Reactions to LIV Mayakoba and the State of Men's Pro Golf

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.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: And when I find my.

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Speaker 1: Ball in a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, Frida bride.

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Speaker 3: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I am Andy Johnson and I am here with Joseph Lamania uh Today we will dive into a discussion on the PGA Tour and Live Live. Had a big weekend at Mayacoba with the PGA Tours kind of weather delays, and we are joined by CBS Sports and a normal sports Kyle Porter. Uh Ky I will come on to talk about kind of the weekend that was with the PGA Tour and Live kicking off.

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Speaker 4: So before we get to that, Joseph, what are you in.

00:01:10
Speaker 1: On, Andy? I am in on owning your swing and owning your process. I think we saw a little bit of an example with Justin Thomas going through some struggles last year and talking about wanting to own his golf swing. But the most recent example that I wanted to highlight is Wyndam Clark, the reigning US Open champion and now fifty four hole at and T Pebble Beach Pro Am Champion final round sixty. He's talked about owning his process and owning his swing, and I really liked this quote that Sean Martin at PGA Tour smartin on X formerly known as Twitter, that he put out. This is a quote Wyndam Clark gave to Sean back in January, so a month ago. If anyone knew me in high school, in college and in my first few years on tour, I was obsessed with the swing. I was always videoing my swing, looking at swings. I'd watch other players swings on video just to see what they're doing and try to emulate them things I liked that I was trying to do. I do know the golf swing really well. I would say in the last two years or a year and a half since I've been on my own, I've probably watched myself swing less than fifteen times. And I do not look at any Instagram videos or anything because I'm trying not to go back to where I was, which was too mechanical, too technical, and now I'm trying to basically just own what I do think it's a good lesson in owning your process. And you can know all that you want about course management or the golf swing, but if you don't have conviction and what you're doing, then you're not going to get the results you want. And I think owning your golf swing is an important part of the puzzle to achieving success on the golf course. So I really liked that quote. I love that quote.

00:02:48
Speaker 3: I think that everybody trying to be an individual, like when the more you are about being yourself with golf, I think the better you generally will play. Drafting off yours, I'm in on Wyndham Clark, I'm in on him as a player. I think we hit on this when we previewed the season, kind of like when we look back on last year's major winners. What Wyndham Clark becomes over the next couple of years is going to determine how we think of twenty twenty four or twenty twenty three.

00:03:19
Speaker 4: As a major year.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: And now you know, with Wyndham Clark winning this, this is another win, it's this third win in ten months. You know, he's starting to blossom into a world class player that if you watched him in college. If you watch him as a junior, you thought he could be you know, he was the big get.

00:03:38
Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: I think one of the things is like that is kind of undercovered with golf, but is super fascinating is every year, you know, these guys turn pro and all the agents are vying for different players, and there's usually a big carrot, and Wyndham Clark was a big carrot in his class of players that turned pro. He's got just hangible skills that are like aligned with really great players. He can drive the ball with the best of them. He's super long, top fifteen in driving distance, and what we saw this weekend is like maybe his you know, if you can drive the ball well, he can. His iron play can be really good. It's not I don't think it's like consistently great, but it can be really great. So he can he can hit it close on on when he's when he's cooking. He's got the requisite tea degreen game. And then the putter. The putter is the thing that I think is super impressive with him. He is an elite putter. We saw that on Saturday with him pouring and putts from everywhere obviously that was an anomaly and out of body putting experience, but he is a really great putter. So at age thirty, he's got plenty of speed. Now I don't think he's going to be a ten year superstar, but I think we've seen a lot of players have a three, three or four or five year run, and we could be right at the start of a three to five year Windham Clark run where he is a bona fide top ten player in the world.

00:05:11
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think it's gonna be a lot of major championships where no one's talking about him and then he kind of sporadically pops up onto the leaderboard and you're reminded of how good of a player he is. So yeah, thirty years old, got plenty of runway here to put up some good years. So I'm with you. I'm in on Wyndham Clark as well.

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Speaker 3: Everybody's been so obsessed with the youth and they you know, I think one of the things that the next young player wave and obviously we see it with the guy that finished second, Ludwig, but one of the things that's missed is there are still the development stories the guys that are becoming great players at age thirty, and you know that that's kind of been obscured, I think by the youth, the success that youth players are having in the sport. So I think that is something with Wyndham Clark that will that makes him a little bit more under the radar. This is how PGA tour superstars used to come of age, right, It was at late twenties early thirties when they really became stars.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know this one hundred percent, but I think there was also some equipment figuring out that Windom Clark had to do, and that's a part of the learning curve as you're alluding to. So I'm with you, all.

00:06:20
Speaker 4: Right, what are you out on?

00:06:22
Speaker 1: Kind of a tough one, but I'm out on calm conditions and professional golf tournaments. Really the point I want to make wind has become almost like a necessity to challenging the best golfers in the world. When you have calm conditions, it's just become driver wedgefest over and over. And I think what's interesting about wind that isn't always mentioned is wind is kind of a natural rollback if you hit into a twenty mile an hour wind and then you hit down wind twenty miles an hour. That nets out to losing distance like wind interest lengthy.

00:06:57
Speaker 4: I didn't think about that it does.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: Wind lengthens a golf course, and so I think prioritizing windy environments. With where modern technology is, it's basically one of the only defenses we have. I mean St. Andrew's without wind in the Open Championship a couple of years ago wasn't much of a test without wind, and the most compelling shots this weekend at Livemyacoba were shots with wind. It wasn't super blustery, but there was some wind at Pebble Beach. Watching the PGA Tour, the most interesting shots are ones where you're having to flight it with the wind. We're kind of in the era of stock shots and not having to worry too much about flighting your golf ball. It's much more interesting to watch the professional golfers have to feel it out a little bit more versus track man golf, and I think wind should be prioritized When thinking about a venue.

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Speaker 3: I think about the memorable rounds, and a lot of them come like the players the Open Championships, and all of them have kind of a common recipe a lot of times is wind.

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Speaker 1: You're right, of course, q Island.

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Speaker 3: I mean that's why it's a great major venue, is that it's always windy there, right, you know, a calm day out there is windy at most places. So I agree with you. The wind is I mean, the wind brings out shot making, which I think is just you know, that's the thing that we want to see. You want to see the best players in the world have to execute specific shots. I think Taylor made posted a video of Fleetwood hitting a draw from basically the same spot as Rory hit a fade with like a crosswind, and it was awesome camera work and it was so cool to watch. That was like something I'll remember from this week. So I agree with that.

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Speaker 4: I'm out on the.

00:08:41
Speaker 3: USGA's new USAM format. I think I talked about this on the Shotgun Start when it was announced. Seeing it practice and practice, it's a disaster. So for those that aren't aware the USAM, the way you'd qualify for the Usam was always a one day, thirty six hole qualifier. You know, thirty six holes of golf. You don't nobody really fakes it over thirty six holes in one day. I don't know why there was a need to change this. It was always one hundred and fifty dollars the entry fee, so very affordable tournament. You get your chance to go play the USAM. Now the format has changed to an eighteen hole local qualifier and an eighteen hole sectional qualifier. The new price is two hundred and ninety dollars. Now, these tournaments happened during the week, right, so they've doubled the cost and they happened during the week. So if you're talking about a middle class family with a kid attempting to qualify for the USAM, the cost used to be one hundred and fifty dollars. And let's just say you have a fifteen year old and you're taking a day off work is one day, and you had practice round in there at some point, so you know, let's just say the cost ends up being five hundred dollars. If you have to travel with this new format, you know, I'll just use Chicago as an example. Chicago and Wisconsin are splitting a local qualifier. So if you are a middle class family with a fifteen year old from this from Chicago this year, you have to travel either to Indianapolis or Steven's Point, Wisconsin, three to four hours away. If you want your kid to play a practice round, you you have to travel twice to those locations. You have to take a day off work, you have to book a hotel room, all these things. It effectively turns into and if he gets through that local, if your kid gets through that local, you have to do it again. You have to do it again with another thing. So you're just adding to the cost of attempting to play golf at the highest level, which I think, if you're looking at participation, is a bad move. If I'm looking at it from like a family that just this to say makes less than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Them attempting to play the USAM, if they are successful, is going to be at least one thousand dollars to get in, and that's not even counting then if they qualify, what it will cost to go. So you've made this tournament just you've effectively doubled the cost of this tournament to attempt to qualify for the USAM. Now they'll say, hey, we've added some exemptions for state Am participants, and I think that is a great move. You know, like, if you finish runner up in a State Am, you might get a exemption out of local. If you win a State Am, you get an exemption in. You could have done that and not done this two tier system. You could just because you did the two tier system doesn't mean that you couldn't give state Am champs an exemption into the USAM, which I think is good. I think you like they're a little bit caught between wanting to be an invitational, wanting to have their best field, and wanting to be open. This, without a doubt, makes it less open. This is cost prohibitive and makes playing the USAM, which is a event that every kid should be trying to play if they have aspirations to playing golf at collegiate level, at the professional level, if you have aspiration to being a great amateur golfer, you want to play in the us AM. They have made it a much more closed off event, just strictly based off of cost and time.

