Justin Thomas urges players to help the TV broadcast – but how?
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Hello and welcome. This is the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. And first, Rex, we need to have a mea culpa. We had set up a record on Sunday night live from the American Express.

You and I were going to be on television once again on Monday morning. We had a little bit of a snafu. It was on your end, nothing that you did personally, but I want you to explain your side of the story for folks who are extremely disappointed that the fact there was not a Sunday night record, us wrapping up Sepp Strzok, his two-shot victory at PGA West.

I'm so glad you started with this because this has been eating at me now for two days. It honestly has because I thought about it and I think the reason that the people like our podcast is because it's authentic and from time to time we pull back

the curtain and let people see kind of the ugly side, the things that don't work, the TV parts that probably shouldn't be made for TV. Let's be honest. And Fred, stay out of this. I don't want to hear from you right now, Fred. I'm going to go ahead and do the tirade right now. We promised you a Monday morning podcast at 52 minutes on linear TV. And on the very second week, we weren't able to pull it off. As you pointed out, it was just a logistical issue. We couldn't get the internet to work right at the golf course. It was plugged in. Actually, we did 20 minutes of

No, we had 12 minutes of content until the PGA Tour viciously, maliciously pulled the Wi-Fi from underneath you.

I'm not sure if that's true, but they did cut the cord. And when I asked the person, did you just turn off the Wi-Fi? She holds up a cut cord and scissors in the other hand. She goes, yes. And she walked away. And that was the end of it. It was a mwahaha. And I tried. We tried to do it from the media center right in the middle of Straka's interview, post-round interview. That clearly was not going to work. We tried to go to the TV compound where they had also cut all the cords and unloaded everything and everything.

gotten rid of everything. And then I raced to LAX in the middle of the night. You're up on the East Coast, so it's close to midnight by the time I get in position. And by that time, we had to pull the plug because it was going to just be too late. We couldn't turn it around. So we sincerely apologize for what we did. I think we're trying to find a better way to pull this off and we will be better in the future. But yes, it was an utter failure on all accounts.

We hope this is the last time that this situation happens. The reality is that it probably will not be. In any case, Rex, you and I will be doing a record on Saturday night with, of course, the Wednesday through Saturday start for the Farmers Insurance Open, this week's event on the PGA Tour. And then the pod will drop on Monday morning as scheduled. So it will be a little bit delayed. But if you want to watch it on YouTube, download podcasts wherever you get them, it will be uploaded on Saturday night.

All right. First, let's get into it. We actually had some takes that we wanted to get off our chest on Sunday night, which I still think...

even 48 hours later. Most people were actually not talking about Sepp Strakka's two-shot victory. They're not talking about how it sets him up for the European Ryder Cup team once again, as it did in 2023. Most people were not talking about Justin Thomas and his second place finish. Most people were not talking about Jason Day in sort of an encouraging run of form that he showed in the Coachella Valley. Most people were talking about the pace of play

And the fact that it took five and a half hours for the final group to get around PGA West, which again was a play tougher than it has in years past. But it is not an overly difficult golf course where you're facing U.S. open conditions and everything just sort of grinds to a halt. How do you explain it? And on a level of one to ten, how much of a of a crisis has the pace of play become on the PGA Tour?

I don't think it's any more of a crisis now than it was 20 years ago when I started in the business. And we were complaining about it, and we didn't have a podcast to do it back then, so we just sat and yelled at each other in the media center about it because that was our only outlet. I will say that, yes, maybe pace of play has gotten a little slower. I don't know if you can quantify that over the last few seasons. However, I also think the tour has implemented some policies that should at least in theory work. No, five and a half rounds. Keep in mind, it was also threesomes.

So I think that's important to point out. They went off both sets of tees. So at some point when you make the turn, you are probably running into the group in front of you that went off the other side. There's a lot of reasons behind it that I can sit and come up with. Regional par 5s, short par 4s, treacherous par 3s. I get it from a course standpoint.

