Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg,
Speaker 2: fridagg Frida egg, bride egg lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 2: run off the golf course. Welcome back to the Friday
Speaker 2: Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson.
Speaker 1: Uh. Today I am joined by Joseph.
Speaker 2: Lamanna and we will be breaking down the big news
Speaker 2: in the golf world. This broke last week shortly after
Speaker 2: we released our podcast breaking down the US Open with
Speaker 2: Trevor Emmelman. The PGA Tour has announced a new competitive structure.
Speaker 2: So you might ask, what does that mean.
Speaker 1: You may have.
Speaker 2: Already, you know, known about this. You may have heard
Speaker 2: about this, but anyways, the PGA Tour will be kind
Speaker 2: of shaking up the structure of their tournaments really, I
Speaker 2: think formalizing the direction that they are going in. And
Speaker 2: these changes will be made for the twenty twenty eight season.
Speaker 2: So Joseph and I are going to bat around kind
Speaker 2: of the news of the month post US Open, which
Speaker 2: is going to be this new competitive structure for the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, and we're going to talk about the things
Speaker 2: we really like about it, maybe some questions that we have.
Speaker 2: I think a big note here is that not everything
Speaker 2: has been finalized, but we have a lot to chew
Speaker 2: on here with what was announced by Brian Rollapp and
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods a couple a week ago, really a couple
Speaker 2: of days ago, a week go the announcement came out,
Speaker 2: So before we dive in and kind of talk and
Speaker 2: nitty gritty, I wanted to go through a quick rundown
Speaker 2: of everything that was announced so that everybody kind of
Speaker 2: jumps into this conversation with a understanding of what we're
Speaker 2: talking about. So this new competitive structure for the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour is a new two tier system, so there will
Speaker 2: be a top tier on the PGA Tour, And the
Speaker 2: way I would think about this is an expanded version
Speaker 2: of what they have right now with their signature events,
Speaker 2: these big, big time championships with the top players in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: There will be.
Speaker 2: One hundred and thirty players eligible for the championship series.
Speaker 2: These will be the top one hundred and thirty players
Speaker 2: ideally in the professional game. Obviously there's some live considerations,
Speaker 2: but I think their goal is to generally get the
Speaker 2: top one hundred and thirty players. They'd expect a weekly
Speaker 2: field to be around one hundred and twenty players with
Speaker 2: a minimum of a twenty million dollar perse. It pays
Speaker 2: well right now to be a very good player. Important
Speaker 2: notes here, every tournament will have a cut to the
Speaker 2: top sixty five and ties. At these championship events they
Speaker 2: will be There will be no spots for alternates or
Speaker 2: sponsors exemptions. So if there's one hundred and thirty players exempt,
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty two sign up.
Speaker 1: That's how many players are in the field.
Speaker 2: If there's one hundred and eighteen, they aren't going to
Speaker 2: try and add to get to one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2: So this is going to be a very strict set
Speaker 2: of players that will be playing to retain their card.
Speaker 2: This series will be twenty three to twenty four events,
Speaker 2: and that includes the players the four majors, so already
Speaker 2: there you're down to nineteen and then the Ryder Cup
Speaker 2: or President's Cup. So the season will run from February
Speaker 2: to August and there will be roughly eighteen or seventeen
Speaker 2: PGA Tour Championship Series events. The players and the majors,
Speaker 2: So that will be what the calendar looks like. It'll
Speaker 2: be a sprint from February to August. Now, these guys
Speaker 2: what they will be playing for on the Championship Series.
Speaker 2: The big number here is roughly ninety. It sounds like
Speaker 2: the top ninety will retain their card for sure, like
Speaker 2: you will be You'll be gold if you finish in
Speaker 2: the top ninety of that one hundred and thirty player bracket,
Speaker 2: and there will be promotion, strict promotion and relegation. Like
Speaker 2: I said at the beginning, there are no sponsors exemptions.
Speaker 2: So if a player like you know who's been on
Speaker 2: the bubble in recent years, you know, you remember Justin
Speaker 2: Thomas falling short of the top seventy, Ricky Fowler.
Speaker 1: Missing the playoffs.
Speaker 2: So if you had a situation where a player of
Speaker 2: that ILK or a Tony fee Now or a Jordan
Speaker 2: Spieth fell outside the top ninety, if they don't qualify,
Speaker 2: and we'll get into how they could still earn their card.
Speaker 2: If they don't qualify, they are out. They will not
Speaker 2: be able to get into these Championship Series events, no
Speaker 2: matter how popular you are. Based off of the no exemption,
Speaker 2: the no sponsor exemption, no alternates kind of set up.
Speaker 2: So that top ninety is roughly the idea of the
Speaker 2: promotion relegation structure. Now let's talk about the promotion. The
Speaker 2: promotion will come from the Challenger Series, which we kind
Speaker 2: of laid out. I've heard numbers of that series that
Speaker 2: that player pool will roughly be around like one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty two hundred players. These this tour will have
Speaker 2: roughly about twenty ish events, at least twenty events they
Speaker 2: said in the in the press release, with four million
Speaker 2: dollar minimum perses and fields of like one hundred and.
Speaker 1: Thirty two to one hundred and forty four players.
Speaker 2: Big thing with the Challenger Series, none of the players
Speaker 2: from the Championship Series can come down and play in
Speaker 2: the Challenger Series. With this Challenger Series, I believe there's
Speaker 2: no sponsors exemptions. So this is this subset of players
Speaker 2: is going to be playing to finish in the top twenty,
Speaker 2: and if you're in the top twenty, you get promoted
Speaker 2: up to the Championship Series. These events obviously will have
Speaker 2: a full will have cuts, and really that's kind of
Speaker 2: the way this is going to work. One of the
Speaker 2: big pieces of this before we get to the postseason
Speaker 2: and what that will look like.
Speaker 1: One of the big pieces of this is the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: Is kind of getting out of the way of the fall,
Speaker 2: and it seems like it's going to be heavy on
Speaker 2: the DP World Tour where they I think the plan
Speaker 2: is to have some really pre eminent national opens in
Speaker 2: that period of time, think Irish Open, stuff like that
Speaker 2: Australian Open. Obviously, there was news a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago that the tour is investing more in that.
Speaker 1: With this fall period.
Speaker 2: Where you're playing on the DP World Tour, there will
Speaker 2: be a last Chance series where these elevated international events
Speaker 2: will you know, have a set of cards with this Also,
Speaker 2: i'd imagine that the DP World Tour right now they
Speaker 2: get ten cards to the PGA Tour, a subset of
Speaker 2: those cards are going to go to this championship series. Surely, Likewise,
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour U pathway will likely have a way
Speaker 2: up or way down. So that's kind of the nuts
Speaker 2: and bolts. I think the big other aspect of this
Speaker 2: is the playoffs. So they're envisioning from what I've heard,
Speaker 2: a Giant Tour championship season, regular season finale. This is
Speaker 2: where there will be this like harsh relegation and this
Speaker 2: idea of like we're sending these people will not be
Speaker 2: playing on this championship series anymore. On top of that,
Speaker 2: they will be playing to earn a spot in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: I think this is when one of the bigger failures
Speaker 2: of the PGA Tour over the last twenty years has
Speaker 2: been to establish a really exciting playoffs. From what I've gathered,
Speaker 2: the playoff structural likely will look like a thirty two
Speaker 2: man playoff with round one which will be like a
Speaker 2: tournament determining a final group of sixteen that will play
Speaker 2: in a match play made for TV event where I
Speaker 2: think no ropes, no fans, and the idea is to
Speaker 2: get a great venue to host this event with just
Speaker 2: sixteen guys and no infrastructure really.
Speaker 1: Needed to host.
Speaker 2: So ESPN had a report that Pine Valley, Cypress, and
Speaker 2: Seminole where the ideas floated. I think that's a little
Speaker 2: far fetched out of the gate, but I think if
Speaker 2: they build something compelling enough, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 2: of clubs that are banging on the door to host this.
Speaker 2: How they would get to the third to the sixteen
Speaker 2: would be the top thirty two in the FedEx Cup,
Speaker 2: playing a kind of a World Cup Series match play
Speaker 2: event whereas groups of four and an players get out
Speaker 2: of those those groups of four two players per per
Speaker 2: group to round out the sixteen. Obviously, none of that
Speaker 2: was announced. That's just kind of the scuttle But around
Speaker 2: what people are talking about, I think, like when you
Speaker 2: start to think about venues, I think that a big
Speaker 2: piece of this whole change is going to be the
Speaker 2: PGA Tours venue strategy. I believe just in talking to
Speaker 2: a lot of people around the PGA Tour, they are
Speaker 2: going to be putting a heavy emphasis on getting better
Speaker 2: venues for these big tournaments, this championship series events. And
Speaker 2: you know, either they've made a big commitment to big cities.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the cities they've floated that don't
Speaker 2: have that regular championship are the likes of Philadelphia, Washington,
Speaker 2: d C, Boston, New York, Nashville. So where would they
Speaker 2: go there really looking at like some of the bigger cities.
