TGL plans its big debut ... without Tiger or Rory?
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. Rex, you've been pulling the graveyard shift doing Golf Central ahead of the Zozo Championship each of the first few nights this week. So I guess you are more well-versed than anyone to answer this question. What has you excited for the PGA Tour stop in Japan?

I mean, it's the marquee event of the fall. When you look at the field, this is the one that brings, if there's going to get a field that gets a lot of top players, it's going to be this one. And you have that you have Xander Shoffley probably playing for the only time in an official event in the fall. You have the defending champion, Colin Morikawa. I think that's probably the part I like about it. The other, the thing I don't like about it is what we touched on on the round table on Monday with Eamon Lynch and Damon Hack on golf today is the idea that

That event, when it was initially created, along with the CJ Cup, were going to be the outliers of the fall. Those were going to be the jewels of the fall. And that's the top players were going to play them. And then the rest of the fall was going to be for sort of the rank and file, the PGA Tour. Because the fall is such a different animal now, because...

It means something entirely different than what they created. It's essentially a nine-week Q school for guys trying to improve their status, trying to gain their status, trying to keep their status. It's a different being. It's not the same thing that it was before. Yeah, a win comes with all the things that you expected, but guys are playing for a lot of different reasons than maybe they used to in the past. A limited field event on the other side of the globe doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think that's probably just one piece of a bigger thing

that needs to get sorted out when it comes to the PGA Tour schedule. And you're going to stay on mute most of this podcast, is my understanding, right? You've got a lot of things going on at Casa Labner, right? There's some landscaping...

some yard work that's being done outside the house. Apologies in advance if you hear an edger, a weed eater, whatever that tool is called that pounds the soil before you put new sod, and that's what's going on outside my house at the current moment. Rex, next week does seem like a great time to sort of whiteboard this thing

Show exactly what the fall could potentially look like in our perfect world. There is an off week next week on the PGA Tours as the players travel back from Japan and ahead of the last three tournaments of the calendar year that will decide the top 125 in status for the FedEx Cup. To your point, I don't think this is working, whatever it is. The PGA Tour is trying to do this fall. Interest is low. The top players are not turning up.

And I think the Zozo championship is emblematic of what's wrong with this. You cannot have a 78-player field made up of some players from the Japan tour, as well as some sponsor exemptions, guaranteed FedEx Cup points in what is essentially an elongated version of Q School. We've been told by Commissioner Jay Monahan over and over when stressing the importance of

of the FedEx Cup fall, that this is where lives can change. This is where career trajectories can change. These are all tournaments that have meaning. Well, you are watering that down or essentially prioritizing the players who are in this limited field by offering free points. They've just been traveling from Mississippi to Vegas trying to accrue points and make sure they stay among the top 125. And then all of a sudden,

You have eight players who are ranked outside the top 110 in the FedEx Cup points. We're now gifted FedEx Cup points at a time of year, at a time in the season in which it's vitally important to be accumulating those points. It just doesn't work. If I was a rank and file PGA Tour player who has been grinding all season, who has been grinding this fall, who is booking a trip in the coming weeks to Bermuda,

and Sea Island trying to get enough points to stay on the PGA Tour in 2025, I'd be furious if I was not in the Zozo Championship field and being able to cash in on these free points. I'm sure whatever you just said was very interesting, very poignant, very insightful. I couldn't pay attention to any of it. Everything that's going on at your house is just completely distracting. Just go on mute. I'll handle the rest of the podcast. This is ridiculous. I can't believe we're here. To your point, I will—

I will take this a step further. And this is not, we all like Joel Damon. We all have fun watching him on the golf course. We all enjoy the personality. He is a star for all the right reasons when it comes to, this is what the PGA tour needs more of. They need more personality. They need more players that aren't robots. They, they need more players, quote unquote, Damon Lynch that aren't boring. I didn't say that you did.

