Taking stock of Scottie, Rory, Xander before Players week
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav. In a stunning final 45 minutes of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Russell Henley chips in for Eagle on the 16th hole and holds on to win by a single shot over Colin Morikawa. In the process, capturing Rex, the biggest title of Russell Henley's career. You're out there. You are out there at Bay Hill. What was that like from your perspective?

Full me a copa. I'm going to lean into this. I have never been more wrong in my entire life. This morning, you and I had a mutual friend who was in the media center that was visiting us. His name is Jeff Rude. You and I both worked at him at Golf Week. And he is a gambling degenerate. And he glanced at the board and made some comment about golf.

3-1 on Henley. What do you think about that? And I go, could you not get any odds at all on Colin Morikawa? Because that seemed to me such an obvious choice. Colin was playing so well. He has played so well this season. So I think our friend actually put down $100 at 3-1. So good for Jeff Rude for being a gambling degenerate.

And well done. I did poorly. I guess there's going to be two parts of this story. One, you have to give full flowers to Russell Henley. Certainly what he did chipping in on the 16th hole to actually take the lead was very impressive. The way he held up. I mean, at one point he was three shots back or

early in the round about right about the turn so it would have been really easy on a hard golf course looking at Colin Morikawa playing like he did in 2021 thinking to yourself yep I'm playing for second today but he didn't do that he kept playing hard and sometimes you're going to get lucky you're going to get the chip in like you got on 16 I guess the other part of the story though is the one I'm a little bit more fascinated in because Colin Morikawa and I wrote this yesterday

is playing so well right now. And I actually did kind of a story asking him, is it difficult when you're in this situation and you know you're playing well and you haven't gotten over the finish line yet? I can only imagine right now

the machinations that are going through Collins' head coming this close and coming down the stretch. You and I were talking about it. I was sort of looking at the leaderboard. He shot 72 in the final round, which is right about the scoring average for the day at Bay Hill. But clearly that wasn't good enough. You end up on the wrong side of a chip-in. That's going to happen. But, man, he still has to be steaming hot.

Yeah, I want to get to Kyle Morikawa here in a second. This is huge for Russell Henley. I don't want to completely pass over this. This is a player who is playing the best golf of his career. You look at 2024, it was kind of a breakout, which is a weird thing to say about a player who's now 35 years.

years of age, but he doubled his career number of major top tens. He had back-to-back top tens in the U S open, the open championship prior to that had just a single top 10, his career. He did have the 54 whole lead. Remember at Torrey pines, the 2021 U S open was unable to convert that obviously, but like last year, he got on his very first cup team on the president's cup team, part with Scotty Scheffler went three and one there, you know, competing against some of the best players in the world. Now, Rex, he has sort of that victory validation that he is indeed a

playing the best golf of his life. And I can only imagine the confidence boost that this is going to give him. Beating this field on a golf course like Bay Hill, which was sort of pushed to the brink like it is seemingly every year, it has to give him so much confidence now that he can do it again in a major championship, knowing that he just knocked off the very best players that the PGA Tour has to offer.

And certainly when you're absolutely right, we're talking about Scotty Scheffler, who is starting to play. We're going to talk a little bit about him in the middle. We're talking about Roy McIlroy, who has already won this season on the PGA Tour. And as I pointed out, Colin Morikawa, who, I mean, it was his words, not mine. He is playing like he did in 2021 when he was winning major championships and doing special things on the golf course. And I love the idea. And we had this conversation earlier this year about there's a lot of different ways to get it done on the PGA Tour because there's nothing really flashy about

about Russell Henley's game. He's clearly a solid putter. He clearly is a decent enough ball striker to get it around this golf course and these conditions. But you're right. I mean, you have to give complete flowers and recognize that you did it against the absolute best on just a brutal golf course.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, this is going to give him a big boost. Now heads to the Players' Championship, TBC Sawgrass, a golf course, which he has not fared particularly well in the past. But you look ahead to Augusta National, a U.S. Open-type venue. He's one of the most accurate players on the PGA Tour. I think...

you know, having this sort of knowledge that he can get it done on this style of golf course, a brutally long golf course, not necessarily tricked up, but, you know, punishing errant shots as we saw all weekend long. Like this is, this is going to do wonders for him. I was curious Rex about Kalamura Kawa and the attitude that he had coming off the golf course, because he was in command all day and he was looking like he was doing everything that you would need to

on a weekend test like Bejo presented. You know, he was hitting his patented fade off the tee. He was hitting the middle of the greens. Wasn't necessarily filling it up on the greens, but there was really no sign of shakiness whatsoever. You mentioned the three-shot lead that he had after the 12th hole. What was his attitude coming off the golf course? Because I have to imagine he was steaming pretty hot.

