Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 2: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, Frida egg Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 2: off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison, and today's episode asks the question have
Speaker 1: we learned the wrong lessons from Phil Mickelson's downfall? So,
Speaker 1: as you are no doubt aware, things have been moving
Speaker 1: quickly for Phil. He made headlines with some frankly wild
Speaker 1: comments about Saudi Arabia's efforts and golf. He got dropped
Speaker 1: by most of his major sponsors. He's been getting flak
Speaker 1: from golf media and even from some fellow PGA Tour pros.
Speaker 1: A lot has happened, and if you've been following golf
Speaker 1: news lately, you've probably heard plenty about it, maybe too
Speaker 1: much so. In this episode, Andy Johnson and I try
Speaker 1: to give a fresh take on the whole situation. Now,
Speaker 1: we definitely aren't here to defend Phil or to say
Speaker 1: that he shouldn't face consequences for what he did and said,
Speaker 1: But we do want to explore what's motivating the backlash
Speaker 1: against him, and we also want to ask whether he
Speaker 1: was saying anything that was worth listening to. This episode
Speaker 1: was partly inspired by an article I wrote for the
Speaker 1: Friday dot Com called Phil Mickelson and the Uses of Leverage.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link in the show notes, and if
Speaker 1: you're interested, check it out. All right, here's me and Andy.
Speaker 1: I think that where we should start is just where
Speaker 1: we are right now. Phil is being dropped sponsors.
Speaker 2: He got dropped in the PIP standings too. Just out
Speaker 2: this morning, the morning of the recording, Wednesday morning, that
Speaker 2: he uh that he's finished number two in the PIP.
Speaker 2: After announcing a few months back that he won the PIP.
Speaker 1: Toward the end of December, he sent out a tweet
Speaker 1: announcing his victory, even though reportedly the PIP calculations hadn't
Speaker 1: even been finished for twenty twenty one yet.
Speaker 2: And then Tiger piled on this morning.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, well so that the PIP the full
Speaker 1: pip's stats were released today and Tiger obviously was number one.
Speaker 1: I don't know why there was any question that he
Speaker 1: would win it or not. I'm not sure if it
Speaker 1: was close, but you know, he's clearly gonna lead most
Speaker 1: of those categories just in terms of name recognition. He's
Speaker 1: the only golfer that a lot of people know. Phil
Speaker 1: Mickelson lags way behind him in terms of fame, but
Speaker 1: Phil was number two and so he got he got
Speaker 1: plenty of money. I'm not sure how many millions he got.
Speaker 1: He didn't get the eight million.
Speaker 2: Dollars top millions.
Speaker 1: He's got six million. I think. I think that's a
Speaker 1: nice little chunk of change. And it sounds like Phil
Speaker 1: could maybe use some money at the moment. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure that any amount is welcome. But if people aren't
Speaker 1: familiar with what happened in the past couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you're following golf, then you're probably
Speaker 1: familiar with it. But he made some controversial, pretty shocking
Speaker 1: comments to Alan Schipnook about his involvement with the emerging
Speaker 1: Saudi Golf League. He referred to the Saudis as scary
Speaker 1: mother efforts, but said that even though he was fully
Speaker 1: aware that this was a sports washing play, he used
Speaker 1: the term sports washing. I believe with Shipnook and even
Speaker 1: though he was fully aware of the abysmal human rights
Speaker 1: record that Saudi Arabia has, he was still willing to
Speaker 1: go along with us.
Speaker 2: So once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape the PGA tour.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, So human rights abuse is you know during journalists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that, I get that, But what about reshaping
Speaker 1: the PGA tour? Okay, So, like these comments were, I mean,
Speaker 1: at least they seemed somewhat honest to a degree. That's
Speaker 1: maybe the only good thing that can be said about them.
Speaker 1: But obviously he just kind of laid out for everybody
Speaker 1: the moral failings of this entire enterprise, made it so clear,
Speaker 1: and so he got a lot of pushback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this seemingly, this quote seemingly killed all the
Speaker 2: momentum that the league had. Obviously at the start of
Speaker 2: Riviera Week, it was all the talk. It was, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: this thing is going to happen. There are players that
Speaker 2: are signed, maybe even twenty players that are signed, and
Speaker 2: these comments came out and everything essentially crumbled around him.
