Mm hmm.
On some level, Jay Monahan showed the ultimate leadership. He jumped on the grenade and they'd come to the end of the road. They could no longer try and compete with the Saudis. The only thing to do is to forge a compromise, and by doing so he secured the long term health of the PG Tour. Potentially he's going to bring fabulous new riches to all his players, and the tour didn't have to give up anything all the all. The only cost was Jay Monahan's reputation and maybe his soul.
That God thoughts in my head. Can't get him out, JH. Not to think what I'm thinking about. I'm counts can't get him out, JH. Not to think what I'm thinking about.
Hello, Welcome back from their Fire Drill podcast. This is Alan Shipnik. I am joined by frequent wingman Michael Bamberger. That song you just heard was by Griffin House, very talented musician. He's gonna He's going to factor in an upcoming Fire Drill podcast. Shout out to Griffin for supplying our theme music and dormy workshop and Link Soul for all their sponsorship and support and helping us keep the lights on here at the fire pit, but this is
kind of a special fire drill. We're talking about my new book Live and let Die. I'll show it on the screen for those who are watching on YouTube. I don't know why you'd be doing that. It's a little terrifying that people actually watch this, Michael, But anyway, thanks for being I.
Showered in anticipation of that viewer.
I shaved and you can see my hair still wet. I was coming in hot. But we've been having these conversations about our respective books going back a decade now. I think it began with Men and Green. And there's no one I'd rather talk about than about this stuff than with you, a man of letters, a lover of the written word, a discerning reader. So here we are. I'm turning this over to you. Now we're changing hosts. Okay, well.
That's a delight and an honor. And you know, just before we I A'm going to have a little preamble here, but I don't want people to be nervous. When this is over. Shipnook will have done ninety four percent of the talking, but I'm going to set the I'm going to do a little mood lighting here and let me say this at the onset so I might.
Beat other people to it.
Alan and I have been close friends and colleagues going back to the mid nineties. Our checks have been signed by the same quote people and corporations going back to the mid nineties, going after Sports Illustrated and Golf Magazine and Firepit Collective. We have the same editor, Joe fie ferrari Adler at Simon and Schuster, a division of Simon Schuster now called Avid Reader Press. Our interest we've written
a book together. Our interests are very much aligned. But we're going to have a very truthful conversation about this inredibly interesting and well done book. I read the book as On was writing it. I've just read the new last chapter of it for anybody who cares. You know, Ben Bradley famously said Ben Bradley was the longtime editor to the Washington Post. Maybe others have said I'm sure others have said it. You know that newspaper work is the first draft of history.
You know.
I think it's a beautiful phrase. But what Alan has done here is hot on the wake of the actual events, has actually given context and history to an incredible upheaval in professional golf. But the real value of it for me as a reader, and I think for many many people who will read and devour this book, is that it's not really just about golf. It's about the modern condition, about more is more read, it's never enough, global interests in a narrow thing, and how you buy status through
the use of money. So it's an absolutely incredible and interesting book. As someone who's been a lifelong reporter, I can imagine I would say I know how difficult this book was to report and write Alan, So the first thing I want to say is congratulations on an extremely well done book. Nobody will read this book and say
it's boring. Alan and I had a colleague and a friend, Rick Riley, years ago, and Alan wrote a book called Bud, Sweat and Teas, and riley blurb forer and Riley's blurb for it was somebody forgot to tell Alan Schipneck that golf books are supposed to be boring. That effect, this book is so interesting and so captivating because it has so much a play, so many different types of personalities. So with that long preamble, we're going to get into
the book. But Al, I want to start where the book stops, and that is because I know people will be interested to know on your extremely informed opinion about this question. I think we all have a sense of what the various tours will look like in twenty twenty four. Give us your best guess for what the world golf will look like in twenty twenty five.
Well, first of all, thank you for all those kind words, and we could make this just this podcast of monologue. That's fine if you want to keep going, Mike, I don't mind at all. I enjoyed that deeply. But yeah, I think it's obvious that twenty twenty four is going to look very much like twenty three and twenty two for that matter, Live a play a schedule, the European Tour will hab it schedule and sold, the PGA Tour with some tweaks along the way for each of them.
But twenty five is the big question. As I've continued to report this book even after it was mostly done. You know, I was at the US Women's Amateur at bal air walking with some golf power brokers and they were talking. Some of them were seminole members, some of them are buddies with Jimmy Dunn. You know, they were close to the nexus of power, and they were talking about all of the private equity money from American corporations
that are now circling this deal. And I think it's it, and it sounds like it's it's close to Doune where the Saudis role will be somewhat diluted and they will bring in institutional investor money for the United States, and that becomes a much easier sell to Congress, even to the tour members and say, listen, the Saudis are an investor, but so is you know, Rain Capital, so is Black Rock, so are some of these other big firms that have been trying to get into golf, maybe Endeavor, you know,
all those all those firms have been trying to get in professional golf going back years now, and so I think that becomes more palatable from the standpoint of it's not controlled by the Saudis. And even though the tour folks have hung their hat on this for a long time that we have a majority seat on the board of directors were in charge, no one's really believe that because the money is in charge, and you see her
had all the money. And so if you if you bring in the one or two or maybe even three, you know, American based private equity firms. Then then you can say, well, the PGA Tours in charge, and we have a variety of investors, one of them being the public investment fund in the Saudist. I think that still works for yas sir. They have the proverbial seat at the table. They have a way forward for live from
a legitimacy standpoint. They've been embraced by the the golf establishment and the corporate They've gotten the okay from corporate America and it's kind of a win win win. So I think that's what's going to happen. I think there will be a global schedule that has you know, say call it twenty events, that combination of the best European Tour events, the best PGA Tour events, and a handful of live events and players will flow back and forth,
and I think that'll make everyone happy. And then they'll still European Tour will still have its normal schedule, There'll still be a variety of live events that are not part of this umbrella organization, and of course there'll still be another forty plus PGA Tour events that operate kind of business as usual. So it's been a challenging period for golf fans. There's been a lot of acrimony. There's
been a lot of name calling and uncertainty. But we may land on the best case scenario, which is a true global schedule where all the best players show up and play every tournament, and it will have been it will have taken some strife to get there, but I think that's the direction this is all heading.
