Speaker 1: Who's to say that the live thing wasn't. Yes, s
Speaker 1: a out chessing, like playing chess and out chessing the
Speaker 1: PGA tour, inventing a product that he knows is going
Speaker 1: to fail, but it's good enough to create disruption and
Speaker 1: to buy the seat at the table, Daughts in my head.
Speaker 2: Can't get him, jh not the thing what I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about in my head. Can't get him, joh, not the
Speaker 2: thing I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3: Hello, this is Alan Schipnook back for another Fire Drill podcast,
Speaker 3: delayed to be joined by Jeff Ogilvie, who is at
Speaker 3: the Canadian Open up in Toronto, the center of the
Speaker 3: storm of Jeff, what have these last couple of days
Speaker 3: been like? Is the ground is shifted beneath the feet
Speaker 3: of all the players and everyone on to word? H.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been interesting. It's really only even one thing
Speaker 1: people have been talking about. Obviously, we all wake up
Speaker 1: yesterday reading about it, you know we didn't. Well now
Speaker 1: we got a name out from the tour telling us
Speaker 1: about what the deal is. Yeah, and we had the
Speaker 1: playmating last not, which was an interesting experience. Those playmintings
Speaker 1: are always fun when I introduce something that perhaps not
Speaker 1: every pler on tour agrees with. And yeah, sold, anyone's
Speaker 1: been talking about today on the range too. It's a
Speaker 1: big story, I guess.
Speaker 3: Oh, monumental. Well take us inside the room because the
Speaker 3: player meeting is sort of this mythical thing that you know,
Speaker 3: there's always reports that leak out, but obviously there's no press,
Speaker 3: there's no outsiders. But just so we can picture where
Speaker 3: was this hell, how is the room configured? Who's up
Speaker 3: in front besides Jay, like just set the scene for it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's sin where we have our player dining area
Speaker 1: this week, which is a which varies from tournament to tournament,
Speaker 1: but this this week it happens to be a really
Speaker 1: big room they didn't have. Sometimes they have us lined
Speaker 1: up in they line up chairs and stuff, but this
Speaker 1: time there's enough tables and enough for everyone was just
Speaker 1: sitting at tables and there's high tops and six tops
Speaker 1: and lots of different tables around. And Jay was in there.
Speaker 1: A few of the player advisory not player advisory, player liaison.
Speaker 1: There's like that the department that sort of is our
Speaker 1: conduit between the players and Jay. There's a few of
Speaker 1: those guys in there. Any Padzer was there who's sort
Speaker 1: of right up there, pretty high powerful man in the
Speaker 1: PJA tour, and j just stood up at the mic
Speaker 1: and pretty much just walked in and started going through it.
Speaker 1: Everyone was pretty keen to hear what he had to say.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting, I mean, it was getting it
Speaker 1: got quite it got a little bit tense, I guess
Speaker 1: because Jay couldn't really I don't know any more than
Speaker 1: anybody else knows. Really, we didn't. I don't think learn
Speaker 1: anything in the room that you that everybody doesn't know,
Speaker 1: mostly because I think this story I feel like it
Speaker 1: was going to I think they got win that it
Speaker 1: might have been getting leaked before they wanted it to
Speaker 1: get leaked. So they got in front of it, and
Speaker 1: they came and told the players, which was the right
Speaker 1: thing to do, sort of what they could tell us,
Speaker 1: And he couldn't really tell us that much. No real deal.
Speaker 1: Details just kept going on. That there's a sort of
Speaker 1: a is it a non binding agreement? Is that the
Speaker 1: term which is basically sort of an agreement in good
Speaker 1: faith to sort of negotiate to this endpoint that they
Speaker 1: both kind of want to get to. But this is
Speaker 1: clearly a really really complicated thing and we're right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the negotiation, so I don't think a
Speaker 1: whole lot of information or details could come to us
Speaker 1: because it might sort of mess that up, you know.
Speaker 1: But he just sort of gave us the framework and
Speaker 1: sort of how this will work if this all turns out.
Speaker 3: So after that he did a kind of a video
Speaker 3: press conference with select media folks. I was surprisingly I
Speaker 3: was invited, but they didn't call upon me, which is
Speaker 3: typical of the tour there. But anyway, they and I've
Speaker 3: never seen a man look so defeated as jaym onahan.
Speaker 3: He was slumped in his chair, his voice was hoarse,
Speaker 3: and you know, he'd just gotten beaten up in the
Speaker 3: player meeting he had and it's been been a rough
Speaker 3: day on the guy. And I actually felt a little
Speaker 3: tinge of sympathy for him. What kind of energy did
Speaker 3: he project in front of the players.
Speaker 1: He projected the energy that a leader should. He was
Speaker 1: very he didn't get rattled. I mean, he got a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff thrown at him the players. I think
Speaker 1: that the starting point that a lot of players walked
Speaker 1: into the room was well, these live players are just
Speaker 1: going to come back now. How fair is that? You know?
Speaker 1: And you said that they weren't going to come back.
Speaker 1: But so I think a lot of players started off
Speaker 1: wanting to disagree with whatever he said before they even
Speaker 1: heard anything you said, and they think, no offense to
Speaker 1: my peers. But I think a lot of guys couldn't
Speaker 1: get past that. So I didn't really hear what was
Speaker 1: going on a little bit. But he got hit pretty
Speaker 1: hard and he was pretty defeated at the end. It
Speaker 1: must be hard to have in his mind, and actually
Speaker 1: in my mind too, if this works out like it
Speaker 1: looks like it might, this is probably a good deal.