I will say, Eamon Lynch said it, not you. I'm not pointing at you, Labner. But however, to your point, Joel Damon is right there essentially on the hook to try to earn his PGA Tour card. He is a player on the bubble. He got a sponsor exemption to play this week, and he got it because –

All right. Because he has the personality, but he's also part of the cool kids club because everyone around him wants to be around him. And we ran into the same thing this year with the signature events where you have players almost exclusively who are on the PGA tour policy board that requires a lot of extra work, requires a lot of time. I understand that this is sort of their reward for being on the policy board during a time when you really probably don't want to be on the policy board. However, if you're one of those players that don't get those perks that aren't on the policy board or aren't part of the cool kids club,

And you're sitting on the outside watching Joel Damon this week playing a limited field, no cut event. So he's guaranteed points. He's pretty much guaranteed to move back inside the top one 25. That to me is wrong. You need to figure out a way to make the system better. And you're right. Bringing in the other sponsor exemptions for players that aren't even PGA tour members. That only hurts the conversation more. So this is just part of whatever the fall becomes. And I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago in my Friday notes column, because the,

It's not what it was originally designed for. And I'm not against what it is right now as a potential product. And it's not going to resonate with normal sports fans. You have to be a diehard. You have to be a serious golf fan to want to tune in and watch the Bermuda Championship or Bermuda.

Even this week at the Zozo Championship, because it's overnight. But even with the names you have this week, you have to be a diehard fan to partake in this. And I don't think most are going to do that. However, if you wanted to lean into what it is now, which is, again, essentially a nine-week Q school, and you wanted to lean into those stories, that you have the opportunity to do that for that fan, for that specific golf fan. And it doesn't seem to me the tour wants to do that. It seems to me whatever the fall schedule is right now is caught between two worlds.

Yeah, I think the PGA Tour wants to be this cutthroat, this competitive place, like the premier destination if you're a touring professional that you would want to play. And yet they still have...

Too many handouts, too many freebies, too many lifelines. This week's Zozo Championship and 78-player field and the free FedExCup points is just another example of that. I do want to be very clear, Rex. I'm not anti-Zozo Championship. In fact, it looks like an awesome event. All the players are raving about it. Didn't you go...

Like five years ago when Tiger Woods won the Monday finish after the typhoon. And for some reason, players are being asked about it. I'm sure it's going to turn into some sort of special edition of the cut starring Sean Martin here in a couple days' time reflecting on Tiger Woods' win five years ago that got him to 82 career PGA Tour victories. But like they were 10 deep on the first tee and it was sort of Tiger mania all over again. Like I am not –

anti-zozo championship i wish it certainly was not played this time of year i don't know when else you could i i looked like the weather in february or mid to late january potentially after like the hawaii swing doesn't work either like the temperature is in the 40s barely getting to 50 degrees you can't have it in the summer when the pga tour schedule is not going there i want to be very clear that i i love the idea of the pga tour sort of spreading the gospel in other locations

JT is happy to be there. Max home was happy to be there. Common more cows have to be there. Xander Shoffley is happy to be there. It just doesn't work right now. And I think as the PG tour looks in the future, they potentially blow up their schedule 2026, 2027 and beyond. It just has to find a better place for it because it's a golf mad market diehard fans. But this time of year among the FedExCup fall just doesn't work.

We revisited this last night on Golf Central, and my producer, Mark Zahner, got mad because I didn't tell this story on air because he asked me about being at that 2019 Zozo Championship where Tiger Woods wins and ties Sam Snead's record for 82 PGA Tour victories. It was really, really a cool week. And Anna last night on the show asked me we were going to a feature that I think Rich Lerner had pretty much done on Tiger Woods' journey to 82, which I thought was pretty cool. And I kind of leaned into the idea that it was probably by far the craziest weather week

I've ever endured. It was not only a typhoon, which everyone always seems to go to, but we got hit by a typhoon and a hurricane. It would have been your favorite week ever because all you would have done, you wouldn't have been paying attention to the golf at all. You would have just sat and stared at the weather app and you would have sat and stared at dew points and pressure points and all of the things that you love to do. So it was a crazy week. It was a crazy week.

And you pointed out that on Monday, the fans that flocked to the golf course, it was a phenomenal scene. Because not only was it Tiger Woods, I think it's important to point out that Hideki Matsuyama was right there. He was in second place. So you had Tiger Woods doing Tiger Woods historic things. And then you had the favorite son who had returned home and was battling Tiger Woods. So it was a best-case scenario. But we were told going into Monday, because of all the delays, they didn't even play golf on Friday, I believe.

that, well, the fans won't really be there. That's not a thing you do in Japan, apparently, is skip work to go to a golf tournament. And they were like, so just be prepared for not a great atmosphere. Like, we're going to finish, but it's not going to be great. And I remember driving up to the golf course on Monday morning and the traffic being worse on Monday than it had been the rest of the week because everyone took off work. Everyone decided, yep, I'm going to skip work and I'm going to go do this. And just remembering all of the players, right?

