Speaker 1: M M.
Speaker 2: This was done at the highest levels cloak and dagger diplomacy.
Speaker 2: It's amazing they managed to pull it off. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think there was probably four people knew what was
Speaker 2: happening yes year, Jamon and Jimmy Dunn and Ed Hurley
Speaker 2: and that's it.
Speaker 3: I got thoughts in my head. Can't get him John
Speaker 3: and not the thing what I'm thinking about. I can't
Speaker 3: get him John not to think well I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: This is Alan Chipnook back for another Fire Drill podcast.
Speaker 2: Quite a big day in professional golf. The New World
Speaker 2: Order is upon us Live Golf, the PG Tour and
Speaker 2: the European Tour emerging, many details to sort out. Many
Speaker 2: subplots have Michael Bamberger and Matt Janella the line here
Speaker 2: to help us make sense of what's really a momentous
Speaker 2: moment for the entire sport. Gentlemen, what do we think?
Speaker 4: Well, let's begin with you, Alan, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, some people may know that I've been writing
Speaker 2: a book about this whole thing. I just turned it
Speaker 2: in a couple of days. I think the last chapters
Speaker 2: are going to get tweaked a little bit, just a little.
Speaker 2: I think at first blush. This is a huge win
Speaker 2: for Live Golf. They now have access to every tour player.
Speaker 2: They're going to be on the TV tour broadcast channels.
Speaker 2: I think that this is this is Jaymonhan and the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour salvaging the best of a tough situation. I
Speaker 2: mean that the whole game was on this path of
Speaker 2: you know, mutually assured destruction. To use an old Cold
Speaker 2: War term. I mean it was it had become unsustainable
Speaker 2: that the tour was losing sponsors, a lot of the
Speaker 2: tournaments were going to wither and die. Live was entrenched
Speaker 2: his own business model that was never going to make money,
Speaker 2: and they have not been able to track any kind
Speaker 2: of audience through streaming or television, and so it was
Speaker 2: it was kind of a question of who is going
Speaker 2: to blink first, and I think they blinked at the
Speaker 2: same time and just realized, uh, we've this is like
Speaker 2: trench warfare, like both sides are just shelling each other,
Speaker 2: but no one's moving anywhere, and it's just a lot
Speaker 2: of casualties. And it made sense to to put this
Speaker 2: all back together. But you know, it's interesting that Jay
Speaker 2: Monahan is not going to be reporting to his excellency.
Speaker 2: You see all Roumayan, who's the chairman of the board
Speaker 2: of this new enterprise. You know, Jay's the CEO. But
Speaker 2: if there's any doubt about who who won this, this
Speaker 2: this war, I mean, yes, hers is the chairman of
Speaker 2: the board. He's the guy. And uh so a lot
Speaker 2: of details still to be hashed out, but I think
Speaker 2: at first blush to me, it's a monumental victory for
Speaker 2: Live and I think for the tour it makes sense.
Speaker 2: They've they've they've assured their long term future. I mean,
Speaker 2: they have now unlimited money that they can tap into,
Speaker 2: they can pay their players, they have this jazzy new
Speaker 2: product that they could slot in, and the weakest parts
Speaker 2: of the schedule on maybe some some tournaments that were struggling,
Speaker 2: the Live will just sort of take those over and
Speaker 2: and graft themselves on. And there's there's a there's there's
Speaker 2: an interesting analog to this, which is cricket. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been studying this. Cricket was much like golf, this
Speaker 2: very slow, ponderous sport, hide bound by tradition. You know,
Speaker 2: that's that's golf, right, And twenty years ago they went
Speaker 2: to this thing called t twenty which is a much jazzier, shorter,
Speaker 2: more consumable version of the sport, and the popularity exploded
Speaker 2: not just for the new kind, but it also made
Speaker 2: people appreciate the old way, and cricket massively grew its
Speaker 2: audience and reinvented itself. And you know, live live could
Speaker 2: be that. That's that sort of product which is is different.
Speaker 2: It's not for everyone. Michael's never going to watch those
Speaker 2: tournaments and that's okay. But you know, they have attracted
Speaker 2: a younger audience. I mean, according to Greg Norman. We
Speaker 2: don't have the receipts on this, but you know two
Speaker 2: thirds of the live audience is under forty five, which
Speaker 2: is massive. I mean, the PGA Tours audience is geriatric
Speaker 2: and they're always chasing those those younger, younger golf fans.
Speaker 2: So you know, I think if you look at this
Speaker 2: as you know, Greg Norman's word from the very beginning
Speaker 2: was additive. I think live golf could be additive to
Speaker 2: what the PGA Tour is doing and it might be
Speaker 2: a better sport overall.
Speaker 4: So going forward on, do you think will there never
Speaker 4: be weeks where there live events and PJ Tour events
Speaker 4: in the same week and will PJ Tour stars like
Speaker 4: Rory mcloy, will they now be able to play in
Speaker 4: live events?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean they'll be a unified schedule,
Speaker 2: so they they they definitely won't be competing against each other.
Speaker 2: You know, they'll they'll they'll they'll be a they'll be
Speaker 2: It'll make sense right how they put this whole thing
Speaker 2: together and that that's a win for both sides, not
Speaker 2: to not to have tournaments on the same week. Rory
Speaker 2: is in a tough spot here. Is he going to
Speaker 2: want to play the live events and take the money
Speaker 2: and be part of the fun. I mean maybe, but
Speaker 2: he's staked out such a tough position here. It'll be
Speaker 2: up to the players. They can play that or not.
Speaker 2: I mean, if if you want to play, if you're
Speaker 2: Rory and you just want to play all the old,
Speaker 2: same tournaments you've always enjoyed, then those will be available
Speaker 2: to you. But there's gonna be this whole other tour
Speaker 2: within a tour that you know, all of his buddies
Speaker 2: are going to play, and so yeah, there's you know,
Speaker 2: ry Rory's and if if you had to make a
Speaker 2: list of winners and losers, you know Rory's probably at
Speaker 2: the top of the loser's list, and that he's staked
Speaker 2: his whole legacy on this battle and and they just
Speaker 2: kind of pulled the rug out from under him. So
Speaker 2: how he handles this will be interesting. You know, the
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods of the world, the Brandal Chamblise. You know
Speaker 2: a lot of people have been so outspoken against Live
Speaker 2: and now they are part of They are part of
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour, So everyone's going to have to make
Speaker 2: peace with that. Nat.
Speaker 4: Can I try quick one for you here, because you've
Speaker 4: been on both sides here so much. You've had this
Speaker 4: emotional distaste for the Saudi's and what they represent in
Speaker 4: terms of criminal activity, and yet the PGA Tour. You've
Speaker 4: been emotional about the PGA Tour as being this pureocratic
Speaker 4: monster with no heart.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I said along. I just didn't think there
Speaker 1: was a good guy in the room. There was no
Speaker 1: one really to root for. I had lost, borderline almost
Speaker 1: all interest in professional golf from a week to week basis.
Speaker 1: I said, majors were more major. I felt like world ranking, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, world rankings needed to be addressed so that
Speaker 1: you know, so that people who played golf globally in
Speaker 1: the world could be accounted for. It made no sense
Speaker 1: to me. I talked to enough players who went to
Speaker 1: live Graham McDowell, Dustin Johnson, Pat Perez, Brooks, Koepka, Paul Casey,
Speaker 1: you know, Lee Westwood, on and on, and certainly understood
Speaker 1: how and why they would do what they did and
Speaker 1: how they did it. And I can see players like
Speaker 1: Rory uh and people like Tiger represented by Steinberg, who
Speaker 1: you know, corralled that that you know, collection of talent
Speaker 1: to protect the tour and protect legacy in history. You know,
Speaker 1: I saw both sides. But you know, for me, I
Speaker 1: I shifted my focus to things like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: working on the club pro crisis, you know, followed up
Speaker 1: with a crisis on Superintendent's you know, things like municipal
Speaker 1: renovations and restorations the game of golf. To me, this
Speaker 1: is not about the game of golf. This is not
Speaker 1: about the golf that we play day in and day out,
Speaker 1: the game that we love that that you know plucks
Speaker 1: this the the you know, plucks our soul and and
Speaker 1: brings us to places like Bandon Dunes or the old
Speaker 1: course at Saint Andrew's. This is you know, quote new
Speaker 1: York Times New collectively owned for profit entity. This is
Speaker 1: about business. This is about money. This is about something
Speaker 1: that probably should have happened thirty years ago when Norman
Speaker 1: was essentially, you know, made Darth Vader of the game
Speaker 1: of golf versus Fincham in his attempt to grow the
Speaker 1: game globally. This is about the tour, not sitting down
Speaker 1: from the word go and listening to what was being
Speaker 1: offered and the opportunities that they had in front of them.
Speaker 1: We could have avoided a lot of this, you know,
Speaker 1: bitchery and bullshitty and I.
Speaker 2: Think of all the think of all the fun we
Speaker 2: would have missed out on. Matt.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, look, there's you know, but I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, it took. I think it took somebody like
Speaker 1: a Jimmy Dunn, who you know you talk about blinking.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jimmy Dunn. This is a guy who you
Speaker 1: needed adults in this room, and I'm not sure there
Speaker 1: were a lot of them when there was all the
Speaker 1: mud slinging and name calling and bitchiness that was happening
Speaker 1: for the last you know, better part of whatever eighteen months.
Speaker 1: And I think of you know, I just think get
Speaker 1: on with it sorted out. I think it's better, you know,
Speaker 1: in a sense that there's going to be a ton
Speaker 1: of money. There was a ton of money being thrown
Speaker 1: around in the game of golf. There's gonna be more.
Speaker 1: And there's just no way in my mind that Jay
Speaker 1: Monahan is not in charge of this. I know what
Speaker 1: you're saying, Alan, it's a big win for Live and
Speaker 1: I know there is a role for us here, but
Speaker 1: there's no way that jaymon An's not in charge of this.
