Golf’s course renovation excesses come to the Byron Nelson, LIV’s cost cutting, and U.S. Open qualifying starts

Now the shotgun starting golf is full of mathematics. There's a lot of setup work that we have to do in order to make a tournament work. So I'm going to demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a shotgun start here. And here we go. Alright, alright, alright. Gentlemen! Start your engine! Greetings and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Shotgun Start. It is May 20th. Andy, how we doing? Brendan! I'm doing fantastic, I gotta say. I'm just ready for one of the biggest weeks of the year. What's that? The CJ Cup by Aaron Nelson? The USM four ball? What are we talking? Mid-Am, four ball? What are we talking about? CJ Cup by Aaron Nelson. There we go. I can't wait for us to return to TPC Craig Ranch. It's going to be must-see TV to be completely honest. There's no big names playing in the field. I was surprised to see Aaron Rye with Drew. Shocker there at EWD. We're going to get into it. The so bad it's good, invitational. Love it. There's one man that's all that matters this week at Craig Ranch. And it's not Scotty Shuffler. It's not World Number One Scotty Shuffler. It's Lanny Walken. I mean, it's kind of incredible. Lanny's just become like front and center, maybe only for niche podcasts. You got to wonder, like Brian Rolab, walks into his office. Like, well, what's the CJ Cup by Aaron Nelson? Like, how did we end up here? What is this Frankenstein event where you just started bolting bits and pieces on? You had a CJ Cup. You had a Byron Nelson. Seems like the Byron Nelson's moved around a lot, both in date and location. But what is this CJ Cup by Aaron Nelson at the TPC Craig T. Nelson Ranch? Just like, just like, what's he thinking when you walk in? Now, for us, it's become our Super Bowl for all the reasons that probably doesn't really intend. But you just got to wonder what he's thinking. You know, we have the scarcity schedule barreling down. And I think there's a lot of quotes that we're going to get to regarding this event. And the golf course and a lot of scuttle butt on the golf course. But the scarcity schedule is barreling down. We know we're going to have way less events. And I would say that there's a big, big target on the Texas area, which has a, you know, I'm not going to say outsized because everything's bigger in Texas, you know, nothing can outsize taxes. Because it's a renovation budget. Texas has a lot of events. And my favorite, maybe quote of the year, goes to David Pillsbury, Pillsbury boy. Well, I'm calling him the Pillsbury dough boy. As in dough, as in, you know what, cash, the double entendre here, the Pillsbury dough boy. What did he have to say? The CEO or something have invited, which used to be Club Corp. It owns Craig T. Nelson Ranch now. The economics probably justified a 10 to 12 million dollar investment. But we had to make a statement. We realized that to do it right and to make the sponsor happy and secure the longterm future of the tournament, we needed, we need to probably spend twice that. So thus we arrived at the $25 million Lanny Watkins renovation of TPC Craig Ranch. And I mean, this combined with the scarcity schedule, I just, I got it. I got to say, I think that this event has like the one of the smallest chances of being retained. Feels like it. Whether they spend 10, $0, 10 to $12 million or $25 million. I, this just, it's been a gold mine researching this renovation project. But I think that's the quote from the Pillsbury dough boy. Literally put, like he's saying it out loud, like the economics called for this, but we just doubled it. Like he said it out loud. I just, like we just, we put our heads down and just ran right through the wall. We weren't like, this is like that famous tweet of like my budget, like $200 on rent, $50 on food, $1,600 on candles. How could, why can't I feed my family, whatever that was that like. So, you know, when we look down the line here in 10 years from now, we just need to make a statement to CJ, this Korean multi-national billion dollar. What are they doing? What, what, in McKinney, Texas is where we got to go. Okay. Going anywhere. They've been at Congaree. They've been at Jeju Island. Vegas. Vegas. It's been all over. The other aspect of this, and this is, I would just point, this is the CEO of a golf company and it just represents golf think, which I think is, there's an insane trend going on in golf. It's, it's banana land and the golf renovation, golf restoration world where, like it's a, it's a, it's a, a thing of pride. How much you spend on a renovation. Yeah. We're like, you know, memberships at, at Hoity, Hoity clubs are like, you know, we, we're spending $30 million on this renovation. Not as like a, can you believe that's insane as like a puffing our chest out type thing. And like this, this is like a perfect facsimile of everything that's wrong with American golf and country club golf right now. This is a country club. The, the economics and the project justified 10 to 12 million, but we decided to double that. And you know what, you know who's paying for it? All our new members, you know, a lot of these places that are spending $30 million, you know what they do? How they pay for it? They jack up guest fees. So all of a sudden I go from, you know, I'm a member and it's great. I love it. You know, it's a hundred bucks for me to bring out a guest. Now all of a sudden after the renovation is $400. Like, it's like, oh, well that changes the economics of bringing my buddies out. I can't, I can't, I can't believe what's happening. I can't. It's like, it's like those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Right. I cannot like, you know, there's going to come a time when clubs that are like the mid tier or, you know, even above mid, not. The top whatever are going to need cash or need to pop the piss in. It was like, I, I can't believe it. It was less than that. It was like seven years ago, eight years ago. You could join all these places. They would pay you. And now they've, you know, but they're going to have a nice new, you know, a bar in between the walk from 10 to 11. And then you could stop and say hello to your kids at the pool and get a transfusion or they'll be new, whatever the fairways will be new. The course is still the same, but the new fairways have been redone. It's, it's, I can't believe it. And you're right. I didn't think about it, but there is like sort of a, there's like a