Speaker 1: Something I've believed from the beginning that the Yasers are
Speaker 1: going to decide the future of Live and nobody else,
Speaker 1: and so I think they're gonna go. They're gonna all
Speaker 1: systems are go for twenty twenty four. It's partly to
Speaker 1: keep them in a position of strength in negotiating with
Speaker 1: the tour on this framework agreement, because if they just
Speaker 1: pull the plug right now on Live, they've lost all
Speaker 1: their leverage.
Speaker 2: I got thoughts in my head. Can't get them out, ji,
Speaker 2: and not to think what I'm thinking about. I'm bouncing
Speaker 2: my head. Can't get them out, jih, not to think
Speaker 2: what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: Hello, this is Alan Ship Knock back for another Fire
Speaker 1: Drill podcast. Another big day in the Gulf world, which
Speaker 1: has crashed Capitol Hill for the Senate sub Committee hearings
Speaker 1: about the front work agreement between the PGA Tour and
Speaker 1: Live Golf and all the related intrigue.
Speaker 3: We want to unpack this.
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to be joined once again by Matt Janella.
Speaker 3: I'm at what a day.
Speaker 1: Let's pay a few bills first, tell the listeners who
Speaker 1: are making this making this podcast possible.
Speaker 3: Then we'll get into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to get your thoughts.
Speaker 4: But yes, thanks to Dormy Workshop. Obviously, if you've been
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Speaker 4: is make quality leather headcovers and accessories. I met them
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Speaker 4: All right, Alan, I mean you watched, you listened. I
Speaker 4: would assume you learned a few things. What are your
Speaker 4: biggest takeaways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the hearings which by themselves were quite interesting,
Speaker 1: but then the related document dump a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: material that you know, the when the Senate comes calling,
Speaker 1: people will give it up. I've been asking folks for
Speaker 1: some of these documents for a long time, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to blow off reporters, but it's different when
Speaker 1: you've got the United States Senate in your business and
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, and so it was it's been
Speaker 1: a treasure trove. And there was this previous document dump,
Speaker 1: you know, a week or so ago, related to Larry
Speaker 1: Clayman's lawsuit. He's Patrick Reed's very eccentric lawyer, and so
Speaker 1: there's I mean, it's like it's like being archaeologists sifting
Speaker 1: through these documents. But yeah, speaking a bit more about
Speaker 1: the hearings, it was interesting.
Speaker 3: You know, Jay Monahan was missed.
Speaker 1: It was like they sent in Jimmy Dunn and Ron Price,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Dunn is a legend in the golf world,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like he was struggling a little bit
Speaker 1: to articulate his thoughts and a couple of times he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer. You know who's a lawyer is
Speaker 1: Ed Hurley, who's a chairman of the PGA Tour Board,
Speaker 1: who is also one of the architects of this framework agreement.
Speaker 1: I'm still puzzled why they didn't send Hurley. He's like
Speaker 1: supposedly the leading lawyer in the United States. Like I
Speaker 1: think he might have been able to address some of
Speaker 1: these things with a little more nimbleness and.
Speaker 3: Precise language.
Speaker 1: But and you know Poort Ron Price, I mean, he's
Speaker 1: always been this background figure. He's been in the tour forever,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, with his boss on medical leave,
Speaker 1: which conveniently ends in a.
Speaker 3: Few days, they said, they said, they said, Ron up
Speaker 3: there just to be fed to the lions.
Speaker 1: And I've watched plenty of of hearings going all the
Speaker 1: way back to Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, and it's
Speaker 1: always interesting to see our elected officials on display. And uh,
Speaker 1: there was some some departures, and we wound up talking
Speaker 1: a lot about China. You know, Josh Holly from from
Speaker 1: Missouri was obsessing about China. They're not really part of
Speaker 1: this deal. You didn't, Senator like.
Speaker 3: It was it was random.
Speaker 1: And then you know, uh, Senator Paul from Kentucky went
Speaker 1: on this whole riff about name image likeness and how
Speaker 1: it's destroying college sports, and these things are tangentially related
Speaker 1: to the issue at hand. But there was a lot
Speaker 1: of grand standing. There was a lot of politicking, which
Speaker 1: is always part of these these hearings, so that was expected.
Speaker 1: But I thought Ron Johnson, he was from Wisconsin, it
Speaker 1: seemed like he was auditioning to become, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe to fill Randall Stevens spot on the PG Tour
Speaker 1: policy board. You know, he was like, he was very
Speaker 1: gentle and very supportive of the tour. Blumenthal from Connecticut
Speaker 1: who kind of you know, he was a senator who's
Speaker 1: been the driving force and all this. I thought his
Speaker 1: questions were really sharp and penetrating, and he definitely had
Speaker 1: had the tour guys on their heels. There were no
Speaker 1: bombshells that came out of this, other than potentially the
Speaker 1: language about Greg Norman's dismissal, which was always kind of expected.
Speaker 1: If Jay Monahan is going to become the commissioner of this,
Speaker 1: of the new co, there wasn't really a role for Norman,
Speaker 1: but that that's created a lot of headlines. I think
Speaker 1: that was that was somewhat obvious, but it is interesting
Speaker 1: if liv continues to stay on this parallel path even
Speaker 1: even as the new code framework deal gets consummated. That
Speaker 1: if Norman has no role in that. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of that was kind of the bombshell, if if
Speaker 1: there was one, but I think.
Speaker 5: It was a Norman.
Speaker 4: It was about like, certainly the idea that Norman like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I mean, it's not only a bombshell,
Speaker 4: but it's a bombs like to me, that was kind
Speaker 4: of part of the layer to the Norman factor.
Speaker 1: Is well, yeah, I mean, Norman's had to know he's
Speaker 1: on thin ice ever since this deal became public and
Speaker 1: the fact that he wasn't even consulted in it, he
Speaker 1: had no role or voice in its negotiation, that was
Speaker 1: the first clear signal he's on the outside looking in.
Speaker 1: And given that the Norman and Monhan have been in
Speaker 1: bitter opposition to each other and now Mona Han's been
Speaker 1: elevated to the CEO of all of Golf, essentially if
Speaker 1: this deal gets done, that would leave Norman on, you know,
Speaker 1: without a role. I mean, that's been clear, but it
Speaker 1: was interesting that it was actually put in writing and
Speaker 1: and sort of the cold bloodedness of it. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: my biggest takeaway, to go back to your original question,
Speaker 1: is how tenuous this framework agreement really is. And some
Speaker 1: of the documents as they've they've been laid out, show
Speaker 1: how much horse trading that was going on just to
Speaker 1: try and get to the framework agreement, which as presented
Speaker 1: has almost no specificity, no details. And the reason is
Speaker 1: they couldn't agree on anything. I mean, there was like
Speaker 1: eight different drafts and all these fantastical things like you know,
Speaker 1: the piff asking Tiger Woods to play ten live events.
Speaker 1: I mean, Tiger's not going to play. He may not
Speaker 1: play ten turn as the rest of his career, and
Speaker 1: they certainly he's not going to burn any of his
Speaker 1: precious footsteps on a live golf event, right, Like some
Speaker 1: of it was was bizarre and wishful thinking. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: just posturing as part of any negotiation, but so why
Speaker 1: was the framework agreement so unsatisfying and so vague. It's
Speaker 1: because they couldn't agree on a damn thing, and it's
Speaker 1: just like, okay, we got to put this out. And
Speaker 1: even even there was all this choreography about how how
Speaker 1: we would the messaging behind it, what steps would come
Speaker 1: before the announcement, that all got tossed aside too. I
Speaker 1: mean in our previous podcast with Jeff Ogilvie, you know,
Speaker 1: he speculated that it had been leaked and it was going.
