Ep 2 - When Golf Gets Tough: Brookhaven, Bad Breaks And The Rise Of A YouTube Golf Tour

Speaker 1 00:54

Yeah, it's been interesting. We moved from a previous course that we had been members at for several years, and decided to try a new course this year. We'll share the course. It's Brookhaven in Greenfield, New York, just outside of Saratoga Springs. And part of the reason we chose Brookhaven was because of the challenge of that course. It is not an easy course, and we are definitely finding that out.

We're finding out that you're not using a driver on every hole. And I know that's something that you are concerned about. But let let people know, like, what is that done to your game?

Speaker 2 01:33

It's it's kind of force fed me. The, you know, the mindset that I have to learn how to hit my hybrids and my, my long irons, for iron, specifically for me. Five iron, both. You know, is something I didn't have to pull out a lot in our old course. It played a little on the shorter side. I'm an above average ball driver. On a good day. You know, I'm going to hit beyond most amateur averages. So our old course played short this one because of the high number of dog legs. Dog legs. Obviously, you can't just hit him as far as you want, because if you hit him through the dog leg, you're in the woods.

And that's where this course, tends to, you know, bite you in the rear end more often than not. So I've had to learn. Hit four and five. I'm really looking forward to, you know, I'm, I'm striping them better and better. Hybrids. Not so much. I'm coming down a little too steep on them. There are a lot of things I'd like to do better with them. It's just, you know, range work. I got to get out there and practice it. But, you know, live, live, practice where you're on a course, and the threat of danger is there in front of you while you're trying to score is always going to be more important than, you know, range work, but you learn that you, you know, the you you learn the trade on the, on the, on the driving range.

But you perfect that out on the course when you got a little bit of pressure on your back. And so I'm looking forward to those getting better right now. That's what's hurting me more than anything else is off the tee box.

Speaker 1 02:53

Yeah, it's it's an interesting course when it comes to using a driver. Like you said, you're above average driver for for your age and your amateur status. I'm about where I should be as well as the higher handicap. And even I'm finding that there's several holes that I have to be careful. I don't drive into the woods and there are some trees on this course. I'll tell you, it is something that we have talked about several times in the cart. This course will punish you and that's kind of fun. You can't make the mistakes that you would make on an open course and kind of slice it, push or pull it or whatever, and get into the trees and have an easy punch out.

Not on this course. This course will punish you if you get into the trees. And so I think it really has taught me as well, coming off the tee box to figure out what works for me and I it's funny, I went from a driver that I would use on almost every hole to all right, I'm going to use my two hybrid to some of them. Now I'm using my four iron and I'm saying, okay, I'd rather be 20 or shorter, but in the middle of the fairway and have a great second shot without having to take the chance that I'll run through the fairway into the rough on the other side, or even beyond that, into the trees. So funny story is the first day of this season that I went to play there.

I think I hit every tree, at least every tree on the first hole. At least that's what I felt like. And not only that, but I was playing the exact golfer I was trying to punch out, punching out too far, ending up on the woods and the other side of the fairway, then trying to punch out again. And so this course is fun to play, but it is definitely one that's going to challenge you. And it's going to challenge you because it says, hey, can't use driver all the time, and the long hitters don't necessarily play as well on this course, but we're going to give you a full review of that course coming up in a couple episodes. We want to get some more rounds under our belt. But like you said, you shot at, what, 80 something?

Speaker 2 04:57

The other 82 is my best so far there this year. And there's definitely even on that. You know, there are some couple holes I'd like to have back. I had a couple double bogeys early, recovered really well on the back, but you know, up, up down game. They're super important because of the slope on the greens. And I, you know, for me, on the day, that day, it was really good. I think I saved six pars in a row at one point, by chip and tight and then knocking in the putt.

Speaker 1 05:23

So one of the things I do when I have a membership, and of course, is I have in my notes app on my iPhone, a list of all of the holes that I have in the par next to the hole number. And then I've got a checkmark, because when I birdie that hole, I want to check it off. Now, at our previous course, Brett was able to birdie all 18 holes on that course. And that's a pretty cool feat. And when you did that, that's when I started thinking about, hey, I need to keep track of this stuff. And so on. My notes app, it's got one through 18. It's got a check mark next to each one of those.

