Tiger Woods is not playing in the Hero World Challenge because he is not ready to compete at the level required against top players. He is still recovering from his latest back procedure and feels he is not sharp enough to compete.
Tiger Woods' back injury was more serious than he let on during the summer. He experienced pain coursing down his legs, and treatments failed to bring relief. He described the year as a 'toss away' due to his disappointing results and multiple missed cuts.
Tiger Woods is serving as a spokesperson and a member of the policy board for the PGA Tour in its negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund. He is one of the key voices in the room, discussing changes to the Tour and the potential merger with LIV Golf.
The negotiations are ongoing but have not reached a concrete agreement. Tiger Woods expressed a wish for more progress but acknowledged that the Department of Justice's involvement is complicating the process. He seemed resigned to the fact that the deal might not achieve the PGA Tour's initial goals.
The controversy involves whether Ryder Cup players should be paid for their participation. Tiger Woods argued that players deserve to be paid, ideally through charity donations. However, the Telegraph reported that U.S. players could receive $400,000 each, which some European players criticized as greedy.
Scottie Scheffler has been a strong contender at the Hero World Challenge, having finished runner-up in the previous year. He used the event as a springboard for his historic season in 2024, and he is taking the event seriously as part of his preparation for 2025.
There is speculation that LIV Golf may sign additional PGA Tour players, similar to last year's high-profile signing of Jon Rahm. The absence of certain players from the Hero World Challenge and rumors around Tony Finau's potential move have fueled these speculations.
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Loans offered by NetCredit or lending partner banks and serviced by NetCredit. Applications subject to review and approval. Learn more at netcredit.com slash partner. NetCredit. Credit to the people. Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. Look at us. Two grown men wearing makeup. I am in Connecticut. Just finished three days of co-hosting on Golf Today. Rex, you are in the Bahamas.
for the Hero World Challenge. You are serving as the Golf Central Reporter for the week. Much to the dismay of your wife back home. How are things?
in the tropics, Rex. How are things going so far? It's chilly. And I know people are going to come at me. I get it. I'm going to get attacked on this one. Social media is not going to be kind. It's in the 60s. The wind is blowing. You called me out yesterday for wearing a second layer during my hit on golf today. It was a very, very thin layer in my defense. It was just a very thin three-quarter zip.
It's cold. We actually played golf on Monday, and I also wore a hoodie. So it gives you an idea. I feel for everyone in the Northeast, including you in Connecticut. I can only imagine how cold and miserable and nasty it is. But this is not what we come to the Bahamas for. I didn't think you could even get like an Arctic chill in the Bahamas. Like, doesn't it like disintegrate?
Over open water? Like, what's happening here? It is chilly, but it is not, I would call, frigid so far in Stanford. In fact, our show ended at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. I ventured into the Big Apple by myself yesterday.
despite temperatures that were about 30 degrees. It's been about four or five hours outside. It was great. You just bundle up, and you go about your business. More on my trip to the Big Apple at the end of this podcast. Rex, it's been a pretty newsy week.
I must say on Monday, the LPGA commissioner, Molly Marcuse-Simon, resigned from her position. On Wednesday, the LPGA and the USGA released their gender policy beginning in 2025. But on Tuesday, it was all about Tiger Woods, who met with the media there in Albany. Of course, he is not playing this week at his 20-man exhibition as he continues to recover from his latest back procedure. You were in the room. You asked him questions. How did he look? How did he sound?
