Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 2: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Friday Frida Egg brid Egg, fridagg.
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today we are going
Speaker 1: to break down the President's Cup. We are going to
Speaker 1: talk about that for a little bit, but then we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about match play and professional golf. And
Speaker 1: I am joined by the steamed Shane Bacon. Shane's the
Speaker 1: host of the Getta Grip podcast. It's a Friday eg
Speaker 1: golf podcast that you can hear. He just completed a
Speaker 1: season with Andrew Putnam. Sounds like we've got another season
Speaker 1: in the works. I'm pretty excited about that, as well
Speaker 1: as the Proving Grounds Podcast, a ping podcast, and you
Speaker 1: can hear him doing his announcing for the Corn Ferry
Speaker 1: Finals this weekend. So big thanks to Shane for joining
Speaker 1: us to talk about the President's Cup, which of course
Speaker 1: was won by the Americans. I talk about the state
Speaker 1: of that and maybe more ways to get match play
Speaker 1: and team match play in pro golf, which I think
Speaker 1: is a necessity after this weekend. Before we get to Shane,
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Speaker 1: how would you grade the President's Cup This year?
Speaker 2: I found myself watching so andy. I gotta admit one
Speaker 2: thing I always forget, Thursday exists on the President's Cup. Like,
Speaker 2: woke up Thursday morning and you go, oh, team golf,
Speaker 2: this is kind of exciting. So I watched a decent
Speaker 2: amount Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I watched almost none of it
Speaker 2: on Sunday because obviously I knew what was going to happen,
Speaker 2: and I knew the USA was gonna win, plus football
Speaker 2: was on and it started at noon, I would say
Speaker 2: I'd give it a I'd give it a CNUS is
Speaker 2: pretty much. I don't think there's any way I'll ever
Speaker 2: give the President's Cup higher than a C in its
Speaker 2: current iteration and current format. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 2: an event that you and I both run businesses. We've
Speaker 2: run our own business for a while. If we never
Speaker 2: adapted or changed when things called for that, we, in theory,
Speaker 2: would as people to do this for a living go
Speaker 2: out of business. And the fact that this event exists
Speaker 2: and never evolves and changes is I'll say this like,
Speaker 2: you get older and you get more frustrated by stuff.
Speaker 2: PJ had to understand this. But as you age, the
Speaker 2: stuff that annoys you turns to anger and by you know,
Speaker 2: by Saturday afternoon and you see the matches flip and
Speaker 2: inevitable ability happens because the Americans are better. I just
Speaker 2: find myself getting frustrated by this event because I do
Speaker 2: think this event could be awesome, and so for me
Speaker 2: it's it's low c's. You know, no matter how exciting
Speaker 2: the moments were in the middle of the matches.
Speaker 1: I think I give it like a bus And I
Speaker 1: say that because in terms of PGA Tour owned and
Speaker 1: run golf tournaments, I think it's about as compelling as
Speaker 1: they have. Like I reserve the a's for the majors
Speaker 1: for the most part, and then some other events like
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup, the women's majors are are to
Speaker 1: me more compelling. But in terms of you know, run
Speaker 1: to the mill, PGA Tour event or President's Cup, I
Speaker 1: do think it's like way better. I have to say,
Speaker 1: I don't think I like ever loved the format, but
Speaker 1: I do like the format more and more every time
Speaker 1: we have President's Cup. I love the one session Thursday
Speaker 1: and Friday. I think it's just like a really nice
Speaker 1: amount of golf. It's like, okay here, and I think,
Speaker 1: like I do think this is one thing that Live
Speaker 1: has done well, is like here's your five hour commitment,
Speaker 1: and for the foursomes, it's like a three and a
Speaker 1: half four hour commitment. Which is even better, is like hey,
Speaker 1: there's a definitive start and stop time to this versus
Speaker 1: most golf tournaments they just like go forever, you know.
Speaker 1: So I do really like that element of the President's Cup.
Speaker 1: But I came away from the weekend I watched a
Speaker 1: way too, way too much President's Cup. I found myself
Speaker 1: locked in, And I think a lot of it was
Speaker 1: because team match play and just match play in general
Speaker 1: is so vastly superior in terms of a television product
Speaker 1: to seventy two holes of individual stroke play. And there's
Speaker 1: so many reasons why. And it even goes down to
Speaker 1: like the mentality of players, Like when you're playing seventy
Speaker 1: two holes the stroke play, your sole focus really is
Speaker 1: avoiding mistakes and running into birdies. Like that's like your strategy,
Speaker 1: and that's every the strategy that everybody is employing. In
Speaker 1: match play, you see aggression, aggressions, rewarded, aggressions penalized. If
Speaker 1: you're up big, you could start to play conservative and
Speaker 1: the other players starts to play aggressive. You see different styles,
Speaker 1: you see there's interpersonal battles between the players. It is
Speaker 1: just a better format for golf. It breeds more storylines,
Speaker 1: it breeds more action, it leads to more heroic shots.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing that I came away from
Speaker 1: this week with was God, Like, how come we only
Speaker 1: get team match play or match play in general on
Speaker 1: the women's side, and professional golf we get the match
Speaker 1: play tournament and the Solheim Cup every two years.
Speaker 2: On the men's side, I mean the answers TV right.
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that that we are so scared
Speaker 2: of what was that first match play mcaren in Sutherland?
Speaker 2: Was that the first one they had? I mean, the
Speaker 2: fear of this has taken away everything you just said
Speaker 2: about a format that everybody plays. Every golfer plays match
Speaker 2: play almost exclusively when they play money games against their buddies.
Speaker 2: Every you know, club championship for the most part across
Speaker 2: the country ends in match play. I mean stroke playing
Speaker 2: and match play is the best way to do it.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, I think everything you said is spot
Speaker 2: on about match play. It makes people dislike other people
Speaker 2: in a sport, which is unique. Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim,
Speaker 2: who are friends, are going at each other. That doesn't
Speaker 2: happen in stroke play golf at all, because it doesn't matter. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is what's so fun. I mean,
Speaker 2: who is it? Was it Sam Burns and said after
Speaker 2: Friday I wanted to put a helmet on and take
Speaker 2: my shirt off. I mean, this is never gonna happen
Speaker 2: in stroke play. And you know, you set it off
Speaker 2: the bat about the PGA Tour entities, if you will,
Speaker 2: two of their biggest entities is one event that won't
Speaker 2: change that has match play, and that's the President's Cup.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like the Patriots bills, you know,
Speaker 2: during the Brady era, right where it's like, it's not rivalry, man,
Speaker 2: This is like Yankees Red Sox before four. Not a rivalry.
Speaker 2: You can say it's a rivalry all you want, it's not.
Speaker 2: I mean, one team is going to beat the other
Speaker 2: team every single time they roll out. And then the
Speaker 2: PJ Tour owns this other entity that is extremely uninteresting
Speaker 2: in the FedEx Cup finale, the Tour Championship, but could
Speaker 2: be one of the best events in golf if you
Speaker 2: weren't so scared of match plays. So it's so interesting
Speaker 2: that you have literally on each side of these arguments,
Speaker 2: you have a format that tends to lend itself to
Speaker 2: uninteresting results, and that's what we see with the staggered
Speaker 2: start of the Tour Championship. And then you have this
Speaker 2: one event that has a whole bunch of match play.
Speaker 2: But we haven't evolved in terms of the way the
Speaker 2: event is put on. So so the fact that seven
Speaker 2: through twelve on the international side is always going to
Speaker 2: be the massive underdog to seven and twelve on the
Speaker 2: American side lends itself to blowouts that we see almost
Speaker 2: every year at the President's Cup. And even when it's interesting,
Speaker 2: it's really not because you know, when singles roles around,
Speaker 2: the Americans are going to inevitably win.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I think like at its core, the
Speaker 1: issue with the President's Cup is that the competition is
Speaker 1: inherently flawed. And I do think like I think we're
Speaker 1: seeing it with with global basketball, Like if you played
Speaker 1: the USA versus the world twenty years ago in terms
Speaker 1: of basketball, the USA would have killed the world.
Speaker 2: They did. I think, yeah, they did. I think who
Speaker 2: everybody out by forty?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think now if you put a World All
Speaker 1: Stars team against the American All Stars team, they might win.
Speaker 1: They might be the favorite, yep. And I think like
Speaker 1: this is the thing, like golf is becoming more of
Speaker 1: a global game, but when if you don't have Europe,
Speaker 1: like that's like they have the best players other than
Speaker 1: the USA. And I think like Australia has had a
Speaker 1: lot of great players, but they're modern great players playing
Speaker 1: on live and not unavailable at MPGA Tour event. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the Americans are missing a couple of players
Speaker 1: that would be really good on their side because of live.
Speaker 1: So it kind of evens out in that sense. But
Speaker 1: in terms of like one of the biggest issues, the
Speaker 1: biggest issue of the event is that the talent is very,
Speaker 1: very lopsided. The American team is just better. I don't
Speaker 1: really know how you address it. The event is still
Speaker 1: interesting because it's a team matchplay event, Like, it's still interesting.
Speaker 1: The talent disparity is tough and it's going to make
Speaker 1: the event overall limited because of that. But I think, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you walk away from what happened
Speaker 1: on Friday and Saturday and say, like, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: have match play on the PGA Tour in two years.
Speaker 2: This is like the best some of the best viewing
Speaker 2: in the last since yeah, the Open, I mean since
Speaker 2: the Solheim Cup. I mean the Solime Cup, of course,
Speaker 2: is also a match play event. But you know it's
Speaker 2: you dig in Andy. I had one of the bigger
Speaker 2: NFL broadcasters in the sport text me Sunday morning and
Speaker 2: say should I be interested in the President's Cup today?
