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 fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Friday Frida Egg brid Egg, fridagg.
Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today we are going to break down the President's Cup. We are going to talk about that for a little bit, but then we're going to talk about match play and professional golf. And I am joined by the steamed Shane Bacon. Shane's the host of the Getta Grip podcast. It's a Friday eg golf podcast that you can hear. He just completed a
season with Andrew Putnam. Sounds like we've got another season in the works. I'm pretty excited about that, as well as the Proving Grounds Podcast, a ping podcast, and you can hear him doing his announcing for the Corn Ferry Finals this weekend. So big thanks to Shane for joining us to talk about the President's Cup, which of course was won by the Americans. I talk about the state of that and maybe more ways to get match play and team match play in pro golf, which I think
is a necessity after this weekend. Before we get to Shane, let's talk about our sponsor, really our partner, good Walk Coffee. We partner with Goodwalk Coffee, which launched in twenty nineteen to bring freshly roasted, specially grade coffee to those of us who liked to play golf and coffee. That's me. It fits me perfectly anyways. So I was super excited when Chris from Goodwalk wanted to see if we wanted
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the coffee. It's really good. Let's get to Shane, mister Bacon, how would you grade the President's Cup This year?
I found myself watching so andy. I gotta admit one thing I always forget, Thursday exists on the President's Cup. Like, woke up Thursday morning and you go, oh, team golf, this is kind of exciting. So I watched a decent amount Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I watched almost none of it on Sunday because obviously I knew what was going to happen, and I knew the USA was gonna win, plus football was on and it started at noon, I would say I'd give it a I'd give it a CNUS is
pretty much. I don't think there's any way I'll ever give the President's Cup higher than a C in its current iteration and current format. I mean, I think it's an event that you and I both run businesses. We've run our own business for a while. If we never adapted or changed when things called for that, we, in theory, would as people to do this for a living go
out of business. And the fact that this event exists and never evolves and changes is I'll say this like, you get older and you get more frustrated by stuff. PJ had to understand this. But as you age, the stuff that annoys you turns to anger and by you know, by Saturday afternoon and you see the matches flip and inevitable ability happens because the Americans are better. I just find myself getting frustrated by this event because I do think this event could be awesome, and so for me
it's it's low c's. You know, no matter how exciting the moments were in the middle of the matches.
I think I give it like a bus And I say that because in terms of PGA Tour owned and run golf tournaments, I think it's about as compelling as they have. Like I reserve the a's for the majors for the most part, and then some other events like Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup, the women's majors are are to me more compelling. But in terms of you know, run to the mill, PGA Tour event or President's Cup, I
do think it's like way better. I have to say, I don't think I like ever loved the format, but I do like the format more and more every time we have President's Cup. I love the one session Thursday and Friday. I think it's just like a really nice amount of golf. It's like, okay here, and I think, like I do think this is one thing that Live has done well, is like here's your five hour commitment, and for the foursomes, it's like a three and a
half four hour commitment. Which is even better, is like hey, there's a definitive start and stop time to this versus most golf tournaments they just like go forever, you know. So I do really like that element of the President's Cup. But I came away from the weekend I watched a way too, way too much President's Cup. I found myself locked in, And I think a lot of it was because team match play and just match play in general is so vastly superior in terms of a television product
to seventy two holes of individual stroke play. And there's so many reasons why. And it even goes down to like the mentality of players, Like when you're playing seventy two holes the stroke play, your sole focus really is avoiding mistakes and running into birdies. Like that's like your strategy, and that's every the strategy that everybody is employing. In match play, you see aggression, aggressions, rewarded, aggressions penalized. If you're up big, you could start to play conservative and
the other players starts to play aggressive. You see different styles, you see there's interpersonal battles between the players. It is just a better format for golf. It breeds more storylines, it breeds more action, it leads to more heroic shots. And I think the thing that I came away from this week with was God, Like, how come we only get team match play or match play in general on the women's side, and professional golf we get the match play tournament and the Solheim Cup every two years.
On the men's side, I mean the answers TV right. I mean the fact that that we are so scared of what was that first match play mcaren in Sutherland? Was that the first one they had? I mean, the fear of this has taken away everything you just said about a format that everybody plays. Every golfer plays match play almost exclusively when they play money games against their buddies. Every you know, club championship for the most part across
the country ends in match play. I mean stroke playing and match play is the best way to do it. In my opinion, I think everything you said is spot on about match play. It makes people dislike other people in a sport, which is unique. Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim, who are friends, are going at each other. That doesn't happen in stroke play golf at all, because it doesn't matter. Yes, I mean, this is this is what's so fun. I mean,
who is it? Was it Sam Burns and said after Friday I wanted to put a helmet on and take my shirt off. I mean, this is never gonna happen in stroke play. And you know, you set it off the bat about the PGA Tour entities, if you will, two of their biggest entities is one event that won't change that has match play, and that's the President's Cup. I mean, this is like the Patriots bills, you know, during the Brady era, right where it's like, it's not rivalry, man,
This is like Yankees Red Sox before four. Not a rivalry. You can say it's a rivalry all you want, it's not. I mean, one team is going to beat the other team every single time they roll out. And then the PJ Tour owns this other entity that is extremely uninteresting in the FedEx Cup finale, the Tour Championship, but could be one of the best events in golf if you
weren't so scared of match plays. So it's so interesting that you have literally on each side of these arguments, you have a format that tends to lend itself to uninteresting results, and that's what we see with the staggered start of the Tour Championship. And then you have this one event that has a whole bunch of match play. But we haven't evolved in terms of the way the
event is put on. So so the fact that seven through twelve on the international side is always going to be the massive underdog to seven and twelve on the American side lends itself to blowouts that we see almost every year at the President's Cup. And even when it's interesting, it's really not because you know, when singles roles around, the Americans are going to inevitably win.
Yeah. I think I think like at its core, the issue with the President's Cup is that the competition is inherently flawed. And I do think like I think we're seeing it with with global basketball, Like if you played the USA versus the world twenty years ago in terms of basketball, the USA would have killed the world.
They did. I think, yeah, they did. I think who everybody out by forty?
Yeah. I think now if you put a World All Stars team against the American All Stars team, they might win. They might be the favorite, yep. And I think like this is the thing, like golf is becoming more of a global game, but when if you don't have Europe, like that's like they have the best players other than the USA. And I think like Australia has had a lot of great players, but they're modern great players playing
on live and not unavailable at MPGA Tour event. You know, I think the Americans are missing a couple of players that would be really good on their side because of live. So it kind of evens out in that sense. But in terms of like one of the biggest issues, the biggest issue of the event is that the talent is very, very lopsided. The American team is just better. I don't
really know how you address it. The event is still interesting because it's a team matchplay event, Like, it's still interesting. The talent disparity is tough and it's going to make the event overall limited because of that. But I think, like, I don't know how you walk away from what happened on Friday and Saturday and say, like, all right, we'll have match play on the PGA Tour in two years.
