Join Smylie Kaufman and Charlie Hulme as they recap the PGA TOUR's lone event in Japan, the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Smylie and Charlie recap the excellent weeks that both Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler had in finishing top five, and what it means for their 2025 campaign on TOUR. Smylie dives deep on two key pieces of equipment for Rickie, explaining the Mini Driver trend we've seen the past year on TOUR. SK and CH wrap the episode with a letter sent from the Player Advisory Council explaining some big changes on the way in 2026 that could see a significant reduction in PGA TOUR cards.
The Smylie Show
Breaking Down Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler's Performance At The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP
Join Smylie Kaufman and Charlie Hulme as they recap the PGA TOUR's lone event in Japan, the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Smylie and Charlie recap the excellent weeks that both Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler had in finishing top five, and what it means for their 2025 campaign on TOUR.
- Duration:
- 1h 26m
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
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Thanks, Smiley Kauffman, for 61. Wow. I'm Smiley Kauffman, and this is The Smiley Show. Appreciate everyone joining us. Once again, a late night, Sunday night live show edition of The Smiley Show. I'm Charlie Hume. He's Smiley Kauffman, fresh back from a little beach refresher trip. Love to dig into that a little bit. As we always do, we're going to let some people filter in, hang out, populate the chat, things like that, so we can take questions. Wow, look at this. We've got about 10 comments already. This is amazing. We were rocking a roll this week, but Smiley, how are we feeling post-beach trip? I don't think I saw a cloud the entire time I was there. It was just perfect. The best time to go to the beach is in May and October, and we had a perfect fall beach trip that was terrific, and got back this evening just in time to order some DoorDash, and then watched Jay and Daniel throw a Hail Mary touchdown. It was so sick. Yes, that was the good side of LSU football this week. The rough side. Thank you for listening, thank you for listening. I've thought some prayers to you. Listen, Carolina football won the oldest rivalry in the south, back on the CW again this week, so big big week for us in our quest to make the Duke's male bull as we send off Mac Brown. We're definitely proud of you guys this year. I mean, maybe not. I'm pretty down on that one. After that loss of A&M, it was a tough scene. It was a game in which, I'll tell you what, that other quarterback they had in there, Wigman or whatever his name was. Wigman? They should have kept him in there because I liked what I saw from that guy. I would have loved to have seen four quarters of what that guy could have done, because the 99 Madden player they put in a quarterback didn't like anything that he was bringing to the table. That was very confusing as to why he's not playing. It seemed like he was perfect for what A&M was trying to do in offense, and Wigman was just everything about that. It's like we've never seen a running quarterback before. It just had no clue what to do. It was a classic case of everything's going swimmingly and around, and all of a sudden, the wind from a storm comes up. You don't really have it through the first nine holes, but then the wind comes up, storms brewing, or maybe even nightfall. Then you just start forgetting how to be a person, a human being, and that we had 11 of those. All of them forgot how to be a person on the field, on defense, and then we had a quarterback that was seeing more ghosts than what free form was showing on TV right now. That was sick, sick, free form shout out. Love that. Yeah, you had a great tweet of just Brian Kelly squatting on the sideline, looking at the scoreboard. It's like when you, when you have to make a trip back to the pro shop after the first nine holes, we've all been there squatting down, looking in our bag. Swear it kind of packed more golf balls, and I'm out already. Here's something I was thinking about in the way home is I've always like wanted to be friends with the head football coach at LSU, and this one's a golf fan. I know Brian Kelly's a golf guy, but I also want to be critical of the LSU football coach. I don't want to become like friends with the coach because I want to be critical. It's kind of like, I'm sure there's plenty of relationships right like that, where people just feel like they don't need to be friends in order to just fire off those tweets. I feel like I'm in need sometimes of just firing off some hot tweets during a football game. You know, it's so interesting because I was thinking about this and just in the world's we occupy where I feel like there are definitely relationships more for you than for me, but still from a show perspective that we kind of want to protect in the golf world. So you don't just want to go around to spraying on everybody. Obviously, we're going to give our honest opinions on the show. We're not going to hold back, but there are certain things where you think about the way you want to say it because you want to kind of protect relationships, whereas they're like in the college football world, like I don't think any of these guys were beholden to any sort of standard there. So I was watching this game last night and I was trying to decide in my mind, like which individual do I want to lose more? Brian Kelly or number five on Texas A&M? I couldn't make the call. I really could not make the call. There was a lot of hot takes about number five for shooter. He wasn't getting a sportsmanship award after that game, a medal for his good work during that game, but hey, I mean, yeah, he played with a lot of toughness, a lot of grit. But man, it was once that train started rolling, it was never stopping. The call of station is like that is to get the towels. They get the audio. Don't give me started about that. That's that that's cool. That stadium. There are here. Let's get an A&M guy. Not an A&M guy. I don't get it. I don't get it. It's a cult. It's a cult. I the one thing I'll give them credit for is like, I don't I don't think I would ever do anything at midnight past the age of 24 with a bunch of people in a stadium the midnight. Yeah, I can't fathom doing something like that to to stay out to do that. So like to get that many people that invested into doing weird cheers, like I just I don't get the that part of it. The all the stuff that nobody understands and A&M people are like, no, it's cool. Trust me. Like it's it's that type of frat party that you show up like, trust me, these guys are these are the cool kids. And I just I don't know. I have A&M friends, not many, but I do have them. Are there any A&M guys on tour? I was just trying to wreck my brain like are we are we roasting any A&M guys to play on. I think Ryan Palmer, I love our RP. He's he's great. There's there's some other guys that are A&M fans. I think like camera camera champ. Oh, that's right. That's correct. Okay, so there are a few. I don't take him to be like some hardcore A&M guy though. Maybe he is. I don't know. I feel like it's hard to not be a hardcore A&M guy if you went to A&M unless you just really was. Yeah, the like where like your ring and stuff. Yeah, that's a thing. It's that look, they love it down there. I'll say that I'll say just to protect you from like continuing to roast A&M people that this was a very unique sports watching weekend because we watched Cali. What was that? I guess it was Friday nights. There wasn't, there was a few cultural ball games on, but did some cultural ball Friday night and then rolled into game one of the World Series, Freddy Freeman, extra innings, walk off Grand Slam, shades of Kirk Gibson was one of the sickest. We're watching it live. Yes, watching it live. Hold the bat up for you. Fran and I passed out and I, I, I, I fell asleep on purpose with my glasses on to keep the TV on because I knew there was a, if there was a chance that I woke up to the volume of something happening and it wasn't me that woke up, it was Fran that woke up and said, "Who won?" And so I already had my glasses on ready to go and I see Freddy Freeman getting interviewed and it's his Dodgers win 1-0 or excuse me, they were all 1-0 in the series. I'm like, "Ah, Dodgers won Fran. Great. Turn off the TV. Go to bed." Next day, I was like, "Oh, shoot. He had a home run. Oh, wait. It was a Grand Slam. Oh, wait. They were down 3-2 and there was two outs." All of these things, I'm like, "Wow. I really did miss a, a, an incredible, incredible moment." But the, as you know, the, the, the RM, RM cycle is, is just as important to get that started. I, I was stunned. I was up that late. I think I figured out that like my one late night every week is Friday because like I tried to play golf with the boys that I saved the weekend for the family. I tried to play golf with the boys that day, come back, check in, do bedtime, do everything I need to do with the fam, get Amanda to bed. And then I'm like, all right, I'm going to go out, hang for a little bit. So that's why I was up late watching sports. It probably, I probably would have missed it any other night of the week. But that, and then flip the channel right over to golf channel and all of a sudden walking, watching golf in Japan, which I think is, is an appropriate segue here because these- Well, hold on. Okay. All right. Breck Cherry. I just commented. It's not that I just got to get off my chest before we get into golf. All he said was smiley, please give us the honest mental state with Brian Kelly. And so, I think I'm just going to give it to you. Okay, here we go. I love it. Unfiltered comments. Nothing good happens after 9 p.m. So, Jayden Daniels, Malik Neighbors, and Brian Thomas. We're on a football team last year. That football team lost three games. If you've seen these three football players in the National Football League, you could argue that they're one of the best players at their positions. Maybe Brian Thomas, I mean, the yards are there. It's- How do you lose three games with those three types of dudes? We couldn't be stopped last year, but it was the terrible hires right off the get-go, right when he got to LSU with Matt House. He owes apology to everybody. So, it was poor hires on the defensive side of the ball. Now, last year, first off, we couldn't run the ball last year. The only run game that we had was Jayden Daniels. So, two years around now, we cannot run the football. And Garrett and Musmires forced to have to throw the ball. He threw the ball 50 times, 50 percent in completion rate. And we just refused to