Back at Doral, these LIV stars have our attention for the Masters
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Indeed.com slash podcast. Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. It is certainly a busy final week for the Masters. And Rex, that reminds me, we want to do something a little bit different on Sunday. You and I are going to have our top 10 favorites for the Masters. We'll go over it as a way to sort of forecast the week that's going to be at Augusta National. But we also want to hear from you.

Our dear listeners, hit us up in the YouTube comments section, and we'll spend most of Sunday night's episode answering your burning questions ahead of the Masters, what we think, winners, dark horses, contenders, favorite spots in the golf course, what you would do for a first time or how we do our jobs that week, what it's like to be on TV. Whatever you want to know, we will spend most of Sunday's episode answering it. Rex, are you a little nervous about that, or are you excited about that prospect?

Oh, no, I love that idea. And please send more Steve Sands questions because we can never get enough Steve Sands questions. And if you want, you can send them via Insta book. Apparently, that's something that he thinks that I'm forgetting the other things that he referred to. But anyone who has more Steve questions, because that the story about Pound Ask Rex is just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, that was the tip of the iceberg. We had like 10 other questions. And of course, his connection in the compound is.

at the Houston Open got cut off. So if you were watching the Monday episode, yes, it did end a little bit abruptly. That was because of the connectivity issues. Probably for the best, though, because we had a lot to get to, and that would have gone much longer. All right, let's get into the action. Again, a call to action if you want to get into the comment section and ask us.

Some questions. Ludwig, Jordan Spieth are in the field at the Valero Texas Open. The likes of Bryson and Brooks and John Rahm and Terrell Hatton are all in the field at the Live Trump Doral event. Rex, what has caught your eye most this week? Again, the week before the Masters. Yeah, I want to see how Jordan plays. I mean, that's probably at the top of my list. I'm sure it's at the top of your list as the resident beat writer when it comes to all things Jordan Spieth.

It's not exactly, I don't quite understand TPC San Antonio as the lead up to the Masters because there's no comparison between those two golf courses. To be fair, there's not many that you can legitimately compare. It's hard.

to Augusta National. It's really difficult. And if the wind blows, you have to execute your shots. I think I was there two years ago as the central reporter and I was blown away how exacting that golf course is. It is very much point A to point B. I think, I think your line on TPC Sawgrass is you love to hate it or something along those lines. Like it is not your favorite golf course because of that. I would put TPC San Antonio right there. So I'm not going to read

Too much into what Jordan Spieth or anyone else does heading into the Masters. But certainly if he can have a decent week off the tee, if he can have a decent week with his irons, I'm not really worried about his short game. I even know statistically we can probably bet that around a little bit. But if you do anything off the tee with your ball striking this week, I think that's only going to give you some confidence going into the Masters. Yeah, I think there's 27 players who are in the Valero Texas Open field.

who are actually in next week's masters. And so it does create that opportunity, that story that we love to tell early in master's week of, you know, when and get in, what the sort of hectic travel schedule is, what's it like getting a house, you know,

accommodations, lining up practice rounds and the like. I think that's always sort of a fun story. I think of a player in particular, like Ben Griffin, who if you were following along at all on social media on Sunday of Houston open week was in this like titty tat with, with Michael Kim to see exactly where they were going to fall. They were shouting out our friend knows for a two on Twitter, trying to see what the projections was going to be. It ended up Michael Kim, who has had a very nice start to 2025, who got that 50th and final spot via the world ranking and,

in getting thus in the Masters field. The only way to get in now, if you were not already eligible, is to win the Valero Texas Open. So again, with only 27 players in the Valero field who are in the Masters, yeah, there's probably a good chance that that is going to happen. I think actually, Rex, I'm more curious to see the live event this week because it's really been hard for me to tell exactly where some of these bold-faced names are.

I think a lot of it has to do with the golf courses that they're playing with this international stretch that they had to start the year, whether it was in Saudi Arabia or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia. That's a combination of courses where there's not a whole lot of through lines between them. You have a sort of sandbelt style, a very claustrophobic course when it comes to Hong Kong. Bryce DeChambeau, when meeting with the media,

On Wednesday in Miami mentioned the fact that he'd loved live to play more difficult golf courses throughout the entirety of the schedule, but in particular, these first couple of months. And so to me, it's kind of an open guess where these Brooks and Bryson and John Rom types actually are.

