Geoff Shackelford on the Distance Insights Report and the Premier Golf League

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at b dratty. I was down at the PGA show a couple of weeks ago. I was hanging out at the DREADI Den and all the Summach golf booths, and one of my favorite items that I came across was the Lawrence Lightweight vest. This is a b dratty piece. It's available on their website bdratty dot com. One of the neat things about this vest is it's reversible, so it's a very visually appealing vest. It's gonna keep you warm, and you know, one day it's navy, the next day it's great. So it gives you a lot of versatility. I mean, like nobody wants to be the blueberry wearing, you know, a blue vest with blue jeans or blue pants, navy khakis. So it lets you flip it inside out and all of a sudden it's a gray vest. So you can get the Lawrence Lightweight vest on bdratty dot com. I think we might add it to the pro shop in the near future. I think I got to get on that. But if you use the code fried Egg fifteen, you'll get fifteen percent off your purchase, So if you go check it out at bratty dot com or ask your pro shop about it. Today's episode is with renowned golf voice Jeff Shackleford. Jeff wrote a book, The Future of Golf, about fifteen years ago now that pretty much outlined all the things that golf's going through. So big news this week with the Distance Inside Report. Jeff and I talk about that for a very long time in this podcast, and then we also touch on the Professional Golf League or Premiere Golf League, not Professional Golf League. I don't know what I'm it's early in the morning here. Premiere Golf League, a story that Jeff has been on the forefront of chasing, reporting on the potential of a new golf tour. So a lot of kind of off the course things happening in golf right now. It's exciting. I think a lot of us have looked at the distance problem in golf for a long time. It's important to note the regular player that hits it two fifty isn't going to lose much too twenty If you hit it to twenty five, you're not going to lose much yardage. You know, we might lose a yard or two you're not even gonna notice. But we're hopefully going to see in the near future a game that isn't driver wedge when it holds four hundred and fifty yards four hundred and eighty yards. You know, you see these guys hitting driver wedge now, and it's really taken away from the from the golf courses and essential part of the game. So we outlined what the USGA talked about in their distance report and the PGL without further ado. Here is Jeff Shackelford. It's a green. For example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:03:04
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Egg, Friday, Frida Egg Egg Frida Egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.

00:03:30
Speaker 1: Just talking to that.

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Speaker 2: Oh testing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eighth the wound.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: You like apples, Rubbert cool? Do you like apples?

00:03:40
Speaker 2: I like apples?

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Speaker 1: You know I had a cosmic Chris.

00:03:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw your thing. Oh you found one today?

00:03:45
Speaker 1: I had it the other day.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw your thing. Why aren't you asking? Is this an ad for cosmic chris and for something?

00:03:52
Speaker 1: Think?

00:03:52
Speaker 2: How you warm up the show?

00:03:53
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get in with cost clearly.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's got try learning.

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Speaker 2: I will. You know. My ultimate test on those is I will I will get one I haven't seen one around here and take them out to one of the horses at Santa Anita and see how they like them. I feed apples to the horses.

00:04:10
Speaker 1: So do they like honey crisps?

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Speaker 2: They love honey Crisp. They also like the pink Lady, big big fans of both of those. Not every horse, but most love the honey Crisp.

00:04:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it's it's a rival.

00:04:24
Speaker 2: Then it's the most popular with thoroughbreds. Really, and I'm not joking. Yeah, the trainers will.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: Tell you that that's a Santa Anita. You're artist. Yeah, this, uh's cool. I had that article. I didn't realize that like every single race horse races at Santa Anita.

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Speaker 2: You mean over through the history of the Yeah, basically since Seabiscuit and in every great horse has been there. Yeah, it's an amazing place historically, and I used to get seventy five thousand for on a Saturday kind of thing. It's it's and it's a it's just a beautiful place. Yeah right, And and original track was on the side of Santa Anita Golf Course, which almost nobody knows, including at the racetrack. So that was a really fun part for Tommy and Ida start piecing together where the actual finish line was and all that. It's kind of crazy.

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Speaker 1: The perfect perfect Dan Hall is a is a turn in a horse track.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, yeah, it's a lovely d Dan. It's a you know, coculea approach kind of kills some things, but still a fun shot to hit.

00:05:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, so big news distance sagerpart didn't disappoint I.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: Don't think so. It disappointed some people. Apparently you've been reading the social stuff today. I've actually been reading the while you've been driving around my fair city and finding a nice place to stay. So yeah, I think it's a really interesting document. I'm about sixty pages in of the one hundred and two and this summary though, was particularly interest in the strength of the language.

00:06:02
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, so you fifteen years ago you wrote the Future of Golf.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I started writing a lot of those pieces early around two thousand and two thousand and one, and then they all kind of got put together and I added new ones for that book.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's got to be at least somewhat vindicated. Granted, way too late a lot of the things you were talking about in that book. I have come now where everybody's saying, hey, this is a problem.

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Speaker 2: Now, yeah, it is, especially you know when I think of a lot of the people who sort of poop pooed all these ideas or it's not a problem, or we're growing the game. You can't have a local rule and a competition ball and dumb things like that. Oh well, here we are in the statement laying the groundwork essentially for a competition ball via a local rule. So those things are fun to see how they've evolved in their thinking. It took way too long and it will take way too long to implement that, but it's something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the implementation process seems like it's going to be a lengthy one. I mean, yeah, a year to set parameters.

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Speaker 2: Now, well, yeah, we'll have the forty five days and we have the nine to twelve months. Then there's probably going to be a year of whining about how difficult it will be to retool machines or whatever it is that is determined to be the best remedy, and then we have to have some sort of transition period. I have a theory that I mentioned to Kyle Porter on his podcast today that there's a possibility with this local rule that and I have to read up more on sort of the dynamics of local rules and ask a few true rules experts, that this will just get circumvented, that that somebody will just say, well, we're just going to do the local rule part now, and then they're going to hope somebody makes the ball or all that knocks a certain something off that fits their golf course, and which is what I wrote about in the Future of Golf. I always thought of Pine Valley as Cyprus Point, an elite golf course, just like saw Spikes. You know, Riviera was really the place by necessity, because I was there and playing golf there at the time, and I was at the horrible ninety five PGA when the greens went bad and Riviera became one of the you know, two or three places where the people making sauce spikes said hey, it's okay for Riviera. Why are they bad for you? And look where we are now. Spikes are essentially gone except for elite professional golfers. And I could see the same influence that those great clubs have, where it's it's one of those name brand places that sets things in motion. And then and then the influencers of the world in that world say, gosh, we we we played a few We played one set of teas up and we played faster. It was a better day. It was no, we didn't feel like we lost something. We might even gain some things. And that's what it'll take. And I think it could happen to again sort of circumvent this timeline that they've laid out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll be the interesting thing. And I think then there's the flip side where there's always a fear of the PGA Tour saying well, we're not going to play by these roles and we're just going to create our own. But I don't think that would happen.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: I don't know that's the trick. The one thing that's interesting that I sense is there has been a change in player's attitude towards this. Again, fifteen years ago, no player other than Jack Nicholas and a handful old guys felt this way. Even Tiger and Phil, they've come to their stances more recently. I think Tiger less recently than Phil. But Phil has, you know, dabbled in understanding the skill part of this, and if he reads this report he'll see some things in there, as Will and Adam Scott as well. Those people who are really good ball strikers that feel like they're getting short at a little by equipment compensating for deficiencies in other people's games. Yeah.

00:10:12
Speaker 1: The I found an article months ago with Tiger in two thousand talking about the where it was going, and Frank Thomas, the then EXECU or the head of technology for the USJ was like, oh, it can't go any further than they are going now, which was like, that was like to me, the kind of smoking gun. And I think it's important to clarify. I think where most people's issues with rolling back a ball or going something with a decreased yardage as they say, well, I'm going to be affected, So yes, I this is bad because I need every yard I can get. And that's an extremely important point is that where the majority of these gains are happening is for somebody that swings it over one hundred ten miles an Now, yeah, and if you're swinging in one hundred and ten, you're usually going to be around a scratch player, so you know, in terms of loss. That was one of the things I found most interesting in the distance report from last year when I looked at read through it was that, you know, LPGA since that since the invention of the prov one gained three or four yards and then the web had gained about twenty, you know, and that that's where all the games are happening, and LPGA is much more indicative of the general public golf swing speed.

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Speaker 2: There's a line on page thirty one of the report, and just again I'm halfway through it, an increase in coefficient and restitution will yield a greater increase in distance for golfers with a higher clubhead speed than for those with a lower clubhead speed. And they just they just come right out and say it and make the case in a few of their graphs and different things about that, and it's it's a hard one for them to make, as you can imagine, because like you've noticed, people take it personally. They selfishly think that they've gained the same thing that Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka have gained with modern equipment, and so they have to make that case. But then they also can't be calling the manufacturers liars, you know. They have to be careful on that front too. So it's a tricky case for them to make. They probably need people like us to make it more than others. And then they also and it's not people are struggling with it today. I have nots. They're they're mentioning this tea thing that the people don't play the right teas enough, they play teas too long, which is sort of a subtle way of saying you're not as you really haven't gotten the games you think you've gotten. I don't know if that's that important of a case to making this to you.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Because people are always good if you took Yeah, they're always going to play the wrong always.

00:12:56
Speaker 2: And women are worse than men often, Yes, yeah, they're they're incredible, and they fight architects sometimes when you want to shorten their course. I mean, it's so it's it's male female, it's just it's just.

