The uber-talented Justin Thomas is back where he belongs – in the winner's circle
52:18 Share

Spring is in full bloom at the Home Depot. So what are you working on? How about a quick and stylish patio furniture update? Check out a variety of on-trend dining sets with plenty of space for entertaining. And what's outdoor dining without a shiny new grill? Find a wide selection of grills under $300, like the Next Grill 4-Burner Gas Grill for only $229. Then add a little ambiance with string lights. Transform your space this spring with everything you need from the Home Depot.

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so, as a Black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council.

Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lab. Well, the week after Roy McIlroy got off the major schneid, it's Justin Thomas who ends a drought of his own by winning the RBC Heritage in a playoff over Andrew Novak. JT back in the winner's circle after 1,604 days. Rex, how good was that Sunday at Hilton Head?

It was pretty good because I would say it's not nearly as emotional as what we saw last week from Roy McIlroy at Augusta National. To be fair, that was a decade worth of burden and weight on his shoulders. And to watch it come all sort of just flowing out of him was pretty cool. It was a pretty emotional moment. But for JT, I was impressed.

twofold really for him to open the week the way he did on that golf course, not an easy golf course by any stretch of the imagination. So the 61, we shouldn't skip by even though it happened on Thursday. And then what happened on Saturday? I mean, I watched that coverage just kind of fascinated when you get a one stroke penalty on the second hole and you feel like things aren't going your way. And he had to hit out of the mud. He had a lot of things going on, clearly didn't have his best stuff. And the way he hung on until the very end and really,

It was a two-shot swing on the final hole to make sure that he was just one shot back going into the last round of Siwoo Kim. It showed a lot of what we saw out of Rory the week before. It showed a lot of resilience. It showed where they're at and their careers at this point in time. And it is pretty shocking when you throw that number out there, that it's been three years since Justin Thomas has won because,

I think most of us, all of us still consider him a star player. I don't think anyone thought that, Oh, he's struggling. He's going through a rough patch. Certainly there's been parts of his game that haven't been 100%. And I want to talk a lot about his putting because it's been really an amazing turnaround for him this season. But,

Yeah, I think it's a really good comparison to what we saw last Sunday because, again, ended in a playoff, ended a nice long stretch of not doing what you really expect that person to do. And I think it puts JT back where we've always kind of expected him to be in that hierarchy of players.

I mean, first win anywhere since the 2022 PGA Championship. I remember that one was a little bit fluky. Mito Pereira had the big lead on the 72nd hole, let it go. Justin Thomas had a seven-shot comeback, I believe, in the final round just to get to the playoff, and he defeated Will Zell Torch. But it was already at that point in his career, Rex, where he had already started to slow down.

Right. Like he burst in the PGA Tour in the mid 2010s, won 15 times right out of the gates. And it was like this is a player who's already going to surpass Jordan Spieth. Maybe he's going to become the best player of his generation. And I've covered Justin Thomas a long time when I started a golf week magazine back in 2010. Like JT was one of the first players that I ever covered. And he has been he is the same player now as he was back then and that he is insanely hard on himself.

Probably the hardest on himself on any level on the PGA Tour. He knows what he can do. He's done it his entire life. And there is a natural temptation when you are that good and everyone knows you are that good to want to push to get across the finish line. I think that's what we've seen over these past couple years. And yeah, there was certainly a downturn in form in 2023. He didn't make the FedExCup playoffs.

It was sort of a touch and go, whether he was going to be on the Ryder Cup team. Last year, he was overlooked for the President's Cup team. He didn't win again on the PGA Tour. And so he'd made these incremental gains, but he was still, I think, not viewed by most people as the player who was great in 2015, who was great in 2017, who has won two major championships and a player's championship. But JT, if you'd listened to him over the past year and a half, he's been preaching patience.

He knew he was playing great. And I think the results, Rex, the results finally followed. I think that has to be the most satisfying part is that he knew it was coming. And on Sunday at Harbortown, it finally did.

And I think when you look at his results this year, he was close at the Valspar. He was close at the American Express. Finished runner-up at both of those. It's the one thing that kind of stands out. His ball striking, I think, has always been the thing that separates him from the rest of the pack or puts him into that category that you're talking about. It's been his putting. If you look at the last five years, he has never ranked better than 85th

on the PGA tour and strokes game putty. And this season he's well inside the top 40 right now. And he finished third for the week at Harbortown, not the easiest putting course. It was firm. I was there all week last week. It was pretty much perfect condition. So for him to do that under that scenario, I think is pretty impressive. And again, I'll go back to the resilience and,

And this almost feels like this had been building for quite a long time because you look at what he did just last month at TPC Sawgrass when he opened, I think, with a 78 and then shot a course record in the next round. And you're thinking to yourself, that's pretty impressive just to make the cut and to be around for the weekend. But that's the fight I think that we're used to seeing out of JT. And I don't know. I think the immediate take on

Rory last week was this is going to open the floodgates to bigger and better things. And it might, I'm not sure that there is a correlation between those two things. Cause I've seen it go both ways with high profile players, plenty of times, David Duvall immediately comes to mind, but I would say JT feels almost more freeing, more liberating where there was such a relief that kind of rolled off his shoulders again, not to the degree that we saw out of Rory, but it,

I, you can certainly see that you're right. He was confident in where his game was. He felt like he was heading in the right direction and this was the payout. I mean, it almost didn't happen, but like Andrew Novak had a, what a 12 footer on the last screen, found a hole in regulation. If he'd made that one, Justin Thomas was going to be denied again. And at which point,

I think it would be very easy for the frustration to build even more. So like you look at the close calls that he's had, let's call it over the last nine months, shot 66 in the final round of the Zozo in October, but he had a run of 11 straight pars in the back nine and up losing by one. He shot 66 in the final round of the Amex, but he parsed his last seven holes ended up losing by two. He shot 66 in the final round of the Valspar.