And I love going back to Doral because there is a bit of nostalgia. Like early in my career, it seemed like the floor to swing. It seemed like everything started building towards the Masters when we ended up at Doral. And it is fun going back. And I think you called it right on when we did the Golf Today roundtable on Monday, where now that they're playing, call it the big boy golf course. I think that was your words, not mine.

And yes, I think this will give us an opportunity to see where Bryson's game is and John Rahm and the rest of them. There's been plenty of players who seem to be in good form on live golf. Joaquin Neiman being at the top of that herd, I would say right now. However, we haven't seen them on something that's going to be a demanding test. And I'll give Liv credit for adjusting the schedule. This is a good lead in. Oh, yeah. Players going to the Masters from 30,000 feet. The bigger picture, if I'm going to play the role of Eamon Lynch on this podcast, it's going to be the head-to-head comparison.

between whatever's going to happen in San Antonio at the Texas Open and whatever's going to happen in Miami. This is the best opportunity that Live Golf has ever had to truly go head-to-head with the PGA Tour. And I'm just not talking about on TV, certainly. That's a part of it, but certainly it going on the main Fox network and being in the Eastern time zone. All those things are going to factor in. And now you have two fields. We'll probably have an apples-to-apples comparison that we've never had before. I can't wait for that.

You mentioned Doral being a good sort of lead-up event to a major championship. We saw last week Memorial Park, the host site, the Texas Children's Houston Open, sort of trying to replicate as best they could what the quarter course setup was going to be at Augusta National. Obviously, you can't get the greens as firm, as fast as Augusta is going to get them. You can't get the slope and the undulation exactly right as well. But, you know, generous fairways, little rough.

tightly mown areas around the green uh some fall off some runoff some false fronts uh you know having to play a variety of different pitch shots in the grid i thought it did a reasonable job of replicating what players were going to do and i was actually thinking like what what would be if you're the pg tour what would be the ideal run-up of tournaments that you would love to see

that would either heighten your anticipation for the masters or serve as the best prep. Doral would certainly be one of them. I mean, you're, you're a man of a certain age. You used to cover when it was an early March, I believe as sort of the kickoff point to the Florida swing. That was sort of the, you know, okay, the masters is near. Let's see how these guys are stacking up. You know, the combination of Memorial park where the players is back in now, like how do you sort of see those last couple of weeks? If you were drawing it up,

you know, on a napkin, what you'd love to see. Oh, I love this. I've wanted to play this game for so long and you never want to play this game. Like let's do the blank piece of paper game where if we were going to reinvent the PGA tour schedule, just not going in to the masters. There's so many things I think both of us would change and it would start with probably the cadence

of how you start the season. I don't have anything against starting it in May. No, no, no. I'm not saying let's not do this from January. Let's do this from March. Let's start March. I want to break it all down because if you're starting to look for, and you're right, the best golf courses would be where you would want to land at. I would want to see some sort of closer combination of Pebble Beach and Riviera and Torrey Pines. And yeah, I think Doral would be an excellent addition or re-edition.

to tap because I thought it made a really good test and it gave players an opportunity to go down and see exactly where their games are. So if you're going to come up with some sort of cadence that leads us straight to Magnolia lame, you would do some sort of combination of them include TPC sawgrass. Clearly that fits into the schedule as well. Um,

Bay Hill, I mean, we can sit and debate whether or not if the Arnold Palmer. But yeah, I think there's a bunch of places you would want to stop. I'll give Memorial Park and Houston credit. They've always done a good job, and not just since the move to Memorial Park, but going back to other regimes. Steve Timms used to be the tournament director there. That was like...

His calling card. He wanted the golf course to be set up as close as possible to Augusta National to give players an opportunity to hit the shots that they wanted to hit, whether that was off the tee or around the greens or whatever the case may be. Now, Rory did bring up a good point last week when he was playing in Houston, saying that he'd like to see the rough be a little bit more penalized.

where it seems to me guys could stand on every single tee at Memorial Park last week and just swing as hard as they wanted. And it didn't matter more times than not based on where it landed. Now we've seen a couple of times, certainly with Minwoo Lee coming down the stretch where he found trouble where no one seemed to have found trouble before. But I think they do an excellent job of that. In my mind, TPC San Antonio is very much the outlier.