pride. Good. This is a good thing that we spent this amount. It's bananas. Like nobody, nobody would renovate their house and be proud that they spent $10 million when they actually could have spent five. That's crazy. Like the only reason that people think this is okay is that they don't own the club and they don't have to like, you know, be like, did we get $30 million of value out of this project? And I get there's like, there's sort of like an arms race to like attract new members. You have to like add bells and whistles and say you did new things. And there is like a marketing element of like some of this because there's a lot of these like mid middle tier or whatever are competing with each other. And so like, but in the end, like, do you want assessments out the wazoo and initiation fees jacked and like the course is still going to largely be the course. You know, it's crazy. So let's get to Invited, which is this, you know, International Club Network ownership, which I guess it's not TPC though the Pillsbury Doughboy did used to manage the TPC network. So he's got, you know, institutional knowledge of how to jump in and spend a lot of cash. This is a Dallas Morning News article. Brad Townsend, I believe is the author. I've got, I've read several articles on Lanny's work. What I loved Andy is what you said, like, we get to do 10 to 12 million, but we went head down just said the hell with the 25 and the later art later in the article. What do you think they got for the additional 13 million? I mean, so they get, I don't know. I've got, you would know more about this than I am guessing. So they put new grass in everywhere. They've now got bent fair bent greens, Zoysia fairways and Bermuda rough. So three different kinds of grass. I assume that was a choice that probably up the costs and regrassing everything. Well, Lanny, Lanny wouldn't have cooked as much on the greens if they hadn't gone to bent. I liked that. You know, I would have, I would have been, I would have been a little bit calmer on the greens had it not been for, for the bent grass. So once they went from Bermuda, he was going to make a more timid because it would be firmer. This is point. But then when they went to bed, he just started to just go topsy-turvy. Let's get wild. I love that they said they spent 25 million. And in the article, it says Watkins said this year's winning score will largely hinge on how much wind there is and how conservatively the PGA tour sets up the course. I could have told you that 25 million dollars ago. It's the winning score is going to depend on when and how the PGA tour sets it up. And it's like, I get it. They probably made it a little harder, right? And push some bunkers of the 320 mark and things like that. But I love that they're still with like this whole winning score, this, this fascination and this, this obsession with winning score. Like, well, it's going to depend on what wind we have and how the, how the tour sets up. Got news for you. The Nelson is still in Nelson and still in North Texas in May. It's absolutely going to piss down all week as we've become accustomed to apparently hailing and thunderstorming Tuesday with rain significant up to an inch on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. It's just going to be so again. So this is how it's frequently been the all time one being when they made that, I think it was a par five, a par three, because the whole area was flooded. They did add new irrigation and new drainage. So maybe it will be draining much better. It should, I hope over the coming days. I got a new slash. We don't have to go that far back in history of time to remember when a new course debuted for the buyer and Nelson, what they did with setup. They put the, put the, put the white gloves on, made sure that, you know, everybody had a really gentle time at Trinity Forest where, you know, they doused it with water. They, they commanded this must play slower than it plays for the members. They moved numerous teas way up. So I would anticipate this week being a soft setup from the PGA tour, tourist best, especially, you know, most importantly, those guys had a tough week last week. So we would hate, hate to put them through the ringer a second week in a row, right? Yeah, absolutely. You're going to totally see it like, man, yeah. Like why, why show your contract? It's like watching that. So honest to God, it might be like watching Thunder Spurs last night and then Cavs, Nick's. And I don't mean to pop my own calves. Like that's just a different level. Can we, can we hop in here? I hate to, we're here. We're recording before a game has been played. We got, we got our, our, our two of our guys. I'm just the innocent. I'm going to be the moderator here. We got Nick's, Nick's calves, PJ versus BP. Do we have any expectations? I know the Knicks are a heavy favorite here. Heavy is the strong term, but yeah, tonight I would absolutely take the Knicks and the points. The cow, I think like the calves could just throw this game. It could be a 30 point blowout. I don't love the rest of the manage and all that stuff. I don't think they're even try and then load up for game two, try to take one would be my guess. I'm happy for the, I don't have any great antipathy, antipathy towards the Knicks fans. They seem like a great fan base until you realize they're also like all the Yankees fans, like the, to the people you absolutely abhor abhor and all other certain circumstances. I'm ready for all the like, you know, stuff about Cleveland's not, doesn't have as much, you know, culture or food scene or it's just like it's, you know, an armpit compared to New York. And then we can pop back with the sanitation, all the issues in New York. That's as the city of Cleveland Twitter account often does. I just would hate for them to find out about Lake Erie and how, how fraudulent it is. That's fine. That's fine. We can swim in it. Unlike you. Unlike the rivers. I mean, New York. If you're swimming in the Hudson, you're in bad shape. So that's, that's fair. I, I like, I look the New York, the Knicks fan base seems awesome. So PJ, where are you at? What an admirable save there. No, no, no. They seem like a great fan base. Then you think about who they are and all these other walks of life. I got, I don't know. Is it the same fans that were, were yelling, yelling at all the Europeans and the Ryder? It is. Well, the, we can get it. This is, we don't have time to get into this side talkification of the Knicks fan base. Cause now everybody