What golf can learn from this week's Caitlin Clark experience
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Chat Podcast with Rex and Lav. Apologies in advance. I sound positively terrible. Fear not. Do not send me your Ts and Ps. I feel perfectly fine. I just sound atrocious, luckily for me.

Christmas caroling does not begin for another month, and so I have plenty of time to recover. Rex, you were clearly in Connecticut. You just finished three days of hosting alongside our friend and resident conspiracy theorist, Eamon Lynch. How's it going today?

It went well. He always makes this show easy, and you're right. He keeps you on your toes because he throws you some curveballs. He zigs when everyone wants to zag. So I do find that fun. You're just not reading off the script like you normally were. You sound awful. And the only reason I'm in Connecticut is because our dear friend Damon Hack has been sick for a few weeks. He's getting better. He'll be back soon. Trust me, you won't have to put up with me and Lab on this set ever again for the rest of the year, at least. So I'm just curious, though, what is happening at Golf Channel? Are we going to make it to the end of the year? Are we all playing hurt?

That is not true. I will be at that very desk the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of Hero World Challenge Week. You'll be in the Bahamas. I'll be in frosty Connecticut. That figures to be a very good show. Again, I feel fine.

I just sound terrible. Hopefully we'll do this record next week from Sea Island. More on that at the end of this podcast. All will be forgiven. This is usually like a 75-25 split where I talk a lot and you talk a little. Hopefully we can reverse roles in this podcast. We always say that. We always say we're going to do that. We never do. I never do. Bargain. So let's begin, Rex, with one of the biggest topics of this week is the DP World Tour Championship on the DP World Tour. To me...

There has not been a lot of buzz for this. You know, the FedEx Cup season, the Tour Championship in Eastlake is always such a big deal. This is now the culmination of the DP World Tour season. Roy's the favorite. He can close out another race to Dubai title. Tristan Lawrence, the South African who burst out of the scene and into our lives at the Open Championship is the closest pursuer to him. But there's no Jon Rahm. Terrell Hatton is still sort of persona non grata.

know he is playing like what's your feel and your vibe for the season finale on the DP world tour

It has been quiet. It probably has a lot to do with the reasons you just pointed out. I think Rory can win the season long race with an 11 place finish. And that's only if Lawrence wins. So if Lawrence doesn't win, I think Rory pretty much just has to remain upright for four days. So that draws some of the interest out of it. And there was, and we talked about it on the show today, more of an unpacking of Rory McIlroy season because he was asked to grade his season. And I'm always curious of what those answers are. And he gave himself a B.

which is kind of interesting to me on two levels here. One, he's had a really good season. He's won multiple times, both here and on the European tour. He's given himself opportunities in the major championships. Obviously haven't gotten that done. Pinehurst being the primary example, but he's clearly a tough grader. I would not want him as my professor if he looks back at this season as a B, because for a lot of players, this is a career year, but I think it speaks to Rory's own expectations of

for himself. And I did find it interesting that he spun this into, what do you want to do next year? And he made it very, very specific as in, I want to beat Scotty Scheffler and I want to beat Xander Shoffley. It was as simple as that. If I can just beat those two guys, I've got a really good chance of ending this decades long drought of not winning anything.

a major championship. I would be curious because Rory is always the type of person that seems to unpack things as time goes on. He's always seems to kind of look at things. Pinehurst being the primary example, we didn't talk to him right after whatever it is that happened at the, on that Sunday at the U S open. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later after he had some time to compartmentalize exactly what went wrong. I'd be curious what the grade would be.

let's say we don't see him again until early next year, somewhere on the West Coast, see if the grade would be a little bit different, either better or worse. I'm not quite sure which way he's going to go, but it was an interesting answer in my mind.