It makes no sense to me other than if you're Jordan Spieth and you just want to show up at Augusta National with four rounds, having a scorecard in your pocket. I get that part of it, but everything else really doesn't fit going into the Masters. Yeah, I don't love the cadence of where like the players championship falls because I think it creates this awkward window where guys are clearly looking ahead.

To the masters in anyone who's going to be interviewed this week of lower Texas open. Yes. They want to win the golf tournament. Yes. You know, they're playing for a sizable person, FedEx cup points and all that world ranking points. But like everyone who's in the masters field is thinking about what do I need to do this week to get ready for Augusta national? And so,

It's creating this three-week window where nothing really fits. You know, I like the idea of the Houston Open. I like the idea of Memorial Park, even if there is no penalty. And if you're a Roy McRoy and you hit it 350, well, everyone's sort of hitting send. You know, there's no advantage to hitting it long because everyone is hitting it long. And so I don't know if the players, I'd love to see it move a week later.

And so then there's a two week gap. Cause I think that is probably something that players would like to see, but like, I think Innisbrook, it's a good golf course. I think Memorial park with the right conditioning, if it had not rained so much earlier in the week and it was playing firm and fiery, I think would have made a entirely different test and,

Do you take the week off entirely ahead of the Masters? Because that would really ratchet up the anticipation instead of sort of having this slow burn into it. So I think that's something to consider as well. But I'm with you. I'd love to see Doral.

sort of reincorporated at the front end of the Florida swing. I'd love to see the players probably pushed a week back. And honestly, I think I would be up for having a week off leading into the Masters to just let storylines completely be caught on fire. I don't like that because you and I had Johnson-Waggeron.

We were co-hosting golf today last week and he told the story. He was the 11th hour guy. He's the guy that won Houston gotten to the masters. And I thought that was a really cool story of him, uh,

Coming down the stretch, knowing it was in the back of your mind, winning the golf tournament, speaking with the media, and somehow the whirlwind catches up to you when your agent says, don't worry about a thing. I've got us a private jet. I've got us a house at Augusta. I love that story to tell. And it seems to me like you get it at other major championships, but not like you do at the Masters, where this is one that clearly Johnson Wagner had always wanted to qualify for and to do it that way. But I think of like the Super Bowl where –

You have the conference championship game. Then you have a week off.

And that is where, you know, you've got media days and all sorts of other activities and there's a slow burn and it's, it's dominating talk shows of who's going to contend and who's not. And then you get into Superbowl week and it's, it's even bigger. Like I can see, I can see both sides where you, you like to have the Cinderella story. Like we like telling those stories on early week of the masters. We certainly do, but I could also see the appeal of decompressing the schedule of

a little bit, letting it breathe, letting the anticipation build. And then I'd actually love to see a week off

on the backend as well, sort of letting the fallout and the ramifications of history being made. Let that breathe a little bit as well. I'm going to pull back the curtain a little bit. You and I were on the round table with Eamon Lynch on Monday and Eamon likes to drop since it's the season, I'm going to use Easter eggs. Let's just go with that where he, he gives you an idea of what he might ask. And I think both of you and I were given a heads up a warning. Thank you, Chloe, so much for the heads up warning that he was going to ask about, there was a trailer, uh,

sent out about this live golf docu-series that's going to be coming out. And I suggest everyone to go listen to it because it is something. It's an earful. However, I was terrified for a moment that it was going to be me. She didn't say which one of us was going to get the question. And you can't see the feedback. But the look on my face when he threw that question in your court.

Just a wry smile? Oh, no, no. There was nothing subtle about it. It was just pure joy that, oh, thank goodness. It's not me. It's going to have to be lab. And I did appreciate your answer because – and I wanted to take your answer a little bit – a step further because I had sort of ruminated a comeback if I'm the one that fell under that. Although that was the exact same reaction I had to when Eamon threw you the –

People aren't talking about Angel Cabrera. It's going to be disgraceful that he's participating, correct? What am I? I wasn't set up for that very well. But your answer was interesting to me because I had ruminated an answer that was very, very similar. And my take on it is, yes, I don't need to hear lib players whining and complaining about the world being against them anymore. You made your decision and there is going to be some backlash and there's going to be some that...

appreciate what you did. Like you're going to have to deal with both of them. Where I went is from a journalistic storytelling point of view that I don't have any interest anymore in these docu-series. And I would put full swing Netflix, which you did under the exact same microscope, because it seems to me Netflix and full swing have to go through a similar filter on the PGA tour side before they reach the audience, before they meet, meet, reach Jim pop.

