With major burden lifted, where does Rory go from here?
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Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. We are three days removed from one of the greatest masters in our lifetimes. I've transitioned, if you're following along on YouTube, to a PGA Championship shirt.

as well as a PGA Championship Yeti. Rex, you are clearly Hilton Head Island, Calaboke Sound in your background for the RBC Heritage. Yet another signature event on the PGA Tour. What has been the player reaction to what happened on Sunday at Augusta National? I was wondering what was going on with the PGA thing. I get it now. It's over. Let's move on.

Should I should I try? Should I have come on with some RBC Heritage stuff just to make sure that, you know, my fifth major is what's going on? It's always fun to come to Hilton Head after the Masters because there is always a story. There's always something to chase. There's always something to talk to players about. And this particular case, and I'm writing this today for NBC Sports dot com slash golf. The idea of how players view the career grand slam. I mean, certainly you and I as journalists who cover the game for a long time.

We understand, I'd like to think we understand, the importance, the weight, the burden that that put on Rory's shoulders and what it means and sort of the Mount Rushmore of where he fits in in the game. It was fun talking with players the last two days, Scotty Scheffler being probably the most interesting one, about where this puts it with them because they know better than anyone how hard that achievement was.

And they know everything that he had to go through, Rory had to go through to get there. And the idea that you sort of – I was walking – well, two things. One, I'm staying close on the golf course. I'm walking to the media center this morning and the program is going on. And then I hear from about 100 yards away and I hear, tell Ryan Labner he's an idiot. Oh, no.

And my head, and there was an expletive in there as well. Okay. This is a clean, this is a family podcast. I cleaned it up and it was really horseshoe. And he did. Oh my goodness. He did not like your take that we should take the week before and after a major. You, that was your hot take on golf today on, on Tuesday. I think everyone ridiculed you. You tried to defend yourself over and over again. It simply wasn't working. My, what I didn't get.

it was a really small window and I couldn't get in there. Of course, your take would be that we're going to take the week after the masters or the majors off. Cause that's what you want to do. And at this point it's become a very shallow, very transparent thing that you're doing because you just don't want to work. Like you want to like, Eamon Lynch was quick to point out that, uh, that, that,

These are the YouTube comments. If you're not following along on YouTube, I would highly recommend it. But the comments, as Billy Horschel sort of alluded to, were not very kind. In fact, our friend, a Wahoo golf guy said, I have never seen one person have so many bad, selfish takes ever.

in 10 minutes. And I watch a lot of Lynch and Chamblee. Another one said lab getting absolutely demolished out there. Another one said reporters are clowns. I will defend myself Rex, because I do believe that you should have a week before and after I'm not willing to die on this. So it would, it would again, it would have to be part of wholesale changes to the PGA tour schedule. But I really don't think if you're zooming out that signature events post major championship work.

And the reason I say that is because these are the most important events. The PGA Tour has designated them as the most important events. And if they lead into a major championship or they follow a major championship, they're either going to be sort of an afterthought with players looking ahead to the major the following week, or it's going to be a letdown in golf fans who just devoted all

All of their time the previous week, they're taking off from work. They're ignoring their families for seven days. All of a sudden, they have to lock back in to one of the most important events on the PGA Tour schedule. I just don't think it works in that respect.

I appreciate you're going to try to defend yourself here. And again, I go back to this is a very shallow, very transparent way of just saying that I don't want to work the week before or after a major. That's really what this is for you. It's nothing else. You can make your arguments. You can point out that maybe the heritage is getting overlooked because of what happened last week. It has been that way essentially since the beginning of time for this event. And yet we still shoulder on somehow this event gets an unbelievable. But that's a problem.