He looked fine. There's a limp, but as I told you on golf today, I think talking with people in his camp, that's just kind of the way he walks now. Sort of his gait. Like there's going to be,
Giddy up. Whatever it is you want to call it. This is the way he moves around. He's a little slow. He's a little deliberate. Make sure he puts one foot in front of the other. And he made it clear he's not playing this week because he's not ready to compete. He's certainly not ready to compete against those players, the top players in the world. Granted, this is a silly season event. And even talking with Scotty Scheffler today, he admitted like,
I'm not as sharp as I normally would be coming into an event, but still, Tiger knew he wasn't at that level. It does go to the second question, though, is, okay, when will you be at that level? And I think Todd Lewis and I both kind of said the same thing on Golf Today and later on Golf Central. The PNC Championship is still very much in play, just two weeks' time in Orlando. The difference is this is 72 holes walking against the best players in the field. The PNC is 36 holes driving in a golf cart with your son, Charlie,
sitting next to you, hitting the drives, hitting the big shots that you have to have him. So I still wouldn't dismiss the idea that we'll see him again. But for a guy who's had five back surgeries, just back surgeries, take all the other surgeries out of the mix in recent years, the most recent one coming in September, uh,
he looks like a guy that's gone through all that he looks like a guy that is going to take a little bit of time in the morning to get warmed up trust me i can sympathize i can definitely tell you what that feels like and he looks like a guy that's probably going to struggle to put 72 holes together it's the conversation that we've had about tiger woods the last few years the swing is still there on the occasions that his body allows him to go out and do the things it could do we just haven't seen it the last few years if you're parsing his words carefully
He said he was not sharp enough to compete, quote, at this level. And if you take that at the very literal meaning of at this level against PGA Tour players, then yeah, like it's not a surprise he's not playing. I think the Genesis Invitational is obviously a tournament in two months time. Benefits his foundation that he would continue to target. But in Tiger's own words, quote, no target available.
on when he specifically wants to return to competition at that level. I was struck Rex in him talking about his back. It certainly seemed more serious than he had led on during the summer. You know, there's so much focus was, was can he walk the 72 holes? How's his ankle? How's his foot? I understand the kinetic chain, uh,
And the impact that I could have throughout the course of the year. But I didn't really have any inkling that this was a serious issue for Tiger in which he was having pain coursing down his legs, that any and all treatments sort of failed to bring him any sort of relief or comfort. He called the year Rex a, quote, toss away, which when you look at his results, certainly disappointing.
He made the cut at the Masters, then finished last among those who made the field, missed three consecutive cuts at the PGA, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, withdrew from the Genesis because of that mysterious flu during the second round. You really can't afford tossaways when you're Tiger Woods, 48, soon to be 49, with a body as beat up.
As he was, how surprised were you, I guess, of to hear sort of the depths of despair that he had gone down once again with his body? That was more than just sort of the lingering affection that car crash in 2021. I think it's safe to assume after two plus decades of covering Tiger Woods through the good and much of the bad.
It's safe to assume that whatever he tells us is the pain level. You can probably add two or three or four more points to that. His tolerance for pain is clearly much higher than mine, probably yours as well, given everything that he's been through. As I just pointed out, five surgeries, and that goes along with the litany of other surgeries and procedures that he's had. Yes, I think when he actually puts it into the context that
had a hard time walking. It was painful. It was excruciating. All of those things. He's never really been open about those things, to be honest with you. So when he is forthright, when he does hit you with something that you weren't expecting, it is eye opening a little bit. Did you understand how difficult this must be for him? And I, I heard someone asked the question earlier this week after he spoke the idea that why does he keep putting himself through this?
Why does he keep going back to the drawing board and trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? And it's a question only he can answer because there's something still burning inside him that makes him believe that, yeah, if I can just get the body to work right, if I can just do the plan, which is to play once a month, again, five or six months on Tiger's calendar, but if he can just put it together again,
for that five or six months calendar, he feels like he could move. He could do something special again on the golf course. I'm getting to the point now as if I haven't made the internet angry enough already saying that the Bahamas is cold. I don't know how he gets there.