put games away. Like, just have no idea how to put games away. It's the USC game was agonizing. Last night at the A&M game, we should have been up 27 to 7. And now, if they put that guy in, he may have came back and won that game just because I have incredible he was. But, with all that being said, I just think back to the LSU Tennessee game. I think about us losing both home openers to Florida State two years in a row and then losing to USC this year. We just, I don't know what we do in the off season, but we just cannot figure it out. Like, we don't know who our best players are. It's like this, we're not putting the best guys on the field and we can't figure it out. And it's so frustrating because it seems so obvious to me as a fan, it took a year and a half, two years to get special teams, right? We couldn't do anything on special teams of first year, terrible defensive hires and tough special teams seen last night as well. And then last night, like, we just, our special teams were a nightmare. So, listen, Edwards Ron, he won an actual championship at LSU. And that's where I'm, I draw the line here and if like, okay, we've had talent, like Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, and Jamar Chase. And then you go, Jane Daniels, Malik neighbors, Brian Thomas. It's like, what gives? How does one team go undefeated and one team lose three games? And honestly, we should have potentially lost more games that last year. It was because of Jane Daniels comebacks. And that's the bottom line. We could have been a five loss team last year, and that's frustrating when you look at the talent that we've been able to put out in the league. So there's a comment here from the scratch golf show comparing some of the talent that Ohio states have that winning. I would argue that LSU is the, is the best school of all time of doing less with more. And then like Carolina does like their JV version of LSU doing less of the more. I mean, at least LSU's won some national championships. And you had Joe Burrow there in that, and that whole scene there. Let us use one stuff in the past, but it does feel like what you're saying is true. Every coach is won a national championship. Like the last three coaches we've had. It's Nick Saban, Les Smiles, Ed Orgeron, and Brian Kelly is the next dude. It's like, I mean, is he going to ever get over, like, is he, is he a great football coach? We, right now, I think a Notre Dame would fame would tell you is like, Hey, this is exactly what you should have expected Brian Kelly experience. And so I don't know where I stand right now on it. It's, it's hard. It's, it's, and it's also like, I'm just not a fan of the way you coach some of the kids. It's like, there's just not really, there's not a ton of, I don't know what the right word is for it. And shoot, he's forgotten more about football than I'll ever know, but there's a lot of times where the vibes just aren't good on those sidelines. And there, and then you look around, you see kind of like somebody's newcomers, like what Kurt Signetty's doing in Indiana, and the way he's kind of instilled a culture like in the span of one season. And you just wonder what a guy like that could do in a bigger program like an LSU. Who knows? The culture thing is not the problem to me. It's, it's, it's the X's and O's sometimes and just, just makes me angry. And then during the game, like, I, I don't, I love Brian Kelly off of the field, but on the field, I don't like how he yells, like the entire game at like the people in his ear, the people on the field, the players, like to me, it's, there's no balance in like, of aggressiveness and just, and being able to like show emotion. He's, he makes him, it makes me, like for me, hard to root for him on the field because he looks like a tomato every game, just red face yelling so mad. And I'm mad too. But like the same time, there's, there's a way of balancing like not getting in every player's face and yelling at them because like they know they screwed up. It's, but it, it's more about can you get these guys into better situations. I feel like, but I don't know. Well, that was our exciting. That was, it was a good rant. I'm glad we, we needed that out. I'm glad you got it off your chest. We've got some, some comments popping off your smiley that are going to kind of take us into the golf this week. Gary talking about how cool it was. Same thing we were talking about. Zozo rolling right out of the World Series to JT and Ricky late night, West Coast prime time could not possibly agree more. And so let's, let's get right to it, buddy, because these are your guys. The spring breakers, Ricky and JT playing well this week. I mean, we probably got to start at the top of the leaderboard. Nigo Echeverio once his second PJ tour event, not like a young guy, you know, but, but it's sort of a late bloomer. 30 years old, played Arkansas, one up at Puerto Rico in 2023 and then wins here in the fall in 2024. So just impressions of what Niko did to hold off a lot of big names, the top of that leaderboard. Yeah, let's start with Niko. Yeah, awesome win, right? I don't think anybody saw it coming. If you had told me he won the Zozo championship, I would have been absolutely shocked. There's nothing that, that would have predicted him winning this week. You know, the golf course from what I saw, it was a course in which he had to be very accurate off the tee. There was some rough off the fairway, narrow fairways, you know, it was soft, which I think maybe was a benefit to him. I'm not sure. But when I looked at his stats, I had an opportunity to watch the fourth round just kept up with scores, watch highlights, the first three rounds. And what Niko was able to do, and you see this a lot of weeks on the PJ tour, it's the guy who has the really hot round with their putter, the first round that is able to get off to a nice start to get themselves on top of the leaderboard. Niko was able to do that with an incredibly hot putter, the first round. And if you look at his stats in a hole, just big picture of like what he does, what type of player he is, he's the most like really average player across the board. Like he's not bad at anything, but he's not necessarily graded anything. So when you try to predict a player like this winning, I think it's like dang near impossible, because when you don't necessarily excel at a superstar level at any really facet of the game, it makes it, you know, that's why I was saying with Niko, him winning this week was a surprise, because I don't know what he's good at. And it's not that he's not bad at anything. It's just, I think I'm still learning about his game. And I think he's still improving in each facet. But do we go look at his little chart? It's like, it's there's, there's nothing below or above. It's the most wild stats chart I've ever seen. But the putting was insanely good, the first round. It was first and putting gain like X amount of strokes, much more than everybody else. And then in round two, and this is what carried him the rest of the week, but he had a career day with his irons in the second round. So I think when you look at how did he get in position going into the weekend, hot putter first round, incredible iron played the second round. And then rounds three and four, he was already in a great spot and was just solid across the board. He had some really nice iron shots, played the part three as well. But when you talk about Niko in his year last year, Charlie, and this is what nobody can understand as a professional golfer being one is his year winning in Puerto Rico. You know, you're, you're in 300 points. It's an opposite field event. He played 31 times last year, and he missed 23 cuts and a one point he missed 12 cuts in a row. So with that being said, it's you got to give a man credit because it's, it ain't easy. When you, when you have the highs of winning on the PGA, PGA tour like he did last year, and then majority of lows where you're, you know, booking a flight on Friday or Saturday, going to the next week, trying it all over again. It's not easy, but he was able to make himself do well enough to where he made some cuts at the end of the year to stay inside the top 125, which got him to this year. He's improved. He only missed 12 cuts this year. So he cut that number in half. But really, the only top 10 that he had this year was at the Zurich. And that's playing with another guy. So this wind came out of nowhere. It was one where I thought Justin was probably going to chase him down, but hey, you got to give credit to Nico, man. It's winning is not easy. And, and he, he gritted it out. I think grit would be the way to just to define that win. It's such an interesting existence to live as a PGA tour pro where you have a two-year exemption from your win, but it's all, it's almost a similar place that Ricky's in. We're going to talk about Ricky here in a second. That's a good point. He won a rocket mortgage show. He's good through, through the next season, but he's also in that kind of, that, that ground where you're, you're, of course, 51 and beyond or even, you know, 75 and beyond. And you're kind of saying, hey, I'd like to make, make up a little bit of ground, you know, maybe work my way into that 51 through 60 range for the next 10, but at least kind of move safely inside that top 125 line. That's what Nico Echeveria did this week. He, he entered the week 113th and is projected to move up to 65th and is to fill in a little bit of additional detail on what you're talking about. That first round gained 4.32 strokes, putting unbelievably good round on the green. And then in that second round, stroke screen approach gained 4.42 strokes with his, with his iron game. So just two really, really solid parts of his game on those days and of course played well the rest of the tournament. As it turns out, his strongest that category was approached for the, for the week, was plus 2.25, but those two days to your point really propelled him. And I believe it was back to back 64. So, you know, that just kind of put you in a good spot heading into the weekend. You know, it was a fun final group to watch too, because when, when I called it, I think I made it to the 12 hole and then woke up every hour to try to refresh to see if JT won. And I went to bed thinking that it was going to be a Max Gray's room in Justin Thomas battle. I just thought that what I was seeing, it seemed like he was kind of grinding his way, talking about Nico, felt like he was going to have one or two more bogeys in there to kind of play his way out. So was surprised to see him when huge congrats to him. But I thought the golf course to me was, first off, you mentioned to me to this, you mentioned this to me talking about the double greens and every hole. When they do those flyovers