1122: Jacob Bridgeman wins the Genesis & Jeeno Thitikul's big win at home

Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up live show presented by our friends at Titleist. Solly here, joined by my guy, Mr. DJ Pye. Happy Sunday, Pye Man. Happy Sunday to you, Solly. And a great Sunday it was. A lot of sports. Got to watch a little hockey this morning. That was great for the U.S. of A. And some great golf to talk about from Riviera. So good to be with you. I think my eyes are still not fully back to the white that they're supposed to be from the waterworks that were flowing this morning. TC is here. Even a guy like TC had to be caught up in the emotion of that moment this morning. Oh, absolutely. I loved every minute of it. And I think the Canadian tears have just been beating in those all afternoon, too. So, you know, I guess they outplayed us. They dominated us. But the scoreboard says otherwise, guys. It is super fun to just helicopter it. Hating off had them as the winner. If I actually followed hockey really closely, I would totally be that guy, but it's really fun to just be on the other side. Didn't make the big shots, guys. Didn't want it enough. Americans just made more goals. I don't know. More goals. Big third down here. Guys, we've got a big show tonight. We're going to react to Jacob Bridgman's win at the Genesis. We've got a lot of stuff from Riviera. We've got some new tees, Scotty's week. Rory's week, his start to the year as well. DJ's going to take us through some birdies and bogeys. We've got all kinds of news and notes. We've got an LPGA tour over in Thailand. We've got the Magical Kenya Open, of course. Jacob Bridgman, of course, wins the Genesis. Casey Jarvis won the Magical Kenya Open. And Gino Titicum wins again the Honda LPGA Thailand. I feel like AI just kind of like wrote that into the agenda here. That was a pretty easy one. But again, the Knowling Up Live show is presented by our friends at Titleist. The new SM11 wedges officially landed in golf shops this past Friday. Just do yourself a favor and go get fit. All you got to do is look at the bottom of the club, and when you see all those numbers on there, and if you don't know exactly what those numbers mean, you need to get fit. Even if you do know what those numbers mean, you need to get fit. I'm going to make this number up, like 278 different combinations of wedges that you could have. Just let somebody else make the decision for you. It's going to give you cleaner contact with the ball. It's going to help you lock in your launch window, deliver the right amount of spin from any lie. It kind of just dawned on me when I immediately subbed in the SM11s. Didn't even think about it. Like two rounds in, I totally forgot that I had new wedges. I know exactly what to expect out of them when I use the 58 out of the bunker, when I use the 54 out of the bunker that has a different grind, different loft to it. It's really, really simple and easy transition, so I would highly recommend it. And that 58 is really was carving through the bunkers really well out there at Pebble Beach. So don't do not try to go at it yourself. Work with a professional to find the right wedge for you. Go to Titleist dot com to find a fitting near you. Again, go to Titleist dot com to find a fitting near you. Dej, take us out to the golf that we just watched at Riviera. Absolutely. The Bridgeman, Jacob Bridgman, took a six shot lead into the final round after going 66, 64, 65. four in the opening 54 holes. Believe that tied Joaquin Neiman's tournament record. Worth mentioning, I think on Saturday, Jeff Shackelford in the quadrilateral had a lot of good stats, basically calling it yesterday that like Bridgman's golf on 10 through 12, like that's it. It won him the tournament. And with what ended up being a one shot cushion, it's kind of hard to argue that fact that Shackelford had yesterday. He went 3-3-3 on 10-11 and 12. Rory McIlroy, on the other hand, went 5-4-4, four shot difference. Bridgman wins by one. Spoiler alert. Bridgman was the only player to eagle 11 on Saturday as well. Nearly made an albatross. Don't know if you guys saw that one. A little floaty seven wood in there that, like, truly unlucky it didn't go in, it felt like. It had birdie eagle looks. TC loved this one 12 times inside 12 feet on Saturday. That is a hell of a stat. Yeah, the CBS stats team was cooking. I think they fed that one to Trevor. And I was like, 12? I mean, he had more birdie looks inside of 12 feet than he hit fairways. He did not drive it well. We can talk about that. But that put Bridgman in position. He had a chance to break the Lanny Watkins scoring record at this tournament, which is 20 under par. I say that because I love this stat. It's the oldest 72-hole tournament record on tour right now. Dates back to 1985. Love stats like that. The oldest scoring record on tour. Did not fall. Another spoiler alert. but not easy for our guy Bridgman on Sunday. His lead got as big as seven, got as small as one, as we mentioned. He was only up by one as he teed off on 17 after making bogey on 16. A good bogey, to be honest, on 16. Another long par saver on, what was that, 13, where he gassed that one past. A couple nervy putts. None more nervy than the one on 18. I don't know if he chunked the putt or what. He had some great comments with Amanda after the round about how nervous he was. Couldn't feel his hands. Barely got that putt about halfway there after a great approach shot. A great tee shot and a great approach shot into 18. And makes probably, what, a four-and-a-half footer? Three feet, five inches, exactly. It looked longer. And we've seen shorter putts than that. Max Holm, if you remember, missed it to go into a playoff. We've seen that before on that green. So he did close it out. He did make that putt, and he ended up winning by one over Rory McIlroy and Kurt Kitayama. TC, I got a lot to say on Bridgman. I think there's a very pro-Bridgeman trio we've got today, but correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, yeah, nothing to correct there. I've been calling him John Roebling all day. I noted Bridgman. And Sally and I had the opportunity to play with him in November at the RSM Pro-Am up at Sea Island. And we both walked away from that thinking, like, that guy doesn't have any weaknesses. Like, he's going to be a 20-year pro out on tour, and he does everything well. He's got a great head on his shoulders. GW is caddy. He's the man. He's caddied for some dudes in the past. Steve Marino, Matt Every, Chris Kirk. but yeah it was you know it was cool to see him come back after the beach fiasco last week at Pebble Beach literally on Pebbles Beach but I think just like I watched his entire round Saturday and Sunday and watching him like even Saturday on 18 he hit it to I don't know eight to ten feet like really really great you know approach shot in there missed the putt but even the putts that he wasn't dripping in uh would still look good like all those worm cam angles that they had on the on the greens this week were they were horrifying me like i'm not gonna sleep for three or four nights after seeing the poanna just wiggling those things back and forth between like with with no discernible rhyme or reason to how putts should have been breaking in spots and for him to putt as well as he did the last few holes not probably notwithstanding uh was just absolutely remarkable and he was so steady the whole time um like i don't know he just seems like dotty had or dotty or or somebody on the on the broadcast had a really good comp they said that he reminded them of lucas glover yeah and i think that's a great comp uh just kind of steady confident but not cocky um get the work done accomplish something without telling everybody that you're accomplishing it and that was that was to bring it back to november like that was kind of the story of the day like it's just incremental improvement like he won three state championships in high school and then didn't really play all that well at clemson his first his first year or two he said and he kind of had to like relearn how to play golf and and kind of build his swing and so just yeah just an impressive impressive young man he's he's not exciting like he's not gonna you know This isn't a game changer from a talent perspective. He's not a game changer from an excitement standpoint, but he's just a really, really, really solid golfer and a really, really, really solid kid. And I'm really thankful we got to play with him. I think it did help our perspective on this. I think he can, you know, a guy like Bridgman can be almost kind of replacement level for a lot of fans. But it is that, you know, we've been fortunate enough to see to play with a fair amount of pros over the years. And there is like a, I go back to last week's pod talking about playing with Mav and Russell Henley. of like you notice a top 50 player versus a top 100 player really quickly, really easily, and that was definitely a takeaway we had at that time. And Solly, I think also just like him talking through his wedges, like he seemed wise beyond his years. I was just going to say that. I asked him a question about like, all right, it was the second hole in the Seaside course, and he hit some kind of a lob wedge in from like 65 yards, and I wish I had to commit his answer to memory better, but I was like how do you hit a ball 65 yards just expecting it to be like, well, just feel it out. I'm a top 50 player in the world, man. It's not that hard. And he had like a really descriptive answer of a system he uses about creating miles an hour and where he chokes it on the club. And I can't even summarize it, but it was just like a, again, talking about what I was talking about last week of the level of calculation these guys are doing that you won't ever see or we won't ever really understand as viewers is really, really mind-boggling. And to just get that answer of like one of the only detailed questions I asked He could probably give me a detailed answer on his driver and why he shapes it the way he does and all that stuff. But just really, really, really talented, and I'm really happy for him. That six-shot lead going into the final round is enough that, like, I don't really care who you are. I ain't rooting for anybody to blow that lead. I was rooting for some excitement. We got that, but I definitely wanted him to win this one. Well, it's just impressive, too, from the fact that, like, he made the Tour Championship as a rookie. Like, without winning. Dude, that is so wildly impressive. this day and age with the, you know, all the signature events and what everybody says is a closed system. It seemed to go fine for Jacob Bridgman. Well, that's the narrative going around now. You know, he qualified out of like the spot 113, which wouldn't be qualifying now and all that. No, he just played, he just shot low scores. Even if he wouldn't have qualified right then, he has the game to continue to shoot low scores and you get opportunities and you get to go beat the best players in the world. That's how it works. It may not be the exact same timeline, but like he just like he played played corn fairy tour he played latino america he just he just won he just played well at every level and succeeded and earned his way on that's what i was going to say he's a stud in college they talked about that a lot on the broadcast winning winning a lot at clemson made it right through the corn fairy tour after pj tour u i think he was number two and in pj tour u made it right through the corn fairy tour which i almost think is uh in a way makes today even more impressive when you think about it because what they said This was like his 67th start or 66 start or something like that on the PGA Tour. And when you couple that few PGA Tour starts with that few Corn Fairy Tour starts, I'm like, man, that's not a lot of opportunity to go win a bunch. And then I said this last week, but I think it bears repeating because he played great last week too. Guys like this, we were just like, man, this guy's not exciting. This guy's boring. They kind of don't have the chance to be that guy under the current system. They don't really have the chance to be that guy unless they do what he did this week at Riviera because he's not playing a lot of 3M's, John Deere's, you know, whatever anymore. It's the Memorial Big Tone. He's playing too many good events. That's why he's not winning. Take, which makes sense for this one. Doesn't make sense for Big Tone for reasons we don't have time to explain. But that was my big takeaway for him. is like listen man what about what we just watched this week and last week and the week before that like look at this guy over the last year what's telling you that he's not going to be on American Ryder Cup and President's Cup team on the team what's telling you that he's not going to contend at majors what's like I'm not doing the project how high the ceiling is stuff but like the floor looks pretty freaking high and that is like that is exciting in a weird way I'm almost like the Lucas Glover comp is great, but I like the headroom ceiling. I don't even mean this literally as far as like his game, but it's like Xander's pretty boring until he started winning a bunch. You know, he was kind of a he wasn't Jordan Spieth coming out of school. He wasn't, you know, the current comps of like Blades Brown, Miles Russell, Akshay, some of the like he wasn't the super sexy, exciting guy. But, you know, eventually you you get enough opportunities and you keep like, man, now he's won twice. Now he's won three times. Now he's contended in this. And eventually you become the interesting guy. And I just, I don't know, I've really enjoyed my little mini Jacob Bridgman arc, really, since you guys played with him in that pro-am and you're like, watch this guy. I was like, all right, great. And