Well, Alan, what does that mean in terms of a live schedule, because the live model is, you know, better than anybody as well as anybody is team play in addition to individual play. How would that work in the context of people coming and going? Would it still be the limited field, three round thing with teams that they have now?
So let's say there's there's fourteen of live events. Now, maybe ten of them are just how they've always been, and maybe four of them get subsumed into this larger schedule and they would probably be tweaked. So now you have you have a team element where maybe there's the six best live teams they you know, they sort of
have earned the right to play in these events. And then you have let's say six teams of top tour players with some sort of criteria, and then you have three teams of European Tour and they play play off in this team event with an individual component, and you know, I think it's it's very doable. It becomes kind of a prize you have to qualify for the live teams that miss out on these events. Then they're just kind of sol but they can make it up to another ways.
They can give them exemptions into Asian Tour events if they guys want to want to fill out their schedules. So that's why this framework agreement is so complex, is trying to try to make something that works for all the different constituencies. And that's why there's been no movement publicly because there's so much to sort out. But all these things are solvable with money. And now there's the new CO as they call it, has access to a lot of money, not just from the Soudias, but also
from this notion of bringing in other investors. So I think they can. I think they can figure this out. There's a lot of smart people who are working on it, and there's a lot of political will to get it done. But it's probably gonna go down to the wire. I mean, they have till December thirty first, and they might they might be they might be negotiating this over Christmas holiday, but I think it'll get done.
So a golfer who's you know, still, you would think in theory and his prime, like an Patrick Reid who's been banned from the PHA Tour, would he now come twenty twenty five, would he be able to come and go? Well, Patrick Reid's the least example. You know, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka.
Yeah, so they would. They would have access to this this series of say twenty elite events, of which ten of them are tour traditional PGA Tour event, So they could play the LA Open, they could play Bay Hill, they could play Memorial. You have to have it both ways. If you're going to try and bring the game back together, then you got to bring these live guys back into
the fold. It's only thing that makes sense. And it's certainly if you are a Master Card or a American Express or whomever, a car company and you're you're being asked to put in twenty million dollars for a PG Tour event. You want Dustin, you want you want Bryson, who's playing incredible golf. I mean, he just won his second live event in three starts, and well, it's hard for all of us to know the meaning of a
live victory. But the guys shooting incredible scores, including a fifty eight, so you know, obviously Brooks Koepka's return to the front ranks of the game. You have the anti heroes like the Phils, the Patrick Reids, the Sergio Garcias, who people may not love, but they inspire emotion and passion. And I mean there's a reason that the Master's ratings were the highest they've been in five years this year. It was the live guys. I mean, it was Phil
tearing up the leader board. You know, John Rahm winning by four strokes was boring, but the energy that that that Phil put into it, the Brooks put into it, you know, even and even read you finished fourth. Like these guys inspire emotion and so you have to have them back in the big tournaments to really make it all all makes sense.
And let's get you the book for a minute. Let's get to the title. I remember very well when the James Bond movie came out with Living Lit Dies it's theme song. Did you ever find yourself playing at a loud volume with those terrifying deep bass notes. Just a great, great rocker. That shows you that Pumpcarty's genius extended way beyond the Beatles, even though it definitely, definitely definitely peaked in the Beatles. Did you ever find yourself listening to that song?
No, I think we're straying into you, into your life more than mine and Michael, but yeah, I definitely have cued it up, and yeah, it's it's just a fun title. It's a Beatles song. It's a Bond movie, not to like McCarney song. It's a Bond movie. It's and it just kind of worked because of the the There is this sense that the tours were fighting for their survival, the games survival was at stake. You know, there's it wasn't quite zero some but there was times throughout this
controversy it felt like it. And you know, the reputation of Jay Monahan, the there was there's just been a lot at stake. I mean that that's this story has consumed so many people, and the cast of characters is phenomenal. And of course you have Rory, and you have Tiger, and you have Phil and you have Brooks, and you have Bryson, you have DJ and Patrick Reid, but you
also have Mohammed bin Salman. You have you have his excellency yes he all Ramaian, you have Jay Monahan, you have you know, Keith Pelly, You've got Jimmy Dunn, Donald Trump. There's just a lot of box office here. And some people were elevated, some people were diminished, you know, fortunes were won and lost. It's it's it was just high stakes for what was otherwise just a kind of potentially a boring golf story, you know, in a little boutique sport.
So yeah, I mean then the title might be a little hyperbolic, but it just seemed to fit the energy of the story.
Well, where do you think we're actually going? Do you think we are Do you think we are heading towards the live lit dire? Do you think we're heading towards living, let thrive or some other word?
Yeah, I think that Live is going to endure. I think it's too important to Yes Year and the Public Investment Fund. They put a lot of money and a lot of time into it, and they want to return on their investment. I mean, there's a quote from a guy who worked a lot with the Saudi's on launching live and he said, you know it's in the book.