Speaker 2: I believe there's a full time Chicago event in the works.
Speaker 2: We'll see where that ends up. I would I would say,
Speaker 2: if I was a betting man, I'd be looking at
Speaker 2: Olympia Fields and Conboy Farms as kind of the two
Speaker 2: big venues that are likely to want to host the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour regularly. Madina Number three is the other one.
Speaker 2: The President's Cup host this September. They have a BMW
Speaker 2: slated for twenty thirty, so they will likely be a
Speaker 2: part of it, but who knows.
Speaker 1: Long term.
Speaker 2: I think they are really looking for major championships there,
Speaker 2: So that is a little lowdown on what they're looking
Speaker 2: at if you start to think about these bigger time
Speaker 2: venues for these regular events. Cobbs Creek in Philadelphia is
Speaker 2: a public golf course we did podcasts on years ago
Speaker 2: that's being renovated right now by Gil Hanson Jim Wagner.
Speaker 2: That was one of the greatest public golf courses ever built.
Speaker 2: It looks like it is going to be restored to
Speaker 2: its kind of glory, and I think it's it's being
Speaker 2: kind of purpose built for a regular Philadelphia event. I
Speaker 2: think when you look at Boston, it gets a little
Speaker 2: bit tougher. Brookline is not going to be hosting, but
Speaker 2: you're probably gonna see TPC Boston, you know. I think
Speaker 2: that Joseph and I touch on this in our conversation,
Speaker 2: it is so hard to find places that are really
Speaker 2: willing to host the PGA Tour on a annual basis.
Speaker 2: You're basically in these cities committing to your summer, the
Speaker 2: golf course being you know, basically a construction site all summer.
Speaker 2: Then when they take down the stands, it never playing
Speaker 2: the way it should, So, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: how they're going to attract great you know, for these
Speaker 2: regular events, great venues to host on a regular basis,
Speaker 2: So that's gonna be hard. A couple other little housekeeping
Speaker 2: and I hope I didn't really miss anything.
Speaker 1: I think this should give you the nuts and bolts.
Speaker 2: Brian roll App will be the the commissioner January one,
Speaker 2: succeeding j Onahan and Roy McIlroy, who said he called
Speaker 2: these glorified corn Faery Tour The the Challenger Series event
Speaker 2: has publicly backed the project. I think Rory was pretty
Speaker 2: spot on with this characterization. You know, the corn Fairy
Speaker 2: Tour was the place to earn your card on the
Speaker 2: highest tour in the in the world. This championship series
Speaker 2: is going to be the most sought after card and
Speaker 2: professional golf in the Challenger Series is where you earn it.
Speaker 2: I think the big piece here is that that Challenger series,
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to make a good living
Speaker 2: on that series. And that's the big difference between the
Speaker 2: corn Fairy and that. If your player number sixty on
Speaker 2: the corn Fairy Tour, you're a great, great player, but
Speaker 2: you're not going to be able to make it living
Speaker 2: with four million dollars. Persons, if you're sixtieth on the
Speaker 2: money list, you're not really close to earning your card,
Speaker 2: You're not really close to any relegation.
Speaker 1: You're a really good player.
Speaker 2: This is going to give you a really good place
Speaker 2: to live and kind of grow your game and improve.
Speaker 2: So I think overall that these are great changes, and
Speaker 2: Joseph and I will dive in more to them in
Speaker 2: just a second, but first let's talk about our partner.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is brought to you by the Golf Course
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Speaker 2: All right, let's get to Joseph Lebania. All right, Joseph,
Speaker 2: welcome on and big news. We've talked about PGA Tour structure,
Speaker 2: me and you on this podcast for years. Last week,
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour announced and established their new competitive structure
Speaker 2: with a two model system, the Championship and the Challenger
Speaker 2: series that is set to debut in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: What was you know, if you had to boil down
Speaker 2: to one big takeaway on it one kind of like
Speaker 2: your initial thought if you could take us to when
Speaker 2: the announcement was happened. What was your gut reaction to
Speaker 2: the announcement from Brian Rolapp in the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Andy, thanks for having me. We have been you
Speaker 3: and I have been having this conversation on this podcast
Speaker 3: for about five years, maybe once or twice a year.
Speaker 3: What should the PGA tour schedule look like? What should
Speaker 3: the points system look like? So my gut reaction was
Speaker 3: sort of finally, like, finally we reached the rational end
Speaker 3: point of if you took these ideas that the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour was kind of toying with, and then somebody came
Speaker 3: in with a fresh perspective and Brian Rollapp, this was
Speaker 3: the direction that you ultimately needed to go. And it's
Speaker 3: a clean break between these two tours. No more of
Speaker 3: this tour within a tour, and like you know, some
Speaker 3: events are worth X number of points, the weaker ones
Speaker 3: are worth why number of points? Now we have a
Speaker 3: clean break the Top Tour and the second tour. But
Speaker 3: the Top Tour we're back to full fields, which I
Speaker 3: think everybody wanted. We're back to having cut lines, and
Speaker 3: I actually do think though, you know, we'll get into
Speaker 3: some of the cons I think the way that mobility
Speaker 3: is going to work, I'm just on board largely with
Speaker 3: a lot of this solution still have question marks, but
Speaker 3: I think for the first time we might get a
Speaker 3: cool tour championship, which I'm sure you and I will
Speaker 3: get into. An overall, Brian Rolapp has moved the tour
Speaker 3: in the right direction under this new structure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would echo your thoughts.
Speaker 2: I think, like when when this got announced, my my
Speaker 2: gut reaction was this is unequivocally good for the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: This is a good setup and a good direction for
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour. I think it's rooted in some things
Speaker 2: that are really important. They have talked about meritocracy for
Speaker 2: so long, but there were so many tack ons and
Speaker 2: and I think the way that I would I would
Speaker 2: best describe kind of the way the PGA Tour got
Speaker 2: to this point is they had, you know, there there
Speaker 2: was this you know tour that was created that was
Speaker 2: like they inherited a bunch of tournaments and assemble the tour,
Speaker 2: and it was done and as it grew, as it
Speaker 2: grew and became more popular. Similarly, like this house, a
Speaker 2: house getting built was built and then you know, as
Speaker 2: as the time goes on, you do these different things
Speaker 2: and you add these features, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: your house becomes somewhat unrecognizable from where you started because
Speaker 2: you've added on things with no cohesive thought. And the
Speaker 2: tour you know, well, like, hey, they have delivered good
Speaker 2: professional golf for a number of years, it had become
Speaker 2: kind of unrecognizable and had a lot of things that
Speaker 2: didn't work together. To me, my big takeaway is that
Speaker 2: they have kind of gone back to being rooted in
Speaker 2: meritocracy and competition, and I think from what they're trying
Speaker 2: to do, the structure is very clean. It's going to
Speaker 2: be really easy to understand for fans, like you're up
Speaker 2: here if you do this, you're down here if you don't,
Speaker 2: and to get up there, you have to do this.
Speaker 2: Like I think it's going to be easier to understand.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, they have created
Speaker 2: a framework where they can be set up for success
Speaker 2: for the next fifty years. And I don't necessarily think
Speaker 2: they were there five years ago when they kind of
Speaker 2: ran into this issue with Live that seems to be
Speaker 2: fading away, but that the tour was not set up
Speaker 2: for modern sports, and today it feels like with twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight, you know, two years away, it feels way
Speaker 2: more set up for the modern sports landscape.
Speaker 3: I think it's worth zooming out for one second. And
Speaker 3: this is the same stuff that you and I have
Speaker 3: talked about again for five years. I would argue that
Speaker 3: if you go to first principles, and I'm sure this
Speaker 3: is the way that Brian Rolapp was thinking about this
Speaker 3: coming from the NFL, you need to have a season
Speaker 3: ending championship that people care about, and you need to
Speaker 3: have a point system that is not flawed to have
Speaker 3: any semblance of a tour that works. If you don't
Speaker 3: have those two things, there are leaks in the system that,
Speaker 3: like you said, the pieces don't fit together. And I
Speaker 3: think why it's important is you need to be telling
Speaker 3: a story to your players of why they should show
Speaker 3: up to certain events. And if you forty events, it
Speaker 3: is not possible to play in every single tournament. And
Speaker 3: and then when that happens, and guys, you know Sung Jay,
Speaker 3: you know somewhat famously would play like thirty thirty two events. Know,
Speaker 3: he's got a bunch of FedEx cut points, and you're
Speaker 3: comparing that to somebody who's played in twenty four events.