00:12:28
Speaker 1: Well said, I don't have a ton to add to that other than I think the entire concept of affordability is its own interesting subject and I can't even imagine right now, Like with TrackMan's and instructions, how much more expensive golf has gotten over time to play a junior golf, to play elite junior golf, when you'd hope it may go the other direction and become more affordable. So understood. I think it's a good point on the affordability of qualifying for the most prestigious events, which again with things like track Man and instructions, has probably gotten more expensive anyway.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, think about a family with one hundred thousand dollars of income and you're talking about trying to play the USAMS one percent of your your cost of your salary.

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Speaker 1: Practice rounds are a good point, Like, there's there's a lot of expenses just beyond the two.

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Speaker 3: It's a thousand thousand bucks at a bare minimum if you have, if you qualify out of the local a thousand buds. That's that's nuts, It's insane. It is not that is not making the game more inclusive, more open. And yeah, I just I had a huge problem when it was announced. Now seeing it in practice, it's even worse. All right, Now, let's get over to the our discussion on Live and the PGA Tour with Kyle Porter from CBS Sports and a normal sport. But first let's talk about ag one. Taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it should be at least simple. That's why for the last two years or so, about a year and a half, I've been drinking AG one every day, no exceptions. It's just one scoop mixed with water once a day, every day, and it makes me really feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. That's because each serving of ag one delivers my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics and more. It's a powerful healthy habit that's also powerfully simple. I know with ag one, I'm giving my body high quality nutrition. Every batch of ag one goes through a rigorous testing process, so you know it's safe. All of our ingredients are sourced for absorption potency and nutrient density. I like to drink my AG one first thing in the morning. That's when it's supposed to be best for your nutrient absorption. I fill up my shaker cold water, and then I just really feel focused and ready to go. I know I'm getting my pre and probiotics, I just am. It really adds a layer of energy to my day. So if They're one product I had to recommend to elevate your health is ag One. That's why I've partnered with them for so long. So if you want to take ownership of your health, start with ag one. Try ag one and get a free one year supply of Vitamin D three, K two and five free AG one travel packs.

00:15:16
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00:15:25
Speaker 4: Slash the fridayy check it out. All right, it was a big weekend.

00:15:38
Speaker 3: It was unplanned, but we had two limited field you know, fifty four whole tournament. This weekend, we had the PGA Tour with their signature event, the AT and T Pebble Beach Pro Am, which was of course weather shortened fifty four holes as an atmospheric river maybe a Pineapple Express too, just bombed into the West coast and uh, it was it was scary. It was a it was a rough weather out here. And then uh the Live Maya Coba, the season opening Live fifty four Hoole Tournament, which saw John Rom's debut along with Caleb Surat, Adrian Morunk, and others and Alwaukee nemon Win.

00:16:22
Speaker 4: Uh, let's start uh there.

00:16:26
Speaker 3: I guess the big first question is is Live a competitive product?

00:16:32
Speaker 1: And uh?

00:16:33
Speaker 3: Or is this just a one week hit where they kind of lucked into the PGA tour being off on a Sunday and uh no NFL and and they were just wide open for uh, you know, kind of it to hit the golf mainstream as it felt on Sunday.

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Speaker 2: I think the big question is what is an atmospheric river?

00:16:53
Speaker 4: Kyle.

00:16:54
Speaker 3: That is a term that I did not know about until I moved to California. But it's basically like these giant, giant weather systems develop over the Pacific. Obviously, it's like I think it's tens of tens of thousands of miles of ocean between land surfaces, and it's basically kind of like a hurricane in terms of water, right, so just it'll just dump water for twenty four hours. Sometimes you get them they all line up. Like last winter, we had these things lining up and it would be like ten straight days of rain.

00:17:34
Speaker 1: It was wild.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: That's oh, that's yeah, that's insane.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:17:37
Speaker 2: To answer the Live question, I think it's I think it's both. I wrote an article for cbsports dot Com this week about how Live's decision to go against the PGA Tour signature events to me was a pretty curious one. I know you guys have different opinions on whether golf should generally go against like bigger stuff, but even within golf, I think it's cure is to go against Pebble, to go against Memorial with your TV product. But man, they got they hit the Jackpod on Sunday. In terms of people are ready to watch Pebble right like, it's it's still it's still cold, it's still winter. People want to see Pebble in February. They want to see the best players. And then all of a sudden, I found my own viewing Habit was like, well, Pebble's not on. I guess I'm I mean, I still need to like work a little bit and I'll just throw on live Maya Cooba. And I think a lot of people who are even not in the industry just sort of meandered over to watch the end of this live event. So I think that that part of it was completely unplanned by them and just a huge stroke of luck early on in the year.

00:18:47
Speaker 1: I totally agree Kyle right like that you have to put yourself in a position to get lucky if you want to win in certain things, and Live definitely got lucky with the weather. But if you turned the broadcast on which I guess remains to be seen, how many people did it felt like a lot of people did. Anecdotally. I got texts from friends who were saying that they were watching the live events, So I mean, I think a decent number of people tuned in. You saw a lot of the top players in the world competing in what did feel competitive with a broadcast that didn't have a lot of commercials, and you saw a lot of golf shots. So I don't know. I'm kind of torn between is this was it fun to watch because it's new and in it now feels a little more competitive, But a couple of weeks from now, is anyone going to be watching live Hong Kong? Like, I'm kind of torn between thinking it is a formidable competitive golf product and maybe it'll go back to being sleepy here in a couple of weeks. But I was impressed with what I saw. Andy, What were your takeaways?

00:19:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I think when you look at it from just a coming down the stretch, who's in the field, who's contending. It was a really good Sunday for Live because you had how sold names, Jen Rahm and Sergio Garcia, Like every golf fan knows those guys. And I think Joaki Nieman's obviously a big name amongst golf nerds, but maybe not like he's not gonna excite somebody to tune in on Sunday. But you have Sergio Garcia, John Rahm, and then Joaque Neeman, who's like a very very good player twenty five years old, has a lot of wins now to his name, and you have those three coming down the stretch, and and you know, I'm not gonna include me and Dean Bermester, but you know the uh that's and like you said, I think there's things that the broadcast does with Live that are just better.

00:20:40
Speaker 1: Right.

00:20:41
Speaker 3: You know, Maya Cobe is a beautiful place, but I don't feel like they they spend a lot of time setting the scene. You know, there's like, you know, you don't have just that shot, that stale shot while they're running CBS promos across the screen. You just get into shots, and I feel like the shots are a little tighter, So I don't, I don't.

00:21:02
Speaker 4: I think this was a real win.

00:21:03
Speaker 3: For the idea of of golf when you know you can put it on in the winter when people don't have stuff to do. I think there were like some ingredients here on in the winter when people don't have a lot of stuff to do and limited competition. So like, if I started to think about that, like, what are the recipes for golf? Should I mean, people tune into the majors, but should the non major tournaments be like winter tournaments during the week when there isn't a lot of competition. Is that how they should be structured? Because that, to me, beyond anything, is the takeaway, right is that I think if if Pebble's played this doesn't this windfall doesn't happen because Pebble had Ohberg. I hope I pronounced it right.

00:21:55
Speaker 2: Who knows?

00:21:56
Speaker 1: I think?

00:21:56
Speaker 2: I think if you can pronounce it anyway at this.

00:21:59
Speaker 3: Point, Ludwig who's now on his third last name pronunciation, which you know, Ludwig and Ludwig uh and Wyndam Clark. You know you have Windom Clark coming off of sixty. You know, who knows what happens at the end of that. But that's a great final round duel. Also, right, you have a rising superstar in Ludwig and you have this guy that's trying to cement his place among the elite players in the game.

