Is Pebble obsolete for the pros, Spieth Island’s dire times, LIV’s OWGR boost in Adelaide

Now the shotgun start in golf is full of mathematics. There's a lot of setup work that we have to do in order to make a tournament work. So I'm going to demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a shotgun start here. And here we go. Alright, alright, alright. Gentlemen, start your engines! greetings and welcome to a wednesday edition of the shotgun start it is february 11th andy how we doing brendan i'm doing fantastic not only am i in the sweet home chicago the city of chicago with you fellas. I also just had something great come across my desk. I learned, you know, it was a really informative piece on social media about how to be a guest at a country club that I really enjoyed. You're figuring it out. You're learning your way around. You know, that's where you go. I didn't know I needed it, but I, you know, I watched it through and learned a couple of pointers about how I should be. The content you didn't know you needed, right? Don't take a leak and raise Creek. I mean, what other of the rules are there? I think the thing I learned the most is just don't talk. That seemed to be the overriding message. Don't talk. Don't be yourself to ensure you get invited back. There's probably people who need it is the real part. We're in Chicago. It's exciting. We're here. We've got almost a full week, and then we have the live show come Thursday. Tickets still available. We need to procure some instruments so we can deliver on that electronic, alternate, whatever sound that the AI bots have promised. What are you thinking for stage presence? I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? I think that means can you bring people in? Yeah, sure. I don't even know. I think we're just ourselves usually is what we do. Not if you're going to a country club, though. Self-deprecating approach. I might use some of the tips I just learned for the live show. Yeah. When I go to a country club, I turn off the stage presence, put a stick on my ass, and just waddle around and be quiet. That's what I do. No. Stage presence is not something I had contemplated. I'm excited to be here. You're already giving us the lay of the land. And, you know, you were you're talking about PJ popped you last night. Like you got to learn how to walk in Chicago. In Chicago, we don't wait for the cars. You can't just start walking. PJ's. Oh, Jaywalking. Only available in Chicago. Only PJ popped you. You went into a great Chicago establishment this morning for you went into the Capital One Cafe. There's so much culture out here. We're we could we're a stone's throw away. We could literally hit the cutoff man and we'd hit the front door of an Athleta, a Viore and a Lululemon. And then I was in a rush to get coffee. And I went into everybody's favorite multinational credit card conglomerate, Capital One, for some coffee. It's just across the street. I had only a couple minutes. I have a low bar. I'm not some sort of snob. It's terrible. It's terrible. There were more people hawking credit cards. There were two at the front door trying to give me a sign-up for a credit card. And only one barista. And everybody's waiting for their fancy, fancy. Was it busy? Yes. It was jammed. Do you pay for the coffee? yes they asked me if i'm a capital one i was like no i've got chase i never contemplated such a thing do you get a free coffee if you're a capital one card i don't know how it works i i didn't have one that seems like a fair trade it's not we're gonna we're gonna hammer you with you know fees and you know all sorts of stuff unless you it was packed but you know free coffee yeah no no it's not very good if free wouldn't be still worth it it's not very good uh i had it this was a refill I did find a local coffee shop, but yeah, just burgeoning with culture around here, the Capital One Cafe. We're excited, excited to get going here in Chicago. Let's jump in. We had a few people talk, message, and reach out, just clean up from Phoenix, that we didn't address. I guess now it's being termed, at least in the Golf Digest headline, is Chairgate. And I think we just need to – that's in the Golf Digest headline, Chairgate. that we didn't talk about Hideki maybe getting jammed by some unruly fans to finish up Phoenix. You know, we're rushing through trying to get done before the Super Bowl. That turned out to be terrible anyways. I think we should have gone right up against the Super Bowl and gone the whole time. And I think we would have picked up a lot of people, you know, depending on what time, you know, various time, people uninterested in the game. You know, there seemed to be a lot of spice about the halftime show. So there was a lot of people that were upset, lots of people that were happy, lots of people changing the channel. I think we could have just really made a splash there. Just alternate programming? Yeah. Anyways, one thing I've learned about social media is that the opinions held there are much more extreme than we're all pretty much mellowed out everywhere else and pretty normal. I think people are generally better than you would think watching social media in one way or another. But yes, a lot of takes about the actual halftime show that I don't know reflect the reality. So what do you make of this? There was this theory that they have got some garish, gargantuan DraftKings sportsbook on site. and these are drunks with the ticket against Hideki and he got shouted at in his putt in regulation. I thought the putt was like just an early get in the hole yell. It felt like. Okay. That's what I, I haven't, I didn't do any prep. Yeah. But it felt like it was that when I was watching it in the moment, that's what I thought it was. And then the chair gate was apparently some volunteer who dropped a chair, which harkens back to that WGC in Austin when someone slammed the porta potty door and John Rahm blew his lid about that. It turns out there was all this notion that this was some people trying to influence the outcome, which we know is a potential peril of inviting gambling into golf in a way that fans can really affect the competition. It seems like maybe it was just drunk people in Phoenix and a mishap with a volunteer. That's all. I don't think we needed a ton of comment i don't think we we needed a comment there um i do think we needed to address something else uh that i feel like i i let down the rope i'm disappointed in myself um i knew that you know scottsdale siwu was screaming staring me right in the face as a pick yeah hideki was staring me right in the face as a picture and i went with with just a guy jordan Spieth who missed the cut. I followed your lead in a one that I pay for and I took Jordan Spieth in like a side game that I've actually paid for with friends. I was really disappointed but I wasn't as disappointed