Speaker 3: But then you're trying to tell me that at East Lake,
Speaker 3: this tournament matters and this is to crown the season
Speaker 3: ending champion. It just doesn't quite work. And so I
Speaker 3: think to the people who would say, well, what was
Speaker 3: even wrong with the tour before Live came along, I
Speaker 3: think they're really misremembering a lot of the flaws in
Speaker 3: the system. Between like twenty nineteen and twenty eighteen, there
Speaker 3: were so many of these stale events that people weren't
Speaker 3: interested in watching, sponsors that weren't necessarily happy. You look
Speaker 3: at what happened with the Honda Classic, and you know,
Speaker 3: Rocket Mortgage is pulling out after this year. That's a
Speaker 3: new You could argue that that's a consequence of the
Speaker 3: non signature versus signature model, but those types of issues
Speaker 3: were already broiling well before any of this was announced.
Speaker 3: So I just think there's some revisionist history around the
Speaker 3: flaws of the p Tour over the last ten years.
Speaker 3: And Andy the other point, I would make is This
Speaker 3: is not unique to golf. This same issue is happening
Speaker 3: kind of simultaneously in the NBA. And as we've seen
Speaker 3: money go way up in sports and speed go way
Speaker 3: up in sports, and the tour become a more professionalized operation,
Speaker 3: it's just not possible to play the schedule that back
Speaker 3: in the nineties guys might have played and might have
Speaker 3: needed to play because they were trying to make money
Speaker 3: every week. And now you guys don't have to play
Speaker 3: every week, They're playing at higher speeds, there's a lot
Speaker 3: more cost involved with traveling and bringing their full teams,
Speaker 3: Like it just wasn't realistic to have a tour of
Speaker 3: thirty five forty events. And you're again seeing the same
Speaker 3: thing with the NBA where they have too many games.
Speaker 3: Eighty two games is too many. And at the same
Speaker 3: time as golf is, you know, trying to figure out
Speaker 3: what the ideal model is, the NBA is doing the
Speaker 3: same thing. I think over the next five to ten years,
Speaker 3: the NBA will probably reduce its schedule.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think, like you what your point
Speaker 2: too is like everybody you know, and I think this,
Speaker 2: you know, not to take this on a tangent, but
Speaker 2: like everybody is like struggling with the new US Open,
Speaker 2: and it's like, it's not my father's US Open. Just
Speaker 2: generally society is resistant to change. It's like you want
Speaker 2: it to be what you remembered. But I do think
Speaker 2: it was really important for the PGA Tour to evolve.
Speaker 2: And I think like if you wanted to point to
Speaker 2: like why did they why did they have to evolve?
Speaker 1: Why? Why did they have to evolve?
Speaker 2: Is if you look at the sport of golf, is
Speaker 2: the golf the most valuable properties.
Speaker 1: Unlike every other.
Speaker 2: Sports league, the most valuable properties in golf, the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour does not own. The most valuable properties are, in
Speaker 2: no particular order, the Masters, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 2: the US Open, and the Open Championship. Those are the
Speaker 2: most valuable properties. A new coming property that I think
Speaker 2: is becoming more and more valuable in golf is the Olympics.
Speaker 2: So the PGA Tour owns none of those. And you know,
Speaker 2: when you think about why they started the playoffs in
Speaker 2: the first place, in the mid two thousands, so this
Speaker 2: is twenty years ago, they started the playoffs as a
Speaker 2: reason to try and and create one of the more
Speaker 2: valuable properties in golf. Why they started the President's Cup
Speaker 2: in the nine or in the nineties, I believe was
Speaker 2: a way to create a valuable property in golf. The
Speaker 2: WGCs they created to try and get earn these valuable
Speaker 2: golf properties that can man higher sponsorship values that can
Speaker 2: then like you know, draw huge TV ratings and really
Speaker 2: float the whole boat. This is why they have done
Speaker 2: all these things, and frankly, none of them have worked.
Speaker 1: None of them have worked.
Speaker 2: And at a certain point, you know, it's not the
Speaker 2: concept of the event. You have to look at the
Speaker 2: overarching system. And I think this is what what has happened.
Speaker 2: And it's in large part thanks to Live. The push
Speaker 2: of Live as a disruptor and a challenger to the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour finally pushed the tour to get to this moment,
Speaker 2: to reevaluate their competitive structure and say, okay, how and
Speaker 2: I don't you know, like listen, I don't I'm under
Speaker 2: no certain like thought that hey, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the Travelers Championship is going to unseat the US Open
Speaker 2: as the most important golf event, you know, in June.
Speaker 1: I'm not under any delusional.
Speaker 2: Expectations of that. But I think the structure that they
Speaker 2: have created with the very strict relegation and promotion, the
Speaker 2: very strict relegation, the no more sponsor handouts, these type
Speaker 2: of things are going to greatly increase the competitive integrity
Speaker 2: of the sport. And when you do that, is the
Speaker 2: Travelers going to become more important than the US Open?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: But is it going to become more important than it
Speaker 1: is today? Absolutely? Yes.
Speaker 2: So if you raise the bar of the importance of
Speaker 2: all of your events in terms of the greater golf landscape,
Speaker 2: you are going to inch all of those events closer
Speaker 2: to the level of majors. Are they like close at all? No,
Speaker 2: But they're closer, And thus you've raised the value of
Speaker 2: all these events. And furthermore, the real, real opportunity, I
Speaker 2: think lies in the Tour Championship and what they can
Speaker 2: do there. And that's the opportunity. Like I had spoken
Speaker 2: to me by someone that was like kind of privy
Speaker 2: to a lot of the information that they stated that, Hey,
Speaker 2: our idea is that all of these all these events
Speaker 2: are going to be like major championships. I don't believe
Speaker 2: that all the regular Championship Series events are not going
Speaker 2: to be like majors. I'm sorry, they just aren't. But
Speaker 2: if you can get a couple of them to elevate
Speaker 2: significantly from where they are, and I think like the
Speaker 2: easy ones to look at are this season ending championship
Speaker 2: where the relegation happens. That's going to be musty TV
Speaker 2: for golf fans, and then the events right after that,
Speaker 2: those are your real opportunities.
Speaker 1: And then the continued ascension of the players.
Speaker 3: Well, first, yeah, do I think the Travelers and events
Speaker 3: like it are going to ultimately become more like majors? No,
Speaker 3: But the no cut events were not working. I don't
Speaker 3: think anybody was satisfied with watching no cut events. So
Speaker 3: simply expanding the fields and having a cut those those
Speaker 3: events will already rise in stature. But to your point,
Speaker 3: the key to all of this is the Tour Championship,
Speaker 3: where and that the Tour Championship suddenly becomes this really
Speaker 3: incredible spectacle that guys care about winning, that fans care
Speaker 3: about watching, which, frankly, it's not a high bar to
Speaker 3: exceed what we currently have where I think basically now
Speaker 3: nobody cares about the Tour Championship. I don't think anybody's satisfied,
Speaker 3: the players, sponsors, networks, certainly fans. Let's just say, Andy,
Speaker 3: it becomes awesome, and I don't know how many guys
Speaker 3: you know. I think you've said maybe it'll be thirty two,
Speaker 3: but let's say it's sixteen whatever. It's going to be
Speaker 3: really important if it's a great tournament for those golfers
Speaker 3: to be one of those top however many guys, and
Speaker 3: then that works backwards, that informs your schedule. If you're
Speaker 3: forty fifth in the standings, now there's more urgency around.
Speaker 3: I need to play in these tournaments and I need
Speaker 3: to play well because I want to get into the
Speaker 3: tour Championship. And then and the other part of this
Speaker 3: that we haven't really hit on is I think this
Speaker 3: is way better for up and coming players because right
Speaker 3: now a huge issue that doesn't get enough probably airwave,
Speaker 3: is if you're like a top let's say you're KFT
Speaker 3: guy who gets onto the PGA Tour. Now with this
Speaker 3: non signature signature model that we currently have, your starts
Speaker 3: aren't guaranteed, and these guys have a lot of weeks
Speaker 3: they're going by where they have nowhere to play, and
Speaker 3: then you get sponsor exemptions. Like you know, we've highlighted
Speaker 3: some high profile ones in signature events. These guys have
Speaker 3: a baked in massive advantage in keeping their tour cards.
Speaker 3: But under the new system, if you're one of these
Speaker 3: guys that qualifies either through this Challenger series or you know,
Speaker 3: we'll see how they iron out some of the exemption criteria.
