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 brid egg Friday Egg Frida Egg Friday Friday.
Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. We are back. What an exciting week.
I think that nobody was really expecting such a big week in golf, but we you know, golf always delivers.
We get a Rory McElroy win in Dubai.
Uh, we get a Lydia co win in Florida, and then to top things off, while the while the big football weekend, I think Nick Dunlap actually kind of took some of football's audience away as an amateur one for the first time on the PGA Tour since nineteen ninety one since Phil Mickelson.
So pretty historic weekend.
Not really something that you would have thought would happen with the with the AMX, it's usually kind of a sleepy weekend that seeds to the to the football. But I do think that there were, you know, golf fans that were lured away from football for once. So today I am joined by Friday Golf's Joseph Lamannia and Garrett Morrison. We've got a fun exercise. We're gonna we're gonna talk
a little bit about a couple of things. We're gonna do segment we're rolling out in and out where we're in on something, out on something, and then we're gonna roll into a discussion about a potential world tour. Rory McElroy and Keith Pelly have been kind of beating the drum on this, the idea that golf needs to go global with the you know, kind of framework agreement, the
private equity money that they're bringing in. So we decided, why don't we build out what a world tour could look like and where it could go for the elite players in the professional and the men's professional game.
So excited to get this going.
Joseph Garrett thoughts on the weekend, do you think that we cut into football at all?
Joseph, I'll get your take on this. I mean, I don't really I don't really watch football myself, but I understand that it's quite a popular sport.
I'm a huge football fan.
I have to say I respectfully disagree with Andy's take that golf should steer away from football and Andy.
Andy says that golf shouldn't.
Steer away from right, I think it should.
You think it should run scared.
I think it should.
Well, I don't know if it should run scared, but I do think it should find its windows that aren't competing with the most popular sport in America. That said, we got a little bit of a blowout towards the end of Lion's Buccaneers yesterday, which played well with Dunlap being in contention, So it works in that sense. I definitely was glued to both. I was double screening it. But yeah, really exciting weekend in golf and Dounlap being in contention.
That was unbelievable.
Yeah, I mean, clearly they the PGA Tour got a little bit more from this weekend than it had any right to expect, and so that was a big win for the PGA Tour this weekend. Obviously. You know, I don't think I normally would have even tuned in too Sunday at the American Express, you know, and I'm trying to pace myself here at the beginning of the year with my professional golf consumption, but certainly I was I was locked in to the last few holes. It was
absolutely engrossing. And you just never know when these things are going to pop up. Golf is golf is so random like that, and so it's obviously a great weekend.
It's just a it's a big marker of why they need to get talented people in the field with sponsors exemptions.
It's just perfect.
You think it's a well, I think it's the perfect example, honestly of why they should let Zack Johnson in the field whenever possible. What was he t twenty five this week or something?
Yeah? Right, Yeah, that.
Was nice story.
Nobody could have seen that regression coming. All right, let's get into in and out news segment. We're going to do this weekly on this show just quickly. You know, it could be anything. Could be I'm in on uh on iron Head covers, if you wanted to get into that. It could be I'm out on uh on walking and carrying your bag and golf, but you know that's not gonna happen.
I would be in on iron Head's iron Head covers.
That's a huge opportunity. If they haven't done that.
If they haven't already merchandised that. Then that's a that's a big miss.
All right, let's start, Joseph, you kick things off. What are you in on this week?
Sure?
My, these these are actually both related to AMX. I don't think it's going to be that way every week, but I am in on the way Justin Thomas handled the downswing in his career, and I think it's a very good lesson for a lot of junior golfers out there or aspiring professional golfers the way Justin Thomas how poorly he was playing last summer, he acknowledged it. He didn't pretend like it wasn't happening. He was accepting of it. He talked about it. He wasn't offended when somebody asked
him about it. He posted some really bad scores and fought back the next day. At the Open Championship last year, he shot eighty two in the opening round, didn't withdraw, fought back, shot seventy one. The next day. At the US Open at LACC he shot seventy three to eighty one. Back to back majors with scores in the eighties, and he's battled back. He played through it again. It accepted
that it was happening. To him kind of Scheffler, like when Scotti Scheffler has talked about, for example, going into the final round of the Masters, not sure if he's able to do it. I just think the modern athlete is more willing to let us in on their struggles a little bit and acknowledge that it's happening instead of
running from it. And now Justin Thomas has four top fives in a row, sort of soft setups, like one of those is the Hero World Challenge, but he kind of feels back, and I think it's an exceptional example to young golfers out there of how to handle a down swing in your career, because it can happen to anybody.
Mine is also Justin Thomas, so we're wow.
I was the most Justin Thomas love that has ever happened on this podcast.
That's for sure.
So anyways, I think, like one of the things you said, Scheffler, like I.
Would say that the way he handled his down swing was on Scheffler.
Like if you recall last summer, Scottie Scheffler going through putting woes similar to Justin Thomas's woes obviously, like not similar in like the way they're playing since Scotty Scheffler was the best player in the world at the time, but puttig's holding him back from winning wreckers setting amounts.
It's very there's a putting problem, Scottie Scheffler was saying it was a media narrative when he's you know, finishing in the back have the field week after week, like complete opposite of how Scheffler handled that situation was so open and talked about it. I think the other thing
he's been grinding. He's been signing up for events, making sure that he's he's qualifying for things like playing at the end of last year, you know at the three M which he missed the cut, and then the Windom which you know he almost chipped in to make the FedEx Cup playoffs, playing this week at Amax because he needed to make sure that he stayed in the top thirty of the owgr for the designated events spot exemption.
So doing things.
But like the big thing I see with justin Thomas's game, the approach play is back. He has got back that that skill that you know makes him an elite player. He's not the longest player, he's not the best putter, but he is one of the great greatest iron players in the game, and that seems to be back whatever they tried to do with that golf swing that got him into the funk. I believe that they did some tickering that got him into a funk. He and you know, really what he had to do was get out of it.
He had to undo what they had, what they had tried to change in his golf swing. And it looks like it's undone and he is back. All the poo pool noodles, the people making fun of the pool noodles when he was you know, posting is his you know what he was doing to grind on his golf game.
The pool noodles are working.
So I'm in on the pool pool noodles rehearsals, and I'm in on Justin Thomas for twenty twenty four. And I think he's super important for the PGA Tour. As you know, the Rob departure, the PGA Tour needed him or speed and or. It'd be great if both of them kind of stepped up and became the superstars they used to be. And it looks like Justin Thomas is on his way back to superstardom.
Look, there's a lot of Justin Thomas haters out there. I'm not going to name names who might be feeling a little bit bashful right now, maybe not speaking up and uh and and that would be that would be me. I'm on the record as not not digging his vibe, but I totally agree with you guys that he has handled this downturn really well and it seems like it seems like he's back. But it's no surprise really that that he's back.