This is like the best some of the best viewing in the last since yeah, the Open, I mean since the Solheim Cup. I mean the Solime Cup, of course, is also a match play event. But you know it's you dig in Andy. I had one of the bigger NFL broadcasters in the sport text me Sunday morning and say should I be interested in the President's Cup today? And you know, it's hard to sell Sunday because again, and I've said this on Twitter, I think I wrote
it back in twenty twenty one. I think the singles finishing these events is the least interesting part of President's Cups and Ryder Cups. Now, Ryder Cup is obviously more interesting because the talent level is a little bit more equal, and typically Sunday singles, you know, kind of figure out who wins if it's not an enormous blowout, but when it's a big lead, there's just no chance the internationals
are ever going to come back in Sunday singles. I wish they'd roll out Sunday singles maybe on Friday or split it up.
Like what is the issue then? Is like what if they're down eight points going in?
But could you make Sunday Saturday? Andy? Could you go five to five on Sunday? So you do? Or even four? Four? You do? You know?
Four?
I mean, I really dislike four ball in this format. I just don't think best ball is that interesting, but I think ending an all shot would be extremely interesting. So maybe, but you you.
Basically just so what if you just got rid of golf.
I mean, I think getting rid of singles would be like you and I've thrown around a million ideas about how to change the President's Cup. I mean, I mean, I think the most popular one is obviously go in six male, six female players, and I think that would make it one of the great sporting events in the world,
not just one of the great golf events. I was talking to my wife about this this weekend, who is not a golfer, not a golf fan, and I said, there's not really an event that exists like this where you could throw men and women on the same team and have them play and have my rule would be no restrictions, like you could have two men like two women, one man one woman versus two men or two women
or whatever the case may be. Right, if you make the teas the correct distance, which they would do, it's golf, right at the end of the day, and you go out there and play. That's been a popular one. It doesn't seem like it's gonna happen anytime soon, right.
But definitely not. I think like I like buy and I think we'll get into this. Like my big takeaway, we need more matchplay events and I think we me and you both came up with some ideas for matchplay events. To me, that's just like a new event, right, Like I see everybody saying, oh, this event needs to happen, Like okay, yeah it could. It should happen, and somebody should make it the next billion dollar golf property. Like the PGA Tour desperately wants to buy the right. This
is like the other thing that blows my mind. The PGA Tour desperately wants to buy the Ryder Cup, which is a team matchplay event, but they want nothing to do with match play anywhere else, Like.
Well, because but they want to buy they about the shiny object, you know that. I mean, it's because it's because it's so good and it's so popular, and it's been so competitive and it's so interesting and it's a lot of golfers either one or two in terms of their favorite events. I don't think they care about the format because of its popularity.
Yeah, but this is what they're missing, Like, let's look at why it's so popular and how can we like we're the PGA Tour, how can we make more of those? Like that's what what boggles me my mind. Is like like this is just it's just so evidently clear what fans want. Like even the match which is I mean you've been a part of the broadcast, Like that's a hard thing to put on live TV. There's two people or four people on a golf course for like six hours. Yeah,
and you have so much airtime to fill. But the ratings are huge. They're massive because it's match play. It's easy to understand it's one person versus the other. It's it's not like, well, this guy's through twelve, he's got a couple easy holes. Like it's really easy to follow. It's it's easy to understand when you talk to somebody about like what's going on. Is this person is playing this person?
You can explain the rules in like a minute, right versus stroke player. God forbid trying to explain the Tour Championship to somebody. But you know, like even on YouTube golf Andy, which is obviously blown up as of late, Like if Bob does Sports has a video and it's stroke play, I'm not gonna watch it most of the time. But if it's a match play YouTube golf video, I
will dive in. Because again, the ruling monoemano to two versus two, whatever the case may be, it is so much more interesting to watch in terms of the viewership. And but you know, the one thing I pushed back on the idea, and again, I think we've hammered this male female President's Cup thing for long enough and obviously
it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna change. And I was listening to the No Lane Up Live show last night, Cody said he's talked to people the LPGA and that's every minute conversation about it, which is wild to hear.
But the problem with introducing a new team event is for these American players, now that's three, you know, and for Scottie and Colin and Max and these players that are on these teams every single year, you are going to exhaust them in terms of not just their ability to play well, but just how committed they are to
the interest. Like I promise you, the Ryder Cup was a big conversation this week in the American team room, right even though it was a President's Cup, like it was on the broadcast with mcinley, He's talking a lot about the Ryder Cup because that's the experience he's had
now you introduce something new. So I guess the reason I feel like this is the best place to sneak in in terms of a team matchplay event for the LPGAPGA Tour crossover is because it replaces something that needs to be replaced and it still keeps interest on both sides potentially, and it makes the international team stronger. But we've hammered all that home, like that's been something we've talked about online for forever, and I'd love to have a new team event where that would be the case.
But again, now you've got to ask these American players to now play a third event, which is a hard sell to a lot of these players, Like they I don't know if they'd want to do that if they're not, sadly, unfortunately, if they're not getting paid for it.
I will say, this is the time for this conversation to be happening while the tour is seemingly a little bit in flux and they are looking at how they're going to restructure.
For sure.
I also, like, you know, I think a lot of people are like, why why do these guys need to get paid?
What?
You know, I have some sympathy, like if I asked you, Shane to go do like a talk somewhere across the country, and I said, you know what, it's not paid, like but you know, go do their buddy, so do it. And you're like, well, yeah, that's my job. Yeah exactly. So like to me, like these events can be paid.
There's lots like, let's not be naive. The reason that that there has never been a conversation with the LPGA about a split with the President's Cup is because they don't want to share the money that they make, you know, the which runs a bomber.
That's so stupid, like like spread the wealth, man. I mean, think about what Scotty just won this year. Now I know it was an outlier season, but you know, like this is the sport. You if you want to preach, grow the game. If you want to preach let's elevate the sport across all platforms, then let's truly elevate the sport across all platforms.
So well, my other point here, the tour doesn't want to split it with the LPGA, but the President's Cup makes enough money where they could pay the players a nominal fee to show up that it's not a waste of time, Like the.
All Star weekend? Does that right, Andy, don't they don't? They pay if you man, you may and then like you, you progress through the playoffs and you get bonuses. Now granted, like making the NFL playoffs is what all the players want to do, but every step of the way, you're getting more money. I mean, this makes sense. It's your job to your point on the on the whole speaking analogy.
And and I think like the the thing is, like you could build in more team events into the calendar. I wanted to talk to you. I think, like getting to the core of what makes match play so such a great format is like you've played a lot of amateur match play. I used to a long time ago. Maybe we'll be playing in the spring. We will play, Yeah, will be. But like I think, like the core of why match play really works centers around like just the experience and the mentality of the player in a match.