just stands outside the garden looking for a person with a microphone and a camera, just to sprout. And it's not as fun as it was the first time five years ago, because it never will be again. But yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm confident. I, I think everybody probably took a long look in the mirror last night after watching that Ryder Spurs game. I was like, God, does this really matter anyway? But it would be cool. The Knicks have never made the finals in my lifetime. So it would be great. It would be really fun. I am worried about Donovan Mitchell because he keeps talking about the Mets and all of his press conferences and now he's an adversary of New York. So I'm a moderately concerned. There was rumors that he might, the Mets are home next week. If this series gets to like a game five or game six, and there was rumors that Donovan Mitchell might go to a MET game. And I don't want to see the poor guy get booed in public like that. So, yeah, I just had work for the Mets. Yeah. It's like the senior vice president player development, like very, very high up. I don't know if you heard this, but Donovan Mitchell was a good baseball player too. I heard this. Donovan Mitchell is Rick Petino's favorite player. He's a coach. Really? Yeah. I am not particularly in love with this Cavaliers team. I understand the great fortune of having gone to so many Eastern Conference finals in my lifetime. Andy, don't think about this the other day. How the bulls ruined the NICs and the Cavs for so many years? That's fair. What sort of NBA fans life would you take? The one you have and you obviously have the greatest stuff forever, but you're five years old. Or like, I don't know, not the NICs, but something else. Let me tell you. You know what? I... I'm trying to think it's been bad for you. I would take mine even though we're in hell. Maybe we're coming out of hell now with the new regime. But I would take mine because all I know is every day I was sick as a young adolescent, I would go over, pop in the VHS, the 1991-92 Bulls recap video of the season, rewatch that. That would be my starter that I might switch to Star Wars, that I would come back to it again, that I would go to 92-93. I had a great childhood of basketball memories. It was the all-time sort of pop culture plus sports moment of many of our lives. And it was your team. I mean, people were like, relitigating the Phil Jackson, like 2017 NICs with like Clanthody Early and Lou Amundsen and Frank Noakina. We traded a first round pick for Barneyani. Like, it was bleak for a really long time. I do consider myself somewhat fortunate that this is whatever, like the seventh or eighth Eastern Conference finals of the last like 15 years of my lifetime. It is good. You guys won the lottery three times? Yeah, that's never happened. We want to talk about the NBA-ranking stuff for poor. Cleveland might be like the green Bay of the NBA. We got LeBron. Oh, we don't need to go through it. Tyree Wiggins. Anthony Bennett. Anthony Bennett. That was the prize. Yeah. You guys see the Warn Sharp analysis that basically proved my longstanding point that the bears get screwed all the time by the, by, by refs that want the Packers to win? The Ham and Indiana Bears, what happened? Why? Do you see this? What was the analysis? No. This huge thread a couple of weeks ago? No. Warn Sharp went through the officiating like the last few years and basically proved that the bears got the least amount of penalties called for them. The most penalties called against them. An insanely low percentage possible of roughing the passer calls against our quarterbacks who both been running quarterbacks. It's just been basically insane. It's basically like the NFL has done everything through its referees to hold the bears down. Well, and now the bears are going to tear down one of the great golf courses in our country to build the stadium that's not even in Chicago. So I think it evens out. I'm close by right now. I need to go out. I always get access. I always ask for access to fly the drone. I might just take it up. Do it. Go get it. Lost mark. I wonder if they'll be hospitable. They didn't accept the Instagram collab. They didn't. They did not. They might take all the advocacy they can get right now. If their bears are coming in, they would make any pop. Can I point something out? What? There's a lot of golfers on the Knicks and there's a lot of golfers on the Cavs. And one of those two teams is going to have a lot more time on their hands after this. And I would suggest they maybe get ready for their big number of golfing by going and visiting Golf Galaxy. What a segue. All right. Go to Golf Galaxy. What is this? Personalized gifts for dad. Well, it's not personalized. What is this graphic? It's not personalized if you just write dad on it. That's fine. DJ, this graphic is terrible. Dad. Hold on. I'm going to push back here. My daughter just started to spell and feel the sound out words and she's like, this is how you spell your name, dad. And she's a D-A-D. And it made me very happy. That's great. So yeah. If my daughter got me, I'd feel like it was personalized. This is the graphic. Personalized golf gifts for dad. Wedge. Oh, Yeti with dad on the side of it. Golf ball. I think the wedge has stamping on it. Looks like a poker chip ball marker of some sort. So you get in the weeds there. Go to golfgalaxy.com or check out download that app. Best fitters in the country. PJ's got a personalized experience with them. Download the app, drop into a golf galaxy, get fit, a season hits high gear. And obviously as Father's Day comes around the corner. I don't know if we're out of the texture mom range still given that was six days prior. It feels like it's still Mother's Day in Scott O'Neill's world. But as Father's Day approaches, go to golfgalaxy.com, go to golfgalaxy and drop in. Hey, real quick question on that subject of brick and mortar golf companies. Have you ever, we've been in golf our whole life. I saw they sponsored live from. Have you ever seen let alone been to a Carl's golf land? No. I couldn't believe they were sponsoring live. I don't think I've ever even seen one. It's amazing, but I get ads for it all the time. It feels like maybe not a thing. I've never even seen one. Let alone been to it. All right, we're down to the sports minute. Hey, hold on prediction. What do you guys think? I do you think you think Sammy Merrill is going to be playing golf sooner than Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson? If you ask my prediction, yes, I don't really love this Cavs team, but I also think like the way we're saying this is just not a map, they could get hot quite frankly. They have the guys to really if Mowgli and Alan Mowgli has been amazing. I don't think it's as big a lopsided series as people are suggesting, but I do not like this team. I'm picking the next to win PJ. Next to five. Five. Okay. I'm rooting for the Cavs. I'm rooting for, I'm with you BP. I got to see, you know, Chicago legend Max Struz, you know, take another team to the championship. He's been on. He's been. Next in five. Oh, G Eastern Conference finals MVP. Log it up. Okay. Sam Merrill, you know, might might listen to some of our material. So he looked good. He looked great on game seven. 