Election Impact on PGA Tour-PIF Deal, Plus College Golf in the NIL Era

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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 fried egg.

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Speaker 2: Friday egg and dreaded Frida egg Friday fridagg Frida egg bride egg.

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Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today We've got an exciting podcast. I'm glad with how this turned out. We did two different interviews. We talked with Gabby Herseigg, who wrote an article about how the US presidential election could shape the future of PGA Tour Golf and the Fifth Deal. That piece appeared in The Athletic, where she writes also appeared on the New York Times website. Really, I thought it was a cool story, unique story, especially with the election around the corner. So we talked with Gabby, she's a staff writer at Athletic, for a bit, and then we transition over to Brentley Rowmine from The Golf Channel to talk.

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Speaker 1: About college golf.

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Speaker 4: Really, this conversation center around what's going on with Nil's potentially coming down the road with the revenue sharing with NTAAS and really you know this arms race that is college golf, the money in college golf, and how college golf has changed over the last few years. So that was a super fun conversation as well. So before we get to Gabby and Brentley, let's talk a little bit about a partner, Stripe.

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Speaker 1: I am extremely.

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Speaker 4: Excited to partner with Stripe. I love partnering with people that we use their products. And Stripe has been a partner of the Fried Egg and this podcast for seven years, really since we started taking payments on fried Egg and one of the cool things I can say, I can't you can't say this about every partner. We've never had one issue with Stripe, never had it be down like, had bad downtime. We've never wondered how we were getting our money because Stripe is a super great product and because of that, it powers one percent of.

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Speaker 1: The total GDP.

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Speaker 4: So they help partners like us, small growing business and they also help giant companies like Hertz, Marriott, the PGA Salesforce, Squarespace, Toyota, WordPress, so massive companies, small companies. They have your back and have products that you can use. We use it generally for the checkout function, which is great because they accept like a huge range of payment options and that helps people check out more often when they can use their payment method. They also have a billing product which allows you to allows you to use like basically any type of business model you have, whether you need monthly subscriptions or usage based billing. It can handle that. So if you're interested in partnering with Stripe or learning more about it, check out stripe dot com. That's s t R I p E dot com, just like strip and a T shot. All right, let's get to Gabbyhirzig and talk about her piece about the election and pro golf. All right, we're gonna bring on Gabbyharzig from The Athletic. She's a staff writer there. Also, her work regularly appears on the New York Times homepage in New York Times print. I saw you had a piece earlier this year in the in the in the newspaper that had to be really cool. You recently wrote a story last week about the election and how it could impact pro golf men's pro golf in particular. I found it fascinating. It was something that I hadn't really thought of, but makes a ton of sense. I guess, like to start this conversation, where are we at right now with the Saudi deal and obviously the that's been kind of the topic of golf for the last year and a half and the Department of Justice.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, first of all, thanks guys for having me. I really appreciate it. Excited to talk about this. And the truth is we we don't really know anything, you know, more than we did eight months ago. I would say, I feel like the inspiration for this story in particular, was hearing players and executives kind of bring up the DOJ as something that is in the conversation right now, and I thought to myself, well, they keep mentioning the DOJ, and there are these conversations of roadblocks, but what does this all really mean? What could be happening behind the scenes. So I kind of sought out legal experts, law professors, attorneys, former DOJ employees even, and just tried to kind of figure out what this process even looks like. And kind of in doing that, I kept hearing the election pop up and the possibility that the Department of Justice could act very differently under a different administration. So that was kind of the whole inspiration for going down this rabbit hole. But truthfully, we don't know anything new. We know that the negotiations are happening behind closed doors. Jamon hand me that very clear at his most recent press conference at East Lake at the Tour Championship. We've heard, you know, comments from Rory pop Up here and there other PJ Tour board members that they're optimistic that a deal is going to happen, but it just takes time. So all that is to say, I don't have any inside information or exclusive info for you guys, but it is interesting to learn a little bit more about what could be next for the PGA Tour and for fIF deal.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I in the DJ, how con you explain just for people that might not know, how does that work with the president? What you know is the DOJ it's not a separate entity. It really works more with the executive branch of the government, correct.

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Speaker 5: Right, right, That's that's something I feel like, honestly, just hasn't been occurring to people in this discussion of the DJ and you know it is. It's part of the executive branch of the government, and a president can appoint the Attorney General of the Department of Justice and also in an antitrust specifically the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission also investigates mergers and deals of this nature, but it just depends on what industry it is. So in this case, and as reported by the Wall Street Journal, originally the Department of Justice is the one the body investigating this deal specifically. And yeah, there's you know, the term is prosecutorial discretion. So the DJ can exercise what it wants to pursue. It can choose, you know, which deals it wants to investigate. And there's nothing in law or written. And also, by the way, I'm not an expert on this at all. I just have been reading and talking people about this for three weeks. But there's note nothing written in law that says the DJ has to investigate a deal if it passes a third certain threshold or whatever it might be. In that article, I talk about the Heart Scott Rodino Act, which triggers a review of the deal, but there's no exclusive verbiage around if a deal has to be challenged, that's up to the Department of Justice and staff.

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Speaker 4: You know, you haven't brought a rumors or intel, but you know, I've heard from a few people that are knowledgeable of the deal that the DOJ is absolutely a factor right now with the deal, and the idea of golf coming together right now is not really even being discussed, like a joint schedule is not being discussed because of the influence of the DOJ. I think your piece did a really great job of kind of explaining an example of why the DOJ is interested in pro golf. Obviously, a unification of of the game is great for consumers, but what about the unification of the game does the DOJ not like from a kind of antitrust case.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I use this one example of another deal that was actually shut down by the DOJ. It was the Penguin Random House merger with Simon and Schuster, and Biden's DOJ blocked that from happening because, in you know, very layman's terms, basically, before the merger, there were two different bodies competing for the labor of authors and writers and book deals, and if they were to come together, basically there wouldn't be as many opportunities for those authors, and they could control the market a lot more. And that's kind of at a low level sense of what the PJ Tour PIF deal would do for golfers. Clearly, the competition with Live in the PJ Tour has up the purses, increased you know, people's baje X by how many millions we want to you know, define it as, and you know, very clearly has helped the players. So you know, you can see why the d o J would have a big problem with them coming together and acting as one entity. And then and and that's kind of just the highest level of it. It trickles down, like the vendors could be impacted for tournaments per se, if there is a joint schedule and there's only one body asking for you know, whatever whatever is required to set up a golf tournament, and then there's maybe the TV networks or so there's so many different possible you know, entities or people that could be impacted by this because you know, we as golf fans obviously want to see the best players in the world playing on the same stages. But that's not really what the Department of Justice cares about at this moment.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I was thinking about this is like who could this be worse for?

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Speaker 1: Who?

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Speaker 4: You know, conceivably like they're you know, at the high level of the game at the top player, I think they they lose a little leverage, right, Yeah, there's immediate they lose a little bit of leverage, But a unification, you could argue is better for them. Where I kind of like started to center around is young players and developmental tours, Like there could very well if the if the two tours remain separated, be this war to get the best feeder tour and to live or the PGA Tour where you know, purses could go up and developmental tours and like a great example of this I think is calybse Arat. Calybs Aat was a collegiate golfer. He was a very good collegiate golfer, not by any means the best collegiate golfer. He wasn't ranked number one in PGA to ur you. He was a couple of years away from potentially getting a PGA Tour you exemption. But because of this split in pro golf, he garnered a multi million dollar multi year deal to play professional golf and has substantially more money in his bank account than if he had come around five or six years ago, and he would have been duking it out on the PGA Tour of America's or the corn Ferry Tour for years before he had a chance at this millions of dollars. So that's like an example at the low level, or may not low level, but the mid level of how this competition for talent is good for labor and if you unify the game it could be worse for labor.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, one hundred percent. That's a really good example. It trickles down so far. And in the conversations with the experts that I had, they mentioned that in the process where the deal is going to be actually in the official review process with the DOJ, And we don't know if that's actually happening yet or not, but people like Caleb could be asked to come in and do an interview with the DOJ about how this, you know, would have negatively impacted him or It's very clear that they're going to do everything in their power to figure out like what the actual impacts of this thing would be. And it's not just the executives of the PJ Tour and the PIFF, you know, governors that are going to be asked to hand over information and talk to the part of Justice. They're really going to spread their reach and figure out the impacts of this whole thing.