Speaker 1: And he's he wasn't in the position to be able
Speaker 1: to sort of tell us any details because there aren't
Speaker 1: really any details yet, and he's I guess the feeling
Speaker 1: would be he's been working really really hard to help us,
Speaker 1: and all we do is tell him, no, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: This isn't very very good. So it's a tough day
Speaker 1: to be a leader. But that's the role. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's heavy as the head that wears the crown, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a tough role to be And I
Speaker 1: really was very glad that I wasn't ja yesterday. Regardless
Speaker 1: of where you sit on how this what this deal
Speaker 1: is all about. It was it would have been a
Speaker 1: tough day to be Jay, and he did a really
Speaker 1: good job in there, but yeah, he would have been
Speaker 1: pretty drained. I think after the whole thing, he took
Speaker 1: it really well. He didn't get fired up. He just
Speaker 1: he took all the complaints. He sort of he owned up.
Speaker 1: He owned up to the Look, this is different from
Speaker 1: the rhetoric a year ago. We didn't expect this to happen,
Speaker 1: but this is just kind of where we're at and
Speaker 1: please sort of I guess he was basically asking, have
Speaker 1: a bit of faith. This thing will look better than
Speaker 1: you think it'll look at the end when it's all
Speaker 1: said and done.
Speaker 3: I mean, on a very simple level, the commissioner's job
Speaker 3: is to get the player's paid, and man has done
Speaker 3: that in spectacular fashion. I mean, the guys on tour
Speaker 3: a plane for eight nine million dollars. Now they're playing
Speaker 3: for twenty and it's probably just going to go up
Speaker 3: from here. Once they turned the spigot on with the
Speaker 3: piff and you know, he the tour had written some
Speaker 3: checks they couldn't cash. Like this, this arms race was unsustainable.
Speaker 3: They put all their they put all their resources into
Speaker 3: these elevated events and the the player Impact program. But
Speaker 3: the sponsors were rebelling, they were starting to walk away.
Speaker 3: That for Jay to say publicly that you know, they
Speaker 3: were fully sponsored for next year is wishful thinking at best.
Speaker 3: And so I think it was just that it was
Speaker 3: an acknowledgement like we if we're going to fund the
Speaker 3: tour at this new level, we can't do it with
Speaker 3: the old model. We can't squeeze that much out of
Speaker 3: these corporations. It's just it's impossible. And so you could
Speaker 3: you could say it took some humility on his part
Speaker 3: right to it on some level concede defeat, like we
Speaker 3: got into this, into this battle we couldn't win. This
Speaker 3: is our way out, and the players are going to
Speaker 3: keep getting paid and probably get get more extravagantly paid.
Speaker 3: And I mean anything's on the table, whether that I mean,
Speaker 3: the PIF could just put people on salary, right like
Speaker 3: now that you're now that this there's this whole new
Speaker 3: world order of golf and people have accepted that guaranteed
Speaker 3: money is part of the sport like in every other sport,
Speaker 3: Like why not just create a salary system. That's how
Speaker 3: you could make Roy McElroy whole right, say, Okay, we'll
Speaker 3: pay you forty million dollars at your salary. You have
Speaker 3: to commit to eighteen events whatever, whatever the terms may be. Like,
Speaker 3: is there any recognition among your peers, like, hey, like
Speaker 3: this might actually work out great for us, Like, all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, we have access to to this once
Speaker 3: in a once in a lifetime windfall we thought we
Speaker 3: missed out would live, but now we've got to live. Money,
Speaker 3: you know, flowing through the PG tour, Like, isn't that
Speaker 3: a good thing?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you said a couple of things there,
Speaker 1: but like, firstly, yeah, I think the I don't think
Speaker 1: the future was as rosy as some of the players
Speaker 1: may have thought. I mean, like you said, this is
Speaker 1: a bit of an arms race to keep up, and
Speaker 1: there's a recession, there's some stuff going on. This is
Speaker 1: a lot of money that they're trying to generate, and
Speaker 1: as you say, you sort of there's only a certain
Speaker 1: amount of corporations that can come up with that sort
Speaker 1: of money in the US. So I think what this
Speaker 1: is what they're There's two sides to it. One, I
Speaker 1: think they've kind of wanted to end the litigation I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a tactic of the piff side
Speaker 1: of the argument, but they can sort of keep things
Speaker 1: in court as long as they want. The longer it
Speaker 1: stays there, they can just basically money you out of
Speaker 1: it by like you do all your money on legal fees,
Speaker 1: and that regardless of what was going to come out
Speaker 1: of that lawsuit, you sit in the courts for five
Speaker 1: or six years, you spend hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: defending the case that you probably know you're going to win, maybe,
Speaker 1: but that does a lot of damage. I mean, hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars means a lot to like anybody, right,
Speaker 1: and it's just a waste of time arguing and like
Speaker 1: just spending all this money and makes it hard to
Speaker 1: go forward. And to the other side, I'm of the opinion,
Speaker 1: like you said, that this is a really this is
Speaker 1: a this is if the upside, if it works out
Speaker 1: like it could, I think this is an incredible deal.
Speaker 1: This could go down as one of the best deals ever,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's Jay, what what has argued,
Speaker 1: what is arguably going to happen is potentially the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour is going to control golf and the PIFF is
Speaker 1: going to pay for it, which is a stronger position
Speaker 1: than we were in two days ago. The the dp
Speaker 1: World Tour and the Live is going to kind of
Speaker 1: come under the governance of the PGA Tour, and the
Speaker 1: PIFF is going to help out financially. I think, like
Speaker 1: you say, the potential, I don't think Jay would have
Speaker 1: gone into anything like this. Like you said, his job
Speaker 1: is to make the golfers more money, more opportunities, more money,
Speaker 1: and this seems like the sort of deal that that
Speaker 1: that's going to be there. It's a bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a strong there's a there's
Speaker 1: a strong feeling at Ponto Vedra. I think to keep
Speaker 1: the PGA to a model looking basically like the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour looks. There's, like you said, there's a lot of legacy,
Speaker 1: there's sort of it's in a lot of ways a meritocracy.
