Fire Drill 080: The New World Order (w/ Geoff Ogilvy)

been talking about today on the range too. It's a big story, I guess.

A few of the player advisory not player advisory, player liaison. There's like that the department that sort of is our conduit between the players and Jay. There's a few of those guys in there. Any Padzer was there who's sort of right up there, pretty high powerful man in the PJA tour, and j just stood up at the mic and pretty much just walked in and started going through it. Everyone was pretty keen to hear what he had to say.

And it was interesting, I mean, it was getting it got quite it got a little bit tense, I guess because Jay couldn't really I don't know any more than anybody else knows. Really, we didn't. I don't think learn anything in the room that you that everybody doesn't know, mostly because I think this story I feel like it was going to I think they got win that it might have been getting leaked before they wanted it to

get leaked. So they got in front of it, and they came and told the players, which was the right thing to do, sort of what they could tell us, And he couldn't really tell us that much. No real deal. Details just kept going on. That there's a sort of a is it a non binding agreement? Is that the term which is basically sort of an agreement in good faith to sort of negotiate to this endpoint that they

both kind of want to get to. But this is clearly a really really complicated thing and we're right in the middle of the negotiation, so I don't think a whole lot of information or details could come to us because it might sort of mess that up, you know. But he just sort of gave us the framework and sort of how this will work if this all turns out.

tinge of sympathy for him. What kind of energy did he project in front of the players.

But so I think a lot of players started off wanting to disagree with whatever he said before they even heard anything you said, and they think, no offense to my peers. But I think a lot of guys couldn't get past that. So I didn't really hear what was going on a little bit. But he got hit pretty hard and he was pretty defeated at the end. It must be hard to have in his mind, and actually in my mind too, if this works out like it looks like it might, this is probably a good deal.

And he's he wasn't in the position to be able to sort of tell us any details because there aren't really any details yet, and he's I guess the feeling would be he's been working really really hard to help us, and all we do is tell him, no, you're wrong. This isn't very very good. So it's a tough day to be a leader. But that's the role. I mean, it's heavy as the head that wears the crown, right, I mean, it's a tough role to be And I

really was very glad that I wasn't ja yesterday. Regardless of where you sit on how this what this deal is all about. It was it would have been a tough day to be Jay, and he did a really good job in there, but yeah, he would have been pretty drained. I think after the whole thing, he took it really well. He didn't get fired up. He just he took all the complaints. He sort of he owned up. He owned up to the Look, this is different from

the rhetoric a year ago. We didn't expect this to happen, but this is just kind of where we're at and please sort of I guess he was basically asking, have a bit of faith. This thing will look better than you think it'll look at the end when it's all said and done.

these elevated events and the the player Impact program. But the sponsors were rebelling, they were starting to walk away. That for Jay to say publicly that you know, they were fully sponsored for next year is wishful thinking at best. And so I think it was just that it was an acknowledgement like we if we're going to fund the tour at this new level, we can't do it with the old model. We can't squeeze that much out of

these corporations. It's just it's impossible. And so you could you could say it took some humility on his part right to it on some level concede defeat, like we got into this, into this battle we couldn't win. This is our way out, and the players are going to keep getting paid and probably get get more extravagantly paid.

And I mean anything's on the table, whether that I mean, the PIF could just put people on salary, right like now that you're now that this there's this whole new world order of golf and people have accepted that guaranteed money is part of the sport like in every other sport, Like why not just create a salary system. That's how you could make Roy McElroy whole right, say, Okay, we'll pay you forty million dollars at your salary. You have

to commit to eighteen events whatever, whatever the terms may be. Like, is there any recognition among your peers, like, hey, like this might actually work out great for us, Like, all of a sudden, we have access to to this once in a once in a lifetime windfall we thought we missed out would live, but now we've got to live. Money, you know, flowing through the PG tour, Like, isn't that a good thing?