And then each time I do birdie it, I put an X next to the par to basically tell myself how many times that I birdie that hole in that season. And I basically copy and paste that every year. I also keep track of what is my best front nine, what is my best back nine, and then obviously what is my best score. But for me is something that I really, really try to focus on is getting under 90, because I know the percentage of golfers that get under 90 is very small. And so I had a pretty lofty goal at our previous course because it was wide open. I went into this one and I told you after the first couple rounds, I'm like, man, I don't know if I'm gonna break 90, let alone am I going to have multiple rounds this year under 90.

But I'm happy to share that I already hit one. And so I'm super happy about that. And I'm super stoked about that. And I've also already gained four birdies. Where do you stand with birdies on this course so far?

Speaker 2 06:58

I mean they're 4 or 5. I had another one tonight. And I that one was a brand new one for me as a par three that I stuffed in a heavy wind. I was really proud of that. Stuffed it to like, three feet, 11in. It was a we're in a league there tonight. And I and they were ahead of closest to the pin on that one. And as of when we left, I was on the leaderboard, three feet, 11in on the tee shot. There's a lot more that can go wrong at that course right now. I think that can go right at times. Just because of the wind factor. Early in the season. You know, your game's not quite as tight as it would be later on.

Then on top of that, you had in, you know, the high winds that we typically get up in the mountains in the spring here. That definitely adds, you know, pucker factor that, most people don't want to deal with when they're stepping up to a tee box. But, tonight, you know, for the most part, I hit the par threes pretty well. I was pretty happy with it. But again, there's there's a lot that can go wrong. And of course, like that very sloped greens folks. Again, when we get into a full review of the course we'll talk about it. But it's one of those things where, you know, they say six inches between your ears is the hardest distance in golf, to manage.

And that definitely is a course that's going to test every bit of that six inches, brain power that you have because it, it's, it's not something where you can just step up and automatically grab a club. How you're hitting that particular evening is going to be a big you know, factor in or that particular afternoon. It's going to factor in how you're hitting. Are you hitting them flush that day or you're hitting them a little thin? Are you hitting them higher than normal? The wind is going to be a big factor. There. There's a lot of stuff that comes into play. And that's all, you know, part of the fun of golf, it's a big Rubik's Cube.

It's what I tell Jake. He gets, he goes nuts sometimes, because he doesn't understand how he can hit a ball so well, one shot and then the next shot, you know, he'll hit it poorly. And I keep telling him, I said, it's just one big Rubik's cube. You just got to try to line up everything in the same day at the same time. Not an easy thing to do, which is why very few people break 90.

Speaker 1 08:54

Yeah, yeah. And and so I did have it Chip and birdie this year. And I was super ecstatic about that. You were standing over the hole. I, chipped it about three feet to the left and made that turn. And I couldn't really tell from when it was turning if it was getting close enough to the hole to actually go in. But we laughed because I think I maybe had one rotation left on that ball, but it went in and that's what matters. And that was I, I want to say that's probably my first ever chip in birdie, but I'm not 100% sure it's.

Speaker 2 09:29

The only one I can remember. And I've been golfing with the now for, you know, seven, eight, nine years, whatever it's been. And I can't remember you ever having a chip in birdie. I've seen you do a couple chip in pars and but never a chip in birdie. So and that was a particularly tough one because, you know for those who are in the know about golf, you don't want to short side yourself. Meaning, if you're going to miss on a group, you know, on your approach to the green, don't miss on the side to give you, you know, room to chip. Jake did exactly opposite that. Jake missed on the side where I think he had maybe 2 to 3 yards from the edge of the rough, on to the green.

And in the end, he had a big mound in front of his way of rough, and he was in the rough where he was hitting from, and he hit a beautiful chip and put it like he said, you know, just uphill the hole. And it curled around perfectly and dropped in. It was one of those highlights in golf that we all, you know, smile about when we go home at night.

Speaker 1 10:17

Yeah. And we always say, man, I wish I had film that, but you can't hit and film at the same time. It doesn't work. So we're going to jump in early this episode into our rule of the day because you actually were sharing with me one that you found out about recently, right before we were doing this podcast. So why don't you tell people what that rule of the day is?

Speaker 2 10:39

This is a rule that the USGA and, the RNA, which for those who aren't familiar, that's the royal and ancient Golf Association, it's essentially Scotland, Ireland. It's what the European, you know, amateurs play by. It's the rule rulebook they play by. It's in most ways it's very tightly aligned with what we have here in the States as USGA players. You know, for those who aren't in the know, it's, us golf amateurs, or the US Golf Association. I can't remember which one it is. I always forget, but regardless, it's what, us amateurs play by, the rules is is a little complex. It starts out very simple. And that you can remove your ball if it's trapped in it's own pitch mark.

