last forever. But also if it's gonna last forever, it like looks like

this more than it does. Like Jason, Jason Day's always my example of like, that dude was out of this world for like 18 months, like completely. And it's still it was not sustainable. And Scottie's feels way more sustained. That's kind of where I'm at. It doesn't it three years in a row already feels like a lot longer than anybody else's hot streak. Like it's starting to not feel like a hot streak to me. God, can you imagine if, how many of these

we would have given to Spieth, like 2015? Well, how many, who's second with player of the years? Rory, I think also has three. OK, well, all right, so eight and a half is high. Yeah. It's only been around since 1990 though. Put that shit in ink, put it on the record. I got Nelly for 11 majors and I got Scotty for eight and a half. Come talk to me in 2050.

And let's have a conversation and let us know in the comments if you're riding with the czar of this one. I love this czar. He always sets it where like the over would be like plus 800. Well, you know what? I always I mess it up because I don't set a line. Like that. I think I'm almost going off of like, no, I think he's going to win nine. Like it's not, I'm not setting a line. I'm like predicting what I think it's going to be not good. All right. I had this as number six, but I'm going to move it up because there's it naturally ties in to number three. The PJ tour is,

has announced something that I'm kind of excited about. Two new documentary projects that will debut over the next few weeks. And it's very in line with what we're talking about here. The first one called Scotty 24 is a deep dive look at Scotty's historic season. And I don't know if you guys watched the trailer for this, but appears to have like awesome, pretty epic sit down stuff with tiger talking about the similarities between him and Scotty, how they play the golf nerd stuff. Like the stuff that I want to hear.

Why do you think I picked eight and a half? Go on to the trailer. The trailer is great. The tiger's like, yeah, I mean, I like, I like smother it. He like slides it. It's so much good jargon. I could already tell. A way of hitting the ball.

I've never even like considered. I don't even know if those are the right words, but yeah, he like slides at it. I like smother. My swing was really violent. So that one is going to premiere on the PGA Tours YouTube channel on December 23rd. The other one, Neil, I think you're going to you might be our you might need to do a weekly recap podcast on this series. Xander Embedded is going to premiere this series. Xander embedded is going to

premiere on December 27th, which is going to be like a six or seven episode series. And I'm quoting here will provide a rare glimpse into the real Shawfully through his time in his hometown and on the road. This one, I'm a little less excited about this one, but we'll see what they, what they get. God feels like this could be three episodes. Sure. Number one, it's kind this one, but we'll see what they, what they get. God, it feels like this could be three episodes. Sure. Or one. It's kind of like, do we need to be longer than the making of Boston common

documentary, which is five episodes. But I hope, I honestly hope that like, I, he, we hear from players on tour. Xander's a great, he's a great dude quote. Oh, he's a great dude. It's like, well, I just don't get any of that as a fan. So hopefully this will give me a rare glimpse, as they say, into the great dude. I would like to embed with the great dude.

Speaking of great dudes, our guy Smarten is producing the producing the Scotty one. I think it's kind of his first big swing doing that. There is no more like proper golf nerd in the world. So none of this will be, you know, it's not going to feel like a reality show. I promise you that is going to be proper golf nerd stuff from our guy Smarten. So very excited about that. And it kind of feels like, and they're kind of touting it as the first really big swing at original content

by PJ tour studios, which opens next year. They're opening this brand new massive state of the art studio down there in Ponta Vedra Beach. So listen, we give the tour a lot of shit about like, hey, treat the golf like golf, treat it like a professional sports league, treat it like the game that all of us love. And these two things appear to be in line with that. And so listen, if they suck, then they suck. But I am, you know, very innocent until proven guilty here. I think this is exactly the kind of stuff we have been, we have been asking for.

And I'm just wanting to shout it out because I'm very excited about it. So. Yeah, great call there. I think I'm in the order you listed them or the order of excitement for me of, I think you'll know in the first 10 minutes of the Xander one whether or not it's like a real

thing or if it's like a knockoff of other reality based series. But you sent over the trailer earlier like you mentioned about the Tiger and Scotty stuff is like legit what we would be asking. Yeah, it looks very good. Speaking of just really serious golf TGL and ESPN has announced their broadcast personnel for this season. I will run through these briefly here in the host chair, the people himself, Scott van Pelt, friend of the program, play by play guy, Matt Berry on the ground reporter, Marty Smith, brother.

Tell me, how does it feel? Digital hosts are going to be Jemai Webster and another friend of the program, Claire Rogers. MC inside the SoFi Center is going to be our guy Roger Steele. Hopefully taking some shots at Tron wherever he could get him in. Neil, your guy DJ Irie is going to be just, you know, spin. No idea who he is, but I like it. Inside of that. The referee, this is different than the rules official. There is a referee. Is Derek Stafford. I did a deep dive on him today. Found his Instagram appears to be some sort of retired MBA referee. So look out for that. And then rules official is our guy, Mark Russell of PJ Tour fame. So I mean, I'm giving this like kind of a eight and a half, nine out of 10. I feel like I feel like they kind of kind of nailed a lot of this stuff. How do you guys feel? I need a little more flair though. OK, so I need like the referee needed to be the guy from the boxing GIF. You know, after that one punch is thrown, he's like, ooh, ooh.

