LIV gets OWGR points but still mad and is Phoenix Open Spieth’s time?

Now the shotgun start in golf is full of mathematics. There's a lot of setup work that we have to do in order to make a tournament work. So I'm going to demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a shotgun start here. And here we go. Alright, alright, alright. Gentlemen, start your engines! Greetings and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Shotgun Start. It is February 4th. Andy, how are we doing? Brendan! I'm doing great. You know, I'm just ready for, you know, Super Bowl week here in San Francisco. Right. My NBA teams are wheeling and dealing. I'm taking note. and WM Waste Management. Always a great event. It's just a great sports week. Live Riyadh. You're not going to include in your little rundown there? You know what? Don't disrespect you. The bot boys are going to be on your ass. That's OWGR certified. Live Riyadh under the lights with lasers and all these other things in the sky. Might be the end of the week. I might tune in just to see if Caleb Surratt does Caleb Surratt things. Michael Osasso is over there stirring it up already. So this is where I want to be. I want to be a pro golfer. There's a lot of guys out there hitting on middle-aged women. I don't know how that works. And Riyadh feels fraught with potential issues, danger. But yeah, you know, well, they got Miguel Tabuna now. I don't know if you saw that, but the fourth ace. I just wanted some quote. They don't have a team. I was reading through the media guide today. And they don't. Yes, I did spend time reading the media guide. And where's the fourth guy? It's Dietry and Peters and DJ. And I just wanted some official quote from DJ, like a draft, like an NFL GM around the draft. Like, you know, we've been Scott Miguel since he was on the Philippines tour. We've always loved his skill set, and we cannot wait for him to be an official ace. So they've got 5'6", Miguel Tabuna, now on the aces with DJ for Liv Riyad. So maybe we'll get to Liv in the OWGR here in a little bit. Off the top, I'm giggling. You have a murdered out Utah jazz ensemble going on right now. It's all black on black. It's pretty good. I think it looks pretty good, if I have to say so myself. unbiased. You know, listen, the Jazz take care of their podcasts. I received a box, like an insane box of Jazz gear a couple weeks ago. I've been waiting, you know, there hasn't been great news to just bust it out for the pod until today. The Jazz acquired Jaron Jackson Jr. Triple J. All of a sudden, it's more than just great young core. I'm starting to figure out why these business schools want us to come talk. Because you were on this early. I mean, this is how you save money. This is how you read the markets. We tip them. Buy your suites in September. I think that was when we first put this on the radar. Get your suite now. That's sweet. The price is going up. We are investing in the team. This is not a selling. The suite, you could have had it in September. We were on it. You were on it. And now they're bringing in assets. Love it. I, uh, I'm kind of disappointed. Our, our schedule is getting a little hectic. Um, who's a jazz. Are you ours? Personally? Cause I, I wanted to have the SGS summit at a jazz game this year where we get together and kind of plan out the year, but January is gone with the wind. We're into February. It's, it's just, it's lost, but, uh, you know, it might just be, we could maybe do April. Actually, April's gone. April doesn't work. Skip the Masters, go to Jazz home game. They could be playing into May now. All right. All right. Okay. Maybe. I guess they could. In theory, anything's possible. But yeah, this is great. They're invested. In Utah. Love it. So taking note, I'm happy for you. The Cavs might get James Harden, which will be great. That'll be good for me. Because the problem has not been kicking ass in the regular season. And we can't get over the hump in the post-playoffs. We shrink, right? Last year was one of the great regular season fun teams ever. And, you know, we get beat up in the playoffs. Well, who would be better? Who do you want better to come through in the playoffs? Who would boost us when it comes crunch time than acquiring James Hart? That seems like a recipe to short that playoff. a headline of the Cavs might be able to get Harden, Giannis and LeBron. Like right now? Yeah. I mean, there's just, okay. Some of these are just straight for clicks. It's like, I don't know. Liv might be signing Jordan Smith. Then Scott, like, you remember those wild, wild West, like 2023, 2022 days of like speed might be talking to live. Rory's talking to like that. Some of these are purely for clicks, but it does seem like they're chum in the waters on a few of these guys. People are going to be big mad about the sports minute here at the top. It's not even Super Bowl minute. I want to know more about the scene out there in the Bay. Do you want me to get into the Super Bowl scene this week? Yeah, absolutely. We could do it right now. Just dive in? Dive in? Yeah, yeah. What do you want me doing? I'm going to a party on Wednesday night. Oh, good. I love that. You should. I mean, I trust that you will come up with off the cuff, weird questions for some of these people are just trying to enjoy their evening. You know, like you were asking whatever Jack Sawyer at the US Open. He asked pros what their favorite fruit is. I figure you'll get you'll get them going on something. My my big concern is that I'm going to like I'm a I'm terrible with names. B, I'm not going to recognize people that are important people and I'm just going to be a complete fish out of water. I'm going to be talking to somebody and somebody's going to come up to me after and be like, do you know who that was? And I'm going to be like, no, I have no clue. So what do you do? I run Disney. I don't know. Is that