Another White House meeting, but no deal. What's the hold-up?
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. Well folks, the Mexico Open may have been so bad.

that it was in fact good. I mean, the golf down the stretch on the back nine of Adanto World was brutal. Missed greens, failed up and downs, missed putts. In the playoff, you had a wild pull hook with a five iron, then a disgusting low slice that was going way out of bounds before banging off the trees and produced one of the luckiest winners ever in Brian Campbell. Rex, was this the tournament of the year?

He waded into that with a lot of negativity. I don't think I'm going to quite go down that road. I think the overtime, the two extra holes was entertaining. You're right. There was a lot of bad golf, certainly in regulation. I think it's when Pocketer hit that five iron left of left and he hadn't done that.

So you can clearly see, and I kind of started thinking about this the last couple of weeks. I think sometimes we discount how hard it is to actually win on the PGA Tour, especially if you're a player like Brian Campbell, who's done it now for a really long time. 31-year-old, had never won a PGA Tour sanction event. That's on the PGA Tour. That's on the Corn Fairy Tour. That's in Canada. That's anywhere. As a matter of fact, best I could tell, according to his bio on the PGA Tour website, the last time he won, he was in college.

So you get an idea of how difficult this has been for him. And at some point, I'm blown away by the idea that he kept telling himself that, yes, this is going to happen. I don't have that kind of resolve. I don't know about you. I can't do something for a decade waiting for it to happen and think to myself that, no, it'll happen eventually. I know. I've got it. Not only...

Did he have a decade plus of trying to figure out how to do this? But I was taken, and I think our colleague on the NBC broadcast put it best, notable gay, when he was talking about the differences between these two players. And I think Pike Gator, he called a true slugger. You look at ball speed, how far he hits it, just kills it. I mean, it has every advantage that the modern player has on the PGA Tour. And Brian Campbell looks like he was chiseled out of the 1970s.

I mean, when you look at that last hole they played in regulation, and I don't know why this number stood out to me so much, but Pat Keeter's ball speed on the final hole of regulation, the 72nd hole, 194 miles an hour. That's crazy fast. That's really, really good. Oh, yes. Campbell's, would you like to venture a guess on Campbell's?

I wrote it down too, is 164. 164, 30 miles an hour. 30 miles an hour difference, ball speed. That's insane. You never see that. It's like they're not even playing the same game is what gets me. And the fact that it came down to the 18th hole, not once, not twice, but three times.

And it's a par five. And for pot beater, it's a relatively easy par five because he could always reach into, as you pointed out, Campbell got the bounce of a lifetime that was going way out of bounds, so far out of bounds. And he ended up executing after that. I don't want to gloss over the idea that it was a really, really tough three wood off a hard pan underneath the tree to just get himself back into play. And the wedge shot that he hit in there, essentially the tap in range was amazing. But when you look at the advantages of,

that the South African had in this. I'm blown away by that.

I mean, I certainly am. And I think, I do think Brian Campbell, despite my intro here, calling it one of the luckiest winners ever. Like he is a player who is worth celebrating, right? This is a player who had not been on the PG tour prior to this year, since 2017, when he was his lone season on the PG tour, he had just two top 25 finishes. So to your point, like trying to win a golf tournament, he's, he's relying on and trying to draw on memories and experiences and feelings that he has, that he hasn't felt in more than a decade.

And to be able to pull it off despite a significant disadvantage in talent, in power, in precision versus the player that he was facing is extraordinary. And I think the bounce back...

that he had really showed me a lot. He used the word grit in the interview with Damon Hack, and Damon's going to join us here later on in the program. That's a perfect word to describe Brian Campbell's career, the grit and the determination it showed to get back on the PGA Tour, to lose his card on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2021, get back on the Korn Ferry Tour, finish runner-up three times last season to then earn his card,

To have a very shaky performance down the back nine at Vedanta World. To then have, obviously, a shot that was going out of bounds, going to lose the golf tournament on the second playoff hole. To bounce back with the three-wood, then wedge it to three and a half feet. Like, it's a great bounce back. It's a great story.

Sausage finger up, please. Sausage finger up. We're going to try to do real TV here. Play along with me. All right, let's try to see if we can do this. All right, Goldie, let's see if we have a shot sheet. Let's bring it up. I want to see that tee shot on the last playoff hole. Get an idea of how far actually right it's going to go. Because had it not been for just an amazing bounce, there you can see it.

The shot tracer way behind the tree. I mean, we have this shot in our arsenal, like the low, I do that all the time. The low slice. We never, ever get the bounce back. Like that thing is going, that thing's crashing off roof lines here in Northeast Florida.

He gets the break of a lifetime and he still hit it 225 yards. Now, had this had this par five, but longer, had there been more trouble, then you probably would not have been able to escape. But like the way that he played from that stretch to shake off a little skanky slice to the right, like.

It was super impressive. I don't think Brian Campbell is going to be a world beater. I don't think he's going to win PGA Tour Player of the Year. I don't think the Mexico Open will go down as one of the most memorable tournaments of the year. But this is a career-changing victory for Brian Campbell. He earned it. He deserved it. I look forward to seeing what he does from this point. How about Aldrich Potgeeter, though?

Rex, I mean, this is a kid who we're becoming fast and well acquainted with over the past couple of months on the PGA Tour. Had a chance to win the Farmers Insurance Open just a couple of weeks ago. Now has a chance to win the Mexico Open. What stands out to you about Potgeater other than, obviously, his prodigious power?