And as you pointed out, the stadium course, every green had been redone. It had played, I think almost two strokes harder than it had historically, which is a pretty significant move. And so instead of being a birdie fest where everything seems to be moving along nicely, we saw some blowups over the course of the week. Someone made a 13 on the 16th hole. Like, I mean, there were some disasters out there to be made. I think all of those things factored into it. I don't understand where the vitriol comes from though, because it's not as though this just cropped up. It's like, do we have 47 weeks left?

of good pace of play and all of a sudden we get to the American Express and you run into a wall. No, that's not the case. They're slow every single week. It did lead to a fun conversation. I'm in Connecticut where it's 67 degrees. You're in Ponte Vedra Beach where it's 27 degrees, maybe less than that. 37, 37.

Oh, wow. 37. That's no good at all. And you're very excited because this is a once in a lifetime weather event and you want to be there for all of it. So I'll make this quick. I will say that we talked about it today. And I think you and I brought it up when you looked at what TGL did in the 42nd shot clock and they're playing tonight. And we all agree that, wow, two hours to watch a round of golf, even 15 holes of simulated golf. Like I'm here for all of that. That's refreshing. That's new. That's exactly where you want to be.

But we kind of put it out there today with people at Golf Channel who are much smarter than me, and they sort of ask, how do you practically do that?

And the only way to practically do that is to put a shot clock on every single player. No, of course you can't do that. The best way to do it though, is, is once a group gets out of position, there are no warnings. There are no shaking other wagging other fingers and telling them that you need to hurry it up. Like I don't want to see an official out in the middle of the fairway. You're just automatically on the clock. And if you take more than 40 seconds, forget about the fines. I'm done with the fines. If you want to make this sink in, you want to make this work, start giving out stroke penalties. It's very simple.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds simple. Instead, the PGA Tour has handed out, what, one stroke play penalty over the past quarter century? Like, it's almost laughable at this point, and it is starting to affect PGA Tour membership.

and eligibility from a standpoint. They're cutting cards from top 120 to 100. One of the reasons why top 125 to 100, one of the main reasons they cited was the fact that you have to reduce field sizes so that the rounds were taking too long. There's too many players on the golf course. It's essentially a traffic jam each and every time you have 156 man field, sometimes with 144 as well. The American Express was one of those 156 man fields. They're spread out over three golf courses. Like I understand it.

but five and a half hours cannot happen. I don't want this to turn into a TGL discussion because TGL is clearly a very polarizing topic. You and I have done two podcasts, Rex, basically centered around the TGL concept.

Half of them say they love it. Half of them say they hate it. I think it is indisputable. One of the, the indisputably best assets and attributes of TGL is the shot clock. The players themselves say the fact that they enjoy it. It's, it's, it's helpful for decision-making. It's helpful from a viewer standpoint. And I think it just makes the contest and the competition more invigorating, more lively that you're not sort of grinding to an halt, you know, deliberating for two minutes over club selection or, or,

sort of the break on the green. And so, yes, it can be implemented. We've seen it implemented on the DP World Tour before. I actually have full confidence that in the next couple of years, we could see a shot clock on the PGA Tour. Five and a half hour rounds, though, Rex, is not good for anybody. It's not good for the players. It's not good for the onset experience. It's not good for the network partners when this spills over 20 minutes long

on the coverage window as well. That is where you have issues is if CBS or NBC or whoever is broadcast in tournament does not hit. No, typically it's a 6 p.m. Eastern time window. That's when you start to have issues. And the PGA tour has always looked at that and said, look, we're still finishing on time. That's not really the point. The point is that it should not take five and a half hours. It should not take nearly as much time as it took the AFC championship to

uh afc divisional round in the nfc divisional round games on sunday it almost took the exact same time to play the american express for the final group that should never happen no and this speaks to the product and we're going to talk a little bit more about that because that's become a topic this week as well but during this conversation this morning there was someone who was a former player that brought up the idea that that's too draconian like you just can't put someone on the clock the

