Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I am excited to welcome on LPGA Commissioner Mike wand
Speaker 1: Mike and I discuss a bevy of topics, including the
Speaker 1: growth of the LPGA tour, of what's ahead in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and further into the future, ratings and how big
Speaker 1: of a deal the Olympics was for the LPGA, and
Speaker 1: much more. If you guys enjoy the podcast, best way
Speaker 1: to show your support is by rating and reviewing our
Speaker 1: podcast in the app Store. It helps out a bunch,
Speaker 1: attracts new listeners, and it's much appreciative. So if you
Speaker 1: haven't yet, please rate and review our podcast in the
Speaker 1: app Store. Thanks, and without further ado, here is Mike
Speaker 1: wand I miss a Green. For example, I'm already upset
Speaker 1: when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a Frida egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, codrided, Frida Egg, Friday, Frida Egg Egg, bride
Speaker 2: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the dump.
Speaker 1: H If you had only eat one fruit the rest
Speaker 1: of your life.
Speaker 2: What would be wouldn't be fruit?
Speaker 1: It's a good question that Pelty a lot about somebody.
Speaker 2: Orange because it would because I have a patience problem,
Speaker 2: and just the peeling would be slowed me down. So
Speaker 2: I need I need any kind of food that requires
Speaker 2: some sort of prep effort. It just slows me down
Speaker 2: from just eating fast.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. I I it's like the biggest deterren I
Speaker 1: love oranges, but I just can't stand.
Speaker 2: I have to have it. It's just a I have
Speaker 2: a thing I'm hanging on my computer right now that
Speaker 2: just patients and just before you stop typing reply, just
Speaker 2: you know, digest for a minute. So I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to build in my own defense mechanisms.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, Like if you wait four it's.
Speaker 2: Like you're a different person, right And I could have
Speaker 2: the reply all turned off on my computer. I would,
Speaker 2: but I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my prom I then start forgetting about it, and
Speaker 1: then you know, if it's not top of mine.
Speaker 2: Right tomorrow, it's like the fifth highest priority.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you got in golf. You were caddying at
Speaker 1: Cress Creek and then turned into a ground screw member,
Speaker 1: so fascinating. After college, jobs outside of golf and then
Speaker 1: you had you know, you you were at Procter and Gamble,
Speaker 1: Bright Smile, Mission Hockey, but also intertwined you had Wilson
Speaker 1: and Taylor made. So now you take you take the
Speaker 1: job as commissioner of LPGA. What do you think. How
Speaker 1: do you feel like your work outside of golf helped
Speaker 1: helps you in golf?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think you can be great in golf
Speaker 2: if all you've ever experienced in golf. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just like anything else you're gonna apply. As a father,
Speaker 2: you apply lessons you remembered as a kid. You know
Speaker 2: the things that worked and the things that doesn't. It didn't,
Speaker 2: and the same is true in the commissioner role. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, I'm still
Speaker 2: positioning a brand like I figured out it product and Gamble.
Speaker 2: You are still managing a budget where you know, I
Speaker 2: learned other places and all the other companies I've been
Speaker 2: a part of, we've taken brands global, So you know,
Speaker 2: going global was something the LPGA was right in the
Speaker 2: middle of when I got here. So having I was
Speaker 2: talking about global is like going through a tunnel. Having
Speaker 2: been through the tunnel before made it a little bit
Speaker 2: easier to navigat in the dark. Usually when you when
Speaker 2: you're going through a tunnel, the first you know one
Speaker 2: hundred yards is dark, and everything in your body says,
Speaker 2: turned back, go back to what you know. The same
Speaker 2: is true when you're taking a brand global, it gets
Speaker 2: dark for a while. When I joined the LPGA in
Speaker 2: twenty ten, it was pretty dark in terms of the
Speaker 2: global transition, but I'd seen the other side of the
Speaker 2: of the tunnel. I knew it was okay, and it
Speaker 2: was It was a comfortable place for me to say,
Speaker 2: trust us, we know where this is heading. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it's going to be easy for the next couple
Speaker 2: of years, but it was I had less of an
Speaker 2: urge to turn back, I think than the rest.
Speaker 1: What's the toughest thing about being a global worldwide tour?
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, beyond the physical challenge. I mean, because
Speaker 2: it's it's just tough on your Body's tough on the
Speaker 2: tour players, caddies and the commissioner's body. I mean, we're
Speaker 2: literally traveling all over the world and a bunch of
Speaker 2: different time zones. And that may look glamorous to the outside,
Speaker 2: but trust me when I tell you there's nothing glamorous
Speaker 2: about that on the inside. The toughest thing is you
Speaker 2: you can't get comfortable in how you do business because
Speaker 2: how you do business in Boston is not the same
Speaker 2: and how you do business in Thailand, and how you
Speaker 2: do business in Thailand has nothing to do with how
Speaker 2: you do business in Korea. And just because you figured
Speaker 2: out CREA doesn't mean you figured out Australia. So you
Speaker 2: you have to remain you have to be in a
Speaker 2: learning curve all the time, and you have to understand
Speaker 2: that the check writer is the is the leader of
Speaker 2: the business, not the commissioner. And so you know that
Speaker 2: that took me a little bit a while to figure
Speaker 2: out too, But it's I think the hardest part is
Speaker 2: just knowing that there is no model, there's no formula.
Speaker 2: People tell me, how do you sell the LPGA. That's no,
Speaker 2: there's no answer to that. The answer is depending on
Speaker 2: who's sitting across from and what they're looking to do.
Speaker 2: So it's I don't think you ever really get comfortable,
Speaker 2: and you never really feel like you figured It's kind
Speaker 2: of like golf, right, you never just when you think
Speaker 2: you figured it out, you have the worst three months
Speaker 2: of your life. And same is true as commissioner. Yeah,
Speaker 2: It's like the.
Speaker 1: Swing you have one day is never the same as
Speaker 1: the next swing.
Speaker 2: And as soon as you tell somebody you're a really
Speaker 2: good chipper, you go through the greatest yet period of
Speaker 2: your life. And so it's you know, the LPGA is
Speaker 2: similar that you don't really master this. You have to
Speaker 2: stay in a learning mode.
Speaker 1: I was reading a ESPN dot com article that you
Speaker 1: are quoted in. It said, we have to be just
Speaker 1: like our athletes, who in the off season will make
Speaker 1: major changes to their swing, diet, workouts, and an effort
Speaker 1: to gain more yardage or hit more greens. In regulation,
Speaker 1: we have to be willing to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: So when we when you take some chances, some are
Speaker 1: going to work out and some aren't. But our goal
Speaker 1: can't be to be conflict free free because if you're
Speaker 1: going to be conflict free, you don't take any chances. Curious,
Speaker 1: since since becoming the commissioner of what are some risks
Speaker 1: or chances that you've taken the paid off and maybe
Speaker 1: one that didn't work out as well as you hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I mean, going back to the first
Speaker 2: part of your question there, I mean when I joined,
Speaker 2: I didn't expect to see what I'd see, which is
Speaker 2: players in the top ten of the world rankings, I
Speaker 2: mean the Rolex World top ten. Would tell me about
Speaker 2: the new coach they got in and the off season
Speaker 2: they're gonna break down their swing and they're trying to
Speaker 2: get seven yards longer. Like seven yards longer. You're gonna
Speaker 2: do all that for seven yards? Well, commission, if I
Speaker 2: could be hitting eight iron in versus seven and my
Speaker 2: closest to the bend and they knew all the facts,
Speaker 2: you know where I could be. And I used to
Speaker 2: think these twenty year old kids have the guts to
Speaker 2: change their whole you know, their whole life and do
Speaker 2: it publicly, because they all get worse before they get better.
Speaker 2: In fact, they tell you they're gonna get worse before
Speaker 2: they get better, and they tell you that it's gonna
Speaker 2: happen on TV. But they realize if they don't do it,
Speaker 2: they can't take their game to the next level. I
Speaker 2: can't tell you how many times has Tiger rebuilt this swing.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking I was flying back. I think
Speaker 2: I was flying back from Carl's bed. I remember the
Speaker 2: plane and we were having a debate. You know, I
Speaker 2: was online on WI fi in the air, having a
Speaker 2: debate with some of the folks about whether or not
Speaker 2: this would work or this wouldn't work. And I remember
Speaker 2: just suiting an email to somebody saying, our players wouldn't
Speaker 2: stress over this. They'd see the outcome and they know
Speaker 2: that if this one doesn't work, they'll try it another way.
Speaker 2: But they're getting to seven yards longer they do and
Speaker 2: they figure it out. And we got to have the
Speaker 2: We got to be the same. We have to have
Speaker 2: the same guts and belief and faith and unhappiness with
Speaker 2: status quo that they do. And I've told players many
Speaker 2: times when we've made mistakes, I'm gonna keep making them
Speaker 2: because you're going to keep making them. You got to
Speaker 2: give me the same freedom you give yourself to break
Speaker 2: down my swing, try it a different way. They won't
Speaker 2: all work. I remember the first time I suggested we
Speaker 2: play prorams at nine and nine, where you play nine
Speaker 2: holes and you leave, another player comes in and she
Speaker 2: plays with you on the back nine. I had played
Speaker 2: in a lot of programs with a lot of sponsors,
Speaker 2: and I kind of felt like by the thirteen or
Speaker 2: fourteenth hole, I'd said everything I needed to say to
Speaker 2: that player, and we learned that my brother and her
Speaker 2: brother went to the same school or whatever. But it
Speaker 2: was really exciting on that first tea when you're meeting
Speaker 2: for the first time. So we started doing nine hole
Speaker 2: and nine hole prorams turned out to be great. PGA
Speaker 2: Tours adopted it. Now you know, they do it too,
Speaker 2: but when we first started doing it, everyone kind of
Speaker 2: looked at us we were crazy. We introduced a tournament
Speaker 2: where we weren't going to play for a purse, called
Speaker 2: the Founder's Cup, and the whole idea was to remember
Speaker 2: that we got to pay it forward. That may not
Speaker 2: have been my greatest idea, but it's turned into a
Speaker 2: really great tournament with a really great, you know attitude.