is what they're There's two sides to it. One, I think they've kind of wanted to end the litigation I don't know if that's a tactic of the piff side of the argument, but they can sort of keep things

in court as long as they want. The longer it stays there, they can just basically money you out of it by like you do all your money on legal fees, and that regardless of what was going to come out of that lawsuit, you sit in the courts for five or six years, you spend hundreds of millions of dollars defending the case that you probably know you're going to win, maybe,

but that does a lot of damage. I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars means a lot to like anybody, right, and it's just a waste of time arguing and like just spending all this money and makes it hard to go forward. And to the other side, I'm of the opinion, like you said, that this is a really this is a this is if the upside, if it works out like it could, I think this is an incredible deal. This could go down as one of the best deals ever,

you know what I mean. It's Jay, what what has argued, what is arguably going to happen is potentially the PGA Tour is going to control golf and the PIFF is going to pay for it, which is a stronger position than we were in two days ago. The the dp World Tour and the Live is going to kind of come under the governance of the PGA Tour, and the PIFF is going to help out financially. I think, like you say, the potential, I don't think Jay would have

gone into anything like this. Like you said, his job is to make the golfers more money, more opportunities, more money, and this seems like the sort of deal that that that's going to be there. It's a bit of a stretch. I think there's a there's a strong there's a there's a strong feeling at Ponto Vedra. I think to keep the PGA to a model looking basically like the PGA Tour looks. There's, like you said, there's a lot of legacy, there's sort of it's in a lot of ways a meritocracy.

If you play well, you get paid. It's always been that way. I don't think they will upset sort of that main product, the PGA Tour. I don't think the PGA Tour really look that different going forward, albeit with probably bigger persons. I think it's a step too far to go to the I think gets reaching to say we'll all end up on salary. I mean, maybe one day we will, But I think there's it's going to

create opportunity. As I said, if it turns out, we don't know much at the moment, really, we just sort of know about a deal in principle if you like, But it could create an incredible opportunity to spread this sort of the PGA to a brand, if you like, which they've proven the PGA two are they're the best at running golf tournaments. You know, they're the best at doing this. And they've been doing it for a really

long time. And it goes all the way back to Arnold Palmer and Dean Beaman and Jack Nicklass and they've had a long time to get good at running golf tournaments. I've played golf tournaments all the way around the world. The PGA tour tournaments are the best. They're the best to play in. They're the best, the most organized. You know that you got a lot of PGA, You got

a lot of golf tournaments. They're they're great tournaments. It's it's just going to create it's gonna if there's the sensible people in the room, if you like, or the experience is going to be steering the ship a little bit, and they're going to sort of have, as I said, that sort of future proofing or that sort of knowledge that you know, we can sort of have some aspirational goals here because we know the funds are going to

be there. We don't have to go year to year and based on how the economy is or every ten years how the TV deal is going to be. And it's also opportunity to grow that sort of level of tournament, the PGA to a level of tournament, and to spread it around the world. I mean, the PGA Tour as we know it will probably, as I said, look pretty similar, but there might be all sorts of opportunity outside of

the US to create incredible stuff. And that's instead of now selling to a market of three hundred million people and maybe there's a bunch of people outside the US who watch the PGA Tour, but now you're actually going to be able to take this product around the world and have the sort of freedom and reach and spread

to sort of maybe do some really special stuff. I mean I said, we were sort of speculating here, but I think it's potentially if the goods the good side of this deal is it's gonna grow the game, which is the phrase it gets overused, but it really could sort of spread that sort of that high level sort of elegant so whatever you the Pagata brings to golf tournaments and take it around the world, and I think that's really cool.

last few days. There's definitely some hard feelings. It's you know, there exchange that Rory McElroy had with Grayson Murray in the meeting has been reported where you know, Murray shouted something about mon Hand like we can't trust you, we don't believe you, and Rory said, you know, you play better, Grayson, which is act interesting in the context of you know, it sounds like he's defending mine hand and on that level, but you know, certainly then Rory got up and met

reporters and he you know, he looked a little dark, like I think Rory was an idealist, you know, and he thought he was fighting a good fight and the money guys came in and just sawd them out. And it's kind of a hard lesson for Rory how things work in the real world. But what was what was your impressions of how Rory handled himself in the meeting and do you have any insight into where his head is right now?

