1201: Match Play at the Tour Championship

>> The right club, I'd be the right club today. [MUSIC] >> I think that's better than most. How about it? It's better than most.

Better than most. [MUSIC] >> Expect anything different. [MUSIC]

>> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no-laying-up live show presented as always by our friends

at Titleist Breaking News edition of the show. To the afternoon version of the show joined by my esteemed colleague, Mr. DJ Paihowsky, hello, DJ. Hello, so all the good to be here, get to be talking about some good news, man, I'm excited. >> We did it, we brought it. >> We rocked a T.C. calling in from the North East on a assignment here today, hello, T.C.

>> Greetings, gentlemen. >> Sorry I couldn't be out there in Atlanta. You guys know how much East Lake means to me, but, you know, we'll use still support the East Lake Foundation, T.C. >> I will, I will, you know, I am on a site visit to some of these courses that we're evaluating. >> Some of these top 100s, yeah.

“>> I think we found the perfect way for that job, you know, I think, yeah, we'll get it to it.”

>> But now, yeah, I'm excited to be a D-writer for the tour now. Now that they're putting our ideas into mission here, we're going to react to the news that was announced of course today. We have, I'm sure, plenty to say about that. We're going to go back to other things that were brought up at Bryan Role of his press conference today.

Some of some key questions, great questions asked if I may say, by the corrupt Gulf media, that we're in attendance there, and grilling them on some things. We also spoke with Max Holma. We've recorded this yesterday. We're going to play that for you at the end of our conversation here, his reaction to the changes

for a player's perspective, how that has gone about, how the towards been communicating, kind of under this new regime, things like that, and a lot to react to. Today's show, we're going to run this opening segment here, commercial free thanks to our friends at Titleist, Still Planet Galsies and Left, go get fit. If I may, go get fit now while you're playing some golf, maybe you're thinking about the

offseason. Now, do it now. You don't want to be rusty and shaky kind of on a fitting session title.com. I said that free, but that was my own editorial comment there, if I may say. So, D-j, what happened today?

Take us there. Let's assume somebody is not spending their lives on Twitter and social media and watching you know, P.J., to our press conferences in the middle of their work day to look and get caught up. What happened, dig us there?

Yeah. There's a lot that happened today.

“I think it's worth reiterating just out of an abundance of caution what's already happened,”

which is that it kind of was laid bare by the press conference today.

I think, just like zooming out for a second, we were in East Lake a year ago, Brian

Rollab, kind of introductory press conference, what's, you know, what's the deal, man, what's going on, and he laid out a lot of things that were like, we're going to look at this. We're going to look at this. We're going to look at this and it was kind of wild today to sit there a year later and be like, oh, man, we've kind of rocked him on a lot of those things that he kind of

laid out what he said he was going to do, and it seems like they've kind of done it. And so what's been included in that is a two track P.J. tour, the champion trip track and the Challenger track, which is going to kick off in 2028. And a lot of what we talked about today is what is the postseason look like for that championship track.

And the FedEx cup playoffs, it all comes down to this, how are we, how are we reimagining things a little bit? So again, if you allow me to kind of zoom out, we're going to have this Challenger

“track that's about 130 ish, 132 ish, guys, we'll have 122 or 120 man fields with cuts,”

we'll be that championship track of events. And then what is going to end up happening is we're going to have a championship, like what do they call it, the P.J. tour series finale, championship series finale is going to be really the final event season, we're going to figure out who our 90 guys are that keep their cards of those 132, the rest will be relegated following year, back down to the

Challenger series, a lot of qualifications and stuff still to come on how all of that's going to work.

Just clarifying really quick, you caught up for a second, do you see, if you said final

event of the season, like this championship series finale is considered part of the postseason, it is a postseason event. There is a final 130 person stroke play event of the regular season, whatever they're calling it, and then to kick off the postseason, there's a final 90 person stroke play tournament, those 90 people are keeping their cards for 20, 29 and from that 90 you're willing

down to 32 for match play.

And of those 32, we're going to have a two week tour championship, two different venues,

the first week. We're going to knock 16 of the 32 out via match play, which is going to be a thrill. And then the final 16 are going to go to another venue to play four rounds of match play. They're all going to play each day, which is kind of interesting.

“You know, so I think they'll play for the difference between the 16th seed and the 15th”

seed and the 14th seed all the way up till identifying the one person who is undefeated, who will be your playoffs winner, your season winner. So a lot of, a lot of good out of here, but I mean, T.C. I'll throw it to you.

What was kind of your, what's your first reaction here?

I think it's been a great roll out first and foremost. I think in the past, it felt like they would have tried to explain, like they wouldn't have told us anything over the last six, eight, 12 months, and then they would have announced everything today, done it kind of poorly, and then everybody would have been really confused. And they would over-promise and probably ended up under delivering.

“I think today was, like he just keeps meeting the milestones, right?”

Of like when he was at players, he said, "Hey, I'll have more for you at travelers." A traveler, he said, "Hey, I'll have more for you at East Lake." I'm sure we'll hear more in November at some point, but it just feels really coherent. And simple, but not easy, right? I think between the different levels, but also it's pretty clean.

I thought the explainer thing, the visualized tweet was like, "That's the kind of stuff." Like those are the kind of details that I think help you buy in from a fan perspective as well. So, you know, a lot still to come as far as, you know, how the point system will work and all that stuff. And I know we'll have last chance kitchen there in the fall, and, you know, how these fields are going to kind of net up and down from, you know, like how you bring in the sponsor exemptions. But how you bring in the lifetime membership or career-money-list exemption.

“And how you fold in the kind of PGA tour entitlements from, you know, the last few decades. But I think overall, like, this is the massive step forward that we've been looking for for the last decade.”

I keep finding myself a little shocked that there just doesn't seem to be a ton of detractors from most of these decisions, right? And we can get to, when the rubber meets the road, we'll see if that actually becomes the case, and if everybody is as happy as they seem now.

But it's the same thing with the track one track two is like, hey, no, it's basically the same amount of events playing for more money.

We've seemed to have listened to kind of all the stakeholders and like, everybody seems to be walking away a winner here. And with this instance, it's like, okay, all the fans seem to want match play. They all want stakes. They all want, like, real gravity towards the end of the season. But at the same time, we got to reward a season-long champion. So we'll do that at the championship, you know, the series finale or whatever, they're calling that championship event. And then we'll have a basically separate thing to kind of satisfy, you know, the fans after that. So even that feels like kind of an all-sides win.

And it's just a, it's mind blowing after years and years of just like, oh, no, we can't have that. Like, you guys wouldn't even understand why we can't do that. And maybe some of that stuff, I, you know, that's be glued. Like some of that stuff. The last five years probably needed to happen in order to get to where we are and to force things to break and to force things to, you know, to be okay with these changes. But man, now that we're okay with those changes, it seems like everybody's pretty fucking happy about it. I don't know.

It's seem like maybe we could have skipped some heartburn and just gone right to this, but, uh, a last. We got here eventually, Sally. Yeah, it, um, it's not, I wouldn't say the format is, it's perfect. And we've, we've been a part of many, many, many. How do we fix the FedEx Cup finals play off whatever we want to call it? Uh, episodes. I still encourage people to email Neil at no lag up.com with all of your ideas there. He reads through all of the main response to all of them. And, uh, he greatly appreciates that.

Can I pause it? Just super quick is if we had to have 19 different iterations of the Fed, maybe that was not a good system. I was going to say that, but I think that's not a lot of the trackers. Proofs to roll out for being like, okay, no, no, we're not going to try to fix this. We're going to blow it up because it's also not play off anymore. It's postseason. Which is funny because it actually is now a play off. Uh, uh, of some time. But I think it, uh, the one, there's not many detractors because it had gotten so bad.