what's going to happen? Yeah, I got to figure it out. Well, enjoy your Super Bowl week. I love it. I'm excited for you. Do you want to do live OWGR real quick? This is the news of the day. We'll do schedule for the week. Is it the news of the day? Before this instant day, as we record this. I thought Taboola was the news of the day. Taboola. You don't even have his name right. Taboola. Get out of here. Miguel. Do you think DJ was pouring over tape? That's what I'm saying. He was watching Philippines tour coverage, getting measurables. The one Asia tour, not the Asia tour, but the one Asia tour. I've been in the Tabuna career arc this morning, seeing what he's been up to. I think DJ's wondering, what the hell is going on? Can we get back to Florida and go fishing? um but does dj have a gm is it austin i don't know lives lives i'm getting press releases how they've announced new regional managers and all these things i don't know they have a lot of they have increased bureaucrats i know that bureaucracy so i'm not sure what dj has um live is officially certified with the world rankings points. I think this discussion has become kind of tedious. I think it was tedious by like month seven of Liv's existence. I think it's still tedious. I get that it's important for the parties that are affected and who are being lobbied. For us as observers, consumers, enjoyers of golf, I think it's tedious and I don't care that much anymore, but I understand it is important for the parties affected do you have an initial reaction the top 10 finishers at live events will now get some uh official world golf ranking points but nothing for 11 or beyond uh it was it was framed to me as the winners of events it's it will come out to about like winning an additional event or opposite field event whatever they call those now now i'll say live has a a stronger field this week than the cutter masters, which I'll get to notables. I've read notables in our show. I was like, what? That's it? Paul Waring and Brian Palmer are the notables. So it's got... It's P's stomping ground. So I think the winner of Liv gets more OWGR points than Liv P. P just rummaging around the Persian Gulf. So I think the winner would get more points than the cutter masters, but obviously, you know, winning, you know, finishing 12th, 15th, the Cutter Masters will get you something as opposed to Liv being nothing. Liv seems still unsatisfied in a statement. Still? Still? Seems unsatisfied? They issued a statement that was largely in line with their history of grievance. Shout it. I think that this is like a reasonable middle ground here. There are like major issues and listen i am i have we've been talking about live and owdr points for four years now yeah i am historically not like okay like yeah like you need to pass all these made up rules in order to get points like i believe that to a certain extent the owdr's job is to rank the best players in the world and you have to figure out and adapt how to rank guys. That's my general belief here. I think this is a pretty fair outcome for all parties. Liv's biggest issue is that the bottom half of the field is a joke. It is a joke and there's no relegation, promotion that's actually real. you know they will sell you they are pathways to get bounced and pathways to come up they are there they exist extremely limited pathways the relegation on a whim can be like no we actually like the guys who are gonna keep them around which has happened still bubba's a captain again i'm confused yeah there are issues with the competition when was it bassy munoz was like well yeah he like lagged one we needed to win the team competition so i didn't try and win the individual competition that was a drill it's so there's there's all these issues okay so they don't have like a huge leg to stand on because they don't actually abide by some of the guidelines that being said owgr's job it looks silly when john roms the 80th ranked player in the world or whatever he is right now that's silly that looks bad for owgr i think that the reality and i know lives bitching about 10 places yes i think the reality is that they probably should have gone to like 15 um but does it really matter no it doesn't i don't care cry me a fucking river number 11 okay play better that's the way golf works and i know everybody's screaming about the hero the hero is a disgrace too it should be chopped it should be awarded like four places or none um that's not that's not a reason to yell about the grievances because the hero gets this that's one like out you know one tournament so whatever i i'm done i don't want to talk about this anymore congrats to live you got some owgr points meanwhile are the things you had to do to get your owgr points as your most marketable player pissed off 72 holes that seems to have changed the discord i think i have not done like a like a quote by quote accounting of it but is rom the only one that's like super bullish on this and wanted it i think bryson is not into it i think paul casey's been on the hot charl louis oosthaisen's been against it um it seems like the boys in the room the locker room aren't on a majority of them are not happy that they've switched to 72 holes and i i just don't like the whole thing's made up along the way the whole thing is so so to act like no other they said no other competitive tour or league in owgr history has been subjected to such a restriction hey guys you just came bursting through the wall like the kool-aid man with no real league, a shemackery of a draft, and violating pretty much every tenant of certification, and to still act aggrieved that no other league has ever had to struggle under this draconian top 10 measure. Well yeah because no other league has been as just made up on the fly like you guys have within like a year or two You remember the whole Mina tour gamble like that that farce like and now it's