Speaker 2: And we introduced the UL International Crown. Number one media
Speaker 2: writer said, why do you feel like you have to
Speaker 2: present a whole different format to golf, Like there's already
Speaker 2: a format. Just do the President's Cup. Just be the
Speaker 2: women's President's Cup. And I remember thinking, you know, that's
Speaker 2: got a better I hope I never fall for that,
Speaker 2: that whole easy way out thing. So and all of
Speaker 2: those examples I just gave you didn't work when we
Speaker 2: started and did work later. That's part of breaking down
Speaker 2: your swing. You got to know what's going to get
Speaker 2: worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1: So I use this analogy with golf courses all the time.
Speaker 1: I think my pet peeve is municipalities that look down
Speaker 1: the street at the golf course down the street and say, oh,
Speaker 1: it works for them, We're going to do that. If fascinating,
Speaker 1: like you know, a U All crowned, perfect example, like
Speaker 1: why don't you just do what the PGA Tour does? Well, like,
Speaker 1: we aren't the PGA Tour. We're gonna do what we do.
Speaker 1: And in the end of the day, like now, I
Speaker 1: personally think, you know the President's Cup, they should do
Speaker 1: something like the U All crown instead, because you know
Speaker 1: the President's Cup, it will always be the younger brother
Speaker 1: of the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2: Well, as I always say, I don't know who developed
Speaker 2: the President's Cup, but it was probably an American because
Speaker 2: it's America versus rest of World. I always said, if
Speaker 2: you asked an American to play on team rest of World,
Speaker 2: they'd probably say no, Like I don't even know what
Speaker 2: color to wear, what anthem are we gonna sing? What
Speaker 2: do I paint on my face? Like our players when
Speaker 2: they put their flag on their face, it is a
Speaker 2: game changer. And so when you see Team Thailand walk
Speaker 2: out of the locker room and they got the Thai
Speaker 2: flag on, and they got Thaie colored ribbons in their
Speaker 2: hair and the national anthem gets played when they walk
Speaker 2: into the first tea, it is I see grown athletes
Speaker 2: who are the best in the world shake and get nervous,
Speaker 2: and I love that because that's what we'd feel like
Speaker 2: on the first team most time. And so you know,
Speaker 2: I always say that, you know, playing America versus the
Speaker 2: rest of the world doesn't make sense in women's golf today,
Speaker 2: probably won't make sense long term and men's golf, but
Speaker 2: right now it probably still does. But in women's golf
Speaker 2: that when you've got players coming from all over the world,
Speaker 2: When top fifteen in the Rolex World rankings come from
Speaker 2: ten different countries, it just doesn't make sense to try
Speaker 2: to create a rest of world team. And we didn't
Speaker 2: get everything right about you all International Crown, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll make changes as the years go on, but
Speaker 2: it was it was our goal to try to create
Speaker 2: something different for golf, more customized to who we are.
Speaker 1: I know, in talking to some people that one of
Speaker 1: the biggest problems of the International team and the President's
Speaker 1: Cup is like they're all from different countries. They're all
Speaker 1: they a lot of different languages in there, and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of trouble bonding as a team versus
Speaker 1: you know, if you're playing for your country, you know
Speaker 1: all the all the all the players from your country
Speaker 1: because you grew up playing against them or you grew
Speaker 1: up idolizing them, and there's so much more cohesiveness and
Speaker 1: so much more you know, feeling of a team. You know,
Speaker 1: it's always easy for America to bond together as a
Speaker 1: team because like, you know, it's America.
Speaker 2: Just start chating USA. Yeah, we did. We even did.
Speaker 2: We decided to not have coaches and captains. We wanted
Speaker 2: to get the four players together and let them decide
Speaker 2: who they're playing with today and if they want to
Speaker 2: shake it up tomorrow we have hasn't happened yet in
Speaker 2: the UL Crown, but part of the rules of the
Speaker 2: UL International Crown is at the end of Sunday you
Speaker 2: could have more than two teams tied for them. You
Speaker 2: can have three different teams tied for the lead. If
Speaker 2: that happens, the teams have fifteen minutes to go back
Speaker 2: to their to their their country room, and after fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: they have to come back and hand us on an
Speaker 2: envelope the name of one player who will play sudden
Speaker 2: death for their country. I said, one of these times
Speaker 2: this is going to happen. Imagine how cool it is
Speaker 2: that there go the teams, they got no coaches, no captains,
Speaker 2: and they got to walk out and choose one of
Speaker 2: them to play sudden death for the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: it's just to me, it's fun because it creates leadership
Speaker 2: opportunities and differences. And they, like I said, there's no one,
Speaker 2: there's no one to blame. It's the four of them
Speaker 2: in a room and they make all the decisions for
Speaker 2: whatever team they represent.
Speaker 1: You got to get video of that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not sure they wanted to view of that. Right,
Speaker 2: that seems sponsorable somehow if I think about that long enough.
Speaker 1: So I'm a I'm a big idea this guy. What's
Speaker 1: what's an idea that you'd just love to implement that
Speaker 1: Maybe the world of golf isn't reay for.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of ideas I think the world isn't
Speaker 2: right for. But I'd I'd like to see six or
Speaker 2: nine hole match play, and you know, I call it
Speaker 2: like the speed nine, and you know, you'd probably play
Speaker 2: two or three matches a day. But to me, match
Speaker 2: play gets really interesting on the tenth t. It would
Speaker 2: be incredible if at the tenth t was the first
Speaker 2: t and if you lose the first hole of a
Speaker 2: nine hole match, it's game on so hard, and I
Speaker 2: think it'd be really cool to you know, you find
Speaker 2: the right golf course that might have twenty seven or
Speaker 2: thirty six holes, we'd play these speed nines and it
Speaker 2: would be you know, it'd be a little bit more
Speaker 2: like we do today. I think the other the other
Speaker 2: thing that I think the world is ready for, we
Speaker 2: just got to figure out dates and everything else is
Speaker 2: is playing the PGA Tour and the LPGA together. Whether
Speaker 2: that means we're all playing our own ball on the
Speaker 2: street him and leader boards, but I think a pretty
Speaker 2: big cood will see Bubba Watson and Lexi Thompson as
Speaker 2: a team and he's been down reading her putt and
Speaker 2: she's suggested he can hit his driver over that corner
Speaker 2: and and you know they're paired up against you know,
Speaker 2: Jude Tanagarn and and and Justin to Justin Dustin Johnson,
Speaker 2: and I think it would be I think golf's ready
Speaker 2: for it. I know the fans are ready for it.
Speaker 2: I think it would create the kind of you know,
Speaker 2: bonds and fun. Unfortunately, both of us now have pretty
Speaker 2: full schedules and we're rarely in the same even part
Speaker 2: of the States, let alone part of the world. But
Speaker 2: I think that that's something that the good news for
Speaker 2: me is that both sides are really interested in trying
Speaker 2: to figure out.
Speaker 1: So that's it's a timely, timely response given this week
Speaker 1: you got the first ever LPGA sanctioned vic Open, and
Speaker 1: that's playing congruently with the European Tour, where you've got
Speaker 1: one group of men followed by one group of women
Speaker 1: throughout the two golf courses. What has been the early
Speaker 1: feedback so far from it? And you know your thoughts.
Speaker 2: You know, we've seen it. You know we saw it
Speaker 2: last year and I remember it in a room just
Speaker 2: like we're sitting and talking about man that is really
Speaker 2: they are really onto something. And we had talked to
Speaker 2: Golf Australia about joining it last year in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: but it was season wise. It didn't fit for us
Speaker 2: right off the bat. We started talking to him again
Speaker 2: in summer of eighteen, about twenty nineteen, and it really
Speaker 2: did fit. It's funny we were talking about ideas that
Speaker 2: work and ideas it doesn't work. And I always tell
Speaker 2: people that if you evaluated my tenure at the LPG
Speaker 2: on my first year of every new idea, people would say,
Speaker 2: my god, he's having a terrible run as commissioner, which
Speaker 2: they may say anyway, And I always say, if you
Speaker 2: like the vic Open and I love it, don't evaluate
Speaker 2: it based on our first year there, give me three
Speaker 2: or four years and watch what happens to that event.
Speaker 2: Because I really do believe we're on the brink of
Speaker 2: something really significant that's going to have more and more
Speaker 2: sponsors joined the party, more and more TV coverage joined
Speaker 2: the party. I know that our players, from just talking
Speaker 2: to him this week, are really enjoying the experience. We
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the Pinehurst back to back. Just the interaction
Speaker 2: with the athletes is positive for both the men and
Speaker 2: the women. So I believe it's the start of what's
Speaker 2: going to be three or four of these over the
Speaker 2: next you know, five or ten years. But vic Open
Speaker 2: will be the one that really set the standard. And
Speaker 2: I think, I think, just sit back and watch that
Speaker 2: grow because the seeds of that thing is unbelievable. With
Speaker 2: a little bit of nourishment, I mean, that thing's going
Speaker 2: to grow into something pretty powerful.
Speaker 1: I think it's reciprocal too. I have a regular podcast
Speaker 1: with Jeff Ogilvie, who's playing, and he was emailing me
Speaker 1: this week about, you know, how how cool it was,
Speaker 1: how excited he was to talk about the experience. And
Speaker 1: I think, uh, from from what I had seen and
Speaker 1: saw and heard from the coverage. I didn't watch all
Speaker 1: of it, but like they did a great job of
Speaker 1: showing like the men play through and then the women
Speaker 1: play through a hole or the women, and you could
Speaker 1: see the differences, and so you see how how they
Speaker 1: you know, the different games, And I think that's it's
Speaker 1: such a cool fan experience too, because you're you're also
Speaker 1: in exposed. Like everything in life, variety is so great,
Speaker 1: and it gives you variety at a sporting event, which
Speaker 1: is so rare because like you know, as a fan
Speaker 1: PGA Tour golf or LPGA is it becomes ben honest
Speaker 1: versus like you got to change up, like Oh, who's
Speaker 1: in this group? Who's in this group?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I got an email from our lead official,
Speaker 2: our lead rules official from Australia on Tuesday, and she said, Mike,
Speaker 2: you would have loved to see today's practice rounds. Almost known.
