Assessing the PGA Tour's New Structure with Joe Ogilvie

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is with Joe Ogilvie. I was super excited about this podcast. Joe is now in private equity, but before that he was a longtime PGA Tour player. Has a win to his record, although he dismisses it as a as an opposite field event event win uh big a cop puplishment. But he served on the Player Advisory Council as well as the policy board, so I was super keen to chat with him about the changes to the PGA Tour that were announced last week. He had some thoughts, he put them out on Twitter and we discussed kind of what's been going on in professional golf from a structure and business standpoint in great detail here. I would highly recommend following him on Twitter. Great Twitter follow and has some really good thoughts on the professional game. I was going to do an intro here, but the podcast kind of ran long, so we'll just get right into the interview here with Joe. All Right, I got to ask, you are one year into the post cost k Era, how are we feeling about Duke basketball these days?

00:01:54
Speaker 1: You know, I think we're on the upswing. It'll be interesting. I wish we could play every game in the playoffs or in in March Madness at home, because I think we're undefeated at home this year, but we're struggling on the road. But John Shire, I mean, you know, it's an impossibility to go in and replace Mike Krzyzewski, but I mean he's done a really good job. And I think those kids that are playing for him, I mean they think they like basketball, they like playing at Duke, and as a fan and a season ticket holder, that's that's what you want to see.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I've still got to get to gave there that side of my like bucket list of things to do is a game at camera. And uh, you know, I'm not not a Duke fan, but I'm not a Duke cater. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle, which is which is probably a rare, rare place for a basketball fan to be. But John Shire, being a Chicago Suburbs guy, kind of got a passing interest in his success.

00:02:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're You're invited, and I think we're gonna end up redoing the Duke University Golf Club soon, so you can. We can make it a two birds with one stone trip. You can go to the Duke game inside of Cameron, you can tour the Duke Golf Club. So that good got a winter.

00:03:03
Speaker 2: Plan in a coming year, So I was I was excited that you wanted to do this. Obviously you had a long playing career on the PGA Tour, but what interests me the most was that you were a member of the pack as well as the policy board on the PGA Tour. And obviously we have a lot of change going on with golf and men's professional golf right now. I feel like we're at a inflection point in the game of golf, and I wanted to start with your expertise on how do decisions get made on the PGA Tour.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: Well, I think a while ago it was you know, it kind of comes down from Pan of Vidro. I mean, Panavidro listens to you know, they have their they have a pretty good pulse on what the players are thinking and and and how the players are thinking in terms of, Okay, this is what the guys are bitching at the most, and how do we solve for that and if it's solvable. Right back then, it was really interesting in a sense that you didn't have well, you didn't have this thing called live golf, so you didn't have competition necessarily. What we had, though, is we had how do we get the best players in the world to all come to our tour? And you know, we also had a guy named Tiger Woods that helped that that he helped TV, he helped you know, crowds, he helped everything, and so it was just this wave and it was really an unfair fight. I mean, when you have Tiger, you have all the eye dolls globally and dollars chase that. And quite frankly, the best players in the world chase that because they wanted to play against the best and they wanted to play in the same tournament the Tiger did. So Pano Vidra kind of you know, Tim Finchon was commissioner the vast majority of time, well, the whole time that I was there, and so he had this giant wave at his back, and it wasn't so much we were dealing with little things. You know. The FedEx Cup was was born during my tenure. And what you're trying to do is people forget that the PGA Tour they do not own or benefit from television and the five largest events in our sport, So they don't. They don't own or benefit from the Masters. You all benefit because it's golf, but not financially. So the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, the Open Championship, and the Ryder Cup. I think they still get twenty percent of the US based television rights of the Ryder Cup. So you know, the whole point of the Pack and the Board was, Okay, how do you create these tournaments of the best players in the world play and you could sell it to TV. I mean that's so that's why the FedEx Cup was there, That's why the World Golf Championships were spun up, and so that was kind of the base. And then what the Pack and the Policy Board was dealing with, Well, when I was there, we were dealing with the financial crisis, but otherwise it's just little things. I mean, you know, tweaking the pension, tweaking the some l ability we were dealing with golf ball spin and things like that when I was on the pack, you know, and you know this kind of push and pull with the USGA and the governing bodies. But otherwise, I mean, it wasn't as nearly as interesting as right now. I mean, this is you know, for pundits and bloggers and podcasters. I mean, this is like red meat for the golfer's soul. It's the greatest, the greatest time ever to be in this business and to think about it and to love golf because it's really an interesting time.

00:06:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think I find it fascinating, just like as you were talking, like the arc of the PGA Tour right when you're there the early two thousands, really through the early twenty tens, the tour's objective was to become the goliath, the big you know, kind of the bowl in the china shop where all the top players played, and seemingly they achieved this by the end of the twenty tens. You know, this is the only place if you're a top player to play, like obviously, there are a few exceptions that just don't like the life on the PGA Tour and want to play in Europe. But for the most part, everybody has come to this so they become they achieve what they, you know, probably set out to do over twenty years, and then this rival league comes in and kind of, I think, drastically shifts the whole marketplace for golf. And it's a fascinating, you know, situation in the sense of like you put together a business plan, you put together your twenty year plan, and you go out and you do it, and then all of a sudden something comes and turns the whole world of golf on its head.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would also layer in. I mean, it's really interesting. It took the PGA Tour. No I don't know this, but I'm just knowing how the world rankings work. It took the PGA Tour a long time to get the world rankings tweak. They were trying to get the world rankings tweaked before live golf even came around, right, And now all of a sudden, you layer in that world golfing, world golf ranking tweak. And I mean you yeah, yeah, you basically have to play the PGA Tour. I mean I was looking at the and I'm not coming up with his name right now, but there's a Japanese player that won four or five times last year on the Japanese Tour. He's not moving up. I mean he moved up until the world ranking changed, and then there's this it's it's almost like a there's a ceiling there. So you've got this live golf, you got their official World Golf ranking, and I mean, it's it's it's it's been a cataclysmic change in the golf world and especially the professional golf world.

00:08:32
Speaker 2: So world ranking changes do take a lot of time. That's that might be, and.

00:08:40
Speaker 1: I think they're gonna I think they're gonna take even longer, you know, right or wrong.

00:08:46
Speaker 2: So just to zoom out a little bit before we get into kind of the nitty gritty of what's going on right now, I'd love I know a little bit more, but I'm not really like super aware of like all the differences. What's the difference, Like we if you're like these thrown out the policy board members and pack members, what's the difference between the PGA Tour Policy Board and the Player Advisory Commission the pack?

00:09:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the player Advisory Council is sixteen players. They and they go. So here's what they do. They kind of break them down based on points list or money list. So it's represented by the top let's say the top twenty twenty through forty forty through sixty sixty three. So the idea is you get sixteen guys that are kind of a broad based representation of the PGA tour. And with those sixteen guys, usually every year there's a Policy Board member. So there's I guess there's five Policy Board members now that are represented by the players. Back then it was only four. And those five guys, there's normally one person dropping out. Some years there's two, but usually there's one. And of the sixteen pack members, those guys are you know, they can elect to run for the Policy Board, and if they run for the Policy Board, there's normally two or three people that are running. And when I say running, they just say, look, I'm willing to serve on the board. And it's a three it's a three year term with a one year observation year, and so you're an observer observer on the board, but you're not actually a voting member of the board. And so you know, out of those sixteen guys, want one will serve as as PAC chairman. That PAC chairman will eventually go with the policy board that following year. And it's been interesting how it's how it's evolved. I mean, we always had, you know, good players or very good players. I mean when I was there, I think theyve Davis Love was a perennial member of the policy board. I and Finchon were extremely close. And you have David Thoms, you had Scott McCarron, and you've got the guys that are playing the Champions Store now. But you never had I mean Tiger Woods or Phil Nicholson. Are those type of guys the guys that there were true needle movers would would I mean, they wouldn't have been cut dead on the policy board. They just didn't want to waste their time. And to see guys like Jordan Speith and can't Ley and Rory McElroy and these guys on the policy board and even the pack, I mean Justin Thomas's impact, Adam Scott's now, it's kind of amazing how that's evolved. I mean, the best players and the needle movers are now serving on that policy board. It's a lot of time, especially now. I mean, I can't imagine. It's incredible. It's incredible what Rory McElroy's done over the last twelve months, because he's basically it seems like he's burdened by all this, right, I mean, he's Jay Monahan's kind of given him that the microphone and said, look, I think you speak better than me. You go talk, you go sell it, and you go talk. And Rory's done an amazing job.