00:22:28
Speaker 1: Back up that US Open win.

00:22:30
Speaker 3: So I you know, I don't think Live succeeds if that weather doesn't come in, right, we wouldn't be taught, We wouldn't be having this conversation if that happened. Would you guys agree with that?

00:22:43
Speaker 2: I agree, and I think I think Joseph's right, Like you do have to put yourself in a position where you can take advantage of stuff like that. It's just you can't. You can't count on it like that can't be, that can't be part of your model. One thing I was thinking about on Sunday was I want, and this is to playing into what you were talking about, Andy, I want the weather at the at the locale of the like wherever the golf is, to be the opposite of what my weather is at home. Right, So if if if I have great weather at home, I want your event to get washed out so I can go put with my kids outside if I have terrible weather at home, like it's winter or it's cold, or it's rainy or whatever. I want your locale to be perfect, because I want to watch golf for seven hours, And so I think I don't. I don't know how that I don't. I don't. We don't need to get into scheduling or anything like that. But that was just kind of an interesting thought that I had, Joseph. One question that I've been considering is what does it even mean to have a competitive product?

00:23:43
Speaker 1: Right?

00:23:43
Speaker 2: Because I've always sort of laughed at the idea of the seminal member guests getting OWGR points because they have a better field than most PGA Tour events, Right, But that's not that doesn't constitute a competitive product. What what?

00:24:00
Speaker 1: I guess?

00:24:00
Speaker 2: Sometimes I wonder what does it even mean when we say, or when we ask the question, does live golf have it? Or does any tour really have a competitive professional product?

00:24:11
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, are you saying competitive as in competitive in the marketplace for fans' attention or are you talking about competitive within the connotation being a tournament in which it feels competitive between the athletes participating.

00:24:27
Speaker 2: The latter, Yeah, competitive between the athletes that are participating.

00:24:31
Speaker 1: I think it involves there being stakes and a win feeling meaningful, and why a win can be meaningful. I think there are a lot of different reasons, right whether it's a historic venue, whether it's pride and beating the best field possible, which I think we'll get to later in this conversation maybe as why we kind of need to unify the game so that we get all the best players back in the field. But I think what makes it competitive is in a sense of achievement and beating the best players in the world on a test that tests, that's a well rounded test that identifies the best champion. So I am. I still kind of think if Live ma Acoba didn't necessarily have all those ingredients, and part of why it was special was again, it's the winter and this was there was nothing else on. If this event happened four months from now, I don't know that it would pop the same way, but it did feel like for example, John Rahm, he was into it like he was getting mad. Live needs that it needs to feel competitive, so at least from my perspective, the players have to really feel like they're trying to win the golf tournament, like it means something to them. And I feel like it kind of did Andy, What do you think?

00:25:43
Speaker 4: I agree.

00:25:44
Speaker 3: I think John Rahm is there are a lot of reasons He's was a huge signing for Live But one of the reasons is, like, you know, Brooks doesn't really care. It's very clear about regular events. DJ, I don't think really cares anymore. Or I think he's kind of kind of at the end of it and he's forty, Like this is natural progression, right, He's he's at the end of his career.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: He does I don't. I don't think he's putting in the work he used to put in.

00:26:12
Speaker 3: So livehead like Bryson, who Bryson is a great player, but a place like Mayacoba is never gonna work for Bryson, right where big missues are going to be just like you're gonna be in the mangroves, right, And so Rom, what Rom provides them is a bonafide best player in the world anywhere you tee it up anytime, right, Like he his game fits everywhere because he has no holes in his game. And what that does is like it contextualizes everything. If walking, if Rom's down in that field and Joaque Neeman beats Sergio We're just like, well he beats Sergio, what's Sergio done in the last few years. But Rom's in the field, He's he's in the mix. He's almost all always in the mix. He's like a top ten machine. And what it always does is it provides context, like, oh, Joaquin Neeman, this twenty five year old who won the Australian Open, who's been bidding to get into the majors by playing DP World Tour events, like trying really hard to get up into the top fifty. Who's who we've seen play decently at some majors. We see Joaquin Neeman and then we say, oh yeah, And on Sunday in the final group with John Rahm, he beat John Ram to win the tournament. That provides a lot of context. So from like a competitive angle, that is just a huge windfall for Live because Ram is somebody that every golf fan understands. He provides like a level of understanding like, oh, this guy would be contending on the PGA Tour right in all likelihood. I mean, what's his His top ten percentage is something like fifty percent over his career, sixty percent, right, Like, the.

00:28:00
Speaker 1: Guy is a machine.

00:28:01
Speaker 3: So it just It just adds a layer of like, yeah, this is like a real competition because he's in it.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had that written down, Andy, I said Rom like he doesn't even it doesn't matter even if he wins. He brings so much gravity and legitimacy to any event that he plays in. And I don't want to. I don't want to like overstate what happened with Live on on Sunday at Myacoba, because I think a lot of it was luck and like not replicable or anything like that. But I almost like this is taking it too far. But it feels like Rom makes Live legitimate.

00:28:41
Speaker 3: I one thing I think about is that Mexico opened the last two years. Yeah, so terrible PGA Tour field and it's like, you know, you get these terrible fields and it's like, well, Rom should win this event, and the first year he wins it. The second year it's him and Tony Finow way out in front another world class player.

00:29:05
Speaker 1: Right.

00:29:06
Speaker 4: That's the thing about John Rahm is like, when there's.

00:29:09
Speaker 3: A field that you feel like he should win, he's going to probably win, right, or come not probably, but come close to winning. He's going to be factoring late in a weak field, so I think like that's what Live bought right.

00:29:26
Speaker 2: Which is which I think is valuable.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: Yes, and that was the first player I think it is important to call out. I agree with both of you. I really like this point. It's kind of the first player they've signed who absolutely represented that. And people might argue, like Cam Smith, but Cam Smith had just come up as a world class player, and if his game fell off a little bit, I don't think it would shock anybody. John Rahm had been a bona fide star for years and like the most consistent player in golf for a five year stretch where nobody could argue he isn't one of the best players in the world. So I agree Andy. I think that added an enormous amount of context. And as long as John Rahm is engaged in these tournaments and swearing and looks like he's into it and wants to win, I think it adds a lot of legitimacy to the product.

00:30:10
Speaker 2: I think Hatton strangely brings that as well, like he even though he doesn't win at the same rate. I think he just the idea of like everybody talks about Live like oh, it's an like what's the phrase it's an exhibition league. It's an exhibition. It's an exhibition. And when you've got hat and out there screaming and cursing and whatever, like it's dumb and silly, but I think it it provides a small amount of the same type of context that you're talking about, Joseph.

00:30:37
Speaker 3: Well, I think you're talking about what you're talking about, hyper competitive athletes that they have recently brought on that aren't at the late stages of their career. Like if you think about their early signings, it's Graham mcdell, Lee Westwood, impulter, Phil Hendrick Stent. Yeah, Phil Hendrick Stenson d Jay to a certain degree end of his career. Like none of these players were were like super in their prime. Brooks is worried about maybe if possible career ending injury, right he talks about He's talked about that if I wasn't injured, it might have been a different decision. Bryson when he went had the hand injury, right, you know, so with and like at the time, I feel like Bryson's back to being a golfer. But at the time Bryson, we weren't sure whether he was going to be a YouTuber, a long drive guy or a golfer when he signed right like Rom and Hatton are bonafide, you know, competitive players right in their prime, fresh off of career year, you know, career years both of them, and I think that's that's a big part of it. Do you think this week at Vegas, do you do you think they have momentum to build off of or do you think will get drowned out by the Scottsdale Scottsdale Tournament. Obviously they're going up against a big spectacle, right, I feel like, you know, Scottsdale is kind of ingrained in people's pre super Bowl habit and I think that's a tough thing, right.

00:32:15
Speaker 1: They're going against it. But I think it's really important to mention that the super Bowl is in Las Vegas and they're in Vegas at the same time, and the activations that they're gonna do. I think it's a savvy strategy. They're gonna get a lot of people on site at that tournament who are in town for the super Bowl, so we'll see what viewership looks like. I agree. I'm more excited for the Phoenix Open, which has a pretty strong field. It's nothing crazy but I wouldn't discount the role that. I mean, it's the way that Live has been angling with some of their media strategy and getting some influencers on board, trying to market through social media. Like, I think it's a pretty effective strategy long term. I don't know how many people are gonna watch Live Las Vegas, but it might get them some interest in the product moving forward. Kyle, do you agree with that?