I need the referee to be, I need some K-Fabe here. Sure. Yeah, like I need some of this. And here's what I'm begging. I don't want to ruin the surprise if they are actually putting the 0.1% chance they're planning this. If the rules official is Mark Russell and they ask me to do here's what I here's what I'm begging. I don't want to ruin the surprise if they are actually put like the point 1% chance they're planning this. If the rules official is Mark

Russell, and they asked for a second opinion, I need slugger to be backstage and even have intro music and like that needs that needs that's that's what's gonna bring the golf world together. Okay, like I need, I need some WWE stuff out of this TGL thing. If they come out and treat this overly serious. I fear for it. Need to get, um, maybe Roger, like some divot mix just to, and they are going to be hitting off real turf off real turf. Right. So who's, who's filling in divots needed to do that.

Who's counting? No shout out to the agronomy team for their announcement, which is very frustrating. The supers are going to be pissed about that. No, I mean, I would say shout out to ESPN. Like this is, you know, it seems like they are treating this as like a, a big deal for, you know, from a production and network standpoint. So that's great. I, again, I just need to see it. A lot of, I think they're, uh, you know, seen a lot of social content coming out

for each team, listen, I do not care about the teams, but I, I'm, it's, it's all it's happening. So, so there seems to be some momentum building. I am ready to watch it. I just want to watch it. I forgot to mention or ask you, Sally also does the one Soto signing there's only one, you know, it's the money's only coming from one checkbook. So it's gotta, there's gotta be a downstream. Which team did you get? Uh, LA G test. LA G C club, Serena and, and, uh, the squad out there. Is there any, any, uh, spot in the agenda tonight for some whole chatter?

I was going to slide it in right there. This is kind of our TGL corner. So I know our guy, uh, you know, Augustine Peele, any, uh, spot in the agenda tonight for some hole chatter? I was going to slide it in right there. This is kind of our TJL corner. So I know our guy, uh, you know, Augustine Pisa is, is, uh, dropped another banger. Although I admitted like kind of a template. He seems to kind of just be really beaten to death. This, this exploring triangles, you know, motif, I believe it was, was it the spear that came out? The spear is a triangle leading into a diamond. Same as the last one. With a gap in the green with TIO stands around the greed.

I've been on all of this. I worship at the temple, but I vacation at the spear. Okay. Like that. They might look similar, but they are two very different golf holes. I, again, I, I, I look at all at both of them. And I'm like, I'm thinking of like, what are they gonna do? Like, what are they gonna do here? And all the

Nicholas ones? I'm like, oh, here's what they're gonna do. And there's enough golden tea elements in a few of these that has me intrigued. And that's it. You can always tweak these things too, right? Like if they can throw out the holes that are bad, keep the ones that are good, build off of it. So I don't know if they're not going to get it all like clearly they've released enough now to know they're not getting all of them right in terms of what's

going to provide entertainment. But some are like, dude, I am very excited to see what guys do. It is, it is interesting to think about like the, such a difference with the risk reward when it's a screen. Totally. You're not actually hitting it over like real water. Like if all these guys don't fucking send it, what are we doing? Like, have you anybody that's ever played simulator golf? Like, did you have you ever laid up in a simulator?

Absolutely not. Come on. I'm a puppet driver. Let's go. I feel like they're getting enough kind of public public dubs now of just like outrageous stuff that people are like, that's funny. Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results.

I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I think that's the best way to get the best results. I'll see you in February. Number five, speak again, just, just I'm beating you guys to death with very serious golf talk here. The skins game is set to return on black Friday, 2025 as a made for TV event through a partnership with pro shop.

PJ tour will own the rights to this event, which is a notable change of course, from the match series. What Neil, what does this do for you? Anything? I mean, I liked the skins game growing up, but I just, it really depends on who's playing and where like, you know, it's does it because the next item on the agenda, Rory, Scotty, Bryson and Brooks are playing on Tuesday. And it feels like there's no, no genuine buzz about that. And that's about

as four big names as you can get. So. So I was thinking the same thing, Neil, like, all right, hard to get excited about this before I know who's playing in it. But now I'm also like, I'm not really excited for the showdown. So why would I be that much more excited for the skins game a year out? Help me with that.

If you can. Well, my thing with the showdown, I just, again, it's my thing with the match. It's just a deluge of different formats. And there's just no through line to any of them. So that's where I've tuned them out. But like the original match, like the tiger Phil thing, I was really amped up for that. Like, yes, just a straight up match between two players. Or if this was just a straight up match between like two on two, but then they got the six holes or four ball, six holes or four, some six holes or singles. Like that's where I'm like, why, why not just play a match? It's

not, it doesn't have to be that complicated. I do think it's sick that, that they will be paying out 10 million in a minimum of 10 million in cryptocurrency as it continues to rise. Yeah. So we need to, we need to track which one and we should have like an ongoing update throughout next year of like what happened to that cryptocurrency. That's just an interesting wrinkle there. I think this is all kind of fake. So paying them in crypto is like symbolic, I think is pretty sweet. I just, it does not fake, but I just need somebody to do that. I just need somebody to ask Gotti about it in a very earnest way in a press conference. Just like like, Hey man, I was curious. What do you really like about these cryptocurrencies?

