The game's biggest hitter (and potential star?) takes the next step in Detroit
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Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. Well, there were 370-yard drives. There were about two dozen players with a chance to win the Rocket Classic. There was a three-man playoff at Detroit Golf Club. And in the end, Aldrich Potgeeter, one of the game's rising stars, is a PGA Tour winner after defeating Max Gracerman on the fifth extra hole. Rex, it certainly seems like the best-case scenario for how things could have gone down in Motown. Am I right?

I do not believe in the anchor jinx. We talked about this from time to time. You and I are in the business, so I'm sure you and I have done it in the past where we have said something before it actually happens and everyone points to the anchor because they're wrong. I'm going to go ahead and lay the anchor jinx on Trevor Emelman, our colleague at CBS Sports, because he announced, I think with two or three holds left to play, that he goes, the last two weeks on the PGA Tour have ended with someone making a birdie, a walk-off birdie on the 72nd hole. It's going to happen here. It did not happen. It didn't happen on the 73rd hole.

It didn't happen on the 74th hole. It didn't happen on the 75th hole. We went five extra holes for pot Gator to get that first PGA tour victory. And it was entertaining. I,

I will say that there was a lot going on over the course of that final round. As you pointed out, there were about a half dozen guys who probably had really legitimate chances to get this done. But the thing that stands out to me when you watch Pop Gator play the game and when you see an eye-popping 197-mile-an-hour ball speed coming off a driver and it didn't even look like he was going after it, I think he is entertaining on a level that the PGA Tour needs right now, to be quite frank. He doesn't necessarily have a...

Big, strong personality. He's just 20 years old, still kind of young. But the brand of golf that he plays is just fun to watch. And it's not just because he hits 370-yard drive. That's a big part of it. But it's the way he can control the game and everything that happens after that. Because they talked a lot about this during the telecast. And you can look at the stats over the course of this season on the PGA Tour. Short game, short wedges probably aren't his best thing. And I can imagine there's going to be a day when he figures that out. And that could be frightening.

I mean, it wasn't just, first of all, it wasn't just the announcer jinx. There was also the engraver jinx. CBS kept handing to this poor woman and she had Chris Kirk. She's like, Ooh, yep. I could do that one. I could probably knock that out in a couple of minutes. And then she's like, Oh, Max Gracerman. So many, so many continents potkeater I before E that was certainly going to have to take her a little bit more time as it relates to Aldrich pocket. Like I'm not sure I've ever seen 196 mile an hour ball speed.

on the PJ tour. And you guys can talk if the, if these numbers are, are juice for television or track man's, you know, fibbing some of the numbers, like even in Bryson's big beefy, like era, right? Like think of 2020, 2021. I don't ever recall seeing one 96 and there are some really fast players that

on the PGA Tour, whether it's Cameron Champ, whether it's Min Woo Lee, Aldrich Podgieter is just like a different dude altogether. But what I think makes him so inspiring

enticing and tantalizing as a prospect is like, he has a winning pedigree too. You know, he's always been ahead of the curve. He won the British amateurs, the second youngest winner of that golf tournament. He broke Jason day's long time record as the youngest winner on the corn fairy tour. And now he wins in the PG tour and just his 20th start.

before his 21st birthday. He hasn't turned 21 until this fall. You can see, Rex, how he's growing, Aldrich Pottgator. This is the third time that he has been in the final group on the PGA Tour on Sunday this year. He shot 78 in that final group at Torrey Pines. I'd say he learned a lot there. You remember the Mexico Open playoff

with Brian Campbell. It was a par five. He should have absolutely feasted against one of the shortest hitters on the PGA Tour. Instead, hit driver, six iron twice in the playoff, failed to make birdie on either of those occasions, then lost to Brian Campbell, who hit one which clearly was going out of bounds.

kicks back into play and makes birdie the hard way. This sort of seemed like he's still an unfinished product, but this just shows you how good he can be. Again, he's 20 years old. We talked about Ludwig Oberg on the PGA tours, like one of the games, rising young stars, Ludwig Oberg turns 26 years old this fall. Like there's so much runway for Aldrich Potgieter to get better. I think we're potentially looking down the road at one of the very best players in the world.

That's the part that intrigues me the most. You're absolutely right. Like the power and the way he plays that game is very impressive and it's fun to watch. But there's so much room to improve. There's so many things he can get better at. His putting, he can get better at. His iron play, which I thought was so good this week. That's been the bugaboo so far this season. And we talk about his power. And not only is he long by PGA Tour standards, he leads the tour in driving distance. He leads number two on that list. Like seven yards.

By over six yards. He leads the average, the PGA Tour average, by 26 yards. So these aren't little margins. This is a big, strong young man who can go out and do special things. And if he continues to evolve, and this kind of goes to the origin story,

who we have gotten to know a little bit over the course of the season, the playoff in Mexico, everything that went into it and how many people around him have influenced his life. You pointed out his dad who was with him and there was some emotions there in the voice. They, they essentially immigrated from South Africa to Australia for his golf game to give him an opportunity, better opportunity. And then he came to the United States by himself. I can only imagine. I have kids that age. I wouldn't trust them to send them to another country that,

Let alone be professionals. I wouldn't trust them to send him to another country to go on vacation. So you can imagine how difficult this is for him, but it's the people he's surrounded himself with. He went to the Lou Oosthuizen Academy in South Africa. He's become a bit of a mentor to him. It's the Tim Clark connection that kind of came up during the President's Cup a few years ago in Charlotte and everything that Tim brings to the table because Tim was always

one of the smartest players I've ever known to play on the PGA Tour, to be able to compete in that era. And Tim couldn't hit it out of his shadow by comparison. So he's surrounded himself with these really smart people. And you're right. You go back to, I remember watching that playoff, and Mexico was kind of just shaking my head, trying to figure out, no, that was the best-case scenario for you.

you. There was only, I can only think of one better, one situation this season that was better suited. And that was Rory at TPC Sawgrass with the Monday finish starting on that hole, given who he was playing. And it was set up absolutely perfect for him. The fact that you're 20 years old and you learn from those mistakes and you evolve and you end up here, that's really impressive, man.