It was just like, legitimately, I don't know if you could have crowned it in a, in a worse way. Like, I don't think you could have brought the season legitimately to a close and a less

Uh, or the old way they were doing it pre-started strokes all of it better than just like 30 man free for all the winner of the tour championship as the pediatric.

awful. So you know, that's going to save 10 years to say even this year next year. The next 18 months or 30, you know, 13 months, you know, operate under that, that, that, that now outdated, you know, mechanism, it's hilarious. So yeah, there's, there's, issue, um, a lot of, a lot of stakeholders on things to consider. There's TV, there's players, there's money distribution, there's venues, there's all kinds of things here. So I was not expecting things to go exactly the way we had, had, had listed it out or the idea that we had had of, of, you know, just basically doing a sudden death final in some way. Maybe some, some buys a double buy for the top seeds kind of given people.

“People remember I rolled out a, a somewhat finalized version of what I'd like to see, but it was like the top eight seeds or the top four seeds are going to get double buys.”

The next four seeds are going to get single buys. The next eight guys of those 16 will, you know, kind of start at the back of the pack and have to play a bunch of match play to identify a champion.

This way, it is, I mean, one through 32, make it into the match play and granted there's, you know, the first, you know, the 32 seed is going to get in the bracket with the one seed I assume and probably, you know, 15 and 16 or 16 and 17 however that shakes out would be in that one. But otherwise there's not a ton of advantage to being one versus 32, like we are going to kind of roll it out and kind of figure it out from there, which, you know, are we trying to exactly mimic play off settings from other sports, maybe not, but like, and I fell, you get a buy if you're the number one seed.

Majorly baseball through the top two seeds, you get a buy pass that first round, things like that and golf is not going to go, they're not going that way. And it is, they seem a little caught between this, you know, the idea of we need to produce a lot of matches. We cannot have just a few, a little amount of golf out there, because it's a very clear takeaway from this, like there's going to kind, if I had a concern, it's like there's going to be kind of a lot of pointless golf going on. Because once you've lost in the championship series, I don't picture myself caring whether you finished third or 16th, I could be wrong on that, but that's clearly a something that they're having to work around and go for. I think it would be cooler if it was a harsher sudden death.

But, you know, how these match play events work, like it just kind of does invert where most of the excitement is, like I would expect most of it to be in the early rounds, which doesn't line up great for weak and viewing, which is what the PJ tour prides themselves on, but. It is, it's match playman and it's going to be head to head and we talked about this a bunch with Max here at the end, but it's going to take some time for it to like feel important important from the end. You know, for the players and to make it feel like the the the exclamation point on the end of the season, but man, just such a better way to conclude it, and I hope the players seriously buy into this, bring energy for it.

“I think that they're making you have to play the championship series finale, like you can't skip that one if you're automatically qualified for it, call it the Rory rule if you want.”

You're playing that finals and if you want to play in the match play part too. But yeah, it's, it's, it's what we've been asking for, even if it's not perfect, I'm supporting it, I'm excited about where this is headed. These people have thought believe it or not have thought about it more than I have and have considered a lot more things than I have, and I'm willing to willing to see where this goes from here. Solice, Solice, he's willing to look past the fact that we're not getting the Mule Drive. Exactly. The Mule Drive might be later in the fall, we'll see.

I like a couple different things. I actually don't mind the, I don't mind the one doesn't have a buy, one doesn't have an advantage.

“Stuff because I think that's kind of what I was saying earlier is like the the championship series finale is where you lock that in.”

I think again, we'll hear Max talk about it, but the whole, the problem with the FedEx Cup was that it was just a bonus distribution system. It was a, you know, a chance to give like backload these guys earnings for the year and we just have a shitload of money that these guys, we need to get out to these guys and we need to try to make it interesting.

And it's never going to be interesting when the thing you're rooting for is who makes more money, right?

And so if they can use that championship series finale as a way to be like, here's the big ash reward for your host financial reward for your whole season. I think that's a very natural way to do that, right? And like Scotty, who has finished in the top five 12 times or 13 times whatever. This year, like, yeah, he does have an advantage because he's number one in the points, right? It's like that, that stuff all feels very natural to me and then it's like once you get into the pool play.

They're trying to push all this stuff through as like the most successful World Cup in American history is kind of like, is all like that had it.

“That's the kind of break you can't like plan for like, I think they had to be saying those meetings be like, did you watch that fucking angle in Mexico game?”

I was like, that was great. You know, that really made me laugh, that it's, it's, they had that break even the third place game was great, right?

You know, that's, yeah, I would support like making the the consolation matches, trick shots of subcutting half half sets, like make it weird, make it, you know, you can take a club out of somebody's bag, like make that part weird. I'd be a support of that. But yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody's trying to, I don't think they're trying to strangle the like, oh, we need this seven seventh place 11th place match to be like life and death. I think nobody cares. I think that's just more for the people that are on site. It's to show how the other holes are playing. Oh, get a load of this pin location when they get to four like I think it's stuff like that rather trying to make that like some hugely sedative.

“Yeah, it's not, it's not taking like, yeah, it's not taking anything like solid, solid, you said earlier like, like I wish it was a harsher sudden death thing. I think it still is harsh, right?”

Like the guys, that's almost more of a penalty for, for Scotty, like wait, you're telling the apps to go play this seventh place game. That's true. Yeah, I did, yeah, again, I hope that part's not lost for all the like they need buys. This is unfair, but it's like, no, that's settled in the, in the, in the stroke play thing, and that's where, again, it's like,

I, if I was a player, and I was like, man, I'm really trying to, to really pay off like my whole year. It's like, you're going to do it that first week of the postseason.

And then the match play thing is like, it's totally different event to me is how it seems. And I think people, I think people get up for it. I think you get good venues, you get good, you know, it's kind of a, it will be a big deal to make it in. Like I think it's like, I think there's a lot a lot here that's going to work itself out.

“And good way. I agree. I think where I was kind of going with that is is it's a way of almost guaranteeing your worries, your Scott is your top finisher's get farther in the bracket and it's a little bit anticipatory, right?”

And and look, I get why I didn't shake out that way. Maybe they go that way in the future. I get all that where I, I think this, this next part is like the capital, whatever letter, like the number one most important thing is we've seen pool play at the WGC. Dell match play. We've seen the PGA tours television broadcast partners try to cover match play golf. And I'm talking about one of them in particular of the two that has has struggled with this at times when pool play is on, especially that Friday, I have no fucking clue what is going on.

I don't know what matches important. I don't know who is in whose group and I think this is extremely important that every time you show a match on TV, you are showing a code, if you can show the example, I mocked this up of like how important I think this is of if you are seeing a match with Scottie Sheffler playing Robert McIntyre code, if you don't mind flashing it up there. Like show me who else is in the group and show many how many points the other guys have and what the status of that match is like you can see this graphic shown right here, Scottie has six points McIntyre has three in the other match.

It's Brian Harman against Ben Griffin. Harman's got three Ben Griffin's got zero. I can look at this graphic and say like man if Harman just holds on he's going to be one of the two and Scottie is going to be the other one to advance. Otherwise like it is it's a mess. It's an absolute mess. I get why they don't like to show a lot of this stuff because there's so much stuff on delay and it's hard, you know, you don't want to give scores away before you've shown the shots on TV but like man, that's going to be super important to get right because there's going to be a lot of golf going on and it's going to be very hard to keep track of all that stuff.