as Spieth Legion was on the week and I wanted to read through just tweets from Spieth Legion. Obviously the unofficial fan club of Jordan Spieth on Twitter. This is from Friday and I thought this would just be a a fun exercise to go through here. These are his tweets in succession while he's following live, following the round, walking the round. Or do we know? I think he was, he was walking because, you know, it starts with service is horrible. RN right now. So apologies for the lack of updates. If they aren't sending next tweet, there is no service today. LOL. Next street, next tweet. We found service and Spieth is cooked as hell. fight all caps beauty at two three feet for par walks in a birdie at three exclamation marks poor chip at four leave seven feet so this is every hole essentially yeah horrible putt back to even for the event can't make a putt at a course he putts better than most trouble maybe that is a representation of his career in recent years. Used to make a lot of putts that nobody makes and now it doesn't make them anymore. I don't think I've seen Spieth get it to the hole once all week, Caps. Putts, irons, doesn't matter. Everything is short. We have a disgruntled fan. This is not just a blind allegiance here. This is like a guy getting mad at the offensive coordinator. Another putt on eight left short and there's a gif of like a, of a, you know, a emoji with his hands up exploding short on nine turns and plus one large putt at 10. It's insane. How every time he holds his pose, it falls leaves his putt on 12, 10 feet short, booed off the 12th green. I'm sad. All right. This is, this is really the best one. dire straits on the island. It's a real emotional scene today following here. Emotional. One of his best courses in every hole. Everyone's talking about how he's not that guy anymore and how he stinks. Just really sad to hear and he just can't make a putt to prove them wrong. Emotional scene? For who? This person? Spieth fans. Yeah. Unplayable coming at 13. He's stuck inside a bush. pars after a drop this guy better make the cut like a bad scene bad news for you a great shot into 14 has us left with a fantastic uh chance to basically solidify the cut come on jordan nope pulls lumber at 15 feels like this shot will decide if he plays the weekend clubs up from the hybrid to three wood. We're getting live updates here. Splash. Almost holds it. This guy, man. I'm 16 with a birdie look. Long ways away. Par here. Birdie 17. Let's book a tee time, man. Bogey. Pass to birdie the last two. This is just insane. Doesn't he hit it in the water? Splash. I'm done. Laughing my ass off. From 18 to his ball, he kept his head down the whole way. Almost seems like he truly believed in something the last few weeks, and it hasn't worked. He's so deflated, looks simply confused, heartbreaking. I don't even have any thoughts. Didn't think he could possibly miss the cut here. I have no words. I'm in a state of dismay. Emotional scene? State of dismay? God, you seem to be delighting a little bit too much in reading that, recounting that round, this MC Hammer round on last Friday. I mean, I picked him. I went down with the ship. I know you did. You did. Emotional scene, too. And you're one of those. It was an emotional scene. I looked at my phone and said, why did I do this? Why did I take the 70th best golfer in the world? I would love, like, who's like a former, like Wright Thompson or like Pablo Torre to do a dive into these tracker accounts or Legion accounts. I mean, it seems like there's a lot of activity in the tracker account game. Community. I come. I come in peace. I don't want to, you know, I don't know. These people might have pictures of these people all over the wall. And I don't know what's going on. I'm curious, not judgmental. But there was one from Rory, tracking Rory a week ago. It's been officially three years since I joined the team at Nuclear Golf. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity that I have. Nuclear is more than just a team. It's a family that continues to get stronger every year. I'm very curious about what's going on with this tracker community, who they are, where they're like, we have like them for everybody. You know, Martin Laird has a tracker. I think we should start our own tracker accounts and maybe PJ could man them. PJ, what do you think? Who do you want me to track? Who am I going with? I mean, Champions Tour guys. Well, that's easy. Justin Leonard tracker is going to get some work this week. I feel like we could have been the de facto toasty tracker had we. I think we do that anyway. It seems like it's very familial. It's family, you know, and it's emotional that the people are, you know, this must come from Golf Channel's original Tiger Tracker, and now they're just proliferated to everything. In other sports, do Tracker accounts exist? I guess they do. Do they? Yeah. Like Caleb Tracker? It's the StatMuse accounts, like Caleb Muse or whatever. Those are pretty big. Yeah. What's up with the general one? The one that always has a wartime feel to it. Have you seen that? The Captain Andrew Luck? Yeah. That was that guy, and then everybody else copied him, I think. That was a ripoff of what we used to do. We came up with that, and then they ripped it off and made it a very popular Twitter account. Speaking of Twitter, update, just keeping people aware. Sunday Red's latest collection. Inspired by Southern California's vibrant blues and golden yellows mixed with 90s throwback style. The all caps first light collection channels the energy of a place where progress becomes a daily practice, not a final destination. Again, we're talking about clothes. Clothes that I think are just fine. I've enjoyed Sunday Red's offering, but yes. Progress becomes a daily practice, not a final destination. I think this is, listen, that's inspirational. That's just keeping you in the loop. All brands are trying to, you know, make themselves more than just a piece of clothing. And that one inspires me. Daily progress. It's not the destination. You're wearing your polo shirt. Let's get to the busy week for the Tracker Community with everybody on hand at Pebble Beach. The AT&T National Pebble Beach Pro-Am first signature event of the season. Event of the week. There aren't many events to choose from. The DP World Tour seems to have a very convenient week off with the news that broke with the Epstein inclusion. inclusion. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently the chair of DP World, which would have an association with DP World Tour, seems to have some receipts and some interesting troubling documents in the Epstein Files. Might be time to go back to just the European Tour. It might be. It might be. Another in Kenya of course which is not Europe next week So who knows But names who cares What Yeah the Epstein files have a few golf connections they have connections to everything we never talked about rory plane being included oh you see that yeah epstein and his pilot or whatever we talking about they they felt like rory got a bad deal he got mugged off because his his plane was parked next to epstein's pilot deal or something. Yeah. Some painter. Rory paid too, too pretty of a penny for the, for the plane. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. There's connections. 22 million with a $2 million interior renovation. It's in there. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to appear on the files, that's probably a good way to the association not to be in the, you know, there's other, other ways to appear. That's a good one, I suppose. Relatively. You know, I was thinking about, you know, this is sometimes you think about like, oh, it'd be nice to be a political reporter. There's always stuff going on to talk about. You never have to conjure stuff up. But people said, you know, we were going to have trouble going three days a week. There was not enough to talk about. Well, I'd say all the people that were talking now, you know, are podcasting more often. That's right. They jumped on board with the frequency there. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, the the you know, that I was thinking about how dire and. kind of depressing life covering the Epstein files would be right now where like, you know, like you wake up, you have like breakfast and coffee with your family. And it's like, okay, I'm going to dive in. And you basically are just reading this like pedophiles email till 5pm. And then you clock out and you're like, all right, like I need a shower. like think about the day yeah i mean it's no it's not reading speed legion i'll tell you that a little more a little more dark i know that um yeah there's there's some golf connections though now this one appears to be with the head honcho at dp world and it doesn't look good on paper does not look good appearing in the epstein files and then being a part of the sinister there's a leap between that. There's obviously a prominent head of a golf agency. You have musicians quitting a certain agency for someone appearing that they also represent a lot of golfers. Chapel Roan being a musician. I don't know. Who knows how this goes? But the guilt of being involved in that and just appearing in the files are two very separate things I would just note. I'll tell you what. I'd congratulate the agents and golfers that broke away last year. Maybe they knew this was coming down the pipe I know there's a lot of lawsuits going on with that. Throwing grenades right now. I remember that. You're thinking back to the interview we did with Cam when we were getting rushed off the stage by Buddy Ball. All right, let's get to our first signature event of the week. Or of the year, I should say. The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Sponsors exemptions are back. Everybody's in the field. Notables, we have the Aeon 5. we have the swing 10 from the fall this will be on golf channel three to seven thursday and friday one to three saturday sunday three to seven cbs three to 6 30 sunday on cbs notables are sheffler rory his eastern all those times are eastern yeah yeah we are in central i'm like throwing for a loop on central here a bunch of calls my calendar's trying to update um sheffler rory making his pga Tour debut. Shane Lowry is bumped into notables. Hideki, Victor Hovland, Xander Shoffley, and Justin Rose are the notables I have. So a big event. I'm very excited for this and deservingly so, your event of the week. Let's do a quick odds check. Scotty is plus 260, which means he's whatever. Between 2 and 3 to 1, essentially to win. Next best is Rory, essentially 13 to 1. We are a gambling podcast. But I think it's a ridiculous, facile way to view players is just through odds, but it is notable when a guy is separate, stats separate, 2 or 3 to 1 versus Rory defending champ 13 to 1 or something. Especially somewhere he hasn't won. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I wonder how he feels about California laws and things that are illegal and illegal in California. I feel like it's a little bit, there's some lighter rules and I wonder if that's why he hasn't won here. Light or row. I would say there's too many restrictions, wouldn't they say? Like Sable Offshore is getting jammed by California's restrictions. I thought. Our sponsors exceptions, we're going to do this all season, are for quad gods. I've got my five guys to monitor. Okay, you want to do that first? Yeah, well, the five guys to monitor, I actually kind of cheated and I wanted to introduce a game. I love it. I wanted to introduce something that we can revel and track. Maybe this could be the tracker, our first tracker account. Speaking of, first Shotgun Star tracker account. Well, we're tracking Brooks and the Mules too. We have two tracker accounts now. I did like the animations. Yeah, Skumba crushed it. You know, the Mules. It's perfect. Do you think we need to bring on some people to be part of the family and run the tracker? It's a family. It's a family business. Business Pete, we found a new business opportunity. Just tracking the hell out of everything. We need to allocate some funds. So I think this is a great game within the game for the year. Let us know. There's four sponsors exemptions this week. There's five players that earned their way in the Aeon Swing 5. I want to see sponsors exemptions versus Aeon Swing 5 all year. That's a great call. So this week, the sponsor exemptions are Billy Horschel. I mean, he's the best TGL player. I think that's a worthwhile sponsor exemption. Also would be in this if he didn't get injured last year. Oh, that's okay. Your guy, your guy just, you guys are just blowing up last night. And we were in a nice Chicago dive bar and you guys are just roasting this fellow. Tony Finau. I don't know where all the Tony Finau hate has come from. There's no, I mean, it's just, it's a lot of sizzle. No steak lately with Tony Finau. I saw he was dancing around the SoFi Dome yesterday. And Claire Rogers had a tweet like, this is awesome. He needs to do this for at least three majors this year. I'll tell you what, he's exempt in zero. He needs to get exempt first before he starts his dance routines. I just don't know where this came from. Tony Finau has been a borderline elite tour player for 10 years. What more do you want from him? That's like the life of a tour pro. I just disagree. He's like old now. Well, you know, what's on the resume now that he's old? I think it's a little overcooked. I mean, but not everybody's a superstar. Because he wears his Jordans. I'm not saying it, but he gets this treatment that he's like some – he's not done anything on a golf course in like two years. And we're treating him like he's, you know, Justin Rose or