00:11:35
Speaker 2: You're making me feel bad because I just, you know, I just went on a rant on our other podcast about how I think that this might all be like a great distraction for Rory and the way his mind works, like he might need distractions in order to play his best golf.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: Well he may, and it'd be very ironic if he gets the fourth leg of the Grand Slam this year when he's had all this noise in his head and it's kind of distracted him from you know, you know, I guess his ultimate goal. So look, your point is well taken. Everybody reacts to certain things differently, but I mean there's there's a lot of there's a lot of things going on in his head, and it's it's it's amazing, What's what's going on. He's impressive.

00:12:16
Speaker 2: To me, it is fascinating. I think, like obviously one of the things that happens and I was, you know, in our company slack, I was talking about this is like, you know, Rory only did five questions at the players, you know, for the for the press, and it's like, well, he's he's spoken like four of the last five weeks at these at these new designated events, like every every week he's there, he has to talk for an hour.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: You know.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: It's like how much you know, just you know, how many press conferences can one guy do?

00:12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and you know he is. He's very thoughtful. You can tell he's given a lot of time. He's given a lot of thought to this, and you know he's been on it both on the side of you can tell that he and Tiger have been talking a lot. And it's yeah, I mean, whether you agree with some of the stuff he says or not, he's certainly given it a lot of thought. And I think that, you know, that's that's all you can ask for as a player, is that Look, I want I want my representatives to at least think about this and try to think about this from both sides. You know, the question is does it go too far? And then and you try to strike that balance.

00:13:24
Speaker 2: All right, So during your tenure, I'd love for you to give us an example of a great decision you guys made as as a leadership and how it got made and then also a terrible decision that was made, and like just kind of like how how these things come to be. I think people would love to understand, just like how how effectively like a law, the PGA Tour is ratified.

00:13:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's really interesting. So well, I mean this is kind of so we approved the fed X Cup. I think while I was on the board that might be right or might be wrong, or at least it was being approved when I went on. I forget the FedEx Cup started maybe two thousand and.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: Six and six two thousand and six to two thousand and eight. Is you know if we say that just the general range, yeah I was.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: On the board, then well it's really interesting. And so we did that and we created this thing, and I think it's worked. I mean, you know, obviously it's been tweaked and the and the numbers have been tweaked. And the points have been tweaked, and you know, I think the good news is the FedEx Cup was born, and that was that was a really good thing. It was good good for the players, it was good for the television partners, and and I think it was good for the fans. I mean this season long, it replaced the money List. I think that at the time there that was very controversial. What we didn't get right was the points list right when you we had too much vault. You know, when you made the cut in the first we were trying to get that. Everybody played that first event. Back then there was four, right or the first year is four, and we had this crazy if you make the cut you get two thousand extra points. If you missed the cut, you didn't get any points. And so all of a sudden, your volatility was like you could finish seventieth on the money list or points list and go to like and miss miss out on the next next deal. I mean, it was it was really weird. And so I think we got that right, and we didn't get the points right, but we PJ. Tort will iterate and that that was my point the other day in Twitter, is that you're this will not be the last iteration of the designated events. I mean they are going to be tweaked and they are. The churning is going to you know, there's not going to be as much churns as they advertised. They will. They will change it. They will change the points, they will change the incentives, and they will change everything. But back then, the FedEx Cup was like, look, we've got to get more money to the stars, the Tiger Woods, the Phil Nicholson's and those type of guys, and so that's why you had this. You know, I think it was a ten million dollars payout at the end. And you know, I remember tucking to Tiger in two thousand. I forget what it was, and he said, hey, look I want I want the money. I don't want to deferred and I get Tiger, that's the only thing that I will not listen to you at because you know I'm here to protect you and wanting the money upfront as opposed to deferring the money is a really that's not the greatest idea that you've had. But everything else in the boardroom, I'm going to listen to one hundred percent. You have to say because you're the ultimate Needle group.

00:16:18
Speaker 2: Explain the deferred money versus the upfront just for well.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: Think about like this, if I if I win, let's say i win ten million dollars tomorrow, I'm paying taxes, you know, the top tax rate if I'm in if I'm in California or New York or whatever, I'm basically paying fifty two percent of that money. It's going to go out the windows. So I get you know, let's call it four point eight million after tax. But if I can defer it, and I can defer it for a very very long time, you know, let's say I win it when I'm twenty years old, and I can defer it till I'm forty five. So when you're a PGA Tour player and you no longer play fifteen events and it's FedEx cut money, you have to take that money starting well, if you turn forty five before April first of the year you turn forty five, you start taking it that year. If you turn forty five after April first, you can defer it one more year. So let's say I make Let's say I'm Tom Kim, I'm twenty one years old, I win, you know, ten million dollars. This is ten years ago. It's no longer deferred. I can defer that basically for twenty five years. And twenty five years at nine point six percent will get you ten million turns into one hundred million. And so now I'm paying taxes on one hundred million as opposed to ten million. Now, granted, the marshmallow is out there, right, I mean, it's the it's the ultimate marshmallow test. I'm going to defer that. So I'm going to get my second marshmallow. I like the second marshmallow, and I like deferred, and everybody, every smart person likes deferred.

00:17:50
Speaker 2: It's interesting, right, It's that's like the idea of protecting you so really like, I mean, I think this whole whole saga can be in can absolated by the problem the FedEx Cup went out to solve right from the very get go, which is, yeah, the idea of trying to get funnel more money to the top players of the sport.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And what's interesting, and you know, I've throw another nuance on there, is that the biggest money in the sport, I mean, PGA tour is huge, huge, huge money. But you know, it. You know, I've been saying this for fifteen years. Is that that where you get a breakdown. Are the majors right, the majors that big guys are playing for somewhere around three to five percent of the revenue and that's I mean, that's that's really really low. And you know, I always thought that the PGA Tour and the majors need to sit down, and now you have that chance, right because it's the first time the players have all been kind of unified. I mean, even the live players are unified on this is that hey, look, this is there's a lot of people making a lot of money. We need to make even more money. And and so you know, you can make an argument that the PGA Tour should benefit a little bit more. I mean, if we're supplier, or the PGA Tour is supplying all the best players in the world, maybe there should be a little little bit more of a quid pro quo there. Certainly the Ryder Cup, I mean Ryder Cup needs to be changed, but the economics of it, but I think that you know, yeah, it's they're all trying to get to the know, they're all trying to get more money to the best players, and yeah, the formula is that's what's everybody's debating right now that.

00:19:34
Speaker 2: The major statistic is jarring when you consider like other sports leagues, what is the is the splits around like fifty percent to players.

00:19:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, forty forty six to fifty forty six to fifty three something like that.

00:19:49
Speaker 2: So that's like, you know, revenue back to players for if fifty percent roughly, and say the NBA and then versus you know, the big events in golf, it's three to five.

00:20:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that is you know, probably closer to five than three. We don't know everybody's we don't know.

00:20:09
Speaker 2: Everybody the masters, obviously, we don't know which could be. Just like every time I'm on the ground, said Augusta, all I think about is like, oh my god, they're making so much money.

00:20:21
Speaker 1: And you know what, and they make so much money because they deserve it, because they don't try to make money. I mean, they everything, they don't gouge, they don't do it. It's it's one of those great case studies. Is you know, Warren Buffett talks about how you know, why give the Someone asked him, why are you giving the secrets of great investment he goes because no one will listen, no one will actually do what I do because they they they don't want to get rich slowly. They want to get rich like you know, I think his partner Charlie Munger said that everybody wants to be me. They just want to get rich faster.

00:20:53
Speaker 2: The Master deferred the deferred money thing. It's the same.