Speaker 2: Well, the Tour will have a majority of you know,
Speaker 2: the note that Monahan sent to the players said the
Speaker 2: Tour would have a majority of votes on the board
Speaker 2: and that the board, this new board of this new entity,
Speaker 2: is going to have to ratify everything. So for sure,
Speaker 2: Monahan and Ed Hurley's and the Jimmy Dunns who are
Speaker 2: going to be part of this board, they will help
Speaker 2: protect the interests of their players and as they figure
Speaker 2: out where to slot the tournaments, how the fields get organized,
Speaker 2: the Tour still has a say for sure, and they
Speaker 2: will be the administrative voice without a doubt, and the
Speaker 2: saut he has already gotten what they want, you know,
Speaker 2: They've gotten a seat at the table. This whole exercise
Speaker 2: was about being invited into the Western world and becoming
Speaker 2: legitimized and creating something that they can they can have
Speaker 2: a say in, a voice in they can bring home
Speaker 2: to Jetta as this big event, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: the super Bowl of the sport. And so they've already
Speaker 2: gotten that. So I'm sure they'll They're not going to
Speaker 2: put up a stink about whether the Kevin Struewans the
Speaker 2: world get access to these live events occasionally or the
Speaker 2: nitty gritty Jamon handbill control. There's no doubt. But the
Speaker 2: big picture, you know, I mean put it this way,
Speaker 2: like Ricky Fowler turned down seventy five million dollar offer
Speaker 2: from Live Golf, and there was a many you know,
Speaker 2: there was tons of big offers on the table to
Speaker 2: the guys who stayed loyal to the tour. And now
Speaker 2: not only did say, you know, Books got one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty million, Dustin got one fifty, Bryson got one
Speaker 2: thirty five up front, they own these franchises, the values
Speaker 2: of which just skyrocketed because now they're going to be
Speaker 2: on network TV, these live events are going to become
Speaker 2: a big deal. They still own the franchises like that
Speaker 2: that live business model is intact.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I was talking to someone who's has a leadership role
Speaker 2: in one of these franchises and he was over the
Speaker 2: moon this morning. He's like, you know, I made I
Speaker 2: made hundred million dollars while I was sleep been last night.
Speaker 2: Because these this this this live product, it's gonna endure,
Speaker 2: it's gonna grow, it's gonna expand, and now there there
Speaker 2: is a chance for for the tour players to uh
Speaker 2: still get paid because these lift teams are gonna start recruiting.
Speaker 2: Like now everyone's gonna want Xander Softly and a Patrick
Speaker 2: can't lay and uh, you know there's gonna be this
Speaker 2: build out of these of these teams.
Speaker 1: How's John Rom gonna do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Rom's gonna do well. But you know that
Speaker 2: that that gold rush is over. You know they're they're
Speaker 2: not going to own a piece of the franchise that
Speaker 2: I mean, they'll get it, they'll get a little stake
Speaker 2: in it. But so you know, the guys who were
Speaker 2: loyal to the tour, who who did who carried the
Speaker 2: tours water the last year, it's a it's a tough
Speaker 2: pill for them to swallow today because they've they've lost
Speaker 2: out twice on the money, the upfront money and the
Speaker 2: equity of these franchises. But on the other hand, they're gonna, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, they're gonna be playing for twenty million dollars
Speaker 2: at least in these elevated events. I'm sure the live
Speaker 2: persons are going to go up. So it's not like
Speaker 2: any of the top players are going to be hurting.
Speaker 2: But you know, this is a whole thing in golf
Speaker 2: you had to pick aside and the guys who chose
Speaker 2: live today is a glorious day for them, and for
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour guys, it's it's a tough one. I
Speaker 2: think that's the bottom line.
Speaker 4: On how would that play out? If you're a Hideki
Speaker 4: or John Ram, you're absolute start of the game. The
Speaker 4: live bottle is based on here's our series, and you
Speaker 4: got to play in all of them. If you're Dustin Johnson,
Speaker 4: you're going to play in all of them. Now at
Speaker 4: these elevated events, you've got agree to play in all
Speaker 4: of them. How would that play out in twenty four
Speaker 4: beyond twenty four? If you're Adecie, can you play to
Speaker 4: some of the live events and not all the live events?
Speaker 4: How do you see that playing out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are all the details that have yet to
Speaker 2: be figured out, but I think I mean, to me,
Speaker 2: the best way to do it would be at the
Speaker 2: at these combined events, you have six live teams and then
Speaker 2: you have six tour teams and you get like six
Speaker 2: or seven or eight Ryder Cups a year where you know,
Speaker 2: you keep the the roster's somewhat intact on these live squads.
Speaker 2: And I don't think there's going to be fourteen co
Speaker 2: sanctioned events. You know, there's still maybe a handful that
Speaker 2: are just the live product where they when they go
Speaker 2: over to Singapore or they go over to Australia, and
Speaker 2: maybe that's how they reward the loyalty of the guys
Speaker 2: who signed up early. They still have a place on
Speaker 2: their tour. But if you have these mega events where
Speaker 2: then you bring in these tour teams and they can
Speaker 2: align however they want, that's one way to do it.
Speaker 2: Or you could just fully integrate the rosters and the
Speaker 2: tour guys will play and however many live events they're
Speaker 2: compelled to, whether it's six or eight or ten. But
Speaker 2: that's going to be a fundamental question they're going to
Speaker 2: have to answer is how do we let the players
Speaker 2: flow back and forth? You know, as part of the
Speaker 2: release this morning that was sent to the players, the
Speaker 2: tour players, I did say that all the guys who
Speaker 2: renounce the PGA Tour can now reapply for membership. And
Speaker 2: there was a funny line in there that Mona had said,
Speaker 2: you know, this will be a complicated process. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: kidding Jay, But so you know, I think you'll get
Speaker 2: to see Phil play at Pebble Beach again, and you'll
Speaker 2: you'll get to see you know, some of these guys
Speaker 2: can come back to their favorite events and what the
Speaker 2: what's the minimum they're going to have to play to
Speaker 2: retain their membership. There's it's really complex how you put
Speaker 2: it all together, but you know that's what all these
Speaker 2: There's gonna be a lot of more secret meetings in
Speaker 2: the in the months ahead, but they will, they will
Speaker 2: sort it out. I think that, you know, there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a mandate from Monahan to try and try and
Speaker 2: get as many players as they can into these these
Speaker 2: live events. But it's it's by design a small limited series,
Speaker 2: so there's gonna be a lot of tension there. You know,
Speaker 2: the the Journeymen have already been left out of the
Speaker 2: PGA Tours elevated events, and now they're going to get
Speaker 2: left out of the live events, and so you know,
Speaker 2: the class warfare and professional golf is going to accelerate.
Speaker 1: I think, Michael, I know you're so used to you know,
Speaker 1: your your instinct is just to ask questions. But what
Speaker 1: do you think, Well.
Speaker 4: I think this is a really really big play by
Speaker 4: the sout He's going to the very very top MBS.
Speaker 4: I think the PGA Tour tried to get into the
Speaker 4: real estate business going back to Dean Beamon days, and
Speaker 4: wasn't very good at it, probably wasn't funded properly, probably
Speaker 4: didn't have the right creative impulse behind it. But I
Speaker 4: think that I think going right to the top, MBS
Speaker 4: is looking for a way to become culturally significant in
Speaker 4: mainstream American life. Not just have a seat on the
Speaker 4: board of any American company he wants to have, or
Speaker 4: at least, you know, be in the room if not
Speaker 4: he personally, but here or somebody else, but just become
Speaker 4: part of mainstream corporate life, which is kind of hard
Speaker 4: to do when you've had the attitudes you've had towards women,
Speaker 4: towards gays, gay people, transgender people. And it's rough for
Speaker 4: me on a personal basis because golf has always had
Speaker 4: a certain separateness to it, anotherness to it, and now
Speaker 4: it just kind of looks like everything else, you know,
Speaker 4: chasing the dollar, chasing the dollar, and so it's kind
Speaker 4: of rough to look at it that way. But you know,
Speaker 4: anybody who's made a study of the Godfather knows that
Speaker 4: you know, this is always how play. It is all
Speaker 4: business in the end and not personal. But I would
Speaker 4: say this AUDI is getting really into golf developments. Golf
Speaker 4: is part of a wellness life. People wanting people counting
Speaker 4: their steps and playing walking courses where you can count
Speaker 4: your steps and actually have fun at the same time.
Speaker 4: So I think they're going to I think this is
Speaker 4: a big, big, huge international golf Minor golf's a niche sport.
Speaker 4: But it's like, you know, why does FedEx make such
Speaker 4: a big bet on golf? It's you know, where's the
Speaker 4: NFL is the NFL and hundreds of millions of people
Speaker 4: watch the Super Bowl. You never get never will get
Speaker 4: a number like that for an LA Open, Genesis Open,
Speaker 4: and Genesis Invitational. But you're getting the people that you
Speaker 4: want to get. I think the Saudis figured out a
Speaker 4: way that they can get to the people they want
Speaker 4: to get to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a key point is that, And
Speaker 2: I get into all this stuff in the book in
Speaker 2: great detail. I mean MBS has staked his entire reign
Speaker 2: on this vision twenty thirty, which is remaking the Saudi
Speaker 2: economy and society to modernize it, to westernize it. And
Speaker 2: part of that is bringing in Western investment. You know,
Speaker 2: people always go to Saudi Arabia and they take the money.
Speaker 2: They want to bring businesses to Saudi Arabia. Like that's
Speaker 2: become a change, is that if you want to do
Speaker 2: business in Saudi Arabia, you have to have a headquarters there.
Speaker 2: Your people have to live there, because they'd always live
Speaker 2: in Dubai or they live in somewhere else, and then
Speaker 2: they fly in and do their business. They leave because
Speaker 2: it wasn't that much fun to be in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 2: if you if you're a Western, right, and so part
Speaker 2: of the impetus to all this is to make it
Speaker 2: more attractive. That's why they're building these new cities, That's
Speaker 2: why they want these big sporting events. It's like something
Speaker 2: to do. So, if you can get a couple PGA
Speaker 2: tour slash live events over in Saudi Arabia, that's a
Speaker 2: wonderful distraction for your people. And then you host the
Speaker 2: business community, you leverage all their relationships. So there's, as
Speaker 2: Michael suggests, there's some really powerful forces at play here.
Speaker 2: And it's never been really about live golf and making
Speaker 2: money or breaking even. It was a way to remake
Speaker 2: the economy. Like Saudi Arabia has fifteen hundred miles of
Speaker 2: coast land and these incredible mountain ranges. You can put
Speaker 2: some of the best golf you know, destinations anywhere if
Speaker 2: you do it right. And so if they can open
Speaker 2: up a whole tourist sector through golf instead of you know,
Speaker 2: people from London fly to Dubai to play golf at
Speaker 2: the winter because it's sunny. But I mean d you
Speaker 2: buyas this flat, crowded city, there's there's no good golf
Speaker 2: terrain there. If they can get everyone to go to
Speaker 2: to Saudi Arabia instead and stay at the resorts, and
Speaker 2: that's that's that was always worth it to lose a
Speaker 2: billion dollars on live if if they if they could
Speaker 2: turn Saudi Arabia into this golfing destination. So there's there's
Speaker 2: been this larger play here. It wasn't just about these
Speaker 2: little golf tournaments with music in the background, and so
Speaker 2: this just accelerates it. Now there now, now the PIFF
Speaker 2: has access to all of the PG Tour sponsors, to
Speaker 2: all of the relationships. I mean, this is a monumental
Speaker 2: victory for them as they're trying to reshape their economy
Speaker 2: and they're trying to become ingrained in these these these
Speaker 2: new sectors. So yeah, you have to have kind of
Speaker 2: a big picture of perspective on what's really happening here.