This is one of the best venues on the PGA Tour. It's a $20 million purse. It's one of the signature events in the PGA Tour, and yet it's following a major championship. There's naturally going to be a letdown, and that is antithetical to exactly the model that the PGA Tour is trying to do with these. I would say in Steve Wilmot, the tournament director here in Hilton Head, longtime tournament director, if he was standing here with me, he would testify that this is the date he wants. That's right.

that sure, there's probably dates on the schedule that would work better for him, but this is the date he wants for the reasons that I've pointed out numerous times. The three-hour drive over here on Monday from Augusta National is the best three-hour drive of my life. And I believe Lance Burrow pointed that out many, many years ago with CBS. Like coming here, everything just strips away. As a matter of fact, it's become such a good meme. And I'm loving every minute of it on social media. And I don't say that very often, but the video of Rory walking up the hill

And just the amount of emotions that's pouring out of him. And it's whoo. And I've seen so many good ones. But the one that I wanted to do was this is me driving from Augusta to Hilton. And I'm like,

You're right. That's become like the meme of the month, if not the year. I've seen as someone who has small children, I've seen that feeling when you get both your kids down by 8 o'clock and it's just the guy feeling relief and he's just running his hands through his head. I absolutely love it. It's been very, very good. I am curious though, Rex, how do players view the

career grand slam Jordan Spieth, who's in the field this week at the RBC heritage would seem to be the next one up. Phil Mickelson's time is probably past trying to win the U S open, but Jordan Spieth is going to have an opportunity in about four weeks time to do that at Quell hollow club at the PGA championship. I mean, are players putting it on as high of a pedestal as, as we are in other historians of the game?

Higher. I mean, yes, higher, higher than even us. And like I said, you and I, we cover the game. We've done this for a long time. I like to think we've brought some sort of a historical context with the podcast on Sunday night that ran on linear on Monday. But when I talk to players, I don't think you can overstate it because players normally they live in that box.

where if they see another player hit a good shot, you'll get a thumbs up. You'll get a good shot. Maybe even an eye roll. But there's respect, but it's a bit grudging respect. You know what I mean? Like they can appreciate how difficult a shot is and when you pull it off. In this particular case, there is no other comp. I think every player I talked to, Billy Horschel, this morning after he got done yelling about your idiotic takes.

So hit the Gala, Scotty Scheffler. I mean, Lucas Glover, every player I've talked to over the last 24 hours will tell you that there is nothing better than that.

because they understand more than you and I and anyone else on the planet how difficult that actually is. I mean, when you start thinking about it, and Billy Horschel probably did it the best, and he goes, growing up as a 14-year-old, when Tiger Woods completed the career Grand Slam, he goes, I put that on my wall. That was what I put on my wall compared to what Tiger Woods put on his wall growing up in Cypress, California. He wanted to win the career Grand Slam. He wanted to do something great in his life. And he goes, now at 30-something years old, I realize that it's not going to happen.

And I'm not disappointed. He feels like he's had a fine career, but it's so difficult. And as we pointed out on Sunday night's podcast, and you can't stress this enough, that when Rory collected the third leg,

of the Grand Slam at the Open Championship way back in 2011. I think the conversation probably among you and I would have been, well, of course, he's going to complete the Grand Slam. Like, absolutely. The longest wait had been three years for the other five players who had done that. It had taken them no longer than three years. Two of them, it only took one year. But now we realize it's not linear.

Even though you only have one piece of the puzzle, in this case, you pointed out Jordan Spieth, it took him a decade to get there. And you look at where Jordan Spieth is with his game right now, certainly I don't think you would say he's in form. Certainly you wouldn't say his game fits that particular golf course. The fun conversations have always turned from how impressed they are with what Rory was able to accomplish, that they recognize that...

you can't even empathize with the weight and the burden that Rory talked about that has been on his shoulders. One player pointed out that he has been miserable at every major for the last decade, but especially at the masters. And not only are you miserable, but you have to try to fight it. Rory vocalized this on Sunday night. Like I, every year I showed up here and I had to fight to have a good attitude because it would have been really easy for me to listen to all the noise and to put all those more expectations on myself. So I,

I think among the players, there is no comparison. They are going to look at this as the ultimate accomplishment. Yeah, and during the Tuesday roundtable on Golf Today, in which I went viral for all the wrong reasons, one question that Eamon asked me was, okay, now that Rory's got it out of the way, like who's the next best peer you think that has a realistic opportunity? And I answered it sort of flippantly. And that point I sort of regret because I think, you know, Xander Shoffley picked off two of the four last year.