something. He gets all this pub because he wears the J's. I don't know. I mean, he won seven times in his career. Okay. The creditors wouldn't know any different. That's fine. He was like a top 20 player for five years. That's a good career. All right. Okay. I'm not disparaging his career. I don't understand the sort of promotion of him dancing around. He's not even in majors. How can we talk? I don't know. It's just a lot of. He's been not very good at golf. You guys expect him. His career has run its course. I don't know. Do you think that? Do you think that? Okay. So why is he getting a sponsor's exemption? Well, that's because sponsor exemption shouldn't exist. Okay. And this is the reason we're tracking this. He's getting sponsor exemptions off of sizzle and not steak. His career is over. Your guy, Jordan Spieth, wouldn't be in this field without sponsors exemptions. He got in fair and square. No, he didn't. He got in because he got a bunch of sponsors exemptions last year. That's fair. Who else we got? So it's Feed Out Billy. Cashmere Keith. I mean, this is a favorite. I love Keith Mitchell. Yeah. But he is just a – he is the soup du jour of players that are marketed beyond their on-course results. Well, he's a television talent. Huge television talent. People seem like a legit, very bullish on his TV future. But I don't know. We'll see. I think that you guys, the way you're going at Tony Finau is like insane. I mean, that's a guy that played on Ryder Cup and President's Cups for years. I'm not going at him. I appreciate Tony. I interviewed Tony. He was good. Good interview. All right. Keith Mitchell. And then finally, Sahith Sagala. Now, this would be a great public money if we put this team of four up against this team of five. There'd be so much public money on the sponsors' exam. Yeah, because it's just the names. People would be into it. But the ball knowers see Pearson Cootie, and we're going to slam that. The Aeon Swing 5, in order in which they got in, Pearson Cootie, Rio Hisaetsune. Satsuni. I got some respect on Satsuni's name. I love Satsuni. I mean, I think I'm like at the top of his heart. He's going to be playing on the President's Cup. He should be. You know, I sent a picture to former Captain Immelman the other day. I was playing golf in the Bay Area. You know, I should have read up about this. I should have watched up. This was a private golf faux pas, apparently. I wore a zero restriction Team International pullover Yeah To a high profile private club What's wrong with that? And immediately Four or five people were like Awesome jacket Wearing the shield We love it I love that But I sent a picture to the Former captain But Hai Satsune He's going to be wearing the shield He's going to be in that shield In this very place, Chicago Yeah, that's why we're here We're doing peak cup reconnaissance Right now We are As soon as the Super Bowl ends, we're on to the next big sporting event in America. Which is the P-Cup. And that's the P-Cup. That's why we're here. But anyways, you know, Heisatsuni will be a President's Cup stalwart, you know? I would, yeah. One day we have to get to the bottom of what do you have to do to get described as a stalwart. This term is only used for golfers. No. Like, it's the Olympics right now. nobody what's the guy the figure skater that's like you know the quad god yeah yeah nobody's like he's a stalwart skater but if it was golf they'd be like this is an olympic stalwart he's a stalwart like a lineman he's a stalwart on the inside nobody says that he's a stalwart of the epstein files i don't know i don't know what they have in the epstein i don't know there's options that's fair that's a that's a very random pondering but in line with yeah it's like you don't hear stalwart until you turn on live from and then it's like the only term that's used to describe a golfer okay we can't be just like he's gonna be a stud yeah he's gonna be a stalwart uh jake knapp everybody's favorite playing well that's why he's in a on five yeah matt mccarty and Patrick Rogers. That's our five. So Kuti, He Satsuni, Knapp, McCarty, and Rogers versus Fina, Horschel, Mitchell, Thagala. This is a year-long challenge. The sponsors exemptions versus the Aon. The guys who played their way in. Yeah. The Merritt versus Sizzle. I like that. But are we doing 4v4? Are you going to drop the fifth Aon guy so it's just 4v4? The Aon gets a little advantage. You know, they're advantaged. Yeah. Why? Because they're playing well or they have an extra guy? They have an extra guy. They have a bench. What do you think we should – how would you go about normalizing this, PJ? Do we want to take the average of the five? I don't think the average would be good. No, but I feel bad just dropping the worst guy. That's not exactly fair either. Just drop the fifth guy that got in. All right, so the top four of the Aon Swim Five? Okay, we'll do top four. Okay. God, that's going to hurt when P. Raj just lights it up this week. Fair, but that's just the way it goes. Are you on the team of the sponsors? No. Is everybody rooting for the Aeon Swing 5? Aeon 5. I mean, I love it. I love it. This is a great idea. I hope it's just like a landslide. Yeah. Absolute woodshed. It would be good. I think this actually could really help us build some relationships with the mules if we popularize this. Oh, yeah. The mules could be coming out in support of us. Yeah. If we have the sheet and present it at the end of the year and the Swing 5 dominates, do you think this might be the end of sponsor exceptions? No. No. Well, but also, I mean, it could be Aon's next great advertising campaign too. Yeah. We need some risk assessors or insurers or whatever Aon does. Let's do it. God, I'd welcome Aon and our stable of sponsors. We could talk about the risk reward whole profiles. They could become a stalwart of this program. I've learned a lot from them. The idea of if you hit the fairway, you're in better shape than if you hit it in the rough. I didn't know that before. Opened your eyes. I love that. They've opened my eyes for a lot of things. Do you want to keep going on? Yeah, monitor. Five guys to monitor. That's number one. That's the number one thing to monitor. That won't be moving forward, but I figured this would be a good spot to introduce that to. up next we already hit on them the Spieth Legion you know I was planning to do Spieth Legion tweets during this but we already did that I don't know where we're going this feels like you know murderers row of Spieth places is Scottsdale to hear do we need to see something you know providing him as much leeway and benevolence as possible? I think yes. I do think so. I think you need to see some sign of life. Understanding it's February 10th and that the more quote-unquote important golf is not coming for a few months or a month or two, I still think it's time to see something. What