He's anonymous because of his NDAs and other reasons, but he said, there's the narrative that these guys have an endless amount of money and they're happy to throw it away. He's like, it could be further from the truth. Like they are laser focused and there's always a place, and they will not stop until they've executed a plan. And so they've already spent say three billion dollars on live golf.
They want to get that money back. You know that ya here has a very demanding boss, and that's that's MBS, and he has a mandate to grow the piffs into a into a trillion dollar fund by twenty twenty five. You don't do that by losing money. And that's not a guy you want to have mad at you. You know, if we all want to please our boss, when when your boss is a scary motherfucker like MBS, you really
want to you want to hit your mark. So they're they're they're trying to get their money back and they're trying to make money, and there's there's other things. You're willing to pay for the reputational boost of being aligned with Corporate America and the PGA tour and the notion that you see it could become a member of the RNA and Augusta National well fanciful it, you know that was It's a window into their soul. I mean, let's
just say that that worked out. He would have access to the American ruling class in a way that no Saudi king or crown prince or ambassador ever has had. And so they're certainly willing to pay a premium for that kind of access. But their their bottom line, very cold blooded businessman, and they want to get the money back. So shuddering live now ends that possibility. If they can keep it going and turn it into something, then then then that's a path forward.
Traditionally, a book has a hero that you can root for. Your first book, which you know how much I loved it, Bud Sweat and Teas has an unlikely hero, acadey named Steve Duplantis, who caddies for rich Beham, and you're rooting for this guy and he's hanging on by a thread.
This book is.
Very, very compulsively readable. But let me I'll turn into a question in your mind, is there a hero in the telling of this story?
It's It's what I think makes it so compelling is that every protagonist UH has complicated motives and and complicated behavior. Like j Monahan is fighting for the PGA Tour. He's a true believer. He has no other agenda than trying to do what's best for the tour and his players and his organization and you. But he's made he made some fatal missteps out of pride or out of out out of bad advice, or out of having this old
hockey j mentality that's his nickname, the tour headquarters. When when he went the dark side of his personality because he was an old defenseman in college hockey team. So you know, he could have been the hero, but he kind of he kind of fell on his sword. You know, Rory thought he was fighting the good fight, and in
a lot of ways he was. But you know, there's there's an interesting bit in here from you know, the live guys roll their eyes so hard at Rory as this as this white knight of this tail, because he has tremendous financial interests through the PGA Tour all the deals they've steered through to him. This new TGL Golf League, the tour has supported and has a financial interest in. So and in the end, you know, he he got
out fox by the money guys. And he might be the tragic hero Tiger, you know, he's he's he's been this this shadow with influence throughout. Like on one hand, yes, it's very selfless for him to get involved and to the Delaware twenty three meeting that he led that really turned the tide for the PGA Tour and now taking this seat on the board of directors, you could kind of say Tiger's the hero, but he hasn't want to
be out front. He's only really made one, you know, very strong statement at the British Open, but he's it doesn't feel like his fight. You know, he's not really a modern player anymore. He's not going to play in these events for the most part. So and he's trying to protect his legacy. You know, he has his own selfish reasons for wanting the PGA Tour to tour, and so there's it's hard to it's hard to find an unblemish here. There's a lot of people who were doing
the right thing. And they were trying their hardest. But their motives are a little complex, and that's why I think it's so. And like even the Saudis who've been cast as the bad guys, in a lot of ways, they're true believers. Like they think that they're doing what's best for their economy, for their country. You know, they they are fighting the good fight in their minds. Now people are going to disagree with that, but on some level,
their motives are very pure. They just they just want to advance their own interests and they care deeply about their country, and they're they're doing everything they can to advance their wishes, of their of their boss and their organizations.
So you can, you can impugne their motives, but I think, you know, for us here, I think it's pure in that he loves golf, and he could there's a lot of ways you could invest in his money that would be a lot less of a headache, right, you can just keep buying stock of Fortune five hundred companies, and it's probably an easier way to make money. But he loves golf's he wants to be an ambassador for the game.
He wants to spread the gospel of golf, you know, So it's it's it's just one of the most fascinating parts of this whole tale is that everyone who gets sucked into it, it's they get engulfed in the controversy and they become they're just multifaceted and what they're trying to accomplish and who they really are at their core. You get glimpses of it, you never know for sure, and and even even when you do get get that insight, you can always debate how how pure their motives are
or not. So there it's not a simplistic story where there's a good guy and a bad guy, and that's I think why it's more interesting. Right.
That's very well said, and I think this would be a good time for me to point out, Uh, the book is incredibly even handed.
I know.
I think I picked up on the on the idea that people think that you're quote pro live, and I read the book and I don't think there's anyway someone can say your pro live, your anti live, your pro PG two or your antipg twour. I think you're really trying to tell us a very complicated story with a lot of different emotions, and I think it's very powerful to hear you say that that that what the what
these piffbackers, what these Saudi billionaires want. That they believe in golf, They believe in the things that golf can bring their motivated making by making money, but they have other motivations as well. And you know, we don't have a stranglehold on that. We we Americans or or Europeans, or Asians or any or anybody else. So I think what you just said it's kind of important to bear in mind. But many people's starting point is this looks like a play rooted in greed. You just wrote a
book about Phil Mickelson. It's amazing that that book only came out what about a year and not a year and a few months ago now, and here we already are talking about your next ninety thousand word one hundred thousand word book. That's a you know, for those who don't know how much work it is to get a book out incorrect and edited and well written, it's staggering.