Speaker 1: Dustin Johnson put out a statement saying that he would
Speaker 1: stay on the PGA Tour for the time being. Bryce
Speaker 1: and Deshambeau stepped back from the Saudi who were Xander
Speaker 1: Shaffle even confusingly put out a statement that nobody was
Speaker 1: asking for that that he was not going to be
Speaker 1: on with the Super Golf League funded by Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, it seems like this was a major
Speaker 1: setback for the Saudi League. But everything I've heard indicates
Speaker 1: that it's still going to go forward. It just might
Speaker 1: not have some of the big names that it might
Speaker 1: have had before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like, I mean that's the thing. Somebody
Speaker 2: with this william to spend billions of dollars, just doesn't
Speaker 2: give up because they first failed, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've hired all these people. There's this there's
Speaker 1: this emerging bureaucracy in place for the SGL and that's
Speaker 1: not going anywhere either. They're ready to do this. They're
Speaker 1: just not going to have Bryson to Shambeau and Dustin
Speaker 1: Johnson right away. They may have them later, you know,
Speaker 1: when it all calms down a little bit.
Speaker 2: So you wrote a piece a little bit, I mean,
Speaker 2: everybody in the in the world's piling on Phil you know,
Speaker 2: and kind of celebrating the PGA Tour's great win. Your
Speaker 2: piece had a little bit different view. It was on
Speaker 2: the Frida egg dot com. If everybody wants to go
Speaker 2: read it, tell us a little bit about, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of what you gleaned from the situation.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, basically what convinced me to write
Speaker 1: the article was listening to what other people in the
Speaker 1: media and in the game were starting to say about
Speaker 1: the situation. And a lot of the blowback that Phil
Speaker 1: got was not necessarily about his involvement in the sportswashing enterprise,
Speaker 1: which is I think the point of this. You know
Speaker 1: that that is the thing that was wrong here is
Speaker 1: that he was he was helping an oppress of government
Speaker 1: do its business knowingly, no, very knowingly, like he was
Speaker 1: fully aware of it, eyes wide open the whole time.
Speaker 1: That's what's objectionable here. But it seemed like that a
Speaker 1: lot of players, that a lot of members of the media,
Speaker 1: what was offensive to them was that he had betrayed
Speaker 1: the PGA tour. And so the pushback on Phil wasn't
Speaker 1: so much we should reject this SGL because it is
Speaker 1: an amorl endeavor. It was we should reject the SGL
Speaker 1: because it's a threat to the PGA Tour. And this
Speaker 1: became especially clear to me when I heard what Brandal
Speaker 1: Shambly had to say on Golf Channel. There was, you know,
Speaker 1: a segment that he did after Phil released his so
Speaker 1: called apology that wasn't really apology. It was more of
Speaker 1: an extended self justification, an attempt to you know, men
Speaker 1: some relationships that he had broken. But you know, Brandal
Speaker 1: said a lot of really persuasive things in this segment.
Speaker 1: He picked apart the statement, and I think in a
Speaker 1: really accurate way. He did mention that the Saudi Arabian
Speaker 1: government was not the entity to do business. He did
Speaker 1: mention those things, But the bulk of his commentary had
Speaker 1: to do with this betrayal of the PGA Tour, and
Speaker 1: he ended up saying, how does golf desperately need to
Speaker 1: change the game of golf is booming, the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: is doing extraordinarily well. And then he went on to
Speaker 1: call the PGA Tour a very philanthropic tour that takes
Speaker 1: care of players from the time they get out of
Speaker 1: college until they want to hang it up. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine a tour that takes care of players from the
Speaker 1: beginning of their career into late age other than the etc. Etc. Etc. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Brandall Shambily's employer, Golf Channel, has a very close relationship
Speaker 1: with the PGA Tour. That became closer with the recent
Speaker 1: media deal. And I started to realize that the reason
Speaker 1: that people were mad with Phil and were kind of
Speaker 1: shunning him in this moment wasn't that they wanted to
Speaker 1: reject sports washing and golf. It's that they wanted to
Speaker 1: prop up the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: You know, something I just thought of is on the
Speaker 2: Shotguns Start, we had seller shy on who's the lead
Speaker 2: producer of I hope I got that right. He's not executive.
Speaker 2: I think it's lead producers. The correct title of CBS
Speaker 2: Sports is Golf Broadcast, so what you watch on CBS.
Speaker 2: He's done a really good job. He's been in place
Speaker 2: for like a year. But we asked him about, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea, because his predecessor had talked about how they're
Speaker 2: a partner of the PGA Tour. It's a broadcast, you know,
Speaker 2: not media. They aren't. You know, there's a very clear
Speaker 2: delineation between being a partner and being media. And you know,
Speaker 2: this thought just popped in my head when you were
Speaker 2: talking about it is is Golf Channel. They're a partner
Speaker 2: of the PGA Tour, and I think it's the same
Speaker 2: type of relationship there. You know, what's what's beneficial for
Speaker 2: the tour is beneficial for its partner. And I think
Speaker 2: that's the thing that everybody needs to keep in mind
Speaker 2: when when you're you know, with with these things, is
Speaker 2: that that this is more of a partnership. This isn't
Speaker 2: a media relationship like a you know, there's no competing
Speaker 2: media organizations right there are partners and that's it.