Speaker 3: That's still a TVD. But let's say you're one of
Speaker 3: the top twenty guys that gets promoted. You now have
Speaker 3: a full schedule the next season, the same schedule as
Speaker 3: Scotti Scheffler, the same schedule as Rory McElroy. You have
Speaker 3: an equal chance to keep your tour card and that
Speaker 3: is a massive, massive step in the right direction for
Speaker 3: some of this up and coming talent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the in between stuff with the tour
Speaker 2: was like the real issue with the current system is
Speaker 2: I you know, you have this great moment. You know,
Speaker 2: you think about the example you use of a corn
Speaker 2: fairy tour, like a player earning their card. Imagine you know,
Speaker 2: you're twenty five year old who's worked the last three
Speaker 2: years your tail off to get to the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: card PGA Tour, and you get your card and you're
Speaker 2: so excited and then it's like, Okay, welcome to the tour.
Speaker 2: You get to play once in the first six events,
Speaker 2: and this was like a reality the last few years
Speaker 2: of of the of these young players is like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't even know when when I can play. And
Speaker 2: the issue is like you can't then just go down
Speaker 2: and play corn Fairy Tour events. You know, you can't
Speaker 2: there there's no way up in between. And I think
Speaker 2: this is like a really wonderful aspect of the of
Speaker 2: the new structure is how clean it is. You're up here,
Speaker 2: you're down here, and and that's the way it works,
Speaker 2: and and you know, I think it provides more clarity
Speaker 2: to the Corn Fairy Tour. You're getting a card that
Speaker 2: goes to this the PGA Tour Challenger Series, and you're
Speaker 2: at that point you're one of the two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty three hundred best players in the world, and you're
Speaker 2: going to be able to like I think like where
Speaker 2: the tour really was struggling to with, like the you
Speaker 2: kind of promise to players. You had the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: which was roughly two hundred and twenty players, and if
Speaker 2: you're up there, you had no unless you're a top
Speaker 2: sixty player, you had no like expectation of like when
Speaker 2: I get to work, So I don't know when I'm
Speaker 2: really going to get to work and where I'm going
Speaker 2: to get to work, but I'm going to earn a
Speaker 2: living if I'm on the PGA Tour. If you're on
Speaker 2: the corn Faery Tour, which is at this point the
Speaker 2: pre eminent feeder tour to the top tour, if you're
Speaker 2: the fiftieth ranked player on the corn Faery Tour, you
Speaker 2: are not going to be able to make a living,
Speaker 2: and they they have forever been. You know, the kind
Speaker 2: of theory behind it is like you don't earn a
Speaker 2: living if you're on the corn Faery Tour.
Speaker 1: We do not want that to be a destination tour.
Speaker 2: I think what works really well with the new system
Speaker 2: is you have this clear demarcation of one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty players. It's one hundred and thirty players that are
Speaker 2: going to be on the Championship Tour. These are going
Speaker 2: to be one hundred and thirty best golfers in the world,
Speaker 2: minus the few live players that would fall into that bucket.
Speaker 2: From there, that tour below is going to be the
Speaker 2: clear place to work your way to that top tier
Speaker 2: tour and with persons in like that four million dollar mark,
Speaker 2: you're going to make a living there. If you're a
Speaker 2: good player there, you are going to be able to
Speaker 2: continue to pursue your professional golf dreams from that tour
Speaker 2: and invest in yourself. You're going to be able to
Speaker 2: hire a team. If you're a corn fairy Tour player
Speaker 2: and you want to approach golf the way a PGA
Speaker 2: Tour player is approach golf, and you're not one of
Speaker 2: the top twenty five thirty guys, you're going to hemorrhage money.
Speaker 2: And I think this is the beauty of this system
Speaker 2: is that you're going to have like they have actually
Speaker 2: expanded the number of people who can make a living
Speaker 2: playing professional golf with the PGA Tour, and I think
Speaker 2: overall for the golf ecosystem, that is a really good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was looking at it this morning. I think
Speaker 3: it's it's somewhere around having in front of me one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty guys so far this year who who
Speaker 3: have had five or more starts on the PGA Tour,
Speaker 3: not including majors, Like that number is gonna go up
Speaker 3: because you're gonna be spreading out, all right, there's gonna
Speaker 3: be you know not, there's gonna be bigger fields. So
Speaker 3: that's more opportunities. And then these guys who are getting
Speaker 3: blocked right now not having as many opportunities to get
Speaker 3: starts there, they're all all of a sudden gonna have
Speaker 3: more clarity around their schedules. And Andy I wrote about
Speaker 3: this for the Friday newsletter. But I think that the
Speaker 3: poster child of who this system is currently failing, or
Speaker 3: one of them, is to hian Yellamraju, who did exactly
Speaker 3: what you described. He worked his way up through the
Speaker 3: corn Ferry Tour. This guy's been grinding for years in
Speaker 3: mini tours Canada, turns pro at nineteen, then he plays
Speaker 3: two years on the corn Ferry Tour, gets his PGA
Speaker 3: Tour card and plays well. He's been playing well this year.
Speaker 3: He finished top ten at the Players. He's having a
Speaker 3: pretty good year. I'm not saying this is one of
Speaker 3: the best players in the world, but he did exactly
Speaker 3: what he's supposed to do as a developmental tour player,
Speaker 3: comes up, gets his tour card and now he a
Speaker 3: lot of weeks he doesn't have anywhere to play in
Speaker 3: this past week at the Travelers Championship. You know, Sadarshan enters.
Speaker 3: I think he's forty six than the FedEx Cup standings
Speaker 3: first alternate some other guys who are you know, higher
Speaker 3: profile names, Tony Finow, Jordan Spief. They get sponsor exemptions.
Speaker 3: Sadarsian's having a much better season than those two guys,
Speaker 3: are you know, by any any metric you want to
Speaker 3: look at. Sadarsian's playing better, But they get this free
Speaker 3: attempt at FedEx Cup points and a better ability to
Speaker 3: keep their card. They're making money for that start there,
Speaker 3: getting valuable reps in that Sedarsian needs. Is it you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, you want to boil the whole case
Speaker 3: down to one name like that. But this new system
Speaker 3: will serve Sedarshan better because now when he finishes and
Speaker 3: he's exempt onto this top championship series, he gets a
Speaker 3: whole schedule in front of him, and it is it
Speaker 3: is really important that those guys get reps, they get dollars,
Speaker 3: they get all the perks that are involved in being
Speaker 3: on the championship series, and they were being failed by
Speaker 3: the current system. So I think you look at a
Speaker 3: case like that and it's pretty easy to understand why
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour had a problem on its hands and
Speaker 3: how this solution is a little bit better.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about the Tour Championship. I
Speaker 2: think this is kind of the shiny carrot that has
Speaker 2: drawn a lot of the discourse since this announcement. From
Speaker 2: what I gather, the kind of general idea that they're
Speaker 2: working off of right now is thirty two players will
Speaker 2: make the Tour Championship, and it will be a two
Speaker 2: week final playoff system effectively, and the first week will
Speaker 2: be World Cup style pool play four players, eight groups,
Speaker 2: two players advancing to a sixteen person bracket at a
Speaker 2: great golf facility where they'll play match play throughout to
Speaker 2: crown a PGA Tour season champion.
Speaker 3: Sorry, how do you think? How do you think the
Speaker 3: first week works? It's like round robin match play and
Speaker 3: the top two earners come out of it. Is that
Speaker 3: what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: I think that's from what I've gathered from a few people,
Speaker 2: is kind of what's been floating around. Is the general
Speaker 2: working idea is that it would be like a lot
Speaker 2: like the World Cup right now, which going through pool
Speaker 2: stage where it's like, okay, we have eight groups of
Speaker 2: four for the thirty two and the top two players
Speaker 2: from each pool will come out into a group of
Speaker 2: sixteen match play. You know, obviously this can change. This
Speaker 2: was not part of the announcement. This is kind of
Speaker 2: just the scuttle butt just in general, a real quick
Speaker 2: before we get into this, like before we get into
Speaker 2: the thoughts. A big part of I think the emphasis
Speaker 2: of this new tour structure is going to be around,
Speaker 2: especially at the championship level, getting the best players in
Speaker 2: the world playing the best possible venues. The regular venues
Speaker 2: are going to be, you know, where they can where
Speaker 2: you can host big, big professional golf tournaments. So thenk
Speaker 2: courses that have the infrastructure for grandstands like your typical
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, big time event. This series is much more
Speaker 2: like we want to make this for TV. This is
Speaker 2: not a for on site spectator product. This is a
Speaker 2: made for TV product. So think about more intimate maybe
Speaker 2: situations where you don't have any infrastructure built out other
Speaker 2: than TV, no grandstands, no ropes, kind of set up
Speaker 2: where you know the venues are really you open yourself
Speaker 2: up way more to venues and one of the ideas
Speaker 2: with match play is that maybe you're able to entice
Speaker 2: some great golf courses because they aren't worried about the
Speaker 2: tour pros coming out and shooting, hanging in a bunch
Speaker 2: of low sixties numbers and them getting Craig ranched.
Speaker 1: You know where. Oh, this isn't testing.