You mentioned the team that he's built around him. He also has a swing coach in Justin Parsons, very well-regarded swing instructor, taking what are clearly some crazy athletic gifts. Like he is a big boy, is Aldrich Potgeater, but the way that he contorts his body, the torque that he's able to create, obviously the power. He has the old rugby players,

He has the old wrestlers build as well. Like his lower body is so strong and it's not like some of these other young players who you see that could potentially sort of continue

contort themselves and potentially see themselves with injury down the line. He's very sound from a physical standpoint. Justin Parsons just has so much room to work with, but he's still, Aldrich Potkid, a very inconsistent player. He's made just four of 13 cuts so far this season. You mentioned the iron play, which has really been poor

Had a turnaround, got a new set of irons in the bag, saw some improvement at Colonial, and then this was by far his best approach play performance of the entire season at Detroit Golf Club. Now, keep in mind, he was hitting really short irons into these par fours. Like, we're hitting, you know...

50 to 100 yard wedge shots into par fours. It's easy to make your numbers look better that way. But he's clearly starting to refine his wedge play, his iron play, some off speed shots. That's sort of the next level stuff that you see with Aldrich Pock here. And that's not uncommon from a lot of these big hitters that we see. That was always the issue with Cam Champ. We'd have Cam Champ would pop up at a 3M open type tournament.

or Sanderson farm, then he just, you know, absolutely cuts down the golf course to size. And you say, wow, how can he not do this every week? Well, the gifts that make you a really long hitter also can be funnel you from close range, starting to rain in all that speed and,

All of that power. That's the next level for Aldrich Padilla, but there's still going to be a handful of PGA tour events every single season in which he is going to be one of the favorites to contend. And keep in mind, he's seeing as a PGA tour rookie, all of these courses are,

for the first time. Imagine what he can do with some refinement with his wedge play and his scrambling. Imagine what he can do seeing these golf courses two, three, four times in his PGA Tour career. Imagine now the comfort and the relief he's going to feel as a PGA Tour winner after already having put himself in that position twice in his first year on the PGA Tour. Like serious, serious career trajectory potential for Aldrich Potkater.

And there's a couple things to add just for context. The fact that it was on Detroit Golf Club, which was set up to be overpowered. You look at the scores year in and year out, and it's going through a pretty big redesign. We'll talk about that later in the show. But the rough wasn't necessarily long. This clearly was not Oakmont that they were playing. The greens were on the softer side. That's the one defense that golf course has. And so it was a best-case scenario for him. But I'll also point to the theater that was that playoff. You had a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 40-year-old there.

All in the playoff and all played the game vastly different. And when I think when the playoff started, I don't know where you were leaning. I was leaning towards Chris Kirk because he had been in this situation most recently. He beat Eric Cole last year down in South Florida at PGA National to win his last PGA Tour title. He was the savvy veteran. You would have thought of those three players and that playoff that it would have been Chris or Max that had the level headed.

sort of approach that had been through this before that I understood how to control the nerves. And the fact that it went five extra holes and it was a 17 footer that he needed to pull it off. I think he takes so much from this going forward. I mean, there were so many players, uh,

with a realistic chance. And we can hone in on Chris Kirk and Max Gracerman because they had the shots in the playoff. But I mean, Chris Kirk had an opportunity on the first extra hole, missed about a 10 footer. Max Gracerman had an opportunity on the 72nd hole, missed that opportunity. I think when you zoom out though, with the players who really contended on this particular week, like they are some of the longest hitters ever.

on the pga tour not just podgator who is you know head and shoulders above everybody else but but i mean jake napkin obviously send it max gracerman is not short by any stretch of the imagination and he was keeping up uh even overpowering pot gear on a couple of occasions uh jackson suber is a very long hitter as well michael thorn bjornson is a long hitter i'm okay with that

A golf course, like it's still a, it's still an immense skill to be able to hit it long and to be able to hit it straight. You look at why Aldrich pot guider was able to win this golf tournament. He hit his last six fairways in regulation on the back nine. If he was driving it errantly with, with an issue of the greens getting firmer, getting a little bit crustier, you know,

the ball rolling out. Like you had to start to control your ball a little bit for Aldrich Piedra to be able to then go smash 350 yard drives dead down the center is why he won this golf tournament by and large though, Rex, like what did you think of the rocket classic?

Was this sort of in the dog days of the PGA tour? Did it have its own sort of specialness? Is this a term that you could do without? Is this a term that you can't live without? Where do you sort of fall on it? I don't know that.