Well, the power is the one that stands out. And I hadn't seen this, but they showed it during the NBC broadcast where he was playing on the Junior President's Cup team for the internationals. I believe it was at Quail Hollow during that one in Charlotte. And there was a moment when he walked up and borrowed Adam Scott's driver. And you remember the media center for...

for that President's Cup was on the far side of the range over a massive net. And I don't remember anyone ever getting close to that. And I guess in this moment, not having warmed up, not having his own driver, Ayo mails it over the screen into the media center, essentially. So yes, I think the power is just another example of the modern professional. I mean, I think it's amazing to see what he can do with the golf ball. But it was his poise coming down the stretch. He clearly did not have his best up on Sunday. 71 is probably...

three shots over what the scoring average was on the final round maybe even more than that and so he clearly struggled it was really all around the greens too which is kind of amazing when you look at what he had been able to do through three rounds I think that's just nerves I think that's part of the learning process for someone who was just 20 years old it's really easy to look at how he struggled on Sunday and sort of dismiss his chances going forward but I think that would be

simply because of how much talent he has and how at ease he seemed to be. Even in the interview after the fact, I believe it was with our colleague Smiley Kaufman, he talked about, look, I'm going to learn from this. There wasn't a lot of emotion there. I'm sure deep down inside he was burning up a little bit, but he has a clear head that doesn't go along with someone who's 20 years old. No, I mean, the kid has a championship pedigree already.

At the age of 20. I mean, he was the second youngest British Am winner. He became the youngest winner last year on the Corn Fairy Tour, breaking the record that was held by Jason Day for more than a decade. He was vying to become the sixth youngest winner on the modern era on the PGA Tour. I mean, he's clearly a bit of a flawed player. And we're going to get into his flaws here in just a second. But like, to me, this is exactly, Rex, what the Aeon Swing 5 was designed for.

for a player like Aldrich Potguider to make his way inside that top five, potentially then earn starts in signature events. Then we can see a player who clearly has all the tools to be a really good dominant player at this level in the years to come. But I want to see how he does.

in a signature event at Bay Hill. I want to see how he does when he's stacked up against the Rory's and the Scottish. Sure, he might look dominant for stretches of time at the Mexico Open, but what's he going to do at a top-heavy field like you see in the signature events? And now, if he continues to play well, he can start to earn those spots

in the signature events. Obviously, the power is what stands out to me. And if Aldrich Podkeeter can somehow tighten up his short game just a little bit, I mean, we're looking at basically a better version of what Cam Champ has been on the PGA Tour. And Cam Champ is a multiple winner on the PGA Tour. This is a player, and Podkeeter was 134th in scrambling on the Corn Fairy Tour last year. You remember he was in the final group at Torrey Pines just a couple weeks ago.

The farmer's insurance open. He was two shots back heading into Sunday, shot 78 in the final round. Where does pressure show up on the PGA tour wrecks? It shows up on and around the greens.

And that day, that final round at Torrey Pines, Potgeeter was one of six scrambling. He needed 34 putts and made less than 50 feet of putts. Fast forward to Sunday at the Mexico Open, just two of eight scrambling. He had flubs. He had blades. He failed to get it up and down both times in the playoff and could only make par four.

on a hole in which he was hitting no more than five iron into the green. And so that's going to come with time. That's going to come with experience. These are different grasses, different golf courses, different, I think, skill set to perform well on the PGs or he's going to get there. He's going to be a very fun player to watch over the next couple of years. But I think with this Aon swing five, we may not have to wait long just to see how he stacks up against the game's best.

I actually had a tour swing coach text me in the middle of that final round pointing out. I think the part that this coach pointed out to me, and I think it's something valid about it. He probably needs to improve his technique a little bit on a short game when it comes to some of those chips. I think there's also something to be said for those grasses that they had to deal with this week. It was sort of a mixture of Bermuda and there was some overseed in there. So you could end up with sort of a fluffy lie or you could end up with what you normally have. And we'll see it in a couple of weeks during the Florida swing where normally just Bermuda, it just dropped to the bottom.

And so we was kind of in between. So you're sort of having to do technology.

Take a hybrid approach to how you wanted to play some of these shots. But yes, there's certainly something to it. It's finishing 28th for the week in scrambling in the field in Mexico. The part that stands out to me is I didn't realize he could be that good of a putter. He was first in the field in putting, picked up over nine shots. That's really, really impressive. So whatever deficiencies he may have, and I tend to believe this swing coach that it probably is a little bit of technique at this point. And he is still very, very young and there's a lot of time and room for him to improve on that. But

If you have a touch, if you have touch like he has on the greens, that covers up a lot of warts.

And like, this is not a, a uncommon problem where you see these big blasts who are coming now out on the PG tour, even who are coming from the college game where they can hit it a mile. They got 190 ball speed, but they're a little unrefined with their wedge play. The little shoddy on and around the greens, like they'll get there. And the beauty of it is they're 19, 20, 21 years old. Like there was going to be plenty of time. There's plenty of runway for them to refine them skills. But I think, you know, you can't, you can't really add, you know,

the immense prodigious power that he has. You can, yeah, you can maybe go full Bryson and bulk up that way, but that obviously comes with a lot of risks. And so already having that immense skillset, which is so grossly rewarded on the PGA tour, and then having to get into the little delicacies, I think is going to be really great when it comes to Aldrich Paikita. But isn't that, isn't that the beauty, Rex?

Two of the PGA Tour that you had the longest hitter on the PGA Tour, an Aldrick Pike hitter, going up against a guy in Brian Campbell who was literally the shortest. Multiple ways to get it done, and it's the short guy who wins the PGA Tour. Isn't that the beauty of it?

It really is. And again, it didn't even seem like those two were playing the same game on a couple of holes because it seems to me that Pipe Gator had such an advantage. But you're right. This takes me back to earlier in my career when you had a lot of young players. You had a Corey Pavin who, as the game emerged into this bomb. Good God, you are old.

