We Regret to Inform You That LIV’s Golf Product Does Not Stink

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a brid egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is with our managing editor at the Friday Egg, Garrett Morrison. Garrett lives in Portland, so it was an easy commute for him to go over to the Live Portland. Obviously, this is a huge story in golf, probably the biggest story in the last thirty years in golf. So we had Garrett go and cover the event from the ground and uh and give his insights as to what's going on and Live Portland. So, without further ado, here's Garrett and I talking about Live and the Portland event. All right, we're back. We got Garrett Morrison. Garrett, welcome on. I'm hosting this one. I'm the captain of the ship.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: So this is a weird feeling for me right now. Yeah, but but it's good. It's good. I feel like, you know, the responsibility is not on me right now.

00:01:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you you spent you spent your fourth of July, part of your fourth of July weekend doing one of the least patriotic things you could do, which is attending, thank you, a live golf Tour event. Uh that being said, I you know, it hasn't been a long time since uh somewhat elite men's competitive golf was in the Portland area. And you know that for that, you know, it's it's probably somewhat of a positive thing. And uh, I you attended as a media member, and I figured it'd be great to we haven't really We've kept this feed a little bit of void of live talk, and figure now's a good time to have a larger live discussion. And I wanted to kind of center around your experience this week in Portland, in the days leading up to and the tournament days at Live Portland. So tell us, you know, what are some of your big takeaways from the week in Portland at the live event.

00:02:35
Speaker 1: Well, I think my biggest takeaway is that the event worked. I think that was my main question going into the week. Is this going to work or is it going to be this kind of weird Like you know, nobody's there and it's just this kind of fake event, and they're going to pretend that it's real on the YouTube broadcast, and you know that there's just going to be this fabricated feeling to it. But it was really a successful event from my perspective for the people who attended it. They seem to be having a good time. There was a substantial crowd there on Saturday, and the competition was exciting for that crowd. And I think that if you're concerned about Live becoming a significant threat to the PGA Tour and becoming something that can attract the biggest players in the world and draw them away from the traditional tours and to this kind of arm of the Saudi pr machine, then this event provided a lot of reason to be concerned about that because it was quite well put together, professionally run and successful.

00:03:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you hit on something coming down the stretch.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: The everybody's been Oh, this isn't real competition, this is so and so this doesn't matter. Are Like the reality is men's golf is kind of in a way, you know, to use a distance term, bifurcated. Already, you have the major championships and then you kind of have everything else. There are a few outlier events that matter, you know, like Riviera. I think you could probably put the players in there, you could put but like outside of those few events, handful of events and a handful of events that you know, you have an amazing competition breakout where you have a like Canada. Canada would be a good one to think about from this year where Rory and JT are dueling on Sunday, like that was a great event, but it.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: And the timing of it was convenient because that was happening at the same time as Live London and Live London, at least from what I saw, I mean, I wasn't there, didn't come off quite as well as Live Portland, and so people were sort of looking for a real feeling golf tournament. Rory was there, Rory won. You know, that was just a very fortunate bit of timing for the Canadian Open. I'm not sure that the Canadian Open has enough, you know, juice behind it to produce that on a yearly basis, unfortunately, because I think the Canadian Open is one of the has one of the best traditions on tour.

00:05:20
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying is like you have these one off, one year great competitions breakout where you have a great tournament because of what happens on the course and people may or may not, but like the bigger problem with that is that you don't know when they're happening, when they're going to happen, and fans aren't locked in.

00:05:38
Speaker 3: In that given week most of the times.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: Uh So you have these majors that have kind of been bifurcated, and the whole idea with Live you know, one of the big distractions was like the competitions of farce.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter, it doesn't you know it it.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: Matters because they're playing for such an absurd amount of money. Like you could see Brendan Grace. It was a huge deal that he won that tournament. And people will say, oh, he's made however million with on the course ra in his career. Let me tell you something like, unless it's Rory, unless it's you know, a very select few players winning four million, four plus million, you know, when you add in the team bonus, that really matters for almost every tour pro because you're talking about you know, if you've I think Brendan Graces won around thirty million in his career. Four million dollars is over ten percent of his career earnings. That's substantial. If I told you we're gonna just give you a bonus of ten percent of your lifetime earnings at your job, you'd be pretty pumped up.

00:06:47
Speaker 3: So I think that's one of the things.

00:06:49
Speaker 2: So that there was drama, and the thing about it is that they're actually like.

00:06:54
Speaker 3: As opposed to London. I think the field was mostly the majority of the field swung from who is this guy? To oh, I know who that guy is?

00:07:05
Speaker 2: Like recognizable names and it seems like it's only going to get better.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Well, and that was an important element for the galleries at this event, recognizing players. I saw people just kind of wandering around the course and happening upon Bryson de Shambeau or happening upon Brooks Koepka or Phil and being able to walk right up to the ropes and watch them. And for a lot of people at the event, it was a big plus to be able to shout at them, you know. And I talked to some people about why they were at the event and whether they were concerned about the source of the money and the overwhelming sentiment was no, I don't care. Right, It's not a big deal to me that this is backed by the Saudi Arabian government's Public Investment Fund. I'm not thinking about that. What I'm thinking about is the five dollars beers and the ability to go shout at Brooks, you know, That's that's what I like. Now, getting back to the competitive element of it, what I was surprised by was how real it did feel. Now. It wasn't like a big PGA Tour event. It wasn't that. You know, I've u The PGA Tour event I've attended the most is the Pebble Beach pro Am. There weren't nearly as many people at Pumpkin Ridge this past weekend as there are at the Pebble Beach pro Am. I mean, the pro am for the first three days is spread across three courses. On the last day it's all at Pebble Beach. That event is packed. If you go to Riviera, if you go to Bay Hill, those events are truly mobbed. But that's just this first year. There was a substantial crowd there on Saturday. I can see how it is going to build into something that really does feel like a real golf competition, And as you're saying, that has been a major question so far, is can Live kind of create out of thin air and a bunch of money something that feels like an authentic golf competition. I saw this week how they're sort of gonna get there, and I was concerned about that as somebody who does not want to see the live initiative succeed.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things with the fans, what you're talking about the mob. To me, based off of months ago, what seemed like their strategy with tickets, I don't think they're going for the mob. I think they're going for the extremely high entry point ticket, high price point entry point ticket, and then you get a VIP experience where there is limited fans. And I think from from probably you know a lot of what they're doing, I think they're really their business model centers around there are important players in the in the game of golf, there are important guys, and we need to curtail everything to cater to the stars, cater to the most popular players. And if you were doing that, I think if you polled players, they'd say, you know what, we don't want a ton of fans. We want fans, but we don't want you know, yeah, and we don't want what Tiger goes through every week where you know, Rory and jt are like that's like a shot or two penalty if you play with Tiger like.