But let's talk about a little bit about your experience writing Phil, how people responded to your take on Phil, and how you use that in this book.
Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of casual fans and even some reporters and people in the game. The film book touched off the livier in some ways because everything was happening in the shadows and Phil is at the center of all of it. He wasn't the only one, you know, Dustin and Bryson and others and Kopka,
they've been talking to Soudiast for over a year. But when the excerpt dropped from the Phil book in which Phil just gave a very lunt lay of the land of what was really happening, that's when people really woke up to this. Because live had not been announced yet, it was not a sure thing, and it had nothing that had been public and so that was kind of the beginning of the story, I think for a lot of people, and honestly for me too, Like it wasn't until I had that phone call Phil that I realized
how how serious this was. That because the Premier Golf League and I traced its entire history early in this new book, and it's fascinating that that's what created all this was this idea from this one London lawyer on how golf professional golf could be a little better and a little more interesting. That's what led us to this moment.
But the Premier Golf League had been knocking around for four years and then they'd never been able to get traction, and so I think a lot of people thought they were confused because the Saudi's at one point were just investors in the Premiere Golf League, and so then Live Golf was being whispered about. But a lot of people in the game still thought that was just the Premier Golf leagu. They didn't realize the Saudis had broken away
and were creating their own standalone thing. I mean, I traced all this and Live and Let Die.
But.
So it was easy to dismiss, Oh, well, this soud He's have been involved for years. There's been no traction, there's been no announcements. It's all just going to go away. You know. The Phil book kind of touched off the Live era on some level, as this lives are going to change and the story of professional golf is going to change. But as I was reporting the Live and Let Die like, I learned a lot more about Phil's role in all of this, and it's unbelievable. He was
the biggest booster for the Premiere Golf League. And there's a hilarious quote from Keith Pelly, the CEO of the European Tour, where Pelly's trying to decide should he do the strategic alliance with the PGA Tour or should he join with the Premiere Golf League and create this new super tour. And Phil calls him up out of the blue and is advocating for the PGL and he's like, Keith, you're a visionary. This is your chance. You can do it. You know, you can change golf forever. I mean, it's
really self referential. Phil's describing himself, and you know, Pelly says it was his full pitch. Multimately, the European Tour went with a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour. That's what forced the Saudis to go at it a loan, so then fill through and with the Saudis. But at the same time, he took all the sort of intellectual property from what they were cooking up and he went to some of these New York private equity firms and
tried to create his own breakaway tour. So Phil was in league with the Premier Golf League, with the Saudis, and then with his own third rail breakaway tour while he was negotiating with the PGA tour and how to make things better if he stayed. So he was basically working four sides of the street simultaneously. And it's just classic Phil. And on some level he succeeded. I mean, without him as the chief recruiter and booster, you know, Live Golf Pride never launches. But of course he's himself
on fire in the process. And now if this framework agreement is consummated and he's brought back into the fold, you know, he can return as the conquering hero who doubled the side salary every professional golfer and made the game global and it came at a reputational cost. But he'll claim vindication whether that again, it's complex, Is that valid?
Is Phil gonna? Does he deserve the accolades? I mean, that's not something we could debate, but there's no doubt he was a monumental agent of change and he was he was the center of the maze for all of this. And so his role is fleshed out a bit more and Live and Let Die it's you know, it comes in at the end of the Phil biography but I don't want to go too deep on philm this next book because I don't want to feel like a sequel.
But he's just incredibly important to all of this, And I mean there's so many funny things, like the Premier Golf League, they their first their first offers go out and Tiger's offered two hundred million dollars and Phil's offered fifty And one of the Premier Golf League guys tells me, absolutely no one in golf had any problem with how
much tiger Wood is being offered except Phil. And so then the second round of offers, Phil gets a fifty million dollar consulting fee and they knocked down what Tiger's offered, Like it's just he's just he's always got his thumb on the scales, he's always got his finger in the soup, whatever metaphor you want, Like he's just always in the
middle of everything. And so I didn't go too heavy on Phil, but his cameos are laugh out loud in this book because he's just such a muckraker and a rascal and a shitster and he can't help himself.
Tell the folks who might not know who Deep Throat was in real life, and tell us if you had any deep throats of your own, because I know how difficult a book like this is to report.
Yeah. Well, of course, deep Throat was a nineteen eighties porn, but that was inspired by a character in All the President's Men who was the source for Woodward and Bernstein on breaking the whole Watergate story. And his identity was not known until he died just somewhat recently, but he was He was the guy who knew everything but wanted to stay in the shadows, and so he was not identified by naming their stories, and they just called him
deep Throat. And so, yeah, I had a variety of people like that in this book, because one of the fun and challenging parts of this is everyone wanted to spin me right. The legacies were at stake here, and as you mentioned in your preamble, this was going to be the first draft of history. And there's been a lot of a lot of people in writing. I've done a lot of good journalism about live golf, but this was going to collect the whole story in one place.