is something? Top 25? I'm not saying he needs to win. Come on play some competitive golf rounds Yeah I think I like to see three above rounds Yeah Up next the number two do you know who the number two player in the world is right now it a good question uh rory no no it's ryan gerard number two oh my god hit you with a counter you got me you set me up and you crossed me over you got me going i leaned and fell um that's good ryan gerard i i just you know this guy two second place finishes in a t11 on the year did obviously and one undone made headlines in the he was catnip call the week when there was nothing going on when he flew to what was it mauritius yes and got into the masters now he's playing like you know the guy is ascending and my question is are we gonna see is this gonna carry over into the big time fields he's doing it against the B Tour. Yeah. Does this translate to the A Tour? I think we saw a lot of signs last year that he was on the cusp of being a big-time player. Yeah. He did. We're not above recommending other competitors. He did apparently an interview with Smiley Podcast and was like, awesome, dynamic, really interesting, good guy. So I've watched a little bit of it. I don't know. It sounds like he's got a lot of personality and fun guy too. Did you get clarification of his Gerard or Gerard? I think it's Gerard. Okay. Okay. It's Gerard. Obviously, big name. We'll put one big name in here. Rory McIlroy. Okay. First state side start, obviously defending champion. As we kind of go into the next couple of weeks, we've already seen Scotty make a splash, a statement. you know last week maybe was a bigger statement than than PGA West fair but we'll see where he you know how his game looks at a course he won at last year you know catnip call of the week a lot of people before he gets to the 14th hole we'll be talking about the line on the 14th yeah they've got all the there's some new drone AR tracer tech they're debuting to go up and over the corner though i don't like this land thing the red dot yeah what what are we doing i mean we thought hideki was going in the water at 17 right you don't like it it's telegraphing you want to watch with some yeah that's the whole point yeah when a quarterback throws the pass you're like wait is it going to be completed right it's it's a fair i mean full credit to the advances in technology and all that stuff but then like some more holistic view on the product or the television product. Maybe something to rethink. It seems like people should ask the question with technology. This is the thing that I do. Do we actually want this? Do we need this? Yeah. Yeah. There's many instances of that. Touchscreens are a big one for me. Why do we need touchscreens on everything now? You know, with the checking in at the airport, everything's a touchscreen. Soda machines are a touchscreen. It's a disaster. Why can't I just push a button? I don't want to touch. Cars. You drive off the road trying to fiddle around with the touchscreen. There's a lot of technological advances. I'm not sure I need it. Do you have a one and done pick? I have one more player to go. Sorry. Go ahead. Last guy, Xander. Because Nosferatu got hacked, we didn't get to talk about the OWGR update. Got her up to fifth in the world. That's crazy. I hope Nosferatu is dealing with his hacking situation. It doesn't seem like an easy thing to recover from. It's going around the golf circles. It is. I keep getting messages. Don't click on links that people send you. Even if Elon tells you that Twitter messages are the safest place in the world. Just like the Epstein emails. Anyways. Card right turn. Xander on notice. Xander is 10th in the OWGR. Like, if I told you at the end of 24, this guy wouldn't be a top 10 player in the OWGR that doesn't include Jon Rahm, you know, or Bryson. Wild situation. That's with a win. At Bay Current. Bay Current. He's 10th. yeah you know last year it was sort of like he's injured you know it's just a a sort of flush it kind of year and uh i don't know it's pretty pretty uninspiring again to start the season it's early but but you would expect him to come out a little hotter like like ready to rock and he just hasn't been. I don't know how much unnoticed he is, but his great asset was just sort of like top 10 machine, top made cut machine, but top 25, he's just not doing that level of consistency, let alone the wins. So yeah, fair guy to kind of take a look at. I think it's just a fascinating moment where it's like, wow, this guy's going to drop out of the top 10 if Hideki plays a good tournament. Yeah, that's crazy. or Harris English plays a good tournament. Like he is out of the top 10, which is to me a crazy situation, given what we were talking about, you know, 18 months ago with them. What, uh, is he, is he the best player in the world to, he's not a top 10 player in the top 10. So what is your one and done pick? I assume he's not one of them. Who are you looking for pebble beach pro? I hate where this, of course we have one, round of Pebble, one round of Spyglass, and then two weekend rounds of Pebble. We're no longer doing the Monterey or anything else. The amateurs, the celebs, are booted at the halfway mark. I'm exactly where you don't want to be. I'm on tilt. I knew I should have taken Siwoo Kim last week. I should have. I should have done it. I didn't. PJ reaped the rewards. he was worried about it it was dicey for a second there i used him in something he was terrible on thursday yeah so you're going see will i'm going see who he's he's been sensational and he also the last two times that pebble beach has finished in the top 15 did we get some unsubstantiated intel about see what they were allowed to share we were not allowed to share that no i think we can share that all right what do what do you have for us on see what he refuses to go back to the broom because he's afraid people will think he's anchoring. He doesn't want any cheating allegations. So he's just man of honor. Just refusing to even put into the appearance of impropriety. It's what he won't accept. Put into the ether. I love that. All right, you're going with Siwu. I'm going with Siwu against my best. You know, I just don't. I don't love doing this. All right. I'm going to take the Russ bus. Russell Henley. You know, this is a golf course, and we can talk about the course here in a minute. where you kind of just go and place your ball out in the middle of the fairway. You don't rust, bust with his whatever, 155-mile-an-hour swing, ball speed. Just place it and then wedge it into a small green or high iron into a small green. I think he's playing decent, playing all right, coming out of the gate. I think he's a good pick for this venue. Peach, do you have a pick? I do. Taking a big swing. Uh-oh. Big swing. Hogecoin. Oh my God. Former champion. What's the recent Hoge form? I haven't