20 some points. Yeah. Good player. Took the hit from us there. Thompson and then just. Did something else there. Thompson can't do it. Shoot and buried the piston. So that was fun. Congrats to Sam Merrill. All right. Let's get back to Craig Ranch schedule for the week. This is the Dallas morning news. Of course, given the two year projects price tag of nearly 25 million, World Golf Hall of Fame or Lanny Watkins and his design team were expected to produce ample sizzle and distinct pop. I'm glad they were expected. This is the Pillsbury Dough Bowl. We needed someone who is going to deliver a golf course that is really unique in Texas. So what would that mean? Like what stands out in Texas place? You know, there are 100 who's runs 150 clubs of CEO invited the quote. Where when you leave, you go, wow, I'm going to remember that since it's opening in December. It's earned rave reviews from media. I might suggest we get dig a little deeper on who and where and what and the club's 350 members. The ladder of comma, the ladder of which is essential, essential because in the last 12 months, initiation fees have doubled to $150,000. I'm glad we're getting that detail. The reviews better be good. They've gone from 75 to 150 K for TPC Craig Ranch premium pricing, but who's a high end experiment experience of the largest capital investment that Irving based invited has made in a single club since it was founded. My God, think about that. Just hold on. 150 you have 150 clubs. Yeah. And you choose Craig Ranch to be the one that you make your biggest investment into. Lanny, the infrastructure of the course with the bridges and stuff, what a quote, was already in place and is spectacular. Still is. I love that we had the bridges. God knows we might have got to 40 million if we had to do new bridges. Infrastructure. What the course needed, Pillsbury said, were distinct characteristics, personality, quote, all due respect to Tom, never a good way you want to start a sentence. That's Tom Weiskoff, dearly departed, Northeast Ohioan, son of Benedictine High School, all due respect to Tom. This was insane. Come on. He's not even here anymore. I don't think it was very memorable. Jesus. I think it was good, but it wasn't great and it needed to be great. Lanny, once invited, that's the company, which just gets confusing because it's a verb, once invited, decided to go with bent as a surface for the greens. It changed my thinking. Had they been champion Bermuda, which we had talked about from the beginning, I wouldn't have had as much undulation because that would have been a firmer surface. I'm getting videos today of the 13th whole 480 uphill, which apparently has five different tiers. And someone referred to it as CJ Cove Pirates Cove, I believe, which is a mini golf pejorative. I also got unsubstantiated rumors from the ground that tour officials are very frustrated at the Nelson and Lanny because they listened to, quote, none of the advice provided by the tour regarding the readable. Now I'm in on Lanny. Well, that's the thing. The tour design services, quote, wasn't, I would say, blue ribbon to begin with, and has been hollowed out with buyout. There is no real design services anymore. I don't know who got bumped up with all the guys taking buyouts. So now we've got, not necessarily a meeting of the minds. Hey, real quick, can we take a break? Please. I'm looking through the flip book, the renovation flip book. I wanted to see what you thought about this change here to the first hole. I'm going to put it on the screen for YouTubers, YouTube watchers. What do you think? I don't see like a ton of difference. It seems like a different angle. Looks almost widened, but the trees and creek come in. I assume they wanted the creek to come in more. The bunker, obviously they made two distinct bunkers, sort of like what Aratomink did last week. They took one bunker and made it two on the fairway, and then at the green, they just changed the shape of the bunkers. I assume the green's different. I think most of the work is at the green. But that's $25 billion. That's basically a new golf course build. What Lanny said was we try to do is make it playable. We've got a lot of movements on the green. This is a good one. Movements on the green, but if you go to where the whole locations are, nothing on any green is over 2% of slope. So it's just like window dressing, or you can feel it. Like you don't have to actually, once you get near the pole, it's very distinctly different from last week. Maybe this is where the tour is frustrated because they gave, I remember from podcasting with Tom Doak, they gave him that nothing could be over 1.75 degrees of slope at Memorial Park. So maybe this is where the contention lies, is that Lanny went to two, and the tour is upset. That means putts are outside edge, one ball out, and that's about it. Well, that just sounds like just electric factory. Great. That's what Mackenzie, I'm sure, that was like, can't have a pot outside of ball. Well, I mean, people were like, oh, last week, like what was so challenging about the greens? That's the exact thing that they actually broke. Quote, a really good iron player could still shoot a number here because he's going to be close enough. It's the approach putting that's going to be interesting and difficult. I'll note, he added a beer Ritz, I believe at the 11th. The third hole. Third hole, sorry. Sorry. 