Essentially, everybody from the field didn't leave the golf course when they were done. If you finish 70th, you sat and waited by the 18th green because you wanted to be part of history. JT was there. Rory was there. Gary Woodland, I remember, was there. They were all they wanted to be part of this. They wanted to see it firsthand. But the story that I didn't tell that Mark Zander got upset about is I believe it was Saturday night of that week. And again, it was two storms that came through.

And we went to dinner. It was myself, Bob Herrick, who I believe was working for ESPN at the time. Steve DiMeglio, of course, a longtime golf writer, our friend, your friend from golf week at the time. And Joe LaCava, Tiger Woods' caddy that week. We all went to dinner in this little downtown area by our hotel. And I remember sitting through dinner and hearing those like warning horns that you hear in the movies when

when bad things are about to happen. And all of us are sort of dismissive. We're eating our sushi and drinking our sake and enjoying ourselves. And then at some point, I think it was Joe that looked up and realized that people were not walking. They were running through the streets of this little tiny town, going wherever it is they had to go. They had to be there right then. And we realized, oh, no, this is no good. There was no taxis. The streets were flooded. It took us about three hours to get home. So that was the

That was the sidebar that I didn't get to last night. As someone who literally stayed up all night, pulled an all-nighter for Hurricane Milton, which again in Ponte Vedra did not produce anything more than 60 mile per hour winds and maybe three or four inches of rain. Thankfully, I know others suffered severe devastation. We're not trying to minimize that. I would have loved...

that week in Japan, running the models, looking at the projections, putting on the Gore-Tex, and just being out in the middle of it. Still never been to Japan. Hoping to check that off my list one day. There's plenty to watch if you do stay up, Rex, from 11 p.m. Eastern time until 3 a.m. That's the coverage window. I, of course, will not be doing that. We'll instead be on the re-air.

Kala Morikawa, the defending champion, trying to get his first win of 2024 after having statistically the best season of his career. Xander Schauffele returning to Japan. Grandparents are going to be in attendance this week. He'd love certainly to get what he would call a cherry on top of what has been a dream season with two major championships. And of course, your boy.

Max Homa, who did not retire despite you dogging him repeatedly over the past couple of months. Self-esteem is absolutely in the tank. Going sand swing coach and returning to the Zozo Championship for the first time in five years. Justin Thomas as well, making his final start for coming a father. Plenty to get into this week. We'll have a recap on next week podcast as well as whiteboarding.

what the fall for the PGA tour could and should look like. One other thing, since we were just talking about Tiger, one of the things that came up this week, Rex, that I thought was very interesting was the release of the TGL schedule for 2025. TGL, of course, is the tech-infused golf league that will kick off in early January after a year delay because of some issues with the dome. TGL is founded by Tiger Woods and Roy McIlroy.

And yet they're not in the first week of competition and said it's going to be teams led by Xander Shoffley and Wyndham Clark. What do you think of that? Is that an own goal by the folks at tomorrow sports, not having their two biggest attractions on their debut night?

You used that word or you used that phrase on golf today. And I thought maybe you've been watching a little bit too much Ted Lasso and on goal. I understand what it means. It just threw me for a little bit. Own goal, not on goal. Own goal. Sorry. Yes, I got that wrong. No, it is absolutely not. I remember having this conversation with an executive from TGL more than a year ago. And again, keep in mind, this got started a year late because of the building collapsing and everything that they had to deal with. But the idea all along was they need to maximize personalities. They need to maximize star power.

to make this sustainable over the long term. And to do that, the idea was they feel like that first week is going to bring a level of curiosity that there will be enough interest. And okay, I'm going to tune in. I'm going to see what this is all about. And if I like it, I might come back for week two. Well, week two is going to be Tiger Woods.

