We are #blessed: Scottie, Bryson in full flight with PGA upcoming
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lab. Well, Scotty Scheffler is no longer winless in 2025. He didn't just claim Rex, the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He did so by eight and in the process tied the 72-hole PGA Tour scoring record of 253. I hate to even ask, but is Scotty Scheffler somehow better than ever before? He might be. I think it's still a little too early to call that because he's still...

Like we've, we spent a lot of time talking about the injury in the off season. And I think what Rory has proven this year, it only is going to make things even more exciting than of course, we're going to talk about Bryson DeChambeau. So I think there's a lot of reasons to really get excited about the PGA championship coming up in a few weeks.

I can see a version, this version of Scottie Scheffler being more efficient on the golf course because that's what it looked like. I did find it wildly entertaining watching the CBS broadcast and listening to all of our friends, Dottie Pepper, Emmelman, Ian Baker Finch, all of them trying to come up with new adjectives, trying to come up with new ways to describe this because it's really hard. It's really difficult. It was dominant by any stretch of the imagination. It was a quintessential. It was a signature thing.

Scotty Victor, you look at what he did well, ball striking, tee to green. Just, it was a masterpiece. He put on a clinic. If you ever want to know the way you need to play a PGA tour course, that's the way you do it. And it was funny. They started doing highlights at some point during Sunday's telecast. And I kept thinking to myself, we're going to be here all day.

We're never going to get to a live shot because at that point it was nothing but 54 holes of highlights. I don't know that he had too many holes that were just, ah, he just made a routine par there. I mean, everything seemed like it was spectacular. I guess the part that I take away the most is, and we had this conversation last week when I was on Golf Central, I believe it was Wednesday evening.

And our friend Steve Borkowski asked me, is they getting close to panic time for Scottie Scheffler? And I laughed. There you go. I laughed it off. That was my reaction. However, I did say that they're getting close to aggravation time because anyone who watched the drama unfold at Augusta, him hitting balls late into the night with Randy Smith,

sort of on his shoulder, trying to calm him down a little bit. You could tell that things weren't quite right. It's fascinating to me that it's only been a few weeks, two weeks essentially, since that outing where he clearly did not feel like he had his best stuff. And if that wasn't his best stuff that he had in Dallas, I can only imagine what it would look like.

But he's never far away, right? Like that's sort of the beauty of Sky Sheva that we've seen really since he's sort of emerged as this clear best player on the PGA Tour since 2022 is that even when he is –

quote unquote, off his game with his B game, with his C game. He's still capable of finishing inside the top 10. He's still capable of finishing inside the top five. Yes, Randy Smith might have his hands on his shoulders trying to shift him every which way on the tournament practice area at Augusta National, but he's still going to go out the next day. He's still going to finish top five in the Masters, and he's going to go on and continue to play good and consistent golf. This is a player who has prided himself on his fundamentals.

And he is a creature of habit. He has basically the same team that he's assembled around him over the past 20 years. He's got the swing coach that he had since he was a teen. The agent that he has is his swing coach's son. So he's known him his entire life. He's married and has a kid with his childhood sweetheart. This is a guy who craves consistency. And so when you have the fundamentals, when you have the basics, you're

You're never straying. You're never, you know, sort of wandering through the wilderness like we've seen so many players on the PGA Tour do at times. Jordan Spieth is a perfect example of a player who sort of had his own sort of resurgence at the Byron Nelson, has sort of been up and down throughout the 2025 season as he's been coming back from the injury. Like, Scottie has never had

the period that Spieth did, where he really had to work himself out of the abyss and out of the rut. And so, no, there was never any panic. Was this certainly relief to him? Was it validation that he was close and like he's been saying over the past couple of months? Certainly. But panic time? No, absolutely not. And I think this was perfect vindication of that.

And to your point, you consider the fact that his worst finish this year was a tie for 25th. And my argument, every time someone would ask me, if it was a colleague or a fan or whoever might be asking me that, if your worst start is a tie for 25th, then we should all be so lucky that that's rock bottom because we knew he was close. I think he knew how close he was. But to your point, I do find it interesting. You're right. He craves.

sort of that structure in his life that he now has again. And it does show you how close he was. Another conversation that we had, I think it was actually Tuesday when I was on golf central was if you would have asked me at this stage last year, if I would have asked you at this stage last year,

What's the difference between whatever it is Scottie Scheffler has become and the next best PGA Tour player? I kind of would have probably struggled to give you some sort of quantifiable number. However, now that we have that year of Scottie Scheffler and him having not won this year on the PGA Tour, you can see it so clearly now. And it's just percentages. It's I think you brought up on Wednesday's podcast, birdie average.

And he went from first last year on the PGA Tour to 23rd on the PGA Tour. Again, if that's rock bottom, you're still doing pretty good. But the difference between him being what we saw Sunday at the Byron Nelson and him being maybe the version that we have seen coming up to this point, it's so minute. Yeah, I mean, this was Georgia math, but the differences in birdie average were essentially a half a stroke per...

per round, which multiplied by four over the course of a semi-final tournament. That's two strokes. That's between winning a tournament and finishing third, which Guy Sheffler had done a couple of times already in 2025. When you look at the reasons why, early on in the comeback when he was dealing with the hand issue and sort of realizing his new normal, he hadn't put the amount of time in the gym or on the range that he typically wanted to before he came back on the West Coast, his driving average really suffered.