215 yards. Which he said he loved the Sony, was one of his favorites. He loved the beer at the Sony. Talked about Fox Chapel. They also, there's a Hell's Full Acre. I don't know if you've seen this as an homage to Pine Valley. I think it's the Par 5 Fifth. Yeah, I was looking at that. It doesn't go all the way across though. Well, they're calling it Hell's Full Acre, as opposed to Hell's Half Acre. Is it because there's an acre of sand in it? I didn't. How do you measure that? It's taking Pine Valley and making it elevated, going the full acre, I guess. Did you see the context in which Fox Chapel was brought up in this article? Yeah, they couldn't see him because he was in the swale. No, but he, when he made Fox Chapel famous as a champions tour television analyst on the golf channel is how it is referred to. It does. I'm looking through all like the green scans. Basically, he's just built like these big ridges and separated the greens out. I mean, it's definitely got to be better than it was before. I'm highly amused by the amount of money he put into it and the notion that all of a sudden, we're going to go from 25 under to 10 under. But look, I think he tried some stuff. He tried to cook a little bit. It was a very expensive meal. He put the be ritz in, hell's full acre. There's a lion's mouth. Hell's full acre is preposterous. That's why I'm drawing it. You can play around it. The best part about it is it looks like it's got different color bunker sand than the rest of the bunkers. Oh, there you go. So I'm wondering if they tried to skimp out on some of the budget. You may, they asked for a little bit more, but they couldn't get all the same sand for all of it. I don't think, I think they decided to put their head down and not skip. I think they just maybe an oversight there. There's a lion's mouth green allegedly. Yeah. If you love towards the back half of the round. No, no, the sixth. Yeah, the sixth hole is lion's mouth. There's a 35 yard part four. One green that caught my eye that I thought was pretty cool is 10. It looks like a little something out of like Augusta National kind of 14th, where it's got a big false front and like three sections. It just goes the opposite way of the slope on 14. I'm glad you brought up Augusta because I'm going to quote from the Tyler Morning Telegraph. In overseeing the makeover Watkins, universally praised for his design of blackjack crossing in Lajitas in the big Ben Hario. I always wanted to go there. People do say they love it. Great public horse. But universally has toughened the layout with one local tour player saying quote, it now has teeth. A big part of Watkins renovation was reshaping the green complexes with slopes and contours reminiscent of those at Augusta National or even older courses like North Barrack in Scotland. So we have a Augusta National and North Barrack citation for Crack Ranch. Fox Chapel. We have a Pine Valley cop for at least one par five hazard that you say is not in play. Lot of bombast coming out and there better be given the money that was said on the beer. It's he said it's two part threes and one you've got options. He also bragged about hole 12 being only 20 yards wide from the bunker to the rough. So if you put in the fairway, you'll be getting there in two. So he thinks three or four shots wins from 11 through the clubhouse. He thought 12 or 15 under was what the lower the score he was looking for. That's just not going to happen. I don't think it's going to be wet. Although, you know, last week, who knows who knows what the score, but 12 to 15 under is a bold from 31 under Scotty going to 12 or 15 is a bold thing. He brought us to you bring you bring us to our first guy that we're monitoring this week. Please get to it this week for various reasons. Let's let it rip. Number one, Scotty Shuffler. Did Lanny Scotty proof the new crack ranch? I'm going to guess no. I thought it was incredible. Like I do think this the notion of the cost and everything and it's just being a dull event. All right. Like are all worthy critiques. I do think like it's not just straight bomb and putt and Scotty clearly winning by eight being Scotty. So you can't separate on a great course like this. You can't lift and separate. I just can't believe we wiped away historically one of the greatest performances in golf that happen. We no longer have the benchmark. You know, they're talking about like the summer one model. We've removed 20 games in baseball that will lose all the historical context. And now they've made this investment to keep this event around the $25 million investment that's going to avoid it being on the shopping block during the scarcity schedule. But we lose historically the greatest performance maybe in all of golf ever. The context for it because the course is different. You might be speaking too soon about the event going away though. I like the kicker at the end of the one article that said if the fee these new features go well, CJ cup is in line for tier one PGA tour status. I the work could be the best ever. I just think there's a lot more going on on whether it's tier one or tier two. Anyways, all right, who's our next? It is really sad as someone who grew up watching like all the players play the Byron Elson and then walk off the green and shake Byron Elson's hand. And like what could happen to an event if it's not watched over? I mean, Tiger would play it regularly. Yeah. I feel like the Arnold Palmer has been watched over and is like, well, taken care of by golf. Some of that's golf channel being, you know, having the megaphone. But like Byron Elson just has gotten, you know, they have not done well by Byron Elson's name. Yeah. I mean, Colonial and Hogan, the association too. I mean, his name's not on it, but yeah, it's tough. All right. Who's our next guy to monitor after Scotty? Blades Brown. BB. All right. The BB gun, the new BB gun. He's recruited himself pretty well in professional golf. He's been playing a lot of really good golf. Yeah. Obviously had the Palm Desert early, played really well at Myrtle, played well last week on the Cornfury Tour. You know, I don't know exactly where he stands. This is probably something I should have done, but we're two days after the PGA championship. He needs a T-21 for special temporary membership. That's why PGA, that's why PJ's here. That's why you're a PJ. So T-21 for temporary special membership. So Blades Brown, next we'll go to another young gun in the field. Do you know who this is? Young gun, Preston Stout, I guess. That's right. The Jackson Collievan hype train is insane. It's well deserved. You know, he's been outstanding, but what's done is overshadowed. Another like bonafide stud. I don't, you know, obviously I'm not like, I don't have my thumb on the pulse as closely as some, but I would venture to guess that this guy, if you took Collievan