like, all right, we'll just go 54 to 72. They're just, I mean, to their credit, I think they're looking to improve and get better and get more serious. But, you know, I just, it's hard to be sympathetic with their, you know, plight and to still want more is still like, just not appreciate any status, have any satisfaction with it. Are you worried that there's going to be a revolt because of this 52 hole deal? It seems like they're not happy, but you know, tough. Where are they going to go? $30 million, you know, play for $25 million or collect your contract, whatever it is. My favorite part. I think you could make the case that the best thing that could happen to live for the foreseeable future is just like if Bryson all the big names leave and they have to just like re-figure it out just relaunch the league because it's a disaster right now well the instant week you know Westy's out says he's hurt Patrick Reed's gone Brooks is gone Phil is hurt or something they're just I'm not suggesting are they quite quitting no I mean there's news of an SEC investigation into insider trading with Sable offshore. Oh, that's not good. I don't think Phil is also not president at the golf. I don't think they're quite quitting at all. I think there's just a rash of injury. But they haven't played in four or five months. They haven't played since like October. My favorite part of the whole bit was the PGA Tour. For reasons that are still unclear to me. They're keeping somebody in business at the Global Home, just pounding out statements. Official statement. First of all, thanks for saying I don't sound offensive. Some guy got up from that cafeteria with the nice little pizza oven, the Global Home, and said, I gotta get a statement out. We respect today's... All the Latin American players are just hanging around the pizza oven. we respect today's decision you mean latin america tour players i just want to be clear i was like is there some sort of like a cultural pizza today or something right i got it i got it yeah that they well that's the thing it's a year by year but didn't they start wasn't vj just feasting on the smoothie machine or something like that and they're like you gotta Chill. You're going to eat us out of house and home. The perks are going to have to be withdrawn. We respect today's decision by the official World Golf Ranking, governing board, and the considerable time the board and chairman Immelman committed to this process. End statement. Finn, 30. I don't know why. How many people do you think signed off on that, too? Think about the amount of time to write those two sentences. it's one sentence it's one sentence they didn't even it's just a conjunction it's one sentence um like did the world need this was it asking for this i was it necessary to cover their bases in some way but anyways that's funny that they've got they're up to you know if i'm the ssg i'm wondering do we need this guy who's ever writing statements to stick at it because it doesn't seem be adding anything. Alright, I think that does it. Do you have on the live, the 50... Do you think they're in trouble with the 72-hole thing? It seems bad that they really upset a lot of their core, other than Jon Rahm. You know what? Maybe this is a little bit of healthy tension that they need. Sure. It's not like exactly... There needs to be some seriousness of this league. I think 54 holes yeah the players are pissed that they have to go out there this league just I think that the players I mean you're playing for a godly sum of money with very little competition should you just be happy this thing exists for you Victor Hovland and Phoenix suggested well you know is this another like you know letting these guys back is this a blueprint for losing more guys like i could go and make a bunch of money and then i could come back without the penalty and now i might have owgr points i i just the reality of the world that we're in in february 26 feels a lot different than call it february 23 or or yeah even 20 24 but 23 where you're probably sweating bullets about this kind of stuff, right? If you're at the tour, you're like, oh my God, this is a real threat. We're going to lose guys. And now, I mean, there is, as Victor outlined, a real blueprint. I just don't think there's going to be that level of guaranteed bag for anybody. But the doors are open to come and go and get points more than in an inconceivable way from a couple years ago. I would say, though, we haven't seen anybody. I I don't know what the ramifications are if someone, you know, goes now during the rollout, rollout barrier. Yeah. Like that might be treated differently. Lifetime ban. And also like live is going to have some protections probably now that they've seen it. So I, well, I agree with the sentiment of like, well, what's happening? A, contracts are what's going to prevent people from doing that. B, they're making a grace period now. You don't know what it would look like in four years when your contract's up. Since we've talked about it so much, schedule for the week up first is Live Riyadh. This is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We're 72 holes now, boys. What a novel concept. 10 a.m. Eastern. It's more shitty ratings. 