I wouldn't put it in the I can't live without it category because we've had a lot of really good events this year. We have the Open Championship coming up. We have the Scottish. We have the Ryder Cup. So there's a lot of events that I would live without. I'm not sure if I'm putting the Rocket Classic in that category. However, I would argue to Detroit, to the city, to we sort of gloss over this from week to week about how important the actual tournament is to the community, not necessarily to the PGA Tour schedule or the players.

or those in Ponte Vedra Beach at PGA Tour headquarters, what it means to the community. And I will say it is impressive what they've been able to do. All that being said, they have a date change next year. They'll move to late July, essentially early August next year. That should help because where it is right now, and it is by far just the dogs.

I mean, that's, that's the best way to put it of the PGA tour season. You're coming off the U S open followed by the traveler championship, the season's last signature event. And then most of the top players are looking ahead to either the Scottish or certainly the open championship before the playoffs get going. It's almost built in that this is going to be this and the last next week, probably, or just the weeks you're going to skip. If you're a top player, I believe Colin Morikawa was the highest ranked player in the field in Detroit. And for a tournament, uh,

That means so much to the community. And for a sponsor that's given so much, it is kind of tough to sit here and say that this is an unquestionable success. Because I'm not quite sure you would say that given where it is on the schedule. But I just think it's the reality of where we are on the PGA Tour. They're the have and the have-nots. That was sort of written in stone when they created the signature events. And this is kind of a byproduct of that.

I thought it was an interesting finish. If you're a golf fan, I'm sure you tuned in and you thought the playoff was pretty cool. But no, I wouldn't ever call it a can't miss. It does seem a little bit strange that the signature events on the PGA Tour are already done by mid-June.

I do think that's a little bit of a scheduling twerk. And I saw awful announcing Hedl headline. I know you're very familiar with awful announcing the number of times that you've been aggregated over the past couple of weeks. But their point was essentially at a column. It was like the PGA Tour has a missed opportunity here with its scheduling. And you look at the greater sports landscape, baseball is very much the dog days of summer. Basketball just ended up...

NFL training camp hasn't started yet. Like there's definitely an opportunity that the PGA Tour could seize. But when you look at how it's scheduled now, June through August, you really can't backload your schedule with limited field signature events.

Why? Because players still have to compete for a PGA Tour card. That is where the drama then shifts. I know there's still another major championship to play, but the drama after the signature events, now it sort of shifts into playing eligibility and status and trying to lock it up for 2026. Is that a sexy storyline?

No. Do you have to be a diehard to care about who's going to be top 100, top 70, top 50, getting in signature events for 2026? Yeah, you probably have to do that. What I would love to see though, because I don't think you can fundamentally alter the schedule to sort of backload the signature events at the expense then of full field events and sort of change the schedule.

changing who would be playing what to get into the playoffs. What you can do though, is make more interesting tournaments in terms of the venue. You and I have talked about this, where if you were going to play on the West coast, which in my opinion is the best part of the PGA tour schedule is the West coast swing. You would probably not do it in late January and mid February. You would do it this time of year. And so if you're looking big picture at what could sort of

reinvigorate this time of schedule. It might not necessarily be the tournaments and backloading signature events to getting top players doing it. I would think it would be better venues, better locations, and maybe you throw in like a match play or a team event or something at this point in the schedule just to bring a little bit of life to it.

Well, and I think we can move the pieces around the game board as much as you want. And I tend to agree with you. If we move the West Coast to this time of year, you're right. I think it would be so much better. Can you imagine playing Pebble Beach this week under those perfect skies and those conditions? It becomes difficult the years that it hosts the U.S. Open, but you can work around that. My only concern with that is there is a finite number of signature slash major events that these players are going to play in. I'm talking about the top players in the world.

I don't think you can push them or the PGA Tour can push a Scottie Scheffler or a Rory McIlroy to continue to add to their schedule. They're just not going to do it. I believe what they have right now, which is essentially a 15 to 20 event schedule for the top players, that's pretty much maxed out because you also have guys playing in Europe or you have guys getting ready for the Ryder Cup. Maybe they play one or two in the fall, whatever the case may be.

So if you're maxed out at 15 to 20, you can move the pieces around, but you're not going to create new pieces. If that makes sense, there are always going to be in this, this is that is going to come off as a backhanded compliment, but there's always going to be the rocket classics on the schedule. It's just by definition that the top players cannot and will not play every single week. Yes. If you wanted to move around the West coast a little bit, but you're also talking about from a playability standpoint, the top players are,

want there to be some sort of ebb and flow to their schedule. If you start at the century, then you can kind of map it out how it goes all the way through the tour championship. If you start tinkering with that, I think you'll probably get pushback from players. Yeah, I think unless you're going to whack 15 tournaments, so all of a sudden you have all top 100 players playing a set number of PGA Tour events, I think there's just going to be this inevitable sort of ebb and flow to the PGA Tour schedule. There's still a spot.

for, for PG tour fans, for the John Deere's of the world, the three M opens of the world. So for the Wyndham championship and sort of the race for the playoffs, I think they all have certain meaning that way. Is it a harder sell if you're the PG tour? Sure. But these are also $9 million purses for a reason. And they don't draw the fields that you would typically have on the PG tour. One thing Rex that I wanted to touch on. It's a very sensitive topic for me. And I'm very curious your thoughts on this. I hate this.