Speaker 2: Part of Jay's problem, you know, his messaging throughout this
Speaker 2: has been very muddled. You know, it started out with
Speaker 2: it's it's legacy, not leverage. You know, he was trying
Speaker 2: to appeal to the better angels of his golfers and say,
Speaker 2: forget the money, it's it's just all about the PG
Speaker 2: Tours are place and we'd give to charity and of
Speaker 2: course you want to be part of us. That didn't
Speaker 2: really work. All the guys went to live. So then
Speaker 2: he's his new message was, you know, you've never had
Speaker 2: to apologize for being a PGA to our member. You know,
Speaker 2: he kind of went into this business of demonizing the
Speaker 2: Saudi's that didn't really work. I just kept going to live.
Speaker 2: I mean, he finally he realized, Okay, the only way
Speaker 2: is to to he said, we're not it's arms race.
Speaker 2: We can't win it. But he tried to try to
Speaker 2: get into the arms race where he just became about money.
Speaker 2: We're you gonna try and match the dollars and through
Speaker 2: these elevated events and the PIP and all these things.
Speaker 2: But then I think he realized that's not going to
Speaker 2: work because they just have more money than we do.
Speaker 2: So there was an air of defeat I thought from Monahan,
Speaker 2: and he was trying to play nice. Uh but you
Speaker 2: know his his new boss is sitting right next to him.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's the chairman of this new entity,
Speaker 2: Yacht's year, his excellency, who's you know. Jay would never
Speaker 2: take the phone call from, never never take the meeting from,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden everything's flipped on him. So
Speaker 2: it's that was that was my my read. There's some
Speaker 2: funny backstory to that, is that nobody knew this was coming.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been talking to highest level people at
Speaker 2: Live for weeks, there was no hint this was coming.
Speaker 2: And right before Yah Sir went on on that uh interview,
Speaker 2: he called Brooks, he called Dustin and he said, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: this has happening. Like there was there's no there still
Speaker 2: hasn't been any internal communication with the Live folks, at
Speaker 2: least as of half an hour ago when we started
Speaker 2: taping this podcast, Like I was, I called one of
Speaker 2: their top executives and they were saying they were watching
Speaker 2: that that that that interview with Jay and yes seriously
Speaker 2: next to other and this person said, did I take
Speaker 2: an edible this morning? Like what is happening? Like this
Speaker 2: is just impossible and so uh this this was done
Speaker 2: at the highest levels cloak and dagger diplomacy. It's amazing
Speaker 2: they managed to pull it off. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: there was probably four people knew what was happening. Yea year,
Speaker 2: jaymon An, Jimmy Dunn and Ed Hurley.
Speaker 1: And that's it.
Speaker 2: I was texting with Peter Malnaughty, who's a member of
Speaker 2: the board of directors of the PGA Tour, and he
Speaker 2: I said, can we talk. He's like, I'm too stunned
Speaker 2: to even articulate any thoughts right now. It's just like
Speaker 2: even people in the inner sanctum of the PGA tour
Speaker 2: were caught off guard by this. So it's it's a
Speaker 2: it's a wild development. I mean, Monahan's going to host
Speaker 2: a a meeting, the player meeting this afternoon. It's Tuesday
Speaker 2: here and at the Canadian Open. That's going to be
Speaker 2: wild and rowdy and things will start leaking out after that.
Speaker 2: But can't emphasize enough that this this was a highly
Speaker 2: secretive endeavor and it was it was basically done between
Speaker 2: Monahan and yes Year, And you know Greg Norman didn't
Speaker 2: know this was happening, even when right before that CNBC spot,
Speaker 2: yes Year are called called Greg to tell him. So
Speaker 2: it's it's in the annals of of big time, you
Speaker 2: know sports thunderbolts like this is near the top, Like
Speaker 2: this came out of nowhere for even the players involved
Speaker 2: and the key people on the ground.
Speaker 4: Well, that just you've had such a good feel for
Speaker 4: club pros, the public game. You grew up playing public courses.
Speaker 4: You play a public course in San Diego. How do
Speaker 4: you think this is going to play out? Which is
Speaker 4: ordinary everyday golfers.
Speaker 1: Oh, I just think I think people don't give is
Speaker 1: don't give, you know, I just I don't think. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the people I hang around with
Speaker 1: feel the same way that I do, which is it's
Speaker 1: all just a bunch of petty bitchiness amongst like really
Speaker 1: wealthy people who are getting wealthier. And I think there
Speaker 1: was a general sense of disconnect from day to day,
Speaker 1: shot to shot, you know, tournament to tournament, trophy to trophy,
Speaker 1: check to check, you know, I just I don't think
Speaker 1: the game was was looking very good by having you know,
Speaker 1: a right and a wrong and who was right and
Speaker 1: who was wrong could be debated over and over, and
Speaker 1: it was playing out social media, was playing out around
Speaker 1: you know, fire pits or on first tees or you know,
Speaker 1: twelve greens. It just was happening, and I think people
Speaker 1: are just tired of it. It seemed very obvious to
Speaker 1: me neither model, you know, neither model was sustainable. We know,
Speaker 1: we've heard from tournament directors about the tour actually kicking
Speaker 1: in the extra money to make elevated events elevated, So
Speaker 1: where was that money going to come from? Down the road.
Speaker 1: We've heard from tournament directors and sponsors that they were
Speaker 1: you know, the the return on an investment wasn't going
Speaker 1: to match, you know, the sort of the numbers. It
Speaker 1: was a numbers game was not coming out the right way.
Speaker 1: Tiger's gone, you know, the game Phil is essentially gone,
Speaker 1: you know, to a certain degree or close to it
Speaker 1: at the age of you know, fifty two, fifty three
Speaker 1: years going on fifty three years old. So I mean
Speaker 1: something had to give here, and we were going to
Speaker 1: come to some court cases in which a lot of ugly,
Speaker 1: you know, details and information were going to come out
Speaker 1: that a lot of people probably didn't want to have,
Speaker 1: a lot of important people were being deposed. And the
Speaker 1: fact is Jay didn't take the meeting and he represents
Speaker 1: the players, and that's that from the very get go,
Speaker 1: was a big, big problem. So I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: one plus one equals two, and this is a numbers game.
Speaker 1: And I'm just I think what people are mostly shocked
Speaker 1: about is that it happened as fast as it did
Speaker 1: the way it did. Right now in the middle, we're
Speaker 1: into the season, we got two majors to go in,
Speaker 1: a Ryder Cup coming, and it just it just happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is I mean, the Ryder Cup becomes
Speaker 2: very interesting, like especially on the European side, because they
Speaker 2: had through these fins, they had forced out this whole
Speaker 2: generation of potential captains and players. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: does you know, Sergeio he's not playing great, but if
Speaker 2: he gets hot here this summer, do they after all
Speaker 2: the all the bitterness and hard feelings. You know, John
Speaker 2: Ron wants him. They went three and zero at the
Speaker 2: last Ryder Cup as a team. You know that poor
Speaker 2: Luke Donald's gonna have to sort out that stuff. What's
Speaker 2: gonna are they going to give Heiner extension? Is captain
Speaker 2: c back in two years but they took away?
Speaker 4: I mean there's.
Speaker 2: Well this is probably not appropriate thing to say, but
Speaker 2: they're gonna be like a truth and reconciliation process, you know,
Speaker 2: like some of these countries after they go through civil
Speaker 2: wars where they have there's a tribunal that has to
Speaker 2: sort out all these complex issues because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff happened that that's it's been bruising and you
Speaker 2: know Pelly had to take a hard line. He was
Speaker 2: trying to trying to save his tour in a tough situation.
Speaker 2: But now after you look at how how much the
Speaker 2: European tour is withered without any of their stars. It's like,
Speaker 2: does he need you know, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter
Speaker 2: at Lee Westward when they when they're playing in England? Obviously?
Speaker 2: Does he? Does he need Martin Kaimer for the German Open?
Speaker 2: Of course? Does does he need Sergeio with the Spanish Open?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Like so, uh, they're gonna what happens.
Speaker 1: To Keith Pelly, what happens to the DP World Tour?
Speaker 1: Like everything just bumps bumps down?
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 1: This is There's going to be so much ripple effect
Speaker 1: and fallout from this, and it's going to keep going
Speaker 1: and going.
Speaker 2: I think this actually helps European Tour because it was
Speaker 2: it was it was slowly dying right late. They they'd
Speaker 2: already committed to sending their ten best players every year
Speaker 2: to the PGA Tours. As part of this new alliance,
Speaker 2: I mean, they'd just become a feeder tour for for
Speaker 2: the for the PGA Tour. And I think that now
Speaker 2: they can they can get they can get some of
Speaker 2: their old stars back. I think they can they can
Speaker 2: leverage a couple of these live events as part of
Speaker 2: their own schedule. I think it'll probably help them, because
Speaker 2: you know it was if you looked at who at
Speaker 2: their fields this year, there's been nobody of consequence playing
Speaker 2: in their tournaments, and I think this gives them a
Speaker 2: way back. pH Nominally, I don't think they're going to
Speaker 2: be a huge player in this, but they'd already kind
Speaker 2: of hitched their wagon to the PGA Tour just to
Speaker 2: survive during this turbulent period, and now the tours is
Speaker 2: going to continue to look after their interests with more
Speaker 2: Saudi money with these new tournaments, and I think it's
Speaker 2: a small win for for Europe, but we'll see how
Speaker 2: it plays out.
Speaker 4: Now this is not really at all the most important thing,
Speaker 4: but I am interested. The PGA Tour persons have increased
Speaker 4: greatly because there was competition. Now there is no competition.
Speaker 4: The competitors have combined. So what where would the leverage
Speaker 4: come from to increase purses in the future, Like there's
Speaker 4: nowhere else to go now there's just this one outfit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's not leverage as partnership. So that's going
Speaker 2: to be part of the deal, Like the PIFF is
Speaker 2: buying into this new entity, and that's going to be
Speaker 2: part of the promise. Like Okay, We've given you what
Speaker 2: you craved. You're now part of the golf ecosystem. In return,
Speaker 2: you need to commit to bumping up our purses ten
Speaker 2: percent every year for the next you know, decade or
Speaker 2: whatever it is. Like it is just going to be
Speaker 2: written into this new alliance. And so they don't need competition.
Speaker 2: They now have. They now have the public Investment Fund,
Speaker 2: which is gonna be worth a trillion dollars by twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, floating the whole thing. So, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: the last chapter of my book. I was kind of
Speaker 2: forecasting what was going to happen, and there's a great
Speaker 2: line from Pat Perez. He said to me, you know
Speaker 2: that the PGA tours fucked because their whole model is
Speaker 2: about squeezing more and more money out of these corporations
Speaker 2: that are getting tired of being squeezed. He said, yeah,
Speaker 2: our money comes out of the ground.
