1139: Early Augusta Notes + Lauren Wins In Vegas (and calls in!)

! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Podcast. So, I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm going to be here today. I'm and just a tons of news and notes. So let's get into it before we do that. The most played driver on the PGA tour showed out once again, Sunday at the Valero, where each of the top four players was playing a titleist driver. Three to last four events on the PGA tour have seen the winner and runner up finishers play a titleist driver. Among them this week was Robert McIntyre, who put his GTS to and play immediately following a fitting session last week in the UK at the titles performance center at Woburn. There's one of 34 players this week at the Valero, playing a new titleist GTS driver in just the second week since the new models launched on tour. That 34 number also is more than any other brand's total number of drivers. So stay tuned to titleist social channels for more updates on the new GTS drivers as the tour seating process continues here over the coming weeks. Big shot. Bob was a, he was shouting out the ability to shape the ball with the driver, which is, which is thrilling. I love, I love hearing that. You don't hear a lot of that in pro golf these days. You know, it's a lot of guys hitting high, hitting it straight, hitting it long big shot. Bob's like, man, it's windy out there. I got to be able to shape this driver, which he was doing. So that was, that was exciting, but you should have hit that with the second shot there on 18. That was the case. You shot the studio down on that one. That was a tough, I don't know what that club was. I had that in my notes. It looked like one of those like super old white fairway medals for like 2000, you know, if you don't talk about raising the roof, so I looked like one of those really old Taylor made three woods or something. I got to get in the Darrell survey, but where, where are you, man? As we're, I should say, we, we're awaiting a call from, from the champion out in Vegas, LC. She might be, might be calling in here shortly. So if you get, if we get, if we cut off one of your stories or something, don't, so we'll take it personally, but she calls that would be great. I won't take it personally. The listeners are going to be devastated. I think maybe my favorite moment of the weekend was, you will get to it, obviously, but Astros Talley hit the bunker shot into the water. That was not my favorite part of the weekend. That was, that was devastating, but solidly immediately, man, really makes you think about that up and down. I made for back there, huh? The whole team was just like, God, that's all we can think about. That was crazy. The first thing that popped into my mind the whole time. It was very a degree. So that one's, I know it was very degrees of difficulty though. You know, it's kind of an incomparable because if you remember, I was actually in the harder bunker, right? Exactly. Not 100%. I think it's my story getting interrupted already. We're already interrupting your story. We're already pre-up to LC. We asked Ali to just vamp, but we're going to cut them off. Congratulations. Thank you guys. How about that? How about that? How hard, all right. How hard is that golf course? It's so hard. I mean, there's just like clubs where it's just like, okay, like he hadn't hit anything else, but this club is probably not going to stay on the green, but hitting it in that part of not on the green is the best. So that's where we're going. I can at least make bogey from there. So that's a hard golf course, but you love it clearly. I mean, what is it about this place that, you know, you just tend to go ape shit on? I think you not only like, you can't just fire at things. You have to like be really particular about where you're hitting stuff and using slopes and things like that. So it's not like, oh, I just aim at the pin. Like there's some holes. I'm aiming like 30 yards left of the pin trying to hit a slope. And so I don't think a lot of girls are used to having to do that. Like given like that we don't play typically this firm of golf courses all that often. And so I think that's part of it. But I don't know. I just, I feel like I see the greens really well too. Like I've putted really well the last year as well. And I made a ton of putts this week. So I don't know. It just seems to just suit my game pretty good though. For sure. Just to follow up on that, Karen Stuples on the telecast said the setup this week was as hard as any major venue in recent memory. I mean, I would imagine you maybe agree with that. What besides the firmness, is there anything else that really plays into how difficult Shadow Creek is? Yeah, I think again, it's just like around the greens, there's so much slope and there's so much slope on the greens that if you get in the wrong side of something, it's so hard to even just make bogey. And I think that's, I mean, I just think it's like you're going to miss greens. It's just like not like where weeks where like, oh, you know, you can hit 17 greens this week or 18 greens. It's like you're going to miss a lot of greens and you have to miss in the right spots. And if you don't do that, and I think that's very much like what a major is, like you have to know where to miss and miss appropriately and then also get it up and down, which I feel like I did a good job of too this week. Is it hard playing? I mean, you'd rather be more shots ahead than behind, but is it a little bit hard playing golf with that big of a lead? Is it kind of unavoidable thinking about like, oh, I just got to not screw this? Is that what, like take me where your mindset actually is. It probably not because you're still one by five. I think it definitely creeped in just, but I think I didn't really know where I was. There's like no scoreboards really until you get to nine. And so I had no idea like what anybody else was doing. Obviously I really only knew what Nelly was doing. And so once I got to nine and realized, oh, I got like a six shot lead right now. That's when I was like, okay, not that I'm going to play non aggressive, but it's just like, not that I'm going to change my game plan because that's clearly what got me there. But yeah, I mean, I'm going to like laying up on 18, like I probably wouldn't have laid up on 18 if I really needed like Eagle or something, but it's just, there was no point. And I was kind of between clubs and it's just like, why, why do that? Why I put that stress? Elsie, you, this is your first win since, gosh, going back to 2004. Yeah. What? 2000? What? What? 2024. 2024. Sorry. 4. Sorry. 4. Yeah. I just went in the U.S. though in a while. First win in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. Did anything feel different this week? Did you feel like the game was trending? Like I know it hasn't quite been the end of last season in the beginning of this season that you wanted. What, what was different about this week? I think last week I actually played like extremely well, T to green. I was trying another putter for the last two weeks. I was trying one of the ping onset putters just to see if I could kind of help with my like poll that I tend to have. And I finally was just like, God, I just, I can't look at this thing. And I had, luckily I had brought my old putter back and back with me just in case. And it was like, oh, this thing looks so good when I looked down at it. But I think that was really the only thing that was missing. It's like, I was testing out some different stuff to kind of start the year. Like I put in new iron shafts. I was kind of testing out some driver shafts and I ended up putting my old driver shaft in last week. And that finally started going really good last week. And so I felt like the pieces were coming together, even if it didn't necessarily like show the last couple of weeks. I knew the irons were really good. And so last week was figuring out the driver. And so like this week was figuring out the putting and it was, it was as easy as just switching back to my old putter. Lauren, maybe this is, uh, you know, I've been watching a lot of the masters recap stuff from last year and hearing Rory talk a ton about Bob Rotella. And I don't know if we've talked to you at least like not publicly about working with him and what, what that's like, but hearing Rory talk about him here last night, hearing you talk about him kind of privately, I'm just, first of all, I'm like, what's that like? And second of all, I'm like, why is everybody not calling this guy like ever, like everybody? Uh, it just seems like a no-brainer. But what, what's it like working with him? I mean, Bob's great. He's got amazing stories. I mean, name a top PGA tour player and he's probably worked with them at some point. If he's not still working with them currently. So he just has so much wealth of knowledge and it's just, he's just easy to talk to. I've been pretty fortunate that he lives where I live in Virginia. And so I literally just like go play golf with him. That's all I ever really do. And we just like talk about stuff. And if I really, really need anything, like I give him a call and most of the time it's like routine and especially with putting and not thinking about results. Like I definitely found myself, you know, thinking about winning like through nine holes, especially once I saw the lead I had. And so I think it was just trying to stay in focusing so much on my routine as best I can, like acknowledging that it's okay that like that's where my mind went. Like I really want to win, but getting back into focusing on my routine and just thinking about that. And if you can do that, a lot of good things will happen. Elsie, I think like I am dead ass serious. I consider this a major victory. I like the venue, the setup, feel leaderboard. Like I think it's more impressive than virtually every Chevron that's been contested. Except for when you almost won. That was a really great job. Except for that. Yeah, that would have counted for sure. But in all seriousness, like this has to really, I don't think you need confidence, but like it has to feel good winning like this on a difficult venue. I guess my question, how much do you enjoy playing difficult golf? Do you wish there was more difficult golf out on tour? Yeah, I mean, on Friday afternoon, I got to like the ninth hole and like I hit, I, it was blown pretty good obviously on Friday and I hit the shot exactly how I needed to exactly where we were talking about and I hit it to like 15 feet and I just looked to my caddy and I was like, this is so fun. Like everybody's been complaining about this and I'm like, it is so fun executing a shot like that, guessing the win, right, judging how far you need to land it, especially when they're this firm. And I'm like, that's like, I literally was like, this is so freaking fun. I don't know why everyone's complaining. Like it's so, I mean, I get it when you're not executing like that's definitely not fun when you're making boogies and doubles and stuff out here. But like, I was having a blast. It was also like my third week with a new caddy, Jack, and I really, really like him a lot. He was great out there. He was keeping me, he's so funny and so dry. So that was pretty, we were, he, he's at Augusta and he has for the, for 37 years. So like we were talking a lot about master stuff kind of leading up to that. So it was, there was a lot to talk about. Jack, Jack lit me on fire when I was down, when I was down at the first event of the year. Yeah. Yeah. It's certainly been champions. Cause I still had the bib on. I didn't even notice I had the bib on and I was like, I was going into player dining to like grab, grab dinner, lunch or something. He goes, man, you're, you're really proud of that bib. I'm like, yeah. I don't even want to get kicked out. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jack. He's hilarious. He's so dry and like so many, so it was a lot of fun. I was happy to have him. I mean, doing it in our third week together is pretty, pretty cool stuff. Lauren, how do you, I'm going to try to get you to say this out loud because I'm watching you, when I'm watching you play and I'm watching this smile in your face right now, like what I, what I sense right now is you in your own head, just being like, I'm so good. Like I'm so good right now. Like, can you describe kind of what your, your confidence level is right now and your belief in yourself is right now? I mean, it's funny because like last, all last year I was like, am I going to be able to win again? Like that's all I was thinking about last year. Am I going to be able to win without Terry catting for me? Am I going to be able to win just at all? If I was that the best golf I'm ever going to play in my life? Like last year was really hard. Just, I think just the transition from being like kind of under the radar to like now people like kind of know who I am. That was a big transition. Having like sponsor stuff was a big transition in off weeks. So I think my confidence definitely was like not good last year. And even kind of coming into this week, I feel like I still kind of was like not really sure, but yeah, after today, I feel pretty good. Close enough. Are you hanging in Vegas? What's the, are you going to go party? What's the plan? I mean, we have a 6am fight out in the morning because I hate red eyes. So I don't, I don't know yet. I haven't really got to talk to John all that much yet. I just did photos and I'm about to have to go do media now. So I got, I got, I'm sure we're going to be doing something with Casey and John because we were supposed to be staying with them tonight. So just walk right onto the plane at 6am. Come on. I know, I know, you know, John got a fishing boat after the last, the last day. There's a big purse this week. Is he beating you up for anything else or what? No, I think we're good now for a while. Well, congratulations. Thanks guys. Way to go. I'll see. That was awesome. Cheers. All right. Well, that was earlier than I thought we would get her. So it's a Lauren. I realized we didn't really introduce it. If you don't know the backstory, like Lauren Coglin was one of our original young hitters back in about 2019, I think, which was on the Epson tour. Is that what we started? I think so. Yeah. I think so. It started sending a DM to Tron. Just, Hey, listen to the pod you guys ever consider, you know, throwing, throwing any weight behind a mini tour golfer back when, yeah, she was on the Smetcher tour at the time and trying to end up going to get coffee with her and just absolutely loved everything about her. And yeah, it's been a friend of the, friend of the pod, friend of the program, friend of just a friend ever since. So it's truly just, it's weird. And we said this, we said this in the nest, invitation tournament one at one year. If you talk about having great