Plus all the commercials you kind of fit into all this. That is why I'm not a fan of pool play because it's just inconclusive. The part about that match play that is so appealing is it's very from the jump like from the early part of the round is very easy to understand exactly what's at stake on each hole. And it's not a pacing mechanism. It's like dude, you make this put. You tie the hole. You miss it. You lose it. Like that's awesome. That is what your selling point is. And I got to I got to be able to see that viewers got to be able to understand how this all fits into the context of the pool player or else that's just going to be a wet.

It's going to be worse than Steve sand on the white board trying to calculate the FedEx cup points at the end of the year and and I would leave to show with that because I honestly think that is like the most important thing.

Maybe of of of all this is like you got they get they need to be on their television partners to present this right because we we have very good evidence.

They will not do this on their own. What if they sell each each pool to one of the proud partners.

So this is the Fed on that. This is the Southern Company region. Yeah, half the matches. You know, there's 32 players in the 64 maybe that maybe that helps a little bit.

“But yeah, I think that's it's very valid valid concern.”

But once we get to the second week hopefully it becomes a little bit more just like did you win or did you lose?

Yeah, definitely. But I think that that early part is, you know, that yeah, like I said, it's just it's really really. Hard. And look, like we've seen our NFL's had it had a playoff bracket forever. And it's been a long like college football has had this for it's been like 12 years now. Like it's been a long time since since college football went to the playoff bracket. They've changed it. They've expanded it and by college football season, like it's here. And I would say our our closets are looking more and more like the row back website. And here's one thing.

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Head to row back dot com. RHO BACK dot com use code NLU for 20% off your first order through the end of the week catch me outside and row back. Exactly. We should say a few words about the venues potential venues. I know Josh Carpenter had had some some specifics named. I'm trying to remember off top of head. I think he said sleepy hollow LACC and interlock and interlocking as potential venue, which is always a funny one. Right. When it's like sources are like, well, can we well, we didn't have it. Well, we had a call. Well, we had a site. Well, no, they're going to get mad if we say that it's always just funny, which was actually getting to who knows what it'll be, but those were the three that he reported.

“The big thing with this that I think has been kind of part of this conversation as long as we've been talking about it, but if you go to match play, if you go to something like this, you're not trying to stand up a 72 hole stroke play event.”

It's seemingly can be a golf course that has a smaller footprint. Doesn't need to be 78 hundred yards. It's just beat the guy that's across from you, which is obviously brings in a lot more potential venues. And then I think we'll change the fan experience, right? If there's not T times from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. or whatever, like it'll be a little bit of a different probably smaller footprint. Maybe more intimate. Maybe more close up. I don't really know how that's going to work.

But I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts venues, fan experience, some of that stuff.

I think it's I think of Walker Cup. It's like, you know, some of my favorite events I've been to. That said, I think the Walker Cup at Cyprus was 2,000 fans. I think the one at lunch will be, you know, probably 6 to 8,000 fans.

“And so like, how do they, how do they juggle that other, are there going to be ropes or not going to be ropes? Because I think unless you have the fans like right up there up close and personal. There's a lot less fans. You need.”

You need that energy in that intimacy, I think. I feel empty fast. Yeah, and yeah, you know, empty and just kind of solace going back to, I think LACC. They did exactly roll out the the welcome mat to, you know, Walker Cup fans or US open fans. And I can't imagine that the the unwashed masses coming in for a PGA to or event would be would be welcome with open arms plus their whole. That's the, you know, PR problem that they've got out there as well. It is certainly an interesting first West Coast venue. I think it's no funny that we've gone in the last whatever 8, 9, 10 years from live under par.

This is all about the fan experience. Just like, we'll go to the most private fucking world you have ever heard of. We're going to have 4,000 people there. Who knows, well, how it'll shake out, but I thought, really I've had some good stuff about like, man, it's like chance to go to places that people don't get to see a lot, you know, it's a TV product. Yeah, make it a full on TV product. And when you're setting it up for either, you know, around of 16 or 32 match play matches, the considerations are decidedly different, like, decidedly different. You can do all sorts of more drivable holes if you want.

Say, you guys are playing this hole from 180 yards to a diabolical front and instead of like playing this as a 380 par four that's going to be silly. Like, why don't we do that? You can do so many creative things. You don't have to worry about what the, you know, play into a certain par number. You don't have to worry about

guys shooting 20 under anything like that. You could play, I mean, you could play a whole, you know, depending on how the routing works, you could play the whole once as a par three.

“You can come back and play it in a different way as a par four, like, you could do very creative stuff that I think isn't usually in the spirit of the PJ tour, but like, hey, we got this far throw and out some ideas like might as well.”

Might as well keep throw these out there and keep, keep pushing the envelope with this. I think the, that's where I get back to LACC as far as like the actual golf product. That's a, that's a killer match play venue with all sorts of half holes and different ways to set it up.

You could set it up, you know, part three or four on some holes. So, you know, interlocking, I think that like that's another one that, you know, you're like, oh my gosh, like great market up there.

Sounds like the sample is like, I keep throwing out Chambers Bay, it sounds like the sample is kind of Seattle's our market. And we're going to either, you know, so Holly or Chambers, so Chambers is off the table.

“For now, and then sleepy hollow, you know, never been I'm in the area swing to me up.”

I was thinking about it. I'm, Max gets into this a little bit more as well, but I have always been in of the mind that like, man, TPC saw grass works because you go there every year. You have all these memories from number four and number 17 and 16 and 18 and all these different different holes. And I actually am like kind of coming around to the tour championship being a chance to flex different venues as more of a more of a positive, unless you can go to something that's as good as TPC saw grass every year, which TPC saw grass like the reason it works is because it's a really, really good.

Because it's a really, really good golf course. It's very memorable because we go to East Lake and we see it in East Lake every year.

I've been there 10 times and I don't remember anything about that place, you know, and it's I know they did the Renault and it's got better, but it's still just a really hard place to grab onto, whereas it feels like the tour has worked so hard to be like, we need a major, we need a big property.

“We need something that gets golf fans really excited and obviously this is not going to take the place of any of the majors or anything like that.”

But it is a zag in a way that like, I would be pumped at the beginning of the year to talk about like, oh shit, the tour championship is going to interlock in an LACC. Like that's awesome. The same way we would be like, the US opens going to Oakmont or Chinacock or or whatever, you know, it is a, it's a different way to get in that conversation, but it's like kind of the same conversation. Well, it's pretty clear, like, roll up is is rolling with the NFL news cycle strategy of like, you know, just sprinkling information like a, having that be a part of the conversation anyway, yeah, look forward to, you know, in a couple of months, we're going to announce the tour championship venues for next year.

And, you know, that'll come out, you know, maybe 18 months in advance, 16 months in advance of that and like you can look forward to that or maybe they have, they do a USGA style and start rolling those out several years in advance and we can do that thing where we look at the future Walker Cup. The future Walker Cup venues and say, oh my god, look at look at where they're going in this one like it, man, it, it, it, it's still a lot of words. It's still we haven't seen a lot of this come to fruition and we haven't seen any of the Challenger championship match, but we haven't seen any of this, it's just roll up and announce in these things, but it's pretty darn easy to get excited about someone that's been able to put this much change into process this quickly can speak so clearly on it has clearly.

I wouldn't say, I would, from what I can gather, gather the regard of the respect of the players, the trust of the players to figure out the answers to the tough questions when he doesn't have an answer to a question and press conference. He's very clear about that. He does not over promise on a lot, I mean, again, that's why I get kind of hyped as like dude, the things he does say out loud turn out to be true and the things he doesn't are like, we're going to come back on that and here's when here's where we're going to come back on, you know, stuff on eligibility and things like that, it's just.