10 a.m. Eastern on FS1, then 3 p.m. finish on FS2. On Saturday, it's going to finish at 3 p.m. on the Fox Business Network. So I don't know who that – who are some Fox Business Network personnel? Neil Cavuto, is he still around doing Fox Business Network? Maria Bartiromo, are they getting preempted by Liv Riyad? So that'll be on 10 to 3. Do you have any picks for Liv Riyad? Do you have any expectations for this event other than minimal ratings? No, I'm not going to watch it. I actually really appreciated Ava Lynch's commentary on Bryson. Everybody's talking about how big of a deal Bryson is for them. And he's got, whatever, 2.5 million YouTube subscribers. Yeah. None of that translates, as Eamon said, to the Live Golf telecast. I mean, this is a larger conversation that we need to have about YouTube golf, YouTube views. And I'm not going to sit there and stir up a hornet's nest. But like. It seems like you want to. All views, all audiences are. It's not like an apples to apples comparison. The new things to put podcasts on Twitter and then represent that if somebody scrolls through, which counts as an impression, they listen to the podcast. You see, we will strive to get materials from others that aggregate that. So it's just preposterously disingenuous. it's like you got whatever the the chief from the wire just cooking the books cooking the stats um i i mean i hope we have good clean numbers we're never going to use twitter impressions but we're we're the we're the police staff under ralph you know yeah i mean our numbers are clean are youtube views consequential yes are they valuable yes if you are very popular on youtube you should make millions of dollars i think to suggest that you got like you know a million views on your youtube therefore that is more than like on an apples to apples comparison the 700 000 that watched you know sunday of a pga tour event is not it's not an apt comparison it's not a one-to-one comparison but yeah eamon's point is interesting why aren't the youtubers coming over to FS2 or Fox Business Network on Saturday. Get all the youths out there. Or YouTube. Because they put it on YouTube a lot. Fair. It's a different product is the answer. You know? Giggling around on YouTube is different than a golf tournament on YouTube. It's a different product. I'd also love to see YouTubers share consumption time. Everybody gets chesty about the views nobody's like oh like yeah this was consumed on average for you know three minutes can't you buy a bunch of like bot views too like the Philippines or somewhere you know I don't know anyways I try and I mean this has basically been the story of my entire career in digital media is like who's cooking the books and how whether it's Facebook views or you know it just or caffeine Caffeine was a good example of cooking the books. And at the end of the day, talking to real people usually wins out and works out. But there's plenty of cons that can be made. That's up first in our schedule for the week. On the PGA Tour, we have the WM, as it's now known, WM Phoenix Open. This is at TPC Scottsdale, a.k.a. the People's Open. This is on Golf Channel, 3.30 to 7.30 Thursday and Friday, 12 to 3 on Saturday, Sunday, 3 to 6.30 Saturday. I think they're going to do some like, you know, Amanda, Colt and Johnson in the arena there on Saturday afternoon, a little fun stuff. And then 3 to 6 on Sunday on paper. It's 3 to 6. Now we know Super Bowl Sunday. You know, I looked at it today. I was like, I think we just sort of overweighed or overindexed that Hideki playoff. This really doesn't go. It literally goes to a playoff every year. I was like, holy shit. Six out of the last 10 have gone to playoffs. It's insane since 2016. Playoff almost every year. The Hideki one was one that went to like... Was it Webb Simpson and Hideki one year? Yes. Chez was in it one year. Who did Chez battle? Nick Taylor got in there. I forgot. I did forget about the Chez one. Chez might have been up to the... I don't know if he was in the playoff. Yeah, no, it happens just about... It's been happening consistently. The Hideki's the one that went into almost the second quarter of the Super Bowl and nobody was watching. So this is the second year since they felt like they lost the plot, right? This will be year two since the... I don't know what. fair police, sober police have clamped down a little bit. And you know what? They did lose the plot. I'll just say that. That one was not to be an old fuddy-duddy pearl clutcher. It looked to be stupid. It looked to be a little over the line. I don't want to take away its identity. All right. Six of the last 10 years. Right. Just got beat by Gary Woodman. Even money. you know this we can say you either have to ride the ferris wheel or if you if you know in in sub zero and sub sub freezing temperature next week i thought that was happening i thought that was i think i think we might wait we might wait for the summer and then put you in the hotel on navy pier sure so you have to walk you know down up and down navy pier every day for a week god that that that okay um even money does it does it end in a playoff should this be even money if six of the last 10 tournaments have ended in a playoff i think it should be slightly above even money but i think it should be close i think you're looking at like a like a plus 110 this is i mean it's the biggest gambling week of the year just set your own lines anybody will take it PJ, did you get into any esoteric props for the Super Bowl? Did you get into Gatorade and all that stuff? Oh, no. No. I mean, it is what it is. I only go as far as the patented two and a half players to throw a pass. That's a staple. That Kenny Pickett garbage time drive last year, that was great. That saved my life. That was huge. What is Scotty this week, PJ? Jay, are we at like two to one? Yeah, he's like plus 210 the last time I saw. Yeah. Pretty remarkable. Crazy. Pretty remarkable. There's like a Scotty market. I don't like, you know, analyzing golf tournaments strictly through betting lines. I think that gets a little monotonous. Do you want to go anti-golf betting lines and go to the five guys to monitor? Please. Yes, let's do it. Let's do real, you know, authentic analysis. Please. All right. We'll go with number one. He spoke yesterday. He spoke about live. Spoke about not wasting calories on worrying about that. But this is a big season debut on the tour for Victor Hovland. That's right. We aren't far removed from wondering if he was the best player in the world. Now you're wondering if he's the top 10 player