Speaker 4: And and so, uh, if the piff Numbers people say,
Speaker 4: you know what, we're putting all this money in the game,
Speaker 4: We're not making anybody back. We're doling out too much
Speaker 4: money in person money and prize prize money. We're just
Speaker 4: cutting it all in half. What's to stop them from
Speaker 4: doing that. Where where could the guys go.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, they're not going to do that because
Speaker 2: Yair runs the PIFF. He's the top guy at the
Speaker 2: public investment fund. He's also the chairman of a Ramco,
Speaker 2: which is the world's most profitable company, so he controls
Speaker 2: the purse strings and he's all in on this like
Speaker 2: this is his been his baby from the beginning and
Speaker 2: now he's the chairman of this of this new entity.
Speaker 2: He's on the board of directors like he's the guy
Speaker 2: unless there's some major shakeup, you know, uh from his patron,
Speaker 2: the Crown Prince Mohammad ben Salmon, Like you know, they're
Speaker 2: committed there. They're going to be committed in writing to
Speaker 2: these things. So and that was always a talking point
Speaker 2: from tour loyalists is oh, the PIFF could just lose
Speaker 2: interest and the whole thing could go away. But that's live.
Speaker 2: Live Golf has been hiring fifteen people a month, like
Speaker 2: they've been ramping up this whole time. There's the there
Speaker 2: was this move to become a little more fiscally responsible
Speaker 2: and to keep track of the money. But they've never wavered.
Speaker 2: You know, the PIFF has never wavered in its commitment
Speaker 2: and so they're not going anywhere and they have the
Speaker 2: purse strings. And you know, now, now it becomes an
Speaker 2: easier sell for jam on hand because he was trying
Speaker 2: to sell a diminished product. Like you know, I come
Speaker 2: back to Pebble Beats. You know, we'd get three stars
Speaker 2: every year, Phil, Dustin and Jordan Speith and and Pebble
Speaker 2: Beats lost two out of those three. Now how happy
Speaker 2: was at and t you know, not very but now
Speaker 2: you can you can sell the game. It's like we're
Speaker 2: getting Cam Smith back, We're getting Dustin, We're getting Brooks,
Speaker 2: who's the dominant player in the sport. We're getting all
Speaker 2: these guys back. And I think that'll make you know,
Speaker 2: the approach to corporate America a little bit easier. And again,
Speaker 2: the tour was not going to be able to keep
Speaker 2: getting twenty twenty five million dollars from corporations every year
Speaker 2: to fund these elevated events. It just wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: Now they can go back to it, say hey, give
Speaker 2: us ten or fifteen like you used to do. The
Speaker 2: PIF will fill on the rest. You get the energy
Speaker 2: of the elevated event and all the activations and so
Speaker 2: it becomes easier to sell the corporate America, not harder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the corporation becomes Saudi Arabia, so the piff becomes
Speaker 1: the the piff as it was. Actually what you're saying.
Speaker 1: They bridge the gap, they connect the dots and everyone
Speaker 1: plays in the same sandbox. Literally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like there was this news break about AT
Speaker 2: and T pulled out of the Byron Nelson. That was
Speaker 2: a big deal. And then Raytheon Corporation was going to
Speaker 2: come in as the sponsor and Monahan nicks the deal
Speaker 2: because Wraitheon sells missiles to Saudi Arabia, which is approved
Speaker 2: by the State Department. It was a weird bit of
Speaker 2: you know, very true signaling by the commissioner. Well, now
Speaker 2: all these companies that have always wanted to do business
Speaker 2: in Saudi Arabia, but maybe they were they were squeamish,
Speaker 2: Like now they want they're going to start sponsoring tour
Speaker 2: events because that's how they can they can bridge that
Speaker 2: gap like they want to. They want to get into
Speaker 2: the Saudi markets. Sponsor, sponsor one of these events, take
Speaker 2: all your people over there, meet everyone. The amount of
Speaker 2: business is going to get done in these corporate chalets
Speaker 2: is monumental and uh so it's ironic because the tour
Speaker 2: had made Saudi money so toxic. But that's what's gonna
Speaker 2: that's the whole calculus just changed.
Speaker 1: But but but again, the underlying hypocrisy to all of that,
Speaker 1: anyway was what kept getting thrown into you know, Brandle
Speaker 1: and Aiman's face on a regular basis, which is, all
Speaker 1: of these corporations have been doing big business with Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: including the United States of America for years now. So
Speaker 1: what what like that? That was just the underlining underlying
Speaker 1: hypocrisy to all of it. To me, that just okay,
Speaker 1: what about ism, No, it's just hypocrisy, That's what it is.
Speaker 1: That's the facts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this this is this has been a clarifying moment.
Speaker 2: And you know it, as Michael said earlier, in the end,
Speaker 2: money always wins. The money remains undefeated.
Speaker 1: It's business.
Speaker 2: Uh it's it can be it can be disheartening that that,
Speaker 2: but that's just the world we live in. And you know,
Speaker 2: Monahan finally realized that and so that that's that's that's
Speaker 2: one of the headlines from today is like money remains
Speaker 2: undefeated again.
Speaker 1: I I again, and Michael like I think this is
Speaker 1: where you got you and I always sort of you know,
Speaker 1: parted ways was on the on this sort of topic,
Speaker 1: which was the PGA Tour, and the professional game just
Speaker 1: simply isn't as pure and beautiful and what we know
Speaker 1: to be the game that has given us all of
Speaker 1: these incredible moments, memories, camaraderie and friendship and travel and culture.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know it's too they are now
Speaker 1: talk about bifurcating the game. This is the ultimate bifurcation
Speaker 1: to me, in that it's very clear that the professional
Speaker 1: game is now the professional game, and it is money
Speaker 1: because it has been and needed to be more and
Speaker 1: there was a disruption that undermined the model. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, like we still have the game. We still
Speaker 1: have the game that we know and love. We still
Speaker 1: have opportunities to take the buddy's trips and do what
Speaker 1: we do and play municipal golf, and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. In my mind, it's like
Speaker 1: I'm just glad it's over with, get on with it,
Speaker 1: do your money thing, and I'll watch when I want
Speaker 1: to watch, or don't watch when i want to watch,
Speaker 1: and I'll always have that choice. But the game is
Speaker 1: my game. The game we love my game, which is
Speaker 1: you know, the one that I try to play and
Speaker 1: perfect and get better at, is still here.
Speaker 4: It's well said. And you know, to combine two thoughts
Speaker 4: from both of you, Alan, when you mentioned the raytheon
Speaker 4: thing that was only what maybe two weeks ago? Is
Speaker 4: that on that shows you know, that shows you that
Speaker 4: this was not And I don't think Jay would have
Speaker 4: done what he did then had he known this was coming.
Speaker 4: And then to Male's point, there was a lot of
Speaker 4: nasty stuff that was going to come out of the
Speaker 4: of this legal process. Uh and that may have of
Speaker 4: course tipped the PG two it realizing that we don't
Speaker 4: have the cards here Jay already said from day one,
Speaker 4: don't have the money. All right, Then if you don't
Speaker 4: have the money, do you have the court system? Maybe
Speaker 4: maybe not? Uh So, then you've got to do you
Speaker 4: know the calculus of modern life, the legal system, money,
Speaker 4: public opinion. And then you know, if if the if
Speaker 4: the cost for that is talking back. What does that
Speaker 4: phrase people say they take? They take, you know, they
Speaker 4: walk back, walk apart, they walk back something. Well, there
Speaker 4: they're going to be walking back for the rest of
Speaker 4: their lives, but they don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: Well, so, yeah, I mean there's there's a few things
Speaker 2: going on here that there was There was the anti
Speaker 2: trust lawsuit and the tour countersuit against Live and that
Speaker 2: was headed to the Supreme Court. Like you know, they
Speaker 2: were fighting about whether whether ya here could be deposed
Speaker 2: and there was some thinking that you know, Live kept
Speaker 2: losing all these all these battles that that at some
Speaker 2: point they were just going to pull the plug on
Speaker 2: the whole lawsuit because they they don't want to open
Speaker 2: the books the public Investment Fund and get into the
Speaker 2: have that come to light a day. So that was
Speaker 2: a big thing. But then the Department of Justice separately
Speaker 2: was doing its own anti trust investigation and that last
Speaker 2: summer that was that was going gangbusters. And then the
Speaker 2: lawsuits began and the Department of Justice kind of stepped
Speaker 2: back said, Okay, we'll let the courts decide this. But
Speaker 2: as as all these procedural matters kept playing out, and
Speaker 2: the date of the lawsuit got bumped from you know,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, you know it was gonna be in
Speaker 2: September of twenty three, that it was going to be
Speaker 2: in January twenty four. Then it was of May twenty four,
Speaker 2: it became clear these lawsuits were years and years away.
Speaker 2: The Department of Justice re engaged and they they they
Speaker 2: were doing a lot of interviews with players, agents, officials,
Speaker 2: and like Carlos Muno is one of the live players.
Speaker 2: He told me like they took his phone and I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: Carlos Otz, excuse me. At Carlo Sotiz, they took his
Speaker 2: phone and they asked the passwords and they say before
Speaker 2: before they they say, don't delete anything. We find it anyway,
Speaker 2: and then he just looked guilty, and he's like they
Speaker 2: take it for five or six hours, and they extract
Speaker 2: everything you've ever thought or said or written, and they
Speaker 2: know your whole life. And that's obviously uncomfortable. If you're
Speaker 2: if you're Phil Nicholson, if you're if you're a J. Monahan,
Speaker 2: Which phone did they take a filled?
Speaker 1: How many?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, you got turned over all six of them
Speaker 2: and so so yeah, nobody wanted these things to play out.
Speaker 2: They were all going to lose. And meanwhile, the you know,
Speaker 2: the partners at these law firms bill in two thousand
Speaker 2: dollars an hours, like the legal fees were going to
Speaker 2: run into the tens of millions of dollars if they
Speaker 2: haven't already. So making all that stuff go away was
Speaker 2: in the best interest of both sides. You can't underrate
Speaker 2: how important that was because that was this giant stink
Speaker 2: cloud and it was like the storm on the horizon.
Speaker 2: But it was getting closer. Now the Department of Justice
Speaker 2: was re engaging. Those are not people you want to
Speaker 2: mess with. So to your point, Michael about why now,
Speaker 2: I think I think the Department of Justice getting more
Speaker 2: aggressive and more active. That's part of it. I think
Speaker 2: having a losing Honda and losing AT and T as
Speaker 2: sponsors and some of these other corporations pushing back with
Speaker 2: Monahan and him realizing, you know what, this is not sustainable,
Speaker 2: Like we've tapped our reserves to get through this this
Speaker 2: wartime era of twenty twenty three. What are we going
Speaker 2: to do in twenty four If we're losing sponsors and
Speaker 2: we've made these commitments, where's the money going to come from.
Speaker 2: I think Live Golf was realizing like, okay, we launched.
Speaker 2: That was a monumental achievement, and they've gotten some traction.
Speaker 2: You know, they had big crowds in Australia. They had
Speaker 2: big crowds in Tulsa, they had really nice crowds in Singapore.