He reeks of competence and at the same time willingness to shake it up, I mean, he came from a massive, massive, massive sporting brand and was not brought, you know, say what you want about money hand like money hand was not brought in to shake things up at the PGA tour roll up was and he's doing it and it's just very easy to. To get excited about what is possible because we're not hit every time we bring up an idea of like you don't understand it contracts, this is how we do it, we've thought about it, you haven't.

And now it just legitimately seems like they're putting things into place that like fans are saying and that's a North Star for them, Max talks about that as well, like the North Star seems to be the fans for once.

About watching postseason golf for the first time in a very, very long time, probably maybe ever.

And what it's just such a stark difference from the last couple years where not not to pretend like we're exempt from this in any in any stretch, but this world where like golf media has kind of had to pretend to be MBAs or lawyers or geopolitics experts.

“It's just like, you know how long it's been since it's just been like, oh, what if this player played this player, do you guys think that would be fun?”

You know, and it's like we're feels like we're kind of back to having some of those conversations and I know. Maybe they're trying to sweep some of the other stuff under the rug like front running the charity stuff. I thought was super interesting today that that almost felt like a. Kind of next. That'll grab things super loudly. Nothing's changing on charities like, well, well, I wasn't thinking about that until you did. But okay, that's one thing who knows what happens with sponsors, who knows what happens with like, you know, eligibility and all that stuff is still kind of remains to be seen.

But man, it feels like they're getting the fan stuff right and it feels like for the first time in five fucking years.

Maybe fans can just kind of focus on like the golf rather than like, you know, it almost reminds me like when people start talking about movies. And instead of it's just like, did you like the movie or did you not people get way into just like, well, how perform at the box office, what you got. It's like, it's not your money man, who gives a shit about how a performer, who cares how the business side of this stuff works. Do we just get back to like talking a little bit about is the golf fund to watch or is it not and who do you think is going to win?

And it just seems like this massive step in that direction.

I think the excitement is like, is in the change, right, is in the unknown. Like they don't have to nail every single one of these things either. They're going to get stuff wrong along the way, but progress to new stuff is fun, inherently.

“And I think that, I mean, shit, I'm already thinking about, you know, like, what would, would positive tempo ever be a fit, right?”

Probably not. It's pretty remote and Santa Cruz there, but what if it was like that would be, you know, or like, you know, people throw a band and dunes all the time and they're like, you know, like, all right, grow up Peter Pan. But you know, what if there's actually 16 got is like, maybe you could do that, you know, so I think the, that and then I do think that I'm really curious to see, like, we ran through that whole schedule exercise for 28. And with the Olympics in there in LA, I don't know how that's going to work.

Like with LACC on the back end of the Olympics with these guys playing like five out of six weeks maybe in kind of that July August timeframe. That's a pretty jammed up schedule. So I'll be really curious to see, you know, as we matriculate from this idea phase to the details, probably coming out next year on the players, you know, just exactly how this looks, you know, into 28. But, but isn't it is interesting to see, but isn't it weird to sit here and just be like, well, these people they're doing it, they're deciding not clowns.

“Like I'm kind of like optimistic. I'm like, yeah, I think they'll figure that out.”

Like I think they're, like what they will, the conclusion they will reach, I think will be like, that's pretty reasonable, not perfect, but like that's pretty reasonable versus like, the previous regime, if they try to do this, I'd be like, I will believe it when I see it. I'm sorry, well, and I don't think it will happen. And then I think the hope then, too, is like, all right, if, if, let's say it's sleepy hollow and interlock and LACC, if, if it goes well, they've proven the model, then it's all right, cool, let's go to, let's go to seminal or let's go to Cyprus, let's go Chicago golf club and, you know, they'll open, I think they kind of got out over their skis and mentioning some of those off the bat, but, you know, it's,

those places love doing T.C. is really disrupting. They love just like unproven concepts. Let us let us just open the kimono here. It's being used as a carrot. Yeah, exactly. So I think, yeah, I'll take a couple of years to figure it out, but, you know, if it's positive, then I'm sure they'll get rewarded for it. Is there, we're, we're very cumby out here. Anything solid besides a group, you know, some concerns on the group stuff and how it'll be portrayed. Anything else, what, what do you guys not like about this? Anything else that, that kind of, your bumping on?

When we talk about this, some of the max, I promise it's coming up here soon. We keep teasing it, I know, but like, I'm not like positive this won't feel both bolted on in year one, you know, I don't think it's going to be super easy for this to feel like the granddaddy of them all from the jump. I think a lot of that's going to come down to like how serious the player's sell it and how excited they are about it and kind of what kind of atmosphere they're able to create around these events and whatnot, but it's.

It's not, that's not a guarantee for me, I think, sitting here as a right now, at least that's going to be something you have to earn over years.

Make sure that that's the top of mind, everything's been money for the players, money for the players and, and they've gone to a for profit model, but I think.

Between that finshum announcement yesterday and just some of this stuff today, it seems like maybe they're, they're going to more of a centralized model and the charity stuff and they're going to give a smaller sliver of the pie, much smaller sliver of the pie, based on what I've heard from various host organizations like their fee is going way way up. So, if you're going to give a smaller sliver of the total cut to these charities, but maybe making a more focused, concentrated effort, you know, on, you know, like just more of a targeted thing.

“So, I think that'll be a really interesting thing as we, as we move along here of the next 18 months.”

I was going to add, I mean, I think it's natural every time you talk about match play is like, well, what if you get a stinky, what if you get a stinky final, what if you get X player versus Y player, nobody wants to watch it.

And I think that is a very inherent risk granted it's the top 30, some two players in the world, like hopefully it should be, it should be good.

So, outside of that coin, I feel like is, I was, again, thinking about it today, especially when they rolled out the hype video, I mean, which was sick. How many, how many PGA tour events did Stephenames play in? Hundreds, hundreds, what do people know Stephenames for, right?

“Yeah, that's it. And I, no offense to him, but like, that's the power of the power of Matt, Greg and the power of Tiger Woods with the power of match play as well. And I think it's, I think, plenty of offense to Stephenames.”

I don't think anybody likes Stephenames.

I think that there's a, I think there's a power of match play to, like we, we say this was Scotty, where it's like, well, Scotty didn't get interesting until he won 10 times on the PGA tour. Really hard to do slash kind of impossible. I think in match play, you can kind of microwave the personality and the gravitas of some of these guys a little bit faster. You see that at the Ryder Cup, where it's like, here's this, here's this no name person that you, you know, whoever Thomas Peters, right, is just like, holy shit, that guy is balling out and now I'm going to think about him differently forever, right? And it's like, I bet I could do this to D, I think you're there Jason Dave versus who.

At Dub Mountain, you bet the most, do we saw, I thought, do we saw president's cup, I was like, oh, like that, when that happened, no, yeah, when that happened, everybody remembered that like that, that was a, you know, Tiger had the huge come back in the, it against two, you probably remember that one on the Wednesday of the old. But it's cat and for casuals, like it's, it is mono, mono, it's the red team playing the two team, right, and it's very easy to digest and understand.

“And I think it's, yeah, it's like a number maybe not one and two, I mean, Scottie and Roy are kind of in a world of their own, but number seven is so much closer to number 32 than.”

It's ever going to seem and to hold 32 to just like, well, you got to win five times before anybody gives a shit is it's just really hard and it's I think it kind of, it kind of in a weird way, dovetails with what they're doing with the challenger track as well, where it's like if you have all these on ramps to get these guys into the ecosystem, get them on this challenger track and kind of get them into a chance where. They can become a, I just think they can, maybe not superstar, but I think they can become recognizable names much much faster through the challenger stuff through match play through all these these different things.