He has really tightened that up. He's, you know, he was always been a player who led the PGA tour in distance from the edge of the fairway. In other words, he does not stray very far. Even the ones that are missing in the rough are pretty close to the center line of the fairway. You take that with the Jordan Spieth example, like he's, he's often very wild. Sky Shuffler sort of narrows those misses that has gotten tighter over the past couple of months, his wedge play. He obviously had not put much time in that over the past,

you know, month and a half during the off season because of the hand issue that has gotten tighter over the past couple of months. You look at his putting, he made this, the switch to the claw saw grip in December and,

wasn't able to put the time in the practice putting green to make sure that he was sort of honed in on that 10 to 20 foot difference that if, if let's, let's be honest, if you're Scotty Scheffler and you're going to be leading the field in proximity to the hole, which he does typically every time he tees it up on the PGA tour, you're going to be in that range. No, he had not put in the proper amount of time to really hone in from that range. And so was, was it real unrealistic to think Scotty Scheffler was going to win? I don't know. What was the over under four and a half times?

in 2025, yeah, that was probably unrealistic given the injury, given the layoff, given the time off that he had. I still think it's possible, Rex, that he could come away, I think probably with three victories, I think would be a standout season for Sky Shuffler. If you're winning three plus times on the PGA Tour this year with the depth

With the signature event model, I still think that's a great season for Sky Chef, and that still seems basically in the realm of possibilities. It'll be interesting. We're not in the press conference, so we can't ask questions, but he told me late last year, and I was kind of trying to get him to reflect on his season at the Hero World Challenge, and he said the best golf he played was the final nine at the Olympics to win the gold medal to overtake

John Rahm. And whatever it is, he did well that Sunday in Paris. I think he probably did it well for multiple nines this week at the Bayern Nelson. He never looked like he was flustered. He never looked like his game wasn't quite right. He never looked like he really gave himself much of a chance to really make a big number. And I think the best way the CBS crew described it was it looked like he was playing video game golf.

It really looked like Golden Tee out there where he was just pointing and shooting and the ball was going exactly where he wanted it to. The moment that stood out to me was on the ninth hole. And you and I tried to get Johnson Wagner on tonight in the boots in the ground segment, but he had an early flight. And he is going to do something really cool along these lines later this summer. But on the ninth hole today, Scotty had, I think it was 230 yards.

And they were debating a four iron, a three iron. And I think Ian Baker Finch on the telecast actually said, you could wedge this up there and then you would have another wedge in. You can make a four that way as well. And he launched it to 20 feet. And it was one of those shots where it almost felt like Tiger Woods at Glen Abbey. And I hate doing that. I know I always get...

you get feedback when I compare anything to Tiger Woods, but that shot felt like he didn't have to do it. He certainly didn't have to do it. He did it because he wanted to. He did it because, yep, I'm pretty sure I can pull this off. Like, don't worry about it. Teddy didn't have to step in. There didn't have to be a long conversation. It was, nope, I've got this. Step back. I mean, you mentioned that shot. I go back to Phil Mickelson in 06. Remember at the Bell South? Then he went by like 13 or 14 shots, like completely blew away the field. And then the next week,

went ahead to the masters. Like this had the feeling to me of that. And look, the field was not very strong. I think it was the second weakest tournament on the PGA tour schedule so far. Obviously TPC Craig ranch is undergoing a renovation for a reason. It is not a stiff enough challenge for today's best players. Even at 7,500 yards, the early week rains obviously did not help the couple inches of rains that they had sort of accessed whole locations that probably would have been otherwise protected and sort of limited what the PGA tour set up staff could do. However,

This guy, Scheffler, still shot 29. He still shot a pair of...

30s, including on Sunday when he had this neck and neck battle with Eric Van Royen. Like Eric Van Royen, first of all, shot 63 in the final round. Maybe he didn't have anything to lose, but still like that was the round of his dreams playing with the world number one, knowing that he had to go insanely low to make up an eight shot deficit does exactly that and gain zero ground over the course of four hours and 18 holes with Sky Shuffle. That's the sort of performance that it certainly lend itself to. Rex, what do you think has been

Sort of the missing piece now for Scottie. Like, what do you what do you think is is possible? Do you think, you know, I threw out three twenty twenty five victories by the time you end the season at the tour championship. Is that realistic? Would that be a disappointment? Does it depend which tournaments he's going to be winning or, you know, if he finishes with two victories, is that sort of a disappointment?

I mean, it depends if it's the right two victories. I think you would probably make that argument. And this victory, I know you make a really good point when it comes to strength of field. It wasn't the best the PGA Tour has had this season. However, you could tell in his post-round interview with Amanda that this meant the world to him. He is a Dallas kid through and through. There was real emotion in his voice, which I find wildly interesting.

interesting because he seems to be so stoic on the golf course he seems to come off as a robot sometimes and yet now we have seen it on multiple occasions where once he's done and he's out of the arena and he's allowed to take the cape off a little bit that you do see true emotion you saw it when he was getting the gold medal in the Olympics you saw it when he won the Masters for the first time first time

And when he won the Masters for the second time, I do think that's interesting that we have this vision of what he is on the golf course. And I don't know if that's actually a correct version of what he is as a human being. But I think it would depend on the two tournaments. This one is clearly special to him if he can pick up a major along the way. And we were having the career Grand Slam conversation. And as successful as Scottie has been, he's won two majors and they were the same major.

And so he's still behind on that. So if we're having sort of this huge 30,000 foot conversation or from 30,000 foot conversation about who could be the next player to possibly win the career grand slam, you would think Scottie would be an obvious choice, but he's got a long way to go and you have to start knocking them off eventually. I don't know where I'm going to have a hard time processing how we set up the field for the PGA championship.