I'm not one hundred percent ready to say Justin Thomas is back, And I think that's an interesting conversation in and of itself, like, is Justin Thomas back?
Well?
Some of the courses he's done really well on recently like that were declaring him back a lot of driver wedge, not the most demanding setups. So I am still interested to see how the long game is. He's hitting some loose long irons. You didn't have to do a lot of that at AMX. So I don't think I'm ready to say that he's fully back.
I love it. I love it. Thank you for saying that. So should I do what I'm in on?
Yeah?
San Diego, I'm in on San Diego as a as a like, you know, a spot to go on a trip, especially if you're a golfer. There aren't like some like super strong courses in San Diego, but it's an extremely pleasant place to visit. Obviously, the weather's really good, airports solid, there's a lot of fun things to do in town. Look,
I've been to San Diego many times. I have family in San Diego, and it's not exactly a hot take to say that it's a great place to go, but specifically for golfers, you know, if you're looking for like a city to go to and play some cool golf while also doing other stuff with your family, I think San Diego is a great candidate because yeah, okay, so we've said what we've said about Tory Pines that the South Course isn't what it could be, but it's a
public course that's right on the Pacific Ocean cliffs, and that's pretty incredible. It's a great place to spend a day. And I'd recommend the North Course. I think it's I think it's more fun to play. But the San Diego public municipal course that I can really get behind is Balboa Park. There's a lot of things that have gone wrong with Balboa Park, and you know, it's the stewardship of its architecture, which is best credited to William P.
Bell.
That's Billy Bell Senior. Nineteen thirty three or so is when he did his design there. And the original design looks looks awesome, And obviously they've departed from that quite a bit as things have grown up around the course. But what you still have at Balboa Park is golf on big landforms like big bluffs and barankas with views of the San Diego skyline. It's an incredible place to play golf. And yeah, a lot of the holes are
kind of funky. They did some bad things to the greens and there's there's some things that I wish they would fix. But when it comes down to it, this is a really outstanding place to play some municipal golf. And then after year round you can go to this little restaurant that they have. I forget what it's called, but it's like a great place to get a breakfast or a brunch and it overlooks the golf course and has views of the skyline and everything. I mean, it's
it's just a wonderful place. So yeah, highly recommend San Diego as a golf and kind of destination.
It's hard to have a bad day in San Diego.
I feel like I've been seeing some pro San Diego sentiment on social media recently, so I think this is your playing in.
A good way. It's a trend, it might be. But also torri Pines week this week, so.
That's why I'm mentioning it. By the way, I should have probably mentioned that at the beginning. That's why it's on my mind. We're going to Tory Pines this this week for the the you know, no longer the Farmers and I guess it's the Farmer's Insurance this year. But it's not going to be for very much longer the San Diego Open, so let's hope that tournament continues.
All right.
I'm going to do one thing that I'm out on and want to address something that Andy said.
With that.
What I'm out on, I'm out on Scottie Scheffler's putting right now, and this.
Was a little bit of a story over the off season.
I think he should go to the broomstick.
I mean, I think every player should experiment with the broomstick.
To be frank, but as much as I don't. There's a whole other.
Conversation should be banned, the broomstick, which maybe is for another day. But Scotti Scheffler's putting looks like a problem, and it was a huge problem last year held him back. I don't know if I fully agree with you Andy that he was in complete denial about it. I feel like some of his comments I'd have to revisit some of that. But I feel like some of his comments were more around there's a lot of variance in putting, and I'm just going to keep doing my thing and
it'll come back eventually. I don't know if he went full Hey, this is just a media narrative, but I would need to revisit some of those comments.
There was a little bit of crooked media coming out of him.
There might have been there might you.
Could tell, You could tell that he was there with it.
But I think generally Scotti Scheffler has a mindset that's accepting of his own imperfections, whether that's with his mentality or with his skills on the course. But all that aside. Watched a lot of Scotti Scheffler this past week on featured groups. Putting looks off. He hit all eighteen greens yesterday, really impressive shot one of the low rounds of the day, barely gained any strokes putting. The only other day that had shot link data so you can capture strokes gained.
He lost over a shot on the greens. It just it looks not great. And sure some of that is noise, small sample, but we've now seen for longer than a year. It looks like a problem. There are some setups where it's going to hurt you more than others. Amex is somewhere that being a bad putters more of a problem than other golf courses on the PGA Tour, But I think it's something to watch. Looks shaky and it's going to hold him back, and especially some of these soft setups.
Hard to disagree there, obviously. I think the other aspect of this is that, you know, major championships and just golf tournaments in general. I think one of the amazing things I always think about and about golf is that in high leverage situations, you know, the sport always has a way of exposing your flaws or making you overcome
one of your weaknesses. Right, if you think back to LACC the Rory wedge on fourteen, right, the wedges have been a problem, and you know, sure enough coming down the stretch he had to hit a wedge and he didn't.
You think about Scottie Scheffler.
To win big time golf tournaments, you have to make putts, and you have to make those five foot like. The thing that's scary to me is the I almost feel like it's similar to like Hideki Massiyama, where when you just see these four or five footers that just don't even hit the hole. It's not like they're lipping out because he's catching a lot of cup and it's just, oh, you know, it was a good putt, but maybe misrounded
a little bit. He hits putts that missed the hole from four or five feet, you know, fairly not I'm not gonna say regularly, but fairly often like you see these, and that is the big problem, is that there is something fundamentally wrong I think with whether it's mental or whether it's technique, I don't know, but like to me, he seems like I think one of the one of the things we see I and I I you know, I don't know what the current setup is, but it
seems like he knows the putting's an issue, and he's working really, really really hard to not make an issue. I think putting's one of those things that, like, the more you work at it, sometimes the worse it can get, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean it's like it's one of those mental games. Yeah right, We're all familiar with these where you just yeah, it's it's a it's like free throws. It's uh, there are a few athletic things that are that are like this, but we're all familiar with it in our own lives, right where you just get something in your head and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Buffalo kickers in the fourth quarter of God Martin playoff Games and you know.
The right miss.
But but anyways, I think like one of the things with him is that he needs to actually like kind of try less because a couple of years ago, the I mean, I'm not saying the allure of Scottie Scheffler is worn off because all he's done is gotten better from tea to green, But the allure of Scottie Scheffler was that, look at this guy, He's great at everything.
Like he's really good a really good putter, a really good.
I thought he was a good putter basically until this, until the second half of last year. I I you know, maybe that the stats didn't bear that out at that point, but my impression of him was this guy has a really strong short game, including.
Well that was the yeah.
So so anyways, the lure of Scheffler is like, there are only so many guys on the PGA Tour who are really above average to elite at every skill set, and I feel like he was one of those guys. And uh and and now it's you know, this is the the the amazing thing about golf, right, It can put It can put you through mental gymnastics and and wrap you up like a pretzel. And it seems like the putters got into that state with with Scheffler.
All right, Andy, what are you out on?