Like winning a hole in a match is a consequent Like it's a consequential feat Like you have to work hard, and I like, I mean, like I don't know about you, but like there are times you're playing mono imano match play at a high level match I'm on a green, I'm twenty five feet away, the player I'm playing is definitely gonna make a bogie, and I still feel like a lot of anxiety for sure. For sure, like you
need to, like it's hard to win holes. It is like a grind to win holes if they all feel like these small victories way more so than just like making a routine par in stroke play, where like stroke play, you're just kind of like you've got Like I feel like the way stroke play works a little bit is you have this anxiety early, you get into a rhythm and you have a couple moments of bother but for the most part, you're just kind of you kind of just cruise along and then you finish your round and
you might have a little bit of anxiety at the end of the round trying to just get the get a good round done, get it finished, a good round, or salvage something that's a little off. Meanwhile, when you're playing a match, it is like it's just mentally exhausting, Like you you just feel this anxiety, that anxiety you usually reserved for like the start of the round. For me personally, you feel that like throughout the round and.
It for I would say this too. I think something that I find so cool about match play versus strokeplay is in match play, your opponent forces you to make decisions versus you and making decision yourself. You know, somebody stuffs one like yesterday, what was it? Was it? Sam Burns and Tom Kim on seventeen. It's like, hey, it's
a tuck flag. You're playing stroke play. You're and especially these professional golfers that are so good at hitting their marks, it's like, twelve feet left, I'm not gonna take this flag on. I can make a twelve foot or whatever. Right, your opponent hits it three feet everything changes. Everything you're doing changes. If you're on a short part four that you can drive and your opponent goes first and hits it on the green, there's no laying up and what
you're gonna do. You've got to now take that green on, even if you don't love the golf shot. That is not the case of in stroke play. I mean you go back to the Zach Johnson Masters Win right, Zach Johnson sticking to a game plan of never taken on
those par fives in two. If it was a match play situation there and you're playing Bubba Watson and you're Zach Johnson, You're inevitably gonna have to take on thirteen and fifteen with a wood or a long iron because he's gonna be up there close and being able to go for the green and two. It's just to your point about every hole mattering. Every hole forces the decision
either for you to play smart. Oh man, this guy hitting the water right now, I'm gonna you know, now I can play this thing easy, you know, or this guy just stuffed it to five feet par does nothing for me. Here par's a loser. I might as well make triple, you know.
And and here's the thing is, like there are just the monumental reversals too, where somebody hits in the water and then they hit a miraculous nets yes, and they can flip the hole. Like there's just like there's so much more entertainment value throughout the proper product. And I understand, like, let's talk about the pitfalls of it, right, Why does this not happen? It can be flukier, Like what don't
people like about match play? Match play can be a little bit of a flukeier outcome, Like there can be more upsets because you know it's just eighteen holes. You know, over seventy two, it's way more likely that the best players end up on top, you know, over an eighteen hole match where high scores aren't really penalized, where they're kind of thrown out, you just lose one hole, you can have a little bit flukier results.
Yeah.
The other big issue is always going to center around that final day telecast where you have just a eighteen hole final or thirty six hole final with potentially two players. You see it in the US AM and it's just like there's a lot of dead time, Like what do you do as a broadcaster? I imagine that's hard.
Yeah, I mean, like so I always equate match play, especially when I was doing the USA AM, Ary Andy, and I think you'll appreciate this comp To me, the comp is March Madness. Okay, because if you're a March Madness fan, which I'm assuming most sports fans are, right, I mean a lot of people would probably rank that first weekend is one of their top three favorite weekends
in all of sports. Match play is March Madness. Where I think we get and all the stuff you laid out is totally accurate Andy in terms of the stuff that's fearful about what match play presents, in terms of a TV product or something to sell product or all those things. Everything you said is right on. And if you're an executive at a network and you're looking at match play, you go Everything Andy said is spot on, and I agree with it. I think something I don't
understand is March madness. I guarantee you ratings numbers, whatever the case may be, are much higher collectively on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday of that first weekend than they are when you get to the championship game because a lot of fans brackets busted. They don't care who the teams are in the final matchup. They have got of got burned out by watching a ton of basketball over two weeks. That's that, it's on Monday night, Masters week, all those things right.
I don't get why golf doesn't look at match play the way a CBS and TNT or the NCAA looks at March Madness and says, while the final match can be a bit of a bummer at times, it might be great. You might have every now and again. Get John Ron versus Rory or John Ron versus s finish up epic dul awesome, right, Like, that's the dream situation. But a lot of the time you're not going to
get that, especially in golf. But I don't understand why we don't look at a Wednesday, Thursday Friday of the Dell match play from back of the day and say, maybe Sunday is not going to be as interesting, but these first three days are going to be way better golf, way more interesting, way easier to sell than a Thursday
Friday of a stroke play golf tournament. I think if we flip the mentality of the way we look at match play and say the money we make is on the front end at the back end, I think then people might open their eyes to the success of this. To your point on doing the match the US Amateur back in the day, those first two or three days most fun golf broadcast end of the year. Now you kind of inch closer to the last four matches than then the final two. In the championship match, it can
be a bummer. I mean, I remember Curtis Luck and Dalky and Luck was up a ton after the first eighteen holes, and you go to lunch and you have to figure out ways to fill that's on the broadcast team and the research team to get enough information and find interviews with people to where when they're walking between shots you can relay information to the viewer that might
keep them around for a little bit. But I don't get why Sunday scares everybody away from match play when Wednesday of Dell, back of the day when it was single elimination, in my opinion, was one of the great days in golf. Sixty four are the best golfers of the world. They're facing off, they're playing, there's gonna be upsets,
guys are gonna go extra holes. You get that weird thing on the first t where some guys are going to the nineteenth hole and some guys are starting their matches and they were kind of like shuffling in between it. I always found that so compelling, and just because it's on a Wednesday, it seemed like it was really, really say scary for everybody.
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with what you're saying, and I think like we're going to get into solutions. But like one of the things, if it's an individual match play or like say it's a two person team, that gets to a final, especially when we're talking about these products that are television products. There's no reason why you can't financially incentivize a third place match, a fifth place match, and a seventh place match so that you have more
than two groups on the golf course. Also, when you do that, you're raising the potential to have stars playing all the way to Sunday. So there's no reason why you can't have both if you just are a little bit more unique and an original in the way you're thinking about formatting the tournament, Like that's the thing that kills me to tie a bo. I didn't want to talk like do a huge President's Cup recap? Is there any player I wanted to talk more about, like ideas
for mash play tournaments in pro golf. Is there a player or a couple players that you leave this President's Cup thinking differently about?
I don't think so. I don't think there's anybody that changed my mind either way. I mean I liked what I saw to Seewoo Kim. I mean I liked the way he made putts and rolled it and chipped in and was like excitable on the golf course. But this event doesn't change my mentality on anything, it's just inevitable.
You look at these teams, you know, when that thing switch flipped on Saturday night and you're looking at the score on Sunday, and then you get people comping, you know, twenty twelve and nineteen ninety nine and all those things.