To be honest with you, maybe this recent procedure is the magical elixir. Maybe this is the one that's the tipping point. And all of a sudden he's ready to go and he's he can go and sprint off down fairways again. I just don't see it happening. It's hard to see. I'm with you. I don't want to come on the podcast to be a Debbie Downer and completely dismiss any and all of his chances to win another tournament on the PGA Tour or another major championship. It just seems incredibly difficult.
unlikely at this point. When you look at sort of the body of work that we have now of Tiger over the past three years, his best finish is a 45th in an official PG Tour event or a major championship. But statistically, he has really suffered in two particular areas. One, he's
is his iron play, and secondly, it is around the greens. When you think about iron play and the amount of time that you need to put on the range, as Tiger did 25 years ago, to dial in your distances, to make sure you're hitting your numbers, to make sure you're shaping shots the way that Scottie Scheffler is. I mean, Scottie goes through a meticulous process
Work through every time he's on the range of dialing in his distance. Tiger simply cannot put in the work with his iron plate to get back to what used to be the hallmark of his career. Same thing on and around the greens that takes time to redevelop your touch and to read it, to discover your feel after so, uh, so few competitive reps that he's had over the past three years, uh,
Regardless of if this is a magical luxury, he still has other ailments in his body. You don't want to completely dismiss it because this is Tiger. He can catch lightning in a bottle. It's hard to imagine, though.
a scenario in which that could be feasible in 2025. And I will pivot because my main takeaway wasn't the state of his body, the state of his game. I've done this press conference now for the better part of a decade. I was a little, I shocked myself a little bit when I was checking the stats. He hasn't even played in this event since 2019. That's a testament to,
what he's gone through from a physical standpoint, what his game has had to endure from a physical standpoint, because of all the setbacks he's had. I was more taken in my column yesterday on NBC sports.com slash golf. Well,
was the idea that normally we come into these press conferences waiting for him to talk about his game. In this particular case, I think I was much more interested in what he had to say about the game. And by that, I mean he has become, for better or worse, the spokesperson for the PGA Tour on this one. He's become the statesman, elder or otherwise, when it comes to the professional game. And I was more riveted by the idea that he seems...
marginally more comfortable in that role. I don't want to say that he's getting on stage and suddenly he's sounding like Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer when he used to do his state of the game of golf. But there were moments during that press conference yesterday where I think he was being genuine and he was trying to offer some sort of insight into the negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. He's the guy in the room. He's probably the most important voice in that room as a member of the policy board.
as it applies to the changes to the PGA Tour, the reduced field sizes, the reduced number of fully exempt members. When it comes to players getting paid to participate on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, all of the things that are hot-button topics now for a guy who throughout the majority of his career did not really want to wade into the political waters of professional golf, he seems much more comfortable and at ease with it now. And I wanted to ask you,
about your takeaway specifically on the state of the negotiations with the Saudi public investment fund. Tiger, obviously, member of the policy board, part of the sub transaction committee that is dealing directly with the Saudis. Sort of the headline, Rex, was that Tiger said that he wished they'd have something more concrete. He wished they were further along with the negotiations. He still cautioned that there's still a ways away because of the DOJ involvement. How would you sort of characterize
What Tiger said to me, he wasn't, he wasn't annoyed. He wasn't frustrated. He wasn't exasperated. He wasn't discouraged. He almost just seemed resigned. I guess that this is dragging along and it's complicated and the PG tour might not get it.
the outcome that they started with or they initially desired on June 6, 2022? The question that I asked him that I think went to this is, does he share the level of frustration that you and I get from tour players all the time, that there has not been a deal? There seems to be no movement on this at all. Now, for pretty much a year and a half, we're coming up on the second deadline, if you want to call it that, of the framework agreement. That was December 31st last year. We're coming up on...
what I assume is a new deadline. Yeah. Resigned is probably the best way of saying, and I will say this in our, I had dinner last night with our colleague, Bob Herrick from si.com. And he had a really, really good point that his response to my question about, is there frustration? And he did say that he feels like something should have been done by now. He did say that he feels like something needs to be done. He used the word bringing peace to the game, whatever that means. Yeah. Which stood out to me as well.