Speaker 2: And you know, it's hard to sell Sunday because again,
Speaker 2: and I've said this on Twitter, I think I wrote
Speaker 2: it back in twenty twenty one. I think the singles
Speaker 2: finishing these events is the least interesting part of President's
Speaker 2: Cups and Ryder Cups. Now, Ryder Cup is obviously more
Speaker 2: interesting because the talent level is a little bit more equal,
Speaker 2: and typically Sunday singles, you know, kind of figure out
Speaker 2: who wins if it's not an enormous blowout, but when
Speaker 2: it's a big lead, there's just no chance the internationals
Speaker 2: are ever going to come back in Sunday singles. I
Speaker 2: wish they'd roll out Sunday singles maybe on Friday or
Speaker 2: split it up.
Speaker 1: Like what is the issue then? Is like what if
Speaker 1: they're down eight points going in?
Speaker 2: But could you make Sunday Saturday? Andy? Could you go
Speaker 2: five to five on Sunday? So you do? Or even four? Four?
Speaker 2: You do? You know?
Speaker 1: Four?
Speaker 2: I mean, I really dislike four ball in this format.
Speaker 2: I just don't think best ball is that interesting, but
Speaker 2: I think ending an all shot would be extremely interesting.
Speaker 2: So maybe, but you you.
Speaker 1: Basically just so what if you just got rid of golf.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think getting rid of singles would be
Speaker 2: like you and I've thrown around a million ideas about
Speaker 2: how to change the President's Cup. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the most popular one is obviously go in
Speaker 2: six male, six female players, and I think that would
Speaker 2: make it one of the great sporting events in the world,
Speaker 2: not just one of the great golf events. I was
Speaker 2: talking to my wife about this this weekend, who is
Speaker 2: not a golfer, not a golf fan, and I said,
Speaker 2: there's not really an event that exists like this where
Speaker 2: you could throw men and women on the same team
Speaker 2: and have them play and have my rule would be
Speaker 2: no restrictions, like you could have two men like two women,
Speaker 2: one man one woman versus two men or two women
Speaker 2: or whatever the case may be. Right, if you make
Speaker 2: the teas the correct distance, which they would do, it's golf,
Speaker 2: right at the end of the day, and you go
Speaker 2: out there and play. That's been a popular one. It
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it's gonna happen anytime soon, right.
Speaker 1: But definitely not. I think like I like buy and
Speaker 1: I think we'll get into this. Like my big takeaway,
Speaker 1: we need more matchplay events and I think we me
Speaker 1: and you both came up with some ideas for matchplay events.
Speaker 1: To me, that's just like a new event, right, Like
Speaker 1: I see everybody saying, oh, this event needs to happen,
Speaker 1: Like okay, yeah it could. It should happen, and somebody
Speaker 1: should make it the next billion dollar golf property. Like
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour desperately wants to buy the right. This
Speaker 1: is like the other thing that blows my mind. The
Speaker 1: PGA Tour desperately wants to buy the Ryder Cup, which
Speaker 1: is a team matchplay event, but they want nothing to
Speaker 1: do with match play anywhere else, Like.
Speaker 2: Well, because but they want to buy they about the
Speaker 2: shiny object, you know that. I mean, it's because it's
Speaker 2: because it's so good and it's so popular, and it's
Speaker 2: been so competitive and it's so interesting and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of golfers either one or two in terms of
Speaker 2: their favorite events. I don't think they care about the
Speaker 2: format because of its popularity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is what they're missing, Like, let's look
Speaker 1: at why it's so popular and how can we like
Speaker 1: we're the PGA Tour, how can we make more of those?
Speaker 1: Like that's what what boggles me my mind. Is like
Speaker 1: like this is just it's just so evidently clear what
Speaker 1: fans want. Like even the match which is I mean
Speaker 1: you've been a part of the broadcast, Like that's a
Speaker 1: hard thing to put on live TV. There's two people
Speaker 1: or four people on a golf course for like six hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have so much airtime to fill. But the
Speaker 1: ratings are huge. They're massive because it's match play. It's
Speaker 1: easy to understand it's one person versus the other. It's
Speaker 1: it's not like, well, this guy's through twelve, he's got
Speaker 1: a couple easy holes. Like it's really easy to follow.
Speaker 1: It's it's easy to understand when you talk to somebody
Speaker 1: about like what's going on. Is this person is playing
Speaker 1: this person?
Speaker 2: You can explain the rules in like a minute, right
Speaker 2: versus stroke player. God forbid trying to explain the Tour
Speaker 2: Championship to somebody. But you know, like even on YouTube
Speaker 2: golf Andy, which is obviously blown up as of late,
Speaker 2: Like if Bob does Sports has a video and it's
Speaker 2: stroke play, I'm not gonna watch it most of the time.
Speaker 2: But if it's a match play YouTube golf video, I
Speaker 2: will dive in. Because again, the ruling monoemano to two
Speaker 2: versus two, whatever the case may be, it is so
Speaker 2: much more interesting to watch in terms of the viewership.
Speaker 2: And but you know, the one thing I pushed back
Speaker 2: on the idea, and again, I think we've hammered this
Speaker 2: male female President's Cup thing for long enough and obviously
Speaker 2: it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna change. And I
Speaker 2: was listening to the No Lane Up Live show last night,
Speaker 2: Cody said he's talked to people the LPGA and that's
Speaker 2: every minute conversation about it, which is wild to hear.
Speaker 2: But the problem with introducing a new team event is
Speaker 2: for these American players, now that's three, you know, and
Speaker 2: for Scottie and Colin and Max and these players that
Speaker 2: are on these teams every single year, you are going
Speaker 2: to exhaust them in terms of not just their ability
Speaker 2: to play well, but just how committed they are to
Speaker 2: the interest. Like I promise you, the Ryder Cup was
Speaker 2: a big conversation this week in the American team room,
Speaker 2: right even though it was a President's Cup, like it
Speaker 2: was on the broadcast with mcinley, He's talking a lot
Speaker 2: about the Ryder Cup because that's the experience he's had
Speaker 2: now you introduce something new. So I guess the reason
Speaker 2: I feel like this is the best place to sneak
Speaker 2: in in terms of a team matchplay event for the
Speaker 2: LPGAPGA Tour crossover is because it replaces something that needs
Speaker 2: to be replaced and it still keeps interest on both
Speaker 2: sides potentially, and it makes the international team stronger. But
Speaker 2: we've hammered all that home, like that's been something we've
Speaker 2: talked about online for forever, and I'd love to have
Speaker 2: a new team event where that would be the case.
Speaker 2: But again, now you've got to ask these American players
Speaker 2: to now play a third event, which is a hard
Speaker 2: sell to a lot of these players, Like they I
Speaker 2: don't know if they'd want to do that if they're not, sadly, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: if they're not getting paid for it.
Speaker 1: I will say, this is the time for this conversation
Speaker 1: to be happening while the tour is seemingly a little
Speaker 1: bit in flux and they are looking at how they're
Speaker 1: going to restructure.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: I also, like, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are like, why why do these guys need to
Speaker 1: get paid?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: You know, I have some sympathy, like if I asked you,
Speaker 1: Shane to go do like a talk somewhere across the country,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, it's not paid, like
Speaker 1: but you know, go do their buddy, so do it.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, yeah, that's my job. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: So like to me, like these events can be paid.
Speaker 1: There's lots like, let's not be naive. The reason that
Speaker 1: that there has never been a conversation with the LPGA
Speaker 1: about a split with the President's Cup is because they
Speaker 1: don't want to share the money that they make, you know,
Speaker 1: the which runs a bomber.
Speaker 2: That's so stupid, like like spread the wealth, man. I mean,
Speaker 2: think about what Scotty just won this year. Now I
Speaker 2: know it was an outlier season, but you know, like
Speaker 2: this is the sport. You if you want to preach,
Speaker 2: grow the game. If you want to preach let's elevate
Speaker 2: the sport across all platforms, then let's truly elevate the
Speaker 2: sport across all platforms.
Speaker 1: So well, my other point here, the tour doesn't want
Speaker 1: to split it with the LPGA, but the President's Cup
Speaker 1: makes enough money where they could pay the players a
Speaker 1: nominal fee to show up that it's not a waste
Speaker 1: of time, Like the.
Speaker 2: All Star weekend? Does that right, Andy, don't they don't?
Speaker 2: They pay if you man, you may and then like you,
Speaker 2: you progress through the playoffs and you get bonuses. Now granted,
Speaker 2: like making the NFL playoffs is what all the players
Speaker 2: want to do, but every step of the way, you're
Speaker 2: getting more money. I mean, this makes sense. It's your
Speaker 2: job to your point on the on the whole speaking analogy.
Speaker 1: And and I think like the the thing is, like
Speaker 1: you could build in more team events into the calendar.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you. I think, like getting
Speaker 1: to the core of what makes match play so such
Speaker 1: a great format is like you've played a lot of
Speaker 1: amateur match play. I used to a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll be playing in the spring. We will play, Yeah,
Speaker 1: will be. But like I think, like the core of
Speaker 1: why match play really works centers around like just the
Speaker 1: experience and the mentality of the player in a match.