Because you can make a really good argument that Scottie should slot in first, maybe 1A, 1B with Rory. But I think Bryson DeChambeau has to be in the conversation. So we may end up with a 1C. I think it's going to be much closer than we would imagine right now. I mean, I remember that Saturday at the Masters, I was like practically giddy.

waiting for that third round because he just felt like something spectacular was going to happen. Then obviously the anticipation with Rory and Bryce in the final group on Sunday ratcheted up the anticipation even more. When you look ahead to the PGA Championship, which is now just going to be seven days away,

Sky Scheffler is informed coming off the best performance, 72 holes of his entire career. Roy McRoy with the major burden lifted after the Masters, after winning a major championship for the first time in 11 years, now heading to a golf course where he has won four times and dominated like no other player. Bryson, you mentioned, has been playing great over the past month and a half. We're going to get to him after the break. Justin Thomas just won.

on the PGA Tour at the RBC Heritage. He won the PGA Championship the last time it was held there in 2017. And oh yeah, very quietly, Xander Schauffele, a player who almost won at Quail Hollow last year in the signature event, was a two-time major winner in 2024. It's certainly trending in the right direction. Oh, and Rex, how about Jordan Spieth? He just finished fourth. He now...

heads to Quail Hollow with a chance to capture the career grandson. He would be the seventh. We talked endlessly about Roy becoming the sixth. Oh yeah, just a month later, Spieth could actually become the seventh. Before

Before we get to the Jordan talk, because I know how giddy you are to get to the Jordan talk, because there is no bigger beat writer when it comes to Jordan Spieth than Ryan Lambert. However, before we get to that, I do just want to touch on one more thing about Scottie Scheffler. And this got brought up on the broadcast as well. And I started going through his resume. His game travels so well that there is not a specific kind of course. You love throwing the stat out about Rory McIlroy. He's never won a major championship with

The winning score was single digits. No, he's never won a tournament. Tournament when the winning score was three digits under par. I know you love that stat. We've come so close to it in the past, but still you're going to stick to that stat. As you go through Scottie's resume, and this is his 14th PGA Tour victory now, he has won pretty much everywhere you would imagine. If you want your game to travel, if you didn't want to be shoehorned into, in Rory's case, as you point out, he's a bomber. He likes to be on slow tracks where there's a lot of birds being had.

Okay, and we probably, I think you actually tried to make the argument on Wednesday that Scottie probably doesn't like Birdie Fest. However, the results over the last four days would suggest that he may not like it, but he's still pretty good at it. I mean, I don't think any great player likes Birdie Fest because it just becomes a little bit fluky in terms of who has the hottest putting ground. But then you look, and he won last year at the Memorial, it was eight under par, was the winning score. And he's done it multiple times now. When he won the Masters, I think it was 11 and 10 under par.

So he doesn't have a problem buckling down and playing very, very difficult golf courses really well. I think that's a testament to everything that he does well when it comes to Jordan Spieth. And now I'll turn you loose. No, no, no. I think this is a fair point because Scotty Scheffler, what are the two hallmarks of his game? One, approach play, right? Yeah.

Like iron play travels anywhere. It doesn't matter the types of grasses. It doesn't matter the types of conditions. If you were a great iron player in 2025, that is the key determiner for future success. Scotty Sheffler, I think is interesting in that he's the best iron player on the PGA tour. He's also the best scrambler. I don't care what the stats say. And I'm sure the stats say that he's very good. He has an incredible, he has an incredible pair of hands.

And so if he does get in trouble, if on the off chance he is out of position, or if he's, you know, misses a fairway like we saw in the final round of the CJ Cup by Ron Nelson and has to get up and down from 100 yards, he's probably going to stick it

to five feet. If he gets out of position, he's in the bunker. He's probably going to splash out to six feet. I believe that was his, his average for the week was six or seven feet when he was scrambling. Like the guy is, is sick. And so when you put that combination together, that's, that is going to translate to a lot of different courses. That is why his game travels. That is why I think it's, it's sort of fluky at this point that he's only quote unquote, only won the masters because you look at the other major championships, he is uniquely built to,

and sort of has the prerequisite skills for all those major championships to perform well. That's why his record is so good. - And his record in the PGA Championship in the US Open is actually amazingly good. It's almost to the point where he's given himself so many opportunities that it's just a matter of getting over the finish line. You would think that's a matter of time. He's only played the Open Championship four times.

in his career and he doesn't have a particularly great record in that one i think there's a flukiness to that one that he's probably going to have to overcome like many players have to you can end up on the wrong side of the draw it's easy to get bad balances like there's a lot of things that can happen at the open championship but

To bring it full circle, I think it's a testament to how complete his game is, that there aren't any holes in it. The argument always is his ball striking is so good and sublime that all he has to do is putt average, and he's going to win. If he putts well, like he did this week, he's going to win by a touchdown. Yeah, we started this segment by me asking somewhat facetiously –

Is Sky Shuffler better than ever? You could make the case that that was the goal, right? Like you were in the Bahamas last December for the Hero World Challenge when all of us couldn't. Sky Shuffler showed up on Tuesday or Wednesday of that tournament with

With this new putting grip. And everyone's like, man, what the heck are you doing? Like you just won nine times. Just put a season together that we have not seen since peak Tiger Woods. But if you listen to Scottie Scheffler's explanation and rationale for why he was doing that, yes, his approach play was great. Yes, he puts himself in position. I would argue that some of that is by design. They sort of dials back.

the speed and the power to put himself in position to then rely on his strength, which is his iron play. We talked about his scrambling, but the putting was something that he even thought in a nine win 2024 could actually be improved. He wanted to improve specifically on,

from inside 10 feet. And he thought by switching to that claw saw grip that it would help him from that range that has paid off. When you look at the stats through 2025, he has gotten demonstrably better from inside that range. We look at what happened at the Nelson. He missed just five times inside of 10 feet. And again, he was peppering it so close to the flag. A lot of those times it wasn't for par. It was for birdie where Scotty Scheffler has been lacking.

has been in sort of the 10 to 20 foot range, which when you're making a transition from putting grips, that's something that's going to take to get used to. There's a little bit of feel. There's a little bit of touch doing something that you've never done in your entire career.