00:20:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the marshmallow test. I mean, it's the ultimate marshmallow test. The Masters has done a better job than everybody. I mean, I saw a PJ Championship someone have a screenshot of They're charging eighteen dollars for a beer last year in Tulsa or something crazy like that, Like that is that is just a giant I mean it's a giant finger to the fans. Not that you have to drink beer, but I think bottle water was like nine dollars or something like that, Like, you know, come on, these are these are your These these are the people you're trying to hook into golf. And I mean, I'm kind of cheap, so eighteen dollars for a beer is just offensive to me.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: I always say, like the Masters does this. The other good juxtaposition is like Kaiser golf resorts, you know, like the Kaisers they charge like three dollars for a beer. And then you go to stream Song and you're in the middle of nowhere, Florida, and they're charging you nine dollars for a twelve ounce bottle of Miller Lite and you're like, wait a second, this costs you like twenty five cents.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, I would rather This is really weird, but I would rather than charge me fifty dollars more from a round and charge me a dollar for a bottled water, right as opposed to six. And you know, I played stream Song and they charged me, I don't know, it was seven dollars for a gator rade. I was like, no, don't do this or something like that. And you know, it's it's it is very interesting. It's but the Masters does it well and there's a reason why it's the best tournament in the world.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: With the idea of players being underpaid and this being kind of like this has been at the top of the PGA Tour's mind and policies, you know, for the last effectively twenty five years. Really, you know, since Tiger Woods came on the scene. What do you take away from the last eighteen months of professional golf, Like, what are your big kind of thoughts on that?

00:22:49
Speaker 1: You know, I've given us a lot of thought. I don't know if i've I've I've kind of I don't know if it's marinated to the right sauce yet, so to speak. But I think that the best players and the ultimate needle movers are always going to be underpaid, right, I mean, think about it like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, I mean he got rich off of Apple, but I mean you could make an argument that Steve Jobs probably made Apple and the shareholders I mean a trillion dollars and Steve Steve Jobs actually got richer off Pixar than he did Apple. Right, So you're never going to be able to pay Tiger Woods enough money for all the value he created. So as a tour, and whether it's a tour or it's a major, it's a whatever, what you're trying to do is you're trying to provide the biggest and best platform to showcase your players, and the stars will always rise, right, But in my opinion, the PGA Tour is built to provide that platform, and to provide the biggest and greatest platform there are because the players are going to make money on the golf course, and they're going to make a lot of money off the golf course. And I think that that's the thing that that's really interesting is that you know, a lot of these guys can almost make more money off the golf course than they can on the golf course. Although it's getting it's getting to the point now. Certainly Tiger can and certainly I think Rory Cant, Jordan Speed probably can. But you're you're getting now where you're making more money. I mean, it's more like a professional, normal professional sport. And you look at the guys who really transcended their sport and made more money off off the court than on the court. I mean, you're you're basically talking about the ultimate needle movers. You're talking about Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron. You know those guys, and there aren't many of those guys in golf, right. You've got Tiger Woods, you got Jack Nicholas, You've got Arnold Palmer, and very few guys have have have sustained excellence and have been part of the call it the you know, the public that are publicly noticeable after their best playing days are over, and certainly those three guys. You know, you might throw Gary Player in there, although it seems like his family has more, has more. Uh, he's created more of a problem than anybody. But you just have very, very very few guys that are able to transcend the sport. And you know, so that's, in my opinion, the thing that the PGA Tour needs to do the most of all. And this is all decisions are based on how do we elevate this platform, and how do we elevate the platform so the guys can show off their skills, the fans can love it, the fans can have a great experience, and you know, I think everything else takes care of itself.

00:25:36
Speaker 2: To me, it seems listening to you, is that this this whole movement that we've seen kind of like I would say accelerated, was brewing underneath the PGA Tour for a long time and then Live came along and really just like kind of like put it into hyper drive. It would you say, that's a fair assessment.

00:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think, you know, I may the comment, and granted I was a very mediocre great player, you know, I think that anybody that gets on the PGA Tour is a great player, right, I mean a great player. And you know, but my career fifteen years, I was I was well on the way. I mean I was dead square the journeyman. You know, you've you've got a lot of tour careers or kind of like Roman candles, and my Roman Candle got to about, you know, forty fifth in the world at the highest point, and you know, came back came back ground. I had. I had five good years, really good years, I mean really good years for me. And you know what what Live did was it gave the PGA Tour a gift to be able to make changes that they never could make before, because I mean it's a membership organization. So when you have a membership organization, you have members and you have you have the haves and the have nots, or you have the guys that are one hundred and ninety ninth on the money list, and you have Tiger Woods and Roy mcilroys and Jordan'speace and John ROMs. So you you always had to balance those two things. But when Live came around and you had now all of a sudden, you had competition, and there was a movement by the PGA Tour Policy Board and you know, all the players that remained on tour, we have to do something to counterbalance this threat. And as soon as that happened, you could do things that you would never dream of doing. Right, you go to you go to a calendar year schedule, which probably needed to be done. You could kind of take out some of the bloat of the schedule. I mean, you know, we're the only we're the only sport that ran from you know, call it. As soon as the season was finished, we had a tournament the next.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: Week and fed X Cup standings up date.

00:27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was like huh. I mean it was a never ending story. And and you know, just because there's an old saying, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And you know, I think that that blow. I mean European Tour is a perfect example. I mean, you've got the DP World Tour, You've got a really really wealthy continent and they're blood I mean they went to all these different far famed places and their their you know, their schedule kind of got saturated and it wasn't you know, you didn't have the consistent quality, and so all of a sudden and the money went down, and so instead of having great tournaments and that should be your north star, they kind of just settled for anything. And I think that, you know, the PGA tour kind of did that. They're like, look, we've got we got all these sponsors. They want to do it. Obviously there's a great economy. We're going to go ahead and have all these fall events, and we're going to have all these opposite tour events, and we're going to have as many tournaments as we possibly have, regardless of the of the of the quality. Now they're all they're all they're all fine tournaments. But you know, again, just because what you want to do. It's the old p or ruber Off model with the Olympics. I mean the Olympics used to have five or six hundred sponsors. They said, why don't we have don't we have six flagship sponsors and and really, you know, really be focused, laser focused and providing quality to our sponsors and our partners and really elevate the Olympics from a US standpoint. And I think that that sort of philosophy resonates to me. I mean, have a season January to September first, where we are providing the ultimate and it's a true season. You got the playoffs at the end or whatever you want to call the FedEx Cup. You got the majors in the middle, which no other sport has, right, I mean, you think about golf, we have something in the middle of the season or during the season. These these four tournaments and five if you count the players, that are really special events that no other sport has. So if you have a season that's condensed January to September and you have these five events and then you have elevated and you know all that kind of stuff, you have a really really good platform to present to the to the fans. And that's a story that I don't think that golf is really told. I mean, it's just kind of out there and us as golf fans see it. But no other sport has this, right, I Mean, everybody's trying to figure out, oh, we got the All Star Game. All Ster games are disasters.

00:30:05
Speaker 2: Well, like the NBA is talking about a middle of the season tournament, and how do we create a tournament that has stakes? And it's like it is, I haven't ever thought about it.

00:30:15
Speaker 1: This way.

00:30:15
Speaker 2: But like you know, the peak of engagement for every other sport is the end of the season, like you know, like we're right in March madness. Like college basketball, peak engagement is in two weeks, you know, and from there it declines, and like every sports that way except for golf.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's amazing. I mean, and you think about what we do. I say, we I still put myself we as the PGA tool. You can do that.

00:30:41
Speaker 2: You're you're a member, right, You're.

00:30:43
Speaker 1: Still a member. Yeah, I still got I still have a car, I still have a card, I still get parking. That's that's the key thing. But but you know, you think about what we do as a sport, and I mean, we had Champions Tour events during the FedEx Cup playoffs. I mean, you know, there's no other there's no other work organization that wouldn't clear the decks for your flagship events. And we're like, oh yeah, let's just let's just muddy the waters here and let's see they're just gonna muddle the message. And it's you know, I kind of look at part of Vitra sometimes and I'm like, oh my god, it's like an embarrassment of riches. It's it's you've got such a wonderful business and such a great platform for these guys, but you just it's so good that you can just you can almost bastardize it at times. And you know, I think that that's that's that's that's why I've always had a heavy dose of skepticism. I'm like, come on, guys, let's let's think through this a little bit easier. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

00:31:41
Speaker 2: Well, like going back to earlier conversation point, the perfect example of just because you can doesn't mean you shouldn't is Augusta National. And it's the greatest golf tournament of the year because they could do so much other stuff, but they don't. You know, it's limit like what you said, limited sponsors, like you know, you you want in to commercialize this, like we've got I think that what is it four spots effectively? Yeah, three or four spots, Like if you're not one of them, you're out, you know, and the whole thing. Like you know, you start to think about, like what's the most powerful organization in golf and like Augusta National, this like this small country club. You know, it's small in membership is probably like top three most powerful organization in golf, and it's and they have a tournament, you know, now they have two tournaments a year, and it's just it's a wild situation. Like I mean, they moved women's major championships, like the Women's Tour accommodated them because they decided when they wanted to have the ANIMALA and that like shifted the A and A you know, and it's or the chevron now, you know, it's it's a wild situation. But like they're the perfect example of like sometimes less is more and I think like you hit on like with the PGA Tour, I think Live. You know, if you zoom out this the last couple of years have been it's been like there have been some dark times for for the PGA Tour. There have been some ups and downs. But when we look back, probably thirty years from now, you're going to look at Live in some cases and maybe think that that was the best thing that happened to the tour because it forced them to not have to not do everything they can do.