And where do you see the value in these? Or like a month later, have you held onto your doge that they paid you out in? DJ, I'm going to convert you by inauguration. You're going to be a coin holder before inauguration. That's a goal of mine for 2025. Keep sending me the info. I think a solid to answer again. Another answer. Your question was, I believe the match, the original match with tiger and Phil was on

black Friday in 2018. And I think when these get put out also matters a ton, like random Tuesday night, like in December, you know, versus like black Friday, something to watch when like I'm with my aunts and uncles and they're all casual fans is, is important. So that date gets me excited. Now there's NFL though. And there's college. Like, I feel like that was a gap in the curse of the skins game is like, yeah, it has cache with older golf fans, but also it's got cache from like 1996 that has been since, uh, just really replaced by a lot of other stuff. And it was a big deal because like these dudes made more like money. They got, they got their bag at this event.

It's been proven that people don't care about how much money the guys are playing for. Like literally a skins game is just playing for money. Again, that's where I come back to like, it's hard to get super amped for it now like watching guys play golf and mic'd up if you do some fun stuff with it and do some things that show off the personality. Great. Now, what I've hated about like the way the match and all that has trended is just the over commercialization of all of it has just made it like a why I it's not like original fun

content that I would actually want to spend my time watching. It's like brought to by Taco Bell at every turn and I'm well, there's also like a gimmick on every t box. And yeah, that's the part that I don't like as well. Whereas like, if they just did a skins game, that's great. But you make a good point about the money thing. It's like, yeah, just it's all kind of been desensitized where it's like, okay, I got the TGL, I got the matches. Now I'm going to get excited about it. It used to be, you didn't see anything

but the skins game. So it was exciting. Now it's like, okay, cool. Throw another log on the fire. I, I, the fact they're playing for crypto this week, that's a good little, that's a good little wrinkle. Which again, two different, two different things, right? The skin, there's the skins game and there's the showdown by, by crypto. I need to announce a year ahead of time that the skins game was coming back without telling me who's in it and where it's at.

No, I did not need that to answer your question. Dej did not doing much for me. And it also is just like a, just to underscore it or underline it. It's like, you know, I just don't have anybody beaten down my door being like, what I need right now is meaningless golf for a ton of money Like that's just we're we're fucking set on that man We do not need any more of that right now and we may have over corrected in the market on that I think as I was thinking about the skins game specifically like

again, this is more for the broader golf audience than it is for me, but like I Kind of think it has to be celebrities. I know that's like wildly different than what the original Skins game was. But it's got to be like the college kicker syndrome of like, dude, this could go off the rails at any time. Like, this guy might hit a bad shot is I think it is more compelling, way more interesting than than like, here's the same fucking guys. You've watched play all these meaningless golf tournaments. This is going to be the same amount of meaningless like this time, but this time it counts is like not into that. But I think if it's like a, it's kind of the Charles Barkley, like, like, you know, what's he going to do out there? I'm good on DJ Khaled and that whole situation. But I think if

you had like four super compelling, very unpredictable celebrities, I actually think it could wear pretty well. And I think it's just like the skins game went away probably for a decent reason in terms of, well, the tour got way too involved with it and tried to- I'm glad you asked actually.

I dug up a couple of skins game facts if you guys would like them. I would in one second, just when I, but like the access to players and athletes and all of that is very different in 2025 when this happens than it was even in like the mid 2000s when we got Tiger, Onika, Fred Funk, and all this stuff that was like made for TV events

that were, the access to these guys was not the same then as it is now. And like there just, there's a saturation element of all of this. But yeah, this is, I'm excited to hear some of this. Was it like 08 or 09? Who was it as soon as he qualified? They're like, okay, this is done. It was like, I don't know who it was specifically, but it ended in May when the presenting sponsor pulled their sponsorship due to sagging ratings. Neil, there's, there's been three sponsors. I put this one in there for you. There's been three sponsors in the history of the skins games.

I know, I know you're a big, uh, you know, kind of commercial partners guy. Can you name any of the, any of the sponsors of the skins game? I definitely could not, but I didn't know if they were a shell is not one shell is not. Um, we're, we're all across the board here, which is why I caught my eye. We we've got ConAgra. Okay. We've got Merrill Lynch.

You know, could have seen that, but maybe not so much after 2007 or so. And then LG, Life's Good. And they were the one that pulled their sponsorship. There was one player that absolutely dominated this event that we haven't talked about yet. You guys familiar with who this is or what his nickname was according to Wikipedia for the skins game? It was, of course, Duval. Fred Couples was given the nickname of quote Mr. Skins

because because of his dominance in the skins game, he won $4.4 million in 77 skins and 11 appearances. He won five of these things. Oh, uh, overall tiger never won the event, which is kind of just a fun thing. Last thing I had in 2001, they implemented a validation system. So they said, like, if you want, you know, if you want to scan, you had to also win or tie the next hole in order to win your skin. And then he tied the 18th. So he ended up just taking the whole million dollar purse. There after that, they got rid of that. Also the 18th hole used to be worth 200 grand, which they called the super skin, which kind of made me laugh as well.