That is a spot where he's going to be hammering with great approach play for the week. Rex at the Nelson, he made 33%. So if that continues, right, if he has made the switch to the claw grip to improve what was basically the only weakness in his game to sort of shore up that putting from inside 10 feet and you couple that,

with the sustained excellence that we have seen from his ball striking over the past couple of years, I think you can make the argument that yes, Scotty Scheffler is potentially built to be even better than he was. And you brought up sort of the familiarity he wants in his life. Randy Smith, his longtime swing coach, been with him since he was 14 years old. His agent has been there, his high school sweetheart, everything. I think it,

The point you just made is a testament to how much he actually trusts Phil Kenyon because they have not been together for that long. They don't have that history, that trust, that familiarity that he's used to having. And you can see clearly that he's not going to immediately take to everything. We have seen him sort of ease his way into something. But yes, that's a great example where he trusts Phil enough and he knows this is probably the right thing to do going forward to improve. And you're right, that important area.

Somewhat of an interesting decision. Scotty Scheffler will not play this week at the Truist Championship. A one-off going to Philly Cricket Club. Absolutely cannot wait to see that. An old Tillinghast design should show well on television. Taking the week off, trying to prepare for the year's second major championship. But coverage of the Truist Championship begins Thursday on Golf Channel. All the other big names are going to be in the field. We'll be back with this podcast after this short break.

All right, Rex, it was a big Sunday for Scottie, but it was also a big Sunday for Bryson DeChambeau, who shot 66 in the final round in South Korea and won by two for his third career title on live golf. But his first Rex since fall 2023. We've seen this coming from Bryson. What does this mean now for the beefy bomber for the rest of 2025? I talked about Scottie's emotion after winning in Dallas. I was a little bit surprised by Bryson's.

emotion winning. And like, I'm not trying to take anything away from it. Clearly, as you pointed out, it's been a minute since he'd won on that tour or any tour. And so this was going to be big for him. And I do think there was something to be said for how it all came about with him dueling his teammate, Charles Howe coming down the stretch. There's the team element that factored into it. So I think all of those things were probably part of it, but it was more, I guess, in my mind, probably relief. If you look at his Sunday struggles,

really the last few months. He had a chance to convert a 36-hole lead on Liv at Doral down in Miami. He had a chance to do it in Mexico, didn't do it there, and he had the lead with 16 holes to play at the Masters. So those things start to pile up after a while. And if you're Bryson DeChambeau and there's an incredible amount of confidence there, that still comes with, if you don't get it done time and time again, you start questioning yourself. So this was

probably more of just an emotional hurdle for him to get through, to understand that, yes, I can get it done under the gun and pull off the shots that I need to. And I think, as we just sort of hinted to, the idea that he –

I don't know how you wouldn't put him inside your top three, maybe four. I don't know. We can probably bet that around going into the PGA championship simply because of how he's played. He doesn't have much of a record when it comes to Quail Hollow. He only played the regular tour event there twice, a handful of times. He's got two top tens, but when the PGA was there in 17, he finished tied for 33rd. So it is a little bit of an outlier, but I think the way he's playing and his game probably travels well to any golf course.

Yeah, you mentioned the Sunday scary shot 75 that day at Doral when the conditions got really difficult shot 75 in the final group with Roy McRoy on a day when he needed to go out and get it. He shot even par 71 in Mexico City and got lapped by Joaquin Neiman, who has been the best player on live over the past couple years. And so it was it was huge validation there.

for Bryson that his game is exactly where it should be. You look at his driving stats, Rex. This is the best Bryson DeChambeau has ever driven the ball in his life. And that's saying something for what he did sort of in that 2020 to 2022 range where he was absolutely hitting the snot out of the golf ball and hitting it as straight as anybody. What I saw this past week in South Korea was really a testament to his short game. Bryson DeChambeau is leading live golf

statistics in scrambling. Like the dude obviously is an incredible driver of the golf ball when his irons are on. He can really get it going. I think he's an underrated putter. He always has been in his career, but the shots that he can play around the green. And we saw that certainly on display at Augusta national. He was, he's always sort of struggled with high rough.

Rex, but like any time that it is mowed tight, as some of the shots were in Korea, he has such creativity, such imagination. He uses the bounce of the leading edge of the wedges so well. Like that really stood out to me that a guy who can swing it as hard as he does, 125, 130 miles an hour, still has a depth touch around the greens. And we've known that for a long time, but I think that was sort of underscored this week in Korea. I thought this was a much needed victory, not just for Bryson Rex,

but also for live, like live needs these guys to win tournaments. They need the Bryson's. They need the ROMs. They need the Brooks's. I, you know, it's, it's great to see a walking name. It's great to see a Carlos Ortiz. Who's having a great year, but they paid a boatload of money to bring these guys over from the PGA tour. And yes, they've,

I think they've spanned out their victories since they joined the league in 2022, particularly as it relates to Bryson and Brooks, but they have not had a dominant season. You'd love to see that if you're live golf officials, a Bryson take hold and win three or four times during the calendar year. Well, and if you look at it,

outside of the competition itself. Look at just the business model. I'm sure they're thinking to themselves, not only do we need the Brysons or the John Rahms or the Brooks to win, they need to probably win at the right places. And by that, I mean, I had an agent text me this afternoon. And can you imagine if the

if the Nelson was going head to head with the live event, which it was not because of the time zone difference being in South Korea, but no disrespect to Scotty. But when you have a player who's running away from the field like that on what is a pretty mundane golf course, that that's not why you're going to tune in either. It would have been an interesting comparison to put those two up against each other. Had they been in the same time zones now that they have a platform that you can compare it to CBS or NBC or whatever the case may be. We haven't really gotten one of those to be fair to your point. When, when,

Bryson had a chance to win in Miami. That was probably going to be one of the best. I believe that was San Antonio. It was up against on the PGA tour. That was going to be one of the best comparisons. I think that we had had up to that point and saying, okay, this is where the live product is. And this is where the PGA tour product is. Same thing could be said about Mexico city. And both those fell flat. But look, this was, this was also a reminder of like, what are we doing here?

