Welcome back to another edition of the Fried Egg Podcast. Today's episode is powered by tdom Mehritrade. Every stroke counts on the scorecard and every penny counts in the market. That's why Tedomeritrade is committed to straightforward pricing with no surprises, so you're free to swing with confidence. Visit tedomritrade dot com slash Fried Egg member SIPC. What an open at royal Port Rush, great win there by Shane Lowry. Lots of stuff happened from Rory miss and the cut, Tiger
miss and the cut to the equipment testing. Ricky with another top five finish. So we had Jeff Ogilvie came back on to talk a little bit about the week and what's ahead on the PGA Tour calendar with the WGC Memphis and as well as the FedEx Cup playoffs and kind of riff into a lot of different ideas about the playoffs and the schedule. So here's Jeff Ogilvie. I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a bright egg, Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida, egg Frida, egg Frid egg bright egg Frid egg bright egg.
Lie. I'm about ready to run off the golf course. He was nails.
He was he was nails. That first hole was the whole tournament on Sunday, it was. I mean, he misses that parton Bleetwood makes his part. It'll be a hard wind from there if you lose three on the first hole in a day like that. But that part was like, Wow, he's up for this, you know, because the first time was nervy, you know, nervy. He shot like nervy, good bunk shot. Really it's a hard bunk shot, a great part, but it's like eight feet short. It's like, holy wow,
this guy's gonna make double on the first. But yeah, he did well, and what pressure. Can you imagine what he was feeling?
I was thinking. I was thinking about it. It's I find in my goth like when I get in situate like if because of what happened at Oakmont where he blew the fore shot lead uhuh, like the next time around. It almost always works out when you when you have something that just kills you.
That's what I was. I mean, the media kept running all can he get past the ghosts of the thing. It's like almost every single time someone loses one of those long, those big leads in a major on a Sunday, they do better the next time, Like Mike Weir went for eighty at Madonna, when Tiger and Sergio went for the thing two years Iteries winning the Masters. You know, there's like how many stories of a god tanking on a Sunday and the next time they get the chance
they take. It happens all the time, don't you think.
Yeah, yeah, I remember I. Uh, I came back in a match once and I forced a playoff, like a crazy comeback. And then I like, you know, I don't know if you ever had this happen, Like you're going to the playoff and you almost feel like you did
what this giant thing, and and you lose focus. I hit a bad drive on the first playoff hole lost the playoff, and I was like, well that was terrible, you know, and uh, and then the next time that happened, like when I was walking to the playoff tea, I was just like, just you got to hit a good drive, you know. It was funny, like because then the next time it worked out, you know, and I.
Went I I was. I got the last grip of the Victorian Open, which was a PROVN ninety. I was eighteen, I think, and shot seventy eight in the last round. Still finished like fifth or something because it was a tough day, but shot seventy eight. And then the next time I was there, I shot like one under or something. I was leading a year later or something in the Big Open in the last group, and I shot like one under in the last round, So I like got way better at the first time you deal with it.
It's tough, and four shots in a major, it's like, especially in Oakmond, give me a break. I mean, I mean, ten shots isn't enough at Oakmond. It's it'd be the hardest cause of the world to keep a lead. I mean, I think Aaron Baddley the time before when Cabrera won, he had a three shot leads doning Sunday and he tripled the first which you can do without really doing a whole lot wrong in Oakmont, and all of a
sudden your lead's gone. It's tough. Those big leads are a bit more over, it's almost easier to have the Only time I have had a really big lead was a cappellua and it was uncomfortable, and that's capilla. It was a cruizy ton. After eight holes, I was only one in front. It was I was freaking out. It was hard. That's a weird thing. Having a big lead.
It's almost sometimes it's almost better. I feel like to be like one back than.
In the league, even certainly for your sleep the night before and your kind of level of comfort and kind of you haven't won anything, you haven't achieved anything yet if you're one behind, But if you're six in front of four in front of something, it's like you've kind of it's on you now, you know, like you actually have to play.
Well, how was it for you when you had a lead? Sleeping on a lead? Like everybody talks about it, you know, I obviously it's probably pretty personal experience for each player. Nobody's the same.
I am relatively was relatively relaxed about stuff like that. But I still didn't sleep properly ever, Like it's tough. As I said, the Kapalou was the only big lead I had. I had six. I didn't sleep properly. It was it's a long morning and it's a long night, and you're just thinking about all this stuff. I think guys are worse. I wasn't that nervous, I don't think, but obviously I was a little bit because I didn't
sleep the same. I was certainly very happy once I got on the golf course, once I got that first tea or played the first hole and got on the second, I feel like it was kind of all right at that time. His night must have been rough, and he's honest. How nice was he? He just comes out and says, yeah, I just sleep very well, and I got up early, and they had to talk to my coach. And I think people grab it him because of his honesty.
Yeah, he the way he I mean, like he was talking about it on Friday, He's like, yeah, I've tried to win this clear drug, Like this is not easy, you know?
Yeah, right he was.
He was so bluntly honest. It was I think that's like one of the things they take away from this. Like he he had some quotes last year about how awful because he played so bad last year at Carnousti, and he was like sitting in his car, are like mad about you know where he was, But he was he talked to the press about how much Oakmont had
ruined him for like a year and a half. Did he really yeah, I mean, he's the quotes I wish I hadn't pulled up, I hadn't pulled up the other day, but they I mean, he talked about how it pretty much ruined his golf game for like a year and a half, losing that thing because he felt like he was the number one player in the world for three days,
and then he started to play conservative. He talked about he laid up on two when he could have driven it up there, and he was playing to protect the lead rather than playing to win.
M h.
And that was those quotes for a year ago, not you know, before or during this championship.
That's the hard pot rot. I think you give yourself the win before you've won, right, kind of like it's yours to lose now when you're lading a little bit overnight at least. I mean maybe not if you get in the lead on the third hole, like you know, it's the middle round, but if you go to bed with a four shot lead, you've kind of like visualized that trophy sitting on your counter and visualized all the stuff that's coming with it like you've kind of given
it to yourself a little bit. Now it's mine to protect. You're protecting something a little bit, and golf you never play well when you protect right and you kind of try not to mess up. That doesn't work.
It's why the best rounds are always when like your flurry of birdies comes at the end.
Yeah. Well, my first great major I finished fifth at s Andrews. I burtied in Oh five I finished. I birdied fifteen sixteen, sorry, fifteen seventeen eighteen on Sunday. I went from like fourteen to fifth something. It's like, oh, I had ten in a major, but it's like I was never near the top ten ever until I mean I probably passed ten people by birdying seventeen on Sunday. So it was like, it looks great, but I I mean I was ten f last group was about as close as I got to the last group. But that
and then the next major bults Roll. I finished. All of a sudden, I thought I'm a top ten major guy. And I played bold stroll really well instead of sat in the top ten all week and finished fifth or six again, I was like, oh, well, now I've got this worked out, but the first top ten was nothing. It was a top ten without any pressure at all. Really yeah, it was a back door back door Yeah.
How do you as pro as a like as a pro and then also like other pros like back door tap tens, like media always talks about back to Oh he you know, he just king of backdoor top tens, Like is it a top ten to a top ten or is there you know, do you feel better about the one that you're around all the time?
I always felt better about the back door one because it feels like you got the most out of the week. You've got the most out of like an average week, Like the average week, you finish in twenty fifth your Bertie, I don't know, three of the last four and you finished fifth, like I was finished in the twentieth all week and I stole a few there on the last few holes, right. I always liked that. Or you should sixty five from middle of the field and you finished
eighth to something or seventh. It's like that was satisfying because I feel like you've got so much more out of the week than you probably should have. But the one where you sit top ten all week and then you're double seventeen and finish eighteenth. That is the worst. There's nothing worse than that. Having a great week all week and you had two good holes away from finishing top two or three or winning or something, and you have a double and you finish eighteenth or something, and
those really condensed ones. That's depressing. That's really frustrating because you put so much work into the tournaments. It all comes unraveled on one bad swing or three part or something. It's pretty frustrating. So it works both ways.