Speaker 1: If you play well, you get paid. It's always been
Speaker 1: that way. I don't think they will upset sort of
Speaker 1: that main product, the PGA Tour. I don't think the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour really look that different going forward, albeit with
Speaker 1: probably bigger persons. I think it's a step too far
Speaker 1: to go to the I think gets reaching to say
Speaker 1: we'll all end up on salary. I mean, maybe one
Speaker 1: day we will, But I think there's it's going to
Speaker 1: create opportunity. As I said, if it turns out, we
Speaker 1: don't know much at the moment, really, we just sort
Speaker 1: of know about a deal in principle if you like,
Speaker 1: But it could create an incredible opportunity to spread this
Speaker 1: sort of the PGA to a brand, if you like,
Speaker 1: which they've proven the PGA two are they're the best
Speaker 1: at running golf tournaments. You know, they're the best at
Speaker 1: doing this. And they've been doing it for a really
Speaker 1: long time. And it goes all the way back to
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer and Dean Beaman and Jack Nicklass and they've
Speaker 1: had a long time to get good at running golf tournaments.
Speaker 1: I've played golf tournaments all the way around the world.
Speaker 1: The PGA tour tournaments are the best. They're the best
Speaker 1: to play in. They're the best, the most organized. You
Speaker 1: know that you got a lot of PGA, You got
Speaker 1: a lot of golf tournaments. They're they're great tournaments. It's
Speaker 1: it's just going to create it's gonna if there's the
Speaker 1: sensible people in the room, if you like, or the
Speaker 1: experience is going to be steering the ship a little bit,
Speaker 1: and they're going to sort of have, as I said,
Speaker 1: that sort of future proofing or that sort of knowledge
Speaker 1: that you know, we can sort of have some aspirational
Speaker 1: goals here because we know the funds are going to
Speaker 1: be there. We don't have to go year to year
Speaker 1: and based on how the economy is or every ten
Speaker 1: years how the TV deal is going to be. And
Speaker 1: it's also opportunity to grow that sort of level of tournament,
Speaker 1: the PGA to a level of tournament, and to spread
Speaker 1: it around the world. I mean, the PGA Tour as
Speaker 1: we know it will probably, as I said, look pretty similar,
Speaker 1: but there might be all sorts of opportunity outside of
Speaker 1: the US to create incredible stuff. And that's instead of
Speaker 1: now selling to a market of three hundred million people
Speaker 1: and maybe there's a bunch of people outside the US
Speaker 1: who watch the PGA Tour, but now you're actually going
Speaker 1: to be able to take this product around the world
Speaker 1: and have the sort of freedom and reach and spread
Speaker 1: to sort of maybe do some really special stuff. I
Speaker 1: mean I said, we were sort of speculating here, but
Speaker 1: I think it's potentially if the goods the good side
Speaker 1: of this deal is it's gonna grow the game, which
Speaker 1: is the phrase it gets overused, but it really could
Speaker 1: sort of spread that sort of that high level sort
Speaker 1: of elegant so whatever you the Pagata brings to golf
Speaker 1: tournaments and take it around the world, and I think
Speaker 1: that's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do want to talk about what a unified
Speaker 3: global schedule could look at. But before we leave the
Speaker 3: Monahan stuff, I mean, he may have salvaged a good deal,
Speaker 3: but it came at a personal cost for him. He's
Speaker 3: had to eat a lot of shit here in the
Speaker 3: last few days. There's definitely some hard feelings. It's you know,
Speaker 3: there exchange that Rory McElroy had with Grayson Murray in
Speaker 3: the meeting has been reported where you know, Murray shouted
Speaker 3: something about mon Hand like we can't trust you, we
Speaker 3: don't believe you, and Rory said, you know, you play better, Grayson,
Speaker 3: which is act interesting in the context of you know,
Speaker 3: it sounds like he's defending mine hand and on that level,
Speaker 3: but you know, certainly then Rory got up and met
Speaker 3: reporters and he you know, he looked a little dark,
Speaker 3: like I think Rory was an idealist, you know, and
Speaker 3: he thought he was fighting a good fight and the
Speaker 3: money guys came in and just sawd them out. And
Speaker 3: it's kind of a hard lesson for Rory how things
Speaker 3: work in the real world. But what was what was
Speaker 3: your impressions of how Rory handled himself in the meeting
Speaker 3: and do you have any insight into where his head
Speaker 3: is right now?
Speaker 1: I actually think I don't agree with that that I feel.
Speaker 1: I feel like I would if I was Rory. Shane
Speaker 1: Lowry was there too, there was a few players who
Speaker 1: were sort of would have been those guys who were
Speaker 1: really could have got big checks. I don't think he'd
Speaker 1: be dark at all. I actually think it's almost vindication
Speaker 1: because I stayed on the right side of things, and
Speaker 1: the right side of things. You can view this anyway.
Speaker 1: I view this as the PGA Tour is kind of
Speaker 1: winning this one. You know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: viewing it like they've caved in and they've like kind
Speaker 1: of lost this one. But I view it as they
Speaker 1: win because the PGA two is going to have control,
Speaker 1: and that's better for Rory McCord. That's better for the
Speaker 1: guys on the PGA two side. You know, if you
Speaker 1: have a situation where if j is pulling the strings,
Speaker 1: if JA is pulling the strings, say if Jay is
Speaker 1: ends up being the boss of the live tour, well
Speaker 1: that's certainly better for the players on the PGA tour
Speaker 1: side of things. Certainly. I can't see any other side
Speaker 1: to that. So I don't know. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't go into anyone else's heads. I thought Rory
Speaker 1: did really well. It was a tough meeting to be
Speaker 1: in because there was a lot of emotion from a
Speaker 1: lot of players. It was not really tense. It was
Speaker 1: a little bit tense, but Rory did okay. People were
Speaker 1: speaking up and I understand all sides of the argument.