All right? I'm you know what I'm out on.
I'm out on on multi course pro am golf.
Yeah, the PG especially without the without the shot link.
No shot link.
Yeah, we got foursomes with on Saturday with you know, we got just like guys playing And I'm fine, I'm fine with the pro I under stand that you know that these these tournaments need to generate cash and have some sort of angle. But I think it's way more palatable the way that the AT and T Pebble Beach is going this year with like a smaller field and only a couple days. Like, you just can't have these
guys out there on the weekend. You can't have the field split between three courses like they did this year at Palm Springs that they always do. You've got Nick Dunlop Dunlap, I got the gips with his name, Nick Dunlap. You can't have Nick Dunlap out there threatening to break fifty or sixty, you know, shooting up the leader board, playing the most That was probably the most consequential round
of the tournament. And there's no cameras around because he's playing Lakita when all the big names are playing PGA to ur at PGA West. Like, I don't like the split courses, split days for the sake of competition.
This is the.
Biggest golf league there is, and like the.
Competition cannot be sacrificed so often with these setups. Obviously we've got one this week with North and South at Tory. Again, we don't have shot link this is twenty twenty four. We're in twenty twenty four. This shouldn't like there should be enough personnel enough. There's a multi billion dollar league that we should have shot link across two courses. Two courses I'm our right with, you know, with no amateurs on them, three courses with you know, the t sheet
full of amateurs like pace a play a disaster. Like you imagine you're trying to win a tournament and you're you're playing with a fifteen handicap on Saturday, and I know that's really cool for the fifteen handicap. And if you look through the list of amateurs, there are a lot of heavy hitters and that's why they pay top dollar to play at Palm Springs. But you just can't
have it for the sake the competition, you know. I think the PGA Tour needs to make a decision, especially with the new what's coming down the pipe with this money reshaping the league. Are we a competitive golf leek And if the answer is yes, you need to get rid of the amateurs that are playing in competitions, particularly on the weekend and having your your fields strewn out
over three courses. That are you know, you could experience drastically different weather across them, Like, this is just not a sensible thing to do. At least Tory Pines, you are confined to like one property and they're intertwined, so
everybody's experiencing the same weather at the bare minimum. But this is this is insanity what is going on at PGA West And it was illuminated by Nick Dunlap this week shooting sixty while all the other leaders are on the stadium course and it's like, wait a second, like and.
There's no insight.
You can't provide any insight into this because there's no data being collected of other courses.
Totally agree with you.
We'll say PJ Tour Live got some cameras on Nick Dunlap, which was appreciated that but totally agree with you. I think there's a lot of issues with it. For one, Amex has become a joke of a setup and it's not a demanding golf course anymore. I know that's changed from decades past. But oftentimes people will say but that's because they have to get some amateurs around the course,
like that's a problem. It's either the most competitive golf league or it's not so I'm with you, like, that's not a good excuse for why a setup has to be soft.
Either.
There's instances of amateurs hitting putts that show the pros the lines, which I don't like. I saw a clip of Cam Champ hitting a putt that was going to go in and hit an amateur's ballmark where they had marked their ball and so it didn't go in, which maybe that's Cam Champ's fault, But just in general, I think having amateurs on the course at the same time as the pros is is truly like, it's just not it's not competitive, doesn't scream competition, and it diminishes the event.
It's a counting event, which is crazy.
And maybe somebody would say this is what the beauty of golf is, that you could have a golf tournament and have people out there, but you shouldn't, you know, like think about this in the context of any other sport.
It's crazy. It's bananas, it is.
And I also really agree with your point that shot link now is an expectation and I'm much more engaged with an event when I can click through the shots. I think even at the Salheim Cup last year, not being able to click through shots. It's just become an expectation of a modern golf fan. So without it, the event loses a lot of its shine. So I totally agree with being out on that, fully out.
I just want one other thing while we're here. I saw I can't remember what I tweeted about this week, but somebody replied there wouldn't be enough. Oh it was Shane Bacon's commentary about moving some tournaments around a void the NFL, like maybe having a Monday Tuesday finish to avoid. And one of the things is Network TV has become way more. You know, you see NBAS on Network TV. More college football is on Network TV, more at night that used to be ESPN games or be going moved
to ABC. So Network TV is more open to the eyeballs that live sports springs. But anyways, someone said it would be hard for the PGA Tour to get volunteers.
Volunteers.
This is a multi billion dollar organization and volunteers dictate when they could go on air. That that also needs to change the reliance on volunteers and golf needs to stop. All these events make enough money, have enough revenue. The TV rights are are insane that volunteers should not be essential to putting a golf tournament on television or running a golf tournament in general. Sorry, that's two things I'm out on.
Yeah, I don't. I don't even feel like I should talk about what I'm out on at this point where these are these are such significant things. It is interesting how that you know the role that the pro am format has played in the history of the PGA Tour. I think it was you know, these events, the Bob Hope Classic and the Pebble Beach pro Am, that the clam Bake were pretty crucial to building up the PGA Tour when it wasn't what it is now. But now the format clearly feels like a relic that kind of
holds back the competitive product a bit. So in any case, what I'm out on is pronouncing amateur amateur. That's pretty much. And it's it's it's ubiquitous on the telecast. There's no announcer who says amateur there there. They've got to be they've got to be fancy about it and say amateur. But I put a Twitter poll up about this, and and you know, it worked out more or less how
I thought it would. Where you know about thirty six percent said amateur was the right pronunciation, and sixty four ish percent said amateur was the correct pronunciation, but an astonishing number of people suggested that both should be in use, and that you should change your pronunciation of the word based on the context. And I think that's just ridiculous. I can't be expected to, at the drop of a hat, you know, based on the context in which I'm using
the word, change my pronunciation and do it reliably. I can barely hold it together enough to pronounce a word consistently the same way like Doune Lap, for instance. And so I think amateur, let's just go with that. It's the US amateur. Nick Dunlap is an amateur, it's amateur hour, it's all amateur. Let's just keep it like that. That's the that's the at least the American pronouncing that. The British and Canadians can do whatever they want. But I think amateur is the way that I'm going.
I think I flip back and forth, so I don't even I don't know what that says, but I think I say that's great.
One way.
I just flip around, well randomly.
If you do it with intention, then that's the then that's pretty insane. And there are a lot of people in the comments suggesting that they could do it with intention, like based on context could say amateur or amateur, and I just, you know, I don't have that kind of brain power.
I think I say amateur. Is that so that's wrong?
No, I've heard you say already in this podcast multiple times, amateur.
I think I go back and forth, then I help back and forth, because you know why, you know why, this is why it's important. Nobody's made it a declaration of this is how it needs to be. And that's why your take is important, because there you go, I've been lost in the woods. I don't know, I don't know which one it is, and so I just it's like when you're guessing about somebody's name and you just kind of go, uh yeah.
So that's the way I feel with amateur and amateur. All right, let's go out.
