Speaker 1: The golfers who are on the outside decided to unionize
Speaker 1: and say, well, you know what, you thirty guys, you
Speaker 1: forty guys, you sixty guys. You guys do your thing
Speaker 1: Without us, They're gonna find they don't have a PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a very fine balancing act of
Speaker 1: inclusion and and elitism. I got dots in my head.
Speaker 1: Can't get John nothing thing what I'm thinking about. Can't
Speaker 1: get them out, not to think, but I'm thinking about. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to another fire Drill podcast. There is
Speaker 1: so much to talk about. Huge day for the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour and professional golf. We're gonna get into all of
Speaker 1: that right quick as they say here in Atlanta. But
Speaker 1: let's take a moment to thank our corporate sponsors who
Speaker 1: make this stuff possible. I've got this big asked ad
Speaker 1: read I need to get through. So UM part Points Golf,
Speaker 1: our favorite golf scoring app. You've heard us talk about it.
Speaker 1: It really does make the game more fun. Download the
Speaker 1: app today, you won't regret it. UM and then we
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Speaker 1: can see what we're selling. Put in fire Drill as
Speaker 1: the promo code, and you can get some very nice
Speaker 1: merchandise which will spiff up your golf bag. I highly
Speaker 1: encourage that. All Right, we paid the bills. Now let's
Speaker 1: have some fun on the line. We have really quickly.
Speaker 1: We paid the bills. But uh, we paid the bills.
Speaker 1: But it's fire Pit Collective dot Com. Just start there.
Speaker 1: That's fine, almost got it. That's fine. Ryan friends from
Speaker 1: the top. We have Ryan Friends who's always here to
Speaker 1: correct about Alan. Can you just say this about power points?
Speaker 1: As we say in Atlanta, I love him to death.
Speaker 1: Uh indeed, and uh that's Michael Bamberger. Both Ryan and
Speaker 1: Michael are in the fire Pit offices in Oceanside, California,
Speaker 1: as part of a little boondoggle slash junket um and
Speaker 1: um jealous, I'm not there. We also have Macbarnhardt, the
Speaker 1: Jerry McGuire of golf agents on the line. He's gonna
Speaker 1: help walk us through, um, the very rapidly shifting landscape. UM.
Speaker 1: Let me just start real quick with some observations. Because
Speaker 1: I was in the room where it happened. I'm here
Speaker 1: at the Tour Championship and for a Wednesday morning press
Speaker 1: conference with Jay Monahan, who is not the most thrilling orator,
Speaker 1: the atmosphere was electric. I mean everyone knew he was
Speaker 1: coming in heavy. To use a Sopranos terminology, like the
Speaker 1: tour is in a fight for its survival and uh Monahan.
Speaker 1: Of course, there was a call to action with the
Speaker 1: players only meeting last week in Delaware, which Monahan's said
Speaker 1: this only a second time in tour history. You have
Speaker 1: to go back to there was a player only meeting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was fact checked or not,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was cool. And um, he dropped
Speaker 1: a few I don't know. I wouldn't say they were bombs,
Speaker 1: but there was some heavy artillery was was certainly fired. Um.
Speaker 1: As a tour, they've decided they're gonna go to kind
Speaker 1: of this twenty super event schedule, big purses. They have
Speaker 1: a commitment from all the top players to play in them.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's now a minimum to play in twenty events. Um,
Speaker 1: there's socialism has come to the PGA Tour. They're going
Speaker 1: to give each player five thousand dollars up front, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because, UM, I'm sure at their dinner tables.
Speaker 1: They decry socialism effect on America. But um, that's guaranteed
Speaker 1: money as against their winnings. Um, that will make a
Speaker 1: lot of rookies and journeymen happy because they get the
Speaker 1: money up front, they can pay their bills out having
Speaker 1: to worry about it. Um. Those were the two big
Speaker 1: red letter items. There's some other stuff that's also important,
Speaker 1: but that's what we know. There's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: that need to be answered. Um, Mac, let's start with you. Um,
Speaker 1: you've you've wrapped Superstars, You've you've rep journeyman everything in between.
Speaker 1: How do you see this, uh, this new PGA tour?
Speaker 1: How is it going to play out? I have no idea. Um.
Speaker 1: The one thing we're missing is the field size. How
Speaker 1: do you qualify? Is it just a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six people? That? And we know that the top twenty
Speaker 1: guys are gonna play in these eighteen events and as
Speaker 1: their cut, And if there is, then what have we
Speaker 1: really done? I mean, there's twenty guys may not benefit
Speaker 1: from this. I don't think these guys have promised to
Speaker 1: play this many events without benefiting financially. So until they
Speaker 1: tell us how many people are playing. How they're going
Speaker 1: to build the field, We're not sure how it affects anything.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just more tournaments with bigger purses the same,
Speaker 1: It's just a lot more towards um what would you
Speaker 1: call it? More players championships. There will be a cut,
Speaker 1: I know that to be a fact. Um, you know
Speaker 1: the tours. I think the tournament side is going to
Speaker 1: be negotiated. At the pack meeting last week, sixty players
Speaker 1: was floated, as as as the field side. That's basically
Speaker 1: a w g C. I'm sure there's pushed back from
Speaker 1: the membership that they want more playing opportunities. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that was really discussed is is this
Speaker 1: a closed shop? You know, how how can you go
Speaker 1: from being a young aspiring player or or someone how
Speaker 1: can you elevate yourself into this top player category and
Speaker 1: theme on a hand, and then Rory hammered the point,
Speaker 1: just play better you can. You can play your way
Speaker 1: into that, into that rare fight air. But but to
Speaker 1: do that you need to be in the field. So
Speaker 1: I think there's gonna it's gonna be happy more than
Speaker 1: sixty spots. But you're right that that was not made public. Um,
Speaker 1: Ryan what what are your thoughts because you see things
Speaker 1: from from the ground up. I'm curious. Yeah. UM, I
Speaker 1: was surprised actually about the few players I talked to,
Speaker 1: you know that are kind of outside looking in at this. UH.
Speaker 1: I talked to mostly conditional members. UM. I talked to
Speaker 1: six or seven of them, and one player was like,
Speaker 1: it's a plus over all. Uh. Their biggest concern is
Speaker 1: the field size that we talked about, and definitely that
Speaker 1: they've made it harder for you know, it's easier to
Speaker 1: stay on the tour. It's always been as mcno's and
Speaker 1: my I mean, all of us know, it's harder to
Speaker 1: get to the tour than it is to stay on
Speaker 1: the tour, and now they've made that even more. You know,
Speaker 1: that divide even farther. It's going to be even easier
Speaker 1: to stay on the tour, especially to these twenty events,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be even harder to get there.
Speaker 1: So um, it's it's uh divided that in UH. Players
Speaker 1: on the bottom, I mean, one player brought up a
Speaker 1: very good point that I didn't really think about about
Speaker 1: the five thousand dollars. If you get if you remember
Speaker 1: and you get the five thousand dollars. Um. What this
Speaker 1: player said was, I can compete on a level playing
Speaker 1: field from the standpoint of in his playing career, he
Speaker 1: played better, and then he hired physical therapist, then he
Speaker 1: hired a swing coach, then he hired a caddy. He
Speaker 1: could afford right that five dollars gives him a more
Speaker 1: level playing field from that standpoint. It might not from
Speaker 1: playing opportunities or those kind of things, but I can
Speaker 1: immediately hire a nutritionalist or a swing coach or whatever
Speaker 1: and maybe make those opportunities, um a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: But I mean, everybody's concerned about how do you get
Speaker 1: to these twenty events. Um. The PGA Tour has always
Speaker 1: been a clothes shop. It seems to be closing even further.