Speaker 1: Like winning a hole in a match is a consequent
Speaker 1: Like it's a consequential feat Like you have to work hard,
Speaker 1: and I like, I mean, like I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but like there are times you're playing mono imano match
Speaker 1: play at a high level match I'm on a green,
Speaker 1: I'm twenty five feet away, the player I'm playing is
Speaker 1: definitely gonna make a bogie, and I still feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety for sure. For sure, like you
Speaker 1: need to, like it's hard to win holes. It is
Speaker 1: like a grind to win holes if they all feel
Speaker 1: like these small victories way more so than just like
Speaker 1: making a routine par in stroke play, where like stroke play,
Speaker 1: you're just kind of like you've got Like I feel
Speaker 1: like the way stroke play works a little bit is
Speaker 1: you have this anxiety early, you get into a rhythm
Speaker 1: and you have a couple moments of bother but for
Speaker 1: the most part, you're just kind of you kind of
Speaker 1: just cruise along and then you finish your round and
Speaker 1: you might have a little bit of anxiety at the
Speaker 1: end of the round trying to just get the get
Speaker 1: a good round done, get it finished, a good round,
Speaker 1: or salvage something that's a little off. Meanwhile, when you're
Speaker 1: playing a match, it is like it's just mentally exhausting,
Speaker 1: Like you you just feel this anxiety, that anxiety you
Speaker 1: usually reserved for like the start of the round. For
Speaker 1: me personally, you feel that like throughout the round and.
Speaker 2: It for I would say this too. I think something
Speaker 2: that I find so cool about match play versus strokeplay
Speaker 2: is in match play, your opponent forces you to make
Speaker 2: decisions versus you and making decision yourself. You know, somebody
Speaker 2: stuffs one like yesterday, what was it? Was it? Sam
Speaker 2: Burns and Tom Kim on seventeen. It's like, hey, it's
Speaker 2: a tuck flag. You're playing stroke play. You're and especially
Speaker 2: these professional golfers that are so good at hitting their marks,
Speaker 2: it's like, twelve feet left, I'm not gonna take this
Speaker 2: flag on. I can make a twelve foot or whatever. Right,
Speaker 2: your opponent hits it three feet everything changes. Everything you're
Speaker 2: doing changes. If you're on a short part four that
Speaker 2: you can drive and your opponent goes first and hits
Speaker 2: it on the green, there's no laying up and what
Speaker 2: you're gonna do. You've got to now take that green on,
Speaker 2: even if you don't love the golf shot. That is
Speaker 2: not the case of in stroke play. I mean you
Speaker 2: go back to the Zach Johnson Masters Win right, Zach
Speaker 2: Johnson sticking to a game plan of never taken on
Speaker 2: those par fives in two. If it was a match
Speaker 2: play situation there and you're playing Bubba Watson and you're
Speaker 2: Zach Johnson, You're inevitably gonna have to take on thirteen
Speaker 2: and fifteen with a wood or a long iron because
Speaker 2: he's gonna be up there close and being able to
Speaker 2: go for the green and two. It's just to your
Speaker 2: point about every hole mattering. Every hole forces the decision
Speaker 2: either for you to play smart. Oh man, this guy
Speaker 2: hitting the water right now, I'm gonna you know, now
Speaker 2: I can play this thing easy, you know, or this
Speaker 2: guy just stuffed it to five feet par does nothing
Speaker 2: for me. Here par's a loser. I might as well
Speaker 2: make triple, you know.
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing is, like there are just
Speaker 1: the monumental reversals too, where somebody hits in the water
Speaker 1: and then they hit a miraculous nets yes, and they
Speaker 1: can flip the hole. Like there's just like there's so
Speaker 1: much more entertainment value throughout the proper product. And I understand, like,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the pitfalls of it, right, Why does
Speaker 1: this not happen? It can be flukier, Like what don't
Speaker 1: people like about match play? Match play can be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a flukeier outcome, Like there can be
Speaker 1: more upsets because you know it's just eighteen holes. You know,
Speaker 1: over seventy two, it's way more likely that the best
Speaker 1: players end up on top, you know, over an eighteen
Speaker 1: hole match where high scores aren't really penalized, where they're
Speaker 1: kind of thrown out, you just lose one hole, you
Speaker 1: can have a little bit flukier results.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other big issue is always going to center around
Speaker 1: that final day telecast where you have just a eighteen
Speaker 1: hole final or thirty six hole final with potentially two players.
Speaker 1: You see it in the US AM and it's just
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of dead time, Like what do
Speaker 1: you do as a broadcaster? I imagine that's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like so I always equate match play,
Speaker 2: especially when I was doing the USA AM, Ary Andy,
Speaker 2: and I think you'll appreciate this comp To me, the
Speaker 2: comp is March Madness. Okay, because if you're a March
Speaker 2: Madness fan, which I'm assuming most sports fans are, right,
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people would probably rank that
Speaker 2: first weekend is one of their top three favorite weekends
Speaker 2: in all of sports. Match play is March Madness. Where
Speaker 2: I think we get and all the stuff you laid
Speaker 2: out is totally accurate Andy in terms of the stuff
Speaker 2: that's fearful about what match play presents, in terms of
Speaker 2: a TV product or something to sell product or all
Speaker 2: those things. Everything you said is right on. And if
Speaker 2: you're an executive at a network and you're looking at
Speaker 2: match play, you go Everything Andy said is spot on,
Speaker 2: and I agree with it. I think something I don't
Speaker 2: understand is March madness. I guarantee you ratings numbers, whatever
Speaker 2: the case may be, are much higher collectively on Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 2: Sunday of that first weekend than they are when you
Speaker 2: get to the championship game because a lot of fans
Speaker 2: brackets busted. They don't care who the teams are in
Speaker 2: the final matchup. They have got of got burned out
Speaker 2: by watching a ton of basketball over two weeks. That's that,
Speaker 2: it's on Monday night, Masters week, all those things right.
Speaker 2: I don't get why golf doesn't look at match play
Speaker 2: the way a CBS and TNT or the NCAA looks
Speaker 2: at March Madness and says, while the final match can
Speaker 2: be a bit of a bummer at times, it might
Speaker 2: be great. You might have every now and again. Get
Speaker 2: John Ron versus Rory or John Ron versus s finish
Speaker 2: up epic dul awesome, right, Like, that's the dream situation.
Speaker 2: But a lot of the time you're not going to
Speaker 2: get that, especially in golf. But I don't understand why
Speaker 2: we don't look at a Wednesday, Thursday Friday of the
Speaker 2: Dell match play from back of the day and say,
Speaker 2: maybe Sunday is not going to be as interesting, but
Speaker 2: these first three days are going to be way better golf,
Speaker 2: way more interesting, way easier to sell than a Thursday
Speaker 2: Friday of a stroke play golf tournament. I think if
Speaker 2: we flip the mentality of the way we look at
Speaker 2: match play and say the money we make is on
Speaker 2: the front end at the back end, I think then
Speaker 2: people might open their eyes to the success of this.
Speaker 2: To your point on doing the match the US Amateur
Speaker 2: back in the day, those first two or three days
Speaker 2: most fun golf broadcast end of the year. Now you
Speaker 2: kind of inch closer to the last four matches than
Speaker 2: then the final two. In the championship match, it can
Speaker 2: be a bummer. I mean, I remember Curtis Luck and
Speaker 2: Dalky and Luck was up a ton after the first
Speaker 2: eighteen holes, and you go to lunch and you have
Speaker 2: to figure out ways to fill that's on the broadcast
Speaker 2: team and the research team to get enough information and
Speaker 2: find interviews with people to where when they're walking between
Speaker 2: shots you can relay information to the viewer that might
Speaker 2: keep them around for a little bit. But I don't
Speaker 2: get why Sunday scares everybody away from match play when
Speaker 2: Wednesday of Dell, back of the day when it was
Speaker 2: single elimination, in my opinion, was one of the great
Speaker 2: days in golf. Sixty four are the best golfers of
Speaker 2: the world. They're facing off, they're playing, there's gonna be upsets,
Speaker 2: guys are gonna go extra holes. You get that weird
Speaker 2: thing on the first t where some guys are going
Speaker 2: to the nineteenth hole and some guys are starting their
Speaker 2: matches and they were kind of like shuffling in between it.
Speaker 2: I always found that so compelling, and just because it's
Speaker 2: on a Wednesday, it seemed like it was really, really
Speaker 2: say scary for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with what you're saying, and
Speaker 1: I think like we're going to get into solutions. But
Speaker 1: like one of the things, if it's an individual match
Speaker 1: play or like say it's a two person team, that
Speaker 1: gets to a final, especially when we're talking about these
Speaker 1: products that are television products. There's no reason why you
Speaker 1: can't financially incentivize a third place match, a fifth place match,
Speaker 1: and a seventh place match so that you have more
Speaker 1: than two groups on the golf course. Also, when you
Speaker 1: do that, you're raising the potential to have stars playing
Speaker 1: all the way to Sunday. So there's no reason why
Speaker 1: you can't have both if you just are a little
Speaker 1: bit more unique and an original in the way you're
Speaker 1: thinking about formatting the tournament, Like that's the thing that
Speaker 1: kills me to tie a bo. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk like do a huge President's Cup recap? Is there
Speaker 1: any player I wanted to talk more about, like ideas
Speaker 1: for mash play tournaments in pro golf. Is there a
Speaker 1: player or a couple players that you leave this President's
Speaker 1: Cup thinking differently about?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't think there's anybody that
Speaker 2: changed my mind either way. I mean I liked what
Speaker 2: I saw to Seewoo Kim. I mean I liked the
Speaker 2: way he made putts and rolled it and chipped in
Speaker 2: and was like excitable on the golf course. But this
Speaker 2: event doesn't change my mentality on anything, it's just inevitable.
Speaker 2: You look at these teams, you know, when that thing
Speaker 2: switch flipped on Saturday night and you're looking at the
Speaker 2: score on Sunday, and then you get people comping, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty twelve and nineteen ninety nine and all those things.
Speaker 1: Ian Pulter's out walking through that door.