Speaker 3: To go public, and somebody knew or somebody was going.
Speaker 1: To take it public, and that's why they hit fast
Speaker 1: forward on the announcement that has more of the ring
Speaker 1: of truth now and when you look at it didn't
Speaker 1: play out the.
Speaker 3: Way it was. It was scripted in all the correspondent, So.
Speaker 1: You know, Jimmy Dunn was pretty honest about that. We
Speaker 1: have a long way to go on this deal, and
Speaker 1: the tour is vulnerable if if they can't consummate the deal,
Speaker 1: because every every tour player who turned down the Saudi
Speaker 1: money and remained loyal to the tour now to have
Speaker 1: their bosses come in and say, listen, it's fine, it's
Speaker 1: all good. We love the Saudis, we love the money.
Speaker 1: We're all one big, happy family. And if this deal
Speaker 1: blows up, there's absolutely no incentive for any of these
Speaker 1: guys to stay loyal to the tour anymore because the
Speaker 1: tour was not loyal to them. So the the stakes
Speaker 1: have been raised here in negotiating this this framework deal.
Speaker 1: In some ways the stat he's already gotten what they wanted.
Speaker 1: They've been they've gotten the official stamp of approval from
Speaker 1: the powers that be in golf, and so I think
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, if we can, if we can get
Speaker 1: this done, great, and if not, we'll just we'll take
Speaker 1: We'll take John Rahm, and we'll take every other player
Speaker 1: we want, and we'll just make Live a bigger.
Speaker 3: Thing so you can.
Speaker 1: And there was a moment where where one of the
Speaker 1: senators asked, Jimmy Dunn, has this whole process made it
Speaker 1: harder to consummate the frameworkgreement?
Speaker 3: He said, yeah, obviously it has. And so.
Speaker 1: The next you know, five months become really fascinating as
Speaker 1: to if they can get across the finish line and
Speaker 1: what it's actually going to look like.
Speaker 4: This is, I mean, the idea that we are having
Speaker 4: this conversation and having covered the game for as long
Speaker 4: as we have, whether you're just coming to the game
Speaker 4: or you've been covering the game, like if you're Ben
Speaker 4: Crenshaw or if you're like, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: you know, Charlie Woods, like the the the whole thing
Speaker 4: is just truly remarkable to me that this is the
Speaker 4: state of professional golf and just shows you how I
Speaker 4: don't know if you saw Riggs. Riggs is sort of
Speaker 4: you know, social post on which he goes on and
Speaker 4: sort of does his big takeaways and talks about the
Speaker 4: way that the reason why we're here and why the
Speaker 4: tour and how poorly they treated the players, the sponsors,
Speaker 4: the ego they've had for so long, which is why
Speaker 4: I've always said I'm just rooting for the disruption. I
Speaker 4: just just the tour's attitude and ego, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of ran a muck right, and Tim fincham Oh, by
Speaker 4: the way, left this steamy pile of shit on the
Speaker 4: front doorstep or the of of of the office of
Speaker 4: his successor and said.
Speaker 5: I rode Tiger.
Speaker 4: I'm not only did I ride Tiger into sort of
Speaker 4: this new world era of professional golf, I wrote it
Speaker 4: right into the Hall of Fame with Tiger shoulder to shoulder,
Speaker 4: which the irony of that, all of that is not
Speaker 4: lost on me. And now Jay has had to deal
Speaker 4: with all of this and the vulnerability of this sport
Speaker 4: in which it just took a big pile of money.
Speaker 4: You know, you had the Premier Golf League, Saudi stole
Speaker 4: their playbook had Greg Norman as a guy who was
Speaker 4: able to get enough players to make this a relevant
Speaker 4: and a real thing. That that led to like more
Speaker 4: money here, and then a push to the sponsors to
Speaker 4: bring up the money that they're going to spend on
Speaker 4: a watered down, you know, product, and the sponsors going,
Speaker 4: none of this is making much sense. You're talking at us,
Speaker 4: not with us. Not only are we out in twenty twelve,
Speaker 4: but let's try to get out in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, we're screwed. We better meet with these guys,
Speaker 4: we better bring them like we got to do a
Speaker 4: deal with them. Let's just at least do a deal
Speaker 4: to do a deal, and let's figure this out later
Speaker 4: in the middle of the season of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: in the middle of the four Majors leading into a
Speaker 4: Ryder Cup.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is absolute mayhem.
Speaker 1: It is, as I've said many times, it's just a
Speaker 1: gift from the content gods. As I was watching this,
Speaker 1: hearing play out was I kind of had to jog
Speaker 1: my memory. I was googling what were the biggest golf
Speaker 1: stories of twenty twenty one. You know, that was really
Speaker 1: the last year before Live arrived. Number two on this
Speaker 1: list I saw was the USGA capping driver link at
Speaker 1: forty six inches instead of forty eight.
Speaker 3: That was the number two story twenty twenty one. Like
Speaker 3: it was a much simpler time.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure when the USGA was the bad guy, yeah,
Speaker 4: Jesus even.
Speaker 1: And that's what been one of the ironies along as
Speaker 1: you were alluding to that the monopolistic PGA tour has
Speaker 1: been couched as the good guy underdog and all this
Speaker 1: because we know from our own dealings that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the case. But so yeah, it's these are just as
Speaker 1: as many people have said, these are unparalleled times, and
Speaker 1: it's we're all just kind of riding these waves of
Speaker 1: news breaks and energy around this and this again, this
Speaker 1: isn't even over. At the end of the hearings, they
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of said, well, this is not
Speaker 1: the end. We look forward to hearing from the people
Speaker 1: that we have previously invited. We want to still want
Speaker 1: to get their thoughts on this. That's Monahan, Norman and
Speaker 1: the most important guy, Yaser al Ramayan. So you know,
Speaker 1: mister Smith goes to Washington part too, like that these
Speaker 1: guys are going to be testifying again and a bluemin
Speaker 1: thought and Holly and some of the other senators were
Speaker 1: pretty effective at boxing in uh, you know, Jimmy Dunn
Speaker 1: and Ron Price and getting them to commit we want
Speaker 1: they want certain things in writing. One of the interesting
Speaker 1: bits was Price was questioned about pushback from the players
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, he said, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're upset. We've been we've been having to you know,
Speaker 1: kind of smooth things over, and there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation. And he said, have there been any communications
Speaker 1: in writing and Price just him and how do you
Speaker 1: want answer the question? And finally at the end he
Speaker 1: extracted a promise and if there's anything in writing, we
Speaker 1: want to see it so that that now becomes interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, if they can get Rory and Tiger and
Speaker 1: those guys as text messages to Monaghan or to Jimmy Dunn,
Speaker 1: email correspondence between the agents like So this is not
Speaker 1: over even from from the standpoint of the federal government's involvement,
Speaker 1: and looming in the background of all this is a
Speaker 1: Department of Justice that that's a totally separate issue and
Speaker 1: a different body with with with much stronger powers of investigation.
Speaker 1: And so there there's they're still looking at anti trusts
Speaker 1: as it goes back to the original battle between the
Speaker 1: tour and live and now what this you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote merger might mean it's not really a merger, but
Speaker 1: people using that word is interesting because it kind of
Speaker 1: captures the feeling. And so this is this is not over,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's there's plenty of golf fans who
Speaker 1: wish it was. And then we could go back to
Speaker 1: when the most important thing in golf was the lengthier
Speaker 1: driver or whether you're wearing a hoodie or not. You know,
Speaker 1: those were just much simpler times. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: akin to I mean, the biggest scandal of the Obama
Speaker 1: administrations was you know, him putting mustard on a hot
Speaker 1: dog or wearing a tan suit. You know, is so
Speaker 1: his quote, his scandals were so tame compared to Trump,
Speaker 1: which had, you know, been so impactful and NonStop. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of golf is following that that that traject
Speaker 1: you know, what used to be a big deal doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like such a big deal anymore.