I am very, very old, but, and there was a lot of players, our own colleague, Trip Eisenhower is probably a little bit more of an updated example of that where Trip never had prodigious power. He was never going to go out and overpower a golf course, but his wedge game and his putting was so good. It mitigated the field on that front. And I also want to point out that,

that it is effortless power when it comes to potg. It doesn't seem like he's trying to kill it. It just seems like he has that extra power, despair almost when you look at the way he finished it. Another one that, and we're going to move on here real quick, that sort of caught me was Joel Damon. And we're going to talk a little bit about him later in the show when we have Damon on. But finished tied for sixth. That moves him to 57th on the points list. After what he went through last year, I think that's another example of how these full field events can really benefit the rank and

Wow. Yeah. Back to back top tens on the PG tour for Joel Damon. So many guys had an opportunity to win this golf tournament. Isaiah Salinda thought he might be looking at a playoff, ends up finishing one shot. Shy Aaron Rye had a hot start, got into the lead, gave it up over the back nine as well. Ben Griffin had a chance. Steven Yeager had a chance in the end is Brian Campbell, the winner of the Mexico open after this break, we'll have Damon hack, but just as a reminder, Rex, we actually do this podcast twice a week.

Only once on linear television. Rex and I'll be back on Wednesday for another edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. This time with a preview of the cognizant classic in the Palm Beaches and all the other happenings in the world of golf. DHAC coming up on the other side of this short break. And we're pleased to be joined now by Damon Hack, the Golf Today co-host, our friend who's getting some dirt under his fingernails this past week.

in Mexico and DHAC. We appreciate you taking the time. Thanks so much for joining us. You just had an opportunity to interview Brian Campbell, the winner of the Mexico Open. What'd you ask him? It was so fun. I said, listen, you turned pro 10 years ago. You had your PGA Tour card in 2017, lost it, got the card back last year. I said, what did it take for you to climb this mountain? And he said, it took grit. He says, I just kind of hung around, hung on, kept fighting, kept climbing, and

totally outgunned by Aldrich Pottgieter, who had him by 40 yards of pop. You basically have the ultimate David versus Goliath story, this kind of young 20-year-old and Pottgieter, whole life ahead of him, and you have this kind of grizzled veteran journeyman who found a way, found the slingshot, as it were, and birdied that

Second extra playoff hole, had a great break on the playoff where his drive was headed out of bounds, got a kick of a lifetime, got up and down, and got his first win on the PGA Tour. It was an awesome watch. I saw the interview, Damon. It was awesome. Very good job. I think you and I are very similar when it comes to those interviews, especially on Sunday when you're trying to get the best out of the winner and the loser sometimes in that situation. You and I both seem to really struggle with those sometimes. I mean, I spent a lot of time going over those questions. What did you leave in the notebook? What didn't you ask him?

Gosh, you know what? He has a great support system in South Carolina, Colleton River.

I would have had a fourth question, probably would have asked him about that. Maybe I would have asked him about rooming with Jake Knapp last year's winner. They shared a house on the edge of a driving range in Costa Mesa, somewhere in Southern California. When they were both grinding, you remember Jake Knapp was a bouncer. Interesting, the last two winners here and the stories that they've had, the stories of struggle in grinding. We spent so much time talking about the tippy-tippy top.

of this game. I've enjoyed being here this week as a reminder of kind of the other half and larger than half. Really, this is the majority of PGA Tour players. It's struggle, it's grind, it's finding a way. So,

Had I had some extra time and we hadn't been already going over as it was, I would have loved to have kind of gotten into his backstory a little bit. But, you know, he's a 31-year-old and went to the University of Illinois. Mike Small said he's one of the best putters he ever had. You think about the guys that have come through that program, like Thomas Petrie, Thomas Peters, and here he was.

Life after some early struggle and now he's a PGA Tour winner and something he'll have forever and he's into the signature events, into the players, into the masters, into the PGA Championship. What a great second win in second life he now gets to enjoy.

I'm kind of a journalism geek, as you know. I study the sideline reporters. I think there's a fascination with them. They tend to be pretty polarizing. But folks like Tom Rinaldi, Holly Rowe, Molly McGrath, I think all do an excellent job. What is your strategy for, quote unquote, sideline reporting or post round interviews? How do you go about it? Can you let the viewer know a little bit about what your process is? And I think that could be kind of illuminating for some viewers.

Absolutely. I always have some questions ready to go. First question, you know, kind of an opener to hopefully, you know, get some good answers flowing. I think the best thing that a journalist can do is ask a who, what, when, where or why question and then get out of the way. I try to avoid the yes or no questions. Maybe your interview subject's a little shy. The last thing you want to hear is just yes.

or no, a short-clipped answer. So I try to ask a question that leads to a broad answer, maybe kind of an overarching question. And for me, with Brian, it was a 10-year question

gap from turning professional to winning for the first time on the PGA Tour. So I tried to go that way. I also try to listen to that first answer in particular. Sometimes it leads to a different second question that I would have had in mind. In this case, the producer Tommy Roy wanted to get to the good bounce that he got off that tree in the second playoff hole. So the second question was going to be about that, about the great bounce and the ability to get it up and down for the four. And then finally,

It was the closer. It was the fact that, listen, you're so outdone. What was the process of not just sticking to your game plan, but trusting that it was good enough to win and to beat Aldrich Pott-Dieter? And he said, basically, it's all he had. He didn't have another route. He couldn't dig for another 20, 30 yards off the tee in this modern game. He stuck with what he had. It was good enough.

And he got the job done. But as Rex knows, I think the best thing to do is to ask a short, good question. I think short questions often lead to long answers. I try not to ask. You want to answer the question in the question. You want to kind of set the interview subject up to shine. That's what I try to do. Ask the question. Get out of the way. And hopefully it's a good who, what, when, where, and why question that leads to something interesting for the viewer at home.