Speaker 1: Shane did a really good job. Shane was great in there.
Speaker 3: What did Jane see.
Speaker 1: Oh, he just said, let's all keep a level head.
Speaker 1: Let's we're playing, We're at the RBC Canadian Open, let's
Speaker 1: not all make a big drama about this, Let's keep
Speaker 1: the attention this week on the Canadian Open, and like
Speaker 1: he was really sort of classy about it. We'll see
Speaker 1: what happens going forward sort of thing. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I came out of it, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: We learned obviously the big news, but we don't know
Speaker 1: any of the details yet and what it's going to
Speaker 1: look like. To be honest, I don't think Jane, like
Speaker 1: Piff and I don't think they know the details yet either.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why we're sort of not having any
Speaker 1: details because most of this stuff hasn't been fleshed out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'd rather take the long view and look
Speaker 1: at things like they're going to work out, okay. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been going to play meetings for twenty years and
Speaker 1: they're often when there's a change thrown out be it.
Speaker 1: The one of the big ones was when they introduced
Speaker 1: the FedEx Cup. We're going to end the normal schedule
Speaker 1: and we're going to have playoffs and all this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. There was a lot of grumpy golfers saying,
Speaker 1: this is not golf silly. That turned out great. I
Speaker 1: mean it might not turn out perfect and maybe not
Speaker 1: like the NFL playoffs or anything like that, but like
Speaker 1: we have more big money tournaments. It's just kept getting bigger.
Speaker 1: It's the PGA to it. It generally works out better
Speaker 1: for the players. We've played for more money every single year,
Speaker 1: there's been more opportunity, good stuff. So I sort of
Speaker 1: go into those meetings thinking I might not agree with
Speaker 1: everything that they say, but generally it works out. So
Speaker 1: I was kind of having that view and trying to
Speaker 1: listen to the good sides of this and not the
Speaker 1: other side of it. And I think you could you
Speaker 1: could have taken the meeting either way. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: that was so nonspecific. You know, there was the general
Speaker 1: this is what we're going to do, and then there
Speaker 1: was lots of non specifics, and I I think it's
Speaker 1: often telling in those players meetings where players sort of
Speaker 1: their moods often sort of are a window to where
Speaker 1: they think their game's at and where their futures at
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, because if you think your
Speaker 1: game is great, but the guy, the guys who think
Speaker 1: their games are great and they really back themselves for
Speaker 1: the future generally are pretty quiet and kind of like
Speaker 1: what's being said. The guys who sort of maybe are
Speaker 1: a bit nervous about their golf in the future, they
Speaker 1: tend to like don't like to upset the status quo,
Speaker 1: and they don't like change because they're sort of like,
Speaker 1: let's just skip it how it is, because it's kind
Speaker 1: of okay right now, they're they're interesting times. I said,
Speaker 1: this is a really kind of a weird situation because
Speaker 1: normally when the tour comes to us at a player meeting,
Speaker 1: it's a fully fleshed out, fully decided this is going
Speaker 1: to happen. They have power points and colorful graphs and
Speaker 1: this is how much money you're going to make, and
Speaker 1: this is how many tournaments you're going to get to
Speaker 1: play in, and it's all going to be wonderful, and
Speaker 1: we all get convinced by the facts on the board.
Speaker 1: There weren't really any facts or specifics that we learned,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a leap of faith from all
Speaker 1: the players that we have to kind of trust our leader.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, they haven't acted very trustworthy, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's been a really tumultuous time. I then, would
Speaker 1: you like to be I wouldn't like to be steering
Speaker 1: the ship, Like we can all sit up and judge
Speaker 1: how leaders, how these leaders run this thing, but we don't.
Speaker 1: We're not privy to a whole lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And something had to be done, like something had to happen, right.
Speaker 1: If this is the right answer, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting time. They're definitely entertaining these play meetings.
Speaker 1: They're quite fun.
Speaker 3: What were some other memorable moments or funny things ever said?
Speaker 3: Can you share anything else?
Speaker 1: I'm not that's the general spirit is The general spirit
Speaker 1: was we don't truy Why should we believe anything you say?
Speaker 1: We don't trust you, and you're a bit of a hypocrite.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the general spirit. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to drop it any that he said he owned the hypocrity.
Speaker 1: He owned the hypocrisy. He owned A says, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see that, and that's a fair that's fair, and
Speaker 1: it is fair. But this landscape has like Riviera, I say,
Speaker 1: from Riviera in twenty two to now isn't very long, really.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been a very fluid moving situation
Speaker 1: with a lot of complexity. You know, there's the there's
Speaker 1: the money side of things, and there's the players jumping,
Speaker 1: and then there's the politics of the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: this is a very complex issue to navigate. But as
Speaker 1: you kind of said at the start, his job is
Speaker 1: to make the players more money and give them great
Speaker 1: places to play and improve the product. And the feeling
Speaker 1: I got from him yesterday is he feels like that's
Speaker 1: what this is, is improving the product and making it
Speaker 1: better to be a PGA to a player, and making
Speaker 1: everything involved with the PGA to it better. That was
Speaker 1: a feeling that sort of I got, and he was
Speaker 1: getting sort of yelled at for that. But as I said,
Speaker 1: I think the sort of the karma heads in the
Speaker 1: room were just sitting back taking it all in and
Speaker 1: we'll just see how this ends up, you know. But
Speaker 1: I understand, I completely understand the passion from the players.
