Did another TGL blowout expose some of the league's flaws?
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav. Folks, we are two days removed from this very podcast. For the very first time in its history, appearing on Golf Channel, Rex, you are in Palm Springs, site of this week's PGA Tours American Express. Like, have you been stopped all over the desert? Are you signing autographs outside the rope lines? What's been the reception in the desert?

Yeah, I don't sign autographs. I'm just kidding. Of course I do. It actually has been pretty cool. And I'm sure it's been the same for you. A lot of people have reached out and said how unique and how much fun it is to be able to do a podcast with someone you're friends with, someone you've done it with for a long time. And I was actually I wanted to touch on this because we weren't able to as much as we talked about 52 minutes. That seemed like a very daunting number. You and I have been bouncing that one back and forth, which is how long the podcast is on Mondays.

It went fast. And there was one reader question, and I don't have it in front of me, so I apologize for whoever asked, who asked how long we've been doing this. And well, there's two answers to that. One, you and I have been talking about golf for the better part of 15 years.

Roughly. Yeah, roughly. Yeah. And then we've been doing the podcast. This was interesting. I didn't realize in the moment that we were doing it. The podcast that we did with Andrew Bradley that was such a smashing success. That was our 500th podcast, which in retrospect, maybe we should have picked another guest. Nothing against Andrew, but 500 is a pretty big number. But Andrew, you have that pleasure of 500 podcasts. And then we got to do it on linear TV. It's been a good couple of weeks for the podcast.

It certainly has. We've had certainly different iterations of the pod. This is my favorite one that we've had yet. We certainly appreciate all the feedback that we've received over the past couple of days. You're right. Like it is, it is a little daunting to do a 52 minute show on television, but turns out we had plenty to talk about. And just as a reminder, Rex just mentioned, like if you want to appear in the show,

We're going to have listener questions section at the end of each Monday show. And so hit us up with questions on YouTube. Find us on Twitter slash X. Email us, whatever you have to do. As always, we thank you for the support.

All right, Rex, before we get to the Amex and what's going on this week in Palm Springs, I want to first start with the buzziest topic of the week, and that was TGL Week 2. It was certainly a calculated risk by the league to send out Tiger not first in the debut match, but instead second,

It resulted in a 12-1 blowout. Jupiter Lynx, that Tigers team, got blown out by LA Golf Club 12-1. We're still awaiting ratings information when we're recording this podcast about midday on Wednesday. I know you didn't watch all of it because your other duties that you have with Golf Central. In your opinion, what worked, what didn't work in week two of TGL?

Well, it was curious because we're at the hotel where we're staying at. There's a lot of caddies and folks from the tournament who were staying there as well. And everyone sort of filtered into the bar right about the time. As an aside, being a West Coast sports fan is the best sports fan to be because getting home from work at five o'clock and turning on your TV and you have a major event like this going on TGL or football or whatever the case may be. So lucky. That is the best way to be. NFL Sundays would start at 10 a.m. I

Breakfast football. It would be amazing. I know. Like, I don't know how this secret hasn't gotten out because I'm a big fan of this. I will say there was a level of anticipation of how they would have taken – TGL would take what they did in the first week and improve on it. And I kind of hinted to this on Sunday night's podcast. There were a lot of things.

that changed going into this second week. One of the things that changed is something that you talked about, one of the complaints that you kind of had about if you're in the arena, you can't hear the interaction between the players, you can't hear the announcers. They fixed that. If you showed up, if you're one of the 1,500 fans on Tuesday night to watch Tiger Woods' first match, you had to download an app and you got to listen to it. It was a little delayed, but you had access to that. I think that's...

the action moved along as quick as it did in that first week that we all liked so much about. But this time around, I felt like there was more interaction between players. Look, Kevin Kisner's going to help that.

help that. He's going to be the tonic that was going to fix that. It wasn't going to be Tiger Woods. I did think it was funny that everyone thought, oh, that'll change when Tiger comes along. Tiger is not a trash talker and he's actually not a great talker when it comes to just being lively and insightful. That's not been his MO for his entire career. So that's not going to change. But when you put Kisner and you put Homa in his corner, he didn't have a lot of room to talk.