Speaker 1: A lot a lot of people have a lot to
Speaker 1: lose if the PGA Tour goes.
Speaker 2: Down, exactly. And that's the thing is that Golf Channel.
Speaker 2: You know, that was a question that had started to
Speaker 2: brew up because it seemed like this was going to happen.
Speaker 2: Was like, wait, where's this going to be telecasted? Who
Speaker 2: has the rights? Like what's the rights to deal look like?
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things is that this
Speaker 2: threat of a competitor, whether it was the PGL off
Speaker 2: the BAT which later turned kind of into the SGL.
Speaker 2: When you know, the initial rejection of the PGL, which
Speaker 2: was a couple of years ago, the premier Golf League.
Speaker 2: Part of their investor group was the Saudis, you know,
Speaker 2: and now you look back, it's like, well that was
Speaker 2: a lot better than everything being the Sadis. Which is
Speaker 2: what happened is the Saudis just stole the idea and
Speaker 2: put all their own money into it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's hindsight's twenty twenty, you know, we like nobody
Speaker 1: could have predicted that the Saudis would break off and
Speaker 1: form their own, you know, version of the Premier Golf League.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what happened. They got feedback and it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: get the Saudi Arabia money out of it, and they
Speaker 2: tried to do that, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, they just did it on.
Speaker 1: Their own, and they have a lot less money now,
Speaker 1: you know. That's the That's the other problem is that
Speaker 1: the involvement of the Saudis gave them a lot of
Speaker 1: financial might the original Premier Golf League, and once the
Speaker 1: Saudis were out of it, it was they have a
Speaker 1: lot less of an advantage over the PGA Tour in
Speaker 1: that sense.
Speaker 2: But I think you think about the last two years
Speaker 2: of this going on, the tour has changed a lot.
Speaker 2: We have the player what we talked about at the beginning,
Speaker 2: the Player Impact Program we have, you know, the potential
Speaker 2: for this NFT partnership that Phil talked about. With the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, we've seen, you know, talks of doing different
Speaker 2: tournament formats and pushing in directions where the fall maybe
Speaker 2: we don't have all these tournaments that are consequential to
Speaker 2: the FedEx Cup. There's all these changes that are being
Speaker 2: talked about. And what has done that is competition. Competition
Speaker 2: is a very good thing in every single industry. It
Speaker 2: makes companies better. If there's no competition, what happens is
Speaker 2: the big gorilla in the room becomes complacent. And I
Speaker 2: think that's a really good way to describe the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour for the last twenty.
Speaker 1: Years is incredibly complacence.
Speaker 2: Yes, And the people that have been hurt the most
Speaker 2: by the complacency of the tour is the fans. And
Speaker 2: I think that is very telling of the product that
Speaker 2: they put out. Like diehard golf fans love golf like
Speaker 2: they're gonna show up. Regardless whether they're like thrilled about
Speaker 2: showing up or not is different. But if they're really
Speaker 2: excited about showing up, you're gonna you're gonna broad the net.
Speaker 2: They're gonna people are gonna be like, wow, Like why
Speaker 2: does Andy want to watch golf so bad? You know?
Speaker 2: And I think that's the thing that gets missed a
Speaker 2: little bit, especially with golf in this weird space where
Speaker 2: you don't really have owners that have financial interest in,
Speaker 2: you know, in the fans.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There's no owner that benefits from having sellouts at every
Speaker 2: single tour event, right or their tour event outside of
Speaker 2: these individual tournaments that don't really have much power. And
Speaker 2: because of that, the complacency can be at a at
Speaker 2: a level unseen in any other professional sport.
Speaker 1: Really, And this is getting into what the main point
Speaker 1: of my article was, is that one thing that Phil
Speaker 1: was talking about to Alan Chipnook into other journalists that
Speaker 1: he spoke to in the past couple of months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: John Huggins Golf Digest article from early in February has
Speaker 1: gotten somewhat swamped by the subsequent quotes that Phil Ncholson
Speaker 1: gave to Shipnook. But that John Huggen article on Golf
Speaker 1: Digest where Phil talked about the quote unquote obnoxious greed
Speaker 1: of the PGA Tour was pretty sensational too, and important
Speaker 1: for understanding where Mickelson is coming from, and part of
Speaker 1: where he's coming from is trying to create leverage against
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour. It is very, very difficult to change
Speaker 1: what the PGA tour is doing for a multitude of reasons,
Speaker 1: some of which you just described. But one of the
Speaker 1: reasons it's so difficult to change what the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: is doing is that they're just not incentivized to do
Speaker 1: anything that might make the majority of its membership mad.