once I have been and I had a reason to kind of pay attention, I'd be like, man, this guy is really freaking good. And it just paid off way faster than I thought it would. Well, if I remember this right, DC, I hope this was him that says this. It almost certainly makes sense from a timeline perspective. They reference he got married 65 days ago. Like, he got married sometime around, like, mid-December, late December. He said that he scheduled it that week because he wasn't sure if he was going back to Q school or not. Right. Like, that was where he was, you know, when setting his wedding date. Obviously, you plan those things pretty far out in advance. And, you know, he makes the tour championship and makes that part pretty easy. But that was the reason why they had the wedding date that it was. I know a lot of pro golfers get married the week after Q school. But just that was – I remember thinking back on that. I'm like, man, I don't think you've got to worry about that for quite some time. You win a signature event early in the year. You're exempt for a long, long, long time. So here's I just did a little bit of research here. He lost his singles match at the Junior President's Cup in 2017. He's out. But he won. He and Akshay teamed up in afternoon foursomes and won. They beat Lamprecht and Luca Filippi one up. And then in morning four ball, he also won as well. So I think he needs to be on your radar screen. Need I say more? Let me hit you guys with a trivia question of the day here, if I can. Data golf coming into this week. He's obviously going to rise now. But data golf top 50. I think he was like 43 or something coming into this week. In the data golf top 50, how many players are younger than Jacob Bridgman? I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that. How many Americans are younger than Jacob Bridgman? and then we can do how many players if you want. Like in the entire top 50? In the top 50. Data Golf top 50. Akshay, I know. Probably four. I'd say it might be like two if you're asking. It's two. Akshay and Pearson Cootie by a month. Other than that, it's like, man, he's younger than Goddara. He's younger than Ludwig. He's, you know, he's younger than... I mean, everybody's younger than Ludwig. Hardy's younger than Ryan Gerrard. it's just my my point is like uh we might be in a gap also we need to talk about this at some point like but yes or or and this is going to be my thesis that i want to bring up how here's why i think i'm going some so much in on jacob richmond is i don't want to be old man yells at cloud just like my generation was the only generate i'm like those guys are getting pretty old man this the spieths and rickies and jt like once ricky came on the pod at pebble and said this is my 17th year i'm like all right dude i need to like saving private ryan jiff to get a goal yeah man i'm like yo we gotta we gotta uh what else is coming here and it's just a like what i'm getting at is like i know that this crop of guys is not as exciting but in a way i'm like there's not much we could do about that right like they're they're still gonna be here and they're gonna play really good golf and i almost am like trying to be more eyes wide open about who and what is kind of coming next and who to pay attention to. I don't want to be the old guy being like, Jacob Bridgeman, I've never fucking heard of that guy. This win doesn't count. No, that's a you problem. He's really good. He's really good. What's the gap you were talking about? Is there like a three-year window of plumber's environment? No, just like American golf. Just the opening. I mean, it's not a lot of dudes right now on the American side. There's that one guy. An endangerment of dudes right now. Right? Dudes might be endangered. Scotty might kill the ball. How old Jake Knapp is? Jake Knapp's 31. I know. They're all so old. He's a young buck. Is he one of the best 10 Americans? Right now, he of course is. We're not doing a Fedora 5. We're not doing a Fedora 5 this week. It's not going to be an update every week. But, like, there's, you know, Morikawa is a bad example because he just won and played ball this week. But, like, is Spieth? Spieth's not one of the dudes right now. JT's been hurt. Like Cantlay's not one of the dudes right now. It's just a weird, you know, to DJ's point, I think we just need to recognize that it's open SCN right now. Like we might have some more dudes. Is Goddard up one of them? Maybe we'll, we'll explore this. Goddard up's a thousand percent a dude. I think he has to. He's cleaning up the mule events, TC. He hasn't missed the cut of the signature event this week. It was nowhere to be found at Pebble. Like I can't trust him. AK might be a dude at this point. Yeah. So, you know. Watch this space. Yeah, it's an interesting time. Cody kind of thrown some anonymous digs in our private chat here that all the youngs have driver yips. I think maybe that's a reference to the Gordon Sargeants and Nick Dunlaps of the world who should be filling this vacuum, who I think we thought were going to be filling this vacuum and are not quite there. Dude's missing in action. DMIA. Speaking of missing in action How did he shoot 67 today? It seemed like he shot about 76 He did shoot 32 on the back nine Birdie the last two rolled in a bomb They're on the last hole to make it interesting Thought he might get into a playoff there As Bridgman Had the 3.5 footer to win it Are we Early part of the year With Rory Are you liking what you see And what does it foretell for the remainder of the season? And it didn't look sharp today. It didn't look great. But obviously a runner-up finish here at the Genesis. I've come a long way in the last three weeks. I didn't like what he did to start the year over at the Hero in Dubai. I thought he looked rusty. I thought he looked a little lost. And now, usually Rory's game, you see it there. If he shows signs of it, usually the good stuff really comes lately. Or really soon after that. I think we saw some signs. I don't know what they were signs of necessarily. I could see TC kind of smirking about this as well. It's like we saw a lot of stuff. It's like spring training. He's working on new pitches. Yeah, which was electric. He's got a new sweeper. The stinger driver was awesome. The shots he was hitting were fantastical. The stinger was great. Yeah, when it was windy in the early part of the week, I was like, oh, my God. Rory's got all the shots. Then he had a 25 apex driver on 13 today. I'm like, brother, it's three miles an hour of wind right now. Why do we need to do this? I'm sure there's an excellent reason why. And it's soft and soggy. No, I mean, I think, I don't know. Like, he played all right at Pebble. It was kind of a useless round today from him. You know, birdied three of the par fives, but otherwise pretty quiet. But also, I don't know. It's tough to put too much stock into this tournament this year just because I think it was so toothless. Like, it's got to be. Like, weirdly, I think Bridgman might have had an advantage this year of not having seen the golf course because there's no scar tissue there. And there's so many shots out there that you're not aiming at that flag or you're not trying to hit it the exact number that the pin is. You're taking so much off of it and running it in or using a slope here or there. and everything this week was just pin your ears back and try to dunk it really and so you know i think like i looking at rory it seems like his spin control has gotten so much better than it was two three years ago and and i i like you know even on weeks like this where he's not at his a game it's you still see the progress even versus last year like i like he just seems like such a more complete golfer now whether it's the jt curse and he knows how to hit the right shots at the right moments um which i think jt stroke like like you know it's like jt like that's a blessing and a curse right he's got all these shots but he doesn't know when to really deploy them i think rory it seems like he's he's becoming a more complete golfer year after year after year now and like i don't know i think it portends well for the next six months yeah i think uh i mean the headline if we're just looking at the concrete stuff is like he he just played against the what 70 71 top players on tour and he lost to one of them sure that's good uh he made three bogeys this week that's good uh i think if we're looking at pebble like i i think tc i think he played better than okay at pebble again i think he played really better a lot better than his score looked making a triple and there's he made a he made a triple on four that was pretty inexplicable and then a couple doubles and just some really big numbers, like nasty golf in a small amount of holes. And so I kind of think he's right where he should be. I think it's kind of fun for the narrative of, you know, I saw a couple of people talking about this this week of, you know, Jack never won at Riviera, Tiger never won at Riviera, Scotty hasn't won here, Rory hasn't won here. I think that's kind of a fun little tiny element of this, but it's like Rory's played twice over here and I would say shown up. and, you know, got some juice going at the very least on Sunday. And I think he's trying new shots. He's keeping himself engaged. I think he's trending in a very good way as we come up to the baseball. I'm saying any more teeth in Riv this week and Rory waltzes to victory, honestly. I mean, that's maybe an unfair shot at Bridgman, who obviously played excellent all week. But the harder Riv gets, the more it becomes, you know, the cream's going to rise over 72 holes. And we saw a version of Riv that that's not what we're about. Solly was so upset today. It's not what we're about. Foxy was up there on the second page of the leaderboard. Minwoo Lee. Pot Geater. Pot Geater. Kitty Yama. Kitty Yama. It's not what we're about. I think Rory, if we're going to diagnose this week, he just didn't putt well on the weekend. He didn't putt well Saturday. He didn't putt well Sunday. And, you know, it's, yeah, that's just, it is what it is. It's on the screens, I think. kiddie yama won at bay hill he might be a proper player who knows kiddie yama's i don't know we were all i hope you don't mind me sharing we're all like an iron player man i'm uh i have no reason to root for or against kiddie yama but i'm a little glad he didn't win because i don't know what to say it's kind of how i feel about him just on the larger sense i'm like just he's really good but not good enough to be like one of the dudes he's he's one he's not a choker he's not a closer he's just kind of just kind of one of the the lowercase d dudes you know he's not a dude but He's just a dealer. He's just there. I don't know anything about him. I've never heard a good or bad thing about him. I don't know anything about him. I just don't like watching him play golf. He invokes no feeling out of me. Can we talk about the news of the week, guys? Can we do that in a second? Sure. Because I want to give a shout-out to our friends. At high noon, no matter the forecast, live like the sun's always out with high noon. High Noon is made with real vodka and real tequila. I am going strawberry tequila tonight. Unlike the other popular seltzer and hard tea brands, it delivers a clean finish and refreshing taste. And it's real, real vodka, real tequila. They're available in vodka seltzers, tequila seltzers, and a non-carbonated vodka iced tea. They're all under 100 calories, all with crisp, delicious flavors for every occasion under the sun. DJ, know you're doing your calorie tracker on your phone. High Noon's got to fit the bill. for all these being under 100 calories. What are you waiting for? Text your friends, make some plans, and pick up a pack of High Noon on the way. Visit highnoonspirits.com to find High Noon near you. High Noon, sun's up. Deej, what's the story of the week? This week goes so many different directions. The streak is over, guys. The streak is I was weirdly invested today in the Scotty Scheffler top 10 streak, which now I believe we can put to a close at 18 top 10s in a row. I think 19 if you want to count the Hero World Challenge. I know you're a big Hero World Challenge guy. 50% of the field. Just, I mean, Cody's put it up on the screen there. Just maybe, just take a glance at that. Since the Players' Championship of last year, so almost a year, he has finished in the top 10 every fucking time. He's teed it up. I don't, we talk about it every week, we talk about it all the time, and we still don't talk about it enough. It is insane that he's been doing that. I know we're going to talk about Thursday. I know we're going to talk about the curious case of what's going on with Scottie. But, guys, he almost did it again. He was a dead last on Thursday, and he almost finished in the top ten. He almost missed the cut, and nobody missed the cut. I didn't even know there was a cut this week. It's just crazy. He beat Bridgman the final 54 holes by one shot. so he said you know opening round 74 the crazy part about that that streak Deed is I think there's like one t8 in there the rest of I know there are t2s t3s t4s they're not even he had what one two three four five six seven eight nine in a row were top fives including four wins I mean it's just like it's a joke man so just a pure celebration of life uh disaster of a week as he finished t12 way outside the top 10. So what, Xander and Cam Young clipped him coming in? Yeah. Jumped up out of that top 10. Yeah, exactly. He had a putt on 18 as well that he left short. I will say he lost strokes approach this week, which he has not done. And, again, I don't know what the true strokes gain adjustment is going to be within data golf. You guys might need to give me a second to find the last event he lost strokes in approach. It was the BMW in 2024, the last