Scottie's winning the Nelson on the PGA Tour, a Dallas guy. Bryce DeChambeau's winning on the other side of the world in Korea in the wee hours of the morning, a Dallas guy. Like –

Bryson's at the height of his powers. Scotty's at the height of his powers. The tournament's being played in Dallas on the PGA Tour. The best and the strongest golf circuit on the planet. Like, what are we doing here? Just a reminder that this thing is as fragmented as ever. Do you think, though, Rex, that Bryson is Liv's most important player? I think Jon Rahm...

I still believe has the potential to be their best player, a player who I'm on record saying is a generationally great player could go down as the greatest European of all time. I think he can win the career grand slam. Like I'm, I'm still very, very bullish on John Rahm's career prospects, but is he the most important player? Cause I think you can make a case that that person's actually Bryson.

Bryson DeChambeau is Liv Goff's most important asset, if that makes sense. I'm going from a business perspective here. And this is, again, a long conversation that I started having with folks after the Masters about, by all accounts, Bryson's contract with Liv Goff extends through this year and then that's it. So you would imagine at this point they're in some sort of negotiations. Imagine that.

the leverage that he has at that table. Let's take whatever the crazy number is that have been multiple, have been reported about John Robb signing. Let's say it was somewhere in that $300 million range. Cause it's, it's, I've heard all kinds of different options. Imagine now what Bryson can ask for and we'll probably get is if live golf chooses not to resign him. And then suddenly that leads to a whole different conversation about how he gets moved back into the PGA tour and

If they don't resign him, you're essentially giving up at that point because you're right. I think John Rahm is the best player on that tour. But when it comes to reach, when it comes to popularity, when it comes to having a draw that can pull people in outside of golf, outside of sports even, that's Bryson DeChambeau, and he's done it.

wildly organically. He's done it all on social media almost by himself single-handedly. And so you have to give him a monsoon amount of credit. But if you're looking at this from a pure business perspective, he is by far the most important asset. Imagine if Bryson DeChambeau had won the Masters.

the most famous golf tournament in the world, what the asking price for the renewal would have been. I mean, it's still high. If, if, if John Rahm was, let's say 300, we are going way North of that. Had Bryson Shambaugh, who's still very much in his athletic prime. This is a guy who's right around the age of 30.

Like he's got plenty of good years left. He's taking great care of his body over the past couple of years since he went with the beefy experiment. Like Bryson DeChambeau is going to be playing golf for a long time. I agree. I think he's the most important player. I think he's the most important asset. And you've seen sort of this shift to where, you know, you look at live transcripts and, you know, I'm not sure who is there covering. It could be locals. It could be plants, you know,

It could be just live golf officials who are just asking players questions during the wee hours of the morning here in the States. But there's a lot of suggestion, Rex, that everything Bryson does is just geared towards the fans. And there was even sort of a tilt with some of the questions like, well, we saw what happened on Sunday at Augusta National. Roy McIlroy sort of iced you out, and he wasn't really acknowledging the fans. And it sort of depicted Bryson as the people's champ.

and everyone else is sort of this guy who's got blinders on and only cares about himself and is disregarding the fans. There does seem a concerted effort in the questions in the social media posts to sort of play up the fact that Bryson DeChambeau is beloved

anywhere he goes? Are you sort of buying that vibe that we've seen in recent months? Because again, obviously we all saw what happened after the U.S. Open. Everyone's getting a touch of the trophy. He's parading it around. I think that was organic. I do think that was, you know, if you look at who was more popular that day, Roy McIlroy or Bryson DeChambeau, I would give the edge to Bryson DeChambeau that day. But have you noticed a shift in sort of how live golf is presenting Bryson DeChambeau to the world as well?

Well, and again, it goes back to what I just said, as their most important asset. And I'm sure they understand that you want to try to maximize that asset. And yes, that means he's essentially going to become the face of the lead on some level, for lack of a better term, where if you're going to do any kind of engagement, either

with the media or with the fans, of course you would want that to be Bryson. I would push back a little bit. And anyone who seems to think that Rory had lost his popularity, didn't walk around and follow him last week in new Orleans for five days, because those crowds loved everything about Rory McIlroy. It is interesting now when those two get together, like we very rarely see, but when they do that, it almost feels as if the crowd is split.

And you, it almost had, there's, there's massive rivalry potential. Oh yeah. Between those two players. Tiger Phil ask, because I always felt like tiger was at his best when Phil was at his best is when you had someone pushing him in this particular case, Phil, uh,

There were a lot of Tiger fans, and I would say Tiger probably had more fans, but it was the most polarizing rivalry I've ever seen in the history of covering sports, just not golf, because there was no one that was in between. You didn't be like, yeah, I like Tiger, and, but I'm a Phil guy too. No, you had to be one or the other, and I can see this playing out that way.

Yeah, I think like three years ago, I think it would have been a great golf rivalry had Scotty Scheffler and Jon Rahm continued on the trajectories that they were in terms of strictly golf performance. Hmm.

But a Roy Bryson sort of personality split, golf split, the manner in which they go about their business, clearly now the way that they're presented to the fans is also a stark difference. It's just a shame that you're only going to see this rivalry that's budding.

sort of transpire over four weeks of the year. You need it to be eight or nine times. Now we'll cherish it and we'll relish it and we'll savor it the amount of times that it does happen. And it's not a given, obviously, that those two are going to be locking horns at a major championship. But I'm with you. I think there's serious potential. I don't think there's necessarily animosity between the two. I do think there is mutual respect and admiration for how those two have gone about their careers and what they've done to this point.