So that would mean if you have a wet area on the course, you hit and it essentially plugs and or you hit the ball bounces forward and then spins back and lands in that divot that it made on the fairway and or rough. Now the rough part, they just expanded that rule a short while ago. I believe it was a year or two ago. They they expanded it to include the rough. It used to only include the fairway now essentially anywhere on the course other than a sand bunker. You can you can use that rule to your effect. Now, there are a couple little bylaws to it. One is that you can pick up your ball and clean it only you can.

You're allowed to take a club length drop no closer to the hole. All drops in golf just for those. Again, who don't know, all drops in golf are no closer to the hole drops. You can't give yourself any kind of advantage by dropping closer. You can move further away laterally. You can move further away backwards, but you can't move closer to the hole, ever. So you are allowed to pick up and identify your ball and put it down within one club length. Now, to identify your ball, you can clean off enough of the ball to identify that it is your ball, but you cannot clean the entire ball. So that's, kind of a shady rule, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Because obviously some guys are going to say, well, I guess I was looking all over the ball for my, my dot that I put on it or whatever, and that's why I had to clean the whole thing. Most people aren't going to call you on it. I'm not a stickler for that one. Even when we're on tour. It's as far as watching other people. I don't care if they clean off their whole ball. I think it's a rule that should be amended to say you can clean off your whole ball on soft cause conditions sometimes just require you shouldn't have to play mud balls. Even the PGA tour players now play preferred lies after, you know, rainstorms and stuff like that.

I don't think us as amateurs should have to play, you know, under worse conditions than they do. The other thing you can't do is if if that pitch mark that you landed in puts you in a, disadvantageous position, like behind the bush, for instance, you are not allowed to take a drop in that case, you have to leave it where it is and play it, as as though it were, you know, any other place on the course and it wasn't in it's own pitch.

Mark. So that's a little rule that you can use to your advantage. And again, because they expanded it into, being able to hit it out of rough areas and, and even a hard pan area, if you happen to catch a wet spot, you know, in a really wide section, of course, that's hard pan. You're allowed to you're allowed to pull it out, put it in a better position, hit from there. The reason they did this, just so everybody is aware, is for faster pace of play. Faster pace of play is something you're going to hear me talk about a lot. I'm a very fast golfer. I don't take a lot of practice swings. Well, let me rephrase. I don't take practice swings other than putting, and that's very infrequent, even for putting, I, I find that it just keeps me in a better rhythm to just mentally just step up and hit it so that I'm not overthinking.

But that's why they did it. Pace of play and everybody. I think pace of play should be important to everybody.

Speaker 1 14:25

Yeah. I think in the future, one of the things that we'll talk about are some of the annoyances we have playing on public courses and some of the things that we'd like to see people consider when they are playing. And pace of play is definitely one of them. So it's great to see this kind of rule be kind of updated so that it can really encourage that good pace of play. Now, I did want to go back to the rule. We talked about episode one when we were talking about how you can play your ball when you are in a red or yellow state area. And we talked about whether you could move the steak. So what did you find out about that, that we were going to come back and talk about?

Speaker 2 15:09

Well, originally my thought was always, what I had heard from other amateur players, on tour was that you could remove a steak if it was in your impeding your swing, with the exception of a white steak. Well, after doing some deep digging, including in my USGA, rules app that I have on my phone, which is not always the most terribly of, affording of, you know, finding the information quickly. Sometimes it requires some deep digging, but come to find out, you cannot remove stakes. If they're impeding your swing. Your choices are played as it lies as 1 or 2. Take an unplayable lie, just like you would if you were directly behind the trunk of a tree or something like that. Take the one stroke penalty, move the ball.

No closer to the hole and and take your one club length. Drop.

Speaker 1 15:55

Well, that's good to know. And I think a lot of people do unfortunately remove stakes when they're close to them or they are within their they're impeding their swing or whatever. And I and I think again, as amateurs, you just have to figure out what you want to do for rules and stuff among your friends. But I know on tour it's really good that we know that, because that's an important rule to really know.