So with the tournament you alluded to a little bit with you know, Lowry kind of put it away pretty early. But like, I mean, we've talked about this a lot with Augussa and how how good championship courses separate the field, Like, do you feel like a great championship course can sometimes lead to less drama than a mediocre one that keeps everybody around us?
Certainly, I mean, somehow Augusta manages to create the drama, right, But I think great courses like scenandra Is quite often there's no drama in the last five or six holes at the Open at Sandra's because the guy who's winning is like separating so much, you know, Tiger's come up the last eight or nine shots in front a couple of times. I don't know, it's a bit of both. I think it's both. I just think that's the randomness
of golf and who plays well that week. And I certainly think weather like Sunday at the Open stops the drama a little bit, you know, because it spreads to so many guys have a bad day. Right on a day like that, there's just gonna be less people up there. Yeah, it's well, I'm up me wrong.
But it seemed like there was no faking it out there.
And some bare I mean we've all been out there on days like that, those seaside courses, I mean a five mile an hour windows, like a ten mile an hour window on to the seaside, right, because it's so heavy, because it's off the ocean, and then the rain and you're and you're wearing so many clothes and the grass gets so dense in the rough and the ball goes short. It's tough, and you're so exposed. There's no trees. You can't go hide under a tree, right, You're just you're
just getting hit. You end up lying up against sand dunes and stuff. When it gets bad.
I mean, like it's so funny because you know, Westwood's got his uh, got his girlfriend Caddy in for him, and he talks about it like two days before about you know, she doesn't know that much about golf, but that's not a big deal. And then like you see it out like a torrential down for it, and you're like, well, this is maybe where experienced candy could help a little bit more. Keeping everything dry and everything. He didn't even
have a rain jacket. It was just I was like, oh god, this is just that had to be just brutal out there that day. What do you think of Port Rush?
Wow? It looked incredible, right, I mean it's I heard nothing but good reports. It looked and men looked amazing, looked seemed like a perfect venue really. I mean they just love it to the Irish, right, it's just their They just broth on supporting events. It's just their thing
and they're strong in goo. And they had like three or four like what well and probably two realistic contenders that they thought of with McDowell and McElroy like the favorite of the tournament, and they got Larry and Harrington and they got a great cast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's uh. I thought that the scale of it was just in a way it kind of it kind of felt to me a little bit like the opens version of like Shinnacock. Because of the topography and the way the greens repel, it.
Just looked like it demanded really you couldn't get away with anything, but if you did play well, it looked like there was good scores there that looked like you had to play really well. But I mean.
It's the way the greens kind of run off. I thought that, you know, small targets and everything. That's to me, the the key to testing you guys is like there's got to be ways of you know, like great shots were really great shots out there, and good shots were just good you know, mm hmm.
Yeah. I mean, how about that first time? How would you like a first t I don't know if it's fair to have out of bounds on the side both sides of the first valley, Like, I know it's not supposed to be fair and all that, but one getting the field away when every third guy's reloading too, like I mean just pumping into the window that you could see that we're all just like backboarding irons and just trying to sneak it on the front edge of the
fairway because just get it between the white posts. I mean, that's about the most brutal first T shirt I've ever seen, Like incredible. I don't know, they just finally a bounce this too, right.
Yeah, they're internal. Well I guess they didn't own the land originally, so now they own it, but it's still out of balance. I know shackle For was was just so mad about it, but I mean, did you see Darren Clark who got up there the first first morning just pulled out driver just a bush, just rip. I mean that was like that. I thought, like it was so funny because like that first T shirt, I'm like, oh, it's a driver hole, you know. And then the rest of the week all the irons off that tea.
I mean of like the out of bounds on one side, like the Prestwick thing or the I mean a kind of a tighter version of like Snandra's kind of thing without out of bounds. I want to help, but give a guy if he wants to just bail it, and it'd a really weak kind of conservative t shot. Let the guy do that, right, if he's kind of making the whole really hard for himself. But out of bounds on both sides twenty to a fairway or something I'm glad I didn't have.
Yeah, it's just it's a scary, scary shot. It's probably the hardest t shot on the course right off the bout.
I can't imagine there's a hard one. I mean there was. Out of bounds is just the ultimate penalty, right because it's just add one and start again. Like it's.
It's pretty much the worst way to start a tournament without.
A doubt bounds.
Yeah, yes, it's uh so, you know, like Ricky, another high finish for Ricky. Females starting to rack up these high finishes. Fleetwood, what what do you think about guys that come close a lot? But like, because I mean everybody's always like, is Ricky going to do it? And now people are saying, well's Fleetwood the new Ricky. It's like, you know, to me, sometimes it's half luck, but like
that the ball bounces the right way. But like, you know, even Westwood's a perfect example a guy that's been there so many times that when does experience start to turn into a bad thing in majors?
More, I don't know. I guess scot tissue. I mean, I guess guys at Westwood and Sergerio eventually developed a bit of Scots issue, right did you ended up beating it? But they had a lot of Sundays that didn't go there why And I guess or as Taga, every time he was on a Sunday he would win right and get into last group. So he had like the opposite of that, he had just bulletproof confidence. I don't know,
I don't think so. I think that more times they had generally, the better off you're going to be the next time, the more comfortable. It certainly would be helpful the guys if they closed the deal the first time they were up there, you know, is in the next few times it would be easy, right, Like it becomes a thing and it's such a wake from them, there is, I mean, there's such a stress from the golf world
on this major thing. They make people feel like they need to win it or they're not a real golfer. It's like, well, hang on a minute. I mean, Fleetwood's a pretty real golfer, you know. Rookie Fowl is a pretty real golfer. Like they what if they don't win one in the end. I mean they're good enough too, and if they do, that'd be great, But it's not
the end of the world. But it's put It's put to these people like it's the end of the world, and so they the guys who carry that sort of stuff, Like a guy like Dustin obviously doesn't carry that, you know, but other guys Sergeria obviously carried it quite heavy, and Lee carried it quite heavy, and even like Phil and Deval and that before they won, guys like that, they were carrying it pretty heavy before they got it done.
It's a tough deal. There's enough self inflicted pressure. But outside of that, Ricky, I think Ricky's too good to not get it done at one point. He just he doesn't have a weakness as a golfer. Physically, he's an unbelievable ball striker, plenty long enough, great iron player, ridiculous short game, and he's everyone wants to part like Ricky.
I mean, he has everything and it obviously has the ability to finish the deal because he's won a bunch of tournaments and the way he won that Players Championship, which is probably the hardest finishing stretch or the most penal finishing stretch we played regularly, and me he just I mean, he's thirty seventeen three times in a row in the last round of the playoffs and he'd drive it down of the eight. I mean, this is a guy who knows what to do under pressure, right, he
can get it done. So maybe it's just a matter of, you know, just putting it all together in one Week's a it's a compliment that he's always there, you know, and there's like this hard there.
That's the thing is like there's only you know, I think Brooks said this in that press conference where he talked about like how there's only so many guys at a major he has to beat and Ricky like there's only so many guys that can finish in the top five of a major regularly. Like you might get hot one week and finish up there, but like you know how, I mean, there can't be more than a dozen guys that could regularly finish top five in any major you put them in.