00:13:07
Speaker 1: I mean, golfer's almost like a you know, the senior senior mas like really struggle with moving. I remember playing golf with my grandpa. The first day he moved up to he basically moved up to the forward tea box. Yeah, he was like seventy eight at the time. He was always a good player, but like he you know, then he was hitting three greens around playing the regular teas. He moves up to the forward tees. He hits fourteen greens first first round out. She's like seventy five, and he was like, he was like, that was the most fun I've had on the golf course in ten years. And I'm never going back and playing, you know, back again. I'm playing up here forever. And it's it just I you know, I know where I want to play from and it's like seven thousand yards, but like that's a different But like if I if I hit it, if I played with a person and driver, I want to play like sixty five hundred, you know, it's I don't want to pay. You don't get think beat up is And that's the thing I think with everything is like I don't know if people are going to get worse at golf if you if you reverse everything to the to the smaller head and wound ball, spinny ball. I don't think people would be worse. I think they'd almost be better in a way, because their foul balls wouldn't be as dramatically out of the ballpark.

00:14:23
Speaker 2: I get no sense from what I've read so far that they're going to go after the size of the driver head. In fact, they make the case that it it really has not had maybe the influence that some of us think it has. But they do get into c R and the in the club head in the face more than anything on that, and there's some really I mean, this is the the report is very well put together, but so far, obviously where I'm at, it's pretty clear that that the face of the driver and the aerodynamics of the ball and the dimple pattern of the ball are the things that really stand out in their writings as things that they see as as as giving those elite players huge jumps in distance versus the rest of us. So it's really easy to read this and imagine just changing the dimple pattern of the ball alone, they almost sense would be enough, but not quite. So it's an interesting case they make. You know, early on, you see a building towards the golf ball. Yeah.

00:15:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the driver head, in my just personal opinion, the size of it allows you to.

00:15:42
Speaker 2: Just lash at it well.

00:15:44
Speaker 1: And I agree that's the as of that.

00:15:47
Speaker 2: They get into a little bit here again because this is so well done, but it's they're not seeing the numbers that back up that it. It increases that there's an increase in clubhead speed thanks to that size. Again, I'm not done with it, but that that's to me was interesting because I kind of I really expected a little bit more focus on that, but they have so much great research on other things that it starts to become apparent that that was not that important and very hard to measure. By the way, too, how do you measure that? The other thing it's a real interesting killer in here is you they're not seeing uh there are there aren't great numbers to back up that. Launch monitors have really made a huge difference on distance.

00:16:34
Speaker 1: Interesting.

00:16:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's an interesting thing. It's very very recent too, I historically compared to other things.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: To me, it's changed the way the technique of the golf swings changed so much.

00:16:45
Speaker 2: No question, I mean it's changed a lot of things, but in terms of what they're looking at distance, the actual pure numbers, there's not a huge correlation between that and a big jump.

00:16:57
Speaker 1: So when they're they're talking about dimple pattern yeah, is that to changing the dimple patterns to make it less aerodynamic? Yeah, and that would probably create more spin, all correct.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: Those are the two things there. It is aero dynamics and lower spin right right there I wrote down I mean it, so they have very good data on that.

00:17:16
Speaker 3: So that's where it's kind of centering around.

00:17:19
Speaker 1: Is bringing back spin and less distance, Yeah, which is I mean a tremendous change.

00:17:25
Speaker 2: And then that and that will then probably bleed down to that idea of that player being able to swing more freely. Suddenly thinking about it a little bit more, maybe.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the ball spins more, you're not going to be able to swing as hard of it at it with.

00:17:40
Speaker 2: That, or your miss is going to be more violent, which is what we've lost. And not that I want to bring back the violent miss for most of us, but you see it in today's players. They just don't play in fear of some of the misses that people used to play in fear of.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: I think the violent miss for the regular golfers changed, where now the violent myths is just straight blocks.

00:18:04
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a block instead of a duck hook into a duck hook or or wondering. Yeah, I mean the block goes so far the duck hook is. Really it's just it was such a vile thing. It's just so vile. It was like, it's worse than a shank in a lot of ways. If you ever lived through that time, and it would just come out of nowhere. Sometimes it was so awful.

00:18:22
Speaker 1: I was texting with somebody it's the last night about this, and uh, I said to him, I said, you know, I want my kids, when they're standing on a tee at a high school match, to just, you know, that first tee to just be terrified of the one hundred yard ducks.

00:18:39
Speaker 2: That's so awful.

00:18:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a part, it was a core part of my childhood.

00:18:43
Speaker 2: And it did make you a stronger person. There's no question it humbles you. You know, that's one thing we wonder and they don't address that in this report, But there has been a change in how elite players are humbled by the game. They're less humbled by it. It just doesn't happen as much.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't remember last time I hit like just a cold duck.

00:19:01
Speaker 2: Hook Jordan Speath that won last year at Riviera.

00:19:05
Speaker 3: Scott did one at the Presence first tea.

00:19:08
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, that went off the first tea. That was awful. That that was with an iron though, right or was it? It was awful? Yeah, that was one of the rare duck hooks you'll see, especially amazing for him. But speak at went off thirteen last year and I turned to somebody said, that's the first time I've seen one of those quackers like that. I mean low and a hook, you know, a smother low hook and it it and he was It took a few holes. He it shook him. He made par By the way.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: Well, the next the thing that happens after the snap hook is that you're guaranteed to hit one away.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: Right shove it. Yeah. But anyway, they don't address any of these dynamics, and how can you there's no way, but they address a lot. It's really well done.

00:19:47
Speaker 1: So one of the things from the summary that I found most impactful, and the thing that I didn't I was really impressed that they were thinking of, is here's the passage for a course of say six thousand to sixty five hundred yards. The issue is not about hosting elite male events, but about potentially losing the ability to attract and keep golfers who may come to perceive the courses too short from the longest tease. Even if not widely known or used for premier tournaments, such courses can be highly valued by local golfers and communities and are risk of increased hitting distances.

00:20:25
Speaker 3: And I think this is spot on.

00:20:27
Speaker 1: Like I think of all the great like accessible, cheap, Golden age golf courses and the number one complaint and the where they lose businesses to the championship course down down the street. And this to me is the biggest thing, because all of sudden, smaller courses become the real golf course instead of like, oh, like nobody's gonna go play the seventy two hundred yard course if they're you know, losing in all sudden, sixty five hundred yards is a great test. Again, and from the sustainability standpoint, I mean that's the I mean kind of the big thing is where the games it's just affordable, you know, less inputs, I mean with the environmental stuff going on, it all sudden, makes golf a little bit more with the times.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: It was an interesting kind of surprising thing for them to make. And you watch, there'll be some people who go, we have a we have a championship course, and now you're gonna make us obsolete by by reducing distance, And of course you then you want to say, well, then you can just play up. It's easy to play up, it's hard to go back. And I thought that was really interesting because we all know of those places that have struggled to get funding or get traction that needed because people look at that scorecard yardage and go, well, it's it's it's outdated, it's too short, and that's just so bad for the game. So I thought them taking on a little bit of that business perspective of the course owner who has this place that's outdated, which you could say the same, you know, for the place that's fifty nine hundred that's really off people's radar. Now, I thought that was fantastic one of the interesting things. So on that point, and I need to read this a little bit more because this is just a shocking thing to me that, based on their computations, one hundred yards of additional course length corresponds to eight additional acres of total footprint and zero point seven additional acres of fairway. Each of these has cost implications. Eight acres just one hundred yards more on a golf course to them is eight acres. I find that I'm struggling with that number, but I mean, these are well thought out and it's part of a bigger case. But that's an amazing number. And you probably could piece or pick a course apart shorten it, look at the footprint and say, okay, go design a course thinking sixty three hundred yards in seat of seventy three hundred on this property, and you probably would find that you don't need well, that you don't need another twenty thirty acres at least, and that's probably fudging it, where you're really making the fairways wide and using the land as much as you want. And that's something that's been so hard to convey to people. And it's for instance, back to Tiger. Where did Tiger come around on this? I have no doubt. Obviously one it was it was seeing certain people and the way the game was played being elevated by equipment. But I have no doubt it really came from sitting and working with his architects and looking at a piece of property and finding out the things you couldn't do, you know, where you say, oh, that's going to be a great short part five and they say, well, Tiger, it's going to be for eighty. It has to be a part four. And once you go through that exercise, it really annoys you that you know, what great holes are being lost and what fun is being lost in this effort to for a developer and to check off all these boxes to make a course work. Yeah.

00:24:22
Speaker 1: The other thing is from a perspective of like, you know, think about iconic Championship of course Marion one hundred and twenty acre one hundred and five really probably with just the golf course versus Aaron Hills six hundred.

00:24:36
Speaker 2: Acres two point two miles from clubhouse to sixteen t.

00:24:42
Speaker 1: And you think about that, just that land use, it's just a you know, I think the important thing is that wider courses we're not talking about. We're talking about just pure land use.

00:24:55
Speaker 2: You know.

00:24:55
Speaker 1: It's like that eight acres per one hundred yards is incredible, you know.

00:24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then all the costs of moving vehicles around that bigger footprint. I mean, they get into some of those things and clearly had great cooperation from the GCSA and the ASGCA, and they both issued statements backing up this report today. So they have an incredible information here for the people wanting to know the actual costs of expanding the footprint of golf.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: Ian Andrew had always I saw him on Twitter always banging the drama of like with how far the ball is going? It's impossible to make it course even safe?

00:25:36
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, and I haven't seen anything yet on safety, but absolutely it's a huge problem.

00:25:41
Speaker 1: And that's the other thing is like where you see tree plantings and stuff that a lot of times you're like, why is this treet here?

00:25:47
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, there's a te over there. It's to stop, you know.

00:25:50
Speaker 1: And there are just like little things like that. And I saw and I saw somebody else that said that their club spend you know, twenty grand per new tea box. All right, and you're talking about okay, like it's only courses with championship aspirations. It's not necessarily I know a course in Chicago, you know that is a Western am you know, one one time host of the Western Am they're thinking about building like three or four new tea boxes. That's that's almost one hundred grand right there. Yeah, and these costs get passed on. And that's obviously a private club, they get passed on the membership. But when you start going around to public golf courses that feel like they need hey we need seven thousand yards, so they start adding tea boxes, those costs get passed on directly to the consumer, you know they do.