Speaker 2: None of the groups in the practice round were all men,
Speaker 2: are all women. They were all intermixed. And she said,
Speaker 2: we didn't set that up. That wasn't something that was
Speaker 2: posted in the locker room. It's just people were playing
Speaker 2: together and it was really kind of a cool experience.
Speaker 2: I agree with your comment about variety. I mean, we
Speaker 2: introduced four new events for twenty nineteen. Three of them
Speaker 2: are formats we've never played before. And you know, I'll
Speaker 2: be honest. When I was joined in twenty ten, I
Speaker 2: felt we needed to build enough of a stable schedule
Speaker 2: so that we could do other formats. Yeah, you have
Speaker 2: to provide enough of a routine schedule so you can
Speaker 2: really identify who's the best golfer in the world at
Speaker 2: the end of that season. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: once we built it pretty strong and robust schedule, I
Speaker 2: felt like we both we had both the freedom and
Speaker 2: the responsibility to bring different not just for us or
Speaker 2: our fans, our players too. Our players like the variety.
Speaker 2: So we played the Diamond Resorts. We were playing with
Speaker 2: a bunch of former, former and current athletes and country
Speaker 2: music singers and comedians. We're playing the VIC Open this week.
Speaker 2: We watched what happened to the Zurich Classic on the
Speaker 2: Men's Tour and I loved it. I loved it from
Speaker 2: the first time they had the teams to the last time.
Speaker 2: Whether or not that works long term in the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: almost doesn't matter to me because I knew the day
Speaker 2: I saw it that would work for the LPGA. So
Speaker 2: together with Dow we've launched that starting this year in nineteen.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited about the fact that we're growing our
Speaker 2: schedule right Yeah, Midland, Michigan, and it's a two person
Speaker 2: you know, two person team event, very similar to the
Speaker 2: Zurich Classic. In fact, we literally called the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: when we saw the first one and said, if you
Speaker 2: wouldn't mind sharing with us sort of all the data
Speaker 2: you used, and how does this really work? How do
Speaker 2: you play for official money and FedEx Cup points in
Speaker 2: a team format? Because that's always been the hang up
Speaker 2: on team is how can I make it be official
Speaker 2: if it's two of you and it wasn't all your performance.
Speaker 2: And we walked through their thing. We shared it with
Speaker 2: our board and said we think they're onto something, and
Speaker 2: we literally stole the same logic they let us. So
Speaker 2: we have seventy two two person teams starting at Dow.
Speaker 2: It's kind of cool at Dow because it leads in
Speaker 2: to Aviance. So it'll be a Saturday finish and there'll
Speaker 2: be a Wednesday through Saturday, and even the Wednesday, I
Speaker 2: think I'll get more coveragean anything we've done before.
Speaker 1: That's the Web has done some experiments with that Sunday
Speaker 1: through Wednesday, and I find myself obviously I watched more
Speaker 1: golf than it's really healthy for human being, but I
Speaker 1: find myself like really glued to it, and I think
Speaker 1: it's not especially if you played in an area where
Speaker 1: you can get the primetime window on those days it's
Speaker 1: like so massive. The Web obviously does it in Jamaica
Speaker 1: where you don't get that, but you know, with like
Speaker 1: the World Cup of watching primetime golf like this winner
Speaker 1: when they were playing at Metropolitan, Like found myself transfixed
Speaker 1: on golf in December and outside of the Wednesday through Saturday.
Speaker 1: Have you looked into ever thought like looked into doing
Speaker 1: like a Sunday through Wednesday type type of week.
Speaker 2: It's a great question. If you'd asked me in toothy ten,
Speaker 2: I would have told you our schedule would be almost
Speaker 2: all Sunday through Wednesdays because I needed to avoid the conflict.
Speaker 2: The reality of it is, if you go back to
Speaker 2: two thousand nine and twenty ten, we were the third
Speaker 2: most watched tour. There was the PGA Tour, Champions Tour,
Speaker 2: and then US. And when you're the third most watched tour,
Speaker 2: you spend your life primarily tape delayed at nine o'clock
Speaker 2: to eleven o'clock at night or eleven o'clock to one am.
Speaker 2: And I just knew we couldn't live in that window.
Speaker 2: The good news for US is over the course of
Speaker 2: twenty ten to kind of twenty fourteen, we quickly became
Speaker 2: the number two watched tour. So what that means is
Speaker 2: is when the PGA Tour on a Saturday or Sunday
Speaker 2: flips over to network TV and that three to five
Speaker 2: or three to six window opens up on Golf Channel,
Speaker 2: the next best watch tour typically gets that window that's
Speaker 2: now US. So here's my challenge is when I play
Speaker 2: a Wednesday to Saturday, I have a really good Wednesday,
Speaker 2: I mean, you have a Wednesday that we wouldn't normally get.
Speaker 2: But a super Wednesday, I mean a super Wednesday is
Speaker 2: worse than a really bad Sunday. And that's just a reality.
Speaker 2: Since and since I don't lose Saturday and Sundays anymore,
Speaker 2: I have really good TV windows, it's really not for me.
Speaker 2: So if the web dot Com Tour doing that totally
Speaker 2: makes sense, I would have been doing it too. But
Speaker 2: as we grew viewership and really kind of took off
Speaker 2: here in the States, we took that secondary spot. And
Speaker 2: it's just it's too good for me to pass up
Speaker 2: three to six on Saturday and Sunday of live TV
Speaker 2: because I can't make up for it on a really
Speaker 2: good Tuesday.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Something I've admired and I think it
Speaker 1: is fascinating is you guys are going to you know,
Speaker 1: not the major metro markets, the secondary metro markets, and
Speaker 1: then you see the crowds and it's just unbelievable. Hey,
Speaker 1: how do you go about selecting cities that you're going
Speaker 1: to go with new events, or say, as sponsor changes,
Speaker 1: you can need to move an event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my players hate this, but when I admit it
Speaker 2: out loud, but there's not a map in my office
Speaker 2: with circles around certain markets. I mean, you can do
Speaker 2: that as a commissioner, but you quickly realize that that's
Speaker 2: generally time waste. I have gone to see so many
Speaker 2: sponsors that now have title tournaments, and when I went
Speaker 2: to see him, I thought I was going to work
Speaker 2: on a certain market. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I've got to play events where I can have the
Speaker 2: greatest impact on that sponsor's business. And eight out of
Speaker 2: ten times they'll tell me where that is. Wherever they
Speaker 2: have all their suppliers coming together, wherever they have their
Speaker 2: national sales meetings, wherever they have the greatest customer, wherever
Speaker 2: their business is expanding the fastest. So I might meet
Speaker 2: with HSBC in London, thinking I'm gonna have a London event,
Speaker 2: but we played the event in Singapore. I met with
Speaker 2: Chicago Merchandile Exchange thinking we were talking about Chicago, but
Speaker 2: my events in Naples. So the reality of it is
Speaker 2: I play where I can have the greatest impact on
Speaker 2: the check writer's business. But you're right. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you look at the LPGA's both history and current status,
Speaker 2: we're at our best when we're in those second and
Speaker 2: third kind of tier markets. We're not competing with you know,
Speaker 2: Yesterday's NBA game, Tomorrow's Major League Baseball game, and Sunday's
Speaker 2: NFL game. You know those those markets get pretty saturated
Speaker 2: and spoiled, right, I mean, having the best one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty five female golfers in the world World into
Speaker 2: Town is less of a big deal in New York
Speaker 2: than it is in Toledo. It's less of a big deal,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes in London than it is in Thailand.
Speaker 2: So we go to where we can really make the
Speaker 2: biggest splash. I mean it blows people away that for
Speaker 2: the first time they'll travel with us to Asia. And
Speaker 2: if you open up the paper in Taiwan when we're
Speaker 2: playing time, we're the first three pages of the sports section.
Speaker 2: We're the first story of sports at night on TV.
Speaker 2: And I think for people that follow the LPGA only
Speaker 2: in the States, they probably don't get that. But we
Speaker 2: go to where we can have the greatest impact.
Speaker 1: Since coming on, we've already talked a little bit about it,
Speaker 1: but you know, with sponsors, huge uptick and sponsorship and
Speaker 1: then also purses and then the viewership we've talked about,
Speaker 1: you got it moved up to into the second spot,
Speaker 1: So you know what taking those two and I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are obviously major focuses always for your business. What's
Speaker 1: the big next, biggest focus for you guys in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's two, which is kind of a
Speaker 2: commissioner cop out. You never just give one answer. But
Speaker 2: you know, for me, I told people when we started
Speaker 2: we had to build a full schedule if we really
Speaker 2: wanted to build purses. For the last few years, we
Speaker 2: really haven't been making the schedule any bigger. We add
Speaker 2: new tournaments because we lose tournaments, but our number of
Speaker 2: about thirty four events a year is kind of where
Speaker 2: we want to be. But our real push has been
Speaker 2: in terms of growing, you know, growing purses. So we're
Speaker 2: playing for enough one. I've always said, I don't need
Speaker 2: to grow huge purses. So the richest player on tour
Speaker 2: can be a lot richer. But the difference right now
Speaker 2: between playing on the LPGA Tour and playing on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour is if you finish one hundredth on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, you make a million dollars. If you finish
Speaker 2: twentieth on the LPGA Tour, you make a million dollars.
Speaker 2: And our travel expenses are dramatic, you know. So to me,
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that if you're one of
Speaker 2: the best one hundred female golfers in the world and
Speaker 2: you make it to this tour, which is not easy
Speaker 2: to make it to financially, you've got a good career
Speaker 2: and I don't want to make it to You got
Speaker 2: to be in the top thirty or forty or fifty
Speaker 2: to have that answer. And to do that, I've got
Speaker 2: to build purses to a level where if you make
Speaker 2: it to the LPGA, it might not be easy to
Speaker 2: stay on the LPGA, but if you do, it's a
Speaker 2: quality income and a quality lifestyle. And quite frankly, if
Speaker 2: you're the best one hundred anything in the world, you
Speaker 2: got to be able to figure out a way to
Speaker 2: make that worthwhile from a living perspective. So one is
Speaker 2: a pursas the other, which was related to that is
Speaker 2: in the States, it's Network TV. You know, right now,
Speaker 2: we're really lucky to have the Golf Channel as our partner.
