Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butch podcast, a little bonus
Speaker 1: episode this week obviously, with I mean everything that's happened
Speaker 1: in the last couple of days, I figured I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about it. I'm as much
Speaker 1: in the dark as I think everybody that's listening. I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody knows what's going to happen. But if
Speaker 1: you would have asked me, I mean a year ago today,
Speaker 1: I was in London for the first Live tournament, And
Speaker 1: if you'd have told me in a year that Jay
Speaker 1: Monahan would be merging with the PIF and Live and
Speaker 1: all of those things, I just wouldn't have believed you.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why I wouldn't have believed
Speaker 1: that this was going to happen, or was ever going
Speaker 1: to happen, in all honesty, it was Jay Monahan. It
Speaker 1: was the stance that Jay and the PGA tour and
Speaker 1: everybody kind of that wasn't a part of Live. I
Speaker 1: mean everybody took that stance, right, everybody took the anti Saudi,
Speaker 1: the blood money, the murderous dictators, the human rights, the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. That was that was the stance that
Speaker 1: that was definitely one hundred percent the stance jay Monahan took.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we're all seeing, you know, the
Speaker 1: clips of him last year at the RBC Canadian Open
Speaker 1: with Jim Nantz, you know, talking about the families of
Speaker 1: nine to eleven and talking about all the things associated
Speaker 1: with that and saying, you know, if you ever had
Speaker 1: to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: And then a year later, he's now doing business with
Speaker 1: the same people that he was telling people not to
Speaker 1: do business with. So I think it's it's it's it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think it's a stunning turnaround. But I guess in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, it's not surprising because listen, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day in twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 1: I've been saying this for a while, some people like this,
Speaker 1: some people don't like this. In twenty twenty three, sports
Speaker 1: is a business, and professional golf is a business, and
Speaker 1: I think what we've seen in the last forty eight
Speaker 1: hours is this is business. And I think Jay Monahan
Speaker 1: made a business decision. I find it fascinating that Jay
Speaker 1: Monahan made the identical same business decision that the forty
Speaker 1: eight guys that went to play Live made and were vilified, crushed,
Speaker 1: crucified in the media, and it's been a stunning one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty degree turnaround. Why did this happen? Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm a golf instructor, right, I'm not smart enough to
Speaker 1: know why things like this happened. But what I do
Speaker 1: know is I've been a part of the live ecosystem
Speaker 1: for a year. I went to every live event last
Speaker 1: year all of my players. Not by design, but it
Speaker 1: just happened that all the players that I worked with
Speaker 1: went to live and the last year, the amount of criticism,
Speaker 1: some of the things said about them written about them.
Speaker 1: Every time I would post a video of Dustin Johnson's
Speaker 1: golf swing, or Brooks's golf swing or Pat Perez's golf swing,
Speaker 1: the DMS I would get from people on murderer you
Speaker 1: work for murderers, you work for you know, people that
Speaker 1: support blood money sports watching it was just it was
Speaker 1: crazy and I think it's been fascinating to watch, you
Speaker 1: know how this entire thing is unfolded. I met Yaser
Speaker 1: from the PIF. I met Yaser in twenty seventeen in
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi at the Abu Dhabi Championship. I think he
Speaker 1: was either playing with the Brooks or DJ and got
Speaker 1: to spend eighteen holes walking around with him and listening
Speaker 1: to him talk about his vision, his love of the
Speaker 1: game of golf, how much he wanted to get involved
Speaker 1: in professional golf, how much he wanted Saudi Arabia to
Speaker 1: be a part of the fabric of professional golf. A
Speaker 1: lot of people see that as sinister, and I just
Speaker 1: I just don't. Maybe it's because I've met Yaser, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's because I grew up in you know, in
Speaker 1: Morocco and lived in Dubai and lived in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and I've been to Saudi Arabia, you know, almost every
Speaker 1: year since twenty eighteen, So I don't see it as sinister.