Speaker 2: I think it was catching on as this kind of fun, different,
Speaker 2: in person experiential event. But their ratings were so bad
Speaker 2: on the CW that they stopped reporting them because it
Speaker 2: was embarrassing, and they were just not able to scale
Speaker 2: their audience whatsoever. And so how you know it was
Speaker 2: it was seemed like a big deal to get a
Speaker 2: t to get a TV contract on a decent network,
Speaker 2: but it was it was failing miserably. So I think
Speaker 2: it was just this confluence of events where both sides realized,
Speaker 2: they looked around and said, we just can't keep going
Speaker 2: like this. It just doesn't make sense. And once they
Speaker 2: actually got in a room or at least got on
Speaker 2: a zoom, clearly it happened very quickly. But you know,
Speaker 2: there there's this letter that I reproduced in my book
Speaker 2: that goes back to the spring of to April of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one when the Saudis first approached Monahan and
Speaker 2: to try and forge some kind of compromise. That was
Speaker 2: that was their aim, although there was a sort of
Speaker 2: built in threat about they were going to launch anyway
Speaker 2: with or without you. But you know, Monahan never acknowledged it.
Speaker 2: And you know, he went to his ensuing board meeting
Speaker 2: and said, we're at war, you know, we're at war
Speaker 2: with these guys, and and that was he he kind
Speaker 2: of escalated it. And in the end he didn't have
Speaker 2: the artillery to keep it going. You know, it became
Speaker 2: a war of attrition, and it was clear that that
Speaker 2: the tour was not gonna be able to keep going.
Speaker 2: And I think that as soon as they realized that,
Speaker 2: as soon as they were honest with themselves, that the
Speaker 2: need for a compromise accelerated.
Speaker 1: I will say, I mean, Alan Schipnok. I'm just not
Speaker 1: sure there's anybody who knows more about all of this
Speaker 1: than you do. I mean, and the idea that you
Speaker 1: hit send on this book that is all about the
Speaker 1: fight for the soul of the game on Sunday and
Speaker 1: this is Tuesday, is just mind bending to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: winners and losers here, obvious winners, Saudi Arabia, obvious winners,
Speaker 1: Greg Norman. He gets one over on Tim Finch. Finally,
Speaker 1: after thirty years, he gets it up and over on
Speaker 1: Fincham Phil Mickelson over Tiger Woods. Like John Ram, you know,
Speaker 1: it comes out looking good in that he he he
Speaker 1: didn't take the money, but he also sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: played the role of like I'm you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm just focused on on my game and what i
Speaker 1: want to do, and I picked this tour and I'm
Speaker 1: not bad mouthing or being bitchy to anybody. Rory gets
Speaker 1: absolutely rode a tiled here, uh and again and again
Speaker 1: for being for being a good, you know, loyal and
Speaker 1: willing to be the face. I mean, if I'm Rory,
Speaker 1: I am pissed, pissed, and sure.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have I wouldn't agree on the Phil Tiger
Speaker 4: part because Phil has shown that he's all about the
Speaker 4: money and Tiger and this is this is why sports
Speaker 4: fans respond to athletes for being athletes. Tiger has been,
Speaker 4: he really has been all about I went eighty two
Speaker 4: fucking PGA Tour events and you not taking that away
Speaker 4: from me?
Speaker 1: Well, no, you can never do that. You can never
Speaker 1: compete there. But I you know, look, well Tiger Tiger,
Speaker 1: and he's just in a whole different category. But certainly
Speaker 1: Phil gets a win here, a big, big win. And
Speaker 1: obviously we've learned a lot about Phil and we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to do so. And there's another book coming
Speaker 1: and everything is what it is, and I think everybody
Speaker 1: now knows a lot more about the real Phil. And
Speaker 1: I think that always bothered Tiger is that Tiger took
Speaker 1: the heat for being who he was and Phil got
Speaker 1: skated on sort of being who he was. But that
Speaker 1: that's definitely out now. However, this is a win for
Speaker 1: Phil Well.
Speaker 4: I mean Alan wrote this, you know, half a year
Speaker 4: or more ago.
Speaker 2: Was Phil right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Phil was right? What Phil said. I when I'm ran
Speaker 4: Allen's book hit the Phil book in Manuscript Forum and
Speaker 4: it had that stuff in there about you know, Phil
Speaker 4: calling Alan and thought saying what he said and then
Speaker 4: Alan using it didn't make that much impact on me
Speaker 4: because I just thought, yeah, he is right. And so
Speaker 4: to your point, Matt, he has been proven correct that
Speaker 4: there was another way to look at this whole ecosystem,
Speaker 4: whether you like it or don't like it. That's another thing,
Speaker 4: you know, for those of us who are you know,
Speaker 4: idealists about life and golf, the whole thing doesn't really
Speaker 4: it doesn't set right. But if you think the fight
Speaker 4: is bad for golf, then at least this means the
Speaker 4: end of fighting. Well that's good. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: Japan was our sworn enemy what seventy years ago. Now
Speaker 4: they're one of our best friends in the world, so
Speaker 4: you know, things can change over time.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing is is I have to think
Speaker 1: that the PGA Tour, watching Augusta National and the PGA
Speaker 1: Championship and going that majors are way more major and
Speaker 1: that's where the best are coming together and the players
Speaker 1: Championship minimalized without the defending champion like you know, and
Speaker 1: the RNA saying, you know, and the USO we will
Speaker 1: remain opens because that's that's what they're going to do.
Speaker 1: Everything again, everything led to this. It was gonna come
Speaker 1: to this, and Alan, you know, per what you were saying,
Speaker 1: you had sort of reported and had foreshadow like it
Speaker 1: was coming. I think the bigger shock is that it
Speaker 1: just happened. That it happened right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean why now? I mean the Masters and
Speaker 2: the PGA Championship are part of that story. I mean
Speaker 2: the Sunday at Augusta was the highest ratings they had
Speaker 2: in years. People were tuned in, they're they're the majors
Speaker 2: had become must see because it was the only time
Speaker 2: you get all the top players, and for the PG
Speaker 2: Tour not to have access to Brooks Koepka, who is
Speaker 2: clearly the alpha of the entire sport, it just made
Speaker 2: no sense. And you know him him winning wasn't that's
Speaker 2: an important milestone. It's like, clearly these guys their games
Speaker 2: were not going to degrade. As if people had feared
Speaker 2: they they were, they were not. They had not stopped
Speaker 2: trying because they they'd gotten some some guaranteed money like
Speaker 2: the best players in every sport get, and so that
Speaker 2: that's another brick in the wall. If uh, you know,
Speaker 2: Brooks kept me winning the PGA Championship is looking even
Speaker 2: more impactful than it did a few weeks ago.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 2: Phil finishing second at the finishing second. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: the film factor here is really interesting. But getting back
Speaker 2: to Tiger and Rory, like, how can how can how
Speaker 2: can the game? How can this new entity make things
Speaker 2: right to them? Well, you know, there's still a room
Speaker 2: for a couple more franchises on liv Golf you could
Speaker 2: get you could get two more groups out in a
Speaker 2: shotgun to make it work. So I think there's zero
Speaker 2: doubt that both Tiger and Rory will be offered a franchise. Now,
Speaker 2: whether they're gonna want it or not, they both have
Speaker 2: plenty of money in the bank. But it becomes it
Speaker 2: becomes a very interesting subplot, and in some ways it's
Speaker 2: it's the best thing that could have happened for them
Speaker 2: because they could have never benefited from from live golf
Speaker 2: the way they'd stake their whole legacies. Now they can say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is the this is the PGA Tour event. I'm
Speaker 2: just part of of the PGA Tour. I want to
Speaker 2: support these new events. It's good for golf. There's a
Speaker 2: little wiggle room that can bring them back, and they can.
Speaker 2: They can cash in. And so I don't think the
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think we know yet. I
Speaker 2: mean they're both businessmen, right like they and I think
Speaker 2: so are they.
Speaker 1: I don't know, they're they're golfers, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: They just founded this hockey league, you know, the tech
Speaker 2: in future?
Speaker 1: What happens to them, what happens to the simulator League?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the TGL. I mean, well now they can now
Speaker 2: they can they can get Dustin, they can get Brooks,
Speaker 2: they can get cam Smith, I mean it probably helps them.
Speaker 2: You know the problem for the PGA Tour was that
Speaker 2: they had they had good golfers, they didn't have any
Speaker 2: real stars I Meanders, they had guys left there was
Speaker 2: they had no edge. I mean Xander Softly a super
Speaker 2: nice guy. Patrick Cantley nice player, but like they don't Colin,
Speaker 2: you know, like will z al Torres. I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: like Rom has a presence. Rom has elevated himself through
Speaker 2: all of this with his play and with his diplomacy.
Speaker 2: But you know Scotty Scheffler, like incredible golfer, but you know,
Speaker 2: boring his heck like and he's probably even said heck
Speaker 2: because it's too strong a word for him. Like, you know,
Speaker 2: the tour badly needed an infusion of personality and pizzazz
Speaker 2: and they just they just got it. I mean they
Speaker 2: they just did. And if you look at this from
Speaker 2: the perspective of a fan, I think this is this
Speaker 2: is gonna be great for fans. Are getting all players back.
Speaker 2: This this this weirdness of this period is going to dissipate.
Speaker 2: They're going to get these these new events that could
Speaker 2: be fun. Like I've been in in the very small
Speaker 2: minority here I really like the team component on LIV.
Speaker 2: I've been. I've enjoyed following it. I think at the
Speaker 2: tournaments it looks cool, all the guys in their uniforms.
Speaker 2: When you're out there, you can feel it's a palpable thing.
Speaker 2: Like I've been. I've been in scoring tent plenty of
Speaker 2: times now where everyone's looking for their teammate, which you shoot,
Speaker 2: you know, what's your number. It's like when you're it's
Speaker 2: like when you're playing at a you know a member guest,
Speaker 2: and you're you're following the scores of your buddies. Like so,
Speaker 2: I think this team thing could could really help golf
Speaker 2: because the last thing we need is more seventy two
Speaker 2: hole stroke play. It's just it's so tedious, I I said.