the first time without them knowing it and suddenly slap a one stroke penalty on them. And I thought about it. And if you're right, that's fine. And I'm going to steal this from TGL. Then give them a timeout or give them two timeouts over the course of an 18 hole round. Like, okay, you get two timeouts and you can take an extra 20 seconds

and that situation. But under no situation should it, when the clock starts, should you need more than 60 seconds to hit a shot. And I know there's going to be times when you have to have rulings, when you have to have certain drops, when you have certain angles, you can't find yardage. I get all that. You can factor all that in. You can make adjustments for that. But if the PGA Tour really wanted to speed up the product, and I love the idea of us talking about how are we going to improve the product, and Justin Thomas took it straight to the membership.

with a memo this week or a letter to the members about what he thinks needs to be done as far as the television product. We can all agree. Like, look, we just want to make it better for everyone involved. We want to make it better for the players. We want to make it better for the fans. We want to make it better for you and I who are in the industry, who want to produce the best product we possibly can. One way to do that is to not have five and a half hour rounds. We can all agree with that. Shot clock,

I like the idea of three timeouts around if, you know, if there's a wind gust on a, on a watery par three and it's a consequential shot, like I get it. I would like something. And you and I, you and I have even discussed this on the TGL broadcast, like 40 seconds on putts is almost a little too quick to,

And I think we saw at least in the first match, like there wasn't very many putts made because guys are sort of rushing through their reads. Like I'm fine with having a minute on the greens as well, but for a, for a full shot, for a drive, for an approach shot, for a shot around the green, you should not need 40 seconds. You should be ready to play. You should be able to do it. A shot clock time.

maybe some, a couple exceptions throughout the course of the round. I really don't think that it's all that ridiculous of an idea. You mentioned Rex and Justin Thomas memo to the membership and the players urging them to take a more active role with the broadcast saying, quote, I'm sure many of us feel that the telecast can be better. So let's help them do that. Uh,

That's essentially saying like, don't be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution. What do you think of JT's message, how he's going about it? And do you think it can be an effective form of communication to his brothers?

To pull back the curtain a little bit more. So going into Sunday's final round, he actually, JT, sent our colleague, Johnson Wagner, a very long text. It was like a Russian novel type of text. Like there was all kinds of things in there of what he was looking forward to, what he wanted to do, get off to a fast start, how he was going to play certain holes going into the final round. And I was talking with Johnson about this on the range on Sunday morning and he showed it to me. And it was so enlightening from a news gathering and a storytelling point of view, which what you and I do, like it would make

our jobs, I don't want to say easier, but better. Because now all of a sudden we know exactly what JT is trying to do on the 12th hole. Him and Rev, his caddy, were trying to aim for the rough on the right side to get the best angle into that particular pin. If you can just open up a little bit, and that's what he was talking about. And this is where he put his money where his mouth is. Just, you don't have to be someone you're not. And I think that's important. We've had this conversation about TGL a lot that,

you're going to put players in TGL into positions where you're trying to force them to be something they're not. And it's just not going to work out if you're not authentic.

The fan's going to know almost immediately. But if you're comfortable just reaching out the night before or allowing yourself to take five or ten seconds before you tee off and maybe after you hit that opening tee shot on the first hole to talk to Damon Hack or Cara Banks or me or whoever it is, that's the walking reporter that's going to be in your group. It's only going to make the product better. And I think the fans are going to appreciate that. And I appreciate where JT was coming from.

Yeah, a couple of things here because there really is a lot to unpack. First of all, I applaud the move. I'm sure this has been in the works for weeks, if not months. This is what leadership looks like. This is a player who admittedly

was part of the problem. A player who admittedly a couple of years ago would have scoffed at the idea of doing in-person or in-round interviews. And then of course he popped up at the Masters and he was doing it there. A couple of years ago, a player who, at least in my experience, has always been good after the fact, but can be, I don't know, a little bit prickly when it comes to the tournament competition. When you get him inside the ropes, this is what he wants to do. And so,