Speaker 1: I got invited at my academy in Dubai. We have
Speaker 1: coached and worked with the Saudi national team to try
Speaker 1: and help them improve, and you know, all my staff
Speaker 1: work with the kids and the players that play for
Speaker 1: the Saudi national team, so I knew a bunch of
Speaker 1: the players involved in this. I got invited to the
Speaker 1: launch of the Saudi International and the European Tour in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen and got invited over by Yaser and Majad
Speaker 1: and I saw jayme on Hen I think not long
Speaker 1: after that at the Players Championship, and I said this, Jay, Listen,
Speaker 1: I was just in Saudi Arabia. You should really reach
Speaker 1: out to Yasser. He really wants to be a part
Speaker 1: of the PGA tour. He really wants to be a
Speaker 1: part of professional golf. I think he's got some good ideas.
Speaker 1: You should talk to him and you should really have
Speaker 1: a conversation with him. And I remember in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: you know, Jay was like, yeah, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: know how that would look. And I said, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I said to jayme Onhan, Jay just gives whatever the
Speaker 1: Saudis are trying to do, if they're going to come
Speaker 1: up with their own tour or whatever it is they
Speaker 1: want to be a part, is give them fall. Give
Speaker 1: them tournaments in the fall that you guys don't want
Speaker 1: to be involved in because you guys are trying to
Speaker 1: get out of the fall to try and not go
Speaker 1: up against professional football. So I told Jay that in eighteen.
Speaker 1: I told him that in nineteen. I told him that
Speaker 1: in twenty, I told him that in twenty one, and
Speaker 1: I told him that last year, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but for some reason, Jay just
Speaker 1: never had an interest in doing that, and the specifically,
Speaker 1: you know, for the last year, everything that has come
Speaker 1: from Jay and the PGA Tour aside, and really from
Speaker 1: the majority of the media has just been anti Saudi,
Speaker 1: anti lib. I mean, how many times have we heard
Speaker 1: Jay Monahan say the Saudi backed league? I mean, I've
Speaker 1: lost count how many times I've heard him and other
Speaker 1: players and people in the media say that. So do
Speaker 1: we talk about is the PGA Tour now a Saudi
Speaker 1: backed league? I mean, it's crazy. And the abject hypocrisy
Speaker 1: behind all of this has just been staggering, and I
Speaker 1: don't understand why it was always like that. It's been
Speaker 1: fascinating to me that it took almost a year for
Speaker 1: anyone to even question what the PGA Tour was doing
Speaker 1: and why so many of the PGA tours corporate sponsors
Speaker 1: and tournament sponsors were doing business in Saudi Arabia. And
Speaker 1: that was okay, But it wasn't okay for the forty
Speaker 1: eight guys that went to live for them to do
Speaker 1: business with Saudi Arabia. There's a thing on everybody's phone
Speaker 1: called the Internet. It's called Google. If you want to
Speaker 1: find out information, and if you want to educate yourself,
Speaker 1: you can. So when I went over to London last
Speaker 1: year and spent the week at the first Live event,
Speaker 1: I spent that week mainly a lot at night, just
Speaker 1: kind of doing some research as too. You know, who
Speaker 1: does business with Saudi Arabia, which companies do to business
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. And I was interested because there was
Speaker 1: so much backlash against the guys that went to Live.
Speaker 1: I was interested to see on which companies were doing
Speaker 1: business in Saudi Arabia. I mean it was a two
Speaker 1: second Google search to find out that FedEx had given
Speaker 1: the Saudis four hundred million dollars for their twenty thirty initiative.
Speaker 1: That took me less than two seconds to find. If
Speaker 1: you want to find that information, you could find it.