Speaker 5: Here's what we know.
Speaker 4: There will be four majors in twenty twenty four, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like like the majors, and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm just so disenchanted by all of this, just all
Speaker 4: all of it as it relates to professional golf. I
Speaker 4: have a hard time, you know, I have a hard
Speaker 4: time firing for the week to week, you know, Thursday
Speaker 4: through Sunday, stroke play, who won this week? Good shot,
Speaker 4: bad shot, good score, bad score.
Speaker 5: Finished strong?
Speaker 4: We're choked, Like unless it's relating to a major, you know,
Speaker 4: I none of this is really at all compelling to me,
Speaker 4: and I feel like the only thing we know compelling
Speaker 4: in a way that makes me more intrigued by sort
Speaker 4: of you know, following the world of professional golff. It's like,
Speaker 4: good God, there never was a really good a good
Speaker 4: guy in the room. I don't think there is a
Speaker 4: good guy in the room still to this day. I'm
Speaker 4: just rooting for, at some point down the road that
Speaker 4: they will get it all sorted and will be presented
Speaker 4: with some sort of a product that actually, you know,
Speaker 4: has value from a from a fans standpoint. I mean,
Speaker 4: the fans are so far down on this list at
Speaker 4: this point in terms of what matters.
Speaker 5: It's like it's you know, it's the.
Speaker 4: Top players, it's the top sponsors, and brands that are
Speaker 4: related to those top players. Then it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: some sort of legacy as it relates to the PGA
Speaker 4: Tour and the people you know are.
Speaker 5: In charge of that.
Speaker 4: Then there's like the other players you know that beyond
Speaker 4: the top thirty or beyond the top twenty five, and
Speaker 4: then it's you know, I keep going, like the priority
Speaker 4: list just keeps going. You know, God only knows where
Speaker 4: a DP World Tour, corn Ferry Tour, I mean, where
Speaker 4: do where does all that? And but then there's the
Speaker 4: fan the way down this list is like, we'll figure
Speaker 4: that out at some other point, but we got a
Speaker 4: lot of shit to you know this. This individual mindset
Speaker 4: that it takes to be a player is well documented.
Speaker 4: It's an individualistic sport. It takes a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: you know, a tunnel vision, uh, sort of narcissistic approach
Speaker 4: to sort of life in general, because you're it's you
Speaker 4: versus the world. And I think there's something to that
Speaker 4: that has led to sort of this that has blown
Speaker 4: up in sort of the world of professional golf'space, and
Speaker 4: I just don't see any real clear and and uh
Speaker 4: an understandable solution in any way shape or form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. Mark Brooks texted me out of the
Speaker 1: blue yesterday. You know, for were a tour player, PGA
Speaker 1: championship winner, all that stuff, and he was involved in
Speaker 1: this effort to create a player union back in the nineties.
Speaker 1: He was intimately involved, and they were basically shouted down.
Speaker 1: No top players would support them, with the notable exception
Speaker 1: of Greg Norman, which is interesting. Norman was on the
Speaker 1: few guys who actually paid his thousand dollars membership fee
Speaker 1: and was.
Speaker 3: Vocal about supporting the union.
Speaker 1: But all the other top guys that were dismissive and
Speaker 1: they never got traction. And you know that was a
Speaker 1: talking point in the Senate hearings is they kept coming
Speaker 1: back to this point, why were the players not involved?
Speaker 1: You know, the whether it was price or done. They
Speaker 1: kept saying there were a players organization, and so the
Speaker 1: senators kept coming back to this point, if you're a
Speaker 1: player organization, how could the players not have a voice
Speaker 1: in this process? And this is not a new issue,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is going this is going on three
Speaker 1: decades now where and even longer really, I mean, but
Speaker 1: there was that strong push in the nineties to create
Speaker 1: a real, workable union. And you see in other sports,
Speaker 1: h how how important the union is that protecting the
Speaker 1: player's interests. But those are team sports, and like you said,
Speaker 1: golf is just this this game that celebrates the rugged individual.
Speaker 1: But it's it's a problematic moment for for all these
Speaker 1: lone wolves right now, who all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: want the safety of the pack. But they they've always
Speaker 1: rejected it until now. So it's there's there's the structural questions,
Speaker 1: and neither Price nor Done came up with a satisfactory answer.
Speaker 3: You know. They they made the point that uh, and
Speaker 3: this this was kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Basically, if the lawyers on neither side had heard about this,
Speaker 1: they would have tried to killed the deal. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: because the lawyers are making tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: a month, so of course they would have tried to
Speaker 1: kill the deal. But but they never were able to
Speaker 1: fully explain why they couldn't have let Rory in or
Speaker 1: Tiger or you know, even Peter mal not use on
Speaker 1: the board of directors.
Speaker 3: You know that they they they.
Speaker 1: Talked around it, but they never answered the question. And
Speaker 1: so I'm sure some any players who were paying attention
Speaker 1: that that was that left him with a hollow feeling
Speaker 1: because that that's that's been one of the primary critiques
Speaker 1: of this entire process is that you've got uh and
Speaker 1: and this was also interesting Jimmy Dunn, you know, they
Speaker 1: he said something to the fact like, well, I just
Speaker 1: came on the board, you know, end of last year,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't really know all the personalities.
Speaker 1: And you know, he kind of admitted that he was
Speaker 1: this this this newcomer who didn't have a full understanding
Speaker 1: of the landscape, and yet he was the guy because
Speaker 1: of his charisma and because of his business background he
Speaker 1: was sent out there to represent all the interests of
Speaker 1: the tour and it just it just made for some
Speaker 1: very awkward testimony. As you know, the senators were pretty
Speaker 1: effective at times in in kind of laying these traps
Speaker 1: verbally and done, and Price walked into a few of them,
Speaker 1: and they didn't I don't think they there were no
Speaker 1: fatal blows, but I feel like collectively, you know, taking
Speaker 1: taking CEO the PGA tour, Ron Price, and you take
Speaker 1: Jimmy Dunn, they didn't quite help the cause I got
Speaker 1: I feel like they were evasive those times that they
Speaker 1: didn't they didn't have the goods, and those things they
Speaker 1: couldn't totally explain away, and so there there were there
Speaker 1: were no there were no like gotcha moments where you
Speaker 1: felt like we'd really uncovered something nefarious or or or
Speaker 1: some element of of of reckless disregard for the process.
Speaker 1: But they just they were not that impressive between the
Speaker 1: two of them, and they were playing defense the whole time,
Speaker 1: and they never were really able to articulate effectively how
Speaker 1: this deal came about, what it means for the consumers
Speaker 1: and the players and the fans, as you say, Matt.
Speaker 1: And strangely it was Ron Johnson, the Center from Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: who I thought did the best job. You know, he
Speaker 1: kind of went near the end of the of of
Speaker 1: the hearing, he went on a couple of monologues talking
Speaker 1: about the tour and you know, defending the tour and
Speaker 1: explaining their position, and he actually I thought he did
Speaker 1: a good job of stating.
Speaker 3: What could have been the tour's position all along. So
Speaker 3: it was an interesting choice.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, of course none of these mon
Speaker 1: Han does not want to get up there and go
Speaker 1: through this, but after watching this performance, it might be
Speaker 1: hope him to do so. And to try and really
Speaker 1: sell this a little more effectively to the people who
Speaker 1: are watching at home, who are his consumers.