Had a great chance to win that one as well. But of course, we remember as we documented on the podcast, like bogey two of the last three holes, two of which with very ugly tee shots left, which I think probably for a lesser guy would have left some scar tissue. But I think the way that Justin Thomas closed out this golf tournament should give him plenty of confidence. Yes, Andrew Novak had a chance to win, but he was balling out over the last hour. When it comes to Justin Thomas...

20-footer for Birdie on 15, made a smart call laying up when he was out of position. Beautiful tee shot on 17, gave him a great look. Nice approach into 18, hit essentially pin high despite leaving himself 200 in there, and then had a great shot with a short iron on the first playoff hole. I mean, he does everything well. He is an exceptional golfer, and that's why I never understood –

like the, the, the motivation or the desire to, to bury him a couple of years ago when, when he was going through a little bit of the doldrums and the backlash that he was experiencing. Like this dude is incredible.

One of the best players of his generation, the shot shaping, the short game shots, the clutch putting, the flair for the dramatic. Like he is everything you should want out of a PGA tour player. And the fact that he got this one now with a signature event going to be rocketing up most likely inside the top five in the world rankings as well, at least somewhere around there. I think this is, this is exactly where Justin Thomas should be and where entering his age 32 season, I expect him to maintain there.

And I don't think you can discount the fact that his normal caddy couldn't caddy this week, couldn't caddy at the Masters. So he went with a replacement, Joe Greiner, who is Max Homa's longtime caddy. And it's going to be a temporary thing by all accounts. But you could see the interaction between those two over four days at Hilton Head. Even when things got tense, like I said, on Saturday, I think Joe just made it light.

He kept it fun. They were giving each other the needle back and forth, the things that JT loved so much. I don't think you can discount that when it comes to just freeing yourself up, just hearing something, probably the exact same thing that every other caddy had said to him, just hearing it in a slightly different way. And I will make the comparison right now because you normally –

turn in the direction of Jordan Spieth. You're the number one beat writer when it comes to Jordan Spieth. But there has been a level of concern for Jordan for quite a few years now where you keep wondering, is he ever going to get back to anywhere close to where he's won? Jordan Spieth has won twice since 2017 in his last major championship. I never had those concerns about JT. So I feel like there is a disconnect between those two because they're so closely connected.

No, there certainly is. JT now, 16 wins. Spieth sits on 13. It seems at least like their career trajectories are going a little bit in disparate directions.

pass at the moment. Not to say Jordan Spieth cannot turn this around, but it's been a little bit of a struggle. He's only exempt on the PGA Tour through 2025. He needs to continue to play well for the remainder of the season to sort of solidify his spot among the games elite, whereas Justin Thomas, to me, is back where he should be. There was a great graphic, Rex, that popped up during the Golf Channel telecast earlier this week of Justin Thomas' PGA Tour course records.

And that's the course record holding it by himself or with ties. The number of courses on there, I believe it was like 10. And it's everything from, you know, the stadium course at TBC Sawgrass to Aaron Hills to Wingfoot to Harbor Town to Wiley to Kapalua. Like he has done it everywhere. And that's why like a player of his talent can never be held down long.

Because it's always going to pop. And sometimes it takes a little bit of a putting tweak. Sometimes it takes, you know, hooking up with Julie Elion, the renowned sports psychologist, to sort of unlock what is sort of holding him back mentally. It's just these little incremental gains when you're at that level that Justin Thomas seems to have tapped into. And now I think he can still, I mean, he can still win 10 more times in his PGA Tour career, and it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Well, and I think this goes to what Rory has said. You're right. JT's not afraid to make birdies. As you pointed out, he'll go low. He does not have a problem with that whatsoever. It's cleaning up the mistakes, at least over the last few years, the last three years, as he's been in this title drought, that makes the difference. And again, Rory has talked about this a lot. If you're making the birdies,

it's a lot easier to rebound from that because you can find a way to clean up those mistakes and not make the bogeys or double bogeys. The hard part usually is finding a way to make birdies, especially on a golf course like Harbor town, which was playing so much harder on Sunday than it, than it really had all week long. I think it was a half stroke harder than it was pretty much the rest of the week. It was just,

Brown and bouncy and really baked out conditions. And you didn't have a lot of opportunities to be aggressive. I will say that you watched him coming down the stretch and the way he played the 18th hole in regulation, the 72nd hole didn't fill me full of a bunch of confidence that it was going to be a short playoff. Cause it seems to me, he kind of fanned his drive off the D hit a decent iron shot, but didn't really have a realistic chance at bogey. But Bogey,

whatever the gear was that sort of set in after he had a chance to sign his card and head back out to 18, it was a much better drive. It was a much more aggressive second shot. And I mean, the putt was perfect. Let's give some flowers, Rex.

to Andrew Novak who shot 68 in the final round, forced the playoff with Justin Thomas, eventually bowed out by making par on the first extra hole. To me, Andrew Novak is like the poster child for the, the Aon swing five or the next 10 in, in, in believing that meritocracy still matters on the PGA tour. He would have had no other way to,

into these signature events with the big money and the big FedExCup points. And now he's accumulated five of them in 2025. I was really impressed by Andrew Novak. It seemed like just a matter of time before he actually does get that first PGA Tour victory.