00:10:19
Speaker 3: They don't want that.

00:10:20
Speaker 2: They want fans to provide some juice, to provide places to get TiO relief, to trample down rough. You know, that's what they want fans for, and it is to provide just a little bit of juice.

00:10:34
Speaker 3: And I think then they're selling.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: You know, it's another sales point to the power players in this situation. You know, no matter what the thing is, the fans don't matter here. Only thing that matters in this war that the Tour and Live is in.

00:10:50
Speaker 3: Is superstar players.

00:10:51
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that matters because it's going to feel like a competition.

00:10:57
Speaker 3: Either direction.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: You know, if they have the players, it doesn't feel like a competition as we saw in London when you have players that you don't recognize. But when it's DJ, Carlos Ortiz, Brendan Grace, you know, coming down the stretch, that feels like a tournament because you recognize the names.

00:11:17
Speaker 3: Patrick Reid in there too.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: I don't want to get Justine mad without including him, So.

00:11:24
Speaker 1: He was in contention at this event. We have to note that, and he was part of the winning team as well the four aces.

00:11:31
Speaker 3: What do you think of the team format while we're on the competitive.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: I was just going to get into it. So that's working too, and the people that it's working for matter here. One. It's working for the fans who were there, and I'm just talking about I'm not talking about the fans who are concerned about the morality of the live tour right when I say that it's working. The event didn't work for me in the sense that I was walking around that whole time being like, oh god, oh shit, you know, like this is starting to look like the future of golf and I don't really want to be part of it. That was my feeling walking around the course. But the feeling of the fans who were there was this is exciting. And one thing that was exciting about it was the ability to bet on teams. People were wearing the team hats and wearing the team shirts. I told you a story actually about walking with a New York Times reporter who was there kind of pulling the fans, like doing real reporting. He was walking up to fans and just sort of asking them a series of questions about about why they were there and what their thoughts were. And there was one fan who walked by us who had a shirt that had a logo on it that sort of looked like the Arizona State University logo, and you know, this reporter pointed to a guy and said, hey, Arizona, something about the conference realignment stuff, and the guy who was wearing the shirt looked at him strangely and was like, no, this is a four Aces shirt. And that was right at the beginning of the event. I sort of laughed. I was like, really, you're you're into the team element here, these teams that were created like three weeks ago. You're you're excited about that. But what people like is is betting on the teams. And if they like the players on the teams, if they're familiar with DJ, if they think that Pat Perez is funny, then they're going to start to develop some kind of loyalty to the Four Aces. Now, okay, the four Aces and Stinger, which is the South African team, are a couple of the teams that are really kind of prefabricated, pre arranged and are nearly set in what their form is supposed to be. There are a lot of teams right now and Live that are kind of placeholders. They're waiting for more players to sign on and become started.

00:13:47
Speaker 2: You can start to see I think you can really see that who the placeholder is for the for the captaincy, like you can.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: You can see the Decky's team right because there's a there's a team Japan right now, Japanese players.

00:14:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:14:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I mean I'm not saying I'm not breaking any news here. I'm not saying he Decki's going. I'm just saying that Live is hoping that Deki is coming because they already have a team Japan.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: There's an Australian team that's just there's way yeah, Wade, Wade Arms, Adam Scott, Yeah, Mark LEAs from one of the three of those guys, you have to think are the ones that you know they're targeting or more than what the one of the three, maybe it's two or three, and I think that's we walk away. Every every time the Ryder Cups played, every single year the Ryder Cups played golf, fans walk away from it being like, God, I wish that there was more team golf.

00:14:39
Speaker 3: I wish that there was more like golf like this.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: And there's a reason that every other sport popular sport is centered around teams. People like to develop fandom, and one of the hardest things being a lifelong golf fan, you know, I think one of the hardest things to answer was always the question, like a non golfer, who's.

00:15:00
Speaker 3: Your favorite golfer?

00:15:01
Speaker 2: And I would always just be like, I don't know, you know, I like watching Tiger. You know, Tiger's obviously somebody that you know. But then like after that, like, you know, I caddied for Luke Donald. I liked watching Luke Donald. Like you you almost needed like some sort of a personal interaction to get because the only time you hear these guys talk really is when they're in contention for in a tournament. And they play, say twenty tournaments a year, and they're in contention only a couple times. That's the beauty of this setup is they're on teams. You can develop fandom for a team, you can develop a player fandom for a player on a team, but you also know that they're playing every time, and they're all, they're going to be there all three rounds.

00:15:48
Speaker 3: You're not gonna miss miss them if they miss the cut.

00:15:52
Speaker 2: And if it's this smaller fan experience, you can go watch them. You can actually go see them. I wanted to talk to you about the format, and this was something that I wanted to discuss. Is as a as a fan or as a media member. What was the shotgun start like versus a regular start?

00:16:14
Speaker 1: It was kind of fun. I mean, listen when when that horn would go off, people cheered, they were stoked. It was like, oh, the competition is beginning.

00:16:24
Speaker 3: Did you think you probably didn't hear? But no, during the.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: First I heard there was some ridiculous propaganda during.

00:16:31
Speaker 3: The first round.