I think a B or I think he called it what an eight out of 10 is sort of where I would put Roy McIlroy season. He won three times worldwide. That includes the team victory alongside Shane Lowry at the Zurich classic. He came within, I don't know, 70 minutes of winning a major championship at the U S open, which obviously would have made this an a or an a plus season. I think this season is,

has identified the gulf between where Rory is with his game and where the Scotty Scheffler and the Xander Shoffleys are with their game. And I've seen, I think you've seen that now over the past month with Roy McIlroy and some of the changes that he's making, working on his golf swing, golf swings, spending three weeks inside a simulator, not able to see the ball flight because he's just trying to refine the motion and the action to make it more repeatable, to make it more, uh,

sort of stand up to the pressure of competition to make sure he knows it's going to be there when the tournament is on the line, he can trust a swing that is efficient and reliable. And so we've seen this from Rory in the past, right? Where he sort of identifies things and other players that he likes and

And then he goes down that route. You think back a couple of years ago, he got caught up sort of negatively chasing the speed that Bryson DeChambeau had shown during the 2020 season and 2021. That sort of took him down a path. Now he's sort of looking at iron play, the thing that clearly separates Scottie Scheffler and at times Xander Shoffley and Roy saying, hey, that's the area of my game that I need to address. Well, I think that's a healthy exercise. And I think at least at this point in the year,

He's doing the things to properly get himself in the right frame of mind and get his game in the right place for 2025.

I think so too. And I don't think he's that far off is the point when it comes to the major championships. You talk about 70 minutes, it was 75 inches of total putts. If he would have just made over those last three holes, we're having a much different conversation. You're right. It's an A or an A plus because he's finally gotten the major. He's finally gotten back on the grand slam bandwagon, so to speak. So it is interesting that he is close, but the gulf between those two does still seem far. And I think Xander even touched on it. I mean, let's take

Let's take Rory out of the conversation. I think Xander touched on a few weeks ago at the Zozo championship that he's still looking up at Scotty Scheffler. I just had a career year, he said, and I'm still trying to catch that guy. So you're right. There does seem to be some separation between all three, one, two and three atop the world ranking. And when you look at Rory, I do think it's interesting because he talked last week about changing his schedule.

up a little bit. And I was kind of curious, like the one thing that he's always tried to do was maybe play the week before major championship and tried to be at my very best. When I go into the major, take the week off and see if I can go in with some rest and find something at home. And for a decade, he's tinkered with this formula and haven't found anything that works. But if you look at what he did, he didn't finish worse than a tie for 15th the week before major this year. So I don't think it's in the formula necessarily,

I don't think it's in his ball striking, to be honest with you. We had this conversation last week, and I think Brando Chamblee has probably done the best of pointing out that there is a flaw, specifically with his shorter irons, his wedges, when it comes to what he's doing at the top of his backswing. Much more complicated. I'm not touching that. But this has more to do with what he does coming down the stretch. Whatever that stroke-scan clutch would be, that's the problem. That's what he needs to find the solution for. I don't think you find that with your swing.

Well, it's also very interesting. And I don't quite understand it, the hand-wringing about Rory's schedule and whether there should be alarm bells going off in Ponte Vigia regarding Rory not trimming his schedule on the DP World Tour. He said that's basically going to stay the same. He said between five and seven events on the DP World Tour. He could tell you right now what they're probably going to be in 2025. He's eliminating those tournaments on the PGA Tour. But like,

He said the same exact thing at Eastlake for the Tour Championship, that he was going to play fewer golf tournaments in 2025 than he did in 2024. And keep in mind, the reason why he is now making his 27th worldwide start this week in Dubai is that he said he wanted to essentially play his way into tournament competition form into the major championship season and then sort of prolong it.

right? Just sort of coast on what he'd already built up. Well, it just so happened that when he played more golf, he was seeing faults in his game that he needed to address. And by, he needed to address them, not on the range at home, but by continually playing tournament golf. And so he kept adding tournaments and adding tournaments and adding tournaments. And that's how you sit here on November 13th,

having played 27 times across the globe. That's clearly too many. But when you look at the tournaments that Rory said he is not going to play, most likely, again, most likely, in 2025, well, he doesn't play this century. He's played, I think, once or twice over the course of his career. He likes to begin his season in Dubai, which he will do in mid-January. He's not going to play in Palm Beaches at a full field event

uh, in South Florida. That was the first time in a long time. He'd played that. I think it like the first time in a decade that he played that he's not gonna be playing the Valero Texas open the week ahead of the masters. He's thinking he can prepare differently in South Florida. He's not going to play Harbor town and the Arbyssey heritage. That's the week after the masters. I don't think he'll be the only player who could potentially skip out on that signature event. And then I think the one that raised the most eyebrows was he said he would most likely skip the

the FedEx St. Jude championship, which is the playoff opener in Memphis home to FedEx, the PGA tours, a biggest sponsor. When I talked to Rory at the BMW championship about his schedule, he said then that he was most likely to skip it. I think he skipped. I think he dropped down from like third to fifth. If I'm not mistaken by having a poor finish, he said, I might as well have just stayed home.