Speaker 1: You could find which of the PGA Tours Global Partners,
Speaker 1: Corporate Global Partners, tournament sponsors. You could find which of
Speaker 1: those companies and those organizations were doing business in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: And what I found fascinating last year is not one
Speaker 1: reporter asked Jay Monahan, why are the majority of your
Speaker 1: corporate and tournament sponsors doing business in Saudi Arabia, And
Speaker 1: why do they want to do business in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got Jay the majority of last year
Speaker 1: standing up in front of every interview he gives. Behind him,
Speaker 1: there's a giant sign that says FedEx cup, FedEx cup,
Speaker 1: FedEx cup, FedEx is giving the Saudis four hundred million dollars,
Speaker 1: and you're telling everybody don't do business with the Saudis,
Speaker 1: which to me just it never made any sense. And
Speaker 1: to me it always seemed that, yeah, this was always
Speaker 1: about the money, and the reason why a lot of
Speaker 1: the PGA Tours corporate partners and a lot of their
Speaker 1: tournament sponsors are doing business in Saudi Arabia was for
Speaker 1: financial reasons. Obviously, obviously they're doing business in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: for financial reasons. But I just couldn't underst and why
Speaker 1: the forty eight guys that went to live were just
Speaker 1: pariahs for a lot of people, the moral argument, the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven argument, the forty eight guys. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: this is my opinion, right, the forty eight guys that
Speaker 1: went went to live, they had no involvement in in
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, but they were portrayed as nine to
Speaker 1: eleven sympathizers. And now you've got the guy that basically
Speaker 1: pushed that argument turning around and doing a deal with
Speaker 1: the same people that he was telling people not to
Speaker 1: do business with, which I think everybody's still trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of it. I know there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are outraged by it. I've got to
Speaker 1: think that there are players on the PGA tour that
Speaker 1: are kind of just scratching their heads and saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I had big offers and listen. I also,
Speaker 1: I think it's important and I hopefully think that it
Speaker 1: will come out as to how many players, how many
Speaker 1: household names were trying to get offers from the Saudist
Speaker 1: last year and had gotten offers. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are already rumors that players and fathers of players that
Speaker 1: had big offers from Live that turned them down on
Speaker 1: advice from the PGA tour that they're thinking about and
Speaker 1: looking into taking legal action and seeing what their legal
Speaker 1: options were because all of these guys were told don't go,
Speaker 1: don't go. Stay with the PGA tour. What was it
Speaker 1: history and trophies, not about money. And you know, in
Speaker 1: the last forty eight hours. The only thing I hear
Speaker 1: people talking about is money. But last year, money was
Speaker 1: evidently bad. Taking money was evidently bad. Being an athlete,
Speaker 1: being a professional golfer and doing basically what every other
Speaker 1: professional athlete does, which is try and make as much
Speaker 1: money as possible. We see it in American sports. We
Speaker 1: see it in the UK in football. We see it
Speaker 1: all over Europe and football. We see it in F one.
Speaker 1: We've seen it in cricket, and we see it in
Speaker 1: the NBA, the NFL, NHL, every major professional sports in America.
Speaker 1: There are players trying to get big contracts, big signing bonuses.
Speaker 1: It leads sports news. But for some reason, there was
Speaker 1: a segment of the population that just wanted golf to
Speaker 1: just be this. And I've said this. I said this
Speaker 1: in an article right after Brooks won the PGA. It's
Speaker 1: like golf is the Truman Show and it has to
Speaker 1: be the way it was in the forties, fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1: It can't change. Change is bad, and we just have
Speaker 1: to have the status quo because that's the way it's
Speaker 1: always been. And if you were one of the live
Speaker 1: guys and you got the bag and you decided to
Speaker 1: make a financial decision, You're a bad person, You're a
Speaker 1: trader to the PGA Tour. And none of it made
Speaker 1: any sense because pretty much the majority of the in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the majority of the decisions the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: makes or financial decisions. I mean, their headquarters looks like
Speaker 1: something a Bond villain would live in. It's got a
Speaker 1: it's entirely surrounded by water, It's over one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: square feet, and there are a nonprofit organization, and I
Speaker 1: just don't know a lot of nonprofit organizations that have
Speaker 1: that type of headquarters and have executives flying around on
Speaker 1: private jets like the PGA Tour does. And listen, I
Speaker 1: don't have a problem with any of that, right, I
Speaker 1: don't have an issue with the way the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: runs their business. I don't have an issue with any
Speaker 1: of it. But what I do have an issue is
Speaker 1: the players that I worked with last year just got
Speaker 1: crushed because they went to live I got crushed because,
Speaker 1: I mean I had people coming up to me saying,
Speaker 1: you know, how are things on the dark side? I
Speaker 1: mean the amount of DMS on social that I've gotten
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, I'm a Trader and all of
Speaker 1: these things. I mean, it got really really personal, and
Speaker 1: it was really really personal for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and the media was basically beating the drum of anti Live,
Speaker 1: anti Saudi all of that. So I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be fascinating to figure out and to see where
Speaker 1: all of this ends up. I really do. I really
Speaker 1: think it will be fascinating. I don't think anybody really knows.