00:33:20
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And you know, you talk to board members and I've talked to a couple and they're like, yeah, I mean, look, Live Live is Live. It has been a very good thing for the PGA tour. I mean a very very good thing. And I think that you know, you go back to Augusta and you think about it, and there's there's a saying that in the I'm in the investment management business now and we have a saying that you get the investors you deserve, and I think that that's that's Augustin National. And you know, they get the fans, and they get the patrons that they deserve, and they get the accolades that they deserve, and and and their prestige is is really really well deserved because they they do everything there is to do to not commercialize it, but at the same time it's very commercialized. I mean, you know, you've got that you biquitous Master's logo everywhere and it's fantastic. But they just make everything just better and it's it's you can't admire that enough.

00:34:14
Speaker 2: So getting to the recent changes, obviously a big, big announcement this two weeks ago now a week and a half ago, where we will have these new designated events effectively seventy to seventy eight players. They're saying, I have some skepticism. I feel like that's just going to quickly morph into more and more players as they hand out, you know, as these exemptions grow. And there's some questions I have with like injured, major medicals, all these things. But seventy to seventy eight players no cut events effectively, Like you know what, it is, guaranteed money for these guys, and there they will be, you know, on a cadence of kind of two elevated events. So it's the majors and then a select number with the players the major in the players, and then a select number of designated events on a yearly basis. What are your thoughts on the recent changes?

00:35:07
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I understand why they're there, but you know, you have you have two things going on. Number One, you've got, as we alluded to earlier, you've got the calendar years change, so now you have January to September. And I think the easiest thing to do is just to think about it in wrong numbers. Right, You've gone from roughly thirty nine weeks or thirty maybe forty weeks to thirty four weeks in a season or thirty actually there's going to be thirty two weeks before the playoffs. I think something like that. So you're eight tournaments fewer, and then you have you've reduced because wgc's basically there's one and most of them went away. Call it three years ago when FedEx became a playoff event, so that reduced the WGCs by one. So you've got eight events that are reduced fields when there used to be basically one in Austin that we're going to have next week. So you have a combination of fewer weeks to keep your playing status, and then you have more tournaments that have reduced fields. And I think that that's the thing that's going to be really interesting to see how it plays out and whether or not that is that is what it should be. I mean, eight divided by thirty two is twenty five? Is that too many? Where you have twenty five? And I read that yesterday. The points list has not been given out, but I've said that the I read that you're going to get seven hundred points if you win one of these elevated events. It's five hundred for a normal event. We don't know if there's going to be opposite field events which there probably will be. I would assume we don't know what's going to qualify for the Players Championship, whether that's still going to be one hundred and forty four players. Presumably it will. So you have nineteen if you're if you're a guy that finishes seven one on the points so start, yeah, seventy one on the points list, you're going to be able to get in nineteen events regular field events and then four opposite field events. So you're going to play twenty three events, is what you're going to be able to get into. Now, if you qualify for the PGA Championship, if you qualify for the US Open Masters or Open Championship, okay, that's that's a bonus. But you're in twenty three events, So twenty three out of twenty thirty four or thirty two whatever that is events you're in. It'd be interesting to see how that plays out. And I think when you look at those from a from a numbers standpoint, and I haven't whiteboarded, you know, what is the ten guys on the European Tour are they going to come in? What is their status? You know, we don't know a lot of things. It's all kind of like conjecture right now. But I think that you know, you can talk to the best players in the world say hey, look we're going to create all these opportunities twenty to twenty five million dollars events, But the little guy is the guy that you're going to. You're like, holy cown. Now they're they've kind of some of them have a stiff upper lip right now, but they're also wondering and their wives are especially wondering what does this mean? And in my opinion, it probably means that everybody's career is going to get shorter. You're gonna get more of an athletic career, and that means that you're gonna make a lot of money for a short period of time and then it's gonna kind of, you know, it's going to have a long tail to it. Hopefully it has a long tail. But I think these guys, I think these guys are going to have shorter and shorter careers going forward, or at least shorter careers on the PGA tour.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: What makes you think that, just just like from like a basic level, like like what what led you to that conclusion?

00:38:43
Speaker 1: Well? I think that look, the young guys. It's just pure math. Right when I got on tour, there was five guys younger than twenty five. It was nineteen ninety nine. Now there's you know, twenty five. Twenty five is an old but I mean Tom Kimmel, Tom kimill have five years under his belt when he's twenty five. And you know, I think there was thirty There were thirty or thirty four four and born players on the PGA Tour. Now there's a lot more, although you know, we'll see with the World Golf ranking. I mean, you know, you're not going to be able to get it to be a top fifty player if you're on the Japanese Tour or the Asian Tour, that even maybe the DP World Tour, it's going to be very difficult to rise up. So I don't know if that will stop the the international flow. I hope not, because that's what made that's what made the PGA Tour really really good, as the international players. But I just think that as you get younger and younger and younger, as the money gets higher and higher and higher, you're going to have a better athlete and better athlete. Better athlete. I mean, I look at these college players, and they're all in great shape. They're all built. You know, they're six foot one and above. And if they're not six foot one and above, they've got swing speeds of one hundred and twenty miles an hour. And that's just you're just going to have more more guys coming in and out.

00:39:59
Speaker 2: I think, Well, any any sport, and obviously golf has been very distance focused, and distance is created by speed, right, any sport that becomes very speed centric becomes younger. Look at the NFL. I mean that's the most speed centric sport in the world. And you know, if you're fast, there's going to be a place for you in the NFL. And what happens when it's a fast man's game, it gets to be like careers get shorter and they get younger. And I think that's that's spot on. Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Club Champion. They are back for another year. Club Champion is UH is the place that I've gone to get my golf clubs for basically, you know, the vast majority of my life. Now. I started when they were a upstart with UH, you know, working out of their garage in Chicago, and now they are across the This is the place to go get fit. They will get you dialed in. What I love about Club Champion is you go in there. You might have like some feelings about what clubs you want. You see, you know, a club in your friend's bag and you think, oh, I want those. You go in there and you're gonna get the clubs that are best for you. They have I think it's over fifty thousand hittable combinations between shafts and club heads, and they're so what you're gonna do. You're gonna run through when you get a fitting, all these different combinations and find what is truly the best driver, the best fairway with the best hybrid, best set of irons for you. So really good promo from them for us. This year they're bumping it up. The code is still fried Egg and now you get fifty percent off a club fitting with a club purchase. So that's not inconsequential. You know, you save in some good dough fifty percent off your club fitting with a club purchase if you go and book a fitting with a Club Champion use the promo code fried Egg. They have all the new brands in stored raid demo now all the tailor made the callaways everything the titleist, So thank you to Club Champion. And now back to Joe Ogilvie. How do you feel about the limited fields and the no cut aspect of these these events.

00:42:25
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting you it's not a whole lot different, right, I mean, I think you know, ten years ago, we go back when there's four wgc's, you know, the best players in the world, their top fifty players in the world played the four WGCs and they usually played the Memorial at Jack's Place, the Arnold Palmer Invitational or Arnold's Place. Most played the LA Open, which is now the Genesis. It was the Nissan back then, and very few guys get the Century. So if you look at that, it's not it's a different rapper. We're marketing it different with these elevated events. The only difference is Jack's Tournament was one twenty, Arnold's Turnament was one twenty, Genesis was one twenty or one thirty two. You also had the Heritage, which was always an imitational. You had Colonial, which is always an invitational, so you had one hundred and twenty man fields, and you also had you know, it was top seventy to get in the imitationals. So there was always PJ Tour always had to carre it out there for the players, like, you play well, you're going to get in these events you play, you know, if you play well during the season. There was also a points lister money list that you could possibly get in those events. It's just going to be more closed. And when you take one hundred and twenty man field down to seventy five, it's going to be really interesting. And I think there's going to be some some of the players that maybe you're trying to, you know, keep on tour, keep you know, they might find themselves on the on the on the outside looking in, and it's going to be interesting. I mean, I was asked if a sponsor came up to me and said, Okay, here's here's forty million dollars, how are you going to go spend it? You know, I'd probably spend it on a designated event, and but I would probably try to have influence to make my designated event different and that difference would be one hundred player field or one hundred and twenty man field and have a cut. I mean, I just I just think that eight designated events that are all going to look more or less the same on different courses. You know, I don't know we're going to have We're going to have thirty four weeks of seventy two whole events next year. And I don't know how. I don't know how that's I don't know how you differentiate yourself.