That I've provided some clarity here. Let's uh yeah, let's move on. Are we going to talk about the World Tour now?
Yeah?
So obviously with the DP World Tour in uh starting their desert swing, this kicks off the year. It's when one of the times when golf's talent is kind of split up beyond Live, you know, a historic time where we see some of the high profile players in recent years outside of live. This was pre Live that we would see, you know, some of the most talent go to the Middle East to play golf and versus the
West coast of the United States. But anyways, the real talk has been around this restructuring of the PGA Tour. Obviously they are taking in and and they're going to be taking in an influx of cash, part from private equity, it looks like likely part from the Saudi Arabia Arabian Public Investment Fund, and with that cash, it is strongly believed that the that the tour as we know it
will be greatly reshaped. It makes sense people invest billions of dollars and expect to see a return on investment, and it's unlikely that the current setup of the PGA Tour is has enough growth opportunity for that investment to see substantial return. So with that in mind, you know, there's been a lot of calls and from you know, two very notable people, Keith Pelly, the head of the DP World Tour, who will be staying on Uh. He took a new job with uh IN in Canada. Uh
with the Maple Leaf Entertainment right, uh As. I believe the name of it.
The hockey team, right, He's basically yeah.
I think it's like a sports entertainment group.
Though, oh is it? Is it not the hockey team? I guess I just glanced these headlines.
I said, okay, and and then the.
He and Rory McElroy, obviously one of the biggest players, the most influential players, have been kind of hammering the idea of a world tour, that the growth in the game is going to come from going global. So with that in mind, I thought it would be fun if we kicked around the idea of what would a world tour look like? Where would you go and how would the season set up? So I don't know how you
guys did this. I kind of kept the major championships locked into their spots, but I could see a world where you could move a major championship if you want, if you so wanted. I think that with this investment, pretty much anything is on the table here and let's let's kick around how you started. So I guess to kind of work our way through it. I'd love to start by, you know, where did you start your season?
How did you start your season? And the idea here is a fourteen to sixteen event calendar, so these top players would play twenty player twenty events.
Does the fourteen event schedule include the majors now or is this an addition to the majors? It's an addition. Yeah, that's that's okay. That's that's how I was operating too. So you want to know how we started, Joseph one, why don't you go first? Here?
Sure?
The only quick preamble I'd offer that I have must have criteria. So there's some things I'm flexible on, some things that are must have here for me real quickly, the must haves about the calendar, I think the most important. All these are sort of tied for most important, but I think it has to have a flow to it. That's probably the most important thing. Like other ends like the NFL season kind of has a flow. You hit Thanksgiving, you hit Christmas. Winter games like this can't be random.
Why are you going to the city at this time? There needs to be a flow Geographically, it's super important that each little swing has an identity. So that was really important to me. You have to hit the big markets. That was really important to me. You have to play golf courses at the best time to play them. I think Sawgrass is the best example of this where we've made a huge compromise playing it in March right now,
that's not the best time to play TPC Sawgrass. So all these courses and cities that we go to need to be at the best time of year for that location. And then I have two other small pieces of criteria. We need to put players in a position to succeed, So the cadence with majors and travel needs to make sense. Guys aren't going to want to play five weeks in
a row, for example. And then last piece of criteria, I think it'd be cool if when a player's really good, like at the top of the world rankings, you try to go to that country. So I Fideki Matsuyama is one of the best players in the world. I think it's pretty cool to try to do an event in Japan. So those were the sort of four or five pieces of criteria that I had happy to kick off with MYE season started.
But does anybody that's interesting.
I have a reaction to that actually, because I, you know, I don't think I thought this through as well as you have, Joseph, So that's right off the bat. But and and so I sort of thought of like flow and when you're going to the courses as details that you can work out later. But clearly it's it's very important.
The main thing I thought about in choosing events is which events are already successful, which events are good right now, right because I think the main thing that you need to avoid here is just creating events out of thin air that don't mean anything to anybody. And that's the lesson of the WGCs, that's the lesson of live It's really hard to just you know, invent a golf tournament
and make it feel like something real. And so to me, a World Tour would need to be constructed out of the best current pieces of the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. You know, something to keep in mind is that we already have a world Tour in the world of golf. Yeah, it doesn't go to the Americas, but the DP World Tour isn't just in Europe. You know,
they go all over the place. There is an infrastructure and a schedule in place for something like a world tour, and you know, the part of the group that is negotiating this new schedule in golf, whatever it might look like, is the DP World Tour. And so I think that, you know, for me, just choosing trying to figure out what the best pieces of each tour schedule are and amplifying those was was my total focus here. And I guess I didn't think very much about the practical considerations
of schedule flow and stuff like that. And so I'm very curious to hear what you came up with and how that it's different from what I came up with.
I think I you know, a couple points here where what have been emphasized, just by Rory McElroy National opened, they mean something that's kind of what you just hit on, Garrett, is having some sort of you know, some national open some history that's helpful, going places that are is used, you know, things that work, right.
Yeah, current local support. I was looking for the the antithesis of the Mayacoba or the Singapore tournaments, right, I was looking for the whatever the opposite of that is, uh,
you know, the opposite of that. You know, you might consider the opposite of that to be the Phoenix Open, right, or or the Travelers Championship, or you know, there are some events on the on the DP World Tour that also have really strong local support and identities and could just be you know, turned up a little bit by their introduction into this, you know, elite schedule.
And then the second thing that was I think I believe the quote was venues matter, which I would assume that all three of us wholeheartedly agree venues matter. So I think one of the things that I looked at with this exercise, and maybe I went away, I'm going to go away from National Opens a little bit because of this, is how would I create something where I could get the very very best venues in golf? And what do the very best venues in golf have in common?
The answer is they don't want to host year in, year out. Outside of like Riviera, GPC, Sawgrass, like, there are very few venues that want to host the pros
all the time. Now, if you made this one of the beauties of this whole thing, if when you're talking about resetting the deck, in my opinion, if you make this elevated tour, this world elevated tour, and you say from the outset, we are going to visit the best golf courses in the world with the best player in the world, and it's global, and you kind of take the philosophy of we're not going there all the time. What I did was I created areas in which I
could rotate cities and venues within the city. So you're making an ask of Hey, Congressional let's just say in DC, we want to come here with eighty hundred players of the best players in the world, and we're going to come once every eight or nine years. That's our ask. Can you host us once every eight or nine years? Because that's what the US Open the PGA does so well, is that they aren't asking for every year. They aren't asking for once every three years. They're asking for, hey,
once a decade. And right now, there are so many golf courses in an American in particular, that have made huge changes in an attempt to get a US Open or a PGA Championship that cannot get one like they are.