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Speaker 4: So we're about a week away from the election when this is going to be aired. I'm ready for it to be over. I've kind of done on the political ads. But in terms of obviously the DOJ the Biden administration has kind of been They've been working in tandem. Kamala Harris is you know, I get a part of the Biden administration now, and what is the general belief of how the DOJ would act with a Harris election?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, the general belief And again, like for I wrote this in the story, but I reached out to both campaigns. Neither responded for comment.

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised, Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Really surprising. The Department of Justice also gave us a no comment.

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Speaker 4: You know, with how much golf's been involved in this election, you know, going back to the Biden Trump debate and you know recent recent Trump remarks, but you know, he's bringing golf in. I feel like golf's had a moment in the election season.

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Speaker 5: It really has the Bryson video with Yes, that was the whole thing. Yeah, anyway, I mean, no, obviously this isn't something that the campaign that either the Trump or Harris campaigns are running on. I was more kind of exploring it as a topic of, you know, the potential impacts that this could have, and very inadvertent but also direct in some ways because for Harris, I the experts that I spoke to all kind of agreed that she would continue kind of the prosecutorial priorities that Biden has taken on in his administration, which is kind of empowerment of workers, labor markets, protecting protecting those labor markets, which very much seems to align with what we were discussing earlier with the with the competition of the author's labor and that whole kind of precedent.

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Speaker 4: So I'm sure that some listeners are rolling their eyes the protection, you know, the protection of the PGA to our stars.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a it's I was mentioned again in multiple of my conversations, like obviously, these golfers are well paid and they're extremely well off, and they live very comfortable lives. But again, like the Department Justice doesn't care about that. It's simply the concept of limiting competition, which it's a crazy thing to think about because it's like, why would we care about these guys, But it helps them basically carry out like their mission and their.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's it's absolutely true.

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Speaker 4: I mean it was effectively for for decades a single like single pathway. And we saw like when competition entered, and it was irrational money with competition. But what happened, like the way these these players have been paid has been exponentially higher because competition, you know, the competition enters and the the de facto tour all of a sudden has to increase the wages. It's a you know, like from a golf fan standpoint, I think you want the unifification of the game, and I think like an interesting aspect of this whole story. And the DOJ is like, sure, the workforce is being rewarded, but if by the workforce being protected it kills fandom and kills fandom, you then detrimentally, like like you could completely kill the salaries in the long run, because fans have discreate a decreased to such a like fandom has died, right Like the workforce in their compensation is directly tied to you know, fan interest, in fan support. And it feels like golf right now is at a a really you know, kind of pivotal moment in its you know future m.

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Speaker 5: HM definitely, And like the TV contracts with NBC and ESPN, I'll expire I think in twenty thirty, So who knows, like what the renegotiation of those deals would look like if fandom and golf is decreased by however, you know what, whatever percentage it might be.

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Speaker 4: Also with labor, with labor, the clauses in those contracts about field strength, that's like another like, do these TV contracts start to try and ask for money back totally? The fields get to a certain stand which like cuts against the idea of the labor you know, I don't know. It's a this is your your story, this is why I wanted to talk with you. Your story got me thinking in a lot of different ways about this whole conundrum. But like from a pure black and white standpoint, the labor market is greatly in a far better place when there is competition.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, one hundred percent, I agree. I think another thing that might be missing from the whole discussion is by investigating the steal, they the Saudis will inevitably have to go through some sort of discovery process, And I don't think there is much sympathy for the Saudis on either side of the aisle right now in American politics, and that's another huge, huge roadblock. I kind of like slipped that in at the end of my story, but I personally think that that's going to be a bigger issue than maybe anything we've discussed. You know, we saw how they tried to kind of evade the litigation and the discovery process in that whole thing that happened before the merger even was announced, when I think they brought it to like the Ninth Circuit at some point, and they actually ruled that the Saudis were not qualified under like a foreign agency in this case and since they were involved in an American commercial entity. So it's it's all. It's also it's all really such a mess.

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Speaker 4: So on the flip side, so, you know, the general belief is Harris would would continue kind of the path that we're on right now with the DOJ very much kind of in the weeds and looking at this from a labor standpoint. What's the general speculation around what a Trump presidency could bring.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean bringing up Trump with all of these attorneys was just like, you know, they basically are like there's no you know, telling what he would do. But in the past, and history has shown this, Trump uses the law to benefit himself and his companions and anything that could bring him success or could advance his personal interests. They would not put it past him to meddle with the DJ and be more hands on in this than any president might have been ever, just to kind of get what he wants. And so I kind of explained in the story, like even before the merger was announced, he told he tweeted to golfers to take the money while they can, because you know, eventually the two bodies will come together and you'll get nothing if you if you don't. Clearly he was in some sort of codes then, and I imagine, you know, I just think that, and a lot of the people that I spoke to thought the exact same thing. Is that he's he's different than any other president to predict, you know, what would happen in this scenario. But it's pretty easy to see the path of how he would act if he becomes president and if this deal is still out of standstill in the future.

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Speaker 4: I think there have been a lot of presidents that have loved the game of golf that have been notorious golfers. I don't think there's ever been a president, or even a candidate for that matter, that's as deeply intertwined into golf as President Trump is, between the golf courses he owned to the like, you know, I think more pictures with professional golfers have been taken with President Trump than almost like any or you know, former President Trump than any any other president with a you know, maybe Obama and NBA players would rival it. But like, you know, when you think about his he clearly has a deep passion for the game, but he also has a deep business interest with the game. I'm curious, you know, like, is his business you know, because the tour distanced itself from Trump properties a few years ago, is his business interest actually superior with Lift Golf and them hosting tournaments at Trump properties? Or is it actually with a merger happening and the PGA Tour being back into a position where they're selecting venues and such.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think that just all depends on the scope of the deal and what ultimately comes out of the negotiations, because I feel like there could easily be an agreement made where both the PGA tour and Live continue operating separately, and maybe there's some crossover. There's so much speculation right now on what it could mean, but I think that Trump involvement in any sort of deal in golf and seeing its success whichever way that it's shaped, he would be all for that in my opinion. And that's and that's just me speculating and saying what I think. And you know, based on all the interviews that I've done, we don't know what he's going to do. We don't know if he's going to get involved. But I see what you're saying and that he might want to Live to kind of outshine the PJA tour and continue and not you know, fall into this endless pit of spending that it is kind of right now. But I can just see him in general wanting you know, some sort of stake or some kind of seat at the table, and as long as he's involved with the eventual deal, I feel like that'll serve his interests.

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Speaker 4: I imagine there's probably a nice like position to be in saying like, look at the game of golf, look what it was, and I was able to bring it all together.

00:23:38
Speaker 5: Make it again. Yeah, I shouldn't have even said that.

00:23:44
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating little uh.

00:23:48
Speaker 4: There's a lot more important stakes with elections and a lot more important topics. But I would say that this is a fascinating undercard presidential election.

00:23:59
Speaker 5: That's what That's what I was, That's what I was going for. So thank you for taking that away. Andy. Please do not vote for either candidate based on what you want to happen in golf. Yeah, you would strongly advise against that.

00:24:10
Speaker 1: This was not meant to be. This is what's gonna happen so and so or so and so selected. It's just an interesting.