Ian Pulter's out walking through that door.
Andy after the Rose, I pulled this up. Okay, so ninety nine right the flip flip it in Boston. The American team world ranking one, two, four, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen outside of the two captains picks, so they have what what is that is that ten of the top sixteen players in the world, including one two four. I mean, that's crazy. Twenty twelve international team, Like, this team was
absolutely stacked. Rory, Justin Rose, McDowell, Molinari, Loke, Donald Lee Westwood, Sergio Martin Kaimer Cole starts like, that's not what this international team is. Unfortunately, and there lies the biggest issue with this particular event is this, they just can't beat that team on the American side, unless unless the Americans just like played with half their set or something. The game's over.
I saw this I think it was a justin ray stat where only one time in the last sum it was something like sixty six individual matches, and I think that now at this point is up to you know, eighty probably right, right, So one time, one time in the last eighty matches, once once has an in the international side had the OWGR advantage, like where their player or group of players are ranked higher than the Americans.
I mean, it's mind boggling. That's like to put it in context, and I like, I know, cross sport references don't work all the time. That'd be like a football team saying, over the course of the last you know, eight years, we play this team every year, and one time we've had a player that plays a position that's better than the other team's positional player, right like once once, one time at a single position, a single match.
Yeah, I mean it's just again, I mean, they.
Played twelve individual matches yes yesterday, and none of them like you know, and this is like the problem is like the Americans, It's like, okay, we're gonna put the internationals. I think had the first pick they put out Jason Day. They're gonna put out one of their star star players it's like, oh, we'll put Xander out.
Yeah, we'll put the guy that's the best player in the whole in the whole thing, like you you want that guy to play our cool Well, have Xander cum stomp you. And also and.
Then and then just like it's like, Okay, we're gonna put out our highest ranked player hit Deecki. He's seventh in the world. Oh, we'll put Scottie up against that. Yeah, like we'll just put the best player on the planet against him. Like they have, they have no answers. I will say, I want to be I think Xander and can't Le continue to just ascend in terms of their their stature on the American team, and they play the
American team player every single year. And I think those are the the clear Like I would lump Scheffler and Moricawa, but those four are the clear leaders of this team. It's no longer speak and JT correct it is that that is the the leadership of the American team. And I have to say, I mean they are. I think there is is stout and they've got as good of a record as any time any leadership that the the
Americans have ever had. I mean Xander and can't Ley are are terrifying just their their demeanors are like I would hate to play against them. They don't give you. They play. They're great players, that are all around great players. They're great at every facet of the game. And then their demeanors are like they don't give you anything.
No, not at all. I think Xander's going to go down in his career as the best American matchplay player of all time. That's what I think. I think when it's all said and done, he's going to be the we look at as the Monty or whatever you want to say. On the European side, I think Xander has a real chance to be that. Let's say, if he plays in three more Ryder Cups, in three or four more of these things. Last thing, on the Press Cup, Andy, we talked about seventy two hole stroke play cream rises
at the top. One thing and I mentioned this off the top about the President's Cup, the elongated version of this starting Thursday in and on Saturday at Sunday. It being that many matches and that many points only plays into the Americans hands. If you wanted to give the internationals a chance with like this version of their team, which this today team two days would be the only chance,
literally the only chance they'd have. Like you play, everybody plays all shot but it's like four days, four days and all these matches thirty points or whatever. It's like, of course, I mean, the Americans are never losing this.
You know.
I was listening to I was I told you I missed listened to No Laying Up Live show last night, and I don't I think it was and he might have brought up what I thought was one of the great points about the President's Cup. He said, if you rolled out the next twelve American players, not the twelfth, and made the team I.
Talked on the shotgun started, maybe it was maybe it was maybe it was maybe it was you.
Then yeah, maybe it was you that did it. If you roll out the.
Next good about both of us. You know, if you roll out.
The next twelve, would they have still won? And it's like, yes, they would, America would still win. You know, It's like I'm not, I would They might have be even money.
I think I think that would be a really even matchup. I don't want like I was doing. I looked into this and like Austin Ekrot would be like the twelfth, the twenty fourth American. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like fifty three I think in the owgr Mackenzie Hughes is sixty one in the OWGRY. So it's like pretty pretty equal. I think that.
Andy, you said by the way, you said, you said the thing about Hideki, Like here's Adki and they're like, all right, we'll play it with Scotti against him. It reminds me of the Tony kukoach team, like Croatia team, Like, man, we got this stud young guy playing. They're like, all right, so we will have Pippitt and Jordan Gardam And You're like, oh, okay, that's scary.
You know. It's uh yeah, it's it's just hard. It's just and I don't I like, I don't think the President's Cup necessarily should go away. I just I just maybe a couple of format tweaks, but I think in general it's a good It should just be one of many matchplay events. And let's talk a little bit about some ideas that you might have.
Well, Okay, so I was thinking last night about like, why do these events feel bigger or more important to the player? Andy, I think you and Brennan have talked a lot about this with the Zurich, with the team event in New Orleans, where it feels like the players are having a lot of fun, but watching, nobody watching
is having that much fun, you know, yea. And you see like some of these posts for Max about these team events, and you know, it's like the biggest week of his year and he has the most fun and he's so fired up and he enjoys it, and everybody's out there watching, Like you can tell, the team rooms have an amazing time being involved in these events. I think a lot of that is because of country, right, A lot of that is because you're representing your country.
And I think about tennis a lot in this world, like the Labor Cup and the Davis Cup and things like that, which are team events and it's all centered around areas of the world or your country. So I think if you want to roll out a new matchplay event, I think it has to be country or territory involved, right, So you qualify for the team, maybe there's four Americans, you know, four players qualify, or maybe it's two. I mean, maybe two makes the most sense because then you get
more countries involved. But you qualify for maybe a two year run and you have two or three of these like events where you play kind of like what we're seeing with some of these made for TV events. It's like you play on the back end of some of these tournaments on the PGA Tour, like a Tuesday in LA you play acc or something. But I think money is important to just compensate people for what they're doing.
But if you want to get the players really invested involved, I think the way you've got to start is a concept that centers around representing your country, and I think that's something Lives tried to do with their teams. They've tried to make them a little bit of territorial with like who's playing on what crew. I think that's big
for team chemistry and camaraderie and all those things. But I'd say if I was going to start with the professional match play of them, I think the way to do it is a you got to make a team's match play individually. I wish there was more events that existed, but I get why they don't. It's kind of the things we've laid out already. I think you've got to start with these team events are going to have countries play against countries.
I like, I think that's a good idea. I like the slow burn of it, like over the course of a season. I think that's kind of like a cool, unique event and you're only asking for like a day of a time, a day at a time of these players, and especially with the way the world of golf is going, it's becoming like all the best players play the same on the same tour for the most part, outside of like live players, I'm not, but like they're all in in.
