Grayson Murray’s Tragic Passing, Blandy’s Senior PGA Win, and Scheffler’s Arrest Saga Continues

Jake Hower: 00:00:00

Welcome back to Beyond the Tour.

Jake Hower: 00:00:01

Luke, how are you mate?

Luke Manning: 00:00:04

Hi Jake, I'm well.

Luke Manning: 00:00:05

It's been another big week in golf, so lots for us to talk to.

Luke Manning: 00:00:09

Probably more so off the course than on the course, but ready

Luke Manning: 00:00:13

to get into our pod today.

Jake Hower: 00:00:15

Yeah, that seems to be the case for this whole year really.

Jake Hower: 00:00:18

There's a lot more off the golf course than what has been happening on the golf

Jake Hower: 00:00:21

course outside of a few main storylines.

Jake Hower: 00:00:24

Obviously the biggest news this week is the death of Grayson Murray who took

Jake Hower: 00:00:28

his life after playing the first two rounds of the Charles Schwab challenge.

Jake Hower: 00:00:32

He left the course with a couple of holes to play being five down

Jake Hower: 00:00:36

and looking likely to miss the cut.

Jake Hower: 00:00:39

Everyone has been discussing this.

Jake Hower: 00:00:41

What were your initial thoughts having seen that?

Luke Manning: 00:00:44

Oh, I was very shocked.

Luke Manning: 00:00:46

I wrote earlier in the year in the Changsha newsletter about a great

Luke Manning: 00:00:50

redemption story for Grayson following his win in Hawaii at the Sony Open.

Luke Manning: 00:00:56

And had really felt like he had put a lot of his demons and his troubles behind him.

Luke Manning: 00:01:02

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and he was still struggling very

Luke Manning: 00:01:06

much with the mental health issues that he'd spoken publicly about.

Luke Manning: 00:01:11

Gutted to hear the news.

Luke Manning: 00:01:12

I was really shocked and very sorry for his fiancé and his

Luke Manning: 00:01:17

family who he's left behind.

Jake Hower: 00:01:20

Yep, absolutely.

Jake Hower: 00:01:21

It's a situation for the people he has left behind would be

Jake Hower: 00:01:26

incredibly hard to get through.

Jake Hower: 00:01:27

Blame and feeling like you could have done more.

Jake Hower: 00:01:31

These sort of conversations, it's going to haunt the family and friends and

Jake Hower: 00:01:37

everyone around it for a long time.

Jake Hower: 00:01:39

Personally, I My uncle committed suicide when I was going into high

Jake Hower: 00:01:43

school and we were pretty close and that had a big impact on me

Jake Hower: 00:01:47

and his family had a young son.

Jake Hower: 00:01:48

Obviously that was 20 odd years ago.

Jake Hower: 00:01:50

And there's a lot more that we know about the illness and about the

Jake Hower: 00:01:55

fact that it's a constant struggle.

Jake Hower: 00:01:57

I was the same having seen Grayson.

Jake Hower: 00:02:00

Over the last 12 months talk about it very openly, it was a

Jake Hower: 00:02:04

shock to see what had occurred.

Luke Manning: 00:02:07

He'd spoken about how his fiancée and also his religion

Luke Manning: 00:02:12

had really helped him turn a corner.

Luke Manning: 00:02:14

Obviously the win at Sony was a great achievement for him on

Luke Manning: 00:02:18

top of grinding away on the KFT and earning his tour card back.

Luke Manning: 00:02:24

It was a very raw moment when Jim Nance and Trevor Immelman on the CBS coverage,

Luke Manning: 00:02:31

explain the news and what had happened and how he'd gone bogey, I think on 14,

Luke Manning: 00:02:37

15, 16, and turned to his playing partner, Peter Malnati, and said, I'm done.

Luke Manning: 00:02:42

And those words really hurt.

Luke Manning: 00:02:43

Stuck out for me.

Luke Manning: 00:02:45

Obviously no one was to know at that particular time

Luke Manning: 00:02:48

just how bad he was feeling.

Luke Manning: 00:02:50

Although, Peter did inform, or we're told Peter did inform people at the PGA Tour

Luke Manning: 00:02:56

that someone should check on Grayson.

Luke Manning: 00:02:59

You mentioned his family just before.

Luke Manning: 00:03:01

By all accounts, his family are wonderful and supportive people.