00:24:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are much more important things at the at the table than what happens with pro golfure. But it depending on what you what you're rooting for, there could be, you know, implications on on either side of the table. What else, Air, What else are you working on at the athletic I've I say I've I've really enjoyed your coverage over there since going over there this year. Congratulations, you've you've really I think I've done some really nice pieces of work. What what can we expect from you as the as the off season continues to roll on in the future.

00:24:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, great question. I'm kind of we're kind of in like brain storming mode right now, so there there isn't anything in particular I'm chasing right now. I honestly, I am going to keep pursuing kind of this stuff on the deal and the sud ease, and there's kind of a whole other lens that we didn't even touch on, which is the human rights SPORTSWA washing, the you know, Senate subcommittee investigation, which is still ongoing, so you know, don't forget about that one.

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Speaker 1: And I mean that.

00:25:27
Speaker 4: Was one of golf's greatest moments, was that subcommittee here right.

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Speaker 5: It was so ridiculous, I know, I know. Yeah, there's no updates from that since February, so we're kind of waiting waiting on that one, and I'm going to keep a close eye. But thank you for the kind words. I've I've enjoyed my time at the athletics specifically because I you know, I have the time and the resources to invest in these kind of longer term ideas. One I really liked working on this past year and hope to continue, you know, getting into the weeds and this topic, it's a fun one. Is YouTube golf and and that whole world. I know you guys love to talk about YouTubers, and I think they're just incredibly impactful in in like the quirkiest of ways. But I think we're gonna see a lot more of the kind of creator classic experiments next year. So I wouldn't I wouldn't expect that to go anytime soon. I'm definitely gonna keep on all that.

00:26:23
Speaker 4: I think, like it's it's crazy, like the like Bryson with with Trump in the vein of this story, right, like, I mean you look at you're starting to look at Bryson's YouTube numbers, and I mean YouTube's a representation of of of reach and a certain demographic and a younger demographic, and you start to look at the numbers and it's like, is Bryson potentially more powerful with a large percentage of the population in America that likes golf and the PGA tour And and it's becoming like maybe yes, like and I think, like, I think, like something that everybody needs to understand also with YouTube golf is that, like people's taste and interest change as the age and the way they consume stuff changes, Like someone who might be into Bryson right now might not be into Bryson in six years from now, but but there is like a huge, huge influence, and I think like it's something to look at. Like a question I have is like, what would golf look like and how we talk about, you know, displaying golf if live live betting didn't.

00:27:37
Speaker 5: Exist, right, Really interesting.

00:27:41
Speaker 4: Because I think you'd have a lot more golf just put up on YouTube produced. But betting is this huge, multi billion dollar industry that totally right. It's like, well you have to be able to bet on it, right, Like this match with Rory and Scottie and Brooks and Bryson and a couple weeks, Like, there's no reason for this to be on live TV. It's an objectively offensive TV product when you're watching it and it's like, wait, I've been watching this for six hours.

00:28:11
Speaker 5: That's definitely what's gonna happen too. Yeah. No, I think that's an interesting point to Reaise because the YouTube Golf Realm, I feel like a lot of at least the YouTubers that I talked to for that piece I did earlier this summer, was they target their content and and you know, ideas for videos to younger audience probably one that isn't even you know, can't even bet legally, Like it's it's teenagers like the Brian brothers and Grant Horvat said, they like specifically try, you know, not to use profanity or say anything in appropriate their videos. They want to be something that, like they're a twelve year old can turn on the living room and their parents won't get mad at what they're watching. It's it's really unique, though, that that generation is leaning so much more towards like produced, edited content, like you said, And I think it's honestly because there's more choice involved, Like you can pick which creators align with whatever sort of entertainment you like. And you don't have to sit through commercials. You don't have to sit through the broadcasters, you know, like monotone voices, drowning, you know, putting you to sleep. It's you can fast forward videos, you can watch little snippets. There's like in this generation. And I feel like I can kind of relate to this as on the cuspum.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Of your bridging rig.

00:29:28
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm like right in the middle, but more towards gen z and I watched way too much TikTok, but it is. It's appealing to be able to choose what you want to watch. It's not like, you know, when talking to my dad, it's like I turned on the TV and whatever was on I'm watching. It's it's you have a whole world of content available to you out there.

00:29:46
Speaker 4: That's something we've been talking to our four year old about. I have a four year old daughter and and she's like, we'll get in the car and she's like, she yells at me to put on Disney music. And I'm like, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't even get a choice like that, whatever it was on the radio, Yeah.

00:30:04
Speaker 5: Says He's like, if we were watching the Yankees. I was watching the Yankees.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:30:09
Speaker 4: Well it's like a crazy thing, like right, like you just like I think about it, It's like, you know, the on demand nature of it. I think it goes down to also, like what you hit on and I hadn't really thought about this. Is like when you turn on a broadcast, like you know, the kid might be a fan of of, uh, Scottie Scheffler, it doesn't mean you're just getting Scottie Shuffler. And that's what YouTube offers. YouTube offers you I'm going to turn in this on. I'm going to watch the Brian Brothers and like whoever they bring into my life versus like a PGA Tour broadcast. You turn it on and it's like, well, I can't, I might, I might see five shots of my favorite player.

00:30:49
Speaker 5: Right exactly. There's like such there's there's a whole world of options available to kids, and it's interesting because it this is a broader discussion, but like young kids have such separate interests and identities from their parents now, I think because of Internet culture and like being able to develop these niche you know, groups or like discussions on the Internet or fandoms, like even in music, Like I feel like in my parents' generation, like it was he listened to what his dad or his mom was listening to in terms of music, and now it's like all these kids are finding these artists that no one has ever heard of who's older than twenty years old. It's kind of an interesting parallel to sports media because it's like if I'm, for example, like if I'm a diehard Colin Morikawa fan and he's not really playing super well in the PGA Tour event that's happening, right, now he just made an hour and a half long video with Grant Horbad and I could just go turn that on instead.

00:31:47
Speaker 4: Well, it makes you think that the tour has to get the point to the point where I can customize my broadcast. Yeah, like that has to be where this all goes, and it has to be I'm going to be to watch all the shots from my favorite players like it's you know, you could start to see it with like the app and favorites, but it has to get to the point, you know, in ten years, in the next ten years where it maybe sooner than that, it probably really should get there in the next five years if they want their product to really be ahead to where I could like turn on the television or open the app and I can watch every shot of my favorite my favorites list in a concise, easy Like one of my favorite things that some majors do is they do that, like every shot from so and So's round. Yeah, love those three minutes and it's like, oh my god, Like I just like I know exactly how to talk like and I use it for my job. I know exactly like what shots were good, how how the context of the sixty seven rather than like just the number on the board and if I saw a couple shots on the telecast.

00:33:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally agree with you. I think. I mean, one idea that like I feel like I've talked to some people about is that we have, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of every PGA Tour week and right now, they occasionally invite like a YouTuber or influencer to come play in a pro am and they're not allowed to film anything because it violates intellectual property law as the media rights agreements. And if the tour could somehow like reshape those regulations, I think it would be so valuable for every week, just see who puts their hand up to go play an eighteen hole match with Fat Perez or whoever, and they could film a video and they could put it on the PGA Tours YouTube channel. And maybe they can do that right now, but they're not doing it. And I know for a fact that YouTubers have been at PJ Tour events and been told they can only make three minute long videos or something or whatever it is, and I think there's so much opportunity there is. What I'm saying that they that they just need to embrace that this idea is actually worth the time.

00:34:02
Speaker 4: That's that's like a huge uh you know, to get back to like the discussion of of Live in the PGA tour like another you know what we talked about with Labor, like yeah, lives lives, lives rights if they don't really have a right steal so like, but what they've allowed Bryson to do, Yeah with his YouTube page that he would never have been able to do this with the PGA tour and what they've what they've allowed Bryson to do, that's extraordinarily beneficial to labor. Once again, this competition and what Live offers you from a from what you can do as a player, because you know, I a few I mean like seven years ago I met with some agencies in prog Off and I talked about like the how they should be building players YouTube pages like you could see it because Kevin Durant was doing in an MBA at this point, right, you know seven years ago, and all the agencies kind of like laughed at me.