Speaker 1: Jay stood up last year saying there's no way I'll
Speaker 1: ever see a LIFT player back on this tour. It
Speaker 1: will never happen. Da da da da da. And this
Speaker 1: arrangement seems to suggest that maybe that'll happen. But he
Speaker 1: did say in the meeting that he did say in
Speaker 1: the meeting that they are sub to the same rules
Speaker 1: and regulations and discipline that they have been today. This
Speaker 1: isn't going to change any of that. So I don't
Speaker 1: think you're going to see an influx of live players
Speaker 1: back on the page at anytime soon. I really don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a that's a fundamental question. Something you
Speaker 3: said earlier that you know, the tour's gonna control golf
Speaker 3: and the pip's going to pay for it. I disagree
Speaker 3: a little bit because Yasser is Jay's boss, he's a
Speaker 3: chairman of the board. Beyond that, he controls the money
Speaker 3: and that that's one of the big lessons from this
Speaker 3: whole thing is the money always wins. You can have
Speaker 3: all the high falutin rhetoric, and you can appeal to morality,
Speaker 3: and you can appeal to legacy, and you can try
Speaker 3: any any linguistic gymnastics you want to, but in the end,
Speaker 3: the money wins, and Yasser controls the money. And so
Speaker 3: however the board's configured, I think that he's going to
Speaker 3: have clearly an outsized influence and he's gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: Live has been his baby all along. He's nurtured it,
Speaker 3: he's cared for it. It was his and he's been
Speaker 3: the driving force that and he's gonna want to take
Speaker 3: care of those players, and he's gonna he's gonna want equity,
Speaker 3: and I think that I don't think it makes sense
Speaker 3: to keep them as separate organizations. I think the players
Speaker 3: are gonna have to flow back and forth, and there
Speaker 3: may be some you know, truth and reconciliation panel that's
Speaker 3: going to have to deal with with. You know, you're
Speaker 3: going to treat Andy ogle Tree different than you're can
Speaker 3: treat Phil Mickelson, perhaps, but I think there has to
Speaker 3: be a road back for these players. Otherwise, what's the point.
Speaker 3: I mean, the whole, the whole. We're unifying the game,
Speaker 3: we're bringing the sport back together. And if you keep
Speaker 3: if you keep them sort of separate but equal, I
Speaker 3: don't I don't think that. I don't think that makes
Speaker 3: sense in the context of of what they're trying to
Speaker 3: sell here, which is a reunified sport and and a
Speaker 3: cohesive approach to the highest level of the game. I
Speaker 3: just know how that works well.
Speaker 1: Firstly, the PURF is pretty involved in lots of of
Speaker 1: other things and they haven't shown any I mean, they're very,
Speaker 1: very big, a big stake in Formula One and apparently
Speaker 1: they stay pretty hands off there, Like their track record
Speaker 1: is pretty good. They're very involved and this it's a
Speaker 1: small deal here, but they're very involved in like horse
Speaker 1: racing in Australia, which is a really really big sport,
Speaker 1: and they behave immaculately. You know, it's immaculate. They genuinely,
Speaker 1: I genuinely get the feeling. And I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know any of these people. I genuinely get the
Speaker 1: feeling that they just kind of want to see it
Speaker 1: at the table and be part of this and sort
Speaker 1: of gradually sort of become part of this sort of world,
Speaker 1: global culture and economy over the next thirty years. Right.
Speaker 1: I just genuinely think that the spirit that they the
Speaker 1: spirit is good in this front. I mean, yes, the
Speaker 1: chairman will be is arguably the boss, and the money
Speaker 1: is the boss. But I mean, who's to say, who's
Speaker 1: to say that the live thing wasn't as out chessing,
Speaker 1: like playing chess and out chessing the PGA Tour, inventing
Speaker 1: a product that he knows is going to fail, but
Speaker 1: it's good enough to create disruption and to buy the
Speaker 1: seat of the table. Like, who's to say this wasn't
Speaker 1: a whole plan. He might not want to live at all.
Speaker 1: He might have just wanted to be part of the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour and this was his way, like he could
Speaker 1: he knocked on the door and they said no, So well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to disrupt for a bit and then you're
Speaker 1: going to have to let me in and then live
Speaker 1: can just go away because now I'm in, Like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like we don't we're sort of
Speaker 1: we're again you're looking at this from a this is
Speaker 1: a bad idea side of things as opposed to you
Speaker 1: know what this could be. I mean, look, it could
Speaker 1: be any number of anywhere in the middle, and we
Speaker 1: don't really know. But and I'm only I'm only just
Speaker 1: going on the other side of it, just for the
Speaker 1: fun part. But I think it's I would choose, as
Speaker 1: I said, I choose to think that the spirit here
Speaker 1: is good. You know, if the way they're the way
Speaker 1: they're investing, the way they're investing in everything, they're clearly
Speaker 1: sort of looking forward to a post oil economy and
Speaker 1: trying to get involved in this whole thing. And they're
Speaker 1: really just giving us our money back because we've been
Speaker 1: putting gas in our car for you know, however long.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just coming back the other way, and
Speaker 1: it's just coming back through athletes and f one and
Speaker 1: they're investing in Uber and Boeing and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: They're just sort of trying to sort of integrate themselves
Speaker 1: into this world economy, and this is just another small
Speaker 1: part of it. And I choose to feel like that
Speaker 1: golf is benefiting from their interest in this rather than
Speaker 1: any sort of sinister feeling of sort of takeover, you know.
Speaker 1: I just think they just want to be part of
Speaker 1: this whole show.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. And you know, I've been around
Speaker 3: Yasser at some of these live events, and he's a
Speaker 3: very understated presence. He's not bombastic. He's very soft spoken.
Speaker 3: He has these very courtly manners. He's very kind to
Speaker 3: the people around him, Like you know, he's probably one
Speaker 3: of the five most powerful people on the planet, but
Speaker 3: he doesn't emanate that at all. He's very low key,
Speaker 3: and he clearly loves golf. That's what's driving this whole thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, Keith Pelly has funny quotes in my book,
Speaker 3: but he's like, this is all because of Yaser. I mean,
Speaker 3: if he was if he was a volleyball guy, they'd
Speaker 3: be building volleyball arenas and creating volleyball super leagues, you know.