Speaker 1: And right now, the majority of its membership is not
Speaker 1: of the stature of Phil Mickelson. The majority of its
Speaker 1: membership is these kind of middling players. I mean, nobody
Speaker 1: who's on the PGA Tour is middling. They're all exceptional,
Speaker 1: but in terms of PGA tour players sort of also rans.
Speaker 1: Their interest is in making as much money as possible,
Speaker 1: and right now the PGA tour system is designed to
Speaker 1: kind of overpay them. But the problem is nobody knows
Speaker 1: who these people are. They're being rewarded for no particular reason.
Speaker 1: And so what would be better for the fans is
Speaker 1: if there were a tour that serve the interests that
Speaker 1: serve the interests of the top players. A little bit
Speaker 1: more because the top players are who we want to
Speaker 1: see week in and week out. The top players are
Speaker 1: the ones who actually drive interest in the game. We
Speaker 1: want to see those players reliably show up to tournaments
Speaker 1: and compete with each other and have rivalries with each other.
Speaker 1: But right now, the way the tour is, with all
Speaker 1: these tournaments spread out on just about every weekend of
Speaker 1: the year in order to give playing opportunities to the
Speaker 1: majority of PGA Tour members, it becomes just so hard
Speaker 1: to follow the season, and you just never know when
Speaker 1: Roy McElroy, John Rahm, Colin Moore, kylewa Victor Hovlin. You
Speaker 1: don't know when these guys are all going to show
Speaker 1: up at the same tournament, and so it's just hard
Speaker 1: to keep track of the storylines. And even when there's
Speaker 1: a strong field, not everybody is there.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is that you have these huge
Speaker 2: high points in the story of the season, and you
Speaker 2: can make an argument that some of the lowest of
Speaker 2: lows are in between them, those weeks between majors because
Speaker 2: none of the guys are playing.
Speaker 1: And then there's the FedEx Cup playoffs, which are nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, like even players are starting to speak up
Speaker 1: about how lacking in juice the FedEx Cup playoffs are.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants them, nobody's interested in them. This should be
Speaker 1: a high point of the season, but it's not so.
Speaker 2: The and this is I think the the I guess
Speaker 2: the substance of the SGL as a threat, you know,
Speaker 2: beyond once you get past the not so good humanitarian things,
Speaker 2: the bad humanitarian aspect.
Speaker 1: Let's just pretend that this con is being put forward
Speaker 1: by the Premier Golf League without the Saudi backing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you look at it from that sense, is like, oh,
Speaker 2: the playoffs like would be pretty cool if it was
Speaker 2: twenty events and the players were at all twenty events,
Speaker 2: Like you'd have some really cohesive storyline. I'm you know,
Speaker 2: it's going to be really interesting to compare it. Contrast
Speaker 2: the Netflix documentary with the F one stuff that they're doing.
Speaker 2: Obviously they're doing a F one Drive to Survive style documentary.
Speaker 2: Is like, I just was going through my head, It
Speaker 2: is like, how do you do the F one stuff?
Speaker 2: If Hamilton and Verstapen aren't at every like that's the
Speaker 2: you know, overriding kind of big story, right, and if
Speaker 2: they just aren't at races, kills the story. There's no story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean so it's become almost a cliche
Speaker 1: to compare Formula one to golf and talk about all
Speaker 1: the things that Formula one does better. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting comparison because the sports have quite
Speaker 1: a few similarities in the way that they're kind of
Speaker 1: individual sports with these interesting, sometimes kind of cranky characters
Speaker 1: who form rivalries with each other. But in F one,
Speaker 1: it's just twenty drivers. That's all you're following over the
Speaker 1: course of the season. They're at every single race because
Speaker 1: they can't miss a race. If one of those drivers
Speaker 1: is not in the race, then that means that they're
Speaker 1: injured or sick or something has happened. But they're at
Speaker 1: every single race, and so you get these great kind
Speaker 1: of season long dramas like we had last season with
Speaker 1: Verstappen and Hamilton, but also between the teams that are
Speaker 1: farther down the order that don't have as fast cars,
Speaker 1: there are rivalries between them too, and interesting characters that
Speaker 1: we as fans get to know over the course of
Speaker 1: the season because we're seeing them at every single race
Speaker 1: and kind of getting familiar with their quirks and their relationships.