Speaker 2: Andy after the Rose, I pulled this up. Okay, so
Speaker 2: ninety nine right the flip flip it in Boston. The
Speaker 2: American team world ranking one, two, four, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 2: sixteen outside of the two captains picks, so they have
Speaker 2: what what is that is that ten of the top
Speaker 2: sixteen players in the world, including one two four. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's crazy. Twenty twelve international team, Like, this team was
Speaker 2: absolutely stacked. Rory, Justin Rose, McDowell, Molinari, Loke, Donald Lee Westwood,
Speaker 2: Sergio Martin Kaimer Cole starts like, that's not what this
Speaker 2: international team is. Unfortunately, and there lies the biggest issue
Speaker 2: with this particular event is this, they just can't beat
Speaker 2: that team on the American side, unless unless the Americans
Speaker 2: just like played with half their set or something. The
Speaker 2: game's over.
Speaker 1: I saw this I think it was a justin ray
Speaker 1: stat where only one time in the last sum it
Speaker 1: was something like sixty six individual matches, and I think
Speaker 1: that now at this point is up to you know,
Speaker 1: eighty probably right, right, So one time, one time in
Speaker 1: the last eighty matches, once once has an in the
Speaker 1: international side had the OWGR advantage, like where their player
Speaker 1: or group of players are ranked higher than the Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's mind boggling. That's like to put it
Speaker 1: in context, and I like, I know, cross sport references
Speaker 1: don't work all the time. That'd be like a football
Speaker 1: team saying, over the course of the last you know,
Speaker 1: eight years, we play this team every year, and one
Speaker 1: time we've had a player that plays a position that's
Speaker 1: better than the other team's positional player, right like once once,
Speaker 1: one time at a single position, a single match.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's just again, I mean, they.
Speaker 1: Played twelve individual matches yes yesterday, and none of them
Speaker 1: like you know, and this is like the problem is
Speaker 1: like the Americans, It's like, okay, we're gonna put the internationals.
Speaker 1: I think had the first pick they put out Jason Day.
Speaker 1: They're gonna put out one of their star star players
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we'll put Xander out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll put the guy that's the best player in
Speaker 2: the whole in the whole thing, like you you want
Speaker 2: that guy to play our cool Well, have Xander cum
Speaker 2: stomp you. And also and.
Speaker 1: Then and then just like it's like, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put out our highest ranked player hit Deecki. He's seventh
Speaker 1: in the world. Oh, we'll put Scottie up against that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we'll just put the best player on the planet
Speaker 1: against him. Like they have, they have no answers. I
Speaker 1: will say, I want to be I think Xander and
Speaker 1: can't Le continue to just ascend in terms of their
Speaker 1: their stature on the American team, and they play the
Speaker 1: American team player every single year. And I think those
Speaker 1: are the the clear Like I would lump Scheffler and Moricawa,
Speaker 1: but those four are the clear leaders of this team.
Speaker 1: It's no longer speak and JT correct it is that
Speaker 1: that is the the leadership of the American team. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, I mean they are. I think
Speaker 1: there is is stout and they've got as good of
Speaker 1: a record as any time any leadership that the the
Speaker 1: Americans have ever had. I mean Xander and can't Ley
Speaker 1: are are terrifying just their their demeanors are like I
Speaker 1: would hate to play against them. They don't give you.
Speaker 1: They play. They're great players, that are all around great players.
Speaker 1: They're great at every facet of the game. And then
Speaker 1: their demeanors are like they don't give you anything.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I think Xander's going to go
Speaker 2: down in his career as the best American matchplay player
Speaker 2: of all time. That's what I think. I think when
Speaker 2: it's all said and done, he's going to be the
Speaker 2: we look at as the Monty or whatever you want
Speaker 2: to say. On the European side, I think Xander has
Speaker 2: a real chance to be that. Let's say, if he
Speaker 2: plays in three more Ryder Cups, in three or four
Speaker 2: more of these things. Last thing, on the Press Cup, Andy,
Speaker 2: we talked about seventy two hole stroke play cream rises
Speaker 2: at the top. One thing and I mentioned this off
Speaker 2: the top about the President's Cup, the elongated version of
Speaker 2: this starting Thursday in and on Saturday at Sunday. It
Speaker 2: being that many matches and that many points only plays
Speaker 2: into the Americans hands. If you wanted to give the
Speaker 2: internationals a chance with like this version of their team,
Speaker 2: which this today team two days would be the only chance,
Speaker 2: literally the only chance they'd have. Like you play, everybody
Speaker 2: plays all shot but it's like four days, four days
Speaker 2: and all these matches thirty points or whatever. It's like,
Speaker 2: of course, I mean, the Americans are never losing this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was listening to I was I told you I
Speaker 2: missed listened to No Laying Up Live show last night,
Speaker 2: and I don't I think it was and he might
Speaker 2: have brought up what I thought was one of the
Speaker 2: great points about the President's Cup. He said, if you
Speaker 2: rolled out the next twelve American players, not the twelfth,
Speaker 2: and made the team I.
Speaker 1: Talked on the shotgun started, maybe it was maybe it
Speaker 1: was maybe it was maybe it was you.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, maybe it was you that did it. If
Speaker 2: you roll out the.
Speaker 1: Next good about both of us. You know, if you
Speaker 1: roll out.
Speaker 2: The next twelve, would they have still won? And it's like, yes,
Speaker 2: they would, America would still win. You know, It's like
Speaker 2: I'm not, I would They might have be even money.
Speaker 1: I think I think that would be a really even matchup.
Speaker 1: I don't want like I was doing. I looked into
Speaker 1: this and like Austin Ekrot would be like the twelfth,
Speaker 1: the twenty fourth American. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like fifty
Speaker 1: three I think in the owgr Mackenzie Hughes is sixty
Speaker 1: one in the OWGRY. So it's like pretty pretty equal.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 2: Andy, you said by the way, you said, you said
Speaker 2: the thing about Hideki, Like here's Adki and they're like,
Speaker 2: all right, we'll play it with Scotti against him. It
Speaker 2: reminds me of the Tony kukoach team, like Croatia team, Like, man,
Speaker 2: we got this stud young guy playing. They're like, all right,
Speaker 2: so we will have Pippitt and Jordan Gardam And You're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: that's scary.
Speaker 1: You know. It's uh yeah, it's it's just hard. It's
Speaker 1: just and I don't I like, I don't think the
Speaker 1: President's Cup necessarily should go away. I just I just
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of format tweaks, but I think in
Speaker 1: general it's a good It should just be one of
Speaker 1: many matchplay events. And let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some ideas that you might have.
Speaker 2: Well, Okay, so I was thinking last night about like,
Speaker 2: why do these events feel bigger or more important to
Speaker 2: the player? Andy, I think you and Brennan have talked
Speaker 2: a lot about this with the Zurich, with the team
Speaker 2: event in New Orleans, where it feels like the players
Speaker 2: are having a lot of fun, but watching, nobody watching
Speaker 2: is having that much fun, you know, yea. And you
Speaker 2: see like some of these posts for Max about these
Speaker 2: team events, and you know, it's like the biggest week
Speaker 2: of his year and he has the most fun and
Speaker 2: he's so fired up and he enjoys it, and everybody's
Speaker 2: out there watching, Like you can tell, the team rooms
Speaker 2: have an amazing time being involved in these events. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of that is because of country, right,
Speaker 2: A lot of that is because you're representing your country.
Speaker 2: And I think about tennis a lot in this world,
Speaker 2: like the Labor Cup and the Davis Cup and things
Speaker 2: like that, which are team events and it's all centered
Speaker 2: around areas of the world or your country. So I
Speaker 2: think if you want to roll out a new matchplay event,
Speaker 2: I think it has to be country or territory involved, right,
Speaker 2: So you qualify for the team, maybe there's four Americans,
Speaker 2: you know, four players qualify, or maybe it's two. I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe two makes the most sense because then you get
Speaker 2: more countries involved. But you qualify for maybe a two
Speaker 2: year run and you have two or three of these
Speaker 2: like events where you play kind of like what we're
Speaker 2: seeing with some of these made for TV events. It's
Speaker 2: like you play on the back end of some of
Speaker 2: these tournaments on the PGA Tour, like a Tuesday in
Speaker 2: LA you play acc or something. But I think money
Speaker 2: is important to just compensate people for what they're doing.
Speaker 2: But if you want to get the players really invested involved,
Speaker 2: I think the way you've got to start is a
Speaker 2: concept that centers around representing your country, and I think
Speaker 2: that's something Lives tried to do with their teams. They've
Speaker 2: tried to make them a little bit of territorial with
Speaker 2: like who's playing on what crew. I think that's big
Speaker 2: for team chemistry and camaraderie and all those things. But
Speaker 2: I'd say if I was going to start with the
Speaker 2: professional match play of them, I think the way to
Speaker 2: do it is a you got to make a team's
Speaker 2: match play individually. I wish there was more events that existed,
Speaker 2: but I get why they don't. It's kind of the
Speaker 2: things we've laid out already. I think you've got to
Speaker 2: start with these team events are going to have countries
Speaker 2: play against countries.
Speaker 1: I like, I think that's a good idea. I like
Speaker 1: the slow burn of it, like over the course of
Speaker 1: a season. I think that's kind of like a cool,
Speaker 1: unique event and you're only asking for like a day
Speaker 1: of a time, a day at a time of these players,
Speaker 1: and especially with the way the world of golf is going,
Speaker 1: it's becoming like all the best players play the same
Speaker 1: on the same tour for the most part, outside of
Speaker 1: like live players, I'm not, but like they're all in in.