They're the dates are gone. So you have this wonderful opportunity, particularly stateside, and you're not going you know, in my world, you're not going international enough that you're going to dry out of those venues, but you have this unbelievable opportunity to completely reshape, like out with TPC Minneapolis, in with you know, we're going to Aaron Hills, We're going to Whistling Straits, We're going to you know, the great courses
in Chicago. Like you have this opportunity to completely reshape the venues in which you visit. And that's what I think is so exciting if you just switch the mentality of how you approach these venues, and you can do it with this change.
I'm with you, Andy, I did the same thing.
Of the fourteen events we did, I think only picked four golf courses and otherwise they're just regions. And with that, I think it's really important to consider the flow. People can't be flying all over the place. And I think like for the way I did it, I basically have events kind of in stretches of three, so guys can play three events in a row and then have a.
Few weeks off. So I think we thought about it pretty similarly.
Yeah, I think I thought about it really differently from you guys, And to me, it sounds suspiciously like you are inventing events out of thin air. We are, I think I think that. I think that's the biggest problem. I think that's that's the biggest potential danger. Even if you're going to the best courses, even if you're going to see some great golf course architecture, I think you're going to have some issues if you're trying to create events, you know, uh, from from the ground up.
One other thing I wanted to hit on was why a world tour makes sense now. The pro game is younger than ever, so like one of the reasons that a world tour is hard for professional golfer is family time, right, Like, you're going to be try a lot. The game is younger than ever, so there's less family constraints than ever. Societally, people are having kids at older age than ever before, so that just works well with what you're trying to do. Second off, these are the elite players of the game.
Almost probably fifty percent of them will be flying private from event to event, which makes this type of tour much more feasible. There's much more less worries about international travel when you're flying private. So those are just two things that make this better. And then The other thing is that the world is getting more and more global in terms of companies, so you know where you're going to get funds, advertisers, different things. They are more interested
in global audience than ever before. So those are my couple cents on why World Tour makes more sense now than it did thirty too. All right, let's take a quick break and talk about our sponsor, the USGA, and in particular the USGA Green Section. The USGA Green Section has been helping golf facilities provide better playing conditions for over one hundred years. When you schedule a course consulting visit with a USGA agronomist, you'll get more than just
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to USGA dot org slash green section dash ccs. That's USGA dot org slash green section dash ccs. Thanks and now back to our podcast on the world tour.
Do you want me to dig off with where my schedule started?
Yeah? Why don't we go through that? I don't. I don't know if we maybe maybe we can each give like a basic overview of the schedule. Just quickly mention the events and get a sense for where we went. I can give you the framework of my scheduled.
People can nitpick maybe like actually that's not the best time to go to this particular region of the world, so open to that. And then television windows is always going to be something we haven't hit on. But what time is this on in America is always going to be a big talking point. I didn't focus that much on it, but I think I think my schedule kind of accomplishes what I wanted to accomplish.
Real quick with that that America is the biggest television audience for golf, right one, Europe's the biggest television audience. F one curtails when the races are for the European audience. Is that a far flung idea for golf? Could we see golf being played at night certain places to kurktail to an American audience.
As long as the shots that the golfers are hitting are not compromised, then I'd be in favor of that. But I think if you have if they're playing under the lights and it's issues with depth, perception and stuff to where it threatens the competitive integrity of the event, I'd be out on.
Some of that.
But also I have a little bit of a night golfer. He's a night golfer. Guy just plays his best golf under the lights.
I do have a little mentality of, like, you know what, suck it up and set an alarm and watch the event at two in the morning if you really love golf, like I understand that's not always practical, but we're not talking about having forty five events. So if you have to wake up a couple of nights a year in the middle of the night for a great event, like tennis fans might do for the Australian Open, right now, I think it's okay. So I'll go through the framework
of my schedule. It's in little pods, and then I don't think it'll take long to actually run through the entire thing. I'll just do it succinctly. So I start out with a three week stretch, open to changing the order of these a little bit, but this is in particular region of the world. A Middle East event, an event in India. I think that's a cool idea from Rory hit one of the most populous countries in the world,
and South Africa. So I'm envisioning this being a little three week stretch in January kind of kick off the world tour. Then I want to come over to the United States and hit the West Coast swing. Like Garrett was saying, the events that do things well, let's reward them. Let's continue that le legacy. I have TPC Scottsdale, which I think deserves an event. That's a golf course that's a good test of professional golf, and it has a culture to it, the party hole all about it. I
think it's a really cool event. So I go TPC Scottsdale, Riviera Pebble and I'd be open to throwing Tory into that rotation too. Not my favorite golf course, but historic venue, West Coast Swing. So we do a little three week stretch there, so you're up to sixth event, six events. Then we go This is the part that may make the least amount of sense, but I want to do
a little running to the Masters. I have an event in Japan in March, and I don't know how well you can play in Japan in March, so that's a question mark. And then I go Australia, give a week off and then the Masters. I think having a Royal Melbourne or some other kind of sand belt golf course into the Masters would be sweet. And maybe there are a better time to play in Australia, but I think April would be pretty good as a run in. Give people a week off to travel back to augusta.
Quickly.
I hit sagrass in May into the PGA Championship. So back in the US sawgrass should be played in May. It shouldn't be played in March. Let's get back to playing one of the best courses for professional golf in America at the right time of year, firm, windy, and then leading into the US Open, I do a little
America South America Northeast America swing. So I go South America, potentially Brazil into the American Northeast so could be Long Island, could be Boston, could be Congressional DC that area into the US Open. So that's another little three week stretch right there, and then I cap it off with a European swing.
I want to go something.
Like Spain, especially John Rahm's stature in the game, reward him with an event in his home country. Maybe you take a week off there and then you go Ireland Scotland Open Championship. Open to playing around with that a little bit, but I want to end with sort of a lynxy European swing, and I have the Open Championship ending the entire world tour. I think it actually be a pretty cool Maybe the season ends to Saint Andrews some years that. I think that flow to the season
makes a lot of sense. Everything's done between January and the end of July. In my schedule, they're broken up into pods. I think the travel kind of works, and I think you're playing most of these golf courses at the best time to play them. So that's how I thought about my world tour.
You know, the Midwest of the United States is crying, it's in tears.
It's your own fault for what you did to the Western Open.
You can that Northeast can move Canada.
Canada is the outraged once to once ajors are are are? I think, like my critiques hit way too much, way too much travel. It's way too much time away. There's no nothing in there that people are never going to be home and they're effectively playing golf out like on the road for seven straight months. It just to me it doesn't work.
You'll, I mean, I he there's how you do a world tour that that.
Doesn't twenty there's twenty eight weeks.
Yeah, right, the very definition of a world tour, Like.
There's twenty eight weeks in your You're you're on the road for eighteen of them, and you have heavy travel like, I don't think a world tour works unless you extend to like nine months.
I just don't.
I think that's I think that's asking a lot of golf fans to be engaged for nine months and you are competing with the NFL season if you do that. Also, like yeah, TPC Scottsdale to Riviera and a pebble, like they're all in the same regions of the This isn't I don't think it's a big ask in terms of this is a.