They all play the same tour, and it's becoming more and more they all play the same events, so it becomes logistically easier to pull off, and like how cool would it be. It's like, hey, it's Tuesday of riv week and I'm not saying I'm not saying that LACC would do this, but or bel Air would do this, but it's like, yeah, like the tournament starts on Thursday, but Tuesday, we've got Roy Backleroy and Tom mckibbon playing, you know, representing Northern Ireland playing, Uh.
You know Scott and I mean, let's just you know, just say it. I mean, you know, these these are the Americans. Scotty and Colin are you know.
And they're gonna they're playing alternate they're playing an alternate shot match. Yeah, and it's part of this season. It would be like, oh, like cool, and maybe there's four groups of teams.
Yeah, maybe four matches going, I think is the perfect number. It's perfect TV number.
Yeah. I've always believed that four matches is what TV like. Yesterday you saw it with the singles. They can't follow all the matches. Twelve matches is just way too many. They can't do it. It's like four matches is the ideal perfect amount. Here's an idea I have, Uh, there used to be a World Cup of Golf similar you're representing your country, but like, why don't we have a World Cup match play event two man teams or two person teams? You could have a mixed World Cup as.
Well, player on both sides of the Yeah.
And so I had that, Like you may you alternate every other year again. You make it paid, you build it into the schedule, you make it an honor. You go, you go represent your country, and it is the World
Cup match play. It's two person and it's like there's two qualifying rounds and then it cuts to you know, sixteen teams or something or eight teams whatever the right number is, and then you have alternate shot match play the rest of the way in and you have like the World Cup of Golf like so sick, yeah.
The mixed event on that side, Andy so smart. It's like, so Scotty and Nelly would be a team. How fun would that be to watch? You get? What like Tom Kim and Jin Young Co. I mean, like I mean.
Lydia Lydia Co and Ryan Fox from New Zealand would be fun. You know in England you'd have Charlie Hull and uh, who's the best English player right now? Hatton maybe yeah?
Or Fitzpatrick or something Pat Yeah.
Like there there are just like fun teams everywhere and maybe and you know.
What else too, I do wonder like we move a lot of events around, like and I think it's important to move events around, a lot of the majors move around, obviously outside of the Masters and the Chevron On the LPG side, if you had this hammered home at an awesome golf course like the Old Course or something where like it, like kind of like the Dunhill where every year or every other year, whatever the case may be, it's being played at, let's say, one of the top
cathedrals of golf. I mean even if it's if it's Stateside and you're playing, you know, I mean, if you're playing at Pine Valley, or you're playing at Cyprus Point or something where the golf course is as much of a star as the players involved in it and never deviates.
You know.
One thing I'm so a bit burned out by is I understand that selling corporate things is extremely important to making money by whoever's putting the event on. But I think we could play more awesome golf courses if we got more creative with the way we sold things and maybe didn't put grandstands in big corporate things up everywhere. I think some of the bigger golf courses would be more interested in something like that anyway, like making it walking only for fans or whatever the case may be.
Kind of like you know, like I guess when I did that first match with Tiger and Phils, like everybody out there was just walking with the match, you know, they were just following along and enjoying it. I think you you could put that on a golf course that was as much of a star as Scottie Scheffler and I think again. You think about that Presidents Cup at Rull Melbourne. The event was great, but the golf course was fun to watch because that was a p that's a perfect match play golf course.
You know. Well, everybody likes to say that the golf course doesn't matter what when you play match play, like it becomes non important. It's like, well, no, it's still important.
It can matter if it rocks, it.
Just makes the event better.
Right, That's right.
I mean you know, like like it doesn't make it worse.
Yeah, Like I like, I can enjoy an NBA Finals if they play in the Sun's Arena, but it's probably gonna be better if it's in the garden or you know, or something like that.
It's like, yeah, it's got imagine that there's actual built features that complicate where you might hit it. Like I mean I thought this this week. For example at Robot all Is, it was just best driver up there and get a wedge in your hand, hit it at the green and they got a lot of raid, and like
that was you know, you can't control that. But at the same time, there's nothing at the golf course that would make you think about playing any differently than that, other than just pull out driver, hit it far and go find it and hit and watch it up on the green as much as you can. I think, like yeah, like the the golf course is badder, and I think the more like when you talk about a world match, play like think about the places you could go with this.
You could play Japan, you could play in Australia, you could play in you could play in South America. You know, like it it would be great to go back to the Olympic course at some point when you know, maybe they're they're you know, the country is in a little bit better place than it's in right now. You could play in in you know, Scotland, Ireland, England, like at
really great places. Like maybe you build again, like we have this like belief of we have to do the things this box, like maybe build the business model of the of the event that has less of an on ground present and it's more of a digital present. Knowing like we're going to have huge ratings, We're going to be able to do more on the digital side, so we're gonna build digital things that make us a lot more money. I love that you do you have any other idea.
By the way, I mean like this to me. You know, ideas are thrown around a lot, and I love throwing ideas out on Twitter and stuff, ways to improve events or change things or something like this. But you know, this event like a World Cup of Golf, and this was this bleeds into a little bit of what I was going to say next, and it's just trying to figure out some way to combine men's and women's golf. Golf is the only sport that can do this. It's the only sport. It's the only sport that can be
cross gender and be interesting. Right. It's it's the only sport that can involve men and women and still be as can competitive as it was. If you didn't do that, it could be as interesting as it was if you didn't do that. Only sport out there and we don't utilize it. That's crazy. That's absolutely insane, is the fact that we don't lean into something that would make golf unique, that would make golf stand out to anybody out there
that doesn't care about golf. You know, if you want to bring eyeballs in, I mean, we both have daughters. Let's say when they're six, seven, eight, years old and they're golf fans, or maybe they're just interested in Nellie Korda, And you say, Nelly and Scottie Scheffler are playing as a team against these other two players that you like. You like Charlie Hull, or you like Gin Young Coo,
or you like Nasa, like whoever you like. On that end, it's now going to be in this environment that shows how good she is versus the best male player in the world. Like that is so unique and exclusive to our sport, and the fact that we only see it andy like a couple of days at the Sharks shoot Out, is absolutely bananas that we don't lean into this more like these entities, the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour should be in meetings weekly about how can we make
our sport. How can we make these two things that float alone and don't really coexist. How can we make these things coexist not once a year, but multiple times a year, because to me, that's the inlet into a lot of places that golf can't get into right now.
Well, it also goes to the scheduling. It's just talking about like, hey, we're thinking about this there, here, this here, so many times this year, it was like, Oh, we have a women's Major and a signature event and they're playing at the same time, right, And it's a conversation, this should not happen, right, Like we need, like there aren't that many golf fans around, we need to be smart and strategic about how we we like schedule our events so that we're not competing against each other, we're
amplifying each other, because that's what the win is in golf.