00:16:32
Speaker 2: Arlow White, the commentator for liv Goff, said that many players were talking about how they feel goosebumps.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: If they just if the if the I mean the telecast. Good lord, they're so ridiculous. If they could just dial it back a little bit, I think they'd realize that the event itself is starting to gain some momentum and the crowds are pretty into it. But yeah, that when the horn went off, people cheered and and there was a sense that the competition was starting. That's one advantage of it. I thought it really worked better than I believed it might. The main weakness of the shotgun start that I saw going into it is that, you know, the end of the event might not really feel like the end of the event. If the winner is finishing on you know, the first or second hole. Right, if the winner started on whole two or whole three and comes back and wins the event, that player is not going to be finishing on eighteen. That player is going to be finishing on another hole. But the thing is like, more than likely the winner is going to be in that final group of three.

00:17:42
Speaker 3: Or last two. They did they made a tweak.

00:17:46
Speaker 2: And I don't think any I haven't seen anybody comment really on this, but they made a format tweak already. And this is one of the beauties of being small and having forty eight players, as you can change things and it's not a big deal.

00:17:58
Speaker 3: Also, not having a.

00:18:00
Speaker 2: A tour of players that you have to pass changes through is a huge advantage for a sport that wants to figure out how to create the best product if they want to do that, right, But they are made a tweak.

00:18:10
Speaker 3: They made they start.

00:18:12
Speaker 2: They had a one A and a one bright in the final round, and I was thinking about it.

00:18:16
Speaker 3: It's like they could go one A, one B, one C. Even if they won.

00:18:21
Speaker 2: It might back things up a bit, but it would ensure that that last thing, and then somebody's gonna be like, well, what if somebody comes from three okay, how is that different than somebody coming from two hours ahead and winning like Paul Casey did at the vals Bar a few years ago, right where you know, it was like he basically finished when coverage came on and it was like, oh, Paul Casey buried five of his last eight holes and won. You know, the only way Paul Casey can win an event is when he doesn't think he's gonna win event. So I think the That is one little thing that I noticed is they may.

00:18:59
Speaker 3: Are a made a form.

00:19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I misspoke about that. That there are two groups, and so that makes it even more likely that the winner is going to be finishing on eighteen and they build up this whole scene on eighteen. Now, if a player comes from way back, then that's a different situation.

00:19:14
Speaker 3: But that's the same thing that every tournament deals with.

00:19:17
Speaker 1: Absolutely where the winner might finish really early, and there's kind of this weird little waiting period where the player's on the range, you know, waiting to see if he's going to be in a playoff or whatever. So yeah, that was my main, you know, sort of objection to it going in. But here's what I think the huge thing is for at least the fans on site. Now the fans at home, that's a different issue. The telecast, it seems like it has a lot of weaknesses still a lot of them having to do with the announcers, and they're they're sort of like, you know, willing propagations for all of.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: This they show and this is partly because they don't have commercials, but they don't show like the extreme lead into the shot. They just showed shots. It's just and it's rarely like tapping putts.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: And they had the caddies miked up, didn't they They had like a few caddies miked up, which is I mean, it's something that people have been begging for forever from the PGA tour. Again, Live has so many little advantages over the PGA Tour and what they're going to be able to deliver in their product.

00:20:22
Speaker 2: It's it'd be like, you know, if you used a boat analogy, right, the PGA Tour has huge advantages because they have this massive ship. It's huge, but you know, it's really hard to make little small maneuvers in a big ship. Like you know, Live Live can change, like doing things like a small little format change from one week to the next. They can do that and they don't have to ask anybody because the way they're set up now with the PGA Tour, if they wanted to make a small little format change, it's got to go to the pack and then it's got to get voted on by the pack. And now some things could be worse because of that. But if you're trying, like what Lives trying to do right now is create get a foothold with fans and with players, and by doing having that is their focus as of right now. Who knows what their focus is if they win out and gain the Lion's share and have you know, this week they had the biggest golf event, you know, and they strategically picked this week for a reason because the John Deere is just not a very strong event. They're trying to pick out week events to go against and win weeks, which is smart. But you know, say they win out, they could say, hey, we're going to change the way we do this, and it could really suck for golf fans. But they already have all the golfers signed up for contracts. That's that's the thing that makes you worried, besides the Saudi Arabian money, which always like this is something that is just part of this too.

00:22:00
Speaker 3: Or that you're going to be worried about no matter what.

00:22:02
Speaker 2: But if you're looking at it without that lens, the thing that I would worry about is them winning out, getting the line's share of the great players, and then all of a sudden the product changing dress exactly.

00:22:14
Speaker 1: Then the competition goes away, and we see what happens like with a PGA tour, when the competition goes away, people get complacent, and you know that it gets worse. But okay, so let me. I was gonna make a point about what the shotguns start allows for the fans on site, and I think that's significant. What it creates is a structure for the day. There's a beginning, there's a middle, and there's an end, and the golf is the middle. Right, there's a beginning part where everybody's kind of arriving at the same time. And there was a huge disaster on Saturday with the parking. They didn't have that figured out. But people were getting on site all at the same time, and all the players are warming up on the range at the same time, on the practice screen at the same time, and everybody's kind of clustered around the fan village, and there's various other activities in the fan village. There's games and stuff, there's food trucks. Everybody's kind of there. That's the beginning part of the day. Then the shotguns start, and then there's five hours of golf. Right, the golf is all contained in one specific section of the day. If you go to a PGA Tour event, especially on you know, Thursday, Friday, even Saturday, the golf feels like it's spread out across the entire day. Right, there's just kind of always golf going on, Right, I.

00:23:36
Speaker 2: Get we do it with majors. It's like, when do you get into the course today?

00:23:39
Speaker 3: Right? What time? What time are you get in?

00:23:41
Speaker 1: And there's no good answer to it.