Speaker 3: But he loves golf, and that that's what's driving all
Speaker 3: of this, And so I think I agree. I think
Speaker 3: there that the spirit you describe is accurate, but he doesn't.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have a seat at the table. I mean
Speaker 3: he owns the chair, he owns the table, he owns
Speaker 3: the building, he owns the parking lot, like you know,
Speaker 3: as far as the influence, however, they can figure the
Speaker 3: board and whatever title J has. I mean, Jay's gonna
Speaker 3: be the chief bureaucrat, there's no doubt. But I mean
Speaker 3: Yaser is going to be the driving force behind this.
Speaker 3: I really believe that, and so he's going to be
Speaker 3: happy to delegate some of the details about who gets in,
Speaker 3: who doesn't, who doesn't, you know, how many, the size
Speaker 3: of the fields and and the exemptions. Like he's not
Speaker 3: gonna get bogged down in that. But the live question
Speaker 3: is really interesting, you know, what happens to live now?
Speaker 3: And I've been debating that with different people all day long.
Speaker 3: And you know, Greg Norman went on he had a
Speaker 3: call this morning with the whole staff and he basically said,
Speaker 3: nothing changes, like we're we're going to keep going. We're
Speaker 3: building out our schedule for twenty four and twenty five
Speaker 3: and beyond. And you know, he he's very bullish. And
Speaker 3: someone another top executive you know, basically said had a
Speaker 3: meeting and said, I only know two things. We won,
Speaker 3: and this is really good for live golf. And so
Speaker 3: there's this thinking that lives is gonna blow away like tumbleweed.
Speaker 3: But I think I think, you know, for for Y'allsros,
Speaker 3: this legacy thing like this is this was his creation.
Speaker 3: And if all he is is the the writing checks
Speaker 3: to the PGA Tour and the European Tour, it's kind
Speaker 3: of like, uh, he does. He is at the table
Speaker 3: that he owns. But it's I think he want more
Speaker 3: than that. I think they want to have a sense
Speaker 3: of ownership and creation and and live golf is that.
Speaker 3: And so how they incorporate some piece of that into
Speaker 3: this this larger schedule is it gonna be fascinating. And
Speaker 3: it does become a mechanism for getting payers played, you
Speaker 3: know there, how do you make it up to Hideki
Speaker 3: and to the other guys who turned down so much money.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's you can give them a piece of
Speaker 3: a franchise. They can just they can. They could pump
Speaker 3: the live person's way up. Guys could come in and
Speaker 3: out and play those like I think it becomes a
Speaker 3: mechanism to kind of make things right and along with
Speaker 3: the Auster's emotional investment, and I don't think Live is
Speaker 3: going anywhere. I think that they'll they'll find a way
Speaker 3: to They'll probably shrink the schedule, but it will remain
Speaker 3: kind of a parallel thing that gets incorporate into the
Speaker 3: larger schedule in some clever fashion. But that that's that's
Speaker 3: gonna be a fascinating fundamental question like what happens to
Speaker 3: Live Golf, which has been a monumental undertaking to get
Speaker 3: at this or well.
Speaker 1: As I said, I think, I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: but basically, the PGA Tour is going to be the
Speaker 1: boss of Live. That's that's this deal. Like I don't
Speaker 1: know the details, but fundamentally, the PGA Tour and Jay
Speaker 1: is going to be that. That's going to be part
Speaker 1: of the whole thing too. So I don't think it's
Speaker 1: not there's there's going to be no sort of contest.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be one company basically running at all. And
Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident that Jay, if he wants to stay,
Speaker 1: if he wants to stay in that chair, he's not
Speaker 1: going to just be handing memberships back to these lift
Speaker 1: players in like December or January. I'm pretty confident that's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. I mean, I think the best
Speaker 1: you'll see is that maybe they can be non members
Speaker 1: but get invites, you know, play limited amount of tournaments,
Speaker 1: because I don't think anybody like do you want to
Speaker 1: tell the tournament director or the sponsor of any tournament
Speaker 1: that they can't have Dustin Johnson or Brooks kept Girl
Speaker 1: or cam Smith or you know, like, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell the membership of the PGA tours, like, well,
Speaker 1: these guys got the money and they're all going to
Speaker 1: be members too, and they're going to be taking our
Speaker 1: spots in the field. So I don't think that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. I think it's interesting. And as I said,
Speaker 1: we don't know. We didn't learn anything else. They're really
Speaker 1: apart from sort of this deal in principle and how
Speaker 1: we're all sort of speculating about how it might look.
Speaker 1: But I believe that the spirit of this whole thing
Speaker 1: is like in a pretty good spot. And as I said,
Speaker 1: he's a very smart guy. Yes, Like you said, who's
Speaker 1: to say that live? As I said, wasn't the card
Speaker 1: that he played to get to be a part of
Speaker 1: the bigger show, which is the PGA too, which is
Speaker 1: the proven product, because Live hasn't really proven itself as
Speaker 1: being anything that people are really crazy interested in yet.
Speaker 1: And if that's that's a business and if the balance
Speaker 1: sheet and the profit lost does it just keeps looking bad, well,
Speaker 1: then they're going to just start, Well, let's let's start
Speaker 1: that the money needs to be really the product that
Speaker 1: does make money and it is a really good business model,
Speaker 1: which is the PGA Tour. Yeah, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: all speculate, It's it's gonna be a very interesting like
Speaker 1: it's been a fun couple of days, and then it'll
Speaker 1: all settle down. But the next six months, when we
Speaker 1: see the PGA Tour twenty four schedule come out, what
Speaker 1: that's going to look like? What does the Live schedule
Speaker 1: come out? When does that come out? What does that
Speaker 1: look like? What does the dp World Tour look like?