By the way, another idea I had Andy is I mentioned Zurich earlier, and you know, we kind of talk a lot about team events and match play, and we were talking a little bit about country. I think a very easy fix right now. Easy fix is like Zurich teams have to be teams or teammates on these teams on the team side of stuff, like you you have to play with somebody that would be on your President's Cup team, or be on your Ryder Cup team, or be on your you know, American side of that. Like
that's got to be mandatory. And I almost think the Ryder Cup in the President's Cup could get involved in terms of sponsoring these teams, like shrink the field at the Zurich you know, make it twenty teams, thirty teams, whatever, but make it absolutely mandatory that you're a part of, Like you don't have to qualify for the team, but you have to play with somebody that's regional to where you would play if you were on one of these teams.
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I think this the World Cup idea I put out there earlier. I do think the other thing you could do is you could make it a four person team and like, I think every count like a lot of countries have enough good golfers to be like, even if they're four hundredth in the world, they can play in this. We just saw what's his Anhel Hidalgo beat John Rahm at the Spanish Open, Like yeah,
it's like super cool. So I think, like there that that's the thing, uh, one that I wanted to get to. I would love a nine hole match play tournament where they play nine hole matches and you just get like a frenzy of matches over the course of the week and the like the beauty of a nine hole match is it's so short that every shot is so consequential. I mean, it just ratchets up the pace and the frequency of important shots, like you saw it with the
Presidents Cup this week. Like you like the front nine, it's like whatever, Like they're going along. When you got to the back nine, that's when you really get on the edge of your seat and you get like.
Super sleepy for sure. In the eighteen old match play golf, I agree with.
You, So, like, why not have like an event that has just nine hole matches and you play a bunch of them, like you play two or three per day yeap, and and then you can do like a really big round robin round before you cut it to you know, you could have a you know, a large field of eighty something golfers have huge sets of round robin play where it's like everybody's playing everybody in this round robin action, and then you cut it down and it's nine hole
matches to the end. I think it would be awesome. I think like nine hole matches would be sinceational to watch.
I wait a minute, hold on, you're getting crazy here. You're trying to make golf shorter. That doesn't seem right, not in a world of every sport in the world trying to kind of minimize the amount of time people spent enjoying their sport like that hadn't work for baseball this year, but you know that's crazy. I mean, like Nitty's was telling me a story of an event he played.
I think it was in Australia a few years ago, when he was like hanging around him, I got to keep playing pro golf or is this kind of the
end of the run. And it was nine hole matches he played Appid barn Rat and he said he got up one up, you know early, and he's like one up leading a nine hole match, you might as well be five of huge, huge, And he said, Appy barn Riot Rat like flags that on seven, flags that on eight, and all of a sudden, you know you're you're you're one down with one hole to play, and it's like the stress involved now your mind is all over the place. And I mean, you know you could get in the
mind of these players with that. I love the like picking your opponent thing. I mean, I know that everybody's very sensitive. I wish we weren't so sense instead of with quote unquote hurting people's feelings, like you're a pro athlete, like you're playing this for a million dollars, Like get over it. But I love the idea of nine hole matches and you get to pick who you play. Maybe as it gets deeper, like maybe you got eighty players.
To your point, Andy, you play three nine hole matches on Wednesday or Thursday, and you know, you know, the top forty move on the bottom forty, you're out, you're done, see you later. And then from that point forward, it's pick your players depending on the record. And I think it. You know again, you want to create drama in this. You want to make it interesting and for the viewer, and you want to care way less about the feelings of these players. Again, this is what they do for
a living. If you're gonna make twenty million a year, you got to deal with somebody saying you suck right now at golf.
And also, it's okay if you're if if you're a player and you're making all this money, you know what, it's okay. If you fly in on a Monday and you're flying home on a Wednesday.
It's fine, that's fine.
That's part of being a pro. Play better, play better, and you won't have such a short week.
You know what, I don't get paid. I don't get paid ten million dollars a year. You know what I did last year at the US Amateur I flew in on Monday or on Saturday or whatever. I play practice on Saturday Sunday. You play Monday Tuesday. And you know what if you don't make match play, you know what you do? You fly your ass.
Home and you don't you too, And you don't know how long to book the hotel for no?
Like hey, like, do you book it for a week or do you book it for three days? Like I don't get paid to play the game, but I'm flying to these places with hope that my trip is longer, but understanding the trip might be short. And like, dude, Andy, the sensitivity around pro golfers over every other sport right now is insane to me. Nobody ever hits a bad golf shot, Nobody ever hits a bad putt. Everything's like a misjudgment of the of the break, or the greens
are slow, or the lie was jumpy. Let's dig into these guys' games a little bit. Let's be a little bit more critical of the best golfers in the world, like podcasts do it. But I wish that the general media world would be a little more critical of their games because being a pro athlete, that's part of the deal.
Well, eventually everybody's going to work for the PGA Tour and then nobody will say anything.
So yep, that stinks. Like that's what makes like you gotta be you gotta be able to dig into them and like match plays.
More people are working for the PGA Tour from the media side.
Match play exposes all that and that's what's again kind of going back to our point about match plays, like you can't hide a match play. You just can't play an ole match. You cannot hide you get You're gonna get exposed in match play if something's not going your way.
Another idea, this is easy. So this is just this is a shooting gallery for the for the PGA Tour. Here this is just line them up, knock them down. I think, I think Joseph Lebadia has talked about this a lot over the years. But the tour Championship eight players, play out matches for all eight spots, have two two different round robin sets of reseed and play the matches and have a really awesome finals. You play all eight
spots out. One of the issues with the FedEx Cup and why you have the staggered start is they will not. They do not want number twenty nine on the FedEx Cup, whoever that might have been this year, Christian. Let's just use Bizet now.
I'm actually shocked you don't know this. I figured you know one through thirty, like on the back you might have a rest on your hand.
So let's just say Christian Bizet out who made it to Eastlake, great year. They do not want him winning the FedEx the final. So they've created a format that like pretty much makes it possible for Christian to say not to win. So that identifies something. If you don't want that person to win, you don't think they're a rightful winner of the fed X. Don't have them there? Yes, and it solves your competition issue. So like to me,
the number is eight. Probably eight. If you looked at at any of the players that were in the top eight in the FedEx Cup, people would be like, you know what, I'm okay with them winning the Tour Championship. I'm okay with that.
If seven and eight or whatever would be what six and eight making the finals, I'm not scared of it. PJ. Can you pull up top eight going to the Tour Championship. I think you're doing it right now. I mean again, Andy, like if the if the fear of match play is the stars aren't there, then eliminate that. Eliminate that, just eliminate that variable. The stars. The stars are going to be there because typically the top eight on the FedEx
Cup are the stars, right. I think if if there's been one or cru.