So I'm glad we could give you that update to that rule. Next up, I want to talk about something really interesting that was announced this week. So Grant and the Bryan Bros Grant and the Bryan Bros are YouTube golfers. They're not professionals. They're still amateurs, but they film everything they do when it comes to golf, they film one on one things they do. They film bigger stuff that they do with tournaments and things like that. They do a lot of collaborations with other YouTubers. They are YouTube golfers, but the way I look at them is they are at the high level of the YouTube golfers. They are getting millions of views on their videos. They're making a lot of money off of YouTube and they have sponsorships and things like that.

Well, they made an announcement today. It was really this week that was really interesting. They have decided to develop their own tour and it is called the Your Golf Tour or why YGT. Basically what they're doing is they have a 16 player roster and it is made up of YouTube golfers. It's made up of some other golfers that maybe not as well known on YouTube that are good skilled, but it's going to be interesting to see where this goes, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it now.

They have had creator, creator tournaments. I know Barstool had a huge one last year that was just absolutely crazy film wise. They had many, many, many cameras. But one of the things they think that makes YouTube work is personalities and characters and drama and the storylines and stuff like that. And the Barstool Tournament had all of that. It had all of the drama, had all of the storylines, it had all the personalities, and that's what made that really, really good. What I find interesting with YGT is that it seems to be more focused on skills now. They announced a list of golfers. I'll put a link to their announcement in our show notes, but I know maybe half of them and a half that I know is because I know them because of their personalities.

On YouTube. The other thing that I'm a little concerned about is what the heck they're talking about. When it comes to the format. I listen to their YouTube press release. I've read articles and I can sit here and tell you I still have no idea what's going on when it comes to their tournaments. So I know they're doing multiple locations. They've got they're starting in Alabama. I have it pulled up here. It's called, Purcell Farms. They're going to start there. And I don't quite understand how they're doing it, but they're going to have a draft. So there's four captains and they're going to have a draft out of the 16 players to figure out who's going to be on who's team.

Now. They went into some stuff about somebody can get cut that they would have to like, possibly cut them after the first tournament and then they could possibly bring them back. And then they talked about a wild card player who could basically be anybody. It could be a pro, it could be a semi-pro. And so there's like all of these crazy rules and I don't understand it. And I'm going to have to read more about it. And like I said, I will put links to articles and their video in the show. So hopefully you guys can understand it better. But I'm curious, what are your thoughts on these big YouTubers trying to do these tours or these events that are rather massive and money wise can become very financially lucrative for them and whoever is involved?

Speaker 2 20:25

All right. Maybe I should preface this with a doodle doo doo doo doo doo doo breaking news for Jake. This is something Jake and I have not discussed at length, but I'm going to give my little $0.02 here, because that's what we're here for. I despise anybody who disrupts other people on the golf course. Now, in this particular format that they're doing, they're probably going to shut down golf courses, have them go out, or half a day, they'll shut it down or whatever, and have this group of 16 players, plus all of the entourage that they're going to have, you know, the media and everybody else.

It's the cameras to be following them around. I had a particular instance that led me to to have, you know, my own personal viewpoint on it. There was a person that that was running promos, and he started doing content from inside of his golf cart. That's a big no no to me. The person that was in the cart with him had was getting very upset because he was driving right by his ball. He wasn't bringing him to his ball. He because he was too hung up and making notes, you know, audio notes on his phone and making phone calls. And as such, I'm a firm believer that it's it's always been, you know, an honest man's respectful, you know, dignified game. And I think it should be kept that way.

I don't think the game should be turned into a circus. Again, I didn't get distracted by the person who was doing this, even though he was in my foursome. I heard the complaints from the guy he was playing with, and then he told me his side of it. That he needs to do this because otherwise he won't have the content that he needs. My problem is, what you're trying to do is a little side hustle or whatever, should not disrupt everybody else having a good time on the golf course and especially, yes, it's just an amateur golf. But guys take great pride in being able to walk into the clubhouse and say they were a winner or, you know, top three or whatever it was, and they placed in the money.

Guys don't want to be disrupted from their normal routine. They want to feel like a pro when they're out there. But I personally don't get distracted. I've said before that, you could run a chainsaw next to my head. I it's not going to disrupt my golf game. I have a shot in front of me, and I'm like, I'm hyper focused. Maybe to my detriment at times. But I don't get distracted. Easily or hardly at all. I can understand completely how some players do. I don't feel this way just about content creators, for lack of a better term. I don't feel it just about them. I feel that way about loud music. I feel that way about smoking, about marijuana on the course.