00:35:06
Speaker 1: They thought it was like crazy.

00:35:09
Speaker 4: But now you see with Bryson the impact that it can have if a tool, if a player really invests in their page. And I think like it requires two things personality and like on camera presence, and like that's the thing that the the YouTube deers that have like done well. I think also like having like some golf skills are somewhat required. But you know, think about like how many PGA Tour players probably could have a flourishing YouTube page of their own, which when you talk about when you're done playing it at it gives you more paths to being relevant for longer periods of time.

00:35:49
Speaker 5: There are some there are some players already kind of experimenting even with like TikTok flogs and.

00:35:55
Speaker 1: Who's who has been moved then.

00:35:58
Speaker 5: What's his last name?

00:36:00
Speaker 1: I'll bit no.

00:36:01
Speaker 5: Not Ben Griffin. Ben Griffin has an amazing TikTok account if anyone hasn't checked it out. He does like daily vlogs. He shows like traveling to the tournaments, what the courtesy car looks like, you know, his range session and his goals for the day. It's awesome. I highly recommend. But what was I going to I was going to say something earlier about about Bryson, Oh, about impact. One of the things that I learned in reporting that YouTube story, there's this annual Dicks Sporting Goods Golf Galaxy commercial that comes out, and you might remember it was Phil Mickelson saying, you know, this promotion is available for the newest Calaway driver. And then the next year, I think it was Zander Shaffley, and then this year it was the Good Good Guys. And the commercial was literally just them in the parking lot of Dick's Sporting Goods and they there's like a big billboard about the Father's Day promotion that they're running, and they like pretend to be celebrating a hole in one because the deal is so good. And it's literally like a ten second commercial and they're in there like polo shirts and short shorts and the whole thing. And that commercial was the most successful Dick Sporting Goods Father's Day promotion ever that they've ever had.

00:37:09
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.

00:37:11
Speaker 4: Well, it reaches all the kids who are buying the Father's Day gifts.

00:37:16
Speaker 5: They suddenly they look up on the TV and they pay attention to those are the guys that I'm watching. I'm spending like the free hour of time that I have when I'm procrastinating my homework watching Good Good not you know, in Phil mickleson on the High flyers.

00:37:28
Speaker 4: It was, Yeah, I remember years ago and this is like I'm showing my age in the golf industry. I remember when Page like kind of hit it big. I was speaking with someone who was who was like, you know they at first everybody was doing like women's products deals with Paige and they weren't doing that well. And then and then somebody like with men's products, and it just exploded, like the mark worked. But it's like, you know, like good good, you wouldn't think like, oh, like I'm a father, I'm not necessarily like a good good consumer. I'll pop in and watch a video here and there. I'm like genuine I'm curiously interested in what they're doing from like a work standpoint. But like who the consumer is is like that kid who's watching good Good is going to turn to his mom and be like we have to go let's get him something. I have to go here for Father's Day. Yeah, for dad like that. Yeah, it's just brilliant. It's it's all right, Well, I'm excited to uh to for that follow up and uh thank you for your time. People can follow you on X and Instagram. What's your where your handles?

00:38:37
Speaker 5: It's just Gabby hers. Maybe one of them has like a dot in the middle or something.

00:38:41
Speaker 4: But yes, and TikTok, they can follow you on TikTok.

00:38:45
Speaker 5: Follow me on TikTok, don't. I have some amateur blogs up there with my brother and that's all.

00:38:52
Speaker 1: I've made up.

00:38:53
Speaker 5: One.

00:38:53
Speaker 4: I've made one TikTok video in my life, and it was it was a baby, a baby announcement. So it's for five years ago. We did the remember the flip the switch? Yes, you did that, Yeah, we did that. We actually like, you know, yeah, I have.

00:39:10
Speaker 5: To go look that up right now.

00:39:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're gonna be able to find me. I don't even know.

00:39:15
Speaker 4: I don't even know how to log back into my account. I got to get back on TikTok.

00:39:20
Speaker 5: I'll figure it out, I promise.

00:39:23
Speaker 4: But uh, but yeah, people should read your work at the Athletic. It's worth the subscribing. There's great overall sports coverage. You could obviously do the New York Times All Access, which you know, my wife just found out I had New York Times All Access.

00:39:38
Speaker 1: I've had it for like five years.

00:39:40
Speaker 6: Nice.

00:39:41
Speaker 4: She's like, wait, I could have been using these recipes all I'm like, yeah, they have also.

00:39:48
Speaker 5: Shout out to my fellow colleagues at The Athletic Brendan Quinn, Bertie Miller, editor, Hugh kellen Briger. The subscription is obviously worth it for all of our writing and everyone else at the Athletic.

00:39:59
Speaker 4: So yank, thank you, all right, Thanks Gabby, We'll talk to you soon. Look forward to seeing you this spring out on the PGA Tour circuit.

00:40:07
Speaker 5: Sounds great. Thank you Andy.

00:40:09
Speaker 4: Bye, guys, all right, big thanks to Gabby for coming on. Let's get over to Brentley Romine and talk about college golf. All right, I am joined by Golf Channels, Brentley Romind Brentley, I'm excited to chat a little bit about college golf. We're in the midst of college golf. There's a lot going on there. How has been you know, obviously with it being college football season, there's a huge impact of this realignment. Is it really felt much in college golf or because of the kind of nature of these invitationals in different tournaments, the conferences are kind of moot.

00:41:02
Speaker 2: Well, first, thanks for having be Andy, And to answer your question as succinctly as possible, is no, because college golf teams have already played all over the country against teams from all different conferences Mid major, Power five, now Power four. We won't really see the effect until we get to the conference championships. In ESSENTI you'll add two great teams to the SEC and Texas and Oklahoma. You add some good programs to the Big Ten, Oregon, USC, Stanford to the ACC. So that's when we'll really start seeing the effect of this realignment is when some of these PAC twelve teams start winning conference championships in the Big Ten or in the ACC. And I feel like Illinois they've had their stranglehold now on the Big Ten, especially on the men's side, for the better part of a decade a decade US this could be the year where they get a little bit more run for their money.

00:42:06
Speaker 4: That's what I was going to say. I was going to ask, does the Big Ten still run through Illinois?

00:42:11
Speaker 6: I would say yeah.

00:42:12
Speaker 2: So the four teams what that added to the Big Ten were Oregon, USC, Washington, and I'm drawing U C l A. So on the men's side, UCLA is probably the most well equipped to challenge them when you look at the top of their lineup with Omar Morales and Pablo Erinho, I would still say with Jackson Buchanan, Uh with the Ryan Voice, Max, with Big Max, with with Mini Sep, Mini Tank Max Herrendein, I would still say ILLINOI is the favorite, but but U C. L a Is is right on their heels.

00:42:52
Speaker 4: I think obviously, the other huge discussion in college sports centers around NIL and we're a few years into the NIL era. How has it impacted college golf? What what is the Yeah, I think like everybody is always wondering, like, what is the NIL market like for golf?

00:43:16
Speaker 2: H Well, I think there were a lot of pessimistic people a couple of years ago when I mean this is right about the time I guess it would have been three years ago or two years ago, right about the time of the year where all this stuff first came out and all these states were passing legislation and so on and so forth. And I think there were a lot of people who immediately dismissed in IL as not being having any sort of effect on the non revenue sports. You know, in our case with golf, They're like, oh, well, how many golfers are really going to be millionaires? And I think now that we've had a couple of years into this, and you know, I'm sure we'll discuss how it's all getting ready to, you know, be flipped on its head again. But there aren't millionaires in college golf right now still, But there are a handful of players who are pulling in six figures a year, you know. I think in the research that I've done, the Ludovig, a Bergs, the Gordon sergeants, like these guys are pulling in over one hundred k a year in nil and on the women's side, though no one really.