in the world. Fairly And I just curious to see how he comes out this year Because he been He just been kind of You know he went from one of the steadiest players in the world because of, like, supreme ball striking to a guy that's just, like, kind of like, you never know what you're going to get. A box of chocolates player. You know? And I'm just curious to see how he comes out of a long break. Obviously, notorious tinkerer. Where is he at? starting of the year because we see that the major calendar has never been more, you know, compact when the tour goes to scarcity schedule, who knows, maybe that gives opportunity for the PGA to go back to August and you, you would get a little bit more breath. But right now, like one of the things with golf is you kind of have to hit the ground running in February and March. Like you have to find your form. And I think that's where Victor, obviously he won last year at Valspar, but it was kind of out of nowhere. Afterwards, he's like, I don't know how I won this week. Kind of like an excuse me win. Yeah. And I just like to see him come out of a break playing well, which we haven't seen in a while. And he's at the time of his career where he's like, this is your prime, man. and is he going to be like a nice player or is he going to be a player that you know flirts with the hall you know and i flirts with the hall of fame in the sense of like that level of a player caliber of a player um because right now he's just like kind of a nice player i would agree with you i'm super fascinated to watch him this year i think the spotlight or i would say the microscope was more on colin marco last year with all his tumult but in in the similar grade class or the similar kind of rookie class i think that may uh transfer to victor at least you know curiosity certainly at the start of the year for him i'm fascinated to see him you see live ripped uh ripped a clip from our interview with him at the travelers last year didn't even crop out the brendan people were on our team were like should we sue live about taking our taking our interview for their little mashup um okay that's a good one to monitor what else I mean, you think about that. It's kind of an interesting thing with those three. Right. Are you really going to get on the dog man, Matt Wolfe? Are you going to add him in there? Is that where we're at? I mean, they're always going to be forever tied. I know. So they turned pro in 2019, I think. Sounds right. Yeah. Did Wolfe win 3M in 2019? That probably was the one he won before the pandemic. Yeah. I think Scottie Scheffler might have turned pro in 2019. What a class. Turned pro 2018. 18. Okay. But it's just like a reminder of like what everybody in media likes to do is just keep expectations the moment somebody turns pro. but it's so like where the work I think like where the hardest work and what defines players is basically year three through five on tour and what do they do and Victor Hovland's like gone backwards Colin Morikawa has gone backwards and it's just a versus like a Scotty Scheffler who if you count Corn Fairy has just gone through the roof. Yep. Interesting theory. I'm not ready. Victor could go nuts this year. He could. I think he's one of the most fascinating. Him, Ludwig, are, to me, two of the most fascinating players this year as to their highs and their peaks are almost as good as anybody. but there's been just some stuff that's like you look at and you're like I just don't get what is like I think there's a world where we look at Victor at the end of the year and we say man he's a top five player in the world there's also a world where we look at Victor and it's like man Siwoo Kim is a better player than Victor Hovland this year and Siwoo Kim is the second player on the list okay the guy is ass off right now everything but winning he's doing everything but winning he's like the walking fireman from from backdraft right now yeah sure uh t11 t6 t2 to start the year those are three starts do you know guess what he is in putting despite those starts he's not using the broom he's back to the regulation putter how bad is it this is of course the same player who was in contention of the masters and broke his putter 15 on number 15 like didn't have a putter in the masters not good not like super in the hunt but like on the periphery of being in in contention stakes yes playing for stuff lemania i you know he needs to revisit this, but he did it like the he did the spoof on Simmons and Zach Lowe's League Pass All-Stars. You know, the League Pass rankings, and he did the PTA Tour Live All-Stars. I'll never forget, I think Siwoo was number one. And it was like people, and I think Siwoo has gotten a lot more love since the President's Cup. Yeah, he's got some personality. Siwoo plays more aggressively than any player on tour. He is so fun to watch. He's 129th in putting on the year. 129! And he finished T11, T62. You see him grunting like he was Novak Djokovic off the tee last week at Farmers on a forehand. Getting through the... Just falling over. He's fun to watch. The ball striking seems to have gone to a whole other level. and I'm just you know this is he's going to be like the darling pick this week just because of the form but it you know we could be seeing a guy taking a take a step and see who's one is a really interesting player in the sense that he qualified for the tour like 17 he won the players at 21 he's done some crazy stuff in his career and it hasn't consistently been there. And like when you're terrible at putting, it's like hard to wait, but it is like, I don't think it's out of the question where, you know, we're talking about see who Kim, if Victor has another year, like this year, see who can might pass him, which is nuts. Yep. Who's third. All right. Third. We're going to go with, we're going to go with, is Charlie Hoffman going to be protected this year? Charlie