Yeah, well, we'll find out, man, I, again, I think that part of the reason why WGC match play went away or wasn't working in a lot of ways was like, it was just a match play tournament and it was not, it was not this, this is a different thing. Yes, this is different and I'd like that tournament, it was good variety, but this is decidedly different from that. A couple other just smaller things that roll up common and on and so might maybe not even smaller things that roll up common on some way today.

He had did, of course, get a question about live players returning here, believe this is Gabby, hers, a athletic asking this question. And here is his answer question answer here in full. And live players returning, I guess what is your personal opinion on them coming back just as a leader as someone with a conception of, you know, sports center face and then need first arms to back and play on FPGA tour, how does that compare to what you're hearing from players and stakeholders in the tour. Well, I, you asked about my personal feelings and that's one thing, but in this job, you have to take into account everybody's feelings and all stakeholders.

I would also say three things when it comes to live players or anyone else who wants to be on the PGA tour.

On the PGA tours built on meritocracy, every player whether they're already here or they're trying to be here, they're going to earn a place based on their performance and on their success. That's core principle of the sport and certainly is of the PGA tour. Two, the tour is a membership organization and has rules. Those rules exist for lots of reasons for fair competitive reasons. They exist so we can actually create the tour as you know it. Rules matter and three rules only matter if they're enforced.

“So accountability and discipline are essential to any organization and certainly for the integrity of the tour and for the game, especially in a game that prides itself on rules and integrity.”

So those are guiding principles for us rules matter. Again, I've been very public that I want to do what's best for the PGA tour and that's still my guiding principle and whatever happens, those will be the guiding principles. I did absolutely adore the timing of a question very shortly after that about where we're not meeting in the minimum 15 numbers.

Well that rule, we're looking at that one.

The word about what your brothers do it. The point is you did not finish cleaning up your room and we're going to, I'm going to talk to him, don't worry about that. But just we're going to focus on the issue and hey, dude. Johnny, Johnny Rumble, don't give any ideas. That's not good stuff. I love it.

I love it. Good answer man. It's not going to be it's not as simple as they're going to be of great value to the tour. Let them write back in like that is decided statement of that is not going to be that simple. They broke rules that everyone else in the organization that has currently played on the PGA tour at here to and followed. They didn't they paid their their payments their penalties in our back on the PGA tour.

And it broke and and read of that, but it will not be a wave back through the door thing for Bryson and Rob and any of those, any of those guys, it was pretty clear answer. So I didn't catch it. What was was was club pro guy there asking them. There I don't know who there was a gentleman with a very deep voice that sounded like a little bit of a club pro guy voice. They're asking it's a pointed question. Asked a good good question right off the jump.

That was that was yeah that was he got hit with that one hard. He asked do you believe good good took enough accountability after the whole calorie debacle.

“Rollups that I think initially know I think what we saw was concerning and it's clearly not a line with PGA tour values we take it very seriously.”

I think their initial response was disappointing it was a bit defensive in the late. But I think the responses are getting better. I think we've seen some things this morning. We've had conversations with them. So we'll continue to monitor and work with them going forward. But now we're disappointed with what we saw. Oh God. T.C. Where do you stand? Where do you stand out there? It's hard to feel kind of existential.

Good good. Callife and I was saving it like 2 a.m. last night. Yeah, man. I don't know. There's a line in this movie bottle rocket where somebody's asking them like do you want to do you want to go water skiing or do you want to go lay out in the sun? And in the sun, he's like, not only do I not want to answer that question.

I don't want to answer another question like that for the rest of my life. And that's kind of how I feel. I'm starting to feel about just some of the things going on.

And let's just get back to who's the one seed and who's the 32 seed, who's playing in the first round of this match play.

Because I've just. Yeah, I just can't can't have too much of a take on on some of this stuff.

“Sorry, I think the the best thing is like for the first time, I feel like all the live stuff was maybe worth it.”

Where like it led us, it led us to to a better place. It's like, it's like, you know, crawling through that that, you know, and you do frame. Yeah. Shotshit prevention thing. It's like, oh my god.

Like, there was a reason for all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I see exactly where you're coming from. I think I believe we even have it. You, you theorized on this back in the very, very, very early stages of live if we have it. There's a supposed to be for internal use only.

This is publicly out there. You guys are so fucking wrong about everything. You guys don't know what you're talking about for those that are not watching live on YouTube.

Don't sleep on the fact this thing could both consolidate.

Many of the capital worst people you know and failed to gain traction while lighting a building in a half dollars on fire, which would be objectively sick. $6 billion. It's a $6.5 billion. $4.5 billion.

T.C. replied say, and possibly forced the P.J. to give us shit about their product in the process. Nuked the WGCs into the sun in favor of something decent feels like a win-win. Yeah, fly the banner on that. I'm pretty sure. We rock them.

Rock them. I do, I do think the, the one. Comment for Morgan 84x. D.J. D.C. chess moved 32.

“I think we have got a little addicted myself guilty as well of like the newsish part of it.”

And like I'll be coming a little detached from the golf at times and that's going to be a golf isn't very good. I know the hard part is going to be like getting back into just the birdies and bogeys of it all with full you know investment in it. And the P.J., we're not getting complacent again just because the competitors going away.

I mean it. And I don't just like mean financially. I just mean like continue to do it.

You're creating an entertaining product that people want to watch and want to associate with.

So, because that was definitely lacking prior prior to live and they're not out of the woods on that one yet. And I think roll out of the set pretty much the same. So it's going to come up. Oh, absolutely. Roll up.

It's going to do this stuff. And he's going to tackle the president's cup. And he's going to tackle pace of play and progress. Quick and issue. You asked.

You asked writer cup to be the captain of that one too, please. It's going to come down to details. I mean, you can win the press conference. You know, you could do all that. But I mean, different. That's one thing. The difference between good and great golf usually comes

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I travel with my own Lagoon pillow now. Can't risk it. Can't risk it. Solid idea. What about if just thinking about meritocracy and such?

What do you think? Let's say they put on an event. They said, all right. This is this is the live. Redemption tour, the live.

That's what it's like.

“You know, whatever many guys can teet up.”

And only. And only four of you guys are getting. Are getting a car back in the rest of you can never. Ever teet up in a PG. That's like one of those nuclear golf poles like 50 million.

If you make the hole in one or you die if you don't make it. Be sick. All right. Good content for Bryson's channel too. It sounds very YouTube.

T.C. It can be a collab. Yeah. Do you guys make anything of Bryson's Instagram post of like he said it's been a good run. Or it was a good run.

Criptically. I remember grabbing it up. Yeah. No, I don't. I shouldn't have said anything.

He's probably got a good. He's probably got a new running shoe come out with. With Reebok or something. Yeah. It's like Tony P's.

Yeah. Never mind. The hog reveal didn't go. It's like Tony P's. Yeah.

Never mind. The hog reveal didn't go. It's like Tony P's. Yeah. The hog reveal didn't go.

It's like Tony P's. Yeah. Yeah. The hog reveal didn't go. It's like Tony P's.

The hog reveal didn't go. It's like Tony P's. Yeah. The hog reveal didn't go. It's like Tony P's.

The hog reveal didn't go. The hog reveal didn't go. The hog reveal didn't go. Tony P and good good. It's just the whole thing.

God, it just feels so. It's just so. Not, not even predictable. It just like you just see the same cycle like over. And now there's going to be some YouTube video.

Like let's talk. We need to talk about what happened. No. It's just like it. It's just all awful.

Is it feeling a little performative at this point? Like from people online? I don't know. I'm sure. Yeah.