No, there can't be many. I mean there's like ten, right, there's the obvious ones. I mean you can see Baba having a yewer. He's up there, Adam having a yewer. He's up there a lot Brooks, Dustin Rory, You're running out of a rose dancing in his time, but probably not at the moment. You know, like that Consistently it's a pretty high level getting the top five in a major. I mean, Ricky's always in the last two or three groups on the Sunday. It seems like, No, I can't
imagine he's not going to get it done. And Tommy what Tommy did it Shinnecock last year and the Ryder Cup, He's clearly not. He's tilly very capable under pressure. Right that shot he hit eighteen at Shinnecock to maybe shot sixty two was that was a proper golf shot and at that point, and at that point it really felt like he could win this tournam by three or four at Chinnicock finishing that early. So I mean, I think
he'll get it done too. I think Ricky's been up there a lot more than Tommy hasn't he I feel.
Like way more. It's I found this crazy stat in the since twenty fourteen, Ricky is one of three players that hasn't fallen outside of the top fifteen ever in the world rankings. It's him, that's Rose and I can't remember the third one zat Dustin it's a I can't remember, but it's He's I mean, it's crazy. The consistency isn't seen.
As I say, he doesn't have a weakness as a golfer. I mean, you can go in between the ears and I mean that's an unmeasurable but from tee to green and around the greens, he just he doesn't have a weakness. He's probably arguably top to bottom one of the best golfers ever because he just doesn't. He just hits, does everything well, and he seems to love the lengths, and he travels around the world and he plays interesting tournaments and like he's all good. I can't see him not
like getting it done at some point. But maybe not. Maybe he's just it's not a matter of gil Maybe it's a bit of timing and luck, Like you say, horses that suit his eye that week. You know, maybe he had lowry like on a this a lot of runover motion that's hard to beat. You know when guys likes to lowry tap into something like that. You see those stories that's it seemed inevitable after a while. That's Saturday when he was finished in those last few holes.
It's just the inevitability of it. It was like, Wow, that's how do you beat that? You know, so you can run in You run into that a few times and not really on you. And he's run into Brooks kept here the last couple of years, and that's pretty hard to beat, you know, So they'll get it done. It's a great conversation, though, the best player to not win a major, I think it's ridiculous, but I think it's a great conversation.
Yeah, I was, so I started to think about like guy like Ricky and like how he compares and because like the number, like how do you how do you value a top five in a major? Like what's is? What's more impressive winning the John Deere or coming fifth in a major?
Again, how do you measure that? But I think you have to like take a like what is success as a professional golfer? I mean success as a golfer is someone who doesn't have a real job. It gets to play golf every day of his life and he doesn't have to worry about money otherwhere else. Right, that's success.
He gets to play golf whenever he wants. Ricky Fowler is about as successful as you can possibly get by that metric to like have anything out there that's you would if he ends without a major, that that was a failure. It's like, hang on a minute. He's got a hundred million in the bank. He's an unbelievable life. He's never sat at a desk and he played golf every day of his life. How was that not success?
You know? So I think it's kind of they're amazing to win, and he's good enough to win in history will be looking at him better if he does. All these guys if they do. But I don't know, you're playing golf every day your life and you're getting paid. That's pretty good and everybody loves you.
He's gone, all right, yeah, Yeah, That's like kind of where I'm going with this idea is like, you know, like I think, like a top five in a major is probably the same as winning a you know, same level of achievement as winning a regular event. So it's like people like to bag on Ricky because he's only got six major wins, but you know, the number of top five finishes in majors is just extraordinary.
To me, the joy of the job was always the being in contention, you know, the having a chance the last nine and feeling all that that goes with that, and just being in the mix. He gets that every week. He has fun almost every week because he's always in the mix, you know, or somewhat near the mix. To me, that's the fun. And I mean the winning is obviously great everything that comes with it, but the real enjoyment for me came out of And a lot of guys
will say that. Tiger always said that he loved just being in it, Like it's just that's the fun part. Like that, that high pressure situation when guys are playing well and you're all just doing your stuff. That's my favorite part. And he gets to do that all the time. So on some level, he's he's scratching the itch that he had when he was young that I just want to get on TV and I want to compete against the best, and I just want to like play well
in the biggest tournaments. He's doing that. You know, we've turned into talking about Ricky, but I also he has in the guys who can tend all the time and haven't been winning him. I'll win them, and if they don't, I don't think it's the end of the world. It'd be great for them if they do, and they're good enough if they can. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's a little bit over But I think amazing thing. And I think majors are great and you should have
benchmarks in sports, you know, you really should. But it doesn't mean it's failure if it's not black and white. You know, there's a lot of success that you can have in golf without winning a major.
I think as golf, as like statistics become more and more prevalent in golf, I think that what we'll get valued more is is like some somebody that has one major win versus somebody that has no major wins and twenty top fives like that, that's gonna shift a little bit, you know, where people aren't just gonna be like, well he's got a major, you know, and he doesn't. That's I think that's changing with a week.
Probably should, I mean it probably should. I mean from some metric, Sam's Need was a better player than Jack Nicholas. He won ninety tournaments and did it, and he won in his twenties thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, Like, I mean, that's pretty outrageous. He was good for fifty is you know? I mean that's obviously he's not. But he enjoyed his time along the way, you know what I mean. I
don't know. It's there's only four of them a year, and there's one hundred and fifty or two hundred guys trying I mean, not share them around that much.
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and it also makes for a great gift. So go to b draddy dot com check out the monogram polo and there are other stuff on the site as well. And now back to Jeff Ogilvie. What do you think of the Xander thing?
That's I don't know. I've got a few different thoughts on that. I mean, I think they should clearly test drivers every now and then, but I think they should test every driver that's going to end up in a two players bag. That should test before tailor made or Callaway or titlist or anyone puts it in a player's hands so it knows it's a it's a legit, good safe drive before a player and gets it in his hands.
I think that's what should happen. But I think the owners should be on the manufacturer a little bit, and the U S and the R and I and USGI for not testing. Uh, pretty tough to test on a Monday or the tournament. You know of a major see.
But that's that's the thing. Is like every other every other sport that plays for millions of dollars that uses equipment, that equipment's tested like you know, like NASCAR, the cars are tested before and after every race. You know, for cycling, the bikes are weighed before and after every race. Like to me, like with how much money is at stake and the fact that you wouldn't be able to tell, like by the by looking at a driver you have
no clue if it's conforming or not. That the tests have to happen right before the first t.
But how impracticable is that. I mean, you're going to tell a guy that he can't use his driver that he just warmed up with.
I shouldn't be. I mean, I don't think you'll have any nonconforming drivers then, but I.
Think the owners should be I think one hundred percent, I think you should test. But I don't think it should be anything to do with the player. I think it should be through the manufacturer because that's it's complete trust from a player, and I don't I'm pretty sure Callawai didn't mean to give him a driver that was like that. I mean, they build him close to the edge and there's tolerances either way, and it probably happens on one out of twenty drivers that they do that, right,
or I hope something like that. Well that's the test.
They can be where they can wear to where they're over too. So if you hit a bunch of times, well then it goes over.
I've heard that too. Yeah, Well, I think the owners should be on the manufacturer because I think there's complete trust from the player that what his manufacturer is giving him is kosher, you know, and if they go on to all the manufacturers is right that we're just going to constantly test that we're going to come in every week and we're going to to bring in I don't know all the drivers that are going to end up
on the range. They just go through this test and we just make sure it never it can never even happen from the start, you know. And maybe you test everyone's clubs once go through bag storage, or everyone drops their clubs off once a month or something and they check the driver or something. I don't know, but Tuesday or Monday Tuesday of a major to find you don't have your driver, that's a bit unfair because it's not his fault. It's just one hundred percent not his fault.
He had no clue. It's not no play in the history of the world is going to say, hey, can you test my driver? I think it's illegal. You know.
JT said that he did that.