but the conversation came up that it seems to me he's one of those impediments. I'm not saying he is the impediment, but being in that room makes you one of the speed bumps to whatever the deal looks like. It's going to be you and the other members of that policy board that decide exactly what this deal is going to look like. And on the other side of it, he kind of laid it in the lap of the Department of Justice. And you and I in recent weeks have had this conversation that the Department of Justice investigation is
into possible antitrust violations started long before there was any conversation about Liv Goff and the Public Investment Fund uniting with PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. This is a separate investigation, or at least it started that way. The DOJ investigation is a problem. It's not the problem. There's a litany of other problems and things that need to be solved over and above that, that the DOJ thing is going to be part of this, but it's not the biggest hurdle they're facing right now.
And look, we're approaching the one year anniversary of what the deadline was supposed to be, as you mentioned, as outlined in the framework agreement. It does at least open the possibility to other sort of off ramps for the PIF. And it was Bloomberg that reported over the weekend the Saudi PIF potentially exploring a separate deal separate from.
what the PGA tour enterprises will be doing with the PIF that could potentially see some player movement back between live golf and DP world tour, supporting some of the purses sort of maintain, maintain the legacy and tradition of that tour. How much do you think that is a viable option now? Because to me, Rex, from the outside, that could seem like an existential threat to,
to the PGA tour is if, if PIF was all of a sudden buoying the DP world tour, then you're creating a very powerful, uh, financially supported circuit that could be attractive to even more PGA tour players.
Before, I would be willing to go down that road. And you're right. It would be a threat that the tour would have to take very, very seriously. It would be a threat that may be the one thing that unravels what the PGA Tour has created here because of all the reasons you just pointed out. But I think well before we get there, I would reference our colleague Eamon Lynch had a column on golfweek.com.
talking about that report in Bloomberg, which is a very respected news organization. But according to Eamon, he had spoken with people from the European tour who said those conversations are not going on. Dismiss the idea that they've happened. They've happened in the past well before there was ever a framework agreement. That's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is Jay Monahan now sits on the board of the DP World Tour. It's not as though this is an independent organization from the PGA Tour.
For all intents and purposes, they are one in the same. The strategic alliance meant a lot of money went from the PGA Tour to the DP World Tour to essentially sustain their purses at what level they're at now with incremental increases every year. That's an agreement that's in stone. So I don't think for a minute that Jay Monahan or anyone else from the PGA Tour side is going to allow this to happen.
And I don't think right now where we are, it would behoove the DP World Tour to even explore it. Now, maybe if we're sitting having the same conversation next December and we're still talking about Tiger Woods being frustrated that there's not a deal, then maybe you start leaning in that direction. But I think that's way too early to speculate on what that could possibly look like.
One other thing that Tiger touched on that certainly drew some headlines, particularly those in the British press, this issue of Ryder Cup pay for play. We had the report a couple of weeks ago from the Telegraph where it appeared that the PGA of America was set to pay U.S. about
Ryder Cup players, $400,000. Some European Ryder Cupers seized on that. They pounced Rex saying, oh, here's the greedy Americans that just want to get paid. Meanwhile, over here in Europe, this is just a scrappy underdog team. We're playing for each other and playing for pride. Tiger Woods on Tuesday said,
that players deserve to be paid and they deserve to be paid essentially in charity dollars. Give us a million dollars. Give us $5 million so we can help out our communities, help out our charities. What do you make of that? And do you even think that's like a viable solution or sort of a pathway that the PGA of America can go with this?
Well, Tiger Woods went with historical context, and I did appreciate that because this whole episode has made me go back to 1999 when this idea was first broached by the players on the U.S. team. And it just wasn't Tiger. It was Marco Mir was involved in this. David Duvall was involved with this and they were pushing for payment.
in the form of charity dollars, as you just pointed out. They ended up on the wrong side of that from a public relations standpoint. Marco Mir, he and I were trading texts a few weeks ago just about how it didn't play out at all the way they thought it was going to play out. So what Tiger was talking about
was talking about yesterday, I think in the current climate fits really, really well. The only problem is the way he said it is I'm not quite sure he understood what the Telegraph was reporting. The Telegraph was reporting that the players would get cash themselves. If they choose to donate it, that's...