No, he was running pretty hot and that's understandable. And he's the type of player that that's what he's going to do. Like, look, he's, he's going to run hot in the best of circumstances. And clearly this is not the best of circumstances. I'll go back to, to what I mentioned. The idea, is it easier? I mean, it's, it's sort of, you're flipping a coin here.

Is it easier to deal with a situation that happened today if you're Colin Morikawa? Knowing that I'm playing really well, I think it's kind of yesterday is I'm not searching. When I show at the golf course this year as opposed to last year, when he actually really came around, he had a lot of really solid finishes last year. Now he feels like I'm not searching. When I show up, I have my game. It's a fully formed game. I don't have to think about my swing or any mechanical thoughts when I'm on the golf course. I'm just thinking about golf.

and scoring. His comment to me was, no, it's easier trying to get that first victory. And we say that. He won in 2023. It's not like it's been decades. It's

He's gone like 25 starts without a victory. I wouldn't necessarily call this a drought. It is not. It's a calendar. However, I think when you're the caliber of player that he is, first and foremost, there is going to be something in the back of your mind that thinks, nope, I should be doing it. The other half of it is if you keep coming close and close and close and coming up short, and I would argue he didn't necessarily do anything wrong today. You pointed out he probably didn't putt his best, but if you look at his ball striking, I don't think there was anything wrong

a miss when you compare it to the other days. I don't, I wouldn't call this golf course tricked up either, but it's clearly on the harder side of the, of a PGA tour test. I asked Rory when he came off the golf course today, if there was going to be anything he could take from this week going into next week at the players championship. And he completely dismissed it. And he goes, you can't compare anything to this. He goes, there's a couple of greens that don't have any grass on them. Hitting fairways here. And some of the crosswinds that we got early in the week is, is,

beyond difficult, especially if you hit it as far as Roy McIlroy does. So it's a completely different test. So I'm not really willing to sit here and say either Colin Moore or Kyle, I I'm not going to use the C word. That would be ridiculous. No God, no. He, but he certainly didn't have his best stuff, but there's been plenty of times. Certainly he's done it in his career where he's won without his best stuff. My guess is to answer your original question, the level of frustration is very, very high more so than anything else.

Yeah, and look, Kyle Morikawa was first this week from Strokes Gain tee to green perspective. He didn't have his best day with his irons on Sunday, hit just 11 greens and didn't hold many putts, but he was still number one in that category. I think Kyle Morikawa, though he did not necessarily do anything wrong, I think he's certainly going to rue the tee shot on the par 3 14th, missed that short and right, was unable to get that up and down. That sort of let Henley in the door just a little bit.

I mean, the approach on 10, the tee shot on 10, let him in the rough as well. And I still go back to the tee shot on 16. For the fourth consecutive day,

Kyle Morikawa hit his tee shot in the right fairway bunker. And even from 185 yards, looked like the ball was sitting down just a little bit, was unable to go for the green and two, hit a pedestrian wedge shot to about 20, 25 feet when it was unable to make birdie on what was the easiest hole on the golf course. The way that Kyle Morikawa had hit his tee shot

iron shots to that point in the tournament, you would have thought if he has 185 yards from the middle of the fairway, he's likely to hit that inside 30 feet. And it is at worst a two putt birdie instead, fourth straight day of the bunker, unable to get it up and down for there for birdie. That was sort of the, the, the moment of the tournament clue that T shot does not fit his eye. He had continued to struggle with it all week long, actually bid him on Sunday, a couple other storylines, Rex, that I want to talk about from the Arnold Palmer invitation. I think we should start,

With Xander Shoffley, this is the first time we've seen him in action since the century. We've seen him twice on TGO, but this is the first time we've seen him on the PGA Tour in roughly two months. Tied for 40th. He did shoot 69 in the final round. Reported no sort of injury issues related to the rib that's cost him so much time. What was your biggest takeaway from seeing Xander and talking to him throughout the week?