rested, recovered, worked on my game, try to get as sharp as possible for the final two events of the PG tour schedule. Instead of playing a tournament in a, at a golf course, that's really not going to help me for Eastlake in sweltering Lee since sweltering humid conditions. Like I'd rather just take the week off in the future. Again, I do not think Roy will be the only player who sort of does that calculus and is like, Hmm,

After a very long year, after a year in what is now a condensed PGA Tour schedule, I'm probably better off taking that week. I wouldn't be surprised if Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, assuming they have the season they have in 2025, make that same decision. So what, that's four or five tournaments right there. All of a sudden, you're back down in that 22 to 23 range, which for a worldwide player like Roy McIlroy is a pretty capable number for a player who's still just 35 years old.

No, I'm with you 100%. Like, look, the century has always been feast or famine. Either you like going to Maui and starting your year and it's probably a little bit different conditions. If you go back way back, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson did not like to start their seasons there for a lot of different reasons. They didn't like the Kona winds. Your swing can get a little sideways. They didn't like how grainy the greens were. Now those have been redone. So that's not.

that big of an issue. I don't see any alarm bells there. He actually gave up a couple million dollars, if I remember correctly, by not playing Hilton Head a few years ago because of the way the PIP money worked out. None of those concern me except for Memphis. That's a very good point that you bring up. And if you are in Ponte Vedra Beach, that probably did send up

a bit of an alarm bell because not only do you have someone skipping a playoff event, which is what you absolutely don't want to do, but you're skipping what I would say is arguably the most important playoff event because of FedEx and what they mean to the PGA Tour and how long St. Jude has been on the calendar. And I don't see a workaround.

because you could sit and tinker with the points and make it more volatile. But my guess is five years from now, if they did that, we'd be right back to where we are right now. We've pretty much seen that come 360 degrees. That's all the degrees. You've seen it come all the way around where they've tinkered with these points, tried to make it more volatile, tried to make it less volatile. I don't think there's an answer. The answer is- Oh, there is. Of course. If you're

Rory McIlroy. Of course there's an answer. Of course there's an answer, Rex. Don't say make them play because they're not going to do that. To be eligible to win the FedEx Cup, you have to play in all three playoff events.

put it in stone easy and yes if they're going through the motions in memphis like basically a roy mcroy and a jordan spieth and countless others were doing in memphis this year like that's that's just gonna have to happen it's a no-cut event the fans still want to see him fedex would still be happy to have uh their biggest horses there just write it in to be eligible to win the fedex cup you have to play all three playoff events if i'm not mistaken i think nascar

has a similar stipulation among their racers or the drivers during their post-season series, like why shouldn't golf? It never made sense to me, Rex, why the PGA Tour eliminated that clause that said it's mandatory participation

In the signature events, I forget what they're called before the elevated events like they remove that stipulation. So now you have the potential for Roy McIlroy to miss two signature events as well as one playoff event. That just seems like the PGA Tour is shooting themselves in the foot.

I don't know if there's a logical explanation for it, but there's a very easy explanation for it. It's because they're independent contractors and you're not going to tell them they have to play. We went through this two seasons ago when they tried to make the signature events, which were designated events at the time, mandatory. And the only leverage they had over them is what we just touched on with Rory. You could take some of their PIP money. But if you're Rory, a million dollars or staying at home instead of playing Hilton Head for that week, clearly it wasn't even a choice. It's not much of a deterrent.

It's not. And I don't think we're not going to get to the point, at least in the short term, over the next five or 10 years where the players are going to be OK with you telling them when and where they have to play. It's just not the way professional golf is designed. Now, maybe you chip away at that. And maybe as the younger generation comes up, you get them more in line with the idea that, look, if we're going to make this work, you have to play all 15 of these events or maybe 20 events, whatever the case may be. But we're not there right now. That's absolutely crystal clear.