Luke Manning: 00:03:05

He did have a good support structure around him.

Luke Manning: 00:03:08

I guess it just does go to show that sometimes people feel no

Luke Manning: 00:03:13

matter what support they've got around them, it's just too much.

Luke Manning: 00:03:16

And so it was a very sad end of affairs for Grayson.

Luke Manning: 00:03:20

And then The positive for me has been the way that some of his

Luke Manning: 00:03:26

colleagues his caddy and also his coach have remembered him publicly.

Luke Manning: 00:03:33

There's been some really great things said about him, particularly how he

Luke Manning: 00:03:37

was such a kind and generous soul.

Luke Manning: 00:03:41

And so I think those are fitting tributes to him.

Luke Manning: 00:03:45

And the only positive really in a very sad situation.

Jake Hower: 00:03:49

Gary Williams post a little bit about alcoholism and his struggle

Jake Hower: 00:03:52

with it and his dealings with Grayson and I recommend everybody read that.

Jake Hower: 00:03:56

It's a really moving piece.

Jake Hower: 00:03:58

What was interesting, to me and what made it such a shock was the

Jake Hower: 00:04:01

fact that he was so open with it.

Jake Hower: 00:04:02

You don't there aren't many instances I can recall of people being so

Jake Hower: 00:04:06

open with their struggles and then going on to commit suicide.

Jake Hower: 00:04:11

Obviously it would happen.

Jake Hower: 00:04:12

There's, there was a podcast called Shit Town.

Jake Hower: 00:04:16

Which was following a guy in Southern USA, John B.

Jake Hower: 00:04:19

McLemore.

Jake Hower: 00:04:20

And it was a really good show to listen to.

Jake Hower: 00:04:22

He was open in the podcast throughout the series about the fact that he's going to

Jake Hower: 00:04:26

commit suicide and he ends up doing it.

Jake Hower: 00:04:28

But yeah, outside of those few instances, you don't see it

Jake Hower: 00:04:34

or I haven't seen it often.

Jake Hower: 00:04:35

So that was really surprising.

Luke Manning: 00:04:38

And credit to Grayson for being courageous and being

Luke Manning: 00:04:42

willing to talk about it openly.

Jake Hower: 00:04:45

Yep.

Luke Manning: 00:04:45

He'd obviously had struggles from 2017, really, when he burst onto

Luke Manning: 00:04:50

the scene in his rookie year and he won.

Luke Manning: 00:04:53

And maybe the trappings of winning and having early success with certain people.

Luke Manning: 00:05:01

So he's been, or he was known to have been vocal on a number of issues.

Luke Manning: 00:05:08

Some good, some bad.

Luke Manning: 00:05:10

You'll recall the story last year at the players meeting where Jay fronted

Luke Manning: 00:05:15

The players not long after the framework agreement had been announced and Grayson

Luke Manning: 00:05:20

was very outspoken on the fact that the players just couldn't trust him anymore

Luke Manning: 00:05:26

and that he called out I think some of the things that needed to be called out.

Luke Manning: 00:05:31

So he certainly was willing to be open and honest about things whether

Luke Manning: 00:05:36

they be about his own personal struggles or things going on inside

Luke Manning: 00:05:40

the tour that needed to be addressed.

Luke Manning: 00:05:42

And he should.

Luke Manning: 00:05:43

be remembered and commended for that.

Jake Hower: 00:05:46

Now, he was a very controversial character

Jake Hower: 00:05:48

throughout his career.

Jake Hower: 00:05:49

And he elicited strong responses from many in the media.

Jake Hower: 00:05:54

I guess looking at that aspect of it, something I'm try to avoid is attacking

Jake Hower: 00:06:00

personally, because as we've coming or as we're being reminded with this, you don't

Jake Hower: 00:06:07

know what's happening behind the scenes.

Jake Hower: 00:06:09

Now some were very vocal against Grayson getting quite personal.

Jake Hower: 00:06:13

And, yeah, I don't know how the media handles that, whether or not that's their

Jake Hower: 00:06:17

job to be doing that or whether or not they can take that into consideration

Jake Hower: 00:06:21

and rather than attacking the person, you're attacking their actions.

Luke Manning: 00:06:26

He certainly was a target for some in the, shall we say,

Luke Manning: 00:06:30

independent golf media public Twitter spats with with some well known

Luke Manning: 00:06:36

personalities other golf journalists, independent golf journalists, even as

Luke Manning: 00:06:41

recent as his win earlier this year.