winning this one. You know a lot of people are viewing it like they've caved in and they've like kind of lost this one. But I view it as they win because the PGA two is going to have control, and that's better for Rory McCord. That's better for the guys on the PGA two side. You know, if you have a situation where if j is pulling the strings, if JA is pulling the strings, say if Jay is ends up being the boss of the live tour, well that's certainly better for the players on the PGA tour

side of things. Certainly. I can't see any other side to that. So I don't know. I think, I don't know. I can't go into anyone else's heads. I thought Rory did really well. It was a tough meeting to be in because there was a lot of emotion from a lot of players. It was not really tense. It was a little bit tense, but Rory did okay. People were speaking up and I understand all sides of the argument. Shane did a really good job. Shane was great in there.

look like. To be honest, I don't think Jane, like Piff and I don't think they know the details yet either. I mean, that's why we're sort of not having any details because most of this stuff hasn't been fleshed out. So yeah, I'd rather take the long view and look at things like they're going to work out, okay. I mean, I've been going to play meetings for twenty years and they're often when there's a change thrown out be it. The one of the big ones was when they introduced

the FedEx Cup. We're going to end the normal schedule and we're going to have playoffs and all this sort of stuff. There was a lot of grumpy golfers saying, this is not golf silly. That turned out great. I mean it might not turn out perfect and maybe not like the NFL playoffs or anything like that, but like we have more big money tournaments. It's just kept getting bigger. It's the PGA to it. It generally works out better for the players. We've played for more money every single year,

there's been more opportunity, good stuff. So I sort of go into those meetings thinking I might not agree with everything that they say, but generally it works out. So I was kind of having that view and trying to listen to the good sides of this and not the other side of it. And I think you could you could have taken the meeting either way. I think, you know,

that was so nonspecific. You know, there was the general this is what we're going to do, and then there was lots of non specifics, and I I think it's often telling in those players meetings where players sort of their moods often sort of are a window to where they think their game's at and where their futures at a little bit, you know, because if you think your game is great, but the guy, the guys who think their games are great and they really back themselves for

the future generally are pretty quiet and kind of like what's being said. The guys who sort of maybe are a bit nervous about their golf in the future, they tend to like don't like to upset the status quo, and they don't like change because they're sort of like, let's just skip it how it is, because it's kind

of okay right now, they're they're interesting times. I said, this is a really kind of a weird situation because normally when the tour comes to us at a player meeting, it's a fully fleshed out, fully decided this is going to happen. They have power points and colorful graphs and this is how much money you're going to make, and this is how many tournaments you're going to get to play in, and it's all going to be wonderful, and we all get convinced by the facts on the board.

There weren't really any facts or specifics that we learned, So it's kind of a leap of faith from all the players that we have to kind of trust our leader. And to be fair, they haven't acted very trustworthy, you know, but it's been a really tumultuous time. I then, would you like to be I wouldn't like to be steering the ship, Like we can all sit up and judge how leaders, how these leaders run this thing, but we don't. We're not privy to a whole lot of this stuff.

And something had to be done, like something had to happen, right. If this is the right answer, I don't know, but it's it's an interesting time. They're definitely entertaining these play meetings. They're quite fun.

I mean, this has been a very fluid moving situation with a lot of complexity. You know, there's the there's the money side of things, and there's the players jumping, and then there's the politics of the whole thing. And this is a very complex issue to navigate. But as you kind of said at the start, his job is to make the players more money and give them great

places to play and improve the product. And the feeling I got from him yesterday is he feels like that's what this is, is improving the product and making it better to be a PGA to a player, and making everything involved with the PGA to it better. That was a feeling that sort of I got, and he was getting sort of yelled at for that. But as I said, I think the sort of the karma heads in the room were just sitting back taking it all in and

we'll just see how this ends up, you know. But I understand, I completely understand the passion from the players. Jay stood up last year saying there's no way I'll ever see a LIFT player back on this tour. It will never happen. Da da da da da. And this arrangement seems to suggest that maybe that'll happen. But he did say in the meeting that he did say in the meeting that they are sub to the same rules and regulations and discipline that they have been today. This

isn't going to change any of that. So I don't think you're going to see an influx of live players back on the page at anytime soon. I really don't.