And so you're probably going to come back regardless of how the product goes in week one. And then I'll take it a step further. Week four is Tiger Woods playing Rory McIlroy, which is probably the best product you could possibly have in that particular scenario. So this was fantastic.

a strategy from the very beginning, from early days, so to speak, that we need to make the most of what we have to try to get people, fans, to buy into this, to make this Tuesday or Monday night, regular viewing before football or whatever it is they're going to watch. I will say, and this was, I sort of referenced it, we both laughed about it, Eamon Lynch being maximum Eamon Lynch, sort of throughout the other day when we were having a similar conversation, that

I insinuated that PGA Tour players are boring. Some PGA Tour players are boring. I don't think I ran from that question like you probably would because I just watched the look on your face when he asked me. You were so delighted. You were so delighted that he asked me and not you. I think I either snorted or chortled.

It was just – it was an unbelievable pointed question that I thought you handled quite adeptly. I think I would have just stared in the camera and said, yes, that's what I'm saying and hoped that they panned off of me. But we couldn't – you can't do this on live TV. But I've also had this long conversation with numerous executives from TGL because I am curious that the –

The only way this works beyond Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy is if these players realize that you are a part of the entertainment product now, that part of this has to be performative, that you can't just put your head down and go hit the seven iron really, really well because that's what you've done your entire life. There is a place for that product. It's called the PGA Tour or Live Golf. What this has to be is a two-hour tech-infused, as you pointed out,

standalone entertainment product. And for it to work, the Wyndham Clarks of the world, and not to pick on Wyndham, but the Wyndham Clarks or even the Max Homa, since you want to throw him in my face all the time, need to be maximum Max Homa and maximum Wyndham Clark. They need to show the personality. They need to track the jokes. They need to talk the trash. They need to make sure that this is something different that people like that they're going to tune in. Otherwise, it's going to be two hours of bad simulated golf that's not going to last very long.

But that's why this is a risk to not have Tiger and Rory. And I'm not saying Tiger's the most dynamic personality. They're not even going to have color commentators for the broadcast. It's literally just going to be an open mic among the players. And we've seen Tiger Woods in those sort of made-for-TV exhibitions. He's not exactly the best watch, but he is, or at least remains, one of the biggest draws. The whole point about the curiosity, the novelty, week one, I do think that will bring viewers. But that is a risk.

When you do not have tiger and Rory in the first one, because if you have viewers and you have millions of viewers who tune in for that debut night and they don't like what they see, it doesn't matter who's coming up next Rex. It doesn't matter if tigers in week two, it doesn't matter if tiger and Rory are in week four. If you turn into that, tune into that debut night,

And Matt Fitzpatrick is boring you or Lou Viggoberg is not, you know, lighten up the microphones. If, if Wyndham Clark is not starting a fight as he did at the president's cup, if you're just sort of turned off by the whole thing, you don't understand the simulator golf, or it's not for you, like, like,

The whole thing is shot. And so you have to sustain momentum. There's 15 regular season matches for TGL. That is a lot of content that they are banking on from the second week of January all the way until I believe the third week of March, like late March, a couple of weeks before the Masters gets underway. That is a lot of content.

That they have to fill. That is a lot of airtime they have to fill. And you are not going to have the viewers if you do not have a strong, not just first debut night, which I think is incredibly important to make a good first impression, but a huge first month to actually show that this thing has staying power.

And I feel bad because when Clark seems to be catching some strays here, but he is a member of the Bay club. So he will be in that very first match. It will be sort of on his shoulders. And I get what you're saying. And I think the message from the top of TGL all the way down to the players has been,

This has to be more than what you normally do. Everyone needs to understand it. This has to be fun and games. You have to stand on stage and again, be performative. And I was just laughing about it because someone sent me a text. I've been watching a lot of Dan Graziano and partly because my fantasy teams are really, really good. So I'm trying to stay engaged this year. And partly because I don't know if you've ever watched him on one of their round tables on get up or the various round tables that they do, but his facial expressions are,

Chef's kiss. Like, I don't think anyone does just just face TV better than he does, because you and I try to do it in our little world of roundtables because we're in a little box that's sometimes live and sometimes not live. And they sometimes tell you and they sometimes don't tell you. But just sit and watch Dan Graziano. He should get an award. Yes, that's it. Like whatever it is that's going on. It's like all the it's like all those Trump memes.

Yes, like you just made a point and I tried to do the Graziano face and I caught myself because I feel like now that was too much. What? Oh, no.

No, can't do it. But I agree with you. I will counter with this. And this is this is kind of going down a dark and gloomy path. I'm sure Eamon Lynch wishes he was part of this conversation. But if you're a fan of Tiger Woods, this is probably going to be your primary avenue to watch him play whatever version. Wow. That that play right now is incredibly dark and gloomy.