the predictive shot tracer thing for hit fairway and miss fairway that CBS has been rolling out. They use it on the 72nd hole. First of all, a hand up. I'm wildly grossly colorblind. And so I have a really hard time with green is good. And, and red is bad. There is such thing as red, green colorblind. And that's me. I can't see it. Second of all, it just takes away some of the suspense that,

like they had the they had the par three um sort of predictor a couple years ago remember that like they would hit a t-shirt and all of a sudden they would be like the little uh circle on the green that would move to where the ball was going to end up like to me that takes away all the suspense i want to i want to hear contact i want to see ball flight and i want to be like oh is this going to be long is this going to be short is this gonna be close so it's gonna be far away is it gonna be able to make pars you make birdie like all of the suspense is gone when

When you show this, this, this shot tracer and this predictive value of whether you're going to miss the fairway or hit the fairway. Am I, am I right or wrong here? This is a true story. And it happened, I think maybe two weeks ago, it was Sunday getting ready for tonight's pod, watching the telecast, the, the finish up. And my middle son, Trevor came walking out on the back porch as I'm watching it. And someone hit a drive and without prompting, he goes, that must drive laugh crazy. And I hadn't even thought about it.

Until, oh yeah, like all he sees is a black line. It's just a blur to him. So I don't even know why it bothers you because you have no idea what's happening. I will say, I will back you up on this to a certain degree. Since you're colorblind, I'm not even quite sure you're qualified to be in this conversation at all.

I don't like the way it started to dominate the conversation. Whereas there was a time not that long ago, I'm not being nostalgic here last year where someone would hit it, hit a shot and whoever the walking reporter is, Dottie, who is one of the best, she would give you some sort of analysis that this is probably going to catch the left side of the fairway, whatever the case may be. There is,

There is a poetry to that if it's done well and she does it really well that I think is missing out. Cause now instead of doing that, having these kind of having those conversations, it's, Oh, started out red, still red. Oh, and it went green at the very last minute. I don't know what the algorithm algorithm is. It seems a little silly sometimes, not a huge fan, but again, I can see the colors you can, but like, think about this. If you're watching a major league baseball broadcast, right?

and there's a pitch and Aaron judge makes contact. And all of a sudden there was a tracer and a predictive target for where that ball was going to land. I know they're playing defense. No, it's slightly different, but it's essentially the same thing. They're making contact. And all of a sudden, you know where that ball goes. If it's going to go in the left center gap, if it's going to go 450 feet to right center, like it's,

You're cutting out five to seven seconds of suspense where as a viewer, that's what I want. That's why I'm watching. And I know that they have the shot tracer and that takes away a little bit of it. Like, and I think that's sort of additive in certain situations, but like predicting where it's going to go.

using just radar technology, like I'm over it. I don't want to see it. Give me back my old fashioned golf broadcast. You've never sounded more older curmudgeon than you do right now. And I will say this, you and I have a mutual friend who is working with a company and they're experimenting with coming up with ways to quantify exactly how a wind at a specific moment on a specific hole is going to impact a shot.

down to the, I mean, to feet and inches of how it's going to impact the shot. I've seen kind of dry runs of what this looks like. I like that. I think that's cool. Especially if you're at the Scottish Open next week, where I'll be. You can only imagine how cool this would be if you're on a par three and it's howling 30 miles an hour and you can actually see how this is going to hit the shot. You can quantify exactly what that wind under those conditions is going to do to that. And I think that

That's sort of the innovation and the cutting edge that the new CEO of the PGA Tour, Brian Rollout, talked about two weeks ago at the Travelers Championship. I'm not saying they've nailed it with this one because clearly I don't think even based on what I've seen on social media. No, I don't think most people – I think they're like you. They don't like it. But as long as you keep trying, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Perfect. I think the technology is really cool. And I think in small bursts, I think it'd be additive. But I'm like a 72nd hole of a tournament where hitting the fairway is going to be important because it's going to leave you just a short iron in. Like that's a very important tee shot to have it for there. Just sort of removes all the suspense. I don't know. Probably more more curmudgeonly takes there.

And hey, speaking of curmudgeons, we're all of Golf Channel's Aaron Oberholzer on the other side of this short break on all things Rocket Classic and the future of the PGA Tour.

And for this Boots on the Ground segment, we're pleased to be joined by Aaron Oberholzer, who was part of the Golf Channel team at Detroit Golf Club AO. Appreciate you joining us. The renovation that's set to begin at Detroit Golf Club, led by Tyler Ray. What are your thoughts on the golf course as it stands right now? We just saw sort of a bomb and gouge fest and what Tyler Ray could potentially be doing to Detroit Golf Club.

I think that the golf course right now is, in my opinion, for a Donald Ross golf course, is fairly substandard for a Donald Ross. And I think that the Detroit Golf Club deserves better and deserves more. The greens, however, the greens actually are pretty cool. And, well, this week we're really the only defense of that place. So I'm excited. I saw the renditions. Our colleague George Savarica sent us.

some renditions, some flyovers of what each hole looks like now. And then right next to it, side by side, was what the hole is going to look like. And it's going to look, I think it's going to be really cool. Now we'll have to see obviously how it plays, but it looks like it's not going to be as much bomb and gouge. You're going to need to use some different clubs off the tees, potentially, depending. I think Tyler is going to put the bunkers in some different spots.

I saw a lot of center line bunkering. So I think it could be really, really cool. They're going to make the greens bigger, more hole locations. I think they're going to have even more slopes and humps and hollows, a la Donald Ross from the good old days. And I think it's going to be a very interesting test next year. I'm hoping that's the case. You look at what happened this week, and my understanding is they're going to add about...