If Rory, if Scotty, if Xander all skip Memphis, I'd be very curious to see if there is something instituted for 2026 that makes sure during the culmination of the FedEx Cup season, all the best and brightest players are there. Again, I see what you're saying, but there is no way if you have the three premier players on the PGA Tour and they are not there for the playoff opener,

that that would sit okay and there would not be some sort of rules change. And they would turn to some sort of points...

formula change is what they would do. They would do the same thing they have done essentially for two decades. And that's continue to tinker with the points to try to make it what they want. You can't. I think we've learned that by now. I think there's enough of a sample size behind us to tell us that you're never going to get it perfect. Let's just lean into this. And if you can't do it with the points, the only way to do it is to make it mandatory. And that's not an option right now. You have a membership who has been emboldened over what's happened the last two years that would just never go for it.

Rex, how about the DP World Tour schedule release? Not much to note for 2025, but Guy Kinnings, the CEO of the European Tour, said something very interesting where he said, we're trying to do the best we can for 2025, but all of us are looking forward to what could happen in 2026 and beyond. Then you could do something that is fun and that is exciting. It got me thinking, what could Guy Kinnings and the DP World Tour be cooking up? What is something that you'd like to see

The old European tour do that could bring some life. We talked at the beginning of this podcast about what this sort of quote unquote two week playoff is. And it seems like a little bit of a buzzkill or a letdown at the end of a very long season for the DP world tour. What are a couple of things that you'd like to see that you think could sort of rejuvenate that circuit?

When I read those comments from Guy, I actually went macro, but I'll start micro, which is where you want to start out of the gates. There's a bunch of things you can do. And again, this has to do with the points we pointed out, like Rory pretty much just has to finish this week. There's no cut. And so he'll find a way to finish. And if he has to finish inside the top 11, I would imagine he will. I think I did the math. He's only not finished inside the top 11 yet.

twice at this event. So it's, it would be an outlier if he didn't get it done to your point though. And we talk about this every year going into Eastlake, there's got to be a better formula. No one likes strokes gains. It's very confusing. We're still making fun of it all of these years later. And,

inevitably you and I and the rest of the scribes and the people who think they're smarter than everyone in Ponte Vedra will come up with some sort of scenario that they feel like is better, whether that's match play or some sort of combination of stroke play and match play. And I'd like to think that's maybe what Guy Kinnings and the DP World Tour has in mind, because you don't want the situation that we just touched on that.

well, it's the DP world finale, big yawn. Like that's not what you want. I mean, you want this to be the big finish from the macro. I read into it more along the lines and look, this is, he was sort of asked the idea of where we are with the negotiations between the PGA tour and the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia and the European tour is obviously involved in that. I don't think I can overstate this, that let's just get through 2025. Yeah.

2026 has the potential to be a transformative year across professional golf. If a deal can get done, if all the sides can come to the table, if you can find a way to make it work, this goes back to what you and I have dreamt about for two years now. Give me a whiteboard.

Give me a pen, stand back and let me cook. Because you and I could come up with, and a lot of people can, come up with a really cool schedule. And let's say that the DP World Tour closing events were factored into this. And then the rest of the fall is dedicated to whatever Live Golf becomes. And then we go into the season and we start holding these signature events at these marquee venues at really cool times of the year where it means something. And you have all of the players, just not the players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour, together again. That's what I read into it.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think if you're a golf fan, you're probably frustrated by the sort of rhetoric because 2024 was supposed to be the transition year.

Now it's 2025. That's the transition year. If they can't reach an agreement imminently, then there's not enough time to actually whiteboard it out for what a worldwide schedule could look like. That would be very exciting and fun. So then you're making another, maybe you're making 2026 a transition year. Like I can understand how that would not fly with a lot of golf fans. I think even the DP world tour, and you're trying to think big picture on this, like you need to, I think you need to identify the times of year that,

that are vulnerable on a PGA Tour schedule, right? And to me, that's probably the beginning of the year. I think we all look forward to seeing Kapalua and the Century, even though they've changed it strictly away from a winners-only event. Like, Dubai still feels like it can be

even bigger than it already is as a Rolex series event on the DP world tour. You can have more players from the PGA tour play in that one of that sort of co-sanctioned. You got to keep in mind, like in January on the PGA tour, you're playing these tournaments late at night on the East coast, but they're up against football.