And that's through the PGA Tour. And that's their property. I get it. I came away needing more. I felt like there was no calories in the last two seasons of Full Swing. And that's why I'm not going to watch it because I'm not learning anything about it. You have unprecedented access and unprecedented resources, and you're really not giving me. This is the exact same thing. This is going to be essentially a lip-produced docuseries, and you're only going to see that side of it. I have no interest in

As you point at my advanced age of listening to these sort of homogenized pre-filtered that this is our version of the story. That's not what I have any interest in at all. Yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly what I said. I do something along those lines. I appreciate it. Yeah, I do sort of tire of the live guy sounding and acting perpetually aggrieved.

and I can see why they would do that because that is what the executives want to hear. That's what the promoters want to hear. That's what the social media team wants to hear. That is what, if you are a live fan, you want to hear as well as like anti-establishment, we're different, we're not getting the respect. And I think that that can certainly play well in those quarters. But to your point, you are not going to grow

When you have these two sides that are so entrenched, you know, you're not, you're not reaching across the aisle. That's not how you were going to expand. And I think that's why you have a situation where now in Brooks Koepka, again, and speaking to the media on Wednesday at Miami sort of doubled down on what he said in a recent interview where he was surprised and he does not believe that live is at a point now in year four where he thinks it needs, or it should be that they are lagging behind with commercial interest, with sponsor interest, with fan interest. And I think that is, uh,

I think owes to the strategy that they have had is just woe is me. What did Damon call like the crybaby phase, essentially just being perpetually aggrieved and everyone is against us. No one believed in us. Everyone was doubter and look at what we are doing now. To me, that does not resonate with hardcore golf fans. That's only sort of catering to your base. And I think that's why live is sort of,

in a situation now as it relates to trying to gain traction, particularly in the U.S.?

No, and I think that's a really good point. And I wanted to be fair in pointing out that I don't like docuseries that I guess I would put the Aaron Rodgers docuseries that was, I believe that was on Netflix. Like he had complete control over that. So of course he's only going to tell his side of the narrative. That's what I feel about this. That's what I feel about when you look at the Netflix series, Full Swing, you're not getting the full picture. And so I think that's what I don't like about it. Sanitized. It's a sanitized to appease the certain partner that they are with.

And I'll also say my understanding is Scott O'Neill, the new CEO of Live Golf, is speaking today in Miami. And I am curious to see what he's going to say. We've got a couple of colleagues who are down there. Mark Slaball, Bulldog from ESPN. I spoke with him last night. I think there's going to be a lot of that same rehashing. But yes, it feels like when you have a player like Brooks Koepka, who is so willing to be outspoken in this particular arena, you're at a tipping point where, yes, I think even the players want to start seeing some level of commercial success.

As it relates to the players this week, we mentioned Big Boy Golf Course at Doral could potentially portend well for them. What translates to next week at Augusta National? Which of the players are you most interested in monitoring in the progress? I think it's any of those combination of guys that will have a chance at Augusta. And I think on the roundtable, someone said that of the field, which is about 100 players, let's call it right now at the Masters. I don't know, 25 of them.

Maybe I'm maybe that's on the high side when it comes to you. I feel like 25 really have a legitimate chance coming into the tournament. Probably lower. I mean, the Masters is the easiest tournament to forecast. It's the easiest tournament to win as well from a major standpoint. So if you're doing, I don't know, let's say 20 percent off the top based on the field size, I'm going to go to the obvious. I think Bryson DeChambeau is going to be curious because we don't know.

where his game is. And I think we've had this conversation numerous times about John Rom. Like, of course he should be among the favorites going into the masters based if nothing else on his history on that particular golf course, but you don't know where his game is at the moment. Brooks is the sort of the interesting outlier in my mind that yes, he has the game to do it. We've seen it time and time again. He switched, he flips that switch, uh,

Going into the majors, no idea how he does it, but any combination of those guys. And then I would turn to Joaquin Neiman. I think he's a fascinating case study where he is probably playing the best golf of his career. And he's proving it, not only playing live events, but playing anything else he can possibly get his hands on to make sure that he is going to be in the Masters and the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.