00:33:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it two things wanted. It's helpful that it ends on Saturday. I think in it on Sunday would be a disaster there just because of everybody's gone by Sunday and it would just it would feel really like a deflating thing on a Sunday in Vegas. I think the other thing is I just I don't I don't know that you can overstate how important last week was at Mayacoba because to me, and this is something that I wrote again for CBS Sports, was it planted these seeds of like, oh, people's almost subconscious reaction throughout twenty twenty four based on what happened at Mayacoba is gonna be like huh, I I wonder if Phoenix is kind of boring right now? I wonder what's going on with Live, and I don't know, maybe that won't be the case. That's just my projection based on what happened at Mayacoba, and I don't know that that happens if they don't get the wash out at Pebble and all that stuff. So I just really think that was an incredibly valuable day, not just for the hype and people commenting on it and us talking about it, but also for what it could mean for people's almost subconscious reaction or thought process about Live throughout the rest of the year.

00:34:21
Speaker 1: I agree, even if it's just a second screen option that, Hey, if the main leader board in your case for most golf fans is the PGA Tour, if it's kind of a sleepy leaderboard, what's going on on live, that's a big win. And I think it's at least that now.

00:34:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, or the commercial loads unbearable, you know, the second screen, I think that's actually like a legitimate thing, and that could dovetail into like things that I think we've talked about some of them, but things that Live is doing well and things that don't work right. So I think one of the things that lives doing well and I think this, Like, let's be completely honest here, I don't think they have a lot of advertisers, which is why they have a telecast that doesn't have a lot of ads.

00:35:07
Speaker 1: Right.

00:35:08
Speaker 3: That being said, I think the telecast does a lot of things really well. I found the putt line. When I saw the Putt line, I was kind of like, well, this this, this is probably not gonna work. This is you know, But then I found myself watching it and it was almost always accurate. And you know, they so for those that didn't watch, they had a basically like you're standing over ten footter, they had an ideal line like this is where he needs to hit the ball, and it was right most of the time, and it was like when somebody missed, it gave context, Oh we hit that a little.

00:35:43
Speaker 4: Hard, right.

00:35:45
Speaker 3: So I think like between the golf shots, the sheer number of golf shots were seeing from live and some of the graphics like where they do you know, uh, expected score based off somebody position, you know that stuff.

00:36:02
Speaker 4: They're they're doing a.

00:36:03
Speaker 3: Good job with the telecast. The announcers remain really bad.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had that written down, Andy. The broadcast is just almost unlistenable for me. And I don't know what that is, because I think if you look at some of the individuals there, I think you could talk yourself into them being good. But for whatever reason, when they when they jam it all together, it.

00:36:24
Speaker 3: Just is so when they put their live golf hats on, it's so weird, and it just I think it like takes away from the product.

00:36:34
Speaker 2: You know, people are talking about the music taking away from the product, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I'm more neutral in the music, but the way that the event has talked about is just so bizarre to me. I don't That was one takeaway from probably having watched more on Sunday than I have in the past, is just how how much the actual speaking on the broadcast takes away from the presentation of it.

00:36:57
Speaker 1: Well, they act like every shot is the greatest shot you've ever seen, and that every tournament's the most memorable tournament, Like it just doesn't feel genuine all the time. Like they were talking in the booth about you can't write a better script rom Sergio and Nieman coming down the stretch, like who could have even dreamed a scenario like this?

00:37:17
Speaker 2: And yeah, I was literally everyone everyone could have envisioned this happening right.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: Just present the golf tournament as it is and have some confidence that the product can sell itself, Like you don't need to drum up drama at every turn. So I agree with you. I think that's one thing that wasn't working well. One thing I think works really well with Live, and I think I'm probably preaching to the choir on some of this. I think media rights has been a massive part of all this. Players wanting to have their own media rights was huge for Bryson, was huge for Phil. I know Ricky Fowler has talked about this and that if you're on the PGA Tour, if you're on site at the PGA Tour event, like can't fail yourself, can't create any kind of content. I think the way that Live is handling media writes and allowing people to spread clips of the events on social media is an effective tactic that gets people engaged with the tournament. And the PGA Tour has to stop making people feel like criminals for posting a thirty second clip on x or on Instagram of the events and punishing people making them feel like they're in time out. I've gotten plenty of those emails it stinks. And like Bryson creating his YouTube channel, he's put out a number of videos that now that are getting a few hundred thousand views. It's not inconsequential. I do think the entire approach to modern media is better with live and I think it's something that I wouldn't underrate.

00:38:47
Speaker 3: I think that's a fascinating topic with the PGA Tour and the SSG, you know, where you have a lot of experienced the SSG investor, where you have a lot of experienced sports executives coming in in an advisory role for the PGA Tour who have skin in the game. You know, you watch the way the NBA portrays its product and allows you know, creators online to you know, clip highlights and different things, and it's just worlds World's different than the PGA Tour. I mean, it's just you know, even like I would say, like and obviously they're a little bit different, but like the NBA, you fellow NBA the Twitter handle, let's just say, or the Instagram account compared to the PGA Tour, it's like every night I get a context of what's going on, and I don't think I get that with the PGA Tour handle, it's like it's like hard to even know, you know, Like it's all highlights, it's all shots, it's recaps of games what happened, really good social graphics that like you can look at the graphic and understand what happened, versus the PGA Tour where it's like it's just a mess. It's there's no strategy to it. It just is a disaster.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: There's so many and andy. Like with an NBA clip, somebody's watching a game on League Pass can upload a little play and explain what's happening, like draw on it a little bit. The x's and o's not only like can I not do that with golf because I'll get punished if I post the clip. They're also not posting very many clips now themselves for me to comment on or like to use there that they're not even giving me the opportunity to engage with the product, which I maybe some people are dismissive of this point, don't think it's that important, but I think this is really important to the modern media landscape. I think it's like the younger fan too, agree.

00:40:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one thing that both of these like struggle with is you mentioned the context, Andy, of give me some context as it relates to what's going on here. Well, one of the problems is the context in other leagues like the NBA, is how every everything is contextualized by how do I get to the NBA finals, how do I win a championship? NFL the Super Bowl is like so outsized now, it's so much bigger than what it actually is. But I think that works in their advantage because it's everything is geared tour. I mean, we're talking about the NFL draft right now in February fifth, because everything.

00:41:23
Speaker 4: You know, who owns the draft? Who who controls the draft?

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, the same team that did last year, which is not a great to your consecutive Well, this is the this is the Panthers pick. This is not our pick.

00:41:38
Speaker 1: Well I thought, I thought, Andy, Well you're also going to say, is you know who owns the draft the NFL and who owns the Super Bowl the NFL? Right, Like, I don't know where you're Kyle. I don't want to interrupt you, but a lot of things feed into major championships, which the PGA Tour and Live don't own, which is irrelevant point.

00:41:54
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was gonna say is it's very difficult, difficult to contextualize. I mean talking Nieman after he wins on Sundays, but I'm not in the majors, and it's hard for whatever league you are, whether it's PGA Tour, Live Asian Tour or any anybody, because you're not gonna or you're rarely going to promote a product that you don't own. And that is just such a messy part of golf that we talk about solutions for things all the time. I just don't know that there is a solution for something.

00:42:24
Speaker 3: Like that while we're here. Do you think Nieman should be in the majors.

00:42:29
Speaker 2: I'm to the point where I think there's a world in which you could take a data Golf or kind of a third party ranking and say, hey, if somebody's in the top fifty of the Data Golf rankings and they're not whatever tour they're on and they're not in the majors, put them in our major. I think I don't think that's an unreasonable thing.

00:42:51
Speaker 1: So I actually disagree with that because I think at some point we're literally reinventing the official World Golf Rankings, which is there's a reason exists for the Official World Golf Rankings, and maybe it should be tweaked to accommodate Live, but you have to there are problems with lives structure, even if they're ranked in a system like Data Golf, like, you're gonna have less confidence in the live performances right now than something that's a little bit more open. For example, if Live never signed another player three years from now, it would be very difficult to evaluate the strengths of their fields. And what the Official World Golf Rankings does is it implements some rules that you have to adhere to to make sure it's easy to compare them. So I think should Nieman be in the all the majors? There's two is separate from should Live be getting Official World Golf Rankings points? For me, should Neman be in the majors? I don't think that anyone needs to make that decision right now. But if the Masters were tomorrow, I think extending him a special invitation would be necessary because I think you want to have you want to have the strongest field possible, But you don't have to make that decision right now. If he goes on a terrible run here over the next six to eight weeks. Is anybody going to be really complaining that he's not in the field. So he knew, but even knew the implications when he signed with Live Golf.