Speaker 1: So that will be interesting how it plays out. Michael,
Speaker 1: you've been covering the PGA Tour forever, um that this
Speaker 1: is a pretty seismic shift. What's your take? You know,
Speaker 1: right after the US Open, Monahan went to Hartford home
Speaker 1: game for him and he said, you know, if this
Speaker 1: fight with the Saudis is over over dollars, we can't compete.
Speaker 1: And here we are in in late August and it's
Speaker 1: been a complete reversal. He's coming in with money. UH,
Speaker 1: He's gonna key his core players. He does not want
Speaker 1: to lose Sam Burns. He does want to lose camp Smith.
Speaker 1: He certainly doesn't want to lose Word. He's not gonna
Speaker 1: lose Tiger. And he's competing with dollars, the very thing
Speaker 1: he said that he wasn't going to do so. Obviously,
Speaker 1: a lot has happened between UH, between the US Open
Speaker 1: and UH. And here we are at the end of end,
Speaker 1: end of August. It's all it's all about money. It's
Speaker 1: about keeping these star players with money. UH. To Ryan's
Speaker 1: point about it's a close shop, and it's always been
Speaker 1: a close shop. It's a very fine balancing act as
Speaker 1: Amazon and Starbucks and everybody else is finding out between UM,
Speaker 1: keeping the rich rich, but making sure that the middle class,
Speaker 1: which of course is in quotes here UH, doesn't unionize. Well,
Speaker 1: that happened in baseball once. Once the baseball players unionized,
Speaker 1: even though you know, even the casual fan can't name,
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds and hundreds of baseball players, but that
Speaker 1: baseball union is super powerful. And if the golfers who
Speaker 1: are on the outside decided to unionize and say well,
Speaker 1: you know, you thirty guys, you forty guys, you sixty guys.
Speaker 1: You guys do your thing without us. They're gonna find
Speaker 1: they don't have the pH A tour. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a very fine balancing act of inclusion and and elitism. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just so many questions, like I say, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of answers. I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: there were twenty two players in the private meeting in Delaware?
Speaker 1: Was that correct? It was? Was that the and there's
Speaker 1: gonna be twenty p i P spots paide, So there's
Speaker 1: two guys that went to that meeting are not gonna
Speaker 1: get any money. And I'm I'm gonna be it's gonna
Speaker 1: be exciting to me to see if if the twenty
Speaker 1: two people in there, that at those at least twenty
Speaker 1: of those get the pr P money, how is that
Speaker 1: going to be distributed. I'm not happy about the pr
Speaker 1: P money. I'll promise you that I think this should be.
Speaker 1: If Rory just said play better, well, how do you
Speaker 1: What has that got to do with the fifteen million
Speaker 1: or a ten million you get for the point system.
Speaker 1: That has got nothing to do with how you play. Um,
Speaker 1: so I don't like that. How's it gonna play out?
Speaker 1: I think you just said it once. They tell you
Speaker 1: how the field sizes are, how it benefits of guys,
Speaker 1: how far down the line it benefits. Does it benefit
Speaker 1: enough guys not to keep the other guys from saying
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a union? Um? Does it? How do you?
Speaker 1: How do you keep that going? And you can't really
Speaker 1: say how it's gonna play out. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: Will Sala Tourists I think was in the meeting in Delaware?
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Um? Or did Okay? Will's now out?
Speaker 1: Where the Will's bound out with a back injury, he
Speaker 1: could be out for the other person. I'm gonna mention
Speaker 1: it like Karri's English who was one of the top
Speaker 1: players in the game until he had hip surgery. So
Speaker 1: now will does he come back? He? I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think. Yeah, Harris did not finish Top one and
Speaker 1: FedEx because he couldn't play because of his hips. How
Speaker 1: how do you Okay Will goes into the meeting, but
Speaker 1: now Will could fall to d in the world if
Speaker 1: this if you'll say, if he has back surgery, so
Speaker 1: what do you do about these situations to where you
Speaker 1: know your top play there gets injured, like in baseball,
Speaker 1: you put them on reserve, do you bring them back in?
Speaker 1: And again, all that comes down to what are the
Speaker 1: field sizes and how does it play out? Are they cuts?
Speaker 1: And you say there are going to be cuts, um
Speaker 1: the world ranking points. If you put these twenty top
Speaker 1: players into these fields, you're gonna like bunch up these
Speaker 1: world ranking points. So now you've got a situation where
Speaker 1: let's say that the last player in the field and
Speaker 1: ninety wins that event with all those world ranking points,
Speaker 1: he's gonna shoot way above some of the guys that
Speaker 1: are your superstars playing in these events. So it's just
Speaker 1: gonna flip flop. And and it's that there's so many
Speaker 1: questions about how that around the field sizes, and if
Speaker 1: they don't and when they answer that, then I can
Speaker 1: probably tell you how it's gonna play out well. And
Speaker 1: so this is what's interesting to me is that. And
Speaker 1: by the way, just to clarify, you mentioned the Player
Speaker 1: Impact Program the PIP, that that's something I should have
Speaker 1: said at the top. That's doubling from a fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar pool to a hundred million dollars. Winner gets fifteen
Speaker 1: million dollars. And again I asked Monahan and his press comments,
Speaker 1: will will be more transparency because no one really understood
Speaker 1: how that was divvied up, and they didn't really make
Speaker 1: the results public. They kind of got leaked out eventually
Speaker 1: and then and then the tour was forced to to clarify.
Speaker 1: But um, that's a lot of money at stake, and
Speaker 1: everyone believes it to be a slush fund that the
Speaker 1: commissioners just using to buy the allegiance of the stars,
Speaker 1: and that's not a great look for you know that
Speaker 1: one of the tours talking points is we're a meritocracy,
Speaker 1: we're hardcore competition and live golf is getting guaranteed money
Speaker 1: and they're devaluing the soul of the sport with his
Speaker 1: guaranteed money. Well, um, you know, if you're Roy McElroy,
Speaker 1: you're pretty much guaranteed you're either gonna be ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars. I'm sure it'll be top two and
Speaker 1: the pif no matter what, because they want to reward
Speaker 1: it for his loyalty and Tiger as well. So, um
Speaker 1: that that talking point of meritocracy took a hit today.
Speaker 1: But um, for me, A big fundamental issue is there's
Speaker 1: now two PGA tour is it? It was always kind
Speaker 1: of there, you know, there was there was there was
Speaker 1: the big events, and there was the second tier events.
Speaker 1: But they could at least hope that they could attract
Speaker 1: some of the great players if if um, if the
Speaker 1: scheduling worked out, or if they wooed the wife and
Speaker 1: the caddy or whatever it was. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's now going to be more than two dozen second
Speaker 1: tier events where they're not gonna get anybody in UM.
Speaker 1: There was so much talk today. It was clearly a
Speaker 1: talking point because both Jordan's Speed and Rory McIlroy used
Speaker 1: the term improve the product, like we're improving the product.
Speaker 1: We can get the best players together more often, and
Speaker 1: we're going to improve the product. But when more than
Speaker 1: half year events UM have no stars, that's a real problem.
Speaker 1: And what do you guys think about how the torque
Speaker 1: kind of bridge that gap between the halves and the
Speaker 1: have mores. Well, my biggest concern and some of the
Speaker 1: players I talked to, also uh Alan and Macin and Michael,
Speaker 1: is how do those second tier events survive? Right? Like
Speaker 1: the corn ferry of tour can't get loses any constantly
Speaker 1: can't get sponsors. At what point does Sanderson Farms or
Speaker 1: Barracuda or whatever the second tier events? How do they
Speaker 1: commit millions and millions of dollars when they're going to
Speaker 1: get none, not a few like they do now? Not
Speaker 1: like oh, you know, Rory's gonna come this year or whatever,
Speaker 1: And I don't know where they like a T and
Speaker 1: T Pebble Beach pro Hum, No one's playing in it.