I feel that way about drinking on the course. Yes. Jake and I enjoy a beer, too, on the course. But I will tell you flat out that if Jake was smoking a cigaret in my face, that would bother me when we were in the car, and it would disrupt me having as good a time as I could have. And we've both golf with smokers before, and, you know, you you have to find a way to be civil about it again. It's a gentleman's game. And you should approach the person and tell them, hey, that's disruptive to me. That would have been the right way for this, this guy to handle it instead of bellyaching to me, he should have talked to this content creator and said, hey, you know, what you're doing is not right.

It's really getting me off my game. Could you stop doing it? That's the gentlemanly way to handle it. All this other circus that's going on around, you know, guys running around with cameras on a course while you're out trying to play. I've heard some nightmare stories about people getting caught behind them where, you know, they're doing 25 to 30 minutes for parole, which is outlandish. And if you get stuck behind somebody like that, it's obviously going to diminish your pleasure and being out on the golf course. So that's that's my big issue.

Speaker 1 24:02

I, I have to agree with you that I think and this is where people like Grant and the, the Bryan Bros and some of these bigger channels have realized they can't do that. They can't they can't go to a normal course. They can't go to a public course and record their 1V1 and be disruptive. So what they end up doing is they end up shutting courses down. So, for example, the Barstool competition that shut down that entire course for an entire weekend and that costs a lot of money and obviously their sponsorships and stuff like that. I think these guys are doing the same thing. They're they're working with the Wynn casino, who had approached them with an idea of putting on a big like, content event at their golf course, and they took that and said, okay, we want to build something bigger.

We want to do a tour. And so they are doing multiple stops, and I feel like they're shutting those stops down for the day or for the weekend or whatever they're going to end up doing. And so you won't get into that much of disruption. My concern, and it's a concern of several people that I've read that have written about this, is when it comes to YouTube golfing, it's about personalities. But when you're putting hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, which they are including $1 million purse for the finals, is that going to change what those personalities are like? Is it going to change and make it less interesting? Because now we're watching for skill more than we're watching for entertainment. Now all the more power to them.

This is the first year who knows what this is going to turn into or what this is going to look like. But my concern is, as YouTube golfers and YouTube content creators, they need to be very careful that this does not become a money grab. If this becomes a money grab for these guys, people are not going to tune in because that's not what they want to see. They want to see the antics, the fun, but they do want to see the skills too. And I think these guys particularly do a great job of that. When they do their one versus one or breaking 50 or the things that they do, they bring the entertainment as well as the really great golf shots. The other thing I'm concerned about is I saw what it took to produce the Barstool competition.

Like I said, many, many, many cameras and many, many, many lavalier mics. Are they going to be able to sustain that kind of production level and keep it interesting and keep it entertaining? We'll have to wait and see.

Speaker 2 26:56

I have a side thought about that. Jake. And for anybody who's watched a significant amount of golf, they know about the live tour, the live tour essentially split off from the PGA, and it was essentially a cash grab. The Saudis, they decided to throw a huge, you know, amount of money towards Star golfers, to see if they would jump ship from the PGA and go to a no cut tournament. They have a limited number of players over there. Everybody gets paid and nobody gets cut. So obviously it was a cash grab. It was also I understood for lifestyle reasons, they, they those tournaments up until this year, they did three rounds versus four. So rather, you know, that that gave them an extra day with their families.

I understand that, you know, from a work life balance that was better for some of the star players. But, there are a great number of them that obviously jumped ship. It was very clear. They jumped ship for one thing and one thing only, and that was the cash bag that was being waived in front of their faces. For all practical purposes, the Liv golf tour has crashed and burned. They've had players come back to the States. Brooks Koepka is the biggest name of all of them. A many time major winner. He's left the Liv tour, applied to come back to the PGA, and he got accepted with some stipulations, because they're not just going to let everybody just come back and, you know, jump into the mix because there's a lot of young up and comers who could get potentially bumped out of, you know, playing, playing, conditions if that.

You know, if they let everybody from the live tour just jump back ship over to PGA. So they've already tried this. And I know it's not. Influencers are different than professional golfers, but where I find that they're going to have a hard time differentiating is because they are throwing a pretty big prize pool at these amateur players. If you're going to watch somebody, you know, golf and and play like us, obviously they're much better golfers than us.