Luke Manning: 00:06:44

Referring to him as, the ogre who, who has regrown his teeth.

Luke Manning: 00:06:49

As you say, you just never know what's going on behind closed doors.

Luke Manning: 00:06:52

And it is interesting to note or conspicuous to note that

Luke Manning: 00:06:57

these media personalities and the have been relatively quiet.

Luke Manning: 00:07:04

on, on X or or social media since the passing of Grayson, possibly

Luke Manning: 00:07:10

some platitudes, basic platitudes given out on podcasts or newsletters,

Luke Manning: 00:07:15

but certainly nothing in depth addressing the history with him.

Luke Manning: 00:07:19

Maybe that's the right approach.

Luke Manning: 00:07:20

I'm not sure, but it certainly stood out to me as being something of note.

Luke Manning: 00:07:24

It

Jake Hower: 00:07:24

I think maybe it's better to just cop it, to just be honest.

Jake Hower: 00:07:29

And.

Jake Hower: 00:07:31

Yeah, whether or not you have to make an apology, I'm not sure,

Jake Hower: 00:07:34

but you may as well address it.

Jake Hower: 00:07:37

If social media, one thing it does is it there's a timeline

Jake Hower: 00:07:40

of everything that happens.

Jake Hower: 00:07:41

So it all comes up.

Jake Hower: 00:07:42

It's all in a public eye.

Luke Manning: 00:07:44

Does.

Luke Manning: 00:07:44

And I think Carrie Higgs.

Luke Manning: 00:07:46

Had a really great speech after his second win in a row on the KFT where

Luke Manning: 00:07:53

he issued a challenge to, to, all of us to say, Go and say something nice to

Luke Manning: 00:07:59

someone you know, but also go and say something nice to someone you don't know.

Luke Manning: 00:08:03

And just try and find that little bit of kindness.

Luke Manning: 00:08:06

So a good challenge for us all I think to try and take on board.

Jake Hower: 00:08:10

what did you think of Jay Monaghan flying

Jake Hower: 00:08:12

in and his press conference?

Luke Manning: 00:08:15

I think to be expected from Jay is He played the straight bat, the

Luke Manning: 00:08:19

typical corporate line to it, reached out to the family, did offer to cancel the

Luke Manning: 00:08:26

remaining rounds of the Charles Schwab, which I think was the right thing to do.

Luke Manning: 00:08:30

But to Grayson's family's credit, they insisted on the tournament

Luke Manning: 00:08:35

going ahead because that's what Grayson would have wanted.

Luke Manning: 00:08:39

And so I think it just really, it's another example of that great

Luke Manning: 00:08:44

family that did surround him.

Jake Hower: 00:08:46

I think it was pretty good.

Jake Hower: 00:08:47

Jay, in terms of his press conference, it was only very brief and he

Jake Hower: 00:08:51

didn't take too many questions, but.

Jake Hower: 00:08:54

He did seem to take on board Grayson's feedback and he spoke a little bit about

Jake Hower: 00:09:00

some of the correspondence he had with him in and around a few sort of attacks

Jake Hower: 00:09:03

that Grayson had levied at the tour.

Jake Hower: 00:09:05

And Jay does seem like a very personable he does seem like he cares

Jake Hower: 00:09:12

particularly around the players.

Jake Hower: 00:09:13

And yeah, I was, while it was still relatively corporate, I

Jake Hower: 00:09:18

was pretty impressed with the.

Jake Hower: 00:09:21

With his response, like he's been hiding with a lot of the live stuff he's been

Jake Hower: 00:09:25

hiding, really, he's been missing and he was on the jet and he was facing the media

Jake Hower: 00:09:31

within a couple of hours in this instance.

Jake Hower: 00:09:33

And I think this is where he really shines.

Luke Manning: 00:09:36

If you were putting a bet on whether he would shine or

Luke Manning: 00:09:39

not, you'd certainly be backing him not to given his history of poor

Luke Manning: 00:09:44

press conferences and fumbling these types of sensitive matters, but did a

Luke Manning: 00:09:51

better job this time round and I think appropriately addressed the right issues.

Jake Hower: 00:09:59

Now, the results from the Charles Schwab, we had Davis

Jake Hower: 00:10:02

Reilly winning by five shots.