The whole cycle is just like this. It's higher internet is performing.

Yeah.

But it's both like equal.

It's performative. But also like it was that bad. It was bad. But yeah. It was just such a shit sandwich.

“Like the stupidest thing that could have possibly happened.”

Every angle. Even though that you could have made stupidity. Like thing that could we talked about at a PJ tour press conference. It's all so fucking stupid. And it just like you can't wrap your head around.

How any of this is real life. What's Tony P's thing? Alright. Wrap it up. What was that?

No. What is it?

I've got to get off light.

Alright. We have an interview with Max Helba chat about all this stuff. He shines a ton of light on a lot of it. We greatly appreciate Max joining us for this. So stick around for this.

And thank you for doing our little live show. I'll be back on the back end as well to bid you guys to do. But here's Max Helba talking about the changes. Max, match play coming to the PJ tour conclusion. What's your general reaction to this?

Where are you at? When you heard the news or I'm sure you've been up to speed in the process as it's happening. But are you stoked? Do you hate it? Do you love it?

What's up? So I definitely am in the love it camp. There's a lot of it that I totally get. You know, we don't want why people like immediately weren't. I guess jazz some guys, you know, do love the idea.

But we don't play match play all year. It's kind of like we joke about it in college golf. Like it's season ends with like a match play event. And it's like used play stroke play all season. So how are we determining it based off of that?

However, you know, I'm home right now watching the playoffs. And I totally get that. There's so much of that BMW that was in consequential. And it was a very fun golf tournament. But the main, you know, five sports.

And especially UCS sport like football every single week. It's like do or die. And that is the closest thing we can get to that. So I think that there's so much more for the fan to want to see. You know, there's just way more volatility.

I don't know. I just think it's going to be. You're going to see a lot like demise and excitement all. Like immediately kind of like a writer couple presidents cut for every day. You're going to have like a highlight reel of somebody.

Doing something awesome to win a match or whatever.

“So I think it's it's the best way to make it exciting.”

And at some point we've got to. We've been told by the fans that that's what they want. And at some point you've got to pull that. Rip court and do it because I think it will be awesome. And as you know, everything takes a minute to get used to.

But I think once people get used to it's going to be sweet. It's a feel like best of both worlds to having the. And that stroke play regular season finale.

And then you've got like the match play and having it over a two week stretch makes it feel like it's got its own critical mass.

Yes, and I love the idea that like the first bit of it is going to be, you know, like a. A group play type thing where it's not like you don't lose one match and it's just all sorry you're out of here, you know. So I like that. I also like just the idea that the regular season will have its own like championship and that most of like. A lot of the acclates for the season will still like end at the end of that season because I've always been a big fan of.

Listen like a season of excellence should not just wittle down to even how works, you know, how has been working for so long with just like and at the torch championship. That is your slot for the season, you know, it's like, well, I've had great years and. New up years and they'll finish not great at East Lake and it's like, well, that's, you know, you finish 16th this year.

“I remember wronged it one year and I was just like that he had one of the best years, you know, and he fell and the one that always hits home for me is.”

Well, Zalatoris, the year he hurt his back and had to pull out of the BMW was like at the very worst that season, basically. So she with the stagger is going to finish like fourth and he gets hurt has to pull out and he gets 30th place. He gets 30 place money like bonus money and and 30 place on his like card. It's like, no, you had one of the best seasons of everybody and there was nothing he like gained really from that regular season. You know, I was talking to somebody at the tour once, but I was like, imagine you just like, you worked so hard all year and you did a really good job, like you were like employee the month a couple months and you're awesome and on.

The last week of work you went on your, you know, PTO, you went on your vacation and that week your boss came and said, hey, everybody who's here. You get your bonus just like, she's not there couldn't get it, you know, had one of the best years of anybody there.

He did amazing and then it all whittle down so much to like one golfer for your seasons accolades.

“Now I like that for your championships and whatnot.”

I think that's exciting for the fan. It's exciting for us it, but there should be something like to credit someone like a Scotty who every single year has been winning the points list. Like he should get something, but then it's like, hey, we can finally get away from the money stop talking about the money and go like golf for a trophy that we should be like. It's excited about that opportunity to win and and that at some point you got to figure out a way to make the FedEx cup trophy and the season long trophy like the thing and that's been a hard thing for whatever reason to do.

And then the money gets talked about too much this feels like there's a separation and we can finally like focus on like who's going to win the thing not just who's going to get like paid out.

“Plus hopefully a dope venue too. Yes, that that also would be yeah different like even just rotating yeah just that just seems exciting as well.”

So here's here's where I'm excited about this, but I think it's going to be really, really critical that the players are bought in and are something like so the comp I'd make is baseball right there's a 162 game season and then you get down there and it's like a five game series to start you know and it could. But that is you can just you can just buy it anyways. But that is the baseball that matters right like if you're the Dodgers you are going to structure team to be like how can we set the advantage for that series that's the baseball that matters.

And then golf would have a long ways to go to clear that like I don't think you're one it's going to be like this is the golf that matters we have the player championship we have the majors we have the season long points race. So how do you anticipate this not feeling bolted on and you know the energy around it being like this is we took last night on the show was like we're talking about the player of the year conversation before the season finale like the player of the year should just be the winner of the like how do you see what I'm getting at here how do we get this to where like this feels not just bolted on almost silly season championship at the end.

And it yet at the same time like not take away what's happened from the regular season that's a push pull I I'm a little concerned of.

“Well yeah I think we're always going to struggle to.”

Like fight that battle of you know winning a major.

Yeah, I don't think that will never.

Yeah nothing will be bigger than that and that's just I don't know that's just a weird part of our sport however I will say that just personally the the playoffs and especially you know getting to. The finale has felt like a bit especially for me I never played it when it wasn't staggered and when it's not staggered I know. I've had one year where I did awesome it felt impossible to for me to actually win like I was like eight back to start an event. And it's just felt like a payday like how well can you play to make a bunch of money and to me I've never played golf like directly for the money I really don't think about the money very much so.

It was kind of just odd and then as the fan I'm like I don't know why I would care if someone was making more money you know like the only time in sports I really seem to care about that is you know when you have a. You know Baker throws it to Mike Evans for a thousandth reception he gets a bonus it's fun like that's like a fun thing to. I'm not thousandth reception thousand yards whatever he got so he like something like that is the only time as a fan you're like kind of interested in that and then it goes by the way.

If you get again when you separate the two I do feel like over time again to your point it might it won't be probably year one but you're going to if you can start getting the the player to be excited about how. difficult is to win but how attainable it is to win it then I think you start to like put stock as a player in that like reward I feel like it's been so ridiculously hard to win again like any sport it is but in football there's so many less teams there's such a more there's with the volatility like you can get a giant's team that goes in there.

You know, I don't have a chance like I do I just don't have a chance I like read something that year that you know he had lost. Scotty at the start. You know, you know, there's there's a lot to that with golf it's like again I had an incredible year and one year and I am so far behind the best player in the world to start the only week that then matters to win this thing and it's like I don't you know I don't have a chance like I mean I'm playing like I do I just don't have a chance I'd like read something that year that you know he had lost Scotty at the time it lost.

It's like a session when I played is absolutely favored because they trees on the left side of like every hole if favored a guy who drew the ball off the team and again I play great there but yet Zanne and Rory have just killed it and that's great but I just don't see how that's.

When it is distilled to one solid week of stroke play that seems nuts and whatever so it just was hard for us to care now I will say I was someone who did very much care about.

“Trying to win that and everything I do think when you get there you are hyped to do it but it was just hard to really get that up for it now making East Lake has always been like I think the goal.”