Speaker 2: Match play allows for you know, Hey, if I just
Speaker 2: go out and watch a ten birdie versus eight birdie
Speaker 2: match between Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, I'm thrilled. That
Speaker 2: was one of the coolest matches I'm not thinking about.
Speaker 2: They probably both shot sixty two. This golf course can't
Speaker 2: hold up type thing. So that's the idea, the working
Speaker 2: idea that I've heard from a few people about the
Speaker 2: Tour Championship or the playoff format. I keep saying Tour
Speaker 2: champion the playoff format. What are your your general you
Speaker 2: know thoughts of that idea?
Speaker 3: Very positive, Andy, I think, especially given how much of
Speaker 3: an emphasis our company it tends to have on venues
Speaker 3: and golf courses. We often go through the exercise of
Speaker 3: you know where, would you like to see this professional
Speaker 3: golf event stage or a rider future Rider Cup future
Speaker 3: US opens that don't have the US Open on the books,
Speaker 3: And every time we go through that exercise, it's like,
Speaker 3: there's nowhere you can go that it has the tournament infrastructure,
Speaker 3: like to have all of the things required to host
Speaker 3: a tournament. Every time I go through that exercise, I
Speaker 3: kind of throw my hands in the air and it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know where they can go that that doesn't
Speaker 3: currently exist, which I guess. Then you land on, well
Speaker 3: they should build more venues, which I do still believe,
Speaker 3: but what you're describing, it's like, well, now we can
Speaker 3: open up a bunch of potentially prestigious venues if we
Speaker 3: don't have to have that tournament infrastructure. You don't have
Speaker 3: to have a driving range that has one hundred bays
Speaker 3: and is three hundred and fifty yards long, and you know,
Speaker 3: room for a bunch of grand stands that doesn't completely
Speaker 3: compromise the golf course. So I'm cautiously optimistic. I do
Speaker 3: think one part of this that maybe wasn't part of
Speaker 3: the plan or hasn't been discussed, is do you build
Speaker 3: in any kind of advantage for the top players. I'm
Speaker 3: fascinated to see if the tour does that, because pretty
Speaker 3: much every sport, like there is an advantage to finishing
Speaker 3: first in the standings like NFL as home court or
Speaker 3: home field, NBAS home court. I do wonder if the
Speaker 3: if the PGA Tour is going to try to adopt
Speaker 3: anything like that. I actually think they should. I don't
Speaker 3: know what that solution would be, whether you give the
Speaker 3: guys like a half a shot advantage in the match
Speaker 3: play or something, but I worry a little bit that
Speaker 3: we're going to get super fired up about match play
Speaker 3: and then given the high variance nature of the format,
Speaker 3: like the seventeen seed versus the thirty first seed is
Speaker 3: in the finals and we're kind of like, well, congrats
Speaker 3: on the new format, but this isn't what fans really envisioned.
Speaker 3: I do think there should be probably some kind of
Speaker 3: built in advantage for the top guys, but you know,
Speaker 3: like people have said that match play that's part of
Speaker 3: the spirit of the sport. You're not always going to
Speaker 3: get the top guys. But yeah, Obron very excited. I
Speaker 3: just think there are some details that need to be
Speaker 3: ironed out.
Speaker 2: I always am amazed when you look at, you know,
Speaker 2: the FedEx Cup standings, we get beat over the head
Speaker 2: with them as golf fans just just smashed over the
Speaker 2: head from Week one of PGA Tour Golf. I am
Speaker 2: always kind of amazed though, when you look at it
Speaker 2: at the end of the year how it shakes out
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, you know, the top thirty they
Speaker 2: it was right, like those were the thirty best players.
Speaker 1: I do see.
Speaker 2: What you're saying, though, is like what a nightmare would
Speaker 2: be on It's not a nightmare, but you know, worst
Speaker 2: case scenario, you get a you know, a final match
Speaker 2: of for the you know playoffs of Chris right Tan
Speaker 2: versus Alex Smalley, you know, du which could absolutely happen,
Speaker 2: you know, and that right now, as it stands today,
Speaker 2: would be sixteen versus twenty one.
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, like the thing about match play,
Speaker 1: right is like anything happen.
Speaker 2: I always found it humorous when we had the match
Speaker 2: Play tournament, you know that you had this like, oh,
Speaker 2: like the sixty four seed beat the number one seed.
Speaker 2: How crazy is that. It's like, well, it's not crazy
Speaker 2: at all, you know. This is like, this is not
Speaker 2: like the SCAA tournament. This is you know, there's such
Speaker 2: a marginal difference between their talent level and what golf,
Speaker 2: thrives on is that over the course of four round
Speaker 2: championship golf of twenty events a year, so you're talking
Speaker 2: over eighty rounds of golf. This is how it eventually
Speaker 2: shakes out as to who the best players are. And
Speaker 2: the margin on a per round basis is so small,
Speaker 2: but in the totality, much like baseball, of this long season,
Speaker 2: the difference becomes like very evident.
Speaker 1: So when you boil.
Speaker 2: It down to a single match, it is very, very
Speaker 2: very like the variance. You could put some college kids
Speaker 2: in there and there'd be a potential for like, you know,
Speaker 2: the number two guy on LSU to beat Scotti Scheffler
Speaker 2: on a given day. Is that it's not like a
Speaker 2: lot of other sports in that sense.
Speaker 3: And the other piece that I'm sure Brian Rolapp is
Speaker 3: thinking about is if you could build in just a
Speaker 3: small advantage for the top guys, it would make them.
Speaker 3: It would incentivize them to show up to your other
Speaker 3: events and care about them. Right now, like Rory McRoy
Speaker 3: has played, Andy knew how many non majors Andy that
Speaker 3: Rory has played in this PGA Tour schedule five six,
Speaker 3: He's played six times this PGA tour season, and he
Speaker 3: you know, he can roll out of bed and make
Speaker 3: it into the top six or four of the FedEx
Speaker 3: Cup no matter how many events he plays. But you
Speaker 3: do want to get those top guys caring about being
Speaker 3: a top four seed or a top eight seed. So
Speaker 3: I am fascinated to see if they build in some
Speaker 3: kind of advantage. Yes, match play, you know who cares
Speaker 3: if it's twelve or seventeen. That's the nature of match play. Sure,
Speaker 3: but I think there would be some additional benefits from
Speaker 3: naturally incentivizing these guys to show up during the season
Speaker 3: if you build in some little advantage to the top players.
Speaker 3: But maybe they won't even do that, and they'll just say, hey,
Speaker 3: if you're in the top thirty two, you have an
Speaker 3: equal chance. We'll see how it shakes out.
Speaker 2: I think i'd be okay with either one. And I
Speaker 2: think like the thing too here that I think is important.
Speaker 2: Everybody's going to expect this thing to be a home
Speaker 2: run right away, but they're introducing this new whole format
Speaker 2: they need to be and I think they will be
Speaker 2: like open to making tweaks as you go along. One thing,
Speaker 2: I'd be curious your thoughts on are what if the
Speaker 2: advantage of say finishing in the top eight was that
Speaker 2: you get a guaranteed admittance to the finals where you're
Speaker 2: a top eight seed, you're one of the top eight seeds,
Speaker 2: and then everybody playing in is playing. There's only eight spots.
Speaker 2: You have to win your stage to get out.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, right, there's fives in the NFL for
Speaker 3: being one of the top seeds and you get an
Speaker 3: extra week of rest. If that's the direction they choose
Speaker 3: to go, I'd be completely fine with that.
Speaker 1: That's just generally a thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, this is a this is
Speaker 2: a wonderful, wonderful opportunity because you know, you get some
Speaker 2: sort of and listen, like ESPN had floated, they've since
Speaker 2: pulled it out of the story that that it was
Speaker 2: like Pine Valley Cypher's point potential for this final event.
Speaker 1: I think that's a little pie in the sky.
Speaker 2: I'm just like I would just generally say that, like
Speaker 2: you're long established USGA venues, your Shinnecocks of the world,
Speaker 2: your Pebbles, your I mean Pebble obviously has a pghur event,
Speaker 2: but your Pinehurst, those are probably going to be off
Speaker 2: the table because the USGA is going to say, we
Speaker 2: don't want this to be similar to a championship that
Speaker 2: we're hosting. I would be looking at, like, what are
Speaker 2: the best golf courses that don't host USGA events as
Speaker 2: my list of like these are the ones that we
Speaker 2: should go, we should be targeting to go. I saw
Speaker 2: Seminole was floated. I don't think that's going to work
Speaker 2: in August, South Florida, but maybe it will. So that
Speaker 2: would be just generally, So that's the general structure.
Speaker 1: As you've looked at it.
Speaker 2: What are some kind of red flags of this system
Speaker 2: that you've identified things that hey, like I might like
Speaker 2: to see this or that be different.