even... I didn't even know he was in the... I know he's done decent here in the past, but that felt like distant past. I had it up. Hold on. Give me a second. Tom Hogecoin. That is a big swing. I thought you were going to say like Rory or Scotty or something. T17 last year. T60 year before that. T48 won 12 last five. Yeah. How's he in? Yeah. I don't know. Was he top 50 last year? He's in the field. I have it right now. Yeah, he was top 50 last year. I feel disappointed with Hogecoin. Was playing at BMW last year. I've just been on him. He's going to be, you know, I keep hoping he makes the Ryder Cup. Yeah. Keeps dropping the ball there. Yeah. I feel good about the signature events. It's such a clean field, but I just. There needs to be a cut. Well, there's a cut for the legacy signature events, whatever that means. Bay Hill Memorial and Genesis. You could add a few more people. I did the thing with Gary Williams, and he had all these ideas about current number one on Race to Dubai, something like you're building it like it's essentially... So you think P should be here? Well, he couldn't be to this week. But yes, Marco Penge is in because of his number one spot from the prior year, or Penge, I should say. You got the 10 from the fall points list. You've got top 30. It's just a clean field, but they could probably allow for like 10 more guys via different pathways to build it even stronger. That said, I think it is a system that seems to be working and there are pathways for the quote-unquote mule to walk aboard the Signature Series arc. And be a part of our game within the game. Mules versus Brooks. No Brooks this week. Pebble Beach, where are you at with Pebble Beach? They put a new tee box, Doug Ferguson tweeting, a picture of a new tee box at six, back up and across the path. it became sort of in vogue and overdone to like kind of brag on and bang on Pebble Beach I'd say in the last decade we understand it needs a restoration it needs this that and the other but like I did some honestly like deep reflection on it this week yeah what do you got if it's anywhere that's not next to the ocean And with this, like, it would be pretty just dated. It's been passed by. It is not a great professional golf test. Certainly in January, February. Weather looks awful, by the way. We should note weather does not look good. It's been so good, too. Looks like it's just going to be a wishy-washy weekend and wind and maybe cancellations. Is that Wyndham music? I just, like, what are we doing anymore? I know it takes driver out of a lot of guys' hands, and is that supposed to be good? Because every other week is that. It just doesn't seem... Anyways, just these little greens, and you hit wedges to them. I have a great reverence for it, but it is a shame what it's become in terms of testing professional golfers. Anyways, and now we've got a tee box at six that's halfway to Nevada. Well, one company will tell you there is no distance issue. you know I think Pebble Pebble's really interesting if you get elements sure it you know one of the one of the beauties of Pebble is this location right on the coast and like you know a moderate wind can make it really tough yeah that being said yeah the the game has passed this place by yeah I didn't know where on the spot I just there's nowhere to go with tea boxes and you see six and you see You know, nothing screams that the game is in balance like, you know, putting out on the fifth green, turning your back to the ocean and walking 225 yards back to a tee, hitting a shot. These guys are walking 450 yards from where they were extra to hit a tee shot. Now, obviously, the fifth green moved. It's the original design disaster was a written piece by Garrett Morrison about the moving of the fifth green by Jack Nicklaus. you know, in order. I think it's Charles Schwab's house. I think it was that. And but like, you know, nothing screams. We you know, this game's imbalanced. There is no distance issue is what, you know, titleists will tell you there is none. No issue. But we're building tee boxes further back in the rough on another hole to accommodate across a car path. What for some? The reason is, is that guys stopped hitting driver on one of the most iconic par fives in the world or they were intentionally hitting driver like up off that left bank and just figuring it out from there so you think about it this is like the way it used to work was like yeah you could get home in two but it's like two herculean efforts where it's a driver and then you're hitting up this mountain with a fairway wood and you're worried about trying to hit the ball high enough to get it up there now it's become like less than driver for a lot of guys in an a midiron where that hill is nothing but again remember reminder many people will tell you that the game is in balance you know that there is no there's no distance issue yeah and then we're talking about literally pebble beach which is a wrigley field a fenway of a baseball the golf standards this golf course is so obsolete for modern tour pros. It is a wedge fest, and it sucks that it's a wedge fest. Seeing guys out here hitting mid-irons, if you got the game back in balance, like you talk about some of the most iconic, you know, duels in the history of the sport, iconic finishes in the history of the sport happened at Pebble Beach. You know, you have the duel in the sun with Jack and Tom Watson. You have that one event where Tom Kite won that, um, yeah, that, uh, Johnny Miller went nuts in the weather, you know, created the situation where, you know, Tom Kite ended up winning this, all, all those iconic finishes happen because the golf course is able to stand up and provide a test for the world's best. That test just isn't really there anymore. I think like you, you just, yeah this is where i was at i was like i have great reverence for this place it's history the views how it looks the routing many of those holes but like if you stand there and like look yourself in the mirror like even the most biggest homer i mean the 18th tee shot is like a perfect example of this yeah yeah if you stand there honestly and look yourself in the mirror like you have to like look at what they're doing they are just kind of placing it out there and then hitting a wedge into a small green and like that's not that interesting when you start to compare it to other u.s open venues and it's class like you have just being honest about it and thinking about it a little bit more like and i think it's it's kind of in vogue i hate to just bagging on it but but thinking of it vis the the you know pebble beach pro or or professional golf is like a real like harsh reality if you really think about it even if you can revere it at the same time That the event of the week nonetheless Our personal event of the week is we're going to be at Space in two days. One thing on