Guess how many people have been in the game? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. the whole million dollar purse. After that, they got rid of that. Also, the 18th hole used to be worth 200 grand, which they called the super skin, which kind of made me laugh as well. Guess how many people watched the first skins game in 1983? Probably like, just on the golf food spot if you haven't listened, but probably like 25 million or something like that. It was 8 million, which sounded like a lot. That is a lot. But no, that is more than the Masters that year. Exactly. That's, that is a ton. Jesus is a lot. 25, but that is like more than the masters that year. Exactly.

That's that is a ton. Jesus. All right. Number six, we kind of already talked about that was going to be the showdown presented by solid friends at crypto.com looking forward to it Tuesday night. Well, you know, this time it counts. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Number seven, let's, let's transition over into recreational golf a little bit. Simple one here. Okay. Neil, I'll start with you. What's the absolute worst golf shot you hit in 2024? Actually, God, I was mega prepared. I forgot to answer this question in my head. Recency bias would be, you know what? I don't have a specific one.

I missed a lot of like, not like really short putts. I'm thinking of like at when we did the all shot on camera, short putts camera, where you're like, what you should make, but I should make. Yes. And you never want to miss puts. You should never want to miss puts. You should make, I'm trying to think of like the worst worst shot though. I can come back to you. So you got one. Yeah. Come back to me. I do. I am going to go full TC on this one. I'm going to take us back to hope people have,

how people have not got a chance to watch a film from the 2024 Gasparilla Invitational, the opening round. If you have watched it, you're probably thinking the missed 15 inch putt on the second hole. No, I'm not going to go with that one. I know what you're thinking. The missed pitching wedge that you hit out of bounds on the fourth. No, we're not going to go with that one. It is going to be the two iron I hit off the second tee, which when Neil watched this back with me on the film was like, was that a shank? And it actually wasn't a shank.

It was such a like, I don't I was like, I got Meadow Pereira electrocuted at the top of the swing and was so afraid of pulling it OB left that I legitimately just left the club face entirely wide open hit it directly into a tree. 40 yards in front of the tree. That's a tie with also a drive I hit that day which we had to watch it back a couple times doing the rewatch because it was on the seventh hole or the 11th hole. The drive went so far right like the tracer looked

like it was wrong and Neil was just finally was like, hold up can we go back and watch that? And those are like the two most embarrassing shots that I hit. And of course they were captured on camera this past year. And I could have told, I've not stopped thinking about either one of those. That's good stuff.

I had a good one. It just got like, it would have easily been the shank Neil that I hit in our match at Royal Melbourne. coming down the stretch. I'm We have like a great great match going on we're going punch for punch I'm hanging around and then I just shank a wedge. I'd like the or an eight iron I think actually on the on the part three Alright, guess that batch is over that was really really bad. And it just got supplanted atop the rankings by... We go to this event at a Hoopy match club

every year. And it's very fun event that Gil Hans puts on and you never quite know who's going to be there. And so you're always getting paired with random people from around the golf industry and whatever. And I showed up this year and my pairings were this guy, Jeff, who was great, Gil and Bill Murray. And I am like trying to be cool because I'm like, sorry, I know you've played with Bill Murray, Tron. I know he's played with Bill Murray. I've gotten to meet him. But I'm like, I'm a fucking massive, massive, massive Bill Murray guy. Like he's like, I just like toess Anderson with like, I'm trying, I'm just like trying not to ask stupid questions. I'm trying to

be cool. And I'm like, all right, you know, I'm walking to the first team. I'm like, yeah, man, like, you know, I've in my head, I'm like, you're okay. Like you've played with, you know, play with some people before, like, you're not gonna, you know, it's just golf, like, what, you know, don't, don't worry about it. And for whatever reason, as I'm like stepping into this first like first driver on the first hole, we're just like, fuck, man, like that's Bill Murray over there.

Like, that's crazy. And I just almost whiffed it and like topped topped my driver, probably went like 20 yards, maybe. And I was the last to hit. And so everybody's walking off the tee box. And we all are like traipsing around this like scrub brush looking for my top tee ball until finally Gills just like, Hey man, like, why don't you just hit, why'd you hit another one? Like, you look, come on, like, we're just having fun. I'm like, Oh yeah, cool.

Great. I'm just walking back to the tee and then they're all like standing right where, right where like if I did hit like a quick little heel of like, God, I could like kill Bill Murray if I missed this one, like kind of a slappy, wipey one. So yeah, just really tough, man. Really, really tough. But it was after that we settled in and it was, it was a great day and you know, played fine. But it was, I was going to say, you don't need to be embarrassed for bad golf in front of Bill. He's not, he's not, I'm going to call a great ball striker, right? Played great against us, man. We were giving him like 16 shots and he just,

every hole was just like, oh, four for three, four for three, three for two. I'm like, this sucks. How was it meeting your hero? Like, did you have some- Oh my God. I didn't know what to ask him because I'm such a film novice, like I felt like I asked him the dumbest questions over three days.