00:44:10
Speaker 3: I think he should be in the Masters just based off of his play. I think you could, you know, if you wanted to create a reason, give the Australian Open an exemption and it elevates that tournament. I think one of the other aspects of Live that in this goes back to things that's doing well. When you watch LIV you get a sense that golf is a global game. They have now the vast majority of international stars, and the Masters has been very much on the forefront of, you know, a global game. You look at like what they've done with their Amateur, the Latin American Amateur, the Pacific Pacific, Asian Pacific Amateur. They have been pushing kind of diversity, inclusion and uh global, the global aspect of the game of golf because they understand that that's where there's tremendous growth opportunities for their tournament in terms of viewership, popularity, all these things. If you look at Live Golf, I don't think it's really much of a debate who has the better international players the PGA Tour or Live Live. Without a doubt, they have the vast majority of the great international players and jaque Neeman represents I think you could say he's the greatest player from South America.

00:45:41
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean who would you mean?

00:45:45
Speaker 4: South View?

00:45:46
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:45:46
Speaker 3: I mean south of the United States. He's the greatest player in golf, and I don't. He's twenty five, He's played in the Masters, He's contended in the Masters, and I just I think this is like I think he should be in thee And I think that's one of the things, like one of the aspects of what live in their strategy that I think is really smart is that they have really you know, they were never going to convince Americans to play this schedule that goes all over the world, you know, right out of the gate. But they have gotten the vast majority of international talent and that plays really well into their international schedule.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: I think the other thing to mention on the Masters specifically, of the last fourteen editions of the Masters, eight of them have been won by players who are currently signed with LIFT. They weren't obviously Live golfers when they won. But I do think that's a relevant piece of the Master's puzzle that if you kind of set the tone that you're ignoring Live, you're ignoring the tour. The eight of your past fourteen champions have been on. One of those is Bubba twice. But point stands.

00:46:51
Speaker 2: I think I would push back a little bit on the fact that they have the most international talent. I mean, the PJ. Turt still has Hobbland and head deck Key and r Fitzpatrick and Rory and Ludwig, and I mean they you know, they have a lot of time. I think what Live does have is and I think this is probably strategic because they're they're they're picking off like the best player from a lot of different countries, right, They're trying to camp Smith and Nieman and cards Ortiz and yeah, a answer even Mito, Right, like they just they've gone to a lot of different countries and and and and tried to uh Stenson, although Ludwig has obviously surpassed him in terms of current form. But I think that's an interesting thing. And in a lot of ways, Joseph, they become the new they become the new European Tour right, and I don't like I Actually, I think there's some maybe this is a nostalgia or romanticism, but I think think having the European Tour and the PGA Tour split back in the seventies, eighties and nineties was kind of interesting and fun because you would have those players meet up at majors or at the Ryder Cup or whatever. And I don't know that that's realistic now. And also, the European Tour wasn't actively trying to steal everyone on the PGA Tour back then, so it's a little bit different. But I think I'm growing in my just being okay with having those tours a little bit separated. I don't know what do you think about that idea, Joseph.

00:48:35
Speaker 1: I don't think that within the current landscape of professional golf it works to have two tours that are competing for talent, because I think one will always win because there's always a flow to the strongest fields in the events with the biggest purses. So yeah, I'm I kind of am with you in theory, but as long as whether it's the official golf rankings mechanism kind of keeping talent in one place, or money. I think there will always be a natural flow to one tour, to the one that has the most eyeballs on it, So I don't think it works. The only way I think it kind of works is if you moved to a system where entry into the majors, for example, is based on orders of merit on respective tours instead of a ranking. I think that would actually kind of work, but still, over time, I think all the players would end up funneling to one tour.

00:49:27
Speaker 2: So I think that's right.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: I'm sort of with you, but I don't think it would work.

00:49:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I like the idea of it more than the reality of it, partly because I mean, travel's shrunk over the last fifty years, right, It's just it's easier to get from Boston to you know, London than it was fifty years ago, and so I think that part of it. And then also there's too there's too much money outstanding, I think for it to work as being split up, I think think it has to be consolidated unless everybody can agree to be okay with having less revenue involved, which I don't think anybody on either tour is going to be okay with.

00:50:12
Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit about what lives not doing well.

00:50:15
Speaker 1: This is a great I wanted to bring this up. So I think we have different opinions on this. I'm out on team golf personally, and I think maybe both of you might be in based on comments I've seen from you on social media. But to me, the best version of professional golf kind of celebrates the individual overcoming the best fields. I have a hard time and maybe this is how every professional sports league started. So I'm being too short term oriented here, but I have a hard time getting on board with the teams. I actually find it a little distracting. I don't find it additive. Torque GC, fireballs GC, I don't care what they're called, but I just don't for me. They have to have identities somehow, and maybe long term they will, but I don't. I'm out on it. I don't find it interesting. I think individual stories are the most compelling stories and professional golf, and I just don't think that the team thing is for me. As Live Golf keeps insisting, like whether we make a deal with the PGA Tour, between the PGA Tour and the PIF, like team golf is here to stay, is it? Actually better. Is team golf additive?

00:51:27
Speaker 2: Well, I was gonna I was gonna say, I think it. I mean the first thing, it opens up more revenue streams for your for your organization. Yeah, get that right. And I think that that is an important point in all of this as you progress forward with you know, all the mergers and all the the private like all the investment into into the product. So I think that's one thing I think, Like, I don't know, I'm compelled by everybody standing around the eighteenth Green watching their teammate, Like, I don't I understand where you're coming from, Joseph. And I think one thing that Rory said that I that I've been thinking about a lot is, you know, like I've always thought you had to conflict, like you had to push, you had to meld them together and have team and individual going on at the same time. But what if you don't. What if you had team events and individual events. I think that is a really interesting thing because it allows your team events to do some things that we all talk about a lot, which is different formats, match play, alternate shot, different things that you're like, man, if I'm watching Rory and JT play alternate shot, like, that's I'm kind of in on that, you know, And so I think there's I don't know that the way that Live is doing it necessarily is the most is like the best form of it, but I think there are some forms of it, and maybe not all the time. I don't I agree with you on that, but there are some things there. And I go back to we were watching a live event two years ago, I think it was Portland, and my kids, who were are my sons who were like eight and six at the time, my dad I would love to watch a team that had Rory and Spieth and JT on it. Why don't why don't Why don't they Why don't those guys do that? And I'm like, well, I don't know, maybe they will someday. So I think there's some there's some stuff there. Again, I don't think Live is nailing it, but I think there's some components of it that are really intriguing.

00:53:26
Speaker 3: I I'm going to push back too. I think the team golf adds like a whole dimension. I thought one of the best performances yesterday was calebe Surat, a nineteen year old playing his first professional event. The only reason he had stakes was because of the team competition. He's on Rom's team, He's playing really well. He makes a bogie in a triple and then he birdies what was it five in a row? Yeah, and like you know, they win by effectively five shots, and I thought like, wow, like what a what a run to finish tournament. And if he's fighting for T. Thirty, I think he finished T. Thirteen and just an individual that that performance gets buried, right, But it was like, I think what the team competition does that I think is smart is that you could have a runaway winner. Nieman could have been up six shots, and there is relevant shots coming down the stretch from people that wouldn't otherwise be relevant in the grand scheme of interest in the event. So what you're doing is it's almost like a safeguard against runaway tournaments that aren't going to capture fan interest. Is that that team event, with all four scores counting in the final round like they are now, is actually going to create some like second stories, easy, really natural second stories to tell. Now on the team thing, I tweeted something about about the team names and how ridiculous they are, and I think every live fan in the world replied to me about how.

00:55:03
Speaker 4: Stupid I am.

00:55:05
Speaker 3: Sure the team names are ridiculous, and I've been thinking a lot about this, and everybody's like, well, what about the Orlando Magic, what about you know, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Oklahoma City Thunder, what about those? Those are ridiculous names. You know, what the difference is is that they're tied to something real. They're tied to a city. It's not just like the Magic, who have no place of origin, who have no fan base, like they've the problem with live in the team, so that they've spun these up and they stand for nothing. And maybe in the future they get tied to a city that they you know, like that we go to every year.