Speaker 4: The way you summarize the whole sort of the heat,
Speaker 4: you know, the hearing, the sort of the way you
Speaker 4: encapsulated the they didn't have any good answers. They didn't
Speaker 4: they didn't have any good specifics. There wasn't good communication,
Speaker 4: There wasn't any really like it kind of summarizes that,
Speaker 4: Like if we go back and listen to that summarizes
Speaker 4: the PGA tour from the very beginning of this whole process.
Speaker 4: At the start, they've never had good communication, They've in
Speaker 4: they feel like they look like they've just they're just
Speaker 4: chasing their tail. There's you know what has what was
Speaker 4: the actual vision they they they whatever they pretended to
Speaker 4: stand for that caved in. You know, we're not going
Speaker 4: to compete with money, but then they try to compete
Speaker 4: with It's just been this ongoing contradiction, hypocritical sort of
Speaker 4: confusion from the very beginning. It's just has been NonStop.
Speaker 4: And so why why would today be any different? Why
Speaker 4: is tomorrow going to be any different? What is Jay
Speaker 4: Monaghan going to is he going to on his break
Speaker 4: did he actually form some cognitive thoughts in a way
Speaker 4: that we can all process and you know and and understand.
Speaker 4: Is there going to ever be a solution in which,
Speaker 4: you know, uh, like the idea of like telling Tiger
Speaker 4: what he is and isn't going to do play or
Speaker 4: not play? Play These events are not play events to
Speaker 4: your point, Like the idea that he will play even
Speaker 4: ten events total, let alone play ten live events live
Speaker 4: events is absolutely that's hysterical. The idea that yah Seer
Speaker 4: is going to actually get a membership to Augustin like,
Speaker 4: you know, who doesn't like it told what to do
Speaker 4: more than Tiger Woods Augusta National. You think he's going
Speaker 4: to walk it like and the RNA like, oh so
Speaker 4: we got we got everybody, let's welcome our new member.
Speaker 5: You know, this is like.
Speaker 4: This is a clown This is a clown car, and
Speaker 4: every time the door opens, more clowns just keep walking
Speaker 4: out of the car.
Speaker 5: How many clowns are involved in this process?
Speaker 1: That was my exact thought about yoa, Sir and Augusta
Speaker 1: National is maybe it had he had a chance until
Speaker 1: that went public and that no, no, the guy's.
Speaker 5: Gonna be rolling around in a green jacket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny because this is there's I
Speaker 1: have this whole riff in my book about this is
Speaker 1: part of the reason I think Jimmy Dunn was sent
Speaker 1: over to meet with the Yoscer is Jimmy Dunn represents
Speaker 1: everything that Yoser wants in golf. I mean, Jimmy Dunn
Speaker 1: is famously the first guy to become a member at
Speaker 1: simultaneously at Augusta National, Cypress Point, Pine Valley in Seminole.
Speaker 3: Right, those are the inner sanctums.
Speaker 1: And oil money can buy you a jet and a yacht,
Speaker 1: it can buy you politicians, it can even buy you golfers.
Speaker 1: The one thing that cannot buy you directly is a
Speaker 1: locker at Augusta National or at Cypress Point. And you know,
Speaker 1: so Yostter's been on that, He's been desperate to get
Speaker 1: into the golf world.
Speaker 3: He's been on the outside looking in.
Speaker 1: They said, over Jimmy, who's like the emissary of of.
Speaker 3: Of the elite.
Speaker 1: You know, he's the he's the ring master of all
Speaker 1: these private clubs. And I think that's a tangible thing,
Speaker 1: you know, for for Yoser, that was that's part of
Speaker 1: this this whole thing. If he could get into one
Speaker 1: of those places, he would have arrived in a way
Speaker 1: that no Saudi public figure ever had. Because there's there's
Speaker 1: things you can buy and there's things you can't buy.
Speaker 1: And Augusta National is the ultimate symbol of your You've
Speaker 1: been vetted, you know, I mean you've you've been there
Speaker 1: Matt as a guest, and I've been lucky to play
Speaker 1: at some of these other places, and there is this
Speaker 1: weird sense like I don't know who you are, but
Speaker 1: you're here in this grill room with me at the
Speaker 1: same time, and so you're one of your You're one
Speaker 1: of us, You're one of me, and and so that
Speaker 1: that is like the ultimate carrot. Would would you also
Speaker 1: spend four billion dollars of the public Investment Fund money
Speaker 1: from Augusta National membership?
Speaker 3: I think the answer is yes, gladly.
Speaker 1: And so it was just funny to see that in
Speaker 1: the harsh black and white of a document dump, right,
Speaker 1: it speaks to these the motivations here and that that's
Speaker 1: been that's been a question from the beginning, you know what,
Speaker 1: what is Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: Trying to accomplish here?
Speaker 1: And some of that was was really revealed in a
Speaker 1: in a profound way. And you know, sports watching, you
Speaker 1: could say, as as an exercise in sports watching, live
Speaker 1: golf has been a colossal failure because a lot of
Speaker 1: golf fans never really thought about Saudi Arabia's role in
Speaker 1: world affairs or how it's treated its dissident citizens. Now
Speaker 1: it's in aes capable topic.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how effective it's been at at at
Speaker 1: laundering the reputation of MBS and the regime, but as
Speaker 1: an exercise of getting you know, the seat of the
Speaker 1: proverbial table, about being accepted in the quarters of power,
Speaker 1: about building relationships with powerful Western businessmen and public figures,
Speaker 1: it's been massively effective.
Speaker 3: And so you know, all these things exist.
Speaker 1: On multiple levels, and so it's just funny that it
Speaker 1: got someone actually typed it up and put it in
Speaker 1: a memo about y'alls are getting augusta national membership. WICH
Speaker 1: guarantees will never get one. But that that really tells
Speaker 1: you what they're thinking, was.
Speaker 4: What if okay, let's just say Tiger would takes a
Speaker 4: step back here for a second. And you know, and
Speaker 4: when I say Tiger, you know that comes with Mark Steinberg.
Speaker 4: Obviously they're like they're there they've always been one and
Speaker 4: the same, or at least since you know, post Hughes Norton.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, Steinberg and Tiger are you know, they
Speaker 4: are that they are.
Speaker 5: That business right.
Speaker 4: And let's say Tiger were to say, all right, let's
Speaker 4: let's start, let's start a tour, and let's let's form
Speaker 4: a tour the.
Speaker 5: Right way with you with a unionized approach to this.
Speaker 4: Let's let's learn from the last you know, let's learn
Speaker 4: from the last two years. But let's let's let's also
Speaker 4: learn from the last you know, twenty years. Let's learn
Speaker 4: from you know, sort of from the day that I
Speaker 4: came on the scene and golf went to a whole
Speaker 4: the stratosphere, just like Arnie and Jack kind of learned
Speaker 4: from what they had gone through and Gary and you
Speaker 4: know and McCormick and they formed, you know, the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: What if there's a revamped professional golf tour that Tiger
Speaker 4: sort of embraces becomes kind of the commissioner de facto
Speaker 4: commissioner of the leader of they actually create something that
Speaker 4: has the framework of a greater good, in which then
Speaker 4: brands now have something they are willing to you know,
Speaker 4: the big money brands that could fund something like this
Speaker 4: twenty tour events that you get, they're all sort of elevated,
Speaker 4: so to speak from up from a money standpoint, players
Speaker 4: do have a voice and a role. There is a
Speaker 4: it is it is a tour. You know that that
Speaker 4: the commissioner Tiger essentially works for the players.