It's interesting that he sent that text to Johnson Wagner as sort of an example because if you look at other sports and what happens, this is not dissimilar to what you'd see on an NFL broadcast where the coaches before a big game, let's say it's a Sunday night football game on Saturday, they're having a production meeting where the head coaches, the offensive coordinators, the position coach are sitting down with...

it's with Mike Tirico and Chris Collinsworth, and they're going over, look, this is going to be our first 15 plays here throughout the course of the game. These are the matchups we're trying to exploit. In this game in particular, we're trying to get the ball to Amon Ross St. Brown and force feed him here. We think we can, we have an edge here. Here's one of our weaknesses. Here's a matchup to watch. They are spoon feeding the,

the broadcast crew, essentially that information the night before the game. They're not just all of a sudden breaking it down on the spot. Like, yes, they're amazing and they're the best at what they do, but there also is some helpfulness going on. And look, you and I are out on the range before tournament rounds. We're talking to agents. We're talking to caddies. We're talking to swing coaches. We're trying to glean as much insight as we can. Typically, players, though,

are off limits. We're not, we're not striding up to Tiger Woods on the eve of the final round as he's going through his, his, his final warmup and, and peppering him with questions. That's not the time to do that, but I do like sort of the proactive nature and what Justin Thomas is doing here. And there are some parallels with other sports and how that works as it pertains strictly to the tournament broadcast that I think that that could be probably borrowed from. Yeah.

And just to give you an idea, and put the mic up, sorry, not my first time doing this, but just to give you an idea, the text that JT sent to Johnson, it starts with, after seeing the pins last night, I feel six shots, he was six shots behind Sepp Strzok to start the final round, is very doable. They're tough pins to get close, but can be attacked if from the right spot. And he just kind of kept going on and on how he was going to play certain holes. And you're right, it is very akin to what they do in different sports. That's why...

In last night's national championship game, the reporters on the ground were able to give you a little bit of insight into exactly what they were trying to do. To your point, I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. And the conversation today with Damon Hack on Golf Today was about it. I know how difficult it is.

in a situation like JT Sunday afternoon. He came up short. He wants to break through. It's been a while since he's won. You can see it starting to aggravate him, but he sat and talked to me. He talked to the reporters and I keep going back to Piners at the U S open. And I've been pretty clear about this. Like no, one's a bigger fan of Rory McIlroy than I am.

But in that moment, when he chose not to talk to the media, I think it was detrimental to the sport. It was certainly detrimental to the broadcast, because even if he didn't have anything to say, which was his excuse when we talked to him a few weeks later, even in that context, you get an idea of how painful that was. And I think that's meaningful.

Yeah, I think it's obviously helpful. And if you look at other sports, you get fined if you're not made available after certain games or for stretches or periods. NFL players have to stand in front of microphones at least once a week. Star players have slightly different rules as well. And Justin Thomas is talking about pre-round interviews, which they used to do on the PGA Tour. They used to be...

You know something before they would go to the range, they would catch up with Akira or Kara or a Damon. For some reason that has gone away over the past couple years. I'm thinking that the player agents probably had something to do with that. They're talking about in round interviews, which you obviously you were a part of over the past week with the golf channel broadcast on the American Express as well. I think we're talking about miking up players.

for the duration of the round, sort of gleaning those insights. And again, I think there's always a hesitation among players because you don't want to say something

that runs a foul or you're criticizing the golf course or the tour or their opponents, whatever the case may be, you can then package this afterward. I think JT is a massive sports fan, and he mentioned seeing other sports and other shows that sort of piqued his curiosity. He may have seen something like Hard Knocks. He may have seen the show like Receiver or Quarterback.

that was on Netflix. He may have seen the sort of making of the college football playoff that was on ESPN+. All of those sports are more dynamic now

on the playing field than PGA tour golfers are inside the ropes. And so you need to spruce it up with insights and intellect that you can't get from the other sports. And I think it's like a perfect example is, is full swing that the PGA tour rolled out a couple of years ago. But if you're, if you're a fan of the PGA tour, you have to wait until the following year

To sort of get that sort of insight. And look, it's great. And I think viewership dropped from season one to season two. But if you can turn that around quicker, like Hard Knocks does, and have sort of a pre-packaged, this was Justin Thomas inside the ropes at the American Express. And it runs on Monday or Tuesday. And it's cleaned up. Like, I think that is a way to let viewership.

fans inside a player's mind, make them more intriguing, grow their brand and, and, and have these players become more fan favorites than just these players they see on TV. And there's, there's this separation between the athlete and the fan at home.