And I've been hearing about Andrew for a long time. Randy Myers, who's a longtime trainer from Sea Island. I've been friends with him a long time. Andrew married Randy's daughter. So it's his son-in-law. And he's been training with Randy. I think having the opportunity to be at Sea Island, hanging out with all the pros there, certainly Davis Love has taken him on as a bit of a

a mentor and you see the difference in him this season. He's been wildly inconsistent. If you look, I think coming into this week, he had six missed cuts and six made cuts, but he'd given himself plenty of opportunities, including just two weeks ago in San Antonio where he finished tied for third. And I think that that was actually his third top five season. So he has the ability to go out and compete with the game's best players as he has now proven in a signature event. And you're right. It's going to be cool to watch how that confidence level.

sort of puts him into a new category. As I said with Rory, you're never really sure where a top player goes after reaching the top of the mountain. You could probably say it's certain, the same thing to a certain degree about JT. But when it comes to Andrew, just being able to be in this situation and learn that, yes, I'm plenty good enough. My game is good enough to compete with these guys. I think that's going to be huge for him. I mean, plenty of learning too over these past years.

This is the third time he's been in a final group. He was also there at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Valero Texas Open. At Torrey, he shot 74. Sonnet kind of looked out of his element. A really difficult final round at TBC San Antonio. Shot 76. Didn't really give himself a chance with Brian Harmon running away with that title. This one, he certainly held his own. He hit it everywhere.

during the final round at Harbortown still shot 68, some really tiny short game work. For the most part, his putting was really solid for, for again, for really putting himself in some tricky spots, either in the waste area or the trees. I thought he acquitted himself quite nicely and being able to go toe to toe with a player of JT's caliber. I should fill him with a lot of confidence. How, how good Rex was, was Harbortown. Like I loved the conditions that we saw, uh,

On the weekend, Brown bouncy, a little bit chewed up on the greens. The wind was blowing a little bit, at least in the third round to me, like that is a quintessential PGA tour venue that asks a lot of questions about tour players. I couldn't get enough of the coverage. I think I'm going to call you a little bit on this one. I think you've said, I'm going to say this nicely. That's not your favorite golf course. Oh, yeah.

This is the same thing with TPC Sawgrass. Once again, another Pete Dye design if you're keeping score at home in which I hate to play it personally, but I love to watch the game's best players try to navigate the golf course and the challenges and the questions that they're asked. You never see PGA Tour players have to work it both ways, both directions repeatedly throughout the course of a tournament round in a harbor towns asking you to do that basically on every single hole.

Well, and to your point, it requires shot making. And I don't know that there's many on tour that really require that. I think Colonial will be in a couple of weeks. That certainly is one of those courses. I think Riviera, which unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go to because of the devastating wildfires. But there's only a handful of courses I think that you go to over the course of the year that really demands what you just said, a bunch of different questions.

And we saw it from the different players where you're having to be creative hitting out of the trees. Even if you're in the fairway a lot more times than not, you're blocked out by a tree one way or the other. And it is fun to watch. I'm with you. It's exceedingly difficult. I would recommend anyone who wants to go to Hilton Head to play just an enjoyable round of golf. That's probably not, shouldn't be your first stop. It's a bucket list place, but no, I certainly see what you're talking about. As far as the conditions go, on Tuesday, I was talking with someone from the tour agronomy staff.

And I was saying, like, this is a best case scenario for you. Because in that area, I don't think they'd had any rain since the Monday of the Masters, which everybody got kind of the same storm that was running through. And he said, yeah. He goes, if I'm being picky, he goes, I could do with like two-tenths of an inch of rain overnight for no other reason than just to knock the pollen down.

But that was the only thing that he wanted because you're right. That's about as close to Brown and bouncy and true links courses you're ever going to get at Harbor town. And I think the reason we're going to get into this later, that guys like going there so much the week after the masters is more so because of the golf course and the five of the community more so than it being a signature event. And look, there's obviously some architectural design elements to Harbor town that makes it such a great test for the elite player.

But a lot of times it comes down to the conditions that the players are going to face. And everyone wants, I guarantee if you pulled PGA Tour set up, the setup crew, they would want what you saw on the weekend every single week on the PGA Tour. Where it's bouncy, where you really have to control the spin. We have to sort of factor in the first bounce.

We have to play a couple of different shots around the greens and work off the slopes and the angles and all of that stuff matters into a player's calculus. It's just really hard to, it's really hard to manufacture that week in and week out on the PG tour, particularly when you have the model as the tour does, where you're following the sun.

And when you follow the sun, you know, in late spring, in the summertime, it's going to be really warm. It's going to be really humid. And more often than not is going to rain during the tournament week. And that does not facilitate conditions that are firm and bouncy and more fun for the viewers. So I feel like we should, we should be cherishing and relishing the experience that we had at Harbor town. Cause I'm sure.

in a month's time when we're seeing these rain soaked venues with just tall grass and soft fairways and soft receptive greens, like we're going to be kvetching

that the PGA Tour courses are not playing tough enough. Well, and Davis Love and his design team are going to come in and do some work on it before next year's tournament. So I will be curious to see. It probably needs to be updated in a couple of places. It probably needs to be lengthened. There's not a whole lot of places for them to go, but it is a relatively short golf course by tour standards. But I will say, by and large, and you brought up the Pete Dye thing, which for you and I,

That means every tee shot is going to be just intimidating. You're looking at something in every direction that you don't want to hit your golf ball. And very rarely, 18 being a perfect example, do you realize that that's the largest fairway you could possibly build on that piece of land. But it looks like you only have Marsh to hit it into. And I think it's one of the rare times that that Pete Dye design gets into the players' heads.

because I don't think it happens very often. They're more point A to point B. They know exactly what they need to cover and it's not difficult. But watching those last few groups play 18, it clearly is just as intimidating for them as it is for us. Justin Thomas, Scotty Sheffield, the last two winners of the RBC Heritage, two of the preeminent shot shapers on the PGA Tour and they are the winners at Harbortown. Speaking of venues,

that I'm not particularly fond of TPC, Louisiana is on deck for the PGA tour schedule. You're going to be out at the Zurich classic of new Orleans. We'll have a full preview on the Wednesday podcast, the golf channel podcast with Rex and lab available on YouTube or whatever it is. You get your podcast back with golf channel insider, Todd Lewis after this short break.