Anyway, so that part was enjoyable. I felt like they took a good step forward when it came to actually laying out and hearing the interaction between the players. The blowout.

That's the part that gets me, man. Like I was told specifically by an official who has been with TGL since the beginning that they ran hundreds and hundreds of simulated matches going into last week, that first match. And this person told me he can count on one hand how many were blowouts, that every single time it always came down to those last couple of singles matches, last couple of holes. And to have back to back weeks of this, that is a little concerning because it's clear Team Jupiter, my team,

I'm going to announce my allegiance right now to Team Jupiter, Jupiter Golf Club for life. That one, that team played bad, man. All three players just played bad. Look, Tiger clearly was rusty. Kevin Kisner played absolutely awful. It felt like Max Homa was the one you were counting on. And that's a bad scenario based on how he's been playing lately.

the best player on the team is Tom Kim and he was not in the starting lineup for the opening. He's here. Yeah. He's here in Palm Springs. He's here. And so, yeah, like I, it was somewhat, it was somewhat hard to believe that you could actually have a worse blowout than you had in week one. And we're going to get to the competition aspect in just a little bit. I think when you look at, at what didn't work week two versus week one,

This went 20 minutes long, Rex. It cut into the Duke-Biami game. I was promised that this was going to be a tight, condensed two-hour show. When I was in person at the SoFi Center, when you and I were both in person at the SoFi Center, to me it felt like it dragged at the 45 to 60-minute mark. After that, there was the intermission, singles. I'm still uncertain whether that actually fits. I was really surprised that on TV, watching it, it still felt

like an hour too long. So I don't know. Like, it sounds ridiculous to say because it takes five hours to play three balls on the PGA tour. This was supposed to be two hours. And I still think, I think with this condensed nature, it might be one hour too long. Joel Beal, who I was with on the Golf Today roundtable on Wednesday, had a good idea. Like, does this need to be live? Like, I know they want to have the gambling aspect, but you can make this either...

you know, much snazzier, much quicker paced. If you basically just have a YouTube production, that's really sleek, really savvy, really, really fast paced. If you just do it all in post-production and just have a one hour show on Tuesday, that might be something to consider as well. I, but I think the biggest differentiator Rex week over week was the, the poor shots that we saw. And it almost, it almost made you question the technology.

And whether it was working like Tiger Woods does not miss greens with wedges by 20 yards and hit it long. Max Homa does not miss greens 20 yards short into a bunker. And there was multiple players over these past couple of weeks who made mention that inside 150 yards, the closer that you get to the green, it's really hard to,

to have the proper depth perception and to dial in the distances from that range. Like you and I have both been there when you're hitting from that back tee box and you have a lofted club, the ball is like banging off the very, very top of the screen to the point where you're almost like, Oh wow, could he, could he actually lofted over the screen? That's a little bit wonky. And I think you saw, uh,

just with the wedge shots in particular, it just didn't quite add up. And if players are saying that they flushed it, if players are surprised by the curvature of the shots on the screen, like,

It's they weren't overtly criticizing the technology, but they were they had enough doubt in it where that could become like a foundational fundamental issue. If you're TGL, because if you don't have faith in the technology and that what you're hitting and the numbers that you think you should be producing are not what's actually popping up on the screen, that's.

that's a big issue if you're having people who are betting real life money on the outcome of the matches on the outcomes of the shots. So I thought that that was very interesting to see week over week, like the quality of shots deteriorate. And it may look, it may have just been the players didn't play as good, but I think the level of surprise at some of the shots is, was certainly noteworthy.