Speaker 1: I think Jay Monahan has a tremendous amount of bridge
Speaker 1: building to do. There are a lot of people that
Speaker 1: wonder if he can survive this, if PGA tour players
Speaker 1: will be able to see him as somebody that they
Speaker 1: have confidence in. You know, I really don't know. But
Speaker 1: what I do know is yah Sir. I consider him
Speaker 1: a off lucky enough to have spent time with him
Speaker 1: over the last year, both professionally and privately, and he's
Speaker 1: one of the most soulful, kind of He's a very
Speaker 1: very soft person. He's always asking questions. He's easily one
Speaker 1: of the smartest people I know, and he is absolutely
Speaker 1: a golf junkie. He is passionate, so so passionate about golf,
Speaker 1: and every time I'm around him, he's asking me to
Speaker 1: look at his golf swing. He's talking to me about golf.
Speaker 1: When you walk around with him in the pro am
Speaker 1: and he hits a bad shot, you can tell that
Speaker 1: it affects him the way it affects everybody that plays golf.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that he's from Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: why is that a sticking point. He's a golfer, he
Speaker 1: loves golf rightly wrongly. He has a lot of money.
Speaker 1: The Saudis have a lot of money, and they want
Speaker 1: to invest that money in golf. I don't see the
Speaker 1: sinister reasons as to why they do it, because I
Speaker 1: think I don't see that because I've lived in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. I love the Middle East. It's like a
Speaker 1: second home to me. And you know, I left my dad.
Speaker 1: We started an academy in Dubai in two thousand and
Speaker 1: I moved to Dubai and in the summer of two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and I lived there until two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven. And when I left the United States, they
Speaker 1: were massive, massive talks about you know, gun control, school shootings, abortion,
Speaker 1: all of those things. We're still talking about those in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. None of that. Nothing has changed there
Speaker 1: hasn't been any changes. We're still talking about gun control,
Speaker 1: We're still talking about school shootings. And if you look
Speaker 1: at a country like Saudi Arabia when I first went
Speaker 1: there in two thousand and eighteen, every year when I
Speaker 1: go back, I'm really surprised, you know, the changes that
Speaker 1: are happening in the country. My daughter went to the
Speaker 1: Jetta Film Festival earlier this year for a week. She's
Speaker 1: studying film at Dartmouth and she went there and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine got her an internship and asked her
Speaker 1: if she wanted to go to the Jeda Film Festival.
Speaker 1: You would when I lived in Dubai, I would never
Speaker 1: even contemplate sending my daughter, you know, ten years ago
Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia. It would just be a very different experience.
Speaker 1: She had a great experience. She really really enjoyed her
Speaker 1: time there. I have found it fascinating that an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of the people in the media and that have
Speaker 1: been adamantly against, you know, the Saudi's involvement in golf
Speaker 1: and live have never once been to Saudi Arabia. They've
Speaker 1: never spent any time in the Middle East. They know
Speaker 1: nothing really about the culture. They don't have any friends
Speaker 1: from those from those parts of the world, and everything
Speaker 1: they're doing is is is making their own opinion based
Speaker 1: off of, you know, what they're hearing from other people.
Speaker 1: So I think what the Saudis have been trying to
Speaker 1: do in golf, I see it as positive. I've been
Speaker 1: in talks, you know, for the last five years. You know,
Speaker 1: when I went over in twenty eighteen, the first thing
Speaker 1: Yaser said to me was, I want you to help
Speaker 1: me bring golf to our children in Saudi Arabia's that's
Speaker 1: my vision. My vision is for young people to see golf,
Speaker 1: to have it play the role that golf has played
Speaker 1: in my life. And you know that has been something
Speaker 1: that has been very very important to me and a
Speaker 1: really good friend of mine, a young kid named Noah
Speaker 1: Ali Raza. I used to teach Noah as a as
Speaker 1: a golfer when I was in Dubai. He was one
Speaker 1: of the first lessons that I ever gave. He was
Speaker 1: trying to play professionally, went to school in the US.