whole thing is the money always wins. You can have all the high falutin rhetoric, and you can appeal to morality, and you can appeal to legacy, and you can try any any linguistic gymnastics you want to, but in the end, the money wins, and Yasser controls the money. And so however the board's configured, I think that he's going to have clearly an outsized influence and he's gonna, you know, Live has been his baby all along. He's nurtured it,

he's cared for it. It was his and he's been the driving force that and he's gonna want to take care of those players, and he's gonna he's gonna want equity, and I think that I don't think it makes sense to keep them as separate organizations. I think the players are gonna have to flow back and forth, and there may be some you know, truth and reconciliation panel that's

going to have to deal with with. You know, you're going to treat Andy ogle Tree different than you're can treat Phil Mickelson, perhaps, but I think there has to be a road back for these players. Otherwise, what's the point. I mean, the whole, the whole. We're unifying the game, we're bringing the sport back together. And if you keep if you keep them sort of separate but equal, I

don't I don't think that. I don't think that makes sense in the context of of what they're trying to sell here, which is a reunified sport and and a cohesive approach to the highest level of the game. I just know how that works well.

I genuinely get the feeling. And I don't know, I don't know any of these people. I genuinely get the feeling that they just kind of want to see it at the table and be part of this and sort of gradually sort of become part of this sort of world, global culture and economy over the next thirty years. Right. I just genuinely think that the spirit that they the spirit is good in this front. I mean, yes, the chairman will be is arguably the boss, and the money

is the boss. But I mean, who's to say, who's to say that the live thing wasn't as out chessing, like playing chess and out chessing the PGA Tour, inventing a product that he knows is going to fail, but it's good enough to create disruption and to buy the seat of the table. Like, who's to say this wasn't a whole plan. He might not want to live at all.

He might have just wanted to be part of the PGA Tour and this was his way, like he could he knocked on the door and they said no, So well, I'm going to disrupt for a bit and then you're going to have to let me in and then live can just go away because now I'm in, Like you know what I mean, Like we don't we're sort of we're again you're looking at this from a this is a bad idea side of things as opposed to you

know what this could be. I mean, look, it could be any number of anywhere in the middle, and we don't really know. But and I'm only I'm only just going on the other side of it, just for the fun part. But I think it's I would choose, as I said, I choose to think that the spirit here is good. You know, if the way they're the way they're investing, the way they're investing in everything, they're clearly sort of looking forward to a post oil economy and

trying to get involved in this whole thing. And they're really just giving us our money back because we've been putting gas in our car for you know, however long. You know, it's just coming back the other way, and it's just coming back through athletes and f one and they're investing in Uber and Boeing and all this stuff. They're just sort of trying to sort of integrate themselves into this world economy, and this is just another small

part of it. And I choose to feel like that golf is benefiting from their interest in this rather than any sort of sinister feeling of sort of takeover, you know. I just think they just want to be part of this whole show.

but he's like, this is all because of Yaser. I mean, if he was if he was a volleyball guy, they'd be building volleyball arenas and creating volleyball super leagues, you know. But he loves golf, and that that's what's driving all of this, And so I think I agree. I think there that the spirit you describe is accurate, but he doesn't.

He doesn't have a seat at the table. I mean he owns the chair, he owns the table, he owns the building, he owns the parking lot, like you know, as far as the influence, however, they can figure the board and whatever title J has. I mean, Jay's gonna be the chief bureaucrat, there's no doubt. But I mean Yaser is going to be the driving force behind this.