Jake Hower: 00:10:04

He better beat out Keegan Bradley and Scottish Scheffler

Jake Hower: 00:10:07

who had an up and down week.

Jake Hower: 00:10:09

He had moments of brilliance where he looked like he was going to,

Jake Hower: 00:10:12

where it was going to be inevitable.

Jake Hower: 00:10:14

And then a couple of rounds, the second and the fourth where

Jake Hower: 00:10:17

he faded away a little bit.

Luke Manning: 00:10:18

A bit of a snoozer event for me, particularly on Sunday.

Luke Manning: 00:10:23

Scotty made a bit of a charge on on Saturday where I thought he was going

Luke Manning: 00:10:28

to make it interesting shooting 63 keeping Riley within within grabbing

Luke Manning: 00:10:33

distance, shall we say, Riley was threatening to run away with it.

Luke Manning: 00:10:38

So Scotty got close enough but conditions were pretty tough on Sunday.

Luke Manning: 00:10:43

The golf course was playing bouncy and firm and there was a bit of wind around.

Luke Manning: 00:10:49

So even though it was a bit of a snoozer of an event The golf course probably

Luke Manning: 00:10:55

did give an opportunity for the best golfer to separate himself this week.

Luke Manning: 00:11:00

Riley was very solid under the gun, under the pressure of Sunday,

Luke Manning: 00:11:05

never looked like he was going to lose and ended up winning quite

Luke Manning: 00:11:09

comfortably with a five shot victory.

Jake Hower: 00:11:11

I'm glad to see him when he's been on tour for a few years now, and

Jake Hower: 00:11:14

he started out pretty strong and then has gone through a bit of a lull for

Jake Hower: 00:11:17

last 18 to two 18 months or thereabouts.

Jake Hower: 00:11:20

So it's good to see him when he's a close friend of Will Zellatorre.

Jake Hower: 00:11:23

So he comes from that sort of that same sort of vintage.

Jake Hower: 00:11:27

He's hopefully now he's got that win.

Jake Hower: 00:11:29

We obviously won the team event with was it Nick Hardy?

Jake Hower: 00:11:33

So that's his second official win.

Jake Hower: 00:11:35

Yeah other notables.

Jake Hower: 00:11:36

So I was relatively impressed with Colin again, Morikawa.

Luke Manning: 00:11:39

Going to call Colin out starting to get into ominous form ahead

Luke Manning: 00:11:43

of the US Open at Pinehurst, which is obviously a second shot golf course and

Luke Manning: 00:11:48

his irons are starting to really sing.

Luke Manning: 00:11:50

So I think Colin's definitely trending in the right direction

Luke Manning: 00:11:54

and caught my eye as well.

Jake Hower: 00:11:56

Yep, absolutely.

Jake Hower: 00:11:57

Just needs to get that putter.

Jake Hower: 00:11:58

I will find that sort of that hot streak with a putter coming into these big events

Jake Hower: 00:12:02

anything else from the Charles Schwab

Luke Manning: 00:12:04

No, nothing else.

Luke Manning: 00:12:05

The Aussies were reasonably disappointing again.

Luke Manning: 00:12:09

I think Adam Scott poked his nose around in the top five for a little

Luke Manning: 00:12:13

while, but as we discussed last week just too many mistakes from Adam.

Luke Manning: 00:12:18

I think he had two double bogeys in maybe the third round which

Luke Manning: 00:12:22

put an end to his chances.

Luke Manning: 00:12:24

And I think Minwoo had a really Paul final round.

Luke Manning: 00:12:28

So some work to do for the Aussies as they head into the next major.

Jake Hower: 00:12:34

across in Antwerp on a DP world tour, That was won by Nacho O'Vera

Jake Hower: 00:12:38

over Thomas Peters and Nicholas Norgardt.

Jake Hower: 00:12:41

I watched the last nine holes or thereabouts on for me or Sunday evening.

Jake Hower: 00:12:46

They had some tough conditions.

Jake Hower: 00:12:48

They went through a little bit of a thunderstorm there.

Jake Hower: 00:12:50

And it was coming down, it was coming down hard to what got to the point where they

Jake Hower: 00:12:56

halted play for 20 minutes or thereabouts while I had to squeegee the greens, get

Jake Hower: 00:13:00

off the standing water off the greens.