and they would show the other green too. It's the most bizarre thing in the world. We remind me why there's a second green. I believe it's an agronomy thing. Like I believe it's it's a and this is where I actually have a lack of knowledge on what that that climate is there. But I believe it's either one of two things. It's either a, you know, so here in North Carolina is obviously a time of the year where Bermuda is going to be the better performing grass and there's a slender part of fall and spring where bent is going to be the better performing grass. I'm actually not sure what grass they have in each of these greens. But that is my assumption that they have one for a cooler part of the year and one for a warmer part of the year. See, I don't know about that. I I'm going to fact check you on that. That seems like that would be too smart. Like that that would make too much sense, right? So do you think it's and this is actually this could be a very interesting cultural thing. Like do you think it's on your first guess just that they want to have two radically different pin positions they can change on a day to day basis both greens with the same turf grass on them? Well, the way I I figured was having that second green was maybe first off having maybe another option of how a whole could play. So you have a strategy deal with having an extra green, but also having another green allows you to keep the greens more fresh with less traffic on it. That's okay a way in which you can keep the greens more pure. So that was what I was thinking. But the warm grass, cool grass thing, I'm going to go check this out because I just went to the PGA to her media portal in hopes that I could pull like the greenskeeper. They have like a fact sheet usually for every week. Oh, they're not one listed like all the time. I won't listen for the zozo. And maybe that's just a product of. Okay, I'm not going to be able to find it then. I can't I can't get the yeah, I mean, it's something we're going to have to dig in. We're going to roll with that whatever. I'm in. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, if you guys know Charlie, Gary says Charlie's correct and they only use two greens on one hole this week. That he's correct. I'm going to put his comment on Gary. Are you able to let us know what what the grasses were? Because I just don't know what grasses would be deemed cool and warm weather grasses. If you if someone can figure out what the grass types were at, and I hope I'm going to say this correctly, a courtier Gulf Nerishino. If someone can figure out what the grasses are for each of those greens and they can put it in the chat, I promise you I will put that comment up here on the stream. So help us out. It's kind of cool. Are you are you the one putting these comments up? I am one putting these comments up and we have like a rolling leaderboard. Did we do you did this to, huh? You're ready? Gary's got an update. Okay. All right. I think I think you and Gary are definitely definitely just in Kahoot's here when it comes to being on the same team. Just a fact checker that doesn't fact check. I'm loving the input here from Gary here. Look at this. And I'm going to refresh leaderboard here. I'm going to flip over to some some zozo and notable some big names in the field this week because the guys we got to talk to the guys we promise we talk about are two-year buddies, JT and Ricky Fowler. And so to me, I mean, I think there are a lot of different directions you could take this. But to me, the story for each of these guys is, I mean, for JT, you know, his, I think just he's just getting so close. And I think it's I like I thought the putting towards the end of the year was really coming on strong. This is another week where a lot of people could limit the fact that he didn't get it done. But I think the fact that he's back in contention at a high leverage tournament like this, it reminds me a lot of honestly a conversation we had with, I mean, Kolm or Akawa talked about the momentum that this tournament win gave him going to this last year where he played phenomenally well and, you know, was hard done to not win a PGA tournament this year, even though he actually did win at Eastlake, but just the starting strokes, you know, he didn't actually win the event. So I thought I think that piece for him and I think for Ricky, Ricky even talked about this and we had him on the show after his rocket mortgage win where he, you know, had a good result, the zozo in 2022 and started to gain some confidence at that point that he rolled into 2023, almost wins the US Open and wins a rocket mortgage. And so this week, seeing him, he was second in the field only to Max Grayserman and Stroke's game putting with that new lab putter that he's got in the bag. And everyone thinks back to 2023 was the switch to the jailbird that kind of got him rolling a little bit, gave him some momentum. Another putter switch this week in the last couple of weeks. And I think that to me is I'm just really curious to hear what you thought and saw from these two guys this week and the way you think that's going to translate going into next year. Make us your game day headquarters this football season. Stomp by the new ESPN bet at your nearest Penn Play destination. Watch the best games on our giant screen TVs. Throw back a few of your favorite ice cold pints with friends, tackle the area's best game day food. Get in the game with deals, drawings, rewards and more. To find a Penn Play destination near you, visit penplay.com. Score big this football season at your Penn Play game day headquarters. Sponsored by ESPN bet. Must be 21 or over gambling problem. Call 1-800. Tito's handmade vodka had been mixed with its fair share of cocktails. But one night, a chilled glass topped with lime and cranberry would change everything this bottle knew about happy hour from the producers of America's favorite vodka. It turns out the cocktail you've been waiting for was right there the whole time. The Tito's Rom Cosmo. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sip with Tito's. Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito'svodka.com. 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof crafted to be favored responsibly. Well, let's start first with Ricky. It wasn't a great year for him. It was not a good year at all. He worked his tail off and sometimes when you're in a rut and you can't figure out, it seemed like to me never had rounds in which he was able to make enough birdies. Just didn't have enough offense. But for Ricky, to me, anytime he's playing, well, it all starts his game, honestly. If he's putting it well, it just seems like it opens up so much. But the driver too, combining off of the tee and then the putter, I think his iron game just naturally just gets better because I think he gets a little bit more in tune with shots that he's going to be playing into the greens, whether it's a difficult par three, just not biting off too much on a shot and realizing what a good score is that day. For Rick, this whole fault to me has been that. I think he's been able to drive it better. The putter, like you mentioned, has been very improved. You've got to give him credit for making a change and a statistic in which, dude, this guy was a top 10 putter over the last decade. That's how good he's been. But in his down years, I think the driver and the putter both have been off at the same time. And when he's come back, it seems like the putter is the first thing that wakes up the rest of his game. And for whatever reason, that's what I've noted this fall to me is that, yes, every part of his game is getting better, but he's putting it in play more often. I think he's hitting a couple more fairways around. He's making a couple more of those putts inside a 10 feet. And as somebody that's played on tour and knows what it's like to be right around playing good golf, it's cleaning up the simple stuff and being good at what you're good at. And I think Ricky's a time away from the game after missing out on the playoffs. I think that's a long time to go from, you know, it was his last event, I think was, shoot, I could tell you here, right? It was the open championship in July and his next start was in October. So he had a lot of time, obviously him and Allison welcomed Nelly into the world. But that amount of time and not touching a club, I think is good for the mind and just reminding yourself, it's like, all right, what was good golf like? What do I need to do? What's what rat race am I part of right now where I'm just spinning the cycle on the hamster wheel and getting away from it sometimes is so clutch. And I think it was good timing for him because the putter is, you know, Ricky's always put this type of role in the golf ball when you've played with them. It's hugging the round. And when you get him a putter like this, where a lot of people have, you know, made the switch and they just started making everything look out because we saw it with the Gerald Bird and now the lab. I mean, a tinkerer, sicko tinker over here. I think I need to add another one in my collection, man. I need to figure out I've got the I have the lab broomstick, but I think I need the lab spaceship satellite, you know, disc, whatever he has. And you think I add that to the to the to the rotation here in the office. Another club he's got in the bag of late, little mini driver, 13 and a half degree mini driver. I know you we kind of said about that a little bit. Let's get into that, right? Like I think a lot of people like the what's in the bag stuff. Why don't you run through the top of it? Just I know you have it. You send me a text. I did, you know, I'll pull it right here because I basically we were kind of trying to track down some stuff for for both JT and Rick. And this was as of October on the the Ricky Fowler tracker Twitter account. And so this was this was updated as of October 1st. And this is just top of the bag. So he still has that Cobra dark speed low spin model. The I think it's a nine degree driver. They maybe he has adjusted up to 10 degrees. But it's that that that tailor made burner 13 and a half degree mini driver that according to this tweet, he has dialed down to 12 and 3/4 degrees that he's got in the bag. In addition to his five wood, a 17 and a half degree Cobra limited. He's always been something like he's always been a good five wood player. Yeah, it's the next call before. You know, it only shows his woods on the suite I have. So I don't have a full what's in the bag. But I just thought, I mean, a lot of guys, it seems to me that's the kind of in the same way that the that the jailbird was the trend last year. It's like, you see a lot of guys go to this mini driver, take them the three wood out. And it feels like a good