I really believe that, and so he's going to be happy to delegate some of the details about who gets in, who doesn't, who doesn't, you know, how many, the size of the fields and and the exemptions. Like he's not gonna get bogged down in that. But the live question is really interesting, you know, what happens to live now? And I've been debating that with different people all day long. And you know, Greg Norman went on he had a call this morning with the whole staff and he basically said,

nothing changes, like we're we're going to keep going. We're building out our schedule for twenty four and twenty five and beyond. And you know, he he's very bullish. And someone another top executive you know, basically said had a meeting and said, I only know two things. We won, and this is really good for live golf. And so there's this thinking that lives is gonna blow away like tumbleweed. But I think I think, you know, for for Y'allsros, this legacy thing like this is this was his creation.

And if all he is is the the writing checks to the PGA Tour and the European Tour, it's kind of like, uh, he does. He is at the table that he owns. But it's I think he want more than that. I think they want to have a sense of ownership and creation and and live golf is that. And so how they incorporate some piece of that into

this this larger schedule is it gonna be fascinating. And it does become a mechanism for getting payers played, you know there, how do you make it up to Hideki and to the other guys who turned down so much money. I mean, there's you can give them a piece of a franchise. They can just they can. They could pump

the live person's way up. Guys could come in and out and play those like I think it becomes a mechanism to kind of make things right and along with the Auster's emotional investment, and I don't think Live is going anywhere. I think that they'll they'll find a way to They'll probably shrink the schedule, but it will remain kind of a parallel thing that gets incorporate into the

larger schedule in some clever fashion. But that that's that's gonna be a fascinating fundamental question like what happens to Live Golf, which has been a monumental undertaking to get at this or well.

It's gonna be one company basically running at all. And I'm pretty confident that Jay, if he wants to stay, if he wants to stay in that chair, he's not going to just be handing memberships back to these lift players in like December or January. I'm pretty confident that's

not going to happen. I mean, I think the best you'll see is that maybe they can be non members but get invites, you know, play limited amount of tournaments, because I don't think anybody like do you want to tell the tournament director or the sponsor of any tournament that they can't have Dustin Johnson or Brooks kept Girl or cam Smith or you know, like, but it's hard to tell the membership of the PGA tours, like, well, these guys got the money and they're all going to

be members too, and they're going to be taking our spots in the field. So I don't think that's going to happen. I think it's interesting. And as I said, we don't know. We didn't learn anything else. They're really apart from sort of this deal in principle and how we're all sort of speculating about how it might look. But I believe that the spirit of this whole thing is like in a pretty good spot. And as I said, he's a very smart guy. Yes, Like you said, who's

to say that live? As I said, wasn't the card that he played to get to be a part of the bigger show, which is the PGA too, which is the proven product, because Live hasn't really proven itself as being anything that people are really crazy interested in yet.

And if that's that's a business and if the balance sheet and the profit lost does it just keeps looking bad, well, then they're going to just start, Well, let's let's start that the money needs to be really the product that does make money and it is a really good business model, which is the PGA Tour. Yeah, I don't know, it's all speculate, It's it's gonna be a very interesting like it's been a fun couple of days, and then it'll

all settle down. But the next six months, when we see the PGA Tour twenty four schedule come out, what that's going to look like? What does the Live schedule come out? When does that come out? What does that look like? What does the dp World Tour look like? What does the agent tool look like? I mean, what are the pathways to get to the tour look like? I mean, it's the corn Ferry. What's happen to the

corn Ferry Tour? Champions Tour could be really interesting. I mean, with this big sort of the PGA Tour, the hemoth of the PGA Tour has sort of been sort of propping up, if you like, or the top fifty players, the ones who bring all the money to the main tour.

They've sort of been propping up the Conferry Tour and the champions to it for a long time, right, the main products has been looking after the the other products, and maybe there's a little bit of freedom now to sort of do some fun stuff for the champions to do some cool stuff with the corn Ferry. The dp World Tour might become genuinely a bigger deal. Maybe it becomes the step up to it to get to the PGA Tour. Maybe there's PGA Tour events all around the world.