Speaker 1: They all play the same tour, and it's becoming more
Speaker 1: and more they all play the same events, so it
Speaker 1: becomes logistically easier to pull off, and like how cool
Speaker 1: would it be. It's like, hey, it's Tuesday of riv
Speaker 1: week and I'm not saying I'm not saying that LACC
Speaker 1: would do this, but or bel Air would do this,
Speaker 1: but it's like, yeah, like the tournament starts on Thursday,
Speaker 1: but Tuesday, we've got Roy Backleroy and Tom mckibbon playing,
Speaker 1: you know, representing Northern Ireland playing, Uh.
Speaker 2: You know Scott and I mean, let's just you know,
Speaker 2: just say it. I mean, you know, these these are
Speaker 2: the Americans. Scotty and Colin are you know.
Speaker 1: And they're gonna they're playing alternate they're playing an alternate
Speaker 1: shot match. Yeah, and it's part of this season. It
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, like cool, and maybe there's four
Speaker 1: groups of teams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe four matches going, I think is the perfect number.
Speaker 2: It's perfect TV number.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've always believed that four matches is what TV like.
Speaker 1: Yesterday you saw it with the singles. They can't follow
Speaker 1: all the matches. Twelve matches is just way too many.
Speaker 1: They can't do it. It's like four matches is the
Speaker 1: ideal perfect amount. Here's an idea I have, Uh, there
Speaker 1: used to be a World Cup of Golf similar you're
Speaker 1: representing your country, but like, why don't we have a
Speaker 1: World Cup match play event two man teams or two
Speaker 1: person teams? You could have a mixed World Cup as.
Speaker 2: Well, player on both sides of the Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I had that, Like you may you alternate
Speaker 1: every other year again. You make it paid, you build
Speaker 1: it into the schedule, you make it an honor. You go,
Speaker 1: you go represent your country, and it is the World
Speaker 1: Cup match play. It's two person and it's like there's
Speaker 1: two qualifying rounds and then it cuts to you know,
Speaker 1: sixteen teams or something or eight teams whatever the right
Speaker 1: number is, and then you have alternate shot match play
Speaker 1: the rest of the way in and you have like
Speaker 1: the World Cup of Golf like so sick, yeah.
Speaker 2: The mixed event on that side, Andy so smart. It's like,
Speaker 2: so Scotty and Nelly would be a team. How fun
Speaker 2: would that be to watch? You get? What like Tom
Speaker 2: Kim and Jin Young Co. I mean, like I mean.
Speaker 1: Lydia Lydia Co and Ryan Fox from New Zealand would
Speaker 1: be fun. You know in England you'd have Charlie Hull
Speaker 1: and uh, who's the best English player right now? Hatton
Speaker 1: maybe yeah?
Speaker 2: Or Fitzpatrick or something Pat Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like there there are just like fun teams everywhere and
Speaker 1: maybe and you know.
Speaker 2: What else too, I do wonder like we move a
Speaker 2: lot of events around, like and I think it's important
Speaker 2: to move events around, a lot of the majors move around,
Speaker 2: obviously outside of the Masters and the Chevron On the
Speaker 2: LPG side, if you had this hammered home at an
Speaker 2: awesome golf course like the Old Course or something where
Speaker 2: like it, like kind of like the Dunhill where every
Speaker 2: year or every other year, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 2: it's being played at, let's say, one of the top
Speaker 2: cathedrals of golf. I mean even if it's if it's
Speaker 2: Stateside and you're playing, you know, I mean, if you're
Speaker 2: playing at Pine Valley, or you're playing at Cyprus Point
Speaker 2: or something where the golf course is as much of
Speaker 2: a star as the players involved in it and never deviates.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One thing I'm so a bit burned out by is
Speaker 2: I understand that selling corporate things is extremely important to
Speaker 2: making money by whoever's putting the event on. But I
Speaker 2: think we could play more awesome golf courses if we
Speaker 2: got more creative with the way we sold things and
Speaker 2: maybe didn't put grandstands in big corporate things up everywhere.
Speaker 2: I think some of the bigger golf courses would be
Speaker 2: more interested in something like that anyway, like making it
Speaker 2: walking only for fans or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2: Kind of like you know, like I guess when I
Speaker 2: did that first match with Tiger and Phils, like everybody
Speaker 2: out there was just walking with the match, you know,
Speaker 2: they were just following along and enjoying it. I think
Speaker 2: you you could put that on a golf course that
Speaker 2: was as much of a star as Scottie Scheffler and
Speaker 2: I think again. You think about that Presidents Cup at
Speaker 2: Rull Melbourne. The event was great, but the golf course
Speaker 2: was fun to watch because that was a p that's
Speaker 2: a perfect match play golf course.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, everybody likes to say that the golf
Speaker 1: course doesn't matter what when you play match play, like
Speaker 1: it becomes non important. It's like, well, no, it's still important.
Speaker 2: It can matter if it rocks, it.
Speaker 1: Just makes the event better.
Speaker 2: Right, That's right.
Speaker 1: I mean you know, like like it doesn't make it worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I like, I can enjoy an NBA Finals
Speaker 2: if they play in the Sun's Arena, but it's probably
Speaker 2: gonna be better if it's in the garden or you know,
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's got imagine that there's actual built
Speaker 1: features that complicate where you might hit it. Like I
Speaker 1: mean I thought this this week. For example at Robot
Speaker 1: all Is, it was just best driver up there and
Speaker 1: get a wedge in your hand, hit it at the
Speaker 1: green and they got a lot of raid, and like
Speaker 1: that was you know, you can't control that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, there's nothing at the golf course that
Speaker 1: would make you think about playing any differently than that,
Speaker 1: other than just pull out driver, hit it far and
Speaker 1: go find it and hit and watch it up on
Speaker 1: the green as much as you can. I think, like yeah,
Speaker 1: like the the golf course is badder, and I think
Speaker 1: the more like when you talk about a world match,
Speaker 1: play like think about the places you could go with this.
Speaker 1: You could play Japan, you could play in Australia, you
Speaker 1: could play in you could play in South America. You know,
Speaker 1: like it it would be great to go back to
Speaker 1: the Olympic course at some point when you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they're they're you know, the country is in a little
Speaker 1: bit better place than it's in right now. You could
Speaker 1: play in in you know, Scotland, Ireland, England, like at
Speaker 1: really great places. Like maybe you build again, like we
Speaker 1: have this like belief of we have to do the
Speaker 1: things this box, like maybe build the business model of
Speaker 1: the of the event that has less of an on
Speaker 1: ground present and it's more of a digital present. Knowing
Speaker 1: like we're going to have huge ratings, We're going to
Speaker 1: be able to do more on the digital side, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna build digital things that make us a lot
Speaker 1: more money. I love that you do you have any
Speaker 1: other idea.
Speaker 2: By the way, I mean like this to me. You know,
Speaker 2: ideas are thrown around a lot, and I love throwing
Speaker 2: ideas out on Twitter and stuff, ways to improve events
Speaker 2: or change things or something like this. But you know,
Speaker 2: this event like a World Cup of Golf, and this
Speaker 2: was this bleeds into a little bit of what I
Speaker 2: was going to say next, and it's just trying to
Speaker 2: figure out some way to combine men's and women's golf.
Speaker 2: Golf is the only sport that can do this. It's
Speaker 2: the only sport. It's the only sport that can be
Speaker 2: cross gender and be interesting. Right. It's it's the only
Speaker 2: sport that can involve men and women and still be
Speaker 2: as can competitive as it was. If you didn't do that,
Speaker 2: it could be as interesting as it was if you
Speaker 2: didn't do that. Only sport out there and we don't
Speaker 2: utilize it. That's crazy. That's absolutely insane, is the fact
Speaker 2: that we don't lean into something that would make golf unique,
Speaker 2: that would make golf stand out to anybody out there
Speaker 2: that doesn't care about golf. You know, if you want
Speaker 2: to bring eyeballs in, I mean, we both have daughters.
Speaker 2: Let's say when they're six, seven, eight, years old and
Speaker 2: they're golf fans, or maybe they're just interested in Nellie Korda,
Speaker 2: And you say, Nelly and Scottie Scheffler are playing as
Speaker 2: a team against these other two players that you like.
Speaker 2: You like Charlie Hull, or you like Gin Young Coo,
Speaker 2: or you like Nasa, like whoever you like. On that end,
Speaker 2: it's now going to be in this environment that shows
Speaker 2: how good she is versus the best male player in
Speaker 2: the world. Like that is so unique and exclusive to
Speaker 2: our sport, and the fact that we only see it
Speaker 2: andy like a couple of days at the Sharks shoot Out,
Speaker 2: is absolutely bananas that we don't lean into this more
Speaker 2: like these entities, the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour
Speaker 2: should be in meetings weekly about how can we make
Speaker 2: our sport. How can we make these two things that
Speaker 2: float alone and don't really coexist. How can we make
Speaker 2: these things coexist not once a year, but multiple times
Speaker 2: a year, because to me, that's the inlet into a
Speaker 2: lot of places that golf can't get into right now.
Speaker 1: Well, it also goes to the scheduling. It's just talking
Speaker 1: about like, hey, we're thinking about this there, here, this here,
Speaker 1: so many times this year, it was like, Oh, we
Speaker 1: have a women's Major and a signature event and they're
Speaker 1: playing at the same time, right, And it's a conversation,
Speaker 1: this should not happen, right, Like we need, like there
Speaker 1: aren't that many golf fans around, we need to be
Speaker 1: smart and strategic about how we we like schedule our
Speaker 1: events so that we're not competing against each other, we're
Speaker 1: amplifying each other, because that's what the win is in golf.