But I also think that there's a little bit of friction there. I think there's a little bit of wanting to be the alpha of those two relationships and how sort of the begrudging respect from fans, even if their side's not necessarily winning. I think there's something to that. However, I would take it a step further, and I think we address the idea that when –

Bryson said that about, no, he didn't say anything to me on Sunday at the Masters. I think both of us came away with, he wouldn't have spoken with anyone. If Shane Lowry would have been in that final group, one of his best friends in the world, he wouldn't have had anything to say to him. That was the plan. He and Dr. Bob Rotella knew going in that you're going to have to put the blinds on. Ignore everything around you. Keep your phone away. Ignore the fans. Ignore the other players. Ignore the caddies. Everything about it. I don't think that was personal at all.

But I do like the idea of a rivalry between those two because of the personalities that they both have and they bring to the table. It goes back to, and this was not a fair fight, clearly, but whatever happened between Bryson and Brooks back a few years ago when they got in their tiffs, and that just came across as Brooks being a bully and Bryson being a bit of a golf nerd. Yeah, that was just like mean-spirited. Yeah, and Bryson being a bit of a golf nerd and couldn't really defend himself. And I felt gross about that whole thing, but this would be entirely different.

Yeah, I agree with you, Roy. It will certainly be the centerpiece of our Wednesday podcast. Because as a reminder, folks, we do this podcast actually twice a week, only once on linear television. Rex, I'll be back on Wednesday for another edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Laugh. Available wherever you get your podcasts and on Golf Channel's YouTube page. Be back after this short break with the rest of the podcast. Okay, Rex, speaking of Liv, per the new head of the OWGR, Trevor Immelman, the league has actually not announced

reapplied for world ranking points, contradicting a report last week from Sportico that live in the OWGR were in advanced discussions. What do you make all this? Well, I did. And it was an AP story that Trevor spoke with our colleague, Doug Ferguson, and just kind of outlined where they are. He said he's met with the new CEO of live golf. He met with him at the masters. It was more of an introductory sort of meeting. However, I will say it sounds to me like they're moving in that direction again. And it,

The sending in the application is probably just one of those technicalities that they're trying to figure out. It seems to me they're going to make another run at world ranking points, which doesn't surprise me. I will say I don't know why this time is going to be any different than last time, because the hang up last time was the narrow pathways to getting on live. And those haven't changed. As a matter of fact, from last year to this year, they've gotten more narrow. Instead of taking three players out of promotions event, they only took one player out of the promotions event.

So it's not as though you checked off any boxes and you can now go back to the world ranking and say, look, we did this. Now can we have our cake? No, that's not the way it works. Unless they're thinking that the politics of the moment has changed. And in theory, the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia are still having conversations about trying to reunite the game. That might smooth over some edges, but I don't know what fundamentally has changed in the makeup of live golf that would suddenly allow them to get world ranking points.

Yeah, I mean, you make great points. Like the only thing that Liv has really changed over the past year is players are now wearing pants to the competition as opposed to shorts. But like they're not going to send me two holes. They're not abandoning the team concept. And you could have had potentially an awkward scenario in South Korea again last week where Bryce Nishambo and Charles Howell III, both of the Crushers team,

going for the individual title while also trying to lock up the team title. That was always a sticking point for the OWGR. You mentioned the promotions event going down to one. You mentioned the drop zone players like a Bubba Watson and a Brandon Grace. Those players were supposed to be relegated. They end up getting picked up by their teams. Again, they need to have some real jeopardy, I believe, for the OWGR to seriously consider them. But even if Liv does get world ranking points, Rex,

Like they're not going to all of a sudden be getting the same amount of points as the truest championship. And some of these players are so far gone now in the rankings that it's going to be a negligible move based on their, their high performances in live golf events. So it's, it's a, it's a, it's a sticky situation. I don't know what the right answer is, but if live can make,

sort of some concessions, if they can introduce some real jeopardy to how they're going to operate the league and have some real promotion and relegation, I certainly think that that would be appealing for the OWGR. All right, let's move on to Jordan Spieth. We mentioned at the top of the program, hurt a season low by three shots on Sunday at the Nelson. His ball striking stats were terrific. He finished fourth. He's trending for the PGA. Rex, do you believe that it could actually happen?

do i believe he could win the pga at coral hollow no i i don't believe that although it would be a cool story and we immediately he can't win a major championship

No, not on that particular golf course. He's never really played Quail Hollow. It's really not. When he was playing his best golf, I wouldn't have said Quail Hollow was a great fit for him. And look, in 2015, you would have thought he could have won anywhere. But no, it's such a big ballpark. We just sat here and had a long conversation about where are we going to put Scotty and Rory and JT and Jon Rahm and Bryson and all of these other great players. Jordan certainly could play well there, and I could expect him to get a top 10, but I would be legitimately surprised if he's able to show up there and complete the career Grand Slam.

that's not saying that he's never going to be able to do it and you have to like how he's training there was a couple of things that I think we saw over the course of the week at the Nelson and like I said very similar to Scotty this I would argue that Jordan is much more of a Dallas kid than Scotty is a Dallas kid and it probably would mean the world jersey stand up that's right Ridgewood would like a word with you calling Scotty a Dallas kid that's not exactly right um but

But you could tell that that would have meant the world to him. And yet he shoots a 62, which is his lowest round on the PGA Tour, I think, since 2021. And as you're watching that round, it's still entertaining. There is nothing Scotty Scheffler-esque about it. He's not doing any of this by the numbers. All of those things that we said about Scotty, that it looks like he's a robot and he's playing a video game, that's the opposite. Actually, it looks like Jordan's probably playing a video game, but a much different kind of video game, because his looks like he's wrecking cars.

out on the golf course. And so I still think he's moving in the right direction. I saw a couple of bunker shots that he hit that when it comes to the injured wrist and the surgery and everything he went through, I know that's the sensitive area. I know that's the part that causes him concern.