option. I mean, these guys are obviously skilled enough to hit it off the deck when they need to in the fairway. But they're so rarely doing that given their link. They're having a sort of an off speed pitch off the tee seems to be a really, really smart play. Well, when I think about these clubs, like the mini driver, and how you're able to use it in play. So the biggest issue now for for players is that the three would goes too far. And that the three would in the driver basically morph into the same club. So you see a lot of guys that don't even carry three woods. Their next club goes from driver to a four wood or a five wood, because these three woods just they're just too hot. So why then would a player put in something that's even hotter, you know, a two, a two wood, something with less loft. The reason why I think is a driver in the way these clubs are built now, there's it's so difficult to be able to control trajectory and be able to control shot shapes. There's very few players in the world that are able from my eyes, from what I watch week to week, that are able to change trajectories with the driver and also change curves both directions. Rory McRoyes is one of the few guys that I can see that can bring the driver up during the bring the driver down and then hit it both ways. He's the best driver of the golf ball in the world. And I would say that the mini driver, I've never hit it, but I know what it looks like. I've set it in my hands. And from what I can tell, it's a club that's obviously going to fly, you know, that to 60 to 280, depending on how short or long of a player you are. But I think what it allows you to do, it's first off, I think many guys that are nervous off of a tee and need to find a fairway with a driver, they're going to tee it down. So when you go to that smaller head and you tee this mini driver down, what it allows you to do is it allows you to not get underneath drivers. It allows you to stay on top of it. So when it comes to hitting fairways and being accurate, when guys get really off for the most part, they get underneath and their arms aren't match up with their pivot. There's a stall. And then a lot of times there's just, you know, either, either gets flipped or it doesn't get flipped and you miss the center of the face. With this club, you can swing it probably more like an iron and have to swing less up on it, because it's giving you just a little bit of that loft with that 12 and a half. And it's not going to come out flat and low. It's going to be something that's, you're not going to be hitting into par fives or you're not going to be hitting it into par three, because it's too long. But it's, it's a way in which you can go and swing like you're swinging it on the range. So a range swing. And it comes out the right ball fight. And you can probably change trajectories and change shot shape a little bit with it. That's truly fascinating stuff, smiley. For all the golfs that goes out there, all the, all the, the, the, the amateur is out there that are trying to get tour level insight on what, you know, everyone wants to buy the fanciest new tech, but like to actually hear you explain the way your swing can change, the way your trajectory can change, you know, what you're trying to do that, that can maybe mirror a swing, you're more comfortable with an iron with it, you know, but using a driver head or something similar to it. Really interesting stuff. Also, I got it. My guy Gary back in the comments saying the lab Adam Scott head is releasing next month. So I'm going to, if anyone lab is out there listening to, they said 922 p.m. I'm always here to test. What other thing to probably comes to that mini driver just, I don't know if it's. For the most part, they're, that's the club that they'll put in their bag to be able to turn it over right to left. And a lot of times players are more concerned about losing shots to the left with their three wood. And so that's another thing, right? Like you have a mini driver now that you can try to take left out of play in a three wood for the most part. If you do, you know, it's a dog left hole like Bay Hill at number six, for example. And if you have the mini driver out, you know, you just have that extra couple yards because of the loft and then the three wood will typically have that extra right to left in it. So it's basically what it's doing. It's given you that second shot for a driver without having to manipulate anything. Because when I played my best on tour, I had two shots with my driver. I had a teadown version and I had a teadup version. There were two different golf swings. Now you don't, you have an option to put another club in your bag and you don't have to change what you want to do with your driver. You can build that driver into being a long weapon. And then you have that, you know, the utility or basically it's a, you can almost call it a utility club or something that would just be a, you know, you use a couple of times around, but you know, you can build it for these specific shots. It's fascinating. It's really, really cool stuff. And I think I'm about to buy a mini driver. I really, I've been doing it for a while. I think I got to get a mini driver. You're talking me into it. The other part of the conversation that we kind of teed up here, JT, Brett Cherry asking, you know, was this a, I don't want to say a one off, but did JT shot, shape or I fit this course better than others? Or are we really looking at a trend line for him? He's going to carry into next season. I don't know. What do you, like just when you saw that golf course, in my mind, I didn't see it as like a perfect JT fit with the dog legs. But every time on Sunday, he obviously struck it incredibly well. He just putted. He was 66 and putting in fourth when we saw BJ to where post the, the video of him missing all those spots. But dude, he was stepping up a driver on these dog like holes and, and just hitting these perfect seeds right down the middle. Like these balls weren't even landing in the rough. So he's obviously comfortable with this golf swing. And if it weren't for the majors, I think we'd be talking more about, man, how, how, how well JT's playing and how close he really is. But, you know, the putters still the, the bug will be right. The putters, the putter. And it's actually, and this is again, you know, looking at just sort of trends and paying attention to what he's doing, not, not, you know, because I feel like we fall victim to that, especially as, as dads with kids and things going on. I mean, you're working a lot of these events, but it's tough to kind of watch the full coverage of these golf tournaments. And so oftentimes we get to the end and we're trying to consume sort of a synthesized set of data and draw conclusions from that. And too often I think how a guy actually played gets lost in that sauce, so to speak. And so JT, I saw him putt really well towards the end of the summer, you know, around or two. And then we'll kind of get off the tracks toward, you know, toward the end of the tournament. And then what was a trending towards a good putting performance gets lost in the sort of story, the full thing. And that was the same this week. He had three positive putting rounds, and then loses close to two strokes putting on on Sunday and loses the tournament by a shot. And I think for him, this was the same song we were singing last year with Karl Morikawa, Zozo, it was like, he's been one of the best ball strikers on earth. You know, he had one little off year after he won a couple majors, but got it fixed. And it was just really the putting he had to figure out. And then he gets with Stephen Sweeney, he gets in a more comfortable place. He goes out and plays as good as you can play this last year without taking home a trophy. And I think that's going to carry it next year as well. I think we're in a very similar place with JT now. And I'm not saying he has to go out and find. I'm not saying, you know, he has to go work with someone specific. He has all that figured out in his camp. But I think he's getting so close on the putting. And if you can just get to a comfortable place, I think we could see him have a year just like Colin in 2025, which is to say a top 10 top five player on tour this next year, because it's just figuring out that one thing. Oh, I think you're going to see it. And I've been saying this for a while now about JT for next year. I just think when you miss one of these teams and don't get picked, first off, that's, that's almost like the motivation that you needed as a player to be like, you know what, I need to look myself in the mirror, right? And this is, I think this is what Justin did this offseason from what I have seen, how much work he has put in this fall. I mean, I, I just, I don't think people realize how hard these guys work and how hard a guy like Justin works to want to get back to want to be, you know, what to being one of the best players in the world. I think he's motivated by a multitude of things. I think he knows he can still be a top 10 player in the world. I think he knows that he should be an automatic qualifier on points every year for these, these cup teams. But I also think that, you know, I think the guys that he's motivated by, right? Like, I think Scotty Sheffer, what he's done, for instance, off the tee this year, just saying that, Hey, you know, Scotty Sheffer was a really great ball striker, but he said this on our podcast when I was at his house. And he said, you know, one of the things that people don't realize about Scotty is how, how long he hits it, but how straight and accurate he is off the tee. So if, if JT, what he needs is to find a couple more fairways around, he's always had the speed, but it's the one miss that comes out that, that just doesn't make sense. And it's like, where did that come from? That's, that's the shot he needs to eliminate, but also then find a couple more fairways around. And then his iron games, dude, that's, that's what he's, that's his bread and butter. So I think he's going to have a huge bounce back year this year. And, you know, I, I just he talks about putting much, and I'm not asking you to share anything you're not comfortable sharing in the space, but do you have, I remember on the podcast talking about Scotty off the tee, you know, you know, where his headspace is being one of the best on the planet striking the ball. Do you have any conversations with him about putting? Yeah, no, I've, I've talked to him a bit this year, just about his putting and nothing other than just, you know, how's it going? How's it feel? What's it look like? And I know he started working with Marcus Potter. I'm not sure if he's still working with him or not. I assume they are, but if I'm, you know, I just, I know just