And we're pleased to be joined now by golf channel insider, Todd Lewis for this boot on the ground segment, not boots more on that in just a couple of minutes, but T Lu, you just got done interviewing Justin Thomas after his big win at the RBC heritage. Would you ask him? And why'd you ask him that?

Well, just I kind of like to start with a micro or how he felt in his round and then broaden out. And the first thing you ask him is, well, what were the few things that he felt like he did well today? It was a challenge of golf course, obviously. So he felt like he was really patient. He didn't try to push the issue, kind of let the round come to him. Then it got into his putting. I mean, he was 174th in strokes game putting on the PGA Tour last year. He started the RBC Heritage 40th, and I think he's going to get

you know, get, go even higher after this performance, that great putty made on 15, the clutch putty made in the playoff on 18. It's interesting. I asked him this week, I said, what have you done to better your putting? And he said that at the end of last year, he decided to go in alone, not have any coaches in regards to putting, but he's always admired Xander Shoffley and his approach to the game generally, but specifically to his putting. And so they organized a meetup,

at one of the clubs where they live in South Florida, and they both kind of compared notes of how their setup works, what's their stroke like, what are the fundamentals that they work on each and every time they go out to practice their putting. And it gave Justin a great sense of how to practice better, reminded him of some of the fundamentals that he may have lost. And I think, well, according to him, that was a pivotal moment

three-hour meeting and conversation that he had with Xander Schauffele that has really mentally and mechanically turned him around on the greens.

Now, I want to go back to Saturday, and we've talked about resilience a lot recently after Rory's win at the Masters. We all know what he went through. Not quite as hard of a row, as they say, for JT, but I kind of want to focus on Saturday wasn't a great day for him. He takes a one-stroke penalty, has to hit out of the mud. There were a lot of things that were going wrong, and yet he continued to battle, kept himself into the tournament. What did he have to say about that?

Well, I, you know, it is interesting that you mentioned what Rory had to battle through last week. I think it's a, it's on a higher floor in this skyscraper. But, but JT didn't mention the fact that he, he understands what Rory went through. I mean, he had to battle through some things too. I will say that.

You know, Thursday, he goes out and shoots that 61. He's phenomenal. He's holding the scorecard. It's, of course, record-tying number. But Friday, I think, was maybe the better round for him because he didn't have his best. He still was able to...

way around the golf course to shoot a 69. I would say it's probably better, but it's as equal to it. It kept him obviously on the first page of leaderboard and it made him think like, hey, I can still fight grind it out when I don't have what I had yesterday. So I think this is a great mental test this week for JT and he did talk about relief and

and the self-doubt that he's had to fight for nearly three years since he won at Southern Hills, taking the PGA, and to finally validate all that hard work and get a victory. Who knows? We say this all the time. This could open the floodgates. But obviously, for him to battle

and get himself into the top 10 and play as well as he's been playing over the last year consistently, I think this could be true. He's got so much talent. And although it was dinged a bit, I still think he's got a lot of self-belief, and he's still very much in the prime of his career. What do you think is JT's importance today?

To the PGA Tour, Todd, you lost some of the star players, the marquee players to live. JT goes through a drought, but now you look at his resume. He's got 16 PGA Tour wins, two major championships, a players championship. He's going to go down the Hall of Fame. He was always highly ranked in the Player Impact Program, RIP, by the PGA Tour as sort of a needle mover. What do you think is sort of his current importance to the PGA Tour and where it is in 2025?

Well, I mean, obviously he hasn't showed it the last three years or so because his game has been off a bit. He understands that. That's the way game golf is. He's talked to his friends Jordan Spieth and Ricky Fowler and went through a ballet themselves. But I would say that the biggest thing he has is talent. I mean, he's got those high hands. He does –

some incredible things in the golf ball. He's an artist, much like Jordan Spieth. But I think also he has flair. I remember when he made that putt on 18, when he was teamed up with Tiger Woods at the President's Cup and

and said, I love me some meat, you know, and so, you know, stuff like that. I mean, he does add energy and excitement and genuity, and he's relatable to the fans. So, yeah, I mean, is he a dominant needle mover? No, but I think he's one of the top five most electric players out there at the PGA Tour right now.

All right, let me not be the prisoner of the moment, as my colleague is real quick, usually not to be. But let's fast forward ahead to the next major, PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. JT by 10. I mean, obviously, we're going to put Rory one. Where's JT fitting in on that? I think he's two. I mean, obviously, he won the PGA Championship. We'll push Scottie aside quick. I mean, yeah. Calamore Cowher, Xander Shoffley, adios. I think – Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm.

I think he has a tremendous amount of comfort, obviously, on that golf course in a big moment when he won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow before. He has been trending. Although he finally gets that validation by crossing the threshold today, this is not a shock to me that he won. Yeah, I think I would put him right behind Rohr right now. I really would. I would at least put him tied with Scott.

I'll say that. I'll give you that. I think it's Rory, one. And then after that, it's probably JT and Scottie Shufflin.

So I guess I'm a prisoner of the moment, too. Speaking of major championships and Rory, you covered the Masters. You went right into the RBC Heritage. Just talking to players, talking to fans, talking to tournament officials, sponsors, whoever else you were mingling with this week on Hilton Head Island. Like what's been your biggest takeaway in the days after Rory's game changing W?