caddies. Yeah, that's right. We wanted that year. If you're, yeah, if you're ever curious about Lauren's towel that she's got, the kind of like NLU towel with the, with the like sort of day glow logos on it. Yeah. That's from that NIT, which is always makes me, makes me smile. But it's, it's funny, man. It's, we've said this a lot, like when Max wins or, or other people like that, it's just, it's weird how normal it feels. It's like, Oh yeah, that's yeah. She looked at Nellie played in the last group and just pushed her over a table and like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's toast. See ya later. It's, it's just crazy how normal it feels to watch her just be one of the best players in the world. She's just a Dan Hurley, Jeff right now. She's like, yeah, for truly head all up on Nellie. Yeah, just not just sitting on 20 hit me. Hit me. Just awesome. I'm so excited for gosh. Yeah. Well, I think, I think with that, I think we just keep going with LPJ, the Ramco at shadow Creek, get the, get the rest of the, the notebook out here. The best stat I think that I've found golf channel posted this late during the, the final round broadcast after round one, there were 20 people under par after round two, there were 10 people under par after round three, there were five people under par. They ended up with four people under par. This Randy, this does not happen a ton on the LPGA a setup like this, a test like this. No. And the best thing is like, we, I like, if you've watched this event, the, the old match play shadow Creek's wild and it plays like this every year. And I was, I mean, I was expecting it to play difficult. I did not think it was going to play this difficult. I think I was trying to do a quick count. Like I think there were 33 rounds in the 80s this week. PTI, the PTI, like we're looking at a PTI probably, I mean, well over two for sure. So proper test index for those that don't know. Yeah, this was a proper test. Like truly you look back at, you know, I think of the US women's open at Lancaster, the US women's open at Olympic, but like that's how difficult this played this week. And it's just wonderful. I love it. I guess my question to you guys, you know, we talked to LC about it. She loved it. It's great when you're playing well. We don't get this. Like this will be the only non major setup that's remotely close to this plus seven made the cut Friday. Just to, you know, that's absurd. Do you guys like, obviously we've been banging the drum of setup stuff. And I would like the LPGA to do more with their setup to help identify the true best players, right? Like LC talked about, you know, playing 15 feet away from the pin is the proper shot. You just don't get that most weeks. Or if you miss the green in a certain spot, you're dead. You know, they just don't get that many weeks of the year. Having said that, Shadow Creek is kind of one extreme, but this is the type of golf I like. Like I have no problems watching, you know, good shots get rewarded with birdies. And then, you know, you can make a double bogey pretty easily out there. Deej, I'll throw this to you. I don't know if you watch quite as much women's golf as I do. Like, does anything about the difficulty turn you off to the, to the product? Because I think that is one of the things I hear is like, ah, casual fans. They're just going to think it's poor golf, but I don't know. I don't really buy that. I'm curious what you think. This is a sort of building the plane as we're flying it take here. But I would say what would get me a, a, a women's golf, like mostly casual fan to tune in is golf course. First and foremost, usually, if it's a course that I really want to see, like, and that has to do with, you know, a certain playing style. The second thing is big names. Is it, you know, is it names I somewhat recognize as a storylines I like following throughout the year. And then down from there, I mean, like a pretty distant third is like, Oh, are there a bunch of birdies flying around? I think that's, that's pretty, you know, sometimes you can marry those up, but I'm, I'm looking at this test at shadow Creek and I'm like, man, it's pretty great leaderboard, pretty great separation of skill. Yeah. Like good players played really good. You know, and I think that where some of those criticisms can have some legs, I think is when we've talked about this a lot on the men's side, for sure is when you have quote unquote hard setups that also just turn into like arbitrary reward. POS. Yeah. Piece of shit. Fucking putting contest. I forget what the POS FPC. That's, that's what that is. That's what, that's what happens too often. Yeah. Or even it's almost like the flip side of that's always when it's like, when the wrong things get punished, when you get super, super, super narrow fairways and really thick rough and everybody's missing fairways and there's no actual, it just puts everybody in a blender and it's like, let's just kind of see who randomly plays well is not the same as what we watched at shadow Creek, which I think was a real test of golf where the good players played good. You know, and so I don't know. It's kind of a roundabout way of, of saying that it definitely does not turn me off to watching it. I had a blast watching it this afternoon and I love when there, it feels like there's consequence. It would have been a really interesting tournament without Lauren. I mean, that's the thing with some of these hard setups though is like, there was so much very, you did not know what was going to happen. I mean, look at Lauren had a big lead early in the week and it kind of was drifting a little bit yesterday on Saturday and it was just like, dude, it could go any which way for today. And by the time I got off the course at Augusta today, she had a six shot lead. I was like, whoa, I knew all options were on the table here, but I did not expect that one of all things to come in and check my phone and it, but that kind of variability is what you're looking for. What happens too often on the LPGA tour, Randy, right on the PGA tour for that matter is mistake made. Oh, that's okay. He or she is fine there and they'll probably figure out a way to par. But it was like, if you made a mistake at any point of any hole, you had to make an excellent shot to recover and make par and you could hit two excellent shots and make a birdie and drain a putt, but it puts so much more of a test on some of the other aspects of your game than just like mid range putting, which is just like what the broadcast defaults to showing on repeat and it just, it, it lulls you to sleep on men's or women's side. So get making it work backwards of putting all the shot, so much shot value in individual shots and just like watching like the old McGuire and LC play the 18th hole yesterday where McGuire is coming in with a hybrid. LC is coming in with, you know, a short iron there into 18 and it's a test of different test of skill. Like LC has a distance advantage and she was able to flex it on that hole, but you better be accurate at Shadow Creek as well. It was a really good test. And I know the major championship months are kind of all played during hot, you know, you know, the majors that move around US open and PGA are not good times to go to Vegas for, for major championships. So I don't think Shadow Creek going to elevate into that, but they've got a hit event here, having a stroke play event at this golf course. And I hope it's there for a long time and rainy to finish this thought. I'm very good reason to believe the new leadership of the LPGA tour is quite pleased and is seeking out this kind of test and know that I think people will like want this part out of the LPGA product. Yeah, just to serve as quick down the leaderboard, like, let me just read you the top 20 is just like these are world, now it's not every world class golfer, but there are no fakers really, right? Obviously LC, Leona McGuire, you mentioned tied for second with Nelly, Miu Yamashita, major winner, Akiah EY was tied for fifth, running in shot 67 today round of the day, like, holy shit, she's a major winner. She's tied for seventh. Even somebody like Carlotta Seganda, you know, great ball striker, she's tied for nine, Nasa Hatoca tied for ninth, Lydia Coe, Allison Corpus tied for 11, Kyujo Kim, who was looking for a third straight win this week, undone by a Saturday 79, but she's tied for 13th, Charlie Halls tied for 15th, Angel Yen loves difficult golf, she's tied for 15th, and I'm glad to see Gino Titicum tied for 17th. This was kind of another week where it's like, Gino, we got to see a little something to beat that dome golfer wrap. So I just, yeah, I love it because I look down the top of this leaderboard and I'm like, there's real ball strikers, you know, nobody's faking their way around Shadow Creek for four days. So, you know, obviously not every week is going to be Shadow Creek, but getting these golf courses a little bit more firm, you know, getting the greens a little bit more firm, not making it target practice. I think it is a better television product, especially when you mix in some of the enhancements that we see with the golf channel product, more tracers, more, you know, drones, a little better cameras, like it's all building to a better broadcast. So I am excited about that. I think, sorry, building on what you said to one of the things I found interesting about today, and I think dovetails with this conversation is, yes, Lauren made it boring at times, but also because it's Shadow Creek, it wasn't boring. Cause like there were, there were a lot of time I waited forever to tweet cause I'm so nervous to Jigsund as a big, big Lauren fan. I'm kind of like, ah, five is five's great. I would love if it was like nine or 10 though, because I've seen what Nana Kurtz, Madsen's doing out there. And I'm seeing like, you know, H.J. Kim, shoot 79. Yes. Okay. Okay. This like, it can get out of hand quickly here too. And so I mean, the dream is you find, you know, I think the dream for TV, Randy is like, you find this is the, such an obvious statement. I know, but you go to like the ANWA where you do have both, right? Where you do have like the dividing line is so like defined. And also you can make birdies and also you can make triples and like that's, I think the, the ultimate dream. But if I got a miss on one side, you know, if it's, if it's kind of either shadow Creek or it's pro-am style, everybody's making birdies. Wild horse that we saw last week. Horse. Yeah. I really, I got a kick out of, and actually I'd ask you guys, because I think it's an interesting question. I loved Sally. Your question last week, who won? Did, did the field win or did the golf course win? I feel like LC might have won, but I think shadow Creek beat everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. That seems right. I will say LPJ tour is going to be a little bit better prepared for setups this tough in terms of pace of play. And there was some major backups, especially on Saturday for group weight. I think when they got to the 13th hole, something like that, I don't know. Like LPJ has not afforded the luxury that the, you know, the men's events are usually afforded on the, you know, throughout the summer. I had to think, I don't think this, this whole thing, but the whole thing for the LPJ is lining up their, their players to play in the, in the TV window, and they do not have big ass windows like the PGA tour has. So they're a little hamstrung on that front, but at the masters at the ANWA and in the good PGA or events where they able to shape this out, you got to leave a tee time gap somewhere in there or else like one bad ruling on a really difficult golf course where there's going to be a lot of bogies also is literally going to snake all the way back for eternity. Like every, you just, you're just going to be buttoned right if there's one group that gets backed up. That's why the gaps are important because it just serves as like a, a natural, you know, if there is a something that happens up ahead, it gives the, the back end of the traffic is not going to bump right up against it, but that was, that was tough part for national television audience to see that on, on Saturday. Yeah. The pace, the pace is, I don't know if we've really made any progress on the pace of play. I think there were over five hours as a two ball on Saturday. I don't know what today's that's, that's for Randy. I'm like, dude, you wanted it tough. It's going to be tough. And it's, you're going to, it's going to take longer to hold out when it's tough and the greens are that fast. And it's not a thing as a TV viewer. It doesn't really matter as much to me, but it is a pain in the ass if you're on the ground. I think the, the only other one thing I want to mention, uh, Solly, heat check, Nelly, third consecutive runner up this time tied for second. Like I said, with Leona McGuire, are we still positive with, yeah, this was great. This was way more fun this time around. I'm like, Oh, no, we don't need to win this one. We're rooting for you every week, but not against LC. Like, yeah, I mean, she's obviously playing great golf. You know, it's not like getting, she'd be beat by a different player this time around. It's, it's somehow easier to be a little bit sobery, a little bit more sober on this to be like, yeah, she's playing awesome golf right now. And, you know, it'd be a pretty darn big coincidence if she just like finished second in the Chevron here in a few weeks. Like she should be considered the favorite for that. I think over, would you agree with that over Gino? Yeah, I think so. I, I will note that Nelly, on her, she's done man. That was good run. She's toast dude. Okay. Maybe might be playing ready. Might be clogging the basis. Might be playing, might be getting too many shots on goal. That's right. Your chances. No, I was only going to say, I thought it was very, very interesting. Nelly missed another, like two footer. I forget it was the bogey on six or eight, but golf channel went to the Miss Short Putt montage for Nelly, which, you know, they had that prepackage the last, you know, each of these last three weeks, she's missed very short putts. So it's still kind of in there. That's the thing that makes me nervous, but I do think Nelly, like, I think her game is right where she needs it to be. Like I'm not, I think it's more good than bad these last three weeks, even though she hasn't been able to chase down any of the eventual winners on Sunday. She's obviously playing very good golf. We do a mea culpa as well from last week for us, applying that she's switched to the mallet when she has, in fact, used the mallet quite often in her career, but maybe she should go back. Maybe go back, maybe room stick. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe that was the thought brought up last week at like 10 30 PM. Please forgive us for that one. So thank you. AT&T believes in connecting people to greater possibilities and they do that through a network that keeps people meaningfully connected to those who matter most friends, family and more. So the moments that matter feel closer and clearer because it's not just about being connected, being more connected. It's about being better connected wherever life takes you. When the connection matters, it has to be AT&T. Find out more head to ATT.com back slash connect to change AT&T connecting changes everything. I actually saw this up close and personal today. Guys, you know, behind the ninth green, just like ripping some cover off there and doing whatever they're doing under the wires of a national connected as somebody. Absolutely connecting the shit out of that place. Yeah, you look connected. You're up at Augusta wherever I even missing a step, man. It's great. Connecting changes everything. I love it. Well, Hey, speaking of Augusta, sorry, sorry, you got cut off earlier. You're, you're up at the national. You gotta be, gotta be kind of a who's who up there today. You know, I feel like Sunday is kind of the, that's where the, when the players play up there. Yeah. Everybody's there on Monday, you know, stuff in their face with peach ice cream sandwiches, but Sunday is when the, when the real heavies are out there. I think today was such a treat because I roll up and it starts to drizzle a little bit and it was quieter in the press building that has been in the past on Sundays. And this has been the best day to go, I think, because there's no patrons there. There's it's not an official day, but the media allowed to go take a shut down. It's the patrons. And you can hang near the first T nine green, 10 T 18 green. And you just don't know who's coming next. Like you, you have no idea. And it was kind of raining. And there was like no other media people standing there this time around. And in the past, there's been a bunch of people, you know, you always have some conversations and like see some balls come into 18 green and you don't know who it's going to, you see a swing from 18 fairway and you're like, who's this going to be? Oh, that's Sergio's move. Like, holy crap, he's playing with Dustin Johnson and who are the two guests? They're bringing up here and like Marco Mira and Gary Player play together. And it's just, it's awesome. So I gathered up as much intel, talked as many people as I could for, you know, about an hour and a half probably standing there behind 18. And I got some notes if you guys would like to hear some reporting from the ground, please. So guys have talked about this. If you listen to our podcast this past week, Maddie Kelly walked through this as a caddy as well. This is from an interview we did back in 2020. But how you show up and you, you know, you start talking caddies start talking to each other about what's new. And you know, did this change? Did this change? I experienced that a little bit today. Two different caddies gave me two different summaries of what greens changed. So it's kind of rumors, kind of, you know, you look at something and you start imagining, am I imagining that this changed? Did this really actually change? But from one caddy told me 11, 13 and 14 were resurfaced. And a different one told me 11, 14 and 16 have been resurfaced with one group being very, you know, convinced that 16 was a little bit different in some spots and whatnot. And I am convinced. And so obviously Hurricane Harvey, I believe it was that rolled through Augusta at the end of 2024. And we saw in April, 2020, 25, a different look at Augusta, 10th hole look different. The background of a bunch of shots are different because a lot of trees fell in that time period. I think even more have fallen near the 10th tee to the point where I was standing there. I'm like, I don't ever remember being able to see these cabins this clearly. And I don't think you stand on that tee anymore and really feel like you have to hit a hook at all. I watched Michael Brennan hit a tee shot off that and Ollie is caddy lined him up to like a that that tree distance that you could see completely like it's 350 to that one just like right at that. And he hit like a straight ball with driver right at that tree. And to the point where I was kind of, man, I don't kind of feels like it's missing something honestly. And I hope I'm not imagining this. And I know that it was noticeable last year when you got to 10 that there were way less trees, but it felt like even less than last year. So I don't know if any more have fallen or have come down for whatever reason, but maybe Rory took them out now that he's got some more power around the club. Maybe a, uh, uh, uh, Stadler thing that runs some juice around, you know, maybe a Craig Stadler. Now that I got the dove, why don't I get the chainsaw? I'll tell you which tree I was wanting to take down. I did ask Mr. Player when he came off 18 green, what is the, the total number of rounds at now that where you have broken your shot lower than your age, of course, it is 3,439, which I think up is up over a hundred from, of course, from last year. He says he's playing four or five times a week. He gave us that story when he walked off 18 green last year at this time, told the same exact story again about how Trevino, you know, says, well, you're 90, like all you gotta do is roll out of bed and not double bogey every hole and you're gonna break that. So I told that exactly what again, but I honestly, the azaleas are bucking as well. A lot of azaleas out there. I was going to ask it. Yeah. Are they blooming too soon? A little too soon, but like, I, and I can't, I couldn't leave that top area, but I could look all the way out and see down to 13 up on the hill there. And there are some azaleas and right now near the press building, there's tons of azaleas and it's, it's quite lovely. Randy, I forgot about Dustin Johnson, just in general. He has a Celsius bag. Sure. Again, don't know if we flexing on TC and what he, when he got dosed out in Nebraska, couldn't, couldn't stop shaking the ball. Tiger space being an energy drink bag. But anyways, I'm, I see, you know, a group coming up 18 and I see what looks like a very professional looking golf swing miss into the bunker right on 18. And I was like, oh, that's pretty, pretty Porsche. I wonder who missed that one. Walk up. It's Rory. And I was like, Oh, that should look for pretty familiar. Oh, we know what that, we know what that shot's all about. 18. And his dad is coming up as well. This was publicized. They were, you know, as a, as a master's champion, he can host people on the Sunday before the masters now. And Jerry hits it left of 18 green. He's like behind the ropes and he's hit, has hit a tough pitch. And it hits it down there to about six feet. And after he, as he gets ready to line up the putt, he says, I'm going to make sure I get this right. He said, I'm a whole this one and I'm going to go down to my knees. Come pick me up, Harry. As he, as he lines up to hit the putt and he drains it and like everybody went nuts and applauded and, you know, big hug there. And it was just, I don't know, if you haven't seen Rory talking about every hole of the final round of, and we'll talk about this probably at the end of the show as well, but you haven't watched that. And that like, first of all, it's an incredible, incredible piece of content for a variety of reasons, but it just like that instead of listening to this pod. 100%. Yeah. We've 30, you know, 37 minutes. We got your download accounts. But just like, I don't know, man, you just view like a, you could be a pretty, you know, I wrote up a tweet on it and I posted it. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of corny. I'm like, yeah, it's corny, but like this is like a father and son. After the years of torment he's had about trying to win this tournament and they get to play, you know, their first round, like Rory has said this week, he's anticipating enjoying the Masters a lot more than he ever has now. They're just about this cloud hanging over him and like, them getting Harry there as well. Jimmy Dunn and Michael Walgraf were there as well. And I don't know, just look like a really fun special day out there for, for that group. And they were, they were jovial coming off 18 degree. I talked to all them for a little while. It was great. I think we just talked about that now. So I, the, the video that the Masters put out was outstanding. I also watched the Rory documentary, the one that he kind of co-produced with his production company on Amazon Prime. The two are very starkly different from each other, but both really solid, very, very additive watches. Some of the, the documentary, as you might expect is, is turned up. There's, there's some dramatization. I think it breaks the, the cardinal sin of just no recreations ever. I don't think we ever need to recreate anything for a documentary. I think that's always a bad idea. But other than that, I'm like, man, what, I just had a smile on my face like the whole time watching it. Wait, what were they recreating as somebody that hasn't watched you like, was it a CBI or what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The, they, Rory's the, the thrust of the piece. Shout out to Bob Rotella, a lot of burn in this episode. The, the thrust of the, the doc is kind of Rory's like, what are you going to do differently this time? You've tried and failed so many times at Augusta and he's like, well, I'm going to just create my own, I'm going to create my own universe out there. I'm just going to be in my own world. You know, he said a lot of those quotes after he won and has said a lot of them over the last year. And, you know, I'm not going to, I'm just going to put the blinders on, do my own thing. And so they kind of would, would fade into these shots where they went back out to Augusta, you know, they went back left of 15 and had them recreate the hook and the back to the first tee and back to the 18th tee. And so occasionally they'd be like, he's in his own world. Do you get it? Not that big of a deal. I didn't mean to double click on that that hard. Just, you know, Sorry, you got me. You got me excited. There was some like, you know, maybe some graphics or no, no, no, no, I went, no, they weren't using, you know, nano banana to do some AI recreations, although I'm sure others have solid. The reason for all of this is I was thinking the same thing as you on, but where in my head, I'm just like, Oh man, am I being too like cheesy about this? What? And I'm like, fuck that, man. If you can't like, if you can't be about this, like, I don't know what else you are like cynical about this stuff at all. Like God, you're just spending too much time on the internet and, and just like, I just playing the wrong game. I had a, I was, I had such a smile the whole time watching them recreate, you know, talking to like, listening to him talk about the shot on 17, listening to him talk about the shot on seven with Harry, how much he didn't want him to hit it. And I see a window, like give me all of that stuff, man. It was so good. I would say if you admit, I, this is directed to myself as well. If you start to feel any cynicism towards that, you need to just take in less content. Yeah, because I get there's a shitload about the masters. It is very possible to OD on master stuff. I'm pretty close heading into this week, but the, the one with Augusta, I thought was one of the greatest pieces of content golf content I've ever seen in terms of like what makes Rory special, what makes him what so endearing to a lot of people, I would include myself in that group is the vulnerability of so much stuff. And it's not just the personal stuff. Like I just can't ever imagine tiger getting up there and specifically describing multiple tee shots being uncomfortable for him. And like why the, why it went wrong on 14, why it went wrong on 17. And I remember tiger hit this shot in 2019. And you know, I was, it walks you through the exact emoting. We've heard him describe the shot into 13, what went wrong there being on the episode, but he talks about all the things that made him uncomfortable. And then how it gets behind all of a sudden, he gets back into go mode. It's like, Oh my God. And he goes, I was thinking about the shot into 16 all day long. And because it was such an uncomfortable shot for me, it was a bad number. And I'm like, dude, that's what it looks like when I'm watching, like all of the emotions of how I imagined it to be like he is confirming all of that and just makes you feel present for that entire ride. And it, and he, you know, was crying at the end talking about what it was like to, to share that moment with Harry on the final green. And it's, it is a lot of Rory content coming in on this, but like reliving it through that lens was really, really special. And the Amazon documentary was really special of like, just understanding the multi like that the, the master's one, it was about 2025. It wasn't about the past. And the Amazon was about the past. It was about the struggle to get this thing done and over the line. And really, you know, it is a lot right now, but it is really good complimentary pieces and something I enjoyed leading up into this. So I wish, sorry, last thing on film corner here, but I wish they were a little more complimentary. There were a lot of redundancy, just kind of going through and talking about each thing. And here's what happened on nine and here's what happened on 18 and here's what happened on 13. And here's like, there was a lot of that stuff where there's a, the only thing I kind of bumped on and I kind of thought this going in probably, but with it's great, like Rory co-producing it is, you know, obviously you get access to him. Like you're never, ever, ever going to get, if he's not co-producing it. But there's also a lot of stuff that he's like, he's telling you that almost weirdly, like it's just so hard for him to convey the gravity of what everybody is feeling in that moment where it ends up feeling like a lot of telling instead of showing. And even though he's telling it 100% genuinely, even though he has very genuine tears in his eyes, even though he genuinely is like expressing exactly what he was, he's doing everything he can to express exactly what he's feeling. I still, the things that like made me tear up is watching all the people at Hollywood golf club and watching all the people like around the greens and watching, I'm like, man, the doc should have been a little more about like what Rory means to everybody else. Cause like that's, I think the thing that made this so unique. And there was little glimmers of it, but they didn't really go super duper hard on just like, no Rory's everybody's, well, maybe not everybody's anymore, since the live stuff kind of popped off. But for them, for most golf fans, like Rory is their guy. And that's what I will think about, like for the 2025 masters, just like, oh my God, my guy did it. And that's why I almost, you know, who knows how much visibility they have kind of between the two things, but it's like the Augusta piece is Rory recounting everything. And I almost would have preferred a doc that was a little bit more, you know, kind of about fans, but that's just my, my two cents. You should watch both. They're both really good. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Randy, did you see the, uh, CBS, the golf on CBS, uh, trailer for the Nance thing that's coming out? Cause that I thought was a different kettle of fish. Yeah. Yeah. I believe there's a third Rory retrospective coming out and it's just, it was tough. The promotional trailer was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I get it. Like if you're, you don't have to watch it, like whatever your picturing is worse. It is. It is worse. I'm sure the actual piece will be fine. The actual piece will be fine, but this is not a comment on the piece. Yeah. I was like, man, this, this, whatever you spent on this, just fuck. Can we maybe just get another drone or something? Who's vision was that? That's just tough. So many questions. Yeah. It's like a guy and a girl walking into a movie theater and he's like hyping it up. She thinks they're going to go see a movie, but he's just describing Rory winning the masters and then they're going to go, Oh, it's, oh, it's, it's scary. Some time. Is it a drama? It's every, it's tough. It's like, I think they're trying to get my mom with that, but I'm not sure they have to get with that. I was trying not to say that in case my mom was through the pod this week, but yeah, I think the, I don't think they're going to catch this one, but I think they're going for peg with that. I turned it off to go watch the Rory video after we made that call. Anyway, what we're talking about. Give you the last words. So I had a question real quick. So was today the drive chip and putt? Did you get up there in time? No, I got up. I got up mid afternoon. I did Easter home this morning. Big, but no, I got up. Yeah. I, I, I regret to inform I didn't miss the drive chip and putt, but it is, I mean, I do love that Sunday, man. Just going in. It's the only, you know, I just, I watched like Tom Watson come up and just like, he's got an open championship bag. Like it's the open is like his sponsor of his bag, I guess. And just like see him reach into the bag and like pull out cash for a catty and give it to my pine 18 and then just like he walked, it's, it's hard to describe how empty it is. I mean, it's just like, I'm sitting there. You can't take pictures, right? And just watching Tom Watson walk under the oak tree at a guy, I mean, he started to look older. Of course he is older now. And you're just like, it's such a unique, I mean, this is not a new take here that you can't bring your phones into Augusta and take photos, but like it's such a unique one of one place. I'm just like, I'm watching a legend of the game walk around a place where he's won green jackets and he's walking by himself right now. And this is just, this is just a memory. It's going to be in my head. I can't, you know, I can't take a photo of this. And I, just a very bizarre place to be on a Sunday evening, but it's weirdly, weirdly peaceful. So that's great. That's the very first time. I think it's all hair singlish. I think it was the first one he flushed. He actually didn't flush it. He did not flush it tonight. Came up short on nine, but I watched it. Some chips and I can report very good thudding going on around those greens with some chips and approach shots coming into them right now. Very good thud. Even with, it was drizzling out there, but it just didn't, wasn't the kind of rain that was going to soak the greens or put them behind schedule in any way. I think they're in very, very, very good control of the golf course and the greens as of, as of today. So hell yeah. But Nikolai Horgard, he agreed with me as well on 10, in terms of like just being less trees and feeling like he could just bomb it right over the corner of that one. And I think that's, that's pretty much all I had from today. I don't know who the guests are that go and play with the past year. I mean, it's, it's all different groups of people, but it is people just walking off this golf course, just like with grins, like touching your earlobes. It's just, you know, just out of this world experience, get to play, you know, the day before master's week with, with past champions and everything. So, as far as Gary player did bring his grandsons, I was going to ask him about that, but I didn't want him to get a worked up. He was in such a good mood as well. So he didn't eat any grass this year. That you saw. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But at the Anwa on Saturday, which feels like a long, long time ago now, Astros tally took a one shot lead into Augusta national over, I hope I get this right. Mayer Orton Grin, I think I had it ready yesterday and I knew I was going to choke and Maria Jose Marin and Astros tally was standing on 11 T at 15 under par bogey free on her round. Bogey free to the championship as well. Made a five on 11 hits into the back left bunker on 12 hits it in the back left azaleas and trickles into the back left bunker. It's true. It was not close. It's kind of offsetting crownings because you know, Maria had a friend had one friend couples up on the front bank and then Astros kind of went bang out of the, uh, the azaleas. So the crownings offset hits it in there, but it's a little on the downslope and then proceeds to hit it into raise Creek. I think she panicked a little bit. She dropped. Um, they were predicting before she even dropped it that it was going to plug. If she dropped, I think bones mentioned that. It did kind of nestle in its own spot hits another one into raise Creek has to go then across the bridge to the other side to hit on. Eventually made seven finished in a tie for fourth. Maria Jose Marin would go on to win the clumping over wins by four shots and a remarkably impressive final round had a little nervy issue there on the 15th hole, but, uh, she would then proceed to birdie 16 and removed all suspense down the stretch shot 68 on the day, finished 14 under one by four shots over Andrea Bovwelt. Uh, what's your guys lasting memory though of the, uh, of the 2026 on what? God, I think it's how Moby asterisk tally was just down the stretch and that I'm not, I really am not throwing shade. Like she's a 17 year old, you know, but I, I think one of my favorite things about this event is these kids and most of them are kids. I feel comfortable saying that like they do wear their emotions on their sleeve like that. And so I just, you just knew exactly what she was thinking and it was a little tough to watch, but it's also like this is, you know, this is a formative moment for her. And this is a big competition. So I, and no shade to Maria Jose Marin, like super worthy champion respect your career, unbelievable call. Nobody respects her career more than I do. Uh, but I feel like this was more about asterisk and not getting it done. It felt like to me, uh, at least on like through hole 12. And then the rest of the way it was, it was really just a coronation for Maria Jose. Yeah. Devastating, uh, just a devastating five minutes of TV there, but also can't look away. And it's kind of exactly why you go to Augusta national and things start moving quickly. And oh my God, she's dropping there. And oh my God, I went in again. Like just a lot of, all the context, all the context. We've seen it. Well, that's what's funny is that this is so fucking weird. But the first thing that popped into my head was just like, Oh my God, speed. Like he's free. The curse is over. Like we're like that. Well, whatever, genie, whatever, which like just hit him with that at 26. It's, it's over, man. We're good. Yeah. We're free. We're free. I'm really sorry for asterisks. She seems great. And that's brutal. But, uh, yeah, you're kind of like a, what is that? The cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Like you're just kind of wear that until the next, until the next meltdown happens, I guess, but Spieth, it made me really consider putting some nuggies on. That is completely free. I love that theory. And for those that don't know, like Astros Talley is a star and has been a star. I mean, she's running up in the US, I am running up to US junior in the same year. I should mention she's still just 17 years old. Absolutely bombs it. She's, we went out and filmed some with her. You know, actually played with her out earlier in about a month ago. Second, second lasting memories. Yeah. Did you guys just say deal? Just played nine holes. She just can't stop hitting it over the green, which is long left. Yeah. So I think it was great, great things ahead for her. And why maybe hopefully is a little easier for her to protect us. Um, and, and lessons to be learned from it. Like I, I think she's going to be a massive favorite to win this thing next year. You have to, you have to assume that assuming her game stays in place. Similar to the rose, the rose Zang arc, right? Like similar, you know, similar meltdown and came back and did it the next year. But with louder tools than we are used to seeing from the top junior women's players, like absolutely bombs it. Um, we post a little video there just of all the high school kids, just like geeking out over how far she was hitting it. And like has a chance to be a really transformative player when she makes a transition to the pro game in terms of, uh, having a wide set of skills, I would hesitate to call it complete at the moment. And I, I truly, truly don't ever think I've ever critiqued anyone's professional or amateur's, uh, technique in any way on this podcast ever. Like I just not my expertise, but however, I'm watching her stand into this bunker shot on 12 with a quite square club face. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is some talent right here. Like I, I don't know how you would hit this shot with a closed face. And then it's like, Oh no, you didn't. It just went, it went directly. And then did it again. And then went long on 15 and like also just played that shot with a very square. I'd like that was just one of the very, very few times I've watched golf on television. And I'm like, I feel like we're in a decent spot here to be like, why are you not opening the blade a little bit on this for a little higher descent angle and softer landing a little bit more spin, going into these shots that are going to require it here as you're chipping towards water. That was one of the only times ever I've been like, huh, okay, maybe we have some short game stuff to iron out here at some point. I don't know her game well enough to know if she has a considered a weak short game, but I would guess that is something we do not see a repeat of for her future. Yeah, there's a bit of a college kickers element to be on with, right? Whereas it's not, not everything's fully optimized. So you're watching this golf course that you have, like you said, all the context on, you know, what every shot on every hole is all about. And you're watching, yes, people that are very nervous. And, and there was a quote going around, I think it was from Gabby Herzig's article about the Stanford women. I think it was Andrew Revelda that said it. Basically, like there, there were a couple of different players that were both like, I would rather win the on-way than ever win on the LPGA. Like maybe a major Revelda. Yeah, which was just a like a big if true, I think kind of kind of moment for me. That's wild. That was very concerning to me. Very telling. I've written them off in a few years. But it is, there is something interesting about this tournament and like, are you, you miss out on a shot to win the Masters? Like, all right, give it a shot next year. Like if you miss out on your shot to win the on-way, I mean, you stay, do you stay amateur to get another shot? Like it is a limited window to get a chance at one of these and you graduate kind of from Augusta and you're not, as it stands now, you're not coming back to play competitive golf here. And there's a different kind of pressure on that. So I, I get where you're coming from on that, man. It is a really unique tournament in that regard of like, you kind of only get one or two maximum really good shots at one of these. Yeah, which I think maybe, I don't know, I feel like maybe we do this every year, but I don't know if that begs the question of like, should you get more than one shot at it? You know, like, do they need to, I don't want to say need. Like it just is always, it always, that feels like it cuts both ways. And, and almost like the, it's a shame tends to win out for me a little bit. Randy, you kind of, we were talking about it. You kind of said this to where it's like, oh great, we get to watch Astros tally, like try to slay the dragon for, for 30 more years. I don't know, actually, we don't. And it's like, yeah, that does kind of, kind of sucks. You know, like 25 and still haunted by that mistake at raise. We're not going to get to find out. Yeah. So I don't know if that leads to a larger discussion or we just kind of, you know, do that. Yeah, I had thrown something in here. This was the seventh competition. They missed the one year because of COVID. So seven, seven on was now. And I'm just curious how you guys think about this event. I think it's mature enough to like, is it good enough as it is? Does it need to evolve? I'm just curious what your take is on this event, I guess within the larger context, maybe of master's week, is that the right way to like, think about it? I guess, you know, I don't know, like, are they eventually going to get away from champions retreat? There's just a few little things where I'm like, it still kind of feels like Augusta has their cake and eats it too with this event. And I just don't, you know, as this event gets 10 years in, I just don't know what maybe the future holds here. And I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts. It's hard, Randy. It's like it's, it's a private club in Georgia that can do what they want, right? It's not the USGA. I think I could get up on a soapbox and be like, this is wrong. If it's like, is the governing body of the United States golf association is, is short changing the women in some way, right? It's their club. They can kind of do what they want. They give us, you know, a taste of some things. And this is a positive development, this tournament without a doubt. Like I really enjoy watching it every year. It's fun to put on Wednesday and Thursday. Champions retreat is not Augusta national. We know that, but it's a good table setter for what you're about to get and watch a bunch of young budding professional women, but