I think you touched on it. I don't care what he shot in the final round or any of the other three rounds. I really didn't. Even if he missed the cut, I wasn't going to be necessarily interested in that as well. There were no setbacks because this is the injury, and we've talked a lot about the idea that this can linger on for a long time. And I think you have to give him full credit that he probably waited even longer than his doctors told him to. And in this particular case, it was because, first,

I want to play my best golf during the major championship season. Like no disrespect to the farmer's insurance open, which is his hometown event or the Genesis Invitational, which was played at his hometown golf course. No disrespect to any of those things, but Xander Shoffley wants to win majors. So he clearly sat on the bench longer than he probably needed to. I think what we sell out of him this week is a by-product of that. Pat yourself on the back. You decided to take your time and to come back and look, he had shots this week. Like I was watching on Thursday where he did go into the thick rough.

And it was probably really easy to be a little concerned or a little timid. I didn't see any of that whatsoever. And just making it 72 holes without any at least visible setbacks, who knows what he felt like when he woke up Friday morning after that first round of golf, but getting some sort of momentum going into next week, the players championship where, you know, like it's a, it's a much easier golf course. I don't have to worry about the thick rough. It's an easier walk. All of those things factor into it. So we're giving grades. I'm giving them a solid egg.

I mean, I can't think of a harder golf course, maybe Torrey Pines to try and come back from an injury than doing so with the Arnold Palmer invitation. Exactly. But the rough is going to be thick at 7,800 yards. Yeah. Your body's not going to be as warm. It was, it was obviously 85 degrees and sunny and humid today in Orlando that helps the body as well. But like going out,

Making the cut, which has now extended his PGA Tour, leading 58th straight event with a made cut for Xander Schroff. Making the cut to me seemed pretty impressive, especially considering how difficult, how cold it was on Thursday, the scoring average in the opening round as well. To be able to play all four rounds, I thought was a huge boost. I can tell...

Just by reading Xander Schauffele, and you can probably tell it, obviously, even better seeing him in person. Like, he's not going to get down over the fact that, yeah, he's likely not going to be – or he's not likely to have his game in a spot where he wants it for the Masters. There's, quite frankly, just not enough time. He said he's going to play, obviously, next week at the Players' Championship. He's debating whether to sign up for the Valspar Championship next.

or the Valero Texas Open, which is the week ahead of the Masters, if this was last summer, Xander Shuffler would have zero concern about his major readiness or his preparation. That's just not going to be this case this time around. I still think for the rest of the summer, for the rest of the late spring, he'll be fine. But it does seem, Rex, like if we're looking at major contenders for the Masters, I probably would not put him in my top five any longer just because I don't think that he has –

or will we be able to muster the necessary reps in order to get game ready? Tears. We're doing tears. Mark Slaball, our buddy at ESPN, is not going to like that. We can't steal his idea. Tears for tears. I would challenge you and fire back immediately that, okay, I don't particularly disagree. Like, I like the logic. What I would challenge you for is name me five names, and I could probably at least one, probably two of them, dismiss the idea that you would pick him over Xander. I'll hang up and wait.

Okay. So if Scottie's number one, then I would say Rory. I would say Ludwig. I would say John Rahm. I would say maybe Bryson. We haven't seen Bryson in full flight. No, we haven't seen Bryson. Oh, I would certainly put Kyle Morikawa ahead of Xander Shoffley at this point. So yeah, there's five right there.

I would not put Bryce in. I would not even put John Rahm based on what he did last year at the majors. Like, I need to see it at the majors. Like, and I'm not going to dismiss John Rahm. Last I checked, he has a green jacket while Xander Shoffley is still looking for his. Nope. And I'm not going to dismiss John Rahm as a major championship quality player. But after what we saw of him last year, it is going to be a curiosity going into this major championship season. Again, a discussion for another day. I don't know that, again, I don't know that I disagreed with you, but Xander's not too far out. Oh.

of that list. And I will agree that yes, there will be rust. There will be things, there will be boxes that he won't be able to check by the time he gets to Magnolia lane. That's obvious. I would use Scotty Scheffler and this could be a good transition to our next topic.

as a paradigm of hope on this front. Because Scottie, this week, took a step forward after maybe not doing it the first two weeks. And you have to recognize that, okay, the offseason wasn't nearly what he wanted it to be. And Scottie Scheffler and Xander Shoffley are nothing if not creatures of habit, and they want to make sure that their offseason was exactly what they wanted to. And neither one of them were able to enjoy that. Scottie,

this weekend in particular, he had not played well off the tee to start the year. And there had been a lot of interest on that front. He led the field this week at Bay Hill, as I just pointed out. A brutal test, tee to green, but especially off the tee. He led the field strokes game tee to green. So you make incremental steps, and you're right. Xander probably only has one more start to do it. That would be next week at TPC Sawgrass. I don't know. I'll give you a top five, but not far out of the top five for me going into the Masters.