00:44:23
Speaker 6: Knows for sure.

00:44:24
Speaker 2: I think in the span of her college career, the two years that he spent at Stanford Roseaning, it was right around a half million dollars. Now, I'm not sure how much of that was, you know, kind of took into account early stages of pro careers, like how deals have kind of moved on from when she was in college. But I mean, still a half million dollars. Sorry, I have a fly flying in front of me right now, but a half million dollars for the best women's college player perhaps, ever, that's a pretty good chunk of change. And I think as you go down the you know, down the t years in terms of talent of player and marketability of player. The average let's just say the average three man on a Power five team is probably looking at somewhere in the twenties to thirties, with some of the second team All Americans probably around that fifty to sixty K per your mark.

00:45:20
Speaker 1: It's better than Poka n I.

00:45:22
Speaker 4: You know, I will say, you know, I had heard that Amari Avery, for example, the standout at USC had a monster on IL deal. I think, like, I think the big deals kind of from what I've heard, kind of center around talent and also marketability. Yeah, your Gordon Sergeant for example, is at the top of the earning side, and obviously he got a huge boost his freshman year when he was playing in the Masters, you know, and the commentary and the buzz around that I think has propelled him to a huge level. You know, recently, I had I had heard a rumor of a of someone that transferred from Power five to Power five and you know, is is playing three or four on this new team and is pulling in uh six figure deal. You know, It's it's been an it's an interesting dynamic, you know, I think, like, how does it work on the recruiting basis as we're starting to see like the next wave of kids, like and how is it impacted. How's NIL impacted just recruiting in general.

00:46:33
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's funny you say that because there is a highly sought after prospect right now, uh in junior golf that I think teams are are trying to line the brinks uh you know, back to brinks truck up to and trying to outbid some some other schools for But as far as that rumor like six figures for a three man on Power five, I think some of that is uh, you know, maybe a little rubb of the green in terms of teams trying to not trick, but maybe motivate their competitors to spend more and more when they don't have to. I would highly doubt that that there's a three man on any program in the country pulling in over one hundred thousand dollars.

00:47:21
Speaker 1: Now.

00:47:21
Speaker 2: It's golf is interesting in the fact that this NIL money is coming from a bunch of different avenues. Like golf is fairly unique in the sense that the OEMs like titleist and tailor made. You don't have too much of that in other sports like you have. I guess the equivalent of that would be a shoe deal in football or basketball. But like these guys like Spaulding is not is not paying basketball players in IL. I don't even know what ball they use. They use a Nike ball in n C douaa right now, so I don't think Hike is yeah. So, but like the equipment these guys are using, maybe lacrosse is is another parallel, maybe the type of sticks, like epic lacrosse sticks or I don't even know the different brands of lacrosse. But golf is so unique and that you have that you have, like you mentioned, you mentioned all the boosters and the collective one of the cool things or the most interesting things. I'm not sure how cool it is. But Florida State, for instance, has two collectives. I think it's like Unconquered and the battles In. That could have gotten each of those wrong, but one of them is definitely the battles In. And there's one specific collective that is just for football and golf and the other ones are for every other sport you know, plus football and golf, So like money's coming from there. And then you also have like an Amari Avery's case, you have the Bank of America deal that she had around the Augusta National Women's Amitters. So all that kind of piles into a big pot. So that's where you know two man or something is getting sixty k or andy k because they're kind of getting it from a bunch of different buckets. And to add on your a Mari Avery comment real quick, there was a point in twenty twenty two where she was the She was number two in nil at USC behind Caleb Williams, so crazy, and I think Juju was a freshman at that point and she was a close number three. I think eventually she passed to Mari. But that's pretty good to be only behind the quarterback for a snapshot in time at your school. That shows that golf is not this afterthought that people thought it would be.

00:49:36
Speaker 4: I think golf presents for the collectives, and it's a little bit different, right where like someone who's obviously it's like very attractive to highly affluent people are generally golf are playing golf, and probably some of the biggest donors and the collectives are golfers. And the other thing that golf presents is unlike other sports. If I if I'm a donor and I give, you know, five hundred thousand dollars into collective, I'm not putting the pads on and going going getting in the trenches with the d line prospect we're buying. I could, however, you know, go play around of golf with the person that we support in that IL. And I think that's probably one of the huge advantages that golf has over maybe some other non revenue sports is that there is the ability to gain other benefits besides like the pride of having a great team. Oh, like I could go, you know this, this person could give me a lesson, or we could play nine holes like that is that is a unique proposition I have to imagine, like I and I don't know, this is just I was thinking about this today before this conversation. Are there multiple recruiting strategies where you know, some people are paying for the ANIL. I think like golf is a huge step up from high school golf. It is a huge and I think like one of the things is a little bit more of a crap shoot. And one of the reasons this crapshoot is because like it is a big step up in golf courses.

00:51:12
Speaker 1: You don't know how you know, certain players are.

00:51:15
Speaker 4: Going to adapt to a completely different environment where they're away from their home. They're in this new environment, they're playing new golf courses that are much more demanding. Is are there multiple strategies of are there schools that are saying we'll pay that il bucks, but we're going to go into the transfer market and find the kids that maybe were ranked one hundred and fiftieth in their class and ended up being, you know, a top twenty player versus like, hey, instead of just dropping you know, dropping the bag on this high school kid, we think we can find more value in the transfer market. Has there been a lot of strategies? Which ones have you seen have been the best? You know, examples of different strategies.

00:52:00
Speaker 2: With anything with the sport that I've come to learn over the twelve or thirteen years plus i've been covering it, is there's a comp There's a complex answer to that, Andy, and that I think the last couple of years, when we still had the extra year because of the pandemic, the transfer portal had a lot more like high level talent. So where some players in there what you know, should should and could demand you know, a significant amount of nil. I think now that we've gotten past that, like the transfer portal has dried up in a sense to where it's not as big of a strategy as it may have been the last handful of years. So but but again, like that's getting ready to change too, because with these roster caps coming the transfer portal next May. As soon as the selection show on our air is done for the men and for the women, that portal is going to heat up. There's going to be players at the back end of all these power of five schools that are suddenly going to be probably destined for more mid major golf. And I think at that point then the cycle kind of gets back to all right, like some of our collective money, some of our nil money should go to the portal. But I think at least for this recruiting cycle, and then once we get a couple of years out of these of these roster cuts, it's going to go back to trying to make smart investments and hit the recruiting trail, hit hit the international market, try to figure out like what kids are and it's going to be how it always has been, like predict what kids can make that jump And the crazy thing is you mentioned a big jump between high school golf and college golf. A lot of the top junior players don't even play for their high school teams, which is something I think a lot of people don't realize.

00:53:50
Speaker 1: And iager it could hurt their wagger right well.

00:53:54
Speaker 2: And some people would argue that that that wagger that waggers, or as Brendan likes to call out Wager, some people would argue that that's getting less and less important, especially as it relates to PG eight to or you and that being the pathway to some sort of status, because whereas before, if you were top ten and wagger, that was kind of one of the top benchmarks that agents and OEMs and people looked at when coming up with how much you were going to get paid with your first contracts out of amateur golf. And now it's really the only the only bonus I can see with Wagger is qualifying for the USAM whether that be on the women's or the men's side, which a lot of the elite women don't even play the women's sam But that's a it's an arguer, that's a conversation for another day, or making a Walker cup team, Like, those are really the only reasons that I could see Wagger really mattering. And then you could be number one the McCormick medal obviously, but that's only an opportunity that a handful of guys have.

00:54:58
Speaker 6: But kind of.