Speaker 1: No one's going to play there. Uh you know, Sanderson Farms, Fortunet,
Speaker 1: Napa Valley continue, Like how long do those do? We are?
Speaker 1: Is the PGA tour able to find enough sponsors to
Speaker 1: support an entire another tour? So basically there's corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 1: this tour, the elite tour. How long can they do that?
Speaker 1: And how long do the members who are supporting it
Speaker 1: and paying for it on the top tour go what
Speaker 1: the hell are we doing? Like so that's a very
Speaker 1: big concern of a lot of the players. I talked
Speaker 1: to you that this tour within a tour really struggles
Speaker 1: to survive because there's just not enough financial support to
Speaker 1: make it work. That's really well said, Ryan, because you know,
Speaker 1: the underlying purpose of the PGA Tour, by its actual charter,
Speaker 1: is to give playing opportunities to people who want to
Speaker 1: make a living playing golf, and the tour has done
Speaker 1: that very successfully, almost too successfully, because you know, playing
Speaker 1: weekend a week out, as many have said, has gotten
Speaker 1: very dull wares and the time wife Tom Wiscoffe error
Speaker 1: it really the count of tour really did end in
Speaker 1: October and October, November, December, and even into January went
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing, and there was there there. It did
Speaker 1: give opportunity for for golf to refresh itself under this scenario.
Speaker 1: You know, these players are are are going to make
Speaker 1: NBA money, NFL money, Major League Baseball money, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that golf is a niche sport. And to
Speaker 1: Ryan's point, no, it's pretty clear for Monahan's Commons today
Speaker 1: they had a slush fund, just like like Phil Mickelson
Speaker 1: has been saying all along, hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: obvious sleep because this money came from nowhere. It's not
Speaker 1: like Exxon Corps just suddenly wrote a check to the
Speaker 1: PGA Tours. Oh, I've been reading about live. I feel
Speaker 1: so bad for you guys. Let me write a check
Speaker 1: to get you through these next five years. No, so
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. So they're financing this themselves largely. And
Speaker 1: golfs a small business. It looks like a big business,
Speaker 1: but it really isn't, not compared to the NFL, and
Speaker 1: not compared not compared to heavway boxing, even as as
Speaker 1: as diminished that is, so I really don't know how
Speaker 1: long term you're gonna pay for all of this. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to that point, this conversation we're having right now,
Speaker 1: no one cares uh and And the reason I say
Speaker 1: it just that way is because the ordinary golf fan
Speaker 1: is going to care about this discussion at all. They
Speaker 1: just want to put on their TV and see players
Speaker 1: they know play good golf shots. And to that point,
Speaker 1: I think this is a very positive day for the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour because there will be more events with more
Speaker 1: name players and and and just enough not name players
Speaker 1: who are scratching up that leader board. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: can this guy knockoff Scottie Sheffler, just like we saw
Speaker 1: last week in Wilmington's so viewed that way, I think
Speaker 1: this is actually a big positive for the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: for now. I think they've really found a way to
Speaker 1: fend off Live, which was of course the impetus for
Speaker 1: this whole thing. So in that regard, you know, my
Speaker 1: hats off, hats off to the PGA Tour and for
Speaker 1: for how they've turned things around in this very tense,
Speaker 1: odd summer and golf the likes of which golf has
Speaker 1: never had. Yeah, I think Matt can probably talk to this.
Speaker 1: But I just see in five to ten years a
Speaker 1: very real possibility that either corn Ferry disappears or this
Speaker 1: second tier becomes the Corn Ferry Tour. I just can
Speaker 1: foresee a place where these twenty events or maybe they
Speaker 1: go to twenty five or whatever that is, is the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. I just I just don't see. I just
Speaker 1: don't see this tour within a tour surviving. I just
Speaker 1: can't believe. Again, Michael is a hundred percent spot on.
Speaker 1: No one cares about the Sanderson farms like no one,
Speaker 1: I just is it, and they're going to care I
Speaker 1: mean even less because I mean the players do. I'm
Speaker 1: saying that the hardcore vans do and the local community does,
Speaker 1: but it's not enough to put millions and millions and
Speaker 1: millions of dollars up for it. The tour can't afford
Speaker 1: to cut off the pipeline of young players. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see the situation in a couple of years,
Speaker 1: let's say the next tiger Woods. Not that there can
Speaker 1: be a next tiger On pretend in three years, the
Speaker 1: next Tiger Woods is coming out of college, and so
Speaker 1: he hires representation, and representation calls Monahan and any calls
Speaker 1: Greg Norman. Alright, I've got player right here. Um, start
Speaker 1: the bidding. Do you wanting or not winning? Um? That's
Speaker 1: going to be one of the situations that will come.
Speaker 1: But they cannot afford to close the pipeline off. And
Speaker 1: so how do you do that? Do yourself fund that?
Speaker 1: I mean, there should be a tour underneath the corntary.
Speaker 1: There's that much talent on the rise. But again Michael said,
Speaker 1: short term, the tour has now produced a better product
Speaker 1: for at least eighteen events. Okay, um, But the long
Speaker 1: term examples or long term effects or unattended consequences, no
Speaker 1: one can tell yet because you don't know what Live
Speaker 1: Live could respond to this in some way of shape
Speaker 1: or form, And they can't. If you cut the corn
Speaker 1: ferry off and Live comes and creates their corn ferry
Speaker 1: in the US. Then then they then they'll have all
Speaker 1: the young players because the space in five years, how
Speaker 1: old we're gonna have Jordan's speed, Justin Thomas. These guys
Speaker 1: are gonna be getting into their thirties. And we know
Speaker 1: what happens at the thirties. I mean it's there's a
Speaker 1: slow decline. At thirty eight, it's it's more progressive. And
Speaker 1: at forty two, you know, it's so the tour they
Speaker 1: can't cut off. They're young superstars. And two years ago
Speaker 1: Scottie Scheffler was not even on the radar, and now
Speaker 1: he's the number one player in the world. And who's
Speaker 1: the next Scottie Scheffler setting out there that may go
Speaker 1: out to bid or and that could be two years now.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna bring up one point, you guys
Speaker 1: talking about NFL money in Major League Baseball money, The
Speaker 1: one difference in the tour is their careers are much longer.
Speaker 1: I mean, an NFL player's career is so short, so
Speaker 1: if he's making but I mean tour players now playing
Speaker 1: for forty years if they want so, it's not really
Speaker 1: apples to apples when you're talking about salaries for those
Speaker 1: athletes versus the tour athletes. But it also those guys
Speaker 1: in baseball football don't pay their own they don't pay
Speaker 1: their expenses, and so now the tour has done that
Speaker 1: for them. So they're gonna guarantee their expenses, which is
Speaker 1: I mean, which is great. But if you play fifteen
Speaker 1: events on tour and you don't make five thousand, that
Speaker 1: will probably the last check you get from the PGA tour.
Speaker 1: I mean, for as much money as they're playing, you
Speaker 1: better be able to make the half a million dollars
Speaker 1: plan I heard. Yeah, so that's I heard some interesting
Speaker 1: scuttle but about that there there's already some talk like, well,
Speaker 1: what if you're a say Luke Donalds or even a
Speaker 1: Davis Love you have you can cash in your your
Speaker 1: career exemptions or whatever. You can play fifteen events, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna make half a million, not you might
Speaker 1: not make a cut, and but you get to keep
Speaker 1: the money. Um, And that there's that's gonna be an
Speaker 1: interesting scenari if anybody try it goes down that road.
Speaker 1: But I do have some insight about sponsorship dollars and
Speaker 1: how this is gonna work because I had a very
Speaker 1: enlightening call with someone who's deep into that world. And
Speaker 1: you know, basically there's there's a lot of events now,
Speaker 1: like take the Memorial or Riviera. Their purses between eight
Speaker 1: and ten million dollars. They have to go up to
Speaker 1: twenty and the tour is going to split that and
Speaker 1: the sponsors have to come up with the rest. So
Speaker 1: these companies are already paying fifteen million dollars to sponsor
Speaker 1: a tour event, all of a sudden they've got to
Speaker 1: add another five for next year. Now that's great if
Speaker 1: if you know, if you know, you're gonna get all
Speaker 1: the stars, but Memorial already does, right, what's the incentive there?