Speaker 1: I said a long time ago after the Zerk Classic,
Speaker 1: brilliant move pivoted team event right two man team. It's
Speaker 1: differentiated itself, just like you know certain tournaments and courses
Speaker 1: have always different you know, at and T has always
Speaker 1: been the celebrity prom it's the clam bake. Great, okay,
Speaker 1: I said alone. Why wouldn't Why wouldn't all the lower
Speaker 1: level events create a similar team event type feel so
Speaker 1: that the guys like Xander and Kenttley who like playing
Speaker 1: together could always play together in a series of four
Speaker 1: to six team events, and you have a simultaneous sort
Speaker 1: of team event running, you know, a parallel to the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour season. So there's something else to be following
Speaker 1: while these team events are unfolding. Well again, you know,
Speaker 1: how about Andy Gardner from the Premier Golf League, who
Speaker 1: came up with this whole kind of concept that the
Speaker 1: Saudi's then stole that now is in line now with
Speaker 1: the poor how about poor Andy Gardner's got to be
Speaker 1: going like, uh, you know, I did kind of come
Speaker 1: up with this whole plan and they never met with
Speaker 1: Poor Andy. Poor Andy has got nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's and he's sort of one of the tragic
Speaker 2: figures in my book because he he literally sketches out
Speaker 2: in these legal notebooks and this idea that he came
Speaker 2: up with ten years ago as it sneaked its way
Speaker 2: through the entire ecosystem of golf and now it's it's
Speaker 2: gone big time. But you know what Live tried to do,
Speaker 2: and they've had some successes building these team identities regionally,
Speaker 2: you have the All Ossi team, you have you know,
Speaker 2: a Spanish speaking team, you have you have an all
Speaker 2: South African team, and now that the volume just gets
Speaker 2: turned way up on that. You know, Hadeki had a
Speaker 2: huge offer from Live he turned down. But if you can,
Speaker 2: if you can anchor an all Asian team, like how
Speaker 2: much how much appeal could that have if you take
Speaker 2: one of these events and you play it in Japan
Speaker 2: like you saw him and Live went to Australia, it
Speaker 2: was a big deal. And the Ousti guy is worth
Speaker 2: the center of all of it, Like, there is an
Speaker 2: idea there that can work.
Speaker 1: And how about Jordan, Justin, Ricky and Smiley Kaufman back
Speaker 1: in with Tiger as the captain of the franchise?
Speaker 2: Yes Break twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: This back your team is literally spring Break. All the
Speaker 1: people who've been constantly making fun of this team event
Speaker 1: and the names and the logos, I mean, have some
Speaker 1: it's coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be. It could be fun. And you know,
Speaker 2: to the earlier discussion about Tiger versus Phil, I mean,
Speaker 2: part of the model for Live Golf is that the captains,
Speaker 2: some of these captains were going to transition out of
Speaker 2: playing and just become like general managers. You know, no
Speaker 2: one expected Phil was going to keep playing forever, but
Speaker 2: it would be his team. He would run it. He
Speaker 2: would he would pick the players, he would make the trades,
Speaker 2: he would create a developmental system to harvest young talent.
Speaker 2: So you could still have Tiger and Phil competing against
Speaker 2: each other through these teams. I mean, there, it could
Speaker 2: actually be fun.
Speaker 1: How about a final four of the team and the
Speaker 1: team versus team. It's college golf meets PGA Tour. I mean,
Speaker 1: the possibilities here are actually endless and exciting. Now that
Speaker 1: we're sort of jumped this little hurdle of of you know,
Speaker 1: hypocrisy and political bullshittery and financial greed and craziness and
Speaker 1: ego maniacal you know, back channels and private meetings and
Speaker 1: and I'm going to say this, but really mean this,
Speaker 1: and oh shit, now I got an egg on my face.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of this comes to a screeching halt.
Speaker 2: Well, that was part of the problem, and it's part
Speaker 2: of American life.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: You have to stake out a position, you have to
Speaker 2: defend it to the death. There's no room for nuance
Speaker 2: or for you can't change your mind, then you're a
Speaker 2: you're a flip flopper. It's the worst. It's you know,
Speaker 2: that's what loses presidential elections when you get called the
Speaker 2: flip flopper. Well, a sign of intelligence is when you're
Speaker 2: presented with new information that you can you can synthesize
Speaker 2: it and maybe maybe change your thinking. And you know,
Speaker 2: everyone had to hate the team events because they were
Speaker 2: they were pro tour, anti live. But the team stuff's
Speaker 2: fun and it could really work. And the event at
Speaker 2: at DAL last year was the best event of the year.
Speaker 2: And if you followed it closely, it was cool. I
Speaker 2: mean you had they were playing individuals and teams at
Speaker 2: the same time. You had you had Phil versus Cam Smith.
Speaker 2: That had a lot of meaning. You know, in the end,
Speaker 2: the whole thing came down to Dustin and Cam Smith
Speaker 2: on the last hole. Doesn't had to make this putt
Speaker 2: to win the team event, and.
Speaker 1: Like it was, it was.
Speaker 2: It was the one live event that started. Even even
Speaker 2: the tour loyalists on social media and stuff, I could
Speaker 2: detect some energy They're like, oh, this is interesting, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, now it's going to be okay to to
Speaker 2: embrace the team stuff and and the whole the products
Speaker 2: were already converging, right, I mean, the Tour deciding the
Speaker 2: elevated events were gonna have no cut. That was just
Speaker 2: a nod to reality that people want the stars to
Speaker 2: be there and if you're asking companies to put this
Speaker 2: money in, you don't want Rory or whomever to miss
Speaker 2: the cut and be gone on the weekend. And so
Speaker 2: like like Andy Gardner slashed the PGL slash the golf
Speaker 2: and figure this stuff out, and it incorporated it and
Speaker 2: and now that you know, now it's just going to
Speaker 2: become codified and what the PGA Tour is and it
Speaker 2: just makes sense. All the stuff makes.
Speaker 1: Sense and could have all been avoided. It could have,
Speaker 1: but it's but it needed it, you know, the tour
Speaker 1: needed it. That's why that's why I said what I
Speaker 1: said early on. I like that that there's a disruptor
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, we're going to
Speaker 1: end up with a better product. That was the hope
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, there's going to
Speaker 1: be a week where we might actually be able to
Speaker 1: watch a broadcast of what we call the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: or Professional Golf without having to hear this non stop
Speaker 1: complaint noise about what it is that we're being served
Speaker 1: as a weekly product.
Speaker 2: It also just eliminates some total ridiculousness, like the Ryder
Speaker 2: Cup is the US against Europe. It existed for fifty years,
Speaker 2: whether the European Tour was even created, and somehow the
Speaker 2: tours have attached themselves to the right cup, like these
Speaker 2: parasites to sucking all the money out of it. But
Speaker 2: I mean, why can't Lee West would be a captain,
Speaker 2: He'd be a great captain. Why can't Surge you a
Speaker 2: team of John Ram Like all all this stuff had
Speaker 2: been grafted on to these events that didn't have to
Speaker 2: be there. And you know this, this this resolution just eliminates,
Speaker 2: like the world ranking it was was to become a joke.
Speaker 2: It'd become it become totally irrelevant. And yet they were
Speaker 2: fighting tooth and nail to keep live out just because
Speaker 2: they felt like they had to and they were trying
Speaker 2: to be loyal to these other interests. Like now the
Speaker 2: world ranking can just make sense again. You know it's
Speaker 2: there was so much tortured thinking because everyone had to
Speaker 2: pick a side and they had to they had to
Speaker 2: somehow defend it, and it was it was it was
Speaker 2: getting in the way of common sense and what's good
Speaker 2: for golf fans and what's good for the sport. So
Speaker 2: that's the best part of all of this is now
Speaker 2: things can just make sense again, and players can play
Speaker 2: where they can play golf, and and all the other
Speaker 2: pieces fall into place. So it is it is as
Speaker 2: a fan, as an observer, it's a relief that we
Speaker 2: can we can get away from some of the nonsense.
Speaker 2: I agree with that for sure.
Speaker 4: What do you think this means for Brandal's future is
Speaker 4: You're going to be really happy saying this guy on
Speaker 4: Golf Channel, Uh, you know year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I like Randall. I think he's really
Speaker 2: good at his job. He staked out a very specific
Speaker 2: position and it was defensible. You know, he he was
Speaker 2: you know when when the Saudi International went on the
Speaker 2: European tour schedule, he spoke out against that. You know,
Speaker 2: he's he's been consistent all along, and but I think
Speaker 2: he's gonna have to modulate some of his rhetoric and
Speaker 2: he's gonna he's gonna have to eat a little ship
Speaker 2: for a while because everyone else just decided he was wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying he's wrong or right. I think what
Speaker 2: what he said is has been has been on point.
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, but there's been so much
Speaker 2: of it and same same with Emon. I mean, they've
Speaker 2: just come back to it over and over. It's become
Speaker 2: it's become the defining part of their professional lives in
Speaker 2: some way, and definitely the landscape has changed. But you know,
Speaker 2: they're interesting characters in you know, they're both in the
Speaker 2: book as well. It's like, I don't begrudge them for
Speaker 2: having a strong point of view, but they it turns
Speaker 2: out that you know that the money interests are have
Speaker 2: overwhelmed any talk of morality, and so it doesn't make
Speaker 2: them wrong, but it means that that they chose the
Speaker 2: wrong side and it's gonna be a little complex to
Speaker 2: work their way back.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's very well said. They're
Speaker 1: not they're not wrong. They just you know, money always wins,
Speaker 1: follow the dollar. It's a business. And you know, again,
Speaker 1: I think Brandle has a very critical role in this game.
Speaker 1: I've never worked with anyone who you know, spends more
Speaker 1: time preparing, who can articulate a point the way he
Speaker 1: can on a regular basis. And I give him a
Speaker 1: lot of credit for taking a stand the way he
Speaker 1: did and how he did it. But you know, the
Speaker 1: business of golf and the business of professional golf a
Speaker 1: you know one out. I mean you can't, you can't.
Speaker 1: This is not about morality. It never was. This is
Speaker 1: not about actually being true right versus wrong. This is
Speaker 1: business and that's what just transpired.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's interesting too because you know, if when
Speaker 2: you when you get into the debate about right and wrong,
Speaker 2: I mean, was was the murder of Jamal Kashagi abomination?
Speaker 2: No one disputes that, even the guys who play on
Speaker 2: the lif golf have said as much. But I mean,
Speaker 2: so so was what what the US government did at
Speaker 2: Abu grab And you know, the extra judicial drone bombings
Speaker 2: from Barack Obama, Like our American foreign policy is not pure,
Speaker 2: it's not clean, and so when and that's you know,
Speaker 2: Keith Pelly said this to me, like when the europe
Speaker 2: the European Tour would have gone out of business a
Speaker 2: long time ago. The European Tour would have gone out
Speaker 2: of business a long time ago if if they didn't
Speaker 2: they didn't play in in China and Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 2: the United Arab Emirates and Turkey and Qatar and and
Speaker 2: all these places that have very questionable human rights records,
Speaker 2: and so it's always been a business It's always been
Speaker 2: a business decision for golf, and we got into this
Speaker 2: very tortured debate that kind of overwhelmed all the conversation
Speaker 2: around Live. But it's you know, sports has has voted
Speaker 2: on this a long time ago. I mean that's why
Speaker 2: we you know, Russia hosts the Olympics, that's why the
Speaker 2: Olympics go to China. Like sports has been okay with
Speaker 2: going to these parts of the world for a very
Speaker 2: long time. I mean the Olympic Games in Berlin in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six. Like this, this is an old debate
Speaker 2: that it's always come back to the same answer is that,
Speaker 2: you know, sports can be a force that opens up
Speaker 2: the world. That's always what the Live guys said. People
Speaker 2: roll their eyes, but you know, if Saudi Arabia does
Speaker 2: want to modernize, if it does want to change, if
Speaker 2: they are actively trying to to become a different place,
Speaker 2: it's more more incorporated the Western world. I mean, the
Speaker 2: PGA Tours is cann be part of that, whether whether
Speaker 2: people like it or not. And so it's it's definitely
Speaker 2: a very interesting subtext to all of this but I
Speaker 2: just feel like the debate was settled a long time
Speaker 2: and if we're gonna, if we're gonna host Olympic games
Speaker 2: in Russia while they're invading Crimea, Like you know, sports
Speaker 2: fans have kind of they've they've said all along, we
Speaker 2: don't care. We just want our sports, we want to watch,
Speaker 2: we want to watch, and we're not going to get
Speaker 2: bogged down by the details. And again, is that right
Speaker 2: or wrong, that's for someone else to decide. But that's
Speaker 2: just it just is, like that's it just is. And
Speaker 2: so this is just another step in that direction. But
Speaker 2: I mean half of the English Premier soccer teams are
Speaker 2: owned by Middle Eastern countries now, and you know, the fans,
Speaker 2: they if your team is not owned by one of
Speaker 2: by one of those interests, you're upset because you don't
Speaker 2: have the war chest to sign players. And like, I
Speaker 2: think sports fans voted a long time ago that that
Speaker 2: they just want sports to keep going and all these
Speaker 2: other things. They don't want to get bogged down.