Speaker 2: They produce almost five hundred hours of TV a year.
Speaker 2: When I got here, we had a little less than
Speaker 2: two hundred. Now we have five hundred. It's almost all live.
Speaker 2: It used to be all tape delayed, and we produce
Speaker 2: that to one hundred and seventy five countries all over
Speaker 2: the world. So because we have that partner, the rest
Speaker 2: of the world watches us, and that's the great news
Speaker 2: for me. The bad news is, Golf Channel is made
Speaker 2: up of guys like you you know that buy it.
Speaker 2: It's more men than women. It's you know, golf fanatics.
Speaker 2: It's not Channel four. It might be channel one, one,
Speaker 2: eight four in your local markets. So people don't casually
Speaker 2: find their way into the LPGA. You don't stumble into
Speaker 2: the LPGA. My wife doesn't get to see the LPGA
Speaker 2: because she doesn't turn on the Golf channel. So we've
Speaker 2: got to figure out a way. When I started, we
Speaker 2: had one network weekend. Now we have seven or eight.
Speaker 2: I should know that, but it's seven or eight. If
Speaker 2: we can get that seven or eight to fifteen or
Speaker 2: sixteen and play about half the time on some network
Speaker 2: TV during the weekend, we become more of a water
Speaker 2: cooler sport. We're less of a nitch sport. We become
Speaker 2: part of ESPN's Top ten and the discussion happening on
Speaker 2: Fox Sports. Otherwise, we kind of live in a smaller
Speaker 2: niche smaller audience, mostly male, watches us every week, and
Speaker 2: that's great. I love that audience. But if I was
Speaker 2: a better partner to the to the Golf Channel, I
Speaker 2: would spend some time on network, attract an audience it
Speaker 2: doesn't watch us all the time, and bring them back
Speaker 2: to the golf chann. I feel like the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: does that for the Golf Channel and we don't. And
Speaker 2: if we can do that, that not only makes us
Speaker 2: a better sport, but also changes the financial portfolio for
Speaker 2: our players as well. If you're a top player on
Speaker 2: tour and your hat is on Golf Channel thirty weeks
Speaker 2: a year, that's worth one thing. If your hat's on
Speaker 2: Golf Channel fifteen weeks a year and fifteen weeks a
Speaker 2: year on NBC, that's worth four times more.
Speaker 1: With the decline and TV and the rise in streaming,
Speaker 1: have you guys thought about anything any sort of streaming
Speaker 1: product that might be available on Netflix where you know,
Speaker 1: in contrast to Golf channel. The demographics completely switched.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the good news for us is the
Speaker 2: rise in streaming hasn't really hurt our overall viewers. I
Speaker 2: think we had so much room to grow on from
Speaker 2: a baseline that we've been intending to growing, even though
Speaker 2: I think some other sports have seen the hit of
Speaker 2: the last five or six years. I think only in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen is the first time we really started incorporating
Speaker 2: streaming numbers just to know, and we're surprised how good
Speaker 2: those are. I think you'll you'll see an influence in
Speaker 2: streaming on the LPGA telecast, not only in the States,
Speaker 2: but certainly around the world. There's certain countries they just
Speaker 2: don't televise women's golf, they don't televise golf, and they
Speaker 2: certainly don't televise much women's golf, and they'll become definitely
Speaker 2: a Netflix. Like to your comment, there'll be a subscriber
Speaker 2: based opportunity for that that you'll see role around the
Speaker 2: world and will be part of a lot of those places.
Speaker 2: I think in the States it'll probably be a combination
Speaker 2: of our TV partner and some of their streaming work.
Speaker 2: It may not be a TV partnern't us doing streaming
Speaker 2: on the side. We I've always believed that, you know
Speaker 2: you you partner with people to do what they do
Speaker 2: for a living, and we do what we do for
Speaker 2: a living. I want to find a media partner and
Speaker 2: I have one, you know that that this is what
Speaker 2: they do for a living, and then together I want
Speaker 2: to be there incubator when they want to try something new.
Speaker 2: I want to be the first brand they think about
Speaker 2: trying it with.
Speaker 1: That's a good good mentality. Have do what you do well?
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: So, speaking of big platforms, the Olympics obviously gave you
Speaker 1: guys a massive plat proof. Would you say the biggest
Speaker 1: platform you've ever had?
Speaker 2: I would say not just for the lpj O was
Speaker 2: the largest congregation of casual golf fans watching golf in
Speaker 2: the history of the game.
Speaker 1: Did you see was there an impact that from like
Speaker 1: the long tail of that. Did you see a spike
Speaker 1: in women's golf viewership after and and carry on afterwards?
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny long answer to the question. But when
Speaker 2: I got to Rio and setting my first press conference,
Speaker 2: it's the first question was commissioner, how great is this
Speaker 2: going to be for women's golf, and what's the podium
Speaker 2: lineup that would be best for you at the end
Speaker 2: of the tournament. And I remember saying, you know, guys,
Speaker 2: it really doesn't matter what happens in Rio. The Olympic movement,
Speaker 2: if you will, I mean that term. I never knew
Speaker 2: what that term was, but I lived it in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, when golf was entered into the Olympics,
Speaker 2: the Olympic Movement began and countries all around the world
Speaker 2: started investing in golf. And when you invest in golf,
Speaker 2: you invest in women's golf. And so we went from
Speaker 2: countries who viewed golf as a rich, elitist, old man's
Speaker 2: sport to what they call podium sports. I heard this
Speaker 2: term all around the world, podium sports. And what I
Speaker 2: mean is, if you're a sport that might be on
Speaker 2: a podium with our flag one day, the government invests
Speaker 2: in you. If you're not, you're just a sport and
Speaker 2: good luck to you. And we were just a sport
Speaker 2: before that. So what I saw is driving ranges and
Speaker 2: golf schools and world renowned teachers opening up teaching facilities
Speaker 2: to young girls all over the world that didn't exist
Speaker 2: just ten years before that. So by the time we
Speaker 2: got to the Olympics, we'd already won. Women's golf had
Speaker 2: already won, and golf was really taken off all over
Speaker 2: the world. The fact is, you know, then, to your
Speaker 2: question about TV ratings, here's a good example. So Innby
Speaker 2: Park from Korea wins the gold medal a year before that.
Speaker 2: She was playing to win her fourth major in a row.
Speaker 2: I mean, the greatest historic move in the world. And
Speaker 2: when she did that in Korea, we had an eight rating.
Speaker 2: And an eight rating is you know, that's Tiger Wood's
Speaker 2: worthy rating in her home country when she won the
Speaker 2: Olympics in the middle of the night. By the way,
Speaker 2: in Korea, it was a twenty four point one rating.
Speaker 2: So I mean, this is the difference between playing for
Speaker 2: the Olympics. As MB said to me, I wasn't really
Speaker 2: famous in Korea until I won the gold medal, and
Speaker 2: now I'm famous in Korea. The same thing was true,
Speaker 2: you know on the men's side. You know, we got
Speaker 2: players that won majors and had ten times to viewership
Speaker 2: in their home country when they stood on the podium
Speaker 2: of the Olympics. So I think, you know, people forget
Speaker 2: what an incredible viewing audience that the Olympics delivers. And
Speaker 2: the good news for US is the majority of that
Speaker 2: audience didn't really pay attention to golf before that, and
Speaker 2: we've seen that lag effect in all of our international
Speaker 2: country sense, not just for viewership, but more importantly for
Speaker 2: investment in the game. And so this whole Olympic movement thing,
Speaker 2: it's real. I didn't buy it when I started in
Speaker 2: twenty ten. My first Olympic board meeting, I said to
Speaker 2: Tim fincham, do we really need golf in the Olympics,
Speaker 2: Like we're we're good, right? Like I was totally clueless.
Speaker 2: And he said to me, Mike, you know, it's funny. Mike,
Speaker 2: I used to think that too, But watch it for
Speaker 2: a few years and let's talk again. I never brought
Speaker 2: it up with him again because I saw what he knew,
Speaker 2: and that the movement that was happening worldwide was powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Olympic gold medal medal, I mean he's huge.
Speaker 1: You even see with like guys that skeet shooters, you know,
Speaker 1: like a skeet shooter becomes a you know, a famous
Speaker 1: person because he, you know, he or she won gold medal.
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing if you had it your way, what
Speaker 1: would the Olympic format be.
Speaker 2: Well, that's sort of unfair since I said on the
Speaker 2: IGF board, but it would be so my personal preference
Speaker 2: is not to have a format, but to have multi formatch.
Speaker 2: When I turn on the TV doing the Olympics, I
Speaker 2: see Michael Spitch swim every night for a medal. This
Speaker 2: night he swim with the butterfly. The next time it's
Speaker 2: the im, then he swims the free. They bring the
Speaker 2: same number of athletes, they just swim for six different medals,
Speaker 2: and they swim for a different medal every night. I'd
Speaker 2: like to see some stroke play that's a shortened amount
Speaker 2: of stroke play for the men and the women, and
Speaker 2: right in the middle of that, I'd have a men
Speaker 2: and women team competition for country. That could be stroke play,
Speaker 2: it could be match play, but I would rather we
Speaker 2: play for four or five different Olympic stages over the
Speaker 2: course of the same two weeks, with the same number
Speaker 2: of athletes. Why not have Lexi Thompson trying to win
Speaker 2: the individual stroke play on Saturday and on Monday. She's
Speaker 2: partnered with with Ricky and they're trying to win for
Speaker 2: us in that play and then maybe Ricky's doing something
Speaker 2: on Tuesday when Lexi's gone. I don't I feel like
Speaker 2: we almost are limiting ourselves by bringing all these athletes
Speaker 2: together this incredible format and we have one podium moment.