After the redesign, that doesn't seem like a lot when you look at what the modern players, I'm thinking about Potgater, who just absolutely pounded his way around that golf course. Is there another defense? I mean, the rough, the greens, there's a lot of things you can do, but can you do enough to that golf course just adding 300 yards?

No, no, no. 300 yards is not enough by today's standards. I agree with you. But I would say that the things you can do, if you if, and this is a big if around here this time of year, if you get a good weather week, and that means firm, fast, sunny skies the whole week, firm conditions in the bounce are always going to defend the golf course. And then you can grow some rough if you want to grow rough. It just depends on the appetite.

for what they want to do around here and kind of how the design that Tyler does kind of lends itself to rough. So, you know, placement of the bunkers is going to be massive because right now none of the bunkers are in play. There's like one or two holes where the bunkers are actually in play for these guys off the tee. I think one of the other problems they're going to have, in my humble opinion, is

is all the par fives run the exact same direction. And par fives are huge on the PGA Tour, but all these run the exact same direction. So this time of year, they're all south downwind. And so when the wind comes from the south, they're all downwind. So they're all reachable for everybody. So you got to take that into account. And I don't know if they can somehow, they're probably not going to route the golf course any differently. So that's always going to be an issue. So how they defend those par fives is going to be interesting as well.

What do you think about this time in the tour schedule? There's only one major championship left to go. The signature events are over on the PGA Tour. The FedEx Cup playoffs are still about five weeks away. Is this like a low point in the schedule? Do you think it's right? Like, what are your opinions on sort of where we are in terms of the tour season? Yeah.

well, I think, I think, I think we have, we just like baseball, we have our dog days of summer. And I think that this is kind of it, you know, where you're not going to see a ton of top players playing because they're getting ready for the playoffs. Uh,

And so they want to save themselves for the Open Championship, number one, the last major of the year, obviously. And then they're going to save themselves for the playoffs. But I think that don't discount this time of year if you're a fan. That's for sure. Because there's so many great stories out there of guys. I think one of the most intriguing parts about the PGA Tour and why, as an announcer now and as a fan, honestly, why I love this time of year is because you see –

real emotion out of real guys who are trying to keep their jobs. And I think that that is a big deal. That's not, I don't think we talk about enough. We talk about the top players a lot, but you know, keeping your job on the PGA tour is a big, big deal. And now, especially since we're going to a hundred guys instead of a buck 25, it's an even bigger deal.

When you start looking at those bubbles, and we talked about this kind of over the course of the last week, Lab was on golf today, I was on golf central, the idea that those new numbers now loom large. And it was always numbers when you were playing. It was 125 or top 30 if you wanted to make it to Eastlake. But does it seem a little bit more as if it's almost much more that there's more pressure now because that top 100 means so much, because top 70 means so much, because top 50 means so much?

Yes. You know, obviously they're making it more exclusive. Now, whether you're a fan of that or not, that's beside the point. They're making it more exclusive and they're making it that much more difficult to keep your job. So whenever you I mean, obviously, when you're taking away opportunities to earn a living or at least a full, you know, being part of a full field and you get to semi pick your schedule for the most part outside of the signature events.

And when you're taking away 25 jobs. And so obviously it's going to be that much more competitive to keep your job. So I think it does make it more interesting. And I think it does add a little bit more pressure to the guys who are playing. Like for instance, this week, Jackson Suber had a fantastic week this week at Rocket Mortgage. He's going to finish somewhere in the top 10 and vault himself from 139. I believe he was all the way up close to top 100. And he's got,

four or five more weeks to go to play, tournaments to go. So he's got an opportunity. That's what these weeks are about for these guys who's got their backs against the wall. And I love to see guys step up when their backs are against the wall. Which camp do you find yourself in?

A.O., I mean, when you were on tour, you know, sort of the mantra was playing opportunities. That's all the PGA Tour was designed to do. Now it sort of seems to be shifting heavily towards the top players and making it more cutthroat. What do you think makes a better product? 125 and deeper with potentially more parity or 100 and more competitive and more cutthroat?

Well, I think that the past has proven that if you have a dominant player, that seems to attract a lot of viewers. But that dominant player happened to be one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest of all time in Tiger Woods. So I don't know if Scotty Scheffler, I don't think, is going to bring that kind of audience to the table, even though he is still a very dominant player. I think we all can agree on that. So...

You know, can I have both? In all honesty, can I have both? No. I like great stories. He plays the game like you, Lyle. I like great stories. Problems everywhere.

I like great stories. And for me, I think stories, you know, great stories are guys who, you know, who make the run at this time of year to keep their cards and who come out of nowhere. And if you, you know, if you dilute the tour too much to where you take away too many opportunities, you're not going to get a lot of those stories, a lot of those great underdog stories. So I think that that's they got to be a little careful of that.

is to not push too many of those types of stories away because there's very few sports that have those underdog stories. Golf is one of the few.

When you take a look, you referenced this as the dog days, and I would tend to agree with you on that front. As the Rocket Classic finished up on Sunday, there was an announcement there was a date change for next year. It's going to be essentially the last week of July to sort of get out of that window between the U.S. Open Travelers Championship, and then you get ready to go to the Scottish Open Championship.

The idea that the haves and have-nots have never been so clear as they are right now when it comes to tournaments, signature events versus regular events. Is there still going to be a landscape for an event like the Rocket Classic? As you talk about fewer playing opportunities, it seems like the tournaments are getting hit just as hard. Yeah.