00:23:43
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to go catch an early group at at eight and hang out and then I might go back to the media center for a while. And or for fans it's the same way, when are you going to go, Well, we might beat the rush of getting back home, so we might leave, you know, when the when the leaders make the turn, Like nobody has a set day, like you said.

00:24:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And the golf is just sort of an ambient presence at PGA Tour events. It is the focus. You know that the people are watching that, but it's just going on all the time, and so if there are other things you want to do, then you kind of got to walk away from the golf and go do those things. At this event, there was an end to the golf as well, and then there was a whole set of activities after the golf, right there was the trophy ceremony, there was a party, there was a concert, you know, and so it is a really coherent entertainment product with the beginning, middle, and end, and that vision for an event that people might want to go to is really really compelling, really smart, and distinguishes itself immediately from the PGA Tour again in a way where I was walking around, I was like, oh man, this is better than I thought it would be.

00:24:59
Speaker 3: This is trouble as I mean, Arlow White alluded to it.

00:25:03
Speaker 2: You know, the merch tent was packed, jam packed before the start of the Shotgun startup on Friday.

00:25:10
Speaker 1: You know, I think that might have been a bit of exaggeration, but the Friday, the crowd The crowds were light on Thursday and Friday, Let's make no mistake. They were much heavier on Saturday. But the other thing about it is the other thing that the Shotgun start creates is that live doesn't need as many fans to be at the event in order for this sense of a moment and of a big event to be created by an excited gallery, because everybody's there at the same time. Right when the PGA Tour talks about like the size of its gallery, it's talking about the people who come throughout the day and are various parts of the property at some point, you know, the people who walk through the gates. But at a live event, everybody's there at the same time. You don't need as many people for there to be created this sense of energy that the players were reacting to after the event. You know, Taylor Gooch said, this is just like a president's Cup or Ryder Cup, which was obviously ridiculous and fun to make fun of. But I think that that was a real sentiment that he had. I think he really felt that there was a moment happening.

00:26:16
Speaker 3: Rory called Brooks duplicitus.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: I think the the I don't think anybody could ever ever say that Taylor Gooch was duplicitous, because I don't think he's had a duplicitous thought in his life.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: I think he pretty much has has one level that he works on. There there aren't necessarily layers to that man's intellect.

00:26:41
Speaker 3: It's become very, very apparent.

00:26:44
Speaker 2: If you track down all of his live comments, like especially the one where he was like confused that he got banned.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: That's my favorite one.

00:26:53
Speaker 1: Wait, I thought, can you imagine how how bad a performance his agent must have put in for Taylor not to be aware of that. I mean, maybe maybe the edge and tried to tell him, but that seems like somebody really fell down and informing him about what was going on.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: I think what you're saying about the fan experience also has a a thing about the fan experience from the television.

00:27:15
Speaker 3: So this is just me. I you know, I had to watch live, and I watched.

00:27:21
Speaker 2: I didn't watch on I watched some of every day, but I was like ready to go each day at the start, like I knew when I was like, it was easy for me to block off my calendar. And I say calendar because I don't really keep a calendar, but it was all in my head. My calendar for the day is I knew at one pm Pacific time, I was sitting down and I was watching golf, and I knew that, and and sure enough I was there, ready to go, ready to watch golf. Now with a PGA Tour event, I cover the sport. I know more what's going on than anybody, but I rarely know actually when the fin the leaders are teeing off, and then it switches telecast, Like I turn on Golf channel and I watch the start of the leaders there, and then I have to switch over to the network, whether it's CBS or NBC. Like this is so much cleaner for a fan. Watching also is like you it's one thing, it's five hours. I know what I'm getting into. You can tell you can tell your family, hey, I'm watching this, this is five hours, or you know, like you know what you're getting into and I think that's a huge, huge advantage. I mean, it's pretty crazy, and I think, you know, before we get into I want to talk about kind of players dispositions. I think when you see this fully fleshed out next year with a set forty eight and teams that are on equal level footing and there are trades, there are free there's free agency, there's kind of drama. You know, there's you know, you don't want to say, injuries and call ups, you know, different things that happen. I think that the format and the events are just going to get better.

00:29:13
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Yeah, and the execution of all this stuff might end up stinking because the people behind Live are not necessarily the sharpest tools and the shed across the board, at least in a marketing and pr way. Clearly somebody is behind the strategy of this whole tour that really knows what they're doing. It's not Greg Norman, Like Greg Norman's an idiot, but there are definitely people working for Live who are not idiots and who are making some really smart decisions about how to attack the PGA tour and how to exploit the tour's weaknesses. And we see that in the type of event that's being put on really really clearly, and so the big message here I want to make clear to people, I'm not encouraging you to go to a live event. I don't want to go to another live event because I was walking around kind of feeling sad about it all about what was happening to my favorite sport in the world, and so that was kind of lingering over it all for me, which made it less, you know, kind of entertaining. I couldn't get into it because of that. But if you were hoping that Live would be an incompetent product, a lame product, that it would be easy to ignore that it would be that on top of being morally objectionable, then I'm sorry. It's not a lame product. It has a lot of potential as a golf product. If you ignore what's behind it, then it's going to really work for the people who are into it. And so you can't have that sense of security right now that Live is going to suck, because it's just not going to suck as an entertainment product. I think we saw that pretty clearly this week.

00:30:56
Speaker 2: This is everything that the FedEx Cup Playoffs strive to be. But never could get to because there wasn't enough innovative thought in a large organization. And that's so often the case in corporate America, and this is why startups end up killing giant companies.

00:31:15
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00:32:29
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about the player disposition. How how were I just, you know, I think.

00:32:37
Speaker 1: Phil some some did not seem happy.