Speaker 5: Like what if.
Speaker 4: There is something that like isn't the PIFF and it
Speaker 4: isn't the PGA Tour, but it is something that actually
Speaker 4: makes sense in addition to the four Majors and the
Speaker 4: Ryder Cup and you come up with you know, is
Speaker 4: that is that like so far fetched or outrageous?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I think that's what this this this
Speaker 1: new code, this framework agreement could be. Yeah, but come on,
Speaker 1: but if I've read this, I think Sally Jenkins wrote
Speaker 1: this column in the Washington Post a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: like Tiger and Rory and Jordan should just start their
Speaker 1: own tour.
Speaker 3: And the the problem is how do you pay for it?
Speaker 1: Because the Premier Golf League was trying to do that
Speaker 1: for years and they had a lot of smart people,
Speaker 1: and they had a lot of traction, but ultimately they
Speaker 1: couldn't attract enough money.
Speaker 5: Well, they needed the player they needed the players to
Speaker 5: the players. You know, if you with Tiger then everything falls.
Speaker 4: Then you get Rory, And if you got Tiger and Rory,
Speaker 4: then you potentially get rom If you get to Tiger,
Speaker 4: Rory and Rahm, Like, I don't know, you.
Speaker 1: Know, but this would We're just coming. This has been
Speaker 1: This has been basically five years to get to this moment,
Speaker 1: from the from when the Premier Golf League first became
Speaker 1: public in twenty eighteen. So it's five years to get
Speaker 1: from there to hear and it's been obviously a colossal
Speaker 1: pain in the ass for everyone, and it's still not
Speaker 1: settled to trying to reinvent the wheel one more time.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone has the appetite for that.
Speaker 4: But I mean, this is all going backwards. If you
Speaker 4: ask me, I mean who who Who's Like if if
Speaker 4: Y'ah Sir is actually the one in charge and if
Speaker 4: the Piff Fund is the answer, and if that is
Speaker 4: going to be the future of professional golf.
Speaker 5: Really yeah, it's I mean, he's not going to get.
Speaker 4: His membership, Tiger's not going to play those ten events.
Speaker 4: The you know, the other players are just going to
Speaker 4: still be just as pissed. I mean, this is a
Speaker 4: hornet's nest of anxiety and and and and pissed off agents, players, sponsors.
Speaker 4: This is going backwards. There is no what is the
Speaker 4: actual steps to something that resembles a solution.
Speaker 1: Well, so what's interesting is Andy Gardner, who's the driving
Speaker 1: force by the Premiere Golf League. He's been completely silent
Speaker 1: to all of this, and there are some folks in
Speaker 1: golf who think that he is waiting in the wings
Speaker 1: in cases whole thing falls apart and the Premier Golf
Speaker 1: League could be re animated and save the day because
Speaker 1: it would not have the association with the Saudis. But
Speaker 1: what this whole exercise has shown is the tour is
Speaker 1: willing to change its model and it's willing to bring
Speaker 1: an outside investment. And so you could go to all
Speaker 1: these private equity behemoths that are love to invest in
Speaker 1: other sports. Of course they they would be happy to
Speaker 1: invest in golf as well, and you could essentially have
Speaker 1: outside investment and reimagine PG Tour. You take away all
Speaker 1: the objections to the Saudi involvement, and the Premiere Golf
Speaker 1: League could be that vehicle. So it's an interesting Tiger Woods.
Speaker 4: And Mark Steinberg need Andy Gardner, do they need that play?
Speaker 4: But like, if I'm like Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, hat
Speaker 4: is in a unique position in which he is Tiger
Speaker 4: fucking Woods. Like he he trumps everybody in every one
Speaker 4: of these situations. And he's been you know, he's he's
Speaker 4: sat back, he's distanced himself from all the you know,
Speaker 4: the little shenanigans that are going on, and he's going
Speaker 4: to protect his eighty two wins. And you know, certainly,
Speaker 4: you know, fifteen majors is that ain't go, that's not
Speaker 4: going anywhere. And he's Tiger Woods and it's his time.
Speaker 4: Like if if did he do all of this and
Speaker 4: commit to all of that and build up all of
Speaker 4: this equity to sort of, you know, play a secondary
Speaker 4: role to some guy from Saudi Arabia wants it, you know,
Speaker 4: a green.
Speaker 5: Jacket by his way to a green jacket. Like it's comical.
Speaker 4: This is Tiger Woods is the best in the game.
Speaker 4: You know, he is Michael Jordan, He's Wayne Gretzky, He's
Speaker 4: he's Kelly Slater. If they go, if they go to
Speaker 4: try to do something or people are going to follow.
Speaker 1: Well, Tiger Woods is as a player moves the needle
Speaker 1: like no other. But as a bureaucrat, I'm not not
Speaker 1: so sure. And if you look at Michael Jordan, he
Speaker 1: was a failure as an NBA owner, you know these,
Speaker 1: but he.
Speaker 4: Didn't But he could have, you know, you know, but
Speaker 4: the NBA is a league and full of teams and
Speaker 4: has a player's union, and and he couldn't have started
Speaker 4: his own league. But Tiger, at this moment, professional golf
Speaker 4: is as vulnerable as it's ever been ever, right, like,
Speaker 4: certainly in modern in this in this modern times, if
Speaker 4: he were to like actually commit to starting something that
Speaker 4: makes sense to not only the players who play the game,
Speaker 4: but also the brands who support the game beyond some
Speaker 4: pif fund that's going out, you know, going around trying
Speaker 4: to to sportswash, you know, a real you know, gnarly reputation.
Speaker 4: I just if Tiger, if the PGA Tours up against
Speaker 4: the pit Fund, it's losing. If Tiger Woods is up
Speaker 4: against the pit Fun, I think he could win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a interesting thought exercise, for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, you're you're you're not giving proper due to
Speaker 1: the tech infused golf league that Tiger and Rory are
Speaker 1: going to debut, which that's.
Speaker 3: What that was three years in the making. They're they're
Speaker 3: super proud of it.
Speaker 5: So but that's that's what professional golf is good.
Speaker 3: That's the answer.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean it's actually that is probably that
Speaker 1: was a good, uh test balloon, right, Like they've it's
Speaker 1: given Tiger and Rory a sense of ownership and a
Speaker 1: taste of power, and and that's put him in the
Speaker 1: boardroom and they're having to recruit investors and sponsors. So
Speaker 1: to your point, I mean that that's sort of like
Speaker 1: you know, playing on the corn ferry to get to
Speaker 1: the to get to the PGA tour, like they've paid
Speaker 1: some dues now in that in that managerial role, So
Speaker 1: it's not at the realm of possibility. And it's again
Speaker 1: as we were talking about earlier, this framework agreement expires
Speaker 1: on December thirty first, and so it's it they're the
Speaker 1: pressure's on to get it consummated. If not, then anything's possible.
Speaker 1: And I do think that you know, part of the
Speaker 1: live events over in Spain and in London the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks as words leaking out, and it was
Speaker 1: a big deal that Yasser went and played in the
Speaker 1: pro am at Valderrama because he was a ubiquitous presence
Speaker 1: on Live Golf last year. He was at every pro am,
Speaker 1: he was at every party, and he had stepped back
Speaker 1: this year and he was he had not he had
Speaker 1: not been to a single tournament. And you know his lieutenant,
Speaker 1: this guy Magic al Sor, he'd been he'd been moved
Speaker 1: out of the day to day and he he was
Speaker 1: also he was he was a big part of the
Speaker 1: whole social fabric of Live and his first season, and
Speaker 1: so those two guys have just been completely gone this year,
Speaker 1: and that led to a little bit of jitters on
Speaker 1: Live like what does it mean? Like these are our patriarchs,
Speaker 1: these are our biggest boosters, and they're the bridge to
Speaker 1: all the PIF money and having them step back created
Speaker 1: some angst.