Speaker 1: In a new collectively owned for profit entity, period, end
Speaker 1: of story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's an important evolution for the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour because as as a nonprofit, they were they were
Speaker 2: limited in what they could do, and there's been you know,
Speaker 2: there were talks back last summer between Tiger and Rory
Speaker 2: and the guys that reigned Capital, like what if what
Speaker 2: if we change the whole model where we could be
Speaker 2: for profit, because then you can sell, you can bring
Speaker 2: in equity partners, you can you can do all kinds
Speaker 2: of things. It was it was probably an outdated model
Speaker 2: that had to change, and it just took it just
Speaker 2: too a thunderbolt like this. And so it gives a
Speaker 2: tour a lot more flexibility going forward business wise and
Speaker 2: how they can, how they can sorry, sorry you. By
Speaker 2: getting out of that charitable model. They can still give
Speaker 2: all the money they want to charity, but they do
Speaker 2: become much more flexible as a business.
Speaker 4: Alan. But now, as I read that release today and
Speaker 4: maybe nderstand this correctly, I thought that, well, just to
Speaker 4: read it straight from it separately, PJ Turing will remain
Speaker 4: in place as a five O one C six tax
Speaker 4: exempt organization that retains administrative oversight of events and those
Speaker 4: assets contributed by the PHA Tour. So does that mean
Speaker 4: the PJ Tour events that we've known for a long
Speaker 4: time will continue to be not for what tax part
Speaker 4: of a tax exempt system. Was unclear on that at all.
Speaker 4: Is the whole umbrell a thing now a for profit
Speaker 4: business or is there this separate thing, the PJ tour
Speaker 4: events that sort of goes down it's old path.
Speaker 2: I think they're good. I think it's the latter where
Speaker 2: I mean the tours. The tour has just been this
Speaker 2: umbrell organization, like every tournament is its own entity that
Speaker 2: has its own charitable you know, apparatus that runs the
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 4: Is they always say you can't get the volunteers without that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so I think that model will remain in
Speaker 2: place where these these events will will continue to be
Speaker 2: run locally and the money will go to the local charities.
Speaker 2: But as they integrate the live events and this larger schedule,
Speaker 2: that's going to become a for profit business. And so
Speaker 2: it sounds like it's kind of the best both worlds
Speaker 2: for the tour where they they can still keep the
Speaker 2: local control of their old traditional events, but now as
Speaker 2: they embark down this new road, this parallel organization will
Speaker 2: have a lot more flexibility and how it runs its business,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: And that even though live golf has been a disaster
Speaker 4: for the ratings disaster, and it's very limited sample that
Speaker 4: we have on the CW we did we have seen
Speaker 4: growing fan interest in terms of people actually showing up
Speaker 4: for tournaments, and it may indicate that young people, especially
Speaker 4: who didn't you grow up with the game as the
Speaker 4: three of us did, really don't care whether it's fifty
Speaker 4: four holes or seventy two holes, really doesn't care if
Speaker 4: a shotgun or not. Just want to have a good
Speaker 4: time and see competitive golf. As Allan is seventy times.
Speaker 4: It's still a guy over at golf off plan a shot,
Speaker 4: you know, and it's still a very difficult thing to
Speaker 4: do well. So maybe that was part of the tea
Speaker 4: in addition to the court system and other things that
Speaker 4: play here, that might have been a very big reality
Speaker 4: check for the for the PGA Tour. Along the same
Speaker 4: lines of the part of me when Callaway bought Top Golf,
Speaker 4: who would have expect to glorify driving rangers would become
Speaker 4: the engine of your business, this big business that made
Speaker 4: golf clubs. But that's what's happened, because you know, that's
Speaker 4: what young people want.
Speaker 1: Young people remember when Top I remember when Top Golf
Speaker 1: came out, it was all everyone was allergic to it,
Speaker 1: acting as though that's not golf, that's not you know,
Speaker 1: that's not green grass, that's not Now there's more people
Speaker 1: playing non green grass golf than there is playing green
Speaker 1: grass golf. You know, if you can't beat them, join
Speaker 1: them again. Business. Never underestimate the power of the dollar
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: I have four teenagers and they're their friends are like
Speaker 2: my focus group on all of this because some of
Speaker 2: them are into golf, and they're way more into live
Speaker 2: golf than the PGA Tour because Lives has much better
Speaker 2: social media stuff. It's much larger on TikTok. They they're
Speaker 2: they're better on Instagram than the tour. And they they
Speaker 2: like the they like the music, they like the whole thing.
Speaker 2: And that's been very eye opening for me to realize,
Speaker 2: like they they've bought into what's being sold and they
Speaker 2: they they it resonates with them and Live has done
Speaker 2: a good job catering to that market. And again Live
Speaker 2: has never really shown the receipts. We don't know where
Speaker 2: the data is derived from, but but they always say
Speaker 2: that two thirds of their audience is forty five and
Speaker 2: under it. You can't underestimate how important that is and
Speaker 2: even if it's not a huge audience, that's what everyone's
Speaker 2: been chasing forever. And if they can, if they can
Speaker 2: continue to grow that that becomes that was. That's a
Speaker 2: powerful force. And now the tour can tap into that.
Speaker 2: I mean that it's like people our as are always
Speaker 2: going to watch golf or older. But if you can
Speaker 2: get people that like my kids' aides, that that's the
Speaker 2: whole business right there. And Live Live was making inroads
Speaker 2: and I think the tour recognized that the.
Speaker 1: PGA Tour gets a fresh scorecard, a shedding of this
Speaker 1: old white fuddy duddy skin that they needed to shed
Speaker 1: a long time ago. This is you know, we've got,
Speaker 1: you know, on the heels of COVID and a resurgence
Speaker 1: of the amateur sort of you know game as we
Speaker 1: know it gets to just we get to like stop,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we get to stop talking about
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and get to like you know,
Speaker 1: of ranking the best. We get to root you know,
Speaker 1: we get to see Patrick Reid versus Jordan Spieth on
Speaker 1: a regular but we get to see good guys versus
Speaker 1: bad guys kind of stuff again on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Instead of what was going to be four times a year.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh, it's like one big sort of ayahuasca,
Speaker 1: you know, purgeon of all of this stuff. And let's
Speaker 1: move on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Trump, Well so that's interesting. I mean he's got a
Speaker 2: lot of other yeah, but he now has he has
Speaker 2: two more live events on his courses. And you know,
Speaker 2: all he's ever wanted was to be the warm embrace
Speaker 2: of the golf world. The RNA won't go to Turnberry,
Speaker 2: the PJ of America took away the PG Championship, the
Speaker 2: Tour took away his derial event. I mean, he's been
Speaker 2: completely shut out of the game, and now all of
Speaker 2: a sudden he's back the PGA Tour schedule. It's good
Speaker 2: for Trump for sure. Whether it's good for golf and
Speaker 2: that's the separate issue. But he's he's gonna he's going
Speaker 2: to be loving this, and he did. You know, we've
Speaker 2: talked about this. Trump has a he has this some
Speaker 2: kind of genius where he can predict the future right,
Speaker 2: like he said it, I could I could shoot a
Speaker 2: guy on Fifth Avenue and my supporters wouldn't care. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was right about that. Well, you remember his tweet
Speaker 2: about he said all these PG tour guys. They should
Speaker 2: go to live and take the money now because when
Speaker 2: the merger comes, they're not going to get anything. I mean,
Speaker 2: he tweeted that months ago. He was right, So he's
Speaker 2: gonna he's going to be delighted by this whole thing.
Speaker 2: Let me let me just address I've art. I mean,
Speaker 2: my social media has been hilarious this morning. Is this
Speaker 2: the most important question all this is it's good or
Speaker 2: bad for my book? Right, Like, let's let's get down
Speaker 2: to the real core issue here. But it's so funny.
Speaker 2: I turned it in two nights ago, and uh, it
Speaker 2: was a monumental f to get to the finish line. Clearly,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be some there's gonna be some new stuff
Speaker 2: on the last chapters out the window. But I I'm
Speaker 2: happy it happened when it did, because if if all
Speaker 2: this stuff came down is after the book was printed,
Speaker 2: that would be really sad. So I will be reporting
Speaker 2: my bottom off here and get the inside scoop on
Speaker 2: how all this played out and everything that led to
Speaker 2: this moment is so germane. I mean that there's there's
Speaker 2: there's so much backstory and what was really happening by
Speaker 2: in the scenes. It's in the page to the book.
Speaker 2: So I'm choosing to look on the bright side that
Speaker 2: the timing it wasn't too late, and it kind of
Speaker 2: puts a bow on the whole thing, and this will
Speaker 2: be the definitive account of how it all played out.
Speaker 2: So the comments on my Twitter have been been quite funny.
Speaker 2: I'm not sad, I'm not curled up in the feudal position.
Speaker 2: I'm not in a dark room like Aaron Rodgers for
Speaker 2: three days like it's all good. This is this puts
Speaker 2: an exclamation point on this whole crazy project. So I
Speaker 2: just carry on.
Speaker 1: When you hit send, honest like, you know, what part
Speaker 1: of you felt like something like this might happen between
Speaker 1: the time you hit send and the time it actually,
Speaker 1: you know, was printed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean the whole last
Speaker 2: chapter was kind of looking into the future, and I
Speaker 2: do talk at length about why it makes sense for
Speaker 2: a merger to happen and how it could look. So
Speaker 2: this is not a total shocker, and I was always
Speaker 2: gonna have a chance to update it through probably through
Speaker 2: the British Open you know, when there's probably going to
Speaker 2: be a resolution of some sorts of the world ranking,
Speaker 2: and so I was going to keep following this for
Speaker 2: the next couple of months anyway. But yeah, that was
Speaker 2: always the great anxiety. You know, what could what could happen?