That's fine. I could give you five dollars if you choose to donate it. That's great. It goes to charity. If you choose to spend it on a latte, that's not considered charity. So I think there is a bit of a disconnect between what Tiger Woods was asked and what he answered. But I I'll go back to you and we have this conversation and I feel like I'm kind of on the wrong side of history on this one. I'm not against them getting paid, whether if it's for charity or otherwise, simply because there is so much money to be had at the Ryder Cup, both here and abroad.
$750 for a general admission ticket next year at Bethpage. One day per person. So you get an idea of how much money we're talking about here. The PGA Tour makes millions in rights fees off that event that the PGA of America has to pay the PGA Tour to use essentially their players. The only ones who aren't getting paid are the players, the entertainment, the labor, the product. They're the only ones that aren't benefiting from this. And they're the reason why you're there. They're the reason why this event matters. I get it.
It's going to be awkward next year when Luke Donald puts the big posters up in the team room. We play for pride. They pay for, they play for pay. Like I get it good for him. He's going to be brilliant about it. Like he always does, but I am not against this notion that they should be paid it. We're in an age now where athlete empowerment is very, very real. And I may not like NIL what it's done to the, my beloved college game, but it's here to stay. There's nothing we can do about it. I think tiger is conflating two different things.
Whereas players, some of the players, and this came to sort of a head last year in Rome, want to be paid because they're the participants and they're part of this juggernaut and this enormous cash cow that is the Ryder Cup, right? Arguably the biggest event in all of golf. And the participants are essentially being shut out and they're being told to just play for pride, play for your country, suck it up. You can get paid 51 other weeks a year. Like that's...
That is one side of the argument. And Tiger's saying, we want to get paid, but we want to give more money to our communities. We want to give money to charity. Those are two different things. I don't think anyone would argue. They already get a stipend that they can give to a charity of their choice. Like there's two different issues that are going on here. I don't think Tiger did a good job of outlining exactly his position, where if there's any sort of revenue sharing agreement between
That's what we're really talking about, is the PGA of America is making money hand over fist, and the players are essentially getting shut out or potentially, according to the Telegraph, would receive $400,000, which if we outline on this podcast, is a laughable sum.
for their participation. It's the equivalent of a 13th place finish in the players championship in the grand scheme like that. That's absolutely nothing. And so I don't think Tiger did a good job of outlining that. What I would love to see since it's gotten to this point is that the, the team USA and team Europe needs to get together and have some sort of joint agreement where each player is going to receive X points.
And that's going to be their payment. There should be no questions. There shouldn't be any sort of squabbles. There shouldn't be any sort of narratives of the greedy Americans versus the prideful Europeans. Like it's just so unnecessary. And the fact that you have nine and a half months to figure this out, like the two sides just have to come together because it's it's it's poor optically. It's a PR nightmare for what is an otherwise amazing week.
No, and I agree. And I don't want to dismiss what the PGA of America does with those funds. You're right. They make an enormous amount of money and that money goes to all of the programs that they have over the course of not two years, four years. Keep in mind, this is only a once in four year option for the PGA of America. Every two years, it goes back to...
So that money is used for a lot of really, really good things. Grow the game initiatives. The PGA of America professionals, are they frontline when it comes to the game of golf? So I don't want to dismiss that or steal anything from them on that front. However, again, they are the product. They're the reason we're there. You and I get paid when we're at the Ryder Cup. There's no reason that the players shouldn't.
No, I'm a salaried employee, a contract employee. That is sort of in the contract, as are you. Congratulations. I'll stick it around. Rex, how about Scotty Scheffler, who was the biggest draw this week at the Hero World Challenge since Tiger Woods, is not playing? Not going to lie. I miss Scotty. Had not seen him play tournament golf since the President's Cup. Got a full two months off. And this has been...