Really well, okay, well that's cool. I've never found that. I've never had a drive. I've just gone away, I have could this go? I'm not going to ask any.
Questions, but I know that's I mean, I think that's like the thing. It is like I I think about it, and it's like, I don't it just seems like something that it's got to be tested. There's ten ten, ten million plus dollar purses out there.
I certainly think you have to test, but I think there's a better way to have it done than the way they did. And I don't know this thirty tests, why can't your testiment? Like, if you're going to test, you might as well testimal.
The test takes like twenty seconds.
So maybe at some point. And your registration process when you register when you're because those majors are these tournaments, there's a process to registering. Sometimes it might take five or ten minutes. You come your register with your bag, they take your bag out of the back, they bounce the ball off the face and they go, right, you're good, off you go. I don't know, maybe that's how you do it. But I do think the owners should be on the manufacturer. I really do, because we technically don't
own our golf clubs. The manufacturers do. We're just borrowing them from them. You know, we are using what they want us to use. That's I'm not saying it's anybody's fight. I think any manufacturers are intended that are intending to get illegal stuff in people's hands, but it happens, Like you say, they can wear out and stuff can happen. But I think it's oonus is on them because we're we are like kresh as dummies for their clubs in
a while, where a mennecans for their clubs. So we uh, I think the owners should be on them.
So so in cycling, there's there's there's bikers that are putting motors in their bikes and these are these tiny little motors. Yeah tiny. They don't help you really unless you're going up a hill, and these little motors can go make you go one mile an hour faster for short periods of time but in a three week race, it makes this huge difference. And it's been like an epidemic in there they're using like thermal cameras, but like
to the naked eye, nobody would ever know. So like here's like you know, while you view it this way, there could be some like that's where I think, like the testing, it has to happen because like you you know, there's always a bad apple here is.
But look, you're comparing cycling, which is a sport that historically people have been quite happy to try to break the rules. I mean they asked Eddie Mrks, could you win the Tour de France without drugs? Eddie Mrks won five right in the fifth sixties and seventies, he was a hero. Could you win the Tour de France without drugs? He goes, why would you want to? That was his answer. I mean it's been in that sport. It's just part
of the sport to get away with one. I mean, I think it's bizarre they're putting motors in their bikes, But golf's different. I mean the difference in Xander's driver, the illegal one to the illegal one would be half a yard or something. He would be so insignificant. I mean,
obviously you can make one that would go fifty yards further. Yeah, but it's people aren't It's not like people the winning tournaments obviously because they've got legal drivers, where that would be different in a bike race over three weeks you really have if you are not riding as much as everyone else, that's a big difference. I'm not saying it's not important, and you have a line in the sand, you've got to do it. I just think no one, there's no intention here. No one's intending to do this.
And and I think the reason Xander got so annoyed is because of that inference that he was kind of trying to cheat a little bit, which is completely false because he would have had no clue that it was illegal. And if any guy on tour that I know knew they had an legal driver, most would want to get it changed.
Yeah, I think, like, and I don't think this is about Xander. It's like my my thinking is just like, you know, like what happened to him and the other guys that got like whatever, Like it's the whole idea that we've that you got that that you guys play for ten million dollars and there's no regular testing. To me, is absolutely insane.
I think all any player, and I think every player wants it too. The players just want to level playing field like this precedent. I mean, back in the good old days, guys used to hacks all their grooves out and do crazy stuff on their wedges. I mean it's kind of happened, and put grease on the face of the driver and like it's I mean it's people have
done this stuff. But as I said, the equipment in the old days, you'd go into your the proch up or then your garage and like mess around with your clubs. Now you just go into the the laboratory on the range and they just give you a new club and you hit it. You just it's trust you Just how do you measure COI yourself? You know, you hit ten drivers and one goes a bit better, or that could be the shaft or your swing or that day, or that one goes better, or maybe it just matches you better.
How are you supposed to know that it's breaking the rule? You know, it's impossible for a player to work that out.
Now I agree with that. I think it's obviously like you know, like I don't. I would never have any clue what my driver set up would be, and I don't think anybody like you can't. But like that's where yeah, it is trust, but they're just has to be testing. I think everybody probably should probably.
Wake up car the players need to put the hand up and say, yes, we're happy for you to test. But if you start testing, you have to test everybody. And I still think it should go through the manufacturer side of things, I really do. I think it would be best if no driver like that ever even made it into a bag, like it was stopped before it got there. Ye wad be the best solution. It's almost like somehow.
If they could figure out how much like you could potentially wear it, you know, like say you use a driver for two years and it wears, then saying like okay, if it's at this limit, like you can't put it in there because it's going to go over in two years. I don't know, it's crazy. Have you ever used driver for two years?
I'm sure I did in the old days, But like the more the technology is moving the past year chair well titleist product cycle is two years generally, so I generally used titless products for two years, but I would probably not use generally in that two year period of the same head, I've used a different laft or different shaft, or cut half an inch off or changed the waiting around. I mean, I'd never keep it the same for two years. I wouldn't have used the same hit.
This whole thing's kind of kind of funny for me. I Uh, I've got this driver that my buddy who's on the web gave me, so it's out of it. It's a tour van driver. And it's funny because I've I've had the same guy fit me for clubs for like twelve years, and I went in to get a new new driver and I hit it, and then he had me hitting all the new stuff and he's like, you would be absolutely insane to switch from this driver. And it's like a twenty sixteen twenty fifteen driver.
Oh really, Yeah, But I think it's just.
Because it's I think it's it was going as far, you know, if not further, and way straighter than everything else.
Wow. Driver is a very important club. Certainly, if you have a rule, you have to police the rule. They're just going to find a better way to do it than they did, because it didn't. It was just bad for everyone, right the way it came down.
Yeah, yeah, and nobody looked good.
Yeah, it'd be better than yeah, no one look good.
They should have just tested everybody. That's like the logical thing.
Yeah, and what they have four out of thirty not past that's quite a high. That's quite a lot. I mean, so you would have had twenty or so in the field, which is pretty significant, which is actually shows that there's an issue, right if you had tested thirty and you've got four of them.
That's what That's why I was kind of thinking with it. Is like if if it had been one, you know, you could say, oh, blah blah blah. But thirteen percent is a big number.
It is. It means there's twenty or so in the field, which would be clearly it needs to be tested. But I mean I'm a bit maybe I'm naive about sort of stuff. There has to be a black and white rule in the sand. But I bet Exander didn't drive it any shorter or any different, No, you know.
Yeah, I mean that's the thing is like, if it's just one over, it's not a big deal. But it kind of is a big deal because like for the guy that's five under, you know, well, it's.
Like a it's like a false start in running race. I mean it might only be one hundredth of a second, but it's all it's important, right, So it's I mean, it's important if you have a line in the sand, you actually have to make sure everyone's on the one side of it. But it's one of it's a weird situation in the sport at the moment. It's like there's there's no intent by anybody because the maount of the tolerances are so they're going right up against the line.
They're not they're trying to make it legal, and they make five thousand of them or five million of them, and a few of them are going to fall on the outside of the line because there's manufacturing tolerances and they end up in two bags and it's going to happen. Nobody's trying to do it. It just happens, right, There's got to be a way of catching it before it gets to that kind of layer getting called out, manufacturer getting called out, r and a getting called out. Like
everyone kind of lost out of that exchange. But it could be done where everybody, no one even knew what happened, but everyone just was comfortable that everyone's clubs were legit. I would be that situation, right.
That's the thing is that I think as a competitor is a if you like, you should want this.