last year with the completeness of his game, with the major championships that are still remaining, with the Masters and the U.S. Open. He has a pretty good track record in there. Jon Rahm has two of the four. I think with the quality of his game, I think he's going to go down as one of the best European golfers ever. I think he could do it as well. Probably could have thrown Kawamura Kawa

in that mix as well but like this just took rory's 35 years old he is i would argue the greatest player of his generation probably right now has just surpassed nick faldo as the greatest european golfer ever and it took him basically an entire career you know he's been playing golf competitively as a professional for 17 or 18 years now like that is a long time

to accomplish something. And so, you know, it's easy to say, well, you know, Zander's got the game. Zander's got the track record of the U.S. Open. He's probably going to get it too. Morikawa can do it now that he's, you know, improved his short game and his putting. You know, Jon Rahm, of course, he's going to eventually get it too. Like, you still got to accomplish it. And the career at Grand Slam is such an amazing achievement because all four major championship tests require something different out of you.

whether it's nerve, whether it's driving, whether it's short game, you know, whether it's, you know, ball flight and trajectory, like it would be at the open championship and that style of golf as well. Like you have to be a complete golfer. And I think it's, I think it's wrong to just say flippantly, Oh, these other guys can do it too, because it wouldn't be an incredible achievement in which six players in the history of the game have ever accomplished it. If it was actually so easy to accomplish.

Yes. And that was kind of, I think what I tried to get to on Monday morning when I wrote for NBC sports.com slash golf was the idea that it would have been easy for your casual sports fan who of course paid attention on Sunday, that transcended sports, what Rory was able to do, but of course they're going to skip past career grand slam because to someone who doesn't probably pay attention to the game, that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. What meant something is that, Oh, did you see how emotional got when he finally won the green jacket? I think for the

players, though, it does hit home. And to your point, you did not have a good hit on Tuesday, did you? You got a lot of regrets coming out of that. Yeah.

I was tired. You normally spiral. Yeah. I was tired. This is exactly why you should have a week off after a major championship so we don't get put in these sort of compromising positions. I will say, though, Rex, one of the most interesting conversations that I've had with just friends and casual observers of the game is how Rory's victory at the Masters can now sort of reframe his entire career.

you know, you can put those achievements in a different light. Like all of a sudden, if you look at his five major championships, completing the career Grand Slam, well, he also won three FedEx Cup titles. He also has six, I believe, European Tour Order of Merits. He's been PGA Tour Player of the Year three times. He's won 29 times on the PGA Tour. He's won nearly two dozen times on the European Tour. He's got other close call in the major championships like

Finally, all of a sudden, we're viewing Rory McIlroy after the Masters for all that he has accomplished as to sort of the big white whale that was out there that he had not yet accomplished. And I think that's a marked shift in sort of Rory McIlroy's perception as a golfer and as a career player.

On the way over on Monday morning, like I said, I had three hours of just glorious me time after last week. And I did kind of start workshopping takes, I guess, is what you're doing when I'm in the car, when you have this alone time. And one of the takes that I started workshopping, and I did run this by a couple of players today, that what Rory accomplished today, I don't want to say it's the end of the road, because I think the notion among most of us inside the game is this is only going to spur him on to bigger and better things. However, if you're looking at this objectively,

and let's say he wins another Open Championship or another major or another FedEx Cup or Player of the Year. I can keep going on and on. It's just another line on the resume. I don't want to be dismissive here, but what he has accomplished now

is the glass is full. There really isn't a lot of room. You're not going to remember him for winning another Masters two years from now. That's not going to be what matters. You're going to remember 2025 and everything that he went through to get to that point. And the only thing I could rustle my mind around to, it really is going to resonate with him. And I don't think he's going to be more motivated than anyone. Sahith Taghali said it best. He said, Rory's a sicko. He said, most of us are sickos, but he's,

sort of at the top of the rung because he's not going to decide, okay, I've done what I've done. I can start skating now. That's not in his DNA. But if you look at it objectively, the only two things that I could really come up with that are really going to fire him up, one, to be a Ryder Cup captain for Europe, a winning Ryder Cup captain. And to take it a step further, I think he'd like to do it here in the United States just to rub the U.S.'s nose in it even more just because that means so much more to a Ryder Cup captain. I think that would come with a degree of pressure that –

that I don't want to say would match what he had been going through and what he ended on Sunday at Augusta, but it would be close. Like that to me is going to be important to him. And the other one I could only come up with is winning a medal. I've seen it now in two Olympics where he puts a lot into that. He, for someone who did not think golf should be in the Olympics in the beginning, he has come all the way around and certainly in Paris. And I think what he told me on, on that last day in Paris was I've never fought so hard in my life to finish third.