Yeah, and look, again, there's still time. Next week's test at TBC Sawgrass is going to present a much easier challenge. The scoring is likely to be 15 to 20 under par, somewhere in that range. He's going to be able to make birdies. He's going to be able to get after it off the tee a little bit more, be a little bit more aggressive than you would have to be with such conservative targets at Bay Hill with a golf course that pushed to the brink. Valspar and Innisbrook, a great test of golf. TBC San Antonio, though not one of my favorites, it clearly has attracted players

players like Rory, Spieth, Ludwig, who want to sort of fine-tune their game with a stout championship test ahead of the year's first major. It'll be very interesting to see which one Xander Schauffele decides to sign up for. You mentioned Scotty Scheffler and the curiosity factor that related to his driver, because as I've made the point over the past couple weeks, it's a very small sample size with three events, but he was outside the top 50

In strokes gained off the tee to this point, driving accuracy well down from where he was a year ago, which has sort of been his calling card because yes, Scotty Scheffler is the best iron player on the planet, but he's doing so because he's playing from the fairway or at least just off the fairway more than any other elite player. So in that respect, even though Scotty Scheffler finished outside the top 10, he tied for 11th at Baylor. I thought it was a huge, huge,

strides for him that he made from a ball striking standpoint, getting to where he led the field and driving, getting to where he was second to the green. But a familiar bugaboo popped up for Scottie Scheffler with his putting 49th in the field loss. I think more than five strokes to the field on the greens needed 117 putts. Rex, doesn't it feel good to be worried about Scottie Scheffler's putting once again? I was about to say, it felt like when he came off the golf course, we were going through the school times.

And I go, this feels like 2024. Like everything is good now. Everything's right in the world because he's exactly where he needs to be. He's a sublime ball striker, probably the best in the game, and his putting wasn't all that great. You pointed out 48th, 49th in the field out of 52 players who made the cut. So just to be clear on that front, he did dismiss that idea as he normally does. His point was, I think he pointed out when I asked him about it, he went immediately to at least three of the greens on this golf course he claimed were dead.

And he said it's really hard to make putts when there's no grass out there. So certainly there is something to be said. It's probably not the best putting contest on the PGA Tour or at least the Ferris putting contest. But you're right. I felt like this week, especially Sunday when we spoke to him, there is a bit of a more of a smooth stride to the step.

because he knows, yep, this is where exactly where I need to be going into the player's championship, where he will be the defending champ going into the masters, where he will be the defending champion, all of those things. It's funny. And we had this conversation earlier this week when it was on, I was on the

I was on golf today that the narrative is Scotty is struggling and I'm going to get this wrong off the top of my head because I can't look it up right now, but I think he's finished tied for fourth, tied for ninth and tied for 17th. There's something along those lines in his three starts, something along those lines, not exact. And I go, we, if we could all be so fortunate, if that was our rock bottom,

Because it's all relative to what Scottie does normally. To be fair to Scottie Scheffler, he has set an unrealistic bar that probably only compares to Tiger Woods. But yes, when he has a week like this coming off of that offseason, which we know did not go the way he planned, it has to only be encouraging. I think there was a lightness to him when he came off the golf course today because he knows this is more what I'm used to.

Yeah, I'd love to recall exactly what we said the over-under for Scottie Scheffler worldwide wins in 2025 was. I would think it was somewhere around four and a half. It wasn't nine. And it certainly was not eight and a half.

So if we're going by the assumption that it was somewhere around four and a half, maybe five and a half, then yeah, you probably have to temper your expectations a little bit just because he's missed some tournaments. Now he's sort of getting his bearings for reestablishing his baselines for his ball striking. It's realistic to think that he's not going to win nearly as many times as he did in 2024. And that's perfectly fine.