Again. I mean, you do want it, but I also like whatever I've always been like, if people want to do that, they're going to get found out. Like, I don't know, that's stress about stuff, But you're right, if you play this much money as is important. Golf's always had that spirit of you know what. There's probably a few guys who try to push the envelope, but most guys. The thing that Xander seemed to hate the most was
someone joking that he cheated. Like that really freaks a golfer out when he hears that, Like any situation that puts him in that position is not really fair because it had nothing to do with him. Really, I don't think. I just don't know how he could have known that it was illegal.
Yeah, I agree with that because like that that's a brutal situation to be in, especially when like you're trying to win a major championship and you got your peers saying like even if they're joking, it's just like.
You could own us on the players and say, hey, look, the manufacturers will come up with their own testing device to have on tour. Its like if you get a driver you think he's extra special, boys, and you really want to be confident, you can take it out into a come in back into our van, will show you
on the machine. See it's passes go. You know, maybe the owners could be on the player, but in that situation, you know what I mean, like a pre pree measure, and the manufacturer just won't let that driver go back out of the van.
Well see, but that's the manufacturer is the one that to me has the least straight intentions here.
Yeah, well they clearly are quite happy to have drivers that go a long way out exactly.
So like to me, like the manufacturers, it's the governing body, the PGA, tour and the player are the three player people that have you know, have aligned interests here, and the manufacturer is the one that doesn't.
They they're the only ones who could who have the technology and the means to like logistically like make sure players don't get a legal ones though you know, maybe they get maybe they get fined. If a player that plays their equipment it comes out of their van, that happens, they get fined.
See that that would be I think the right way.
So like in this situation, Callaway get fined because they have put an legal driver in play. I really don't think. I mean, I'm a play and I know I'm trying to say it's not a players fall, but it really isn't. Like maybe the owners should be on us, So maybe more players will go check now, you know, because of this, guys will be ooh, my driver's a bit special. Better go check this before that happens to me. So it
might be good in that respect. But I think the manufacturer should get fine because I think they have the capability and wherewithal to test drivers before they put them in players hands, and just to make sure drivers like they just don't get in players hands and test the period and test the periodically when they do the regrips every six weeks for the boys or whatever, because guys will get their regrips four or five times a year and they leave their bag there and they go have
lunch and they come back and the lilofts. When you do that, you test the woods and if they pass good. If they don't, you talk to your man, you say, look, you got to get a new driver. This one's not going to pass anymore. Yeah, or something like that.
Yeah, because like what everybody's saying now is that is that three woods are even worse because no keep.
Them in there. They don't test ther on the there's no I don't believe there is a TOR rule, the same CR rule on a three wood as a driver, but they don't have a test for the three wood or something something like that. Three woods go nuclear. Now there's so long. Oh, there's one hundred percent. There's three
woods that are bouncing all over the place. But I don't think there's anything in the rules of golf that it either doesn't allow you to test them or there isn't a CR rule on a three wood one or the other. I don't know, but it's a weird. It's a weird area of the rules.
That all right, let's let's move on. We don't need to talk about this anymore. But uh so we got we got FedEx Cup coming up. I'm curious your take is as a player who played before and after, what are your thoughts on the playoff system.
Firstly, this scheduling, playing that tournament they played last week and now playing in Memphis this week, that's a big that's a big ask for a lot of reasons. Memphis has always been a great tournament. It's a great venue, but it's really really hot and it's a WGC, so it's the real deal the week after the real deal. Like back to back, it feels like they've had a bit of a relentless run here and Ireland Northern Ireland to Memphis is a bit of a mission that aside.
The FedEx Cup. I like it. I think it's I think it's I think it's been really good. I think we've generally had really cool champions. Eventually one of the better players of the year has won the whole thing. So it seems to find a really good player. I don't know. I think you can argue up and down
whether it's volatile enough or not violatile enough. But there was there was probably four new four tournaments that were five six million dollar tournaments all of a sudden turned into eight million dollar tournaments with FedEx Cup, and to
me that was great just for a player. There's just more money to play for, which is really the point of a professional golf after the prestige of winning all the tournaments and stuff, I mean, the point of being a proposed to pilot cash, especially at the end of the year, and there was another opportunity to do that. So I kind of like them.
Yes, it's to play golf all the time and never have to work.
That's right.
That that WGC. So next year they go open WGC Olympics.
Yeah, I think there'll be a bit of attrition in the WGC field. I would think maybe a lot because the Olympics doesn't capture the whole Gulf world, right, I mean, it's just a couple from each country. That's a long run Japan, like Britain to Memphis to Tokyo. It's putting some miles in the put some miles on the plane.
Whoever does that is a true iron man.
Yeah, I mean that's legendary. That would be absolutely legendary. There'll be guys who do it. It probably won't be many. There won't be won't be that many who are in all three. There will be actually a few. He'll be an all three because the top fifty in the world guys. I think the playoffs are great. I think it's they're smart finishing it before football. I think it's it's it just shows you that there's just really is a lot of quality events, and like where do you put them all?
There's just a lot of tournaments that are really good, and we start in January and we have good tournaments most weeks all the way through to September, and we're and we're telling everyone it's too compressed and there's too many good tournaments. So what do you want us to do? Like lots of people want to sponsor tournaments and put tournaments on. It's a good thing. Running out of dates, you know, yeah, what is tough for the place.
So one one thought I've had just recently is what if less guys made the playoffs? And since like Golf's struggle is always seemingly been that they like weighing season long performance appropriately in the playoffs, right, so that you know, number one twenty isn't going to win the FedEx Cup, you know, put the whole thing after having you know, pretty mediocre year. So what if like only forty eight guys made it, and like every other sport, everybody in the playoffs is on a level ground.
It's the constant debat. I mean, I was on the pack the Player Advisory Committee for a lot of the period when we were doing the FedEx carpet was coming and all the different little kind of adjustments they made in points and format and stuff. And it's half the people want pure playoffs start at zero. Half the people want like no change. They just want to be rewarded for their whole year. Like it's a really you're never
going to please everybody with it. I think the word playoffs was the wrong word because then everybody expects like kind of knockout football basketball style playoffs, because golf really is your body of work is kind of to be respected more than a four round time tournament, you know, like Tiger's body of work and it's not only the wins, but it's like second third, always in the top ten. Ricky Fowler's body of work and the majors is very important,
and it's harder to do that. It's harder to play thirty tournaments consistently well than it is to play two, you know. So that's the spirit in that people want to recognize the the whole year. But there's also the for the excitement purposes of the of the actual tournaments and to make them bigger, more exciting tournaments, and more volatility would be better. So it's that it's a debate,
and I don't know what's right. You know, as I said, they kind of they didn't really choose either direction, volatility or looking after the thing. They've kind of walked the tight rope in the middle and they've always tried to keep it there. You know. I like them. This year will be interesting because the formats bizarre this year so bizarre, it'll take people get time to get used to. Like starting off at a difference to ornament, where you start
off at a different score. That's pretty amazing. But the you start ten under, I think is that the guy who's leading and the next guy's eight under it. Yeah, it's kind of weird that your ten shots behind on the first tee for half the field?
Did you? Did you hear?
That showed us all the numbers. They showed us that they ran through historically the last ten TOO championships, and they showed us how it all would have worked out. It would have kind of worked out similarly weirdly enough, like it's but that doesn't take into account the guy they're going to be on the first team in a different headspace now because of their starting score. So I don't know, we'll see how it goes.
The OWGR board for the World Rankings is wouldn't take the net event, so they're the results. So your your official World Golf Ranking points will come from a traditional seventy two hall championship.
Which is nonsense, right, because what it's nonsense both ways. It's nonsense because you're playing in a different headspace. If you start ten behind your your head is in a different you're putting different swings on it, and you're feeling different and making different decisions and playing a different seventy two holes, and you would if you started the same. You just are. So that's interesting. I don't know.