They're still months away from the Masters beginning where you're sort of drawing in the casual sports fan who's trying to get excited about that. There's still, I think, a window of opportunity. The first month of the new year where the DP World Tour could capitalize. You look at the other parts of the PGA Tour schedule, the summer.

In between the summer opens between the U S open and the open championship, having a bridge to the British, I think is something that they could really capitalize on with some links golf. Like you've covered the Scottish open for what the last,

four or five years. It's a phenomenal event. It's great to see the best players in the world being asked different questions than they are week in and week out on the PGA tour. And I think links golf is the only thing that really brings that out. And then the end, just this has to change. Like we've spent so much time over the course of our careers on this podcast, sort of diagnosing and dissecting what's wrong with the FedEx cup playoffs. And we've spent zero time ever,

saying what the DP World Tour is doing about their season finale. Like this situation is ripe for match play and sort of having a culmination of a season that's really fun to watch on a fun golf course with more of the best players in the world. Billy Horschel, to his credit,

BMW PGA champion from a couple of months ago is in the field this week in Dubai, but none of his friends are. None of the other players on the PGA Tour who are American have come over and made the trip. You'd love to see some sort of co-sanctioned match play event on the DP World Tour to have more of a bang at the end of the year instead of this, which is essentially a whimper.

I cannot wait if slash when there is a deal and we can actually get you a big whiteboard. You could do a whole Steve Sands thing where you're scribbling and circling and moving things around. You'll be in your element. I certainly will. The topic, Rex...

We'll close with today. Something you spent a lot of time talking about on Wednesday, which I'm sure was, was perfect for you because you are not just a Caitlin Clark fanatic, but you're also a keen observer of all things LPGA Caitlin Clark, the WNBA superstar was in the pro-am at the Pelican powered by game bridge and

The Anika event, she was playing nine holes. Wow, you butchered that. Absolutely butchered the name. Oh, my. Anika, powered by GameBridge at the Pelican Golf Club. I don't know. It's an exceedingly long title that we're not particularly interested in. It's called the Anika. It will be heretofore known as the Anika. But Kaitlyn Clark was playing nine holes in the pro-am alongside Nelly Korda. Boy, that was quite a scene, Rex.

you you came up early for golf today you had on uh some of the broadcast crew you had others who were who were witnessing it what was your impression of caitlyn clark's at least her initial foray into the lpg she has played on the john deere classic uh in the program in 2023 when she was still at iowa but this was obviously a different scene and she's in a different stratosphere now as a as a superstar

And here's a trick. So you and I know this as well. So these are just, they write the scripts out for you before the show and everyone's really kind and really nice. And every time it was the, the Anika by Cambridge.

at Pelican. And every time I would edit out at Pelican, no offense. I'm sure Pelican's a very nice golf course. It looked good on TV, but no, I'm not saying it. It's awkward. I wasn't going to say it. It was an awesome scene. And, uh, I, I'm not going to be that guy. I did pay attention to the WNBA this year. And it's, I paid attention to the WNBA this year for the first time because of Caitlin Clark. I paid attention to the NCAA championship because of what she brought. And I did enjoy the conversations throughout the week with Eamon Lynch, who is, uh,

Probably not a basketball fan. I didn't even ask him. But the idea being that the best comp in my mind is Steph Curry, right? Just by the way they play the game. They both sort of, they both play a very, very similar style. But beyond that, I think what we saw today on the golf course is them playing the game with joy. And I think that's what resonates. There's plenty of top athletes from every other sport that play in pro-ams.

almost every Wednesday on both the PGA tour and the LPGA tour, none of them resonate like this. And you saw it today. I mean, how many people were in the gallery on Wednesday at an LPGA pro-am this late in the year? When was the last time we had an entire two hour show, almost two hour show, where we pretty much dedicated the entire show to an 18 hole pro-am about someone who doesn't play golf. She's actually the same handicap as me, as Eamon pointed out in the show. And I would get

just destroyed on the golf, blown off the golf course. I know the, the clip has gone viral of Caitlin. On the second, she almost, she almost Tom. That was on the second hole. The first tee shot found the fairway. That was on the second hole. To be fair, she, she almost, she almost Tom kited an audience member, but like this was tiger ask, uh,

in terms of the fervor of the crowd, the autograph seeking. I was struck by how well Kaitlyn Clark handles the spotlight. Keep in mind, she is a lot closer to those fans than she would be doing a typical college or now a WNBA game. And I thought she really handled that well. I was struck by how well-spoken she is for just being 22 years old. I know you can't change a player's personality, but you would hope that