I think that there's always going to be room if people want to serve their communities. I mean, that's basically what the PGA Tours mantra has been for years, guys, is, you know, if someone wants to put up the money for a tournament and they want to raise money for charity, the PGA Tour will more than likely, you know, if everything kind of matches up and everybody's visions match up, PGA Tour is probably going to do it. So I think there's always room. And again, I think that this time of year,

Depending on what happens to the fall and going forward, this time of year could really kind of be an opportunity for the tour to really rebrand this time of year. Between the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and obviously the start of the playoffs, with all these tournaments that the guys who maybe aren't in that last major at the Open Championship who are fighting for their cards. So I think that there's always room for tournaments like this.

It's just a matter of how you brand it and how the PGA tour wants to approach it. But I think there's always an opportunity if you approach it the right way. Hey, our new PGA tour CEO, Brian roll app has been meeting with any and everybody over the past couple of weeks on the PGA tour. If he pulled you aside, you're inside the ropes and says, Hey, Oh, come here. What do you think that we should be doing differently on the PGA tour? What would you say? Oh, geez. Um,

God, I feel so far removed from when I was playing that I don't know how to answer that now because I'm not in that locker room anymore. So I wouldn't know what to tell him. That's a serious question because he's got a steep learning curve, so he needs good advice, and I don't want to give a flippant answer by any stretch. But you're a fan of him.

But you're a fan. Yeah. You're an observer. You see the PGA Tour on a weekly basis. Okay, yeah, I'll tell you what I want. What do you think from an entertainment standpoint they could be doing better? I'll tell you what I want. And this might be the player coming out in me, but what I want is I want cuts. I want cuts. I want to be different than that other tour, different than the live tour. I want cuts. I want cuts at every signature event. I want a minimum of 100 guys.

I want, I don't care where you cut it to 60. Fine. Like the U S open cut, cut it to 55. That's fine too. But I want cuts. I want minimum, uh, minimum fields of a hundred, um, at every event, uh,

and maximum, you know, of maybe, you know, 144 if you're going to do, but if you're going to take away, if you're going to take away playing opportunities, then I think you've got to increase, you've got to increase fields somewhere. So increasing the fields at signature events, I don't think it takes anything away from the top players. Um,

It just gives those stories that I talked about earlier an opportunity to brew and to potentially rise up. And I like that. And I think that creates more competition. I think some of the signature events actually get quite boring.

Because when you get smaller fields like that, you can get runaway winners on a regular basis to a certain extent, especially when you get a Scotty Scheffler who can dominate at times or even a Rory or any of those guys who just can kind of roll up a bunch of 65s in a row on a golf course. And before you know it, you're just kind of it's a snooze fest coming down the stretch.

I don't want that. I think the more guys you can get in a field, the more competition potentially it's going to bring. So I want to see cuts everywhere. And I want to see and I want to see, you know, fields, like I said, fields from 100 to 144. If you're going to cut from 156 to 144, then I think you got to add to those other signature fields.

Well done there, Lath. After serving on that live from desk with A.O., you knew if you just kept pushing the button long enough, he'd come up with an answer. You just had to keep needling him. I appreciate that. He knows exactly where my buttons are. Yes. Yes. He kept at it. Good for him. Going back to rollout real quick. As a commissioner, as a CEO, what do you think the biggest challenges he'll face over the next year or so?

I think it's a learning curve, Rex. I think understanding our sport versus the NFL. I mean, that's what I was thinking about this week, actually, when we were talking about it inside the CBS trailer, all of us here in Detroit. It's just going to be a steep learning curve. And he's going to get brought up to speed, but I'll be interested. The models, I don't think the models, it's not, you know, the NFL is not lacking for performance.

for cash in any way or support or viewership or anything like that in any way, shape or form. It's the, they're the juggernaut. So,

I think he's coming into a very healthy product with some very good players in their primes who are playing very well right now. He's got a career Grand Slam champion that has still got a lot of runway left in his career. Obviously, he's getting Scotty Scheffler at the right time in a dominant period. So he's got some really good momentum to work with. It's just a matter – I think it's on the business side of things that he'll probably need to brush up on some things that maybe –

he might find a little, maybe a little surprising and like, like, Oh, okay. So, well, we used to be able to do this in the NFL and that's not going to quite work here on the PGA tour. So I think that there could be a few of those moments and we'll see. I, I, I, but I do think that, that, that there's going to be a pretty steep learning curve. Hey, we'll get you out of here on this one. You'll be covering the open championship for golf channel a couple of weeks at Royal Port Rush. What's storyline one a for you heading into the year's final major?

You know what's funny? Rory. Rory's 1A. And Rory's 1A for me because of where we're going, what happened to him the last time at Port Rush, and what he's done this year. And so this could be an incredible capper to his – and I know it's not over yet because we've still got to do the playoffs – but to his major championship season.

He started at the Masters. He obviously won the players, but started at the Masters with that historic win. And I think capping it off, capping the season off with a win in basically, you know, his home country, close to where he grew up and played a lot of golf, I think would be just incredible. That would be a phenomenal story in bookend. And I'm hoping he's getting enough rest and he's recharging the batteries and he's ready to go.

Well, we look forward to seeing you at Port Rush documenting the week as we will all be doing on live from the open championship. Appreciate you taking the time. We'll see you down the road. Thanks boys. Always a pleasure. All right, Rex, we have so many listener questions to get to, but first a couple of punch shots after a pretty newsy week in the world of golf. There was another mandatory player meeting this time for a full field event at the rocket classic with new PG tour CEO, Brian roll app based on your hashtag reporting.