00:44:36
Speaker 2: Is it that? I think it's like a core thing with the tour. And I think this is with just like any large entity corporation, is the idea of trying to make things predictable and make the weekend week out like there you're if you're running a big company, what you're trying to do is become more efficient. And at its core, what happens with the tour is they take all these events that have their unique identity and they over time they kind of become the same. And that's like it's just a natural thing because they're trying to become more efficient. It's like, well, if this is if we set it up the exact same way, we can you know, operate against that more efficiently, right, So, and that's like kind of like what cuts against what makes golf tournaments great is their individual identity. And I think that's just like, I don't think anybody's maliciously out there trying to like strip away identities. But that's the byproduct of a big company that's trying to become more profitable more you know, you know, everybody's trying to be more efficient, right, and that's what ends up happening, is that you lose the identity. And I think you know, everybody can look at it and say, hey, we're not changing, We're not everything's going to be great. If you look at the cut, there's the cut happens before the event, but you are taking away a shred of like the legacy of golf when you remove a cut for the best players in the world the majority of the weeks that they're going to play.

00:46:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. I do think I'm not in the camp that there shouldn't be no cut events. I mean I think that you know, the wgc's the century that those were those were no cut events for the longest time, and so I mean, I don't I don't mind the idea, and I'm actually I'm actually a proponent of the idea that you should have no cut events. And you know, I can make an argument that maybe you shouldn't have seventy in those cut events. Maybe you should have fifty. Maybe that maybe the second tournament in the fed Ex Cup should be so special that you know you've got fifty guys there, and maybe you have five more guys there. I mean, you know you can. There's no magic number to seventy and seventy eight and no cut events. But I do think that there's a point where the designated events that do you need eight where you have no cut and seventy to seventy eight, I think that's a little that's a ridge too far, especially when you've gone from you know, like I said, you've gone from probably close to forty weeks down to thirty two or thirty four whatever we are before the FEDS got playoffs. Because now it's a point. I mean, you know, you're if twenty five to well, actually it's more than that because you've got the players, and you've got the majors, so you have you've got such a massive amount of points for the top fifty or the top seventy. However they get in these fields that the other guys are playing, I mean they are really behind the eight ball from the get go, and you know, maybe that's maybe that's the case, but it'll be My gut is that those will the points list will be tweaked, and the designated events will probably not well, they might all be designated events. There still might be eight, but those field sizes will be will be changed in the coming years. I mean that's almost I would place a pretty large bet on that.

00:47:59
Speaker 2: That's you know, it's funny. I your tweets obviously about the subject, got me thinking that way. And then when Jay Monahan talked yesterday, he like he didn't you could tell he wanted to say, like listen, like we're trying this and it's probably gonna change, you know, Like the reality is, like it's so hard to nail a model like that right out of the gate. I mean, you look at any kind of company that's trying to model out that's going out to fundraise, any company that's modeling out their revenues for the next five years, Like you're going to be wrong. You're gonna be spot on with certain things. You're gonna be wrong. Like I heard that live, Like you know somebody that saw a deck like they nailed player acquisition, but their revenues are like completely off like they missed the boat on that, and like that's the hard thing with projecting, Like all these things are projecting, and until you see it play out, it's like kind of it's it's somewhat of a hopeless pursuit to nail it right until you have real, real things to work off of.

00:48:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I see model all the time now and I kind of laugh at them because they're I mean, I've never seen a model that's actually, you know, in year three, even anywhere near what they projected. So it's almost unfair to think the PGA Tour is going to get their model right because it's got no chance. But they can, you know, they they'll march that out and they'll say they did a thousand simulations and all that other kind of stuff. But I don't think when you've had so many all simulations and all models are based on past, and when you've changed so much in one year from a World Golf ranking I'll go back to the world Golf ranking. I mean, that is a big change on that deal. And you know, the top fifty in the world are going to be US centric. They're not going to be the rest of the world centric because of the way that model has changed. You just can't. You just can't do it, and it's unfair for us to think that they can, because it can't.

00:49:57
Speaker 2: I've got a question. I've got this long standing kind of theory, and I don't think it's necessarily a theory, but the you know, when I hear them talk about like the struggle of filling non designated fields, if they expand the field size and the designated events or elevated events, I feel like it should just be called elevated. It makes more sense. But anyways, why is it that the PGA Tour, Like, how are we not using the corn Faerry Tour more to fill fields? When like, you can make an argument and I think it's like proving true every year that like ten of the best hundred players in the world are on the corn Ferry Tour at a given time. How is that? How do these tours not work together? And if you're worried about filling non designated fields, isn't the answer just to give more Corn Ferry Tour players cards?

00:50:52
Speaker 1: Well, if you look at the Puerto Rico tournament that happened last week, I mean there's guys that can't get in the Champions Tour event that can get into a PGA Tour event. Yeah, there's guys, there's guys that are not using I mean Cole Hammer is a perfect example, can't go play. Well, he got in, he got into two Arnold Palmer. But there's there's great players on the Cornfierry event that that that that didn't want to go play because possibly they'd use up as one of their seven sponsor exemptions and all that kind of stuff. I mean, by the way, the DP Tour I did this math last year when I was I mean, DP Tour is really interesting if to go run, if you're if you're creative, because it's got a lot of potential. I think may not have a lot of potential with the PGA Tour. But you know, an opposite field event, I think that tournament Puerto Rico, if you take out tournaments that are in Great Benton, Ireland, Scotland and the Middle East, I think that Puerto Rico event would have been a top five perse on the year on the DP World Tour. We have a partnership apparently, Why why aren't the best players and the DP Tour World Tour not playing in Puerto Rico? You know, I think I may have been in that tournament at Puerto Rico if I would have, if I would have gone down and flown down there. And and you know, look, I understand if you if you are a member of the PGA Tour, you have I understand the argument that you have every right to play. But you know, Joe Montana doesn't have. I mean, he was a lot better football player than ninety nine percent of the players in the NFL that I've ever lived. And he's not going to go play for the Raiders or the or whatever. And so I don't know. I think there's a way to tweak it. And I think you're gonna tick guys off. I mean, I made the point I might look, give give the veteran members a carrot. And I don't know how much this costs, but it can't cost more than five or six million bucks. I would think, is that you just give him healthcare, you know, give him, let him in the healthcare subsidy. If they played, you know, five years on the PGA Tour or fifteen cuts a year for five years out of ten, and they're eligible to be fully vested members in the pension, I mean, or veteran members one hundred and fifty cuts or a win, let them, let them get a subsidy, but cut back your fields in those opposite field events, or find another structure that works, because you know, while I think that Neil Lancaster has every right, I mean I'd rather have Neil play in the Champions Tour where he's eligible. I'd rather have great Corn Fairy Tour players fill those fields and give them, give them an option. I mean nash Ka Badiah who finished second, there is a Corn Fairy Tour member. So you know, there's there's ways that there's ways to do that, and I think it's a scheduling. I think it's a scheduling snafu.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: The interesting thing is, like what we're talking about, like this whole discussion, the tour is going to get younger, careers are going to get shorter, these events, the events are going to kind of separate the tours more and more. This is a problem that's going to get bigger and bigger.

00:54:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, no will Yeah, well, and I think I think what ultimately, Yeah, I was a guy who benefited. My one win was opposite the British Open, So I mean I am very sympathetic to those tournaments. I mean, I love the Reno event that Barracuda. I don't know if it's still called the Barracooter or not, but you know, I do think that when you're looking at you know, I think your question originally was what are the what are the tournaments opposite not opposite? What are the tournaments that aren't designated? How are they going to feel fields? And will they make I don't know. I don't know eligibility for next year, Like I don't I know, if you're seventy first on the points list, you're not in the playoffs and you're going to go to the Fall, and it's the Fall is going to basically give you access to the next year. But I guess it's one hundred and twenty five. You know, Originally I think they were going to try to go down to one ten on a fully exempt basis, But I I don't know those answers, and so I don't I don't know if those field sizes are going to be reduced. I don't know. If you know, you can make an argument that if there was a one fifty six field, maybe it should be one forty two and one thirty two. And then if you do that, I would make an argument that you you go invest in in DP world tour persons and cornfairy tour persons, and if you truly have a partnership with a DP tour, maybe the guys that if you're going to cut down fields, maybe you know, maybe DP tour is an option. So for some people they don't want to travel, but I think I think if you're truly going to have a partnership that would be that should be an option and they should explore that.