But is it going to become, this survivor or Big Brother or any of the other reality shows that you see and sprinkled in with golf, or is it going to be focused on golf with just worse golfers than you see on either the live or the PGA tour? I think that's where they're going to have a hard time. They're going to have to find that line in there somewhere and I also want to make a very quick, small amount about something you were talking about. They're not going to disrupt, you know, courses and blah blah, blah. They're going to shut them down. I agree that this tour won't do that. The problem is the people that are playing on this tour, most of them, I would think, you know, part of their job description, they would call themselves what influencers.

Just like professional athletes influencing young children, influencers on social media are going to influence other golfers. So now maybe they're not going to disrupt things that their course. But now if you have a bunch of knucklehead 23 year olds out there that say, hey, I want to start taping all of our rounds and they're stopping so that they can set up this and set up that and put on their mics or take off their mikes or whatever it is.

It's going to disrupt their home courses or the places they're playing at. And I think there's a at some point I think you're going to have to see some someone come in and say, and it's and it's going to probably be a course by course basis. Hey guys, we don't allow cameras on the course or we don't allow microphones or whatever it is to keep people moving. On, on a very quick, mention of my wife and I on, while we're at nationals last year in South Carolina, we ran into Georgia. We wanted to pick off an extra state, so we we ran into Georgia, golfed around there, and we had a group of ladies playing in front of us that were taking pictures of everything.

And that's another one of those things. Again, I understand, you know, this was right near an airport. I really don't understand. Like they've never seen an airplane. That's a lot of what they were taking pictures of as the airplanes going overhead after coming off the runways. But, it was very disruptive to the flow of our golf game. It took us almost six hours to get through an 18 hole round that day. Because of that, the course owner or the whoever was at the pro shop that day actually apologized for having taken so long. There was a communication barrier. Needless to say, between him and the ladies that were in, you know, had come in and paid for their round.

I'm not trying to take any joy from anybody else having a good round, but if your joy disrupts everybody else's, it's time to tone it back a little bit and find a Happy Meal.

Speaker 1 31:25

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that the courses need to keep an eye on things. They they need to not only keep an eye on things for, for pace of play and things like that, but behaviors and, and what people are doing on the course. And I think it's really important that you don't disrupt things. I mean, I love you to golf. I think it's an interesting thing that's happening. I like watching some of the videos and stuff, but I know what I'm watching is not that style. Like, I'm not watching the kid who is I. I don't like the things where somebody disrupts, somebody's trying to drive or someone's trying to putt, and they're doing these pranks and things like that.

No, I want to see people like Grant and the Bryan brothers play against other players and show me like, okay, what did they score? Like, what are their shots look like and have fun with it and have cool conversations. I don't want them to do the stupid antics and all that stuff. So there's part of me with this new tour that wants it to be more on the skill side, but I just don't think you can do something on YouTube without the personality side.

And so it's going to be a really interesting thing to see what happens with this, what the mix is. Obviously it's a big announcement for them. It's a lot of content for them. I know one of the thing that's interesting is that part of the tour is going to be on one person's channel, and then the next part will be on a different person's channel. And then the finals will be on the wide YouTube channel. So I could see where they're they're being smart YouTube business people and they're realizing that if they can put their views on certain people's channels, they can make money that way. There's no question that this isn't something that has to like. It clearly has to do with them getting more eyeballs on themselves and on golf and on YouTube golf.

I just hope for their sake that it doesn't become boring and it doesn't become just repetitive and not enjoyable. So it's going to be interesting to see. It's a big announcement. It's a big money thing, and obviously the wind being behind it that that that casino and that family and that that's a lot of money behind. So we'll see what these guys do. Could it end up being like live? Who knows. Now? Do I think it could give people opportunity to maybe shine and get known and be found out to possibly go to the PGA? Maybe, I don't know. We'll have to see what happens with that.

Speaker 2 34:13

I would love here's here's my I'm looking directly at you, Grant. I would love you to give me a shout out. Give me a call and explain to me how what you're doing is not going to be detrimental down the line as far as the trickle down, like I just talked about to younger influencers or wannabe influencers to them, are you putting a label on your product saying, don't try this at home, because otherwise I think it's going to be tried at home.

And I think as far as bettering the game of golf, I think it's going to make it worse until courses have to step in. And I don't think the impetus should always be on the courses to have to keep raining people back. At some point, Grant and the brothers and everybody else, I think it's up to you guys to say, hey guys, we do this under control. The environment. Don't run around and doing this at home. I know I'm a podcaster. Jake's a podcaster. This is my first delve into it, but, I'm just given my $0.02. I would love to hear from someone in the upper echelon of that tour to explain to me so that I could explain to our world up here, about how this, you know, is beneficial to the game of golf.