What are your sources telling you about the meeting? Very similar to the same meeting. It was the first meeting at the Travelers Championship. Limited field. You only had 72 players there. This obviously was a full field event. But it sounds to me like it went very similar. I think most PGA Tour players who were in attendance...

Walked away feeling impressed with the new CEO, Brian Rolap. They walked away with some enthusiasm that probably hasn't been there in a while. He clearly has taken on the role of, I need to learn this job before I start making mandates. There weren't any answers, to be clear. He was asked a lot of questions, just as he was at the Travelers Championship.

And he doesn't have them right now. I think that's one thing the players probably like. So the honeymoon is going to be there for a while. Brian doesn't take over as CEO probably until later this summer. My guess is sometime next month in July. And it's going to take a while for him to completely learn the ropes. Keep in mind, Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, he essentially shadowed Tim Fincham, the

person he took over from for years before he took over. So there is a learning curve that goes into this. And I think Brian is going to do a good job coming out the other side, having a good knowledge of exactly what the business of the PGA tour is. That being said, I did talk to two separate players.

that kind of said the same thing that I think I alluded to after the Travelers Championship meeting, that yes, Brian Rolap by any measure is beyond impressive. What he did at the NFL, what he did with the media rights deal, what he did with innovation, it's all impressive. And the PGA Tour should, the players specifically, should feel lucky to get such a good CEO. However, I also had many players tell me on the other side of that, that while we're really impressed and happy with Brian Rolap, are we just happy that it's not Jay Monahan?

anymore. And this isn't to pile on to Jay Monahan. He hasn't been wildly popular with the players ever since he announced the framework agreement two years ago. And it was just the way it was done in private. The players didn't like it. They didn't like the direction of the PGA tour. So I think it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

Well, in PGA Tour players, they want answers and answers are hard to come by at this point, particularly with the stalled negotiations with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. It's clear that Brian Rolap is doing his due diligence. He said they want to talk to 100 players on the PGA Tour, sort of getting in information gathering moments.

What do we do well? Just like we asked you, what do you do well and what needs improvement as it relates to the PGA Tour? I can't stress enough how much of a benefit it should be to have a true outsider in Brian Rollup looking at this business, looking at the PGA Tour, which has done things largely the same for the past several decades. What makes sense?

And are we just doing it because this is the way that we have always done that? Having a guy with innovation, with fresh ideas, a different perspective, business acumen, I think it's going to be such a benefit for the PGA Tour. The player concerns, though, remain the same, particularly in like a full field event like you saw at the Rocket Classic, right? Like these players are going to be large concern with fewer cards.

Trimming from 125 to 100 and also the field size for signature events and making sure that they are going to have access to potentially alter their career trajectories. That's that's really not Brian roll apps domain. That is a PG tour policy board issue. That's player involvement issue.

If you're Brian Rollup, you're looking at the business. And right now the business says that things are working. Viewership's up. Sponsors are re-upping. Signature events at least appear to be a success. Is that sustainable for the future? That's for something for Brian Rollup to potentially be looking into.

Other story wrecks. Another golf tournament that was being played was live golf. Dallas won by Patrick Reed. The first time the former's master's champion won on that circuit. And Sergio Garcia, speaking of master's champions locked up the exemption into the open championship by virtue of finishing in the top five of lives point standings, not already exempt. Which of those two storylines was the bigger deal to you? I'm going to make this quick. Cause I don't want to give myself too much real estate for the live bots who I'm sure will come after me. The Sergio Garcia, uh,

exemption essentially into the open championship. I think on some level proves that these carve outs are working that no, it's not a perfect world, but if you play well enough, it's a very narrow carve. It is a very narrow carve out. And I will acknowledge that. And I think as we move forward in this process, you'd like to think that at some point, the major championships come around for the notion that all of them repeat the same thing. We want the best fields. So to do that,

Every major is going to have to figure out a better way, a little bit more inclusive way. However, I think on this particular stage, it's proof that they're working. Sergio played well enough. He has history there. All of the things that we expect out of these types of carve-outs, these types of invitations that he earned just like...

pretty much every other player in the field earned. So that's impressive. I think the part about the Patrick Reed win is it had been so long and just last week. And I think you and I kind of had a little bit of fun with it. So Matt Adams, I'll go ahead and apologize to you now. Matt Adams picked him.

as a possible player on the Ryder Cup. I don't think I rolled my eyes at the idea of it, but I certainly sort of chuckled internally thinking to myself that, no, there's a couple of live players that I think can make legitimate moves at being Ryder Cup players, either through qualifying or captain's pick. Bryson DeChambeau would be one of them. Brooks doesn't seem to be playing his best golf right now, but he always seems to be in the conversation. I didn't think Patrick Reed was going to be one of them, but maybe Matt had it right. I don't know.

Maybe Matt did have it right. I mean, Patrick Reed did finish third at the Masters, had another top 25 finish at the US Open. He has played well on live. I was surprised to see that this was his first time he has actually gotten across the line and won a golf tournament. I'm assuming I had it on mute. I didn't hear it. I'm assuming Matt was sort of relaying Patrick Reed's past Ryder Cup history. Yes. And match play experience. And that is the reason why he would put him on the team. However, if he goes on like a little bit of a hot streak.

with a live golf season, I think it's really going to come down to the open championship. If he has another good major championship performance there, I would certainly want a Patrick Reed on the team over Brooks Koepka, who appears all out of sorts, withdrew because of quote-unquote illness. He was also smashing a tee marker. What's up with these guys? He's throwing public property. Think of the kid. Not good.