Speaker 3: I think they're a decent number of them, and there's
Speaker 3: small details, but the small details really matter in a
Speaker 3: system like this. So I think the biggest the biggest
Speaker 3: piece of blowback you're probably gonna get is the lack
Speaker 3: of mid season promotion and that if you are on
Speaker 3: track to this Challenger Series, it is very difficult to
Speaker 3: make your way up to Track one in the middle
Speaker 3: of the season, and so you have the potential of
Speaker 3: guys getting stuck. You have to win twice in the
Speaker 3: Challenger Series to move up or win a major championship,
Speaker 3: And I don't think it's out of the realm of
Speaker 3: possibilit that we basically never see that that that might
Speaker 3: happen like once every ten years where somebody from the
Speaker 3: Challenger Series wins twice in a season and moves up
Speaker 3: or wins a major championship. So I think that's some
Speaker 3: blowback you'll get. My counter would be, well, at least
Speaker 3: at the end of that year, then the next year
Speaker 3: they have the full schedule. They're fully exempt onto the
Speaker 3: top series, the Championship Series, which is not the way
Speaker 3: it works now, as we've already talked about, Like now
Speaker 3: you could do really well on track two, and you're
Speaker 3: playing with a massive disadvantage once you get up to
Speaker 3: the next level because y' all these limited starts. So
Speaker 3: that's one big piece of blowback I think you'll get.
Speaker 3: I'm a little worried about this idea of abandoning some
Speaker 3: of these small markets and going to these big markets
Speaker 3: and the gamble that that is. I think some of
Speaker 3: these small markets have served the tour pretty well, and
Speaker 3: we have seen when you go to big markets sometimes
Speaker 3: that the fans don't necessarily show up, and so I
Speaker 3: wonder about a venue like Colonial, is that done? Is
Speaker 3: if it's not a top tier event, is it? Do
Speaker 3: they even want to be a second tier event? And
Speaker 3: you know what elements of the PGA Tours history are
Speaker 3: they potentially abandoning that was working really well. I have
Speaker 3: some concern about that. And then I guess the other
Speaker 3: piece would be that, you know, we're talking about ninety
Speaker 3: guys keeping their card from the Championship Series and twenty
Speaker 3: getting promoted from that second tier, which leaves about twenty
Speaker 3: spots to figure out of who else is exempt. And
Speaker 3: I think that's going to be really hard to figure
Speaker 3: out exactly where those twenty spots get allocated. DP World
Speaker 3: Tour guys, PGA Tour you guys, you know medical exemptions.
Speaker 3: How that twenty gets filled out is a really big deal,
Speaker 3: and I would I would really want to make sure
Speaker 3: that we don't start capping opportunities for guys like on
Speaker 3: PGA Tour you, because I think you want to get
Speaker 3: them up as fast as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I to the last point. The devil is definitely
Speaker 2: going to be in the details of how they shake this,
Speaker 2: shake this whole thing out. And obviously the stakes are
Speaker 2: so high you're talking about. You're playing on the top
Speaker 2: tour for twenty plus million perses and you're gonna, you know,
Speaker 2: like you're going to play for a lot of money
Speaker 2: every week. If you get bumped down, you're playing for
Speaker 2: a fifth at least a fifth of the money right
Speaker 2: when you get bumped down.
Speaker 1: I think, like, you know, figuring out.
Speaker 2: How all of it works, Like there's got to be
Speaker 2: a dp World Tour carve out where if you finish,
Speaker 2: you know, in the top five or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: you get bumped up. Yes, there has to be some
Speaker 2: threshold of PGA Tour you and I think they can
Speaker 2: probably easily do that based off of accumulating an x
Speaker 2: number of points. The way that it works right now
Speaker 2: is like qualification points is how Jackson Coyven earned his
Speaker 2: card early. Like there has to be a point threshold.
Speaker 2: Just because you finished number one doesn't mean you get
Speaker 2: a card. You have to achieve x number to reach
Speaker 2: this high level of golf. Otherwise you go into this
Speaker 2: challenger circuit. For the way they do it, I think
Speaker 2: like five spots should go into the challengers right now.
Speaker 1: The top five, you.
Speaker 2: Know, number one goes to the PGA Tour for two
Speaker 2: through five go to the corn Ferry Tour like I would.
Speaker 3: I like to so, But like Bench, these guys turn
Speaker 3: pro in the summer, in the middle of the season.
Speaker 3: So what would you do, Like with Ben James, for example, Andy,
Speaker 3: would you give him because he's gonna be a huge
Speaker 3: disadvantage if he just comes out into the Championship Series
Speaker 3: halfway through the season. How would you figure that out?
Speaker 1: So I would.
Speaker 2: I would figure it out in the sense of, like,
Speaker 2: the only people that earn the Championship Series are they
Speaker 2: cleared this threshold, and it could be it could be
Speaker 2: six players if they clear this high threshold of like
Speaker 2: you're an all time college player, we're going to bump
Speaker 2: you straight up to the Championship Series. It could be zero,
Speaker 2: it could be five, it could be six, whatever, whatever
Speaker 2: clear that threshold, they get a come up and then
Speaker 2: they get in an additional year. Is the way I
Speaker 2: would I would set it up. They're effectively like an
Speaker 2: add on a bolt on to the tour for that half.
Speaker 3: Year and then in full next year's status exactly.
Speaker 2: And then for for the other people that then qualify
Speaker 2: tip their typical PJ tour you route, I would send
Speaker 2: them straight to the Challenger tour and they get that
Speaker 2: same year and a half effectively like, hey, you could
Speaker 2: go down there and kill it and earn your card,
Speaker 2: you know, you earn your high card or you but
Speaker 2: at worst case you're here for the next year. But
Speaker 2: then I think, like the big issue here is the
Speaker 2: medical thing. Yeah, this, this is gonna be the hardest
Speaker 2: thing to figure out. And I know that this is
Speaker 2: not the most you know, fun, It's not gonna you know,
Speaker 2: draw millions of eyeballs. But holy cal you are asking
Speaker 2: for uh, you know, fake dives here, like you are
Speaker 2: asking for you know what I've had, Like my shoulders
Speaker 2: kind of bugging me, and I got off to bad,
Speaker 2: you know, the first the first five starts were bad.
Speaker 2: And I know, I'm I'm lost right now. I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna sit out the rest of the year.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get my shoulder done and then I'm going
Speaker 2: to work out and I and I'm going to get
Speaker 2: out of this funk. Like this is is going to
Speaker 2: be screaming the tour in their face.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, with the with the setup.
Speaker 2: Of tour players as individual contract independent contractors, I don't
Speaker 2: know how you how you've solved this.
Speaker 3: It's a hard issue. I can't wait for the fake
Speaker 3: injury discussions. Yeah, the withdrawals that are a little suspect.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Andy, I don't know how many spots
Speaker 3: they're going to allocate for this. But it's it's a
Speaker 3: very serious challenge. And you think about somebody like will
Speaker 3: z au Taurus or Justin Thomas, guys who you would say, hey,
Speaker 3: if they're healthy like they do, they clearly should be
Speaker 3: on that top circuit. But like when their injuries happen matters,
Speaker 3: And if it's halfway through the season, this is going
Speaker 3: to be a very complicated puzzle to solve and it
Speaker 3: will be a controversial one because the stakes are pretty high.
Speaker 2: Also, like, okay, let's just use it JT as an example.
Speaker 2: He got the back the micro disectomy. Let's just say
Speaker 2: he's he's three quarters of the way through the year
Speaker 2: and it's a big problem. He has to go on
Speaker 2: the shelf and he is on his way to earn
Speaker 2: his status, but because he had to take the last
Speaker 2: six events off, he ends up falling you know one,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, one, o, two or whatever the number is,
Speaker 2: and he does he loses his car technically loses his card,
Speaker 2: but he gets these rehab starts, like he gets the
Speaker 2: starts that he missed to earn the points, like as
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: It now, Like where do where do you go to
Speaker 1: get ramped up?
Speaker 2: Like if you have to take a year off, like
Speaker 2: you're okay, Like I I need to get like back.
Speaker 2: Like if you're a pitcher that's hurt in the Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball, you go down to Triple A and you
Speaker 2: throw some starts down there before you come up to
Speaker 2: the big league.
Speaker 1: Like there is a whole box of worms. I am
Speaker 1: not envious at all.
Speaker 2: I think this is the honestly, of all the issues,
Speaker 2: this is the most difficult one to figure out.
Speaker 3: It is, And right now, the PGA Tour in the
Speaker 3: signature event model sort of has this catch all. If
Speaker 3: you're in the top thirty of the official World Golf
Speaker 3: rankings and you're not already exempt, then you're in. And
Speaker 3: that kind of solves some of these issues where, yeah,
Speaker 3: if you're clearly one of the best players, you have
Speaker 3: a great finish in a major and for whatever reason
Speaker 3: you weren't in signature events, now you're in. This looks
Speaker 3: like a total decoupling from any kind of OWGR criteria.