I could not be any less concerned about Sky Shuffle than I am right now. I think he is not just the prohibitive favorite for the Masters, but the overwhelming favorite for the Masters. Nothing I have seen to this point will change that. It now heads to the Players' Championship at TPC Sawgrass, where, again, he is the two-time defending champion. How about Roy McIlroy? Rex tied for 15th at the API. A little bit of a strange thing here. So,

If I'm not getting the details right, please correct me. He had certain clubs in the bag when he was dominant. One of the best displays we've seen from Rory McIlwain in a long time at Pebble Beach. Followed up with another chance to win. Yep, Invitational. Then swapped out all of his woods, reconfigured his wedge setup for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Bay Hill lost strokes off the tee.

lost strokes with his approach, ends up finishing a tie for 15th and say, he's going back to the old stuff for the rest of the forest swing. What did you make of Roy's experiment, which seemingly went wrong? You asked me what Colin Morikawa's mood was coming off the golf course. And I'm sad to say, I couldn't tell you exactly. I wasn't inside his head. So I can't give you paint a perfect picture. I will tell you Rory's mood was not good. It,

It was angry, to be quite clear. And look, he's open as he normally is in these situations. And when he was sort of asked about his week, he immediately went to the idea that, yes, it's a great idea, right? All the things you just pointed out. Led the field, strokes game off the tee at Pebble, win. I think he was top five.

strokes came off the tee at Torrey Pines for the Genesis Invitational. Ended up having a solid week there. But yes, by all means, let's start doing wholesale changes to the bag. In his defense, and this is a meager defense at best, I will admit to this, he had switched to a new golf ball that had a little bit different spin characteristics.

which allowed him to do a little bit of this tinkering. And this is just as inside baseball, really golf nerdy stuff, but allowed him essentially to get rid of one of his wedges because of just the way he could make one of his wedges stronger. And he didn't need the gap anymore, whatever the case may be. So that led to these changes. So it was a different new driver and it was a new fairway wood and it was a one or two new fairway woods and a new three iron and two new wedges. As you pointed out coming into this week,

When I asked him about it, he conceded. Yes, it had a little bit to do with the spin characteristics, but if you go and read the story on NBCSports.com slash golf, he also acknowledged that this is all part of the equipment manufacturers, not his. All of them are this way. It's the cycle. It's a 12-month cycle, and they want to get you in the new stuff as soon as possible. You

You can read between the lines and realize Rory was trying to be a good soldier on this front and put the new stuff into play and simply wasn't happy. And simply wasn't happy with it. And he switched back to all the old stuff on Sunday. And he was asked when, you know, is it foreseeable that you will keep the old stuff in the bag and at least to the Masters? So this will not be a conversation we'll have at least until after the Masters.

Yeah, it just it's it seems a little bit mind boggling that you would do this at the start of the Florida swing and not, you know, December, January, when a lot of guys are doing club testing, when a lot of guys are doing ball testing at this point in the season, you should be fine tuning, especially when you're Roy McIlroy, who I guarantee you, if we rewound the podcast from a month ago, you and I were effusive.

in our praise of what Rory had done, what he could do this year based on like his strategy, his course management, his ball control, his spin control, the blast number on 14, the par five, we hit it over the tree. Like it was all mind blowing stuff. And then the experiment goes wrong. It's fine. I don't think it'll necessarily have any like lingering effects, but,

for his players championship, but it's certainly a torpedoed his chances to win this week at Bay Hill. And to be fair, I think he felt like he checked all the boxes at home. He talked about on the track, man, and back home at the bears club, the numbers can add up. They can all look good. And he said, but the second you actually put it in play, especially on a golf course like this, especially on Thursday and Friday when the winds were howling. And we have seen Rory in the past struggle and crosswinds like as high as he hits the ball and as much spin as he has on the ball, it's going to be an issue regardless of what equipment he's

you're playing. So he clearly was not comfortable, but yes, I'm with you. It's a little baffling when that's the one thing you hang your hat on. That's your cornerstone. That is your calling card is I hit the ever loving snot out of the golf ball. I do it better than anybody, but here let's change it with the masters. Now just a month away. He's never going to be confused for Jordan Spieth around the greens. He's never going to be confused for back backs and on the greens. And so here, my thing is I hit it really, really far than anyone else. And that's my, my advantage. And I pick up a lot of strokes there.