And to your point, they can protect players. There can be a three or four or five second gap that allows someone back in the control room to hit the dump button in case a player says something that's going to get them fine or going to get them in trouble in the public. That's not out of the realm of what other sports do. So I think that's fine. Again, pulling back the curtain here a little bit, I'll give you an idea of how the mid-round interviews are going because I'm still

not exactly sure if we're doing them exact the way we need to. And here's the example. Danny Willett was scheduled to do a walk and talk with me on Thursday last week at the American express. Danny Willett was not playing well. If you know Danny Willett at all, he can run a little hot on the golf course sometime. And as he finished up and I was on the 17th hole at the stadium course, which in itself is a really hard hole. So I'm not quite sure why we're using that one either. It's a very demanding tee shot. Um,

And I asked his agent who was standing in the crowd, is there any chance Danny's going to do this? And he's like, I don't know. Give it a shot. And so Danny hits a shot and I kind of asked Danny, yes, no, maybe. And he glares at me and he goes,

sure, I'm playing like garbage, but by all means, let's have a chat. And I didn't take that offensively, but that's also the authentic part that we're talking about here. And he ended up doing a really fine walk and talk. I was asked today, was he mad at you? And I don't think he was mad at me. Like he had agreed to do it and I gave him the option not to do it. Like they're not contractually committed to doing these things. They can always back out and say, no, I'd rather not right now. And plenty of players have and they'll continue to do that.

I think those do add to the broadcast. And I guess my point is I want to find a way to be able to talk to a player about exactly what's going on on the golf course. And when you're, when you're doing it on a whole, like the 17th at the stadium course, again, Alcatraz Island green, it's really difficult hole. And then the greens were firm as we just talked about.

The players really locked in and I'm not quite sure you're going to get the best out of them. Like my counter was, why don't we just find the longest par four with the widest fairway? That way we're setting ourselves up for success. There's a really good chance they're going to hit the fairway. So at least we're off to a good start there. And we have essentially a 300 yard walk.

in that situation. Instead of putting us on the hardest par three, and now all of a sudden you've only got 160-yard walk, and the player's not all that crazy about it. So I think both sides, the players and the TV side, can both work to improve this product, and I think both sides are working.

Yeah, I think it's an accumulation of things. Like, I don't think the walk and talk is the be-all, end-all. I don't think micing up players is the be-all, end-all. I don't think pre-round interviews is the be-all, end-all. I think that the point, and Justin Thomas' point that he was trying to make, is that PGA Tour players just need to step up and do more. I have no idea if they're keeping score on who's doing what, but I think...

increased participation across the board, particularly with the top-end players, would be really helpful to the product. And again, I don't want to have this sort of inside access at the major championships. I think those should be protected. I don't want to...

have a player sort of thrown off on the 15th hole on Sunday at the U S open. That's not what I'm interested in, but you have to keep in mind, these are regular season events on the PJ tour. Can they be life-changing for some? Sure. Of course, but there's still an entertainment product in the PJ tour. Now with strategic sports group, backing them is in the entertainment business.

They need to revamp their product in order to get a return. I think it's accumulation of things that the players can do. I applaud Justin Thomas for going above and beyond, voicing his concerns and sort of setting the tone for what the player expectation could be.

moving forward on the PGA tour. We mentioned it a couple of times, Rex, over the last couple of podcasts with the Genesis Invitational being moved away from Riviera because of the wildfires that have decimated the Los Angeles area.