I think the biggest thing is that from a player's perspective, and I guess a fan's perspective too, I've heard a lot of players tell me that they've never seen another player

work so hard to win a tournament as they did watching Rory McIlroy trying to win the Masters. And in essence, that was so great for the game because if, I mean, let's think about this. If Rory had won by six, it would still have been a great story. I'm not diminishing that at all. But the way he won

and you know, and, and, and, you know, starting on the 10th tee with a four shot lead and, and not having to battle anybody, but Augusta Nashville and himself, you know, that, that was, that, that was quite dramatic, quite relatable. And obviously for him to overcome and do it was great. I, so it was for, I think for the game of golf, it was, it was tremendous. You know, and then you transition here to Hilton head Island, and obviously you've got an incredible golf course here. And,

You've got a league field as a signature event. We're using distance measuring devices to talk about speed of play. So there's a lot going on here, but it's still, I still think there was a little bit of buzz, especially early, maybe Monday through Friday and entering this week, still talking about what happened at Augusta national.

Not going to let you do it. It's not speed of play. We're not going to go with a manufactured phrase. It's always been pace of play since the beginning of time. Not going to let you fall into that trap. You got it. Trademarked. Speed of play. You can get speed of play. So don't say range finders or you say distance measuring devices. What do you say? Oh, great. I don't care what you call those things, but you're not calling it speed of play just because the PGA Tour decided it. No, you know what? We're going to put a better spit on this, and we're going to call it speed of play instead of pace of play. It's different. You and I –

Yeah, sure. Yeah. People will think something entirely different. You and I chased that story earlier in the week. You had a chance to watch it over the last four days. I was fascinated. I think they mentioned this on Saturday during the CBS telecast that at least rounds one and two were quicker on average than maybe what we've seen at Harbortown the last few years. And there's probably a lot of reasons because of that. There wasn't much when the golf course was playing relatively easy.

How much do you think distance measuring devices, range finders, whatever you want to call them, helped with pace of play? Say it after me.

All right. In regards to pace of play here at the RBC Heritage, I don't really think it was a big factor at all. I didn't see, I mean, I watched a lot of golf. I didn't see many, I didn't see actually any players and caddies pulling out a range finder distance measuring device to use on this golf course. But this probably isn't the best test for distance measuring devices because it's a tight corridor golf course. You really aren't going to get off the grid that much.

Um, I'm looking, um, at what happens at other events like the truest championship. I mean, that's a new golf course that they really don't play in Philly cricket club. Um, it's bigger, you know, it's got, you can hit it in other fairways pretty easily. So I'm interested to see how it works there. Um,

But I don't really think there's a lot of data that was gathered here at this tournament. But this is, you know, this weekend and what happened at Punta Cana. These are two of six tournaments that they're going to test. So we'll see what happens.

Todd, do you still think the limited field model works for signature events on the PGA Tour? I think the winners this season have been inarguably good. And the players who are in the signature events are probably quite excited to be there, mopping up, except for the sort of player-hosted invitationals, mopping up free FedExCup points, free money, get to play all four rounds.

But like actually covering the tournament, do you think that it's working or should they expand it to, let's say, 100 players with a traditional cut down after 36 holes? I don't think it's a bad field having, I think, 75 players here at the RBC Heritage.

But I kind of agree with you. I still think it could be better if they expanded it out at least 15, maybe 20 more players. And I feel like there should be a cut. I mean, that's my opinion. I think that would be fair to the players that aren't in the signature event.

because Xander Shoffley extended his cut streak to 62 this week because there was no cut. So I just feel like a larger field with a cut gives a better opportunity for those who are playing in what is called, I guess, regular events on the PGA Tour, and it's not just what seems to be a little bit more of a closed shot. But I don't think it's a bad formula that they got here. I mean, I can tell you here at RBC Heritage,

They had record crowds this week and really huge turnout. So on the ground, this was a big buzz ticket in the state of South Carolina. And I'm interested to see what the viewership is like as well. Now, I do want to touch on Andrew Novak, and he's a Sea Island guy. He's part of that crew. You've covered him for quite a while as well. I don't think either of us, any of the three of us, are surprised that he put himself right in the mix.

Do it. I'm impressed with Andrew Novak. I mean, this is his third top three finish so far in 2025. He had to earn his way into the signature event. His last start was the Polaro, Texas open where he finished tied for third. I think if you combine the fact that he's trying to pick up his first win on the PGA tour, but he's,

The fact also that this is his first RBC Heritage. He's a guy who grew up in South Carolina in Charleston, went to Wofford. He had a lot of folks rooting for him, calling out his middle school, his high school, his college colors and names and Wofford Terriers. I mean, there's a lot of people rooting for him. And with that comes some internal pressure. But I felt like he was...

He was pretty comfortable out there and confident. When I talked to him when he walked off the green, he was like, hey, this is another great learning experience. I didn't see it since a lot of dejection from him. Disappointed it went, but not dejection. I think there's two different things. So he's gaining some confidence as he moves on through his PGA Tour career. And with this showing, I mean, he should climb up the FedEx Cup ranks and put himself in position to finish inside the top 50 at season's end.