00:55:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, right, You're I think what golf fans have wanted is more elite play at the PGA tour level, like the more recognizable names and more events, and I think we're getting that, which is a huge step. But the downstream effects of that is like all these like if the if the PGA tour like PGA a tour is getting smaller, then these other tours are the ones that have to kind of figure out how they work together along with these the smaller events. You know, it's a that's and I think obviously these are like you know, we're looking at like an entire restructuring of a tour, which is like a very big deal, and I think like the answers at the top are figured out, but like there are so many questions I have, is like, what happens if you're a designated event player and you get hurt? Do you come back a year later and you're in all the designated events and if there's three of them, that's going to throw off field sizes?

00:56:40
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, No, it's it's you know, that's the the old saying Devil's in the details. I think that that's that's all going to be worked out, or that's going to try to be worked out. And you know, as I understand it, this is when when Tiger flew up to Delaware, it was all kind of they kind of had settled on something and they that all changed when Tiger got up the Delaware and they did it, I don't want to say a one to eighty, but probably a forty five degree angle pivot. And I think they're still trying to figure that out. And I think that's also why I think they left. In these designated events, you get four sponsor exemptions, but there has to be it has to be buttoned up those sponsor exemptions. There's some pretty tight parameters. I mean, you just can't go go give you know, Joe Ogilvie a sponsor exemption just because he's a nice guy. You got to he's got to have some playing ability over the last eighteen months or two years or something like that. And so, you know, hopefully, hopefully they get that right. But again, I think it's a wait and see and we'll tweak as needed.

00:57:44
Speaker 2: Just changing topic a little bit, there's a lot of rumors going around about potentially some some live players that are you know, poking around at their potential return and obviously who knows, like what the life span of live in general is. Right, if you were in charge, how would you handle live players coming back to the tour. What would be your thoughts on reintegrating some of the big names that might have left.

00:58:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's let's say they are They've already won. They when they left were top fifty players in the world. They have eligibility, they have you know, Dustin Johnson's technically a lifetime member. I think he's won over twenty twenty times. You know, I don't. It's a great question. I think there has to be an avenue back. I mean, when when they first started, and when Live first came on, I said, of course they're going to be invited back eventually, or maybe not invited back, but there's a there will be a pathway for them back. I think Jay said that they were going to be permanently banned, which was you knew that was not even on the table, and so I don't know. Maybe it's one of those things where if you want to full if you want it'll be fully exempt. You got to use your lifetime earnings type of thing. Maybe maybe you know, like you would if you lost your card, maybe you have to do a couple of different things. I don't know. I mean, I know there's going to be a pathway for those guys back. P Jtor would be crazy not to but I don't I don't know the pathway. I mean, that will be something that the policy board will probably have to figure out. I'm sure. I'm sure the Commissioner will will have his thoughts and they'll, you know, they'll put together a presentation. But the guys, eventually it'll be What'll be really interesting is if if in three years, I think most of those deals were four or five years, in three to four years, is the first guys are no longer under contract. How's that how that works out? You know? But I do think that they'll be back, and I do think that they'll be Look, I think time heals all wounds, and I think it'll be I don't think it'll be that that hard to get them back either.

01:00:00
Speaker 2: It's such a tricky situation because if you just allow them to come right back, then it's like all the guys that didn't go and get that big upfront payment are like, well what did I get for being loyal to the tour? You know, if these guys just get to come right back, one of the things I wonder is, like, then you start to play the game. Hey, if you make them go re earn their card at Q school, how many of them actually get back is a really interesting thought experiment. I think, like, you know, the uber talented people would, but like, I don't know if some of these guys would want to go do that and really put themselves through getting back. And then now the added thing is getting back, not just getting back, but getting into the elevated event tier.

01:00:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that the non elevated event tournaments would welcome a Bryson d Chambeau or Kopka or a Dustin Johnson or a you know, uh Kevin Nah who played in Las Vegas and won in Las Vegas. And and I think they would. I think that there was a pathway back from a sponsor exymption standpoint, and then you and then once they're back and they're you know, they've done their penance or whatever they did. They a lot of them have lifetime earnings, and they could use their lifetime earnings to be a full exit member of the tour of the following year or whatever. But I think that they'll figure that out. I mean, I I'm not that worried that that'll get done if it ever comes to that. And I think the first time it comes to that is it probably a year, four, year five of live, assuming it's still there. When guys are like, Okay, I've done this, do I want back and we'll live pay you know, we'll live, give them a guarantee. Again. My gut is that was a one time thing, and they spend a lot more than they thought they were gonna spend. So with the PGA tour doing all that they've done in terms of purses and designated events and things, like that. I mean, I think that a lot of guys will will second guess whether they stayed with Liver or if they go or if they go back to the tour. But I do think I think they'll be I think they'll be an avenue.

01:02:16
Speaker 2: One of the things you talked about with with designated events that I just wanted to hit on before we went. I know you live in Austin, and uh you talked about how if you were, if you were in charge of it, if you were a sponsor, and that you said, I'm going to make a unique designated event is what I'm a sponsor. Well, obviously one of them this year is the match play and this looks like the end of the road for the match play for at least a little while. Yeah, I know that you've got some insight into the match play in general, but like has that it just feels like a clunky fit. It feels like the tour just doesn't want to have a match play event, even though it's unique and like a something tied to the game. Why why has the match play ever been embraced by the PGA Tour.

01:03:04
Speaker 1: I think, well, the history was before it was in Austin. It was a money loser. I mean, I think it lost in San Francisco. I think it lost five million dollars. They one year is in San Francisco and Tucson, it lost a couple million dollars. I think they started hating it in Austin because it was so successful that they couldn't get their arms around it. They're like, this can't be right. The numbers, the numbers, the numbers can't be right. I mean, they've they're going to exceed budget this year. They're they're going to throw off a lot of money to the PGA Tour and the players, and maybe maybe it's an embarrassment of riches. I don't know, but it's it's very interesting. I mean, you know, this is a tournament that's only had success that the eight years that it's been here. Austin Country Club, well they had a little you know, there's been a little as if every country club would be i mean having a PGA Tour tournament. I mean they they the membership does not get the golf course for four weeks, and they happened to be four of the really good weeks in Austin. So I mean there's definitely some pains there, but I don't know, you know, having thirty four weeks of seventy two whole stroke play events, you know, I think a match play format kind of fits pretty well. And you know, I think the tour also, they couldn't get their arms around the Saturday and Sunday. The ratings on on Saturday were pretty decent. Sunday was always terrible because you only have, you know, you only have two matches, and that's I mean, that's not very hard to solve. If you're me, you just say, Okay, instead of starting on Wednesday, we're gonna start on Thursday, and we're gonna have Thursday, Friday, Saturday be the you know, the knockout matches, and then we're going to have Sunday B where we've got sixteen eight groups a little more exciting. And then on Monday, which is a dead day for golf. You you just have, you know, the four matches, and that's pretty easy. I mean, put put Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in there, maybe maybe the prior ticket, eliminate the consolation match, beta guys their money and you know, make it kind of a fun thing. But it's it was not a hard problem to solve with the PGA Tour always had they just had an issue solving it. And I don't know if that was a network thing or what, but it made a lot of sense to move it. In my opinion.

01:05:20
Speaker 2: Is there something just about match play that, like rubs, it seems like it cuts against the cloth of everything the tour is, like, you know, like we play stroke play, it's constantly measuring. Is there was there ever an attitude of like, well, this guy could shoot seventy five three times and when I mean not really, he couldn't really do that, but like he could play pretty lousy and get into the round of sixteen. I could play unbelievable and not get in.

01:05:48
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, And I think the I never really heard that. I definitely heard the players kind of kind of belly ache on this format in a sense that you know, if they're like, look, if I lose, I want to lose, I don't want to play two more days. And you know, I make the argument that, look, we're one big, happy family and it keeps everybody in it for three days and that's kind of nice for everybody. But no, I think that I think the match play is it's something that golf. I mean, it's in the history of golf. You know, you can make an argument that more people should play match play than stroke play, especially beginners, because it's it's kind of a nice way to play. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously the tours build on seventy two hole stroke play events, but I think that the fans like match play.