And I'm not saying that he won't continue to try to play what he's tried to play, which is essentially the major championships and maybe the Genesis. And maybe we see him at the Hero World Challenge. The indications I'm getting are that he's probably not going to play there. He's still recovering from his most recent procedure. We'll probably see him at the PNC, two rounds, riding in a car, playing with Charlie Woods. That, of course, is going to be the highlight of his year. So he's going to get ready for that. But going forward, I think sort of the standard has been set.

that we're going to see him in four, maybe five events a year. He'll make the cut in two or three of them. Maybe he catches lightning in a bottle at some point during one of them. I don't even know if I'm willing to go down that road. But if you want to watch him on at least some sort of regular basis, then this is going to be the avenue to do that. And you're going to see him in a way that we've never really seen Tiger Woods, at least not on a mass-produced product.

So we've seen him in several iterations of the match where he's going head to head. We are, but I don't know if this is the match. Maybe he's playing with a partner from a different sport. I mean, he's not built for that sort of environment in the way that a Justin Thomas or a Max Homa, even I thought Roy McRoy in the most recent match that he played under the lights in Palm Beach, I thought he was actually quite good in that sort of environment.

Well, and again, the message that's being sent down from the top that I've referenced a couple of times is this is not PGA Tour golf. This is not major championship golf. And we're just not talking to you, Wyndham Clark. Catch another stray. But we're talking to you, Tiger Woods. Like this cannot be you putting the blinders on and being 2000 Tiger Woods where you didn't talk to anybody and you just kept your head down and you just did brilliant things. And that was enough to carry the product. The product has to be carried perfectly.

first and foremost by the golf and the golf is going to be good because that's what these guys do very, very well. But you also have to be a personality and you have to have fun with this and you need to talk trash like you would if you were at home. So I'm saying that version of Tiger Woods, I think could sustain a product, at least in the short term.

Yeah, and I think there's reasons why there's skepticism surrounding TGO. I think when you look at the roster of the players, they're going to have to tap into a side of them that we do not typically see inside the ropes. It's not just Tigers, it's not just Wyndham Clark who seems to be catching so many strays on this podcast for no particular reason, but like a Justin Rose, a Lucas Glover, a Patrick Cantlay. I mean, those are not the most...

outwardly extroverted personalities that you see on the PGA tour. And yet that's going to demand it, not just the high quality of shots that you can play while hitting into a simulator, but also the open mic and being an engaging personality that can bring in a crowd. We are not dogging on this. We're going to give it a fair shake. Are we not right? You're going to be down for TGL media day in December. You and I are both going to be covering TGL.

that debut night. We're going to be doing a podcast record live from the arena. We're going to show exactly how it's going to work. We're going to have plenty of done plenty of reporting about what they're anticipating for that debut night. We are giving it a fair shake. I don't want us to sound like we're not. It's just, there's reasons for skepticism. And I did think it was curious. And I think sort of the headlines that sort of beamed across the globe as it related to the TGL release were,

primarily pointed out that Tiger Woods and Roy McIlroy are not in that initial week. And I thought that that was quite newsworthy. I think in my mind, Wyndham Clark is catching strays, at least from me, as I just read a story. I think he was on the No Laying Out podcast and he was talking about the lip players. And something tells me you did not want to go here. But I do want to point out sort of in my mind, the foolishness of what he said or where his argument kind of came apart.

And his argument was, is yes, some live players should be allowed to come back to the PGA tour and some should not. Now that is not a new concept. You and I have kicked this idea around about if there is going to be some sort of reconciliation, maybe you would pick.

pick players a la carte for various reasons that maybe this guy can come back and that guy can't come back. I don't particularly agree with that, but I can see where people are coming from when they make the argument that maybe Phil Mickelson doesn't come back because not only was he part of the lawsuit against the PGA tour, but he also was the pointy end of the spear. Phil's already talking about retiring. What?