What's up with Scotty Scheffler, Tilo? Why has he not won so far in 2025? I don't think he's far off. I think, you know, I really don't. I think he's still battling with himself a little bit because at this point now, he had won four times on the PGA Tour in 2024, and he's still searching for his first win. So are you suggesting that he is –

He's trying to live up to his expectations that he set last year. That's sort of the main hindrance. You know, it's interesting. Scotty Scheffler is a guy who doesn't live in the expectations. He definitely doesn't live in future expectations. He always kind of like, you know, stay present. We've all heard that from him. I want to stay present in the moment kind of thing, not try to be results oriented. But, you know, Rex, you and I talked about this.

at the masters when we talked to Randy Smith, you know, he kind of had either consciously or subconsciously. It's very challenging to not think about results. When you're Scotty Shefflin, you've been a dominant number one player in the world. And obviously he's been with that setback with his hand and he's tried to kind of, you know, push it a little bit. But I, I don't think he's that far off. I think he's,

I think he's going to have a cluster of wins pretty soon. I think he's going to have maybe two within the next three to four months, and then we'll see what happens after that.

But yeah, he's still solid. He's still pretty consistent. He's just not number two on your PGA Power rankings, apparently. No, that's not true. I say he's tied for two. PGA Championship, him and JT. Well, I'll do this another way, then. I'll do the journalistic trick here and ask you, what is your level of concern higher? Is it higher for Scotty or higher for Xander right now? Um...

Oh, that's a good question. That's why you're a good journalist. That's why the Golf Brothers Association of America. That's right. They don't hand out the presidency. Apparently they do. Concern is a big word. I think that's a big word. I don't really have that much concern about either one of them. Which one may be

pushing it a little more or want it right now quicker than the other i would say maybe scotty xander's i think he's been a little more patient and understanding what he you know what he went through when the season started but i'm not i'm not concerned about either one of them i think i think both of those guys are going to be huge factors in big moments moving forward

Tilo, I called this the boot on the ground segment, not the boots on the ground segment, because golf fans at home, they would not know that you are playing hurt and you have been playing hurt for the better part of the last couple months. What the heck happened?

So long story. I'm not going through a midlife crisis. I have been snowboarding for 25 to 30 years and I cracked my fibula snowboarding in early February. Long story short, the crack turned into more of a break and nine days before I had to be in Augusta.

my doctor orthopedist opened up my leg and put plates and screws in, which I've never had before. And so I hobbled around with you guys at the Masters and things have improved. And so I am looking forward to seeing my orthopedic on Tuesday.

And I'm sure he'll say that, you know, you can get back to your marathon training immediately. But it's, Todd, it's very interesting because you mentioned, you know, this is a pretty serious surgery that you had to have to your lower leg. You know, I'm sure doctor's orders were to take it easy. And yet you were videoed during the master's.

hopping around on stage like an Easter Bunny. This feels like a hijack. Yeah, this is unnecessary. Wait for it. Hold on. Let it air out. You're on TV. You know how this works. Let it air. I don't see any wincing. What is that? What is that and why are we watching it?

Well, that's a great question too, the latter one. So I'm friends with that, friendly, I guess, with the band. The Velcro Pygmy is the name of the band. Put some bass in your voice when you say that one. Oh man, this is so embarrassing. I can't stand you guys. No, I like you. I know that we were embarrassed for you watching it. I understand. So anyway.

the night before the masters last few years they've uh we they've they i've been asked to come up on stage and um and do that so we so you know we do it and there you go and it's a lot of fun so there you go how you feel how you feel about joining the podcast right now you're feeling good about this how's this going like this is by far my final episode so this is tremendous nope nope

I'm going to help you here, though, because now I'm going to circle back around and throw myself under the bus. First and foremost, we talked about this on the Wednesday podcast. You and I drove over Monday morning from Augusta to Hilton Head. We played golf together, and I had a bit of a meltdown, as I explained on the podcast. Broke a club for the first time in my life, but I think I'd like to hear your version of what happened. Thanks.

Well, if I remember correctly, it was one of the closing holes, right? It was 18. Yes, it was 18. And the fact that you showed up first off on the practice putt at green with a PGA Tour training aid. So I was expecting some high level things from him. I was like, wow, he's been really focused on his game. And then we started. So by the time we got to 18 and you went through how many balls?

I only had like four with me. That was the problem right out of the gates. So I had pressure on me. Yes. You had four balls? That was it? That was it. And I hit the first one. My first tee shot on number one, I hit in the water. So I got off to a bad start. Was it divine intervention? Because I mean, you must have lost like 12.

I didn't lose quite that many. I owe Andrew Bradley probably about two sleeves, if I'm being honest. Okay, all right. So anyway, we get to the 18th, and no offense, but I'm not expecting much. So I didn't even watch –

You're shot. I was out. You don't want to get any of that bad mojo. You don't want to see any of that. But then I look up and you're walking with your driver that had been broken in half. Well, not in half. It was dangling by the grip. It was broken. Yeah. And our friend Andrew, who's our lead field producer and friend, said you broke it with your hands. And so I feel like that is the most shocking thing of all.

is that you had enough Bo Jackson strength to he's got a marine background sure yeah oh okay all right and and the way it was described to me Tina thank you so much for sending along a new shaft and when I asked for the new shaft she said that one must have had a crack in it she didn't even allow for the idea that I could have done it the way I described it and oh that one must have been flawed there's no way you could have been able to do that

Well, I mean, I'm just surprised about your superhuman strength. You're like one of the Avengers. I mean, holy cow. I didn't know you're that strong. And then that night, you and I and some others went to a very lovely dinner at Catch 22 in Hilton Head. And this happened. This has never happened to me as well. I've never been asked to sign anything in a restaurant. However, you and I were asked to actually sign plates together.

And I didn't know, I was a little dumbfounded. There's mine. Yes, there is mine. And I just signed my name and then you immediately started ridiculing me and I immediately got cheapest. First off, the owner was super nice. He was honored to have us both come in there. And it was really, I mean, first off, obviously he has low expectations when you and I come in there and they want us to sign something to put on the wall. But regardless, the wonderful owner of Catch 22 was a great restaurant. He said the tradition is he likes people to sign plates that he hangs on the wall.