It's like, do you play for the play for the World World Golf Ranking points? Like winning the Tour Championship, that's it's a big number that's going into your OWGR. And like if you're anywhere near a major cut line, that's gonna you know, get you in or get you out or do you go for the fedexcap.
Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. Are they going to know on the course? Are they going to know if they were leading the actual no handicap event.
I don't I don't think so. I can't imagine that putting two scoreboards.
Up, and they won't if that's just a World Golf ranking thing that they won't put it on TV. That'll be like they'll try to make that not be an issue. I don't know. I think it'll be interesting. I don't know. I mean, when Rory won, you hold that shot, it was amazing, and like Tiger won a count the times, and like all the finishes in those FedEx Cups have been great. I do think there is a part of there is a lot of people who would love to
see it come down to. I don't know, what if you have a group of four on the last round that's for the ten, and they start at zero on the first two on Sunday, you know, I mean, you somehow get to that, You somehow get to everybody gets their retirement plans and all that, and you play the seventy two whole tournament and someone's a too Chamion and then the next day you finish it on Saturday, and then the next day Sunday you have the top four or the top eight. We're all starting to even best
got today, when's ten go boys? That would be TV. See that would be really cool TV. But again people are like, well I led the money list all year and I won seven times and I'm not in the ten million dollar thing. That's not fair. Like, well you won seven times, mate, You've got a bit of money, you know, I think. But there's a feeling amongst players, some of most of the players will be like, well
that isn't fair. But it's just as fair as anything else, right, I mean, you can hand out money however you want. It'll be cool. Though it would be like a super Bowl of golf. You have four eight guys starting at zero blank for even if you split it. Maybe you had five for the winner of tour championship, you just had five for the playoff or something. I don't know.
Did they ever in the in the pack meetings? Did you guys ever talk about match play?
I think it was thrown out there a little bit, but it's just I don't think it's it's it's just been given up by the like how's it big match play? Because it just doesn't seem to work, even though I think it could in the right setting.
Yeah, one idea I had last year in my head was that you you do a match play, but you you do it for every single spot and one through thirty two. So like I the last day, you have like a you know, a seven versus eight match, you know for seventh and eighth, and it's worth three hundred grand.
Yeah, he could do that.
Because that would be super cool. And then you get you know, because the beef against match play is like, well, Sunday sucks, there's only two guys on the golf course. Well, you'd have all thirty two guys.
Huh, you just it's not a knockout match play. You only progress to the final if you win. But when you lose, you just play the guy you have to play next for your position or whatever.
Yeah, you just play. Yeah, you play out all thirty two spots. Maybe I think that would be really cool.
I love the idea of match play'd be kind of cool. I kind of like the idea of the old shootout. Remember the old shootout. You'd have nine people on the first team and you'd lose a whole player on every whole kind of thing. Yeah, but you could do that over a whole week and maybe lose of the thirty. You lose five a day or something, and you get down a Sunday and you've got ten and you get after nine holes and you lose ten after nine holes, or maybe you get down to nine guys and you
just shoot out the last nine holes. I mean something crazy like, I mean, can you imagine?
And it would make us that format, would make it relatable because so many people play that in a club event.
Yeah, like it's the member guest disorder or stuff like that in some places. I don't know. I just think we're an entertainment product at the end of the day, and I think as long as everyone gets like rewarded in exemption and financial for their success, it'd be great attention for the game if you could create one of those things that, Oh, my god, did you know there's this Tiger and Rory and Brooks and Dustin are playing for ten million today. You got to watch that? Can you imagine? Like?
Yeah?
Crazy?
Well, I mean that that was like the thing with the match. I won't I'll never forget. I want. I watched the match and I went out to the bar and like to beat the couple of my buddies and there they are not golf fans at all and they were like, what, hey, how was the match? Who won the match? Who won the match is because it is so compelling when a few big names play for a big dollar amount, and it's easy to understand for.
Them it would be Look, I think there's there's a big part of Pontovidra that would love that. But unfortunately, or unfortunately fortunately in most cases that it's a player's organization and everything has to kind of go to a vote and you're going to get the cross section of opinions, and generally the average one you end up with kind of the one in the middle that doesn't offend too many people and keeps everybody happy. You know, that's just the way it works. I think it's pretty I think
it's pretty good. It could be way better, I mean, way more exciting, but I think it kind of it balances out. As I said, stud, I think it balances out that kind of rewards your year. It's if you have a really great year, it's kind of hard to miss east Lake. I mean you can, you can, but it's difficult, And if you finish one hundred and twentieth for the year, it's quite difficult to make East like, see.
This's where I think where the current format I think it, Like my opinion on this has changed since we started talking. It is like the format where you take the big risk is the last one because everybody that gets there is rewarded and has had a great year or playoff run to get there, right, Yeah, so that's where you take the risk.
And the top thirty. I think once you've gotten the top thirty, you've got your master start, you've got your major starts, you're locked up, you've got your extra money. Like, top thirty is a great year. Whatever happens, you know, regardless of who you are finishing in the top thirty, it's always everyone on tour is happy when they make the Tour Championship. Yeah, you could probably get a little bit more aggressive in the last event, but they've tried
to do that this year. They know that just a straight seventy two whole stroke player with like that points kind of that it wasn't working exactly how they wanted, so they've changed. I actually think they're doing all right because they're trying a few different things without like if they go too aggressive and it's a disaster, you know, that's kind of risky, Right, They've got a pretty good thing what they've got, So yeah, this will be interesting.
This is a weird one. This is weird, like people starting off for seventy two on different scores like handicapped golf in pros kind of thing, like different ten shot lead over other guys. That's crazy.
You definitely have to apply to them for doing They're doing something drastically different.
Yeah, and look this, all these things that they do, they have numbers and stats guys who run every single possible scenario and they end up with it works. Then, as I said, they laid this, they showed us all the numbers, they laid this format down on top of this. If we'd started all the last previous ten of these like this, this is how they would have gone. And they kind of went the right way, every single one
of them. Like statistically, now, I know you can't really do that because no one was playing it with that mindset, but statistically they they come up with a model that the numbers tell them will work. Yeah, so we'll see.
Yeah, Like my big beef with it is like last year we wouldn't have gotten Tigers went. Tiger wouldn't have won, justin Rose would have won, and that that's like sad.
It's going to be interesting to see if by sun Sea on Thursday, it's gonna be odd, right because everyone's gonna be on different scores. But by Sunday it will have shaken out and everyone's in the it's a level playing field after you've started, right, like and if the guy you started off number one is having a bad week or he's having a great week, like and Sunday, is everyone going to remember that we started like that? Or is it just going to be for is it
just going to be eight and whole Sunday again? You know?
Yeah, the guy that's thirty is going to feel like he pumped three ob on the first d Yeah.
He's like ten back, Like, how's that ten back on the first But if but if fifty four hours later, like the whole thing shapes out and everyone kind of balances out and we just have a normal leaderboard on Sunday, then people might forget that there was kind of a handicapping at the start.
I and I don't think you should be able to call like whoever wins the tour champion.
No, that was the big argument and from the pack, the big argument from the pack was if the guy who shoulds the seventy two lower shots for that week should win the Tour Championship. You know, you shouldn't be able to win a tour event based on something you did in a different event, you know, or other events.
Yeah, and the Tour events a three is it Tour Championships three year exemption?
Yeah, yeah, so that I think it's three. Used to be five. I think it's three.
Yeah, yeah to me, that's the thing.