out, would be getting all the hype that Collievan's getting. He's won three straight big 12s or SECs, not big 12s, SECs. Or no, big 12s of home mistakes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Alignments getting me screwed up. I talked with one college coach who said I would take Stout over Collievan for a career, like the future career for the next 15 years. So just give you a context. He's very slow player though. That's the one thing. I wouldn't go, if you're looking, if you enjoy fast play, I wouldn't go watch him. But if you do enjoy, you know, potentially generational prospects, do go watch him. Okay. Good use of a sponsor exemption. Next, next three or next two, maybe not as serious. I had to call out our guy, Greg Gregory. This was so good. Greg Gregory is in the field. PGA called pro. And I want to know, will having the same name be an advantage this week? I don't think it'll be an advantage. If I had to guess, feels like a bridge too far. I did read up on Mr. Greg Gregory. Apparently his name is John Allen or David Allen Gregory, but his mom nicknamed him Greg since his father carries the same name. What a peculiar choice. So instead of going by David Allen or what? We got to get this off the screen. His name is not actually Greg Gregory. I mean, he's put, he is in the program. He is in the media guide. He is on all the websites. It's Greg Gregory that the nickname stuck. I just feels like a way for to get more people to know your name. A little bit on that too. But mom going instead of just David or Allen or just Biff anything, she goes, I'm going to Greg Gregory. That's what it became for life. All right. All right. Up next. James Hahn is in the field. He's got an opportunity to be in front of the microphone, which usually never disappoints. I just hope Adam shootbacks there. God, I didn't know he was in the field. Just an absolute mule pen. CJ cut by remelcins. We come. PJ, where do you think that hats from that you got this headshot? I just try to figure that out myself. I figured you might know. I don't know. We definitely had one over this at some point in the podcast many years ago. Track horse, big letters, no vols. You think it's track horse? I couldn't tell you. What's house track horse track house? Track house. I don't know. I don't know. Track house racing team. Maybe that. I don't know. It's a bad hat, but it's fitting. It's for those listening. It's TRK HSE. It does kind of look like that racing team from my very limited Google search. I do make big letter hats with this track house. That's his headshot for all time now. Yeah. All right. Are those five guys? Is that all five? That's all five. Greg Gregory, Han Blades Brown, Preston Stout and Scotty Schaeffler. Not a particularly deep field is the CJ Cup by Ron Nelson as you would expect. It's on Golf Channel 3 to 7 on Thursday and Friday. CBS finish on 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The purse is $10.3 million. It's just insane. Almost $2 million to the winner. Notables you've noted. Blades, Wyndham Clark, Cam Davis, Siwu Kim, Tom Kim. Kepka is in the field. Sheffler, Spieth and Thor. Sheffler, Siwu and Spieth are three of the favorites doing the local discount thing. Being Fidelis look, guys. Did you have a one and done pick? I do. I do. I was looking around. I had to scrape the barrel a little thin. I think he's been playing pretty good golf lately. I'm taking Rio Heissatsuni. Great pick. Good pick. I thought about taking him. I'm going to go with Mikey Brennan. Rip and best driver maybe in the world right now. Just sending it and then hopefully making some putts. We heard it, Augusta. He just really cannot putt. But he's maybe the best driver in the world. So I'm going with Michael Brennan. I called PJ earlier and I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm grinding. I got to get the shotgunners a one and done win. You heard people are trailing him. I've disappointed. I haven't had a win yet this year. I'm way behind, I think, between the three of us. It's not. Do you think we could count my potty first round leader? The person that bet potty first round leader is a win. You want to count units on that? Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. We can do that. I'm going to, you know, I texted Joseph. I said, I feel like I'm just going to step on a rake intentionally this week. I'm going to set myself up for failure when I'm really trying to get a win. Davis Thompson, come on down, buddy. You can do it. I believe in you. Total Davis Thompson kind of weak. And to just get the year of you, we don't remember a thing about it. I go, Davis Thompson won. It has happened before. It would have been the first time it's happened. That's great. That's great. All right. Last bit on the lany thing from the Tyler Telegraph. It's a longtime Dallas resident and quote, a claimed golf course designer. That's the whole thing about this. He's not acclaimed. He could be good. He might have done good work here. But like of all the guys, they just picked the local resident who played on tour. They called them acclaimed in the paper, acclaimed golf course designer. That's the whole thing. He could have been good. You want to save a tour event. You just kind of went with the guy who's built the Blackjack Crossing, which just turned up. It just felt like there was an option and you spent 25 million. I'm 25 million for the number that's just alarming. Fascinated to watch it. I think it could be semi-interested if it weren't the week after the PGA. All right. That does it for Craig T. Nelson Ranch and the CJ Cup by Ron Nelson. Next on our schedule for the week, we have the Trophy Hassan II in Rabat, Morocco, which just an event that everybody's asking for. This is 9 a.m. to noon coffee golf. I love the Trophy Hassan. That's great. I think the Trophy is still like a dagger or a sword of some kind. That's 9 a.m. to noon Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So they're a day ahead. Coffee golf ish, brunch golf, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The purse is 2.5 million and Royal Golf Dar S. Salam, the red course, just to make sure you're not confused. They are playing the red. Defending champion is Miguel Angel Jimenez. Notables are Alker, Ames, Elz, Jimenez. Justin Leonard is going to Morocco. Vijay is going to Morocco. And a notable, Jean Van Develd is a notable this week. I just didn't know he was still playing. I don't know if he went full Dubasson and disappeared into sort of the French Alps or wherever, but