event where he was not positive with the iron play. How much of that was on Thursday, if you still haven't pulled up? The BMW 2024 was at Castle Pines. It was at like 6,500 feet elevation. He was a half shot in the positive for Friday through Sunday. So he lost 1.2 on Thursday. So it is a Thursday thing. But it is a not amazing trend on the approach play. Like, it's obviously what he was doing was unsustainable. And, like, I don't know what the actual percentage is better. This is probably the wrong application of mathematics and statistics, but like 60 better than Morikawa at his peak in iron play there for a while And it kind of coming back down to a somewhat regulated level But he gained in putting every single week since the Scottish Open last year which, I mean, 90% of this pod in 2023 was just in awe of how bad he was at putting. And that having flipped completely, I'm like 0.05% worried about Scotty. I think this is not nothing. This is not a complete blip on the radar. He looks a little more irritable. He looks not as in control of the golf ball. And, again, we're comparing him to the best version of himself, which is completely insane. He's still quite clearly the best player in the world. But I don't think it's like a complete slam dunk as we're standing here right now that he's going to win the Masters, and I felt 3,000% committed to that as of like three weeks ago. I'll talk myself back into it. I'm still going to pick him to win, but I'm not convinced. You're just like, go ahead and bet the mortgage. on it. Now the Thursday thing, I mean, it is mostly, it has weirdly mostly been Thursdays, both, you know, here, Pebble and Phoenix. I went back and watched that whole Thursday round again today and it's really bad, man. It's really, it's really like nothing. Objectively and subjectively. Yeah, just not, it wasn't close and not, yeah, that's not just like for him. That was for, that's kind of for anybody. You know, he made a couple of putts to kind of hang around and turn that into whatever it was 74 or something uh but i mean it was like missing his spots with his chipping it was missing greens by a mile distance wise it was just not the stuff that usually you usually see from him and the only thing i can compare it to is the weird putting short putting stuff you know where it's just like that feels like it took out a life of its own yeah it was it was electric to go back and watch it but it was uh yeah some weird ones he chipped into the bunker on 10. Granted, he was under those left trees and I think trying to kind of make some work. That's true. That's true. But yeah, it is a fascinating one. And I think it's I don't know, we kind of say this every time, but it's the more adversity Scottie faces, I think the more interesting he gets, for sure. So I am sign me up. I want to see him. He's the top draw in my mind every week of what's going on and what did they shoot today. But, yeah, I think this just makes it even better. I don't know where we're going to go from here. Like, yeah, my brave take, I'll go out on a limb and say he figures it out. But I'm very fascinated to see how and what happens. He has, since switching to the mallet, he has been the 12th best putter in the world. On top of, of course, being the best approach player, fourth in driving, sixth in chipping, and 13th in putting. All right, question from an emailer. We'll just call him M. Hi, gents. Listener M. Listener M. Hi, gents. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Scotty might be the player of his generation, even one of the all-time greats, but I think we need to talk about how hard it is to watch him moaning like a little bitch when he's not playing well. It's painful. Imagine what it's like for the pros paired with him. Here's a guy who wins practically everything he looks like, has one bad round, and then sulks like Veruca Salt because she didn't get a pony. So the question, is Scotty a little B? Love your work. This really spoke to me today. And I thought, all right, like Tiger, Tiger could get cranky out there, but it was always inward focused, right? It was always Tiger, like, oh, Tiger or, you know. Tiger. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, nothing, like not blaming others. And every time with Scottie, it seems like he either under reads a putt or over reads a putt. And he just feigns this genuine surprise of I cannot believe that didn't go in. It's like he's owed every break out there. And it's just like I can't stand watching it. Yeah, it's unbecoming of the world number one. It's disgusting. A couple of things. One, he might be so good that he is owed every break. I'm not willing to totally discount that theory. uh two i think like what i always think about is like the famous jack quotes about like how do you become the men you know the most mentally tough player in the world is you just don't think anything's your fault you know and i think if if that is the case i mean scotty seems like a pretty well-adjusted dude you know like big picture wise if this is his way to play superpower golf uh then i think that's kind of just the world that we're we're gonna have to live in because it seems like it's uh it seems like it's going pretty well for him i don't i don't know how you can i don't know it both things can be true i guess maybe is what i'm what i'm saying or that's my read on it it is a little too demonstrative sure and you reserve the right to not like him and to be like that's not my i don't even i don't dislike him i just invented the guy come on yeah exactly thank you same really i've been a guy that can fix him i've He's had an up-and-down relationship with Koepka over the course of the years based on decisions he's made and the way he's acted. TC, will you answer listener M's question directly? Is he a little B? I don't think he's a little B. I think he might be a big B. Oh, wow. I don't know. It's just not cool. I think everybody can act like that every once in a while, but whenever everything doesn't go his way, he just goes straight to that. I don't like that. It's not for me. Cody, what do you got? The only thing I was going to say, TC, is he did a great job of comparing it to Tiger, but also Rom went through a little bit of this as well, and is continuing to work on it. You're kind of silent outside of when Rom really started getting a little tuned up and maybe affecting his playing partners and things like that, But how do you compare Rahm to Scottie? I mean, I don't have any really real feelings towards Rahm. Like, I don't know. I don't think – I don't put Rahm in the same category as Scottie as far as, like, hey, this guy's the generational, you know, number one player of his era. Yeah, like, you know, I think Rahm – I mean, Spieth can act like that at times, right? Like, I don't think it's rare. And I think the operative word there is at times, or words are at times, not every time, everything. It's just like Thursday was really, really tough to watch. It was. I totally agree. Can we agree to monitor the situation? Because I do feel like some of this has to be, I think I said this last week too, but Pebble, after he shot 64 on Sunday, there were a couple of media asking him, like what you know dude what happened on Thursday why'd you play bad on Thursday what and he's just like dude I don't know I don't I don't know what's going on and so I think for him there almost has to be a little bit of like why is it not working anymore guys like it's worked for four straight years where I have gotten all of these breaks and I haven't put myself in these positions and I have hit my spots and like what like there has to be a little bit of just well you know I I think that's what it is, is that he's hitting all of his spots, and he's so used to PGA Tour courses and PGA Tour setups reacting the way that he's expecting them to react. And we saw really a waste management when the overseed was a little bit higher. It wasn't cut as tight, and he was chunking chips all over the place, and it completely threw him off. A guy that grew up and plays and practices primarily on Bermuda or very good overseed here in Dallas throughout the winter goes and starts putting on Polanna and trying to chip on it, and is not reacting the way that he's expecting, and he's just really struggling with those variables. I mean, he putted well this week. I think it's ball striking. He's not going to be eligible for the Fedora 5. Oh, this is a probationary period. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it was – that's interesting. Okay, I don't want to ask you. I didn't realize that those are the types of things that were taken into effect. I do think it is why I was like so stunned by the Amex win was like Scotty is at best when the golf is hard. The questions are like, this is challenging. Can you do this? And that's why the Bethpage set up was such a disgrace. And the last two weeks on tour have not been difficult. They've not been challenging. And that does not work in Scotty's favor. It's not an excuse for his numbers to have fallen off this hard. but yeah and again it's just a Thursday thing he was like the winner of the tournament I think mathematically from Friday on so it's not like he's that far off the other thing I'll say is and this is not an excuse of Scotty but just a general comment Thursday was so hard that was such a weird combo of wind soft greens that are super fast and wet and it was just a bunch of like a cold like just a bunch of super interesting variables, which I think just makes it even more impressive the guys that did play well. Can we talk about Riv? It better be impossible. I want to see these guys suffer. Without getting to see Riv last year, getting to see it in a very, very bad weather week, in the early part of the week, setting up an unrecoverable, basically an unrecoverable amount of rain this week was it sucked so much of what I love about this course right out of it. Specifically, I always a hole that always stands out for me is the third hole where it is just the quintessential hole where if you miss the fairway here, you know, the rough isn't too thick at Riviera. You're going to have a shot, but I don't care what club you have. You are going to struggle to hold the green out of the rough onto this onto this green. Like this is where the firmness of the greens work back works backwards and punishes bad tee shots and restores balance to a test of golf. It is really fun to watch over a four-day period. You can flip on the golf on Sunday afternoon and be entertained by the close competition and the excitement of a final round, but if you want to watch it Thursday through Sunday, the courses need to have teeth or else it becomes a putting contest. And we saw, again, according to Data Golf this week, how the putting drove so much of the variance this week, which we see when courses get soft, way more than a normal PGA Tour week and way more than what we normally see out of Riviera. And it affected my viewing enjoyment this week. This is the week I look forward to probably the most of any of them. And I hate to be a downer about that part. And there's nothing anybody could do about it. Like, it's weather-related. Some of the best, you know, course maintenance and management of the turf there anywhere in the world. It's just you got bit by having an event there in February. It doesn't always happen, but it got bit this year, and it affected the golf tournament greatly, I think it's fair to say. Yeah, I think that's right. Can I – okay. Are we – I don't know if anybody's – is this a totally, totally safe place? It's trust tree. It is. I feel a little bit like the guy from Royal Tenenbaums. Everybody knows General Custer died at Little Bighorn, but my book presupposes maybe he didn't. Everybody knows Riviera is the best course on the PGA Tour. Everybody knows that, right? are we 100.0% sure, 100.0% sure that that's the case, that it's not just a tick overrated vis-a-vis professional golf in 2026? Because I feel like every year I walk into this tournament, I'm just like, man, this is about to be, this is the best week of the year. This is going to be electric. I can't miss a single shot. And I get to Saturday, and this year is different because it rains so much, but I'm always just like, ah, that was 78% of what I thought it was going to be. Your response to any of that? February. Whatever. Oh, yeah. No, I'm saying that's my response. It's like you can play the best courses in the world at, you know, inopportune times. And I think, yeah, it's probably. It's usually better in February, though. That's an important disclaimer. Yeah, but I go back to. A lot better. You know, watching Doc Redman and Doug Gim at, you know, play the USAM there. It was like, holy shit, that was just otherworldly. And I think that, you know, it's based on, we'll get to some of Tiger's quotes in the booth. He hung out for like an hour. It was crazy. But I think that sounds like it's on the table to move it to later in the year, later in the summer. DJ, I think it's just all relative, right? I think it absolutely is the best course on tour, non-major division. But I think that's more of a reflection on the other courses on tour, more so than it is RIV. And I think there's other stuff that RIV could be improved with. I thought the changes to 4 stunk, the new tee box. For anybody who didn't see that, what was it? It's like 280-yard par 3 now. You can't really play that this week. but massively changed the angle too right like it used to be way up to the right so the whole idea was you could use that big slope and you know try to feed the ball down in there was like how it was originally designed but uh granted this year it was like and really the last couple years it's been soft and super sticky kukuya so the ball doesn't always come down anyways but they they basically like lengthened it and moved the tee