Professional This has spoken from somebody that clearly does not have a child.
I don't have a child, but I'm also these are professional athletes. They're twenty eight years old and they can travel. Like I'm just saying it's a complete game changer.
It's like, well, I feel like this is an argument against a world tour, right because else do you do it?
Well, I think here's here's how I would do it, all right here, all right, so I'd start with January. I'm in Australia in the Middle East, So that's my kind of like Australia has one. It rotates between Sydney and the Melbourne courses and other places, like there's so many great courses.
You could say, and this, by the way, is an invented tournament. This is live Australia.
You could say it's the Australian Open. You could say it's Australian Open if you want it, and you could have. You mean, there's eight eight courses, I mean Metropolitan, Kingston Heath, Royal, Melbourne, Royal, Adelaide, like, I mean, you could go through so many golf courses that could host these tournaments. All right, then you go to Dubai, Middle East. I mean, listen, let's be very realistic.
It's gonna be the Saudi International. Yeah, gonna be on the schedule. Yeah, the piff, if the Piff is bankrolling this, We're going to Saudi Arabia.
We're going to Jedda. We're going to Jedda, We're going to Royal Greens. That's just the reality of the situation. I'm not I like, am I happy about it?
No?
Maybe maybe we get a mix.
In Dubai and some other places in the Middle East and it's a rotation, like right, like may really the premise of of my whole schedule is there is no locked in place, there's no place that hosts every year and that is part of the lure is that you get to see places. There's time off places. I think there's real venue fatigue and that needs to be addressed. So that is the the that's January. Then we moved
to the back half of February. The back half of February is a simple two straight weeks and it rotates. We combined La San Diego and Phoenix together. They rotate between the three of them. It's Riviera, Tory and Scottsdale every three years. Listen, it pains me that I'm taking Riviera off the board every year, but I also think venue fatigue is real, and with it every three years, it's hosting some major championships coming up, it's hosting the
Olympics coming up. It actually heightens the venue. Then we go to San Francisco, Monterey, we go to Harding Park Olympic Club, which I'm sure would be happy to host this event every three years in Pebble Beach. That's our three course rotation. Maybe you could throw in some other things if you wanted to get like NAPA involved, you could go up to Silverado or something. But anyways, that is is our three event course. There we have an
event in the in Florida. You could call it the Players Championship, but it will rotate between courses, TPC Sawgrass being one of them. Now, contrary to what Joseph said, I mean one of the reasons they moved the players back to March was for better weather or not better better the course to play longer, right, and may. One of the things that you don't hit his drivers out there. That's one of the issues of the player of TPC Sawgrass is that you don't hit a lot of drivers anymore.
A lot of fairways like it. You know, you can't hit driver because a creek cross is the fairway and and it you know it. They've outgrown TPC Sawgrass in a way sadly.
Do you think it's better in March than May.
I don't think it's better from turf conditions, no, but like you do get like windiest time in Florida is March, so you get more wind and it fits in my schedule better to be completely frank, you know, that's one of the things. And you can go down to Jupiter. You could play an event down there. There are so many courses that are about to open, probably some of them that would be really good tournament hosts. Again, like one of the benefits that golf has is that it doesn't you know, the.
Box the people coming to an event.
It is not a meaningful impact on the finances of the tour, if that makes sense. So with that you can do you get with this tour. You could get a little bit more creative with venues. Infrastructure doesn't always have to be upfront. You could do smaller, smaller fields or smaller crowd sizes with that. So anyways, then I go before the Masters, my lead in is a Texas Swing, a Texas event. Texas rotates between Dallas, Austin and Houston. So this is the beginning of April. Huge, huge markets
and plenty of golf courses across those three cities. If you if you do that, you know there's probably like eight courses that could host between Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, and Houston area. Then we go to the Masters. Then we do Southeast. Southeast is Charlotte, Atlanta. If you wanted to throw Harbor Town in there, you could throw them in there, but I don't really care. Obviously, those two two places have venues that are ready and willing to host.
With Quail Hollow in the uh now renovated East Lake, so that that would be my after the Masters, We're still you know, we're very US heavy right now, right but Yeah, when I've heard.
Quail Hollow is surviving onto your World Tour, it's once every three I just want to believe this.
Listen, I got I got after after my Quail Hollow a racer on a recent podcast. I got multiple texts from from people that play on tour. Can't couldn't believe the Quail Hollow commentary.
Get I get Quill Hollow blowback every time, and I stand by it.
I think they're wrong.
I'm just putting it on. It's Charlotte's a great city to go to. What we're doing trying to do is create like markets, like I'm trying to reach the entire world, right, is what I'm trying to do with this. The next events the PGA, So there's one event in between the Masters and the PGA, which I feel like is is right, That's what you need to do with these majors. After the PGA, we're going to New York City, and I mean you've got like the greatest rotation of courses there
between Ridgewood beth Page and Plainfield. I mean the old Barclays got this right. I mean there's so many great golf courses that they could host on. You should always have an event in New York, always, always full stop. That is the mecca of golf in America. US Open. Then after this, you know what it is, It's summer break. This is when people with families can travel the world. And we're going to England for the BMW Championship. We're
going to keep that that tradition, that tournament alive. The PGA, PGA a historic event. I would rotate it. I'd go to different places. It wouldn't be just at Wentworth. I'd have other places in the in England in the mix. I think, if this is this world tour super successful, your your venue list is going to be great that you could go to. Whether it's Walton Heath, I mean I think you could. You could take that to Liverpool
if you want it. I think like you can start to eat into these these great venues and eat into the major championship stranglehold on these. Next I've got Scotland and Ireland. This is one year it's the Scottish Open, one year's the Irish Open. They alternate back and forth. You've got great courses. Obviously we aren't gonna be going to Mount Juliet in Ireland. We are going to be going to like La Hinch, Royal County down Port Rush, Port Rush, and then obviously in Scotland you can throw
Renaissance in there. I don't really care for it, but then you've got Glenn Eagles Gull and Castle Stewart, and I think again you could start to make inroads and maybe squeeze out some appearances at some Open championship venues. Then you have the Open after that. After that we go to Continental Europe. I'm not like the biggest fan of the golf courses that are probably gonna host in contineal Europe, but I am a big fan of going to Continental Europe. You've got Le Golf Nationale Marco Simone,
you could go to Valderrama. You know there are other great courses there. I'm just not really sure how you know. I would love if they went to the Netherlands and played one of those Harry Colt courses in the Netherlands, but that Continental Europe swing could be four countries right there. Then we're back to America, and we're going to do New England. This is going to be September New England
or late August New England. Philly and d C will get a rotating event, so it'll be Boston, Philly, d C, three awesome golf markets that need events.
Then we go to the Midwest. We play Chicago.