And books have a way of enduring in a way that maybe a web column does not, And so people wanted to talk to me. They wanted they wanted to try and impress upon me their point of view, but a lot of them wouldn't do it publicly. So I tried to keep anonymous sources to a minimum, but they were they were inevitable in certain ways. And the funny thing was the c and dagger element, where because the Department of Justice was snooping around, they had access to
the phones of a lot of golf's power brokers. So a very senior person in the golf world comes up to me at a tournament says, stop calling, you know, stop texting me because the Department of Justice is reading my text He's like, just call me and we can talk, but don't text me. Another guy's like, stop emailing me because the Securities and Exchange Commission is reading my emails. And so I have like burner phone numbers for a
lot of powerful people in the game. I have a couple of wife cell numbers, I have some landlines, I have some some faux emails that you know, they have their official work email, but then they have their own private one. And so yeah, there was documents that people wanted me to know about, but they couldn't actually give them to me, so they just read them to me over the phone. So there, you know, there wouldn't be a paper trail, but I would I would know what
was contained in them. So it was an extremely fun reporting aallenge to get the goods. And I mean, you know this, Michael, like that's that's one of the best parts of the job is when you're chasing something and you have a fragment of it and someone's told you part of it, and someone else has told you a piece of it, but then you get to the person who was in the room and they'll actually give it up.
And there was a lot of aha moments like that where I'd been chasing things for a long time and I finally wore somebody down or they had to change of heart. And there was a lot of people who wouldn't talk to me for a long time, and I kept going back to them and saying, well, so and so told me you were there, and someone else told me that you said this, and finally like, okay, fine, you know too much. I got to talk to you now, and then they would. But initially they blew me off
because they didn't want to get sucked into it. But once I really had the goods, then they felt compelled to weigh in with their version of it. So and that's I mean, there is a quote in this book. It's something I've always thought about. It's this Hollywood producer or you know, Robert Evans. There's three sides to every story,
yours mind and the truth. And I was always hyper aware of that in reporting this, that even these people who were primary sources, who were part of the negotiations, or who were witnesses to the key events, they had their own motivations that I had to weigh out. And so it was constantly fact checking and constantly getting second and third sources to confirm. And sometimes I mean, like this is just a small thing, but you know, Jack Nicholas got sucked into this whole story. You know, basically
Jack was suing himself. It was the Nicholas companies suing the man himself, and it was about Saudi money. And so I talked to some people associated with Live who were at this meeting and with Jack, and they told one version of the story. And then I talked to Jack's people and their version was completely different. I wasn't
in the room. I don't know what was said, I have to take the word of these people who were in the room, and there was no way to really so then I just quote both of them, and I kind of leave it up to the reader to assess the person's motives and just kind of lay it out. So there were a few times like that where it was not possible to determine what really happened, and I have these competing views and I just present that, And to me, it's almost kind of funny.
You have, like.
How much spin is involved because there was only one conversation in one room, and for people who are telling such different stories, then you know they're not really honest brokers. And I'm most of the time I was the judge and the jury on that. But in some instance I just leave it up to the reader to try and make up their own minds, right right.
One of the one of the quote characters, one of the people in the book that goes through the most character development over the course of the book would be Jay Monahan, who comes up as Fincham's deputy. Is a true, true believer. And you know, anybody who follows golf, you know, knows what he said to the pub Uh, you know,
a TV cameras rolling. You know, ask yourself, you know you ever have to be embarrassed to be a member of the PGA Tour and then does this incredible about face at immense personal told him then he takes a leave from his job to deal with Really we have to guess the mental strain of it all and the physical ramifications of that. What's your sense of what it's like to what it has been like to be Jay Monaghan for these past couple of years.
It's interesting because he's being pilloried by his own players, by senators and congressmen, certainly by the live guys. On on some level, Jay Monahan showed the ultimate leadership. He jumped on the grenade and he when he realized, okay, we can't come. They'd come to the end of the road. They could no longer try and compete with the South. The only thing to do was to forge a compromise, and by doing so he secured the long term health
of the pg Tour. Potentially he's going to bring fabulous new riches to all his players, and the tour didn't have to give up anything all the all. The only cost was Jay Monhan's reputation and maybe his soul, and he did it willingly, and you could hail him for the most selfless leadership imaginable. But the problem was along the way he's he you know, it's been documented, as you said, that he basically villainized the Saudis and he made their money dirty, and he he chose to go
down that road. I mean, that was a tactic he chose. And so now when you partner with them and you take their money, what does that say about you? And so here those were some of the missteps that he made. You know, he he he didn't have to make it a moral argument. He didn't have to draw the nine to eleven families into the conversation, but he chose to. And that's where the hypocrisy rings out. But from a strictly a business sense, you know, you could you could argue,
you go cut the greatest deal in golf history. He's he's got he's still technically the day to day CEO of this new co and now he has this unlimited, unlimited amount of capital to do all kinds of cool stuff.
So but yeah, it that's that's the trag That's what part makes Monahan role in this tragic and one of some of this some of the fresh information in this book goes back to the early days of the Saudi threat, like you know, how long Monahan knew about this was coming, and you know the number two guy for the Saudis was,
you know, Migeede al Sor. He writes this letter to Monahan, which I reproduced in the book, which no one's seen publicly, and this is this is in April of two thousand and twenty one, so this is a full more than a full year before Lived launches, and he says, we want to partner with you, and we want to sit down and talk and kind of way to come together and support the tour and and have this fresh new
product and have all this investment. And Monahan's response, I mean, it's all in the book is you know in this in this board meeting, Charlie Hoffin says, why aren't we meeting with these Saudi guys? And Monahan says, we're at war. You know, we're at war. We're at war. We're at war. And that that was You can argue that the Saudis it was a little coy on their part because they kind of said, we're going to launch with it without you.
So it was there was a certain threat that was baked into this letter, but they did come advocating for compromise and for partnership, and Monahan, with this very militant approach, kind of poisoned the waters for all the professional golf and he set the tone that would follow that we
are at war. And so he came around in the end, but there was a whole series of missteps that that got him to this place where it was easy to tar him as a hypocrite, as a liar, and and it became easy to diminish the fact that maybe he did the best possible for the tour, but it came a little too late, and it came after a lot of a lot of name calling.