Because you can always get steep on those, and that's where the pain returns. And so that's all very encouraging. But no, I do not have very high expectations for him at the PGA. Oh, I don't know. I think there's reasons for optimism. This is just blindly going through. You look through the stats. I mean, Jordan Spieth is top 15 on the PGA Tour in total driving this year. What are you going to have to do exceptionally well at Quail Hollow, a huge ballpark?

you're going to have to put the ball in play, which Jordan Spieth has done. Again, one of the best on the PGA Tour this year. You mentioned Quail Hollow. He might not have played the Wells Fargo Championship. He's a Dallas kid who tends to play those events either at the Nelson or Colonial. He did, however, Rex, go 5-0 at the 2022 President's Cup.

where he was leading Justin Thomas. Of course, in the fall, it certainly, it certainly is the PGA championship though. I think in general has never been a great fit for him as well as Jordan Spieth has played everywhere. And in the major championships over the course of his career, just two top tens ever. One of those of course was that dual Jason day whistling straights all the way 10 years ago. Another one was with Brooks Koepka blew away the field before getting a close at Beth page in 2019 sport. Spieth never had a chance to win.

He was kind of, I guess he won the sea flight that week. But the PGA Championship and sort of its MO and how it likes to set up the golf courses traditionally has not fit well. But I think the way Spieth has trended over the past month, month and a half, I don't know. I think it could be a fun story heading into that weekend. Well, and don't get me wrong. I think when Jordan Spieth is playing well, the PGA Tour is better for it.

because he is an entertaining product. Talked about Bryson being an asset for live golf. Jordan speed would be a huge asset for the PGA tour. If he finds a way to discover some version of the form that he had in 2015, 16, 17, before he started running into these issues. I think we all want him to get back to somewhere close to where he was before. I'm just trying to be realistic when it comes to Jordan and

Yeah, I think Spieth is the top three most important asset on the PGA Tour behind only Roy McIlroy in Scotty Scheffler. All right, final punch shot for today, Rex. Davis Riley received a two-shot penalty for accidentally clicking on the slope feature on his range finder. Keep in mind, this is sort of that trial period where the range finders are going to be allowed on the PGA Tour, seeing if it can potentially speed up play.

Davis Riley did end up making the cut. He made an eagle putt on his final hole of the day. Two-shot penalty. Is this too harsh for what seems like a pretty innocent mistake? Too harsh. That's one of those rules of golfing. It didn't seem to me that he was being nefarious. A bit of a side. Did not realize my range finder even had one of those things onto it, and I had never been using the slope before, which probably explains a lot about me coming up short or long on particular holes.

I think it's ridiculous for twofold reasons. One, you're going to go to the rules of golf issue. Two strokes seems like that is a harsh penalty for what is by any stretch of the imagination, a very innocent incident. And so that's one of the things I'm going to point out. The other one is,

players received two rangefinders in their lockers in Hilton Head without the slope function on them. The PGA Tour wanted to provide them with rangefinders to avoid this exact case scenario. I remember talking with numerous players and caddies about, yes, we're going to use this version just to be safe. One of the caddies had actually put tape on the switch on the side of the rangefinder to keep it from going over.

I think everyone knew this was going to happen and it's unfortunate. And you're right. Two strokes seems way too severe. And if we're going to go to the bottom line, it's not speeding up play. I mean, this is just going to be one of those parts of the game that it might help one shot around, but,

For one player over the course of a week, it might help you if you're way off line. If you're over in another fairway and instead of trying to walk it off and figure out the yardage, you can just shoot it. And that's going to be helpful. It's not really going to be the magic bullet that speeds up play. So I'm not even quite sure what we're doing this or why we're doing this. And just keep in mind, CBS did not hit their broadcast window on Sunday for the Nelson, despite playing in twosomes.

despite playing on a relatively easy golf course where a lot of players are making a lot of birdies. Yes, obviously two shots is way too harsh for penalty. However, you also have to have some sort of deterrent. Otherwise, players would be knowingly doing it. I think, if anything, I came away from this incident with more respect for Davis Riley and how he conducted himself, knowing he saw the second number pop up, and all of a sudden he's like,

you know it was there was nothing intentional about it there was nothing nefarious about it no one would have known except for davis riley but this is what makes golf great this is what makes it a game of integrity and character davis riley did the right thing i think he was rewarded that eagle putt in the last to make the cut good for davis riley look at us rex we left like eight minutes for listener questions and lo and behold

We have so many to get to. Let's get to this one first, Rex, from Brandon Clay. I'm assuming he is Canadian, but why, he says, is the Canadian Open not a signature event if the tour wants to grow the game internationally? Brandon makes a great point. No, it's a good point, and I'll take it a step further because I'm going to go Team Canada on this one. RBC has been a longtime sponsor of the PGA Tour. RBC has...

event right now in South Carolina. And that makes no sense that the Rural Bank of Canada would have a signature event in Hilton Head Island. So I think eventually we probably get around to it. I think the history with the Canadian Open, I thought Rory did a great job a few years ago when he won, pointing out why it's important to win a national Open, whether that's the U.S. Open or the Scottish or the Canadian or whatever it might be. These things still matter to players in the game. And it probably fits into a better part of the schedule.

To your point, you wanted to take that week off, the built-in head off. Anyway, so it fits perfectly with what you want to do with the schedule.