The Midwest rotation is Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Toledo, Columbus in Wisconsin. So this is like you're getting an event every six years or so in your market in the Midwest, but it is the Western Open. This is going to be a Midwest centric event. We could throw crooked stick in there. It'll get it'll get Joseph excited.
You know.
Then we got the Mountains Pacific Northwest at the end. This is kind of like September and it's it's kind of between Pacific Northwest Venues and Denver.
Is my is my idea here.
I'd be open to getting rid of it, and I know I'm over my events. But then we go to Japan and South I mean.
Like, if if he said fourteen events, you have.
Like six America, I have sixteen, sixteen events.
Oh, come on, Andy, Jesus.
Sixteen twenty events total for these guys.
I feel like this has been like thirty six events South Africa.
You're just I'm just going to a lot of places. I'm rotating the Japan, South Africa, and India all in a mix. Those rotate every three year, and then South America to finish, I could cut out Okay.
One event, you have one event in your entire schedule and in the in Asia, yes, yeah, okay, South I mean yeah, that's how you get a lot of events in America. I guess is by it still needs to.
Be American meetric because of the television. That's one of my Well, that's the thing is it's.
Not a world too. I feel like it's not a world tour.
That's fine, you can you can propose this. The point of this was not to have the same schedules.
Well, yeah, I think that that the PGA Tour is currently about as international as that schedule. You just na maybe except for the Middle East portion of it. Well, THEA has the Scottish Open, the Open. Uh, the PGA Tour goes to Japan right now. I mean, I guess Australia. Did we go to South Africa?
Yeah, it's in the it's in the Japan South Africa.
Oh, we included that in Asia. Yeah, so Africa and Asia are.
Look I think my two career Andy, why what I would push back on one. I think it's asking a lot for people to pay attention to, like any kind of standings or something from January through like October. I think it lands you sort of in the same spot the PGA Tour was in. When you have your golf golf year round, it doesn't actually feel like it's It just feels like this big nebulous there's always golf happening.
So that would be one thing I would push back on, and the other thing would be I think you lose flow when you do like a US Open could be in the Northeast America and then you go overseas for the Open Championship, and then you come back to America and go back to like New York Midwest. I think these need to feel like swings, and don't. I don't like leaving a particular region and then coming right back
to it. I think right now in golf, August already feels bland and like the season's over at the Open Championship, and I kind of think the schedule you're proposing perpetuates that feeling.
Uh, I'm just trying to trying to I'm just trying to make a global I'm trying to get to the best venues. I'm trying to give everybody a little splash. I don't want to exclude anybody. I'm trying to This is my way of including everybody, including the great great country of America, include you know, India. You know, give everybody a little splash. I you know, I I would love to see DLF in India every three years. I don't want to see it every year.
Yeah. I mean, I think where I'm coming down and hearing this discussion is that I don't really want a world tour. I don't think it's a good idea and I don't think it I just I just don't think there's a way to make it work that would be way better than what we currently have. And maybe that's just an American centric perspective, but I think a PGA tour schedule is obviously really flawed, and we need to get rid of the FedEx Cup playoffs. There's there's stuff
that we need to do. Maybe there's a new way that we're going to fund the biggest tour in the world right now, and it's going to involve the PIFF and some of these private equity guys that I'm supposed to be in off. But once we enter that money from those sources into this, they're going to start determining the schedule. I mean, I guess there's gonna be a motivation to make it globally popular, and that could have
a good influence. But we're going to Royal Greens, We're going to Saudi Arabia every year, like it's not going to happen. Maybe we're going twice a year. Maybe we're going to go play that that you know, freakish course that Robert Trent Jones Junior just built on Sindala Island. All the all the everybody's gonna stay in yachts and and play that course. I mean, that's the thing is that I don't I just don't see things getting better here.
Sorry to be really pessimistic about it, but I think that the elements of Andy's schedule that really appeal to me are the elements that are already in place on the PGA tour. Hold on In any case.
Hold on the PGA tour schedule is broken. We cannot.
I don't want I don't want to just sweep over though how bad the end of the PGA Tour schedule. This seasons feels over once we hit June. It's like the US Open and the Open Championship. Some people might get excited for some other events like the Scottish nothing else is exciting. The playoffs stink, The Tour Championship stinks. That has to get fixed. So I don't want to just like wave minds over.
It's over once you hit the Masters.
Yeah, once the Masters.
Has played, PGA Tour events do not matter because you enter the.
Majors because it's major season. Yeah. Well, they screwed themselves over by consolidating major season.
They did.
They actually like that two month break between the Masters and the US Open gave the PGA Tour relevance, and especially when they had the players in May, it was actually like really good for them.
Yeah yeah, And it's it's kind of funny that they shot themselves in the foot here, you know, because the PGA Tour really kind of exerted its influence to to make this major schedule as consolidated as it is, and as a result, that's me major season. It's not PGA Tour season. It's major season. The PGA Tour is herky jerky around that time. It doesn't matter.
I feel like we're landing in a place that's very similar to the existing PGA Tour schedule, and it is broken like that. That is the second half of the schedule stinks and that needs to get solved. So I don't I'm shocked at how similar to the existing product. Your sentiments both seem to be. Right now, mine, isn't it all?
You haven't even heard of mine yet. I haven't even gone into it.
Just the sentiment you're expressing, go ahead, yeah, well.
Then yeah, the sentiment I'm expressing is that this this, what we're imagining here probably won't work.
But you've got a real case of the Mondays here, Garrett.
I know, I really well, I just spent a week of snow days, So my apologies, but I might be in the wrong frame of mind for an optimistic take here. In any case, my you know, I will say this, whatever I came up with here on my little notes document is not yearly as well thought out as what you guys did. I've been talking smack about your guys'
schedules all along here, but I didn't do nearly as well. Basically, the extent of my research was to reach out to our friend Ben Coley, who follows the European Tour quite closely writes for Sporting Life dot com, and what I asked him was basically, what are the events currently on
the DP World Tour that really work? And basically his response was, well, if we're pushing to the side for a moment, the Scottish Open, the Irish Open, the BMWPGA and to an extent, the British Masters, because those feel like the four most significant events right now on the DP World Tour the things that really work. That the British Masters obviously is a little bit in limbo. He said, some events that work would be the Dutch Open, which has gone by various names. I think it might be
the KLM Open or something like that. At this point, the seat all my Continental ere Continental National Opens made in Denmark, and the suit All Open, by the way, for people who don't know, is that is basically the Belgian Open. And so these are the events that currently work, and so I feel like if we're going to construct a world tour, that the way to do it that would keep intact some of the traditions of these tournaments and incorporate tournaments that that truly work right now, where
we're just leveraging what we're doing well right now. Basically, we'd have significant elements of the current PGA Tour schedule and we'd have and sprinkle in the parts of the dp World Tour schedule that work quite well. So the basic structure that that I ended up coming up with is that, like you guys, I'm looking at the West Coast Swing and thinking, we've got to keep a significant amount of this in place because we can't just race the Phoenix Open. We can't just erase the LA Open.