00:55:48
Speaker 4: But until they do, they.

00:55:51
Speaker 3: Have no like I have no clue how you're supposed to become a fan of teams. We've talked a lot about about like how it's really hard to find like a favorite golfer, Like why it's even harder to find a favorite golfer with the collection of individuals that live is signed.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: Right, It's almost like in this comparison gets made too much, people take it too far. But the f one thing where you don't have the Ferrari team named like the V Eights or the V twelves or the Engines or something, it's just Ferrari, right. And I think in the future, like if you're going to do the team thing and you have a team that's sponsored by whoever title is easy post, it should just be well, yeah, yeah, it should just be team Titleists, right like I And again that's another revenue stream where if you're titleist, instead of spending money on an advert like a commercial, spend money on players so that they're on the broadcast every single weekend, so that not only is the product better for fans, but also your product is in front of fans more often. I think, I don't know. I just think there's so many different things that are that are really good for the business model and really compelling. I think there's some incentives that align with teams that sometimes don't with other stuff.

00:57:10
Speaker 1: I think I land kind of with both of you that I'm I'm open to team golf. Like to be clear, I just don't think it's working right now and it's current iteration, whether that's format or the way you get invested in a team. But I agree Andy, like it's not tied to a region. Personally, what would make me cheer for a particular team is being invested in the success of a particular player. And I do think the younger fan, I could be wrong about this, whether it's a fan of the NBA like they're getting they're big fans of Ja Morant, not the Memphis Grizzlies. And with the more players are moving around, like, I think a lot of young fans get invested in the individual So you've really got to give these teams an identity or else. Like, I just don't foresee any world where I get invested in a particular golf franchise unless it's to something, but right now it's not, so I would really just be cheering for a particular player. And I don't know. Maybe kids will get on board with the range Goats or the Aces, whatever, but I feel like we're a far way away from that.

00:58:15
Speaker 3: We brought up I brought up Caleb Surat, obviously it was his first tournament. That was one of the big signings. Nineteen year old he played at University of Tennessee. Was a walker cupper all signed, I mean, like from every metric, was one of the promising young young amateur players in the world.

00:58:37
Speaker 4: If you were a young player.

00:58:39
Speaker 3: Like sarat and we saw Nick Dunlop turn pro after winning the American Express Turnpro and go to the PGA Tour.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: It sounded like that was.

00:58:48
Speaker 3: A long negotiation where he may have almost gone the other way to live. What would be your kind of like thought process between each of the two tours, because I have heard that, you know, one of Liv's big strategies is going to be picking off the top amateur players like this, the serat signing will be something. And you saw it with Pooje, you saw it with Chajara, like they are going to continue to try and poach the brightest young talent in a way to you know, kind of uh fight the tour.

00:59:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's it's it's difficult because I'm trying to think of the things that I cared about at age twenty, right, and I was not a world class anything much less golfer. But to be presented with a large amount of money at that age that's guaranteed would have been pretty crazy, right. And I think it's very easy for people that have more pursue It's easy for remember Tiger at St. Andrew's a couple of years ago where he said he was like, I just don't understand. I don't understand why they wouldn't play major why they wouldn't want to play major championships. And it's like, yeah, that's a that's a forty eight year old's perspective who also made all the money. And you know, I all these guys have different stories. Some of them might have grown up with nothing and to be presented I don't I'm not saying that either of those guys did, but to be presented with twenty million dollars or even ten million dollars or whatever it is, that's a that's a big deal. And I think that a lot of them have the mindset of like, well, I'll figure out the major championships at some point anyway, like I'll play my way into them, or I'll do something to get into them. So I think it's actually surprise. I think it will be surprising when guys stay with PGA two are rather than going to Live money.

01:00:51
Speaker 1: Aside, Kyle, I think it might be easier to develop on Live because of some of the sure financial security. But also, yeah, if you're playing under John Rahm, if he's your team, captain. You're spending a lot of time around him. You're seeing his work cabits, you might be traveling with him a little bit. You're getting tips on your game from him. You're playing three rounds for sure, You're not getting cut and dealing with the psychology of getting cut and flying home by yourself. You know what act your schedule it, how the sorry go ahead?

01:01:23
Speaker 2: You know what your schedule is. You know I'm going to be at these thirteen places over the next seven months or whatever.

01:01:29
Speaker 1: It's also a good point. Yeah, I think learning under Rom or Phil or some of these people that you've looked up to is a benefit, and it's a perk that Live is offering. So you could pretty easily convince me that, as a top twenty one year old in the world, the best long term decision for your golf game access to major championships aside, might be playing on Live. Like, I don't think that's a huge stretch.

01:01:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you see it with like Solinda, a bona fide stud coming out of college who's like seen you know, he's he's now I think twenty five or twenty six, and he's just finally like cracked through with real success winning the corn Ferry Tour event by eight. Now you could, on the flip side, say that whole experience makes Linda better. I have a friend that is in an NBA front office where he is, you know, regularly dealing with players in the NBA, and he has this mantra of like the.

01:02:31
Speaker 4: The different.

01:02:33
Speaker 3: Kind of the how the mentality shifts among star players throughout their career in the NBA. He always says, the first thing that they worry about is money. The second second layer. Once they are financially secure, the next thing they're gonna worry about is their status in the league. You know, their recognition, how their peers think of them, how fans think about, how media portrays them as a league. So these are the number one things that they're worried about. So that's going to be like kind of their their stats era where they're trying to put up their best individual numbers. And then finally once they've gotten that recognition is when they worry about winning. So this is just how how he perceives NBA players, right, So you're not going to get somebody that's really serious about winning until they've got their financial, uh you know, future secured and they are well thought of amongst the league. So if you think about that from the vein of Live PGA Tour, I think the money aspect obviously goes really strongly to Live, right, your financial future is secured, But then the recognition and status is an interesting one. And to date in in the current landscape, it has always gone to the PGA Tour in an overwhelming, overwhelming, you know degree. But is Live starting to chip away from that? Is interesting because if they away from that and then you can gain recognition because like I don't think anybody like Chichara he want to Live event, nobody really talks Yeah, nobody really talks about it at him as like one of the great young players. And that's like where Lives really hurting in the recognition department, Right, He's not being talked about the way a Nick Dunlap or a Ludwig is, right, even though there's an immense talent with Churchara, Right, So I think like if you look at it, that's that's the interesting aspect of this is like if you just look at those two things as the pillars of of what a young player might care about, they're really split. And if Live can continue to chip away at the recognition of like, hey, if Caleb's rot can go beat John rom sometimes I think that would really you know, build a case towards that, right, and then winning is you know, winning majors I think would be the last thing well on that recognition.

01:05:03
Speaker 1: What do you guys think the typical golf fan, how would they value a live win right now versus a PGA Tour non signature event. Which one would get more respect in the eyes a Caleb Sarat win at a live event or a Nick Dunlap win at a non signature event.

01:05:19
Speaker 4: Nick Dunlap without a question.

01:05:21
Speaker 1: You think it's not even close right now? This year, Yeah, I don't think. I don't like Nick.

01:05:27
Speaker 3: If calebs Surat had won last this week at Maacoba or wins in Vegas, I think it pales in comparison to Nick Dunlap beating a really weak American Express one hundred and forty four or whatever player fields.

01:05:41
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that, Kyle, Yeah, I do.

01:05:43
Speaker 2: And I think some of the reason for it is that is the historical nature of it, right, And maybe Dunlap is a bad example because you can say, man, nobody's done this in thirty three years we have some context for what it means. Nobody's done this since Phil Mickelson, and if Sarat does it, you're like, I don't know, We've never even played in Vegas before, you know, for a live So I think that, yes, like the historical context for my friends that are average golf fans means more on the PGA Tour than it does for a live I.

01:06:17
Speaker 1: Just don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that a Rocket Mortgage Classic versus a live event with multiple of the best players in the world in contention, that gap may not be that large and how fans think of it. But maybe I'm just overreacting to one good week of live Mayacoba and it's gonna, you know, leave fans relevance in a couple of weeks. So I certainly could have my mind changed on that one thing that I think we should talk about within the context of the Strategic Sports Group investment in the PGA Tour last week and some of Jordan Speet's comments potentially around not needing not needing the PIF anymore, Where do you guys stand on that, is the PGA Tour need to partner with PIT or should it take the approach of let's just compete with them and see how this goes and let our models run against.