Speaker 3: So that's not going to be the way to get
Speaker 3: some of these guys in who you're going to have
Speaker 3: to have a sound medical policy and that's going to
Speaker 3: be very difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's made more difficult because they're independent contractors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like way more difficult because there's all sorts of loss
Speaker 2: and legal things that you jump into because they're.
Speaker 1: Contractors and not it's going to be great. It is.
Speaker 2: It is actually incredible for us in the content industry.
Speaker 1: Let's just take a.
Speaker 2: Quick break and talk about our first Friday golf event
Speaker 2: at Pasa Tiempo, which is later this month. We have
Speaker 2: a few spots remaining. I think this is a small handful,
Speaker 2: but it's an opportunity to see one of the best
Speaker 2: golf courses in the world. So come play twenty seven
Speaker 2: holes at the Alsir McKenzie design, which was run in
Speaker 2: valued by Jim Urbina in twenty twenty three and twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, and it's a great opportunity to make a
Speaker 2: trip of it. The giants are playing both before and
Speaker 2: after at one of the best ballparks in the world,
Speaker 2: and you can add rounds at Pacific Grove Poppy Hills
Speaker 2: or the Pebble Beach courses or the San Francisco courses.
Speaker 2: This is a great one to bring your partner, whether
Speaker 2: it's a mister or missus who enjoys food and wine.
Speaker 2: You can also visit Big Sur in the central California
Speaker 2: coast of wineries, or go up north the NAPA or Sonoma.
Speaker 2: The World's your oyster there. I would wouldn't sleep on Marin.
Speaker 2: That's a great place to visit too. You can find
Speaker 2: out more information at Thefrida egg dot com slash events.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get to.
Speaker 2: Your point about promotion relegation midseason, and this would be
Speaker 2: like if I was going to point out, like my
Speaker 2: number one issue with this system, I think this is it.
Speaker 1: You know, I just.
Speaker 2: You know, by setting and this is a tricky thing,
Speaker 2: but like by setting a number, okay, you have to
Speaker 2: win twice and you get up, or you win a
Speaker 2: major and you get up, you're you're kind of missing
Speaker 2: the point of golf. Like in a way, like Scotty's
Speaker 2: the perfect encapsulation of this. Right now as we speak,
Speaker 2: he's one once, but he's by far and away clearly
Speaker 2: the best golfer in the world. You know if if
Speaker 2: you place Scotty down on the Challenge Tour and he
Speaker 2: had the same resume of you know, if you go
Speaker 2: through Scotty, Scotty's Scotty's you know results this year it's
Speaker 2: just basically a mirror out a single win and a
Speaker 2: myriad of top three or four finishes, like just over
Speaker 2: and over, like if I if I just run down,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna run down it real quick. He won
Speaker 2: his first start American Express T three, T four, T twelve,
Speaker 2: T twenty four, T twenty two second, second, second, T fourteen, third,
Speaker 2: T twelve, T four second. That's his starts this year.
Speaker 2: If you if you had that player on the Challenge Tour,
Speaker 2: it would be like, Okay, this guy is so good.
Speaker 2: He's so clearly one of the twenty best players in
Speaker 2: the world, and especially if he's doing this in majors.
Speaker 1: He's doing every thing but winning.
Speaker 2: Like what great golf is boiled down to is effectively consistency.
Speaker 2: Every player wants to be more consistent and like the
Speaker 2: barometer for success should always be rooted in consistency. And
Speaker 2: where my struggle here is that the the the promotion
Speaker 2: you can get and I hate to do this to
Speaker 2: a fellow LINEI.
Speaker 1: I hate to do this to a fellow LINI.
Speaker 2: But you could get a Brian Campbell situation where he
Speaker 2: wins twice, but he misses every cut in between, and
Speaker 2: it's like, wait a second, this isn't one of the
Speaker 2: best players of the world. He just like very like
Speaker 2: he just had the ball bounce his way twice. And
Speaker 2: the difference, you know you wanted a playoff, you want
Speaker 2: like it's I understand the trick here. The hard thing
Speaker 2: is you need to have like a very clear hurdle.
Speaker 2: This is what you have to do. But the backside
Speaker 2: of this, and the really hard backside of this is
Speaker 2: that when you do that, you miss the boat of
Speaker 2: what actually the picture is.
Speaker 3: So I actually will take the tour side on this one.
Speaker 3: It's a tricky issue. I think the solution they've landed
Speaker 3: on is fine, and I would take the other side
Speaker 3: of your argument, because yes, you might get stuck a
Speaker 3: little longer in this system than you would have the
Speaker 3: other way, but then you're going to be top twenty
Speaker 3: at the end of the year and you will have
Speaker 3: the full schedule next year and not be at a disadvantage.
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of complications to what you're describing.
Speaker 3: Let's say somebody can kind of move up mid season
Speaker 3: with some hot play, then they have to start deciding
Speaker 3: if they're going to play Championship Series events or Challenger
Speaker 3: Series events, and you might not get points for the
Speaker 3: Challenger Series if you're playing in the Championship Series. And
Speaker 3: then the same issue the tour always has to deal with,
Speaker 3: are we assigning enough? Is it a transferable currency between
Speaker 3: the two? How many should each one get? Like they
Speaker 3: are just choosing to abstract themselves from that problem, and
Speaker 3: I don't have a problem with that. And then you're
Speaker 3: Brian Campbell example, Let's say he wins twice and he
Speaker 3: would get up, But you think that somebody who's playing
Speaker 3: really consistently well, they should be the ones that are
Speaker 3: going to get up. They're both gonna get up the
Speaker 3: next year in this system, And to me, that's the
Speaker 3: actual that's the part that really matters. And if you're
Speaker 3: gonna have these one hundred and twenty man fields in
Speaker 3: a moving target of how many guys are playing hot
Speaker 3: enough to get up and in that also becomes really
Speaker 3: hard to run the tournaments on the Championship Series with
Speaker 3: the field size that's constantly changing. So honestly, I'm okay
Speaker 3: with it. It's a trade off, But I think the
Speaker 3: tour I think the tour solutions kind of okay.
Speaker 2: There can I present a massive issue that I just
Speaker 2: uncovered while you were talking and thinking, you know, like
Speaker 2: this whole thing is rooted in being equitable at every level,
Speaker 2: Like you have the ability to play the same events
Speaker 2: the major championships present actually a huge issue at the
Speaker 2: championship level because not out all the players are going
Speaker 2: to be you know, in the Masters, there's one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty championship level players.
Speaker 1: In this new tour system.
Speaker 2: The masters field is generally, you know, eighty five to
Speaker 2: ninety players, and a large portion of that field is
Speaker 2: made up by amateurs and and uh past champions and
Speaker 2: then national open champions from all around the world. So
Speaker 2: you you inherently could have situations where like your earlier
Speaker 2: example example Sedartion Yellow Miraju is not in these fields
Speaker 2: and he doesn't have the ability to earn points there.
Speaker 2: What would be your your your point back on that.
Speaker 3: I just don't think it's that big of a do.
Speaker 2: You think the bridge that hey, you need to take
Speaker 2: all one hundred and thirty players. I could see them
Speaker 2: doing that with like the PGA trying to do it
Speaker 2: the US Open and trying to do it with the Open,
Speaker 2: but I don't know how amicable all those organizations would be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I honestly don't see it as a huge issue.
Speaker 3: Sadarsan goes out and he's not exempt into the Championship Series,
Speaker 3: but he finishes top five at the US Open. As
Speaker 3: long as you reward him on the Challenger Series with
Speaker 3: a lot of points, then he's going to get up
Speaker 3: the following season.
Speaker 2: So I think you're misunderstanding. I'm saying, what if you
Speaker 2: have a bottom tier championship player, Right, let's say you
Speaker 2: don't have and I don't get the access to these events.