And I think those are the only two things I can really realistically come up with that. Yeah, that would add to the resume because everything else is just going to be fluff at this point. I don't know if it's fluff. I mean, he's he's chasing history. And that has been one of the conversations of these past couple of days. Let me let me let me clean that up. I didn't like that. Let me clean that up. That's let's say Lanyap. I'm going to New Orleans next week. I think everyone I'll go and throw that out there. It's just a little extra is what it means when you're in New Orleans. I would say it would be it's just going to be something a little extra.

I mean, actually, you're putting yourself in rarefied air. You mentioned being a winning European Ryder Cup captain. You mentioned winning a medal. I can see all of that. But I think now it's how can he make his records and his achievements untouchable?

For either this generation or the ones that follow it. Right? So he has got five major championships now. Nick Faldo is the winningest European player in terms of major championships won. That's six. Rory conceivably could get that just next month at Quail Hollow Club, a place where he's won four times. If he can get Rex to seven, eight,

nine major championships. And you're not just, you know, sort of, sorry, throw that number out there. Only 11 players in the history of the game have won seven or more majors. I think sort of chasing all time, great status, uh,

For Roy McIlroy, putting his marks untouchable, sort of cementing himself as the best European player ever and making it so it would take a monumental achievement to try and chase it down with a game that's only getting bigger, stronger, faster, more parity, deeper than ever before. I think that that could be very alluring for him as well.

Well, and Billy Horschel brought this up because I had this exact same conversation with him this morning. And he kind of said something similar to what you did. But his point was, let's say he gets to 12. Let's say he does go on some sort of just incredible tiger. 12 is insane. It's taken him 17 years to win five. Look, I'm with you. I'm the one who mentioned the single season blooper slam.

on the podcast on Sunday. And like, it's not totally out of the possibilities that he can pick off a couple more legs of that. But like, come on, we're talking about getting to 12. That's insane. I mean, that was the conversation because again, we're sort of splitting hairs now when you talk about what's sort of the next level. And you pointed out the one that probably I go,

Lost over a little bit. He wants to be the winningest European when it comes to the majors, when it comes to regular events, whatever the case may be. So certainly that is going to be a motivation for him. But let's say he does get to 11 and 12 and suddenly 15, Tiger's number, is suddenly within his vision. I can see him having a late in life opportunity.

epiphany that, oh, like I can go into that category. Like not only am I on Mount Rushmore as one of the six that have done the career Grand Slam, but now all of a sudden I'm in the goat conversation. So that to me would be a term. But as you pointed out, that is a lot considering how long it's taken him to get to five. There's one other thing, Rex, that I wanted to clean up from Sunday that I'd wish we'd included in the podcast and

but we either weren't made aware of it. We only had 52 minutes. Like, it goes fast. Yeah, 52 minutes. A lot to get into. It was this Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau vibe in the final group.

We were both out there on the first tee. They shook hands, looked very cordial, and then they both essentially went their separate ways for the next four and a half hours. Bryson DeChambeau, Rex, had some interesting things to talk about afterward. Listen to this comment with the media. Bryson DeChambeau on Sunday at Augusta National. Did you speak to him in there? How's he doing? No idea. Didn't talk to me once all day. Did you try and initiate conversation with Rory at all? He wouldn't talk to me.

Did you speak to him in there? I mean, is that legitimate beef? Is that sour grapes from Bryson? What's sort of your read on this situation? No, because Bob Rotella actually went on the BBC. I was reading a story about it this morning, and I'm glad that Dr. Rotella did clean this up a little bit. That was the goal all week long. And I think even we didn't find out about that sound until after the fact. So I do apologize that we didn't get to it on Sunday night's podcast, as you pointed out.

There was a lot going on. But I think both of us came to the same realization that it had nothing to do with Bryson. I don't think he would have spoken with anyone if it was Shane Lowry, his best friend that he was paired with in the final round at the Masters with everything that was on the line. I don't imagine those two were going to be talking very much. This was a mission, as Rotella sort of explained, that all week long they wanted to build this bubble.

around them. And that was keep everything out. Don't look at other players. Don't talk to other players. Don't look at their shots. Don't talk to them on the range. You have to be laser focused. This is going to take a lot of effort. This is going to take a lot of mental capacity. And anything you're wasting outside of what is the objective to win the green jacket isn't going to help you.