And you touched on the most important part. Listen to the answers, because a lot of time we end up getting something that you're right, aren't in our notebooks. It's something we hadn't thought about. And you redirect and you go back into maybe what they want to talk about. Now, you've done some really good reporting. Interesting. I've been a little jealous. You've done it on a boat ride. There's a boat ride between the hotel. Give us the best moments on that boat ride back and forth all week long.

unbelievable just the access that you get so basically on that friday my producer tommy roy was like let's find a player who's on the range

to take the boat ride over. It turned out Eric Van Royen was on the driving range after his round, had made three birdies in a row to close out the round and make the cut. Better yet, he was celebrating a 35th birthday on Friday. So I know his caddy a little bit, Alex Goggart. So I just went up to those guys. I've interviewed Eric a lot. His wife Rose was there as well. So that was kind of an easy one. I said, hey man, you know, my producer wants me to get an interview with the

a player who's going to make the ride from the driving range across La Mecca River from Jalisco into the state of Nayarit. And Eric was totally game. He was very comfortable during the interview. I said, can I get you some sushi, maybe a hot towel? And he had a good chuckle. And he said, yeah, I need a massage as well. So he was just totally game to talk about the comforts of this tournament. He's played very well.

in Mexico, got his last win in the fall of 23 at the Worldwide Technology Championship. He was in a great mood coming off of three straight birdies to play his way into the weekend. And that was a fun interview to do. Also did a cool walk and talk with Aldrich Apatider, such a nice young man, 20 years of age. This was his 10th career PGA Tour start, loses in a playoff. But during the walk and talk, to Rex's point about listening,

After the first question, he was talking about the game plan. He said, you know, me and my caddie, we come up with a par score every round.

So that immediately caught my attention. So my second question was, it was do tell. What is your par score or your target score? Par 67, just like Bryson Adagasta. It's very, very similar. His was 66. He took it one better because he said I got four par fives and a drivable par 47. So it was five under 66 for Ponteater. And thankfully he was comfortable enough.

with me to give me that information. He could have said, well, I don't want to tell what my par score is. Maybe not wanting to sound a little too eager or rambunctious or precocious, but he was kind enough to share that score with me and the viewers. And you guys know, we hunt for gold. We want nuggets. We want to inform and enlighten the viewer. And

We're all dimpleheads. We love this game, and we're golf nerds at the end of the day. I've been a golf nerd for a long time now, so I just love scooping up the nuggets and trying to get a little bit smarter out here and inform the viewer as well.

DeHack, this was your first time out of the studio cage in 2025. But one of the big missions for the PGA Tour this year that they've talked endlessly about is sort of broadcast innovation and sort of bringing the action closer to the fans than ever before. And that obviously involves engaging the athletes. This was your first crack at it. You mentioned the boat ride. You mentioned the in-round interview. How do you think it went? And what do you think you can expect over these next couple of months with your job?

I think the players are embracing it. In fact, I bumped into Smiley Kaufman and his wife, Francie. I was with my wife, Susanna. The boys were, you know, they didn't want to go out to dinner with the old folks anymore, so we let them stay in the room. So I'm out with my wife. Smiley's out with who better have. And I said, Smiley, do me a favor. When you talk to JT, tell him thank you for that memo because I think it makes the coverage better.

I think it makes Golf Central better, podcasts better, the Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday, NBC Saturday and Sunday. Our friends at CBS, I'm sure, are appreciative. It just elevates the broadcast. Information is...

insight as JT's talked about being a college football fan. He loves the interviews before the game starts and coming out of halftime, halftime adjustments. I think any way that we can elevate the broadcast, access to the players, I think can only be good for all of us, for us as broadcasters and journalists and for the viewers at home and for the players as well who want

that extra camera time too so i think jt's memo and message has been heard loudly and clearly and i think we'll all be better for it as the year wears on

Damon, I want to go back to last Thursday. It was a busy day for both of us, obviously, with the commissioner, Tiger Woods, meeting with the president of the United States, as well as the governor of the Public Confessment Fund of Saudi Arabia. You did a bunch of really good interviews. The one that stand out to me was Joel Damon. The idea that here are the guys that are probably going to be impacted the most if there is a deal. What did you take from all of your reporting that day?

Yeah, it was interesting being at an event like Mexico with only four of the top 50 in the world as opposed to this news breaking during a signature event when you're talking to

the scotties the jts the rory's etc and talking to to joel and in particular sam ryder sam someone who's kind of ridden the bubble of being a pj2 member for for much of his career i want to say six out of seven years he's finished right around that 125 mark he said listen i know we're talking about pathways and and you know making the game exciting and you know people want to see stars and i know that the narrowing of pathways might hurt me so here he was saying listen we want

unification, even if it does hurt me. And it was a reminder that the guys here, man, this week, it's their players. It's their masters. Even as we talk about unification and how do you bring back Bryson and John, Rom, there'll be some players here in Mexico that this affects negatively. It could be a Sam Ryder. It could have been a Brian Campbell, if not for a hot week that he had this week. So very interesting always to remember Bryson.

that when you're talking about narrowing pathways and going from 125 to 100 or bringing back some live golfers, it could be at the expense of guys like Sam Ryder and Brian Campbell.

But you've covered the game's biggest events. You've covered major championships. You've covered signature events in the PGA Tour. Like what's the difference now in in covering these full field events? And do you think there's still a place for them on the new look PGA Tour or should they be relegated to some sort of like Corn Fairy Tour plus circuit?