The charisma, the forward-thinking sort of attitude that Kaitlyn Clark has can only brush off positively on a player like Nelly Korda, who has notoriously shied away from media attention and he grow the game initiatives. I think there's a stark contrast in how those two players handle their professional duties.

And I think that this could be a very positive experience for Nellie Korda to sort of see the outside world and what is possible if she continues to play the way that she did in 2024 and also sort of opens herself up, I think, personality-wise in just sort of embracing being a telegenic American superstar, which Nellie Korda is. I'm going to take it a step further. I'm going to say that Annika, who played the second night,

with Caitlin today. Could probably learn a little bit about being in the public, about showing the joy, about being more approachable, about

You're here as a product. You're here to entertain the crowd. You're not just here to win championships. You're absolutely right with Nellie. And I guess the part that I went back to is as much as Caitlin seems to play the game, I'm talking about basketball now, with joy, where you go out and she's just savoring every moment. I am curious if Nellie plays with the same amount of joy, to be honest with you. And I don't pretend to know Nellie Korda very well. I covered one LPGA event this year. It was the Olympics.

So I don't want to be a pretender here, but watching from the outside as just a normal fan,

You would wonder if there is joy there. There certainly was joy earlier in the season when she won five of the first six and six events before we got to the midway point of the season. And in her defense, there have been injuries that have slowed that. But towards the end, I will say certainly at the Olympics where she did her professional duties. When I stuck the microphone out and asked her a question, she answered it. But she doesn't play with that joy that we see with Caitlin. And you're absolutely right. It probably was a really good lesson.

for someone like an Ellie quarter to be walking down the fairway. First and foremost, she was probably relieved that they're not all looking at me. They're looking at Caitlin. Now this is fun to be a part of. The other part that struck with me is, and you and I have seen this on, on the PGA tour. When you get an athlete of this caliber who sort of can transcend sports, as you pointed out,

watching the athlete on athletes, how they approach each other, the language that they talk. I told the story about walking in the program at the Memorial a few years ago and Tiger Woods was playing with Peyton Manning.

And listening to those two conversations and they speak a different language, they speak a language of greatness where only those two and very, very few others understand what it takes to get to that level of game. And when you have a pairing today, which at different times included Nellie Corder, the world number one, Caitlin Clark, who is clearly in a category by herself, and Annika Sorensen, who redefined the game. I can only imagine how cool some of those conversations were.

Yeah, I think your point is well taken. I also sort of agree with you as well about the joy angle. And you think about the players or athletes that fans resonate to, like is, is Bryson DeChambeau more popular among fans and Patrick Cantlay?

Bryce DeChambeau plays the game with a lot of joy, a lot of personality. Patrick Cantlay is very plotting, very serious, unemotional. You think about the NBA. Steph Curry plays the game with a lot of joy, a lot of passion, a lot of fun. Like you think back to Kawhi Leonard five or ten years ago when he was sort of at the peak of his powers. Very serious, unemotional, plotting, mysterious. Jokic, probably the best player in the game right now. He doesn't seem to enjoy himself.

Exactly. And I think Nelly Korda, if you're looking at the LPGA, Nelly Korda, very serious, very stoic, plotting. You contrast that with a Lydia Ko, who plays the game with a lot of joy, a lot of fun, very personal and open with the media and fans as well. I think you can make the argument that Lydia Ko is a more popular player still than Nelly Korda, despite not having some of the accomplishments of late.

that in LA courted it. So I think that point is, is well taken. One other thing, Rex, that I was struck by watching the scenes on Wednesday is this has never happened before for an LPGA event to have this sort of hysteria. And like, it got me thinking, how is there not a pro-am event for the LPGA? The PGA tour has a pro-am obviously at Pebble beach.