Jake Hower: 00:13:03

Surprisingly, they kept all the golfers out there.

Jake Hower: 00:13:05

So they're all on course under their umbrellas.

Jake Hower: 00:13:08

That was notable for me just because you wouldn't generally

Jake Hower: 00:13:12

see that on the PGA tour.

Jake Hower: 00:13:13

They'd be called in because of lightning or something of such.

Jake Hower: 00:13:17

And they'd be off the course for an hour or two.

Luke Manning: 00:13:19

They do come off pretty quickly.

Luke Manning: 00:13:21

I didn't catch any of the Sedale Open, unfortunately, but I did see

Luke Manning: 00:13:26

that Peter's put in a solid effort in front of his home crowd there.

Luke Manning: 00:13:30

And I look at that Nicholas Norgard and just think Nikolai Hoigard.

Luke Manning: 00:13:36

They're very similar names.

Luke Manning: 00:13:37

You have double take on that leaderboard.

Jake Hower: 00:13:39

He looks like a really solid player.

Jake Hower: 00:13:40

I haven't seen a lot of him, but he's someone I'll be watching.

Jake Hower: 00:13:43

Certainly.

Jake Hower: 00:13:44

The other notable in, in the fields that was playing really well was

Jake Hower: 00:13:47

Joe Dean notably in that he has had a couple of starts on the DP world

Jake Hower: 00:13:53

tour this year and also the challenge tour, but outside of a handful of

Jake Hower: 00:13:57

events, he hasn't played in any.

Jake Hower: 00:13:59

Any official competition.

Jake Hower: 00:14:01

So he come from nowhere and the commentators on that particular tour

Jake Hower: 00:14:06

through the coverage, didn't know anything about him either, which

Jake Hower: 00:14:08

is for mine, that was quite strange because they're quite knowledgeable

Jake Hower: 00:14:12

commentators on the DP world tour.

Luke Manning: 00:14:15

And I see Laurie Cantor finished T7 some improved form,

Luke Manning: 00:14:19

cause he struggled in the events on Liv that he has got to play.

Jake Hower: 00:14:23

yep.

Jake Hower: 00:14:24

Yep.

Jake Hower: 00:14:25

Absolutely.

Jake Hower: 00:14:26

Then I guess for, from the perspective of live, you've

Jake Hower: 00:14:29

got Thomas Peter second there.

Jake Hower: 00:14:31

We had Kieran Vincent winning there.

Jake Hower: 00:14:33

What was it?

Jake Hower: 00:14:33

The Kit Kat.

Luke Manning: 00:14:35

Kit Kat

Luke Manning: 00:14:35

Cash and Carrie.

Jake Hower: 00:14:37

on the sunshine tour.

Jake Hower: 00:14:38

That's a good name.

Luke Manning: 00:14:39

I've never heard a better name for an event actually.

Luke Manning: 00:14:42

That's outstanding.

Jake Hower: 00:14:43

One thing's for certain with the, with these live guys

Jake Hower: 00:14:46

that they all tend to do quite well outside of live in that sort

Jake Hower: 00:14:49

of bottom rung of the competition on the, of the live competition.

Jake Hower: 00:14:52

Now I'm not sure, initially I thought maybe it was just a bit of an outlier that

Jake Hower: 00:14:56

the players like David Pooj Kieran Vincent has done quite well, Andy Ogletree.

Jake Hower: 00:15:00

I thought maybe the outlier was those guys just not performing on live.

Jake Hower: 00:15:05

But I think it probably does highlight the fact that perhaps live

Jake Hower: 00:15:09

events themselves are quite, the standard is quite a lot higher than

Jake Hower: 00:15:14

they're probably given credit for.

Luke Manning: 00:15:16

I do think there's a big gap between those regional

Luke Manning: 00:15:20

global tours and the very top tours and straddling that gap.

Luke Manning: 00:15:25

is a process, particularly if you're not elite.

Luke Manning: 00:15:30

So I think that's why we're seeing this situation where, when they do go

Luke Manning: 00:15:35

back to Asian tour or sunshine tour or the like, they tend to do very well.

Luke Manning: 00:15:41

We even see that in the in the PGA tour of Australasia normally our returning

Luke Manning: 00:15:46

golfers, even if they're not playing so well in the bigger tours they come

Luke Manning: 00:15:51

back and generally dominate and so there is that real step up between the

Luke Manning: 00:15:57

regional global tours and the big ones.