Now I feel like a parent because I need to come in and clean up so much stuff behind you. First and foremost, gambling is not just part of this. It is this. That's what they're leaning into for TGL. So no, you couldn't tape it. It has to be live. We've had this conversation before and officials have said, look, this is the product. And the whole idea is, and I think you and I touched on this last week for that first match. There's so many bets going on in the middle of the match and there's so much speculation.

real estate ahead of them to even make it more gambling savvy let's so to speak but you are but you would not but you would not even know that rex like we were oh no you can't even drivers of interest the only mention that i recall in two hours of watching was they had a i believe it's a fan duel graphic that said who wins the sofi cup which is the end of season race like these guys on the pj tour wager on everything like to me i want to see live

Have an in the moment experience where you're seeing like, well, Tiger hit the fairway. Well, well, kids blade a bunker shot. Will Max Homa make a, this, this putt, like those things in the moment, I think can actually sustain interest for the course of two hours, as opposed to just having just sort of a random who wins the season long race thing.

And I'm not, I don't gamble. You and I have addressed this before. We're not good at it is why we don't gamble. However, if you're chasing and if you need your fix and let's, let's admit it, that's what this is. Football season is coming to an end. You're starting to get into basketball season. If you need your fix in between those two seasons until one of them heats up, this is going to be it. This is their opportunity. That's, that's their lane. They're going to lean into. And trust me, you couldn't tape it because in your mind, I guess you could try to keep it secret, but there's so many,

Like that, that just creates a whole nother. No, no, you would. Yeah, you would. You would be basically punting on the gambling issue. Yeah. So and you don't want to do that because I think it's a huge part of it. The other part of it is the technology. And I will say this. I was actually talking with Lucas Glover about this yesterday. He's part of the Atlanta Drive team. And he talked about early in the process when he was hitting in the simulator or hitting in the big arena that there was problems with the calibrations.

because he would hit a wedge and immediately know it was a good shot and it would come up 10 yards short or 10 yards right or whatever the case may be. And he told me a story about him calling the text being like, nope, that wasn't right. I hit that shot. Perfect. There's no way I should be off the green. And so they have dialed it down. And if you notice, there's two teeing areas.

One is essentially for longer clubs. I believe it's 35 yards from the screen. The forward teeing area, which is about 25 yards from the screen, is for shots inside 150 yards to address what you just talked about. The idea that if you have a wedge from the back teeing area, and I think there was like a viral video last week of Tiger talking about hitting one of the cameras.

over the screen. Like they can loft it as high as they want. And so that was how to get it because you need a certain amount of split second. It's much more technical than that, but to measure the shot properly. And that's why you needed the two separate teeing areas. If I had to venture a guess,

I would say the technology is working fine. What's not working is what you kind of touched on. The ability of a golfer in the real world to look up at a flag that's 126 yards away and just instinctively know, oh, this is the swing I need. Whether if it's a three-quarter swing or 12 o'clock or whatever it is you want to call it, that death perception is clearly not there when you're playing in a virtual world. I would venture a guess that that was the bigger issue. And beyond that, it was just Kevin Kisner playing bad golf. Yeah.

They did say, Jupiter Lynx, that they're going to fly Tom Kim, who lives in Dallas, out to South Florida and basically lock him in the simulator to make sure that he can stay dialed on. I think the competition, Rex, has garnered a lot of interest and attention because...

If it is going to be a blowout, there are still ways in which you can draw viewership. And in my opinion, like every match needs a hero and they need the viral moments. In the first week that you and I covered, like Shane Lowry and the joy that he brought was great. Ludwig Oberg was robotic and he did everything that he's done on the golf course inside the simulator. I thought that was great. In week two, I think somehow it was Kevin Kisner who was so bad that it was good.

And I've never seen Tiger Woods laugh harder, at least on camera, than he did with that shot that Kevin Kisner had in the 14th hole where he bladed the bunker shot, hit off the flagstick, and then almost chipped it in for an all-world three. That's the clip that is being recirculated all over the place. That's the clip that's gone bonkers on social media. That's the clip that's gone bonkers on YouTube. So with what we just said,

of how it's really hard for these guys to dial in and be good at simulator golf. I don't think that that can happen. I don't think they're going to put in the necessary time and effort to try and get good at simulator golf for what's supposed to be a fun one-off. And so in my opinion, they need to lead more into the silliness and the goofiness and the fun as opposed to making this

like a pseudo important golf competition. And so I want to see more games. I want to see more gimmicks. I want to see certainly better hammer usage, like make it more fun as opposed to something that's, that's sort of stuck in between of whether this is supposed to be like a golf competition that's showing off,

the best players in the world or is this something for the youtube generation and they just want to be really um excited and attracted with technology bells and whistles and fun and games