00:26:35
Speaker 2: And then if liability insurance is going up, that's an if you talk to somebody like Dana Garminy who was the CEO, longtime CEO of Truon, they have issues with with insurance and neighbors that they didn't used to have when the course was created. But a housing development golf course suddenly homes that weren't getting golf balls or getting home balls, corners of dog legs suddenly or have changed. And then safety is a huge, huge issue. So I don't see much yet in the report, but I haven't gotten in the last half, but that is something that driving ranges, it's been a problem.

00:27:17
Speaker 1: You know, range is a huge problem.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, And how many places have expanded their range and changed compromise holes just to keep there because people do want to hit driver at the range. But think again the change you have to make in terms of space. By the way, Tory pines last week or whatever that was now it's almost two weeks. But something I've never seen before there at the driving range on the main tee, they had a little one of those little nettings about three and a half feet high in front of the tee because there's a tea at the other end of the range and the balls to stop the balls from running up on the tee where the players are hitting ball. Never seen that before, Tory pintes, first time ever.

00:28:03
Speaker 1: It's creat I mean, I think about there's a range that I've gone to my whole life, double sided and after college, you know, I'm like, if I really was hitting a good downwind, I could get to the other side, I could roll balls up. And now you know I'm not, I'm in worst shape, play less, you know, And I'm like, I can hit it up out of that range all the time. And this is after the said you know, this ball's not going to go further.

00:28:32
Speaker 2: We've reached the limit.

00:28:33
Speaker 1: These are the limits have been reached. But still ball keeps going further, and that was you know, and people can say, oh, that's just your person, but like I think it's around everybody. You know, you're seeing You're seeing senior tour guys hit it further than they've ever hit in their career. Oh yeah, and and so it'll be I mean, what what legitimately you know you alluded to possibly a club club's taking the taking the lead. I think everything points to Augusta National.

00:29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I David Normoil has always said, why why can't we have a Saint Andrew's ball? That should be the that should be the place you use. And the RNA has really changed their stance under Martin Slumbers And even from the beginning of Martin's tenure to today, they've changed because Martin has is a really smart man and as an open mind his predecessor did not, uh, and so it's been fun for me to watch his tone change on this topic. And you know, to me, Saint Andrews is the thing that should be used as the as as how we gauge so that we don't have tea's on other golf courses there. But as you say, ultimately the one that has the influence on this is Augusta National and will they will they? What will they do? And you know this timing that we're looking at. They just don't want to make a master's ball, even though it'd probably be that it would it would sell Oh my gosh, they sell a lot of them.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: They could they could become probably the dominant golf golf ball brand for.

00:30:13
Speaker 2: I mean course immediately. Yeah, they could do it. I mean whoever does it first, will could has a chance to be the one if they do it right. They package it right, the aerodynamics and everything are done right, so it plays like a good ball. It just it just doesn't have you know, it's not a it doesn't have that driving range, limited flight ball.

00:30:34
Speaker 1: They have the lack of durability like.

00:30:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know they can all do this and they've already probably all done it. But I don't get and I've never gotten why there isn't that one company that just says, you know, history shows if you're the first and you do it right for the most part, you are the one that becomes the leader in the categories. You know, Apple, the people at Apple would say otherwise that they tend to wait watch what people do and then they refine it. And and I could certainly see somebody like Titleists not wanting to be the first but but but already having the patents and figured it out and coming in and being the one. But Augusta has that ability, and I I, I mean, I just know they don't want to add any length to thirteen. I just know it. You can see it. It'll be ugly, it'll look wrong, and it's just obnoxious to have to do it to them. But uh, it's a it's a it's a tricky spot that they're in.

00:31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah Ridley's comments last year, oh yeah, yeah. And I think in terms of it.

00:31:40
Speaker 2: And by the way, another person who's since I wrote The Future of Golf has has his position has evolved. When he was a USGA president, this was not something he wanted to he was open about. I don't believe so so with that. And I'm saying that as a compliment. I mean, good for him for coming around. But again, somebody who once he had control of the Championship Committee and dealt with these things and now is the chairman there it it. You know, he's he knows this issue really well.

00:32:10
Speaker 1: I mean, something had to give. We saw why they shoot twenty seven under at Medina last year.

00:32:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, that got a lot of people's attention. I think that was especially because everybody who was there said the rough was insane. Yeah, it was thick, it was insane, and and but they just made mince mean of Medona, one of the hardest places on the planet, and they just they just ate it up.

00:32:32
Speaker 1: Decade shot soft, but Decie shot two sixty threes.

00:32:36
Speaker 3: They had the of course record broken three straight days.

00:32:39
Speaker 2: Nuts. It's I think.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: That that there's the last year I think was really kind of pivotal because we saw and something that will be compelling to watch is the impact. So I did a podcast with this guy, a Ian Fillmore. He's an economist PhD from University of Chicago. He studied rackets and in tennis and how it led to this three two to two to four generations where it basically flips everything on its head. And you can see it because the era of players that had to switch equipment like early in their career or like you know, for me example, in high school, my era of say six years around my age three on each side, there are no top twenty players of all time. They're either older they're Phill's age and tiger, or they're younger.

00:33:40
Speaker 2: Okay, so that.

00:33:41
Speaker 1: Era we had to reach, conclude, we basically had to relearn. So if they if they flip this and the ball starts spinning more goes shorter. We could see a similar impact where all of a sudden, the players that are, say in high school now, are disadvantage because players younger and them are not having to relearn how to play the game wrong, you know, And that that's the kind of compelling thing to watch, is how if if this gets put into place, say in the next five years, how it impacts who the best players in the world are.

00:34:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not buying at all the arguments that have been floated, and I finally, I just I just couldn't. I couldn't stand reading it any longer. That that we can't make this change, because we will we will just send a group of young players adrift and they will never be able to recover from this this horror, which is just it's just nuts. I mean, then nobody's proposing a change that is so drastic icense. Now, the driver head size, if that changed substantially, obviously, that would have a huge impact.

00:34:49
Speaker 1: I saw that with the European Tour video right right.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: And that Lucas Herbert Mike Clayton video. Every time we've seen it where you put that smaller head. Yeah, And so even those who want to see a driver head change, nobody's talked about going knocking one hundred and fifty ccs off the thing. It's it's probably seventy five. It's it's not just just a little bit. It just love to see it. I just love to see the results. But nobody wants to go to the trouble to make those things. And I mean Taylor made has a two wood, and I know Tiger tested it, but there's some interesting things on that too that I don't think it made a whole bit a lot of difference. But to your point about players, I just think people can adjust faster than a lot of I think it's an excuse. It's it's we're reaching desperation level stages of excuses to not act, and we're gonna hear a lot of crazy ones in the next year. But if you follow this at any length of time, you've heard most of them already. I mean, the one thing I started skimming in the report about the agronomy stuff which they had to give they have to give time to. But I just get bored with the it's the agronomy, it's the role. I mean, it's just so shallow. The golf courses have never been more lush, and if you watch old videos, the ball used to roll forever so and it's just it's a hard thing to decipher. They tried, it's just not the everybody carries the ball now so far, it's just don't give me the role argument. But I think players will be able to adjust. And to your point, and I started trying to research this, but I think what's really interesting about Tiger and Phil in your example is that I believe there's a case. And in this report also starts to highlight that that no two all time great players have faced bigger changes from the start of their career to where they are now in equipment and remained well. First of all, nobody's ever they've never their careers are unique in that way right there, and then they've remained relevant with the changes. And that's an amazing statement about how talented they are. Because you go through Nicholas, you go through every great player. Bobby Jones retired when steel shafts started to become a thing, and he played them, but wasn't It wasn't he wasn't like he had to adapt to them right in the middle of his incredible run. So I can't if somebody, maybe there's somebody in the the Haskell era, but I don't know of anybody who's done what they've done.

00:37:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Tiger, I.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Mean Tiger Star with Persimmon and heavy steel shafts. And he still plays blade irons obviously, but again the grips, the shafts, everything. I mean.

00:37:44
Speaker 1: Davis Love when he won his first time, was playing a per Simmon driver.

00:37:48
Speaker 2: Correct. He might be one other player in that league who and he also held on very long.

00:37:54
Speaker 1: He held on long to the personmon. But when Tiger beat him in that at Vegas, right, Love was playing the.

00:38:02
Speaker 2: You know that was the last PGA Tour win with Persimmon.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: Right, I think it might have been ninety seven, there was, I believe it was.

00:38:11
Speaker 2: I don't know, Tom Tite might have won with well, yeah.

00:38:15
Speaker 1: I want to say the last holdout holdout was mac O'Grady.

00:38:20
Speaker 2: Well, that's yeah, he doesn't.

00:38:22
Speaker 1: He does it for different reasons.

00:38:24
Speaker 2: In two thousand. What do you mean? No, No, he he still plays the last few years. I don't know about last year, I don't I don't remember seeing his name. But in recent years he's been playing LA Open qualifying and maybe even local US Open qualifying with with the old clubs. What a legend, oh man, what a what? I took took two lessons from him. Uh three, actually the third one we were doing the work at LA Country Club and I went back. He was working with some members and uh, yeah, I've been out there. I had my boots on. I was out painting lines on bunkers and he goes, I want to see a hit of you. I go, Mac, I've been going all that. I don't play much anymore. No, no, I want to see you want to? You want to? You want to work with me? He was great to me. Uh, he's a he's an amazing mine. I just wish, uh, I wish we could get more out of him. Uh. He has a lot of interesting thoughts on the game. But I know his wife and I don't know he's been doing as well. I don't know why he's been very I mean he's always been a mysterious figure. But but but he would be another one. I don't know, he might take some odd odd stances on this, but he is somebody who's passionate about that era of equipment. So it's it's uh, it's gonna be fun to watch how players react, I think. But we started to talk about earlier. I think a lot of players nice fried egg socks, by the way, are those in the shop? Are they? Those? Are just people buy me TJ Max kind of thing.