00:32:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like whenever I see Phil, now, I'm like, this is a man that that realizes everything that he created and what he's done. And and you know, when you're really unhappy in life, you tend to play really bad golf and class two live events.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: He's been really really bad.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: He looks he looks old and hollowed out. He didn't talk to the media at all. Now here's one thing that is going to make the fan experience somewhat worse. If you're interested in kind of golf journalism, if you like when journalists are able to tell you what's really going on on a golf tour, then LIV is going to make that source of knowledge a lot narrower. Because media access for these players was basically non existent at this event, there were a couple of press conferences before play. There was one flash zone interview featuring three players after each round of play, and one press conference featuring like six players after the final round. There wasn't much that you could find, and there were a lot of players who didn't talk to the media at all, including Phil. Now, maybe there are reporters who were talking to him privately. I'm sure there were, but he was kind of this shadowy non presence at this event. I saw him play a couple of holes. It seemed like he was playing really really bad golf, like his game is just sort of in pieces, and that he doesn't have much to offer from that perspective, and he just doesn't look good. You know, I'm maybe, I don't know, maybe he's happy. I don't have any inside information about his mental state, but he doesn't he You know, the thing about Phil is I don't know how much you saw him live before all of this, like when he was in his thirties and forties, but Phil always kind of had this glow about him, this presence. He's a bigger guy in person than you think he is, and he's more vigorous, or he was more vigorous in person than you think he was. He kind of had this charisma about him. He really doesn't have that right now he's just kind of walking around looking tired and kind of grizzled, and it's a bit sad to see. And my speculation is that, you know, he's a bright guy. He understands what this is and he understands what it's doing to the PGA tour. I think he probably has some regrets. Brooks Kopka was another guy who did not seem happy. I was following Brooks all week, right. I was trying to come up with some kind of story about what his experience was like, because I found him interesting at this event. He's clearly the best player out there, right, I mean maybe not at this exact moment, but he won four majors in a very short amount of time in very recent memory. This guy is a primo player and somebody who's always put himself across as a serious competitor, and now here he is in a league that is really not about serious competition. It's more of a show. And he's kind of a circus bear in this show, and so I was curious about how he was reacting to it. So he was part of a press conference at the beginning of the week. He put in a really petulant performance it was just pathetic, and you know, he was offended by every question, including the softballs from Mike McAllister, who's the in house live reporter, and he was just acting like a child. He didn't speak to the media for the rest of the week. I tried to get a couple of questions in with him, and he refused, refused, refused, and just kind of stayed away from things, didn't play very good golf, kind of threw a tantrum on the course during the final holes of play on Friday. I guess it was and was just kind of being a brat. And so that was brooks Keepko's week. Then there were a lot of other players who seemed very happy and very content with their decision and seemed to be having a good time. My wolf seemed to be at peace with things. I guess he got to spend more time with his dog recently or something. That's what he was saying in his press conference. But you know who really was in a kind of positive mood frame of mind and played good golf during this week was Patrick Reid. He was part of the winning team. Dustin Johnson also seemed to be really enjoying himself there was just this moment. There was this moment after the end of play on Saturday when I was kind of walking along the road that led from the golf course to the media center and the Witch Hollow Clubhouse at Pumpkin Ridge, and I was standing on that road just when the carts that were carrying the winning teams and players were passing by. It was basically the Stinger team and the Four Aces team. So it was the South Africans and the Americans. It was Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reid, Brandon Grace, it was right papro Arles, Yeah, yeah, Louis use Tasan was there. They were all drinking. Dustin Johnson was already drunk. Dustin Johnson kind of a notorious lightweight. He seems to get drunk really quickly. But he was drunk and kind of shouting. Patrick Reid was was covered in champagne, and uh. They were just sort of shadowing shot shouting at each other and laughing and and having some drinks and they seem to be just having a wonderful time. And what was I what I was imagining is that they would go to scoring, they would go to the press conference, and then right afterwards they were going to hop on FaceTime with players who are kind of on the fence about moving to live and they're going to talk to them and say, we're having a great time here. You're missing out. Come on board, get your thirty million dollars, get your ninety million dollars, whatever it is, and come play for this team or that team. You're missing out. That that was I don't know that the kind of vibe I was picking up about what they were about to do and the kind of mood that they were in. So there were some contrasts and how players were approaching this. There are certainly some players who were into it and who seem to be absolutely fine with their choice. There are others that, you know, if you read into it a little bit, they seem to be seem to have some regrets.

00:38:55
Speaker 3: So I don't know, I think, what do you think about all all of this?

00:39:00
Speaker 2: In the totality, there was a ton of smoke at Riviera about everybody that was going and a lot of those who were rumored then have made the jump by now. That was the same week that the phil comments from Allan Chipnook went out and derailed really everything, and it's really rare for an organization to get effectively a second life, and the PGA Tour was given you know, given they were given months to figure something out before this the first live event uh in London.

00:39:45
Speaker 1: Do you think that PGA Tour leaders actually thought after February and after the Fill disaster, ah, we have vanquished Live.

00:39:52
Speaker 2: Yes, I do. They had months to figure something out. They had all the players back under the fold. They had you know, effectively it felt like they were doing hostage videos with players, making them pledge their support to the PGA Tour.

00:40:07
Speaker 3: And they.

00:40:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had They had all these players come back into their arms, run back into their arms, and they had this opportunity to really reform at that point and and and stave off this threat.

00:40:25
Speaker 3: And you know, this was what you're talking about with the players.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: I think that's like the thing, the most powerful thing of of with Live is that, like we've talked about in this pod, what matters is the superstars. They've got a they've got a handful. And anybody that says, oh, they're all over the hill. If you go look at last year's PIP four of the ten, that's that's not insignificant for a tour that has two events.

00:40:54
Speaker 1: Well, and some of those guys on the PIP were clearly over the hill competitively but but not popularly. And and listen, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reid, Bryceon de Shambeau. They've all had their issues recently. But these are real players. These guys are among the best golfers in the world. Still.

00:41:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you.

00:41:16
Speaker 2: This might have been over, you know, the battle for star players. And I think you could make the argument, you know, I just don't think less player.

00:41:25
Speaker 3: I don't think players are leaving.