Speaker 1: I agree with the team and the individual thing, and
Speaker 1: I looked into it and I think both on the
Speaker 1: in the men and women's game, there's like more than
Speaker 1: four players from over thirty countries in the top fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred in the world. It's like, it's not a lack
Speaker 1: of players, right.
Speaker 2: I think the challenges, and it's a fair challenge, is
Speaker 2: if you're going to give a gold medal out, should
Speaker 2: you win a gold medal for individual stroke play that's
Speaker 2: less than four days or does that somehow devalue it
Speaker 2: relative to winning the Open Championship or Augusta. And if
Speaker 2: four days and seventy two holes is kind of how
Speaker 2: we value the best of the best and that's how
Speaker 2: the cream really rises the top, then if you played
Speaker 2: a fifty four holes or less individual would it be
Speaker 2: a lessened achievement. I don't agree with that, but I
Speaker 2: know that there's some people that feel that way, and
Speaker 2: I get that. You know something at the end of
Speaker 2: the day. Like I said, it's a there's a lot
Speaker 2: of different voices. I think right now the best thing
Speaker 2: is golf's in the Olympics and will continue to be
Speaker 2: an Olympics. And we delivered. I mean, we weren't a
Speaker 2: tertiary sport when we showed up our ratings, our social followings,
Speaker 2: the media, we brought you. The quality of fields were
Speaker 2: really super high, and we really delivered back to the IOC,
Speaker 2: just like they delivered back to us. So I think
Speaker 2: the good news is I think golf and the Olympics
Speaker 2: are going to be partnering together for a long time
Speaker 2: and we really do bring a world sport and a
Speaker 2: world following. I remembered somebody not with the IOC, but
Speaker 2: an Olympic employee, said to me, how many countries are
Speaker 2: here this week for the women? I forget what we had,
Speaker 2: like thirty four countries and it is wow. How cool
Speaker 2: is it, Commissioner that you get to show up an
Speaker 2: event that has thirty four countries? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: there'll be thirty four countries at my event next week too.
Speaker 2: But I understand that if you don't follow golf all the time,
Speaker 2: you may not grapple with how global it is, and
Speaker 2: not every sport in the Olympics delivers that amount of
Speaker 2: worldwide both attention and participation. So we really felt like,
Speaker 2: and I really think it's true that we belonged. It wasn't.
Speaker 2: We didn't feel like we had a sponsor invite into
Speaker 2: the Olympics. When we walked in there. We really felt
Speaker 2: like we were as global as anybody else.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is the competition's really equitable
Speaker 1: among those thirty four countries too, Like you could look
Speaker 1: at down the list and almost anybody could win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's fun. I especially on the women's side.
Speaker 2: I think the men's side was just as impressive. But
Speaker 2: on the women's side, you know, we, like I said,
Speaker 2: if you take the top fifteen Rolex ranked players, you
Speaker 2: probably have ten countries in those top fifteen. So we're
Speaker 2: already borderless. I mean, the women's game has long since
Speaker 2: left left the station, and it is a worldwide game,
Speaker 2: and the best in the world come from all over
Speaker 2: the world. Yes, there's a lot of great players from Korea,
Speaker 2: a lot of great players in Japan, a lot of
Speaker 2: great players from America, and they probably lead in terms
Speaker 2: of countries, but there's also great players from countries that
Speaker 2: ten years ago women didn't even play golf there.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a little bit about sponsorship. In comparison
Speaker 1: to sponsorship, how difficult is it to find, like or
Speaker 1: get the venue you want once you have a sponsor.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think I've ever found a
Speaker 2: venue difficulty hard. I mean, the reality is some of
Speaker 2: the best venues in the world have a price tag
Speaker 2: for what they think that's worth. Some of the best
Speaker 2: venues in the world have just decided they'll only host
Speaker 2: something once every decade. If it's not a major, they're
Speaker 2: not interested. That's certainly their prerogative, I mean their golf course,
Speaker 2: not mine. But I think we've generally played either where
Speaker 2: we want to play or where we can afford to play.
Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes the price tag is is too significant,
Speaker 2: Like I said, on some courses are just saying not
Speaker 2: interested unless it's a you know, unless it's a major
Speaker 2: and you're gonna come once and not come again for
Speaker 2: thirty years. So but there's but there's certainly courses we'd
Speaker 2: like to play and haven't played yet, and I think
Speaker 2: we will in time. In my ten years on tour
Speaker 2: watching what's happened to our major venues has been really
Speaker 2: fun to watch. I mean we, you know, we used
Speaker 2: to play the LPGA Championship at places we could play. Now,
Speaker 2: together with KPMG and the PGA of America, we're only
Speaker 2: playing venues that have hosted a men's Major or a
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup. I mean we're you know, we're you know,
Speaker 2: from Olympia Fields, you know, to Kemper to you know,
Speaker 2: Hazel Team to Baltus Role. I mean, we're, you know,
Speaker 2: best of the best watching what same thing has happened
Speaker 2: in the US Open. I mean I remembered saying one
Speaker 2: time when I first got here to the United States
Speaker 2: Golf Association committee, will we be part of a pebble
Speaker 2: Beach Olympic, you know kind of rotation, and and we
Speaker 2: weren't then in terms of we weren't on the plan.
Speaker 2: But those are all things that are happening in the
Speaker 2: in the in the years coming. So I think if
Speaker 2: you're a young, you know, twenty two year old LPGA
Speaker 2: player and you're looking out at major venues, same has
Speaker 2: happened overseas, you know, when we're talking about the best
Speaker 2: of the best, you know, playing Saint Andrews, and and
Speaker 2: and and playing the courses you grew up watching the
Speaker 2: men play the British Open. That's where we're going now.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's it's a great time to be
Speaker 2: a young LPGA pro. As it relates to playing venues
Speaker 2: that you grew up watching men only.
Speaker 1: Play, How's how's the venue selection? How does the process go? Like,
Speaker 1: so you get a new event and you're u a city, Like,
Speaker 1: what how do you guys go about figure out what
Speaker 1: your priority list is? I'm curious. I've never even thought
Speaker 1: to ask this.
Speaker 2: Well, totally different if you're talking about a major versus
Speaker 2: a regular event, and a major generally speaking, you know,
Speaker 2: the major person is out, the RNA's out looking for
Speaker 2: the USGA is looking for the British. If it's a
Speaker 2: regular tour event, it's a combination of two things. First,
Speaker 2: you know, like I said, the marketplace is determined by
Speaker 2: where we can have the greatest impact for that sponsor.
Speaker 2: And then after that we'll talk about the options and
Speaker 2: the prices. Right. So, when I met with Chicago Merchandelics
Speaker 2: Change and I thought we were talking about Chicago event
Speaker 2: and he said, I bring my three hundred biggest customers
Speaker 2: every year to Naples, Florida. Would you play in Naples?
Speaker 2: I said, I play where you play, you know, so
Speaker 2: we go to Naples, Florida. When we went to Naples, Florida,
Speaker 2: initially a couple of the courses we wanted to play
Speaker 2: it weren't available in the dates that because we had
Speaker 2: to play around their conference and when those when those
Speaker 2: became available, we moved too. So, you know, playing at
Speaker 2: the RITZ was important to them because they do all
Speaker 2: their work at the RITZ with their customers. We wanted
Speaker 2: to make it easy for his top three hundred customers
Speaker 2: to be part of the program, part of the tournament.
Speaker 2: So we play at the RITZ. That probably isn't the
Speaker 2: least expensive place for us to play in Naples, but
Speaker 2: it works the best for our sponsor. We had the
Speaker 2: money in the in the in the budget to do it,
Speaker 2: and so we we work it out that way. But
Speaker 2: a lot of them are like I said, they're really
Speaker 2: about where the tournament and the customer feel best fits
Speaker 2: their needs. Sometimes it's all about how many people can
Speaker 2: we get in here because it's all about a big
Speaker 2: hometown event. Sometimes it's all about the program experience and
Speaker 2: what they could do from the program, and sometimes they
Speaker 2: look at us and say the best, the best course
Speaker 2: you can get on in this market. Obviously, for us
Speaker 2: we don't struggle with some of the things the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: We want to play sixty five hundred and sixty six
Speaker 2: hundred yards almost every course we go to and we say,
Speaker 2: what's sixty five hundred yards? Well, those are our blue
Speaker 2: Teas or or something along those lines. But generally speaking,
Speaker 2: we're playing the golf course the way it was originally designed,
Speaker 2: and that makes it both easy and enjoyable for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it would be. I'm a I'm a
Speaker 1: classic course. Uh, you know, I love it and I
Speaker 1: one of the things that really draws me to the
Speaker 1: LPGA is your guys' ability to play classic golf courses
Speaker 1: at the regular t's the way they were designed, original
Speaker 1: intended ties. And then also the game is much it
Speaker 1: fits much more of the architecture that was intended. You know, the.
Speaker 2: Fairway bunkers are an extazard I mean you actually have
Speaker 2: to avoid them, not fly over them.
Speaker 1: Angles matter trajectory because the trajectory and the spins are lower,
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, being on the right side
Speaker 1: of a faraway or the wrong side of the pharaway
Speaker 1: really really matters. And then also, you know, the women
Speaker 1: are so good, their dispersion patterns are so small that
Speaker 1: they can actually aim for in play to get an
Speaker 1: angle into a green. So I mean, I'd personally love
Speaker 1: to see some sort of and I talked with Jeff
Speaker 1: Ogilvie on on a few podcasts ago, some sort of
Speaker 1: you know club to step up and become the Augusta
Speaker 1: National of you know, the LPGA, where you know, whether
Speaker 1: it be you know, a great Northeast club that's got
Speaker 1: an unbelievable classic course that says, hey, we know that
Speaker 1: you know, the men's game is long gone, but we
Speaker 1: like we want to showcase the great golf course we have.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a major opportunity in in
Speaker 1: the in the women's game too, because it's so much
Speaker 1: more relatable to the every golfer.