00:39:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, people if somebody fried egg socks that buy him for me.

00:39:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nice, that's nice. But I think it's gonna be fun to watch the player reaction because I've seen a change in the last ten twelve years, but especially in the last two or three, where guys are no longer just oh no, we're great athletes. You got to let this happen. This is this is just the natural evolution of the game. I don't I don't hear those arguments as much anymore. I see more and more players troubled by it. And sometimes it's just slow play. Sometimes you take them through the way at Riviera around is now a half hour longer because of three holes, that kind of thing, and they're like, yeah, that's ridiculous. We don't need and no, and we don't need. We don't need the tenth to be a part three.

00:40:35
Speaker 1: Explain this because I don't think people fully understand the slow play aspect of it, especially in the PG On the PGA.

00:40:42
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, they always blame field size, which will be fun here Riviera this year because we're reducing the field and I don't know if we'll see the rounds get much faster. But I've been going to Los Angeles Open there. I mean, the first picture of me is in nineteen seventy four there, so I don't really remember that one too well. Goodyear though, Sam Sneaed and Dave Stockton. But since I've been going early eighties and can remember stuff, everything had been about the same. And you know, seventeen the par five was generally reachable by one or two guys in each era. Weiss Cough then John Day, Tom Layman got home in two a couple of times, couples a few times. It was it was a big deal when somebody got home and two there. But every generation there was a guy who could do it. They've lengthened the hole and now seventeen and probably a third to half the field can get home in two. The eleventh hole, again a hole that was a stout par five at five sixty, that one now is reachable by just about everybody.

00:41:45
Speaker 1: People don't even hit driver because they can hit it into the downwind.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: Correct. A couple of guys probably think about, oh, that's that's I gotta lay back, which is unbelievable as somebody who's played that, I mean that we used to worry about that from the white tea. They've lenked in the hole a little bit, and they've lowered the tee all this other stuff. So those two holes, which went from being two of the most you know, stout par fives on the tour.

00:42:12
Speaker 1: And you think about the number of groups you could have on a par five. It's a two shot hole versus a three shot hole.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: And all it takes is one guy in a group and they play three soomes on the West Coast Swing to make everybody wait. So those two holes have added the wait times. There are fifteen minutes each, sometimes ten, well, let's say ten each. Now the tenth hole has become a part three. Almost every player in the field can reach it with a driver. Some guys hit three wood and can reach it a hit and some guys are hand pitch something tired. Yeah, well that's just he's a freak.

00:42:49
Speaker 1: But that's what Tiger was a freak twenty years ago, right, And that's the reality is Tiger was a freak. And now there's forty tigers. Right is if you look at watch college golf, they're longer than the correct There are more camera champs coming coming.

00:43:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a part three. So the entire field weights. You'll get sometimes two groups on that hole so you can get up. That adds twenty minutes. That's a solid The way they play the tenth hole, the way they wait, everything about it solid twenty minutes. It's added to the round there. So there's thirty to forty minutes have been added to the round on those three holes, all because more players can hit shots that force waiting.

00:43:29
Speaker 1: So in turn that event, you know they could never get in darkness always always darkness shortened round, after darkness short round. And now we see instead of being one of the premier open events, it's a small invitational.

00:43:43
Speaker 2: Right, So since nineteen twenty six it's been open in the In the late twenties, they played one hundred and fifty six players, and a lot of those people were not very good. Hickorys and beginning of steel shafts at Riviera, which was really hard when it opened. Bobby Jones lamon that it was too hard. There's a famous story that who knows if it's true, it's Walter Hagen, but he had a kid light newspapers on fire to be able to finish. So they were having trouble finishing then, But that was in January when the days are half hour forty five minutes shorter. One hundred and fifty six players on a brutal golf course then and they were able to finish. Now we're down to one hundred and twenty trying to get around, So we've lost a couple of qualifying spots. I think they could have found a way to retain them, but that's a whole other political issue. But the point is the view has been the field size is why you can't why you needed to do this to make the tournament work. And they may be right, but those holes that where we've added those weights, those weights are still going to be there this year.

00:44:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean you're right. Tenth is a part three. Everybody has it. It's unbelievable to look at the shot link patterns from two thousand and six today. Yeah, it's it went from that where littered with choice to a one dimensional hit it here, hit it there.

00:45:01
Speaker 2: It's gonna be kind of freakish this year because Andy, you're here today on one of the coldest days we've had. We're gonna have really cold nights the next few days, and that poet is just gonna be shut down. It's gonna be and I don't think we're gonna an me rain. It's gonna be so fast and so firm. The greens. It's been very borderline the last few years in terms of freakishness because they took the collars down and the balls just can run anyway. It's going to be very interesting now that it's supposed to be pretty cold next week, so they may not hit it as far, but there's gonna be some major going back and forth. And it's just that hole is getting kind of freakish. It's getting it's it's getting away from what it was supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah, the sand build up too, from well, they took some of that down, which is what's made it more extreme in the last ten.

00:45:50
Speaker 3: Years really more extreme.

00:45:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when I played there, the bunkers had come up, and then the bunker edge and the collar came up a little bit, so they stopped balls. It wasn't a bowl effect, but it kept you from kind of going back and forth. And now they've taken those down mom tight. They stop rolling them. The last two years it got a little silly with the rolling, and so it's now a crowned effect on the last half of the green and that's why the players, I think, have kind of gotten to the point where they I mean had a really fun argument with Jordan Speith last year on the Tuesday practice round. There was nobody out there. I happen to be walking by, and then he saw me watching him hit a wedge in and he hit it about a foot. He laid up perfectly, hit a foot and he goes, what would you do here? And I said, well, I do what you just did here to the lay up every time he went now, and then he went up to the little bottle brush trees and started dropping shots and hitting these shots for the tea shot to drive it. And so I walked up there and after about like the fourth one, and our fifth one, and Cameron McCormick was, there's nobody else around, and I go, let me ask you, why do you do this? Why do you bring why do you bring five or six into a into play? And he had a good rationales. A lot of guys do like, well, I don't if I lay up, there's there's gonna be the possibility of bringing that number in with a bad webshot or whatever. And I'm like, well, you just hit one a foot. You're really good with a wedge. But it's a mentality that's sort of borne out of way they change the green, that that they'd rather just be up there with something with some loft or a bump and run under the trees than they would hitting it from the perfect layup spot. And part of it is a green and then part of it is kind of the deterioration of of wedge play from from one ten to seventy sixty yards by the modern tour player. They're just not as good. And part of it maybe the ball.

00:47:46
Speaker 1: I think the wedges to become higher hit because of the ball, there's less spin, there's less spin control.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're just not as good as they used to be. Whether it's I don't think it's from lack of practice or skill, it's just it's a tougher shot to play then. I mean, literally, how many guys can you you'd like to drop from one hundred yards and you know they're going to be amazing me. It's like Zach Johnson still speed stricker. That's not it, Tiger I was talking.

00:48:10
Speaker 1: Zach has always told me whenever he plays with ballattas, He's like, God, it's just so much easier to hit wedges. I wish I could just place to put these balls down in tournaments to hit wedges with them, because of how like how much control he's got over flight and spin versus the you know, the standard. And I think that's one of the things that gets lost is like, Okay, so you're the ball is not going to go as far, but it should introduce if it's spinning more and going less, it should introduce more interest in the game, like just over our all shot making. If somebody we saw Tiger do it at Royal Melbourne where he was the only one moving the ball and sure enough the most dominant player in the field, And I think that's the stuff that we've lost that's going to come back if we get whenever we get to this ball.

00:48:58
Speaker 2: And that's the mystery of the PGA tourist position, and it exposes how little a lot of the people actually just go out and watch golf. Because they went out and watch golf, and you want to hear oohs and ahs from people. You actually at a tournament literally hear gaffs or oohs and ahs when a player controls and spins the ball, hits a great recovery shot, shapes the ball. When Bubba is on and he's doing what he does, and you know, he starts one over your heads and people just go nuts because it's so cool. I mean, I mean, for me it was Ray Floyd and Bruce Letsky watching them just hit these things that went out and moved, and Trevino is so cool and people admire control. Those are the shots, Those controlled shots, the recovery shots, the spin, the spin from crazy places.

00:49:47
Speaker 3: Powering long irons even and then.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: Yes, and then occasionally when people see a hard shot, they recognize that. And then we saw Capitollo this year. Those balls had just got on the green on eighteen and two. That was rewarding to watch that was cool. And so this idea that that drives and wedges and power resonate. If you go to a tournament, you just know what people they react more to those things because that's where the great player. You go, oh my gosh, they have things, they have skills I can't comprehend. And that's that's beautiful. We want that, and they just they're it's like they're oblivious to that.

00:50:25
Speaker 1: Well, it's the idea. If you think about the most iconic sport moments, moments in sports, it's it's athletes overcoming obstacles and challenges and when you you know, and this is really what the USGA. I couldn't believe when we got got that the summary laid out just so as like we believe that, you know, we're losing skill essentially, Yeah, we're losing the chal the assence of the game. And I could I couldn't agree more from a personal standpoint, Like is if you go play a sixty eight hundred yard course and you hit it moderately longs to driver wedge and it's like, okay, I didn't hit any iron more than a seven iron unless it was on a t right, you know, And that's become the PGA Tour, and you could see it in their social strategy is all about distance, all about distance, but like that's the least interesting shot. And the thing is when you watch a ball take off, you have no clue how far the ball's actually going, regardless, like nobody knows how far the ball's going.