Speaker 2: By the way, another idea I had Andy is I
Speaker 2: mentioned Zurich earlier, and you know, we kind of talk
Speaker 2: a lot about team events and match play, and we
Speaker 2: were talking a little bit about country. I think a
Speaker 2: very easy fix right now. Easy fix is like Zurich
Speaker 2: teams have to be teams or teammates on these teams
Speaker 2: on the team side of stuff, like you you have
Speaker 2: to play with somebody that would be on your President's
Speaker 2: Cup team, or be on your Ryder Cup team, or
Speaker 2: be on your you know, American side of that. Like
Speaker 2: that's got to be mandatory. And I almost think the
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup in the President's Cup could get involved in
Speaker 2: terms of sponsoring these teams, like shrink the field at
Speaker 2: the Zurich you know, make it twenty teams, thirty teams, whatever,
Speaker 2: but make it absolutely mandatory that you're a part of,
Speaker 2: Like you don't have to qualify for the team, but
Speaker 2: you have to play with somebody that's regional to where
Speaker 2: you would play if you were on one of these teams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like that. I think this the World
Speaker 1: Cup idea I put out there earlier. I do think
Speaker 1: the other thing you could do is you could make
Speaker 1: it a four person team and like, I think every
Speaker 1: count like a lot of countries have enough good golfers
Speaker 1: to be like, even if they're four hundredth in the world,
Speaker 1: they can play in this. We just saw what's his
Speaker 1: Anhel Hidalgo beat John Rahm at the Spanish Open, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like super cool. So I think, like there that
Speaker 1: that's the thing, uh, one that I wanted to get to.
Speaker 1: I would love a nine hole match play tournament where
Speaker 1: they play nine hole matches and you just get like
Speaker 1: a frenzy of matches over the course of the week
Speaker 1: and the like the beauty of a nine hole match
Speaker 1: is it's so short that every shot is so consequential.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just ratchets up the pace and the
Speaker 1: frequency of important shots, like you saw it with the
Speaker 1: Presidents Cup this week. Like you like the front nine,
Speaker 1: it's like whatever, Like they're going along. When you got
Speaker 1: to the back nine, that's when you really get on
Speaker 1: the edge of your seat and you get like.
Speaker 2: Super sleepy for sure. In the eighteen old match play golf,
Speaker 2: I agree with.
Speaker 1: You, So, like, why not have like an event that
Speaker 1: has just nine hole matches and you play a bunch
Speaker 1: of them, like you play two or three per day yeap,
Speaker 1: and and then you can do like a really big
Speaker 1: round robin round before you cut it to you know,
Speaker 1: you could have a you know, a large field of
Speaker 1: eighty something golfers have huge sets of round robin play
Speaker 1: where it's like everybody's playing everybody in this round robin action,
Speaker 1: and then you cut it down and it's nine hole
Speaker 1: matches to the end. I think it would be awesome.
Speaker 1: I think like nine hole matches would be sinceational to watch.
Speaker 2: I wait a minute, hold on, you're getting crazy here.
Speaker 2: You're trying to make golf shorter. That doesn't seem right,
Speaker 2: not in a world of every sport in the world
Speaker 2: trying to kind of minimize the amount of time people
Speaker 2: spent enjoying their sport like that hadn't work for baseball
Speaker 2: this year, but you know that's crazy. I mean, like
Speaker 2: Nitty's was telling me a story of an event he played.
Speaker 2: I think it was in Australia a few years ago,
Speaker 2: when he was like hanging around him, I got to
Speaker 2: keep playing pro golf or is this kind of the
Speaker 2: end of the run. And it was nine hole matches
Speaker 2: he played Appid barn Rat and he said he got
Speaker 2: up one up, you know early, and he's like one
Speaker 2: up leading a nine hole match, you might as well
Speaker 2: be five of huge, huge, And he said, Appy barn
Speaker 2: Riot Rat like flags that on seven, flags that on eight,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you know you're you're you're
Speaker 2: one down with one hole to play, and it's like
Speaker 2: the stress involved now your mind is all over the place.
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know you could get in the
Speaker 2: mind of these players with that. I love the like
Speaker 2: picking your opponent thing. I mean, I know that everybody's
Speaker 2: very sensitive. I wish we weren't so sense instead of
Speaker 2: with quote unquote hurting people's feelings, like you're a pro athlete,
Speaker 2: like you're playing this for a million dollars, Like get
Speaker 2: over it. But I love the idea of nine hole
Speaker 2: matches and you get to pick who you play. Maybe
Speaker 2: as it gets deeper, like maybe you got eighty players.
Speaker 2: To your point, Andy, you play three nine hole matches
Speaker 2: on Wednesday or Thursday, and you know, you know, the
Speaker 2: top forty move on the bottom forty, you're out, you're done,
Speaker 2: see you later. And then from that point forward, it's
Speaker 2: pick your players depending on the record. And I think it.
Speaker 2: You know again, you want to create drama in this.
Speaker 2: You want to make it interesting and for the viewer,
Speaker 2: and you want to care way less about the feelings
Speaker 2: of these players. Again, this is what they do for
Speaker 2: a living. If you're gonna make twenty million a year,
Speaker 2: you got to deal with somebody saying you suck right
Speaker 2: now at golf.
Speaker 1: And also, it's okay if you're if if you're a
Speaker 1: player and you're making all this money, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's okay. If you fly in on a Monday and
Speaker 1: you're flying home on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2: It's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1: That's part of being a pro. Play better, play better,
Speaker 1: and you won't have such a short week.
Speaker 2: You know what, I don't get paid. I don't get
Speaker 2: paid ten million dollars a year. You know what I
Speaker 2: did last year at the US Amateur I flew in
Speaker 2: on Monday or on Saturday or whatever. I play practice
Speaker 2: on Saturday Sunday. You play Monday Tuesday. And you know
Speaker 2: what if you don't make match play, you know what
Speaker 2: you do? You fly your ass.
Speaker 1: Home and you don't you too, And you don't know
Speaker 1: how long to book the hotel for no?
Speaker 2: Like hey, like, do you book it for a week
Speaker 2: or do you book it for three days? Like I
Speaker 2: don't get paid to play the game, but I'm flying
Speaker 2: to these places with hope that my trip is longer,
Speaker 2: but understanding the trip might be short. And like, dude, Andy,
Speaker 2: the sensitivity around pro golfers over every other sport right
Speaker 2: now is insane to me. Nobody ever hits a bad
Speaker 2: golf shot, Nobody ever hits a bad putt. Everything's like
Speaker 2: a misjudgment of the of the break, or the greens
Speaker 2: are slow, or the lie was jumpy. Let's dig into
Speaker 2: these guys' games a little bit. Let's be a little
Speaker 2: bit more critical of the best golfers in the world,
Speaker 2: like podcasts do it. But I wish that the general
Speaker 2: media world would be a little more critical of their
Speaker 2: games because being a pro athlete, that's part of the deal.
Speaker 1: Well, eventually everybody's going to work for the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: and then nobody will say anything.
Speaker 2: So yep, that stinks. Like that's what makes like you
Speaker 2: gotta be you gotta be able to dig into them
Speaker 2: and like match plays.
Speaker 1: More people are working for the PGA Tour from the
Speaker 1: media side.
Speaker 2: Match play exposes all that and that's what's again kind
Speaker 2: of going back to our point about match plays, like
Speaker 2: you can't hide a match play. You just can't play
Speaker 2: an ole match. You cannot hide you get You're gonna
Speaker 2: get exposed in match play if something's not going your way.
Speaker 1: Another idea, this is easy. So this is just this
Speaker 1: is a shooting gallery for the for the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Here this is just line them up, knock them down.
Speaker 1: I think, I think Joseph Lebadia has talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot over the years. But the tour Championship eight players,
Speaker 1: play out matches for all eight spots, have two two
Speaker 1: different round robin sets of reseed and play the matches
Speaker 1: and have a really awesome finals. You play all eight
Speaker 1: spots out. One of the issues with the FedEx Cup
Speaker 1: and why you have the staggered start is they will not.
Speaker 1: They do not want number twenty nine on the FedEx Cup,
Speaker 1: whoever that might have been this year, Christian. Let's just
Speaker 1: use Bizet now.
Speaker 2: I'm actually shocked you don't know this. I figured you
Speaker 2: know one through thirty, like on the back you might
Speaker 2: have a rest on your hand.
Speaker 1: So let's just say Christian Bizet out who made it
Speaker 1: to Eastlake, great year. They do not want him winning
Speaker 1: the FedEx the final. So they've created a format that
Speaker 1: like pretty much makes it possible for Christian to say
Speaker 1: not to win. So that identifies something. If you don't
Speaker 1: want that person to win, you don't think they're a
Speaker 1: rightful winner of the fed X. Don't have them there? Yes,
Speaker 1: and it solves your competition issue. So like to me,
Speaker 1: the number is eight. Probably eight. If you looked at
Speaker 1: at any of the players that were in the top
Speaker 1: eight in the FedEx Cup, people would be like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm okay with them winning the Tour Championship.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: If seven and eight or whatever would be what six
Speaker 2: and eight making the finals, I'm not scared of it. PJ.
Speaker 2: Can you pull up top eight going to the Tour Championship.
Speaker 2: I think you're doing it right now. I mean again, Andy,
Speaker 2: like if the if the fear of match play is
Speaker 2: the stars aren't there, then eliminate that. Eliminate that, just
Speaker 2: eliminate that variable. The stars. The stars are going to
Speaker 2: be there because typically the top eight on the FedEx
Speaker 2: Cup are the stars, right. I think if if there's
Speaker 2: been one or cru.
Speaker 1: Or somebody's had a great, great year and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy, this guy, you wouldn't expect to be here,
Speaker 1: but this is what he's done this year to get here.