Speaker 1: So that's a tough sell and it starts next year.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a call went out last night
Speaker 1: to all the sponsors. This is happening. Then you have
Speaker 1: there's there's fifteen events that are are vying for the
Speaker 1: four rotating elevated spots, and they're looking at even an
Speaker 1: even bigger hit. They might be a seven or eight
Speaker 1: million dollar person. They gotta go up to twenty overnight. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's already pushed back from the sponsors that there
Speaker 1: you're right, Michael and Phil Michaelsone's right. The tour has reserves,
Speaker 1: and Monahan said, that's helping to pay for all this.
Speaker 1: But the tour is instantly squeezing it's it's current sponsors,
Speaker 1: and when in already a pretty tough environment. So UM,
Speaker 1: you know that it's quite possible that you'll see a
Speaker 1: couple of sponsors or more defect because if if you
Speaker 1: are one of these second tour events, you're already in
Speaker 1: for twelve or fifteen and now you know you're essentially
Speaker 1: getting a glorified corn ferry field, that becomes that becomes
Speaker 1: a tough sell in some boardrooms. So how this plays
Speaker 1: out on the sponsorship level, again, the fans don't care,
Speaker 1: but it's very important to the business of golf and
Speaker 1: it can certainly drag down the overall PG tour model
Speaker 1: and can affect the product that's on your TV. So
Speaker 1: there there's gonna be a lot of high stakes negotiating
Speaker 1: in Jay Monahan's immediate future because this this is you know,
Speaker 1: we're already the end of August. This is kicking off
Speaker 1: in January, like um, and there's existing deals are gonna
Speaker 1: have to get torn up. There's people who are thinking
Speaker 1: about renewing as far as sponsors go. So that landscape
Speaker 1: has changed very dramatically, and it's gonna be very interesting
Speaker 1: to see if Monahan can thread the needle on this
Speaker 1: over and over. I just think that this brings up
Speaker 1: the whole thing of like how far behind and how
Speaker 1: little the PGA Tour and Jay Monahan took this threat.
Speaker 1: The fact that they're having these conversations with sponsors six
Speaker 1: months after the Lived tour started is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I just this mind bottling, Like how that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they've completely dropped the ball. I just I don't get it.
Speaker 1: So it's just my two cents about it, and I
Speaker 1: don't really know Alan what what can the pg A
Speaker 1: Tour actually sell here? In other words, the Masters is
Speaker 1: the crown jewel of sitting around watching golf on TV
Speaker 1: with your family, and that group is skewing older and
Speaker 1: older by the year, So memorial, you know, get getting
Speaker 1: into summer months and the A, T and T which
Speaker 1: cantraw a field. Uh, how do you get those? I
Speaker 1: don't even have sponsors. Moral now frekim me for not knowing. Um,
Speaker 1: I've worked. I used to be an issuey now it's worked.
Speaker 1: How do you go to a work there. How do
Speaker 1: you go to a T and T and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know our our TV numbers are down every year.
Speaker 1: Uh and I know we don't. We don't have that
Speaker 1: many named players. So off you a T and as
Speaker 1: historic as your mentors. Um. Uh, but please pony up
Speaker 1: another ten or fifty million dollars Allen. How do they
Speaker 1: make that? How are they going to sell that? How
Speaker 1: do they actually sell that? It's tough. And you know
Speaker 1: I've used this example before, but you know, Pebble Beach
Speaker 1: is my hometown event and it would get three stars
Speaker 1: every year Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Jordan's Speeth two out
Speaker 1: of three or now would live. So, um, well, we
Speaker 1: can agree that a lot of the guys who went
Speaker 1: over to live are not in the primes of their careers.
Speaker 1: Their names and the people that you just fans gravitate
Speaker 1: towards them. So you're you're selling You're selling a product
Speaker 1: the fewer stars no matter how you slice it, and
Speaker 1: that that's challenging. Um. So yeah, I think the macro
Speaker 1: business is really interesting now, uh Rory, I got some
Speaker 1: intel on this. Like last night at midnight I was
Speaker 1: texting or d M ng with someone who's who's deep
Speaker 1: into this world, that that Tiger and Rory have gone
Speaker 1: down the notion of privatizing the tour and bringing in
Speaker 1: investors under private equity money, which could be a gusher
Speaker 1: of money for the tour. You're into the billions of
Speaker 1: dollars that could easily be raised, and that could float
Speaker 1: all of this and take a lot of pressure away,
Speaker 1: and it would be another way to lavishly compensate the
Speaker 1: top players. You know. Monahan was asked about that today
Speaker 1: in his in his press conference, and he didn't he
Speaker 1: didn't close the door. He said, you know, are our
Speaker 1: nonprofit status is always gonna imporant to identity, but there's
Speaker 1: certainly other ways you can. You can set up for
Speaker 1: profit vehicles um under the tour umbrella. So that's interesting
Speaker 1: because Tiger and Rory have had a number of meetings,
Speaker 1: just the two of them, with this Rain Group, which
Speaker 1: is a big time um, you know, investment company, and
Speaker 1: they've they've been involved in the sports world. They helped
Speaker 1: sell the UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship for four billion dollars,
Speaker 1: and they know what they're doing. These are serious people
Speaker 1: and so and Tiger and Roy are serious and so
Speaker 1: that's still on the table, and that could make a
Speaker 1: lot of the tours money squeeze go away, but it
Speaker 1: would be a fundamental reshaping of the business. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's out there, that's a that's a that's a possibility
Speaker 1: that that lingers. But um, again, what's happening away from
Speaker 1: the golf course is almost warnsing that was happening on
Speaker 1: the golf course right now in golf Um, what was
Speaker 1: I'll shoot that point on what was it like for
Speaker 1: you to be in the room today and see, uh
Speaker 1: I guess Monian came in and then was there a
Speaker 1: break before Rory came in? Or did they were they
Speaker 1: ships passing in the night? Did they bear hug? How
Speaker 1: did that all play out? Because this was a highly
Speaker 1: orchestra left him another hundred as they as they walked
Speaker 1: in another check. Yeah, here's somewhere here some pit money.
Speaker 1: Don't spend it all in one place. Um. No, Rory
Speaker 1: was in the back of the room. You know, they
Speaker 1: didn't schedule in the only game on hand half an
Speaker 1: hour and then Rory was supposed to be there. So
Speaker 1: Rory was standing in the back watching and it was
Speaker 1: it was kind of a cool vibe and I will
Speaker 1: say I didn't mention this at the top, Like this
Speaker 1: little room, this little tent was packed. I mean it
Speaker 1: was standing room only. That really did have the feeling
Speaker 1: of a big event. A lot of tour people, a
Speaker 1: lot of hangers on, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: TV folks who ordinarily wouldn't be there, but they wanted to.
Speaker 1: They wanted to listen in and and and see it
Speaker 1: with their own eyes, and um, you know, mon had
Speaker 1: I tried to ask him a few tough questions at
Speaker 1: the end, and he looked a little flum mixed. When
Speaker 1: it was over, he walked out and he went into
Speaker 1: this uh sort of auxiliary is basically where the camera
Speaker 1: guys hang out, I think, and just sat there and
Speaker 1: decompressed and the security want let anybody in. And he
Speaker 1: was watching Rory's press conference, and it was like, how Phil,
Speaker 1: you know, after his rounds he would sit in the
Speaker 1: scoring tent for a long time just to let the
Speaker 1: stress drain out and and let some of the autograph
Speaker 1: seekers dissipate on a hand and stole that move because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people out there who want
Speaker 1: to talk to me, including me, but we got sucked
Speaker 1: into Rory's comments and other things. So he looked a
Speaker 1: little wrung out. Honestly, I mean, I think he knew
Speaker 1: that he has different constituencies he was performing for, obviously
Speaker 1: the reporters in the room, the people who are watching
Speaker 1: live on the Golf Channel, but also the players. You know.