00:51:26
Speaker 2: I would love to do a focus group where you take a Dustin Johnson. You have him hit you know, ten balls, and five of them are with a limited flight ball and he hits it two ninety five and then the other ones are three thirty. I really wonder how much people would be able to tell the difference first and what would be the reward of that. The much more fun thing is the fan is the next shot where you see him get there in two and the ball just trickles. I mean, the most amazing shot I saw last year, and I talked about a little bit with Joelicavo. I was trying to see if there was something to tie player, because Tiger had an amazing little run after the rain to Lay on Saturday and it was just the coolest afternoon. The people were just going nuts to see him do what he did. And there was a shot on eleven. He got home in two. It was late light, pin was in the front right goofy little hard pin to even get close, tough a with a wedge, and he just hit this beautiful fairway wood I think it was the five wood cut. It went high, intentionally, tried to hit it high to just get it to landsoft, and it was just such an incredible shot and the people who were there were just you know, yeah, he made great pots. He made five birdies in a row, but it was that where people just just were, you know, looking at each other and talking about it. Then we're talking about the t shot and so that's the stuff where you just you it's and now we have the technology and television with with with tracer, different camera angles, shot link to tell those stories even better. But still ultimately people see it. You know, at Augusta, What's what gets people going, Not that the three hundred yard drive on eleven. It's the incredible shot in or.

00:53:07
Speaker 3: Just getting up and down from way right of ten.

00:53:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, when the ball is moving on it well.

00:53:13
Speaker 2: And then there it's of course when the ball lands and feeds. That's the greatest moment at the Masters, and the ball barely moves now t to fringe there because the way they mow the grass, it's amazing. What that does? I mean, that place would be it would get so hard if they could just mow the fairways the old way and take thirty yards off the drives, because the ball would be running again. It would be it would it would It would be such a test of skill.

00:53:38
Speaker 1: Again, say if you did it based off percentage, and we're going to say with this percentage, if you don't swing at one hundred and ten miles an hour, you're not seeing much of a reduction, right, So like this is the important probably none. So if you hit it two fifty, you're probably gonna hit it two forty seven.

00:53:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.

00:53:57
Speaker 1: But if you say, say at the professional level, what percent would you would like to see, you know, knocked off? What do you think is the right per It.

00:54:04
Speaker 2: Seems like it's about it somewhere like six to eight percent. It seems like to me ten ten starts to get again, depending on how you're doing it and what you're and how you're attacking the knockoff. But from an architecture point of view, I mean ten percent would be amazing, that would be, But it might be a tall ask, yeah, because that might scare people. I mean it did when Nicholas threw it out there.

00:54:28
Speaker 1: Maybe the answer is the progressive.

00:54:31
Speaker 2: Well, I think if again, if it's done right with the ball, it may be it may be done that way. It may if the design of the dimple pattern or whatever it is. This, I mean, I still would love to see a slightly larger ball tested. The magna, the Callaway X top Flight Magna. I've had a friend put that on. Oh no, they brought it back. You know when did they bring it back last year? And I got in, you know, Hank Haney. I was arguing with him on that, and I said, Hank, because he's always thought the ball should be at bit bigger because same thing, it wouldn't affect the distance of the average guy, but it would. I mean, he wasn't thinking of it that reason. He was thinking of it for short game, for it just be easier for people. Slightly larger ball. So they brought that ball back. It's it's been very quiet. But a friend of mine has a teaching studio on track Man. I asked him to work that in and and he showed me, sent me a lot of numbers that were interesting and it really had no impact on the the average guy and only at the high end clubhead speeds. Was that slightly larger ball an issue. So, but they don't get into that into the dimensions much. It could still be a sensitive topic between the RNA and the USGA with the old British ball. I don't know what, uh so.

00:55:43
Speaker 1: Venues you know, essentially wooden bats from baseball where you know, wooden baths save I kind of got I kind of stadiums like regularly feel you know, it's my home Fenway, right, and safety issue as well, so with yeah, huge safety for this, especially for this pictures. I couldn't imagine being picture that was aluminum with h with golf, what are what are some venues off the top of your head that become all of a sudden opportunities for major champions, say it's say it's sixty eight.

00:56:19
Speaker 2: Percent, gosh, I don't know, I have to think I'd have to look at a list because you know, I just look at more places like Wilshire here in LA where it can host the women used to host the LA Open. Obviously could probably not do it now because of the needs of a tournament. But it certainly couldn't host the.

00:56:41
Speaker 1: US I am though.

00:56:42
Speaker 2: No, No, And that's probably the more interesting one to start thinking of the places because because you know, like bel Air was interested in the US Amateur, they'd average like three point two on the first hole. It's a part five, you know. I mean, so bel Air's probably outdated, which is frightening. You know, it hosted a US amate in nineteen six, twenty six. It can't host it now probably, I mean, they have the stroke play portion there.

00:57:05
Speaker 1: But Kalinchihan reached out to the ncaa IS about having Yale NTA Championships at Yale, and they said that they needed I think four hundred.

00:57:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, wells organization. They do a horrible job of course set up in the NCAAs too.

00:57:19
Speaker 3: But I think about that Yale which was you know.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, which should be just fine.

00:57:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not anymore, you know.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think that's what's most interesting when you start thinking about like places that used to host oh yeah, no chance, you know US Open qualifiers that don't anymore. Uh, there are a lot of places that just just don't I mean.

00:57:43
Speaker 1: The player that sawgrass would be so much more.

00:57:46
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, because the driver back and taking driver out of their hands. They tried to get it back a little last year, and I think it worked little. They took the rough down, but it's still it doesn't really, it's still so short that the driver is just the power game is muted there, and they play that up as one of the great attributes of that course, that it has such a variety of winners. But I would counter that, actually, it would be more interesting if a long hitter on his game, having a great week like Greg Norman did a long time ago, where he just completely dismantled that course in the field with his driver because he was so accurate and so long. And yeah, I was soft that year and I can't remember it was a twenty four hunder. I can't remember the score, but I remember at the time because he the driver was a legitimate weapon, it should be. We don't want to change that.

00:58:46
Speaker 1: This is an important point that everybody's like, oh, you're just going after the long nun No.

00:58:50
Speaker 2: No. In fact, I think more long hitters have recently figured out they're getting screwed. I think Rory McElroy has finally realized, wait a second, I have a skill here, Adam Scott, I know did came to that conclusion. I think Phil has talked about it at Medina right right right, So there are guys who are now starting to figure that out. It's like, wait a second, he shouldn't be within ten yards of me.

00:59:13
Speaker 1: I've watched a BMW. I was watching Rory play with Ali Schneider Jans and somebody else at Conway three years ago, and I remember, you know, Alie Schneider Chance is hitting it and he's a great player, you know, but Rory Roy's the greatest driver of the golf ball we've may ever seen. And I'm watching Ali just like drive it fifteen yards past him casually and like right.

00:59:39
Speaker 3: Up, and I'm just thinking of my head.

00:59:40
Speaker 1: I'm like, this just isn't right. These guys aren't in the same stratosphere and this guy's you know, and I'm thinking, and I was like, how do how does Rory not see this?

00:59:51
Speaker 2: I think a lot of these guys it takes some time, it takes some rounds like that where they'll just say, well, that's not right, you know that, how can he be doing that? I think that's why it'll be interesting to watch. Is this report none of these guys will read this report, and I don't blame I mean, they have better things to do than read. Yeah, they do. They don't read anything, most of them. So they read Twitter headlines like most athletes. And that's fine. Whatever they have they have, that's this is their job. I understand they're not going to sit and read a report, but I do think that it will be fun to watch the reactions to the discussion from players, because I've since there has been a change, and you know, when Tiger's out there making this case, a lot of them simply just take their their lead from him and think, well, wait a second, why would why would he have this view? And it's not his is somewhat selfish, no question, like all of them like but but like Nicholas and Bobby Jones, it really ultimately is not selfish. It's they have a vision and ability to see a lot of different elements of the game. They've dabbled in course design or really worked in course design, and they all all three the three greatest ever. Hogan's the only kind of great player really just didn't have any affinity for architecture and didn't talk about the distance topic, and it wasn't a big deal in the in the at that era. Yeah, but those three all do, they all have common bonds. They all said similar things and and it's really interesting that that people then over time have sort of poo pooed that they've just oh, well, they're just Jack just was mad because he never made a good ball.

01:01:31
Speaker 1: And I don't know what people were saying that Tiger's saying that because he's he's old.

01:01:36
Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard that.

01:01:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, it's just like, are you kidding because he's.

01:01:39
Speaker 2: He's getting passed by, and it's like, no, it's a little more complicated than that. He it's a little more refined and sophisticated, and from a point of view, he could be way more selfish about it. But it's it's bigger than himself.

01:01:53
Speaker 1: Because Tiger and Scott both said stuff after Medina and that was is that both of them are over the hill, and it's like, well, you know, Adam Scott had the best statistical season of his career last year, So.

01:02:04
Speaker 2: It hits them all a long way and distance is not an issue for him. But but what is an issue for him? I know because I've talked to him about it. Uh, is he just he is he finds it revolting, that that that people can just swing away at it, and that that that beautiful combination of length and accuracy is less meaningful. And they get into that in the report here. That used to be a big thing with the USGA in the RNA, And I think that's what's interesting about this report there. They've they've just broadened their thinking and obviously they have a lot of new people, but they're not hung up on a lot of the things that they used to get hung up on, like these get hung up on that driving accuracy and moneyless thing, which is somewhat important. It's one of many factors you might look at, but I don't know if it's if it used to get so much importance from them, and then when it started to become yeah, when it got flipped, it became less important because it was harder to make their case, uh that something. Everything was fine as as the numbers flipped and and your your your top ten money winners were all outside the top one hundred and accuracy excuse me, FedEx cup points.