Speaker 3: And so for.
Speaker 1: Y'astro to go into Valderama, play the pro am with
Speaker 1: Phil Press a lot of flesh, have this meeting with
Speaker 1: the captains that Norman was part of and some of
Speaker 1: the other top executives and express his bullishness on Live's future.
Speaker 3: That meant a lot.
Speaker 1: So I think, to me, there's no doubt that there's
Speaker 1: going to be a Live schedule in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: This has been there's been a question from the moment
Speaker 1: the framework agreement was announced, is what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to Live? And you know, Jay Monahan and Jimmy Dunn
Speaker 1: were selling hard this idea that we control the board,
Speaker 1: therefore we control the decision on Live. But this was
Speaker 1: another little sentence that was tucked in that into one
Speaker 1: of these memos that got releasedast was that in fact
Speaker 1: I don't have in front of you, but it said,
Speaker 1: while the new coboard will will make the ultimate decision
Speaker 1: on golf, it's likely to be handled by the Executive
Speaker 1: Committee of the Board. That's you know, a smaller group,
Speaker 1: and that's where and it said where the piff has
Speaker 1: more control and more more weights, that's Yasers. So that
Speaker 1: was an acknowledgment something I've believed from the beginning that
Speaker 1: the Yasers are going to decide the future of Live
Speaker 1: and nobody else. And so if I think they're going
Speaker 1: to go, they're going to all systems are go for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. It's partly to keep them in a
Speaker 1: position of strength in negotiating with the tour on this
Speaker 1: framework agreement, because if they just pull the plug right
Speaker 1: now on Live, they've lost all their leverage. But you know,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Dunn was very clear today in his testimony that
Speaker 1: you know, we're in a tough spot if this framework
Speaker 1: agreement goes away because there will be no impediments for
Speaker 1: Live to take more of a our players and they
Speaker 1: have already been elevated in the.
Speaker 3: Eyes of sponsors.
Speaker 1: And you know, that was another thing that when when
Speaker 1: honorbon Lahiri signed with Live, he got dropped by Hero
Speaker 1: Motor Corporation. You know, that's that's the guys who who
Speaker 1: sponsored Tiger's tournament, and it's it's like basically the General
Speaker 1: Motors of India and the guy who runs that, the founder.
Speaker 1: He played in the pro am in London and the
Speaker 1: Live pro am, and so that was like a very
Speaker 1: interesting reapproachment. It's like the walls are down. Now it's
Speaker 1: okay for the corporations to come back to Live. It's
Speaker 1: it's okay to cut the deals.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: It's this game of chicken, right and and what's they're
Speaker 1: they're It's kind of like when you're you're playing golf
Speaker 1: with your best friend. It's like when it's like when
Speaker 1: me and you go out and play a match together, Matt.
Speaker 1: It's like we're we're having fun and it's good natured,
Speaker 1: but we're also trying to like tear each other's heart out,
Speaker 1: and so there's a we're like for four hours like
Speaker 1: frenemies where where that's kind of this situation now between
Speaker 1: the Tour and the Piff as they try to negotiate
Speaker 1: this framework. It's like, Okay, we're on the same team,
Speaker 1: let's do something for the for the good of golf.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't work out, you know, outcome, we're going
Speaker 1: to be competing again, and there's this sort of low
Speaker 1: grade threat beneath all of that, and it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear now that if the framework agreement goes away, that
Speaker 1: lives in a much stronger position than it was. And
Speaker 1: so I think I think that they're going to they're
Speaker 1: going to to maintain that, they're gonna announce a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four schedule and they're just going to kind of
Speaker 1: keep going. Now that could very well be the last
Speaker 1: live season at the end of twenty four if they
Speaker 1: consummate this agreement, If if y'alls are and the Piff
Speaker 1: want to go all in on the tour by then
Speaker 1: Live will fulfilled most of its contracts.
Speaker 3: They will have paid out all the signing bonuses.
Speaker 1: It would be a lot easier for it to fold
Speaker 1: up after twenty four than after twenty three. But that's
Speaker 1: another foundational question that isn't really answered today in the
Speaker 1: in the in the Senate hearings, but in the document
Speaker 1: release there was a little more clarity and just that
Speaker 1: one sentence that kind of acknowledge that you know, yosers
Speaker 1: and the executive community of the board and they're going
Speaker 1: to have more say in this than had previously been
Speaker 1: kind of sold to the public.
Speaker 3: I thought that was really meaningful.
Speaker 4: It just comes back to the tour has been exposed
Speaker 4: for being a tour supposedly you know, you know, a
Speaker 4: player's tour run by a commissioner who's not consulting with
Speaker 4: the player. I mean, this just whole that that's the vulnerability,
Speaker 4: and that's why that's why this is, that's why PIFF
Speaker 4: you know and.
Speaker 5: Live worked because you had you had.
Speaker 4: A splintered system in which they were pretending to care
Speaker 4: about the players, but they didn't really care about the players.
Speaker 4: They they pretended to listen to players, but didn't actually
Speaker 4: listen to players. They were they had their own agenda
Speaker 4: from a business standpoint and a money standpoint. A lot
Speaker 4: of the points in phil has always been been making
Speaker 4: and was actually.
Speaker 5: Right about uh.
Speaker 4: And that's why and and that's why there and now
Speaker 4: there is no there's no good leader or leadership. It's
Speaker 4: a deal to make a deal, and you're dealing with
Speaker 4: the devil. So you know, if you deal with the devil,
Speaker 4: you better. You better like the temperature of hell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: The less than all of this. The bottom line to
Speaker 1: me from this, this, this whole chapter in professional golf
Speaker 1: is that and it's taken right out of the business world.
Speaker 1: In the absence of competition, the products suffers. And we
Speaker 1: saw the pg throw had a monopoly on big time
Speaker 1: golf this century. You know that you could you could
Speaker 1: argue in the ninety the European Tour was almost the
Speaker 1: equal of the PGA Tour. They were winning the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: All their players are winning majors. They you know, especially
Speaker 1: in the late eighties when Sevey was still in his prime,
Speaker 1: they had all these stars, they had all this charisma.
Speaker 1: The money still wasn't quite commensurate, but they were a
Speaker 1: real viable competitor. And then Tiger Woods arrived in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six and changed everything and the balance of power flipped,
Speaker 1: you know, strongly to the PGA Tour and there was
Speaker 1: more money and there's more world ranking points. And the
Speaker 1: last top European guy who stayed home was really called
Speaker 1: Montgomery in the nineties and since then all the top
Speaker 1: Europeans have come over to the PGA Tour. And so
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour has had this monopoly on big time
Speaker 1: golf and it led to very little innovation, right, I
Speaker 1: mean in the telecasts, they're like the telecasts were better
Speaker 1: forty years ago when you watch them. The social media,
Speaker 1: the rise of social media, like we all know the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. Social media is terrible, just all the ways
Speaker 1: they tried to they try to present the game.
Speaker 4: Hold the game, and control the around the game. It's
Speaker 4: like without publishing, publishing you know, the penalties and why
Speaker 4: people are being punted like the.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in the in the absence of competition, the products
Speaker 1: suffered and it made it was an old, tired industry
Speaker 1: that was very ripe for disruption and pre golf Ley
Speaker 1: tried it, they couldn't They couldn't quite launch the Saudis
Speaker 1: came in, took their idea, had the money and and
Speaker 1: they created this This product now is live a perfect
Speaker 1: product obviously not. I mean the marketplace has said that
Speaker 1: there they're struggling still to attract the sizeable audience. But
Speaker 1: at least it was competition that forced the PGA towards
Speaker 1: to innovate and to change, and the elevated events have
Speaker 1: been a huge success. They were all of a sudden
Speaker 1: finding ways to pay their top players what they're worth.