Well, look, I think when the conversations around if a deal was going to get done between the PGA Tour and live, a lot of the thinking was let's get all of the best players together at all of the best and biggest tournaments throughout the world. Right. Not just the ones that the PGA Tour was designating to be the most significant in those you would obviously designate a Canadian Open on Australian Open.

um a Scottish open an Irish open um uh some event in in England you know that you could sort of designate as the best tournaments for all the best players in the world that would be I think the ideal model if it if that deal is not going to come to pass and I don't think obviously then that you can have that sort of model and so if you're the PGA Tour now you have eight signature events right

If I'm the PGA tour, I'm trying to make those the very best golf courses that I have. Right. Like that is, that is what I would do. It's not necessarily the part on the schedule. It is the best golf courses. That's why I would make a Torrey pines. It may not be the best golf course architecturally, but I think there is some history there. There's some legacy. There's some tradition there.

fans know it like i would make that a signature event i would look at a place like colonial one of the best courses on the entire pj tour schedule if i'm the pj tour i would want to heighten and magnify and underscore just how great of a golf course colonial is for the pj tour schedule that to me should be the thinking i understand why they don't do it and there's other obviously monetary and financial factors at play but i think it's sort of a philosophical

of how the PGA Tour views it and sort of where I would and what I would sort of be emphasizing if I was a PGA Tour decision makers. And this is simple. It's follow the money is what this is going to boil down to, which is why, and look, I think the Travelers Championship is a wonderful event, but you probably wouldn't pick that out of the lineup of top events on top venues that you're just referencing to be one of the signature events, to be one of those eight really big events.

And there's a reason why it's there, because Travelers is a dedicated sponsor of the PGA Tour and is willing to write a much bigger check than others are. As I pointed out at the beginning of this, RBC already has one signature. They've proven themselves capable, willing, interested in paying for a bigger, better event. Why not just make it the Canadian Open?

I love this one, Rex, from Tom Dallas. There's some revisionist history potentially going on here, but this is related to Kyle Morikawa splitting with his caddy, J.J. Jakovac, who he's been with his entire pro career. If Henley does not blast the pin at Bay Hill, obviously he chipped in for Eagle to deny Kyle Morikawa the victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Colin wins easily. That shot probably cost Colin's caddy his job. Do you agree with that?

No, I don't think I agree with that. And maybe things would have been different. You're right. This is quite revisionist because you don't know really what was going through Colin Morikawa's head at that point or when he decided to split with JJ. And I said this on Golf Central when it came up.

This is no different than a swing coach. There's two types of swing coach on the PGA Tour, those who have been fired and those who are about to be. Caddies are the exact same way. Either you've been fired or you're about to be because every time your player goes into a slump and every player goes into a slump, they start looking for answers. And sometimes it's a new putter or a new driver. Maybe even you go to a new swing coach. A caddy's on that list eventually. The player's going to get around to you, the caddy. And even though J.J. Jakovic is probably one of the best caddies,

in the caddy yard on the PGA Tour, and I guarantee you he's not going to be unemployed for very long. I bet there's a line of players who would love to have him on the back because he's such a good player himself, and you could see that relationship between he and Morikawa and how it evolved over the years and how good it was. In this particular case, Morikawa just needed something new, whatever that was going to be, and he'd already tried a new putter. He'd already tried a new swing coach. He went back to his old swing coach after working a little bit with Mark Blackburn, and unfortunately, J.J. was just the next guy in line.

What was that famous Tiger ad? The infamous one winning fixes everything, solves everything. You know, it's, it is interesting to think about head Cal Moore, a cow won the Arnold Palmer invitation, like signature event. Would things be differently to your Cal Moore cow? And he was on Dan on golf. The, the, the show, I think it's coming out on Monday. He said that between the ropes, he could just tell that something was off. You know, it's, it's like,

like any sort of interpersonal relationship. If something is not quite right, even if you're having success, even if he feels like this is, you know, profitable between the ropes between player and caddy, I think there's other reasons why it could potentially not be working out. Joe Griner, of course, will be on the back for Kamorikawa this week. And I expect Kamorikawa to speak to the media in Philadelphia. All right. Final question, Rex, from Jason Grant. Why has Justin Leonard been passed over for the Ryder and the President's Cup captaincy?

That's a really good question. My immediate reaction is he's probably not in the circle. After what happened at Glen Eagles, after what happened in Scotland at the Ryder Cup, when they came up with the task force and that went on to become a committee, the circle of people who were making that decision got very small. And it turned into a situation where if you weren't inside that circle or loosely related to it, then you can kind of draw some direct lines.

from Davis Love and how we ended up with even Keegan Bradley to a certain degree. And he just was never inside that circle. Because we can sit here and have this conversation for the next, we can do this another 52 minutes about all the players who got passed over. And certainly Justin Leonard would be one of them. Justin Leonard was an assistant on last year's President's Cup team. Potentially he's being inserted into the pipeline. I mean, the player has eight stints

on a president's cup or a Ryder cup. He makes a lot of sense. He's 52 years old, a Jim Furyk, a Steve Stricker type. I think if you want some new blood, Justin Leonard,

Makes a lot of sense. Rex, is there something before the end of the show that you wanted to get off your chest? Quite literally, is there something you want to get off your chest? No, it's okay. I said this last week on the podcast when I was leaving New Orleans. I spent the week body shaming myself. It was not a good month. I just want to say April was not a good month for me physically. I ate too much. I ate way too much very, very good food, and it kind of caught up with me. And fat shaming is not okay. It's okay when I fat shame myself. It's not okay when you do it.

Just getting hated on social media. You certainly do not love to see that. Please, folks, keep it classy. Keep it respectful. We're here to bring this podcast to you. Of course, we're heading to Philadelphia this week, home of the cheesesteaks.

Where our media friends in Philadelphia will not be eating quite well. All right. That is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. You guys know the drill. NBCSports.com for all the latest news, notes, and updates. Rex and I will be back on Wednesday for another edition of the podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Even if you're negative. Talk to you guys on Wednesday.

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