Speaker 1: He was a very very good player, loved golf. He
Speaker 1: was in the first ad we used my dad and
Speaker 1: I for our academy in Dubai. Noah was the guy
Speaker 1: in our advertisement with my dad and I about you know, golf,
Speaker 1: about trying to get better. Noah is now take and
Speaker 1: over golf Saudi and I've been in constant conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: since I went to Saudi in January, and Noah's been saying, listen,
Speaker 1: we need to try and bring golf to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: We need a grassroots approach to try and build golf
Speaker 1: in the kingdom. And you know Bob Diamond, who used
Speaker 1: to run Barklay's, was big into golf, started you know,
Speaker 1: Barkley's sponsorship of the Premiership in football in the UK.
Speaker 1: He's a big golfer. He's a member at my club.
Speaker 1: And you know I was having dinner with him and
Speaker 1: he was talking about the things that the Saudis were
Speaker 1: trying to do, and he said, you know, the Saudis
Speaker 1: say that they want to change their country, that they
Speaker 1: want to change from what they've been and want to
Speaker 1: try and do something different. And I'll never forget this
Speaker 1: that Bob said, if that's what they're saying, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: we want to try and help them. Why wouldn't we
Speaker 1: want to try and help them change their country? And
Speaker 1: if golf can be a vehicle to do that. Then
Speaker 1: I'm here for it. I really am. I think having
Speaker 1: lived in that region, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia look at what happened in Dubai. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people in the US had never
Speaker 1: really even heard of Dubai if it wasn't for golf.
Speaker 1: We saw Tiger playing in tournaments over there. We saw
Speaker 1: all the big buildings over there. Every major player, every
Speaker 1: person pretty much it's won a major championship in the
Speaker 1: last fifteen to twenty years. They've all been paid an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of appearance money to go play in Abi Dabi.
Speaker 1: They've been paid an enormous amount of appearance money to
Speaker 1: go play in Dubai. I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1: I've said this, Rory McElroy should be paid to play golf,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, wherever he goes. He's earned that right.
Speaker 1: That's how great of a player he is. And there's
Speaker 1: a dirty little secret that a lot of what's happened
Speaker 1: over the last years golfers get paid. Golfers get paid
Speaker 1: appearance fees. Golfers get paid appearance fees outside the its
Speaker 1: fate golfers have been getting paid for a number of
Speaker 1: years now in the United States to play tournaments. How
Speaker 1: they've been paid, They've probably been paid in other ways,
Speaker 1: to go to lunches, to go to dinners. I've seen that.
Speaker 1: I've watched that. And it's not just the live guys
Speaker 1: that we're doing that. Everybody that was a great player
Speaker 1: has been getting paid. It's not news, it's not a surprise.
Speaker 1: That's the way the world works. And I think Jay
Speaker 1: Monahan made a business decision. And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people that think he sold a bunch of people out.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think time will tell. I
Speaker 1: think Jay's a pragmatist. But what I do think is
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever needed to get here. I
Speaker 1: really really don't. I think these conversations could have happened
Speaker 1: last year, two years ago, three years ago, because everybody
Speaker 1: in golf, all the agents, all the players, all the
Speaker 1: governing bodies, everybody PG Tour, everybody at the DP World Tour.
Speaker 1: If you need an example as to it's always been
Speaker 1: about the money, ask yourself this question. Why is the
Speaker 1: European Tour no longer called the European Tour, It's the
Speaker 1: DP World Tour. If it's not about the money, why
Speaker 1: did the European Tour need to have a corporate sponsor
Speaker 1: and no longer be called the European Tour and be
Speaker 1: called the DP World Tour. It's no longer called the
Speaker 1: European Tour, it's called a corporate sponsor's name of that tour. Kids,
Speaker 1: it's always been about the money, and I just think
Speaker 1: it's been fascinating and I think it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, I watched Rory's press conference yesterday. Rory has
Speaker 1: always been fiercely, fiercely anti lib so it's going to
Speaker 1: be very interesting to see how all of that plays out.
Speaker 1: Because Live is Yau's idea, it's his passion, it's his baby.
Speaker 1: He basically came up with all the ideas. He was
Speaker 1: involved in all of it. And I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be interesting because there are a lot of people now,
Speaker 1: especially after Rory's comments yesterday. Rory was very very It
Speaker 1: was important for Rory to say yesterday that this isn't
Speaker 1: a deal with Live, it's a deal with the PIF.
Speaker 1: The PIF owns Live, So we'll see how all of
Speaker 1: that plays out. On a personal note, I feel sorry,
Speaker 1: I really do. I feel sorry for Rory, not Roy.