It was the best, man. It was the best. I was trying not to beat him up for, you know, stuff. But I got yeah, all kinds of like I'm at these in like, seven of my favorite movies of all time, you know, and so I'm like, just little nuggets about, you know, how'd you get linked up with Wes Anderson? And what was it like on Rushmore? And, you know, how's the music supervision work? And because that was the other thing was like, this, we had two great caddies.dies and you know, it's like the fourth hole and one of them just starts playing music. Totally just picks any song like randomly, did not do this on purpose. But the first song that plays, it's like dead quiet out there.

There's no wind or anything. And the first song he plays is Showdown by ELO, which of course is like the song from Kingpin. Like, you know, the great montage with Big Earn and Kingpin and he's like doing all the crazy strikes and everything. And I'm just standing there,pin, like, you know, the great montage with Big Earn and Kingpin and he's like doing all the all the crazy strikes and everything. And I'm just standing there. I'm like, yo, is nobody gonna like acknowledge like this is like fucking Kingpin man like his nose. Nobody. He's standing right

there. So no, so I'm like, all right, well, you can't, you know, you can't be the guy to bring that up. And so we go play another couple holes. And then that faces song, ooh, la, la, like, you know, wish I knew what I knew, you know, when I was older, that song comes on and turn my head. I'm like, fuck like Rushmore, man. Like this is the end of Rushmore. Like this is incredible. Like again, you know, just, just be cool. And he like backs off the ball and starts laughing. He's like, man, this playlist is crazy. He's like, this is all like songs from movies I was in. I was like, yeah, I know.

I know. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, right. We should talk about that for the next like six whole. No, it was great. We had it. We had an awesome time and he was he was the best. It was it was lifelong dream. Very, very cool. God, you know, you're going to a nest pod for for a breakdown. Yeah. I mean, that was that was pretty much it.

You know, the rest is just what are the Cubs going to do next year and how you feeling about the bears and sorry about coach Fluss and a lot of that stuff. But, how's the speed playing on the golf course? Sorry to, I know I started derailing you here. And I'm dying to hear how the speed plays on the golf. It was, well, it wasn't great on the first tee, but it was, you know, it got into the ground in a hurry. That's right. No, it got, it got pretty good after that. It's still like, I just haven't, you know, it was negative two degrees out here. Uh, so I haven't really been like hitting

many balls out on grass, out on real turf. So it's, uh, you know, you're still kind of taking the Ferrari through the school zone a little bit. So, you know, you can't really, can't really feel like you can eat it up when you haven't really hit balls in quite a while, but markedly, markedly longer as, as TC can testify to. So it's been great. Neil, what do you got? I'm not going to go with the putt. That's a lame answer. It's between two of them. It's either the tee shot on number 16, but I think it's the tee shot on number 17 at Kingston Heath in my match against Salle in the finals of Toro Sauce. I think that swing on 16 was a worse swing, but the decision that the whole, the body

of work on 17 T is out. Absolutely the worst shot of the year. Just beating myself up internally. Like you fucking stink. You're going to give this match away. Yeah. Why don't we rope a three wood? And I just, I mean, I got so lucky that ball stayed in play.

It's OB all up the left and I'm trying to hit a like a draw three wood up into this like long par four so stupid. And that was that was just a like bad decision bad swing quick pressure couldn't even spit to beat myself up you know just like I think in the in the episode I said I felt like Tars I felt like McConaughey and Interstellar like TARS take the stick. Like my face, you know, the G forces are getting to me coming down the stretch and it's been 55 years. I ended up losing that hole. And then I, I pulled a rabbit out of my ass on 18.

I mean, how good was the shot in 18 though? So really good. Oh, it was the drive and the, uh, yeah, you know, cause everyone's like, don't hit driver on 18. I was like, fuck it. We're going for it. We're doing it. I couldn't believe you pulled. Yeah. I hit. That was like the best shot of the year. So it was like, I followed it up. I had to have it in that moment. So two good ones and made a nice putt. So God, it's like, God, that T Sean on 17 was so bad. So bad. That was an epic match. That was so far. All of that is on camera. If anyone wants to go watch the episode eight at tour sauce, Australia, I'm going to go watch that.

I'm going to go watch that. I'm going to go watch that. I'm going to go watch match. That was so fun. All that is on camera. If anyone wants to go watch the episode eight at Toursauce Australia. All right. Rounding out the the E9 number eight. Solly, just a simple one for you. How are you going to play any golf in 2025? I just want to know, like, what's odd, man? We just got back from a break. What's the plan here? What's the what's the forecast? The thought that I would have a plan for playing golf in 25 would

assume that I have a plan for like how I'm going to do anything else in my life. Like we're, we're tired. I think it's 27 at the earliest, you know, I don't know. Uh, I don't know. I, I want to play the Gasparilla in February as where I'm sitting right now. I don't, I struggle to picture how that's going to happen. Uh, have a plan for golf.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I want to play the Gasparilla in February as where I'm sitting right now. I don't, I struggle to picture how that's going to happen. Having played 0.0 rounds of golf, obviously in at least six, seven weeks. I don't know. Dude, I bet if you didn't play until then,

you'd play awesome. I bet you'd show up and just be like, Oh, just vibing so hard, not putting any pressure on yourself. I couldn't have been hotter going into last year, and I shot a million. So I might as well try it the other way around. I do want to put the new speed into tournament conditions. I want to try that. But I think I just got to be better at calendar management of just like, the stack has worked for me because I've put it on the calendar and I do it.