00:41:27
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like I haven't We haven't heard one player that's gone. Be Like, I'm I'm really unhappy. I shouldn't have gone yet. And obviously we're two events in. They're getting paid an absurd amount of money. I don't know, like they're playing, they're working less. You know, the talking points, the pr strategy has been horrendous for these guys. The that is like a whole nother can of worms to go down. But but the reality, like when you zoom out and look at the big picture, this thing might have been over the second a shot was hit in London, the second that it went off without really a hitch, that it was a that people got paid, that they had a telecast. The telecast wasn't awful, you know, from the sense of like it showed shots that were they didn't have, like the the feed didn't go down.

00:42:18
Speaker 3: The feed hasn't gone down.

00:42:20
Speaker 2: They've shown shots they've players have gotten paid, and players that have gone over are very happy with.

00:42:28
Speaker 3: Their decision, seemingly.

00:42:30
Speaker 2: You know, we just talked about how Phil looks. I don't think Phil's bank account like. I think he might have been in a situation where he really needed the money, so he's probably happy about that.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: Phil might be coming back. He might he might look a lot better. And listen, I'm just kind of watching things and relying on my intuition about how what guys are putting out there in terms of their affect. I don't have any inside information about whether Phil's unhappy or regretful about his decision. I would imagine that he has has dealt with a lot of the debts that he had reportedly built up for years and years because he got you know, allegedly over a well over one hundred million dollars. So, you know, things are things are probably a little better for him than they were a few months ago.

00:43:18
Speaker 2: So I think that's the thing that I kind of I think about a lot with this is is it ra a over? And I kind of like every one of these events that goes every single time they signed, you know, they signed Paul Casey, I don't think that's it. I think there's more coming after the Open and I think there's going to be a slew of players after the FedEx.

00:43:43
Speaker 1: After they get that their payoffs.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: So that'll that would be the Chicago event will be the one where you have a huge and and the thing about it is with every siding, uh, it feels like that that new person goes through a little bit less of a rigmar role like Phil DJ, Phil and DJ and uh they written they took the heat. Those were the guys that especially front line, that front line Kevin Nah.

00:44:14
Speaker 1: Everybody everybody treats DJ with kid gloves, right, let's just put that out there. Yeah, he was one of the first players to sign, but since everybody thinks he's dumb, they didn't ask him any substantial questions, which is ridiculous. But but Phil definitely took the brunt of the pr hit for sure, and listen, he put himself out there for that. He was explicitly positioning himself that way a few months ago, saying to other guys, h according to rumor, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna come out here and I'm going to be your shield. Come on board. That was a recruiting strategy. And guess what he got hit.

00:44:49
Speaker 2: So yeah, and and you see it like the what Patrick Reid and Brooks went through this week significantly less and what those and and Paul Casey. Nobody cares that Paul Casey went, But Paul Casey's like a consistent top thirty player in the world.

00:45:07
Speaker 3: That's significant.

00:45:08
Speaker 2: The thing, the other aspect of this is that with every player, whether you care for them or not, you know whether it's a big deal that Patrick Reid went. It just makes events like the did the John Deere feel more and more like a corn faery event. When you take twenty players off the PGA Tour, that's a huge problem for the PGA Tour. When you take twenty and and Kevin nah is not a box office hit, but he's a field filler.

00:45:40
Speaker 1: Well, he's also a PGA Tour event winner.

00:45:43
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what I'm saying.

00:45:44
Speaker 1: He's one of the better players on the PGA Tour.

00:45:48
Speaker 3: AB answer matters.

00:45:49
Speaker 1: AB answered. A answer is one of the one of the bigger ones because he is in the middle of his prime right now. He's just getting better, and he he fully has the ability to to take down a major.

00:46:02
Speaker 3: Don't you think I think he's contended in majors.

00:46:06
Speaker 1: He's contented to he could win it a place like the old Course. He's sort of a guy like Louis Eustazen in a way like he's he's one of those players who just yeah, he shows up at tough courses. A answer is a real player. Now, you could make the argument that Paul Casey is injured, just like a lot of these guys are injured. But when people like a B answer are jumping over, and really, a B answer didn't have to answer a single tough question this week, right brooks Koepka might have had to answer a couple of tough questions, but a B answer really kind of dodged it. And if that's the model for players of his ability and his status who are jumping over, then other players are going to be looking at that and being like, hey, A answer really didn't get much shit this week.

00:46:51
Speaker 2: And then you start to look at the global impact with a answer Carlos Sortiz, They just like I know, Mexico. We talk about media markets in America all the time. If you look at what college football and the Big ten's doing right now, that's what it's about. It's about, Oh, we got we have Rutgers because we wanted a foothold into the.

00:47:13
Speaker 3: New York media market.

00:47:14
Speaker 2: We have LA now with the USC and UCLA, like we this TV market. So if you look at Live they're doing it with countries, you know, and Mexico well in significant that the biggest market, not the market market, a market.

00:47:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:47:32
Speaker 2: It and if this becomes more of a team game, people that have never played basketball in their lives watched the NBA because you know, they're they're from San Francisco and they're a Golden State Warrior fan, you know. And this is the this is the transcendent impact that team golf can have, is that it allows people to have a rooting, a genuine rooting interest in it, especially if you tie it to countries. And that's where this is really potentially a product that could really you know, I feel like we're just but I think this is the reality of the situation. Is the tour is kind of opened the seas and allowed this to happen by inaction for decades.

00:48:18
Speaker 3: And that's the thing that you.

00:48:20
Speaker 2: Know, you start to look at these countries, then it becomes like very apparent what's going on?