Hoffman himself? Yeah. He's in the field. Did he win it here, right? Or just he's a WM ambassador. So he always gets the sponsor's exemption. I was sad, really sad to see that Zatch didn't get in the field because I was going to combine them. to see which guy running out the PGA Tour clock for Champions Tour has a kerfuffle this week. But we got Charlie Hoffman. I hope he gets in one of those little trucks. I hope we get a picture of him in one of those little trucks. Driving around. He was runner-up two years ago. Jammed it in your face when you said you couldn't dimble on in the field. So he's had recent pops here. Flashed recently. Just another reminder of why sponsors exemptions shouldn't exist. Think about like, you know, you go around, I'm a brand ambassador for a financial institution, brand ambassador for an insurance company. What do you brand the best for? Trash trucks, garbage trucks. That's me. I feel like that show Trash Truck has made Trash Tucks a little bit more endearing. Oh, I, you know, the kids show. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. hey do you tip the the trash collectors it's a great question i haven't um in recent years my one of my cousins is a trash guy you mentioned this i remember that i don't know about on the pot he's got a he's actually he called he's a regular caller for a chicago sports radio show that's awesome i love that i think they call him tim the trash guy I told this story about my wife was walking to the L once. Did I tell you that story? Maybe. Maybe. My wife, you know, this is almost 10 years ago. My wife, we lived in the city at this point, Chicago. And my wife's walking to the L and she had her headphones in. And there's a trash truck. And she was just getting yelled at by a man in a trash truck. And it was my cousin. picked up somebody else's route for the week but like you think about like you know at the time early 30s woman walking to the L yeah trying to go to work again yelled at it's like what the hell is going on this trash truck behind me um I've always tried to figure out how to tip them like they come and they're gone like so fast my wife says you got to tape it to the top of the lid of the can but like you know around the holidays you're like i don't know i gotta figure out how to do that it's a tough one how do you tip hey have you noticed that the tip these restaurants the tip thing has gotten even more out of control where it's 20 25 30 on the thing i don't want to get 30 tip what i feel like more are sneaking it in with the added gratuity and i know i'm such an idiot you know i never i i rarely catch it if i do i think the thing too is with the parties with the uh the digital the toast or whatever yeah like they bring the little thing to you so often they don't even give you the itemized you're just looking at a number yeah yeah i that i'll forever struggle with the whole doordash or uber eats one where like you gotta tip them but you're pre-tipping You're tipping before the serve. Like they lost my order the other day, but like you're tipping basically with a gun to your head. Cause you think they're going to like spit in your food or something. There's all these like horror stories. Granted, there's probably like 0.01% of the drivers. Like, do I have to pre tip so that like they take care of my food? That's the opposite of why we started all this. Can we, and then I tipped on an order that got lost or was an hour late. Can we also talk about like the tipping on, a delivery based off the total of the bill. It used to be like you give the pizza guy a couple bucks. Well, this is where I'm at with bartending. Now it's like, well, I could order some expensive sushi and it's like this little tiny thing of sushi. It takes up no space and I have to tip I have to pre-tip and it's based off the total it doesn't make any sense to me I struggle like I think that delivery tips should be like way less like you're getting in the car and you're driving it to me and you're driving a bunch of other stuff and like sometimes what pisses me off is like oh like I tipped 20 but I'm watching the car and it's like well he's making three stops before it gets to me? Stipulate for the record, we are working stiffs from former caddies who subsisted largely on tipping culture. It's just we've sort of lost our way. It's a fair question. Carrying a little 16-ounce crate of sushi, but that's expensive on paper. I get, though, if I take up your whole car, there needs to be more of a tip. You're bringing cases of water. The tip should be based off of how many other orders are you carrying around? I mean, this is what's happened at bars. I mean, in college at bars, for every instance of service, it was like a single, right? You throw them a single or whatever the single and loose change. Now it's like a beer is $8. Am I tipping like two, three bucks on that beer? I don't know. Anyways, that's the tipping of bartenders has changed entirely, too. So anyways, this is tip minute. We've done it. We're all over the place. Barely talking about golf. Who else are we monitoring this week? Oh, I completely lost my train of where we were. You got Siwoo Kim. Chuck the Trashman Hoffman. I started talking about tipping trash. We're a mess today. It's good, though, in a good way. All right, let's go do the segue. I've got, you know, talking about trash, man. We've got there's PJ. What was the guy's name? But we were talking about this before the show. Greg Ducharme, right? Yes. Yes. Greg Ducharme. I think he's a fellow member of the betting community. A sharp, a sharp, just like us. he said you know scotty has the best course history at tpc scottsdale do you know who has the second best course history at at tpc scottsdale martin laird good guess really good guest who uh just a guy jordan spieth second best course history good that's a good i'm getting on spieth island this week he's gonna