We can't do that.
Right.
If we construct a world Tour, we have to include those events somehow. And so yeah, Phoenix Open, Genesis Invitational, then we start to get into TPC Sawgrass and Arnold Palmer Invitational territory. We keep those events intact. Then guess what it's major season And the first three majors are the Masters, the PGA Tour, the PGA Championship, and the
US Open. All of those are American majors, and so we're staying in the States at that point, and maybe for the World Tour we sprinkle in the Canadian Open and the Memorial between those majors. Then we're onto the European swing. Right. We're constructing a schedule around the Open, and we're trying to construct it out of current national opens. So I'm thinking Scottish Open, Irish Open, the British PGA, the BMWPGA and the Spanish Open. But the thing is
like to borrow Andy's rotating idea. Maybe some years you sub in the suit All Open for the Irish Open, or you sub in the Dutch Open for the Spanish Open. Right, you just get a couple of European national opens and sprinkle them in around the Open Championship. So that's the that's the European Swing, but again constructed out of pieces
of the current DP World Tour schedule that work. And then basically for the h for winter you know, I'm talking November December, and yeah, the year round schedule is a problem, but I'm not sure how you avoid it when you're talking about a world tour. I'm looking at the Zozo Championship that you know, it's a relatively new event, but I think we can agree that it's extremely well supported, and that if you keep doing it in Japan that people are going to come out and make it a thing,
especially as long as Hideki is on tour. You also have around that part of the schedule Australian Open, South African Open, and then you have your Middle East events, right Dubai Desert Classic. You probably need to have the Saudi International, but I didn't include that in my fantasy schedule because nobody fantasizes about going to the Saudi International as part of World Tour. So that's the basic structure
of the schedule that you know for me. An interesting question is whether a Korean championship would be really successful now. Ben Kley told me that the most recent effort by the DP World Tour to go to Korea didn't work out completely to plan. It wasn't as great as they
were hoping. But if you were to have your Tom Kims and your Seawou Kims and your song jms playing in that event instead of players who are less known, maybe it would really work right because that's obviously a country that is really into golf, maybe more women's golf than men's golf at this point, but who knows, Maybe that could be a big thing and a big piece
of this World Tour. But that's basically how I thought of the schedule, trying to just take the tournaments that have some identity about them, that are locally supported, and make the schedule out of those pieces.
I think one thing to always keep in mind is what does it look like the run up into a major? So it'd be helpful to see some stuff on paper. Well, if that's the way the schedule looks like, then in the run up to the PGA or in the run up to the US Open, which events are golfers playing in? Like, those are important questions, and I think they're essential to a good schedule and not just after thoughts. So yeah, I think that's an important thing to.
Consider, absolutely, And you thought that through better than I did, But I just think of it. You know, like, if you're saying that the Dutch Open is going to be part of the World Tour this year, move it two weeks before the Open or the week after the Open, right because you have the Scottish Open as an established
lead in tournament for the Open Championship. Okay, keep that and then maybe the week after the Open Championship we say Okay, let's stay in Europe one more week and let's go play the Dutch Open.
I think we got to avoid week after major events.
I don't know how you're gonna be two weeks after are you gonna are you gonna say are you gonna say, hey, Jupiter, guys, you got to stay in.
Issue.
That's why these events happened the week after. And this is, you know, is there's like travel, travel considerations, and you have to have travel considerations.
I mean, just thinking about this makes my head spin a little bit. And you know, one of the current realities right now is that a lot of the best golfers in the world are American and almost all of the best funded tournaments in the world are based in the United States, and that includes live live is maybe even even more proof that it's just hard to make a world tour schedule work because most of their tournaments are in America right now.
That's that's fair.
I mean, I think that's the reality that you know, you guys made fun of mine.
Everybody thinks theirs is the right way to do it. That's the beauty of this.
I don't I don't really think mine is the way to do it. Because I don't think there is a right answer here. The fact is this is just hard and I would like to see Rory and Keith Pelly get more specific about what they actually mean when they talk about a global tour.
Here's the real answer I think to the to solving this, and this is this is so crazy that I didn't even put it as as my solf. The PGA has to become an international major.
Oh I'm I'm I think I'm with you on that. I was going to.
Ask how the world. That's how you create the world tour, because then you can push your major, that major, the last major, into a different season, and then you create relevance through a longer period of time. The PGA being American centric really screws up, like how you create a season of golf. So if you could take that PGA and push it, let's just say to October, and maybe it's in Australia, maybe it's but when you push it back that far, then everything in between has more significance.
And that's how you go from January to October. That's the real solution. It's just you know, it took us a long time to get here. I'm sure a lot of people have probably been yelling this this whole podcast, But that is the solution. You know what.
I what the question that bubbles up for me every time somebody suggests that the PGA Championship go international is what happens to the PGA of America. Well, that's this a PGA of America because it's not the International League of PGAs that that runs the PGA Championship or whatever they're called. It is the PGA of America.
How about this? How about this?
They raised they raised let's just say they raised six billion dollars mm hmm.
The first thing they the the.
Oh the SSG private equity guys in the in the bonesaw.
First first order business. We purchased the PGA. We make it ours, We own the Ryder Cup and the PGA. We can rebrand the PGA to whatever we want and it can become this, you know, maybe Saudi Arabia gets a major.
That's that's that's the.
I mean, that's where this is leading, right because what what's really going to determine the structure and the character of a world tour schedule is where the money is coming from and what they want.
But if you if that PGA became a world major. That's how you open up the schedule too, and it makes it cohesively, makes more sense, and you can have a longer schedule that fits. Yeah, the premise of off season golf is so big on off season off season offseason. If you play in the NBA Finals, you go from
June and then camp reports in October. So there's what that's three months off if you're if you're in the you know, Major League Baseball, and you play into October and then catchers and pitchers report, I mean they played o November in the World Series, catchers and pitchers report in February, right, So you know, like that's not a long off season off The idea of like a five month off season is completely not feasible. No, but none of these guys, and golf is not a sport where
you take five months off. You know, like reps matter, being sharp matters, and you will be at a disadvantage to players that played once a month for the five months leading leading into the next you know week and these So I think the idea of like a big long offseason is a complete farce. I think like what these guys want is is like October mid October till January tenth.
That's what they want.
Three months feels like an appropriate offseason, enough that you people long for golf again and enough that players get some rest without getting rusty. So I'm with three months. That seems reasonable.
All right.
I think we've batted this around enough. If you've got comments, let us know, you know, if you want to build your own schedule, let us know. Maybe we'll start a weekend chat, or we'll start a little discussion post on on club TFE about this if your member. But anyways, thank you Joseph, thank you Garrett, and be back later this week with another episode.
All right, thank you, thank guys.
Today's episode was edited by Matt Rusis. Thank you Matt. As I alluded to there at the end, this is a.
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