Speaker 3: And so if it's just it's.
Speaker 1: They're going to be teaching this in business classes, you know,
Speaker 1: for for a long time. Like this is the classic
Speaker 1: case study where the PGA tour was just a little
Speaker 1: too content and a little too comfortable, and it made
Speaker 1: them vulnerable and the you know, Hamanahan said, well, there
Speaker 1: was an irrational threat we never could have seen coming.
Speaker 1: But I mean this Oudis were involved in golf since
Speaker 1: since twenty eighteen, and they had a relationship with the
Speaker 1: European Tour, with the Ladies' European Tour, with the LPGA,
Speaker 1: which allowed his top players to play in the Ramco series.
Speaker 3: So you could see them coming. It wasn't that hard
Speaker 3: to see them.
Speaker 1: Coming, and then they were they were working with the PGL.
Speaker 1: You know, they plaged five million dollars for the PGL.
Speaker 1: It's not widely known, but and so like this has
Speaker 1: been an incremental arrival and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they just they pushed their chips in the middle of
Speaker 1: the table and the tour was completely unprepared.
Speaker 3: So and as I saying, it.
Speaker 4: Was because the tour refused to meet and it was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: you don't even want to meet.
Speaker 5: With us, all right, well then screw you.
Speaker 4: Let's let's let's let's let's go crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think that it was sort of crystallized.
Speaker 1: You know, Monahan loomed very large in his absence today,
Speaker 1: and that the two guys who sent tried their best, but.
Speaker 3: They they couldn't.
Speaker 1: Quite fend off the attacks from the centers because they
Speaker 1: didn't really have the answers, like they don't know what's
Speaker 1: in the framework agreement. They didn't have a good reason
Speaker 1: why they didn't involve the players. They couldn't really explain
Speaker 1: why the tour had been made so vulnerable to this threat,
Speaker 1: because that would they would have to therefore point the
Speaker 1: finger back at themselves and their boss j and so
Speaker 1: it kind of laid bare some of these things that
Speaker 1: we've known but and have been discussed but in a
Speaker 1: very graphic public forum. And that was one of my
Speaker 1: takeaways was that even though a lot of these senators
Speaker 1: are sort of like Inspector cluseau Vibes and they've got
Speaker 1: their own agendas and they go off on these weird
Speaker 1: tangents across almost three hours, they did hammer down on
Speaker 1: some of these points that made it very clear that
Speaker 1: the tour just there was an element of mismanagement that
Speaker 1: brought them to this moment and they're still trying to
Speaker 1: fight their way out of it.
Speaker 4: It's so funny what happens in golf when things are
Speaker 4: laid out in a very graphic, truthful forum. No one
Speaker 4: knows it better than you because you've made a living
Speaker 4: doing it, not you know, not afraid to write what
Speaker 4: you've written about Tiger off course, or write what you've
Speaker 4: written about Phil you know.
Speaker 5: Off course or or like.
Speaker 4: But every time it happens, Oh, it's you know, the whole,
Speaker 4: the whole collective, you know, world of golf gasps at
Speaker 4: the idea.
Speaker 5: That there's actual truth coming.
Speaker 4: You know that Tiger's actually not that great of a guy,
Speaker 4: or Phil's not that great of a guy, or you know,
Speaker 4: Arnold's you know transgression like oh, don't well talk about
Speaker 4: you know, scaoid or the idea that maybe there's some
Speaker 4: players who have you know, cheating, Oh got gret don't
Speaker 4: talk about it well.
Speaker 1: And it runs even deeper on social issues. I mean
Speaker 1: the PG of America's Caucasian only clause. I mean, fourteen
Speaker 1: years after Jackie Robinson, they still had a Caucasian only clause.
Speaker 5: Don't do don't, don't, don't talk about that, right.
Speaker 1: And then then thirty years later, Shoal Creek blows up
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh wow, we had no idea there
Speaker 1: was so much racism in the country clubs. Really it's
Speaker 1: and then and then you know, Martha Burke brings to
Speaker 1: the issue of of you know, all these all male.
Speaker 3: Memberships and the Old Boys.
Speaker 1: Network, and and it's like it just golf is always
Speaker 1: behind the times, and it's that that outdated mentality is
Speaker 1: what made the PG Tour.
Speaker 3: Vulnerable for disruption.
Speaker 1: And you know, you if you look at what the
Speaker 1: other sports leagues do on their social media compared to
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, it's like it's night and day and
Speaker 1: all all these things. It's how every Sunday golf. Twitter
Speaker 1: for ten years been bitching about the TV coverage and
Speaker 1: it's still just as bad as it was, Like like golf,
Speaker 1: and we just saw this this last weekend where you
Speaker 1: know you're watching I was watching the playoff over on
Speaker 1: the European Tour.
Speaker 3: They cut out so they can go to the pregame.
Speaker 3: With the US Women's Open, you.
Speaker 1: Gotta scramble for different apps and different streaming services just.
Speaker 3: To watch golf.
Speaker 1: And it happens every week where you can't find the
Speaker 1: golf you want to watch Ricky Fowler winning, you know,
Speaker 1: first time in forever.
Speaker 3: It's a huge story. People had to watch it not.
Speaker 1: Streaming on their phones because they couldn't get on TV.
Speaker 1: And like golf still can't get the little things or
Speaker 1: the big They can't get anything right, but as an
Speaker 1: institution and then even the thing that seems like the
Speaker 1: simplest stuff, And.
Speaker 3: So that was that was you know, this goes back
Speaker 3: to your first question. What was my takeaway?
Speaker 1: One of my takeaways was, man, this this sport is
Speaker 1: just it remains behind the times and it's so reactionary
Speaker 1: and when we're all in our little bubbles. You take
Speaker 1: it out into the big world where people are not
Speaker 1: part of the golf ecosystem, they can see it more clearly.
Speaker 1: And like, you know, Center Blumenthal could see it pretty clearly,
Speaker 1: and some of these other guys, like the their questioning
Speaker 1: was tough and it was on point. And because it
Speaker 1: takes sometimes an outsider to see what gets obscured by
Speaker 1: all of us in our own little silos, and.
Speaker 4: It comes back to me, like again we throw around
Speaker 4: this term golf golf, I think it's important to note
Speaker 4: that what we're talking about is professional golf because the
Speaker 4: golf that we know isn't going anywhere you know, my
Speaker 4: my community and the camaraderie that exists at goat Hill
Speaker 4: Park or or you know, Winter Park nine or Lions
Speaker 4: Muni or the clubs that you're a member of or
Speaker 4: like that's the good news is like we still have that,
Speaker 4: we still have travel, we still have golf destination, we
Speaker 4: still have our Buddies trip, we still have our annual
Speaker 4: like and we have our we have the four Majors
Speaker 4: and whatever. This is when we reference sort of this
Speaker 4: golf and professional golf and the fight for you know,
Speaker 4: a big trophy in a big check.
Speaker 5: I'm just it's like, let me know when.
Speaker 4: You guys figure it out, and let me know when
Speaker 4: you like feel good about something that you're presenting as
Speaker 4: something that we should tune into on a regular basis,
Speaker 4: because it actually makes some sort of sense from a
Speaker 4: start to a finish of a season in which a
Speaker 4: player is player of the year or a.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, get back to me when you
Speaker 4: when you actually decide to like come up with something
Speaker 4: that's worth you know, investing in from my you know,
Speaker 4: away from my family.