Sports Illustrated, our buddy Bob Herrig, is reporting that Torrey Pines, which is the site of this week's Farmers Insurance Open, is set to host the Genesis in just a couple weeks' time. It makes sense, Tiger, with a decorated history at the Muni in San Diego, eight-time winner, including, of course, the 2008 U.S. Open. What do you think of that move? Do you like that as sort of the one-off replacement host for this year's Genesis?

Yeah, I don't think it really mattered. And I'd heard from numerous sources that they were sort of the tour was bouncing around a couple of different options. One was to go back to PGA West where they just had the American Express and certainly all the infrastructure was in place. It's only a two hour drive essentially over the mountains from Los Angeles. So if you had tickets to the Genesis, you could still attend if you wanted to. One of the options was to play it in Las Vegas. I heard Shadow Creek was an option. And then Torrey Pines came up. I think the only concern that most people had about Torrey Pines, it's a city course.

And it's a huge amount of income for the city. So for them to give it up a second week, they're going to take a hit on this. So I am glad that they're doing that. A lot like PGA West and Palm Springs. It's only about two and a half hours down from Los Angeles to Torrey Pines. And I will say it seems to fit a little bit better with the community. My bigger question, they could have done it anywhere and there was plenty of good options. My bigger question is how the tour is going to use this to help the community of Los Angeles.

because I saw firsthand last week flying into Los Angeles and I drove out to Pacific Palisades and the devastation. I talked to Mark Hubbard, who had about 20 members of his family walking with him last week at the American Express, including his brother Nathan, who lost his house in those fires. And they weren't there on vacation. They were evacuees. And you get an idea of how difficult this has been for the community. And I had one tour official put it to me this way, that the tour is really good at making these types of devastating events special.

and finding a way to go back into the community and showing what the tour, what golf does best in these moments of pain and suffering. And that's trying to help the community. That's more what I'm concerned with or interested in. Yeah. I think it's obviously going to be a very special week. I look forward to seeing what the PJ door does with the proceeds, how they can help the area that has been just absolutely ravaged as it relates to like the host venue. I think I would have preferred to see it go elsewhere because,

And it's, this is nothing on Torrey Pines. I know it's Torrey Pines is a little bit of a polarizing course, a

golf course architecture nerds absolutely hate the golf course. I think when you look at the history of the leaderboards that it's produced, I think its track record speaks for itself. I think my main gripe would be signature events are supposed to be the best fields, the toughest courses, the most extreme setups. You're really trying to identify a great winner. There's not much that's going to be different from what you'd see at the

newfangled Genesis invitation to what you'd see at the farmer's insurance open. Yeah. They're probably not going to use the North course. If I could guess it, it would essentially be a, like a mini us open on the South course, which already have a winning score recs at the farmers. That's typically between, uh,

10 and 15 under par. Like it's very tough. You, I know the North course has been renovated in recent years and the scoring isn't quite as good, but you typically make your hand in the North and then hold on for dear life. When you get to the South, I actually think PGA West would have been,

A better option, the golf course that you were just at. I love the changes that they've made to that golf course. And you look at the three course rotation for the American Express. It's the stadium course that is holding up with the new greens was sort of the reshaping they did. You look at the final round scoring average was 70.56.

for that field when you had a better field than you do this week at the farmer's insurance open, that's pretty stout. And if you can grow the rough, even just a little bit, you can speed the greens up, which had been slowed because of the pro-am portion, the 54, uh,

holes for the cut for the Amex as well. Like you could make that golf course really difficult. And the fact that they played it up against the divisional round, I can't imagine that ratings were that good sort of exposing that golf course PGA West, the stadium course of magnificent, uh,

Pete Dye golf course, I think to a broader audience and a better field, I think that would have been a better win for the tour from a, from a venue standpoint than going to Torrey Pines.