Jean Van Develd is playing. PJ, do you have any champions tour notes on this? This used to be a full-flawing DP World Tour event. Now it's a champ's tour. I do. First of all, I am wondering, I haven't seen one way or another if Papa and Zinger will be on site. I believe last year they were. Because the cane or the prince paid for it. Yeah. So I haven't gotten that confirmation yet. However, I have gotten confirmation. I don't know. You will be the first to know. I can promise you that. Did you guys see the champions tour plane arrival video that they put up yesterday on Twitter? The answers, no, you didn't even need to get there. It's the Monday after the PGA. The answers, no, I didn't see that. All right, man. Well, you know, the world moves on. Sorry, Terry, right? Calendar doesn't stop. Maybe it's a scarcity schedule, but not this year. There was an arrival video of everybody is taking the same charter flights seemingly to Morocco. Which is why these guys, it helps, right? I mean, they get a free flight. VJ jumps in. I mean, as you might remember from your interview a couple of years ago, John Daly was on a camel at one point with Cal in during this trip. I mean, this could be a bevy of content. But I will say they started with this travel video. And it was very interesting to see who the door to the plane was in the middle. So if you're going left, you were going up towards first class. If you were going right, you were in the back of the plane. That's where they came from. And it was very interesting to see. So you got like Miguel goes to the left. VJ goes to the left. Ernie goes to the left. And then like Tim O'Neill comes up and they're like, sir, right this way. This is incredible analysis. You're the fruiter in the plane video. And they, you know, like Cam Percy, they're like, I, he goes to the right. I will say though, Sabo goes to the left. Hell yeah. Wow. This guy's got a metal. This guy's still in the middle. Come on. He's got something that nobody else on that plane. Sabo was the conclusion to the video. The punch line walks right up to the camera. It says like, I can't wait. And then it goes to the left, directed to the left, front of the plane. P.J. Honestly, that's some of your best work. I mean, I don't mean to like butter you up, but like, you're not getting that anywhere else. That's incredible. You went to that level of detail and picked apart the plane boarding video. You know, somebody has to. Somebody has to. That is so good. They don't, they haven't, you know, the access hasn't flowed to P.J. It's not like the champions tour is banging down his door saying, we've got XYZ guest and XYZ guest, but you go out and make your own access. There you go. That's it. You know, you just tweeted Ian polter until he comes on lunch with the boys. Still haven't heard back yet. Maybe someday. On the DP world tour, we have the Pseudal open at Rinkvyn International Golf Club in Antwerp, Belgium. The purse is $2.75 million. Just to shave a hair above the Morocco trophy. Hasan too. Defending champ who I doubt is returning is Christopher Reitin. Don't think he's coming back, but I could be Ron. Notables, Deetree, Casey Jarvis, Thurston Lawrence, Adrian Murrunk, Renato Perreitor, Victor Perez, and Paul Waring. This is 7 to 9 a.m. on Golf Channel Thursday and Friday, 3 to 6 tape delay. We'll have to disgraceful on Saturday. Then 7 a.m. to noon on Sunday. Coffee golf finish on Sunday in Antwerp on the Pseudal open. Big pairing in the first two rounds. I hope Luke Donald's out there to watch. Who is it? Potential future rider pairing. Is it Sullivan? Are you going to give me bumblebee? Old and young. Buy a stare. This is playing with the bumblebee. I mean, at this point in the year, it's not a Wednesday episode without a mention of the bumblebee. I was going to say, like, are we going on a streak where he's mentioned the bumblebee, like 18 podcasts in a row? It feels like every week he's coming back. He's got to play every week to get the top 10. Hold on. Let's see where he is in the race and the rankings here. Apparently, he was crashing out at the Turkish Airlines open. I'm getting bumblebee. Some substantiated rumors from the ground in Turkey. He's six in the race to Dubai. Great. The guy's coming over. He's coming over. He's going to be like the great one. I could see him not doing it. He's like, I'm going to stay here and play for $2.5 million per se. He should. He should lead into his nickname and only wear black and yellow. I mean, does he know that's his nickname anywhere but this podcast and in your brain? I don't know. Don't know if that's the case. That's your schedule for the week. There's obviously a ton of NCAA regionals going on all across the country. U.S. Open local qual or final qualifying. I was going to get to that here in a second. U.S. Four Ball. But that's your schedule for the week. We'll get the Four Ball in a minute. But if you need a good belt for Four Ball, U.S. Open Final Qualifying, or any NCAA regional, or even just your local Saturday game at Craig Ranch, wherever it may be, at another invited club, you could go to mobjack. Mobjack.com. Use the promo code FRIDAYG. All caps one word, FRIDAYG, for 15% off. I have both those belts being shown on the screen. I absolutely love them. I love them. 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We should send that. I don't think they didn't sound like they loved that when we had some fun with it. I mean, we just haven't had it. It was our first time trying it out. We'll get better. Yeah, we're not good yet. That's your schedule for the week. Event of the week, I got a submission for the mid-a.m. The Gap Mid-A.M., which is a major. It's played at Jeffersonville. The first time in the 129-year history, a Gap major is at a public facility. So, Jefferson. I love the submission and congrats to Philly for a great week last week. But what do you got? We're Craig Ranchin this week. There's nothing nothing can take it away from. They spent $25 million for this spot. I'm a shit intrigued. I think it I don't think scoring is going to be what it is. They put the Summerlin model in play. I can't believe none of us took Sunjay or Husky Boy as one of those. But it'll be a good, good interesting, interesting follow. U.S. Open Qualifying. You mentioned that. We had that at Walton Heath and at in the Dallas section. Here are our names from let me pull this up from Dallas. Well, here's from Walton Heath. Sorry, Walton Heath. No teeter. That was an open champion qualifying. Nathan