He gave me a plate and he gave you a plate. His name is Gary. He was a nice gentleman. I said, Gary, it was an honor to come into your restaurant. Thank you, Todd Lewis. Rex signs, Rex Hoggard. And I look at it, but I said, hey, man. Like he's Aaron Judge. Underneath Rex Hoggard, he went, Rex Hoggard, thank you.

Aaron Judge, Patrick Mahomes, Rex Hoggard. Everyone knows when you see the signature, that's exactly what it is. I panicked. I didn't handle that one well either. It was a bad two days for me in Hilton Head. Yeah, well, look, I mean, hey, I mean, we need, I mean, laugh at you. We've had some embarrassing moments. Were you just hunky-dory all week? Flawless.

flawless as ever. T. Lou, we certainly appreciate you having us, joining us on the Golf Channel Podcast with Rax and Lab. It probably will be the last time that you join us, but I want to get you out of here on a reasonable hour because I know a dive bar is just around the corner. You can do karaoke until your heart is content. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you down the road in a couple weeks.

All right, boys. Thank you. All right, Rex. And on the other side of the PGA Tour coin, not Justin Thomas prevailing for the first time in nearly three years, was Joel Damon bogeying his last three holes in Punta Cana to hand the title over to Garrick Higo. Is this one of the more brutal collapses you can remember, including a two-foot miss

on the 71st hole to drop into what was then a share of the lead. Yes, that's easy. Very, very yes. He finished bogey, bogey, bogey. He'd play those, that three hole stretch in the first three rounds and two under par. So it's not as though it had his number until the very end. And,

A little surprised. I mean, look, we all know a lot about Joel from Netflix. You and I know a lot about Joel from covering him on the PGA Tour. He wears his emotion on his sleeve. Last year at the RSM Classic, I think, was one of the more emotional interviews I did all year long with him battling just to make the cut to try to keep his tour card. And then Sunday, just doing whatever he could just to finish inside that top 125, knowing that his kind of career depends on this. And you're at a very precarious time in the professional game. It doesn't have a lot of room

to allow you to have these lapses. You don't have those safety nets maybe on the PGA tour that you have in the past. So I think everybody, if anyone knows the pressures that comes with something like that, it's going to be Joel. And it is difficult to watch him finish like that because he is going to feel that emotionally for a long time. I can just think of Johnny Miller with like a can of cheese whiz with his feet kicked up, squirting into his mouth and just saying pressure.

That shows that like, that is the perfect indication of what pressure can do to a player who's trying to close out his second win on the PGA tour. But I also think Rex, that this is an indication of why opposite field events still have meaning and why they still matter. Like give me these events where you're talking about career changing stakes and a two year exemption for a player, as you mentioned, who was, who was fighting tooth and nail just to make sure that he was going to be on the PGA tour in 2025. Give me those all day over some of these soulless,

PGA Tour events that you might find during the summer where it's still a full field allotment. These guys were teeing it up at Punta Cana. They didn't care about the purse. It was still reduced FedExCup points. They're all gunning for that two-year exemption to make sure they have jobs secured. I think that's certainly powerful. Also, shout out Gary Kegel. He's been through the abyss too, just as Joel Damon has over the past couple of years come out of it.

recently with swing coach Sean Foley. Credit to him for now being a two-time winner on the PGA Tour. All right, speaking of Punta Cana and a player who factored in at that tournament last year was Wesley Bryant, who has been suspended indefinitely, Rex, by the PGA Tour for participating in the Live YouTube duels with other creators and live golfers. Are you ready to take up your pitchfork and fight for Wesley Bryant's freedom?

No, I'm really not. Look, I was watching social media when this happened last week, and I'm sure I rolled my eyes just like a lot of people on social media were doing. But when you sit down and think it through, and I would suggest everyone kind of put themselves –

Put your PGA Tour hat on for a moment. And if they don't do this, and I know it sounds ridiculous given the fact that the PGA Tour holds pretty much the exact same events now. They did it at TPC Sawgrass. They did it last year at Eastlake where they're getting the creators involved. They're having a larger voice. This was a little bit different because the live players were involved and there was a purse. So I see where they're coming from. But if the tour doesn't do this,

You're essentially setting a precedent. And don't kid yourselves that the idea that there's going to be more legal challenges to whatever is going on right now in professional golf is not over just because of the framework agreement. And the PGA Tour essentially had to do this to protect themselves and keep this from becoming another legal issue like the one they had before the framework agreement.

It's a little confusing. The optics are not great because while Wesley Bryant got suspended for doing this, Grant Horvat, another creator, was posting on X slash Twitter that he has been extended a sponsor exemption into a PG tour event later this year. Now, Grant Horvat is not a PG tour member and he's free to do as he chooses. But I really did have a hard time caring about

this, if I'm being honest. This was going down a couple days after Roy McIlroy became the sixth player to capture the career Grand Slam. It feels like we were suddenly back into something that we should not be caring about. Wesley Bryan clearly knew that this was going to happen. He knew that it was a risk to play in this, and he did it anyway. And this is a player in Wesley Bryan who was one of the most vocal in the wake of the 2023 framework agreement in

And said he didn't have a lot of trust in the PGA Tour leadership. I think it's probably reasonable to say that this incident has probably given him even less so. He's running afoul, Rex. Let's see, Brian, is not of the unauthorized event provision, which is sort of how most players have been suspended who went to live.

but it's the media and the marketing provision that's part of the player handbook bylaws. So I think that's important to point out as well. It reminds me of that meme. I can't say it on this family friendly podcast, but it's the mess around and find out meme where it's like a linear relationship. Yes, this is just that as it relates to Wesley Bryant and the PGA Tour. He messed around and the PGA Tour was a little heavy handed.