If I put, I'm going to practice for 90 minutes on a Tuesday from 12 to 130 I will do it but I get myself really busy and I don't go do it. So I just need to treat it like it is part of my job and technically is it just I don't know for the last nine months. Plus it's just been triaging one thing after another because everything just trickles down you guys know how it is like it you know the nesting trickles into like, all right, well, if I'm gonna get all my work done, I have to

do this and I'm working till 1am to get it. It's just, it's a big major squeeze. But in theory, things will lighten up. I think I don't know. I don't I really don't know. We'll see. It's gonna mean six, seven holes at a time probably is the answer. But in 2024, we'll talk about this next week, I think, is was a record low for me. I did not get to 50 rounds in 2024, which is down quite significantly year by year. It's just disappointing. Life. I think the what you're going to have though, that's like going to be a positive at least, you know, so my son was born on September 12th

and so not too many rounds in Wisconsin after that. But every time I did get one, I was like, whole, I can't believe I'm out playing golf. This is unbelievable. Yeah. So I think you got that. It's, which is going to be great. We had the title of shoot on Monday and I had like 20 minutes in between different shoots. I was like, can I go play the 18th of the ninth hole? I got it. I was like, they're like, yeah, sure. Go ahead. Like, I cannot wait. I get to go play golf. Yeah. At the title shoot, I was at before the traveler solid in between. I learned all these chipping techniques from like JT and Tom cam. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna go work on

these like right now. I need to groove these now. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Neil. Last one. Number nine here. I'm just gonna call this the people versus Neil Schuster. I saw a small number of comments. You know, I got to keep an eye on the comments on the on the channel of your video playing the Long Island Midam out at the bridge. Couple commenters out there accusing the czar of some slow play malfeasance. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to respond. And you know, is there any credibility to these allegations? It depends on what your definition of is is. No, I did not play slow at the Long Island Mid-Am this year.

Okay. No, I would say this. God, the comment, you know, that was my highest score of the year, second highest score of the year. I got bodied, right? So my play, I was like, oh man, this is a tough one to put in the film. Video would, would encourage everybody to go watch it. And I was cheering you on to post one of those Neil and I commend you for it.

No, I mean, honestly guys, it doesn't bother me when people are like, there's a lot of commentary in there. Like this guy sucks, you know, and it's like, yeah, dude, like I didn't play good, but I, that does not hurt my feelings. It's just, they, a couple of guys got in there like a player that playing behind me and they're like holding up the course all day, like don't ever come back, which is like not fucking true. Okay. We did get out of position a couple times on the front nine once was my fault. once was not my fault at all. And then on the back nine on 11. When you say your fault, you don't mean by playing slow, like a lost ball,

looking for a ball. Nothing to do with the camera. And I'm so high. The reason I got like pissed about that is like, I'm, there is, I'm hyper conscious of that when we're filming anytime we're filming anywhere, but especially here, like I talked to the MGA people before the round and after the round about like, please, please, please come tell us if we're playing slow, whatever, like I just do not want this to be a burden on anyone else. Guys playing with me, like same deal. And actually I was DMing with one of the guys that played with me. I was like, man, I'm getting kind of lit up in the comments. You think we were playing slow? He's like, I mean, we weren't fast, but that was because like the course was fucking hard. Like it had nothing to do with filming. Nightmare for Pazer. Right. And so, and then we, but every time we caught up and by the end of the round, like the group ahead

of us was insight, like we were not like a hole behind on 15, 16, 17, 18. And so I, but I hate that. Like, I don't want to be like, I take that shit seriously. So I got kind of pissed off when I saw that. And so and I feel bad, like, listen, could we have played faster? Yes. I wish we would have but like it wasn't a it was not over five hours because I made a point to check with the MGA about that. And they were like, you are no issue. Like they were like, absolutely not. You guys were not holding people up. And if we were like, I'm sorry, but

it just like, it's not like I hate that attitude of like, Oh, I came out to film and like, don't give a fuck about anybody else on the course is not the vibe I want to put out. So if that's if that's what it feels like, I, I, you know, I take issue with that, you know, but I talked to Cody, I was like, dude, we, he's like, we got out of position 11. I had nothing to do with it on 11. But we guy was playing with lost the ball, then he lost another ball had to go back and hit, you know, like that whole deal where he didn't hit a provisional. And I'm literally like, standing up by the like, you know, top of the green have already finished out. I'm just like tapping my foot like, because I know that I'm the one that's going to get blamed for this because I'm the guy with the camera following me around. Like, I was like, fuck man. I have nothing to do with this. This sucks. Anyway, people are at some people are assholes. Like it's just they and some people want like, just like want to shit on anyone. They give an opportunity.

I don't know what happened. I love these foot joy pants. I wear. I don't know if they shrunk in the wash, but like they definitely look a little short on me in the video. A lot of comments about that as well. Yeah. My pants are too short. I did. I like hand up. I was like, damn, they are too short. Like, I know where I gotta wear longer socks, you know? And I was like, but it's funny that the shit people notice in the comments, like none of the shit about my golf game bothers me. It's just like stuff like that. I am, and I do need to, I need to like game weight. Like why are my pants not fitting right? Like those pants have fit me all year. What the fuck happened?