be my pick love it a lot of memories a lot of speed memories that He never seems to get across the line but he was like oh my God he six under One of the par fives yeah back nine yep he six under through his first aid oh my god what happening he might shoot 62 then you know sunday she's 71 but yeah he's great course history interesting that's what i got a sharp i got speed uh he's second best course history here it's wild that's great i mean it's a it's a cool it's honestly i wish more courses were were set up this way where they like had like really strong course histories but like but i wish we had like a tour that set up where we'd be like brian gay is is just this is a brian gay central and i don't feel like we have that necessarily and i think the tour has gotten a little bit more like redundant and skill overlay because somewhat because the courses promote certain things but if you think about scottsdale there's scotty obviously that's what everybody's talking about uh-huh hideki brooks sahith has popped here a lot spieth you know and i and i think that's a kind of a neat aspect of this event is you get your usual suspects and oftentimes they perform and then you have the fun finish of 15 through 18 yeah um you should get it was a lot more fun when everybody couldn't just bypass the church pews on the left and the pond on the left um 18 they are 17 too i mean but 18 there's not even a thought anymore and yeah uh you should send that to brian roll up and the future competitions committee. We need more Brian Gase centrals if we want this tour to go somewhere. Just frame it exactly like that. Then we might want to bring the great one back. I would love that. Now we got him out in the golf. It's a good point. All right. Fifth and final guy to monitor. This might be the best chance for the Mules versus Brooksy. Alejandro Toasty is one of our mules that was carried into the event by Brooks Koepka. He's getting toasty in the desert. He's playing. Toasty is one of the mules. It feels disrespectful to call the Toastman a mule. I mean, it feels like it. I don't think it's inaccurate. You know what? I won't go there. But Toasty, I wanted to propose something to you guys. I'm curious how you fall. What? What if we add Vijay to the Mule team? So it's Vijay earnings plus the Mules versus Brux. I'd have to do a little more analysis on this. Maybe run some models. But I think that's a fair potential addition. Vijay, senior circuit. Vijay dipping down, using his career money, occasionally popping. Okay. When they overlap, I might be willing to throw Vijay in. Vijay's not in the field this week. No. It's kind of a bummer. There's big champs to our break. I wonder if he just wasn't high enough up on the priority. Nothing going on. I love that. I love it. Those are my five. Who's the mule? What's the head-to-head this week? So Toasty's one. Who's the other? Brooks Koepka versus Alejandro Toasty and AJ Ewart, who has a couple of top 50s at the last two events and a miscut at the Sony. So he's banked some money. He's made a couple of cuts. Could you pick AJ Ewert out of a lineup if he walked into your house right now? No, sure. Couldn't. He's Canadian. I love it. So you know where he played golf? Could be a pickup guy. Kent State, if he's Canadian, I'm going to guess Kent State. Barry, D2 Barry. Oh, okay. There you go. There you go. yeah d2 barry here he is that's what here he is with brooks kebke let's see let's see yeah i'm heading over to um to let's see some bio i want to give you guys some bio favorite tv show well we know we know we have plenty of toast details so we need some color on our on our second entry of the week. He's the son of a golf pro. If he somehow gets in the mix, that'll be a big talking point. Nance loves that. If he could get into the PGA, huge talking point. Canadian golf pro. I mean, that would be... Father Brad spent more than 30 years playing golf as a professional and journalist in 32 countries worldwide. That's awesome. I mean, this is Katniff Central here. journalist son of a journalist golf pro i mean that would be the best journalist to write this story up just play all the shoe not shoe pack you'll whisper shoe packs looking for aggregation gold um all right brad was based in tokyo japan for five years this is all about his dad I need more about AJ Five years in the 90s Working as a golf writer, instructor And golf course design consultant Okay, now we're Unpacking some stuff here Return to Canada in 94 This is his Personal 1994 AJ was born in 99 We're in 1994 Of his dad's history What are you looking at? Wikipedia? No, this is on the PGA Tour website. He worked for the Director of Marketing Sales Team, which eventually became known as Green Tea Country Club. Alright, I'm off, AJ. You were in a minute. I'm off. I'm pulling the ripcord. Wait, listen. Brad, his dad went out to serve as the media chairman for the Greater Vancouver Open from 95 to 99. There you go. Probably they went Brandel won. Isn't that Brandel's win? I think that his sprandles win. He also hosted the golf show Great Golf Destinations, an internationally syndicated TV show that spent 25 years as a trickshot artist. Is there any information? What about AJ? I was going to say, is there any information on AJ? He was a YouTuber. He was a trickshot boy before there was YouTube. I love it. 90% of his personal is about his dad. There's one line about AJ. There's a story about when AJ beat Brad, his dad. And then the last sentence of personal claims to be very good at popular basketball game. NBA 2K. Oh, I thought he was going to NBA Jam. That's all we have. Well, he's got a lot on line this week. He's in the crosshairs this week. into Mules versus Brooks, the ongoing. I had a friend, a CPA, offer his firm to sponsor that segment. Not pay for it, but sponsor it. I said, no, no, no. We're going to put this in the market, hopefully. So this year, this