Yeah, so Joaquin is an interesting one because he has been the top performer results-wise the past couple years on Live Golf. He's already got two wins this season. He's batting 500 as he reaches the leadoff event into the Masters. He's up to eighth in data golf rankings, which takes into account not just Live Events, but obviously PGA Tour events as well. But he is 0 for 23, Rex.

in recording top 10 finishes in major championships.

So as well as he has played during his PGA tour career, former winner at Riviera, as well as he has played on live, I believe he's now a four or five time winner on that circuit. It has not translated yet to major championships. You know, he's still, I think 26 years old, but you know, it's getting to be a larger than, you know, larger sample size. And I think he's probably comfortable with, I think the player to watch this week is, is John Rom, the 2023 masters winner. He's been top six in,

In every live event this year, all of his strokes game numbers look great. He's driving the golf ball at an elite level again. You remember last spring, that was sort of the bugaboo, had a left miss that he was certainly unaccustomed to. He told reporters today he's still not at his best, but he loves the work that he's put in the last couple of weeks as it relates to his game and sort of fine-tuning things. It sort of feels in the same vein as what we heard from Rory, same vein as what we heard from Scotty. I don't know if anyone –

in the game is sort of in full flight at the moment. But obviously these are, these are crucial weeks for, for making sure that you find something and heading to Augusta national or precision and distance control is going to be of paramount importance. I'm curious about Bryson last year, had a great run in the major championships, had a great run at Augusta national 36 hole leader last

at the masters. Couldn't quite finish it off. Do you think that that was an aberration based on how he has played at Augusta national previously, or do you think that he has actually found something? Well, you pointed that out in the round table earlier this week, like Bryson's record at the masters is not great. I think his best finish, uh, excluding the last year was when he was an amateur right before he turned pro. I remember that pretty vividly. Uh, it,

it hasn't been a golf course that he's played particularly well on. It doesn't seem to suit his brand, but I think he's evolving as a player. And I'm kind of with you on that front. When you look at what he's capable of doing to golf courses, where he can reinvent the actual course, he can play it a different way than a lot of guys can. Like that's the interesting thing to me. Like the,

Like Bryson, don't like Bryson. He's going to stand on certainties and see things completely different. And I find that to be extremely entertaining. We have seen the good side since last year at the U.S. Open, well, even before last year at the PGA Championship, when it comes to Bryson, where everything seems to be moving in his favor and he seems to have turned over, let's call it a new leaf, professionally. We haven't seen things kind of go the other way, for example, with Scotty Shepard.

right now where it's great when you're on top of the world and you're winning eight times in a season and doing the things that Scottie has done the last few years. I think what we've seen the last two or three months from Scottie is a level of frustration and it sort of manifests itself when you ask him a stupid question and he doesn't play along with you.

With Bryson, it's a little bit different. He's a little bit more animated. He's a little bit more forthcoming with his emotions. So, yes, I think from a competitive standpoint, I think Doral is a perfect place to see exactly where Bryson's game is. But also, I want to see mentally how he comes into the year's first major. Yeah, I think it's fair. I think it's reasonable to say that Bryson is not playing at a level that he was at this time last year. I remember heading into the Masters, he had four consecutive top 10 finishes overall.

on live headed to the masters and had one of the best driving weeks of his entire career. And he gained nearly two strokes on the field with his driver. I mean, was, was putting himself in position to attack the golf course in ways that other players weren't. Remember he had like those bold faced irons that were all the rage. Well, he was able to hit it closer because he was hitting a lot less club,

into the greens because he was just absolutely overpowering the golf course. At times this season, he struggled with his iron play. At times this season, he struggled with his putting and with his scrambling. He's one of the worst on live this year in terms of scrambling. Maybe that's the golf courses they're playing. You know, again, he was the one who was criticizing the schedule and sort of the difficult tracks or lack of thereof that they've been playing at this point in the season. But I'm not quite sure.

I'm a believer in Bryson this time around. Haven't quite seen it. How about Brooks Koepka, Rex? Brooks Koepka has nearly had an opportunity to win the 2019 Masters.

Had an opportunity to win a couple years ago as well before he was caught on that marathon final day by Jon Rahm. Where are you on the Brooks? I don't know if a concern meter is, but sort of, you know, what do you want to see out of him this week that perhaps we haven't seen over the past couple of months? No, it's no concern whatsoever, but it's the enigma that is Brooks. Like, what's his motivation level coming in?