Speaker 1: With each other and all that stuff. Golf has absolutely
Speaker 1: none of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think like the thing that you know,
Speaker 2: for golf, what's missing out? Right, we're talking about F one,
Speaker 2: but like what is missing out is that imagine last year, Right,
Speaker 2: You've got a guy like Ricky Fowler who's like on
Speaker 2: the down in a decline. His decline in a way
Speaker 2: gets muted because he's not everywhere. Right, It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: place here, He's not there, like it. It gets like diminished,
Speaker 2: like you kind of hear about it every month once,
Speaker 2: but the weeks in between when he plays mutes it.
Speaker 2: And then on the other side of the coin, you've
Speaker 2: got a guy like Sam Burns who had like a
Speaker 2: meteoric rise and we got to the end of the
Speaker 2: year and everybody's like, oh what great year Sam Burns had,
Speaker 2: and people talked about it during but the same thing
Speaker 2: happened is like this guy coming like this young star
Speaker 2: is kind of trampled by these intermitten weeks when he's
Speaker 2: not playing, and these other pop up stories that are
Speaker 2: really a lot of times insignificant, like whoever won the
Speaker 2: John Deere I can't remember, you know, whoever won the
Speaker 2: John Deere? Whoever won the three m Like, these things
Speaker 2: come in and they and they kind of trample down
Speaker 2: the big stories, the ones that people like that you
Speaker 2: can build on. And what it does is it really
Speaker 2: hinders the top players, which Phil has. I don't think
Speaker 2: he's gotten fully there to Maybe he has, but he wants.
Speaker 1: The money, like he's motivated by the.
Speaker 2: Money, the money, but he doesn't understand the harm that
Speaker 2: this does to the big stories which are generated by
Speaker 2: the big name players. Like why people don't like it's
Speaker 2: really hard, Like you ask somebody who's your favorite golfer
Speaker 2: A lot of times, like I my entire life, I've
Speaker 2: kind of just been like, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: outsided Tiger. It's like, you know Tiger, I don't know
Speaker 2: who else. And it's like, well, why you don't have
Speaker 2: a feeling? Why don't you don't have Like a really
Speaker 2: easy answer is because these stories never get to volop fully.
Speaker 1: And think about how much this would benefit somebody like
Speaker 1: Victor Hovland, who is tremendously likable, a great player and
Speaker 1: up and coming young but I feel like he has
Speaker 1: gotten the short end of the stick here in terms
Speaker 1: of public popularity because of the way the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: season is structured. He hasn't starred enough, he hasn't been
Speaker 1: put out front enough, he hasn't been given the opportunity
Speaker 1: to bring to people his engaging personality and his fun style.
Speaker 2: Of play well. And then you also think, like a
Speaker 2: good example of this is Brooks Kopka right where Brooks Kepka,
Speaker 2: you know, he flew under the radar for a long time,
Speaker 2: felt like he was getting disrespected all the time, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, you know, and people were like, well,
Speaker 2: he's a dial tone. He has nothing to say. Was
Speaker 2: what the general consensus on brooks Koepka was for years.
Speaker 2: Oh he's got nothing to say, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden one year he just comes out guns ablazon
Speaker 2: with all these opinions. But it's just because he was
Speaker 2: actually given the opportunity to talk because he had become
Speaker 2: such a big star from all the major success and
Speaker 2: he had gotten passed, you know, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: then it's like, oh, this guy actually says stuff of
Speaker 2: substance like we have you know, this is it's unbelievable
Speaker 2: how blunt this guy is. Like he probably was pretty
Speaker 2: similar to that, but he just hasn't ever afforded the opportunity.
Speaker 2: And this is someone very in the similar vein that
Speaker 2: had this meteoric rise but was drowned out by everything
Speaker 2: else going on, way too much stuff going on. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, I imagine you probably could sympathize
Speaker 2: to this. When you edit something somebody sends you ten
Speaker 2: thousand words and you edit it down to three thousand words,
Speaker 2: it probably gets a lot clearer what the actual point
Speaker 2: of the article is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, concision focus is a big deal in both writing
Speaker 1: and in the presentation of a sports entertainment product. And
Speaker 1: the problem that the PGA Tour has right now is
Speaker 1: that there are too many tournaments, too many players, and
Speaker 1: it's disjointed and people don't get a clear idea of
Speaker 1: what's actually happening and who the true characters in this
Speaker 1: game are, who the true best players in the game are,
Speaker 1: and just what to focus on week to week. That's
Speaker 1: the problem with the product, and to bring it back home.