Speaker 2: I think you'll see, especially over the next five or
Speaker 2: six years, KPMG and PGA of America have have have
Speaker 2: filled a lot of that void. I mean Aronomak and
Speaker 2: Baltistrawl and Hazeltine. I mean, you're gonna see us go
Speaker 2: into places and play to your point, play the original
Speaker 2: teas you know, and play that golf course the way,
Speaker 2: and I think to your point, there's there's that list
Speaker 2: can keep growing. I'd almost rather see what we're doing
Speaker 2: with KPMG than just one location, because we we'd like
Speaker 2: to hit a lot of them as opposed to just
Speaker 2: one of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask for a rotating sponsor.
Speaker 1: It's obviously got to be a really big company, right.
Speaker 2: That's got it's a big number because you have to
Speaker 2: you can't go build local sales like we just went
Speaker 2: and built a bunch of local sales in Chicago, and
Speaker 2: then the next week and next year it's in Minnesota,
Speaker 2: so you kind of start all over again. So it's
Speaker 2: a little bit more of an effort to rotate an event.
Speaker 2: But because the PGA of America and the KPMG are
Speaker 2: so committed to this thing and growing this thing as
Speaker 2: the major of the have, it's really created something pretty
Speaker 2: special for us. And so now if you think about it,
Speaker 2: three of our majors rotate to the three really incredible
Speaker 2: you know venues each year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all of golf is getting younger. What are
Speaker 1: the unique challenges of marketing younger players.
Speaker 2: It's not just marketing younger players, it's it's there's some
Speaker 2: unique challenges from a lifestyle perspective. We don't play forty
Speaker 2: two events in America, So once you figure out America,
Speaker 2: then you're good to figure out travel. You know, playing
Speaker 2: sixteen seventeen different countries every year. So you're talking about
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty one, twenty two year old kid landing
Speaker 2: in Thailand and we played two hours from the Bangkok
Speaker 2: airport and then you know, do you you know, are
Speaker 2: you trying to rent a car in Australia and I
Speaker 2: try to figure out a shuttle bus in Taiwan. You know,
Speaker 2: all of our pro am parties are are alcohol related, right,
Speaker 2: there's alcohol in these pro am parties, and you know
Speaker 2: you're playing with guys my age, right, it's fifty year
Speaker 2: old men and it's little things. But you know different,
Speaker 2: security for us is a little different. You know, we
Speaker 2: we probably have, you know, more stalker related things and
Speaker 2: they might have in other sports. We try to be
Speaker 2: really accessible and make sure that the ropes are are
Speaker 2: not so far away on the LPGA. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, you know, job number one is safety and
Speaker 2: security of these athletes, So you know, you're it's it's
Speaker 2: it's a little different. People say to me all the time, like,
Speaker 2: you know, why why would you turn down that petition
Speaker 2: of that sixteen year old player who's obviously a good golfer,
Speaker 2: And I'm said, you know, being on the LPGA Tour
Speaker 2: is about more than just good golf, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's a pretty grown up thing. And you know it's
Speaker 2: uh and you know, thirty years ago you could play
Speaker 2: on the LPGA and never get out of your car.
Speaker 2: Today you couldn't play two events and probably stay in
Speaker 2: your car. So it's it's, it's it's quite a bit different.
Speaker 2: And you know, the the the interesting thing is what's
Speaker 2: really happening in youth and I see it happen every day.
Speaker 2: Is used to be. You know, twenty years ago you
Speaker 2: would make it to the LPGA. And when you made
Speaker 2: it to the LPGA, you learned about diet, you you
Speaker 2: learned about physiotherapists, you learned about great coaches. All of
Speaker 2: a sudden you met some of the best coaches in
Speaker 2: the world. You learned about stretching, you learned about sleep,
Speaker 2: and all that stuff really became aware to you as
Speaker 2: a professional. That's the stuff you learned as a professional.
Speaker 2: Today athletes are learning that at eleven and twelve and thirteen.
Speaker 2: Great coaches, great physios, they know how to eat already,
Speaker 2: they know how to stretch. It's by the time they
Speaker 2: show up at our level, they've had all that training
Speaker 2: and it's all second nature. And that's why you're seeing
Speaker 2: people win at a much younger age, especially on the LPGA,
Speaker 2: because what used to take place in your twenties is
Speaker 2: taking places in your early teens, and so those things
Speaker 2: are all second nature to you, and so the learning
Speaker 2: curve is happening before they even get to us.
Speaker 1: It has become a much more of an athletic game
Speaker 1: over the last twenty years, no doubt. And if it's
Speaker 1: an athletic game, then the younger, you know, the prime
Speaker 1: of a players younger, So may it coincides with that.
Speaker 1: So I got to ask your commissioner of one of
Speaker 1: the big organizations, did you watch the match?
Speaker 2: I did not watch the match. Unfortunately it wasn't a
Speaker 2: match thing. The match happened the week after our season ended.
Speaker 2: I don't watch golf for about a month after our
Speaker 2: season ends.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only way to stay saane.
Speaker 2: Well, the only way to stay sane in this job
Speaker 2: is you got to shut it down. I am not
Speaker 2: a wrap around fan, not because it probably wouldn't be
Speaker 2: great for the LPGA. I'm not sure I could survive it.
Speaker 2: You know, I do go to our events and i'm
Speaker 2: you know, I'm I'm traveling a lot, and you know,
Speaker 2: like our players, I need to set it down for
Speaker 2: a month too. So the match happened, if I remember right,
Speaker 2: the match was with a Thanksgiving is Friday, because we
Speaker 2: play the weekend before Thanksgiving is our CME Group Tour
Speaker 2: Championship in Naples. I drive home that Monday when that
Speaker 2: event's over, and I play a lot of golf. I
Speaker 2: don't watch any golf. I don't watch Golf Central, I
Speaker 2: don't read the media for probably about a month. It's
Speaker 2: the only, Like I said, it's the only way to
Speaker 2: stay sane. I would have watched it. I mean, to me,
Speaker 2: anything new in golf is worth is worth it to me?
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm I'm not sure how it went or
Speaker 2: didn't go. I didn't watch any I didn't watch any
Speaker 2: tape delayed versions of it. But I hope that no
Speaker 2: matter how good or how bad it was. It doesn't
Speaker 2: stop us from trying new things, because it's when you stopped.
Speaker 2: I said this many times. When I got here and
Speaker 2: introduced a fifth major. You everyone were sure I was
Speaker 2: the anti Christ and I was killing golf and how
Speaker 2: could he be doing that? And I remember saying in
Speaker 2: one ESPN interview, Hey, I don't know how you guys
Speaker 2: reacted when they added a a three point line in basketball,
Speaker 2: or a twenty four second shot clock, you know, or
Speaker 2: baseball changed, you know, to a different ball where we
Speaker 2: got rid of the wet we added the designated here.
Speaker 2: I know all those things were sacrilege. I remember sitting
Speaker 2: there listening to a guy argue about Inner League playing baseball.
Speaker 2: I was gonna kill baseball. I remember thinking, my gosh,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just playing another team. And I think,
Speaker 2: if you're not willing to change, you just in the
Speaker 2: beginning of the end, you're just becoming a dinosaur and
Speaker 2: you don't know it. So golf's got to be willing
Speaker 2: to take some chances. Then they're not all going to work.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing we talked about in the beginning,
Speaker 2: whether the match was good of the match was bad.
Speaker 2: I hope next year, they add two women of the
Speaker 2: match and have you know, have Phil be Danielle Kang's partner,
Speaker 2: and have Michelle Wee beg Tiger's partner, and I'll break
Speaker 2: my off season no watching habits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh, you know, the only guy said we
Speaker 1: don't get an off season media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. That's that's a you problem, not a
Speaker 2: me problem.
Speaker 1: I was talking with my wife last night about it.
Speaker 1: It's like, I really need an off season. That's really
Speaker 1: a shame that golf never stops.
Speaker 2: My wife would be the first one that would turn
Speaker 2: off golf in the first month of my off season.
Speaker 2: I mean she knows. I mean it's a you know,
Speaker 2: it's a job that doesn't stop. Right, it's always just
Speaker 2: as my wife says, it's always noon somewhere. You know,
Speaker 2: we finished dinner in which he's talking to China, and
Speaker 2: he's done talking to China, he's talking to Korea. When
Speaker 2: Korea goes to sleep, Australia wakes up. And so it's
Speaker 2: a it's just a job that's hard to turn off.
Speaker 2: But when we get to that off season, it's it's
Speaker 2: a break you just got to take.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about the unique challenges of it
Speaker 1: with the LPGA being so international as you just you're
Speaker 1: you're on everybody else's time zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember she said to me one time, this
Speaker 2: is when I first taken the job. Who can you
Speaker 2: talk to it five in the morning because all I
Speaker 2: go out in the back patio and I'll be talking.
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, at five in the morning is a
Speaker 2: really good time to try to talk to Australia right
Speaker 2: before they go to bed, you know, And it's just yeah,
Speaker 2: it's that's the that's the good and the bat of
Speaker 2: the job is it you can always be doing it,
Speaker 2: so if you don't, if you don't take a break,
Speaker 2: it'll it'll tear you down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an innovation I think is so necessary. I
Speaker 1: think it would be really cool to see the match.
Speaker 1: I know they're going to do another one, but see
Speaker 1: it with add women?
Speaker 2: Do it?
Speaker 1: Add more players to it, because one thing from my standpoint,
Speaker 1: suffered was the dead air time. You know, that's the
Speaker 1: problem with two people walking around a golf course. You
Speaker 1: guys don't have a match play event.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't. We had a match play event
Speaker 2: right up until a few years ago. And we will
Speaker 2: have another match play. Whether it'll be as we were
Speaker 2: talking before, whether it'll be the classic eighteen hole matches,
Speaker 2: sixty four players going down to maybe, but if I
Speaker 2: have my way, it'll be something a little. It'll be
Speaker 2: something a little, it'll be an offshoot of that to
Speaker 2: maybe something a little different.
Speaker 1: So brooks Kepka has been mouthing off about slow play.
Speaker 1: You ever think about doing a shot clock event like
Speaker 1: the European Tour did?