00:54:59
Speaker 2: Across a board, like you're you should be worrying less and less about Wagger, uh and more and more just about playing in you know, tournaments and getting in front of coaches and playing the best courses and against the best fields that you can and that you can afford, and you know, coaches will will find you. And again like I'm not I'm not super worried about these college coaches because they've proven that they know where to recruit what, you know, what countries. Different schools have their their different pipelines. Mike Small obviously in Illinois get the Belgian pipeline. Oregon starting to get the on the women's side of pipeline out of Taiwan. The same for Laura at Texas. You know, at Arizona, she brought in a lot of players from from Asia. So I'm not worried about these college coaches, like they'll they'll figure out, you know, how to identify the talent and then they'll they'll use what you know what in i OL money they they have wisely, And I think that's kind of up in the air now right with this salary cap that's that's coming that no one really knows for sure how that's going to affect these college golf programs.

00:56:10
Speaker 4: You've alluded to, what are the high level kind of changes coming to college golf? How is it going to be different? I would say that we're in this wild wild West period.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, like right now it's really the wild wild West, because teams can spend as much money as they want to and a lot of these deals, a lot of these nil deals, and we've seen it on the football side, like some of these deals have been kind of kind of shady and and I think people have been taken advantage, whether it's some agents or you know what, have you lawyers with all this litigation that's going around. Like one coach said it to me best, like, the only two people who are making a lot of money right now besides the athletes are lawyers and agents. So what incentive do they have to come up with a solution that would potentially, you know, cut them out of some money in the future. So right now, it's the wild wild West. I think with the NCAA back in May when they announced that they were coming to some sort of two point eight billion dollar agreement where it would settle the three biggest lawsuits that are on the table. It would settle those and essentially it would earmark some money for past athletes. But then it would create what's essentially a salary cap for college athletic departments, and that would be basically, in Layman's terms, you could revenues share up to twenty two percent of the athletic department's total revenue, which obviously a lot of that's coming from the revenue produced.

00:57:51
Speaker 6: You know, via.

00:57:51
Speaker 2: Football, basketball, whatever media rights contracts, things of that nature. So you can share up to twenty two percent. So for a big time program, you're looking at between twenty twenty one up to maybe twenty three million dollars right now. That'll be divvied up however the department see fit.

00:58:10
Speaker 4: The big question is that's crazy because some college basketball or football programs right now are exceeding that much and they're so yeah, yeah, I think I think Yukon last year was like twenty three million alone in basketball.

00:58:24
Speaker 2: Spend yeah, which there's going to be other lawsuits down the line, but I think this is it's a step in the right direction because it's going to give you some mid majors potentially a chance. And I'm just looking at it definitely through a golf lens and that not only are the mid majors going to be getting potentially better players because you're cutting down rosters from I would say, like in this summer, John Reehorn, who's the men's golf coach at Oregon State, he went through all the Power five men's rosters and he was under the assumption that it would be a roster cut to nine, which was initially announced, but now there's some rumblings that it might be eight. Well with the nine, with roster cuts to nine, there would be sixty five men's golfers who would need to find another place to play. So those players will probably matriculate down to mid major. And then when you think about the fact that this twenty two million or twenty two percent, it's all going to go to the football players and the basketball players is not going to necessarily go to the golfers. Now, a program like Pepperdine that doesn't have football, that could put them in a position to say, all right, we want to go all in on golf. So you're kind of giving the school its own agency to pick its winners and losers, right like you're deciding what teams you want to be great and what teams you don't want to be great, and the major vast majority are going to pick football. But some teams might like earmark a little bit for that golf. But I think the other thing and it's still up in the air, just like what happens to the collectives at this point, from my understanding is there's going to be this third party arbiter. There's some roles that could be like Price, Waterhouse Cooper or something of it, but it's going to be someone who's like a referee that's going to be able to determine. All right, Like this nil deal is it legit? Like is it fair market value for this particular athlete or is it just a roundabout way for a school to pay the funnel money to its players. If they determine the ladder, then that will count towards your twenty two percent. If it's an nil deal that's completely organic, you know, like titleist wants to pay Gordon Sargent.

01:00:47
Speaker 6: Like that won't count toward that.

01:00:49
Speaker 2: And you're going to get unlimited scholarships now, but are all eight players going to be on full rides? Probably not, but that scholarship money will not count towards your twenty two percent. So there again, I'm throwing a lot of information out there, but some of it's still to be determined. But I think the gist of it is you're going to have a salary cap. Almost none of it's going to go to golf.

01:01:13
Speaker 4: Unless unless the school wants to be a great golf school, in which they could and it wouldn't.

01:01:19
Speaker 2: Take it wouldn't take that much either, it wouldn't take that much money.

01:01:24
Speaker 4: I think that's where you hit on this earlier. But the equipment manufacturer's relationship in this is is huge because if a school has a good relationship with a Calway or a titleist or tailor made that seems to me what you just said about the nil and the arbiter deciding if it was a legit deal is like you coming to them and saying, hey, let's we have this one hundred k deal from Calway for our for three of our top one hundred players. It would be probably hard for an arbiter to say this is not a legitimate anil deal. Like this equipment company has a vested long term interest in building a relationship with this was said athlete, because if they make it to the PGA Tour, they want them to be sponsored. It's a fascinating aspect. I wonder, you know when you think about it and you know this is I you know, I didn't know all the intricacies of this going in, but like that would make a lot of sense if I'm an equipment company and also a university that I want to build really good relationships with the equipment manufacturers.

01:02:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a fine line to walk, of course, because otherwise you could see, you know, some programs getting into a situation with Adidas and an Auburn and some of the basketball schools. But it's it's interesting how the OEMs have kind of evolved and what they decided to invest when it comes to college golf. Like, for a while there, I don't know if you remember, this was probably six or seven years ago, but p XG announced that they were sponsoring like five college programs. It was like Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, I forget who Oregon might have been one of them, but it was like this big push and it was right around it was right around like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, like right around the time like ou won a rich Harvis Farms. Oregon was really good, Vanderbilt was in its prime. But I don't think they necessarily got the return that they thought they would. And so now I really think the OEMs have been fairly conservative on what amateurs they're you know, providing more than just product to and I think you're seeing that like Roseng with Callaway, Gordon Sargent with Titleist, Luke Clinton Taylor made it basically stops there just in terms of like significant money, because why why is an OEM going to risk giving money to a college kid who might get stuck with PGA. To you, it changes things a little bit, But who might get stuck in Q school and in Perga toy for a couple of years, Like that doesn't do them any good. They're better off picking guys off the corn for a tour or getting guys when they turn pro because you have to start, I mean, those nil contracts don't carry over to the pros, so you have to sign a new deal and you can invest all this money and a guy when he's in college and then he turns pro and decides to sign with somebody else. So there's different OEMs probably have different philosophies, you know, like Cleveland tricks On has a different philosophy than Taylor Made, and Taylor Made has a different philosophy than than Titleist. So it's it's certainly interesting. But I don't I don't see, you know, an OEM having such a great relationship with certain programs to to where like program or like athletic departments can kind of circumvent some of these rules by you know, by getting cal like hey, come play for us, like Callaway will then sign you to a one hundred thousand dollars contract.

01:05:00
Speaker 6: I don't. I think the really good players will be getting that no matter where they go.

01:05:05
Speaker 4: PGA Tour U has been a massive change also in the college golf space, I think, like you know, as as recent as about four years ago, we saw the likes of Davis Riley, will Zlatorres turning pro mid season and leaving to to kind of set up their best chances of getting a Corn Ferry Tour card, a PGA Tour card. Thus with like a full calendar year now with a guaranteed PGA Tour card at stake for the top spot and guaranteed Cord Faerry cards for the you know, next five or it's the next four spots.

01:05:49
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's next four and then conditional up to ten.

01:05:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, conditional up to ten.

01:05:54
Speaker 4: It has opened up a you know, it's almost created the opposite impact where it's extremely advantageous to stay in college. How has the PGA Tour you expansion impacted college golf and and amateur golf? And where where do you think it's going to go? Do you think it will continue to expand do you think there will be more cards handed out in the near future because of the success I mean, like the crazy thing has been the success of the players. They have almost like to almost all of them have hit the ground running and proved out that they are deserving of these cards.