Not good at all. Let's get into these listener questions, Rex. We have like five of them. Many thanks to all you guys who are listening and commenting on our YouTube page. This one from MTO 3009. Will there ever come a day where top college players or a Corn Fairy Tour guy get a captain's pick for the President's Cup? At least he's couching this by saying it's not going to happen for the Ryder Cup. That is a stretch. But Rex, how about the President's Cup?

I'm not even going to take the Ryder Cup out of the equation because all we have to do is go back to last year when Nick Dunlap won the American Express. You made an impassioned plea that he probably shouldn't turn pro in that moment in time, that there were some there were some advantages of him staying in Tuscaloosa and finishing out his season at Alabama as a college player.

I can imagine a scenario where he did exactly that. He stayed with the team through the NCAAs and then took up his tour card afterwards. And then he won for the second time. I can come up with a scenario where a Nick Dunlap does something along those lines and a captain like Keegan Bradley right now has to give it a nice, hard, long look. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, mainly because we see young college players coming onto the PGA Tour right now

Essentially fully formed adults, fully formed competitive people at this point. They're better, they're bigger, they're stronger, they're faster. They no longer need that learning curve that we talk about all the time. And in this particular case, I think Nick Dunlap is the perfect comp because there is a scenario where I could have told you how that season went last year, where he should have been a serious consideration for that President's Cup team. I mean, you say Nick Dunlap.

I say Luke Clanton, who at the time was in college, had four top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour, the first time that an amateur has done that since Jack Nicklaus. That feels like as close as we could possibly get. And if Luke Clanton had gotten across the line, if he won a tournament, if he was then a full-fledged PGA Tour member, then goes and plays the President's Cup, I think that's possible. Him actually being in college just seems unrealistic. As it relates to the Corn Fairy Tour, it's really hard to compare him

Sort of a dominant stretch of the corn fairy toward what you'd be doing. I know data golf exists. I love data golf. You love data golf. We can't quite get a cross tournament references like that to actually know how it's going to be this one from Michael Grubel.

who said sort of in the wake of the Kamura Kawa Adam Schupecker fuffle this past week in Detroit, can you really blame the players these days for not trusting media members? He's talking about Morikawa, what happened during the pro-am. He's talking about Roy McIlroy and the driver failed test leak at the PGA Championship. What say you to Michael?

Why would they I mean, I can't ask this question to Michael, but why would they not trust the media? Why would it be OK not to do it in the case of Rory McIlroy? It wasn't the media that made that information available. Now it was a media outlet that.

Reported the news that his media doesn't leak media reports. Someone leaked it to the media and then the media reported that those are two different things that I feel like people are conflating. Yes. And so I would argue that the media is just doing their job in that situation to provide context, provide information to the public on the players on the tour.

on whatever it is that you're covering at that point in time. The Colin Morikawa thing's a little bit different because this, and Colin sort of talked about it a little bit later in the week, this feels like almost personal between him and Adam Shupak of Golf Week, a colleague of ours, and a good reporter, a really good reporter. But Colin said that he went out of his way to say that this is something that's going on between those two people.

Not necessarily he in the media. He pointed out that he respects and gets along just fine with plenty members of the media. As you pointed out on Golf Today last week, he has spent plenty of time talking to the media. It's not like he avoids us. He goes to pre-round tournament interviews. He almost always does his post-round tournament round interviews. I think if you need something from him, you and I both have been in the situation where I have caught up with him.

at the appropriate time and ask them questions on the record. He's been fine with it. This seems more of a one-off personality thing between those two people. I feel like we need an intervention. I feel like we need a roundtable between like PGA Tour players, media members, and the agents. Like...

There's this weird friction that does exist, but there shouldn't exist. Like no one out, no one in the media is out to get any of these players, despite what some of the players are thinking. There seems to be some sort of confusion about what our motives or intentions would be that didn't really exist before.

a couple years ago. It's a very strange dynamic that's currently going on the PGA Tour. I'd love a full airing of grievances. Let's get it all on the table. Let's move forward. No one's the enemy here. Not the media. Not the players. Not necessarily a fan of a potential mandatory obligation for players to speak after the round either. We can get to that.

at another time. Speaking of Colin Morikawa, we'll have to end on this one, Rex, because we've gone longer than we should have. Colin's success as snowman was all during the COVID era. Hasn't done it under the lights. Do you believe the bubble theory as it relates to Colin Morikawa?

I don't, but if you look at his record, certainly I can see why people make that argument. But he had won before COVID, and he has won since after the COVID restrictions. So I'm not quite sure if that theory holds up, but I see where people come from. I do see where it's coming from. It is a little bit of an oddity. The defense of Kyle Morikawa would be

He's an exceptional golfer. He's always been an exceptional golfer. He was great at Cal in college. He's great in the PGA Tour. He's still very, very competitive on a week-in, week-out basis. Had another good week in Detroit as well as it relates to Kyle Morikawa. It is interesting, though, to see between 2019 and 2021, the small crowds, opposite field events, middle of the night tournaments. I don't know. I'm not buying it.

but at least is interesting. 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 next week for a full edition, a full recap of the John Deere classic. We will also have a very special interview with country star and golf fanatic, Jordan Davis. You are not going to want to miss it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for support. Talk to you guys. A couple of days.

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