Or somebody's had a great, great year and it's like, Okay, this guy, this guy, you wouldn't expect to be here, but this is what he's done this year to get here. He's been awesome. So so then and then like to avoid the Sunday dud, the seven to eight matchup is for a half a million dollars and it is you know, Victor Hovelin versus Patrick Cantlay, Like Okay, I'm ready to watch that, Like yeah, that sounds that sounds like something I'd like to watch, especially alongside four other or three
other matches of the best players in the world. Like this is not hard, This is not rocket science. The other thing I think is like one of the issues that pro golf will will say is like match play
is not a great determinative skill. We play stroke play all year long, like and then the final is is this match play tournament will introduce more match play throughout the schedule, and that solves that you could even have like a match play Championship that you could sell a sponsorship to, like a season long match play race alongside like it's like this was the best match play player of the year.
I mean like it's these are layup ideas to me. And again, this is coming from a couple of places, Andy, I think I think it's important to tell people the places we're coming from, and the places we're coming from is trying to make the uninteresting interesting, Like the Tour Championship uninteresting. How do you make it interesting, Well, you have the top eight players of the year play match play interesting. I'm assuming Rory's involved, I'm assuming Scotti's involved.
I bet Zander's involved. Like the one thing the Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup has produced, like the one big selling point of the FedEx Cup if you go through the history of the FedEx Clup is there are rarely, if any flukey winners, like you might throw what Billy Horn wants Bill Haas early and it's but that was correct, correct, correct, you're right.
For the top eight.
Yeah, this is this year going into the Tour Championship. You got it.
Scottie, Zander Hideki, Keegan Bradley, Ludwig, Colin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark.
I would watch would I mean, I'm watching that. I'm watching that like that.
It's great, It's it's awesome. I think the other plates that this is all coming from. We are two people that are deeply invested in the sport and want to see the sport be the most popular and best for fans that it possibly can be. And to me, uh, forty seven weeks a year, PGA Tour Golf does not put the best format of golf on television. And it's insane to me. It's absolutely crazy to me. Another event idea. Can we just bring the individual match playback?
I know, I mean just no and no pulling. Like you lose, you're out. Like let's do it like it used to be sixty four players. You lose, you're flying home.
You know what?
That thirty thousand dollars private jets not gonna hit your bottom line. You're gonna be okay, it's not a big deal. I like, bring it back?
Can we have a couple of them. Can we maybe have like four of them over the course of the year. Is that too much? Ass?
I mean, I mean, come on, Andy, I got a December event I think would be awesome. I got a December matchplay event I think could really play. It's the Alumni Championship. Oh, five players from the five best players that qualify from colleges play basically a professional version of the NCAA Championship. You're it's Auburn, it's all miss Illinois, Illinois, Arizona. You get these, you get an alumni group. And again maybe.
You're also tap. Here's another thing. My friends that I went to college with and I'm sure yours are the same way, did not do not watch golf. But when it comes to the NCAA tournament, and obviously Illinois is always a huge factor because we're a golf powerhouse more so than Arizona. That was most people, but like are like our.
Alumni list is I'm gonna be honest with you, it would be nowide. Our alumni lists on the women's side is incredible, maybe like the best of all time in terms of superstars. Lorena on AKA. People like that. The men's side would be to lackluster. I'll say that.
So anyways, but like once is NCAA tournament time? Like my are like our college golf chat, all of whom all of these people outside of like two are twenty plus handicaps. Yeah, right, like they're eighteen nineteen handicaps. They are like, how's Illinois, Andy, how's Illinois this year? Do we have a really good shot? Like? What times? What
time are the matches on? They lock in? But what you're doing is like the reason college football, one of the reasons college football is so popular is because there is a massive audience to each school.
Correct, Yeah, you.
Pete tapping into the same thing. You'd be showing their best players from the colleges over the course. One of the great things about golf over the course of the past twenty years. Again you talked about the men's and women's aspect of golf. How you can do something that nobody else could do. You know what I would love I would have loved to be been able to watch Dee Brown play basketball with Terrence Shannon and golf. You could watch Steve Stricker from the Illinois standpoint play golf
with Nick Cardy. Yes, like that that is awesome. You can watch Justin Thomas and Davis Riley, who are both Rum Alabama, play together when they never played college golf as teammates.
Like Rory Sabatiny and Ricky Barnes, Like, I mean, who's missing that? Like, who's missing that? Come on now? I mean that's must watch golf. But like again, I think that the key.
I love this event. This is a great idea.
This is and again you talk about how do you get the players interested? And I think that that's something when we throw all these ideas out, a lot of the time we always forget about the players, which frankly is is probably the last we should be thinking about. This gets the players fired up, you know. I mean, you're gonna be wearing your gear, your colors. You get the old team bags out, like the carry bags or
whatever the case may be. Maybe the college coach comes out and that's the coach of these teams in December when there's not a lot of college golf going on. But you know, like you get Max and Colin playing for cal like they're going to be into it. Stanford would be Stanford tough.
You know, who'd be the best?
Who?
Okay, State, Texas.
What is Texas Scott's Who does Texas have besides Scotty. They got Scotty, They got Coties, the Cooties. I mean, but like you gotta let's say, you gotta get five spots everybody. By the way, the other.
Pro things, Loma State would be pretty good Holin ecro Like, yeah, they would, they'd.
Be they'd be a tough out. I think, be awesome.
This would be awesome.
Every score counts, you don't drop a score. These are pro golfers. This is like one of my biggest annoyances with liv is the fact that they drop a score. If you're a pro golfer, your score counts. You don't get to drop one. Like that's college and amateur stuff
to do. But you talk about maybe having a qualification for this where you've got to have let's say you've got to have two players in the top whatever you want to say, or maybe there's the world ranking average for your five players and you've got to be in the top ten to get into this tournament. The tournament could be pretty quick, doesn't have to be five days.
You know, Texas would have for Telly, they could bring Omar Eurestian too. They have Bo Hostler, they have good Doug gim, they have a lot of they have a lot of guys. I think they'd be I think they'd be one of the best.
They would be very international President's Cup team worthy right front end, top end.
For Johnny, for Johnny Vegas. That got Johnny Vegas.
They got Vegas in there. Man, I don't know if Arizona even make this thing would be such a buck.
I don't think they would. Yeah, I mean, this is this event's no brainer.
This is a great event, and you could do it on both sides too, or you could make it mixed. I mean I think that's the other thing too with this is you could make it mixed, right you.
Every single one of these you could make mix. That's the other thing. Yeah, Like on my list of events, it's like next to it is like mixed event. I know, it's like this version also mixed.
Yeah. I think the players would buy in, you know, especially American players. I think the American players would. I think the American players and this is not some country take, but I think American players for the most part care as much about the college they represent as maybe they do about being on the American team, right, like being a being a Stanford Cardinal or you know, playing golf
at Oklahoma State or playing at Alabama. Like it's a badge of honor for these players and it's on their golf bags.
Like what about Penn State, Kent State? Would Kent State would feel the team they have all the Canadians, I like you.
Just throwing out these random teams like I like you, yeah.
Corey Connors, Taylor Pendry, Ann Mackenzie Hughes.