Speaker 1: They put down a marker and basically said, Jay, find
Speaker 1: a way to pay us, like, just get it done.
Speaker 1: You know what we want. We want more money, we
Speaker 1: want guaranteed money, like make it happen. And it was
Speaker 1: a high wire act and you can see the strain
Speaker 1: on mine Hand's face. It was interesting. And if you
Speaker 1: could get if you could give truth serum to j
Speaker 1: Mon Hand and pose one question to him, what what
Speaker 1: might it be? Um? I mean, Michael Bamberger will just
Speaker 1: leave the greatest, one of the greatest writers, golf writers
Speaker 1: at our time, speechless. You know, he's just searching in
Speaker 1: his hotel room in Atlanta. He just look and I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just bailing him out right now. I'm super
Speaker 1: bailing out Allenship as he had no answer for this
Speaker 1: until a word in because he wants stop talking friends. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, the question is why have you not engaged
Speaker 1: with Greg Norman and Live Golf. Why have you been
Speaker 1: so prideful? How did that benefit your members to not
Speaker 1: even take the phone call? And that's the question I
Speaker 1: want to answer, And you know, if it's interesting, credit
Speaker 1: to Jason sobell Um, one of our typing colleagues. He
Speaker 1: went back and looked at Monahan's press conference from last
Speaker 1: year and there was a question at the end because
Speaker 1: even even in from the Tour Championship, even in August,
Speaker 1: it was kind of bubbling right the Premier Golf. He've
Speaker 1: been kicking around, the staudies were sniffing around, and he
Speaker 1: was asked, you know, do you think a year from now,
Speaker 1: which is today, do you think a year from now
Speaker 1: that any of these rival leagues will be a threat?
Speaker 1: And in Monahan totally blew it off. And whether that
Speaker 1: was that was you know, hubrisk or maybe or did
Speaker 1: he really believe that unknown, but um, you know, and
Speaker 1: I asked Monahan about that. He kind of backpedal and said, well,
Speaker 1: I take everything very seriously. And I was like, well, really,
Speaker 1: you gave the Live guys a huge head start here,
Speaker 1: So um, I would like to know why the commissioner
Speaker 1: did not do his you know, fiduciary duty here, um
Speaker 1: with with a little more enthusiasm at the risk that's
Speaker 1: very interesting on at the risk of playing couch psychologists here,
Speaker 1: I think Monahan is to finch them what bit of
Speaker 1: pain was sincere in Atlanta was to Hoodie and uh.
Speaker 1: In other words, Hootie paved the way for Billy Paine,
Speaker 1: and of course Tim Fincham paved the way for Jay Monahan.
Speaker 1: Tim Fincham and Greg Norman they locked heads like two
Speaker 1: people never have before in golf and uh and and
Speaker 1: Monahan inherited that that mantle and that mindset from Fincham.
Speaker 1: Whatever Greg Norman stands for, we stand for something else.
Speaker 1: And even though Greg Norman really had quite a good
Speaker 1: idea for just what we're saying today. Actually, and this
Speaker 1: is you know, we talked about Phil just a minute ago,
Speaker 1: but this is a vindication of Norman and from thirty
Speaker 1: years ago as well. Norman said we'd be we need
Speaker 1: the world's best players playing in the same events more
Speaker 1: often than just the four majors. That's exactly what Monahan
Speaker 1: is saying today and with it is exactly what Rory
Speaker 1: is saying today. Um. But as long as Greg Norman
Speaker 1: was the face of this other tour. Saudi money, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit bloody money, that might
Speaker 1: have been part of it. But I think the biggest
Speaker 1: part of it was Norman and Norman's relationship with Fincham.
Speaker 1: I think Monahan inherited that that mental Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: here were thirty years later, Greg Norman still in the
Speaker 1: middle of all of it. It's incredible, what a legacy. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, how can I ask you a quick question?
Speaker 1: Of course? Yeah, I mean you you've written so much
Speaker 1: about Phil and so insightfully. To what degree are today's
Speaker 1: is today's news of vindication of what Phil told you
Speaker 1: in that conversation in February and also broadly what Phil
Speaker 1: has been selling for a long time now to is
Speaker 1: to or brethren. Well, I mean I tweeted this. I
Speaker 1: just it was three words, wrote Phil was right, and
Speaker 1: it was I was being a little cheeky. Um. I
Speaker 1: think you could say he was right. The way he
Speaker 1: held it was probably wrong, but he kind of laid
Speaker 1: all this out there a long time ago for me,
Speaker 1: And you know, we talked about the reserves of the
Speaker 1: tour was sitting on you know, why hadn't they opened
Speaker 1: the spigot. Why don't the players have more of a voice? Um,
Speaker 1: feel has always been against opposite fields. I mean, his
Speaker 1: vision for the tour is the top thirty guys playing
Speaker 1: five times a year, and that's the whole PGA tour.
Speaker 1: Son of a bitch. It's a personal attack on you, Ryan,
Speaker 1: but that's Phil's thought. And uh so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: every everything he said has come true. Now. Um, you
Speaker 1: know we have been talking periodically in print and on
Speaker 1: these podcasts. Is there a compromise as our middle ground?
Speaker 1: Norman was always going to be problematic in that scenario,
Speaker 1: but I think, well, the tour has done today is
Speaker 1: taking that off the table. Like we're just gonna try
Speaker 1: and rep the hate to live model without them. We
Speaker 1: don't need their money and we don't need their players,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if that's true. But um, this this
Speaker 1: idea of trying to put the game back together took
Speaker 1: a hit today. And you know, Monahan was asked, is
Speaker 1: there any road back for a live player if they
Speaker 1: if they want to come back to tour and they
Speaker 1: renounced their their status and they beg for mercy, you know,
Speaker 1: would you let him back? And he's like, no, he
Speaker 1: said it with great relish and so you know, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a river in Italy. I think we've
Speaker 1: crossed the rubicon here and it's gonna be it's gonna
Speaker 1: be years before um before we can we can think
Speaker 1: about some sort of reapproachment, which is unbelievable, but that's
Speaker 1: just where we are. Um, Mac, what is what is
Speaker 1: your thought on that? I mean, if they but if
Speaker 1: they come, yeah, I mean, let's go forward. Like they're
Speaker 1: talking about bringing in you know JP McManus or you know,
Speaker 1: Dermot Desmond and Johan Rupert, billionaires that could come in
Speaker 1: like they do on horse racing and everything else, and
Speaker 1: they can come by franchise pieces of the PGA tour
Speaker 1: and it goes for profit and they own you know
Speaker 1: now they just like going in a soccer team or
Speaker 1: a cricket team, they own a golf league. Um yeah
Speaker 1: they I mean, I don't think you can say never
Speaker 1: about anything. I just don't think right now. Everything's reaction
Speaker 1: there and you don't want to believe that you're going
Speaker 1: to bring these guys back. But let's face it, we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about the four majors all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard any talk about not letting live last
Speaker 1: play or not playing. So the four Majors now will
Speaker 1: be the four events that you will see the best
Speaker 1: players in the world participate, supposedly, I mean if the
Speaker 1: world rankings and all that stuff work out. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think versus the Live Tour, it's just
Speaker 1: like any other visits the tour. I've said it before.
Speaker 1: The tour was doing great. I think they did wonderful things.