It's certainly see that. I think another one of the things that's kind of held them back from maybe being a bit more aggressive is the fact that the Tour Championship is such a historic event and they want the Tour Championship to be the Tour Championship and not kind
of mess up that tradition. And if you start getting weird with match plays and knockouts and shootouts, and it's not the Tour Championship anymore, and it's they've got the players, the Tour Championship, the Tournament of champions you know, they've got that kind of higher level of event that they like to that have been historic and been around a long time. They kind of like to preserve that. So that kind of holds them back to But this one
is a bit weird, you're right. I mean, how do you become tour championship if you started in front of someone else but they beat you for the seventy two holes, but you beat them for the trophy? A weird. Yeah, it's like a club comp though it's like the member gainst.
Yeah, it's just crazy because like you could have Jordan Speith who gets into the church, like you know, he's like seventieth and FedEx Cup right now, I think, But he gets into the tournament, he's you know, thirtieth on that on that number. He gets in on the number and he win. He beats say it's I don't know, say it's Brooks. He beats Brooks by eight shots the week and Brooks as the tour champion.
Yeah, that's something wrong with that. But again, they ran all these numbers and they don't think that's going to happen. So we'll see.
That's but I mean, may it'll go well, it's definitely a bit. If it doesn't go well, it'll it'll change quickly out is my cast.
Yeah, I think you think the one, to be honest, I think the FedEx Cup is going to be strong for a while, and I think they kind of know what they're doing this WGC. They're playing this week as it's going to be fraught with issues for a while, you know, especially if they're going to back it up after the Open. That's it. And look, as I said before, you're just playing golf for a living. It's not a real job. It's all good, but you're not going to get the performance out of guys after they just got
battered around port Rush for four days. They're going to fly to one hundred and one hundred in Memphis and they're just heads. A lot of their heads are just not going to be in the game, you know, Yeah, and you're just not going to get the performance. I mean it's look, you're paying these guys a lot of money, and I don't think it's fair that they whine and say, don't give me ten million this week, give it to me next week. Well they give me, I've got to sit on the beach for a week. I don't buy
that argument at all. But you're not going to get the performance out of guys because they're going to be Jaden flat. You know, That's what I feel. Maybe not but especially at the end of this summer. I mean a lot of these guys I played eight in the last ten weeks, and four of them were majors. And now they've got a WGC and they've got to take one week off and play FedEx Cup playoffs and stuff
and next year the Olympics. I mean, it's just it's pretty relentless, and you end up the standard of golf will go down. That's that's not I don't think it matters about us players being precious and getting tired. That's on us. We chose this job. But the standard of golf will go down if you overplay these guys in big tournaments, and they'll start pulling out of these WGCs because they'll prioritize other things, you know.
Well, I mean it's I think having traveled a lot for work before I started this, and I travel a lot for this. Is like you know when when you travel like four street week through your job, it's not enjoyable and like it takes it like a toll on you. And you definitely like even as an office worker job like you you're not going to work as well as if you're well rested in at home.
No that's the thing to me. I mean, and everyone, like everybody grinds at their job and like has parts of it that I don't love, but like it's kind of you want people to do it well when they do it right, that's the thing. I mean. Maybe this will change how they train. Maybe there'll be attrition, Maybe there'll be less people play earlier in the year. Maybe that run, there'll be more people pull out of some tournaments in May, like between the masses in the US Open,
may take more time off in that period. Maybe more guys will not play between the two Opens. You'll get attrition somewhere else, or you'll just get the standard of golf coming down. And that's when you get guys getting headless and snapping clubs over the knees and stuff like that. Really because they're just like twisted because they've been in four different countries in three weeks.
Like it's tough, what and you're adjusting. Yeah, there's a lot of money, but yeah, I.
Mean climate support rush, I mean Northern Ireland to Memphis. I can't emphasize enough how big a climate change that is fifty degrees glober warming in a week.
Swap hoss invitation oh my goodness.
And it's a cool course, it's a good cause, and it's a great like it's a great it's always been a good community. They love it because it supports the hospital. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with FedEx having their tournament there. I just think it's the wrong date. I mean, I don't know they have it in the spring. You know, put it in the spring when we used to play Memphis way back when it was the week before the
US Open. It was already too hot. Yeah, if you could bang it this, but when do you put it in the spring. You got the you got the PGA there. Now you've got Memorial, you got Colonial, You've got the Nelson, You've got I mean, you've got good stuff everywhere now, Like it's I'll give it to the tour. That tournament. The tour is getting deeper and stronger and more good tournaments. And mean it's pretty amazing.
That's ah. I think. Well, I'm curious. I've I've been doing a bunch of research on like the forming of the WGCs. Did you play in the mash play at Metropolitan the one year they have.
It there, No, that went down about nearly went to one hundredth in the world, so top sixty four and normally it goes to what's sixty five, right, someone's injured or someone's wife's having about you or something, and like number sixty five gets in that year, it was like ninety eight got in because no one wanted to go down and uh, the PF folk you got to the fight? Did PF folky whin that Steve Stricker be in the final or something? Right?
I don't happen event in front of me.
That's it.
I mean, the whole intention.
I wasn't in that.
The whole intention of the WGC to me, like, and this is like a perfect example of it, Like you're going to Memphis for a World Golf Championship right after you played in Northern Ireland. It doesn't make much sense, you know, and like the whole intention, Like I've been reading about Norman and his World Tour and all what he wanted and how the idea kind of spawned from that, and it just seems so such a far you know, and I know FedEx is the biggest sponsor, so you
know they got to take care of them. But this is the furthest thing from what was intended when the World Golf Championships started.
It is, and like the two the idea was, let's get the top fifty or the top one hundred guys in the world, or that Echelona players together more often around the world. Like that's the spirit of it. But they, I mean, the conspiracy theorists would say when they put it outside of America, they put it, they put the match play in Australia, so it just wouldn't work. And it was like the first week in January or something, so nobody wanted to go, and they like they just
kind of made it. So it ended up just bigger versions of you regular two events. It's hard though, and as I said, because it's like it's the only way it really works is if you create a layer of tournaments above the normal ones, and that's just fraught with so many complicated situations and exemptions and egos and sponsors, and now sponsors are like, well, why don't I why don't we get the three year exemption for our tournament
only get the two year exemption. We put almost as much money in a ZAM and it's just really it's a can of worm. So it's just ended up being regular tour events really although be it they were in Mexico City, which is pretty good. That's a cool That's what it's about, right, that that one is actually great. I think I don't know, it's a difficult thing. And this there's philosophically obviously, everybody thinks it'd be great to have ten or twelve tournaments around the world, really high
end tournament. Yeah, tournaments like Memorial or like what Akron used to be, Riviera Place, like the really premium to the Wentworth Tournament in the UK, I mean, the austral And Open, like maybe the Japan Open, or I mean, it'd be brilliant to have like that kind of Tennessee
kind of feel about the big events. But you've got to align so many people and so much stuff and just to get all that worked out, and you're putting players noses at a joint and sponsors noses at a joint and golf you're going to you're going to connect the golf associations with the professional association. I mean, it's just it's logistically or like just doesn't happen.
But yeah, the other tough thing is that if you're going to Australia or Japan, it's like it's like a three week trip essentially.
Kind yeah, it's it is a big trip. Like this is a perfect example, like this schedule have had two weeks port rush to Memphis that if you have that regularly, guys are just not going to do it. The regular too, is just too good. You can live in Florida or Arizona or Texas. You can go three hours from your home twenty five times a year and play for eight million bucks seven million bucks. Why am I going to Japan? You know what I mean? Why am I going to Australia?
Like you just why would you? Like you wouldn't because it's too it's too good. Like whereas the LPGA, those girls travel, they go everywhere because they kind of have to, right, They're gonna play when there's a tournament on, they go play. We've got choices, We've got lots of If I don't play this week in Japan, I'll just play next week
in Greensboro or something, you know. I mean, it's like there's there's too many good tournaments in the US, which is a great thing, which is actually a testament to the tour of it. That just makes it hard because to get to a level above that. It takes a lot of money and a lot of organization. There's still people who are trying to do it though, there's still there's there's part ofganizations out there who are trying to
like capture a world tour. It's really hard to it's really hard to pull off.