00:48:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Jay Monahan is saying, I can't compete against a foreign monarchy that is spending billions to buy the game of golf. But listen, there are strategic decisions that Live has made that have exploited, strategic non decisions that the PGA Tour has made over the past ten or fifteen years that are going to start to bear fruit, probably over the next several months. Now. Speaking of Carlos Ortiz, right, Carlos Artiz didn't get much notice when he jumped over and he nearly won this week. He played this week, so obviously a good player who has won on the PGA Tour one in Houston. He is part of a network effect that could be pretty concerning for the tour. So maybe it's not significant to people that Carlos Ortiz left, Maybe not that many golf fans are missing him necessarily from the PGA Tour. But according to Dylan De Chair's reporting at the PGA Championship. Guess who Carlos Ortiz was rooming with at the PGA Championship Joaquin Neeman, Mito Pereira. Right, these guys are buddies, they're friends, They are no doubt in communication with each other. And the more guys like Carlos Ortiz who move over, the more parts of the network that is the PGA Tour will be taken over by this. Right. So Paul Casey, maybe we are not missing him because his back is injured and he's on the.

00:49:57
Speaker 3: Not necessarily a great guy.

00:49:59
Speaker 1: And he's not a good guy. Yeah, this well known sort of addyption. But Paul Casey jumps over. But who's Paul Casey connected to? You know, maybe a lot of guys who are already on Live he's connected to, and maybe that's part of the reason he's over there. But again it is it is a network effect. The more guys that jump over, the more guys who are going to be influenced to jump over. And we're just sitting seeing the start of that. Now, a big domino that has to fall is owgr And I don't know, like, do you think that OWGR points are going to be granted to Live events, like given that they've been granted to the Hero World Challenge and all that, that's the example that everybody cites. Hero World Challenge gets OWGR points, But there are a couple of differences. The Hero World Challenge is, you know, has more of a traditional structure than these live events. So I mean, what do you think.

00:50:51
Speaker 3: I think with live.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: A certain standpoint like this is the official World Golf Ranking. The job of the Official World Golf Golf Ranking is to rank the best golfers in the world. So when you get to a point where you have X of the past major championship holders, like you start to do add the majors up of these guys, and that they're playing on this tour at stroke play, you know, granted as fifty four holes. At a certain point, as players continue to go over here, you get to the you get to a situation where is the World Golf Ranking actually a World Golf ranking if you're ignoring these players.

00:51:40
Speaker 1: So you think the OWGR might have to adjust just as Live might adjust, or.

00:51:46
Speaker 2: There might be a point where you say, is this is the OWGR a PGA Tour European Tour sanctioned ranking and not a actual world golf ranking.

00:51:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Live Live could isolate.

00:51:59
Speaker 3: The w S.

00:52:01
Speaker 2: Yes, well, this is this is what's going on, the same thing that the tour is doing. It seems like the OWTR could go down the same path and render themselves extinct by ignoring them and that this is the once. The smart thing that the majors have done to this point have just been stay out of the fray because there's no point to pick fight Again, what matters in this sport is the top players. If if in tennis, if Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal and you know a few a slew of other players left the ATP and started playing in tournaments somewhere else, and you said, this is the best tennis player in the world, whoever was atop the ATP because those guys left, You'd be like, no, that's not the best tennis player in the world. We know who the best tennis players in the world are and that's not him.

00:52:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, tennis, it's more op because for years it was so clear like it's not a major unless Roger Fetter and Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic are there and so. But just as an example, imagine if if live were happening on in tennis, like ten years ago or something, and the ranking points of some sort. I'm not familiar with tennis all that much, but if ranking port points of some sort were not given to Roger Fetter and Rafa Nadal after they had jumped to live tennis, then what were the majors going to do. Do you think Wimbledon is going to say, now, we're not going to have Roger Fetter and Raffin Nadal at our event anymore. No, They're gonna adjust and figure out a way to get the best players in the world at their tournament. And so if LIV gets all the best players in the world, are the majors going to say, no, we're sticking with the OWGR, We're sticking with the PGA Tour. They're going to say, no, we want the best players in the world at our tournament. So we kind of have to grant some openings to these live guys.

00:54:01
Speaker 3: That's that's the thing.

00:54:02
Speaker 2: And maybe it's there's a exemption category that comes from the top ten players.

00:54:08
Speaker 3: On the live money list or something like that.

00:54:11
Speaker 2: Like, the reality is the OWGR cannot operate as the official It's the title official World Golf Ranking. You can't be the official World Golf ranking if you just just to ignore a slew. Not it's not a handful. It's a large number of the best players in the world that have chosen to go play on a different tour. You know, And I know people are gonna be like, well, it's not seventy two holes. You can't be the official World Golf ranking if you just ignore a large portion of the best players in the world.

00:54:46
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, So that that could be one way that this would play out, where the OWGR actually is rendered vulnerable in the same way that the PGA Tour is rendered vulnerable and is kind of forced to get on board, and and that could very well happen.

00:55:01
Speaker 2: I think the mistake that everybody's made, and it's a it's a natural mistake when somebody threatens you, is the idea of harsh regulation, harsh penalties to these players. We're going to ban you, We're not giving you OWGR points. These are the things that are the natural things in any other business. This doesn't work, This does not This not a sound strategy. You do not say in the sense of like, you don't say we're banning you, you say, all right, go over there, and we need to make our place more attractive, so we make sure that you come back. If they hadn't banned these guys, now I know that there are it's a slippery slope, but you you can't ban these guys because it galvanizes them. It gives them like, all of a sudden, these guys are all chummy and buddy buddy because they don't go back to the tour where Patrick Reid's isolated as a cheater. Yeah you know he is now a part of this group that broke away.

00:56:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, reading between the lines, Patrick Reid is part of the four Aces team now, Yeah, he's kind of buddies with DJ and Taylor Gooch and Pat Perez. Those are kind of his friends.

00:56:26
Speaker 2: And they're all buddies because they're the ones that have taken the leap, the US against the world type of thing. If you had allowed them to come back to the tour, they'd come back to the tour and they'd be like, oh God, all these guys I respect. They fucking hate me now and they don't want to be anywhere near me, and that makes me feel bad. Maybe I don't want to do this, but they've removed that. Like one of the biggest aspects deterrence to going and playing live would be the peer respect lost and when when you can't go back to where all your peers are and feel that you've played right into their hands. And it's the same thing with the OWGR. If you ban them from the OWGR, if you if you say we aren't giving them ranking points, it's just going to galvanize them more. This is what happens, and they use these slights to create more momentum for their league. It be like it'd be like if if liv had denied you a credential because they knew going into it that you were not going to be somebody that was looking to write something positive about them. No, they didn't ban you. They said come out, and you walked away. You know, actually, you know you still have the same feelings towards the regime, but you're like, you know what, the golf product's better than I thought.