And so I don't think this was personal. I don't know. I can't really speak to what the relationship actually is. I think there's a lot of speculation there, but neither Rory nor Bryson have ever come out and said, nope, don't like him. Like clearly there's the live PGA Tour split. I think over time, every player has come around one way or the other that I can at least tolerate being paired with the other side. Like we have to find a way to make this work one way or the other. But I didn't read anything into it other than Rory was just focused.

I mean, Rory has been very complimentary, actually, of Bryce DeChambeau, talking about his reinvention, how good he is for the game, how well he played that Sunday at the U.S. Open to steal the title from him. So, like, to me, this was a big nothing burger. And you mentioned the BBC story in which Robert Tello sort of explained their side. And, like, this was what the strategy on Sunday was inside the ropes of, you know, losing Rory's –

Roy losing himself sort of in the action, in his swing, in his processes, in his own game and not worrying about anything else. That was part of a whole larger strategy at the Masters. You look at Roy McIlroy's press conferences during the week, he was not particularly revealing, open or transparent. I go back to Saturday night in which our buddy Gary Williams sort of described him as curtain dismissive of some of the narratives and storylines that we all sort of wanted to run with. Like I do think

Rory's inwardness probably surprised Bryson a little bit just because he is a player who is more outwardly expressive. He's more engaging with fans during the course of the round, you know, but even Bryson Shambo said this week at the USGA media day in advance of the U S open in a couple of months, like there's no issue whatsoever with Roy McElroy. This was Roy being stoic. This was Roy trying to accomplish a career achievement. No big deal whatsoever. Yeah.

how about some of the other recs news of the week i want to start with the event that you have covered now three times that i'm still waiting for my first credential to that's the olympics and the fact that a mixed team event will be added to the golf calendar in 2028 at riviera what do you think of this move by the ioc and are you excited for it i am excited for it because i think certainly in paris and having gone through um

Having gone through this now a couple of times, there is an acceptance of golf in the Olympics. There's an excitement with golf in the Olympics. That probably wasn't there back in 2016 because it was new going to Rio. Golf hadn't been in the Olympics in over 100 years. So it's taken a little bit for players to come around. But being in Paris,

and everything that happened there and the finish between Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm and certainly the next week with what Lydia Ko was able to do. I think this is a logical next step. And I think everybody inside the game sort of knew this was going to happen. I think it was just a matter of trying to figure out the logistics. And essentially, it's going to be two player teams, one female, one male. It's going to be players who

who are already qualified for the individual event. I think the interesting thing was there's only going to be one team per country. So in the case of the United States, for example, then there was four players who qualified on the men's side. Three of them are

aren't going to do this. There's also the logistics of it as far as it's going to be played between the men's competition, individual competition, and the women's individual competition. If you go back to Paris last year, the men finished up on Sunday, 72 holes of stroke play with Scottie Scheffler winning the gold medal. And then Monday and Tuesday were essentially practice days for the women's individual. And they started on Wednesday and ended on Saturday. The plan is to have a 36-hole event

four ball foursomes and four ball play. So there are going to be players that are going to play six days in a row. That's not optimal, but I think that was probably the best way to do it. Yeah, I agree with you. I'm a little worried that some of the top players will want to bow out. Keep in mind, this is a busy part.

the PGA Tour schedule as well. It's going to be played between the Open Championship and the FedEx Cup playoffs as well. I remember, I believe it was an American player last year in Paris when asked about the potential of doing a mixed team event, sort of hinted at, you know, that's going to be a lot of golf. I'm not sure I'm going to want to do that. I hope that they can put sort of their selfish interests aside for what would be a great theater, a great opportunity to sort of elevate the women's game in a way that we probably have not seen before.

And there's some great potential, too, isn't there, Rex? Like a Scotty Scheffler and Nelly Korda linking up, you know, a Tommy Fleetwood and a Charlie Hull getting together. Like, I think I think it could be really, really cool. But it also is going to take the top players on the men's side in particular, their involvement, their encouragement, their support for this thing to really fly.