The corn fairy tour has one in Greenville, South Carolina. The champions tour has another one at Pebble beach as well. Doesn't that seem like a no brainer?

especially for a circuit in the LPGA that is so dependent on sponsorship. Like there is a tidal wave of interest, largely driven by the Caitlin Clark phenomena that they need to capitalize on if you're the LPGA. And like, how, how do you not have a pro-am event to sort of show just how great these athletes are while, while mixing them with celebrities, uh, Titans of industry or other superstar athletes such as Caitlin Clark.

Yes, and as you pointed out, Eamon is the conspiracy theorist among us. I would point that a lot of people... It's a no-brainer. It is a no-brainer. I think a lot of people just enjoyed today for what it was. You decided to turn it into a hot take, which is not surprising. It's a no-brainer to have a pro-am event. I would agree with you. Imagine seeing Caitlin Clark for four days instead of just a split nine holes on Wednesday. Come on. It's a no-brainer for the LPGA.

I would agree with you. And if you did it under the right circumstances where you try to recreate the Clambake, you try to recreate what the tour has done over decades. Like this was obviously not overnight at Pebble Beach, where if you can go to an iconic golf course and you can attract some of the top celebrities, both the athletes and in the entertainment business. Yes, I think that would be very fun. I just wanted to enjoy the scene today. But sure, sure. Let's take it to the extreme.

Like it just shows you what the potential could be. There's so much interest right now. So many companies are trying to get a part of women's sports teams.

Have a pro-am event. I certainly wouldn't have it in the penultimate event of the LPGA season. I would put it at a different time of the season. That works for most people, obviously the summer. But you can't have a pro-am event on the Korn Ferry Tour and not on the LPGA. Take advantage of this tidal wave of interest. I'd love to see that on the LPGA moving forward. And the Caitlin Clark hysteria on Wednesday certainly sort of refined that focus.

for me. Uh, rec, we have a very special podcast record next week in Seattle where presumably I will sound and look better than this. Tell the people what we have to look forward to.

I believe on Monday, you and I both are coming in and we did this last year from Southern Seoul, where we kind of did an expanded podcast last year. We sat down at Southern Seoul, one of our favorite barbecue places, which is right outside the gates there at CI and with Davis Love III, the host of the tournament. This year, you and I are just going straight out to the tournament. We're cutting out the middleman. We're going to the doghouse, which I believe is right next to the 12th tee. We're going to talk some fall series. We're going to talk some football, which you're a little broken hearted about. Look at there. I made it like 25 minutes in.

Didn't even mention the Georgia Bulldogs. You only made it like 30 seconds on the round table on Tuesday on Golf Today before someone threw you under the bus. We'll probably talk a little bit of golf, but it is fun when you get an opportunity to come out. It'll be a little bit more in-depth. It'll be a little bit more higher quality, and we'll enjoy ourselves. We certainly will enjoy ourselves. Pending the outcome...

of the Georgia-Tennessee game on Saturday. Again, we are recording this from the doghouse on Monday. I may be bringing gasoline and a matchbox on Monday. We'll be setting the doghouse potentially ablaze

If a third loss of the season happens for the Bulldogs and they get officially eliminated from playoff contention, I could be in a very sour mood on Monday. Fingers crossed that we do not get to that. Rex, I do want to mention one thing. And if the folks at home have stuck with us this long at this point of the podcast, I was doing a little crowdsourcing.

We had our five and six year old T-ball game on Tuesday night here in Nocatee. Afterward, I was doing some crowdsourcing among some of the parents. What are some things you'd like to see on a podcast? Every single person mentioned answer listener questions today.

either at the beginning of the podcast or the end of the podcast. And so we will solicit this for listener questions. We know how much you guys love giving us some feedback on the YouTube page. Give us some questions. We'll pick, I don't know, the three to five best questions and answer them at the end of each podcast record that Rex and I do. We always appreciate hearing from you guys as much as we appreciate the support.

That is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lav. Again, as a reminder, we will be live from Sea Island, a Monday record, a Tuesday post next week. Plenty to get to from the season finale on the PGA Tour, as well as a presumed policy board vote on the significant changes that are coming to the PGA Tour for the 2026 season. All right. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Go Bulldogs. We'll talk to you guys. All right, Pete. All right.

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