01:03:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, fed X cut points, the courier point.

01:03:24
Speaker 2: I gave money to FedEx today. By the way, they need help, So that was this report that I made the copy of. That was my contribution.

01:03:30
Speaker 1: Caurier point.

01:03:31
Speaker 2: I had not been in there in a long time, not a branded Oh sorry, sorry, you know, yeah, let's be in.

01:03:38
Speaker 1: Big courier points. Yeah. So pg L you've been you've been agent zero on this. Oh well, that's you know, you've been. Like what didn't I hear you? Did you make a Woodward reference? I liked that better. I think that was that was my uh more esteem college more.

01:03:55
Speaker 2: Who's who's a little under the weather.

01:03:57
Speaker 1: He's more well read than I am.

01:03:59
Speaker 2: You know who Bob woodword is? Yeah, I know, okay, okay, just checking it.

01:04:03
Speaker 1: But so what do you? What do you There's been a lot of talk. This is is kind of crazy where these things are coinciding. We got distance stuff finally coming ahead, and then we've got a potential threat to the PGA tour all of a sudden popped up. Yeah, what what's the what's the latest with the with the that you're hearing with the PGL And if you were going to put a percentage on it, what would you your percentage on the viability of it?

01:04:29
Speaker 2: I'm still a fifty percent I think I mentioned on Hank Kney's pot. I went down to Tory Pines at like fifteen to twenty and I left there at fifty just for a variety of reasons, the fact that no player has just flat out slammed it as a disgusting well, Gary Player called it, you know, greedy, as he was in Saudi Arabia taking a check from Gulf Saudi, which we'll see if he leaves, if he gets out of the country in one piece. Greg Norman was on the panel. It was a lot smarter, saying, hey, this has more legs than my idea, which you know killed him to admit that, and his reasoning was sound that he sees a little more cohesion in their concept in terms of the people doing it, sponsors and all other.

01:05:15
Speaker 1: Orman's biggest flaw might have been walking in the room and with Fincham and laying out his idea.

01:05:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it was him that it was a player, one guy out front. This group has been stealth and quiet and they've been working behind the scenes, which a lot of people mocked when Rory said he first heard about it twenty fourteen and people went, oh, well they've been at it. This line. Well, some people would actually admire that patience and that willingness to keep kind of refining the idea. Obviously they're making are it's a full core press now because the television contracts haven't been signed, and they are really probably making one more go at this. And then they I think, got a big chunk of money. I think they had a lot of great assets and backers, and I've heard some really wild rumors of other backers. But then it sounds like the Saudis have pledged more money on top of the other stuff they have. And then they have this rain group who when you talk to people in the financial world, they were not mentioned in any of the documents that I have, so they are more recent addition to this as well, which is why I think the name change went from to well went from World Golf Series to Tour de Force to the Premier Golf League because they're a big part of the Premiere Lacrosse League and big backers of that. So I think that's where that name idea came from. I still don't quite get how you can get away with that name. But so there are those two pieces, which was the one thing I had incorrect in my report, which they went out of their way to correct. But those are the two most kind of late last minute things that have come in that have made this. I mean a I went to some agents who are really negative, who never say they say no to everything, and they put everything down and they could not bad mouth this because it's not just that they're going to get more money out of appearance fees, because there's a structure for appearance fees in this for players and then the agents would benefits from that. But it's really well conceived. They've gone into a lot of detail in thinking about how to better the modern golf tournament and then how to deal with this team element and or to bring in a team element. So that's why people can't shoot it down and make fun of it or mock it because they've, as Rory said, they've seen all these little holes in the way the professional golf world has developed, the way the PGA Tour and European Tour can't get on the same page, all those little things, and they're seizing on that.

01:07:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing you look at, is like, are they're hitting on every single hole that is present, you know, whether it be even to the tea of coverage, you know the idea of shotguns starting off the first two days so that everybody fits within this five hour window, right, and like having every and you start to look at events. One of my followers did a mock PGL leaderboard I think at Tory where he took out all of the you know, non top fifty and then you look at the leaderboard and you're like, wow, everybody's going to be interested in a tournament that has that leaderboard every single week.

01:08:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. The one thing I struggle with though, in that notion is we've had wgc's with great leader boards and small fields, no cuts, and there is something missing. And there's a certain beauty in a more democratic game where we do get to see a less known or a journey or whatever you want to call them, and people get so upset all those different things, but it's just somebody who's not a superstar take down a star or give them a run for their money. There's a certain beauty in that that golf has that few other sports have it the way golf does.

01:09:14
Speaker 1: So here's my my re fute to that. It would be that you know, on the PGA Tour, it's not a meritocracy anymore there's so many hand out exemptions. There's so it's once you're on tour for five years, it's so hard to get off the tour that you know, you've got guys that are essentially you know JJ Henry last year and Johnson and this year three hundred made cuts. Like what three hundred may cuts that you get an extra year on tour?

01:09:39
Speaker 2: Why? Right?

01:09:40
Speaker 1: Okay, you your reward for making three hundred you've made a boatload of cash, doesn't mean you get and you have instead you don't have the best players in the world on the on the PGA Tour at all times. You have most of them. But like we saw last year with Sung JM. I mean the kid went was on the on the web then web dominate, right, you know, he comes up immediately has the same type of success on the PGA Tour. It's like that those types of guys should be getting up. Like in tennis, if you're the best player in the world and you're seventeen, you're getting into Wimbledon. Ye, Like, if you're that, there is no barrier to get up. So I would say when I think about the PGA Tour and their like response, it has to be like well, we need we need to shake up because there shouldn't be all time money exemptions. There shouldn't be. And I think they carry the they carry the weight because there's a problem right now with professional golf where the younger players aren't are the best players in many cases, but they aren't the most marketable players. And that's one of the things that golf struggles with is where the most marketable players. Steve Stricker is more marketable than Sung j In.

01:10:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, but well, okay, Steve.

01:10:53
Speaker 1: Stricker is more marketable than right now, Victor Hovlin.

01:10:57
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he's going to be a Ryder Cup captain. There's other other had longevity. There are reasons for that. It has something to do with it. I don't think it has to do with age, except for the fact that he's been around.

01:11:06
Speaker 1: So those are the guys that are gonna get the mass consumer to buy him because you know, my my buddies have no clue who you know, you guys.

01:11:16
Speaker 2: That's I mean, somebody you have to start somewhere, uh, And that's what That's the way it's always been. Eventually somebody's good enough, they hang around enough, you see them enough, they they become familiar to you. But the question I have, I guess in that sense with your your theory is is that a product of those guys not getting to build their image enough because there's just so many events, it's all spread out, it's a mess. There's no Q school. I don't, I don't, I don't know. I mean, look at Victor Howlin, Colin Marikawa. See how I got that on the first try.

01:11:50
Speaker 1: By the way, you did, didn't.

01:11:51
Speaker 2: Say I didn't see whoever that I'm still looking for that young up and coming Mariyama guy that he mentioned. Anyway, Matthew will recognizable guys because they you know, NCAA Golf channel and NCAA is bigger now Victor Amin and the US Amateur which doesn't mean what it used to mean, but it's still is something. I So I just wonder if part of the youth not being able to get that recognition is just because it's such a spread out mess of and I think, well, there's a lot of it and they come and go, I mean, the game. The way back to our original topic here today is the longevity is going to be tough when it all comes down to essentially putting. If it's a drive and bomb and who makes the most putts game you can have a I think a big turnover in terms of both that it's a one dimensional way to play the game. There's a lot of money. You can have a good few years, and if it ends, it ends. But I also think there's a whole element of guys are just gonna lose interest in Well, they make so much money, it's a less interesting they're not. There's very few guys who will keep playing just because it's so fun to play. I got the money in the bank. Now it's just fun to win. I mean Justin Thomas, yes, Rory, yes, but that's it. There's there's a lot of guys who I got my money and I had a good run and and I don't you know, I don't, I don't. I don't behoove them for having that that view. But I blame the equipment a little bit on that, or the way the game's played.

01:13:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree. I mean it is last and I mean.

01:13:26
Speaker 2: How many guys go play for fun besides Zach Blair and Jim Herman. And there's one other Justin Thomas and Ricky occasionally go somewhere.

01:13:36
Speaker 3: Brandonstone brandistone.

01:13:40
Speaker 2: Went with the Hickorys and mostly because they were the burnt orange grips. Was really the thing that got his attention when he walked by h Jet, the Jack White Shop and Gullen, which was because I was at that tournament and you know, we got him going and that was the thing. But he got him going. He took him to Sandge. But again we're talking about how many guys and how many now play a practice round and have a money game. Well, fils, money games are over now. It's what's that? What days you're not? What days your front nine practice round? What days your back nine practice round? You know? And it's not And they're just out there charting and hitting, hitting multiple button always playing a money game for fun. So I wonder what that will do to career longevity. I don't know how we we went the rails here, but the PGL. But back to that, I think it has legs. I think the thing that you have to whether it happens or not now, uh, the stuff that's out there and then I'm going to keep putting out because I have more to put out, will force the tour to make major changes. Something. It's going to force a major change. It may be a merger.

01:14:45
Speaker 3: And that's the thing is, like, I don't know where the tour goes.

01:14:48
Speaker 2: I think it's an easy one really to counter it. It may not work, but I think it's an easy one. You you have to merge tomorrow with the European Tour. Each tour probably has to shed ten events. That additional money goes to current tournaments, and you have to merge the WGCs and Rolex. And unfortunately, I'm not a fan of crapping on great events like the one we have at Rivier or or John Deere that gives amazing money to charity. Or I mean we've just killed the Byron Nelson.

01:15:19
Speaker 1: If that might have that might be dead now.