A very kind, personal playground for Scottie Scheffler. One last year's tournament was runner-up. The two previous years, you can make a correlation or not, but he is very likely to wrap up his third consecutive player of the year title on the PGA Tour. You had an opportunity to speak with Scottie earlier on Wednesday. Did he seem refreshed?
Is he ready to take the golf world by storm yet again, not just this week at the Bahamas, but also in 2025? Very refreshed, very relaxed. I think when I walked up to him, he held his hand up and said, nope, we're not doing it this year. Me and Teddy have decided no more interviews. So we had a lot of fun with it. I will say when it comes to interviewing players in a situation like that, you're almost playing amateur psychologist here. Yeah.
Because if you listen to that interview, which I'm sure you didn't because you had other things going on while the show was going happening. But I asked four questions and I kind of started with the general question about how have you reflected on the year and work forward from there. The first three questions, in my opinion, didn't elicit great answers. And sometimes Scotty won't give you great answers. That's if there is one drawback and only one drawback to Scotty Scheffler is he doesn't always play along when you're trying to get interviews. I understand that.
It's fine. The last question I asked him ended up eliciting the best response. And I was a little surprised by that because it was a bit of a throwaway question, as in you won here last year. How were you able to use whatever momentum you can find the first week of December and take that into this year, which turned into a historic season? Seven, don't say seven, eight victories, because that's what he told me as well. And he really went.
down a really deep path pointing out that it was here where him and Phil Kenyon kind of touched on whatever the magical formula was, whatever the secret sauce was in his putting, they had started working together. If you remember back at the Ryder cup, but it was here. Phil had been in Dallas for a couple of weeks.
But they touched on something here that he was able to take into this year. And we all know how that turned out. And he kind of really unloaded on the idea that, yes, I'm taking this week seriously for that reason. Not necessarily that he wants to win this event. Unofficial events, world ranking points, all of those things. But this has more to do with it almost feels like a spring training for a player like Scottie Scheffler or anyone else in this field where, yeah, you want to come. It's the Bahamas.
It's warm. You're enjoying yourself. But you can use this as a springboard, and this year is a perfect example of that. Yeah, although we have not seen Scottie in the last two months, we're going to see him plenty here. Basically, starting this week at the Hero World Challenge, we'll see him in a couple weeks' time at the Showdown alongside Roy McIlroy as they take on Liv Golf's Brooks Koepka and Bryce DeChambeau. And then keep in mind, the 2025 PGA Tour season begins officially on January 2nd.
And Scottie is going to have a very busy schedule, much as he did in 2024, sort of playing his way into tournament shape. I believe he's expected to play five of the first seven events on the PGA Tour, only skipping the Sony Open and the Farmers Insurance Open. Rex, I was curious your take on this, because we look at the Hero World Challenge field.
Probably the weakest one that we've ever seen. Just three of the top 10 players in the world. Some notable omissions. Do you chalk that up to sort of a schedule crunch? Guys want to take more of a break. Is it the golf course? Does Tiger not hold the same appeal? Is live golf about to swipe some of the PGA Tours biggest names? What's what's going on here?
I'm not sure if it's any of those things. I think it probably has more to do with what you did touch on the schedule. I think it probably has more to do with just the idea of what players have endured this year. As you pointed out, with the move to signature events, I think players had to play a lot more in a very, very extended window this year than they probably have in the past. It felt like everything was just magnified.
for a player. Certainly when, when I spoke with Scotty Scheffler about it this morning, he probably needed those two months off after the president's cup to unwind, to be a father, to be a family man, to just have an opportunity to take a deep breath. I think that probably has something to do with it. Certainly there's tons and tons of rumors. I had two caddies come up to me on Monday when I was in the airport, just getting the Bahamas asking me about your, your, you alluded to it, but I'll go ahead and go down the road of Tony Finau withdrawing from this event.