To tinker with it to your point right now is curious. Roy McIlroy said, remember like at Pebble Beach, he wanted to be more like Scottie? He should be more like Scottie in this respect, where Scottie is incredibly resistant to change. It has to take something. There has to be...

empirical evidence that a switch is necessary for him. Otherwise, he is the same routine, the same patterns, the same clubs, very resistant to change. Again, the old stuff will be in Roy McIlroy's bag at the Players' Championship. His record at DPS Sawgrass, again, is quite good. The old stuff was in his bag today, to be clear. He switched out today. Yeah.

Yeah, did not play particularly well at that point, as you mentioned, his mood was not particularly great at that point. One other thing, Rex, that I wanted to bring up, because there was a live tournament this past week in Hong Kong. Sergio Garcia...

One again, Sergio Garcia, this is the same player, the 45 year old Spaniard who was third on the live season long standings last year. Now wins again, uh, early on in the live season. Luke Donald has to be a paying attention to that. Phil Mickelson, his best ever finish on live golf finishes, uh,

In third place, he thinks he has found something at the age of 54 and that he's able to play golf a different way, sort of maximize the gifts that he still has while minimizing some of the weaknesses that he has at this age. Feels really good about his prospects for the Masters. Which storyline do you think is actually bigger? Phil potentially making another run at a green jacket at the age of 54 or Sergio Garcia catching the attention of Luke Donald and the European Ryder Cup team?

Neither. It was something Phil said that got so aggregated that even I was fueled by the – was fooled by the internet. And it was kind of his comments about wanting to win a team championship. And the way it was aggregated is he said he wanted to win a team championship on live and that it would mean more than a victory at the Ryder Cup. That is not what he said, to be clear. The internet really got that one wrong. Social media really got that one wrong. But so that one was interesting to me, how quickly – I didn't see that, but that is outrageous. If –

He did not say that. To be clear, he did not say that. Absolutely. Go and read the transcript. I encourage everyone to go get your facts. Please don't take your facts from social media. They often get it wrong. They more likely did not. That is a deep fake. That is a deep AI fake. And I fell for it. I'm not going to lie. I got fooled by the internet for a minute. Luckily, I mean, there was nothing. Did you blog it? Did you blog it and have to retract it?

I did not. I did not retweet it. I didn't do anything. I turned to my colleague sitting... I turned to someone sitting next to me and I mentioned something about it. And this person was like, that doesn't sound right. And they looked it up and we started to take a deep dive. So luckily, I have friends who will keep me on the straight and narrow. Of those two stories, Sergio is by far the more interesting one. Because I think it's fair to say, and this is not with even an ounce of hate in my voice, Phil Mickelson is at that tail end of his career. If we're looking at the clock, it is...

I don't know, 1155, 1156. You pick where it is. He almost won the Masters two years ago. I'm aware of that, but I think we can look at what he has done since then, since joining Liv Goff, essentially. Not blaming it on Liv Goff. Just look at the facts. Just look at what he has done since those two years, and the answer is absolutely nothing. Sergio, however, is fascinating to me because I thought where you were going to go with this is –

Would Luke Donald consider this? And my response was going to be an absolute yes. Luke Donald will consider anything. He would put his mother on that team if he thought it was a way to beat the Americans. He's going to leverage every possible thing he can. The Americans get paid. We do all this for pride. Look at what Keegan Bradley said in the Netflix series. They don't respect us. They think we're the worst team. We learned what he is in Rome as a captain. He's a genius. He's brilliant. And he's been hiding behind that quiet,

English exterior for so many years. And he is going to use and take advantage of everything he has. And in that particular case, if it's going to be Sergio, which is going to make Jon Rahm so happy to have him back on that team, yes, 100%. I mean, who is more intimately familiar with what Sergio Garcia can bring to a European Ryder Cup team than Luke Donald, his former partner in the biennial matches? I mean, this is a player who, yeah, like if Sergio Garcia is going to get picked,

for the European Ryder Cup team, Luke Donald is not going to cite Sergio Garcia's victory at the Live Hong Kong event. It's going to have to be what Sergio does in the major championships. It's going to have to be what he does closer in the late spring, in the summer, to sort of justify what would be a pretty controversial pick. Now, Rory has talked about the sort of, that you need to differentiate between

live guys coming back as players on the team and live guys potentially being reincorporated as assistant captains

or the future captains, leaders of men. Sergio Garcia, even if there are some hard feelings among some of the players who might be on the European Ryder Cup team and how it all went down, you can put that aside for one week if that's your teammate. You may not even necessarily be playing with him, but it just means more that week. You don't necessarily have to be a leader of men. People don't have to trust you in that respect and follow your leadership. Sergio Garcia can lead the best way that he knows best.