01:15:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a lot and Bob the the American Express, the old Bob Hope. Some of these events have built the tour have just been completely crapped. Doesn't exist. That's arguably the greatest crime in terms of what the major championship, the market that it now doesn't always come to every year.

01:15:41
Speaker 1: We'll think about think about the PGA Tour.

01:15:43
Speaker 2: There's no events have been undermind, that's regular stop in New York. It's unbelievable.

01:15:49
Speaker 1: Washington, d C, Chicago, and the.

01:15:52
Speaker 2: Houston one's a minor league event. The fourth largest city is a is a is a minor league event.

01:15:57
Speaker 1: You get the three biggest markets for golf.

01:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, New York, Chicago.

01:16:01
Speaker 1: Maybe Boston. Mike count is one of the biggest markets.

01:16:04
Speaker 2: But they're only there every other year.

01:16:06
Speaker 1: They don't have regular events.

01:16:08
Speaker 2: Like by the way, they supported that event. Even at the TBC Boston, it's been supported. So LA is the only of the the biggest ultimate markets. It's that hasn't had its event undermined. It's actually gotten stronger in part because just because of its date and the course. Oh yes, I mean it's u It's the Genesis Invitational. It's just brutal. But so so I would say you merge the Rolex and the wgc's you have a true world set of events, and I think you have a you can make a formidable case because you know there's a lot of money that you take out of those events. And I'm sorry, it's sad you got to kill them, but they've added so many opposite field and they've added things when they didn't need to be adding.

01:16:49
Speaker 1: You're a half hand of the Bermuda.

01:16:51
Speaker 2: No what a what a joke, what an embarrassing, It's just stupid. The Puerto Rico, all these things, the Barracuda.

01:16:58
Speaker 3: You don't have to see Neil anchestra field and the Barracuda.

01:17:01
Speaker 2: I mean nothing against Colin mar Kawa didn't nailed it again, uh, but I mean that strength of field was unbelievable. If you go look at the numbers, and I don't even study those numbers much, but I just happened to be looking at different events to see what what the what the worst was last year?

01:17:15
Speaker 1: And there is Spike mccroy. Well that's Spike macry is a you know, he sells mutual funds and he's coming out of retirement.

01:17:28
Speaker 2: Still played golf, that's the thing. And he was there. There were people John.

01:17:33
Speaker 1: So this is what I'm talking about with the with the how you have some of the best players in the world on the corn Ferry Tour.

01:17:40
Speaker 2: Right, how are they not getting in those events.

01:17:42
Speaker 1: And you got guys coming out of retirement. Charlie Belgian on his Twitter said retired.

01:17:49
Speaker 2: And he was auditioned at the Golf Channel. He's he's looking for other things to do.

01:17:53
Speaker 1: He got like seven stars last year.

01:17:56
Speaker 2: Semi retired crazy, it's nuts. So they have so much how much just junk in the way of events and that that's a lot of money that goes to those So the big problem, and I've discussed it on multiple pods and everybody knows it, and it's the one that the players are just that a lot of fans don't understand. And ultimately it comes down to the executives of the PGA Tour are incentivized by the boards, the player board and the policy board to add playing opportunities and perse growth. I don't know exactly how they're incentivized, but they're incentivized to do so they get bonuses by doing that. So that's what they've done.

01:18:37
Speaker 1: This is where the major change has to happen, and I don't know if it's possible. Is because right now the PGA Tour is numbers fifty two through one fifty carry more weight than similar through fifty two and with the PGL it's it's all about the top fifty guys and that's I think where the issue lies is that they have you know, completely different and for the PGA Tour, and maybe that's with a you know, emerging of the European Tour where that change could happen.

01:19:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just wonder. You know, we're not in on the meetings, but I do wonder how much of that what you're saying is actually really genuinely true or have those people taken on that prominence and because they've spoken up enough and then this structure exists for the people doing the work, the negotiating, the building the relationships with a sponsor to create a new event. If all that incentive for them is to create those spots for those people, and is it really for the betterment of golf and it's I don't think it is, or at least for the PGA Tour or the European Tour. They've got a lot of bloat as well. So I think there is a solution for those two tours. Whether they're working on it or open to that discussion, I don't know. But it seems to me like it's kind of an emergency situation for them when you look at what's going on in the tour contract needing to be signed. It's not signed. This group clearly.

01:20:19
Speaker 3: Making out you know, how could sign not.

01:20:23
Speaker 2: Now, No, you'd be you could get in big trouble if you sign something and then this thing happens, and at the very least it should be prompting or just there should be a pause to say, Okay, well is this thing going to make you guys react in some way? So anyway, it's been fascinating. I mean, I sat on it a long time what I had and because I wasn't really feeling like I wasn't getting that sense other than from some agents. And then I started getting more of a sense that it was legit, and then the money was more legit. And it really has been fascinating to watch how and then every day there's just something in the news, you know. We learned yesterday the tour talked to the Saudis a few years ago and and the Golf Saudi group wants to add another European tournament, and they were the most interesting comment in the in the story by Martin Dempster was we would love to you know, we'd love to do anything that that's good for the game. Basically, they want to sport wash. They want to get into sports and make us think of them as people who love sports, not people who love to behead journalists. And they will put anything out there that's positive that that that they can back in golf and it's part of a greater plant. Children that didn't do it for me, or that faux Super Bowl. Geez, they are so bad at photo ops. But the thing that was most telling was the Golf Saudi dudes quote about the time element. I don't want to butcher it, but he said, let's pull it up here because it was it was his His exact quote was he mentioned the World Cup and uh, but here was the key line. We can address it in multiple ways. This is, uh, the guy the dude's name here, I've already forgotten it, and he's he's the one who controls the bucks for the Crown Prince, so roar. And he said, is it good for the game or not? This is regarding the Premier Golf League. This is what we're thinking. If something is good for the game, we should just listen to the people who are leading it. Sit down with a PGA tour if the time permits. So it was like, well, we talked to you guys a few years ago, we talked about a World Cup. Now we're talking to these people and we're pretty far that. That to me said, we're pretty far along and Oh, if we have time, we'll fit in a meeting with the tour and we'll see if maybe there's something that can work out. That had I mean that line right there, and that was said at a summit, a public event. Martin Dempster wrote it, but everybody was there that had to just I would think that would I'm surprised j monahanden w d from the program immediately upon reading that, like we need to this is this is moving fast.

01:23:20
Speaker 1: Well, and that's what we've seen in even like the small scale of we saw the Tiger Phil match which came up outside. I mean immediately the tour had to just get control of that, you know, lessen the pot, cheapened it out because in my this is just my personal opinion, it was to take away from the event, to not make it appear like that format of golf could possibly threaten the PGA Tour a weekend week out. But the Viabilt, the thing that it showed me was Okay, if I'm Phil or Tiger, I can go out and play one round to golf for ten million dollars. What am I doing? Yeah, going to you know, Memphis to play for ten million dollars with seventy other people for an entire week in July. Yeah, you know what, I can just go generate this capital. And this is the beauty of that PGL. What they've set out is like, hey, you're you're a superstar, Like you're gonna get paid like a superstar and like when you And the thing that I wonder about that league is the player turnover and how much it becomes a buddies group, you know.

01:24:31
Speaker 2: And I did a post late last week because I missed it in my initial reading of the documents, because it is the one big flaw to me is how players kind of come and go, and because they do envision that some people will get waived from a team if their game's bad, and so they do think in year two they would start a feeder tour. So that part of it is still a little bit dicey, because you're gonna need to develop news stars and you're gonna have to have a place where let's say they started this league three years ago, well and it's in play now, where do you speak and Jason Dago, they're suddenly you know, falling out of that that elite group. Do they get the chance to go back and play on these other this this feeder tour, uh, and then or do they go back to the PGA Tour or what's left of it? Uh. Those kinds of things are a little bit still to me questionable. It doesn't take into account that people just lose their golf game. Well.

01:25:28
Speaker 1: I think one of the one of the things that brings in that the tour might be missing for a really has been like the fatal flaw, and that has allowed this to happen is that those teams will have an owner. Yes, and I'm assuming the owner will be heavily incentivized to win.

01:25:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhat incentivized. I mean they're they're incentivized. The way I read it as to build a franchise essentially that it's not just winning, but it's sort of a it's a vibe, it's a brand. I hate that word, but it's.

01:26:00
Speaker 1: So if your team stinks, it's not gonna do any good to have.

01:26:04
Speaker 2: It's not great. But if you're in that league, you're in good shape that you've got one. And I think the concept with the franchises that you start with players. But I see it evolving.

01:26:12
Speaker 1: I can see it. I can see Phil selling selling and then it's some yeah, you know, guy.

01:26:19
Speaker 2: Who knows Tom Brady plays with him in the pro am and buys twenty percent of it as a fun thing to do. Yeah, there are a lot of ways that can go. But the idea is to start with players. But there are a lot of billionaires where you could see, you know, Johann Rupert wanting a kind of a South African focus group. JP McManus might have a real you know, Paul mcinley will be his manager of the team and he'll have you know, padrig will be in there, or Shane Lowry and there might be an Irish thing. And I do think that people get focused on the top forty eight in the world. I think it'll be more like the top twenty five or so. They can get and then there's going to be some Poulters and some Harrington's, some personnel, these people that, let's be honest, we enjoy having them in the game. They bring color and their their little kookie or their their fun. G mac is a great talker, you know, people like that. He's not gonna do any interviews anymore in the round. So I would people get very caught up in those numbers. And I don't think it's necessarily a straight world ranking ripoff.

01:27:21
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's if if the five big names go, that's that's when it's then everybody is worried about missing the boat.

01:27:28
Speaker 2: So your five are Tiger fill.

01:27:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think Steiny's clients alone would do it. Rose, Rose, Tiger, j t Yeah, Gary Woodland and Coucher. I mean those five.