It's an interesting question, and I'll give you a little insight into our dinner table last night. My wife and I, she's like, what's up with Greg Norman? Is he still with Liv? Is he still the CEO? How much time you got? I mean, right? I went all the way back to the 90s and the World Golf Championship ideas. Awful dinner. I mean, it was a fact. My wife wanted to know what's going on with that. He's not the CEO. He's kind of still a part of it, but it reminded me of how

Even as great as Tiger was, what did he win? Did he win like 18 World Golf Championships, some crazy number? It was very, very hot. I think he was 18. Double-check that. But for some reason, some of those events that didn't have cuts, it just lacked a little bit of that fire, a little bit of that tension on Friday. I mean, think about what we had with Luke Clanton a few weeks ago in Phoenix. The David and Goliath story. I'm not smart enough to know what this –

best case professional golf landscape looks like. But I do know that styles make fights. And I do know that Bob May versus Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods versus Rocco Mediate is awfully compelling. I do know that a 20-year-old PGA Tour rookie in Aldrich Pott Eater versus a 31-year-old journeyman in Brian Campbell is captivating in good television. So listen, yes, I think stars are important. LeBron James, LeBron,

Luca, the Joker, you know, Magic and Bird back in the day, obviously Tiger v. Phil Doral or with David Duvall, Augusta in 2001. But I still think there's room for the underdog. And I just know that whatever it looks like, whether it's signature or not, you've got to have those underdog stories. At least I'm old school. I think they still have a place in this game.

Always the Lakers guy. Always got to bring up the Lakers. I appreciate it. Labner mentioned it. You broke free of the desk this week. You wanted to go down. You wanted to do some reporting. You're on the road for the next couple of weeks. Why do you want to do this? You could sit in that desk. You're the king of that desk. That could be your career. But Amon's got a million conspiracy theories. You'd be a great sounding board for the entirety of your life. Why do you want to get on the road? I think my job wouldn't be as good. I wouldn't be as good at it if I was just

sitting at that desk for 12 months out of the year. I need to be out on the road, get some nuggets, be able to say, you know what? I spoke to Isaiah Salinda when he was one shot short of a playoff. I was out there and watched pot eater, you know, with the bit between his teeth, you know, leading the tour and driving distance, not just this week, but this season to shake his hand and to say, Hey man, better luck next time. Hope to see you down the road to learn that, you know,

It was his grandmother who had a premonition when Aldrich was three years of age, had a dream that her grandson should be a professional golfer, told the family to get some plastic clubs for Aldrich when he was three years of age. And that's when the golf bug bit this young man. I'm not going to get that kind of insight today.

from sitting behind the desk. So being outside on the road, bringing those stories back to the studio makes me better in the studio. And I also think being in studio helps me when I'm out outside on the road, just because the players, if they watch Golf Channel, they've seen this old face before. But I think being on the road helps me there. I think being in studio helps me when I'm out on the road. Damon Hack has had street cred for years, folks, if not decades. D-Hack,

We appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much. Go enjoy dinner with your family. We'll see you at PGA National, the Cognizant Classic next week. Thanks so much for joining us. As Bart Scott once said, can't wait.

All right, Rex, I want to get back to the big news of the past week, which was the second in-person meeting between representatives of the PGA Tour and President Trump in the White House. The PGA Tour called it a, quote, constructive working session and said they're now, quote, initiating a discussion about the reunification of golf. First of all, that statement caught my eye. What have you been doing since June 2023 if not working and initiating a discussion about the reunification of golf?

You slept on it. You said the PGA tour in the president of the United States. There was someone else there that probably makes this a bigger deal. And that was Yasser Al-Gurmayan. He's the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. He wasn't in the original meeting on February 4th when the president met with representatives from the tour. And that is a huge escalation in the negotiations, I would say. I was blown away. I have a friend that was the undersecretary for FEMA years and years ago. And he actually texted me late in the afternoon on Thursday. He said, no one, no one ever meets with the president of the United States for four hours.

hours. At tops, you get 15 minutes because as you can imagine, the leader of the free world's got a lot on his plate. There's a lot going on. So the idea that he dedicated four plus hours to trying to fix professional golf is surreal to the extreme. It also kind of shows you

where these negotiations are. Because I think there was the idea going into Thursday, into these meetings, that they could walk out of the Oval Office with some sort of agreement, at least in principle, was the understanding that there could have been a photo opportunity on the East Lawn where everyone's smiling and we finally have some sort of

or maybe a better way of saying it is we're a step closer to some sort of resolution. So the idea that we didn't get there gives you an idea that there's still some serious sticking points. And my understanding is one of them is can team golf be profitable? And this boils down to the basic of terms. This is all about finances at this point. The idea that the tour has already taken on $1.5 billion in investment. And then whatever, if there is a 50 or whatever that would be, you would think somewhere close to that. So,

So now it's taken on $3 billion essentially in debt.

you need to find a way to make this product that is not profitable yet. I'm not saying we're going to get into this later. I'm not saying that team golf cannot be profitable. I'm not saying live golf is a bad idea. Please stop coming at me on this. It just isn't yet. So give it an opportunity. The idea that somehow they're going to make all that work seems to be one of the big sticking points. Cause as we've talked about before, the financial element of this should be the easier side.

The standard has been set. The market is there. We know what SSG invested. We know what percentage that is. And if you just take the DOJ out of it, which I think it's safe to assume that these two meetings with the president of the United States pretty much take the DOJ out of it.

out of the equation that, okay, there's the market. So where this is getting hung up is exactly what these two tours are going to look like. To your point, that line stood out to me as well, because I'm with you. What have you been doing since June of 2023? I think is a very fair question that I think fans are going to have. Four hours.