Well, and I can say the folks at PGA West were pushing hard. Like they love the idea of getting that field there. Cause I think we had this conversation last week. They they've never had at the American express, the world's number one and two ranked players in the field at the same time for the same tournament, let alone what you normally get at a signature event. You're soon that everyone will be back and that it'll be back to full strength. You're talking about Scotty and Xander and Colin Moore, who are all out right now with various injuries. Yes. The community would absolutely love that. And it would be an easy turnaround.

as well. All the infrastructure is in place. I talked to someone with the logistics at the tournament and they said, we can leave everything in place and just replace American Express with Genesis. It's not difficult. Again, short drive across the mountains. I'm not quite sure if the final decision has been made. I think any of those options is pretty good. I heard pushback on going to Las Vegas and Shadow Creek only because some players didn't feel like that was worthy of hosting a signature event. But yeah, I don't think there's any bad options other than that.

Yeah, optically, I think you'd love to keep it in California if possible.

But as you say, it might not be a done deal quite yet. You mentioned Scotty Scheffler, Xander Shoffley, both dealing with various ailments. Scotty Scheffler was at least spotted for the first time since the injury on his trainer's Instagram story. He was wearing like some sort of wrap or brace on his right hand. And during a Arnold Palmer Invitational Media Day earlier this week, he said he's still uncertain about

to make his 2025 season debut next week at Pebble Beach. Xander Shoffley is also uncertain dealing with, as our Todd Lewis reported, a rib issue over the past couple of months. Are you starting to get a little bit concerned that the top two players in the world entering a very important stretch of this run up to the Masters aren't quite in full fitness yet, Rex?

I think there's two types of injuries that trainers on tour will talk about, a chronic injury and a traumatic injury. And in the case of a traumatic injury, that's cutting your hand trying to make homemade pasta. That's what Scottie Scheffler did. He was trying to make homemade pasta. Everyone's like, what in the world could he possibly have been doing? He's world number one. Doesn't he know he shouldn't be doing— Officer Gillis, Sandra Shoffley, and Ravioli. Those are the only things that can undo Scottie Scheffler.

Homemade ravioli. Not even ravioli. Homemade ravioli. That's what did the world number one. Do less. Do less. A trainer will tell you that a traumatic injury is by far preferred because if you cut your hand, you need surgery, you need stitches, you need time just to let it heal. And you should, over the course of time, get back to right there, right where you were. I had a chance to talk with Randy Smith.

Scotty's swing coach last week. There is no level of concern there because they know this is just going to take time. He might miss Pebble. He might miss Genesis for all we know, but eventually he'll get himself right. My guess is well before the masters. And that's really when we want to see him at his best there. The other one though, a chronic injury. That's much more concerning. That's what will Zalator's dealt with and ended up having to have surgery in

really lost probably a year of his career trying to deal with. That's what Tiger Woods has dealt with really probably for the better part of the last decade. I'm not saying that's what Xander Shoffley is suffering from here. It's a rib injury. You're right. Todd Lewis reported it. It could just be, he slept wrong. He was on a plane. Uh,

whatever it is. It could be something very, very simple that he's going to get over in the next couple of weeks. If you're asking me which one of those I'm more concerned about, it's going to be Xander though, because the rib injury is pretty complicated and everything about the golf swing is

It it's all about the ribs and it's going to be uncomfortable and you're not going to be able to do it. If that persists, that said he could rebound and be back in whatever two weeks and play pebble beach in the signature event, which seems to be his timeline on this front. But no, I'm not worried at all about Scotty because I know that's just a matter of letting that scar heal up and put the club back in his hand. And he's still Scotty Scheffler. If I have any level of concern, it's going to be for Xander because there's just a lot of unanswered questions there.