Speaker 1: I think they put on great events. I think they
Speaker 1: did a lot for charity. They didn't have to do
Speaker 1: anything for me, And I think people that play the
Speaker 1: game for a living, and if you know, for love,
Speaker 1: what else would they do except play golf that the
Speaker 1: purses were half, would they still play golf? Yes, they they,
Speaker 1: But now it's just more and more and more, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I brought it up to the Matt Janella.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, the tours saved, the tour lives
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. I'm not sure about the DP World Tour,
Speaker 1: um Asian Tour is gonna be fine. But who's gonna
Speaker 1: save golf. Who's gonna save golf? And everybody saved their
Speaker 1: businesses now, But this is a game that you can
Speaker 1: be Ian Baker Finch winning the British one day and
Speaker 1: a year later not being able to hit it in
Speaker 1: a forty acre field. We see this happen all the time.
Speaker 1: There's injuries, there's the landscape. I mean, when Jack retired
Speaker 1: from the tour, of the tour did fine when Jack,
Speaker 1: when Watson retired, when Norman left, when even when Tiger left,
Speaker 1: the tour was doing just fine. We find more people
Speaker 1: to pull for, we find more players. So I don't
Speaker 1: I think, like I said, I think this was just
Speaker 1: an overreach. I think they didn't need to do it.
Speaker 1: The guys that were gonna stay, we're gonna stay, and
Speaker 1: the guys are gonna go, we're gonna go. And and
Speaker 1: if it got down the money, I had to let
Speaker 1: him go. Um, I said in Boise last week of
Speaker 1: the thing, I said, you know, to a tour person,
Speaker 1: I just said, I don't get it. What do you
Speaker 1: let them go? Like, Let's see what happens and then
Speaker 1: you can So I mean, I don't think you can
Speaker 1: say never about these guys not coming back, because if
Speaker 1: you tell me somebody of Tiger Woods status was out there,
Speaker 1: let's say that. I don't know who would be Brooks
Speaker 1: kept if he becomes if he wins the Masters, or
Speaker 1: he wins all these tournaments, that would you bring him
Speaker 1: back in to help your TV dollars? Yeah, you have to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Jay is I mean Jay is Uh has
Speaker 1: drawn this line in the sand and he can't really
Speaker 1: go back on it now. But if he leaves in
Speaker 1: one year or five years or whatever that number is,
Speaker 1: I mean, the next person and ten guys are over there,
Speaker 1: they just have to There's no I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: cart and I r l for the race fans out there.
Speaker 1: Everybody came back together eventually, and the Indianapolis five hundred
Speaker 1: is now the Indianapolis five hundreds that it always was.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I mean there's just no way
Speaker 1: that if they all, if they live tour died tomorrow,
Speaker 1: that the PGA Tour wouldn't wouldn't let all those guys back.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's not gonna happen. But it's
Speaker 1: not going to die tomorrow. I mean on on Monday
Speaker 1: and five days they're gonna poach you know a half
Speaker 1: dozen or more PGA Tour members. Like he's not dying,
Speaker 1: it's it's ramping up. So that that's where it gets
Speaker 1: interesting because it remains a very real and viable threat
Speaker 1: to the PGA tour. This is a this is a
Speaker 1: total sidebar, but I think Will's ella Tooris's injury is
Speaker 1: a benefit to the live tour and guaranteed money, Like
Speaker 1: there's a possibility. I don't know anything. I have no
Speaker 1: inside information whatsoever, but back injuries and player and and
Speaker 1: golfers are are very serious. He's obviously an up and comer.
Speaker 1: If that's a very serious back injury and he's out
Speaker 1: a year and never really gets back to where he was,
Speaker 1: like he probably would have wanted to take on a
Speaker 1: million from the Lift Tour, like he's not. I just anyway,
Speaker 1: it's total total Anthony Kim to that exactly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: no Anthony Kim was fart enough to have disability insurance,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but he also had the driver yips.
Speaker 1: That's an untold part of the story. But you're right,
Speaker 1: I mean already the alt tours, they didn't say what
Speaker 1: they didn't say what injury could injury as a person
Speaker 1: with the chipping yips. That's a very very serious injury.
Speaker 1: It's worse than whatever injury he had back to the
Speaker 1: question that you asked, you know, who's gonna save golf here?
Speaker 1: You know, with all due respect to Sam Burns, who's
Speaker 1: an incredible talent, but Sam Burns could walk in the
Speaker 1: Mall of American Minneapolis for a week and three people
Speaker 1: would recognize him. So I don't believe Sam Burns now
Speaker 1: or ever is going to save golf. Uh. Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: was incredibly powerful force in the Gulf. He almost saved golf.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that can act really save golf
Speaker 1: is of course golf itself. Because as we fore, no
Speaker 1: and everybody else who's listening to this thing, it's a
Speaker 1: great game. It's an enigmatic, difficult game, and it has
Speaker 1: tremendous fan interest, and it's got more now potentially than
Speaker 1: it ever has before because of the pandemic. I don't
Speaker 1: know the numbers others would, but I would think millions
Speaker 1: of people, certainly hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, have been
Speaker 1: drawn to golf during this pandemic, have taken it up,
Speaker 1: and they are interested in Sam Burns and Wills allot
Speaker 1: tours and they are going to support the tour and
Speaker 1: the tour or Live Golf or the Asian Tour or
Speaker 1: your corn ferry tour run or any bills can figure
Speaker 1: out how to get those people engaged, they may be
Speaker 1: onto something, which is a segue to Alan, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind me going here now. But Alan's take first
Speaker 1: the phrase of the moment Stadium golf. Alan, what does
Speaker 1: the phrase mean? I've never heard until today? And how
Speaker 1: does this play out? Right? That was a sort of
Speaker 1: funny non sequitur of this announcement of this new uh
Speaker 1: enterprise that Rory and Tiger have teams up on. And
Speaker 1: it's going to be on Monday night. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: team play. It's this indoor golf league on simulators with
Speaker 1: a live audience. I mean to me, it sounds a
Speaker 1: little like a dreadful product, but uh, it may be
Speaker 1: your only chance to watch Tiger Wood swing a golf club.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not the wear and terror of walking eight
Speaker 1: miles and and hanging lies and all that, so Tiger
Speaker 1: will draw some eyeballs initially. But um, it's tech infused,
Speaker 1: which is like my favorite new phrase, like, hey, how
Speaker 1: you doing well? I'm I'm tech infused today. But um,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, it's it's just another way Jame
Speaker 1: on hand called his entire role the decks and was like, hey,
Speaker 1: Tiger and Rory are starting this thing. I know nothing
Speaker 1: about it, but I need you to invest in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean, and they're gonna you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna try and pick That sounds stupid. Yeah, can you
Speaker 1: just write a big check to these people so they
Speaker 1: stay poleased, not even in a state of it's like
Speaker 1: an indoor sound stage, like you know, it's fake stadium.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Not true. There aren't paying There aren't
Speaker 1: paying fans watching on the scene. There will be fans,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying they're not tens and thousands of them. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like this is gonna be like, you know,
Speaker 1: no warehouse, so it's gonna be in the studio. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have the grandeur of an actual stadium. It's
Speaker 1: just um to me. It's like a totally bizarre product.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe it'll be cool.