Speaker 1: You could see last year how much him being the
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the PGA Tour, for the PGA's tours, stance
Speaker 1: against live, against the Saudi's, against the money, all that,
Speaker 1: you could see that it was wearing on. It's my opinion.
Speaker 1: I don't have any facts around this, but I think
Speaker 1: it has affected him as a person, and I think
Speaker 1: it's affected him as a player. I think it's affected
Speaker 1: his game. I think he volunteered, but I think the
Speaker 1: tour asked Roy to do a lot last year, and
Speaker 1: he did that job unbelievably well. The passion and the
Speaker 1: conviction that Rory speaks in his voice, you can hear it,
Speaker 1: you can feel it. I'm a massive, massive Roy McElroy fan,
Speaker 1: both on and off the golf course. He is a
Speaker 1: joy to talk to when whenever I have time to
Speaker 1: spend talking to him, asking him questions. He's a thinker,
Speaker 1: he's got good ideas, he's introspective, he's he's a thinker
Speaker 1: and that's what I really really love most about him,
Speaker 1: and I just love him as a golfer. I think
Speaker 1: he's an unbelievable player, so obviously he has been fiercely
Speaker 1: anti Live. I think it's going to be interesting to
Speaker 1: see where all that plays out. I've heard some people
Speaker 1: say that this is great for Live. I've heard some
Speaker 1: other people say that this is the end of Live,
Speaker 1: that Live won't be around after this year. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think anybody knows. I think everything
Speaker 1: this is a moving target. It's fluid. But I do
Speaker 1: think that Jay Monahan made a business decision. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, they always say
Speaker 1: it's about money, and follow the money. You know. It
Speaker 1: was funny. I was at the the at Augusta this year.
Speaker 1: I was standing on the range talking to one of
Speaker 1: the members in his green jacket, obviously a very very
Speaker 1: successful person, and we were talking about, you know, how
Speaker 1: the week was going to play out, and he was
Speaker 1: saying he was surprised that there hadn't been really a
Speaker 1: lot of animosity between the players, and he thought that
Speaker 1: was a good thing and hopefully golf could move forward.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, I said, you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be like this. I mean, everybody is
Speaker 1: doing business in Saudi Arabia, and I said, if you
Speaker 1: look at the corporate sponsors that the Masters had this year.
Speaker 1: I think all of them, I think all the majority
Speaker 1: of them are doing business in Saudi Arabia. I mean
Speaker 1: Delta Airlines, who's part of sky Team Saudi Airlines. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned all of this to him, and I talked
Speaker 1: to him about all this and he said to me, yes,
Speaker 1: but Claude, that's business, and we're business people. We're doing business.
Speaker 1: And I looked at the driving range and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: so all of these people aren't in business. All of
Speaker 1: these people are not business people. Athletes are business people.
Speaker 1: They are their own business. And there are people that
Speaker 1: like that. There are people that don't like that. But
Speaker 1: that is a reality. And it is my hope that
Speaker 1: this partnership, this merger, whatever it is, it is my
Speaker 1: hope that we can get back to talking about golf,
Speaker 1: talking about all of the great players we have in
Speaker 1: the game right now, all the great young talent that's
Speaker 1: rising all over every tour. But I've been saying for
Speaker 1: a year when everybody, if DJ won a tournament, I'd
Speaker 1: post something and everybody would go insignificant, nobody cares, nobody's watching.
Speaker 1: They're all losers. They went to live. It's not real golf.
Speaker 1: It's all that well for all those people that thought
Speaker 1: that the PGA Tour is now part of the same
Speaker 1: group that everyone for the last year a lot of
Speaker 1: people have been against. So is that narrative going to change.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be fascinating to see where
Speaker 1: a guy like Brandal Shamblee shakes out in all of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, Brandell has been probably the ultimate anti live person.