Yeah, and I think I've made it clear. This isn't for you and I. This is for a younger generation. This is for a different generation that digests golf differently. You and I are perfectly fine with 72 holes of stroke play golf. That's what we're conditioned to enjoy. That's what we've sort of grown up enjoying. I will say that there were a couple of moments that weren't viral that I really enjoyed, like the idea of Sahith leaning into drive's

sort of Happy Gilmore style. That was fun. Like where he's just trying to crank it as hard as he possibly can just to have fun with it. The passion that Justin Rose showed, it was like he was playing in a Ryder Cup, man. Like that part was really enjoyable, but I'm with you. You lean into the silly because it's clear that even though they're all competitors,

and none of them want to lose. The best parts of that were Tiger making fun and laughing at Kisner and Max and those two and the interaction between the two of them. We still don't know what it's going to be like if there's actually a close match, that if something comes down. I think it could be great. I think it could be really fun.

Yeah, it could be. And I would argue that that's going to lend itself to more of that trash talk that I think we want. That's going to lend itself to, in that arena, the competitors sort of double as entertainers. And that's when I think they're going to start understanding it, where the needles go back and forth, the barbs, that's going to be the fun part.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think it also remains to be seen to Rex, whether TGL can make sort of adjustments on the fly. When you look at the competitive schedule, I think there's actually a question of whether they can do that because you have New York golf club playing in week three against the Atlanta drive. Well, that'll be the second time.

that New York golf club has played. Whereas Rory's Boston common team has not played. So it's like, it's like all of a sudden every team plays once. And then you say, okay, look, we're changing the hammer rules. We're changing the shot clock. We're doing this. We're doing that because the tiebreaker for playoff eligibility comes down to holes, one and loss. And all of a sudden you can't be,

you can't be doing it without everyone having an equal number of matches and holes played. So I think that's something that's going to be interesting to see whether TGL can sort of bend it and adjust in the fly to make sure the viewership is there repeatedly for more. Check out the round table we did on Wednesday on golf today before the desert wrecks. I actually, I actually would argue that the bigger event this week on the golf calendar is in Dubai.

It's not a Palm Springs. You look at the quality of the field, the number of players who are playing. That is the DP World Tours Dubai Desert Classic. Roy McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Victor Hovland, Terrell Hatton. It's a Rolex series event on the DP World Tour. What are you most interested in seeing very early in the morning, at least where you are?

I enjoy. Yeah, I actually enjoy you telling me that I'm not at the biggest event of the week. I'm not even at the second biggest event of the week. Why did I fly out to Palm Springs? Why am I here? Because you were told to. That's right. I will say listening to Rory McIlroy's press conference that we were running on golf today when I was waiting to do my hit. A lot of interesting things. And you asked me what I'm focused on. Like, I'm going to be focused on Rory.

Like, because it's becoming increasingly obvious that even though he still feels like he's in the prime of his career, as chapters go, as if you look at your life as a clock, he is clearly on the second half of that hour, right?

He's coming up on the third, fourth block of his career as a professional golfer. The back nine of his career is Tiger Winston? Sure. And I'm not even saying – it has less to do with Rory and where he is in his career, and it has more to do – I interviewed a 17-year-old who's making his professional debut this week at Palm Springs. Blades Brown is very impressive. He has more confidence than I can ever imagine a 17-year-old has had in his life.

But it was a really stark representation of if you're a Rory McIlroy or anyone else, even JT to a certain degree, you have to be looking over your shoulder and thinking the game is only trending younger and younger. Like all of the things that I did well in my prime, the next generation has come up and they're doing it better than I did. So it will be fun to watch how Rory sort of tackles this year. And he's been open about the idea that he's switching his schedule up, that he's still sort of tinkering, trying to come up with a scenario that –

that puts him in the best possible position to win that major championship for the first time in a decade. So I'll be focused on that. Like, look, it's a soft opening, a lot like Sony was and Maui was last week for guys on the DP World Tour. And Rory has had a lot of success in the desert. So I think it'll be telling. You'll get an idea of exactly where his game in his head is.