week. Jazz might be sponsoring it today. Sweets are still available and single-game tickets. Love that. Single-game tickets are going fast for their next home game, according to the Utah Jazz website. Single-game tickets available for our live show, too. single game tickets. Are there any tables available or are we sold out? I believe the tables are all sold out. Our equivalent of sweets are sold out, but there are single game tickets available for space. I have to just say, this is so disrespectful for AJ Ewert that the profile's all about his dad. Well, go out there and do something, young man. Beat Brooksy. Stand up for the mules. lead us off the mark fight back um we have not talked about the phoenix open at all a minute 52 we just talked about all the things to watch at the phoenix open what are you talking about it's what we're trying to you're trying to cut the legs off of five things to monitor all right i didn't mean to do that this is you're taking speed pj you're taking c will taking c will ride the heater while we're taking sahith you mentioned it there in the in the when you're ripping through, of course, history or whatever the hell it was, I'm taking Sahit Tagala. And I get his family, too. Murley and the whole crew. Would this be number... Do you think they have t-shirts for 101? They prepared. Well, this is where he is breakout week, Murley, on the Phoenix Elf. Yes. AJ Ewert doesn't have a Wikipedia page. I mean, it's fair. I don't know if he should. I clicked on Alfred James Ewert because I thought that would be who it is. And that was an English-Australian botanist from 1872 to 1937. Well, I think the botanist... I mean, I can't believe this guy, Alfred James Ewart, has a Wikipedia page. Why? Over the golfer who's, like, done nothing? I'm reading this, and it's not like he invented something. I guess I don't know much about Barry University I guess he didn't go play golf at Barry University what is happening um all right I love Phoenix Open by the way great great course as Andy said it's like one of the courses and Lamania talks about this like you know 16 gets all the shine I actually think 16's become kind of a meh golf hole it's obviously great for so many other reasons and unique um but like it's one of the golf courses that you do have to like do all phases decently well enough to win right you have to like you can't just be oh my god i putted my ass off for a week now you have to put well to win but you also do the first things to get to the green to win and what we love about this is there's like you know if you do miss it big you know you might end up in a cacti or cactus behind a rock that you invite 100 people to come roll away like Tiger did the one time. Jordan Spieth has to hit lefty three times. Yeah, you can get really popped instead of just sending it at 180 miles an hour hither and yon. I do like this. Of course, it's got the finish 15 through 18. The drivable four. 15 is a great par five before you go into the arena. Phoenix Open, looking forward to that. We'll talk more about that on Friday. We have our one. Tea times? Brooks, Cam Young, and Xander. Oh, are they out? We know where the money is made. God, that's a great... You're going to get Brooksy monitoring nonstop again. This also means that Cameron Young's going to be on TV this week. We didn't get anything last. That's actually great news for Cameron Young. Great group. Who's Spieth with? Who'd they put him with, Peach? That's a good call. They just post them as we remember. The hook them group so they could all wear their Longhorns jersey. Scotty Spieth and Chris Gotterup. Nailed it. Red River. Love it. Elsewhere on the schedule for the week, we have the Commercial Bank Cutter Masters in Doha. This is the last of four Middle East events. The purse is $2.75 million. Defending champ is Houton Lee. I assume he's playing on the PGA Tour this week. Notables. Listen to these notables, Andy, in Doha. Notables are Padraig Harrington, Rakuya Hashino, Luke List, Ryan Palmer, Patrick Reed, Antoine Rosner, and Paul Waring. Those are your notables. Those are the ones bringing home the bacon. They're putting on the posters in Doha. That's Cutter. uh list palmer rosner wearing those are the notables but anyways we could always do our own big twan love that uh that's four to nine a.m all four days uh coffee golf on a golf channel i always like seeing nicolai von dollinghaus in the house and in the field danny van van tonder DVT. There's great ones. Ryan Peake's in the field. Former motorcycle game member. Love that. Bradbury. Bradbury's in the field. That's your schedule for the week. I don't have any other news. I saw Africa Amateur also is going on. That's available on streaming services. That's all I got for this week. I saw Craig Kessler. The Bumblebee's back in the mix for a Ryder Cup spot. Apparently there's a big darts competition at a bar in Doha. Apparently Bumblebee is quite proficient at darts. I wouldn't want to challenge Bumblebee in darts or bags or cool. Yeah, I feel you on that one. That's it. All I've got news is Craig Kessler had to issue a lengthy stance. We're on statement number three or four since Sunday afternoon. I think it was a letter to the players, but also to the public. You never want that. So that's it. You know, he might have called up. Who's that? For the last months, I haven't measured up to those savings. I apologize for that. Former PGA. He called up Don for advice. I mean, I don't know. I've never talked to Craig Kessler. I just assume as a former employee of worker, he's had enough Don time for, for the rest of his life. He's probably not calling him up. Just guessing. I don't know him. All right. That does it for this Wednesday edition of the shotgun start. Great week ahead. Phoenix open fired up to watch it tomorrow, Thursday. We'll check in with you on Friday. Talk to you then. We'll see you next time.