Speaker 1: He's been awesome. So so then and then like to
Speaker 1: avoid the Sunday dud, the seven to eight matchup is
Speaker 1: for a half a million dollars and it is you know,
Speaker 1: Victor Hovelin versus Patrick Cantlay, Like Okay, I'm ready to
Speaker 1: watch that, Like yeah, that sounds that sounds like something
Speaker 1: I'd like to watch, especially alongside four other or three
Speaker 1: other matches of the best players in the world. Like
Speaker 1: this is not hard, This is not rocket science. The
Speaker 1: other thing I think is like one of the issues
Speaker 1: that pro golf will will say is like match play
Speaker 1: is not a great determinative skill. We play stroke play
Speaker 1: all year long, like and then the final is is
Speaker 1: this match play tournament will introduce more match play throughout
Speaker 1: the schedule, and that solves that you could even have
Speaker 1: like a match play Championship that you could sell a
Speaker 1: sponsorship to, like a season long match play race alongside
Speaker 1: like it's like this was the best match play player
Speaker 1: of the year.
Speaker 2: I mean like it's these are layup ideas to me.
Speaker 2: And again, this is coming from a couple of places, Andy,
Speaker 2: I think I think it's important to tell people the
Speaker 2: places we're coming from, and the places we're coming from
Speaker 2: is trying to make the uninteresting interesting, Like the Tour
Speaker 2: Championship uninteresting. How do you make it interesting, Well, you
Speaker 2: have the top eight players of the year play match
Speaker 2: play interesting. I'm assuming Rory's involved, I'm assuming Scotti's involved.
Speaker 2: I bet Zander's involved. Like the one thing the Tour
Speaker 2: Championship in the FedEx Cup has produced, like the one
Speaker 2: big selling point of the FedEx Cup if you go
Speaker 2: through the history of the FedEx Clup is there are rarely,
Speaker 2: if any flukey winners, like you might throw what Billy
Speaker 2: Horn wants Bill Haas early and it's but that was correct, correct, correct,
Speaker 2: you're right.
Speaker 1: For the top eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this year going into the Tour Championship.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 1: Scottie, Zander Hideki, Keegan Bradley, Ludwig, Colin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark.
Speaker 2: I would watch would I mean, I'm watching that. I'm
Speaker 2: watching that like that.
Speaker 1: It's great, It's it's awesome. I think the other plates
Speaker 1: that this is all coming from. We are two people
Speaker 1: that are deeply invested in the sport and want to
Speaker 1: see the sport be the most popular and best for
Speaker 1: fans that it possibly can be. And to me, uh,
Speaker 1: forty seven weeks a year, PGA Tour Golf does not
Speaker 1: put the best format of golf on television. And it's
Speaker 1: insane to me. It's absolutely crazy to me. Another event idea.
Speaker 1: Can we just bring the individual match playback?
Speaker 2: I know, I mean just no and no pulling. Like
Speaker 2: you lose, you're out. Like let's do it like it
Speaker 2: used to be sixty four players. You lose, you're flying home.
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 2: That thirty thousand dollars private jets not gonna hit your
Speaker 2: bottom line. You're gonna be okay, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: I like, bring it back?
Speaker 1: Can we have a couple of them. Can we maybe
Speaker 1: have like four of them over the course of the year.
Speaker 1: Is that too much? Ass?
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, come on, Andy, I got a
Speaker 2: December event I think would be awesome. I got a
Speaker 2: December matchplay event I think could really play. It's the
Speaker 2: Alumni Championship. Oh, five players from the five best players
Speaker 2: that qualify from colleges play basically a professional version of
Speaker 2: the NCAA Championship. You're it's Auburn, it's all miss Illinois, Illinois, Arizona.
Speaker 2: You get these, you get an alumni group. And again maybe.
Speaker 1: You're also tap. Here's another thing. My friends that I
Speaker 1: went to college with and I'm sure yours are the
Speaker 1: same way, did not do not watch golf. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to the NCAA tournament, and obviously Illinois is
Speaker 1: always a huge factor because we're a golf powerhouse more
Speaker 1: so than Arizona. That was most people, but like are
Speaker 1: like our.
Speaker 2: Alumni list is I'm gonna be honest with you, it
Speaker 2: would be nowide. Our alumni lists on the women's side
Speaker 2: is incredible, maybe like the best of all time in
Speaker 2: terms of superstars. Lorena on AKA. People like that. The
Speaker 2: men's side would be to lackluster. I'll say that.
Speaker 1: So anyways, but like once is NCAA tournament time? Like
Speaker 1: my are like our college golf chat, all of whom
Speaker 1: all of these people outside of like two are twenty
Speaker 1: plus handicaps. Yeah, right, like they're eighteen nineteen handicaps. They
Speaker 1: are like, how's Illinois, Andy, how's Illinois this year? Do
Speaker 1: we have a really good shot? Like? What times? What
Speaker 1: time are the matches on? They lock in? But what
Speaker 1: you're doing is like the reason college football, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons college football is so popular is because there
Speaker 1: is a massive audience to each school.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Pete tapping into the same thing. You'd be showing their
Speaker 1: best players from the colleges over the course. One of
Speaker 1: the great things about golf over the course of the
Speaker 1: past twenty years. Again you talked about the men's and
Speaker 1: women's aspect of golf. How you can do something that
Speaker 1: nobody else could do. You know what I would love
Speaker 1: I would have loved to be been able to watch
Speaker 1: Dee Brown play basketball with Terrence Shannon and golf. You
Speaker 1: could watch Steve Stricker from the Illinois standpoint play golf
Speaker 1: with Nick Cardy. Yes, like that that is awesome. You
Speaker 1: can watch Justin Thomas and Davis Riley, who are both
Speaker 1: Rum Alabama, play together when they never played college golf
Speaker 1: as teammates.
Speaker 2: Like Rory Sabatiny and Ricky Barnes, Like, I mean, who's
Speaker 2: missing that? Like, who's missing that? Come on now? I
Speaker 2: mean that's must watch golf. But like again, I think
Speaker 2: that the key.
Speaker 1: I love this event. This is a great idea.
Speaker 2: This is and again you talk about how do you
Speaker 2: get the players interested? And I think that that's something
Speaker 2: when we throw all these ideas out, a lot of
Speaker 2: the time we always forget about the players, which frankly
Speaker 2: is is probably the last we should be thinking about.
Speaker 2: This gets the players fired up, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be wearing your gear, your colors. You get
Speaker 2: the old team bags out, like the carry bags or
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. Maybe the college coach comes
Speaker 2: out and that's the coach of these teams in December
Speaker 2: when there's not a lot of college golf going on.
Speaker 2: But you know, like you get Max and Colin playing
Speaker 2: for cal like they're going to be into it. Stanford
Speaker 2: would be Stanford tough.
Speaker 1: You know, who'd be the best?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: Okay, State, Texas.
Speaker 2: What is Texas Scott's Who does Texas have besides Scotty.
Speaker 2: They got Scotty, They got Coties, the Cooties. I mean,
Speaker 2: but like you gotta let's say, you gotta get five
Speaker 2: spots everybody. By the way, the other.
Speaker 1: Pro things, Loma State would be pretty good Holin ecro Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they would, they'd.
Speaker 2: Be they'd be a tough out. I think, be awesome.
Speaker 1: This would be awesome.
Speaker 2: Every score counts, you don't drop a score. These are
Speaker 2: pro golfers. This is like one of my biggest annoyances
Speaker 2: with liv is the fact that they drop a score.
Speaker 2: If you're a pro golfer, your score counts. You don't
Speaker 2: get to drop one. Like that's college and amateur stuff
Speaker 2: to do. But you talk about maybe having a qualification
Speaker 2: for this where you've got to have let's say you've
Speaker 2: got to have two players in the top whatever you
Speaker 2: want to say, or maybe there's the world ranking average
Speaker 2: for your five players and you've got to be in
Speaker 2: the top ten to get into this tournament. The tournament
Speaker 2: could be pretty quick, doesn't have to be five days.
Speaker 1: You know, Texas would have for Telly, they could bring
Speaker 1: Omar Eurestian too. They have Bo Hostler, they have good
Speaker 1: Doug gim, they have a lot of they have a
Speaker 1: lot of guys. I think they'd be I think they'd
Speaker 1: be one of the best.
Speaker 2: They would be very international President's Cup team worthy right
Speaker 2: front end, top end.
Speaker 1: For Johnny, for Johnny Vegas. That got Johnny Vegas.
Speaker 2: They got Vegas in there. Man, I don't know if
Speaker 2: Arizona even make this thing would be such a buck.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would. Yeah, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: this event's no brainer.
Speaker 2: This is a great event, and you could do it
Speaker 2: on both sides too, or you could make it mixed.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that's the other thing too with
Speaker 2: this is you could make it mixed, right you.
Speaker 1: Every single one of these you could make mix. That's
Speaker 1: the other thing. Yeah, Like on my list of events,
Speaker 1: it's like next to it is like mixed event. I know,
Speaker 1: it's like this version also mixed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the players would buy in, you know,
Speaker 2: especially American players. I think the American players would. I
Speaker 2: think the American players and this is not some country take,
Speaker 2: but I think American players for the most part care
Speaker 2: as much about the college they represent as maybe they
Speaker 2: do about being on the American team, right, like being
Speaker 2: a being a Stanford Cardinal or you know, playing golf
Speaker 2: at Oklahoma State or playing at Alabama. Like it's a
Speaker 2: badge of honor for these players and it's on their
Speaker 2: golf bags.
Speaker 1: Like what about Penn State, Kent State? Would Kent State
Speaker 1: would feel the team they have all the Canadians, I
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 2: Just throwing out these random teams like I like you, yeah.
Speaker 1: Corey Connors, Taylor Pendry, Ann Mackenzie Hughes.