Speaker 2: It seemed like, you know, the court cases could have
Speaker 2: gotten settled, that could have changed the structure of golf,
Speaker 2: you know. I A merger always made sense. It always
Speaker 2: seemed inevitable the way things were going. But I think
Speaker 2: it's way sooner than anyone ever imagined. So I wasn't
Speaker 2: totally worried about that. I thought that was you know,
Speaker 2: that might happen in December, January, February, but the book
Speaker 2: could already have been out by then. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's wild that it happened when it did, but it's advantageous,
Speaker 2: I think, is now now it's changed. This was always
Speaker 2: going to be the definitive account of how we got
Speaker 2: to this moment, but it was a little bit of
Speaker 2: a cliffhanger. Is how is it going to end? Well,
Speaker 2: now we know the ending, so I'm happy. I think.
Speaker 2: I think this is kind of a best case scenario.
Speaker 2: But even though it's going to be to have a
Speaker 2: lot more work, it's okay. I'll power through well while we're.
Speaker 1: While we're addressing some internal stuff, we should also make
Speaker 1: note of our sponsorship and Dormy Workshop, which makes quality
Speaker 1: leather goods, and on the Firepitcollective dot com. In our
Speaker 1: pitch shop we are have a limited supply only of
Speaker 1: a new fire pit head cover by Dormy Workshop which
Speaker 1: comes with a little matching pouch. And so go to
Speaker 1: firepic Collective dot com and support the cause. But Alan,
Speaker 1: how many how many live events have you gone to?
Speaker 2: I'd have to total that up. I mean most of them,
Speaker 2: you can. I can say that I was. I was.
Speaker 2: I didn't do the big international ones, but uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I was. I was certainly. And it was interesting because
Speaker 2: I was in Mexico and I was in Tucson at
Speaker 2: the start of this year, and things were changing fast,
Speaker 2: and you could feel the jitters because the piff guys
Speaker 2: that's sort of taken control and they were mandating. There
Speaker 2: was a lot more governance, so it was a lot
Speaker 2: more oversight. Last year they were they were just trying
Speaker 2: to launch. It was very chaotic in the wake of
Speaker 2: Phil's comments. Everything. Everything was happening really fast, and they
Speaker 2: were spending like crazy because they just had to get
Speaker 2: off the ground and the start of this year it
Speaker 2: was edgy. I mean, someone who's really dialed into what's
Speaker 2: happened and out there on Live said to me coming
Speaker 2: out of out of Tuson, He's like, I'm worried about
Speaker 2: this whole thing. Like it's we're on the edge right now.
Speaker 2: There's the players, we're we're feeling the anxiety because they
Speaker 2: basically Live accelerated scheduled by a full year. You know
Speaker 2: that the team build that wasn't supposed to happen until
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, but they very smartly said, this is
Speaker 2: the best thing we have going, let's accelerate it. And
Speaker 2: so you know there's only originally there's only gonna be
Speaker 2: ten events this year and fourteen next year. They moved
Speaker 2: that up and so there was this this feeling of
Speaker 2: the ground was shifting beneath their feet, and there was
Speaker 2: there were a lot of jitters. And then then they
Speaker 2: went to Australia and that was a huge shot of
Speaker 2: adrenaline for the whole organization and confidence and people kind
Speaker 2: of said, Okay, I can see what what Live Golf
Speaker 2: is going to be. You know, we're gonna go to
Speaker 2: these markets, We're gonna we're gonna go to places where
Speaker 2: they haven't seen big time golf, And coming out of
Speaker 2: that there was a whole totally different feeling like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we've kind of found our footing. You know, the Tulsa
Speaker 2: event was by far the biggest crowd they never had domestically,
Speaker 2: you had the Masters, you had Brooks win the PGA,
Speaker 2: Like there was a real momentum out there. So I've
Speaker 2: never I never felt like LIVE was gonna I've always
Speaker 2: talking to the people at the top like they they
Speaker 2: they've had ten year models, financial models like they have
Speaker 2: they have commitments going way out into the future. So
Speaker 2: I was never worried that Live was gonna was going
Speaker 2: to go away, but it felt like there was There
Speaker 2: was there was. It was tense internally as it was
Speaker 2: sort of this battle for supremacy. Part of that was,
Speaker 2: you know, this guy Magie els Roar, he'd been the
Speaker 2: day to day shot caller. He got pushed out, like
Speaker 2: there was a lot happening behind the scenes, and so
Speaker 2: I feel like this is the best thing that could
Speaker 2: have happened to Live clearly, like their future is now defined,
Speaker 2: their their mission is clear.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 2: There's there's just there's been a resolution that that that
Speaker 2: that was needed because it was a very free wheeling
Speaker 2: kind of energy around that place. They were making it
Speaker 2: up as they went along, and it worked like they
Speaker 2: got what they wanted. But things are going to settle
Speaker 2: down now there Now the tumult's gonna be get on
Speaker 2: the PGA tour, selling this to the players, pushing this
Speaker 2: through all the various boards, finalizing the schedule. What it
Speaker 2: all means that it's kind of like the burden, the
Speaker 2: burden has shifted. You know, Live had to prove it
Speaker 2: was viable. It had to, it had to launch. It
Speaker 2: did had enough success that the tour had to had
Speaker 2: to you know, it was a reckoning for the tour.
Speaker 2: And so now now that the burden of proof is
Speaker 2: on the PGA tour to make this work. And so
Speaker 2: it's it's incredible how fast this is all flipped.
Speaker 1: Michael, Where do you? Where do you? Where do you?
Speaker 1: How do you make peace? How do you make peace
Speaker 1: with all this? Where do you go from here? I mean,
Speaker 1: your purity is has been compromised. I feel like in
Speaker 1: terms of like now what for now? What for a
Speaker 1: guy I like you?
Speaker 4: I mean it kind of goes to what you said, earlier, Matt.
Speaker 4: You know, they can't take golf away from me, the
Speaker 4: game that you and I have loved, you know, all
Speaker 4: our lives. It kind of makes me double down on
Speaker 4: my own golfing experience, playing golf with my friends. That's
Speaker 4: how I started this game, and that has sustained me
Speaker 4: all my life. Nothing changes there, If anything, it probably
Speaker 4: only makes it a little deeper. You know, I don't
Speaker 4: think I'm different than anybody else. I'm always trying to
Speaker 4: learn something about how the world really works.
Speaker 1: So you know, I have my own.
Speaker 4: Idealism in standards. You know, I think Brooks Kopka lied
Speaker 4: his way out of that thing on the fifteenth at
Speaker 4: Augusta this year. I think it would have been much
Speaker 4: better for everybody had he just said, yes, something happened
Speaker 4: there and taking the shots. But that's not what happened.
Speaker 4: So you can have your own little vision of how
Speaker 4: the world should work, and that's great and we all
Speaker 4: have that. And then if you want to be a
Speaker 4: person at large in the world, you better try to
Speaker 4: understand how the world really works. And you know this
Speaker 4: our twenty ment Solve Been Together has been a discourse
Speaker 4: for me in it. Watching Jay Monahan's body language with Yair,
Speaker 4: you know, has been part of it. Seeing as we've
Speaker 4: you know, you guys have have lined up the you know,
Speaker 4: the the raith Yon common and the judicial process and
Speaker 4: how that comes together the crowds that where do they
Speaker 4: really have the big crowds? Was it in the two
Speaker 4: side event in Australia and Australia as well? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: excuse me, and so you know, it's it's both, Matt,
Speaker 4: it's uh, you know, we're It is another illustration of
Speaker 4: everything that you learn from reading you know, Shakespeare and
Speaker 4: Mario Puzo and everything else. How the world really works.
Speaker 4: You can't put your head in the sand and ignore it.
Speaker 4: And life's interesting and it's I don't know, I think
Speaker 4: it's kind of I feel kind I feel personally queasy
Speaker 4: about this thing because I think money is corrupting in general.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know Alan only said this innocently, but
Speaker 4: Alan's question is it good for the book? I mean
Speaker 4: that there's a question of commerce behind that. You know,
Speaker 4: the book should be the book. If people get drawn
Speaker 4: to the book or not, well that's sort of like
Speaker 4: out of your control. But in fact, but the world,
Speaker 4: the real world is yeah, This is good for the book,
Speaker 4: more people interested in how this whole Live thing got
Speaker 4: to where it is. So I think money is corrupting.
Speaker 4: It troubles me on every level, and I think we're
Speaker 4: seeing it here. You know, Monahan had a stand, Rory
Speaker 4: had a stand, and in money collapsed those stands. But also, okay, now,
Speaker 4: what are you going to learn from that that you're
Speaker 4: going to apply it to your own life and how
Speaker 4: you think about life and how you vote and how
Speaker 4: you read and everything else.
Speaker 2: Well that that's really well said. That's probably a great
Speaker 2: place to end it, because it's a complicated day for golf,
Speaker 2: not just the logistics of how this is going to work,
Speaker 2: but emotionally for all of us. Like we've been on
Speaker 2: this roller coaster ride for the last you know, essentially
Speaker 2: a year. It's excuse me, also a year to the
Speaker 2: day since Live held its first tournament. But there was
Speaker 2: this long drum beat leading up to it, including the
Speaker 2: Michelson comments, but even beyond that, the whole issue. My
Speaker 2: cat's on the keyboard here, cat, you know all the
Speaker 2: uh it started with the PGL. I mean, this has
Speaker 2: been a background issue at the highest levels of professional
Speaker 2: golf for five years, six years. I mean that the
Speaker 2: first news break about the about the PGL in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: and this is hovered over the sport and so we
Speaker 2: finally know how the story ends. Some details to be sorted,
Speaker 2: but a quite a thunderbolt here on Tuesday morning, June sixth.
Speaker 2: We will continue to make sense of all this year
Speaker 2: at the Firepit Collective. I'm sure there'll be some typing
Speaker 2: done in the coming days and probably some more podcasting,
Speaker 2: but I think this was a great opening salvo to
Speaker 2: understand what just happened. So Michael Bamberger, Matt Janella, appreciate
Speaker 2: all your thoughts here. We're gonna wrap up this podcast,
Speaker 2: but we'll be back in your year soon, so thanks
Speaker 2: for listening. That's the end.
Speaker 1: I'm Ben Big again.
Speaker 3: I played the wind, made a fortune.
Speaker 1: When my ship came in, I ran the table and
Speaker 1: I thought I could fall.
Speaker 3: Then the win hit me.
Speaker 4: Lack a can in the ball.
Speaker 1: No, I can't shake this losing streak. Every road I
Speaker 1: take is a dead hand street.
Speaker 3: I got thoughts in my head, can't get them out,
Speaker 3: trying not to think what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 4: I've got thoughts in my head, can't get them out.
Speaker 3: Trying not to think what I'm thinking about
Speaker 4: H