Yeah. I think the window isn't necessarily closing, but it's, it's inching shut. He's turns 30, 36 years old, I believe, uh, in may, I think Rory has done a better job than most sort of extending what I would still call the prime of his career. Rory show no sorts of fall off whatsoever. He's still one of the longest drivers on the PG tour. He still has speed. Like you look at what, um,

He showed up looking like he's clearly spent a lot of time in the gym. He's as fit as ever. I think what you're seeing now with Roy McIlroy these past couple years is probably more mental scar tissue and the accumulation of near misses and close calls and just the sort of baggage of

of being the married father of one who's been traveling globally essentially since he was 17, 18 years old. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly baggage that comes with being a professional golfer for the past two decades. Like he's taken on a lot. That doesn't even include sort of his role with the PGA Tour bureaucracy over the past couple of years as well and what that could sort of weigh on him as well. This would be three in a row if Roy does win in Dubai. I was struck too, Rex, by some of the comments that were made

by both Jon Rahm and Roy McIlroy in their pre-tournament press conference. Let's start with Jon Rahm, who aired some continued grievances. He said it's wrong that live golfers continue to not receive official World Golf ranking points. He thought that the European Tour, which he has filed an appeal against the sanctions that were levied against him for playing live golf,

Golf events should wait until after the Ryder Cup to hear that appeal because it's not fair to anybody. Did anything that Jon Rahm said earlier this week resonate with you? Do you think he has a point or do you think at this point it just continues to be sour grapes?

No, I actually had a long conversation with a player who's on Live Golf yesterday about kind of these topics. One, the World Golf Ranking. We talked a little bit about the idea that they were promised a bill of goods. And a lot of the players are starting to come around to the idea that it's not going to happen. And of course, that was Greg Norman, who assured everyone, you'll get into the majors, you'll get your world ranking points. Well, you kind of stuck your head in the sand.

Like you were sold this bill of goods and you chose to believe it because you were getting a big check alongside of it. That's kind of on you. And I think our colleague, Eamon Lynch, probably said it best. There's consequences for decisions. And this is one of those consequences. If you're a John Rom, the flip side of it. And this was a live player who told me this, that if you look at the way the relegation worked out last year, going into this year, essentially just one person.

earned his card at the promotions event just because of the way it all worked out. They didn't even deliver on the sliver of meritocracy that they promised. I mean, they had promised. I think the original idea was four players would play their way in, four players would play their way out. That didn't happen. And it wasn't even a captain. Look, I understand why Bubba's team, Bubba Watson's team feels like Bubba needs to stay, even though he's not playing well. Like he is a draw. You want him in these events.

I love Brendan Grace. Like he's been one of my favorite players on the PGA tour for a long time. He's not a draw for that team. And he played poorly last year. He was injured to be fair, but it's not as though he earned his card through the promotions event. They just brought him back. They just shrugged. Nope. We're going to go ahead and keep them. So if you're not even going to deliver on the one thing on the little tiny sliver of promises that you made, I don't know where the expectations are to think that yes, we still deserve world ranking points.

And I'm sure Jon Rahm is just standing up for some of his buddies.

Because at number 31 in the world, having won the 2023 Masters, his major exemptions, his major qualifications are set, as they are for a handful of players who play on live golf. There are, as Eamon said, consequences for the decisions that you make. And I thought it was also interesting, too, because when you look at one of the players who has been extended a major invitation despite a world ranking that would not get him in otherwise was Joaquin Neiman.

with the Masters for the second year in a row. Augusta National is giving him a special invitation. Nowhere in the Augusta National press release are the words live golf mentioned. They mentioned how Joaquin Neiman is a former winner of the Latin America Amateur Championship, where he's from, sort of going above and beyond to play on the DP World Tour and Asian Tour throughout the year to sort of get his ranking up and how he's performed there. So to me, that is sending a clear message that

that Augusta National, a major organization, still does not view live golf accomplishments on the same level as some of the other worldwide tours. And you can argue whether or not that's fair or not based on the amount of talent that live is accumulated over the past couple years. But that's clearly how arguably the most important major organization views it. I don't see that perception changing. Should it change? Probably.