He clearly has the talent in the game to still win major championships, to still win on live golf. That goes without debate. It's the part that wears his head coming into the year's first majors. You're right. He's had success there, and he's proven time and time again that he has a game that can win the big events. That's not what's in question. When you come in, though, do you feel like you're one of the best players in the world?

Do you feel like there's baggage there? We're going to go round and round about this when it comes to Rory next week. Is he coming into this with a fresh mindset or is he coming to this with 10 years of baggage that, nope, I haven't been able to get this done? And that's going to make a difference. Let's don't gloss over it. I think you've leaned into this pretty hard that if Rory does not get off to a fast start. It's over. It's over. Thursday at Augusta National is the most important day of Roy McIlroy's career.

season. I'm not that dedicated to that take. I think that take, let's clip that take and put it straight to... Thursday at the Masters is the most important day of Roy McIlroy season. If he shoots an even par, you're going to say it's over? Yes, most likely, especially when you look at the weather forecast.

It's going to be about 70 degrees. It's going to be sunny. It's going to be light winds. You look at the opening round score of the last four or five winners of the Masters. It's somewhere in that 67 to 66 range. Like you have to go and get it early and then sort of drop anchor for the rest of the week. And so, yes, if Roy McIlroy does not shoot in the 60s, I think it is most likely. Again, barring something that we have not seen in recent trends.

it is going to be very difficult for him to come back and win. I think every single sports psychologist I have in my phone would tell me if I called them right now that that's probably not the best mindset. You might be right. And I think statistically you go and get it. Oh, my God. And if you don't, it's over. I'm not sure that's the idea going into it. I don't think Bob Rotella is telling Rory that. I mean, it's all or nothing on Thursday, buddy. Do it now or don't do it ever.

I don't think that's a good mindset. It's not, but at least when you look at the statistical trends and you look at the way Rory has played in his 16 years at Augusta National, the two times in which he has had the best opportunities to win were in 2011, he opened with 65,

And in 2018, when he played in the final group with Patrick Reed, both those are the only two instances when he shot in the 60s in the opening round at the Masters. That is clearly the key to success. And every other time he has managed to play some of his worst golf on that opening day. And you have dismissed this, but every time you make the argument, I always go back to 97 that Tiger didn't get off to a great start. He shot 40 on his opening night and he went on to win by 12. But he shot two under.

No, no, he recovered. It was a heck of a recovery, but it's still worth pointing out that he got out to about the worst start you can imagine for someone who's going to end up winning by a dozen strokes. But the golf course is no longer the wedge fest that it was in 97.

I wouldn't say that. I think Rory still can certainly have himself a wedge fest if he's driving the ball well. And that was the one thing I think we talked about it on Sunday about Houston. Like if you were picking apart his performance at Houston, I think he did the two things well that he kind of had to see about. Strokes came tee to green. He finished inside the top five and driving distance. He was inside the top 10. I'm not even arguing, suggesting that statistically you're wrong. That of course you want to do,

at least not put yourself on the wrong side of the split. Like anything below par, one or two under par, even on your bad day would probably be fine. You, however, I can't wait to have this conversation. We'll be doing mini pots after every round next week. And when Roy opens with a one under,

He's going to shoot 70, who's going to be right at the cusp of shooting in the 60s, but not quite. He's most likely at that point going to be three or four shots behind. And you're going to call it. It'll certainly be an interesting debate. I think this is fun, right? Because all I can think about...

is the masters and Augusta and getting up there. So like, I can only imagine how the players feel the week ahead of time. We're recording this on Wednesday, like eight days out from the opening round from a personal standpoint. What do you, what are you most looking forward to with the masters and what will be eight days in Augusta, Georgia?

I mean, I love the way the week starts. I love there's a flow to how the week goes. You and I both, well, no, you get there on Saturday. I believe you're going up. I'll meet you the next day for the drive trip and putt. You and I have a bit of a tradition where we try to slip away in the afternoon and go play one of our favorite places, Palmetto, where?

mother nature weather, uh, allowing where we will actually do the podcast from Palmetto. It's one of our, our favorite events, but then Monday starts and I just love the buildup to it. We just got the schedule for interviews. You and I both probably were coming through that this morning, thinking about what stories we're going to write on Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday, uh, want to see the golf course. I mean, we haven't seen it since last year's storms. We've heard some stories that maybe they lost a couple more trees and they allowed, or that

They talked about after the storm, the hurricane last season. So I think there's a lot going into it, but it's going to be all about the players. We're going to continue to have these exact same conversations. You and I are scheduled to do our same sort of chit chat with Steve Sands being the adult supervision in the room as if that's a possibility. And I'm sure we're going to continue to go round and round about this, where if Roy doesn't get off to a fast start, you're going to say he's done. I'm probably going to be a little bit more, I don't know.