Speaker 1: It's certainly five iron golf and top golf, and people
Speaker 1: consume the game in many different ways now, and but
Speaker 1: that's so experienceual. I don't know. If you want to
Speaker 1: watch someone else do it, I don't know. But that
Speaker 1: was another part of this announcement. But to me, what
Speaker 1: significant about it is is the strengthening alliance between Tiger
Speaker 1: and Rory. They have come together to try and save
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour and by extension, golf, and the fact
Speaker 1: that they wrote a check and they became partners in
Speaker 1: this means something just like it's it's meaningful that there
Speaker 1: are the two guys who have sat down with rain
Speaker 1: group and try to figure out another way for the
Speaker 1: tour to move forward. Is a totally different business. And
Speaker 1: you know, Tiger's the needle, we know that, but his
Speaker 1: playing days are basically over. He needs Rory. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he's like his foot soldier. He's Roy' the guy was
Speaker 1: out on tour. He's very accessible, he's the one who's
Speaker 1: talking to players, he's organizing things, and so together they're
Speaker 1: a very powerful force in a way that Tiger could
Speaker 1: not do it alone. So while this this cheesy indoor
Speaker 1: golf thing is gonna lead to a lot of fun
Speaker 1: golf Twitter content, um, what it means is that Tiger
Speaker 1: and Rory are invested in each other. And you know,
Speaker 1: Tiger and Field could never quite get there. They were
Speaker 1: they were too close in age, they had too much
Speaker 1: bad blood and history, and you know, they did a
Speaker 1: couple of made for TV things and that's all gone away. Um,
Speaker 1: so I think it has a larger meaning that that's
Speaker 1: very significant at this very fraught moment where Tiger and
Speaker 1: Roy together are really the face and the voice and
Speaker 1: and the conscience of the PGA tour. And and you
Speaker 1: allude to it. And you know, I remember standing in
Speaker 1: a small group under the under the tree with the
Speaker 1: Chip Brewer from Callaowe Golf. You know, it could have
Speaker 1: been ten years ago now, and a couple of s
Speaker 1: I business people, and he was telling us about this
Speaker 1: thing called top golf and I'm like, yeah, that'll work. Well,
Speaker 1: that has worked and uh, you know, uh, who knows
Speaker 1: what young people want, but this may be exactly what
Speaker 1: they want, you know. And you were telling me Mac Mac.
Speaker 1: You're Mac Mac. You're telling me the other day how
Speaker 1: cricket has read you know, I don't follow this, but
Speaker 1: I think Mac, you do, how cricket has redefined the
Speaker 1: Test match in India and other countries, and how that
Speaker 1: has uh promoted interest in the game. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
Speaker 1: Like I say, I don't I think we need a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old on here to ask about what's he
Speaker 1: gonna think about Tiger hitting into a stimulator. Um, the
Speaker 1: DP World Tour just had a Monday qualifier, Monday qualifier
Speaker 1: ish played on a simulator and why who qualified? It's
Speaker 1: it's absolutely wild. Uh it was. It was a worldwide qualifier,
Speaker 1: four rounds on a simulator. And the man who want
Speaker 1: it I cannot pronounce his name is from Montenegro and
Speaker 1: it will be the first player from Montenegro to uh
Speaker 1: play on an European Tour event. Side note, I can't
Speaker 1: find a thing on the guy it's gonna shoot nine,
Speaker 1: but he did. He did qualify via virtual golf. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be real. I think that's the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we all decry that the game is the
Speaker 1: fan base is getting older, and we need we need
Speaker 1: younger fans, we need we need to make golf cooler.
Speaker 1: So we're being a little snobby. Or maybe these are
Speaker 1: great ideas, maybe they'll take off and maybe they'll bring
Speaker 1: in the young fans of golf needs. So we'll try
Speaker 1: and have an open mind here. But um, there's a
Speaker 1: little little scent of desperation on all of this. I mean,
Speaker 1: as you say, Michael that the timeless appeal the game
Speaker 1: is what holds us all together. But and Ryan, you've
Speaker 1: probably detected this as well, like I'm getting this comment
Speaker 1: on Twitter more and more like I'm done with the
Speaker 1: pro golf. You know, I'm not gonna watch you where
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna play with my buddies. And that's a
Speaker 1: little problematic if those are your hardcore fans who are
Speaker 1: saying that. And um U. A corrollary to that is
Speaker 1: people are offended by the money, like, oh, it's it's
Speaker 1: too much money. I'm out. It's like, well, you watch
Speaker 1: the NBA and a lot of guys are making fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars. You watch. You know, money is has been
Speaker 1: all over pro sports forever, but people the golf and
Speaker 1: seems to be offended by the money all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: So it's we're all having to reconcile with this new
Speaker 1: what this new reality. What I struggle with. I rarely
Speaker 1: try to be this serious guy on this on this podcast,
Speaker 1: but uh, what I struggle with is I've used social
Speaker 1: media and sports in my in my life to get
Speaker 1: away from real life, right, get away from politics, and
Speaker 1: get away from the stresses of the day. And the
Speaker 1: in fighting and we can debate whether you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Jack or Tiger is the great I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: debates like that, but just sports was always and and
Speaker 1: I try to use social media as that too. Is
Speaker 1: like my outlet from the quote unquote real world, right,
Speaker 1: we can don't go watch the news and that's real
Speaker 1: ship going on. So that is my frustration was where
Speaker 1: golf is. I think a lot of people are the
Speaker 1: same as like that line is blurred and combined to
Speaker 1: get Now it's impossible you can't have a conversation about
Speaker 1: golf without it being political, and that part is frustrating
Speaker 1: for me. And I hope that at one point that
Speaker 1: that is is, you know, dies down and we can
Speaker 1: just talk about who is the greatest Tiger or Jack,
Speaker 1: or we can have whatever debate we want to have
Speaker 1: without this you know, let's let's just talk about golf.
Speaker 1: So that's the frustrating part with me, and I think
Speaker 1: Allen and what you were alluding to and what I
Speaker 1: sent on social media is that too. Everybody's kind of
Speaker 1: tired of all this ship and it just started. Well,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some other things that you know that
Speaker 1: people don't realize so caddies, uh make between five, seven
Speaker 1: and ten of the purse winnings. Um. I mean caddies
Speaker 1: now could be making an amazing amount of money if
Speaker 1: you're the right. Um. People have deals with their trainers,
Speaker 1: their teachers. They're psychologists that not only pay a fee,
Speaker 1: that pay a percentage of earnings. Um. It'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see if the players go and renegotiate with caddies
Speaker 1: and try to drop it winner and say ten percent
Speaker 1: down to five, you know, kind of say you know
Speaker 1: that there's no reason you should be making you know,
Speaker 1: four million dollars a year working for me. Um. Is
Speaker 1: there not only a players union? Is there a chance
Speaker 1: that the caddies unionize? Um? There's when money like this
Speaker 1: starts flowing around, it flows down. And so now instructors
Speaker 1: that we're getting three percent of their players earnings and
Speaker 1: that's how they were paid that three percent. Does the
Speaker 1: player gon go to the coach and say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna pay two because I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not doing anything different for all this money I'm making.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that are going to come
Speaker 1: from this that we attending. Consequences that we haven't seen
Speaker 1: yet and every day I find another one. Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some there's gonna be some silly stuff.
Speaker 1: Alan cam Smith, what any new intelligence? And whether he's
Speaker 1: staying or going He's gone, he's gone. Wow, Hey Deckie,
Speaker 1: I think he's staying. Okay, But as the International President's
Speaker 1: Cup team going to be terrible. Holy, it might be
Speaker 1: twenty one to nothing. It's gonna be the Vice President's Cup. Holy,
Speaker 1: that team was gonna be bad. Uh. Aaron and I
Speaker 1: were looking at the list. Yeah, the next man up,
Speaker 1: the next man up. None of you have ever heard
Speaker 1: of that are listening to this? Okay. M J. Duffy,
Speaker 1: who is a Monday qualifier, played his entire life on
Speaker 1: the corn Ferry Tour so far is twenty six on
Speaker 1: the clip. Internationally, he might make the team. What countries
Speaker 1: from He's from South Africa and he qualifies. I mean,
Speaker 1: I cannot explain if no one cared about the President's
Speaker 1: Cup before. Holy moly. They have got to start adding
Speaker 1: countries or something, and they might just split up the
Speaker 1: American team and be like, you know what, Will's electors
Speaker 1: with a bed bag probably better than your worst players.