Probably. I've been on record many times in this podcast saying I'd still love to see, I don't know what the number is, three, five, probably not 10 live golfers based on their season long standings, get an invitation to the majors. But what has happened over these past year with the limited relegation options, with some of the players that they're retaining, who they're re-signing, I think only hit at

sort of the argument that John Rahm is trying to make. Because if it is, if it continues to be this closed shop of players who are uncompetitive and have been uncompetitive for a number of years, it's, it's a really hard argument to make that this is so strong that you have to let us into the majors because we're proving it on a weekend week out basis.

No, and I think that's fair. And I think eventually we land in some sort of scenario where the top players from live are recognized to get into the major championships, because I don't think any of the four majors want to be in the business of picking and choosing exactly who should be in Joaquin Neiman. It's the best example. He got the exemption this year, just like he got the exemptions last year into the PGA championship and the open championship.

by the way, because of the effort that he put in. He tried to go outside of live. He tried really, really hard to go outside of live and earn enough world ranking points playing the Asian tour. So I think that was everybody making a nod. The rest of the players really don't follow his suit. If you make an effort, it's clear that the major championships are going to be on your side, but you're right. They're undercutting their own argument. When you have a situation where only essentially one player played their way on to that tour, that is not the meritocracy that the official world golf ranking wanted.

and they're certainly not going to bend to the will of live golf if you continue down that road. And speaking of live golf, Roy McIlroy was actually asked a couple of times today about young Northern Irish star and Roy's protege Tom McKibben, who is reportedly set to join John Rahm's live team when the league resumes next month in November.

Saudi Arabia. I was very struck by what Roy McIlroy said in which he said that he was advising Tom McKibben not to give up his PGA Tour membership. Of course, he earned that via the top 10 in the season long race to Dubai standings, just as folks like

Pavon did last year, Bob McIntyre did, Adrian Marant did before he bolted to live golf as well. But he says, quote, if I were in your shoes, I would make a different choice than when you're thinking of making.

I would be a little personally disappointed if that were to happen. He's not going to stand in his way. I feel like he's giving up a lot to not really benefit that much. Rory is referring to official World Golf ranking, potentially major access, even a European Ryder Cup spot if Tom McKibben does not play well on live golf. What sort of stood out to you, Rex, about those comments and what Rory's advice was for a player who's been very close to for the past decade?

Yeah, it's clearly this is an emotional issue for Rory. This just isn't another player who's picking up and possibly joining live golf. This is someone who he has essentially been a mentor to. I mean, he's become something of a protege. He also sees the talent and understands how difficult that was to earn your PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour. He's also seen how that pathway can benefit a player. You look at last year, Matthew Pavon being the primary example where he was one of the last guys.

He earned his card and really turned it into something special last year on the PGA Tour to sort of kickstart his career here in the United States. I will say it seems as if Rory probably dialed back his rhetoric a little bit. And part of that conversation that they had on golf today after the fact was Rory has tried to step away from the politics of the PGA Tour and what's going on in professional golf.

off. Eamon Lynch, who probably knows him better than anyone pointed out. He can't, he can't help himself. Like he's going to continue to be involved one way or the other, even though he keeps saying that, no, I just want to focus on the golf. And this is probably an example of that. I think Rory probably sees the landscape better than anyone else.

in this particular case. And he understands what Tom is doing is you're putting your career in jeopardy. And we've seen it from other players now in this process. Again, they've been promised a bill of goods that clearly aren't going to be delivered on. And you're putting yourself in a situation where competitively, you're going to go into a whole different scenario. We talked about this a lot last year with Jon Rahm, that maybe 14 events,

of 54 hole golf and shorts and loud music isn't the best way to get him ready to play in the major championships, which quite frankly is what he cares about the most. I think maybe that's what's bringing Rory into the conversation because he sees the landscape as that might not be the best avenue for you to become the best player you could possibly be.