Jake Hower: 00:16:00

Are we going to, are we bundling in the DP World

Jake Hower: 00:16:02

Tour into that category now?

Luke Manning: 00:16:05

If they keep giving away their top 10 best players each year

Luke Manning: 00:16:07

to the PGA Tour, it's definitely going to be that stepping, stepping stone.

Luke Manning: 00:16:14

I know referring to the DP World Tour as a feeder tour is offensive to a

Luke Manning: 00:16:18

lot of fans of the DP World Tour, but their leadership are, through the

Luke Manning: 00:16:23

decision making that they're engaged in, are effectively doing that.

Luke Manning: 00:16:27

They're ceding their power and their strength to the U.

Luke Manning: 00:16:32

S.

Luke Manning: 00:16:32

And that's not a sustainable position in my view.

Jake Hower: 00:16:36

Now the big events the events of the week really was the the

Jake Hower: 00:16:40

champions to the senior or not the champions to as a senior PGA championship.

Jake Hower: 00:16:44

One by Liv's Richard Bland after getting an invitation by the PGA of America.

Luke Manning: 00:16:50

Blandemonium broke out as was all across social media.

Luke Manning: 00:16:54

Blandy ate under in his final round and really took that win.

Luke Manning: 00:17:00

Greg Chalmers, the Aussie was going into the final round tied for the lead

Luke Manning: 00:17:05

with Ernie Els and to his great credit Snake was six under through, I think

Luke Manning: 00:17:10

14 or 15 holes, but but yeah, just.

Luke Manning: 00:17:15

fell short towards the end, couple of late bogeys gave the lead to

Luke Manning: 00:17:20

Bland and he wasn't able to recover.

Luke Manning: 00:17:22

He'll be devastated about that.

Luke Manning: 00:17:24

But a great effort from Greg nonetheless, and also Richard

Luke Manning: 00:17:28

Green ended up coming in at T2.

Luke Manning: 00:17:31

So the Aussies putting in a good show.

Luke Manning: 00:17:34

Scott Hendt,

Luke Manning: 00:17:35

at T4.

Luke Manning: 00:17:37

And then I think Stuart Appleby was just outside the top 10 as well, maybe 12th.

Luke Manning: 00:17:41

The Australians doing really well, but I feel for for Greg Chalmers.

Luke Manning: 00:17:46

But you can't say that Richard didn't go out and get the job done.

Luke Manning: 00:17:49

He certainly did.

Luke Manning: 00:17:50

Shot eight under to win it.

Jake Hower: 00:17:51

If you sat Richard down three years ago before he's won his DP

Jake Hower: 00:17:56

World Tour events and said the next three years, he's going to see you win on the DP

Jake Hower: 00:18:02

World Tour, join Liv, win a senior major.

Jake Hower: 00:18:06

I think you would have fallen off the chair.

Luke Manning: 00:18:08

He's probably had the best years of his career so late in his career.

Luke Manning: 00:18:11

And he seems just a really genuine, nice guy.

Luke Manning: 00:18:15

I thought he was very humble and, showed a very vulnerable side in

Luke Manning: 00:18:21

his winning speech talking about his brother who's got quite serious cancer

Luke Manning: 00:18:27

and looks to be almost terminal and dedicating that win to his sick brother.

Luke Manning: 00:18:33

He also talked about, potentially what this win means and use words to the effect

Luke Manning: 00:18:39

of look, I'm still contracted to live for the moment, but interested to see

Luke Manning: 00:18:44

what doors this win might open for me.

Luke Manning: 00:18:48

So I wonder whether he might have an eye on his end contract date with live

Luke Manning: 00:18:55

and looking to make the transition to the Champions Tour in the U.

Luke Manning: 00:19:01

S.

Luke Manning: 00:19:02

One of the things that was supposed to have come with the win at the Senior

Luke Manning: 00:19:07

PGA Championship was exemption to the Seniors Tour, but I see that the PGA

Luke Manning: 00:19:12

Tour have withdrawn that exemption.

Jake Hower: 00:19:15

That was interesting to see them publicly make that statement.

Jake Hower: 00:19:19

Like I'm sure people would have been asking it, but whether or

Jake Hower: 00:19:22

not they had to, as a tour, come out and make that statement.