Second meeting and did not yet come to, as you said, a deal in principle. To me, that was almost a little troubling that you worked for that long and you still couldn't come to some sort of resolution. What's your sense, Rex, of like what the next steps are for this? You would obviously think more meetings or progression. The PGA Tour policy board is supposed to meet sometime within the next week. Like what's your expectation of how this can go now over these next coming days and weeks?

The policy board meets Monday down in South Florida, which is why I'm heading to South Florida on Monday morning to be there if and when something does happen. I will answer that question, but I'm a little bit more curious because you and I didn't touch base on Thursday. I was a little bit busy with this going on. How did you digest what was going on? Because I think the world in general –

thought, okay, a deal is going to get done. You don't have this opportunity to sit in the White House for four hours. So how did you digest it? I mean, you got aggregated all over the place. I did. With your first hit, it was either on golf, I think it was Golf Central pregame, in which you said the deal in principle line

And that, I think, sent social media ablaze. Why? There was an expectation. They kept breaking in every 15 minutes for a T. Lou update. They kept running over and over again. So there was an expectation, especially when you meet for that long, that you should be able to hammer out a deal. Again, the leader of the free world spending four hours trying to reunify golf, which has been bitterly divided.

for almost three years at this point. And so I think, you know, listening to Jay Monahan a couple weeks ago at Torrey Pines, listening to Tiger Woods in the booth at Torrey Pines, listening to Roy McIlroy a couple weeks ago at Torrey Pines, I think there was an expectation like, yeah, we're getting like

We're getting to the brink of this thing. We're finally on the doorstep of a deal. Tiger Woods, when asked if he could see players reunified on the PGA Tour, said yes. When asked if it could be soon, he said yes. When asked, like, you talking about this year? Yes. So, like, the expectation was, yeah, we're definitely coming to a head at this point. Instead, it did not happen. And yet you stood there. Actually, excuse me. You sat there in your house with your silly little suit on.

Eating dinner, eating lunch, eating snacks for the entirety of the day. I'm more curious, how was your day handling what should have been, what could have been breaking news for Golf Channel?

I think it's a huge violation of my privacy where you're going with this. So I just want to put that out there. You and my wife have violated my privacy, and I don't appreciate this in the least. I walked into this office, sat here in this very chair about 8 o'clock, 8 a.m., Thursday morning, and didn't really walk out finished until past 8 p.m. when we finally did the last hit. That's when I finally walked out.

And that is a bowl of spaghetti. And yes, now the secret is out. Bowl of spaghetti? What are you, 12? Yes, apparently I am. But yes, the secret is out that nine times out of 10, when I'm sitting at this desk in a suit and tie that I have shorts on underneath. Now I have shorts. Those are workout shorts. I'm not sitting here and anything else. Like I wear shorts. I'm comfortable. I have to get up.

I'm moving around. But that's what I wore all day long. And now that I see it, it's not a good look. And I'm even more angry that you and my wife have violated my trust. No, we need like an NC-17 rating on this thing. You see those chicken legs here, especially with the show is re-airing at 9 and 11 Eastern Time on Golf Channel. I think seriously, though, Rex, like what this is going to come down to is who has the most to gain

in these negotiations? Like this thing is all about leverage, particularly when you're dealing with more than a billion dollars at stake. So in your opinion, who does have the most to gain? Is it the PGA Tour side or is it the Saudis? Oh, wow. That's a good question. I think it depends on who you ask. And it is interesting talking with people from both sides because

The last few days, because I think there is a feeling on the live golf side that they will continue on regardless of what happens with these negotiations. I'm not quite sure that's the feeling on the PGA Tour side. And the idea is if you if they reach, let's say that a deal has been reached.

in principle for the financial terms. Then we actually do have to sit down and get down to the business of how do you make them work together? And I think one of the key phrases that we need to keep leaning into, and I think people need to pay attention to, and this is something that Jay Monahan said last or two weeks ago at Torrey Pines, one umbrella. He wants both tours. One tour was his exact phrase. One umbrella could mean something entirely different.

Exactly. Because if you look at one umbrella, you could sit and imagine a scenario where, okay, one umbrella where you have both tours still running parallel, separate but parallel, and maybe you have some cross-pollination. You have live players playing in tour events, tour players playing in live events. That, to me, would be the easiest in the short term.

I don't know if that's the option, because to answer your question, I think the leverage goes right now. And I was told this after Thursday's meeting of people who have met Yasser Al-Rumaiyya. And they talk about what a shrewd negotiator he is. And I can only imagine being in his very, very expensive shoes sitting in the White House where it seems to me the president of the United States is trying to wield an enormous amount of power.

to get this done and to sit in that chair and simply to nod and to stick with whatever it is you feel like is the hang up here and i would say the same thing about jay monahan commissioner of the pga tour because it seems to me that both sides have some things that have some things that they want to cling to and they're not willing to give much real estate because if they did i think we would have had some sort of agreement and principle the idea that and we've had this conversation before

Where there's quite a few contracts on the left side coming due at the end of this year. And maybe from the tour's perspective, you do want to wait it out. And you do want to see, is the public investment fund going to double down and re-sign Brooks Koepka or Dustin Johnson or Bryson DeChambeau or any of the other contracts that happen to come out? That's going to be a big paycheck.

It's going to be a big check for them to throw out. And so I get it from the tour's perspective that they kind of have time on their side. The other half of this is a lot of whatever exemptions are left for players on lib to be able to participate in the PGA Tour. They also come due at the end of the year. So if you wait that out and now all of a sudden we start going into 2026,

And let's say there is some sort of deal. And, okay, you can come back and play on the status you have right now. There's only going to be a handful of players. And, to be quite frank, probably the players the PGA Tour wants back who will have any type of status. You start talking about Bryson, who has five years after winning last year's U.S. Open. You start talking about Brooks Koepka, who has years left on winning the PGA Championship. All of these players, Jon Rahm certainly has years left after winning all that he had done.