enough to, to see that I think what Justin was, was wanting to find and, and, and a teacher is somebody that can make sure that technically everything's right and then just try to help him improve and just make him feel comfortable because you could see he's been fighting his setup. He's been fighting just getting comfortable over the golf ball, which then for anybody that's ever putted poorly, when you're thinking and your eyes are very active, it's hard to be a good putter because he was all your feel that touch of, of just what you need inside of just where it's going into the hole, how hard to hit it when you're thinking about how, how to do all those things. And you throw in two or you know, when you're, as that are breaking three feet, that's, that's touch and feel and, and it's, it's dangerous and possible to make putts when you're, when you're thinking about how it, how to start it on mine. And I think he's been through a period of that in his career. Now I think he's on the way outside of that because if you saw the strokes, you know, over the last year, you could see that he's, that he's rapidly improving the stroke and it's just a couple of those rounds like the Open Championship this year where everything was going in. And it's like this, that 30 footer that's got to show up in two the week before that, he's just had these rounds where he's making everything. You're like, that's what he needs. So more rounds like that. I know he's probably kicking himself for not making one or two extra pots on Sunday, but I think there's so much, so much in front of Justin this year. I, I really do think that, you know, when I look ahead at the major calendar that a place like Oakmont just seems like that would be a really nice fit for him. Quail Hollow going back to where he won the PGA championship. And then the Open at Royal Port Rush, like that's a golf course that I know he really likes. I think this major season should set up better maybe than last major season. And dude, he was a major, great major player for a long time. So I, I think he needs to get back into knowing, hey, I could do this. I can play majors. This is what I'm built for. And I think he's going to get back to more of that attitude, that swagger, that, that he kind of can carry himself with of kind of Tiger like. Well, it's, it's good to see both J.T. and Ricky near the top of that leaderboard. And I'm sure you're seeing a few down here scrolling that are worth talking about. I think maybe smiley as where we are in this episode. I'd love to have a fuller discussion about, you know, a max home, especially on the heels of a really great conversation we had with Keith Stewart this past week of Read The Line. If you, if you liked to bet golf and you want some insight on process, go back to our YouTube and watch that episode with Keith Stewart. It was so good. I thought it was just phenomenal hearing how detail oriented he is and the way he goes about avoiding the pitfalls and sucker odds, a sucker. You know, the odds are like sucker pins. I thought it was really, really cool. But I thought it was interesting the way he wrapped that episode of the guys, he has his eyes on and, and looking at, you know, like a max home with this week, where it wasn't terrible off the tee, which has been the Achilles heel for him, you know, this, the better part of this year. But it wasn't like, you know, near the top of the field in the event where it really, he could have showed you something. So I don't know if you have passing thoughts on Max here, if you want to kind of shift over to some stuff that you and I were talking about before the show with regard to tour card, changing in tour cards. It's one of six. Yeah, I definitely want to get into that. And the other event I want to talk about just very briefly is give a shout out to Ben on for the driver. Yes. That he hit. I love that. Tom came almost when the golf tournament. So shout out to Tom has been on the show. We definitely want to get Ben on at some point, but that was pretty cool winning the DP World Tour. And again, I know this is a Korean tour event, but I, I, there's something about the DP World Tour. I just can't get it out of my brain in the fall. Like I, I think the PJ tour needs to find a way. It's, they're already in business with the DP World Tour. Yes. If we get to a schedule, which I know we're about to get into a pretty grand discussion on PJ Tour playing criteria, but a grander's conversation about how it all fits in the grand scheme of the world in golf. And what you actually talked about right before we got onto this, talking about getting the cosplay. That's good because I want to hit that before we get over to this larger discussion about Camilo. I'm quickly going to throw up. You had another Gary comment. Thank you for the shout out on tobacco. The reason I'm doing that is simply because Ben on his driver off the deck. Almost as good as smiley, smiley confidence driver off the deck. There. That was a lot of fun. But to your point, yeah, there were comments made. I thought it was really interesting this last week, two different sets of comments that were made. And I want to paraphrase both of them. The specifics aren't as important, but basically JT and Xander being over in Japan and being asked about playing over there and just saying the fan support was phenomenal, was honored to play in front of those fans, loved being there, wish we could come here in places like this more often. And then separate from that, Cam Smith was asked about his move to live. And he said, it's the best decision I've made in my entire life. It allows me to spend more time in Australia, which is obviously key for him. And so what we talked about prior to the show was just we had this discussion numerous times every year when we hear comments like this. It's basically just that we wish that there was more of a global tour presence. Like the one thing that Liv is doing a really great job of is putting together a global tour, which is attractive, of course, to the best players, not just in the United States, but the best players across the entire world. And so it is no shock to your guy like Cam Smith, who is Australian, say, this is awesome. I get to play more often than Australia. I like that. What I did think was interesting is hearing guys that are American, like JT, like Xander, who you'd expect to say, I just prefer to kind of stay here and play the home circuit and take some time off, really have an admiration and enjoyment of playing in Japan. And so I just, I just was curious to hear your viewpoint on that. And I know we sketched out kind of in floor context, just the way we like to see a full swing, so to speak, on the DP world tour instead of kind of doing these cornberry tour plus type of events. So any reflections you had upon hearing comments from JT, Xander and Cam this past week? Well, I loved first off playing in Japan. I played over there one time. We told us spiders. Yeah. Yeah. We accepted the spiders. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm right in time for Halloween, but it was a really incredible crowd. It just reminded me of Augusta National and how the patrons at Augusta National were so welcoming to every grain and just new one to clap. And it was unlike any experience I've had as a pro when you get to Augusta National and just how well behaved the crowd is. Maybe it's because they don't have phones, but in Japan, it was like they've never seen a ball go past 160 yards. And at every tee shot that I ever hit in Japan, it was just like, Oh, it was like they've never seen a ball go past 160 yards. And they just every time, even if there had been 20 groups that have come through that day, they're just so shocked that a golf ball could go that far. And so along with that and then just being really just knowing when to clap and and just it's not a rowdy crowd. It's a very well behaved. And I even saw, you know, in some of those larger groups, some people traveling with step chairs. And I thought that was a great pro golf watching move because how many times if you stood there and not been able to see anything, this Japan crowd was well, but ahead of the game and bring the step chair. I love that. Yeah. I mean, I think it is interesting examining the societal piece of just appreciating the game of golf. And I don't want to go so far as to critique. Like I do think there's a place in the game for your rowdy, Beth page black type crowds. And I even think that there is it's just, I guess if we're going to sit here and talk about like game growth, you know, I want to invite everybody to the table and let everyone have a chance to consume the game and play in the form that suits them. But I do think that sometimes the take of like, I really appreciate the knowledge of the game and knowing when to clap and a more genteel manner, sometimes that gets dismissed as being snooty when in reality, it's just no, this culture, the Japanese culture specifically, you know, they really have a love and admiration appreciation for this game at like a core like sort of spiritual level. And you see it in the way that, you know, how meaningful Hadeki's master's win was to that entire country, you know what I mean? And I think just, just things like that where it's like, it's, it's, I think it's, it's worth celebrating that. And it's worth, you know, to kind of J.T. and his points worth getting over there more often, you know, and I think it's, that to me is like, if the guys are telling you they want to do it, let's make space in the counter and do it more than just a sort of a one-off limited field thing at the end of October. 