Right the PGA Tour Board, its main obligation is to support, of course, the membership numbers about one hundred and fifty active players. Do you think there's any chance that the group the one hundred and fifty or more players will actually not want this to happen and therefore the board will be compelled to turn it down.
It's a possibility. But if the framework agreement falls apart, then we just resume business as usual, where Live Golf is up and running and the PGA Tour is It will have been a success for the PGA Tour that they got the lawsuits dismissed with prejudice so they can't be refiled. So the tour no longer has you know, five to ten million dollars a month in legal fees. That's a win foreshore, but Live Golf would go back
to trying to recruit players. And now, what player are going to turn down their money after Jay Monahan and Jimmy Dunn and everyone else said we love these guys. There are partners and they're good for golf. And if jay Monhamm was so eager to take the Soudy money, why would Patrick Can't Lay or anyone else turn it down as they did the first time around. And so it's tenuous for the tour. I mean, they could lose an entire generation of players to Live Golf if they
go back to being competitors. Now, maybe that doesn't matter. You know, if as a thought exercise, if Can't Lay and Xander Softly and Matt Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatours and Sam Burns, if all those guys went to Live does that change anything I don't know. I mean, they're they're all nice players, but they don't really move the needle. It would make live golf a more compelling product, but is it going to send the masses to the CW.
Maybe not. And as long as the tour has Rory and rom and Speed and Justin Thomas and the occasional Tiger Woods cameo perhaps and maybe Charlie Woods, then maybe the tour is still in a position of strength. But that's the risk for the tour is that if the membership votes is down, they lose access to all the Saudi capital, they go back to being competitors, they lose
a lot of their top players. That's a big risk. Now, I do think that there's and I know this to be a fact, there's a strong faction within the tour and even within the board of the players on the board like, okay, we've found religion. A not for profit PGA tour makes no sense. We were in this outdated model. Let's take outside investment, let's privatize, but let's just do
it without the Saudis. And so the tour could still they could still take all this private equity money, and they could they could just say no to the public investment fund, and they would still be much better capitalized than they were, and they'd be able to pay their players. But they've promised them these elevated purses. But again in that scenarira of the tour stronger financially, but they lose, they run the risk of losing a bunch of their players.
And so I think the way to split the baby, that legal term, is that take the outside investment from private equity American money, but keep the saud He's in the fold so they don't go back to being competitors. And I think that's the smartest and the best way forward for the tour. But it's complex because there's a lot of egos, there's a lot of hurt feelings, and
there's a lot of personalities in play. So you know, Patrick Cantley is definitely working to try and he's got this end around, going to try and subvert this deal and cut the Saudi's out of it. But to see how the political capital, I mean, we're going to find out. There's there's now twelve votes on the board of directors, six players and six outside directors. So the fall lines
there are interesting. Tiger's there, Rory's there. Then you have like the Peter Malnatti's and the Web Simpsons who are they're not They're not at the top of the game anymore, so they're kind of looking out for the journeyman. They still need to fill the seat of Randall Stevenson, the AT and T CEO, who resigned in protest. He's one of the independent directors. So how the board shakes out is a very interesting question.
Is it a simple majority vote yes? What would they do in the sixty sixth.
Scenario that's the nuclear option. I mean, nobody knows because they generally when things get vote on, it's almost always unanimous. They negotiated out to a point. They get the players on board, and they want the players to vote yes, like there's been and even like going back to DO twenty twenty one when they the Player Impact Program. James Hahn was very much against it, but he didn't in the end, he didn't vote against it, he just abstained.
Because the tour always wants to say it's unanimus, you know, it becomes like a linguistic thing. So I don't think there's any precedent for a deadlocked vote. And how they finesse that that would be spectacular theater.
So even with something that this major, that absolutely will affect the institution forever. It doesn't go to a vote, a vote of the whole membership, it's still decided on the board level. Is that correct?
That's correct, Whether whether the board could do a straw pole, you know, raise your hand in a meeting, like there's there's ways they can build consensus, but it's not a true democracy. I mean, it's like it's really they have like the electoral college is what it is. And so we all know that's a that can be a flawed institution.
The PGA Tour, the PGA of America, the USGA have all run from Trump. Live Golf has not. How would how would Trump courses play into the future, uh with in a some kind of merger between the PGA Tour Live Yeah.
I mean the Trump organization has a multi year contract with Live Golf, and that's they played twice at Trump events and the Beta Test season last year. They've got three Trump events this year. You know, Trump, this is Trump's last foothold in the men's professional game, and he's not going to let it go easily. And you know, I Ironically, Jerral was a PG Tour event forever, so it has has providence like you could you could imagine possibly going back there. But certainly the PJ Tour has
made its stance known. You know, they took away the event at Jerral, and but money talks, and I don't think I don't they're trying to stay out of lawsuits. It's possible they would, they would give Trump one event as to help make all this go away. But he's certainly very polarizing. I mean, Live Golf needed Trump, you know. Sergio Garcia told me we have to play where we're wanted, and not many people wanted us, especially in the first year.
So certainly the tour doesn't need Trump from a venue standpoint. But better for better and for worse, he is a part of Live Golf and he's been a big part. So that's another thing that has to get finessed and negotiated, and that remains unknown.