which is on the golf course. He's the leading point earner ever in the Ryder Cup. As a leader, he can lead on the golf course with his play and not necessarily his words. And I think Rory probably said it best a few weeks ago at Torrey Pines when he was asked specifically about a live player coming back to be a captain or a vice captain. And even he paused. And he goes, man, that's going to have to be a conversation because there are real feelings hurt there. There are real...

bridges that have been learned to asunder to the ground. They're deep into the water. And so that's including with Rory and Sergio. Absolutely. And so there would be a lot of room to make up, but to your point, Rory and Sergio still would probably happily be paired together against the Americans later this year at Bethpage Black.

Oh, absolutely. Like, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities at all that Sergio Garcia could be on that European Ryder Cup team. It will most likely have to be as a pick. If I'm not mistaken, Sergio has paid all of his fines. He is intending to play his mandatory minimum number of tournaments on the DP World Tour this year to remain eligible for the European Ryder Cup team. He is absolutely on Luke Donald's radar. But again, it's going to have to come down to how he plays this summer.

All right. Looking ahead to the Players' Championship, Rex, I am sorry to inform you, it absolutely poured on Sunday in Ponte Vedra Beach, taking undoubtedly some of the fire out of TBC Sawgrass. It's supposed to rain again on Monday. That said, what are you looking forward to as we get ready for Golf's fifth major?

I mean, all the pieces are falling into place. We had a long conversation about Scotty Scheffler. He's going back to a place where he has had so much success and he seems to be doing the things that make him Scotty Scheffler. You're looking forward to that. I actually, I was working on a story that I'm going to write tomorrow. It is the five-year anniversary of the 2020 Players Championship, which of course was the COVID.

And I was talking with a lot of players just sort of revisiting what those days and those moments were like. And I was talking with Brian Harmon, who brought something up sort of apropos of nothing about it being the fairest test on the PGA Tour. And he kind of walked me through the idea. It is a point A to point B golf course. Like the Bombers don't have as much of an advantage.

at Sawgrass as they do at maybe some other places. But the other thing is he just talked about everything is right there in front of you. There really aren't any tricks to that golf course. Oh, there's tricks. There are tricks to that golf course. For you and I. Yeah. And

But I would argue that as far as a PGA Tour test, I think TPC Sawgrass is probably one of the more underrated golf courses. I think sometimes we get a little too breathless, this week being a primary example, about everyone gushing love on this golf course. It's really not popular on the PGA Tour. It's probably not...

one of the better courses you would play on tour. I would argue it's not one of the better courses you would play in Orlando. No disrespect. It just simply is not. And for the case of TPC Sawgrass, I think over the decades that the player's championship has been there, it is widely underrated. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a great test of golf. I hate playing it because to me it is very tricky, but it is, I mean, just thinking about it, it's my hometown tournament at this point. Like it might be my favorite tournament of the year, but,

I think the actual golf course, the drama it produces, particularly on the back nine, like I absolutely love it. I have no idea who is going to win the golf tournament. I reasonably believe that like 120 of the 144 man field can win the golf tournament. Now I know since the tournament has moved back from May to March, like it's been big dogs only, right? I think it started in 2019. It went back to March. It's been Rory J.

JT, Cam Smith and Scotty twice in a row. Like, so as, as wide open as it seems like you have to be an elite player. Whereas in may, I think you sort of got the fickle nature of the burnt out Bermuda and some, some weird things can happen. That doesn't seem to be the case now with the overseed and just how the, how the tournament plays, which I think it's to the benefit of the PJ tour and its fans as well. We'll go obviously deep,

into the Players' Championship preview on Wednesday with a full pod. And as a reminder, we'll be doing mini-pods Thursday through Saturday. We'll try to keep them in the 20-minute range. We'll try to also ensure a good connection, which you have not had on this podcast live from Bay Hill. It's been a little bit shoddy, but we will do the best that we can. But folks, we'll be back on linear television next Monday.

for a full podcast, the Golf Show podcast with Rex and Lev on the Golf Channel at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. In the meantime, you guys have the drill, NBCSports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. We'll talk to you guys on Wednesday live from TPC Sawgrass.

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