Yeah, it would be cool, but yeah, and the problem. The other thing that you run into is if you succeed and you get that, every other smaller tour event suffers.
That's the problem, right, that's the problem with these other events stuff. And nobody watches Reno this week, right, like they never have. It's a great tournament.
Speak for yourselves.
You know. I love Rena. I won there. I think it's the midplace. It's one of my favorite tournaments off the whole PGA tour, for like the course, the venue, how cruizy the week is, how nice the weather is. But when the top fifty you're playing somewhere else, most
people are going to watch that. So if you have that, if you don't want to get rid of events, which is kind of unfair on the rank and file guys, you know, and just have WCS eight weeks a year around the world and have no tournaments that same week. That's not right, is it.
Yeah?
I don't know. It's a hard one. It's a really hard one.
It's a good question too. It's like it's like, could could you survive? Could could the PGA Tour and Web Tour become like the bottom and top half become more flexible and then you have these elevated events once a month or you know, a little more than once a.
Month already do. I thought an interesting idea would be to make the where well, the corn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour, like everybody's got the same exemption from number one down Brooks is number one, number one twenty five in the money is one twenty five. Then you get the fifty in from the Web or whatever. But everybody's got a number down to about four or five hundred year exemption. And you have two events every week, just like this week we have Memphis and Reno. Every
week you have they're all PGA two events. The corn Ferry Tour is now just the PGA Tour. Everything is a PJU to and you just have Tier one and Tier two events. You know, maybe you have premium tier events and you can have multiple events in a week that and then you might get some web traditional web corn Ferry type sponsors who are ready to kind of step up there, spend and like go from a two million dollar tournament to a four million dollar tournament because
like that's they've always wanted to. They don't really want to get to like the full PGR toolet but they might want to go up a little bit, you know, and there might be some PGR two events just like you know what, I'd rather just can I just back this off and just have like a little bit of a smaller event And if you're in you just have to play as a player. You have to play the event, the highest event that you're exempt into that week, and if you don't get into the WGC or the big one,
you get into the one underneath, like this week. If you don't get into Memphis, you just go to Reno and it would have two events.
It would solve the issue of like say you're a tour rookie or a guy that's low on the list and you get a bad start to the year and then all of a sudden you can't play for two months.
Hmm.
That's like the thing that killed in right now. There are two. I was talking about this with Brendan poor Eth, and the shotgun start is like if you right now they have same ownership, but they use two different currencies with points hmm, like the tour owns five tours, all of which use a different currency.
You could certainly combine the money lists or point lists and just have bigger or smaller events and the one twenty five line and all those sort of things would change,
but there would be kind of like benchmark position. You still have FedEx Cup playoffs on that and if you were two hundred and sixtieth on the list, if you finish two hundred and sixtieth on the list, where you're just not going to get into those top twenty or thirty events, but you're going to get into the next thirty events, and you've got a realistic and if you win a Tier too event, you get a one year exemption, and all of a sudden you're up in the big ones.
You win a Tier one event, you get the two year exemption. Like, I don't know, if you combine them, maybe you could have a more interesting kind of it would be a better deal for the guys down the bottom, like a better pathway up and it would allow your room to create events on top of events you've already got.
You know, it would create like that free flow, and it would let like when somebody's struggling, they wouldn't. It would actually, I think, help the struggling PGA Tour player because he wouldn't he would have somewhere to play. M hm, you know, like it it would really help. And then say like this kid, Christopher Ventura, he just he's won two Web events in three weeks, like he'd be playing up high.
Yeah, yeah he would. And the guys who'd been struggling, who'd started with their card this year and it were really really battling. I mean they might be now not they might be like drifting down and not getting into like some bigger ones. It's an interesting I think. I think there's more room the gap between the Web corn Ferry, the corn Ferry Tour money wise and exemption wise and all that. The gap between that and the PGA Tour
is too big. It's a massive jay. I mean, it's just it's almost it's not a money losing proposition the Web, but it's close. I think it is.
It is a money like the guy that makes this twenty fifth, like they're barely covering expenses.
You know, it's Bordlin and that's not fair. I just think there's more money, and there's a little bit more money in golf than that, And I think there'd be a way to create a better secondary tour which would allow your room to maybe put some really premium stuff on top of the big one, you know, I think it would be not that there isn't premium stuff, you
know that world too. You'd have a bit more room if you've got if every one of your members has got somewhere to play that week for a reasonable amount, then they don't really mind if the top fifty go off and make ten million somewhere else because I got three million to play for and like Chicago that way or whatever, you know, and maybe it's well.
The other thing is that now that the PGA Tour owns Canada and Latin America, it gives them like essentially a new funnel in m H. Like that's the piece that they hadn't had for so many years, was now that they now they owned two more supplemental tours, and they own China.
They owned all the pathways to get on the page a tour pretty.
Much, but none of them allow for movement, Like they all operate in their own entity.
The movement is difficult. Like it's a pretty I mean the Latin America and the Canadian Tour, which those guys can play. They're really good. I just haven't had an opportunity yet. And they're all young and they're okay. I mean it's top five for a whole year, gets a chance to play web dot Com. I mean, that's five on the money list. It's really high. That's so you can finish sixth on Canada, sixth on Latin American a year, probably lose money for a year, and you've got nothing to show for it.
Well, that's the thing is is that top five is just conditional too, it's not even full.
Yeah, it's tough. It's I don't know. I mean we're trying to you're trying to if you're trying to please the golf fan to give him great golf tournaments, but you're just trying to capture the the best way to have the most people have this job and enjoy it, right and like, and there's a lot of small market's not just for the players. There's there's lots of small markets that just can't have PGA two events, but they could have a lower level to PG to event and
they probably would. You know. I mean, how many great little four or five hundred, six hundred thousand people towns are there in America with good golf courses. They're everywhere, you know.
Yeah, like Cedar Rappers Iowa.
That's I think about the price at the price point of twelve million dollar ask. You can't do that in seat of rapids. But if it was a four million dollarsk or something, well maybe you can. You know. I don't know, like, yeah, maybe you can't. I mean, there's much smarter people than us working on stuff like this.
But yeah, all right, well we've we've covered, you know, all kinds of topics and you know, we're very off course, but until again, we got we got top Presidence Cup one of these days. Yeah, you're let's do it, Assistant Captain. We gotta hear what's going on with an international squad.
The inside the squad. I don't know my role because I've been down here has been I've been going out to Royal a little bit and I'm going to wander around Royal with a few of the long time royal members and see if we can find some sneaky pins for our team. You know, it's kind of the program. Well, you can't narrow roll Melbourne down like you did Parish National, and you can't grow rough, but we might be able to create a local knowledge advantage if we can kind
of teach how guys how to play it quicker. But I think Tiger's been there a bunch to everybody knows how to play the course. So it'll be be fun. Everyone down here is excited about it. I mean, Melbourne people love golf tournaments. They're like Chicago people, right, they just turn up to big events. They just do So it's gonna be fun.
It's uh, you know. One one trick if if Patrick Reid makes the team is he always felt that the tour was conspiring against him by putting right pins on Sundays.
So I work out all the shot shapes from everyone and put all the pins on the wrong side for the American.
Yeah exactly, you know, just just do that, figure out figure out their alternate shot teams and who's hitting the pro shots and moving around.
Yeah, I mean it's we need our team needs to win this tournament. Soon, otherwise it's going to kind of get a bit boring. But yeah, it's fun to be involved with such good fun.
Yeah, all right, well we'll talk soon.
Oh I cheered my That was good.