And this is kind of an Olympic movement. It's not necessarily a golf movement. I think there were seven sports that added mixed team events, and it makes sense that golf would do it. I think everyone who watched the last three Olympics, certainly starting with Rio, all agreed that that would be a neat element to add to it.

Players normally, especially players at that level, don't particularly like to add two more days of competition to what was a busy stretch of the season for both the men and the women. But I think everyone will embrace this. It's a good point, but I see we asked Scotty about that yesterday, and he seemed perfectly fine with it and enthused just with the idea of being able to compete alongside whoever it might be, Nelly Corder or whatever else. And you're right. It creates so many cool possibilities. Rex, one thing that I did notice on Tuesday was the return of

of our friend Gary Young, Vice President of Rules and Competition for the PGA Tour because the RBC Heritage is the first kickoff point for this Speed of Play initiative, trying to increase it on the PGA Tour. One of the things that's going to be implemented this week

at Harbortown is the use of distance measuring devices. How much of an impact do you think this will be? And is this just sort of a precursor to the naming and shaming with the day that's going to be coming out in regards to the slowest players, as well as potentially as they're going to be doing now on the Corn Fairy Tour with the test run for the rest of 2025, sort of doing away with the first bad time. You're going to get a penalty immediately as opposed to giving them a warning.

I think you're doing our friend Todd Lewis dirty with that picture. I'm not quite sure. I did it on purpose. If you're following along on YouTube, I have a screenshot of Todd Lewis that is not very flattering. Yes, that was most certainly done on purpose. It is not.

Wow. Doing them dirty. Pull back the curtain a little bit here and you fell for it. So I'm just doing this just because you fell for it. The PGA tour wants to refer to this as speed of play initiatives or policies or whatever the case may be. It's always since the beginning of time, been pace of play. So I see what you're doing. PGA tour. Well done. Well, I'm not falling for it. I'm not going to do that. The other side of it is you referenced the naming and shaming part of it. I had a chance to talk with a,

a tour official about this yesterday. I would anticipate them coming up with whatever that list is going to look like before the end of the year. I was told a month or two, they're still sort of digging into the numbers because what they want to try to do, and I don't think it's going to work, but I certainly understand where they're coming from. They're trying to find a positive way of doing this. What they don't want is naming and shaming, which is what you just said, what they want to try to do. And this official did a good job of sort of pointing out, let's take the data. And for example, Ryan Lavender takes,

It's on average 38 seconds. His average stroke time is 38 seconds. But then you can put it in context to on Friday when he's within two strokes of the cut line, it takes him 42 seconds. Or on Sunday when he's within five strokes of the lead, it takes him 43 seconds. You see what's going here. They're trying to find a way to turn this into a meaningful stat instead of just pointing and going, nope.

That guy's slow and that guy's not, and that guy should be shamed. I know what they're trying to do, a lot like speed of play. I appreciate what they're trying to do. I can't imagine it's going to work because, again, conversation this morning, walking with Billy Horschel. What this is going to boil down to is someone looking at that list and showing up at Hilton Head this weekend and start ridiculing whoever the slowest player on that list is.

Which would be very funny. Just objectively, that would be a very funny scenario to have transpired. Counting down. Four, three, two. You know what I mean? I can see that going on too. It's a very Sergio Garcia thing from Beth Page.

I mean, as it relates to range finders, I don't think it's going to make a significant difference. It's been allowed at the PGA Championship for the last number of years. I don't think there's been a demonstrable difference, and all of a sudden the pace of play or the speed of play being much faster. I could see it certainly being a helpful assist if players are out of position, trying to figure out their either layups or yardage to the flag. I could see that being somewhat helpful.

of a help, but players always have their routines. Caddies always have their routines. It might be just sort of a good double check, but yeah, I don't see it making a huge difference. Sausage fingers up. Please do go ahead. Yeah, I didn't answer your question. I apologize. I wanted to go off on another tirade. I will say, and I only brought this up because I...

was able to talk with Scotty Scheffler about this last Wednesday at the awards dinner for the golf writers. And he, he had a very strong opinion on the distance measuring devices. So I did bring it up when he spoke with the media yesterday and I got that Scotty smile that you're setting me up. However, if you go and read his comments, I think most players probably agree. The distance measuring devices aren't going to make a difference.