to the left right so there's far less oh to the right i'm I'm sorry. So there's, I guess, a more angle. But yeah, I don't know if it's a real problem. The new tee is to the left. You're right. But they didn't use it in the tournament. The new 270 tee, but it's a U.S. Open tee, as I understand it. Yeah, I just think overall, like there's, you know, the course doesn't. I think Riv has a ton of flaws in its current presentation. It needs like a very real and serious touch up and some some actual like restoration work um but that said like i just don't think we can we can come down on these courses on tour and be negative on them because like nothing's going to defend itself against the onslaught of technology and scoring plus plus weather like not ideal conditions like soggy conditions like pebble last week like i'm being overly hard on pebble because it's not giving us what we want because i don't think anything at this point can give us what we want because everything is so out of balance the other the other uh illustration i would say is 18 they added another new t uh over there which like was supposed to be that that's the one that they kind of took even less of the angle or took more of the angle away i guess because that one's supposed to be you're supposed to hit a big cut there it's supposed to be if you don't cut it enough you catch that hill and you you end up losing a ton of distance and you end up having like a very long iron even like a five wood into the green uh and instead in the name of distance they added a t way back and back into the left, JFK. And open up that angle so basically you don't have to cut it. So it's just kind of like walk farther back, don't have to shape the ball and hit it dead straight and farther. And it just becomes it seems like without seeing it in person like just the manifestation of just kind of dumber. Right? But like necessary but dumber basically. And again, Jeff Shackelford had a great post again in the quadrilateral earlier this week. about this and for, um, but yeah, just to, it just stinks, man, that it's both like, ah, I see why you're doing it and why you kind of have to, but also it just doesn't, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, It is so unbelievably important. And this is the course I feel is the most on tour of how well contoured it is and how great so many of the hole locations are. Specifically 11 and 17 are par fives that are like, dude, when you miss those greens, you better miss in the right spot when the greens are fast and not receptive or you cannot get it close. And that's like the whole math of the entire day from day one, like the first hole. If you hit it in that bunker front of the green to the wrong pin, you cannot get close to it when it has the firmness. Like the slopes that run away out of so many of the bunkers. I watched guys, what was it, on Thursday, like Morikawa and Rory missed left of 14 in a bunker that, like, should have been dead, like absolutely should have been dead. And, like, they couldn't even get their shots from those bunkers to the hole because of how soft it was. Like they just took – that takes all the bite out of Riff And all of what I think makes it a fun watch, again, from Thursday all the way to Sunday, is you have to position your ball in the right spots or you're going to pay a price. And you could be in the wrong spot this week and not pay a price. Shots out of the rough were not punished. You can miss in bunkers and not be punished. Rory Hulled a bunker on 12 today. That's maybe not the best example to pull. But I really do think when they have it playing normal, not even rarely firm, playing normal, it is clearly the best course on tour. We just caught it in a bad week, and we didn't get to see it last year. We haven't seen it since 2020. Those memories are a little far away of how amazing the Max Homa year was, Homa versus Finau, and so many great back nines that we've seen. And the leads don't feel as safe either because you just have to hit shots in the proper spots, and I'm so over. Dudes are hitting five irons that are backing up this week. That's just not it. I think Scott even had a five wood that backed up on number four on that first day. If this is the last version of Pebble in Riv in February, I should say, if they want to make the change, if they want to move these two golf courses to later in the year, make them playoff events, which I think would be absolutely sick, what an awesome case for doing that in what we got in the last two weeks. This is not the best representation of these golf courses and best tests. And like, let's just transition this into the technology question. Matt Fitzpatrick's quotes about the 10th hole. He said, he said, a bogey on 10, the world's most impossible golf hole. I'll leave it there. I mean, I really don't want to talk about it too much. I'll just get wound up. But hit it in hope. Let's leave it at that. And I'm like, dude, I think we have to start doing unfair golf holes for these guys. Like, you get to swing a frying pan. Which, Sally, 10 isn't unfair, to be clear. It's not unfair. It's on the silly side, which I am a fan of at this point. It's weird. The size of the green doesn't really actually make sense. They've kind of stripped all the strategy of that hole out, which I'm not a fan of. But I'm kind of like, dude, go back to 275. I agreed with all Roy's comments of like, if you don't have the apron fixed with the Kakuya, it is silly. I agree with that. But, dude, play with an impossible 275 par 3. And this was done on me. I saw the first hole, too. Like, all right, like what's the difference between a long three and a short four if the first hole is basically a par four that says par five on the scorecard? You know, it's pretty cool. You played almost a full shot under par today. Like it was a complete joke. Call one and four. Call those two holes a par eight and be done with it. But honestly, I'm thinking about what I like about the fourth hole. Like it is kind of silly and dumb, but it's like hit it up near the green and figure it out. I'm like, dude, I'd rather do that than just like your track man calculation of my five wood is going to cut into the middle of this green and sit right there and easy to putt. Like, I'd rather see you figure it out. I was thinking about this today. The Saturday of the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, when like the seventh hole, when Phil like just aimed it into the bunker on the Redan hole there because the green was so baked out and out of control. And I'm like, do you guys are the best players in the world? Why wouldn't we take the challenge and make it more about your ability to chart seemingly impossible situations? If we're going to play it with this technology, we're going to butt up against ways we can actually make this hard for you guys. We've seen that over the last decade, five years, whatever you want to say. Let's get unfair. I'm closer to Big Randy's thesis in general than I've ever been. I don't want to hear you guys complain about things being unfair because you didn't like the rollback. you might not even adapt the golf ball rollback that has been agreed on by the USGA and RNA. You're not giving up your 460cc drivers. I'm done hearing you guys on course set up. It might be time to start making this get a little bit silly. Amen. I think the other thing is just Fitzpatrick can't complain about that hole being unfair when he blows it 30 yards right. which is, you just can't hit it right in that hole. That's the whole fucking that's the entire hole. You can't do that. It's asking you that. It used to ask more questions. Now it just asks one question. Can you keep it left of the hole? And you couldn't do that. So you can't complain about it. I felt this way for several years. I am done pretending 10's a great golf hole in terms of great strategy. Literally. Literally. Literally. What's your top three short fours on tour? Drivable fours on tour? God, you put me on the spot. 15 at River Highlands. If they shave the bank. 12 at Sawgrass. 17 at TPC Sawgrass, of course, is number one. That might be one, two, and three. Yeah. Honestly. That might be the only good drivable four on the PGA Tour. What is it, 12 at Kapalua? Even though we don't go to Kapalua anymore? I took that away. I took that one away. Um, what else? Not really anything at Bay Hill. There's not really many. There's not that many. No. I mean, it's horrible for pace of play. Yeah. You know, on tour. Yeah, but so are 360-yard drives and par fives, you know? Like, the Eastlake one is pretty nondescript. Yeah. Yeah, it's a harder question than it seems on its face. And it should be. And it should be, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you, Solid. Make it unfair. That's a great sermon you just gave. Right? It converted me. What else are we going to do? And unfair, I guess thick rough is the other alternative in a lot of people's minds, and we're well-documented as to why that's not going to be fun to watch. But making a slope unfair or making the green comically small like this, dude, figure out a way. 10 is still must-see stuff. Rory it over by the trees on 10. How are you going to find the green from there is a fair question for a diabolical, like a very short par four. Like your second shot into this should still be challenging if you did not hit a perfect tee shot. I forgot about nine at Harbortown. Oh, yeah. That's sick. Yeah, that is technically a draft ball. I'll put that one on the list. But I think that and then also like seeing how fast the greens were this week with it being that soft, what an awkward, weird combo. Yeah, for sure. As well of like, all right, like why can't we just say, all right, this week it rained like crazy. We're not going to mow the greens as low. They're going to roll an eight or a nine. Let's see who can ball strike their way around this place. It would be awesome. Again, back to variables. Let's add more variables to the mix. T.C. Red, go down the board. Sorry, just three at Augusta count? No, that's not a score event. Okay. I'm just asking questions, T.C. That's a fair question. Then you get St. Andrews in there and you get. Well, no, we go to Augusta every year, so that feels fair. Yeah, but Augusta doesn't. That's its own thing. Three is a good short four. I wouldn't quite say it's drivable. Sure. I want to give a shout out to our friends at SoFi, the ultimate finance app for sponsoring our Down the Leaderboard segment with Mr. TC. Head to SoFi.com slash NLU to learn more about how you can get your money right with SoFi. Plus, TC, take us down the board, my friend. Oh, I would love to. That's all I thought you'd never ask. Adam Scott got his money right today. A little final round 63. How much did he pocket for a little solo fourth? $1.000000 million. One mil on the spot. I think he probably would have made about $250 if he'd have shot even today. So that was a very – he's just blowing up 190 ball speeds at age 45 or 46, whatever it is, on his way to a million bucks. Granted, sorry, I think he made $250 in California after tax. That's true. That's true. Going that way. Very good round. And Aldrich Potgeater, we'll get to him here in a little bit, but, you know, solo fifth for him. I think the guys that kind of – so I watched, like, every bit of coverage this weekend, which shout-out to college basketball for running over. We still can't fix that problem. Down the leaderboard segment. We can get our money right there. But Cam Young, 66-66 on the weekend to not win and to help knock Scotty out of the top 10. Sally, how much did he make? $603,000 to be exact. Love seeing that. He's T7 with Morikawa, Fleetwood, Foxy, Xander. I feel like Xander's putter cost him a lot of money. A lot. This weekend. TCR, are we worried Tommy's not getting his money right because he's buying all this pro shop gear that he's wearing? Is that coming out of the budget every week? I feel like it's just adding to his aura. It's earned media, though. But at what cost is my point. He's playing the long game, so I think he's getting his money right. Marco Penj, watched a lot of him on Saturday. He was in one of the final groups. He finished T16. Did not play well on Saturday. He did not, but he gave a great interview Friday. I don't have the summary of that one other than just, like, He was super appreciative of being in the moment, looking forward to being in the final group on Saturday. He's talking about seeing Rory in the locker room and on the range of still can't believe he's in this spot. I'm a Marco Pinch fan very easily, just hearing how down-to-earth and humble he was in the interview he gave Friday. He's going to have to get his money right, too. Maybe set up a 529 or something. I think his wife is due any day with their second child. So, Pearson Cootie continues to get his money right. He's 16 from him. He's just poking around every single week while his twin brother, I think, is in the field for the Argentina Open next week. And then, otherwise, trying to see here, Team Rose and Goddard. Need a bad, like a whimper of a finish for the West Coast swing. Both of them missed the cut, the mini cut this week. Can't have that. They were both in the mix for our West Coast swing MVPs. And obviously, I think they played themselves out of the mix and played themselves out of a paycheck this week, too. So, Zali, there's your SoFi Get Your Money Right segment for the week. Thank you. You can go to SoFi.com slash NLU to learn more about how you can get your money right with SoFi. Plus, you left off Keegan on the Miss the Cut list. I don't know if that, you know, but the conversation we had last year, I just kind of feel like for as much as you guys were hyping that guy up, It deserves a mention that he missed the mini cut and is playing stinky golf. I'm just saying. I think you cannot deny that he was