Speaker 1: What does the agent tool look like? I mean, what
Speaker 1: are the pathways to get to the tour look like?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the corn Ferry. What's happen to the
Speaker 1: corn Ferry Tour? Champions Tour could be really interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: with this big sort of the PGA Tour, the hemoth
Speaker 1: of the PGA Tour has sort of been sort of
Speaker 1: propping up, if you like, or the top fifty players,
Speaker 1: the ones who bring all the money to the main tour.
Speaker 1: They've sort of been propping up the Conferry Tour and
Speaker 1: the champions to it for a long time, right, the
Speaker 1: main products has been looking after the the other products,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's a little bit of freedom now to
Speaker 1: sort of do some fun stuff for the champions to
Speaker 1: do some cool stuff with the corn Ferry. The dp
Speaker 1: World Tour might become genuinely a bigger deal. Maybe it
Speaker 1: becomes the step up to it to get to the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. Maybe there's PGA Tour events all around the world.
Speaker 1: Maybe it becomes like everyone. Maybe there's some sort of
Speaker 1: hybrid that they're really there. They're seventy two hole stroke
Speaker 1: play tournaments like we play here, but maybe there's a
Speaker 1: few more spread around the world. I don't know, don't
Speaker 1: We don't know how it's all going to look. I
Speaker 1: think there's a freedom that Jay will have now in
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour to be a bit am big because
Speaker 1: they've got the checkbook, or they've they've got access to
Speaker 1: the checkbook. And I think the checkbook I think the
Speaker 1: piff and yes, sir, the goal was I want what
Speaker 1: we want to see it at the table at the
Speaker 1: best show in town, which is a PGA tour, and
Speaker 1: I think Live was one of us steppingstone to get there,
Speaker 1: albeit a product that is probably proud of and maybe
Speaker 1: he wants to keep going. I think the main goal
Speaker 1: was to be a part of the big show.
Speaker 3: I don't disagree, but Live could be part of the
Speaker 3: big show. I mean, I love the idea of have
Speaker 3: an event where you have the six strongest live teams
Speaker 3: and then you take six teams of pg Tour guys
Speaker 3: like that would have some real energy around it and
Speaker 3: just you know, just as they did at the season
Speaker 3: ender in Miami. You play individual matches, but you also
Speaker 3: have team matches going and that that could be fun.
Speaker 3: I mean, might as well lean into the fact that
Speaker 3: there is a little bit of tension there and a
Speaker 3: little bit of a divide and that that could be
Speaker 3: that could be blockbuster. But the global schedule is fascinating.
Speaker 3: Like it if you think about it's never really existing.
Speaker 3: You these tournaments are always in competition with each other. Now,
Speaker 3: if you could make it all make sense, like turn
Speaker 3: the Australian Open into a tour event and go go
Speaker 3: down to hit South Africa on the way, and then
Speaker 3: you go to Asia and then you have you have
Speaker 3: the West Coast Swing, and then you do Florida and
Speaker 3: then at some point you go to Europe. And then
Speaker 3: you know, we should you should get sit down with
Speaker 3: a pen and a piece of paper, Jeff and and
Speaker 3: come up with the dream unified global schedule that draws
Speaker 3: on every tour. And but now finally we can make
Speaker 3: that happen, right, like it never made sense you had
Speaker 3: really good tournaments on on the European Tour and the
Speaker 3: PG Tour at the same time. Like now you could
Speaker 3: slot things out differently and just ensure that the best
Speaker 3: players come together way more often, which you know the
Speaker 3: elevated events did and Live did, but they'd they'd split
Speaker 3: the game in half. Now, if you can bring that
Speaker 3: same spirit where you F one is a good analog.
Speaker 3: I mean the recent F one works is because you
Speaker 3: know that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstaff are gonna be
Speaker 3: every single race. And if we can get that in
Speaker 3: golf where every time you turn the TV on, they're
Speaker 3: on a cool golf course and all your favorite players
Speaker 3: are there and small the ones you don't like, but
Speaker 3: you know, the anti heroes like whatever, But you need
Speaker 3: you need the Patrick Reid's and you need the the
Speaker 3: bryceon Deshambos to go along with the nice guys too.
Speaker 3: So I just think I think the possibilities are endless
Speaker 3: to finally have a schedule that makes sense and where
Speaker 3: the players can travel in mass to different parts of
Speaker 3: the world. And it's never been it's never been achieved,
Speaker 3: but it's now it's achievable. Whether it'll happen, you know,
Speaker 3: who knows if they can, if they can really make it,
Speaker 3: if they can really make all the pieces fit. But
Speaker 3: I love to dream about it. I think it could
Speaker 3: be cool.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. Yeah, I just look, this could
Speaker 1: go any different direction and the negotiations could fall apart,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, but I don't It seems far
Speaker 1: enough down the road that something's going to come out
Speaker 1: of this. And as I said, I choose to see
Speaker 1: the good side of this, and like you say, that
Speaker 1: global potential, global schedule, that the crazy money that potentially
Speaker 1: could flow in to the PGA Tour and the players
Speaker 1: and the European players. Professional golfers are all around the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, like people think we make piles of money,
Speaker 1: and we do, but only the top bunch.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's an expensive sport to play on your own. I
Speaker 1: mean it's we pay our way around the world and
Speaker 1: you play bad for six months and you're out of
Speaker 1: a job. You know, if if all the layers, if
Speaker 1: all the layers sort of get a bit, this is
Speaker 1: this is creating a situation where you can feed more
Speaker 1: sort of funds into all the different layers of the
Speaker 1: sport and spread around the world. And there's clearly going
Speaker 1: to be some there's some rocky road sort of a
Speaker 1: bit of conflict in amongst players and tour management between
Speaker 1: here and getting there, because this is all a very
Speaker 1: new thing. But I think Rory said it today. I
Speaker 1: mean I looked ten years down the road and I
Speaker 1: kind of like how it looks, you know, I sort
Speaker 1: of choose to feel that I genuinely think this is
Speaker 1: going to go down as this This has the potential
Speaker 1: to go down as the best deal ever done, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's not just Jay's, it's everybody, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's the whole.