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Play it smart from the start life, Janet Gamesensema.com. Can I brag a little bit here for a second, please? Please, please. When I went over and played in Japan, because I've been a Strixon guy for my entire career, you know, Japan being Hideki Matsuyama and Strixon, a majority that Strixon is what people play over there, which you should chew. But when I got there, and this is like on Wednesday, where I don't think crowds were allowed until Wednesday. But I could not believe how many fans were coming up to me trying to get an autograph. I'm like, "Wow, what's going on? Is this just because I'm American? I won the Shriners. I know it is the fifth major, but…" Which R.I.P. Shriners? That was another one of the topics that's getting lost to the run down at night. Shriners no longer the title sponsor. Do you want to mourn the loss? I just… This is a whole other discussion. I know there's been a sense of… There's plenty of sponsors that are going to continue to step up into the ones that do leave. The Wells Fargo's a leave. Truist comes right in. We had Cognizant come in for Honda in the past year or so. And maybe there will always be a sponsor that will be able to come and step in and pay the money. But you have to wonder and question, you know, just… I'll say that the fields that a Shriners used to get were now what they are. It used to be marginally better. Now was it amazing fields now? But they would be able to have five, six pretty solid players that would draw crowds. Now it's like, "Okay, who's fighting for the top 125, right? And who wants to come play?" It's just a different deal now. That's a whole other thing that we can get into later. But I definitely wanted to talk about the Camp Smith thing because I know you mentioned it. And Camp Smith's really happy on Liv. Why wouldn't he be? You know, he has the golden ticket, right? Aussie guy doesn't like playing off full time. He loves fishing. He loves fishing. I don't think he loves the grind of the PGA Tour. And yes, it's a grind. I think some players don't like playing 25 weeks a year. And I think Camp Smith's a guy that's cool. It's just playing 14 Liv events, four majors, a couple Aussie opens and calling it a year. And a hundred mid-hours helps that, right? I think this is without the Saudis throwing a hundred million dollars at him in all of this, which I'm not sure if that's what he got paid. But yeah, why wouldn't he be happy, right? Who were mine to say that this man's bank account isn't incredible. And then he gets to go home to Australia more. Like, dude, the guy's crushing it. Like good for him. And who am I to say that it wasn't the right decision for Camp Smith? Well, and I think it's, I think it's, like, I don't think you're minimizing the decision. I think a lot of people just minimize a lot of these Liv players' decisions to like, of course, they took money. Money good. That's why they did it. It's nothing else. Like, I don't hear you minimizing his decision to that at all. I think, obviously, that's a big part of it. Like, everything becomes easier when you have more money. But I do think that, and it kind of, it kind of goes hand-in-hand with the discussion we're having about differences in crowds, differences in the type of people who come and love the game of golf. One of the cool things about our game is that, especially at the professional levels, you have this cast of very unique and different characters. You know, you have, you know, quirky guys, like Victor Havelin that are, you know, fascinated about like ancient history and, you know, or like you have the whole spread of different types of guys at various levels. Some guys are grinders. Some guys want to be on the range all day long. Some guys like Cam like to go fishing and have this unbelievable natural talent can put the ball, you know, as good as anyone on planet Earth and just want to kind of chill a little bit more. I think that to the extent that we can create space for all of them, the game is better at the top professional level. And so I'm not applauding, I'm not saying like live is the way or this or that. But I think that's why I like the global piece of it is that I also think some of these eccentricities, again, as we're talking about with Japanese fans, are aligned with cultural differences. And so creating space to go to different places and say, hey, maybe you're a little homesick or you don't get to spend as much time over here. Like let's do stuff for you. So you feel like it's worth being part of this larger tour that is the best tour in the world. And so for Cam, of course, the money makes it easier. But I also think it's like, it's pretty cool to be able to kind of do what he does and hang out at home, you know, and the tour was doing a lot of that for him. And the things, things are going to continue to change a little bit from that aspect. I think when it started getting rolling with the live golf tour, I think these players didn't really know what they were signing up for. Like for instance, for a PGA tour player as an independent contractor, I have the ability to plan my schedule, pick what events I want to play in the PGA tour can't make me play in anything with golf tour. As we know, when you sign the contract, you are playing every single week. But then the other part of it too is, let's say with golf says, hey, Cam Smith, we want you to go and meet with this client or there's, there's, you can't say no. Like there's, there's certain things that these players where they could have said no before, live golf can say, hey, we need you up at this event. This is part of your contract. And there's days built in that live golf can use as service days to whether it's clients that they're trying to do business with or other, or other things for, for live golf promotion, they're able to use them in that facet. So I think that's another aspect that some of these players have been surprised by, just about how they're able to manage their time. And then, you know, it's like, hey, Cam, we need you in New York to come and play in an 18-hole deal. It's like, well, can I say no? I don't, you don't have an option to, like that's, that's where, since my kids, my kids graduation, my kid's birthday, it's like, you know, Brooks's wife was having a baby and like had to play the next week, finish the last, a greenbrier. And you're like, you know, he would have never, he wouldn't have played for a month on the tour. He wouldn't have played for another month on the tour. Yeah, no, it's definitely, it's the part of the whole live deal that people talk about, probably not enough. But it's just, it's whatever you want to take. It's like, you know, you're, it's just like how, you know, going to regular school versus going to year-round school, you know, it's like, oh, we get all this, we get all these like random weeks off here and there, it's like, yeah, but you're showing up to school in the middle of June and July. And I'm like, off of the beach hanging out in my family, you know, to each their own. Before we switch over to Camilo, smiley, comment from Marcus Rainwater here. You sushi guy, could you dabble in the sush when you were over in Japan? Still one of the best meals I've ever had was in Miyazaki, Japan. Justin and I went to an incredible dinner and Tiger was also played in the same event back in the early 2000s. And the, the owner of the restaurant had told us that Tiger had eaten there and how much food he ate. And I guess Justin had asked him about the restaurant that we were going to. And he said it was incredible. And of course it was. But it was these little, these little grilled cheese. And then they had the most insane wagyu beef that just was out of this world. Some of the best steak I've ever put in my mouth, it was like buttered man. Still dream about that grilled cheese, wagyu steak situation, man. They're the food in Japan. Like, I mean, we're hibachi guys, you and I, big backyard hibachi guys, but go do hibachi in Japan and then you realize, okay, that's, that's all the sauces. See, I don't have all the, we don't have all the sauces laid out. We, when do we get to throw the shrimp tail at you, you know, is there going to be a volcano tonight? I told you we're going to light a volcano on fire. Is there no, is there not a sake squirking? If you're not walking through that gate with a super soaker full of sake, you just turn right around and go back out. That's, and you, and if it's, if it's chilled at all, like, I want you to go stick that sake in the microwave, I want it to be bubbling as it comes out of the super soaker. Yes. Yeah, that was galley. It's a, it's a story that maybe I'll share at some point in the show, but remember guests backyard backyard. We'll be to this action. Love it. Love it. That was not where I thought we were going to end when the prompt was the best place you ate when you were playing in Japan, but a good, a good detour nonetheless. So let's see here, let's, let's, let's finish up with, you know, as we kind of mentioned this, uh, these proposed, I guess the best, as best put, it's Camila Vijay, I just wrote a little, wrote a letter. He, he is the pack chairman. Um, and there was a meeting at Shriners met with some of the players and wrote a letter kind of explaining some proposed, you know, tour card changes that can be coming in 2026. And so essentially, so I'm quoting from two places. There's a sports business journal report. And what I'm first going to read is like some of the reporting around what the changes are. And then I'm going to read some excerpts of Camila's letter. So they're proposing eliminating 10 corn fairy tour graduate cards, which I find interesting on the heels of our conversation with James Nitties. We're talking about some of these guys and how they're able to get eligible for certain things. And maybe there are too many of these things they're handing out. Um, cutting the number of tour cards, PGA tour cards from 125 to 100. So all of a sudden, the fall gets really compelling and really interesting because it, that number is a lot tighter and getting rid of two sponsor exemptions per tournament among some other adjustments. In addition to that, the report cited some sources that, that are saying that the field sizes for these full field events, we've been accustomed to seeing the 144 to 156 range would move as low as 120. And so I'm going to, I'm going to just pull kind of the section. So Camila just talks about the pack met. Uh, we, we, you know, we talked to the policy board. We've talked to various leadership on tour and they agree that we need to kind of move for the proposal. And so he, he highlights those three main sections. One is playing privileges. We look to redefine what it means to have a PGA tour card. And when you earn that card, how that translates to certainty of schedule. The second category pace of play focused on determining the right number of players on the course to promote flow of play and to finish the competition on schedule each day. And the third section being points system based on feedback from the membership, we evaluated the middle of the points distribution curve to be more equitable based on performance. And so obviously, we're not economics guys. We're not. If you say something increases and something else decreases, I say supply and demand. Yes. And I say none of the above. Yeah. I, I just, I just read the letters. I don't know necessarily what they mean. We bring on experts for those types of things. But of course, like cards are separate 25. None of this is happening until 26 of the earliest. Uh, but smiley, I mean, just it's a broad prompt to say to reflect on all of it. But I guess the thing I found interesting in reading this letter is so many of these things you specifically talked about before. You've talked about there are too many cards. You talked about, you know, pace of play being bad at times. And so going from 44, 