01:07:05
Speaker 2: Each others' I don't see a world where that is. I've thought about this, Joseph as it relates to the Strategic Sports Group, right, like, where do they see they're going to be all about? When you have a three billion dollar investment, you're assessing where's the risk, right like, where is my risk involved over the next two, three, five, ten years. And the question that I have is, or that I've thought about is and I wrote about this for the Normal Sport newsletter, is is the public investment fund? And specifically yasir al Umayan? Are they a bigger risk inside of your little thing that you're doing inside the moat so to speak, or outside on their own And I think despite all the allegations, the kidnapping, everything that's gone on, I still think they're a bigger risk to your investment. Meant if if they're not in house, if they're outside, if they're doing their own thing, if they're taking John Ram, if they're taking who knows who's next, right, I mean, if they if they can get rom then they can kind of get theoretically, anybody, what if Victor Howlin and I'm just throwing names out there, what if Victor Howin and call mar Cowa and Ludwig go By May then all of a sudden we have to have a real discussion about, Hey, which league is better? Right? And so I just think the risk to your investment if they're out, if the if the PIFF is not involved in it is too high for those guys, for for the for the the people in the SSG to stomach.

01:08:43
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, look at this conversation we're having. This has been two years, and look at the dent that the that lives made. Also, I think the big, the big aspect of this whole deal with SSG is the new company, the for profit entity, and the equity granted to players. That's the real caret for everybody involved, from fans to players, you know, is the idea of equity, right, Like if players are are equity holders, everything should get way better. I think that that's exciting, that should be exciting. I don't think it was presented the right way. I don't think it after the last two three years, anything's about money is going to get fans excited. But the idea that players are equity holders is really good for the game because their financial interests will be tied to the performance of the league, and the performance of the league is going to be tied to how fans perceive the league. Right, So that's a really good thing. But that being said, the equity is worth nothing or not very much if you're not the best golf tour. And based off of the last three years, it's very clear which direction both tours are heading, right One one is picking up steam, one is continue And you can say, however you want, they've gotten the steam. Like, you know, they're spending a lot of money to get these players. I still think they're a distant second, but it's the distance compared to a year ago is way less than it was a year ago. Right, So with that, like I just can't foresee a world and I think like the equity partially is supposed to reward loyalty, right, well.

01:10:40
Speaker 4: Your reward of loyalty could be nothing.

01:10:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, if they keep taking players and they become the dominant, dominant players, so to a certain extent, I think it has to happen. The poaching has to stop, and there has to be unification I think something that I actually was going to bring up with what Live does really well is that they have like we were watching my Acoba, which I'm familiar with from a PGA Tours standpoint, which I have no clue about Las Vegas Country Club. What it is which they're playing this week, I have no clue about it. I don't know what it is, but I do know my Acoba as a golf course, like big penalty for missus. You get, it's like a place that control is really key. Iron play is going to be really big and like I got to watch and I watched yesterday through the lens of that, like what players are playing well at this course? Like it I understood why Bryson wasn't playing well. And it's something I think the F one does really well with tracks. There's different tracks, right, and like this track design is going to promote this type of driving skills and uh style right and with LIV because the players play every single course on the road to you get to like watch this play out. Now, if the golf courses were a little bit more formidable, well known, I think this would be really fascinating. Like I found it interesting to watch everybody that's really good at pebble, and I think that'll be instructive in the future of like when we have US opens there, it's like, well we have this like long pebble track record. Sure the course is gonn play a little bit different in the summer than the winter, but we have seen through the best players playing there that this, this and this, you know, we should expect this and it provides context. So I think, like something about Live that's actually very interesting is the idea of getting to see all the best players, you know, if they can merge and provide a tour where all the best players play, like all the best players play, this schedule and these courses and how these courses interact with players, right.

01:12:49
Speaker 4: Is a nice added thing.

01:12:51
Speaker 3: So long answer, and this was a total tangent, but they there has to be unification. The equity is worth nothing if there's no unification.

01:13:01
Speaker 1: I agree, Andy, I think to expand a little little quickly on the the context and different skill sets, seeing how it all lines up. The other thing Live has solved, which I can't believe more people aren't yelling from the mountaintops or appreciating from the PGA tour side, is it solves the comparability problem where you can look at a standings, you can look at live standings and see who's having the best year because they've all played in the same tournaments. So I agree with that point and also agree that the game has to be unified. I think that a couple of players leaving, like you mentioned, Kyle, a couple of players leave from the PGA Tour and all of a sudden like what did the SSG investment buy you? Because there's not a ton of assets that the PJA Tour has outside of its talent pool. So I don't have confident they're feeling but I think it's a little tenuous at the moment, and I would love to see a deal with the PIFF happen. Get these guys back in the same fields.

01:13:54
Speaker 2: Do you think they can? And maybe the equity solves for this. But one question I've asked my over the last two years is have we reached a point in golf where everybody loves the romantic idea of a meritocracy, but it is have we reached a point where you do have to give a contract to a calebs Aerrod or give a contract to Nick Dunlap, and or is it just you're giving them equity in the league, like because you would never enter into the NFL or NBA be like, I don't know, if you throw ten touchdowns, you get you know whatever, like it, And I know that it's a very different thing, But do you guys think that we've entered into a sort of post meritocracy era with regular season professional golf?

01:14:39
Speaker 3: I think that equity is going to have a lot of strings attached, Like everybody's going to read that as like chess and Hadley is getting equity in the Tour. I am kind of more of the belief that it is going to be you know, like you talk about the requirements to play the Champions Tour. I think they just went to five wins on the tour for full status on the Champions Tour. So if that's the requirement to play full time on the Champions Tour or five wins, what's going to be the requirements to get equity in the Tour? I imagine it's going to be quite stringent, so because they have to preserve the ability to grant future equity to future players or else they leave themselves once again susceptible to this whole thing like the reason that this all happened was that the players were not contracted, had no financial tie to the to the league. So I think, like with regards to the equity, there has to be really it's going to be a high barrier to get it. And I think they're going to have allocations for future players, but it's going to be based off of X number of wins, x number of weeks. You know, maybe it's on top of the top of that, you know, pavaon the new FedEx number one. It's just going to be cash it at equity because of so like, I do think that that is going to be an aspect of it, and has to be an aspect of the equity.

01:16:06
Speaker 1: It's going to be very hard to earn that. That also begs the point Andy that the more stringent they make that criteria, the more attractive Live looks as an up and comer because there's more security to go to Live like that. It is kind of a double edged sword there, right, Yeah, unless it's unified, which it needs to be.

01:16:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think that's it just a crazy out of the box thought that I've had with the SSG investment idea, like what what of Golf's big issues is like capturing the mainstream fan being broadcasted in good windows. And I had this this idea this weekend and I can't get it out of my head. You've got one point five billion dollars, why don't you build a couple of courses in South America? It is there is some really great land for golf, sandy soils. You could build world class golf down there, and you would have an ideal place to host winter tournaments. You don't for players, there's no jet lag, way less travel time because you're not you're you're not leaving the consuit of the hours. But then in the in the winters, you get the benefit of long days in the Southern hemisphere, so you could you could have golf on on like later hours. Yeah, and you could have the the you know, bigger fields. But like the idea, like and you can also build awesome venues for let's just say twenty million dollars right, that seems to me like a really good investment to reap. Now, Like I don't trust the tour because they'd hire you know, the Tour Design Services is to do this and it'd be a disaster. But like the idea, like to me, Like, one of the things I thought about with this is like South America is actually would be a great place for winter golf as we were getting pounded with an atmospheric river, Like, it'd be way better to be coming to California in April and being able to push coverage into ten o'clock eastern because the sunlight.

01:18:24
Speaker 4: Right, it'd be way better to be on the West coast.

01:18:27
Speaker 3: But but they go to the West coast now because of necessity, right of Like this is the time South America would free up and take care of the hardest part of your schedule to fill, which is like January February.

01:18:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, Andy, I love the idea. I mean I wrote about for the Friday newsletter last week how that could be some of the way they spend the money is building their own venues. Another thing it solves is that you don't have to keep renegotiating with private clubs that currently host some events on the PGA Tour. So you remove that and the other angle that you know, at least I think is relevant. But you would know way more about this than I would if the course accepts public play every time you host a tournament there. It's also an advertisement for the venue and attracts people to come play, and it's a venue that you own, like when they played El cardinell at Diamante Tiger Woods course, a resort course, like I'm sure a lot of people booked trips to go play the course because they saw it on the PGA tour. It'd be an advertisement. You'd be showcasing your venue and then you could capture some of that revenue when fans sign up to go play. So I think it's a great idea.