Pebble real quick. Yeah, please go ahead. Sorry, I don't want to cut you off. If you were – if you – the reality of how golf should work is there should be drivers that are less forgiving and there should be almost variable balls. where it's just like elevation. You go different places. Interesting. I think you could make the argument that Pebble should be played at 70%. Interesting. Yep. And that would make a 6,900-yard golf course that it is a really good test. And all of a sudden, you start to think about the way holes like 16 would play or a hole like two. all of a sudden, you know, would be some interest as even a short par five. There are just so many holes, like the stretch of nine and 10 would be insanely difficult. One piece that's exciting, I guess, if you wanted a glass half full with pebble, the 10th green. Finally, we have green near the ocean. That green was expanded. moved it out a little bit. That is an exciting development. The old pictures were comical of where it was in relation to it. It's like, oh, you can see that the green should go here and it's not here. Congrats to Pebble Beach for restoring some of that green. Get that back because it makes that hole way more dynamic. Reality, and this is where it's such a bummer with the USGA and what's happened with the rollback where it has now taken a backseat to 2030. Next year's U.S. Open is going to illuminate this huge issue where unless they get weather, it's going to be a foggy, the green's too soft, and a wedge fest, and it's going to yield scores and probably not the best tournament as a U.S. Open venue. Yep. It's interesting. I'm excited to watch. CBS will be great. It's obviously a highlight of the PGA Tour schedule. I just think it's something that you really need to assess if you're being realistic and honest about it. And the teebacks at six is the most recent sort of damning piece of evidence. Going 250 yards up and then 250 yards back. Think about it. Are they even hitting at the fairway anymore still there? Are they still going to just send it up? Probably. Try to bank it around that heart path, grandstand mix of stuff on the left there. and then go up the hill. All right. That's the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Our event of the week is the live Shotgun Start episode at Space. That's Thursday night. What time is the doors, PJ? 7 Central, 7 local time. I suppose if you're in Chicago, you'd want to know the local time, not Eastern time. We're going to open doors. We're going to hang out. We're going to talk. We've been doing some research here on Flashback, some of our favorite SGS moments. which were particularly painful to relive for some, for on some instances, the favorite being, you know, most dire circumstances, lost recordings, things like that. We're going to go through that. KBV is going to jump in, do a segment. So we're very excited. I think there are some tickets still available. The space website in Evanston, we will be there at seven, hang out for an hour, then record and let it rip. So looking forward to that. All right. Continuing on with our schedule for the week on the. Books are in stock too. What is? Oh, that's right. Not in stock. They're pre-order. It's the second wave of books. There's a lot of demand for the Friday Golf Coffee Table Book, whatever you want to call it. It's a beautiful, beautiful book. And people wanted that. We ran out around ahead of the holidays or we closed the pre-order window. That is now open again and we will get you a book. A lot of demand for that. They are available. Go to the Pro Shop at the Fried Egg. Those are back. All right. Continuing on with our schedule for the week, we have the Chubb Classic on the PGA Tour Champions. This is a Tiburon golf course in Naples, Florida. Notables are Davis Love III, Corey Pavin, Bernhard Lanner, and defending champion Justin Leonard are in the field. Oh, here are some other notables. Stephen Ames, Angel Cabrera, The Mechanic, Lainer, Leonard, DL3, and then Toms, David Toms. PJ, do you have anything you want to share with us about the Chubb Classic after about a month off on the Champs Tour? Well, astute listeners might remember that this Chubb Classic win is what propelled Justin Leonard to make the cut at Portrush last year. Oh, is that what happened? Yeah. Because he won the Chubb. His first ever Champs Tour win, so he needed that to kind of kickstart his season. and then did not appreciate Joseph's question about if he could find himself contending in an Open Championship again one day. But I did just want to add that Bernie is the favorite to win this golf tournament. Betting favorite. Public money. Which, you know, we talked about Scotty and how amazing it is that he's like half the odds of the next best person in the field. I think it's just amazing that Bernie is still out there old compared to even the old and still number one. That's incredible. Incredible career. It's crazy that he is the favorite. That's the public money. They see Champs Tour. They're like, well, I must bet Bernard Loner. He kills it out there. That's what they do. That is on Golf Channel in the afternoon. Then we have the Ladies European Tour as the Piff Saudi Ladies International. It's Coffee Golf 530 Wednesday through Friday, 430 on Saturday to finish. You have number one player in the world, Gino, Charlie Hull, Daniel Kane, Rio Takata, and others at the Ladies International, Saudi Ladies International. Speaking of Saudi, Liv is taking the little puddle jumper from Riyadh to Adelaide this week on their worldwide tour. So that continues down at – this is basically their event of the year, Liv Adelaide. They've really found a good market and a great crowd and a great atmosphere, and it's profitable. Think about the atmosphere there with Ripper coming in. Elvis off their first win of the year. Elvis. Yeah. And this is, this is, you've seen it go big at Adelaide. This is going to be the, you know, they're the favorite thing. Yep. They're number one in the standings, number one of their hearts down there in Adelaide. This is at the Grange golf club. This is 8 PM to 12 AM. This is Eastern time United States on Fox one, which I think is their streaming service. And they get an hour on FS one from midnight to one. so just late night golf on fs1 fs2 check your local listings like beginning essentially at like eight or nine going to about 1 a.m it comes on saturday is there some big east hoops or something saturday night they play at 11 p.m they get big fox 11 p.m saturday night on big fox till 1 a.m sunday on fox for live adelaide at the grange golf club um we were recording early sound like my daughter the big fox and little fox my daughter if there's two kids at school that have the same name yeah just calls one little and one big i love that but then she'll say you know don't tell him i said this yeah but that's the way we refer