I know, but he's the easy example. And he was the portion of the spear that was poking the tour early, early days. He was the one that was probably the most outspoken when it comes to being critical of the PGA tour and the commissioner Jay Monahan, where Wyndham Clark decided to draw the line, which is why I bring this up is because in his mind,

If you are a certain caliber of player, Dustin Johnson being the primary person he pointed at here, then yes, of course, he has a lifetime exemption by way of winning 20 events. Dustin Johnson did win 20 events. But in that same breath, he brought up Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson.

as players that these players should be allowed back. However, the others should not be. To be clear, Bryson DeChambeau doesn't have a lifetime exemption. He hasn't won 20 times in the PGA Tour, nor has Brooks Koepka. So your argument kind of falls apart a little bit there. Now, I can see where he was coming from. If you want to sit down and say, okay, here is the exempt status.

that Brooks would have versus Graham McDowell would have at this point in time in the universe had Liv Goff not come along. I'm fine with that. That sounds to me like a pretty reasonable thing to do. But just drawing an arbitrary line saying that in my mind, those guys are important to us. And in my mind, those guys are not. That's only going to lead to trouble. And that's where I have a hard time every time this conversation comes up. Well, I think Wyndham is likely speaking for

many PGA Tour members and probably some PGA Tour executives in thinking we don't want all of the live players to come back. We essentially just want, I mean, five, six, seven, basically the bold-faced names or the biggest personalities who departed the PGA Tour to come back. And you can name them right here. Dustin Johnson, they'd love to have back. He has maintained good relationships with many people on the PGA Tour. Dustin Johnson's not playing golf on the PGA Tour anymore.

I understand. But if you're having a wish list, if you're the PGA Tour, these are the wish lists of players. You would certainly want Brooks. You would want Bryson, even though Bryson's sort of a tricky case because he was part of the initial lawsuit against the PGA Tour as well. You would probably want a Cameron Smith, a recent major championship winner. You would want...

Maybe a Joaquin Neiman? Probably not. I mean, John Rahm's certainly Terrell Hatton, a big personality. Like, you're talking, Rex, five, six, seven names on the PGA Tour. I think that's what Wyndham is referring to, where they're going to

where it's going to get really sort of mucky is if you, if you try to make some sort of criteria for the players who are eligible to come back, which, which sort of avenues they can bypass, which ones they have to go through making a high caliber player, world-class player go through some sort of Q school route or the corn fairy tour is not going to sit well. And, and just the,

it's just ignorant to the fact that golf fans want to see the best players in the world together. Like I thought Charles Barkley, did you hear the Charles Barkley snippet on the Gravian Sleaze podcast? We just said, these guys are idiotic. Just get them together. It benefits both tours, the PGA tour and live golf, having these guys together more often than four times. That is like the general sentiment that,

And having any sort of established criteria or making them go these circuitous routes to, quote unquote, earn their way back on the PGA Tour is just never going to fly. It's just not a realistic option. And I think it defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. You use the word murky. I'm going to take that a step further. As someone who has sat in courtrooms and shifted through mountains and mountains of lawsuits and documents. It does seem unlawful. Yes.

I understand where the executives are coming from. I even to a certain degree understand where Wyndham is coming from, although I don't think he quite grasped what he was trying to say in the moment. What I would say is, yes, that sounds all well and good that we only want six or seven and the rest can shove off. We have no interest in you. That's not the way if it works out that way, we're only going to end up with more lawsuits.

and more legal documents and more issues that the tour is going to have to deal with. So whatever decision, and this is only part of a very, very complicated process because this is the easy way of saying that, yes, we only want the stars back. Well, if you drill down a little bit more, I was texting with a tour player yesterday where, eh, do we want all the stars back? I mean...

Let's be honest. Brooks Koepka has been kind of a jerk about it. Maybe we don't want him back. I don't – like now we're starting to pick and choose. That's why when this first came up and it was at PGA National at the tour event two years ago –

And I think it was Billy Horschel who kind of broached the concept to me that no, no, no, we would do it a la carte. And I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. Like, no, like there has to be one standard across the board. If this player, if a player who left the PGA Tour for whatever reason to join Live Golf and either turn down their membership or didn't turn down their membership.