So I think the leverage goes both ways because certainly we've seen it from the other side that if they really want to come and get someone, and we just had a long conversation about these young players who are up and coming and there was absolutely nothing stopping live golf and the public investment fund, just signing more of these players. And then it seems like we would be back to square one. If I had to guess who feels like they have the best leverage right now, it would be the PGA tour, but I'm not sure if that's the case. Yeah. I mean, I think the most optimistic thing,

Part of this is that everyone is incentivized and motivated to get a deal done. President Trump wants to save golf, wants to say that he fixed golf. The PGA tour is eyeing three to five guys who could really help with the commercial appeal of the PGA tour. That's Bryce Nishambo. That's John Rom. That's Brooks Koepka. Those three players in particular would provide an immediate intangible boost to the PGA tour. When it comes to the piff side,

Yes, he wants a seat at the table. He wants to be accepted into golf, into the golf ecosystem. He wants access with the Saudi PIF to pro sports team owners. He wants to legitimize what to this point has been a $5 billion investment in

In team golf. Yes. Like, so can you keep dumping money into a failed economic experiment? Maybe. But when it comes to Saul, he's like, you don't amass a $900 billion fund by making poor business decisions. He's obviously a shrewd businessman. And I have confidence that at least another meeting

Should happen quite quickly. We will preview, actually recap that meeting on the next edition of the podcast on Wednesday. Make sure you go to NBCSports.com slash golf for more of Rex's reporting on that. Let's change topics a little bit and get into some punch shots, some quick hitting news and notes from the world of golf. The first one, Cognizant Classic, where you will be in South Florida. Jordan Spieth.

was a late entry into the field you surprised the former golden boy will be teeing it up at pga national i am because you and i talked about this last week on the sunday night podcast that ran on monday morning i had spoken with him after he missed the cut at toy pines at the genesis invitational and there had been some discomfort with the wrist he actually confided or told me that had he continued to have the pain that he had on friday on thursday afternoon

that he probably wouldn't have been able to finish. It was just that the rough was wet. It was a bad combination and he ended up with making some bad swings. And so I think it's encouraging that he was able to add an event back because clearly he went home to Dallas, took a couple of days to rest it and didn't feel like it was an issue at all. And let's be honest,

PGA National is not like an easy track to come back to. It's not like he's going to show up and just know, okay, I can hit it all over the lot and it'll be fine. The rough is thick. The winds blow a lot. There's a lot of water. And so I think this is an encouraging sign.

Yeah, encouraging side health-wise. I'm also curious, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe he is exempt into the next signature event at Bay Hill, the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He's already gotten two sponsor exemptions. You know, that's sort of a sticking point with the membership of these guys getting freebies when it's so important now to get into those events. Maybe he's trying to earn his way in. Maybe it's just for appearances before a sponsor exemption comes his way. Who knows? Jordan Spieth will be in the field this week at the Coddington. Tony Finau.

Rex is tabbed to make a spot start in TJ after Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood both had prior commitments and it could not play on Monday. Also, the news that Tiger Woods will not play in Jupiter Links is Tuesday match for the first time. Which one do you is the bigger deal? Fina or Tony or excuse me or Tiger?

Uh, Fino. And look, I think Tiger was going to sit one out eventually. He has played in each one of the matches. So it's not as though we should be concerned that he's taking a knee. There's four players on every team for a reason, because they wanted to rotate three players in as best they could and give guys a chance to maybe take a week off if they wanted it to.

First and foremost, and I've gotten a heads up on this Tony Fina signing a couple days in advance, and I thought it was a great idea because – and I hadn't even thought about it. Someone at TGL sort of explained it, that maybe the L.A. team needs a little bit more firepower. They need a big hitter, a bomber, someone clearly like Tony. Go to the transfer portal. It kind of is what it felt like. And I equated it to Luka Doncic signing with the Lakers. Like, look, it's not the same thing, and Tony's not going to be –

It's not going to be that it's not. But but the idea is L.A. has signed another free agent like they keep somehow pulling this off. So I thought it was a move in the right direction. Like I was very happy about it. I guess the part I got caught up when is, as I just pointed out, there's four players on every team and only three compete. The idea being is that you need to give players a chance to maybe take a week off or maybe they're competing on the West Coast and can't get to Florida on Monday for that for that match.

Cool. I understood the scheduling of it. This has been two years in the making. How did the scheduling get mixed up that both Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose didn't figure out? Like, I imagine that Spider-Man meme where they're pointing at each other and they're like, no, I'm taking this. No, you're taking this week off. I don't understand the timing behind that one. However, I do think adding Tony is pretty cool.

Yeah, like there is an alternate list. And so they're just going down the list and we'll add if you need to. It could potentially open the door to more opt-outs. Like Jordan Spieth said recently with Smiley Kaufman that he and Scottie Scheffler had both been fielding calls with players. You don't want to compromise the season-long standings for the SoFi Cup. And so I will be royally pissed if all of a sudden

A title is tainted because of these late free agency signs. Just keep that in mind. This is a show. Stop. This should be on Broadway. Forget about the standings. This is just for funs.

Speaking of TGL and a member of the Atlanta drive, I believe, but Lucas Glover is ripping PGA tour leadership again, saying why even have a play for player advisory council or a PGA tour policy board after he continued to disagree with the direction because of limited field events and limiting playing opportunities. Rex does Lucas have a point?