It's punishment. I'll toss his fingers up. Please do go ahead. Well, and it's important to point out Wesley. Brian is a member. He has some sort of status, not great status, but that's kind of the difference between him and grant when it comes to this particular provision that grant, you're right. It doesn't have any PGA tour status at all. He's just getting a sponsor's exemption. And I talked to Wesley earlier this season, he was playing a little toy ponds on that sponsor exemption. And he talked about the idea that yes,

He doesn't want his PGA Tour career to end, but he also knows that with his brother, he has a huge, he has a bit of an empire that he's building on social media. So it's not as though he'd boxed himself into a corner like we just had this conversation about Joel Damon. I think Wesley is fine moving on to whatever his second career is.

OG creator. Best of luck to Wes and his brother George in the future as it relates to their competitive and their social presence. All right, let's get into listener comments slash questions. I love this one, Rex. This is just, I'm not sure if this is a criticism, this is a comment, this is commentary, but this is Rebus who said, this is the most old guy show there is. No wonder so many people flock to the down-to-earth YouTube golfers such as apparently Wesley Bryant. Define yourself.

So I'm not quite sure what he's referring to. I'm old, so I will own that. I certainly get where you're coming from. I wish he would have been a little bit or they would have been a little bit more specific about what made us old. I mean, there's a bunch of things we can do. Is it the grilling segments? Is it me talking about snapping my golf club last week at Hilton Head? Is it the boots on the ground segment? I would like some more specificity.

I mean, we've got B-roll. We've got custom graphics that are designed by Fred. We had T-Loo. We were implementing video clips. I mean, what more do you people want? We're doing the best we can with our little makeshift production. How about this one, Rex, from Paul Blaker, who says, OMG, I agree with Lav. Not sure why he's so surprised or downtrodden about that. I don't want signature events the weeks before or after major championships. Thank you, Paul.

You got ran off the rails on that one. You shouldn't double down like all of us. It happened on golf today. On Tuesday, you said it. I think Eamon Lynch and Joyce Savrikas immediately jumped on you. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, but if I could have, it would have been, of course, the guy who was taking the week off after the Masters, once the PGA Tour not to play the week after the Masters. And I think Eamon was the one that pointed out, you want them to get rid of eight events. Like you realize that's a big chunk. Eight weeks. Well, eight events.

That's a big chunk of the PGA Tour schedule. It's ridiculous. I think my argument in the podcast on Wednesday still stands that the players are going to come play Hilton Head even before it was a signature event, long before RBC took over. They just love going to the island. They love sort of feeling that difference between the pressure cooker that is Augusta and then getting to the island. Okay. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that that was probably one of my worst takes ever.

Thinking that they should take a week off before a major championship. I still think there's some benefits to do it afterward and having a signature event after a, a major championship, I think is just a mistake where it's, it's sort of overshadowing whatever happened in the major championships, overshadowing what is going to happen at the signature event. You're asking golf fans to pay attention essentially for 14 consecutive days. You would just invoke it. You just invested a lot of time and a lot of energy in paying attention to a major event.

signature events in the PGA Tour. There's only eight of them. They should stand at its own merit. They should be highlighted in the schedule and not sort of buried, overshadowed by a major championship. Yes, it was a bad take. Shoot or shoot. You go one for 13 from the field one night. You got to get back out there and keep firing. I know, Rex, you were off to New Orleans next week to cover the Zurich Classic. What

What are you most looking forward to, including a sit down potentially with Rory McIlroy on Wednesday? That sit down, as we know, Rory always seems to come back from a break after. Look, we know when we spoke to him at the Scottish Open last year after what happened at the U.S. Open in Pinehurst.

He had taken the time to sort of sit and reflect and really come up with some deep, thoughtful answers. And I think all of us really appreciate that. And I kind of expect the same thing now. He's had a week off since completing the career grand slam and winning his first Masters and finally putting on the green jacket. All of the burdens that he talked about on Sunday night, he's had a chance to sort of sit and see,

how important that is. He had a chance to go home to Northern Ireland and see his family and all of his friends. And I think he more so than any other golfer, I would argue he's going to put it in context better than any other golfer, probably in the history of the game. And then the food, man, the food, always the food. My dad was just there on a trip with his siblings. One of my favorite food towns in all the world. Roy McIlroy already has three victories on the PGA tour, including a major championship this year. He's he's trending Rex to have his best season ever.

And he turns 36 years old next month. I think still honoring his commitment to play with Shane Lowry this week in New Orleans is a very good sign that he's not going to all of a sudden be satiated by what happened at Augusta. I think he's more determined potentially than ever to sort of make good on the current form that he has. We sort of went viral last week on social media with projecting ahead to the single season super slam. I now nailed that. I think...

Look, I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying it's not potentially off the books. Look at the major championships and the way Roy McIlroy is playing. More on that on Wednesday. All right, that is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lab. You guys are the drill. NBCSports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates, including from Rex in New Orleans. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. We'll talk to you guys Wednesday afternoon.

Spring is in full bloom at The Home Depot. So what are you working on? If you're digging into your garden, come into The Home Depot's Garden Center, where we can help you pick out the best plants for your space. Then make sure you give your plants the proper soil and support they need to thrive, like Miracle-Gro 25-quart potting mix on special buy two bags for only $15. It's formulated to help your plants grow and keep them fed for up to six months. Shop spring savings happening now at The Home Depot.

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a Black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council.