The pathway has to look the exact same. Like you cannot do it a la carte. That's only going to create more problems. And now you're running into a situation where there's plenty of tour players that feel like those who left are

need to whatever pay their penance they want to see their pound of flesh before they're allowed to come back and trust me the lib players have no interest in doing that as well so it's a really complicated issue it certainly is you could also have tournament uh tournament directors offer sponsor exemptions that'd be a way around it uh if the arl paul invitational was desperate to get bryson dechambeau back in the field after his theatrics a couple years ago we was driving over the lake on six if

If the Farmers Insurance Open wanted to get John Rahm in his back of the field with his affinity for Torrey Pines, you could certainly do it a la carte that way. But that's certainly the trickiest sort of route that the PGA Tour executives and the policy board members are going to have to figure out exactly how it would work if it is possible for these players to be reintegrated back into the PGA Tour. Rex, before we get out of here on this podcast, which somehow,

has stretched to 30 minutes when we didn't think that we had anything on our rundown sheet to talk about. How was your game? You had a recent trip to StreamSong. You got a new Scotty Cameron putter in the bag. Shout out Titleist and Tina. You've been doing some speed training, which is sort of shocking to think what your numbers are and how bad they were prior to this month's long pursuit of speed and distance. How's your game? How's it cooking?

Uh, it's getting better. And I started the training because my middle son wanted to start doing some speed training. So I bought the radar. I brought up because you have to kind of quantify it and set a net up in the backyard. That has been the most challenging thing, by the way, of all the things that happened during the storm, I have done more damage to my backport screen than the storm ever did. The hurricane ever did.

because you can catch one off the tail and that one really gets out of the sort of the cone of where you're trying to hit into the net very, very quickly. I did go to stream song. It was, it was such a cool experience. I know you, you went, I think it was called citrus farms a few weeks ago as well. Cabot citrus farm. Thank you. Um, the, the,

there is such a unique golf experience now in central Florida. And actually next week, when we have a little bit of time, I do want us to run a little bit of the footage that I got from stream song, because it's such a unique experience. I'd been out there once before when it first opened. And I think I'd play the blue course and the red course, which are both a lot of fun. I wanted to go out this time and play the chain, which is sort of their version of the, of a match play golf course. There's no real tee boxes. It's it's set up as very much a walking course.

golf course. It's a shorter golf course. I think the longest hole was 300 yards and then you pretty much play it however long you want. So if I, if you and I have a match and you win the first hole, if we're being realistic about this, then you need, you get to decide where we tee off. Um, but the second hole on and on and on and on.

And like, it was an interesting, fun round of golf to sort of go through it in your mind and realize that, Oh, if it's, if I have 300 to a hundred yards to choose from, like, what is my best club? And, and, and that in sort of in that window. And it makes you think about it a little bit more. It was a lot of fun. It certainly sounds like a lot of fun. There's so many great,

that you can now go to if you are a diehard golfer and a fanatic as we are. I just saw, I got an email yesterday on Tuesday that Sweetens Cove is expanding. That has become such a destination over the past decade. I'm actually going, Rex, next weekend, not this weekend, but the following weekend, Halloween weekend, up to Lookout Mountain to play. Shout out Ricky Johnson who's getting me on the course there, playing at Macklemore. Yeah.

Next weekend as well, our old Golf Channel colleague, Charlie Reimer, is in a leadership position now with Macklemore. For our 11th wedding anniversary, my wife, who I got golf lessons for last Christmas, has really taken a liking to it, and she's certainly skilled at it. We went out for nine holes last weekend just to make sure that her game was sort of suitable for two world-class golf resorts. Shot 47.

Three easy pars absolutely pounds the ball off the tee. She would absolutely without a question in my mind, routinely out drive you where it gets a little hairy as it tends to do for beginners is on and around the greens. Some pretty nasty Bermuda this time of year in Florida. That's certainly puzzling for her to try and to try and figure out, but it also is for you as well. So we play in two rounds of golf with my wife. Well,

What could be better? Full recap on that in a couple of weeks. What's the date of the anniversary? Just so we know that, that all the fans who want to reach out and November 2nd, feel free to reach out. We are playing golf. We got, we actually got married on the Georgia Florida game, which was, which was not great for any of the party attendees. Many of whom attended with us at the university of Georgia had to have like the scores piped in through the microphone and,

We call the dogs after they won that day as well. I don't think it's going to be particularly close between Georgia and Florida this year, but we will not make the mistake of golfing in the future on that day. We typically attend that since it is in Jacksonville. All right. That is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lab. You guys are the drill. NBCSports.com slash golf.

For our latest news, notes, and updates, Rex and I will be back next week for a recap of the Zozo Championship as well as the whiteboard exercise, what the fall on the PGA Tour could and potentially should look like in the future. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Have a great rest of your week, and we'll talk to you next week.

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