01:06:37
Speaker 2: But what if I always fix as I thought, would just be playoff all of the last eight spots, right, So then your final day you have these you have the seven eight match, right, and that those guys have played really well all week, but they're playing for you know, you know, fifty hundred thousand dollars something like that. They're playing for their private fight home effectively, you know, and like that's interesting. It'll be it'll be interesting. You'll have enough matches like the reality. Like, to me, the best one of the best days of Golf TV is the round of sixteen in the match play. Yeah, you got guys that are playing great and they square off and you see like rivalries brew I mean, like we would never have gotten the Couture Sergio kerfuffle. Like you think about the Kegan Bradley mcguellan, hell Jimenez, like the some of the best moments of like, you know, everybody always watched these rivalries. This is the this is the type of format of golf that actually creates rivalries that we're getting rid of it, you know, I don't know.

01:07:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah no. And I mean, look, the Ryder Cup is great because this match play. The President's Cup was I mean, the great thing about match play is you feel like there's a sense that everybody's always in it somehow. I mean, I mean even the President's Cup this year the US, I mean it looked like the Internationals were going to snatch defeat or smatch victory from the jaws of defeat and the opposite of the Americans. But you know it obviously, but match play always seems to always give you hope, right, I mean, it's it's it's kind of it's kind of interesting. I think it's a great format, and I think Austin Country Club in general is a very good match play course. I don't think it doesn't work as a stroke play course, but it really shows that from a matchplay course, it's it's really it's it's really kind of brilliant. Actually, I think Pete Die courses in general, are better situated for match play and not stroke play. I mean you know that they're just not great stroke play event courses.

01:08:37
Speaker 2: I mean they make pros make tough decisions, is what it does. And it's easier to easier to make those tough decisions and match play when the consequences of an eight aren't as looming. Yeah, Like you know, it's like match play, you're just trying to beat a guy. You're not you know, in stroke play, it's almost like you're building a house, right, and you have to make sure like you don't have any big, big miss depths along the way. The I I was thinking, like, you know, if if you could have Carte Blanche, you know, and obviously the players is the players, but like if the Tour Championship was match play at TPC Sawgrass at the end of the year, and just say it wasn't in August. Nobody wants to go to Jacksonville in August, right, But like if you if you had that course hosting the finishing tournament of the PGA Tour season, you have a stroke play ev NRA there, everybody knows it, and you get to watch match play with the say sixteen best guys on the PGA Tour playing for the best player of the year. To me, that would be like that. It makes too much sense that, Like if I was, if I was the commissioner for a day, that's what I would I would do is like, Okay, you know, we're gonna make the Tour Championship a match play, Like We're gonna play out every single spot so that we we don't lose like ratings as we move on in the tournament. There's still matches out there. But we're gonna do it at our vet you our iconic venue that we own, TPC Sawgrass, and we're gonna have this. This is the way we're going to end the season. That's the way I would do it. I've read that you were you wanted at one point in life, you said that you wanted to be the commissioner. So I'm curious curious when I would do that, you know, not about why you do that. I'm curious what you would change about the professional game if you were, if you had, if you were the authoritative dictator of the PGA Tour, what would be the one change you'd make Right now?

01:10:35
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's interesting. So I think that in this new world. And let's let's say, you know, a lot of people say that LIVE is not going to be around. You know, I think there's a good chance that Live is around. It may not be around in this current form, but I do think that, look, they're gonna, they're gonna someone is going to invest in international golf, and it's probably going to be them, or at least they're going to push somebody else to invest international golf. So I think if LIVE is around, I think it gives the PGA Tour some opportunity to, you know, probably invest a little bit more in the corn Ferry Tour. I would, even though this is my only win, I would. I would. I would kill the opposite field events. I would put all that money that you're spending on opposite field events down to the corn Ferry Tour. I probably even spend a little bit more money on the Canadian Tour and the other tours. I would. You know, I would cut the fully exempt members down to one hundred and ten players to one hundred and fifteen, and you know, I would release, I'd make a run. I'd try to make this the because you know, to our point earlier, I mean, every single sports organization dreams about having a PGA Tour type season, right. I mean, the middle of the year is boring in every other sport, NFL just a whole different ballgame. But it's boring except the PGA Tour because you have you have the four majors, and you have the Players Championship, you have these designated events. We'll see how they are. I'm going to make an argument that the designated events are are probably going to be tweaked and tweaked and tweaked. They're not going to get those right. But it's really an interesting product, and it's an interesting thing. And you have this, you have these guys that are incredibly marketable in my opinion, and they golf is just a golf is just a great game. So I think you have an opportunity to make this, make this PGA Tour truly an amazing you know what it's what it's what it's built to be. And Live is giving you that opportunity. But I think in order to do that, you've got to give the other guys a bone, and that that that those secondary and third third tertiary guys, you've got to invest in that corn fairy Tour and you've got to give them. Everybody used to say, you know, I don't want these guys getting comfortable in the corn very tour. Well, look, I think that tour is really really good, and I think the players are really really good on that tour, and so you've got to give them a chance to make some some some decent money. But that I think I would go full fledge into that. I'd make the PGA Tour truly the best tour could possibly be. I would move digital out of Jacksonville, Florida, and probably into Dallas or Austin. You just can't get talent in Jacksonville like you can in these other places. And you know I would. I would invest a lot in the I would invest a whole lot of money in the presentation of the product I would make. I would make the platform with the PGA Tour as good as it could possibly be for the fan, and then I would give them to every tournament director. I mean the tournament directors. I mean J. Monahan has a fairly easy job. I mean, this is a very very easy business. The tournament directors have a probably the hardest business of anyone. I mean, they're kind of the tip of the spear. So I would go to every tournament director and I would say like, hey, look, how how can the PGA Tours support you and make your life life better? How can we make your fan experience better? How can we get you on a better golf course? If that's a problem, I would go to some of these guys that are building these these wonderful golf courses. Now, I mean we're kind of in a golden age. I mean the fried Egg you guys kind of got your chops on on, you know, golf course architecture. We're in the golden age of these guys that are building, you know, the Mike Kaisers of the world. There's a lot of independence that are building pretty interesting products right now, pretty interesting golf course. How can you Is there anything that you know, you can kind of present that makes it makes a tournament differentiated? And you know, one thing I did learn. I did fox for the US Open for a couple of times, and I did learn what's great to you and I? What's a great golf course to you and I? On TV? It may not translate, And that's kind of interesting. I mean it's really like Austin Golf we mentioned Austin Golf Club. I brought the PGA Tour in Dell to Austin Golf Club to take a look at it for the match play in October. It would have made great sense. But in March, I mean it looks like AMMUNI.

01:15:10
Speaker 2: It plays great, place great.

01:15:12
Speaker 1: It plays great. I mean the greens are amazing. I mean Zach Zach is our head greenskeeper up there. I mean the greens I played the other day and they're like fourteen and a half fifteen acentmeter. It's crazy how fast they are. But it would not present on TV like Austin Country Club does. I mean Austin Country Club. You've got water and you've got this wow factor and at the Pennybacker Bridge it really works. So so that's the thing. You've got a the' there's a push and pull. I was one of these players that always liked classic golf courses, but you know, the fan and the and the TV. It always there's a there's a balance there because sometimes those classic golf courses just don't work as well on TV as they play for the professional.