to them sure um we we recorded early on sunday without our owgr input you know for all the bitching about getting only 10 spots some significant movements. Elvis Smiley goes from 134 to 77. John Rahm went from 97 to 67 for runner-up. You had Lucas Herbert, Brandon Great. They jumped 50 spots for finishing in the last position that was eligible. That is real movement. I think that's a real carrot if you were pondering Liv. If Elvis Smiley can win and go jump 70-some spots and Rahm goes 30 spots for runner-up. I think that's significant. I don't get the whole whining. This is a tour of whiners. I needed Peter Ulein's thoughts on this. That's who I always go to when there's a hot topic in golf. He was good. He was good. He was level-headed. He was just like, look, we have more today than we did yesterday. I don't understand the complaining. I saw the winner gets 23 points. Did you see this? In Adelaide? This week. In Qatar, he gets 20. In my mind, we're the second best tour in the world right now. Obviously, there are things that probably need to get worked out with the top 10 or whatever. But the reality is we have more points today than we had yesterday. I'm all for it. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. I think that's the right mentality. You know who maybe wishes they didn't? You know who got jammed is Thomas Dietrich, who obviously still has some residual standing from winning last year and just fresh off. He finished seventh and went from 62 to 63. He lost a spot. That's probably because of the aging of Scottsdale. Right, he's falling out of Scottsdale. Oh, man. I got these fucking phone calls all day. So that's your live OWGR update, live Adelaide. I got nothing, not a lot of news. TGL happened last night. I was traveling. Neil Shipley had the first ace. I don't even understand who's on this team anymore. I was watching them jump around. I was like, that's not Lowry. That's not Wyndham Clark jumping on his back. Luke Clanton and Minwoo. Did we know that was happening? Yeah. What is this? It's the next generation. I don't think it's a coincidence that this is on the PGA Tours website, homepage right now. It's leading Neal Shipley. Those three, the next generation. Do you have a conspiracy theory about that? I do have a conspiracy theory. Neal Shipley has been prominently featured in PGA Tours content, maybe not coinciding with his on-course play. He was really good on the Corn Fairy Tour. He was really good on the Corn Fairy Tour, but the whole, you know, Oakmont was just, that was beat to hell. He literally didn't qualify and hasn't done much this year. There's a full swing episode about him. Was the Sim maybe rigged for the new golden boy of the PGA Tour? The Tony Finau of the next generation, perhaps. He had some quotes. He's like, I've never had a hole in one like this. Yeah, nobody does. Screen. So you think it was maybe cooked to provide an extra bit of PR boost. Also was told that Tommy Fleetwood was shipping wedges like 40 yards over a green. Obviously, the Sim stinks. That's not news to anybody. But Tommy was having a rough go of it. This is literally Tommy Fleetwood, not a guy that misses generally like that. Your conspiracy theory was the media center's gain as he bought Mike's heart for the media. Mike's heart, a round of Mike's heart for his ace. I was talking to some TGL insiders that were proclaiming Neil Shipley as the superstar that the league needs. And I just reminded them. I said, well, let's just keep in mind, he needs to play well in the real world in order to keep his card so that he can play. You have to be a PGA Tour member in good standing, as we learned. Yeah. So this is early. He obviously, he was great last year on the Corn Fairy Tour. Yeah. Bright young star. I don't want it to mean, but I just want to point out, he's played in four cuts. He's made one cut and his earnings on the year are $19,000. So it's very early. But before we get too, you know, attached to Neil Shipley and the TGL and the SoFi Dome, let's just keep in mind, he needs to have a good year on the golf course. And maybe this shouldn't be the place that he's spending a lot of time in order to have success on the golf course. I just don't understand this portal. What happened at the game that I love? You have your four guys, and that's your crew. And you ride with them. And all of a sudden, Shipley's involved. Finau's involved. Luke Planton's involved. Half of these guys don't even play anymore. Literally are not on their teams. They may or may not play anymore. Yeah. Adam Scott hasn't shown up once this year. What are we doing? Chris Goddorup just gets plucked out of nowhere on his way to top five player in the world, gets picked up by the best team in the league. Where was the waiver process? Also think about Detroit. Detroit probably would have loved to build around Goddorup. Oh my God. That's a centerpiece. Is he protected in the expansion draft? Yeah, that's true. All right. That's it. The Bay beats LA. Again, we've talked about this at length with Liv. And this is where I have to raise questions about the WTGL. TGL. Again, what are we doing? You haven't figured out the TGL league. I agree. Figure out how to explain this willy-nilly free agent process where teams... This is supposed to be a legitimate... That's the thing that you say about Liv. If you're going to have teams, you have to actually have teams. If you're trying to do the team thing that people recognize from other sports, You have to actually do it, and they're not actually doing it. Whoever wants to play can play, whatever. You know what? Stop asking questions. Just sit there and sip your mics hard. We should just be happy it exists. That's generally the way that people in golf say, just be happy this exists. Neil Shipley's ace is leading PGAtour.com, top story on a week of signature events. It's just, I don't know. Settle down. The Bay Beat LA. There we go. I don't have anything else. Oh, one more thing. We're going to be in the TGL Dome. Maybe, yeah, a couple weeks. We may be visiting the swap, going back down to the swap. I'm excited. I'm excited to be in the back of the TGL Dome. We may be doing some content. We may be going down. I got to get my power rankings updated. Yeah, you better check on that. One more bit of Pebble news. Roger Maltby is back. They got him on like a two-way, 10-day contract or something. He's got like five minutes. Like what? Come on. anyways i should have noted that as news all right i think that does it it does that we got to explore chicago we got to go check it out we got to go put pj on the ferris wheel and then batting cage and all these other things yeah you ready to go peach i'm ready i'm happy to be here all right fabulous i got to go back to capital one cafe get another cup of coffee we will talk to you on thursday at space uh see you then We'll see you next time.