Speaker 2: I think if you get down to a shot clock,
Speaker 2: it becomes more gimmick than it becomes what you were
Speaker 2: trying to do. I mean, we don't publicize our fines
Speaker 2: and penalties a year, but I would just tell you
Speaker 2: that we have them every year. I don't know if
Speaker 2: every other tour would say the same, but we we
Speaker 2: penalize slow play, and players know we penalises stow play.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we've done it pretty publicly and it you know,
Speaker 2: it causes the same stir one way or the other.
Speaker 2: But we don't go after slow play because I'm so
Speaker 2: worried about what it means to the viewers at home
Speaker 2: or what it means to players. I think if you're
Speaker 2: a slow player, it's an unfair disadvantage sometimes to players
Speaker 2: who's not, and so it's more about creating a competitive
Speaker 2: set where everybody's on the same stage, because a player
Speaker 2: who plays a little faster, you know, can really be
Speaker 2: a disadvantage there. So to us, I mean that the
Speaker 2: slow play thing is about. I mean, honestly, somebody has
Speaker 2: said to me before, why don't you have a rules
Speaker 2: official in every group? Well, I don't really need that
Speaker 2: for penalty for penalties of drops and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: The only way I'd ever get to that is just
Speaker 2: to make sure that play is consistent. I think it's
Speaker 2: unreasonable to think I have all my buddies saying I mean,
Speaker 2: you know what, I played golf in four hours, in
Speaker 2: one minute or three hours. We played in three hours
Speaker 2: and thirty minutes today. We did that, but I didn't
Speaker 2: put too many four footers. He knocked a lot of
Speaker 2: them back to me, and none of my forefooters were
Speaker 2: for one hundred and twenty grand. So I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's unrealistic to think you're going to put one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty four people on a golf course where even
Speaker 2: if they play fast, they're gonna get stuck at the
Speaker 2: turn anyway. But you know, can you know, but we've
Speaker 2: proven we can play in four and a half hours,
Speaker 2: and knowing that we can means that it's doable and
Speaker 2: something we want to keep pushing for it. There's also
Speaker 2: certain golf courses we play, We're playing in less than
Speaker 2: five hours is just not going to happen for all
Speaker 2: kinds of reasons. But making sure we're playing that course
Speaker 2: in a consistent pace so every player at least gets
Speaker 2: a consistent experience has got to be a consistent goal,
Speaker 2: and we're, you know, we're willing to penalize to do that.
Speaker 1: So I had never thought about this before. The whole
Speaker 1: thing recently happened with Brooks and Bryson. But hitting a
Speaker 1: golf shot quickly is kind of a skill. So like
Speaker 1: Tom Brady, what his greatest skill is getting a line
Speaker 1: and audibling within the within the game clock.
Speaker 2: With Chicago guys, we can't talk about Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: But you know, so he gets the line audibles, He
Speaker 1: audibles quicker and more efficiently than any other quarterback, and
Speaker 1: he's rewarded for If there wasn't a game clock, that
Speaker 1: skill would be mitigated. Would he be the greatest quarterback
Speaker 1: of all time? We don't know, But to the same
Speaker 1: certain extent, being a golfer, being able to read the lie,
Speaker 1: determine the lie, read a putt quickly is a skill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like right now, without any sort of enforcement of
Speaker 1: slow play, that skill is minimized.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think what you're saying, without any kind
Speaker 2: of enforcement of snow play, I don't think you're talking
Speaker 2: about the LPGA. Yeah, I mean, trust me, any player
Speaker 2: on any tour, and certainly on ours two would say
Speaker 2: we should be playing faster, and I don't. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: disagree with her, But I also I also would tell you,
Speaker 2: without any hesitation, that slow play not penalized LPGA Tour
Speaker 2: not true. Couldn't you get away with of course you can.
Speaker 2: You can't. Can't watch all one hundred and forty four
Speaker 2: one fifty six at all times. But there's there's certainly
Speaker 2: a number of players who, if they were honest with you,
Speaker 2: could tell you about being penalized in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: And like I, you know, I play tournament golf. I've
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've taken a lot of time to hit
Speaker 1: certain shots, and there's always different situations that require more time.
Speaker 1: It's just a fascinating thing. An aspect that I'd never
Speaker 1: thought about really, but it was you know, that happened
Speaker 1: coinciding with Tom Brady making this run, and it just
Speaker 1: clicked in my head. It's like, well that might make
Speaker 1: sense to have something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I think the good news about
Speaker 2: Tom Brady is I don't think it's the shot clock
Speaker 2: that he get rewarded, but he's not getting sacked and
Speaker 2: he gets rid of the ball. But I think to
Speaker 2: your point, you know, there's we Like I said, if
Speaker 2: you're going to create a fair environment, you got to
Speaker 2: create the opportunity to play. It's funny. I've asked my
Speaker 2: rules group and I've never really followed up, but I
Speaker 2: might do it this offseason. Is when players are on
Speaker 2: the clock and they know that they essentially have the
Speaker 2: time to hit the shot. Generally speaking, everybody plays faster
Speaker 2: when they're on the clock. I really want to track
Speaker 2: whether or not the player's average score on the clock
Speaker 2: is better or worse. My hunch is that the players
Speaker 2: play a little bit better on the clock than when
Speaker 2: they don't, but I'm not sure if that's true.
Speaker 1: I think I remember seeing something from the shot clock
Speaker 1: event that guys that scoring was better.
Speaker 2: Is that right. I would just be curious because we
Speaker 2: can track players and just say was their average score?
Speaker 2: You know, better on the clock than not. But the
Speaker 2: reality of like I said, I think for fans at home,
Speaker 2: and you know I've listened to and called in the
Speaker 2: radio shows and everything else, I get it at home,
Speaker 2: you could play in three hours and twenty minutes. But
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent certain if I made you play
Speaker 2: every shot from every lie and I added one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty three people in that field, untild, you were
Speaker 2: playing for two and a half million dollars. Your three
Speaker 2: twenty is for twenty right now, and then we go
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 1: But here's another wrinkle to it. Don't you think that
Speaker 1: the TV television would be able to provide much better
Speaker 1: product if there was a shot clock?
Speaker 2: Maybe as long as we didn't turn the TV telecast
Speaker 2: into the shot clock, Like I said, at some point,
Speaker 2: I think, like when I remember when basketball went to
Speaker 2: the shot clock, the shot clock became the thing you
Speaker 2: were watching. Is now it's back to I'm watching an
Speaker 2: offensive play and oh yeah, of occasional, I'll look over
Speaker 2: there and see where we are on the shot clock.
Speaker 2: If there was such a thing, we'd have to get
Speaker 2: to that. But I think again, if you have one,
Speaker 2: if you have one arena and thirty four and thirty
Speaker 2: four thirty four cameras faced on that one arena and
Speaker 2: one ball in play, those things a lot interesting. We
Speaker 2: have six miles and one hundred and fifty six players.
Speaker 2: What sounds like a really interesting thing for the match
Speaker 2: isn't really realistic for a tournament.
Speaker 1: I completely. I think bashing golf coverage is hard. It
Speaker 1: forks the cover. But I think if you had a
Speaker 1: shock clock all of a sudden, I think where golf
Speaker 1: coverage goes bad is when you cut to a player
Speaker 1: and there's two minutes of nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that generally happens more and like I said,
Speaker 2: more of an LPGA problem than somebody else's problem, because
Speaker 2: we have you know, we have half the cameras of
Speaker 2: a PGA Tour event. So the PGA Tour, you know,
Speaker 2: producers looking at their screen and they don't have much downtime,
Speaker 2: they can always flip to a shot. In our case,
Speaker 2: we're generally following three groups and then we have the
Speaker 2: tower cameras, and among those three groups, you could have
Speaker 2: all of them standing still at an individual time. And
Speaker 2: so when somebody says to me, geez, your coverage is
Speaker 2: is the PGA Tour, I say, I can't argue that,
Speaker 2: because if I had twice as many cameras, I would
Speaker 2: have better coverage. But there's a budget limit to everything we.
Speaker 1: Do exactly well, our budgets are in the same. Also,
Speaker 1: it's like, right right, if you were you know, fan
Speaker 1: of golf, someone who's you know, never say the non
Speaker 1: major LPGA event one event, you got pick one, what
Speaker 1: would you recommend.
Speaker 2: Well, I just came from the Diamond Resorts, so I
Speaker 2: would say, go to the Diamond Resorts one. You'll see
Speaker 2: how good our players are, and you'll see it right
Speaker 2: up against I mean because I saw some phenomenal male
Speaker 2: athletes who play a lot of golf, and there were
Speaker 2: some plus ones plus twos in that group playing two
Speaker 2: and watching how much they were paying attention to how
Speaker 2: well we played. I mean, our players clearly, you know,
Speaker 2: shine in that event. It's also you see the interaction
Speaker 2: our players enjoy playing with them, they enjoyed the crowd.
Speaker 2: But that would be a great that'd be a great starter. Kit.
Speaker 2: I think once you went the Diamond Resorts, you'd say
Speaker 2: to yourself I'm gonna go watch more LPGA events. You
Speaker 2: might go there thinking you're gonna go watch Toby Keith
Speaker 2: or you're gonna go watch the cable guy. But I
Speaker 2: promise you're gonna end up. You're gonna end up watching
Speaker 2: Christy Kerr and Danielle Kang and so young you and
Speaker 2: then and then it'll lead to more things.
Speaker 1: With setup week in, week out? How does how how
Speaker 1: does that work with the tour? Do you do you
Speaker 1: guys have like a scoring range that you like to
Speaker 1: be in or does it? Does it not matter?
Speaker 2: You know, we're not we're not sitting in the booth
Speaker 2: going you know, how do we get to nine under?