in the conversation to make the team. I think that was our point all along. Yeah. Which, again, was a stupid thing. We're not talking about that anymore. Now he's exhausted. It's totally irrelevant. What was the last time? You're going to rise that up, me. It doesn't matter. He's not good anymore. Yeah. Also, TC, you didn't mention Adam Scott was a sponsor exemption this week as well. So shout out to him. I'm playing well on a sponsor exemption. Adam Scott is now in the top 10, the Aon or the next 10 or whatever we're calling it, the toupee 10. Which is kind of the case for and against the sponsor exemptions into these fields as opposed, right? Yeah, if you get your chance, you got to take advantage of it. And if you don't, then whatever. But yeah, interesting case. Yeah. It all Yeah I enjoyed watching Penn Penns this week He like I with you Like he he had a case of the lefts left a little bit on Saturday It just wasn really in a flow state Great golf swing tons of speed He just smiled. I like the way he carries himself, too. And the more I watch Potgeater, it's at least interesting. Totally agree. It is. I totally agree. I don't know if he's good, but I'm totally down to watch it. He's 21. Yeah. He was getting interviewed after the round on Saturday, and Amanda was like, you know, you changed up your trainer, your swing coach, your equipment, you know, pretty much everything. Your agent, you know, all of it. And she was like, am I forgetting anything? He said, my physio. And I think she was like, yeah, your trainer. Your trainer and your physio are the same thing. But definitely throwing a lot of variables at the wall, kind of the Max Homo playbook. yeah you lost like 30 some pounds or something right yeah kim again but if i if i was just if i was to pull up his data golf like skill profile tc will you swear this off like is he the king it was interesting yeah you see the king of the bsis though i'm just like absolutely maxing out driver distance and below average uh from from every other skill is is is where i'm like this This is not the rib that I love. See this and then Wu Lee. Look at that. Any of the guys that start looking like the Star Trek logo is a pretty bad sign. The data golf scatterplot there. He's 21. Yeah. You know what? These, you know, American plumbers and firemen, the sergeants and the Dunlaps that have the driver yips, they would kill for this. And then he'd round out the rest of his game. I don't hate the player. I hate the game is what I'm getting at. He's a nice kid, too. Does winning the British Am get you an exemption from being labeled a ball speed imposter? I feel like it gives you at least a five-year exemption. Where did he win the British Am? That's an important question. I don't remember. I think it was Nairn. Is that right? It's a good golf course. Do they have a British Am? Let's see. 2022. Royal Lhythm and St. Anne's. That's the antithesis of BSI's. You can't BSI around that. Proper player open. I'm not buying it. It's inconclusive. It's like Scotty being a little B as Lister M said. We're monitoring the situation. Let's continue to monitor it. Did you have some birdies and bogeys from this past week you want to take us through? I did. I just kind of had a lot of interaction with the PGA Tour itself as a consumer this week. And so I just wanted to round that up into some things I liked and some things I didn't like so much. And first, we'll do the birdies. These are the things that I liked, if you can follow my naming convention here. First one, I don't know that a lot of people watch this. I saw it had like 25,000 or 30,000 views on YouTube or something. but the pj tour did a video with ricky fowler uh where he talked through every shot that he hit on the front nine during his pro-am practice round sign me the fuck up for more of these videos this was awesome this is exactly what i i've pitched this exact idea either in reality or just in slack complaining about stuff to you guys this is exactly what i want to see it is just him vlog style like here's every shot that i hit here's what the yardage was here's what club i hit Here's what I was trying to do. Here's what I ended up doing. I learned so much about Riviera just by watching him hit different shots, talk about what he was looking for, how the cold was affecting things. It was awesome. And I think this, this seems like something that is so repeatable going forward. I would love to see more of, of these videos. So shout out to Ricky for doing it and shout out to the PJ tour for, for doing it. You guys, I think, watch this as well. And I felt similarly. that and upping this to tournament rounds too would be even better it like yeah that was always my thought is like i don't you you have you know easier said than done i i understand but you you have every shot from the guys who are in featured groups on thursdays and fridays on pj tour live like can't you can't you get one of those guys for 15 minutes afterwards just be like hey man here's the you know an ipad that has a cut down of all your shots granted i guess you'd have to kind of quick turn that or talk to those guys later in the day they have that technology they have that yeah but it's like can you get xander to be like hey man you just shot 67 can you talk us through every shot you just hit on river highlands what you were trying to do whatever i would probably shut that down he probably would and i i know all of the reasons why it can't work but like man we're not trying to put a fucking man on the moon here guys this doesn't seem it doesn't seem that hard uh and it's just equity in now so additive yeah as a As a golf fan, man. If you were Ben Griffin this week or Sammy's Valamaki, did you watch him play golf this week? He finished T30. He made $92,000 this week. A lot of money is getting put up to these golf tournaments. Just do stuff, guys. Can we get 12 minutes of your time? Just do it. Yeah, just help us out, man. And again. Stabstruck of last place, $51,000 of the cut makers. The other, I guess, circling back, maybe this is a me problem here, but I think the post-run interview with Amanda, as much as I was glowing about my Jacob Bridgman fandom. That might be the first time I've ever heard him talk. Straight up. And I'm like, that's another one where you got all these anonymous guys. Start giving, you know, put a microphone in front of him for 15 minutes. Get him talking about golf. I think that's like the golf media mistake. He did a walk and talk this week too. He did that on Friday. And he did three round interviews. Bridgman was down. That's what I mean. And he seems like a totally delightful, self-effacing interesting guy and it's like when you have all these guys that seem anonymous it's like don't try to get them to do like tiktok dances for people to be like man that guy's sick try to get them just talking about golf these guys are all geniuses at talking about golf that's all i want to hear them talk about so anyways shout out to that video go watch it if you haven't uh and pj tor if you're listening would watch one of these every single week uh number two i'm going to shout out this is my birdie section is a new newsletter that they started by all of our mutual friend Paul Hodowanik, I believe is his last name. Is that how you pronounce that, TC? I just call him Hodo. Kind of a Minnesota hockey name. Started a newsletter, the signature scroll. Paul's on site at all of these events, all the signature events, all the big events, and delivered right to your inbox every day is just like, here's what I saw. It's very first-person, original reporting. He's a great subject matter expert on a lot of stuff. I learned a bunch of stuff every day from reading his newsletter. So shout out to the BJ Tour for starting that because, again, this is exactly what I'm looking for. This was great. Which I think brings us to the bogey section. And, TC, you were very fired up about this because I was like, wow, Paul started this newsletter. You got to go check it out. You floored it to me. TC is like, how the fuck do I sign up for this, man? I can't figure it out. But we got to fix the sign-up flow. So listen, Glass Houses over here. We got our own sign-up flow issues. I know that. But they're making you sign up for the Fan Connect and Partner Offers section in order to get a debrief from the golf tournament every day. That's not what we're looking for. That's not what we're about. This is very old school PGA Tour. All the things that used to be wrong with the PGA Tour, this is emblematic of those things. So please fix this and get some shine. I want your product in my inbox. But I don't want all of the products in my inbox. just this product. That was the first time I've ever signed up for a PGA Tour account. Right. What if we lead with the subject matter here? I think I'm pretty fucking cool when it comes to viewing ads for your PGA Tour partners. I think I'm doing more than my part on that one. That Genesis commercial. Yes. Straight down the middle. I don't think I need your partners emailing me personally. Either fix the commercials or fix the email sign-up flow, and I think the sign-up flow is a lot easier. God, your A1C is about to get out of fucking control if you don't get those emails. It's a risk I'm willing to take. The other bogey that I had at TC, I know this one pissed you off too, is Team USA wins the gold medal in hockey. One of the more patriotic, tear-filled moments I can remember. Not a lot to root for over the last couple years. I don't know if you guys have been watching the news. But a really nice, nice moment. And the PGA Tour just bludges people with this Scotty gold medal tweet, just Kool-Aid man coming through the wall. We don't need it. We don't want it. Nobody's asking for this. Just get in there. That was the old tour. Get in there and make this about you. Just be confident in who you are. You have nothing to do with this moment. Honestly, it would have been better to say congratulations, Team USA. Or just don't say fucking anything. You're not a USA Tour. You're supposed to be the PGA Tour. Just don't say anything. And so that was my second bogeys. I think that makes for an even par week. A lot of good, a lot of bad. We're on to the cognizant. But anything else you guys had in this spirit? We already went over the Tommy, continuing to wear stuff from the local pro shop. I'm all in on that. That's a birdie. He looks great. I think Nike was holding him back to an extent. I think the tour's signature event commercials are good, not including the players when we'll get there. Signature event commercials. They're good. They're leaning into the venues and the history and what makes the tour the tour, which I think is good. And it shows there's a sense of, hey, we're starting to understand what our product is. And then lastly, Don Ray getting kicked off the PGA Tour board. This is a PGA Tour thing. This is on the birdies or the bogeys section? This is on the birdies. Oh, this is incredible. Shoe Pack got this one, of course. or actually Shaq got it just by looking at the, you know, the tours, the tours board composition. Nathan Charnes was, was, you know, like the, I think he's taken over. He's, he's the next president of PGA of America. PGA of America put out this gobbledygook statement. It was just insane corporate speak. But yeah, Don Ray, like, man, happy trails, dude. Like you like fire that guy into the sun. and you know what like we should just go ambush him sometime with some cameras out at his augusta ranch or whatever that place and just just pop in see what it's all about what would be your lead question i just don't think he left anything unanswered i don't have any questions that's true uh but just the fact that they just pushed him aside with no like they didn't impeach him they didn't just hot swapped him just just like akon's brother just tried to replace without telling anybody uh and then for bogeys i've got finno wearing a big ladder rib hat stuff uh kind of part and parcel with with you know i hope tommy didn't pick that up for him when he went into the pro shop you know what i think now that i'm thinking about it i think finno had a uh uh another big letter hat on at pebble when i was following i think it was tfa it might have been tommy fleetwood academy well i've seen that one before i think he's got a mighty academy Let's grow the game. That's true. That's fine. Maybe offset each other. Yeah. And then, yeah, that's, you know, I've only got one bogey this week. Shot one under. That's a good score. Sully, anything from you? Where did Sahith getting the Charlie Sifford exemption, how did that not fall into a bogey category here? Wow, this is your word, Sully. You know Sahith's one of my favorite golfers, as I've said. uh yeah i don't i don't know i feel i don't know what i don't know how i feel about this one it is i understand it's a signature events top 70 players you're trying to like make the most competitive you're trying to make these the best fields in golf it seems like if i'm doing my reading properly the the charlie sifford exemption was supposed to be you know giving a person from a minority background who wouldn't otherwise be getting in like a spot in a field to allow them to try to test their mettle against the best in the world, which I think they've done a great job with over the years at this event. It seems like he's getting plenty of starts. This one falls a little on the I'm not quite sure how to feel on this one. There's a great article that Cody has up on the screen by Samir Pandya. I hope I'm saying that right. Just detailing the history of the exemption and, you know, again, trivia question for there, that Charlie Sifford broke the color barrier, which blacks were not allowed on the PGA Tour until 1961, which is, again, shocking to read, but there's a great line in there. It talks all about Sahith being the child of immigrants, and this is not Sahith's fault in this, but the line here that got me was, in giving Tagala the exception, or the exemption, I think is what it's meant to say, in giving Tagala the exemption, the tournament is signaling that his journey into professional golf is roughly in the same vicinities as Siffords or any of the other past recipients. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's pretty tough. I mean, we've seen Willie Mack get this exemption in the past. Aaron Beverly, I think, got this exemption in the past. And I get it. It's pretty random, you know, with this kind of promotion to signature event with this field and it being 80 players and being big money. it's kind of random to have players that are not PGA Tour members playing this in what is supposed to be a PGA Tour icon, very serious, this is what we're all about event. But giving it to Sahith was certainly just kind of that magnifying glass emoji. I think they probably wanted to find a way to get him an exemption. And maybe the entire point of this is like, we should go searching past the normal names to find somebody that this exemption would mean the world to or else they need to exist. I mean, that's my read on it, and who knows? It's their exemption to give out, and maybe they feel differently about it. Yeah, but it's just a strange one that probably needs a little clarification maybe. All right. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Arcos, the official game tracker of the PGA Tour, and honestly the smartest platform in golf. It's not just tracking your stats. It is helping you own the choices you make on the course with confidence. You may have seen me and TC. We were in the recent Arcos Own It spot, which I think debuted last week. Sony Texas? Yeah. That was that. We really appreciate them including us in their spot. It's insane. It automatically tracks every shot while you play. It gives you a full strokes game breakdown after the round. It shows how you actually played versus how you think you played, and you glean something from it every single time. It leads you to making better decisions, and if you're going to make better decisions, you need real data in it, and this gives you exactly that. All you've got to do, you take the Link Pro, you put it in your pocket, and you play. There's no phone tagging, and all of the insights are there after the round. Actually, Cody's showing some of this up on the screen now. I used this at Pebble Beach during the pro-am last week. And again, all of these shots that you're seeing recorded on the screen here are just automatically recorded from wearing the device in my pocket. That's exactly how it works. And it's insane. And you get tour, getting like tour level data on a tour venue is unbelievable. It's awesome. Like it was really, really, really cool to see. And yeah, we're flashing a bunch of, and so I lost 1.8 shots compared to a scratch player off the tee. I was being aggressive out there, guys. I tried to drive four. I hit in the water on 18. I wasn't necessarily playing normal tournament golf, but I putted pretty well, plus 1.7 shots gained on a scratch golfer on the greens. But it also gives you a handicap breakdown of what you are in individual categories by round, so I was a six handicap driving it and a plus five putting. It's just always really, really cool to see, and you just get so much information. And over a large sample, you're going to learn a ton about your game, and you can compare it to whatever handicap level you want to be. If you want to become a six handicap, you can see where you're losing shots to six handicaps. And I cannot recommend it enough. Arcos has nearly 1.5 billion shots tracked and is trusted by over 40 tour players. If you want to own your choices out there and play with more confidence, this is it. ArcosGolf.com. That's A-R-C-C-O-S.com. You can use code N-L-U15 for 15% off. Again, Arcos.com, A-R-C-C-O-S, N-L-U-15 gets you 15% off. Also, they have the smart laser rangefinder, which has wind-adjusted numbers in it with slope. It's insane. They've got a really, really cool product, and we're stoked to be partnering with them this year. It just runs in the background. Yes, it's a big hindrance was like the thought of having to be on your phone doing all this, and you do not have to do it. Guys, who's your West Coast MVP? I've been stewing over this. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's Bridgman, I think. Really? Yeah. He won today, T8 at Pebble, T18 at Phoenix, T13 at the American Express, T4 at Sony. Are we counting the opening drive as West Coast Swing? I thought we had a pre-production question about that. I thought that was an emphatic yes. I don't think we did the consensus. Everybody said yes. Yeah, maybe a different meeting. I don't know. I also would throw out a nominee. He did not get a win, and so I don't think he can be MVP. TC, I think you skipped over Jake Knapp in the Down the Leaderboard segment. He finished sixth at Riviera to go along with T8 at Pebble, eighth at Phoenix, T5 at Farmers, T11 at Sony. Yeah, that feels a little bit like maybe the guy from Canada getting the MVP award today. Well, for sure. I guess if we're throwing Sony it's like gotta obviously be Goddard up but it's interesting is one signature event worth more than two non-signature wins? I think it's Goddard up for me man I mean I think it might be for me too like not only did he win he was just he's a dude he established himself he continues to establish himself as a dude could it be Patrick Reed even though he wasn't in any of these events I was thinking about that he hasn't played the west coast West Coast of certain countries. West Coast could be a construct of sorts, right? He's not playing our West Coast. It's a pretty... I think it's got her up. If we're going to value wins as much as we do, and I think the Phoenix win is not a normal mule win. The Phoenix win is a lot bigger win than winning Sony. But I am monitoring that his wins have come in the lower tier events. lower middle scots are going to be all over you he's not winning lower tier events he's winning mid tier events alright Myrtle Beach I'll give you that one Phoenix is real that's what I just said I mean is him like yeah I don't know if I can get down with this is him like like he fucking won though like is him winning the event like is that worse than him not winning is that worse I think if he finishes T7 this week, it's a slam dunk. If he finishes T19 this week, I think it's a slam dunk that he's the MVP. He missed the cut this week at Riv. Like on a soft setup, it should have been really good for him. He also finished solo third at the Open in his last major. That's not on the West Coast. Again, some years it is. Yeah, there's Myrtle. I mean, the Scottish Open was on the East Coast of Scotland. I'd just say we're monitoring his win resume. That's all I'm saying. He wins a lot, but are we going to do it in the big tier? If you're a dude, you've got to do it in the big tier stuff, TC. That's all I'm saying. Like Big Tone? Big Tone won the Northern Trust with the top 70 players in the world. Four years after we'd been riding him. It was a statement of victory. You should do a deep dive podcast about that. It's one of the greatest events in the history of golf for as much as you bring that stupid tournament up. Liberty National. Yeah. It was over TC's boy Cam Smith, too. That's what makes it so hard for him. It was. Do you want to shout out last year's West Coast MVP? It was Sepp Straka for me. That was, I think. Ryder Cup lock. Yeah, that was unanimous. That was big of you. That was one of the biggest, I think, one of the greatest gestures of sportsmanship I think you've ever had. Yeah, I really appreciated that. In last PGA Tour news and notes this week, Lucas Glover named PAC chairman. TC, translate this for us. What does this mean? Well, again, this was reported by Adam Shupak, the mule whisperer. I saw Adam at dinner last night, actually. Yeah? Yeah, I was like, man, I'm not watching the golf. I feel like you should be watching the golf. But, yeah, what does this mean? I think it's interesting because Glover had said, quote, that he had quit going to tour player meetings and called the pack a waste of time and useless because he contended that the tour was, quote, going to do what they're going to do. So hiding behind pace of play, I think challenges our intelligence. They think we're stupid, he said, about reduction in field sizes and the number of fully exempt cards. So this feels like kind of an about face from him that he said, which I love Lucas. He's like one of the smarter, more thoughtful conversationalists on tour and just a genuinely good guy, it seems like. But he said, I can add value from inside the room instead of outside. And at this point in my career, it's not like I can stand on the range all day and hit balls. So I've got time. And there's enough guys that want my voice in there to be heard. So I should probably do it. So good on him. It feels like a good thing for, you know, It seems like he views his constituents as the guys in that probably 40 to 120 range on the tour that feel like they've gotten short shrift here over the last 12, 18, 24 months with all the changes. And I don't know. We joke a lot about the mule stuff, and I think that that gets – I was joking about Lonto Griffin this week on – was it five or six years ago? he was bitching about them making him walk down the hill at Riviera and stuff, or up the hill, yeah. And I think there's plenty to make fun of, but there's also plenty of guys out there that, like, they earn their way out there, and then they feel like the rules are getting changed right out from under them. And, all right, you know, I made it to the tour. I did what you told me to do, and now, you know, you're pulling the rug out from under me. I see that too, but at the end of the day, I don't think that changes the fact that I think the tour was probably bloated in the first place. So it's a tricky line to walk. And I think Lucas is a thoughtful guy that it'll take into consideration. He's been in both camps. He's a major champion, but he's also been through the wilderness with his putting. And he's had lean years, and he's had a late career renaissance. And, you know, he's got three or four years left until he's on the Champions Tour, which I bet he absolutely cleans up out there. so good on him for putting time and energy into this I think that's very well said I totally agree that was the first thing that jumped out to me as a guy that has truly seen everything in pro golf highs, lows, different levels of play all the stuff you just said TC I think it's a valuable perspective because I think that the I think we've gotten over I want to be careful Like, not even necessarily over-indexed on the superstar voices, because I do think those have to carry a lot of the conversation. And I get all of the it is an entertainment product stuff. But this kind of feels like the first thing to balance the scales a little bit in a very healthy way. You know, kind of getting much more of the two sides of the house to have a voice in this conversation. I think it's great. Lucas Glover feels like a Clydesdale instead of a mule. Like, he's a Clydesdale. He's not Ryan Armour chucking the most inane bullshit we've ever heard from the cheap seats. Yeah, they've got to figure out what the next level of the tour looks like still, right? If they're going to do this scarcity model, if they're going to have this championship series or whatever this higher level of the PGA Tour is, what the next level looks like still has to be figured out, and it has to work. So everything ladders up to the championship series or the highest level or however that ends up working. but that seems to be secondary. I feel like they feel they need to get the top level right, the signature event series, the championship series, whatever this is, if it becomes a 21-22 event season, they've got to get that part right and the trickle-down effect to the remainder of the tour, which I know will be the subject of a lot of debates. But they've got to nail what that next part is. Massive media deals, you can't just take... The reason why CBS and NBC buy up all these spots is that golf is on every Saturday, Sunday on network TV throughout the year from January through August. And it's somewhat easy to find sometimes. And just taking it away on a lot of these weekends is not really an option, I don't think. At least the math doesn't math nearly as well if you just take away a ton of events. So it's interesting that Lucas will be on the policy board for 2027 to 2030 as well following this appointment. Now, does the policy board actually have any power anymore? Because we heard Tiger talk about future competitions committee this week, the FCC, as he kept calling it. You know what was even better at that, TC? So the tour has this tool where they – it's like the speed rounds tool that they send to players and they send to media as well. bit you can kind of just see like if you want to watch every shot of scotty's round that was on tv they'll just like auto chop it up and you can click on it and watch and so i was watching uh bridgman's around from yesterday again today just to prepare and uh when he was in the booth that was over a lot of bridgman shots so i was just hearing like snippets of oh yeah i mean the fcc they're just a real hot one yeah we're burning the we're burning the midnight oil every night The emails are flying. It's just catching little snippets and sound bites of it maybe was even better than watching it the first time in full context. Tiger was kind of rough. It was on the rails at first, and then it got a little rough. And then he settled in. He whipped it back around. And he whipped it back around. But he was in there for an hour. And I think Trevor and Jim were pretty shocked that he was in there for that long. Like, you spent an hour with us. You'd never done that before, Tiger. He also didn't rule out playing Augusta. Yeah. I don't know what I think about that. We'll see. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. He also keeps referencing, he says, yeah, I can go out and ride a buggy out on the champ. A buggy. That wasn't an option before, but it's a different deal out there. You guys know how I feel about it out here, but it's a different deal out there. Do you think he plays the Masters? No. Probably not. I kind of hope he doesn't. I mean, I feel like I'm at a very healthy, very healthy spot with this. I think anybody who's who's revving up the siren and the hype machine is that's going to happen. I can't do that. Yeah, but that's their problem. I feel very emotionally distanced from like if he goes out and shoots 78 and withdraws I be like oh man well that a bummer What else is going on Or if he shoots 71 I be like wow what a great story Or if he doesn play I be like oh that fine too Like I just feel I very just good I taking it as it comes Yeah that great I hope he does. I hope he plays every tournament. I would love to see him play the Open Championship next year at St. Andrews. That would be awesome. That's what I would like to see. And I'd like to see him play Boston Common on Sunday, March 1st. Are we concerned we've got too many doubleheaders coming up on the TGL front? But TC, I don't know if anybody was asking for that. Monday and Tuesday. Tomorrow and Tuesday. Yeah. They will be playing off real turf, though, Sully. Eight straight hours of TGL off real turf. No, they've got a two-hour break in the middle. It's 5 to 7 and then 9 to 11. There's nothing going on from 7 to 9. Some would say they might need to figure out their TV windows. But Bleak Field next week at Cognizant, it does not. Chance for our guy Michael Brennan to do some work next week, you see. That's what jumped out to me for that field list. Need it. Is Goddard up in the field? You know, Solly's riding him. He's not. Ryan Gerrard is in the field. ADDC in the field could be a, you know, I think he's going to pick one of these off at some point. Neil Shipley, you can see him winning at some point. I was texting with Harry Higgs earlier. He's one of the alternates. I was like alright are you going to Palm Beach or are you going to Buenos Aires for the Argentine Open he's like I don't know they're going to let me know on Monday if I have a good shot of getting in otherwise I'm hopping on the plane I was like I hope you don't get in because you get to go play an Alistair McKenzie course and eat a bunch of delicious steak down in Buenos Aires like that would be killer worse fates than that DB straight vibing is in Michael Kim with Rue TC I'm surprised you let me get an hour and a half into the show before mentioning one of your favorite events in the world. I just found this out. It's at Karen Country Club. It's incredible. In Nairobi, the magical Kenya Open. Casey Jarvis is your winner. Can't say I know a whole lot about Casey Jarvis. Former LAC winner. He made two Eagles on the back nine. Shot a final round 62 to claim the title there. That's a different guy. You know, I didn't want to, I wasn't 100% sure, but I just don't think that's true, TC. Aaron Jarvis, maybe? Aaron Jarvis was the guy from the Cayman Islands. See, that's a different thing. I don't think that they should be in the Latin American AM. Back to you, Solid. One more thing about the Latin American AM. I don't know. I mean, I just let it go, too. I'm like, I didn't know that, dude. I'm sorry. There was a great moment on Friday. I retweeted this one from the DB World Tour. Jirogi Kabugu made eagle on the final hole on Friday, a native Kenyan to make the cut, and just a ton of Kenyans around the final green as he made that putt and just absolutely going nuts. I went to go do some research on him. He's got a great – Iona Steven has a great video with him on her YouTube channel, On the Road with Iona, just them playing and kind of playing golf in Kenya, and it was just a great exploration piece. But that was a nice touch of local flair for that event this past week, and it was well-documented. He ended up finishing 261, but I think his second time making the cut at the Magical Kenny Open. It was magical, TC. TC, are we tracking this guy, Davis Bryant, who finished second? I looked at love. He went to Colorado State. Yeah, an American who's playing the DP World Tour. That's always a fun thing. I always love seeing that. I missed the Qatar Masters. That's all I can really tell you. Maybe add that to your monitoring list. Open a couple pads on him. We know Nick Lukeese have ever won the Qatar Masters since Fuzzy Zeller. We had a couple. We didn't have a national. It was the New Zealand PGA Championship this week which was down at Harapara Umu down near Wellington. Sounds like they have some teeth in their PGA championships. 6,600 yards, baked out, firm, fast, only two guys under par. American Austin Truslow won, and then MJ McGuire was another American guy that finished even. Yeah, and then Cooper Moore from New Zealand finished second. But more of that. Chase Koepka seems to be bouncing back after his relegation a couple years ago from Smash GC. He finished T5 as well. So our friend Curtis Locke, T16 plus five. And this week, guys, we have three, count them, three national opens this week. We have the South African Open down in wine country, down in Stellenbosch on the DP World Tour. And then we've got the New Zealand Open down in Queenstown. Was that Aerotown Golf Club? I think it's Aerotown. We're probably going to get a mea culpa on that one. And then what was the last one? We have a third one. Oh, we have the Argentine Open. Yeah, at the Jockey Club, which is going to be fantastic. I've gotten reports that it's going to be much drier. The course is going to be in much better shape than it was last year and that there will be a live stream this year as well. I think there was a live stream last year that I'm watching, and it was delightful. All the commentary was in Spanish, of course. I had more fun watching that than I did whatever it was against last year on the tour side. So I think it'll be on the Corn Fairy Tour YouTube channel, which is sick. Props to them for doing that. On continued DP World Tour news, a statement came out earlier this week from the DP World Tour. said they have granted conditional releases to eight members to play in conflicting tournaments on Live Golf during the 2026 season. Each member has accepted the conditions specified by the DP World Tour for their release, which include payment in full of all outstanding fines for breaches of the DP World Tour's regulations, participation in additional stipulated DP World Tour tournaments, as well as associated media activity and promotion, as well as withdrawal of all pending appeals. The eight members that agreed to this Lori Cantor, Thomas Dietrich, Tyrell Hatton Tom McKibben, Adrian Maronk Victor Perez, David Pooge And Elvis Smiley Any names missing from that list Of interest to either of you Ron Jay Hamm Yeah I'm going to say John Rahm not on that list Which is very interesting I know we talked about it I think we maybe even played the quotes A couple weeks ago but the Rory Rory just straight up saying And, you know, hey, we all said we all gave the Americans a lot of shit saying that, you know, we would pay to play in the Ryder Cup. And now there's a couple of guys that have the opportunity to do it by by paying their fines and showing that they want to, you know, want this to be a smooth situation. And Rom continues to take the opposite tack on that. So what did you think of this? Rahm also the richest man in golf not named Tiger Woods, has made the most money off of golf in the last five years of anyone, and he's the one that won't pay the fines just to do this. It's principle. Honestly, this one, I thought about this a little bit today. I'm like, what? Why? I still find myself kind of rooting for Rahm. I overall like John Rahm, and I find him interesting, and when he's in contention in majors, I don't know. I want him involved in the mix. I'm like, what? I feel like I'm bending over backwards to like Rom at this point. Like, what reason is he giving me to actually like him at this point? He said all the pledges fealty to the PGA Tour. $400 million wouldn't change my life. Like, that's not real golf over there. Leaves and does that. And it's one thing to, like, just do that. And, like, I cannot understand how he can, I don't know, what's three or four million bucks that he owes the DP World Tour to want to continue to play over there. why he can't afford to do that, why he refuses to do that. He's one of all these people that can afford to do it, refuses to do it, and we're supposed to act like that he's justified in all of this. The DP World Tour has very clear rules and regulations for conflicting events. Live Golf has very clear rules and regulations for conflicting events. You can't play the, oh, I should be able to go anywhere. Your tour doesn't let you go anywhere. You have to play Live Golf events. Like you do not get the luxury that DP world tour players get, which is they can get releases to go play other tour events. And I, I, I do not know if he's going to play in the Ryder cup in Ireland. Like I, I don't know what he's trying to win. I don't know what a win here looks like for him, but he doesn't have to pay the 3 million bucks out of the 300 he's made from live golf. If not more, it, it just, it's, it's unredeeming. I, it is, it is like Rory said it out loud the better than I possibly could. You had a chance to do this. You had a chance to put your money where your mouth is, and you're just not doing it. I'm trying to find this. It was from one of the pro golf critic, Bob Sura fan, one of those accounts. I can't find it because I think the guy blocked me, so I couldn't bookmark it. It was kind of like playing devil's advocate. of, all right, here's, I think it was something along the lines of why should he have to get releases for tournaments that he's not planning on playing in anyway on the DP World Tour, because it's basically a feeder tour for the U.S. Tour, which was, I don't know, made maybe a little bit of sense to me. But also, yeah, like you signed the membership regulations. You knew what you were getting into when you signed. and maybe that's a separate membership issue if you want to bring that up otherwise. The question of why can you go play PGA Tour events if you're a DP World Tour member? There's a strategic alliance there. You get free of the league. Yeah, or even before that, I suppose. I don't know. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here. I think Rahm just seems like he's totally lost in sauce and just intransigent and doesn't want to... Like, he's truly turning into the modern-day Seve. Right, Sully? Didn't Seve miss the Ryder Cup? He did. Yeah, he did. That was more over the minimum number of events required. Travel, it was different back then. It was really, really different. Yeah, a little bit. It's somewhat similar. But I guess I just, I don't know, for someone that I was like, I felt like was one of the dudes that was the most intrigued by Legacy. If you ever listen to that guy talk about golf, He knows so much about history, and he was so easy to root for in all of this. Like, his true desire is to be great, and his golf knowledge, and he listens to podcasts. He knows all these little details. It was like, dude, this guy is great. I really am enjoying this, and he's thrown all this away for, again, just to save 0.5% of money he's made off of Live Golf to this point. It just is, I don't know. It's stunning. For the Ryder Cup. I also think that, I don't know, like the strategic alliance is kind of bullshit because the tours just gutted the DP World Tour too, right? I mean, that's – I mean, gutted slash they're funding it. They're funding it. Yeah, it goes both ways. Yeah, I mean, it's Tiger kind of gutted the DP World Tour if you really want to pull on that string of all the corporate money that flew into the PGA Tour and all those guys left to go play more golf than the PGA Tour because they can make more money there. That's kind of what killed it. Just the American economy, too. Yeah, exactly. Man, I feel pretty uninterested by the super nitty-gritty courts and appeals and fines and all of that stuff, but, man, it does get interesting when you start. Like, wake me up for the Ryder Cup roundtable, John Rahm might not be on the team episode. Like, we'll listen to that one. Because I think for all of the, this is a brotherhood, this is family, this is everything, like, it gets, I think the rubber's going to beat the road on some of that stuff if one of them is kind of putting himself outside of the system. I also don't think they need him to beat the U.S. Well, that's true. As we're standing here right now. On the LPGA Tour this week, Gino Titicum became the third tie winner of her home event, joining Aria Jutanagarn and Patty Tavitanicut. I believe this is her first win with her mother present. She had rounds of 67, 63, 66, 68. She beat Chizzy EY by one shot. One of the EY twins. Cody's laughing at me behind the scenes here. What did I mess up here, Cody? I'll help you with some pronunciation. You know that's the fastest police to get out there on you, Sully. But it was electric. Gino winning in front of plenty of family and friends. And you're right, it was the first time that her mom has been present for her to win a professional event. Awesome. Great quotes after it. said it was an A++++ win comparing it to what potentially winning a major would feel like. Exactly. She did not say that. She said what a major would feel like. I was like, I got to add potential in there because it