Well, as you start to wrap up here, let's talk about what your personal efforts to get this book up and out. You work so hard on that Phil Michelson book. The aftermath of that Phil Micholson book, people are coming at you every which way, imaginable. You have four children, you're working for the Firepit Collective, you're one of its partners, and working hard to get that off the ground, to make that profitable. Usually there's a long hangover period after
somebody finishes the book. Sometimes those hangover periods can last for the rest of the writer's life, as was the case with Harper Lee.
Uh.
Even on one book we never wrote from her. Well she everydent only wrote a.
Second Ja D. Salinger. There's there's definitely a precedent.
Yes, how did you get the energy to go back at it right on the heels.
Of the phil book? Yeah, it was I did. There was a little lull. I mean, I've told this story before, but so in last June, when when the US Open was at the country Club in Brookline, I took the train down to New York City to have lunch with Joephi, Frary Adler, our mutual editor, Michael and then David Black has been my career long literary agent, and I hadn't seen either one of them in a long time because of COVID and other reasons, and so it was built
as just like a celebratory lunch. At that point. The Michelson book had been on the New York Times best seller list for like five weeks and all this and that, and so we had a great lunch, and somewhat unbeknownst to me, Jophie and David had negotiated a contract for this live book. And and by the way, I was coming in hot from the first live London event where I got tossed out of the press conference and that became a whole story. I flew from there straight to Boston,
took straight into New York. So and it was a great offer.
Didn't you go to the US Open for a day and then maybe trained down to me?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, correct, yeah, yeah. I went down on that Wednesday, and so there was a lot of there was a lot of energy in the air, and I could really say no, I mean, it's it was just already shaping up as like one of the biggest stories of our lifetime. I was already at the center of it because of the Michelson book and what had just happened in London. And I was never not going to do it, but I really and I started going to the live events, you know, right away. I was at Portland,
I was at Chicago. Obviously, I was in London, and I was also double track and I was at the Tour Championship and some other PGA Tour events. So I was and I was talking to people, and I was doing interviews and I was getting the lay of the land. But I didn't really start typing the book until around Christmas, so there was a decompression period from just being in the chair. But then it was an insane mad dash to get it done in seven months and I.
Pretty much worked changing constantly.
While constantly, and yeah, reporting it in real time and writing about it in real time for the fire Pit. So yeah, it definitely took a piece of my soul. Like I'm just starting to recover sort of. But I pretty much worked on seven days a week and until midnight almost every night, and my kids just got used to going to bed with you know, me sitting in the chair. And you know, at one point, my son Ben, you know, he he came, he sat in my lap and he's like, I'm sorry you have to work so hard,
he said, Honestly, I love it, like it's fun. I'm having a great time. I wound up seeing a chiropractor and I was going to get massages because the physical toll was adding up, you know, just of just being sitting just sitting there typing but chase the story and cracking the code and getting all the secrets. It's very energizing. And it went in all kinds of unexpected directions that I didn't expect in the writing, and so I actually loved it. It's fun to be that immersed in a project.
And thank god there was a firm deadline actually needed that, And there was a point where where Simon Schuster said, okay, like is it coming out this year or not? Like, because the way it works with the book releases, they kind of have to reserve shelf space, They have to reserve printing presses, they have to buy the paper and the glue. Like this stuff has to get get figured
out months and months in advance. And so there was a point of no return when I had to say yes or no. And when I said yes, I actually felt great relief because then I knew, Okay, I'm going to get this book done one way or another. If we'd let it ride for another six or eight or ten months, it would have just kept taking over my life. So I was actually happy to have that intense deadline pressure because it was motivating and carried me along. But it was it was ambitious. I'll say that now.
A lot of male readers, especially of sports Way to books especially, give the chance to read the book or wait for the TV version, excuse me, the film version. They're gonna wait for the film version. What's your advice to these people? What do you think there'll be two different you think this story will be told in multiple ways? Should they wait or should they I have my own answer to I love reading, Yeah, and I'm distrustful author on the screen. Yeah, what's your advice to those people?
Yeah, there's there's been definitely been interest from Hollywood types about this story, and but who knows like that that's that can be a long, complex, frustrating process. You never know. I mean, Jeff Perlman's a friend and former colleague for both of us, and you know what they did with with his Lakers books in Winning Time. I mean, that's so fun to watch. It's so stylized. It's like the energy of that show is phenomenal. Like, but that's that's rare.
You just never know what you can get from a cinematic treatment. I mean the book. The great thing about a book is you just have all the room you need to stretch your legs. And you know, I became fascinated by the agent's role in the building of Live because they were the ones doing the negotiating. This was
a once in a lifetime windfall for these agents. And so I went down this whole rabbit hole with Mark McCormick and Arnold Palmer and how the professions changed and all the different the infighting between the agencies and Tiger's role in as it relates to Mark Steinberg and that management company. And you know, I never imagined that I would go so deep on the agents, but I found it utterly fascinating. And that's the kind of thing that might never if there is some sort of cinematic treatment,
we'll just never show up on the screen. So I would say, the book has it's so rich, and it's so layered, and it's so complex. I would vote for the book every time. But but you know, that's that's anyone who writes a book wants people to read the book. So but I would say, however people consume the story, I'm I'm okay with it. I did. I did read the audio version. That was a great challenge and that was a lot of fun, as I did with the phil one as well.
And did you do that at your home studio or did you have to go someplace for that?
No, you have to it's it has to be professional grade. And while my little living room here works for these podcasts,
this is a different level of care. And that was six days in the studio and I'm wearing a headset and there's a producer who's he's just at home actually, but he's reading along, and and then there's a studio engineer and both of them are weighing in constantly about if I mispronounced a word, if I should have given that certain sentence a little more energy, if I'm reading too fast, and I need to like it's it's a
whole thing. And but I did enjoy it, And so yeah, there's there's any way you come to the story is fine with me. But I do think that the book is stands on its own in a unique way, and it would be it would be amazing, It would be super cool if there's a documentary made, or there's even a scripted version of this. But I would vote for starting with the book. But I'm compromised.