Maybe it becomes like everyone. Maybe there's some sort of hybrid that they're really there. They're seventy two hole stroke play tournaments like we play here, but maybe there's a few more spread around the world. I don't know, don't We don't know how it's all going to look. I think there's a freedom that Jay will have now in the PGA Tour to be a bit am big because they've got the checkbook, or they've they've got access to

the checkbook. And I think the checkbook I think the piff and yes, sir, the goal was I want what we want to see it at the table at the best show in town, which is a PGA tour, and I think Live was one of us steppingstone to get there, albeit a product that is probably proud of and maybe he wants to keep going. I think the main goal was to be a part of the big show.

I mean, might as well lean into the fact that there is a little bit of tension there and a little bit of a divide and that that could be that could be blockbuster. But the global schedule is fascinating. Like it if you think about it's never really existing.

You these tournaments are always in competition with each other. Now, if you could make it all make sense, like turn the Australian Open into a tour event and go go down to hit South Africa on the way, and then you go to Asia and then you have you have the West Coast Swing, and then you do Florida and then at some point you go to Europe. And then you know, we should you should get sit down with a pen and a piece of paper, Jeff and and come up with the dream unified global schedule that draws

on every tour. And but now finally we can make that happen, right, like it never made sense you had really good tournaments on on the European Tour and the PG Tour at the same time. Like now you could slot things out differently and just ensure that the best players come together way more often, which you know the elevated events did and Live did, but they'd they'd split the game in half. Now, if you can bring that same spirit where you F one is a good analog.

I mean the recent F one works is because you know that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstaff are gonna be every single race. And if we can get that in golf where every time you turn the TV on, they're on a cool golf course and all your favorite players are there and small the ones you don't like, but you know, the anti heroes like whatever, But you need you need the Patrick Reid's and you need the the bryceon Deshambos to go along with the nice guys too.

So I just think I think the possibilities are endless to finally have a schedule that makes sense and where the players can travel in mass to different parts of the world. And it's never been it's never been achieved, but it's now it's achievable. Whether it'll happen, you know, who knows if they can, if they can really make it, if they can really make all the pieces fit. But I love to dream about it. I think it could be cool.

I mean, like people think we make piles of money, and we do, but only the top bunch.

sport and spread around the world. And there's clearly going to be some there's some rocky road sort of a bit of conflict in amongst players and tour management between here and getting there, because this is all a very

new thing. But I think Rory said it today. I mean I looked ten years down the road and I kind of like how it looks, you know, I sort of choose to feel that I genuinely think this is going to go down as this This has the potential to go down as the best deal ever done, you know, and it's not just Jay's, it's everybody, you know, like it's the whole.

I'm sort of rose colored glasses here, but I would rather sort of innocent to proven guilty, you know, I

mean as opposed to the other way around. Let's let's just see where all lands and if it goes, like Jay was suggesting, as I said, there were no specifics, but if it goes like he was suggesting the general feel, if you could kind of read between the lines with what he was saying, it's like the PGA Tour is now going to run golf, and we now have access to funds that we've never had before, and we're going to be able to do some stuff that we've always

wanted to do that we couldn't do before without lawsuits going on, without conflict. So it feels like it, Yeah, it could, it could be really really good, but hopefully we can hopefully we can get to that without too much more carnage because all this carnage and golf has been a shame. But good for golf, good for golf riders like you.

But winning, i mean, having Rory win sort of saved it a little bit. But I think he was feeling that and I kind of kind of feel fro him because they genuinely are golf one of golf's biggest supporters.

And it was it was very sensible, it was getting it was not getting unruly yesterday, but there was a lot of emotion in the air and you weren't going to you know, when you get to those points where you're just not going to get anywhere further, you know, you just he couldn't tell He couldn't tell players anything. You knew. He wanted to tell them everything, but he

can't because he doesn't know the details. And the players wanted more answers, and they deserve answers, the players, And so it was kind of you're at that style, mate, where it was just sort of becoming unraveled a little bit, and sort of Shane stepped in the sensible voice and said, come on, let's just play the Canadian Open. Let's just move forward, and let's just we'll keep asking questions of Jay and I hope it works out well. You know, it was cool.