Speaker 1: The reason that problem is so intractable, the reason the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour wouldn't be able to fix that problem on
Speaker 1: their own, is that the top players don't have much
Speaker 1: leverage against the PGA Tour. It's the majority of players
Speaker 1: who have leverage against the PGA Tour. Their interests are
Speaker 1: served by this schedule and by this structure of things.
Speaker 1: And if the Phills of the world had, you know,
Speaker 1: more say in how the PGA Tour did its business,
Speaker 1: then I think the fans would benefit. Yes, the top
Speaker 1: players would benefit too, They'd get more money. And that
Speaker 1: is what Phil's interest is. I don't think he's super
Speaker 1: interested in what the fans think, but I think that
Speaker 1: in pursuing that advantage, that the top players having more
Speaker 1: influence would benefit the fans in the end. And that
Speaker 1: is that is the big point that people are kind
Speaker 1: of missing from what Phil was trying to do. That
Speaker 1: what he was trying to do might have actually, in
Speaker 1: a weird way, if he were doing it differently with
Speaker 1: clean money, might have helped improve the PGA Tour. But
Speaker 1: that's getting lost now because you know, Brandal's out there
Speaker 1: on Golf Channel shouting about the PGA Tour pension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's a big thing here, is
Speaker 2: that you know, it started talking about how the owners
Speaker 2: and other sports or proxies for the fans way the
Speaker 2: only way golf can function really well, is if the
Speaker 2: top players, the people who stand to make the most money,
Speaker 2: if the sport's uber popular, are the top players, and
Speaker 2: they are actually the people that could be the proxy
Speaker 2: for the fans, they would understand. Mike phil talked about it.
Speaker 2: I'd be miked up all the time. I'd mike everything
Speaker 2: up if if I saw financial benefit from it. But
Speaker 2: I don't see any I don't see a dollar more
Speaker 2: if I agree to be miked up. And he talked
Speaker 2: about that, like if that paradigm shifted, because right now,
Speaker 2: you know, the majority of the PGA Tour is guys
Speaker 2: that are just happy to be up there making millions
Speaker 2: of dollars playing golf. The guys at the very top
Speaker 2: see the huge financial opportunity that they bring that they have,
Speaker 2: and that they the value that they bring to the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, which is why, you know, it seemed like
Speaker 2: a fair good, fair chunk of them were ready to
Speaker 2: break despite you know, the awfulness of the Saudi Arabia regime.
Speaker 2: You know, like that's the thing, and that I think
Speaker 2: is one of the other aspects of this that really sucks,
Speaker 2: is that Saudi Arabia is now the eight hundred pound
Speaker 2: gorilla in the room and is preventing anybody else from
Speaker 2: creating an upstart league that could potentially disrupt the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody is hurt more by the Super Golf League
Speaker 1: than the Premier Golf League. They just don't have a
Speaker 1: port of entry anymore into the golf world, and that's
Speaker 1: a bummer. Now, I'm not sure that I necessarily want
Speaker 1: there to be a big schism in men's professional golf
Speaker 1: where there's the PGA Tour and then this breakaway super
Speaker 1: league that has nothing to do with it. What I'm
Speaker 1: interested in is some pressure being applied to the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: because from my perspective, the PGA Tour's current product couldn't
Speaker 1: really get much worse.
Speaker 2: Listen, and this is from two people that love golf
Speaker 2: and that watch golf every week. We like I have to.
Speaker 2: It's like, I, you know, if anything, you know, like
Speaker 2: like we're the ones that like you Sometimes I you know,
Speaker 2: it's Saturday afternoon and I'm sitting there watching golf on
Speaker 2: like a beautiful Saturday, and I think to myself, what
Speaker 2: the hell am I doing right now? Like what like
Speaker 2: why am I watching this? And it's because, you know,
Speaker 2: your your core fans are never gonna leave, but you
Speaker 2: can alienate them, you know. And I think that's like
Speaker 2: part of this like next generation of golf fans. I
Speaker 2: don't think they watch as much golf as they just
Speaker 2: enjoy the commentary around it. They enjoy the social media
Speaker 2: aspect of it. And you know, I think one of
Speaker 2: the mistakes that the tour makes is that they they
Speaker 2: might be aware that their product's not great, right, but
Speaker 2: the worst thing you could do when you don't have
Speaker 2: a great product is do more of it. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: put your product out there more. It's a very counterintuitive thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, like, if our product's not good, we
Speaker 2: need more volume. But that's no, No, that's not what
Speaker 2: you should do. You should have less of it.
Speaker 1: You know. It just makes things worse for the.