So we think that using that isn't that's the next time for fantasy like you know this parts of it are like oh it's cool he made it you know like that they that's great but they don't get how much that like would mean to us and I don't think that they should care about that so. I think over time it.

Because there's a separation because it will be difficult but you're going to see a lot of hopefully different types of winners you know someone who.

“You know more or less obviously you have to have a great year to even have a chance so like you're not going to have some random person that's I think the misconception.”

So the players have had over the time and and I think the tour as well trying to almost like contrive. Yes, the final and that drove me nuts because I was it we're in a meeting year to go and it was like well we just don't want to have someone just randomly went and I was like yo listen if you are in the top 30 or 32 or 28 at the time we're going through all these things that is not there's no way you can say that random I'm sorry like there is no year on this tour with how many events we play and.

And all that that that you can just like be a no name person and make it even too east like and let alone win it the final so I was like so sick of hearing that and and and and I think finally now you're going to have the the fun of it and if it's not contrived I mean we had the. Pacer's thunder finals was incredible and those are two markets that typically you know that it's not like the NBA was stoked about that for ratings you know the nicks and now all of a sudden it's like crazy you need all of that you need somewhere to wow how did that guy winner wow like this is like a quote unquote Cinderella like when or underdog against whatever for so long it's just been like we know issues going to be there.

And it's just like out of those three guys who's going to win that's just like not super exciting and there's fun to it when not when it's the reason to watch.

Yeah, that's really like. There's thunder J.C. posts and versus Russ Henley sure it's just something that they have that and again over that means that over the course that time people have there loads and loads of fans for those people but it's not like. You know, Rory and Scotty are the lightning rods they just are like being on this fan subcommittee. Man when when when they are playing well and and at the top like Rory could win by 50 and people watch religiously and with there's another if I'm winning by 50 it's just the ratings like plummet and it's just.

“It doesn't it's just these guys like have it and it's just been so much like let's make sure then that we get them the latest possible and that's cool, but at some point you have to have you have to have that feeling for the fan to.”

I don't know like like yeah like I don't know I'm a doctor fan, it's probably a horrible thing but Dodgers Yankees when it did happen just out of like looking at the ratings and and from kind of the fan fair of it. Wow this is like a miracle we get the two biggest markets in it and it was exciting because that wasn't you can't contrive that like it just had it worked itself out and then when you have other years where it's not that it's still exciting because I'm going out and watching a team I like don't typically see in here whatever I just think that that's important for the fan to be able to.

The randomness of it in a way and and I do think then the players will start to really look at that is like hey now I can do that and it's just going to feel. Or attainable and then over time I don't know, Theo, I've seen said something years ago that just really hit home he said everything's a gimmick until it's not and he was talking about the pitch clock and baseball and I mean how quickly that just like became seamless and now you know we don't even think about it, but it's like one of the best things it's probably changed the sport ever.

And it just happened and the players yeah well I'm definitely pro that but we can do that a different time but just things like that I don't know just we got you got it it's again at some point you got to do it and the fans have been asked before and it's like that's all that really matters so let's just go do it and see and I think I think the players will enjoy it at the end of the day.

What is the general sentiment amongst you know from top players to you know guys that like yourself that you're you're describing that you're it's opening up a chance for you you know our top players maybe not as as into it kind of take us to what the general conversations been like. I just think in general like I said before about the college golf kind of finale is like match play for us is so random and it's not perfectly really indicative of who should you know always move on that week you could have off day I mean if you look at golf just in general.

You know last week plays just an incredible three rounds of golf you're thinking like he's going to be probably when seven six seven six seven six seven six and then Sunday plays kind of whatever and would have lost and I think for us we're so used to.

If you play the best for a week you win and and it's all just tailored exactly two like who is the best player for a week.

Right as records that I will never be broken and I in my opinion and that doesn't get enough credit is like tiger winning six straight match play golf tournaments throughout the in the junior and to the am like that's just so many matches like not lose so that's difficult now I do think that the structure of like the pool play into. It's a little bit more just straight up like March madness is better because it'll give you a chance to kind of like lose but still have a chance to move on.

“So I do think that'll help but the players definitely like I just think anytime it gets brought up you're just kind of caught you know match plays just such a coin toss but I think that's what sports are.”

Fun and again if the season long race especially with the payout the bonus all those things a lot of that is getting handled before that this becomes like it's own like just championship golf tournament again something that I think over time players will be like so I now I want to win that like I that is that is how the playoffs in sports work so it's I think that'll land but it's not that people are just a completely against it just may like how's this going to work we've also really been worried about the whole TV thing because as you get later.

You have less matches on the course when people lose and they're still on match for you know third we saw at the world come this year like the third place.

It was it was it was but it was that that's always you know especially.

In America I just think we're like why in the world are we doing this like who cares about this but I do think that as when you watch it like oh this is fun so I think there's been a bit of worry about that and that's what we've been told for so long is that like match place tough because on a Sunday there's one match that matters and. In the camp that I think it's going to be cool and I think we need to go see it before we just completely write it off and again when it comes down to it I'm going to keep saying it but the fans have been asked for this and like that is what matters so let's do that like why would we not do that we've kind of fallen flat quite a few times on how this is going to work and that's just been.

“I'm kind of tired of like dancing around it and so as much as the players might have some pushback I do think that.”

I'm pumped that the torches like yeah we're going to do it and way more people than not are like cool with it again but it's just there's of course some hesitancy to it is a humongous change for how. It's different than any term we play all year so but so are the playoff so in another sport so I like that I do wish that we didn't call ours playoff so early because it didn't feel like it but now that we kind of fully bought into that it's like then we need to make it where there's a lot of. There's a lot of stake each each day.

Match play take a golf tournament's stroke play tournaments go like this they crescendo towards the very end match play flips that it is like the reason the first tea at the writer cup is exciting is like. It starts from the jump and if you don't have it for a while you do not have 72 holes to get going and that.

Sound that can sound like nails on the chalkboard to a golfer that plays 72 well stroke play tournaments but the fan that can be like okay let's go I will not miss the first three holes of a match.

“I can tune out for the first three holes on Thursday like I do not need to see that I can catch up on it but for match play that flips that and that's where I think the thinking has been backwards.”

Of like what if we get a bad final it's like well what if you get a great Wednesday like you know it can think it's like that the first weekend of March madness. Yes none of that like necessarily matters like the 16 wins they don't like win the whole thing but it's fun I my coach Mark Blackburn said my first president's cup that he goes he loves these things for the player because at the end of one week of a team event you have a roll of decks of highlights you can use the rest of your life.

And you will remember that forever so when you have a big put later in your career you're going to be like man what's your favorite shot you over his guy I hit this bunker shot on Thursday at the president's cup on 16 and I just like think about it all the time.

“If that was a stroke play event that bunker shots cool but I'm not pumping my chest in like high five and people you know and I think you know kind of.”

Transition that into like how the fans could see it that will be something that. To your point solid about like the first he like you better be if I was playing that match against Victor when he chipped in on the first hole in wrong I mean it was the loudest thing in the world and it said a tone like hold down and.

I don't know you just don't if the he chips that in on the first hole of a tournament it's cool man but it's not.

“Yeah it's just a it's just a birdy so I just think that that is going to turn out to be so exciting for everybody again hopefully the players all continue to like that I think they will.”

Matchley is fun because it is straight up to or die you can get a day where you shoot eight under lose you can get a day where you shoot two over when but it is just about when your match figure out a way to win your match and you know some things are going to change some ways you're going to play holes are going to change.