01:06:37
Speaker 6: Yeah.

01:06:38
Speaker 2: I don't know, but like people have thrown out the idea of more PGA Tour cards, especially with what Ludwig's done, like Michael thorpe Jornson's showed out, like if you finished number one in this, you know, chances are at least with the small sample size that you're going to be great and you're going to have a long career on tour. But I'd be a little leery just in terms of who's making the decision, right, I mean, Jordan Spieth had to go through Q school and didn't didn't get the final stage his first try. So you have these guys making decisions like what incentive does Patrick can't way? And I'm kind of asking you this as a question, like what incentive does he have to allow two guys out of college golf every year to get their PGA Tour card in addition to the guys who would get it via this new accelerated program like none.

01:07:26
Speaker 4: Right, Well, I think it's it's around. I think like the long term, the game's getting younger, and I think the tour should be deeply invested in building name brand recognition with younger players faster. To me, if I were looking at it, I would give a card to the best senior. But at this point, I think like it's becoming clear that some of these kids are ready to go at age twenty. Well, and like we saw Sergeant got the it had the ability to do that based off of earning certain amounts. I think that that should be a little bit more emphasis should be placed on like okay, you know, like a great example would be like Joaquin Neman a couple of years ago. He ended up turning pro at eighteen and immediately was a very top one hundred player. If he had gone to college for a year, he should have had the opportunity to earn a card through certain thresholds, Like if a top, top, top end talent goes to school and shows out their first year, they should be able to earn a card. In my opinion, you know, there should be That's that's the way I would be thinking about this if I were the tour, if I was thinking about, like what incentive do I have as a policy board holder? I know that like I'm an I'm an equity holder in the tour. Now, the game's getting younger than ever. One of the issues with the game getting younger than ever is is a sport that builds a superstars over decades.

01:08:57
Speaker 1: So how do we how do we accelerate the.

01:09:01
Speaker 4: Name recognition standpoint of these young players so that when they're twenty two people know who they are. Luke Clanton's a great example who played a slate of summer PGA Tour events and played exceptionally well. People know who Luke Clanton is now and that's super like it's you know, so that that's the thing that I I mean, like Nick Dunlap is a great example of this, Like he he's ready to go.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, And that's why someone like Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams are as big as stars as they are already one because Jayden Daniels is playing some absolutely incredible football, but like we followed him and were exposed to him in college, and so I definitely think PGA Tour You plays a huge part in this because Luke Clanton, like the only reason he's really playing that many PGA Tour events in the summer and having the opportunity to have three top tens is because of PGA Tour You and the accelerated and his ability to earn these points for every top ten and every made cut he makes and every major he qualifies for. And so I think there has to be a balance though, as we see on the women's side with LPGA Q School, where we're going to have you know, one of the top players in women's golf Zilly Campus from UCLA. She's going to leave her team mid season, and it kind of I mean, it doesn't kind of it it screws over her, her coach and her team, and it's you have to look out for yourself. But at the same time, like this kind of leaving mid season is an example of a tour and a pathway to that tour that's too far slanted toward the professional side of things. And so that's why I think PGA Tour you it's got the balance right and that you probably can't earn your PGA Tour card that first year, but you could be working towards it. You could still be playing these PGA Tour events like we're seeing play in Clanton and Ben James now to an extent, and you could potentially I think Jackson con and Clinton both have a chance now at the end of this year to have a PGA Tour card and a decision to make next summer. And Coyven will have played two years of college golf in Clinton three years. But I'm just I'm very leary that they're going to open it up to more PGA Tour cards available. But I think even in the five years that we've had PJ Tour. You it's proven that if you do, if you were to hand out to PGA Tour cards like there are players ready to take those that could be factors right away on the PGA Tour. Like I go back to, like I pulled up the very first PGA Tour U class and I'll just read it quickly like John Pack was number one. He just got his PGA Tour card this year through KFT. Davis Thompson winner on the PGA Tour, Austin Eker, winner on the PGA Tour, Kevin You winner on the PGA Tour, and then you get into the Garrett Reband, you're still in you know, the developmental tours, Fiegals, Trevor Warbelow, Jonathan bright Well and then Quid comments mac Meiser. This are two guys either about to be on the PGA Tour or has been on the PGA Tour.

01:12:14
Speaker 6: So you're talking about three PGA Tour.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: Winners off the class where none of those guys got a PGA Tour card right away. What happens if they would have been out there from the get go like that if you handed out three PGA Tour cards and Davis Thompson and Austin Ekro were out there in twenty twenty, you know, twenty twenty one, summer of twenty one, they may have that they could be in a conversation for President's Cup and Ryder Cup teams by now. So there's an argument I think both ways. But you know, certainly you can there's a good argument to make that you could you could offer more tour cards.

01:12:49
Speaker 4: I think, well, I think it also like this is a is where what does PGA Tour golf look like in two years? Is it a ultra elite tour? You know it could look the same, That's right. I think we have a discussion earlier in this pod that talks a little bit about that. But the uh, you know, the thing about it is like you could have an ultra elite tour and then could could the you know, typical weekend week out PGA Tour be more of a PGA Tour like bottom half plus corn ferry top half. That could facilitate more spots where you have a top end tour of eighty or seventy or sixty whatever it is, guys. And the play, the play up and down is a little bit more. That churn up and down is a little bit more frequent, but you have that bigger pool at the bottom that facilitates more PGA Tour cards for college players and then the ability to quickly accelerate up.

01:13:52
Speaker 1: You know, I just think about like last.

01:13:53
Speaker 4: Year, you you know, you gave Thorbjornsen a card, you gave Ludwig a card. I mean, Ludwig was effectively playing on a PGA Tour U exemption last year. He quickly earned his place, but another college player came in and should have been at East like with Ludwig, it was Nick Dunlap. The only reason he wasn't was they didn't count the points for his first win. Yeah, but like you effectively had two kids straight out of college that were top thirty players on the PGA Tour last year. This year you get thorby Ornson, who looks like a stud you could have had, you know, could have been Gordon Sergeant he decided to come back for school. But another player that had like kind of a decision with Luke Clanton, who decided to go back to school. So like you have this this place where like I think you could have made an argument that between Clanton, Dunlap and Ludwig alone you had three of the top fifty players on the PGA Tour last year.

01:14:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, especially ball striking wise. I think it was smartan that tweeted out where Clinton would would have ranked like off the tee and approach the green like he'd be a top five player essentially tee to green, get rid of the short game part of it, and like what's that strokes game ball striking?

01:15:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, he'd I always I always think that should be a stat like around the green doesn't make sense for T two green.

01:15:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that stat does exist, it's just not it's not featured prominently on the p G h to r's website among the data or standards. Yeah, it's not on data Golf.

01:15:30
Speaker 4: Special that I used to work out of all the time that had just that combined, and it's like way better barometer of ball striking talent.

01:15:40
Speaker 6: I'm still a big total driving guy. It is a total driving I.

01:15:47
Speaker 4: Just played a lot of golf last week and I gotta say, like it, total driving is like a good stat because like if you're hitting fairways and you're hitting a lot of drivers far, Yeah, hitting it far and you're hitting it straight, Like, it's a good stat to divide her because like, you just don't make big numbers when you're hitting the ball far and you're hitting the fairways, like your your floor is extraordinarily high, which is in seventy two hole stroke play.

01:16:15
Speaker 1: Like that's that's kind of like the name of the game.

01:16:17
Speaker 4: There, last thing before we get you out of here, tell me a little bit about the golf facilities race. There have been some like shocking, shocking totals on these these facilities that are being built. I saw the Alabama facility one hundred million dollars. I just saw something about Vanderbilt.

01:16:39
Speaker 1: What what is.

01:16:40
Speaker 4: Going on with golf course with these college programs and their facilities.