Speaker 3: Thing.
Speaker 1: There's the potential that this is like, wow, that was
Speaker 1: the day that golf really went really maximized its potential
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just limiting itself to one market or
Speaker 1: one strict little model. There's all sorts of different models.
Speaker 1: If you're all under the same umbrella, you can have
Speaker 1: team season and individual season and like travel season and
Speaker 1: the Southern Hemisphere swing, and like, this's just a lot
Speaker 1: of potential upside.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: With some there's there's some negatives, especially from a PGA
Speaker 1: to a player born of view, but these these are
Speaker 1: going to be PGA to a players that I would
Speaker 1: think if this comes off that there's sort of some
Speaker 1: negatives emotionally, but financially they're going to be pretty good,
Speaker 1: you know, so which tends to soften the blow for people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big tim, So we're going to see. Yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: bullish about the whole thing. I hope it turns out
Speaker 1: the way I hope it can it Clearly, I'm complete.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of rose colored glasses here, but I would
Speaker 1: rather sort of innocent to proven guilty, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean as opposed to the other way around. Let's let's
Speaker 1: just see where all lands and if it goes, like
Speaker 1: Jay was suggesting, as I said, there were no specifics,
Speaker 1: but if it goes like he was suggesting the general feel,
Speaker 1: if you could kind of read between the lines with
Speaker 1: what he was saying, it's like the PGA Tour is
Speaker 1: now going to run golf, and we now have access
Speaker 1: to funds that we've never had before, and we're going
Speaker 1: to be able to do some stuff that we've always
Speaker 1: wanted to do that we couldn't do before without lawsuits
Speaker 1: going on, without conflict. So it feels like it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could, it could be really really good, but hopefully
Speaker 1: we can hopefully we can get to that without too
Speaker 1: much more carnage because all this carnage and golf has
Speaker 1: been a shame. But good for golf, good for golf
Speaker 1: riders like you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's been eventful for sure. No,
Speaker 3: that that's all really well said, and I agree with
Speaker 3: that pretty much everything that you've laid out. I mean,
Speaker 3: I do think on a personal level, it's tough one
Speaker 3: for Jay, it's tough for Rory, but they're big boys.
Speaker 3: I mean the larger picture.
Speaker 1: I think could be He'll land on his feet.
Speaker 3: Rory's fine. I mean, the ultimate first world problems. I
Speaker 3: mean they're both going to be fine, but it's it's
Speaker 3: just kind of puts an exclamation point on a very
Speaker 3: tumultuous period and we'll see how it. Please are I
Speaker 3: love seeing lowry guys. Can we just pay attention to
Speaker 3: the Canadian Open, please, Like, let's just focus on the
Speaker 3: Canadian Opens, not now shit.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, they've got so unlucky. It was this
Speaker 1: It was this week last year that the first live
Speaker 1: event was on, right, So RBC arguably, I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: the biggest sponsor, but they're in the top two or
Speaker 1: three sponsors of all of golf. They put a lot
Speaker 1: of money in and they love it and this is
Speaker 1: their sort of flagship tournament. Two years in a row,
Speaker 1: they've the newspapers have been talking about everything except the
Speaker 1: Canadian Open, you know, and Rory saved it last year.
Speaker 1: But winning, i mean, having Rory win sort of saved
Speaker 1: it a little bit. But I think he was feeling
Speaker 1: that and I kind of kind of feel fro him
Speaker 1: because they genuinely are golf one of golf's biggest supporters.
Speaker 1: And it was it was very sensible, it was getting
Speaker 1: it was not getting unruly yesterday, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of emotion in the air and you weren't going
Speaker 1: to you know, when you get to those points where
Speaker 1: you're just not going to get anywhere further, you know,
Speaker 1: you just he couldn't tell He couldn't tell players anything.
Speaker 1: You knew. He wanted to tell them everything, but he
Speaker 1: can't because he doesn't know the details. And the players
Speaker 1: wanted more answers, and they deserve answers, the players, And
Speaker 1: so it was kind of you're at that style, mate,
Speaker 1: where it was just sort of becoming unraveled a little bit,
Speaker 1: and sort of Shane stepped in the sensible voice and said,
Speaker 1: come on, let's just play the Canadian Open. Let's just
Speaker 1: move forward, and let's just we'll keep asking questions of
Speaker 1: Jay and I hope it works out well. You know,
Speaker 1: it was cool.
Speaker 3: I like that. Well, I hope you play well the
Speaker 3: Canadian Open. Jeff, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 3: It's on the eve of the first round. You have
Speaker 3: other things to worry about, but it's always great to
Speaker 3: get your perspective and take the temperature inside of the
Speaker 3: actual room where it happened. So that is another Fire
Speaker 3: Drill podcast. We will check in with Jeff again down
Speaker 3: the road as things continue to evolve. But fairies and greens,
Speaker 3: thanks for doing sir, and uh we'll be back at
Speaker 3: it again soon.
Speaker 1: And grants for short because the rough is very long
Speaker 1: this week, so short grass is the best.
Speaker 3: Okay for all for all the sports betters out there there,
Speaker 3: you have it so all right. Thanks again, Jeff, I'm
Speaker 3: bet big again.
Speaker 2: I played the wind, made a fortune when my ship
Speaker 2: came man, I ran the table, never thought I could
Speaker 2: fall down. The winter time hit me like a cannon
Speaker 2: in the ball, and now I can't shake this losing streak.
Speaker 2: Every road I take is a dead end stream. I
Speaker 2: got thoughts in my head, can't get them out, trying
Speaker 2: not to think what I'm thinking about. I've got thoughts
Speaker 2: in my head, can't get them out, trying not to
Speaker 2: think what I'm thinking about.