Speaker 1: He has used his platform on Golf Channel to use
Speaker 1: it as his own kind of personal bully pulpit to
Speaker 1: just talk human rights Saudi. He now works for a
Speaker 1: company that televises an event, televises events, tournaments, and all
Speaker 1: that money is coming is going to be coming from
Speaker 1: the Saudis. And everybody said they didn't like the source
Speaker 1: of the money last year. For all the people that
Speaker 1: didn't like where the money was coming from, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you have to figure out how your moral
Speaker 1: compass works. I mean, Brandal talked NonStop last year moral compass,
Speaker 1: moral compass, moral compass. So I guess we'll see if
Speaker 1: Randall's got a moral compass, because based off of all
Speaker 1: of the things that he said last year, I mean,
Speaker 1: does he quit, does he resign in protest the way
Speaker 1: Piers Morgan did on Live TV, and stand by the tenants,
Speaker 1: stand on his convictions, and say I won't work for
Speaker 1: an organization that is involved in Saudi Arabia, because that's
Speaker 1: what he said. Every single player that went to Live
Speaker 1: last year should do that. They were all morally bankrupt
Speaker 1: because they worked with an organization that was backed by
Speaker 1: the Saudis. Well, Randall now works for organizations and comments
Speaker 1: on organizations that work with the Saudis. So I think
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see, you know, what he chooses
Speaker 1: to do. But I do hope that everybody can understand
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, this is golf.
Speaker 1: We're talking about golfers regardless of where they play, and
Speaker 1: hopefully moving forward, we can quit talking about which tours
Speaker 1: players play on, and we can talk about how great
Speaker 1: they are as players, how great they are as golfers,
Speaker 1: how great the shots are that they hit under pressure,
Speaker 1: And you don't have to choose you like golf, you
Speaker 1: can watch golf regardless of where it's being played. I've
Speaker 1: been saying that for a while now. I find it
Speaker 1: very interesting that the guy, in my opinion, J Monahan
Speaker 1: wanted everybody to choose between the PGA Tour and Live
Speaker 1: in Saudis, And in my opinion, that was his litmus test.
Speaker 1: You're either on the side of the PGA Tour or
Speaker 1: you were on the side of Live, and if you
Speaker 1: were on the side of Live, you're on the side
Speaker 1: of the Saudis And he wanted you to choose. He
Speaker 1: wanted you to choose between the PGA Tour and Live.
Speaker 1: And now he has chosen to merge with the people
Speaker 1: that he wanted you to choose against. And I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be fascinating to see where all of
Speaker 1: this plays out. But I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: won't like this or won't agree with this, But I
Speaker 1: think this is good for the game. I think this
Speaker 1: is good for I will not for the game of golf.
Speaker 1: I think this is good for professional I think people
Speaker 1: need to make a distinction between professional golf and golf.
Speaker 1: Golf is what the rest of us that aren't professionals golf.
Speaker 1: That's what we play. And I don't see how any
Speaker 1: of that is going to change. Professional golf is going
Speaker 1: to change. And whatever side of the aisle you're on
Speaker 1: on that is fine. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: if you're watching professional golf, if you're watching professional football, basketball, baseball,
Speaker 1: motor racing, suck, whatever it is, the sport is still
Speaker 1: the sport, and I just don't think that this needed
Speaker 1: to happen. Hopefully we can move forward now. I think
Speaker 1: what the Saudias are trying to do in golf because
Speaker 1: I've seen it firsthand. I haven't just listened to the rumors.
Speaker 1: I've been over there, I've been involved. I know what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do, and I think it's good. I
Speaker 1: think it's good for golf. I think it's good for
Speaker 1: professional golf, and I guess time will tell. But as
Speaker 1: I said earlier, hopefully we can start talking about how
Speaker 1: great the golfers are and the shots and the tournaments
Speaker 1: that they're winning. And I might be in the minority,
Speaker 1: but I think professional golf is in a good place
Speaker 1: and I think it's only going to get better. Just
Speaker 1: my opinion. I understand that not everybody's going to agree.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. It's important to remember that even
Speaker 1: if you don't agree with my opinion or other people's opinions,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be the end of the world.
Speaker 1: We have gotten so polarized in my opinion, on one
Speaker 1: side or the other side, and there's no middle ground.
Speaker 1: And I think if we can try and all live
Speaker 1: and work more towards a middle ground instead of digging
Speaker 1: in and only living in our own echo chambers, I
Speaker 1: think golf would be a better place, and I think
Speaker 1: the world would be a better place as well. Son
Speaker 1: of a Butcher comes to you every Wednesday. We will
Speaker 1: see you all next week. US Open Week.