Speaker 1: So why don't you go over there like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: everyone silth of the Mason Dixon line, go play for
Speaker 1: the internationals. Um yeah, if you're born west of Idaho,
Speaker 1: you are now part of the international team. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was funny. I've I've been trying to get
Speaker 1: an audience with the Commissioner one on one for a
Speaker 1: long time, and uh I finally cornered him out there
Speaker 1: today after his press conference and he said yes. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll do it at the President's cup. He's like, you
Speaker 1: gotta come to the president's cup. Was like, well, I
Speaker 1: kind of I got plans that we He's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're coming to the president. If that doesn't sum up
Speaker 1: where the presidents come up, it's like it's like they're
Speaker 1: bribing you for a sit down to come to the president.
Speaker 1: I take that, Yeah exactly, I take that for insight.
Speaker 1: How quick and smart Jay Monahan is that That was
Speaker 1: the first response. Yeah, yeah, at the President's cup. I
Speaker 1: was like, how about Nafa, He's like, you're coming to
Speaker 1: the President's cup. Like dang, all right, I guess we'll
Speaker 1: go to the presidents. So we'll see that subject to negotiation.
Speaker 1: But anyway, no unintended consequences that that's gonna be the
Speaker 1: name of this podcast. You just gave me the name Mac.
Speaker 1: I always have to come with the titles, which can
Speaker 1: be challenging. But we are. We are waiting into some
Speaker 1: murky waters here. It's gonna be fascinating to see how
Speaker 1: it all plays out. I will predict this will not
Speaker 1: be the last time we'll get together and talk about
Speaker 1: all this stuff because it's uh, there's so much to
Speaker 1: get our arms around. But anyone have any final thoughts
Speaker 1: where we release our listeners? What what was the room
Speaker 1: like when it was over? Alan, what you know, Harrigan,
Speaker 1: Doug Ferguson and some of the guys who some of
Speaker 1: the people have you know, covered the scam for a
Speaker 1: long time. What would you pick up from the mood
Speaker 1: of the president? Yeah, and I've spent some time on
Speaker 1: social media today too. I think the general consensus is
Speaker 1: finally the tour is punching back. You know, ever since
Speaker 1: Live launched, they've been completely on the defensive. They've been
Speaker 1: hemorrhaging players, they've been getting pillar read it um. You know,
Speaker 1: Monahans tried all these different arguments, whether it's the moral
Speaker 1: argument or maybe it was the legacy argument. They didn't stick.
Speaker 1: The players still took off, and so I think there's
Speaker 1: a sense like, Okay, this might not be the greatest idea,
Speaker 1: but at least it's an idea. At least they're trying.
Speaker 1: At least they're mobilizing resources and star power. So I
Speaker 1: think I think the tour one that the news cycle,
Speaker 1: if you will, that's always I think in politics. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the headlines are we're taking care of our guys,
Speaker 1: our stars are gonna play more, We're we're aligned, and
Speaker 1: those are important messages. Now the devils and the details.
Speaker 1: We'll see how all this comes to fruition. But I
Speaker 1: think the general feeling in the room was all right, Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go, and uh so it's it's not it's
Speaker 1: you know, the cannonballs are to keep getting shot back
Speaker 1: and forth between the pirate ships here, like, well, we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens. But um, I think for today, I mean,
Speaker 1: Lives Lives response to today was Lives response today was
Speaker 1: trying out eleven time Grammy winner, still in the blank.
Speaker 1: Yeah that they sent out a three go ahead, no,
Speaker 1: no go ahead, great, no dipplo is great. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But where where's dipplo rank on the international
Speaker 1: he might be on the team. They might be on
Speaker 1: the team, the entire team. The I just looked up
Speaker 1: the points list and Dipplot he'll be on the But uh,
Speaker 1: the the the the response by Live like just trolling
Speaker 1: each other. It's I mean, it's it's it's like a
Speaker 1: Saturday night Lives get at this point, it's insane. Can
Speaker 1: I make one quick side now here? And I'm still
Speaker 1: in this from Mac. Mac has made the observation over
Speaker 1: the years that you know, guys get tour, they start
Speaker 1: playing good, they start making a name for themselves, to
Speaker 1: get on the tour policy board of the pack or
Speaker 1: this committee or that committed they come politicians and they
Speaker 1: never played the same Rory McIlroy at thirty three, which
Speaker 1: for Hogan, I know that's a million years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: it was the prime of his career. Um is so
Speaker 1: involved in other in things other than getting the ball
Speaker 1: into the hole in the few strokes possible. Uh. I
Speaker 1: know he's smart, and I know he knows what he's doing,
Speaker 1: and I know he's his own person. He thinks for himself.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a lot for a guy
Speaker 1: who's trying to win the career Grand Slam to manage. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a friend of Minam Derek Smith's. He said that
Speaker 1: talent minus talent minus distractions equals performance and it holds
Speaker 1: true in every shape of the way. I always said,
Speaker 1: if you know, Davis was on like five different policy
Speaker 1: boards on the tour, and you know, always said that
Speaker 1: if he would have just been selfish like Tiger and
Speaker 1: not ever got involved with that, Tiger may have been
Speaker 1: Jason Davis. Um And I used to have a rule
Speaker 1: with all my clients that you can get on the
Speaker 1: policy board the year diggers getting off of it because
Speaker 1: the performance of people that get on that and become
Speaker 1: inundated with other things other than getting the ball in
Speaker 1: the whole. I don't know what the record of wins
Speaker 1: on people and policy boards while they were on it,
Speaker 1: but it's I don't think it's good. So you're you're right, Michael. Well, Michael,
Speaker 1: you know, we always have this kind of like mind meld,
Speaker 1: and so I was thinking about that too. So I
Speaker 1: actually asked Roy that today and I said, is it
Speaker 1: is it depleting or energizing being you know, this advocate?
Speaker 1: He said, well, when you get stuff done, Um, it
Speaker 1: feels good and it energizes you, he's like, But when
Speaker 1: it drags and drags and nothing comes of it, He's like,
Speaker 1: then it's a heavy burden. So I think today Rory
Speaker 1: is feeling good. I think I think he really probably
Speaker 1: feels like he affected some change here that's gonna help
Speaker 1: him and a lot of other players. But um, I
Speaker 1: think some heavy days are in front of him. So
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's release to listeners. But this was
Speaker 1: a good conversation, and no one second. I have a
Speaker 1: real quick I'm very lucky to be on this podcast,
Speaker 1: like I really do. Like I'm with a player agent
Speaker 1: and two of my uh people that I've read my
Speaker 1: entire life. And uh Jake, our producer, sent me a
Speaker 1: text as we were sitting here and I just said
Speaker 1: wrap it up. And I just said, kiss my fucking ass.
Speaker 1: We're not wrapping it up. So uh, I would love
Speaker 1: to I love to listen to you guys. I'm lucky
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. So I told Jake
Speaker 1: to kiss my ask you guys, go as long as
Speaker 1: you want. Well, we're gonna we're gonna yield to Jake.
Speaker 1: I think he's a wise man, So all right, this
Speaker 1: is Alan Schipak ending another Fire Drill podcast. Belatedly that
Speaker 1: was Michael Bamberger, Ryan Friends, Mac Barnhart. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: We will be back in your ear soon. Um signing
Speaker 1: off from a very eventful day at the tor Championship
Speaker 1: and beyond. Goodbye again. I played the wind, made a fortune,
Speaker 1: win my shot game. Man. I ran the table, never
Speaker 1: thought I could fall down. The wintertime hit me like
Speaker 1: a cannon ball, and now I can't shape this losing
Speaker 1: the stream. Every road I take is a dead end stream.
Speaker 1: I got thoughts in my head, can't get him out,
Speaker 1: trying not to think what I'm thinking about. I got
Speaker 1: thoughts in my head, can't get him out, and trying
Speaker 1: not to think what I'm thinking about