Jake Hower: 00:19:25

He's not a member.

Jake Hower: 00:19:26

He's never been a member.

Jake Hower: 00:19:27

So I don't see any need for them to make that statement.

Luke Manning: 00:19:31

It's difficult to know how to play it.

Luke Manning: 00:19:33

And maybe they wanted to get out in front of it.

Luke Manning: 00:19:36

It's not a great look either way.

Luke Manning: 00:19:38

And to, you can understand why they're not wanting to offer the exemption, but

Luke Manning: 00:19:45

it was, Part of the winner's package, so to speak, and now it's no longer.

Jake Hower: 00:19:51

The PJ of America have had a fantastic couple of weeks with with their

Jake Hower: 00:19:55

invitations of the live guys with PJ.

Jake Hower: 00:19:57

Bryson performing the way he did.

Jake Hower: 00:19:59

Bryson was already in it, but it was notable all of the players

Jake Hower: 00:20:02

they got into the PGA championship.

Jake Hower: 00:20:04

But now for Richard Bland to win this, he would have brought a lot of eyeballs

Jake Hower: 00:20:08

from live fans to the senior PGA.

Jake Hower: 00:20:11

But I think above that, just just the headlines throughout the golfing

Jake Hower: 00:20:14

world of the fact that that he won it being a live invitation.

Jake Hower: 00:20:19

Yeah, they've they've played a really strong card.

Luke Manning: 00:20:23

Yeah, lots of publicity around the two events, which is a

Luke Manning: 00:20:26

great positive for the PGA of America.

Luke Manning: 00:20:29

And it gets back to, for me, it gets back to leaning into rivalries, sporting

Luke Manning: 00:20:35

rivalries, and the Friction and the tension that has been created between the

Luke Manning: 00:20:43

PGA Tour and LiveDivide I think it can be really harnessed into making some of these

Luke Manning: 00:20:49

big events even bigger and generating huge amounts of publicity and fan engagement.

Jake Hower: 00:20:57

Absolutely.

Jake Hower: 00:20:58

And you don't need many of these big, huge events each year.

Jake Hower: 00:21:02

Every event shouldn't be the same.

Jake Hower: 00:21:03

Every event shouldn't be like, we don't need to see the, you want to see

Jake Hower: 00:21:08

the best compete against each other.

Jake Hower: 00:21:12

Probably don't need to see them all compete against each other.

Jake Hower: 00:21:15

25 weeks of the year.

Jake Hower: 00:21:17

So maybe it is.

Jake Hower: 00:21:19

seven, eight weeks that we see them all come together and

Jake Hower: 00:21:22

compete against each other.

Luke Manning: 00:21:24

And even when the PGA Tour was without a competitor, you

Luke Manning: 00:21:30

never saw the best players play against each other 20 plus weeks a year anyway.

Luke Manning: 00:21:35

They were at most playing sort of 14 times, but they weren't the same

Luke Manning: 00:21:39

14 events for all the top players.

Luke Manning: 00:21:42

And then you add in the majors.

Luke Manning: 00:21:43

So it's not it's not like we've gone from having 16 or 18 events

Luke Manning: 00:21:50

where everybody is together and now we only see it four times a year.

Jake Hower: 00:21:55

Now, hypothetical which hopefully is something

Jake Hower: 00:21:59

that is more than a hypothetical.

Jake Hower: 00:22:00

Last year, Richard Bland applied for an invitation to the senior open

Jake Hower: 00:22:07

championship, and he was declined by the RNA with his win at the senior PGA.

Jake Hower: 00:22:13

He has an exemption into the.

Jake Hower: 00:22:15

The open the senior open that week, there is a live event on.

Jake Hower: 00:22:20

If you were live, if you're Greg, would you would you give the blessings to

Jake Hower: 00:22:24

Richard to go and play the senior open?

Luke Manning: 00:22:26

I think that would be a smart move from Greg.

Luke Manning: 00:22:28

Greg wants to see players move between tours play a whole heap of

Luke Manning: 00:22:34

different events around the world.

Luke Manning: 00:22:36

He's been very big on players being independent contractors

Luke Manning: 00:22:40

and that they should have the freedom to play wherever they want.

Luke Manning: 00:22:43

I think he should live by the words that he has I guess publicly put out there.