their amateurs like go around the golf course. We're very familiar with dealing with nerves and pressure like you never believe. And there's a great appetizer for the masters. Like it's a, it's a positive, really nice tournament. And is it perfect in that regard of like, you know, how would I feel? Honestly, if they played three rounds at Augusta, like would I be maybe a little worn out by getting to masters week? Like potentially like that's been the master's model. It's been to give you some, but like not, you know, not over stuff. You not leave you, you know, incapable of, of getting the second course down. So I love a female women's masters, of course, like who wouldn't? Like I think that's the big elephant in the room, right? And I, but it's, so it's where I'm like, dude, it's not, it's not my club. It's, I know, I know. I see what you're getting at though, for sure. And I think it's almost two different questions where it's like, is this as far as we can take it during masters week or as a part of the masters festival? And I kind of see why the answer might be yes. Right? You can only do so much. So I think what you're saying is right. If it's three rounds here and then it's drive, chip and putt, and then it's three days of practice rounds. And then it's four days of the masters. I get that's, it's a lot of just, it's a lot of green whatever that the master's copyrighted pantone is. It's a lot of that for, for two weeks. So I get that. I think it does leave me wanting a little bit on, you know, well, man, it seemed to work somewhat okay in the fall. Like can we do of, you know, is there a chance to book in the season a little bit and have a, you know, the men in the spring and the women in the fall that is not, like you said, solid, it's not my place to suggest for them to, to do that. But like would watch, would be great. Would be great to bolt the on, on to that as a part of, you know, as a part of that. But then it's like you lose, you know, all the infrastructure that comes with the masters and you lose Rory showing up to go watch the final round and shaking the champion's hand. Like there, it is, it's a hard spot, which is where I feel like we always kind of circle back to the same place each year where it's like, yeah, it's not perfect, but man, is it additive? Like absolutely. And to have an event like that, say what you will, but like whether you believe this or whether it's good or whether it's, there's a whole other, you know, there's a lot to dig into, but like to have an event that's seven years old where the best college players in the world are saying, I'd rather win this than anything on the LPGA is fucking impressive. If that's how they feel about it, then that certainly carries a lot more weight than how I feel about it. I guess. I think my only, I think it's a great point about the master's week specifically, like the main dish is Thursday to Sunday this coming week. Like obviously, I think if I were to suggest maybe one change to kind of like meet everybody in the middle, let's make Fridays round a competition round. Like let's have two rounds at Augusta because I think like nothing against Maria Jose, it's one thing to go around Augusta national one time, but to like have to play the second nine, a second time under pressure sleeping on the lead, you know, I just, in introducing a little bit more of that like weird shit can happen at Augusta national. I guess I would like, let's make it a 72 whole event and let's play Friday and Saturday of competition rounds would be like, maybe we could get there at least. Yeah, but yeah, I doubt they'll change at this point. I don't think anything's going to happen, but it's I can dream. Yeah. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Arcos, the official game tracker of the PGA tour smartest platform in golf. We have an upcoming tournament, as you just mentioned, there was just a tournament at Augusta. There's going to be one coming up right here. Has this, you know, thinking about how would, what would it be like to play Augusta? Let me tell you, Arcos has the data on that. All right, we actually have, if you're watching this on YouTube here, a little deck, a little of information of how Arcos golfers have played Augusta national. Those that have played it are usually good players that are tracking on Arcos about seven handicaps. They still average about 72, which is 10 over par from the members teas. The biggest thing it's not off the tee. It's the approach shots. What did I say 72? Okay, it's 82. Like, God, you guys are really good for it. The biggest thing is it's not off the tee. It's approach shots and putting you're losing. They're losing most of the shots into the greens. Then they're three putting them anyway, average of three, three putts around, which is not, you've seen the Humpson bumps in Augusta greens. That is obviously not a surprise there. But we just said it last week, honestly, so pumped that we could finally talk about the new Arcos air been using it for a few months now. Honestly, getting back into doing the ads, they encouraged me to go play two rounds of golf this past week. It's so much fun. Putter got hot. On Thursday, I gained 4.4 shots on the greens alone. I almost pulled a TC had almost had 5.30s in a row, but it is undoubtedly also tell me my short game sucks, which is then I was kind of like, I must not be entering this right. It's like, no, you chip. It is what it has told me. But if you haven't learned anything about that or don't know about it is senseless technology where it's a wearable, it's packed with advanced GPS and motion tracking that tracks all of your shots with tour level accuracy. And it works because the data they've tracked over 1.5 billion shots. They know what's a real shot and what's not the limited inventory they have they've sold out once already. And I think they have inventory back but inventory is limited. So if you want to get one, go get it now go to arcos.com arccos golf.com. It's arcos golf.com. You can use code NLU 15 gets you 15% off. You'll learn a ton about your game. You'll want to play more golf. I've I've been a better driver of the golf ball strictly learning about how much penalties were actually affecting my score from the app. Like I'm dead serious. I play more wise and make better decisions off the tee using some of their core strategy stuff. And I've had that word on all nary's done. Matt Fitzpatrick. It's a great, great product. Arcos golf.com and I'll you 15 for 15% off. I'm one of those people. So every time we do one of these reads, I'm like, God, come on weather. Come on, man. My dog. I want to go start measuring stuff. See where I'm at. I'm excited. I'm excited. It's going to tell me I'm like a 16 handicap something and I don't know that's exciting. What am I actually like? I want to know you're going to be dialed. You can't measure your mind though, Randy. That's true. That's true. Or the dog. Anything else we clean up on the on the onwa? I assume you guys saw the Bailey Shoemaker viral free shot thing. I think that was from Thursday's round. I want to say she spent a long time pulled, you know, pulled the trigger several times to not actually make a swing. I know she's coming back from an injury, some like nerve type damage. So like, I don't want to make light of it. But I guess the question is, should you be out there with that much uncertainty? Like at a certain point, it's like, what do you owe maybe yourself or your fellow competitor? It was just so hard to watch that I'm like, you can't play golf like that. What are we doing? It was a video that was heavily, heavily, heavily circulated in a lot of places. And, you know, then it become, I don't know, is it just a tough conversation? I'm with you, Randy. Like, I get the reasoning behind this happening and understanding that she's dealing with why word related, you know, something it's hard to describe. I don't know the feeling she has, right? But I'm assuming it's like a fear of the, you know, the injury of the nerve catching at some point in the swing. And it's just multiple pump fakes in the swing. And it's really tough. And it's got to be really hard on your playing partners. And I would imagine if I was to fill in the blanks again here, Randy, it's like, all right, I'm still dealing with this, but I'm like, not going to miss the on like, you know, you know, I'm just not missing it. I don't care if I want to battle through it, and it's feeling good feeling good. And then cut some holes, like this thing pops up and there's kind of not much you could do about it. It's tough. It would you feel differently talking about it? If it was a professional, I throw like, am I being too harsh on her by ripping this? Are we all being too harsh like piling on on social media when this something like this happens is like, I struggle with this row and get just as much like, I just think it's, I think about like, heaven, not the players a decade ago was just like eviscerated. Not that that was right either, but yeah, I'm, I'm with you, sorry, but two things can be true as, as you, you know, as tends to be the case very frequently in life, both very sorry that that happened super empathetic to anyone coming back from injury and also like, yeah, if that's against the spirit of the rules, then it's against the spirit of the rules. Like, but that's where I'm also like, man, it's one clip on social media where I'm kind of like, I probably don't need to weigh in is sort of where I, where I tend to land is maybe defer to the rules officials on that one. If they're all like that, then that's tough. We shouldn't be doing that. If they're not that I'm like, I probably don't need to, you know, be right weighing in on based on one swing. So it's just kind of a, I don't know, just, just kind of, I might, I might just kind of fade back into the hedges on that one instead. This is also their fifth start at and wall, not that it, you know, you only get so many. I think you have the correct take. It's probably just something we don't need to comment on, but it was such a tough watch. Like you can't watch that and not just Oh, just makes a skin crawl. It's tough. There's also like, if you're watching a vacuum and someone's like, do you think this should be a penalty? I'm like, hell yeah, absolutely. Like that's not, it's not it, but that's not like, but luckily I'm not the rules official. So nobody should care what I have to say about this. But that's where it's also like, we always say like, should this be a penalty? But again, I don't know the specific on what pace of play guidelines, but like the penalty is you get, you get bad times when your group is out of position and you get multiple of them. That's when you get penalties. Like that's, that's what happens. So like, then they should change the rule. Yeah, but you also aren't, you can't go around like timing every shot under my proposal. You would, is what there's not going to be a subjective referee where like, if you just do something totally unbecoming for every golf tournament in the world for every group at every golf. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Make a pay. Make a pay. Ring them up. It just always, this conversation just always seems like, you know, very easy principle, very different in application execution. There's people that, that write rules and enforce them all over the place and they haven't been able to figure this one out. These men say it's not as easy as we'd like to make it at times is my overall point. I wonder what our guys CV Buckner would have had to say about that. I got that with you. Baseball did the pitch clock. How hard can this, that's one ball. There's like 70 balls in play at a time. It's not that easy. Oh man. But also if you're looking at this, it, how is it, how is that not, how is it not a penalty as you're looking at it is where it gets really just conversations. Indeed. So we move on to the PGA tour. What happened there today? Deep, deep into the show already here guys. The Valero Texas open where JJ has officially respond in the truest sense of the term. JJ has respond big shot. Bob McIntyre led by two over Ludwig Oberg. When play was called for weather on Saturday, they'd played about six holes, which meant that we were going to have a marathon day today as we're recording on Sunday. Started about 7.45 AM. They had to play whatever 28, 30 holes, something like that. Players were in threesome. So they did not repair for the final round, which is an interesting, interesting nugget. Another interesting nugget, right? I thought you'd get a real big kick out of this one. Big shot. Bob was aiming to become the third consecutive lefty to win the Valero after Akshay and Brian Harmon could have been a lefties paradise. I know you're, you're really flagging that for, for your Akshay is going to win Augusta. Yeah. Big shot. Bobby on there too. Well, now you got me convinced speed, the G the curse. I know office feet. Man, I can't wait for the masters preview tomorrow. Somehow this isn't the masters preview, but it was not to be for our guy, big shot. Bob JJ spawn played his front nine and one under and then went birdie eagle on 16 and the drivable 17th of drivable 17th was fun today. Close to clubhouse lead of 17 under and on a day when I think there was about seven players that either had or tied the lead, shared the lead at some point, no one was able to run him down. Ludwig shoots a fine around 70 to finish two back. Matt Wallace finished birdie, birdie, birdie to finish one back. McIntyre made a run. He made a go of it at the drivable 17th. Hit it up there to about 15 feet. Ludwig stuffed it as well with the three wood and Bob made a made eagle, but he could not birdie the 18th to force a playoff. 