I mean the team would be sick, like this is a sick team. Like and again, think about what the university could gain from something like this, you know, I mean you pay money back to the university or endowment or whatever you do for the colleges you make money there. You could make money for college golf. You could this could bleed into maybe nil where maybe you know, maybe certain moneies you put off to the side for nil, which in theory now pays your player, pays kids that
are really good to come play for your team. Right that then now keeps the like the success of your program intact. I just you leave college and you're done a andy like you and I are done with college. We were done with college twenty years ago. Like we can go back, we can remember the good old days. There is no connection with college in our lives ever again. For God's sakes, PJ Young, PJ Babyface, PJ. College is done for this guy. Like he might think about college.
It wasn't that long ago. What was it three years ago? Two years ago?
Pj's like people, PJ is not as in grained in this show as he is in the Shotgun Start. PJ is our producer. I call him out at the end of every episode. He can't even he can't talk on this one. He's just in full producer.
They can't defend himself. Doesn't even have a microphone.
Literally, he's not he's not not a part of this pot.
But think about the connection you would get with your college, and think about the connection these players would get one last chance, right or you know, this is our opportunity to to go back to Bama. You know, I just think it'd be cool.
Oh, you could play it at each college. You could rotate it around the college commercial.
Year he gets to go to there, gets to go to their course the next year.
Yeah, and you get you get like this, like and they could have like the right they could have the there Uh they could get like the vast majority of tickets allocation, Like you could just do It's so cool. I was just looking Florida. Florida would be a good one. Yet Billy Billy Boy, Billy Toasty that you could have, Brian gay Camillo, just like some good ones you have Ricky Castillio. Uh yeah, yeah, so I I love I love the College one. Do you have any others?
Before we got out here, that was my list?
Uh?
Can I plug one thing and before we go?
Well, yeah, I wanted I just wanted to put a rap on this. Now people are gonna be yelling, people are gonna be yelling. Well, like mattually, it's a scarcity thing. Match that's why these work. No, it isn't. It's just a better format of golf. It is a more consequent there's more moments of intensity and more moments of like excitement, and then it also pits players against each other, which creates more controversy. It is a just a more engaging
version of golf. The other thing is Sundays always stink. They don't have to stink if you format the event correctly. The event you just talked about with college golfers. If it's a three person team, let's say they go we go small and they're three person teams, three player teams. They will be on Sunday if you're playing, if it's UH Texas Oklahoma State, the matches would be something along the lines of Victor Hovlin versus Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Speed
versus Austin Ech wrote. And then let's just say Pearson Coodie versus who's another Ricky Fowler. That would be your matches. Yeah, that's awesome, that's amazing.
And I love the crossover of the years too. You know, it's like you get the young guys that just got out of college versus you know, like a Billy horstl or something who you know still has this crazy connection to Florida, but it's been a decade since he was there. Like, you might have teammates on a team, but you might have a guy that brought in a kid. You know. It's like, man, I remember what went on my recruiting trip, and Billy was like, these are easy sound bites to
fill the time. You know, people talking about their colleges. Like that's the one thing with match play too is like filling the time in between moments shots holes is like, this is the easiest sell ever. Highlights of old matches from when these guys were in college. You know, you get the speed shot at RIV and you know him and j T and that story. John Fields tells that story. Like these things are such easy, like color around the actual golf to sell, to fill the time and make it interesting.
Yeah, so all right, you're doing corn fairy stuff.
Yeah, that's all That's what I was gonna plug.
Here you go, Andy, this is the most consequential time of the year. Yeah, last event of the year. What what are you most excited to watch this week's corn fairy?
I will say this, I'm excited to see this golf course I'm gonna get. I'm going there tomorrow. It's in French Lick and I've heard it's really hard.
So the die course, right.
I heard it's tough. I've heard it.
It looks cool. Well it's are you going to play the Ross course?
Yeah?
I hear the Ross course is like amazing.
We're gonna play a couple of days. It's kind of weird times, but we're gonna play like weird times for us to play golf because we've got a lot of TV coverage, but I'm gonna play. I think there's two other courses, one shorter win and then one full golf course will play. Though it's never been to French Lick.
By the way, Larry Bird.
Larry Bird apparently called a Larry Bird Bar that I think is like the only place to go.
Are you gonna go?
Yeah? Yeah, I think it's right down the straight from the hotel. But yeah, I mean I think there's I think we've punched thirteen cards at this point, so obviously a lot of cards left to grab. Top thirty get their PGA Tour card. Matt McCarty locked up number one, which is pretty cool. I mean, this is a guy that had never won on the Corn Ferry Tour and wins three times since the middle of July. So cool to see Matt McCarty do that. Going to the PGA Tour,
I'm gonna see him out there. But uh yeah, I mean there's.
Maybe Get a Grip right.
Keep an eye out on the Get a Grip podcast channel for maybe an upcoming co host there. And the FedEx Fall a new season coming soon. But Thursday one to four on Golf Channel. We're kind of around that window the whole week, so like one to four, twelve to four, stuff like that across the weekend. But you know, like one of the things I love about doing the Cornfierry Tour Andy, much like I love doing the USGA stuff, is like, these are life changing golf tournaments and events
week to week, and this is the biggest one. You know, players are gonna have great weeks and play their way to a PGA Tour card, and guys that are inside the top thirty are gonna have stinky weeks and lose their PGA Tour card. And you know it's like, I mean, there was a dude a couple of weeks ago, he made a putt to make the cut on Friday, and he's walking off the green saying, not gonna retire yet.
You know, like these are these are life decisions for these players depending on how they play for seventy two holes. So I love this event and it's one of my favorites. So top seventy five players in the field and thirty cards, so we'll see what happens.
Awesome, awesome, Well, enjoy frenchlick. Let me know how the golf is.
And do you think if there's a basketball goal or court at the Larry Bird Bar, God of hope there is. There's gotta be I feel like God to have something there.
It's got to be like a gravel just a vision it being like a like an old school hoop. Maybe maybe a metal that and and like a gravel, a well padded, packed down gravel court.
Yeah, no, I hope. So it's like every time I think.
I love medal that well.
I mean you're the only one I think. I mean, does anybody love metal nets?
I just love the novelty as a kid of it. When when you played on Nylon, you know, like the sound was different.
Very different. I just in terms of bubble players, Sam Bennett is number thirty right now, Trent Phillips is thirty one. So you kind of got some some obviously players that are very very good. In pot Eater, who I think is going to be sick on the PGA tour if he gets there. Is Hank clinging onto a top thirty spot right now, so we'll see.
If Potkner is almost out.
Yeah, he has played great lately. Twenty seventh on the points, Liz, I know, I know'd it'd be a bomber. He's so freaking good. But you know, he's had like I think he's had three top tens and one of those was that went out of the gate. So it's not been a it's not been a great season for him outside of the early early run.
So all right, thanks Shane, we'll talk soon, all right, buddy, thank you, Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast, and big thanks to PJ. Clark for editing and producing this podcast. We will be back later this week with another episode and uh look forward to chatting soon, so big thanks, and uh check out the pod later this week.