And some of the live contracts that are being doled out to players, it certainly seems are not as lucrative as it was three years ago when Greg Norman and other live officials were certainly incentivized to, to attract players.

players and to lure players in the need to do so with nine-figure contracts. I have no idea what Tom McKibben is possibly getting from Liv, but Roy made the point like, look, you can make a boatload of money on the PGA Tour, on the DP World Tour, and you don't have to sacrifice what

what you would be in your career with potential career advancement. I thought it was very interesting to hear what he said, particularly in light of the comments recently made by Eugenio Shikara, who was in a very similar position just a couple of years ago, 22 years old. He was an amateur at the time, but he jumped to live golf. He got the bag. And now three years later, he's searching for places to play and his career sort of at a crossroads when perhaps he could have chosen another route.

All right. So that's Rory and Rom who are teeing it up this week in Dubai, as well as Victor Hovland, who, if you did not see, that's a pretty pointed comments about the swing direction he's making as well. I highly suggest you guys go to NBC sports.com slash golf to check that out. Finally, Rex, the tournament that you're at. No, Scotty Scheffler. It was Andrew Shoffley who withdrew earlier this week because of medical reasons.

what is sort of top of mind for you this week? What are you most paying attention to? Why should fans tune in to this week's American Express? Nothing like yammering for 29 minutes before you actually get to the tournament where I'm at. Appreciate you pulling around to this. Maybe we should have come up with a rundown for this particular pod.

Yes, it was a hit. Someone told me yesterday that this tournament, it goes back decades and decades to the old Bob Hope, has never had the first or second ranked player in the world. And for a brief moment, they did. Scotty was supposed to play. You're questioning that? I see the dubious look on your face. Wasn't Jon Rahm world number one at that time?

I don't know. It's a local journalist who told me this, so maybe I needed to... Larry Bohannon. Shout out Larry Bohannon. Who I think is covering his last American Express. So respect to him. Long-time golf writer here in the Valley. Does a really good job. And I believe his stats. But that didn't work out. Scotty, of course, withdrew after hurting his hand over the holidays. And then Xander withdrew in no real reason given other than maybe he's not playing right now his best golf. So maybe he needs a couple days off at home before he moves on to a bigger...

part of the season, which would be the signature events at Pebble Beach. And of course, LA coming up in a second week. If I had to make an argument, it's going to be twofold. And again, I had a chance to talk with blades Brown yesterday, a 17 year old making his professional debut on the PGA tour and

Blown away by how much confidence the young man had. Blown away by how he seems to be really at ease in his own skin. Confidence or arrogance? Which one? No, no, I wouldn't say confidence because I actually look, this was the first interaction I had with him. And I know his trainer who he's working with pretty well. And his trainer had told me early in the morning that they'd been working out yesterday morning and that Tom had accidentally dropped a weight on the trainer's laptop and essentially ruined it.

And so when Tom walked up again, haven't interviewed him before, I kind of just leaned over before I started the interview and Hey, I'm going to start with the question about you breaking your trainer's laptop. And he went pale. Like you could see where, Oh no, please don't. And it turned into a very funny moment and we got to joking about it. And I said, that's the reason I don't work out because I don't want to drop one of those weights on me. Forget about my laptop. I'm really worried about dropping it. Yes. That's definitely the reason. Yes. That's a hundred percent why I don't work out.

I think, I think, I think you think I played blades Brown seems Rex, like a very impressive player. He could have gone to any college. He had a decorated junior and amateur career. Like what, what's I guess his short-term outlook. I know obviously he's playing this week on a sponsor exemption, but like what's the rest of his 2025 look like?