18 was a real golf. Oh, TC and I have the list of the wind flip. TC and I have the list of true par fives. You know, par fives are a endangered species in our world today. This was a true par five golf. She had a great wind graphic up or NBC. I forget if it was on network or I don't even know. I was watching on watch on my iPad. They, they had a, that's a tough, tough. That's a little bit damning. They had a graphic up that basically said, I think the scorecard yardage was like six, 10 or something. And with the wind, it was playing adjusted to 721 yards. There were like, there were 10 birdies there in the final round. So big shot, Bob hits one out there into, I think he was in the fairway, wasn't he? Yeah. And was, was trying to ship a three wood up there as close as he could to the green and just absolute toe hook into the mud. It's just, just a gross, gross golf shot. And then was not able to get it up and down. So JJ spawn is your, is your winner at the Valero for, for JJ, this third PGA tour win. His second at the Valero, he's got two Valeros in a U S open, which is, which is kind of sick. And straight up just kind of comes a bit out of nowhere. So I'm going to go to you for reaction. You're just talking about him. You're coming. Yeah. Just talking about him. I was game was rounding into form. Look out for this guy in the upcoming events. So I'll call him quote, a replacement level player last week, which was true. He had, he had missed four, four cuts in his last six starts. That was a compliment actually. Yeah. Like bad cuts to the short, the little, the little dolphin little boy cuts at these signature event, the symbolic cuts more than anything, just putting up abysmal numbers with the putting kind of had fallen off in like just about every category. Finally found some things that click this week. Second in strokes, gained approach, 16th and putting. Yeah. And just, just a good, a good turnaround for our guy JJ. Cause like we had, we covered a couple of different times like, yo, this was, this guy was, it wasn't just the U S open last year. He almost won the playoffs. He almost won the players. He was a, he played solid at the Ryder cup. Like he was a stud last year and just had completely fallen off. He had, he had some, I don't know if you guys looked at his, his post round press conference at all, but he had some really good stuff. And honestly, I, I could hear some echoes of what Lauren was saying about her kind of career year in 2024. And JJ's take on it was like, man, I won the, you know, I felt so free all of last year because I had, I was never supposed to be the guy. I was always just a guy. And all of a sudden I was playing my best golf ever. And it just all felt like such a bonus run. And once I won a U S open and I was close to all these other events, like I just started putting so much pressure on myself to be that guy every single week. And it just kind of, it sounded like it just kind of suffocated him a little bit. Once the count, like once the heater stops, you know, like once the, the calendar turns over and it is like, no, we're actually into a new season now. It sounded like he was just very open about like trying to figure that out and how it felt to, you know, how it felt to like back up a career year like that. And it sounded like the lights got a little bright. For him. And this week he was just like, he was talking to me. He's like, it's so funny how golf works, man. Like this was the week where I was like, Hey, I'm finally okay with whatever game I got this week is the game I got. And everybody always talks about the cliche. You don't have to play perfect to win. You don't have to do the yada, yada. And he's like, I just finally like remembered that this week. And he goes out and wins. I mean, it's just very weird game is how you do a great trivia answer of that guy playing a right here cup. He's like, not only that people were riding for him to be on this rider cup team, or I guess he did automatic qualify, but he his putting of the last so far this year is like, and I put this in quotes, like, let's go back and look at the shot tracker bad. Like at this, he was losing almost a shot per round on the greens, which is he's second worst worldwide. That's a Chandler Blanche in terms of putting so far this year, like it's been really, really bad. Neil had the chance to bring this up last week didn't but now piled on me on on social media this week to say the ball striking has been good is just the putting. You got that from his brother of Chai being a week later on a tape. But yeah, I I'll owe that one. I called him that he had, you know, he'd come I was I said I was somebody I was lower on than I was the beginning of the year and he was an easy answer on that and I'm still believe that he's out of the woods on that with one great week. But I mean, yeah, it was certainly not rooting for it. So it this was happening. I guess he was, he had just finished a JT was walking off 18 green. And I guess I never would think of like JT and JJ spawn being buddies, but I'm sure there's a rider cup tie there of some kind like McIntyre and the Eagles 17 and they're like, his dad was updating him on that and JT was like, oh, like he's upset about it. It's like, oh, no way. Like raced inside to go watch the end. So and maybe the team dig it along a little bit better than we realized at Beth page. But yeah, great little side door side door nugget there. I'm the on the TV USA chemistry. I love it. Yeah, I hope he I hope there was something kind of slain here. I wouldn't, you know, I'm not going to overinflate this that I became just like the JJ spawn superfan, but I feel like I enjoyed the run more than most last year. I got to, I got to kick out of the kind of late career, like, holy shit, I might have figured it out. Type of type of feeling is I think it reminds me of people like Lauren, you know, we were kind of talking before we, before we came on. I even think their golf swings kind of remind me of each other. So maybe I'm, I'm not a golf swing guy, but they just have very compact, very like old school style golf swings that I just really like watching. And I don't, I don't know, I get a kick out of it. Draw out that analogy, Deige, because I was thinking the same thing. I'm like very similar winners we had with JJ and Lauren. I mean, JJ's 35, Lauren's 33. They both won their third tour event today. They've struggled in the past, losing a card, you know, fought through adversity to kind of gain a footing on the tour. And like you like, we heard Lauren say like, what clicked and I went back to my old putter and I, you know, I had a good putting week. And it seems like that was kind of the case with JJ finding a putter out of nowhere. So yeah, I, there's nothing off putting about JJ Spahn. And I think that's like, I don't mean to damn with faint praise there, but I don't like root against him. And I'm, I'm not, it's not a turnoff when he's in, when he's in contention coming down the stretch, like he's, I'm like, okay, JJ Spahn, you know, and it helps it. I have a compliment as I can give him maybe. Well, it helps that nothing about Oakmont felt like fluky, you know, like I just feel like we don't get fluky major winners anymore. I mean, who knows famous last words. We'll see what happens this week, but it's, it's just really hard to unsee when somebody goes out and just kicks the door open like that. You know, you kind of have that in the back of your head forever to the, to the point where it's like, well, now when he's playing shitty, it's like, well, come on, man. Like, I know I didn't make that up. Like that's not, come on. That's not who you are. Don't retroactively make this a fluky win. Like you, you beat that field on a really, really tough golf course. He did say, he said, I'm just, I was just looking through his transcript, looking for him talking about putting, but I was spiraling every week, not hitting it how I wanted to then changing my swing and work with my coach and neglecting the short game and putting. Next thing you know, my whole game was a mess. And I don't know that we've heard Max talk about that of like working through your swing. You yeah. Well, who cares about my putting on putting for double like, you know, the book doesn't matter. So yeah, good for JJ. Good for JJ. Is he the dressing guy next week? Probably not. No. The US open win is his only major top 10. So I think that's still, you know, kind of a bit of a barrier there. So you want to throw any bulletin board material out there? I will apologize if he top 10. How about that? Okay. Other kind of down the leaderboard news and notes. Ludwig, we mentioned finishing T five. I believe that makes it since Riviera T 20 at Riv T three at Bay Hill T five at the players T five at Valero bit of a Nellie adjacent situation. If I can throw TC under the bus, you know, TC was all over Nellie in the comms today. And I nary a word said about J. Ludwig. No, no, no. He'd be at me and he said, don't let these guys shit on Ludwig. That's so scummy. I think we got his Ludwig a fluffer. I think he's a fluffer until proven otherwise. Like I don't know what else he doesn't win enough yet. It's been an early crowning for Ludwig and I take some responsibility there. Like I'm not, I'm not. Glass houses. Yeah. You know why I won't let TC get away with it because of the Finao stuff he pulled back in the day and every time Finao, we got some notes on Finao here had a high finish. It was the guy can't win. The guy can't win. Doesn't win. He won six times. No, it's not a big deal. Can't shoot today. Let me see what you shot today. He just he missed down the playoff by 12. 71 78. Yeah, I did look up. I didn't, I knew they didn't repair, but I didn't get to watch the golf this afternoon and I came in the press center and saw Finao finishing out five under. I'm like, why is he fit? What is go? Oh, 78 is not good. Anyways, good fit though. It's it's so it's it's he's in a really interesting fleet woodish spot right now of like in grand. He got that, you know, obviously one Genesis, he won RSM like we've seen him win, but it's it's fresh in our memories of like getting up near the top of the leaderboard and doing the wrong stuff really, really hard. So obviously the players and today back nine was I mean, do you blame it on conditions? Of course, conditions as a weird little, but like he's leading in the final round. I just don't know for as critical, you know, maybe we need to be more critical. I think this yeah, I think this we saw I get what you're saying with the Finao stuff. You got to you got to play good a lot in order to be labeled not that good. You know, you got to constantly be on people's mind and finishing in the top five to be like, this guy stinks. Super weird how we treat people like this. I want to be opposite DC on this and I want to see to own this a couple of things. I think that he's the rare instance when he says like, oh, the players like, you know what, I thought about it and I'm kind of over it. I'm like, I kind of believe him. Actually, I don't know, man. I think he I think he gets over this stuff like pretty quick to the point where I like, he might be the player I'm most excited about watching this week. Huge week for him. Right. And that was going to be the second thing is like T five at the Valero. I didn't get it done in like a weird 36 whole day. Like who cares if he's leading, going, you know, on the third hole on Sunday at the masters, he doesn't get it done. He's like, yo, all right, now we can have a different conversation. But if he's leading third hole, the masters, would you be more surprised if he got it done or didn't get it done sitting here right now? Like I'd right here right now, I'd be more surprised if he got it. Sure. Yeah. It's a good framing of the question and I would agree with you. I'm a journalist. I think that's kind of the bummer right now for me because I like Ludwig. You know, I think he's gonna play great this week. I think he's yeah, like it's like in the top 10, but I don't have confidence he's going to win and that's like a weird place to be. Will you pick him not to win this week? Yeah, tune in tomorrow to find out. Yeah. I don't know who I'm going to pick to win tomorrow. I have no idea. I know. I know we're going for the three Pete beach. I know it's crazy. Well, that's a lot. I'm feeling a lot of pressure. Did you read the data golf email today about, uh, well, no, it just makes us look, it just makes you look like captain obvious. No, no, no, it's just like, Oh, the last four years that were just the most obvious people were going to win and they did. Uh, and now this year, we don't have that first. Anyway, listen to the masters preview tomorrow elsewhere at the Valero, Michael Kim, friend of the program, 66 69 in the last two rounds, first top 10 of the year for him. Congratulations to Michael Kim, Matt Wallace. That was his first top 10 of the year after 64 in the third round. A tough day for Kevin Roy, uh, with the, with no repair. He kind of like stayed in the final group, 74, 72. That's, it's a tough spot to be. Uh, I just trying to get out of the way yet. But yeah, so much money still. Yeah. I felt like that on some tourist house trips. I think Kevin, I, I can feel you there. Yeah. I felt you in the way as well. Looking ahead to next week, uh, phone one here, tiger, uh, just a little bit of follow up, plenty of, uh, content posted this week. Uh, you know, first of all, the statement from him, he's now a broad seeking help. He said, quote, I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today. Uh, I'm stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my wellbeing and work towards lasting recovery. I'm committed to taking the time needed to return in a healthier, stronger, more focused place, both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding and support and ask for privacy for my family, loved ones and myself at this time. Uh, this was kind of accompanied by just tough police footage that got leaked published. I'm not even really sure, uh, of the, the arrest, the sobriety test, the hidden sitting in the back of the car, hundreds of thousands of memes posts, uh, that, you know, Randy, you had a big breakdown. You were going to talk about the funniest memes you saw. Is that right? I'm going to be doing that tomorrow on my channel. We're running some counter programming to the master's preview. Uh, yeah, just a mega bummer continues. I don't know how much more we need to cover that other than to say, uh, he obviously is not going to be at the masters. Uh, Nora Phil Mickelson, uh, who's, who's not quite on that just quickly on that Dige was just like the update here is we pretty, I mean, a lot of people were harsh in the feedback after it happened to say, like, go get some help dude. And he's, he's waved the white flag and is going to get some help. I think it's a, it was a tough week, like to watch all that stuff unfold and, and to get all the images and, and, and all of that and have the pile on that has happens all, you know, happens now with Tiger Woods. But I think there is like, there's some good news in that of like, of not being too proud on this one and saying like, let's, let's move forward. And we don't know the specifics of the help he's getting. If we were to kind of fill in the blank, I think we could kind of estimate what that might be going overseas to get the privacy he needs to do this is a good outcome of this. I think is, is worth calling out. Yeah. I hope so. I hope, I hope it, yeah, I hope it goes well. I was mentioning Phil also not playing the master's citing a personal health matter in his family. Joining those two together, that means this is going to be the first masters without Tiger and Phil in 32 years since 1994, which is just a heavy, heavy stat. It does stink. Yes, it does. I was going to follow Phil this week. And that was, would have been fascinating forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. Scotty Schaeffler and his wife Meredith had their second child, a boy named Remy, possibly named after Ratatouille. Who knows? I've