56 down to 120, that could be a huge help there. And you talked about the point system where we compared as we talked about in the context of, wow, you get so much more for a 10th or 15th at a signature event. They do for like a fourth at a full field event or regular event. So just maybe just reflect on a larger scale to what Camillos proposing, what the packs proposing. And then we can kind of get into some of the specifics to close the show out. Yeah, definitely go and read the full letter. It's the sports business journal. You can just probably Google sports business journal Camilo of a J is letter to players to find it. And the reason why I want you to go read it for yourself is you need to look at Camilo's signature. It's the best signature in the game. I haven't stopped staring at how for how pure it is. It's as good as it gets. So definitely go check down and as well read the letter for yourself because point three I still haven't really grasped exactly the point system based on feedback from the membership. We evaluated the middle of the points distribution curve to be more equitable based on performance. I still don't know what that means. We'll have to break that down. I'll have to ask somebody just to get a little more feedback on exactly what that means. But the playing privileges I can definitely speak to in the pace of play as I think the biggest issue right now that the tour has is just an identity issue with events. I think signature events and open events and even fall events and it trickles all the way down to the corn fairy of when a player has a card where do they fit in this just huge system of of different levels that the PGA tour has. And what this what they're trying to do is get it to where when you do get a PGA tour card, not only does the player know what they're going to be playing in, but the fans now know where they're going to see these players and what they're going to be competing in. So I think that will help and not pace the play. It's not going to help these guys hit a golf shot faster, but it may help them space out the tee times a little bit more to whether or not waiting quite as much. So a normal spacing of a tee time would say, let's say it's 11 minutes, maybe they have an opportunity to stretch it to 13 minutes in this system or let's say it's nine and now they have they can get it to 12. So it does make a difference when we talk about the back half of waves and just finishing in the spring time before daylight saving switches. And even Shriners, like they the the rural staff was like, we we never can finish this event because there's too many guys playing. It's like, well, I mean, that's that's something that the PGA tours should should never have a problem with it. They should know it's like, Hey, there should only be 100 110 guys playing in this event, because that's the amount of guys that can actually finish Thursday and Friday around. So that that to me would make a lot of sense. But it just goes into what we've been saying, which is a stronger top PGA tour of 100 guys makes for a stronger golf environment as we trickle down. And in this environment, we're in right now, too many guys are having to make decisions to have to commit to multiple tours, where now they can be like, you know what, I don't have a tour card, I'm playing here. But I have a tour card, I'm playing here, and I'm going to get X amount of starts. Yeah, I think to me, it makes it mean something. You know, it's not like just like when you say that, like the like having a card making me. Yeah, like, like, instead of, I mean, it's just really piggyback on everything you said, it's like, if I'm one of 30 corn fairy tour graduates, and I know some of the categories are slightly different, but you know, it's like, if I'm one of 30 corn fairy tour graduates, and I think I'm earning that. And all of a sudden, I'm like, I can't get a start for, you know, a couple months. And I'm like, what do this even mean? What did I even do this for? And now I'm behind the eight ball for the rest of the year, I got to play insanely good. And if I don't, I'm just heading right back down to the corn fairy tour, do it all over again. And I think the same same thing, you know, 100 because because I think it's it's then if you're cutting down a corn fairy tour cards, the next question is, are we just kind of keeping the guys who are here on tour longer? Well, if you're cutting from 125 to 100, you're not doing that either. So you're you're cutting guys out just for whatever reason, couldn't hack at that year, they can of course go back to the corn fairy and try to earn their card that way. But you're cutting those guys out, you're bringing in a group of guys from the corn fairy tour who have earned their graduation and now are going to get actual starts instead of wondering what opportunities they're going to get. And I think just from a television perspective, from a product perspective, you can tell me the television window can be shorter now, because there are less guys playing in these full field events. And of course, even shorter for limited field or, you know, no cut signature events. And so I can tune in and watch all that. No, I'm going to be watching impactful golf the entire time. That's a win as a fan or consumer. I think, I mean, I just think that there's, you know, it's you want to have the cool stories, you want to have, you know, room for kind of the Cinderella aspect of this whole thing. But I think you can still achieve that with what's being proposed. So I think this is really, I think this is a really good proposal. Okay, let's look at it right now. So let's look at the top 100 guys on the PGA tour. And you can look, you can hand pick, you know, from 90 to 110 of guys that would be on the outside. Like, so when you when you finish outside the top 100, one of the things that making for a stronger PGA tour will do and 100 cards. Well, every year, one bad year, you're, it doesn't matter who you are. And you've heard windup Clark say this, you're heading back to the court ferry tour. Yeah. And I wonder with, with guys when they have a year in which they do win, and they have that extra year exemption, it's going to mean more because when you're not subject to the top 100 shuffle, that is, I mean, it just, it seems like that would make guys a little bit more emotional about winning on the PGA tour, which they do, but it would, it would just, I think, have a bigger impact. Well, I think I think too that there could be a knock on effect of this where, if you're a true golf sicko, if all of a sudden the corn ferry tour is populated with more names you have a familiarity with from the tour, because they got bounced from the previous year. Like, I'll say it this way. I tuned in for a lot of, I mean, I was going, I was going to anyway, of course, for the job and everything, but because I'm, and because I'm a sicko, but like it was compelling to have hairy Higgs and a lot of corn ferry tour events this last year, where I'd seen him play on tour. I love his personality. I found him interesting, engaging, entertaining. When he was near the top of leaderboard, I was like, I need to go watch the highlights, find figure out a way to kind of consume that tournament because I'm interested in him specifically. And I know him more than the rest of those guys. And so looking at this list right now, if this year was a top 100 cut off, and you got a guy like Joel Damon at 124 that a lot of people are invested in via Netflix full swing and a number of other cool things he's done, you know, on, but also off the golf course, I think that maybe you drum up more interest for that secondary tour. If it's, if it's not just like, you know, if we are already bemoaning how many guys are on the PGA tour, if it's really kept tight and it means something, but also those guys are being knocked down at a level where you're like, okay, yeah, there are a bunch of guys I know on this tour. I want to tune in to watch that as well. That could be a good thing for the corn fairy tour. Yeah, I think this is a larger discussion too with the corn fairy tour that we talked about with James Nitties at that whole tour. And the golf courses have, yes, maybe 25% of the courses they play really are two or like the other 75 or two short, not necessarily a great PGA tour test. But that that's a larger discussion. My, my big thing is, is like you said, it does need to mean more when you get that card. And I think it starts right in the fall. The corn fairy tour should finish right, right when the Scotty Sheffler or whoever wins the FedEx cup, that event, the corn fairy tour should end right around the same time. And when the FedEx cup fall gets going, these corn fairy tour guys, the 20 now that would be cut down from 30 need to be playing the FedEx cup fall with these, the guys that are fighting for their card. But we are mixing and sprinkling in the new wave of talent to give me something to learn about these new players. Give me a whole fall to learn about these new guys if I'm a viewer. But then you could also watch the storylines of which I think is very enticing watching these players kind of fight for their cards who didn't maybe have as many playing opportunities throughout the year with all the signature events and how tough it is. But it makes for a very competitive fall when you go from top 125 to now top 100 or I don't know how they're going to now the fall makes no sense. Like what are they going to do in the fall because is now is it because it was 50 guys that your secured 70 guys make the playoffs. Now you have, oh gosh, it becomes a much more competitive, like way competitive. Oh yeah, I think to me, I mean, I hear what you're saying and why you're saying it, but I think it makes a lot more sense to me. Like I think that, you know, it's of course, yeah, you play the fall, you can get into that next 10 category, you can kind of position yourself for success the following year. But largely, I still, you know, giving all the big names a reason to opt out of playing in the fall only made it less compelling for me. And again, as being watched from the perspective of golf sickos who are trying to kind of figure out DP world to her. But don't lose that. What's on the side of that? Oh that. And that's what I mean, I think there are a number of different ways you can approach this. Like if you're saying Charlie and Smiley, like what's your favorite options on the table? It's, it's we finish up in Atlanta and we go right over to Europe and we just tour Europe and we hit all these cool locales and, you know, dramatic settings and, you know, the Swiss Alps and things like that. And we go do that. And okay, yeah, we have, you know, our Ryder Cup and our President's Cup mixed in there. But, you know, do that. Maybe mix in