He does have a point, and it's important to point out that this was on his show on XM Radio, and Johnson Wagner, our colleague, was on that show with him, and they were having a long conversation about this. It's important to point out that you and I landed the interview of all interviews with Johnson Wagner, and it was essentially after he had really criticized Roy McIlroy for some of his comments about sort of the politics of the game right now and where the tour seems to be headed, which is a very top-heavy topic.

type tour. And he took exception to those on our podcast, as he did Johnson Wagner, as he did on air as well. And then apparently he had to circle back around and maybe clean up his statements a little bit, which I understand. However, I do appreciate that both he and Lucas

went back to the idea that everything that's happening now at the top of the PGA Tour is almost exclusively designed for the top 10, 20, 30% of the PGA Tour. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. That's an entirely different conversation. We've touched on it in the past. The Tour had to make dramatic changes because of where we find ourselves as a game, as a professional game. So I certainly understand where this is coming from. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg that there is going to be collateral damage.

When the news came out late last year that they were going to cut field sizes, they were going to cut fully exempt cards. They were going to cut the number of guys to get through Q school. All of the things the tour had to do to sort of shore up what they felt like was a better competition, was a better product. It's going to have a knock-on effect. We just had a long conversation about the meeting between the public investment fund, the president of the United States and Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA tour. Imagine a scenario where there is a deal. And I don't know how many of those players you think are going to come back. Let's say 10 to 15 or,

are going to come back and they're probably going to take up a lot more spots. So if you're someone like a Lucas Glover or a Johnson Wagner, when he was playing on the tour or any number of players that we can sit and rattle off right now, you have to be looking over your shoulder concerned, not so much about the tour, but your own career. Yeah. And I think that's, that's perfectly reasonable. Like this, this is the problem with a member run organization is that they think they know what's best and

From a business perspective, although there is a monsoon of evidence to use one of your favorite phrases, that like the lower levels of the tour provide little to no return commercially.

or sort of resonating with the tour. I certainly understand Lucas Glover's perspective, and I do think there is something to be gained, and there's some sort of value of having a disparity between the top players and sort of the bottom guys and the guys who are trying to chase their cards and chase their status. There still needs to be that. I don't know what the magic number is. Clearly, Lucas Glover does not think that that number matters.

Speaking of Lucas Glover, this is something that he'd railed about a couple of weeks ago on the aforementioned show. Take a look at this Rex. This is a limb Kim, the LPG event in Thailand doing a point from what appears to be like six inches away. Did this moment finally break you? And do you agree? Like Lucas said that this should be banned. I have to start listening to Lucas Glover show. Apparently like I,

Like I don't listen to that. Yeah. Yeah. I need to start doing that. Yes, this is a, this is not good. And this goes back to, again, Lucas was critical of the idea of aim point as far as it's slowing down pace of play and at Torrey ponds during the Genesis invitational Colin Morikawa, who uses aim point was asked about it. And he kind of pushed back. I think they had a little beef between the two of them pointing out that I think Colin's comment was he didn't feel like that the putter that Lucas uses, it's kind of a broom handle should be legal. He,

He kind of made the point. It feels like that's sort of anchoring. So they went back and forth. That's awful. And I use Aimpoint. And I think when Colin was asked about it, he brought up a really good point that, yes, there are people who don't use it correctly and it does slow down play. That's clearly an example of not using it correctly.

Optically, it's just horrible. Stomping and marching all around the hole. Just a really bad look. I still think it's really hard to ban because it's hard to regulate. Just like the shot clock, you don't know when it starts. You don't know when it stops. Regardless, the LPGA is cracking down on pace of play beginning next month. You are most likely not going to be able to do this and get away with it.

We finally, Rex, have listener questions. Nice. We're going to try to go through these somewhat quickly since we are running out of time on this podcast. This comes from BigCM3046, who says, there's too much golf these days. Back in the day, golf was only on Saturday or Sunday. Now we are oversaturated. What happened to delayed gratification? Rex, it sounds like you're a boomer. How would you weigh in like this?

Just turn the TV off, man. If it's too much golf, just turn the TV off. You don't have to pay attention. No one's forcing you to watch it. To your point, however, I don't think this is referring – he's talking about Saturday and Sunday. No, we're not going to just go back to just showing Saturday and Sunday rounds. The media landscape has changed dramatically. However, I'm on board. If he's talking about going from 45 –

PGA Tour events to 25? I'm all for that. I mean, tournament golf, it's hard to ever see that going backwards. If anything, people want more golf. They're really mad that never coverage starts at 3 or 4 o'clock on Golf Channel when it's been playing all day long. Schedule-wise, sure, I can see that being true. There's something to be said for waiting for something and that less is more. How about this question, Rex, from Perry C. Ho.

We're going to skip this question because we sort of answered it in our previous segment. But Perry Seho, 590, maybe if all tour media lackeys would stop ramping up friction with your anti-live stance, there wouldn't be any. Do you agree or disagree?

I disagree. I don't think anyone is whipping up anything. I think most of the golf media, I would argue, does a really good job of just reporting the facts. And you said I got aggregated a couple of times. One of those things I got aggregated about last Thursday was the idea that I had spoken with a live player who had been reached out to by the PGA Tour about the opportunity that maybe he could play in the Players' Championship.

That was the report I did. And I was simply trying to make a point of how close these negotiations seemed like they felt. I never once said it was going to happen. So I would argue that maybe you need to pay a little bit more attention to the reports.

Yes. There's no anti-Liv sentiment on this podcast or many other places in golf media. We are conduits as media members for the players. This is how they feel. That is why it is such a divisive issue. There's a lot of hard feelings about how players could, should, and would be reincorporated from Liv to the PGA Tour if they end up going that route. There's no anti-Liv sentiment. Just stop it. You guys are trolls. All right.

That is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav. Just as a reminder, you can catch us on Wednesday for another edition of the podcast. And be sure to go to NBCSports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates, including Rex's report on the upcoming policy board meeting in South Florida. All right. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Talk to you guys in a couple of days.

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