been watching that all out with my son. He is nine days old already out at the masters. So he's already, he's on a hot on your trail. You know, you guys both, both got there today. It looked like, uh, so no beeper situation at Augusta, which is, which is huge. Do they allow beepers? I didn't really, I don't know if that's in the media regulations. I think for past champions, Nick, you're eight. You have your phone. And then a couple other things I just, I had in here, uh, a couple other notable masters absences. They're probably more, these three just happened to jump off the page. That'd be Ricky Fowler is going to be miss out on the masters after missing the cut this week in Texas. I think he needed to, did he need to win this week? I think to get in. I don't know that he was particularly close, but that's not five times in six years that Ricky's missed the masters, which kind of wild was a jarring stat disease. He's only played it once since the 2020, uh, masters. Tom Kim, solid your boy. Uh, I'll just say, hold on, double click. And Ricky obviously is, you know, when we were talking about that Fleetwood Finau, now maybe Aberg, like Ricky was right there, you know, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Anyway, Tom Kim, first time missing, uh, first time missing since he qualified for his first one in 2023. Uh, solid. Will you apologize? Probably not. I will apologize. Really? Yeah. I apologize for Tom Kim, like eight times. I got too high on Tom Kim. Okay. Not an international superstar. Hell yeah. All right. Thanks. We've done this a million times. Don't, don't be surprised on this one. He meant that one. That was good. Yeah. That was good. And big tone. This one, this one actually kind of sucks. Did you make this big tone? Big tone is not in the masters. He has not missed a major since 2017. Uh, and he has not qualified for the masters. Wow. How, how did he, does he get in sponsor exemptions in all these majors? How was he getting into all those majors for so long? I bet the no letting it up podcast was telling me the guy sucked guy stinks. He just keeps, he can't finish better than 10th. He just, he stinks with the relief, some of that or release some of that swing speed reserves. No. Yeah. Really? Show up. Oh dude, you're a bad guy. That was a good one. Big. I think that brings us to the end of kind of PGA tour coverage. We're going to do a little, uh, I got just a notebook full of stuff here guys. We can move through some of these quick. We can linger on some of these. God, I've been shopping at the bit for this first one because I think it maybe is the news of the week. Uh, and I was bummed that we, you know, it's didn't feel right to sneak it in during the LPGA section, but, uh, Randy, uh, can you explain what's going on at Memorial Park? Oh my God. Um, this is in my notebook to discuss. Oh God. Um, Memorial Park, they're building. Okay. So take you back to when the Chevron was at Mission Hills in California. It was the, you know, whatever. It used to be a lot of things, but they had a little like pond right there off the green and the winter we'd go and jump in the pond. And it was just, yeah, poppy's pond. It was, it was a thing. They continued it at the Carlton Woods where they were the last three years. It was a very murky, disgusting pond, but people jumped in. Highlight of being down at that tournament of champions I mentioned earlier. It was asking Mouse Saigo all about just tell it like, spare no details. Tell me everything about the pond. If you could, uh, it was just great here at her. Yeah. That was scary. She couldn't swim. Right. Exactly. She told everybody she couldn't swim, but we were happy to report the tradition will live on. So yeah, long story short, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people the world over have said, will the winner be jumping in a pond at Memorial Park? There's no water off the 18th green. Surely this is one of the best traditions in golf. We must build a pond. So they are going to build a pond. This pond will, I'm sure Tom Dokes heads exploding, but the pond is going to be like right of 18 green. It's going to stretch down to the fairway. It's going to be a prominent pond. It's not going to be ready until the 20, 27 championship. So you're saying, okay, we can go one year without the pond, like whatever. Hell no, we can't. No, they're going to spend $60,000 to build a 15 by 10 foot, essentially swimming pool. That's going to be four and a half feet deep, just so the winner can jump in it after the end of the tournament. And I, what a colossal waste of money. I think, listen, it's great to have traditions. I just don't think like the jump into poppy's pond was a tradition that necessarily had to leave. It did not mission hills move. That does not travel. No. And I think once the tournament went to a new course, make your own new traditions, like it should have been over then. And certainly it should be over this year. But that they're doing this and that they're proud to do. I just like take that $60,000 and just give it to some chair. Somehow big, big lost power. Big had his internet cut by his LPGA overlords. I don't know what happened mid-rants there, but I, I believe what Randy was saying is that this was a disgrace and I can't believe we're spending this money on a temporary swimming pool, which is just take the money and donate it to just very well timed cut out. But now it, I like to see them get very worked up about that. It was a double check. I think I saw it and it was like, ah, and that was an April fools one from yesterday. I missed that TC like called it. I was like, I thought this was April fools and it was not. And I was like, no, no, no, no, they're not actually doing this. There's no way they're actually doing this. I'm going to reserve. Listen, I'm going to reserve judgment on the surface. Does it sound incredibly stupid? Yes, it does. But let's just, let's just wait and see. Let's just wait and see what we get. You know, we get that first player splashing down into that temporary pool. I just, I don't want to be on the wrong side of history too early. Big, you're back. I'm going to wait and see. I've been waiting C mode on this one time swimming pool. They got to go outside and smoke a cigarette during the middle of that. Right. I think here we are. And I think my screens and I'm sorry. If you're why I got so fired up. I lost power here. Really. Did you're in waiting C mode? I've seen enough dumbest thing I've heard. It just pisses me off. All right. Moving on down the notebook. So we're getting shot link on the corn fairy tour. This is great. I haven't even processed this yet. This is good for, you know, is this great for the casual fan? TBD. You know, if you'd like to follow the corn fairy tour really closely. Yes. Great for us. I think great for prospecting. Great for, you know, knowing a little bit more about these guys that are coming up. Excited for that. Big. Another one. Michelle. We is playing the U S women's open at Riviera. How are we feeling about this? Well, I liked the, I think it's good. Right. I was, she had made the announcement previously that the women's open at Pebble Beach was her last. I think there was some stain, not only in my round with Michelle, just kind of putting bad stuff in her head, but then she had to play with Onika the first two rounds and that sucks. So I'm glad Michelle's coming back. Let's do a proper send off. Don't pair with Onika. Like let's do it right this time. Here, here. I like this story. So I think you sent this one over Derek Ernst, famous winner of the, the Quail Hollow event way back in 2013 or something like that. Probably is caddying at the masters next week for Jackson Harrington. Good know for, from Brent Lee Romine. He's now an assistant golf coach and is going to be caddying at the masters. Kind of a, you never know if you're going to be back at the masters. You assume you're going to be, if you're a PGA tour winner, never happened for him, but he's coming back in, in caddying. First participant to then return to caddy since they believe Tripp Keeney, caddy for his brother Hank in 1999. Fun stuff. Big, I know this one was in your notebook as well. LeBron has gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Big, he's in a, in an homage to Kyle Porter. We all know. Only Kyle can know how he's feeling. We all know, man, there's one city, you know, he even trashed my home town, my, where I live in the city. Nobody even wrote. Nobody even cared that he also said Milwaukee is also a shithole that he doesn't like to play in. Said he doesn't like going to Memphis. Memphis people have are just beside themselves. But we go live to big for his reaction here. I stand with the people of Memphis bag, bad karma for LeBron, especially as you're heading into the playoffs. Don't like it. I haven't watched that video yet, but the clips I did see looked quite entertaining. I think I will. I don't watch a ton of those style of YouTube videos, but I think I do want to go watch that one. Congrats to those guys for, for pulling the brawn on that one. Yeah. It's great. He's going to end up in a YouTube video somewhere and I'm glad he ended up there. Those guys do good work. Yeah. And a lot of great just reaction to reaction to react. I mean, it was, that was, that one broke the broke contain outside of the golf, the golf space, which was both good and bad for LeBron in this instance. I'm hefty or news golf digest had a report this week. They had gotten their hands on a couple of rolled back prototype golf balls that they deemed, you know, I don't want to mess up any of the language here, but essentially two balls that were would be deemed conforming under the new rule. And they did some serious testing on those golf balls to show how those were going to affect a bunch of different players at various skill levels. I thought it was very interesting read something, something fun to look at. They had a, they spelled out their whole methodology and what they were doing and what kind of spin rates and what kind of launch angles, a lot of different stuff that they were, they were looking at it and they kind of said, Hey, here's what the results were. I don't know if this was a, an all encompassing. This is exactly how it's going to go four years from now. And this is, this is rolled out. I don't know if this was more of a science experiment with two golf balls. I don't know if you saw, if you had anything more or less on that, but it was, it was an interesting read nonetheless. It's one of those, we can either make this a two minute convo or like a 45 minute convo. We're going to try to keep it on the, on the two minute and two minute. We're happy to break this out maybe in a future week, maybe not into master's week, but it's, it's an interesting, you know, robot test. I think of two in theory balls from they do not list who the manufacturer of it is. And they do a little bit of analysis within it to show like, Oh, okay, prototype A is probably going to get thrown out for somebody at this speed. And it's probably more likely you should compare prototype beef between like a Russell Henley swing speed and a Roy McElroy one and how the, you know, the, the scale slides, all that stuff to say, basically what, what they, they reach a conclusion in it that is, you know, a robot, you know, it reached a kind of a broad conclusion in it of it's going to be relatively smoothed out of the distances effect across different swing speeds, et cetera. Which I think is like a fair conclusion based on testing it on robots for everything we've heard from outside of this test, it's going to be a lot more complicated as players try to work their way around this test either by optimizing launch, this way optimizing spin, this way, blah, blah, a bunch of stuff that I am not a PhD level to be able to speak on definitively all that to say this eventual application of this of the rollback, which is what I'm most concerned with is going to be difficult to capture by robot. And I'm already veering into the 45 minute discussion of that to say like, too long didn't read is if it goes like this, like relatively smooth, the distance will drop a little bit at the highest levels, not a monumental amount, not a monumental amount for average Joe golfer is a takeaway of this as well, which is kind of consistent with the US GA has said all that to say, I think we're all a little skeptical that it's going to play out exactly this way because golf is played by human beings and not robots. But that's, that's not a shot at the test. I know a lot went into this and I have no problems with their with their process other than to say, I guess our suspect nature of this rollback is the way the rule is written is more of the cause of concern of the leaving it open to being able to sneak past it. And that not by, by nothing nefarious. That's not what I'm saying, just that I don't know if this is going to be enough of a governor on guys, you know, kind of being able to figure out how to still optimize their driving distance. Long answer. Sorry. The two hour version of that podcast is going to be on solid channel tomorrow. I got a tiger meme. The main channel have masters preview. It's on my secondary channel, not my primary channel yet. Big, I'll throw this one to you. Golf, Saudi and the PIF. It sounds like they are going to have more women's events in North America in 2027. Of course, this week's LPGA episode was a, or an episode event was a co-sanctioned event with the LET presented by a Ramco and PIF. It sounds like they are, they made it very clear. This was an ESPN story. I think I was reading. They do not want to be live golf 2.0. It sounds like they are not really floating a trial balloon for like a women's version of live or anything like that. We have had a Ramco series tournaments played in the states regularly already. Those are not co-sanctioned with the LPGA, even though LPGA players have played in them. So the point of this is all, it sounds like the PIF is willing and interested and excited to continue to spend money in women's golf. And it sounds like the LPGA and the LET and some of the more organized bodies are excited to take that money and host more events. Is that a fair summation? I think so. Yeah. I, you know, they're, they're, it's not on the calendar this year, but there was an Aramco event in Houston. I could see a few more joint LET LPGA events, perhaps, or maybe Aramco, you know, straight sponsors, an LPGA only event, but we've said so much about golf Saudi and that. So like leaving all of that behind, if, if we can get good events at good venues, I think that's a win for the women and for the LPGA fans. So we'll, we'll see. I look forward to the broader LPGA schedule redo hopefully next year. Yeah. All right. Moving down the note, the notebook here. Jim Nance was taking barrel fire for claiming he has not seen Bryson hit a shot this year. I