01:27:43
Speaker 3: Go, Yeah, who's who's sticking around?

01:27:47
Speaker 1: Who's sticking around?

01:27:48
Speaker 2: Sure, that's a big group that goes, but it has to start with Tiger you speak, can't lay as part of that group, but he's moved on to somebody else. But I mean that agency, you know, relationships that they just don't matter. Although Logg of Deer I think is very involved in this more than other agencies because they have some relationships with some of the people who are investors. As they started digging that, uh. And the fact that a couple of their people who I don't even know, were constantly staring at me during the interview sessions after I posted the item at Tory might have indicated that they were they were trying to read me or something I don't know, or maybe they just thought I was really good looking, but I don't think so. I think it was a little bit more of it'd.

01:28:31
Speaker 3: Have been a little could have been a little bit of both, but I'm pretty sure it was like yourself.

01:28:34
Speaker 2: So that's the guy who wrote that item. So yeah, I don't know if agencies though, will really matter, because this group rain group, if you go through their stuff, they've had They've done deals with c AA, uh Endeavor, William Morris, which is you know now uh IMG element. Not that they have a lot of players, but they have a lot of influence and a lot of these guys who are involved in the thing you see in their resume, their ex I'm g's some x IMG people of course, Mark Steinberg's x I'm Jimmy. There's a it's a I don't. I think that's another thing that's fascinating about it. It's not like it's just lagged deer and we're going for it. There there are little tentacles and all sorts of parts and that like unlike again with Norman, where it was just Greg Norman and Kerry Packer, this has got.

01:29:19
Speaker 1: It's that time twenty fourteen probably built a lot of relate you know, like you think about the amount of time and the ability to build relationships over that time quietly. Yeah, and it'll be I mean, it's gonna be a fun year. It's oh, it's yeah, we got golf, but then we've got all this It almost feels like the NBA with free agency and trade deadline with all the stuff kind.

01:29:41
Speaker 2: Of yeah, and they want to bring some of that in so it'll be Yeah. I don't know. I hope it doesn't. Once we get to the majors overshadow those obviously, But and the way it's going, it's going so fast, I feel like it's gonna.

01:29:54
Speaker 1: The smartest thing they did was they did not touch the majors and they said we're just we're gonna cater everything around them.

01:30:01
Speaker 2: And it's a January to September schedule. I mean, they get down to stuff like we're gonna finish on Mondays when it's a national holiday, which again not complicated. I'm sure they got a lot of input from TV people.

01:30:13
Speaker 3: Yeah that you know, you've got Monday.

01:30:16
Speaker 1: Everybody's got Monday off in the world, and you got a golf tournament. Yeah, down on Monday that nothing else is going on.

01:30:22
Speaker 2: Finish it against the AFC and NFC Championship Games the two of the biggest television audiences of the year. So yeah, and then that's the other thing that's kind of come out in this is is how many people, uh genuinely that the tour has fewer friends maybe than they realize, just on the comments that I've I've seen, and that's a that's a problem for them.

01:30:45
Speaker 1: I mean they it's and.

01:30:48
Speaker 2: Some of it's unfair by the way. I mean, they're they're trying to cater a lot of things. It's not an easy thing to do. I don't envy the commissioner having to deal with some of the things they have to deal with.

01:30:58
Speaker 1: And I just think of sponsors of things that from covering an event in person, the things that that media goes through, and it's like, oh, that's make it as hard as possible on right.

01:31:09
Speaker 2: And and so I always thought it was really just us that kind of got that treatment. But then as you start talking to tournament directors, sponsors, you know, my mouth has just dropped a few times listening to people who represent a blue chip sponsor, just a company, you go, they you would think they'd just be running around in circles to please, and they have bad tastes in their mouth from their interactions with with the tour or in wanting to renegotiate something or having questions about things that aren't happening the way they thought, or whatever it is, and they can't stand them. And that's scary. I mean, it's one thing they do that stuff with media, but when you when you get that from sponsors that are really important sponsors, that's that's weird.

01:31:55
Speaker 1: I'd imagine that the PGL rights deal might be worth more than the PGA tour.

01:32:02
Speaker 2: Well. The interesting thing about it, from what I read of everything is there it's not overly reliant on the TV money to make it work, which is kind of I'm still not sure if that makes sense. Maybe over time it does, but to get it going the sense it's like, well, they want to put the thing together and then the right TV partner will come and then that money will come. But it's not like, Okay, we've gone to because a lot of these leagues and different things have started with a partner in television. That football thing that died recently now, that one that the American, the one that didn't even make it through like four games this last year, the American whatever I think that was partnered with was an NBC Dick ever saw was his son was behind it. Anyway, it went fast, the XFL, the USFL. But a lot of those things have been the brainchild of of of a group and TV. This one is not. It's a brainchild of people who've seen the model, and they'll get the TV partner when they, I think, get the players.

01:33:08
Speaker 1: You look at the most successful golf tournament in the world, the Masters, and I think the reason it's the most successful golf tournament is that they own every aspect of their product and they dictate the terms with everybody. And that's the brilliance of starting with no partner, is that you are not catering to anybody, right, you know, from the get go, and then it allows you the ability to dictate terms.

01:33:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the only I think that's absolutely right, except in one case, which is they will have to do some things to bend for Tiger, which if if my original report was ten events, because everybody told me they've knocked it to ten, and the two things they really went out of their way to refute the number of events at eighteen and the rain group they want to make sure that that was what you associated with as the funding, not what I had said, which was soft bank and private equity and Middle East money. So the fact they kind of went out of their way to do that, I thought was interesting. I still don't believe that they could this will work with eighteen events because of Tiger and a lot of the other guys too, they want to They want to play about eighteen events a year, the elite players. So you take you take this thing down to twelve or ten events, they get to play a few other things that they've always played, the majors, and boom, there's their season and that's just the right amount for them. So I don't see the eighteen happening. And the only possibility is they they say okay, the legends or the player captains get exempt from they don't have to play. Maybe they not get to fifteen.

01:34:47
Speaker 1: Or they make the roster because correct Tiger, six guys on a team and they play four.

01:34:52
Speaker 2: Who come and go. It's going to be hard though, when you're saying you're going to bring these guys together and then these stars don't play. But that may be the kind of little thing they have to do is say Yeah, there's there's people in the bullpen essentially.

01:35:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody gets injured, you know.

01:35:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, team Tiger has well yeah.

01:35:08
Speaker 1: And imagine the team with Jason Day like you know.

01:35:12
Speaker 2: Oh, well you better have an alternate.

01:35:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be like college golf where you have five scores and count four or something.

01:35:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that those little tweaks I think will be.

01:35:21
Speaker 1: That'd be an interesting format if it will in college golf style.

01:35:25
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because that is the other flaw in that I think I see is the team thing at the end. These four person teams, I don't know if that's enough I'd be I think I'd be more interested in a six person team. Like I'm not sure if that if that, if that team is enough or is it something where yeah, you have at that end it's uh the playoffs in the play Yeah, they have a playoff of Ryder Cup style playoff Europe. You know, they're trying to get a europe Us final kind of thing. So yeah, I think that roster flexibility is it would be interesting both in bringing in a few more players and then allowing those big names too are maybe allowing them to have a bigger schedule, but then allow those big names to to not play every event, So those are things they have to work out if this happens. It's exciting, all right, Well it's exciting to those of us who are interested in some outside the box thinking. I don't think it's very exciting in certain parts of our fine country where suddenly this threat is kind of real. But it's been in the works a long time and a lot of people known about it, so they've had time to counter it. They didn't take it seriously, and now they're gonna have to play catch up. So it's gonna be interesting to watch. But either way for us, for fans media, I think at the end, no matter what happens, it's going to force some big changes and exactly that's a keyword improvement.

01:36:46
Speaker 1: Correct, It's gonna make whatever we're watching on TV.

01:36:50
Speaker 2: Better, not gonna make it worse.

01:36:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, it's uh, you know, competition generally breeds.

01:36:55
Speaker 2: Know exactly, improvement. Yeah, so, uh, hey, thanks for the time play than sure, thanks for coming to our our fine city.

01:37:02
Speaker 1: That's a quick trip, so good in and out. I got to come for longer. I just can't afford to live out here.

01:37:07
Speaker 2: It's a little pricey out here. Yeah, it is. It's especially in this area where we are, which is you know, like four hundred yards as of bird flies from the thirteenth Green to Rivier.

01:37:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, undisclosed podcasting exactly.

01:37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it ended up being quiet, So that's good.

01:37:22
Speaker 1: So people can read you, Jeff Shackelford, doctor, They still can. You're here. You've been very active. I'm jealous. I I missing.

01:37:29
Speaker 2: It's okay. I slacked a lot, but it's been fun. It's fun when there's things, there are things to write about. I I'm gonna do a lot on the report and.

01:37:39
Speaker 3: Three thousand articles in that report.

01:37:41
Speaker 2: Probably probably, and there are about three thousand articles in that in that Premier League in their documents as well. And I'm obviously trying to be careful because the thing I haven't seen every single page and things like that. But yeah, there are a lot of stories there that would and they and they're fun to put out because they prompt discussion and like this report will if anybody reads it. I just wonder you've been on the social stuff today more. It'll be interesting to see how many people actually read well, I mean people or the summary.

01:38:10
Speaker 1: You can tweet out a beautiful article and somebody will say something and you're like, oh, you didn't read.

01:38:15
Speaker 2: The art, just read the headline.

01:38:16
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, I wrote about that in the first paragraph.

01:38:21
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that is always amazing. At least click on the link and read the first paragraph.

01:38:26
Speaker 1: Anyway, So that's the joys of writing.

01:38:29
Speaker 2: Yes, it is so all right.

01:38:31
Speaker 1: People can find you their Twitter Instagram at Jeff Shack And thanks for coming on, all right, thank you.