01:15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the venue. Things hard and you illuminated on it. With a country club is like giving up your course every year gets really tiring for members. Like so one of the ways I kind of thought around it was like you can't rely on annual hosts. The annual host like Riviera is a unicorn that only exists, Like that situation only exists like one place in America. So you need to like build rotations. And I think like that's the way. You have to look at an area and say, like, what are the areas of the country that we can go to four or five different courses over it and only ask these people for one week every five years. And then also like you hit on it the resorts Like to me, like I had this thought after Royal Melbourne is like how cool? And we talked about stream Song earlier. How cool would it be if if stream Song put together a composite course between the Red and the Blue and that was a President's Cup in December? Like, I mean that place would be you know that. How do we get something that comes close to Royal Melbourne that is like going to Quail Hollow like that, ain't it? Like we see that every year? All right, I've got enough Quail Hollow in my life. I mean it's a it's a fine facility and a golf course. But like, if you want to elevate events, like part of it is the venue, Like venues do matter, like we see it with this week's players, Like the TPC Sawgrass has elevated that event to a higher level, and obviously the event has helped elevate Sawgrass as well. But it's a it's a fascinating thing. I do love your your idea of investing in the product and investing in in your product goes down to the Canada Tour to the Latin America, Like those are guys that are going to make it up and in the more the better those tours are, the better your long term health as a as the PGA Tour is because then you're going to keep getting the best players. And that's the thing that has always drove me nuts is like you know, if you look at the PGA Tour as a country and these tours as states, every state has a different currency, it doesn't make any sense Like if I win, if I win three times or two times on or three times on the corn Ferry Tour and I get promoted to the PGA Tour, I shouldn't go back to zero. If it's part of the season, like I should be I should have some points, like I shouldn't be just like not included in the fed X Cup. I just won three times? Like what what is number seventy done that? You know, Like are they going to go down there and win three times?

01:18:32
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? No, it's and that is that is a very tough you know, you and I can go over to the Middle East and negotiate peace, and we might, we might, we might come up with an easier thing to digest. But I think it's it's it is. It is something that if you win three times, I mean, you do get the caret of your fully exempt and who knows what what are these fall events going to look like? What are these things going to look like? And if you win three three events, you probably are you in the designated events.

01:19:05
Speaker 2: If you're the corn Ferry Tour Player of the year, you should be in the designated events on hundred percent.

01:19:12
Speaker 1: And if you if you're even if you're not and you've won three times, you should be in those designated events. You know. I mean I think that that is you know, that's kind of table stakes and and so I think that there's there's there's opportunity there. I mean, you know, ultimately what I think will happen, and this might be twenty years from now, but ultimately I think you're going to have people that own these events, and you're gonna have ownership of the Austin market and ownership of the Charlotte market and ownership of and so what that will do is that will solve the the one time golf course.

01:19:50
Speaker 2: That's interesting because like it's it's effectively the sports. Everybody's trying to figure out the team golf, this franchise concept, and the franchises are actually the turn.

01:20:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's going to happen. I mean, it'll they're they're going to have to change their their tax structure and everything else. But I think that ultimately that's where we'll get, you know, and I think that that was my I mean when I was on the board, you know, I told Tim Finchem, I'm like, look, we got to buy the PGA Championship or or buy the Ryder Cup one or the other. Well we'll pay five hundred million dollars. That was when five hundred million dollars with a lot of money, and he looked at me like I had four heads. But I mean those tournaments, if you look at it like I would pay. I would pay five billion dollars for the match for the Masters, maybe maybe six billion dollars. I would certainly play more for the Masters than I would the Milwaukee Bucks. And I think that's the latest basketball team to get sold. But if you think about these things in terms of, you know, how much they're worth. I mean, you know, when the Live thing was going on and we're talking about the President's Cup, I mean the President's Cup, I would pay my gosh, prior to Live, I would I would have paid close to a billion dollars for it because I think it's worth that much. And now without Live, and without you know, Live has a lot of the best international players, You've you've kind of destroyed a lot of value in that if Live players are not eligible. Same thing with the with the Players Championship. I mean, when I think of these things as businesses and small business, each tournament's a small business. Some of bigger businesses than others. But if if I'm going to value a tournament based on the business and the profits that can and the and the revenue and what it throws off for things, that's how I think about it. I mean, the Players Championship is probably worth you know, it's probably worth a billion plus, you know, with revenue and how much they can make and everything lost in the TV if they own the TV rights, Right, Matt. It's hard to do this because you've got to You've got a you know, you've got a bunch of tournaments in the PGA Tour they don't have their own television rights deals. But you know you can. You can put evaluation on the US Open, the Open Championship, the Masters, the PGA Championship, and the Ryder Cup pretty easy, and they would be worth a lot of money.

01:22:05
Speaker 2: Think about like selling to cities like the idea like the Chicago that this is our Chicago tour stop, and like you're gonna you know, like these cities would embrace it like that. It's funny because like they don't go to New York or Chicago.

01:22:22
Speaker 1: Or Chicago Boston.

01:22:25
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, those would be the three, probably the three of the most valuable franchises if you made it, if you went to this model, like those would be three of the city's most valuable valuable franchises. If you went to a tournament franchise model, yeah.

01:22:40
Speaker 1: And and well, I mean you would have you would have DC, Chicago, New York probably two of them, Miami, Boston, Miami certainly. I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of things here that you could do and and the tour will get there. They will, they will, they will ultimately do that. There is I have I have zero Dowt in my mind.

01:23:01
Speaker 2: You build your own venue effectively, Yeah, like you don't have to go to clubs because it would be just like a stadium.

01:23:09
Speaker 1: And the greatest thing about this a stadium is a golf stadium. It's the only thing that you build that the public can actually enjoy and play on, right. I mean you look at all these football stadiums around. I mean sometimes they have concerts or whatever, but I mean the vast majority of time, I mean we see one hundred and five thousand people at dear Okay Royal Stadium here in Austin, Texas, and it's probably used fifteen times a year, you know. I mean a golf course you build it. It's cheaper, you know, and there's a lot of public land. I mean, you know, you think about if I owned the New York Market, you could Beth Page would not be a bad venue. It's a public you know, it's a public facility. You could you know, the owner could invest in it, take it off the public's hands, from a from a maintenance standpoint, all that kind of stuff, and it'd be interesting. I mean, I think the tour gets there. It'll take a while, but they'll get there eventually.

01:24:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, then all of a sudden, the events have I think everybody's always searching, like there's there's seven events on the PGA tour maybe that have like really good identities, strong identities, and the crux of every other one is how do we how do we create an identity for this event? And if the each individual event was like very incentivized to have their identity, they would do it in a variety of ways, and that model would do That's that's that's fat I'd never thought about that. It's a good idea every now and again, the hopefully you know, I think I think four years ago you would have said where we are today would take ten fifteen to get to.

01:25:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely, prior to Live you couldn't. It was going to be really really difficult to get to where we are today. But Live made it possible. To completely rethink a lot of different things. And in the absence of competition, it's it's really hard to change. Obviously you must, but you know, when you when you have competition, all of a sudden you can change and changes changes warranted and changes needed. But it live was a gift to the PGA Tour. I mean it was. It was an absolute gift. And you know, I think that they'll be better because of it.

01:25:39
Speaker 2: All right, Well, hey, I've already taken too much of your time. That last question I thought was going to be, you know, to throwaway question, and and here I've got my mind racing as to the different cities and enfranchise a bottle of golf. So I appreciate it. People confide you on Twitter, are there? It's a good follow. You don't. What I like about you is you don't put a lot of shots up, but the shots are really good when they go up.

01:26:08
Speaker 1: Shots on goal percentage hopefully anyway.

01:26:11
Speaker 2: You got you're getting them in the flow of the offense. It's not you're not You're not coming down the court and just chuck.

01:26:18
Speaker 1: It, you know what. I chuck a lot. But the good news is I hit the delete button before I send.

01:26:24
Speaker 2: That's good. Thanks so much, and we'll have to have you back on h for for you know, more more creative thoughts here.

01:26:34
Speaker 1: All right, hey, I look forward to it. I really enjoyed it. Thanks yoully enjoying it.

01:26:37
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast, and thank you to Matt Rushes for the edit. As a quick reminder, we are in players week, we are to have a we have a lot of content going out. There's a bunch of club tfe. If you're interested in signing up for our membership, go to the Fridagg dot com slash membership and you can you can go there. That's one hundred and twenty dollars a year. If you're just looking for free content, there's no better thing to sign up for than the Frida Egg Newsletter. We have all of our contributors, you know, Brendan me Garrett will Meg writing in there regularly. We also you know, Shane Bacon's writing there weekly as well as Joseph Lamania. So the Fridagg Newsletter is really hummon a lot of different perspectives. I think what we're trying to do is is get a variety of perspectives and you know, cover golf a little bit different way, and I think that's a good way to do it. To sign up for that, just go to the website, the Frida Egg dot com. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back next week. Garrett's unveiling his new weekly Tuesday show, so that's gonna be a new twist for this year. Garrett will be every Tuesday. I'll be doing interviews hopefully every Thursday. I gotta, i guess, start lining them up and knocking them out. But that's the plan is Garrett will have a show, I'll be doing interviews every Thursday. So thank you and we'll be back on Tuesday. Have a good weekend watching the players Championship.