Yeah, I think that was well said. I agree with basically everything you said there. As it relates to Scotty, I'm not concerned about the, what do you call it, traumatic type of thing.

type of injury that he had to his hand. I think I'm more concerned with the number of competitive reps. If he's, if he's not ready for pebble, that was supposed to be the first of three in a row, if I'm not mistaking playing pebble, playing Phoenix and then playing the Genesis, which again, as we just talked about, could you potentially be played at Torrey pines? Then he would head to Florida. He'd defend titles at, uh,

Bay Hill and the Players' Championship, and then he had a close call in Houston a year ago as well. If he is then knocking himself out of some of these West Coast venues, which he has not played particularly well in California in his career, then it just becomes –

do you have enough competitive reps ahead of the masters to feel like you're really sharp? And there's been numerous trains of thought. Every player is different. You know, how many rounds do you really need to play? Roy's done it some years where he plays four times. Roy's done it some years where he plays eight times. We don't know what Scotty's magic number is. And I would just be curious to see if he adds a start once this fully heals, once he gets back in the tournament flow, if he would add a tournament and,

just to sort of make sure he's in the right competitive frame of mind for major championship season. And this also led to a larger conversation on golf today with Damon hack about the idea of towards the end of last season,

players were playing so much golf in a very condensed window that I think moving forward, no one really knew what to expect last year. It was a one-off. It was a very new landscape with the signature events and exactly how it was going to play out. So you probably weren't inclined to miss one of those signature events. If you were in them. I think now that we've gone through the psycho ones and Scotty and Xander and Colin Morikawa and all the other top players have seen exactly how it plays out. You're probably more inclined to be like, no, Pebble beach. Isn't my cup of tea, not to pick on Pebble beach, but,

If that event's not for you, it's simply not for you. You probably say the same thing about Genesis or any of the other signature events. Or maybe in the back of your mind, if you're a Scottie Scheffler or Xander Schauffele, you're also thinking starting pretty much at the Scottish Open.

through the open championship and then through the playoffs, you have a run of events that you really can't skip at that point. At that point, you're kind of locked in because at that point you're trying to play the playoffs. It's major championship time and you want to finish off the season strong. So if you're going to take a week off or maybe a few weeks off, this is the time to do it. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that makes, that makes plenty of sense. Very, very curious. Obviously the deadline is on Friday, the commitment deadline for next week's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where I will be at least in the early part of the week. You are in Connecticut, Rex, for the remainder of the week. It's PGA show week. I'm sure you're very disappointed not to be an Orange County Convention Center host.

hobnobbing with all of your industry friends. What do you have coming up on golf today that people can look forward to over the next couple of days?

I probably shouldn't be saying this. I'm probably going to get in trouble with someone, but there is going to be a chipping contest between myself and Johnson Wagner. So apparently the multi-time PGA tour winner needs to rebuild his confidence so much after last year that he has to take on the 14 handicap in a chipping contest. That's the only thing I can take away from it. I don't know if that's the case. We're using kids clubs. It's going to be inside the building because there's snow all over the ground. So that would be the highlight of the show for me. Does he know that's actually the strong suit of your game?

He does not. He does not. But although he did one of his Johnson-Wagner things last week from left of the 16th green last week on – Yes, phenomenal TV.

I mean, it's so good. Like, look, it's hitting him hard. Like, this is hard for a guy who's won multiple times on the PGA Tour to put himself in this position. I don't think people understand that sometimes these are hard hits for him to take. But you're right. It's some of the best TV I think Golf Channel has done in a long time. But we're going to be inside. My guess is we're going to be playing over desks and through hallways. So that's going to be my advantage because this is going to be something out of his norm. Oh, God, that's fantastic. You have gotten...

Up and down, five for four from basically everywhere all over this planet. Why not inside NBC Sports Studios in Stanford? I'll definitely have to be looking out for that, you folks, as well. As a reminder, Rex and I will be doing the record on Saturday night following the conclusion of the Farmers Insurance Open on the PGA Tour. Just like last week. I know we did not have a show, but just like last week, if you want to be on the show, which we will have,

Cause we have plenty of time. Make sure you hit us up. You can do like an ask lab thing in the YouTube comments. We will see it. We will find it. We will put you on television and answer your question. All right. That is going to do it for this edition of the golf channel podcast with Rex and lab. You guys will drill NBC sports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates. Make sure you stay tuned to golf today for the Rex Hoggard versus Johnson Wagner duel for the ages inside NBC sports headquarters. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for the support. Talk to you guys in a couple of days. That big bear is going down.

Thank you.

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