believe this came on the masters, me and Jim Nance shaking hands. The masters pre-call Jim was like, I think he was very transparent, very above boards. Got to ask a question about Bryson goes to be honest. You know, I watched his YouTube videos with my kids outside of that. I don't really, I don't really, I haven't watched him play a whole lot. Anybody, anybody mad as hell about this? So many people are mad as hell about this. Sorry. I'm jumping the gun. If any of you have, have an answer here, but my thought is like Jim, Jim's not on the broadcast to like breakdown how much Bryson's like pronating on it on his backswing and, you know, there's other people that kind of do that stuff. I think, I think Jim's pretty focused on like what's going on in front of him. So I don't know that that said it, I'm sure he's following it week to week and knows that he's playing well. And now also he didn't say, like he might be watching the live highlights on YouTube. I don't think he was just saying that he only watched Bryson's YouTube channel. Like I, I, it also just doesn't fucking matter. Also, he does play in the middle of the night and like Singapore and all the, and no one is, yeah, it's tough to catch man. It's tough to catch. Yeah. I think he's, yeah. If I was Jim Nance, I just don't know that I'd be doing that either. This is a good one. Sorry. This was a story from the West Virginia Metro news that's kind of connecting. I know you're a subscriber connecting the dots here. Some, some accounting dot connecting going on tied. It basically connects a company that's tied to Omni appears to have bought the debt. I think it was kind of either $2 million or $20 million. Both numbers would sound believable that the justice family had on the greenbrier air hire it. Just, yeah, I think it was 20 million. I think the justice family has been just like this debt has been a shit show on the greenbrier and they're lapsing on interest payments and all of these things. And it sounds like that debt was bought by a company that is like very much tied to Omni hotel. So just an interesting, don't have any more information, but a potential watch this space. Yeah, obviously we're big Omni fans. You know, greenbrier sounds sick. I've never been there, but it sounds sick. You know, in the history is unbelievable. The golf courses sound very cool. And it just seems like it's, it's ripe for probably a little bit of elbow grease and some serious people maybe getting involved, but I've never been. It's such a ridiculous like throwback of like, yeah, you would never build any of this like it is now. Like it's like a big mansion. And it's dated, but it's up to date and it feels dated in the next room and it's up to date. And it's been almost, I haven't been back in seven or eight years, I guess, but golf course, the old TPCL wide is very, very fun. And I've never, I'm playing any other golf courses there, but casino, everything, it's a, it's my family still goes there all the time. The train tracks that run right to the front door, you know, it's a great story. I learned a bunch of that in the CB McDonald stuff. And now it's come out that they actually did have a government bunker underneath. Yeah, that's right. You can get a tour. All right. Moving down. There's new trailer out for full swing season four. Take, take that for what you will. I thought it actually looked pretty cool and, and potentially good because very heavily focused on the Ryder cup. Give that trailer to the Ryder. Watch if you're bored. Bum TCs not here. I just think we need to really Yeah. He was supposed to be deducted because of this. This news item. Tommy Fleetwood has inked a deal with Blackstone as a new hat sponsor. This feels like it happened a while ago. Tough for a couple of reasons. I think one, just the ghoulish nature of, of the business and two, just one of the worst logos I've ever seen. One of the worst hats I've ever seen. It's just bad. It's just a bad looking hat. So just tough all the way across the board for TC. I think he's really, I think he's looking inward and kind of reeling out of how he's going to handle this week. I think this, this got our guy down bad. I think this, this was a real body bloated TC. I'll be curious. We, we got to get them on the record for a comment next week, but this is bad. I don't know what the sports books have, but I feel like it's, you know, minus 10,000 that he's going to have one of these Blackstone hats for one of the live shows this week. I have to, I have to assume there's no way he doesn't already have one. Speaking of, of just merchandise and apparel, this, this pissed me off straight up. I've, I've done such a 180 on the Malbon stuff visa, visa day. No, I stand by what I was saying earlier. Now they've gotten all the logos off there, you know, and he's, he's come into his own. And yeah, I was, I wasn't wrong. I was just a little, maybe a little early on those, but the, the stuff they've got them in now just absolutely whips and genuinely, there's no bit. There's no irony. There's no anything. The bird watching stuff is so sick. And it's another instance of the trap draw being a half step ahead of, of the rest of the world. We were early on tipping, we're early on all these, these infrastructure problems that are going on. We're early on bird watching and Malbon is, is got him head to toe in birds. Just one of the greatest capsules I think we've seen. I love it, but Augusta won't let them wear the pants. According to Brian Juffer, I believe this is sports illustrated. They won't let them wear these bird pants. It looks like kind of like a toddler, sort of like pajama outfit. What do you, what do you really like zoom out? But once you get in there, the details are unbelievable. Great story about Malbon, just texting Jason Dale, these bird calls. It's just, it's, it's great stuff. I couldn't be, couldn't be more in on this. It couldn't be more out on Augusta forcing him to wear solid color pants, which sounds like unnecessary tyranny. Okay. That's the rule. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if that's a rule. No, it's not a rule. It's an eye test, which usually obviously would support, but this is, I don't know. It is a tough spot. I just, I think you look back at some of those old masters and the plaid pants that they're trying to do something like that. I just, I don't know. I hate that we can't, we can't have this this week. Can I just use this space and platform to just say if there's a, there's like five different given any given week like bird, Instagram reels, please stop sending me this shit. I don't like people will probably definitely stop. Please stop. I, I, please stop. I'll do it. I'm going to block anybody that sends it to me. That'd be great. And then take a screenshot. If you take a screenshot that's solid block to you, then send it to Neil. Neil, give you a pro shop credit. I don't like birds. This is like one of your loving trees. I love that is my old guy thing. I love landscaping now. Okay. Send me landscaping stuff. Send me all the trees that you possibly can. All right, but please stop. Send me the bird stuff. I don't care. This is like when Brooks and Bryson, when Brooks was doing the Mick ultra, you know, if you hackle Bryson to get you a beer or whatever, whatever it was, guys, it's brooksy. Yeah. He jumped with you. The bird outfit legitimately sick. Like it's so sick. He's got the bird watching vest. Can't believe I'm saying that. Yeah. It's cool. It's great. It's great. It's what we should be doing. You know, God, a lot of apparel here. This was reported in our Slack that the four aces are heading to under armor. I did some further review. Apparently this happened in January. I think actually we can cross this off the notebook. We don't need to go too much deeper into that. Randy, your guy, Jason Kelsey is going to be on the mic for the par three contest. Kind of a tough mat lib all the way across the board. They're everywhere. Yeah. Probably wasn't going to watch the par three contest either way. Not against it. I've just, you know, it limited hours in the day and wish everybody well who is going to watch it. Honestly, we're going to be on the par three contest is, is I don't want to say it's running. It feels quite, it feels quite tired at this point. And usually I'm not a let's get the Kelsey's involved kind of guy. And it might very well might be a disaster, but I just, I don't think we're really protecting all that much on the par three contest if we're being honest. Just fun to look at the cute kids run around their outfits. It's a, it's one for the family. It's not really for the, we get the four days of golf for us. Just give them the, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. We're good. Last thing I had here, this was, this was a cool one. I got a, I got a letter in the mail. This is kind of a free ad here, but I got a letter in the mail from a company that started called deer pards that our guy Dave Bayes, Dan is working on our, you know, he's done some great artwork for us over the years. He started a postcard company. Randy, I thought you'd get a kick out of this. And it's, it's, it costs $5 a month and you get a new postcard every month with a, with a stamp on it. Males you a custom postcard with a great, like a great, you know, illustration of a cool golf scene. And then you send it off to somebody, send it off to one of your golfing partners. I just thought that was, I thought that was a great idea. You know, there's a lot of stuff that I'm like, Oh, this is a, you know, an answer to a question. Nobody's asking. I'm like, Oh, this is one I'm like, I would, I would legitimately send this to somebody. So be on the lookout. I'm a new subscriber and be on the lookout for, for any of my postcards coming your way. Are you going to get back into the big, like writing letters? Like I was just listening to making of the masters on the way up here. Letters were a big thing. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Big, big thing. So I will not make any promises that I'm going to get into letters because I, this is like a trap, draw goals thing. I would love to be like, yeah, no, I think I'm definitely going to write three a week and then I just won't do any. And then I, it'll just fall off. But what I could do one a month, that's what I'm saying. Feels very approachable. And Dave's great. And I love looking at his pictures, just custom writing involved. It was just a, it was a little heartwarming, you know, kind of thing getting off the starting block. So I wanted to shout them out. That's what I got in the notebook guys. That's a wide ranging conversation today. Did not think we were going to get two hours out of this one. Holy smokes. Every week, man. We've said in the last two. Yeah. Busy, busy, busy time in the golf calendar. A lot ahead. Speaking of which, Masters week is here. We'll have a ton of content for you coming this week. We're going to have a preview episode. We're going to go live around 4pm Eastern time, no-lenght podcast YouTube channel that'll be in your podcast feed overnight doing our official masters preview. We're going to do a Wednesday afternoon show as well. A little kickoff show, a little frothing show. A lot always happens between Monday and Wednesday. We're going to do all that and do our final check in before play starts Thursday. We'll have live shows brought to you by tidalist Thursday through Sunday. Myself and Neil are going to be on site. Neil gets in a little later this week, but I'm going to be out scouring the grounds every single day. And we're going to be doing lots of shows. It's going to be a great week. It's the best week of the year and we get so much awesome engagement and interaction with everyone. So get in the chat, come and watch live after every round of play. And we'll have lots of things to laugh about. I'm sure maybe, maybe a beluga's big board on Wednesday, maybe, which I only say just from a, if you've got a note, if you've got a nugget that you want considered for the big board, you know, send that over to edgy shoe, see if, uh, if he could work that into his models. It'd be really interesting. It'd be very interesting if we had one of those for Wednesday, but no, I, I'm very, I get, yeah, I'm, I'm chomping at the bit again. I read, I listened to the audio book, making the masters on the way up to for the drive. I've listened to it before, but just again, just like reiterating all the history of the event. And that's not what the shows are going to be about this week, but it is just like a holy shit. Like, well, you just like, be like little something in there where it's like, yeah, Clifford Roberts had, um, like, um, some engineers put a little flat spot in the fairway on nine because like where his drive was, was going to end up, uh, you know, it was going to be on two severe and you go out there and look and it's still there. Like it's, it's, it's still there and you can see the little, the little flat spot. And, uh, got it wrote down a couple other just amazing notes of like details of, you know, Gustav, a senior PGA, uh, like before it became the senior PGA back in 37 and 38. Did not know that German prisoners of war worked on the course at the end of World War II. Um, like when they came over, they, they were stunned to see that New York city was still standing because all the propaganda and said that New York city had been leveled by the Germans. But they worked on, uh, the golf course at the end of the world in 44 and end of 44 and beginning of 45. Probably one in seven. Yeah. So there's just like so much amazing history, man. And I'm, I'm very excited. Anyways, will you send me a postcard if they got one in the, in the gift shop? I will see if I can. Yeah. That's a good call. And if you haven't already, go check out. We, uh, the return of wild world of golf this past week on our YouTube channel. Uh, last man standing, which we filmed at Casa de Campo earlier in January, a little bit of little top shelf, uh, top chef, you know, survivor, uh, mockumentary, if you will, uh, of that, a very, very fun reality series that we did, which was the best comment. The best comment I saw was somebody be like, this is, this is so stupid. It's like a worse version of top chef. Like, yeah, no, that was like, yeah, that was, yeah, no, that was kind of the point. It was the idea. Yeah. So check that out. It was, uh, it's been, we've joined, seen the feedback on that one. Great. They appreciate everyone watching that one. So two hours right before master's week, we got to pace ourselves. Oh, we're limbering up, man. We're getting ready. We'd like, like, uh, a lot of those people to Valero, you know, we're used to as a prep week. Yeah. That's right. Stretched out. So thank you everyone for tuning in. Join us for PM Eastern time on Monday for a live preview of the 2026 masters. And thank you very much for tuning in tonight. Crackle. Cheers.