Measured? Forgiving? Probably could be a little bit more measured in your take. We always have to be on our best behavior when we are on the live from the master set. I actually have to find my dress socks and my dress shoes. It's the only time all year long in which they show our legs. You know, it's typically we're in like director's chairs or standing up where it's a very sort of close crop of us. This time I need to, you know, iron my pants.

find dress shocks, find dress shoes, make myself look at least somewhat presentable. Yeah. You mentioned I I'm going up on Saturday. I will be there for the final round of the Augusta national women's amateur. Always one of my favorite days of the entire year. It always delivers the drama, the suspense, trying to see players who are obviously typically not in that sort of competitive environment on an entirely different golf course. Maybe they've never seen it before. Maybe they've just seen it a handful of times by this point, trying to claim a,

I don't even think it's arguably anymore. The biggest title in women's amateur golf. I absolutely love that day. I'm going to walk all 18 holes on Saturday just to see what's different about the golf course. See if there's any sort of different viewing angles, anything that will make sort of a demonstrable difference in terms of how the golf courses is going to play. I heard the third hole potentially could play a little bit different with a lack of trees.

Rory mentioned 16 has been thinned out as well by the greens, so maybe you won't have any shadows. But again, from a competitive standpoint, I don't think it's going to make that much difference. He also mentioned four greens.

have been redone for this year. No, I will be not beyond the green and reading them myself and scouting new hole locations. But interesting to see what the players themselves say as it relates to our little traditions. I certainly love doing and being on the live from the master set with Steve Sands. I love getting to the cathedral. That is the media center early sip and coffee, hammering down a chicken sandwich in the morning. I was going to say fried chicken in the Bartlett lounge. Yes.

Always on the veranda. Always a thrill as well. And this is the only tournament all year, Rex, in which we are outside the ropes. And I will certainly be kvetching about that as I do each and every year because a man who is 5'9 and 3 quarters has a little bit of a difficult time from an observing and viewing standpoint. But, but...

I also like mingling with family members, mingling with agents, other dignitaries in the game who are sort of watching the action that well. It feels sort of communal, which is, you know, typically we're inside the ropes, kneeling down, scribbling notes, observing, trying to listen in on player caddy conversations. You can't get that sort of experience at the Masters, but I think you make up for it by having sort of the communal experience of being one of the crowd. That three quarters is carrying a lot of weight there. Five, nine, and three quarters, that's...

That's how you know you are self-conscious about your height. Hey, hey, I'm closer to 5'10 than I am 5'9". Isn't 5'9 and three quarters about average? I don't know what... 5'9 is average height for an American. You make it sound like it's another disability. You can't put that alongside your colorblindness. Colorblindness, stuttering, vertically challenged. Stuttering? I mean, yes, I'm just...

I'm really just a sympathy case, and I certainly do appreciate it. I see your confidence is high going into the biggest event of the year. Cool. It most certainly is. But as you mentioned, Rex, we will have the podcast on Sunday night, as we always do. Again, not going to be on linear television. They have different programming for weeks of the major championships and the Ryder Cup this year. So do not look for that. I guess the offshoot of that is that we'll have it up on YouTube a little bit quicker, which I think is great as well. And then, of course, the mini-pods.

on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the big edition on Sunday. It's going to be jam-packed week from the Masters, from Augusta National, and you guys in the Joe where you can find all of our stuff, all of our writing, all of our features, all of our news, all of our commentary, mbcsports.com slash golf. Rex and I will be back on Sunday. Don't forget, hit us up in the comments section. Anything you want to know. AMA, ask me anything. Ask us anything.

As it relates to the Masters and Augusta National, how are we going to do our jobs? Anything on your mind, we'd love to tackle it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for support. Talk to you guys. Have a good night. Be sure to tag it, pound ass teeth.

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