Kimsey, Rocco Paolo Rapetto Taylor. So, it was all vowels and then we end with Taylor. What an interesting four names. If you have four names, you have one. Rocco Paolo Rapetto Taylor, Angel Hidalgo, Filippo Celi, Matthew Jordan is coming to Shinnecock Hills. He could be, he could be live. The Lynxmaster. Even Park could be a good score. Maybe we'll get some head to head games. Hammer, Matt Jordan, Nicholas Norgaard, Hugo Cusso. Love that. Alternate one is Henny DuPlessis. The favorite of yours and Andrew Wilson. At the Dallas Athletic Club, we had Peter Uline. Tom Kim, Cooper Dossi, Manav Shah, Jimmy Stainer, Graham McDowell, Adrian DeMonte, DeCisart, TK Kim, and Caleb Surat gets in a playoff, off of a playoff. Alternates are Chandler Phillips and Henrik Norlander. So, qualifying, one of my favorite moments of the year, favorite times of the year, favorite processes of the year, is often running at the England and Dallas site. I think there's one in Japan next week before we do the whole golf's longest day after Memorial. Notably in Dallas, which Ryan French called our attention to as well, Eugenio Chakara was in the playoff. It was a six for one. Caleb Surat gets birdie on the first hole to get in. So, then the five have to play for first and second alternate, which is like very important. A lot of pros, like likely possibly getting in off the alternate list. And Chakara just left. He just left. Apparently, he had a flight to catch. It's just a bizarre decision. You have one hole potentially to play to get an alternate. I don't know if there's a miscommunication. He didn't fully comprehend the status that alternate, first or second alternate might get you. But he played all day. He plays 36 holes, plays the playoff, and then leaves. Because he has, and then like, how do you have a flight on the day of sectionals or whatever they call it, final? Kind of an insane decision. But we've heard he can be a little mercurial and march to the beat of his own drum. Kind of wild. He said, did you see his explanation? No, I didn't. What do you say? Joseph just said this to us. He said, I had my flights from me and my team booked at 9.30. The playoff finished at 7.50. For me, playing majors is very important. But for my stage of my career, playing good in Europe to get my PGA tour card is the main goal. To prepare Belgium, the best was to leave and catch the flight. So shouldn't you like the Walden Heath sectional or something? Like why? I don't really understand why he was in the palace. A response to Ryan French. She's kind of the same thing. You want to give this tour card via the DP World Tour Top 10. I agree with that. You lose one day, and that was the only chance I had to get there on time to get some rest and practice the course. OK, I guess. Yeah, all right. Tough decision. Sorry to see that for Jakara. That's it for qualifying. They also, we put a boatload of players in via the OWGR. 86 players, 24 got in, top 60. That's a big number, I think. It might be a big number of exempt players when they get down to it. Room for qualifiers is smaller. We'll see. News? PGA Tour has a new social media policy. I've already stipulated for the record. I do not care. I don't care about this. I wish nothing but the best for the poor. More highlight. I don't. Yeah. Mr. Spitball and Andy White said it's the most progressive player policy ever, I believe, is what it was called. They can't sell their own sponsorship deals for videos, but you can earn money from YouTube Standard run-of-sight edits. But I would just warn them better make sure you can get the money out when you start doing the YouTube ads. We cannot do it. I don't think I've gotten it out yet. White's called it, quote, one of the most progressive and athlete-friendly and professional sports. Well, I guess they spitballed that up. So that's news. I'm good. I'm over that. Other news. This is from Flushing It. The purse at the Korea Open, which provides a spot in the Open Championship via the RNA's Qualifying Series. Korea Open announced live golf back purse increase of more than 40% to record 2 billion won a few weeks ago. But Asian Tour players Monday of the event say, whoops, never mind. They're reverting that back. It's going back to the original. So the end of April, they're like 500 grand in prize money support from live golf. The 2 billion won, the largest in tournament history, then Monday morning. So you commit or you change, you figure it out. The Korea Open becomes what it is. Monday, they get an email saying, due to reduced sponsorship, we're going back to the original 1.4 billion won. Kind of, you know, not great. Yeah. But if you live at this point, Gotta save money. You just pull it back where you can. You have Boba's playing over there, answer Danny Lee, Richard T Lee, some other live guys are playing the Korea Open with a British Open spot on the line. Last but not least in news, Garak Higo fired his caddy. This is a shoe pack story. I don't know. Feels like sort of a, I'm sure the caddy played a part in it, but just kind of feels like throwing someone in front of the bus. After a very high profile moment of ignominy and embarrassment. So that's it for news. Anything else? Any parting shots? Yeah. Yeah. Last, last bit of news. I opened up ESPN.com. You know what the story on the home page is? When Benyama? Why the Browns are giving to Sean Watson another chance to be QP1. I can't believe it. I can't believe we're talking about this. The ownership group has created a full-blown campaign of just seeding the story. This sort of amoral, sort of soulless ownership group has gone around town saying like he's looked really good. Like he's like, we're not done yet. There could be, why not try? There could be something like, and like it's just slowly gaining momentum. Total PR campaign. It's just happening. No one's asked for this. No Browns fans. Well, no one wants it. No one's clamoring for it. I love that that's leading ESPN.com on May 19th. And there's other stuff to talk about. That does it. That does it. I can't wait for Byron Nelson, CJ Cup. Really excited. We'll look forward to that Saturday, Sunday. Lock in. I don't know if we're going to do the recap, but we'll be here Friday. Maybe a little flashback on the Byron Nelson. I think the boys take over weekend. I'll say. We'll say. Doesn't sound like the weather's going to be very good in the McKinney, Texas area. All right. Thank you for listening to the Shotgun Start. We'll be back. Talk to you on Friday. This is an I Heart podcast.