Speaker 5: You know, I know the game of golf is worth
Speaker 5: my time, I know, but right now the world of
Speaker 5: professional golf just isn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's valid. I mean you almost have to separate it.
Speaker 1: Like all this these tour wars and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like its own spectator sport. You know, it's become
Speaker 1: more interesting.
Speaker 5: Than the actual sport. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you go if I was running
Speaker 1: around Oak Hill on Sunday and it was pretty electric,
Speaker 1: like if you go to golf tournament and it's especially now,
Speaker 1: I mean it's you'll catch a few strays from the crowd.
Speaker 1: But it's still such a great theater.
Speaker 3: You know, this this.
Speaker 1: Mind body battle that the top players are all alone
Speaker 1: out there between the ropes, like the inherent tension and
Speaker 1: greatness of tournament golf. If you can separate these things,
Speaker 1: it's still really fun to be part of. But for
Speaker 1: two years now, all the other stuff has overwhelmed the
Speaker 1: conversation and that's going to be the rest of this year,
Speaker 1: and it's going to continue into you know, twenty four,
Speaker 1: no matter what happens. So I look at it as
Speaker 1: a totally different sport and it's I mean, it's fun
Speaker 1: to follow in its own right. You know, the golf
Speaker 1: is golf. I hate they're playing in Scotland this week.
Speaker 1: It's always fun to get up early and watch that telecast.
Speaker 1: We got the Open Championship next week. Someone's gonna become
Speaker 1: the champion golf for the year. In spite of all
Speaker 1: of this. So I hear what you're saying, Maddie. I
Speaker 1: think on some level, and this is modern life, right
Speaker 1: like you have to you have to be able to
Speaker 1: just sort of compartmentalize your thinking because if you go
Speaker 1: out and you want to eat a steak, you can
Speaker 1: feel really guilty about how much water it took to,
Speaker 1: you know, to feed that cow, and what's happening to
Speaker 1: the rainforest for they can they can graze cattle and
Speaker 1: is it even humane? Sometimes you just want a steak.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So like you can overthink everything, and it's I'm not
Speaker 1: taking away the validity of the other arguments, and I'm
Speaker 1: no one more than me has been tuned into all
Speaker 1: the intrigue and the drama around professional golf the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. It's fascinating in its own way. But
Speaker 1: you know, Thursday of next week when they're playing the
Speaker 1: first round of the Open Championship, Like, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuffill melt away and we can still
Speaker 1: enjoy the golf. But it's harder and harder. And I
Speaker 1: think that's everything in life, I mean, as a consumer,
Speaker 1: as a as a citizen, Like it's it's problematic we
Speaker 1: know too much and we're exposed to too much, and
Speaker 1: and you never meet your heroes, Like that's never been
Speaker 1: more true. Like it's all complex and and this this
Speaker 1: was another day to reflect on that.
Speaker 4: Well, we gotta we got to wrap this up because
Speaker 4: you've got to do additional additional amendments to this, this
Speaker 4: ongoing book that you're still that you're still writing. I
Speaker 4: I I'm I'm marvel at and I know probably only
Speaker 4: only your family knows more, uh more than I do
Speaker 4: in terms of how hard you're you're trying to uh
Speaker 4: get this as current as possibly for it. Send, send, send,
Speaker 4: So so keep going on. Almost feel like it's almost
Speaker 4: become two books.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: It's the one prior.
Speaker 4: To yeah, two weeks ago or three weeks ago, and
Speaker 4: then there's there's this whole other Like I feel like
Speaker 4: you're going to be writing this is just one ongoing
Speaker 4: giant novel.
Speaker 3: God help me.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's yeah, it's like it's like writing
Speaker 1: a bucking bronco. I mean this whole this whole process has.
Speaker 5: Been haucking bronco.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, anytime you write a book, the publishers a
Speaker 1: lawyer that vets it usually is pretty benign. I was
Speaker 1: on the phone this morning with Simon Chuse or lawyer,
Speaker 1: for two hours, and I said, I said, you're not
Speaker 1: done yet. Man, like this this I'm going to refile
Speaker 1: the last chapter again and probably one more time, and
Speaker 1: so it's still coming.
Speaker 3: But it's cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's going to be a cliffinger, and
Speaker 1: none of us know how this story is going to end,
Speaker 1: and it's it's not going to get it's not going
Speaker 1: to get adjudicated for a while. But the book is
Speaker 1: going to be up to the moment current as as
Speaker 1: much as you can do if something has to be
Speaker 1: into it and distributed like that, like Simon Schuster is
Speaker 1: letting me take this down to the wire. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a publishing schedule that is this aggressive, and so
Speaker 1: I'm appreciative of that and certainly everything that's happened today
Speaker 1: in the Senate, and I'll keep I'll spend the rest
Speaker 1: of this week reporting it, and I'll keep updating it
Speaker 1: and going.
Speaker 3: Back in and adding things, and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been a hell of a challenge. I
Speaker 1: thought I was done. That's not nearly the case. But
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying the process. But at some point it's going
Speaker 1: to have to end.
Speaker 3: Maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways, you know, the Mickelson book
Speaker 1: and all the revelations of that helped kick off.
Speaker 3: This whole story.
Speaker 1: This is the definitive account of everything that people don't
Speaker 1: know about how we got to this moment. I suppose
Speaker 1: there could be a third part into trilogy, but I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't want to think about that right now.
Speaker 1: Let's end this podcast and I'll go take a nap
Speaker 1: and then i'll come I'll come back with an answer
Speaker 1: on the next one.
Speaker 4: But thanks again for your thoughts and commentary. And I
Speaker 4: know a lot like others looking to you to actually
Speaker 4: bring some sense of of you know, middle ground information,
Speaker 4: you know, bipartisan reporting and a better understanding and levity
Speaker 4: to sort of you know, what's just transpired and what
Speaker 4: might transpire in the future. I mean, so thanks for
Speaker 4: all this and and yeah, pleasure, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 4: be your keyboard.
Speaker 3: It's tickless.
Speaker 1: I just use my fingertips so lightly. But yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's fun to talk about this stuff. I
Speaker 1: appreciate what you said, like I do enjoy the role
Speaker 1: of trying to help people make sense of all this
Speaker 1: because it's a lot to synthesize, and there's there's new
Speaker 1: stuff every day. So anyway, Yeah, it's always a good conversation.
Speaker 1: Definitely not the last one, so we will we will
Speaker 1: end this podcast for now. The people at home, Thanks
Speaker 1: for sticking with US. More fire drills on the way.
Speaker 1: Michael Bamberger will be over at the Open Championship for
Speaker 1: US next week and we'll be podcasting with him naturally.
Speaker 1: Anytime there's a big news break, we'll be back back
Speaker 1: at this, probably Matt and I and Sundry others. So
Speaker 1: for mat Chanella, this is Alan Shipnik. That was a
Speaker 1: fire droll podcast. Thanks for listening, and this is the end.
Speaker 3: I'm bed big again.
Speaker 2: I played the wind, made a fortune when my ship
Speaker 2: came man.
Speaker 5: I ran the table, never thought I could fall down.
Speaker 2: The winter time hit made lack a canon the ball,
Speaker 2: and now I can't shake this losing streak. Every road
Speaker 2: I take is a dead end street. I got thoughts
Speaker 2: in my head, can't get him. Trying not to think
Speaker 2: what I'm thinking about, not going thoughts in my head,
Speaker 2: I can't get him. Now, try and not think what
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about. H