your Zura Classic team event to prep for the Ryder Cup of the President's Cup. You know, that's my long crusade is to get the Zura Classic moved to the fall. But do more of that than doing all these kind of lower leverage fall events. But if you're saying, okay, well, the tour is kind of looking out for its own interests and the things it manages. And of course, they have a strategic alliance with the DP world tour, but that's not their property. How can you fix the domestic product? This feels a lot closer to fixed to where now I'm tuning in and it's, you know, theoretically, I mean, of course, some big names are going to play a fall events, but you're saying that there are, you know, 51 through 100 that are in and you still have to fill these fall fields up to, let's say, 120 max per Camillos letter. I mean, that's 80 guys in those field, right? Or no, I guess that's, that's, that's, you know, 70 guys in those fields that are playing every week who are not going to earn their tour car the next year. And maybe even more than that, if you consider that you're mixing in 20 corn fairy tour guys. So, you know, you take it from 50. So it is 70. It's like only 30 guys that played on the tour the year before are going to retain their membership the following year. All of a sudden, that's much higher leverage golf to me than like, yeah, it gets, it gets like whatever, you know, the FedEx car fall, we get so cutthroat. My gosh, when you talk about going from 125 to the top 100, it's, it's the amount of cards that are available that just completely changes. So if, you know, if you finish the year at, you know, 71st and you just missed out on the playoffs, like, you know, you didn't have to do anything because for the most part, you're, you can go try to get the next 10 category, but you're not drawn outside the top one in 25. But, um, is there a world in which you would drop outside the top 100? Uh, maybe not, but it, it, I guarantee the guy at 80th is going to be playing because it's easy to drop outside the top 100, probably over a six or seven week stretch. So maybe, maybe there is something there with the FedEx cup fall because I've, I've, I've, I've got to get pretty cool too. Like Mip, like guys are like, please let me finish top 50. So I don't have to go play the fall schedule. I mean, 51, I mean, that's a tough scene. If you, if you missed that top 50 there, on both sides of it, I still feel like that all needs to get sorted out with top 50. It, it, it seems like to me, if you finish, if you make the playoffs, you should be in the signature events. Like it's kind of weird to me. Like, I've never really understood like, okay, you made the playoffs, but the next week's actually the more important one because that's the one that gets you into signature events. To me, if you're in a perfect world, when you have a hundred guys that are going to be playing, or how many guys are playing signature events, if you make the playoffs in the top 70, you should be in the signature event. So that should be the reward for making the playoffs. And now you go play in a really fun format in the playoffs to hopefully then crown the, the postseason champion, if you will. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, and it's fair. And again, I think that while we offer all our suggestions and our preferred solution is going to play DP world tour and really leaning into that partnership, it does feel like, I feel like we've been fair on the show throughout, like we're giving the tour room to continue moving towards something that makes more sense. And this makes more sense than the previous iteration of this. So we need to have like one, one episode in which we just outline, outlined the entire Charlie Smiley tour, just what it, what it should look like. And it has even, even including live, like trying to figure out if we're throwing live in here, how these guys get incorporated, because we talk about it every other episode. And if you've, if you've listened to a handful of them, you probably heard a couple of the takes, but it would be nice to put it all on pen and paper and do it for one entire episode. It has to be in person. And you know, maybe, you know, crack open some, some beverages or a nice bottle of wine. And it's got to be a cold brew. And it's got to be Jackson at like a, you know, bulletin board or a whiteboard. Yeah. Just like Charlie. And it's always sunny with like yarn connecting at all and like drawing, like just ID and just Jackson just yarning us. I'm like, this is what the future of Pro golf looks like. I, I think that's a killer in person episode. We'll get there. But the one last thing I'll leave you with on this is so cutting down from four to two sponsors invites. Do you have an opinion on that? Well, so, and that's another part that I was kind of vague on because our, is it now, tell me this, Miley, is it is four? I know four was the signature event sponsor is number. Does that change for full field events? Full field events. No, it's, it's eight. There's, there's typically four sponsors invites that are restricted and then four that are unrestricted. So if you're a member, you're a part of the, the restricted and then the four go to the unrestricted, which could go to anybody. So I took that to me in that letter that we were going from like, in your scenario here, going from eight to six for full field, but they wouldn't be touching the four signature events. If they're going from four to two for signature events, that starts to get very, very interesting because like, I think I probably need to read it myself. Where does it say it? I didn't even, I just remember you saying something about how it's going down. It was, I think it was the third bullet in here. And it was, I've, I've lost that. I definitely heard you say it. No, it definitely, they are definitely proposing cutting down on that. But okay. Yeah. It was, it was in the upper section where it was the, the parts that are being reported. But so to me, I think that has to be just full field and not signature, because think about this, it's like you have the, um, like the Genesis, there's the, uh, this, the char, is it Charlie Sippert Memorial exemption? I get the name wrong. I think it's Charlie Sippert. There's that exemption. And then there's tiger, like a term, a host who both would need sponsor exemptions under there. So then all of a sudden you have this key pivotal historic event on the tour, where a guy that isn't top 30 in the world, that isn't next hand, that isn't swing five, that isn't top edgy from the previous year, who's trying to get a little momentum and carry into a key part of the schedule. It's like, sorry, we had to give an amateur exemption. We got to get tiger exemption, you know, better luck next time out, buddy. Like that to me, I think is, gets a little tricky. So if they do cut it down, kudos to them. The more cutthroat is more interesting, but I think it's probably just full field. The one thing I really do like in this is I'm a fan of it all because I think going from 144 to 156 guys, that's just too many dudes. Like give me 120 when you show up, just feels right. Doesn't matter the time of the year, 120 guys and then 100, 100, so cards, whatever it is. I, I think from that standpoint, you can kind of go and figure it out. And you know, just, I feel like it's time to kind of wrap here, but I just had our guy, Jackson Brown. He's there. He's working on the board. He got jacks. He's got the yarn. He's got all the different colors of yarn. He's going to connect all the dots for us. We're going to get this thing fixed. Well, smiley, wow, this was, this was a nice, this is longer than I expected to be tonight. We're a lot. I didn't think I was going to rant about Brian Kelly for the first 20 minutes of the show, but you know, as you football, but that was if he missed that and you were and you filed into this late, I definitely, I definitely had to get it all off my chest. It was a tough loss for my tigers against the Aggies. And now we're in a playoff and limiter game against Alabama in two weeks, which is always wonderful to be in that situation to potentially ruin Alabama season. But I know how this goes. Yeah, look, I'm happy for you, man. I'm just glad to not be the guy that's like ranting about his college football team because I've just, I'm past that. I'm just ready for some mail. Give me your Charlotte. Unless you have any final thoughts, smiley. I think this is where we wrap the episode. Yeah, man. All good. I already gave a shout out to Ben on for his one of the DP World Tour and the driver off the deck. So that's, that's my big shout out. Well, here we go. We're going to try, we're going to try to fire the outro again. Last week, we ended up listening to minimal house music, but we'll just say really appreciate everyone hanging out again, participating in the chat, always fun to have you guys contributing to the show. It makes the show so much better, be able to kind of use some of those topics and spin them off into discussions. So thanks for hanging out. Hope to do it again soon. Look out for more fun stuff and the feed this week, both the pod feed, the YouTube. We got some stuff we're excited about. So we will talk to you about all those locations very soon. And thanks for hanging. See you. [music] Make us your game day headquarters this football season. Stop by your nearest Penn Play destination for all the gridiron action. Watch the best games on our giant screen TVs. Throw back a few of your favorite ice cold pints with friends. Tackle the area's best game day food. Get in the game with deals, drawings, rewards and more. To find a Penn Play destination near you, visit penplay.com. Score big this football season at your Penn Play game day headquarters, sponsored by ESPN bat. Must be 21 or older gambling problem. Go on 800 gambler. Tito's handmade vodka had been mixed with its fair share of cocktails. But one night, a chilled glass topped with lime and cranberry would change everything this bottle knew about happy hour. From the producers of America's favorite vodka, it turns out the cocktail you've been waiting for was right there the whole time. The Tito's Rom Cosmo. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sip, with Tito's. Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito's vodka.com, 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof crafted to be savored responsibly. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Join Smylie Kaufman and Charlie Hulme as they recap the PGA TOUR's lone event in Japan, the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Smylie and Charlie recap the excellent weeks that both Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler had in finishing top five, and what it means for their 2025 campaign on TOUR.