For those who are interested, I know you would be on if you haven't heard about it. Michael Lewis who wrote a profile of Tom Wolf that random Vanity Fair maybe four or five years ago, and I know I've sent the piece to you, Alan to other friends. It's just an incredible piece of reporting about how a writer works, and that just got turned into a documentary that I
would really urge you to see. But you know, but I Christy and my wife and I just went and saw it the other day and I was thinking about you when when watching it, because Wolf has a lot of the moves that that you have and that we would all aspire to have, but you really do have, which is get so deep inside the subject that you can write about it from the end. So I'm going to wrap up with this this last question. But now you're going to write about your own life as as
as a writer of nonfiction. And let's let's look at it maybe a third. Let's look at a thirty year period cart Boy at Pebble Beach gets on at Sports Illustrated at let's call it age twenty. I've been a little little slightly later than that. This summer you and I went out for dinner to celebrate your fiftieth birthday.
So this really quite significant arc of a character a thirty year period, from an innocent who's hanging on every word that Jim Murray writes in the La Times when you're at Use La to becoming a person that young writers are looking at to see, Wow, this is how this is how.
You do it.
What's your own sense of your own journey through these thirty years. We'll wrap up on that.
Yeah, well it's a it's a fabulous question. I mean, yeah, turning fifty definitely, that happened in May this year. And actually I finished the manuscript of this book a few weeks later, so there's there's been a little reflective period. And I just I just spoke at a Carmel High school in their journalism class, and it is funny to be this this oracle of advice when I still feel like I'm twenty five at heart, and it's been it's
been a wild ride. I mean, if you told twenty year old me this my ninth book, and you know the SI cover stories and all the other things that have come my way, it's I would be very humbled and very you know, definitely beyond my wildest dreams, like and Michael Lewis and tomwol for two of my heroes. Like it's funny to mention that, you know, when I would read Sports Illustrated when I was like ten, eleven, twelve, that's when my first came in contact with the magazine.
And I was playing every sport back then, but I was it was the writing that that that captivated me. And when I started as an intern, I was and funny you mentioned Jim Murray. I was way more starstruck by Jim Murray than I was by Jack Nicholas. You know, my here, even though I love sports, and even though I've I've coached basketball, and I've played sports and all that, it's the writers are my gods. You know. They're the ones that I that I aspire to be, and they're
the ones that inspire me. And I have you know, I have a bookcase in my in my bedroom. It's like all my favorite books. It's all the memoirs of all the old sports writers, and it's all the anthologies, you know, it's and every now and then I'll just just grab one and PLoP up my bed and just even though I've prior already read it twice already, Like, so I'm not remotely suggesting that I'm in the in the pantheon of a Jim Murray and a Michael Lewis
and uh a Tom Wolf. You know, that's a different universe. But it's cool that we you know, you and I both have made a life out of this and it's not easy to do. I mean, the industry has changed so dramatically in our careers. It's gratifying just to still be at it. You know, you just you never know what's around the bend. We both have had lots of colleagues who have gotten out of journalism because they just
couldn't make it work. So it's like every time you get you put a book out into the world, it's like, man, you'll fool them again. It's like, just just keep this whole gig going because it's it's not easy to do. So, yeah, it's been a wild thirty years when you frame it like that, And I was twenty when when it all started, when I started my internship, So it's yeah, it's humbling,
and you know, there's art and there's commerce. Like we control the writing of the book and then the selling of the book and all that is way beyond the control of anyone individual, so I kind of separate the two and people will buy the book or they won't, and I'm at peace with that because I gave it all I had, Like I mean, I really did leave it all on the field, you know, and that's all
you can do. I think people will pick up on the energy of it and the care that went into it, and I hope they love it, and I hope they enjoy it. But I love and I enjoyed it, and I think I think that's probably enough.
That is beautifully said. Thank you Allan, and I'm going to turn it back over to you.
You should just you should just.
Close this and these things you have a nobody that you have always think how to end it.
But it's always a pleasure. I wish you a lot of luck with the book.
And uh, it was a total pleasure to read. Uh it's a weird kind of pleasure because it's not like to me as a you know, very much traditionalist. It's not a happy subject, you know. I see everything through the prism of greed, basically in this fight in particular, and often in modern life, but it's deeply, deeply uh instructive and way beyond and it goes way beyond golf, as they tried to say in the beginning. But so, Alan, congratulations on this year ninth book, and you say goodbye.
To the people. I will well and Mike, I appreciate you doing this. I mean, this is a long standing tradition. I'm sure twenty years from now, when we're both you know, God knows where in the media universe, we'll still be. We'll still be doing these podcasts for somebody somewhere because it's one of the one of the joys of writing books is talking about them with someone who cares. And
so thanks for doing this. This was another fire drilled podcast that was Michael Bamber with so many insightful questions. This is Alan Schipnak. Thank you for listening. And that's the end.
I'm Ben Big and I played the wind, made a fortune.
When my ship came in, I ran the table and never thought I could fall down the wind a time hit me lack a can in the ball, and now I can't shake this losing stream. Every road I take is a dead end stream. I got thoughts in my head, can't get them.
Try and not the thing what I'm thinking about, kind of thoughts in my head. I can't get them out.
Trying not to think what I'm thinking about,