Because ultimately, if you truly love golf, what you do in and around your sphere, whether it's, you know, YouTube or any other, you know, social media outlet you use, I think it should be for the betterment of golf.

Speaker 1 35:38

I agree, I think that it would be interesting to hear and I'm sure it will, because obviously they're going to be talking about this up until it actually happens. I'm interested to follow it and see what it is going to be, what it is going to be like, and what's going to happen with it. I think your your comparison to live is really interesting. There's a lot of people that are upset about the amount of money and where that money was coming from, and some people may be upset about this too, because it's coming from casinos, it's coming from large industry. I don't know, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. I just I found it really bizarre in some ways that it came out the way that it did.

It's not really a long tour, so I still feel like that's a rather strange way of putting it, because it's only a couple different stops and realistically, to me it feels like it's just a big tournament for women to show off their golf course and get their name out there. So we'll see. I just thought I would share that this announcement happened and we'd share our opinion on what we think about that kind of golf.

Again, I like watching it, but I also don't like it disrupting things. So it's it's kind of something I have to keep my eye out. And luckily we don't see much of it around here. We don't see a bunch of kids running around and filming stuff and doing those kinds of things, but I can only imagine if you are on your home course and you see this, it has to be annoying.

Speaker 2 37:18

My biggest point as far as live being a failed product, and I'm not here to bash live, that's not my intents. Just give my honest opinion. My my biggest, ammo that I got in my ammo case, I guess, would be that, Liv's biggest sponsor, which was essentially a country. The Saudis, they took their financial backing away. So they're they're financing them through the end of the year, and then they're done. That shows the product is diminished greatly, that they way overpaid these guys. The purses were way too big than not having any cuts was a bad idea. And this spectacle around it, they wanted to make it a looser. You can wear shorts on the live tour.

You don't have to wear pants. They played loud music at every turn. Like, you know, not just a clubhouse, but they have a bunch of other locations, satellite locations out on the course. They have a team format within the individual format. Just a lot of quirky stuff that they tried. And I'm all about like, I'm fine with them trying it. Again, I think it was a it was a cash grab for most of the guys that joined it. But it's been a really poor product to watch. It's very confusing their leaderboard that they show you. It's because not everybody starts on the same hole. That's the other thing. They don't start on hole one or in some cases, some tournaments will start on hole ten to, but this course starts like a shotgun start like you would do a scramble.

So any of the 18 holes, they'll start. Yeah. And so you can't tell like how many holes is the leader have left because you don't know what hole he started on. So it becomes a very confusing thing. And they put that up on the board. You know, your team score is right below it with the individual scores. And it's it's tough to follow. Like you see numbers jumping all over because every time somebody from that team has a birdie or an eagle or whatever, you'll see the score change or bogey, double bogey, same thing. Just very confusing format. And and again, I think when you play the loud music and just say everybody's got to deal with it because that's part of this tour, I yes, it's buyer beware.

I understand that people are signing on to this, you know, knowing full well that that could happen. But my problem with it is now you're taking away from the, you know, from the gentlemanly part of the game, which is, you know, it was a very peaceful, quiet, you know, understated walk in the woods, as I used to say.

Speaker 1 39:28

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens at the end of the year with Liv. That's another one that I'm keeping an eye on. I don't watch it. I watched maybe 1 or 2 tournaments, and I agree, it was extremely confusing. It was very odd. And I'm concerned that Ligety is going to be the same thing because, like I said, the format that they're playing and the team aspect and this wildcard person and that kind of stuff just just feels like we're trying to take a sport that clearly works and try to modernize it in ways that don't need to be done.

And so, we'll see what happens. Obviously, like I said, the links will be in the description so you can watch their announcement, read a couple of the articles that are there for him, your own opinion, but I'll be watching to see what happens. But I'm also probably going to be extremely confused when I'm watching, because I'm confused and I've read several articles on it. I don't know. Well, I think we're going to close up there. And as always, please make sure that you like subscribe and turn that notification bell on so that you can get notified when we upload our latest video to YouTube. You can also find us on any podcast app that you go to like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, overcast, and you can go to our website.

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Speaker 2 41:05

Never leave a birdie putt short.