would be tough. But overall, great showing. This is an awesome event. Thailand always shows out for it. Has it like crazy weak purse still as everything else on the LPGA Tour continues to get elevated? For some reason, this purse hasn't really gone up yet. But really, you know, Gino wrapped it up firmly this morning, coming to her back nine. Chizzy had two Eagles on her day, second coming on the par 5 tenth, and then didn't make a single birdie in from there. Hoi-Joo Kim finished solo third, Selmy Lee fourth, Lydia Ko and Nana Chris Mattson tying for fifth there. Great showings from Allison Corpus, Andrea Lee, and Lottie Wode. Ronnie's back tied for 15th there with Lottie. Great to see her having some good form again after a pretty lackluster season last year. But it is very exciting that we're this early on into the professional calendar and the top three women in the world, or the Rolex rankings at least, Nelly, Gino, and Charlie have each won already. So we have Gino and Charlie back in action this year at the Asian Mane for HSBC Women's World Championship in Singapore. Nelly, of course, don't travel for that. Get off my back. Lydia is there defending. Gino, I just said, is going to be there. Minji making her season debut. The only player that's in the Rolex Top 15 that's not there is Nelly. And it's wild that you continue to look at this and you continue to have big money dumped into these events and she just doesn't show up. And that really doesn't. That legitimately makes me mad. She just doesn't want to buy in. It's crazy. I think she has to once every four years, I think it is. So we'll see. I think it would be coming up next year for a lot of these events. But excited for this week as well because on the L.E.T., they start their month-long Australian swing. So pumped about that. They're going to be in Sydney for the Northwest Wales Open. So more to come. Cody, I need to see more better setups out there too. Where? On LPGA, especially with the Thailand event, T32 was minus 10 this week. I mean, and that's my rub on Gino. You could literally lay that across the entire LPGA Tour schedule, TC. No, I know, but Gino feasts on all these birdie fests, you know, and that's, I'd like to see. So I don't know. We'll see what happens. They got what? They got Singapore this week, and then they got China next week, and then they're back stateside for Founders. Yep, week off during players, and then they're back up at Founders. I think the other just natural tie into this week's conversation is U.S. Women's Open going to Riviera and all the things we said about Riv playing in February and being able to see the firmness and the shot shapes and the scale probably in a little better place than to what we would want to see is probably going to be a lot better in late May than it is late May for the women than February for the men. So that was one of those things that came up into my mind more than once today was just like, I don't know if this is it, but I think the U.S. Women's Open is going to be it in a big way. I mean, not only that, but just wait a couple more years to when the Olympics are there in late July, early August. Both men and women, the first time that we're going to actually have a co-ed competition side of it as well, it's going to be awesome. So I think we're going to see, you know, the different versions that we crave of RIV coming up, at least in the next couple of years that we'll enjoy. But we'll also get the men's U.S. Open there post-fall rollback, 2031 U.S. Open there. Allegedly. Yeah. Rollback of it. Anyways, final few notes I had. The Saudi Public Investment Fund approved $267 million of fresh capital for Live Golf. That comes from money in sport. The total investment in Live Golf has now reached $5.3 billion. following a $266.6 million capital injection, approved by Yasser Albrmayan on February 1, 2026. At this current rate of spending, it will put the cumulative spending of LiveGolf past $6 billion by the end of this year. Don't think this necessarily means much of anything. I was not expecting Live to all of a sudden stop pumping money into it, but the numbers, of course, are staggering. and worth monitoring. But could this be money moving around to re-sign Bryson? Could it be? Who knows? Probably just to keep throwing money at this. Because not making a ton of money. On the income side, Fox averaged $331,000 for the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. window for Liv Adelaide. Pebble last week averaged $3.3 million for Morikawa's win. coverage peaked at nearly 5.2 million. Those are per Josh Carpenter. Do we have, so remember last year, was it last year or two years ago where they said Nielsen changed up their, the way they rate stuff? Ratings, Twitter's turning a little bit into where did it cross Twitter for me. I'm just like, man, now if we can't all agree on the numbers, this whole thing seems pretty worthless to be honest. It was panel only. Now it's big data. And Pebble was flat to Rory's room. I don't have to tell you about Big Data, T.C. Something like that. I couldn't fully explain it. I will say, Sully, on that, those numbers for Lidl don't look good, right? But it's still – On that window, it's one of their best ever. The incredible – but compared, right? Compared to the PGA Tour, which I do think is very unfair. But it blows my mind that we're over a week into this, and the continued momentum of AK and the story and just getting picked up all over the place, it's a really cool thing to see. I mean, you can say a lot that you want about Liv, but for AK and the side and, like, every single sports to all other things, just continuing this momentum, it's been nice to watch. Yeah, it was cool. I was on vacation. I didn't, like, I just kind of watched it as a fan for the most part. And, yeah, and then seeing people argue, like, when Fultz said that it was more impressive than Hogan. All of that, and then people climb in and say, well, you know what, drugs have killed a lot more people than buses. That's the conversation. I can't get down with the rating stuff. Those are the conversations I need to be having, TC. Those are the debates I need to be embracing. I think to your point, Cody, there's a big difference in the AK success story and the Live Golf success story. I think it's very easy to celebrate the success of Anthony Kim and the bounce back. And I don't think it's necessarily like a game changer for Live Golf or any of the hundreds of thousands of things. Why it's not working that we've documented over the years. Oh, you're just a hater. A.K. took to X the everything app. Looks like on Friday and said, I want to take a moment to thank at Golf Digest, at Golf.com, and at golf channel and many other excellent writers for taking a shit on my name while I was down and giving me more motivation. I love you all. Do it. I just don't think anybody's ever been more universally like, we all love you. Please come back. All we want to do is watch you play golf, man. We all, all of us love you, dude. We're just, we're so in on watching you play golf. And maybe, listen, maybe I missed, maybe I missed some stuff. And then also, not for nothing, he did play really bad for two straight years. Really bad. And I think that's where it's like, do you want this to be a league that people talk seriously about? Or is it just about sticking it to the haters? Because if you want, go ahead, man. How's that working out for you guys to take that tact, I guess? Yeah, that was a disheartening. for as cool and as much as I enjoyed watching that, seeing posts like that after the fact of just like, see, I told you. It's like, cool, man. I don't know. Godspeed. All right. I think my lasting takeaway was just how much, like I know we say this every time there's an event in Australia, but how much I love watching golf on shortish, firm, and fast golf courses where anybody that's teeing up in the field can win it. And I think that that like, like AK is not going to go win at a lot of 7,500. Like he's not going, he's not going to quail hollow and fucking winning. He's just not right. Cause it's where like, like he was in total control of his golf ball out there with his iron and his wedges and that matters. And man, I want to see that more often in golf. And I think that like, all right, if we're not going to do anything with the equipment, then you know what, man, like we got to go to more interesting places where the weather is good and where it can be firm and fast certain times of the year and put ourselves in that position a little bit more often if the equipment's not going to get taken care of. But either way, you're going to have to make a sacrifice here for the sake of the product and the entertainment and the sport at large. But yeah, I mean, I just, God, I love watching golf on those Australian courses. It doesn't even have to be sand belt. It's not even a great golf. The Grange is not even that great of a golf course. It's just like, just give me australian sand belt like i don't even care i mean like like the ladies are going to kuyanga in a few weeks um i think live's going there next year for the live australia event um you know it's like like it doesn't like shit you go to perth you get firm and fast out in perth you know there's just just give me that more than once a year give me that like four times a year please uh i think this maybe just, I don't know. I don't want to be, I hate being a pessimist here, but like, TZ, we can't even get TGL holes played firm and fast. Like, I'm just looking at where we're going next on the agenda, and it's like, oh, this hole looks cool, and it's like, who freaking cares, man? It's not, we can't even get those holes played like the way that we want to see holes play. Those are too sticky and soft. Man, well, I just don't think we're, I don't think that's going to happen, dude. Because it's real grass, TZ, that's why. Exactly. The other problem is like, all right, if we're not going to get firm and fast, let's go the opposite direction and make it slow. Make it wildly slow on the greens. Give us that. Give us something different. On that note, there is a new hole on the TGL. We got it. This is Bo Welling. We got to celebrate it. We got to do it. We asked for less realistic golf holes. This is in a cave, in a cave, in a cavern. There's salactites. things that I remember and learned from the... Stalagmites, I think. No, tights. They're hanging on tight from the ceiling. That's how I remember stalactites. Really? Wow. Mites. I'll stand out. You sound pretty cool. God, I hope that's right. I've committed that to memory when I was in, like, fifth grade. What if you're wrong? Stalactites are high school-shaped mineral deposits that hang from the ceiling. Well, then what are stalagmites? From the bottom. From the bottom. Oh, man, I'm sorry. It's got both here. I know, but the tights I'm worried about here. That's the design aspect here. You're right, player. It's kind of an homage to Bo Welling's curling. He's been in Italy. I can't believe he was able to do this and do all of his Olympics responsibilities. I like that, Cody. That was good. The curling. Maybe this guy, Rory. Yeah, Rory, she didn't have all these stingers. Wow, I didn't even think about that, Cody. TGL Incel had that on Twitter. I meant to have that one, but that was very good. Roy said Stinger's out there to get ready for TGL. All right, question. Are they going to turn the lights down in the SoFi Center when they play this hole? That's a great question. That would be sick. Yeah, you can't see the ball. We'll see. We'll release some bats in there. All right, that's going to about do it unless you guys have anything else before we wrap here. I wanted to say RIP to Jeremy Turner, the architect who designed Lufth and Lynx. He did a lot for Norwegian golf, and he's from the U.K. originally, but designed a lot of courses up in Scandinavia. And, yeah, we were able to play it on our Taurus sauce trip. So you were able to play it on a previous trip as well. So just wanted to shout out a great man who did a lot of cool stuff in a nascent golf part of the world. Amen. Thank you for that, TC. Thank you to everyone that has tuned in live here on a Sunday night. These are always very, very fun to do. I want to give a shout, of course, to our friends at Titleist, High Noon, Arcos, and SoFi for DJ Pie. TC and Cody running the ones and twos. Matt running the social behind the scenes. thank you for being with us on this Sunday night we will see you back here we got an episode coming out I believe Wednesday this week usually we're Tuesdays we'll be out Wednesday this week and we'll have a cognizant recap as well this coming Sunday anything else housekeeping wise that we need to give a shout out I got one check out the nest if you're not a nest member DJ worked really hard to put together a vlog he's loving he's a big vlogger these days I didn't work that hard don't get your expectations up but the whole point He didn't work that hard on it, but it's a bunch of footage from behind the scenes at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, from actual golf shots and stuff played during the Pebble Beach Pro-Am practice rounds, and just a big behind the scenes for the week as well. So check that out. You can go to nolayingup.com backslash join to learn more about. We're doing a lot more NEST-exclusive content this coming year. We're doing a lot of expanding of the NEST podcast this year. So be sure to check that out for NEST members, people that are already NEST members. And if you're not, please consider joining for there's a lot, a lot that goes into the nest membership and we greatly appreciate everyone that supports the show that way. All right. That is going to do it for tonight. Thank you everyone for tuning in. We'll see you back here next week. Cheers. Next Sunday, new fedora five. Be there. Be there.