01:19:36
Speaker 3: South America is the is the most ripe area for golf tourism in the world. You are so close to the American the United States audience. And the problem with every winter venue, every winter resort in America is that your busiest time is on the shortest days and it's when everybody wants to travel that we are the big population of golfers. Northeast Midwest, those are the biggest population of golfers in the country. And the best place to have a resort for Americans to go would be South America. And there's great soils, there's great land, and it's yeah, it's just a matter of time before there is a big time boom I think in South America for golf.

01:20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the idea. I listen to y'all's World Tour podcasts with Garrett, and I think there's such an opportunity to I don't trust that anyone involved will do this, but I think there's such an opportunity to burn it all down and just rebuild it in a way that is awesome. I mean, I would love to be in a room with the people that, like, if you did burn it all down and there was like ten people in a room that were like reconstituting the entire top of professional golf that funneled into the majors, I would love to hear those ideas to like just I think there's so many opportunities to do things like that. And again, the professional radio season professional golf product is almost like the code of a really old software product where it just keeps getting added on to right where you a great comparison you try to unwind it like word Press. Like if you looked at the code of WordPress, you'd be like, this is ten thousand lines too long, right, And you have the opportunity right now, and multiple people have said this, but to burn it down and to rewrite the code, and I don't. Again, I don't trust that they will, but I hope they do.

01:21:47
Speaker 3: Hey, real quick, aside, last question for you, Kyle, since you listen to the World Tour Pod as a parent, what did you think of Joseph's schedule?

01:21:59
Speaker 1: Look at it, Pa, it's not as ridiculous and he's making it sound.

01:22:02
Speaker 2: I listen like, I think, Yeah, personally, I would have to find a new tour. Probably it's a play on it. But I also I I and I told Joseph this, we were talking on the phone the other day, like, I don't care about what you know Bill Belichick's like what his parenting responsibilities are. I don't care about what you know Freddie Freeman has to do from the months of May to or April to October. I just want to I just want the best possible products. So from that standpoint, I'm I'm I'm totally fine with it. Finally, I don't know if Jordan Speed is totally fine with it, but as a fan, I'm I'm good.

01:22:45
Speaker 4: All Right, that's it, Kyle, Thanks for coming on. That was a fun talk.

01:22:49
Speaker 3: Joseph, as always, thank you, and uh well, Joseph and I will be doing some recommendations. But Kyle, thanks for your time, and people could follow you sign up for Kyle's Normal Sporter newsletter.

01:23:03
Speaker 4: How do they do that?

01:23:04
Speaker 2: A normal sport dot com? A normal sport dot com and yeah, it goes out Tuesday Friday and writing now on CBS Sports dot com, Twitter, all that stuff. So yeah, thanks for having me.

01:23:15
Speaker 1: Do you think that people who are just trying to find a normal sport stumble upon that U r L because they're just looking for a generic sport and that's how I find it, Just find yeah, type of normal sport dot com.

01:23:25
Speaker 2: And they're they're they're inundated with just very strange things that that just turns them off from sports in general.

01:23:32
Speaker 4: All right, thanks Kyle, we'll go to recommendations now.

01:23:40
Speaker 3: All right, Joseph, that was great with Kyle Porter, and we wanted to tie this up with some recommendations. What what do you have recommended? I got to first say that I listened to your music. My wife didn't like it. My wife was out on.

01:23:54
Speaker 1: It, okay, but you also text me that you were in on it, So I mean, are negative.

01:23:59
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna tell that my wife said it. I'm out on fair enough.

01:24:06
Speaker 1: I'm mine super mainstream this week, but I'm really excited for the final season of Kurby Enthusiasm, which the first episode came out last night on HBO. It's kind of Larry David's last creative well, it's his last season of Kurby Enthusiasm, which has been a show that I've always enjoyed. This is not sneaking up on anyone. Was well promoted, but I've seen some people tweeting about like, not having ever watched it before, should they give it a chance. I'd recommend it, and I bet there's some crossover with Frida Egg Audience, the ethos of Friday Golf, and the ethos of Curby Enthusiasm. So I'm really I'm looking forward to it. I think it's gonna be a fun season. Are you a Curby.

01:24:42
Speaker 3: Enthusiasm, Yeah, watch and watch episode one. Loved it, definitely, like laugh out loud moments. I also love that Larry David Avid Golfer always weaves golf into as many stories as possible, so episode one didn't disappoint I. I'm it's like when you're when these shows end, like you're sad that they end, but you're so happy it exists and like I reckon. I mean, I've rewatched a bunch of the season. I have a buddy that must have watched every single Curve episode like twenty times.

01:25:14
Speaker 1: What's the type of show too that things come up in everyday life and people are like kind of reminds me of that Curby Enthusiasm episode where X happens. So it's good for being plugged into pop culture a little bit and give you a laugh. I think it's a good watch.

01:25:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, So anyways, my recommendation, I've had this for a little over a year. This is unpaid ad Blackstone. I have a Blackstone grill. I would recommend any griddle, so I think it's just such a versatile thing to cook on. So I have like a regular grill, but I think this is so worth adding on. You can cook such a wide array of foods. So like last week, I did like a tofu stir fry. Right if doesn't like to always eat meat, so we did like tofu surfry. I've done like steak fried rice. You can do smash burgers.

01:26:08
Speaker 1: Like.

01:26:09
Speaker 4: The flat top is awesome.

01:26:11
Speaker 3: It is an awesome, awesome cooking surface to have at your disposal. It's super versatile. It's not like everything, but you can cook this like other array of food outdoors, which I'm a huge fan of any cooking anything outside, but like the flat top griddle top opens up such a vast array of things that you could cook outside. So I'm super in on the Blackstone. If you were an eat grill top.

01:26:41
Speaker 1: If you were on a cooking show or something in your life depended on making the best possible meal on your blackstone grill? What is Andy Johnson presenting to the judges?

01:26:49
Speaker 3: That's a good question, you know, I think I'd probably go I did like a chicken or steak low Maine, Okay, once that was like really great on it like Rave reviews, I might do that. It would definitely be something like either like Asian inspired or I mean, I think I make a good smash burger. But like I feel like that's that's tough competition. That would be a hard thing to impress judges on a cooking show with.

01:27:22
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I got you, gottas what was you? What's your dish?

01:27:26
Speaker 1: That's you you're talking to the wrong. I'm not a great cook, so I'm not gonna I don't know what i'd go with i'd pan.

01:27:32
Speaker 3: You're still happen You're still in your twenties, you know, I'd panic anything.

01:27:36
Speaker 4: You don't have anything. It could be breakfast.

01:27:39
Speaker 3: Well, that's the other thing about this about the griddle, the outdore. I've cooked three meals on it in a day. I've cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a day on it.

01:27:48
Speaker 1: Versatility.

01:27:49
Speaker 3: That's a great that's a great cooking surface. If I do say so.

01:27:53
Speaker 1: What does a Blackstone grill run you? Is it more than a USM qualifier?

01:27:58
Speaker 4: Actually?

01:27:58
Speaker 3: Probably less growing if you add in like the costs of like practice rounds and stuff.

01:28:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's less.

01:28:04
Speaker 3: There you go, good context. All right, that does it for this episode. We'll be back next week. We've got some guests coming on. I'm excited about. I believe we're gonna have somebody to talk PGA tour set up in depth next week. And then we might have some players coming on and as well as I think Garrett might be, I don't want to promise too much, might be cooking up a new great courses. Thanks to Matt Russ for editing and producing this podcast. A quick reminder, if you don't do so already, join Club TFE. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year. We have a wide array of content there, ranging from PGA Tour stuff. Joseph has been contributing to Tour Guide, our weekly PGA Tour Professional Golf column on there, as well as Design Notebook and our course profiles that go up every week.

01:28:58
Speaker 4: Also great.

01:29:00
Speaker 3: Got a shout out Cameron heard us on Sedge Valley with Parker Anderson last week. That was awesome. That was an awesome member video. I've gotten notes from people that have gone back into the Member of video archive.

01:29:13
Speaker 1: There's a lot of great stuff there.

01:29:14
Speaker 4: Thanks Joseph, and we'll be back next week.

01:29:17
Speaker 1: Thanks any