It's just like how in baseball for one sixty two you play blackjack and and you play a five game series especially maybe you know even in the seven games series and it's like hey.

He's going to figure you know it's just stuff like that is is so fun and different you never do that in the regular season you're not going to maybe you know but is much you're not going to play the same exact game and I love that idea and I am excited for I was going to look and translate to the fans on TV. I think that just stuff is I think there's just so much excitement to it and there's just going to be highlight after highlight instead of hoping to God we have a close Sunday where then the highlights pop out I think now people are going to remember so much more of each year like oh do you remember that you know 28 finale when so and so on Thursday made that I mean when Tiger comes back against JB homes like that's the stuff like that would not that was such a fun day and it's just and it's something that it's like so many people.

Like like so many people remember and I mean most often it's not like JB and Tiger do kind of out on Sunday it's because Tiger was up by so many on everybody by the end of so many events now it's like hey we're going to get this every single day a lot of these highlights and it's going to really matter so I just I I that's why I like it because I am a golf fan. Before a golfer and I've I just want excitement and that just seems more exciting plus the venue like I think I match play allows that to have these great venues and and you know over the edge setups that are going to that are going to dictate having more drama right instead of we like we can't put this pin on this slope because it's not fair.

It's the only this has been my only real hang up I'm all for the kind of they've been saying the signature venues and go into. I don't even know how to put like exclusive places I've always been about rotating I've been a bit worried about the signature idea of it up until a I guess a few days ago and Adam Scott was talking about it to us but. So much of the playoffs in every sport and hours I think revolves around the fan energy at the event and some of these you know kind of signature courses and that model will allow for less fanfare I guess at the event and I think it shows on TV personally like I just think that.

You know when it's 12 million degrees and no one's out there watching which I do not blame them I actually blame the people out there.

You know you can feel it you know you don't get at the roars just kind of off that however I will say that there will be years where it's at a place maybe that doesn't have the infrastructure for tons of people. But then there's going to be year the next time it does and I just I actually think that that's kind of what Adam was explaining and I'll say you know what that actually makes sense there not every year is going to be. You know, east like where they're running behind Tiger Marine just feels like there's every person in the world is at that golf tournament there's going to be other years where it's you know the course is the story.

“But I think having that as an option is really cool and that's when I think I'm going to kind of be on the side of like over years I'm like why don't we not do this forever.”

I think that's when I was so fast in because the course can be the story so often and when you have the same one every year and people are used to it that the story kind of just gets played out.

I think some this week or whatever so I think that that will end up being good as been my hang up because I wanted to look cool on TV but I think that.

“I think blending that with matchfully work just like do or die I think then it all kind of comes together but I'm with you for the setup stuff it's like going to get a lot less people.”

So I think that will really concern about it being perfect. And I get in golf at just not possible game yeah fair it just impossible but on our and that's what we want because we want to prove that over four days I played better than you did and if there's some funky whatever like that might deter from that in this case it's like each day I'm just playing a guy and I got to beat that guy so I think it'll end up. Evening itself out in a good way max last question for you what just the process of this it feels like.

Kind of gone from asking.

“You know instead of finding reasons why something won't work it's like chasing an idea like no like this this would be a great improvement to the product let's let's figure out a way to make it work has that in kind of the guiding.”

Like and and your someone who hasn't been in the room for like these meetings are taking this to you like on the on the larger membership what have you felt like well I'm kind of the longer answer to this is I know a lot of people who are in the room. I respect and admire so much the time they've put into this and the models they've thrown out and how many have just immediately by the players just been like. They get you know jumped on for it and I wish people would give it a second and like to breathe because I do think that a lot of the ideas have been shot down have been good but the time that they've put into this is really remarkable and I do think that they should be.

“And a lot more credit for like just how much work's gone into the kind of like storyboard how are we going to make this work and what are we going to change but I think it starts with again like.”

The fans said they want x y and z like okay what what of that is feasible possible what what part it's just not going to be what they think it is and then it's okay but if like this is if X is what they want how how do we make that happen instead of just being like we can't do that. I remember another story, Theo, Epstein told us about the whole baseball thing as they asked baseball fans like what is what are your favorite parts about baseball and they were like you know in play action so like diving catches whatever and home runs and then stolen bases was one of them.

And they went through he's like all right we got it how do we make bases are stealing bases more of a thing because it just has become not it's not you know the the smart thing to always try it just so hard to do and they went through all these things and finally someone just like what if we made the bases bigger so sick. It's so sick but it's just the whole his whole point was these those we are going to figure out how to do this we're not just going to say ah we can't that's not how that works and I was like man that's just that's the answer to everything to your pointy sees like how like how do we do it so match play again like a thousand.

Interations I've not even heard but thought of and heard so many of them and be like that's not going to work doesn't work but it just was like we're going to figure out a format that this works where it is quote unquote fair for the player in some way. And where it is what the fan has been clamoring for so I just think that again I I'm I try my best when they bring an idea to recognize that this isn't just the idea they came up with 45 minutes ago.

It's difficult because so many players the first thing you do or so many people I guess just immediately go like well you have a that part won't work.

And it's like yeah great but like we keep the keep kind of like the nucleus of this and like how to how can we make that work and I'm really pumped for the that the tour that the players that the you know higher ups have like kept that focus because. I don't know if there's a difference of this they could have just been like you know what let's just do. Ex instead and and it would have been so much easier but they kept kind of pushing for it like we're going to make this thing with the nucleus. Be a part of it like how and I'm very proud of that for them because that is hard you know our pack meetings especially not the board ones that I haven't been in the pack ones are fun everyone there's so many people in there's so many opinions.

But sometimes just like the smallest part where you're just like pulling your hair out because you're like that part is we can change that. Hang up on that and I did I did that last meeting about the signature course thing I was like very kind of just like how is this going to work like this you know what if nobody comes out just but and then that's again and why it's important to have these people are.

But it's tough you know our doors you know 220 equal people or however many people we have equal opinions equal everything and you know.

Ex like eight of them or whatever are working on this twenty four seven so it's like unfair for me just coming back now like that. They thought about that so you asked the questions you work through it but they've they've held strong in all these things and I'm pumped for them with that because. I love this I do hope that we stop changing so often it's been old news I mean I'm very tired of having to do this every like two or three years you know just have these like the the press release it the finale about what we're changing.

“I do think that this has some legs it's going to take a minute to for people get used to I think it's just going to be a thousand times more exciting and cut throat and I just think fans love that so.”

Good for the guys who who made this happen because it's a it's a big sweeping change but it is directly. Is directly impacted and and and and push along by the fans opinions of like what they love and what they want to see.

Awesome appreciate your time as always max thanks for joining us today and yeah we're stoked to see it as well and.

Best of luck with with the fall and whatever you got going man it's a it's a it's a you know different time different different different different different era. Yeah mostly just school drop off so yeah.

“What I got going on this time of year nowadays used to be sitting on my butt but now it's actually way harder.”

Thank you my friend. See you guys. All right that it's going to do it for today's show in the spirit of things that you know we've been asking the PGA tour to do and putting into motion.

There is a premier tonight APM eastern time on PGA tour YouTube channel of chasing Sunday the second iteration of that will be from the BMW championship.

They had wind a mic up for all of it they they hit the jackpot with this one.

“Getting the winner the tournament in there we've.”

Long asked for an NFL sounds of the game the one from the players I thought was excellent some really good content so the second iteration of that is coming tonight as well. This week you know you brought podcasts is brought to you in part by the nest the nest is our membership program here at no laying up. We are a completely independent and we and support from the nest members they fund our ability to make all kinds of stuff we believe in earlier this month we released a film called keep showing up.

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