01:16:46
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just another distinction, especially as we're getting to a point where college golf is moving toward, you know, capping the amount that you can compensate these athletes. You have to distinguish yourself some other way. And I think this is very much the kind of the arms race we saw like a decade ago. When you look at it, you know, school like Illinois completing a new facility. A couple of years ago, Indiana did something where they added a new golf course to where we did their golf course like six or seven years ago. So I mean, it's just, uh, some of this is just it is just nuts.

01:17:25
Speaker 6: Right.

01:17:26
Speaker 2: Oklahoma is working on a new facility, and I would you know, I would stand to argue that they probably could have used a little bit of an upgrade before that, but like that's just one other way that they're going to have to distinguish themselves. But it was interesting because I had I had Frankie Sappin on our college podcast, which he's not a college golfer, but he used to be, and now he's going to the PGA Tour. I think out of this crop of thirty KFT grads this year, a lot of people might tab him as one of the two or three guys who probably has the best chance to make it, you know, and play Ryder Cups and win tournaments and when majors and all that.

01:18:06
Speaker 6: And it was interesting because he.

01:18:07
Speaker 2: Had kind of the the opposite path in college golf, where he started out at Alabama and then he didn't work out there for him and he transferred to Florida Golf Coast. I don't know if he was a big Dunk City fan back in the day as a kid, but he ended up at Florida Golf Coast, and I know the coach there well, so he won't mind me saying this, Like their facilities are not great, Like I don't know if you've heard of the old Corkscrew Golf Club, La Star of Florida, but it's just a really hard golf course that I'm not sure would make any top fifty lists in college golf. And their facilities are essentially non existent. He talked a lot in this podcast about how he feels like that was the that was the least important thing, like it wasn't about where you were practicing, and some coaches would disagree. Like I was just in Chapel Hill after the US Open, and Andrew D. Batto, the head coach, was walking me around their you know, short game area where they have all these different lies you can simulate and all of these different sized greens that allow you to develop all this analytics and so on and so forth, And it just sounds a lot more complicated than it than it should be, if for just looking at like different heights of grass and holes in the ground. But like sap And said that, like that just doesn't matter at the end of the day. It's just all about like, what what players are you surrounding yourself with that can help you get better? And then it's ultimately just you know, playing tournaments and getting and getting better that way. But he said it didn't it didn't matter whether he was at a multimillion dollar dollar facility at Alabama, which you know, apparently when he was there it wasn't good enough because they had to blow it all up, or playing at at old Corkscrew on not as good surfaces and things of that nature. I mean, it worked out pretty well for him, like it worked out well for you know, all these guys who played, you know, the majority of their college careers in mid major golf, like Vincent Norman played D two, Chris Godderut played at Rutgers for four years.

01:20:12
Speaker 6: That's essentially a mid major in college golf. Sence.

01:20:16
Speaker 2: I mean, even a guy like Keith and Bradley at Saint John's, Like, I can't imagine Saint John's facilities were that great, although they probably got to play some pretty cool courses every now and then. But yeah, I just I don't think it's as big of a deal. And I think some of these programs and athletic departments are going to look back on are going to look back on these huge investments in their facilities and realize that yet, like we probably didn't need the one hundred million dollar facility with the lockers that opened themselves, and the bidays with every toilet and the three chefs and twenty ping pong tables, Like we probably didn't didn't need all that.

01:20:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's interesting. I just.

01:21:01
Speaker 4: Like you think about the spectrum of like and I don't know exactly what Kent State's facilities are, but there's three Kent State golfers that are pretty good PGA Tour players from the same team, maybe four, and the likelihood that you know, you take back to when they were playing, they were probably just hitting balls into a net in the gym. Most winners without like a track man, even like I imagine like track man are are big investments for some of these college programs, and I yeah, I mean, development is such an interesting topic and it's nonlinear. It's like people come from all different kind of backgrounds and at times different times in their career become great players. And it's a it's a fascinating like I think if I was running a college program I would I like to our earlier discussion when I was thinking about this, I think I would prioritize spending money later and getting kids that really perform at a lower level and bringing them up to my to my level where we have better facilities, because I know that person is going to be hungry. It's just an interesting it's I think college golf is, Uh, it's on the verge maybe of starting to have a little bit more of a moment in in in a space in golf. It seems like Golf Channel, your your employer has really prioritized it this fall and has been showing a lot more college golf, which has been great to see. And I think there's there's just a there's a huge opportunity, especially with the way that what that both men's and women's golf is where it's really skewed younger, to start to build some of these personalities at a younger age.

01:22:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and college golf is really set up, I think for the future, especially when you look at this this College World Golf Championships foundation that John Fields and has died or April or kind of heading. And I've spoken to coach Fields a lot in the last like a year or two about the subject, and especially at a time where the NCAA is is going to be having to make cuts across the board to pay for all for all these settlements and those types of things like college golf to be self sustaining would be huge as it relates to the championships, and I think the number to run like both championships right like at PGA Tour level Field said it's like three million dollars a year for men's and women's And so if you could get that fully endowed year after year, and it wouldn't take that much from the top fifty players in the world every year to just donate a little bit of that money, like most of them played college golf, like, just to give back just a little bit, and then all of a sudden, that number is is very easy to achieve. So I think golf is set up in a great spot. And one last thing to kind of touch back on the facility talk, like there's a I almost feel like sometimes players can get too comfortable when they have everything that they need when everyone's and you hear players talk about this a lot, especially when they struggle right right out of the gates. The things that they talk about is you know, I wasn't prepared for professional golf because everything was done for me in college golf. And then when I turn pro, Yes, you know I might have an agency, but they're also responsible for a couple dozen other players, Like no one's holding my hand. I almost feel like it could be a detriment sometimes to have everything at the fingertips of these players, because nothing, I mean, one hundred million dollar facility in Tuscaloosa isn't preparing you for staying and Hampton ends and flying Frontier airlines from PGA Tour America's event to PGA Tour America's event and then to a Monday qualifier.

01:24:49
Speaker 1: Maybe not always the Hampton end. It could be worse than I have.

01:24:52
Speaker 6: It could be it.

01:24:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to discredit any value hotels that that may may or not be great and great to I mean, clean bed, clean bathroom, that's my motto when it comes to UH hotels. But yeah, I mean it's a it's a detriment I think sometimes for these players to be coddled for four years and then they just get thrown out there and you know, it's no, it's no surprise that we see some of these players just they don't they don't make it, or or they don't make it for a few years, they get discouraged and then all of a sudden they have the yips or mentally they're just not in it. They don't enjoy it anymore. So yeah, I mean, I would just say, be careful what you wish for when it comes to kind of bolstering your your facilities and how much money you're actually you know, pouring into that.

01:25:39
Speaker 4: All right, Brentley, it was great chatting all about the business and the uh kind of ins and outs of college golf. These days, people can read your great work at golf channel dot com. Actually it's that golf channel dot com. Well it's a redirect. It's a redirect, yea, yeah, redirects. That's that's the way I find it. Golf channel dot com. Also follow you on on Twitter at Brentley GC on Twitter or also known as X. These days, lots of changes I have. I'm not up to them, you know, golf Channel on Twitter.

01:26:18
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks Brentley, We'll talk to you soon.

01:26:20
Speaker 6: Awesome.

01:26:21
Speaker 3: Thanks Nadie, Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.

01:26:37
Speaker 1: A big thanks to p J.

01:26:39
Speaker 4: Clark for putting this together, editing and producing this episode, and thank you to Gabby and Brentley for coming on and chatting. We will be back Thursday with a new episode, and in the meantime, if you haven't check.

01:26:54
Speaker 1: Out Club t f E, we are. We produce a lot of good stuff in there. We put actually our part of our.

01:27:02
Speaker 4: Design notebook was in this week's newsletter to give you a little sample of what design notebooks like. So if you're a Fridagg newsletter subscriber, go check that out.

01:27:11
Speaker 1: Almost all of the story was in there.

01:27:13
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