They simply are. They've done this before at the PGA Championship. There is no data that suggests it speeds up play. They did it on the Korn Ferry Tour. There was a four event experiment back in 2017. Gary Young told me there is no data. So I can't imagine it's going to make a difference. Talk to a lot of caddies. It's really just going to make a difference when you're way offline.

Because if you're in the middle of the fairway, you're still going to go through the same routine that players have always gone through where you're pacing it off. You're looking at the yardage book. You're trying to find the front number. You're trying to find the back number. Those are the numbers that matter. It's only going to come in handy to reaffirm what may be on a par three that, yep, 138, just like we knew it was. Or if you hit it, hit a foul ball. That's the only time it's going to help. But Scottie was pretty clear. He doesn't think this is going to help.

Yeah, I think the other two tools in the tour's toolbox, that almost became a Slooper Slam moment for me. I think they're going to be much more helpful for the PGA Tour. I think just anecdotally, players not wanting to be criticized by fans, being criticized by media, I think is going to be helpful. But I do think eliminating the warning and having once you're out of position, once you're being timed, getting directly into shots is

And then that translating then to potential fines or FedExCup point reductions, I think that is going to be a significant deterrent because all of a sudden you're messing with the players' chances to win a competition and then sort of zooming out.

their livelihood and their careers if you're talking about FedExCup position as well. Speaking of Gary Young. There he is. Our friend Gary Young. Always great seeing him at PGA Tour Stops. Rex, there's something that you wanted to get into because I know it's been a working vacation for PGA Tour players but also for you

Take a lap. You didn't get that one right at all. It was Long Cove Club, but you were close. Long Cove Club. Close. And this is an example of how the bucket sort of gets full when it comes to patience at Augusta. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of rules. And so I came over on Monday and played golf with Todd Lewis and our super...

producer andrew bradley next door at long cove club love that place but it's a really hard golf course and the wind was blowing hard needless to say i did not have the best of days off the tee and that was one two one drive too many that went offline and as you can see i have snapped the club and two however i snapped it in anger

Uh, yes, but I didn't intend to do it. I do. You've played enough golf with me. So when I hit a bad shot and I hit plenty of bad shots, I sort of mock the notion of, you know, just, I I've never done it. I would never intend to do it. However, in this particular case, it snapped and the worst,

part is everyone is still on the tee and it's really i don't know if you've ever done it's really loud when you snap one of those and it might have been the most embarrassing moment of my golf career because all i could do was go slump in the car like now now i've been a jerk and now everyone is laughing and and andrew bradley being a good friend being a good teammate put his arm around me and just started laughing so i i needless to say i'm not proud of that moment but it is an example of how the the bucket can get full sometimes man oh tina

Tina, Tina, Tina. I really do hope that you are listening to this. I mean, the site and just the image of a 57-year-old man with a roughly 70-mile-an-hour swing speed who hits it no more than 200 yards off the tee, putting himself in such a rage, a la Roy McIlroy, when he tried to rip his shirt that year after blowing a tournament on the DP World Tour.

Putting himself in such a fit of rage that he snapped his driver, which was wonderfully gifted to him, generously gifted to him just a couple years ago, is just something that I can't bear. I hope you're ashamed of yourself. I hope the fine folks at Long Cove Club saw this sort of behavior, and this should never happen again.

I'm ashamed of myself. It's not my proudest moment. And I wasn't even going to talk about it because I didn't want Trevor, my son, like I yell at him when he gets angry on the golf course. Be a role model. What about the children? However, just to prove that we're human, I felt like we needed to do that. So there you have it. Trevor also caught some strays on Sunday Night's podcast. We do apologize for Trevor. Sorry. Not the first time. Certainly not going to be the last. All right.

that is going to do it for this edition of the golf show podcast with Rex and lab Rex. And I'll be back on Sunday night for a full recap of the RBC heritage, the latest signature event on the PG tour, as well as whatever else happens in the world of golf over the next five days. As always, you guys will drill NBC sports.com slash golf for our latest news notes and updates. Enjoy the rest of your week. We'll talk to you guys. Every day. Our world gets a little more connected.

but a little further apart. But then, there are moments that remind us to be more human. Thank you for calling Amica Insurance. Hey, uh, I was just in an accident. Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of. At Amica, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking. It's human. Amica. Empathy is our best policy.

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