Internet's a mean place, man. You gotta to watch. Oh God. Yeah. You got to be. It doesn't matter what you do. Like I think some of my best rounds on camera, people just absolutely shred. It's like, Oh sure. There's no fucking hope. I don't think I literally, I get, I don't care. You say I play well or horrible that any comments on my golf game, like we're past that. Like that that's totally fine. But slow play in my pants now. Now, now I'm going to I'm going to get self-conscious. It's funny when, yeah, some of it's like man in the arena stuff, right? Like, hey, man, I just put myself out there. But then it's really, it's really tough.

What's like, hey, fucking pants are too short. You're like, ah, yo, what the hell is you? What's he wearing? Like guys were in two different shades of blue. What a fucking clown. I'm like, really? I thought those were the same shade. I've gotten my sock colors.

I never thought about Australia were tough. Was it the gray? The gray? No, no, they weren't even on me on that. And I don't regret that. But they'll be like, you got it. You got to stop wearing black socks with white shoes. I'm like, what? There's so many fashion stuff that I'm not, you know, I don't. But hey, this is how we,

this is where learning happens on the edge of uncomfortable. I will, I can't wait to film another round like that. I had a blast that day. That was great. Dude, that's, we should all, everyone should play a tournament round in the course of the year and film it. Like it's just, it's the best.

It's a totally different beast. And I saw like 85 things I've gone through in a tournament on your face and like the first three holes. Yeah. Like you just, here's my goal. Here's what I'm going to do. No, that was my best. No, you're not. I made a lot of mistakes with my approach and like Deej, my putting stroke, like since has, I have worked on it a bunch, but I had the same feeling as you.

I wasn't putting well. Like I've been in my head about my, you know, alignment and everything before heading into that tournament. The other thing that sucks about this or not sucks, but it's funny is like, we filmed that in, I guess, filming in early October, but like a lot's happened since then, you know, like we, I mean, we went, we filmed a freaking strapped episode, like, you know, so there's so much other stuff that's happened where I'm like, oh, oh, like it's very different now than it was then,

like, you know, certain golf swing feels and all that. You don't get it. I'm back. I'm back. No, I wouldn't say I'm back. I just lost it. It's more just like, Oh, that was like a, you know, like I had a, I had a putting virus that day. I was not feeling well now. The budding strikes gotten better. But anyway, it was a, I'm glad I did it. And I, and I, again, I will focus like, like I always do, but in the future, if I do that one of those again, or if it's an MGA event, I make a

point to, I'm going to tell the MJ team me off last. I don't care if I finished in the dark, like just don't, I do not want to get into anyone's way. Like that is not the goal of this of like everybody clear out so I can pound the rock here. And maybe not a slow player. There's no chance. No. And you're not like waiting for cams and all that.

Like our guys hustle like that. Evan was filming. He was great. You know, it was like our camera guys, like a college golfer, like we all knew the drill, you know, it was like, it's just true. Like the greens were so fucking fast and the golf course is really hard. Like the group had, we've caught up to them several times where we waited on them. The golf course looks so good.

And then the next day, the, I think the guy that was in the lead after day one, I think he shot like 73 or so, nobody was under par. And then the second day, that guy shot like 88. Like I think, you know, the winning scores are like plus six or something like crazy. The wind kicked up day two. And so it was awesome though. Like that, the bridge was a, uh, was really, really cool. Like I never really knew much about it other than like, Oh, it's an old racetrack, but it's just another, you know, another kind of flag out there on long Island of like just awesome

golf. If, if you can get access to it. Kind of hard to miss out there. Well, guys, let's land the plane here on the housekeeping front. We've been mentioning this video. Go watch that on our YouTube channel, Neal's Round at the Bridge. Also on our NLU podcast YouTube channel, TC and Wolfie have been just cooking on some office hours episodes. They're really, really good. As always, all of these episodes go on our No Laying Up podcast YouTube channel, so go check that out. Speaking of the podcast, we've got a good one coming up on Tuesday. We did a deep dive. If anybody remembers KVV's piece that he wrote, kind of deep diving into Rory's last 10 years at the majors, kind of

recorded a bit of a souped up podcast version of that written piece. So that'll be good to have in the audio format. Saw you and I jumped on that one as well. Just as kind of a, you know, hocking some takes and jokes and bringing some dimensionalizing that one a little bit as our guy Jay would say. And then Sunday next week. So anyways, look for that on Tuesday on Sunday next week. I think we're going to do a deep dive into our golf games on the recreational side. We're gonna look back at the year that was,

do a little gin rewind stuff. It's gonna be a fun one. I'm really looking forward to next weekend. On the trap draw, we got the Seamsters are gonna get together, talk a little hot stove. Randy did an interview with Keith O'Brien, also the author of the Pete Rose book, Charlie Hustle. So look for that on the trap draw front, Neil, what do we got on the merch side of the house? We're running up against the shipping deadline, but it goes till basically Tuesday for like priority shipping. If you're looking for a last minute gift, nest members getting 20% off through