Speaker 2: Because yeah, and it makes your flaws more and more apparent.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing is that like the the deficiencies
Speaker 2: of the coverage, the deficiencies in the product of like
Speaker 2: you know, who's you know with you know, you go
Speaker 2: on a leaderboard and week to week you care about
Speaker 2: twenty percent of the leader board that that's not good.
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Speaker 2: to our discussion on Phil Mickelson.
Speaker 1: Where do you think Phil goes from here? What do
Speaker 1: you think is next for him?
Speaker 2: It's a great question. I mean, I nobody knows what
Speaker 2: his status is with the tour. He could be suspended.
Speaker 1: Yeah. An underrated part of the Shipnook article is Phil
Speaker 1: admitting that he and three other big time players hired
Speaker 1: lawyers to draft up and operating an agreement for the
Speaker 1: Super Golf League, and not more than anything else than
Speaker 1: that he said might be the main thing that gets
Speaker 1: him potentially suspended or banished from the tour.
Speaker 2: He is obviously burnt up not only capital within the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour that he had built up over thirty years
Speaker 2: of being one of the tour's highest profile players big
Speaker 2: ticket items like he burnt up a lot of internal
Speaker 2: capital with the tour and their employees, but he also
Speaker 2: built up a lot of capital with his peers on
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour's colleagues on the PGA Tour, which I
Speaker 2: don't like, you know, Phil seems to be a guy
Speaker 2: that likes to be liked, and I think that's gonna
Speaker 2: be a tough thing for him if he goes back
Speaker 2: to the tour. You know, it's gonna be a lot
Speaker 2: different feel around the tour because of his actions. But
Speaker 2: that being said, it's golf sometimes a lot, you know,
Speaker 2: things just get brushed over and everything's acts like everything's
Speaker 2: you know, rosy and everything's all good. So you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's a reigning PGA champion, Like I think
Speaker 2: that's another underrated aspect of this whole thing. The guy
Speaker 2: won a major last year, like this is we're ten
Speaker 2: months removed from one of the greatest major championship moments
Speaker 2: in the history of golf.
Speaker 1: He was literally posing in the Kiowa sunset with his
Speaker 1: trophy less than a year ago. And that's a big
Speaker 1: reason I think that, you know, I think that Phil
Speaker 1: still has a lot of leftover good will among the public,
Speaker 1: and I think that there will be eventually an argument
Speaker 1: that's persuasive to a lot of people that he got
Speaker 1: screwed in this whole affair. Now I don't necessarily agreed
Speaker 1: with that, I agree with that, I think he was
Speaker 1: intentionally putting himself out in front of this, being the
Speaker 1: public face of the Saudi League, in order to take
Speaker 1: some of the heat off the other guys and be
Speaker 1: able to recruit more players. I think he was doing
Speaker 1: this very knowingly, and he has nobody to blame but himself. Again,
Speaker 1: but I think eventually people will ask the question, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't all these other guys get the same treatment?
Speaker 2: I think that should question should be asked now actually
Speaker 2: with a lot of.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's a list. These are players who played in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two Saudi International. Abraham Answer, Paul Casey,
Speaker 1: Bryce and De Shamba, Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Tyrol Hatton,
Speaker 1: Dustin Johnson, Jason Cocrack, Graham McDowell, come on, Graham, Kevin
Speaker 1: nah Joquing Neeman, Louis Use, tazan Ian, Poulter, Xander Schoffle,
Speaker 1: Hendrik Stenson, Harold Varner, Johnny Vegas, Bubba Watson, and your
Speaker 1: boy Lee Westwood.
Speaker 2: Tony was in there, too, right or yeah?
Speaker 1: Actually, I don't know. That's a good question. He has
Speaker 1: played in the in this tournament before for sure, But
Speaker 1: all those names I just ran through. We're in the
Speaker 1: Saudi International Field. Now, rumors are rumors. I'm not gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, report them as fact. But I have heard
Speaker 1: those names mentioned as people who were very interested in
Speaker 1: the SGL. I'm not sure how many of them are
Speaker 1: still interested. But guess what they were in this as
Speaker 1: much as Phil Mickelson was. These guys are not done.
Speaker 2: They weren't draft in the agreement. And that's but who
Speaker 2: are the other two.
Speaker 1: Three other players? Three other players? Who are they? That's
Speaker 1: a good question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I think one of the things
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this the other day, the most
Speaker 2: popular like TV shows have had this unbelievable resurgence, and
Speaker 2: it's really all centered around the same type of TV
Speaker 2: show with a you know, for the most part, there's
Speaker 2: going to be some outliers, but this like this essentially
Speaker 2: main character who has very very clear character flaws.