Speaker 2: I'm actually playing at a disadvantage of I only get
Speaker 2: to play twenty one of twenty five events.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, you're saying the bottom end of the Championship series. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it's not going to be perfect, but I
Speaker 3: think they're going to have enough opportunities to keep they're
Speaker 3: not gonna have. It's not gonna be completely apples to apples,
Speaker 3: but it'll be way more apples to apples than it
Speaker 3: currently is. And I think that if they play good golf,
Speaker 3: they should be able to stay in that top ninety. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not perfect. The bigger issue that we haven't talked about,
Speaker 3: and I'll just hit on quickly, but I think is
Speaker 3: going to be a massive problem is that the top
Speaker 3: guys cannot play in the lower in the in the
Speaker 3: Challenger series, which is fine. I understand why the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour is making that decision, but this the way that
Speaker 3: this impacts Major championship preparation is going to be a
Speaker 3: significant significant talking players, you know, how do you set
Speaker 3: the schedule around majors that guys want? Do they play
Speaker 3: the week before major? Do they not play the week
Speaker 3: before the major? The punchline is they're losing a lot
Speaker 3: of flexibility. Versus having thirty five events, you can play
Speaker 3: any of them that you want. You can set your
Speaker 3: schedule around majors however you want. That's not going to
Speaker 3: exist in the current system, and I think that's going
Speaker 3: to make a lot of guys upset.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is the whole thing with LIB
Speaker 2: that's been like, where you have to play these events,
Speaker 2: and you know, do you if you have these events
Speaker 2: the week before and you don't like to play the
Speaker 2: week before. I like, I imagine a lot more players are
Speaker 2: going to take the rory approach to the Masters. Spend
Speaker 2: as much time as you possibly can there before. You know,
Speaker 2: if you have an event that you have to play
Speaker 2: the week before, and I was saying they will, you
Speaker 2: know you can't. You don't want to play it, Okay,
Speaker 2: so I sit out. Transversely, you're a player like Phil
Speaker 2: Mickelson famously like love playing the week before and and
Speaker 2: started to play really well in majors when you played.
Speaker 1: The week before.
Speaker 2: Now, Alison, you can't play the event the week before,
Speaker 2: or they start to schedule all these you know, like
Speaker 2: you imagine the heritage I imagine going to be after
Speaker 2: the Masters, Travelers is gonna be after the US Open.
Speaker 2: You're a player that just doesn't want to play the
Speaker 2: week after. Like there there's a whole box of rocks
Speaker 2: here with the with the scheduling, and I think, like
Speaker 2: what it's going to boil down to is like tough luck.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball players, NBA players, NFL players don't get
Speaker 2: to choose the day of the week that they play.
Speaker 2: You have to go out there and be game ready
Speaker 2: whenever you play, and I think that's probably the right
Speaker 2: circumstance here, you know, Before we get out of here,
Speaker 2: the last thing I will I want to hit on
Speaker 2: is one of your points about about small markets or
Speaker 2: smaller markets. I don't you know, the tour doesn't really
Speaker 2: go to any like super I guess they go to
Speaker 2: some super small markets.
Speaker 1: Hilton Heads a strong deer. But the idea of.
Speaker 2: I think you're you're kind of right here when you
Speaker 2: I think there's like a chicken or egg situation here.
Speaker 2: You want the exposure that these big markets present. You
Speaker 2: want to be in them.
Speaker 1: It's good for the business, it's good.
Speaker 2: You know, the sponsorship opportunities in in New York or
Speaker 2: Chicago are greater than they are in you know, Jackson, Mississippi,
Speaker 2: or hilton Head, South Carolina. There, but there is like
Speaker 2: a just a general fan response, and we see it
Speaker 2: with the travelers. Uh, you know, I've been using this
Speaker 2: a lot, but that was last week. It's just a
Speaker 2: good example. The PGA tour goes to Hartford and that's
Speaker 2: the biggest show in town every year, and people show
Speaker 2: out and show in in and there's huge local support,
Speaker 2: there's huge community support, and it makes the event better,
Speaker 2: and it's like the kind of grasp of the like
Speaker 2: what is the right balance there? And and you know what,
Speaker 2: and that is a big thing. I think, like one
Speaker 2: thing I have to say, the lack of global participation
Speaker 2: with events is also a big attraction here, and I
Speaker 2: it's a this is the hardest thing, this is the
Speaker 2: hardest thing to do, and I think there I think
Speaker 2: their general plan is that in the fall they're going
Speaker 2: to be going to these national opens and that's going
Speaker 2: to be They're hoping that the big players will go
Speaker 2: participate in that. But like, I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: there there has to be a commitment to growing the
Speaker 2: global audience in certain markets, and I just don't think
Speaker 2: that this structure right now gets there. And I think
Speaker 2: that that, you know, I don't know what the right
Speaker 2: answer is, but the idea, like if I were like
Speaker 2: if I were making a suggestion, I would say, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to host twenty twenty five events, and obviously
Speaker 2: some of them they don't host, the majors they don't host,
Speaker 2: but like, how do we get a rotating event in
Speaker 2: here that goes all over the world. That's a part
Speaker 2: of this and maybe one year it's in India, one year,
Speaker 2: it's in South Africa, one year it's in Australia, and
Speaker 2: we kind of float this around the world. One year
Speaker 2: it's in Ireland, one year it's in continell Europe, and
Speaker 2: we float this thing around and that becomes part of
Speaker 2: this and at least we're making a global effort at
Speaker 2: a bare minimum, and the idea over time is to
Speaker 2: scale it up, similar to the way that the NFL
Speaker 2: has done their global expansions.
Speaker 3: Like their mentality right now is well, instead of doing that,
Speaker 3: we're just gonna get out of the way in the
Speaker 3: fall and let some of those events thrive. And they've
Speaker 3: made this investment in the Australian Open maybe they try
Speaker 3: to build that up, but yeah, Andy, I mean, maybe
Speaker 3: an opportunity to do that would be the Tour Championship,
Speaker 3: and I don't think that's probably the vision, but it'd
Speaker 3: be kind of cool if that event moved around. Like
Speaker 3: the one thing I had pie in the sky idea
Speaker 3: I had in my notes was that I think one
Speaker 3: area golf could tap into a little better is having
Speaker 3: events in the home countries of some of their stars.
Speaker 3: That is a very difficult thing to achieve but like
Speaker 3: if John Rahm is on the PGA Tour and he's
Speaker 3: one of your best players, like having an event in
Speaker 3: Spain or at a minimum building up the Spanish Open
Speaker 3: some way. I think there's some untapped potential in getting
Speaker 3: guys to the home countries of some of the stars,
Speaker 3: But I don't know that the tour Championships the right
Speaker 3: way to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that it would be be remiss not
Speaker 2: to mention that. I think the lack of global participation
Speaker 2: or in global inclusion, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: would be willing to participate. The lack of global inclusion
Speaker 2: is kind of a red flag, and I you know,
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that they start to kind of address that
Speaker 2: over time and maybe that that's the way is you
Speaker 2: get people bought in on this is this is the way,
Speaker 2: and you start to slowly integrate it to where you know,
Speaker 2: maybe Jacksonville's just moving to London, you know, in the NFL.
Speaker 3: We'll see. I don't know, they couldn't make Capellua work.
Speaker 3: Capalua was too logistically difficult, so I don't know how
Speaker 3: optimistic I am that they're going to make Australia work.
Speaker 3: But we'll see.
Speaker 2: All right, So those are kind of our our pros
Speaker 2: and cons of this, I think overall, like I'm super
Speaker 2: positive of the changes, You're super positive of the changes.
Speaker 1: Any parting thoughts, this all.
Speaker 3: Boils down to the success that to our championship, Like
Speaker 3: it's already a step in the right direction, But the
Speaker 3: keys all this working is picking cool venues, the format
Speaker 3: being good. Like if that falls flat, then I think
Speaker 3: a lot of this is sort of moot and it's
Speaker 3: still probably a step in the right direction. But the
Speaker 3: real unlocking all the value is building a bad ass
Speaker 3: tour championship that has to be the crown jewel of
Speaker 3: the tour, even more than the Players Championship. So I'll
Speaker 3: reserve a lot of thoughts until we see what that
Speaker 3: looks like. But that is the case, that's the Bowld
Speaker 3: case for why this is all going to work out
Speaker 3: really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think you're right because if that
Speaker 2: the better, that is the better the trickle down effect
Speaker 2: is into every single event because then every single event
Speaker 2: carries more importance because of your ability to get to
Speaker 2: that season finale event.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Joseph, as always, big thanks for coming on. Everybody
Speaker 2: should go read you're writing in the Frida Egg Golf
Speaker 2: newsleg newsletter on a weekly basis, and uh, you're going,
Speaker 2: You're going abroad, You're about to board a plane. I
Speaker 2: can't wait to get your thoughts on Royal Birkdale. You're
Speaker 2: you're on a on a solo mission, a rare solo
Speaker 2: Fried Egg mission.
Speaker 3: Here your solo mission. I'm really excited. I think there's
Speaker 3: a diversity opinions on Royal Birthday and I have a
Speaker 3: pretty open mind about the golf course, so I'm excited
Speaker 3: to see it for myself and inform some thoughts in
Speaker 3: advance of the Open and Royallytham and st Anne so
Speaker 3: for the Women's Open. So looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to hearing how your trip goes. And thanks
Speaker 2: as always for coming on. Safe travels.
Speaker 1: Thanks Andy all Right, big.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Joseph for joining before his travel yonder. A
Speaker 2: big thanks to PJ. Clark for editing and producing today's show.
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week with a new episode.