the end of December. Normally that's 15%. Honestly, it's a good time to gift the nest. No laying up.com forward slash join all the info is there. And then we have a couple of other things that we're looking at. getting 20% off through the end of December. Normally that's 15%. Honestly, it's a good time to gift the nest. No laying up.com forward slash join all the info is there. Member gifts are going out in January. So it's a great time to join. Just to get on the member gift thread on the refuge. Oh yeah. It's just, it's the best talk about, talk about people being mean on the internet. The nest gift thread every year is it, is it just to have access to that conversation. It's good best talk about, talk about people being mean on the internet. The nest gift thread every year. Is it, is it just to have access to that conversation? It's good. I'm excited about it this year. There's deaf bound to be some chatter. Uh, we've got some exclusive discounts in people's nest profiles to Holderness and

born stone Creek coffee, the stack, there's all exclusive discounts. Those codes are valid through December 31st. And then we built up, I think the highlight this year, we built up a good archive. I think 14, at least 14, maybe 15 videos, just Nest only exclusive stuff behind the scenes, some original content. Question for you too, what's your favorite Nest

behind the scenes video that we did this year? Man, there were some good ones. I mean, the KVV self-talk one was really, really solid. That was just hearing him kind of just berate himself. Doing a personal film room. Man, you're so hard on yourself. Personal film room of Hiv's club championship round. That was good stuff.

That was appointment viewing. I really enjoyed, Sally, the putting, the kind of wild world of putting out at the Himalayas was really fun. I think Ben would probably say his worst shot of the year was that last putt. The final hole of our putting match was just, I've never seen anything like it. His putter was like, I don't know, 30 degrees open, something like that. I mean, it was just awful, awful, awful putt for a guy that's like a plus two,

which is crazy stuff. Neil, what was yours? Some of the, uh, Ben was putting together like a highlight reel of all these videos and some of the stupid shit from the Taurus sauce behind the scenes, like us singing hunger strike in the car, you know, just, you know, long, if you're in Australia for two weeks, you kind of get, uh, slap happy. So there's some good stuff in the Taurus sauce behind the scenes, but anyway, you can find that on the no laying up.com in the

nest section of the website, you can log in and check all that stuff out. Only other thing I'll say on merch, we've got these NLU like retro satin jackets coming into the pro shop on Tuesday, I'm very, very excited about these. So take a take a spin in there. We got some new hat or restock on hats coming in. And then we're going to flip the year over and start planning for 25. So where will people find that? Neil?

The store dot no laying up.com. And like I said, the nest is no laying up.com forward slash join. And if you do join the nest, you get 20% off in the pro shop. How about that? Well, guys, that's going to just about do it. We don't have a big detailed one for the pro shop. How about that? Well, guys, that's going to just about do it. We don't have a big detailed one for the road tonight. I will just end on a bit of a somber note. Our guy Jeff Babineau passed away. Babs was the kind of my first like real boss. He was the editor at Golf Week magazine when I joined out of college and just like a guy I'm really bummed you guys didn't get to probably know very well but just effortlessly funny dude, kind guy, pretty young guy with a great family, loved to coach baseball and doing all kinds of stuff with the family and like just a, I don't know, as I was like a very young writer, kind of editor type of person, just a guy to learn a ton from, no stupid questions with him.

Always like, yeah, just always had a joke for everything and like just a really good listener, really good interviewer, and a guy that just like fucking loved golf. And so he was, I don't know, it was kind of shocking, really upsetting news, but there's been a million great tributes from Maselli and Jim McCabe and all kinds of great people that we worked with at Golf Week. And I don't know, man, Golf Week, it was a very, very fun time to be there when I was there. There was a lot of people that all of us kind of know,

either behind the scenes or not. I mean, Sean Martin was there, Eric Soderstrom, our guy who works at Titleist now, was there. Brentley Romine, who you see on Golf Channel, was there. Ryan Lavner was there. Julie Williams was there. It was just like a really, really fun time to be there. And Bab Romine, who you see on golf channel was there. Ryan Lavner was there. Julie Williams was there. It was just like a really, really fun time to be there. And Babs was the commander's coaching, like the one I was gonna say, it's like

the PayPal mafia. Yeah. Babs was kind of the the leader of the ship. And so it was like, he touched a lot of careers for a lot of people in golf and just a bummer to see to see him pass away, but a life well lived for sure. So, yeah, I wanted to shout him out and guys, I think that's going to about do it for this year episode. Thanks for hopping on.

Another kind of lengthy one, but you know, the boys get going. It's hard to hit the brakes. We truly can't. We cannot keep it under 90. It's just impossible for the brakes. We truly can't. We cannot keep it under 90. It's just impossible for the boys. You guys have no idea how happy I am to have been back for tonight is thank you. Have you have you back and I can't wait to get to see these turf conditions down at the TGL.

Are you sure you don't want to keep going? Because otherwise, I got to get back into some poopy diapers. What the pivty love is thinking about. What kind of grass is it? Tip Eagle? I think they're using this. It's going to be great. Guys, we will talk to you all next week.

Thank you all for listening, and cheers. Crack on.