Now, keep in mind, I believe he just had surgery recently. So there was there's an injury involved there. So I think that could have something to do with it. He's also scheduled to play next week, I think, in the team event with Florida. With Nelly Korda. Yep. The headliner of the Grant Thornton. The Grant Thornton. So I think all those things come into play. However.
you don't have to be a scientist to look at some of those live golf teams and they need to fill holes on the rosters. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm not expecting them to sign someone. I don't think it's going to be another John Rom pre-Christmas bomb like we ended up with last year, but I think we're still going to end up with that trickle. And that's going to be the reality until going back to the previous conversation, you come up with some sort of solution. We reach something closer to quote unquote peace, which Tiger wants. And I think that's just the reality.
I think everyone will be keeping a close eye on the Grant Thornton field if there's any field changes there. Tony Finau's wife is going on TikTok, kind of, sort of debunking rumors, but also not really. What would you say, though, Rex? Because we're almost at the one-year anniversary of when Jon Rahm
officially defected for live golf. That was on December 7th. We're recording this podcast on December 4th. It does seem like sort of the ideal timing if you were live to drop another bomb. But what would that say about the say the negotiations or is it like it was with John Rahm a year ago, just sort of a leverage play a power play to show them that, Hey,
Give us what we want and when we want it, or we're going to keep plucking your stars one by one. Because if you look at the player impact program and the top 10 needle movers of the most popular players, they've done a great job over the past couple years, Liv has, of taking the star attractions. And I don't see any reason why that wouldn't sort of continue to be their guiding map for who they should be targeting on the PGA Tour.
Absolutely. And keep in mind, when they first announced the framework agreement, there was a stipulation in there that there was going to be no more poaching of players. That had to be removed because the DOJ didn't like the language. This went directly to the antitrust investigation that the tour has been under. So without that clause in there, you do have the opportunity for, as you pointed out, a huge leverage play. I don't think it's going to be John Rahm huge. I don't think this is going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars type player. I don't know what Tony Finau or anyone else that would go.
But just by numbers, I mean, let's just do the math here. Sergio Garcia's team needs another player. I'm sure Sergio Garcia has his eye on a PGA Tour player that he would love.
to bring over. And there is no reason for Liv and even Pip not to do it. If you did it last year with John Rowe to, as you pointed out, sort of flex and say, this is what we want. Give us what we want, and we're going to continue to do that. There's nothing stopping them from doing it again. I'm not going to be shocked again if in the next week we're going to have another announcement and you and I are going to have to do another emergency podcast.
John Rahm's team, I believe, also has a vacancy to fill after Kiernan Vinson did not play well enough to maintain his status on live golf for 2025. It's hot stove season, Rex. Juan Soto, Tony Fina, who knows, or any other big-name player on the PGA Tour will obviously keep you abreast of that situation. MCSports.com slash golf for all the news and notes. What else do you have planned, Rex?
for the rest of the week in the Bahamas because I know your wife is not happy with you.
She's not. This was an emergency switch around. Todd Lewis was supposed to be the reporter for Golf Central this week. He had to go. He's heading in your direction today. He's heading to Connecticut to host Golf Central, so I had to stand in for him. We had a really, really cool vacation planned. And as mad as she is at me, and trust me, she's really, really mad at me, I'm more disappointed that I can't do this particular vacation. But there'll be other vacations. There will be other vacations. Speaking of which, I hope nothing gets in the way of my vacation that I have planned next week.
for Park City, Utah. We still will do the podcast next week. Actually, you and I will be doing a Golf Today roundtable on Monday. You in the Bahamas because you're not catching a flight home because you're scared of your wife. Me back home in Ponte Vedra. So we'll do the podcast. We will do Golf Today roundtable and that will get us set for a full recap of the Hero World Challenge. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. As mentioned, mpsports.com slash golf for latest news, notes, and updates. Enjoy the Hero. Talk to you next week.
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