I appreciate you watching my hit yesterday on golf central about it because I covered all of that, but sure. I'll go ahead and go over it one more time. The, his management team right now, he has four or five PGA tour starts on sponsor exemptions. Obviously his schedule will be dependent on how he plays in those events. Get a top 10. You move on to the next week. They also have a couple of starts on the corn ferry tour. The goal right now is to get him as many reps as,

as possible reps opportunities, because again, you want that confidence to turn into something where he's comfortable. And I did like the idea. I asked him about what Nick Dunlap did here last year.

becoming the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since 1991, how that was motivation for him in this process. Because my guess is turning pro at 17 was not a necessarily easy decision, especially with all of the colleges that were coming after him. And this is kind of an aside, and you know this better than I do, but NIL was going to pay him roughly half a million dollars.

to go to whichever college he landed at. I guess that's the going rate now for a very good junior golfer to go to a big-time college program. Clearly, that's not NIL money that we see on the football side when you have a Georgia quarterback end up at Miami for an estimated $4 million. However, that's still a motivation that I was curious about. How did you come to that? And clearly, he told me that what Nick Dunlap was able to do, not just here last year, but then to be able to close the season off with a second victory

on the PGA Tour. And there's just a level of confidence, I think, among younger players that we've touched on before, that they just show up as fully formed competitors, maybe not adults, but fully formed competitors where there's nothing in their game that you can point at and say, nope, that's absolutely not PGA Tour ready. Watching him play golf

the last two days. He hits it plenty far enough. The iron shots are crisp enough. His putting is going to have to come around and he has played in one PGA Tour event. He played in Myrtle Beach last year where he finished tied for 26. That would be one reason to watch and I think the other reason was, and I did this hit on Golf Today after you did your roundtable, just on JT because we have both agreed that he clearly turned a corner last year towards the end of the year. And coming into this year, he didn't play well in Maui. I was

can sort of write that off as Maui is kind of an anomaly on the PGA tour. It's a different golf course. It's a resort course. You can run into weird wins. I think this will be telling because all of the things we know about JT, and we talked about this in the Bahamas, like he is essentially in his career right now at a very similar point where Scotty Scheffler was as a preeminent ball striker who just wasn't putting well on the greens. And Scotty JT has decided to go without an instructor where Scotty went to Phil Kenyon and,

However, he said something in Maui that I think will be apropos this week. He talked about the idea that he still feels like he's a good putter. He just needs the confidence to come around. And as we've talked about, this is golf in a dome. This is going to be a putting contest. It'll be a good week to see where he is in that process.

Yeah, I mean, JT is going to absolutely have to fill it up if he wants to contend. What was it, 30 under par was the winning score last year with Nick Dunlap. Jon Rahm criticized this tournament a couple years ago as a effing putting contest, just as it relates to Blades Brown, which I find very interesting because Blades Brown is bucking a trend that we've seen primarily from

American youngsters where it seems like more and more are going to college. I don't think it's just because of NIL. I don't think it's just because of PG tour university, but it's just, just making sure everything is aligned and you're as prepared as possible. And college golf has certainly proven for us golfers to be a great preparer for what the next level is going to look like. It's not, you know, unique overseas, but at least,

in America. Like I can only think of Akshay Bhatia recently, who was a Ballyhoo recruit as a, as a junior player, skipped college golf, and then is sort of finding his way as a professional. It was a rough couple of years. Remember for Akshay Bhatia, he was receiving criticism left and right for, for going to college when it was clear that he was unprepared for that next level. I think it's a credit to him and his team that he's found his place now. But I think a lot of people are going to be very interested to see what the journey is,

of Blades Brown looks like. Can he experience success right away? Is it too much too soon for him? Did the team around him, you know, maybe push this one, maybe a year or two of seasoning of college golf could have helped. I think it's going to be very interesting to see how Blades Brown plays in 2025. This is, I guess, a curious place to start. Three golf courses, have to learn them, going to be a putting contest. But I'm with you. I think Blades Brown is the number one attraction this week, as well as Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, and...

That is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav. Just as a reminder, if you want to be on the show on Monday on Golf Channel, hit us up with listener questions. We'll find it. If not, use Ask Lav. I'll be sifting through the comments section, interacting with all you fine folks. We certainly do appreciate the support. In the meantime, you guys are the drill. NBCSports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates. We'll talk to you guys in a couple days. Thanks for listening. 52 Minutes.

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