Speaker 1: They're talking about an anti hero.
Speaker 2: An anti hero, yes, you go back the Sopranos, Tony Soprano,
Speaker 2: the Wire, the Walter Yeah, Walter White, breaking bad mad
Speaker 2: Man John hamm and mad Menn Don Draper not a
Speaker 2: good guy, but like extremely like likable characteristics where you
Speaker 2: find yourself And I think that's the draws like you
Speaker 2: find yourself rooting for this guy or this person that's
Speaker 2: not a good person. And I think that's like a
Speaker 2: lot of the draw of these TV shows. But it's
Speaker 2: been a recipe for TV. And the thing that is
Speaker 2: it was is crazy about golf is the two biggest stars,
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, fit this this exact character profile.
Speaker 1: And they have for a long time. But Phil Mickelson
Speaker 1: hasn't necessarily embraced that. Like his image to a lot
Speaker 1: of people was the good guy. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you a thumbs up, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: look you in the eye and say your name. If
Speaker 1: you're paired with me in a pro am, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sign your kids, you know, golf ball or golf glove,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, that was his image. But for I mean,
Speaker 1: the the anti Phil sentiment has been building for decades,
Speaker 1: the whole fig Jam thing early in his career. I know,
Speaker 1: rumors have been going around about Phil for a year
Speaker 1: and years and years, and then recently what he's had,
Speaker 1: the insider trading scandal, the Tom Watson execution at the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup, hitting a moving putt at the twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: US Open.
Speaker 2: The golf ball, so the equipment switch right before the
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: This has been going for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: but the public image that he was trying to put
Speaker 1: across just didn't fit with it. Now those that backstory
Speaker 1: has caught up with him, and so it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see how he incorporates that or doesn't or tries
Speaker 1: to tries to reject it and move on with another image.
Speaker 1: But he could try to, you know, embrace the anti hero.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's likely.
Speaker 2: It was just something I thought about this weekend about
Speaker 2: the two huge superstars and how they fit this bill,
Speaker 2: because I think in a way like they embody like
Speaker 2: what happens to you when you're out in the open
Speaker 2: for thirty years is like everybody has laws, you know,
Speaker 2: and these guys have flaws. They aren't perfect. They make mistakes.
Speaker 2: Phil Phil's made a terrible mistake, you know, and he
Speaker 2: overplayed his hand. The quotes coming out like saying that
Speaker 2: to somebody, whether it was on or off the record,
Speaker 2: you know, it seems like it was on.
Speaker 1: If you were to make a list of all the
Speaker 1: dumbest things to say in his situation, he said them
Speaker 1: to Alan Hipknuck and a few of them did. John Huggin, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And and that's you know, in a way like I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the smartest thing he could have done, which
Speaker 2: he didn't do, was he should have just been like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I wanted this to blow up. I was
Speaker 2: just using this as leverage, like I didn't want you know,
Speaker 2: That's why I said what I said to Alan ship
Speaker 2: knuk Is. I wanted this all to blow up. I
Speaker 2: didn't want the Saudis to win. And and here it
Speaker 2: came to the eleventh hour and that's when it blew up.
Speaker 2: I blew it up, you know, like thank you.
Speaker 1: You know, you could take credit for that.
Speaker 2: That's the way he should have played, like, you know,
Speaker 2: if you that's the way he probably the only way
Speaker 2: he could have played this where he came out looking
Speaker 2: like a good guy.
Speaker 1: Well it maybe the only way he could have played
Speaker 1: it to retain the support of the PGA Tour. And
Speaker 1: the big thing that has happened with Phil in these
Speaker 1: past couple of weeks is that he lost the support
Speaker 1: of the PGA Tour. And once he lost that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to lose it. Remember, like Patrick
Speaker 1: Reid is still supported by the PGA Tourah in spite
Speaker 1: of in spite of everything that guy's done. I think
Speaker 1: Phil Mickelson still basically had Pontovidra's support until he came
Speaker 1: out and said I actually helped draft the operating agreement
Speaker 1: for his breakaway to her. Now that support is cut off,
Speaker 1: and now everybody's coming after him. The players are coming
Speaker 1: after him, the PGA Tours boosters in the media are
Speaker 1: coming after him, and he doesn't have that protection anymore now.
Speaker 1: It's it'll be interesting to see if he tries to
Speaker 1: get back in their good graces. This episode was edited
Speaker 1: by me and Meg Atkins. If you have a minute,
Speaker 1: we'd love for you to leave a rating and review
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Speaker 1: new listeners. Thanks for being here today and we'll see
Speaker 1: you next week.