00:57:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I And I've thought about that a lot, and uh wondered whether just being out there at all was the right call. I think ultimately I'm glad that I went out and saw the event but I personally really have no desire to go and see more events. You know, Live Portland is going to happen again, likely next year, I don't think I'm going to be there, and so that kind of opens up the question for you know, I don't know if we can say for sure how the Frida Egg is going to cover Live in the future. I'm not sure if we have enough information now about how that's all going to be. But it is a question for us, right Andy, Like, if Live is the most successful golf tour on the men's side in the world, then to what extent are we covering men's professional golf on a day to day basis For the Frida Egg. That's for the Frida Egg podcast we covered were we do all sorts of stuff. As you said at the beginning, this is the first real like live focused podcast since Live has started its events, and so for us we can go out and see golf courses. We've got all kinds of stuff going on, focus on the majors. That's great, the shotguns start. Maybe it's a little different day to day coverage on Twitter et cetera. Yeah, I don't where where where do we fit in.

00:59:10
Speaker 2: All this and I think one of the things we haven't done to date is like actually cover the golf, like the.

00:59:15
Speaker 1: Way the golf I always knew going in. I'm not covering the golf because the golf is not the point. This is a political project all the way down.

00:59:24
Speaker 3: It's all and a.

00:59:26
Speaker 2: It's just I mean, this is the biggest story in golf since Tiger Woods. Really we're talking about a schism, We're I'm pretty most people describe me as an optimist. You know, most people who start companies from nothing are optimist. But I'm extremely pessimistic on the future of the PGA Tour. And I really feel I've thought about it for the last month, really since since London, that it was our a over and it's just a matter of time before they have, you know. And I think once once all the big players are there, once the majority of the big players are there, it it puts the PGA Tour stands of Rory and JT in really tough positions where I I, you know, at a certain point, can they actually save the PGA Tour. One thing I wanted to talk I kind of got derailed or I just like got sidetracked when when we were we were discussing it. But you know, Monahan using like money as irrational money as a reason. I think one of the things that when you zoom out and you get outside of America, Live is a little bit less detested, And one of the reasons is effectively the PGA Tour has rendered golf worldwide irrelevant for the most part. You look at what's happened, the centralization of of all the great golf for the most part, the great players only playing exclusive in America has been something that's all been centered around money, and in certain countries what would feel like irrational sums of money being doled out to players to play in in uh, you know, Hartford, Connecticut for example.

01:01:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. So to these golf fans, what you're saying is essentially the PGA Tour did to their regional or national golf scene what Live is currently doing to the American golf scene. Yeah, and I think that that's that's that's fair, right from from their perspective, you know, uh, the PGA Tour. You know, there there are some people who are not exactly sad to see the PGA Tour go away. You and I have been critics of the PGA tour all along. I wouldn't have been sad to see the PGA tour go away either if it were being replaced by something that I feel that I could get behind. But you know, my issue is that Live is part of the Saudi Arabian governments marketing apparatus, and that feels like a ridiculous thing for me to get invested in and to follow and to cover on a day to day basis. But yeah, as you say, you know, we are stuck in our perspective as Americans that we can't be other than Americans, and so to British people, to South Africans, to Australians, to people in Japan, this might feel really different. So it's easy to look back on this and say that the PGA tour made so many strategic mistakes all along, and that if we were in Jay Monahan's position, that we would have done something different. I don't know if I could have imagined how successful and how quickly successful Live could be. I don't think I knew that before I saw it actually happen, and I've been surprised at how quickly they've moved and how well they've been able to put on events and so I don't want to criticize Jay Monahan too heavily for you know, not knowing the future. But you know what I think when the PGL proposal was starting to circulate in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, the PGL proposal was out there, right, this had been in the works for years. I think that somebody who saw where professional sports in general were headed, where the top players in every sport, not just golf, are getting more and more compensated and getting more and more power because they are the ones who drive the interest in the sport. I think that as soon as that PGL proposal was circulating that anybody who had a real eye on the future of golf would at least say, this has some real legitimacy to it, and it might eventually be what happens with professional golf. Maybe we need to adjust in order to incorporate this into our structure. I would have hoped that there was at least somebody in point every your headquarters who is saying that. But you know, looking back on this whole thing, it seems pretty clear that this was almost inevitable that something like this would take over professional golf, all right.

01:04:15
Speaker 2: I think as as grim of an ending as that is, we'll end this here hopefully, you know, there's I guess there's still time for the PGA Tour. It's not completely over, but it certainly feels like the momentum is going the wrong way.

01:04:32
Speaker 3: And uh, yeah, we'll see what happens.

01:04:36
Speaker 2: And uh it's uh, you know, you won't be going to any live events anytime soon, but appreciate you spending spending the week out there, uh and uh being able to provide some insight as to be on the ground experience of course.

01:04:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, thank you.

01:04:53
Speaker 2: Eddy, Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Meg Atkins and Garrett Morrison.

01:05:12
Speaker 3: Thank you guys for the great work.

01:05:14
Speaker 2: As always, and as a quick provider, I am heading over to Scotland next week. This week really for link season out there, we are going to be doing a lot of content on both courses and the Open Championship the one hundred and fiftieth at the Old Course. So with that in mind, it is a great time to sign up for the fridayk newsletter. Go to the Friday dot com and right there you'll see a newsletter sign up button. Put your email in and you will be kept up to date with everything going on in the world of golf, as well as the Friday Thanks and we will be back on Friday with a special edition of the podcast that's again dedicated.

01:05:55
Speaker 3: To the old course, so you won't want to miss that on Friday.

01:05:59
Speaker 2: Thanks,