Speaker 2: You know, what we're just trying to do is set
Speaker 2: up the golf course. So it's challenging and every week
Speaker 2: it's different, depends on rain, hardness. You know what we
Speaker 2: have the win happened in that week. But we're trying
Speaker 2: to create variety in the golf course, in a variety
Speaker 2: for the players. And we're trying to you know, we're
Speaker 2: trying to separate between one hundred and forty four players
Speaker 2: and the best. So it's it's funny. I have sponsors
Speaker 2: that will say to me Mike, I want minus nine
Speaker 2: to I want high single digits. And I'm always say,
Speaker 2: you know, I love you. You're probably really good at
Speaker 2: your job, but that's not happening here this week. You
Speaker 2: know you got to sit back and enjoy the enjoy
Speaker 2: the game. And I to me, I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: care if thirty one underwins or three underwins, as long
Speaker 2: as we've created a golf course that's gonna separate and
Speaker 2: figure out who's the best player this week. And quite frankly,
Speaker 2: I like thirty under more than I think all the
Speaker 2: other fans do. We had an event last week where
Speaker 2: I think thirty or last year we're thirty and one
Speaker 2: under one. And but I enjoyed watching players in a
Speaker 2: flat out shootout, like if you weren't Birdie and you
Speaker 2: were going home, and you know, get it, I get it.
Speaker 2: I like watching majors too, where they're going to grind
Speaker 2: over every butt and a bogie's a good score. But
Speaker 2: I don't like that weekend and week out. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can be I I enjoy being miserable on a
Speaker 2: golf course. I don't enjoy watching somebody else be miserable
Speaker 2: on a golf course.
Speaker 1: There's this there's like a paradox of par too. There's
Speaker 1: a I just read this paper that was done on
Speaker 1: you know, there's an academic paper and they looked at
Speaker 1: the the US Open Men's at Oakmont and Pebble Beach
Speaker 1: and they looked at par fives that were turned into
Speaker 1: par fours, and what they saw was that the scoring
Speaker 1: average was actually lower same exact hole as a par
Speaker 1: five than a par four.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, because like what happened.
Speaker 2: Was everybody had to go for it right than par four.
Speaker 2: You gotta get your right hybrid in and if you'd
Speaker 2: have gone seven iron wedge, you'd have been better off. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this like whole idea of like, well they're thirty
Speaker 1: one under, Well he just changed far right. It's like
Speaker 1: they probably play worse. Yeah, Like what the study proved,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of samples that proved it out interesting,
Speaker 1: So like part doesn't really matter. Yeah, and like the
Speaker 1: greatest sense of given that study. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: scoring if they shoot thirty one under thirty they shoot
Speaker 1: thirty one under.
Speaker 2: I think majors worry about it, probably more so. And
Speaker 2: I mean I'm trying to think even an urn, like
Speaker 2: we don't grind over it a day in inspiration, but
Speaker 2: you know, do we do? We we think more about,
Speaker 2: you know, the scores, I think in a major week
Speaker 2: than we do any other week. But that being said,
Speaker 2: I mean I've said this many times. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't remember what Rory shot when he was at hoy Lake.
Speaker 2: I mean it was like sixteen under, eighteen under. I
Speaker 2: mean it was it was, you know, it was, it
Speaker 2: was going low. I don't consider that any less of
Speaker 2: an Open championship. In fact, I loved it, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean it was a great and at the same time,
Speaker 2: somebody might go three three under because the wind's blowing.
Speaker 2: I think the whole focus on the number sometimes gets
Speaker 2: us away from, you know, the bottom line, you're gon
Speaker 2: win a tournament or a major. You're gonna be the
Speaker 2: best golfer there that week, and you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: beat the conditions, whatever those conditions are. And if it
Speaker 2: takes if it takes twenty two under to win or
Speaker 2: two underwin, I'm not sure we need to get so
Speaker 2: wigged out about that.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think the focus should almost be
Speaker 1: on separate like can can the best players separate themselves
Speaker 1: from like that. And you saw it like with the
Speaker 1: Phil Stenson match where you know, the next guy was
Speaker 1: like the well yeah, the open, they were like ten
Speaker 1: shots clear of the next player. But like that, that
Speaker 1: golf course clearly clearly rewarded and the setup rewarded the
Speaker 1: two best players that week. And that's it. That's the
Speaker 1: type of you know, I think that should be the
Speaker 1: focus much more than score.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a lot of times the the tournaments
Speaker 2: remember the score, but nobody else does. If you asked me,
Speaker 2: you know, what was somebody's score last year when she
Speaker 2: what was you know, Corrida's score when she won to
Speaker 2: Thailand and her sisters score when she wanted to tie one,
Speaker 2: I have no idea. You know, I remember their wins.
Speaker 2: I remember kind of how they won, but I said,
Speaker 2: and I don't remember the score, but you know, maybe
Speaker 2: the maybe the local operator does, or the title sponsor.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Certainly, I'm sure the greenskeeper from that
Speaker 2: golf course remembers, but it's not what makes the event great.
Speaker 1: So if you could bring one, say one uh women's
Speaker 1: player from the past back and put her on the
Speaker 1: tour because of her like personality and game. Who would
Speaker 1: it be?
Speaker 2: God, I mean, I've got thousands to choose from. But
Speaker 2: I just talked to Nancy Lopez yesterday. So I did
Speaker 2: because Nancy is She's She's a just hit play person.
Speaker 2: You know. I'd say to Nancy, I'm going to meet
Speaker 2: with this sponsor and if you could, and I'll get
Speaker 2: over like a five minute thing, and she goes, okay,
Speaker 2: and I know what she means. Okay. That means she's done.
Speaker 2: And I could just walk in and hit play. And
Speaker 2: Nancy just she just gets it. I mean, she's just
Speaker 2: from the very beginning, she she understands their business more
Speaker 2: than her business. She wants to make sure that whatever
Speaker 2: we do it works for them. As I've heard her
Speaker 2: say to other players before, as long as this works
Speaker 2: for them, we'll be playing here for a long time,
Speaker 2: so let's not worry so much about about us. That's
Speaker 2: you know, that is that is home. But I honestly
Speaker 2: could could rattle off a bunch of players who get that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, every time we go to the
Speaker 2: Founder's Cup and we bring out some of the players
Speaker 2: that played before Patty, she and could give a could
Speaker 2: give a could give a clinic in this. You know,
Speaker 2: Pat Bradley, you know could give a clinic in this.
Speaker 2: You know Big Mama is is you know is the
Speaker 2: clinic in this. And it's just they understand that. I
Speaker 2: mean as one player is. One player on the Legends
Speaker 2: Tour said to me, Wednesday's pay day. You know it's
Speaker 2: payday for you. We'll play over the weekend for our
Speaker 2: pay day. But we got to make sure we deliver
Speaker 2: their pay day. And that's just a mentality that I
Speaker 2: hope we never lose.
Speaker 1: If LPGA was a stock market, you know, what's what's
Speaker 1: one name that the general public maybe not have heard
Speaker 1: of that you'd be you'd be investing in the in
Speaker 1: the early futures on.
Speaker 2: You're talking about players. Yeah, there's nothing, nothing quicker to
Speaker 2: shorten the life of the commission. And we starts picking
Speaker 2: out players because it just didn't go over well and
Speaker 2: player dining later. But there's I think there's there's five
Speaker 2: or six players that might be falling under the radar
Speaker 2: of the American Like I remember playing in a tournament
Speaker 2: program with Minji Lee a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 2: I said to my group later, get to know her story,
Speaker 2: and they said, why I said, because she's gonna be
Speaker 2: the number one player in the world. And she was
Speaker 2: probably twenty at the time. I mean not she might
Speaker 2: have been twenty years old, but she was also twenty
Speaker 2: in the world rankings. But I just said, you know,
Speaker 2: I just played with a player who has every shot
Speaker 2: in the bag, who has a who has a great
Speaker 2: mind for the game. That kid's gonna sit on top
Speaker 2: of the world rankings. I remember saying the same thing
Speaker 2: about Soe Young you know, ten years ago, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you play with somebody that that you just
Speaker 2: see it like it's it's all there, the hunger, the ability,
Speaker 2: you know, the the game. It's when you when you
Speaker 2: see it. I remember, I remembered I met Danielle Kang
Speaker 2: when she was an amateur and thinking, Okay, that kid's
Speaker 2: gonna that kid's gonna win a lot of events at
Speaker 2: the LPGA level. And so we got to figure out
Speaker 2: her story now, because we're gonna be telling her story
Speaker 2: for a long time. I would say the the easiest
Speaker 2: stock purchase right now would probably Nelly Korda. It's you know,
Speaker 2: there's it's just the whole package, right, great great athlete. Anyway,
Speaker 2: in my in a family. That's that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: built great athletes with a swing. That's that's unbelievable. And
Speaker 2: I don't think a lot rattles, or if it does,
Speaker 2: I don't see it come out. And she's got a
Speaker 2: great support system between her, her brother or sister, her
Speaker 2: mom and dad. They really get it. I mean, her
Speaker 2: dad made those kids put down their golf clubs a lot.
Speaker 2: They don't play all the events all the time because
Speaker 2: he wants them to, you know, enjoy their life and
Speaker 2: be hungry when they're out there. So I remember seeing it.
Speaker 2: I mean, Jessica was one of the first players who
Speaker 2: petitioned me as a commissioner when she was not yet eighteen,
Speaker 2: and it was one of the first, maybe the first
Speaker 2: petition I approved in my tenure. And then I watched
Speaker 2: her sister go through the same thing. They're an easy
Speaker 2: stock purchase.
Speaker 1: That's your answer tied perfectly back to the start of
Speaker 1: the conversation where we uh, how cool it would be
Speaker 1: if Menji and min Wu got to play together in
Speaker 1: a team you know PGA or European Tour LPGA, sang
Speaker 1: event like that would be.
Speaker 2: Think of a World Cup with men and women and
Speaker 2: that'd be really kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we got it. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time. Excited to do a lot more LPGA coverage
Speaker 1: this year and and see you around the around the tour.
Speaker 1: But uh, we can follow you guys, follow you on
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I know you're you're active there and uh,
Speaker 1: the LPGA tour as well as a lot of the players.
Speaker 2: So yeah, don't follow me, follow the players. They're they're interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm corporate, but but yeah, I mean I follow them
Speaker 2: for the same reason too. I mean, as a golfer,
Speaker 2: I enjoy seeing what our players are up to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we will. Uh, we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: And thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for covering us. We appreciate it.