Speaker 2: I mean the team would be sick, like this is
Speaker 2: a sick team. Like and again, think about what the
Speaker 2: university could gain from something like this, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean you pay money back to the university or endowment
Speaker 2: or whatever you do for the colleges you make money there.
Speaker 2: You could make money for college golf. You could this
Speaker 2: could bleed into maybe nil where maybe you know, maybe
Speaker 2: certain moneies you put off to the side for nil,
Speaker 2: which in theory now pays your player, pays kids that
Speaker 2: are really good to come play for your team. Right
Speaker 2: that then now keeps the like the success of your
Speaker 2: program intact. I just you leave college and you're done
Speaker 2: a andy like you and I are done with college.
Speaker 2: We were done with college twenty years ago. Like we
Speaker 2: can go back, we can remember the good old days.
Speaker 2: There is no connection with college in our lives ever again.
Speaker 2: For God's sakes, PJ Young, PJ Babyface, PJ. College is
Speaker 2: done for this guy. Like he might think about college.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that long ago. What was it three years ago?
Speaker 2: Two years ago?
Speaker 1: Pj's like people, PJ is not as in grained in
Speaker 1: this show as he is in the Shotgun Start. PJ
Speaker 1: is our producer. I call him out at the end
Speaker 1: of every episode. He can't even he can't talk on
Speaker 1: this one. He's just in full producer.
Speaker 2: They can't defend himself. Doesn't even have a microphone.
Speaker 1: Literally, he's not he's not not a part of this pot.
Speaker 2: But think about the connection you would get with your college,
Speaker 2: and think about the connection these players would get one
Speaker 2: last chance, right or you know, this is our opportunity
Speaker 2: to to go back to Bama. You know, I just
Speaker 2: think it'd be cool.
Speaker 1: Oh, you could play it at each college. You could
Speaker 1: rotate it around the college commercial.
Speaker 2: Year he gets to go to there, gets to go
Speaker 2: to their course the next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you get you get like this, like and
Speaker 1: they could have like the right they could have the
Speaker 1: there Uh they could get like the vast majority of
Speaker 1: tickets allocation, Like you could just do It's so cool.
Speaker 1: I was just looking Florida. Florida would be a good one.
Speaker 1: Yet Billy Billy Boy, Billy Toasty that you could have,
Speaker 1: Brian gay Camillo, just like some good ones you have
Speaker 1: Ricky Castillio. Uh yeah, yeah, so I I love I
Speaker 1: love the College one. Do you have any others?
Speaker 2: Before we got out here, that was my list?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Can I plug one thing and before we go?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I wanted I just wanted to put a
Speaker 1: rap on this. Now people are gonna be yelling, people
Speaker 1: are gonna be yelling. Well, like mattually, it's a scarcity thing.
Speaker 1: Match that's why these work. No, it isn't. It's just
Speaker 1: a better format of golf. It is a more consequent
Speaker 1: there's more moments of intensity and more moments of like excitement,
Speaker 1: and then it also pits players against each other, which
Speaker 1: creates more controversy. It is a just a more engaging
Speaker 1: version of golf. The other thing is Sundays always stink.
Speaker 1: They don't have to stink if you format the event correctly.
Speaker 1: The event you just talked about with college golfers. If
Speaker 1: it's a three person team, let's say they go we
Speaker 1: go small and they're three person teams, three player teams.
Speaker 1: They will be on Sunday if you're playing, if it's
Speaker 1: UH Texas Oklahoma State, the matches would be something along
Speaker 1: the lines of Victor Hovlin versus Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Speed
Speaker 1: versus Austin Ech wrote. And then let's just say Pearson
Speaker 1: Coodie versus who's another Ricky Fowler. That would be your matches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: And I love the crossover of the years too. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like you get the young guys that just got
Speaker 2: out of college versus you know, like a Billy horstl
Speaker 2: or something who you know still has this crazy connection
Speaker 2: to Florida, but it's been a decade since he was there. Like,
Speaker 2: you might have teammates on a team, but you might
Speaker 2: have a guy that brought in a kid. You know.
Speaker 2: It's like, man, I remember what went on my recruiting trip,
Speaker 2: and Billy was like, these are easy sound bites to
Speaker 2: fill the time. You know, people talking about their colleges.
Speaker 2: Like that's the one thing with match play too is
Speaker 2: like filling the time in between moments shots holes is like,
Speaker 2: this is the easiest sell ever. Highlights of old matches
Speaker 2: from when these guys were in college. You know, you
Speaker 2: get the speed shot at RIV and you know him
Speaker 2: and j T and that story. John Fields tells that story.
Speaker 2: Like these things are such easy, like color around the
Speaker 2: actual golf to sell, to fill the time and make
Speaker 2: it interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all right, you're doing corn fairy stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all That's what I was gonna plug.
Speaker 1: Here you go, Andy, this is the most consequential time
Speaker 1: of the year. Yeah, last event of the year. What
Speaker 1: what are you most excited to watch this week's corn fairy?
Speaker 2: I will say this, I'm excited to see this golf
Speaker 2: course I'm gonna get. I'm going there tomorrow. It's in
Speaker 2: French Lick and I've heard it's really hard.
Speaker 1: So the die course, right.
Speaker 2: I heard it's tough. I've heard it.
Speaker 1: It looks cool. Well it's are you going to play
Speaker 1: the Ross course?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I hear the Ross course is like amazing.
Speaker 2: We're gonna play a couple of days. It's kind of
Speaker 2: weird times, but we're gonna play like weird times for
Speaker 2: us to play golf because we've got a lot of
Speaker 2: TV coverage, but I'm gonna play. I think there's two
Speaker 2: other courses, one shorter win and then one full golf
Speaker 2: course will play. Though it's never been to French Lick.
Speaker 1: By the way, Larry Bird.
Speaker 2: Larry Bird apparently called a Larry Bird Bar that I
Speaker 2: think is like the only place to go.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna go?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think it's right down the straight from
Speaker 2: the hotel. But yeah, I mean I think there's I
Speaker 2: think we've punched thirteen cards at this point, so obviously
Speaker 2: a lot of cards left to grab. Top thirty get
Speaker 2: their PGA Tour card. Matt McCarty locked up number one,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. I mean, this is a guy
Speaker 2: that had never won on the Corn Ferry Tour and
Speaker 2: wins three times since the middle of July. So cool
Speaker 2: to see Matt McCarty do that. Going to the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see him out there. But uh yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean there's.
Speaker 1: Maybe Get a Grip right.
Speaker 2: Keep an eye out on the Get a Grip podcast
Speaker 2: channel for maybe an upcoming co host there. And the
Speaker 2: FedEx Fall a new season coming soon. But Thursday one
Speaker 2: to four on Golf Channel. We're kind of around that
Speaker 2: window the whole week, so like one to four, twelve
Speaker 2: to four, stuff like that across the weekend. But you know,
Speaker 2: like one of the things I love about doing the
Speaker 2: Cornfierry Tour Andy, much like I love doing the USGA stuff,
Speaker 2: is like, these are life changing golf tournaments and events
Speaker 2: week to week, and this is the biggest one. You know,
Speaker 2: players are gonna have great weeks and play their way
Speaker 2: to a PGA Tour card, and guys that are inside
Speaker 2: the top thirty are gonna have stinky weeks and lose
Speaker 2: their PGA Tour card. And you know it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: there was a dude a couple of weeks ago, he
Speaker 2: made a putt to make the cut on Friday, and
Speaker 2: he's walking off the green saying, not gonna retire yet.
Speaker 2: You know, like these are these are life decisions for
Speaker 2: these players depending on how they play for seventy two holes.
Speaker 2: So I love this event and it's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: So top seventy five players in the field and thirty cards,
Speaker 2: so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, Well, enjoy frenchlick. Let me know how the
Speaker 1: golf is.
Speaker 2: And do you think if there's a basketball goal or
Speaker 2: court at the Larry Bird Bar, God of hope there is.
Speaker 2: There's gotta be I feel like God to have something there.
Speaker 1: It's got to be like a gravel just a vision
Speaker 1: it being like a like an old school hoop. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe a metal that and and like a gravel, a
Speaker 1: well padded, packed down gravel court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I hope. So it's like every time I think.
Speaker 1: I love medal that well.
Speaker 2: I mean you're the only one I think. I mean,
Speaker 2: does anybody love metal nets?
Speaker 1: I just love the novelty as a kid of it.
Speaker 1: When when you played on Nylon, you know, like the
Speaker 1: sound was different.
Speaker 2: Very different. I just in terms of bubble players, Sam
Speaker 2: Bennett is number thirty right now, Trent Phillips is thirty one.
Speaker 2: So you kind of got some some obviously players that
Speaker 2: are very very good. In pot Eater, who I think
Speaker 2: is going to be sick on the PGA tour if
Speaker 2: he gets there. Is Hank clinging onto a top thirty
Speaker 2: spot right now, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: If Potkner is almost out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has played great lately. Twenty seventh on the points, Liz,
Speaker 2: I know, I know'd it'd be a bomber. He's so
Speaker 2: freaking good. But you know, he's had like I think
Speaker 2: he's had three top tens and one of those was
Speaker 2: that went out of the gate. So it's not been
Speaker 2: a it's not been a great season for him outside
Speaker 2: of the early early run.
Speaker 1: So all right, thanks Shane, we'll talk soon, all right, buddy,
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you for listening to another edition of
Speaker 1: the Friday Golf Podcast, and big thanks to PJ. Clark
Speaker 1: for editing and producing this podcast. We will be back
Speaker 1: later this week with another episode and uh look forward
Speaker 1: to chatting soon, so big thanks, and uh check out
Speaker 1: the pod later this week.