Luke Manning: 00:22:50

Practically it can work because we know there are reserve players that

Luke Manning: 00:22:54

could come in and fill Blandy's spot.

Luke Manning: 00:22:57

But more so I think it's a good thing for him to do in

Luke Manning: 00:23:01

terms of a gesture of goodwill.

Luke Manning: 00:23:03

And I think this is what I'd like to see a bit more from Greg is for him to

Luke Manning: 00:23:07

take the high road and continuously be the better person around some of these

Luke Manning: 00:23:13

things, be the bigger person rather than engaging in, in the tit for tat.

Luke Manning: 00:23:18

So I hope that he sees sense in this gives Blandy the opportunity to go and

Luke Manning: 00:23:24

win another possible major take up that exemption and play in the senior open.

Jake Hower: 00:23:30

A hundred percent agree.

Jake Hower: 00:23:31

If it was a major, just a, an open major, there would be no

Jake Hower: 00:23:35

doubt that he'll let anyone go.

Jake Hower: 00:23:36

But the thing is live wouldn't have scheduled an event against it.

Jake Hower: 00:23:40

It wasn't ideal that it was

Jake Hower: 00:23:42

scheduled at the same time.

Luke Manning: 00:23:43

The timing's not ideal, but I think it's a good test for

Luke Manning: 00:23:46

Liv and for Norman.

Luke Manning: 00:23:47

Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is and play a different game to

Luke Manning: 00:23:52

what we've seen from, say, the PGA Tour?

Jake Hower: 00:23:54

Now, hopefully the RNA allow Richard to play.

Jake Hower: 00:23:57

I'm not sure if he's paid his fines for the DP world tour and how that would

Jake Hower: 00:24:00

affect this particular exemption, but I'm hoping that's more than a hypothetical.

Luke Manning: 00:24:05

I thought Liv were paying their fines.

Jake Hower: 00:24:08

I think they were giving the players a choice to, to play

Jake Hower: 00:24:12

their, pay their fines if they wanted to maintain their membership.

Jake Hower: 00:24:15

Now, I don't believe all of them maintain their memberships.

Jake Hower: 00:24:18

But yes, that will be interesting.

Jake Hower: 00:24:21

Now Scottish Sheffler's arrest saga continues.

Luke Manning: 00:24:24

We've got some additional footage that has come to life now with

Luke Manning: 00:24:30

new video footage released by I think the Louisville Police Department and

Luke Manning: 00:24:36

that video was pretty innocuous in my view, didn't show too much at all from

Luke Manning: 00:24:43

what you could see in the footage.

Luke Manning: 00:24:46

It looked like Scheffler moved his vehicle at very low speed and then you see a

Luke Manning: 00:24:52

police officer running after the vehicle.

Luke Manning: 00:24:56

The vehicle stops, then the next thing, Scotty's being asked to get

Luke Manning: 00:25:00

out of the vehicle and gets arrested.

Luke Manning: 00:25:03

So you can't see what happened before that vehicle started to move or came

Luke Manning: 00:25:09

into frame because there were some buses that were obscuring the vision.

Luke Manning: 00:25:14

But based on what we can see, I think it's consistent with our

Luke Manning: 00:25:19

earlier view from I think last week, that this is most likely to be a

Luke Manning: 00:25:25

misunderstanding and a miscommunication rather than some sort of crime.

Luke Manning: 00:25:30

Notwithstanding that, we have the mayor coming out and announcing that the

Luke Manning: 00:25:36

charges will be proceeding at this point.

Luke Manning: 00:25:40

And in response to that Scotty's lawyer has made it very clear that

Luke Manning: 00:25:45

there's only two outcomes here.

Luke Manning: 00:25:46

There's going to be either a trial or the dropping of the charges.

Luke Manning: 00:25:51

But did you have any thoughts on the KVV report Kevin van

Luke Manning: 00:25:57

Valkenburg's report early on that the charges were going to be dropped?

Jake Hower: 00:26:00

Not particularly, I think we're past the days where journalists,

Jake Hower: 00:26:04

particularly on Twitter are going out and getting three or four confirmations.

Jake Hower: 00:26:09

Because it is news these days is very much about being first.

Jake Hower: 00:26:13

So the bar for journalists for this type of innocuous

Jake Hower: 00:26:18

reporting I think is a lot lower.

Jake Hower: 00:26:20

So I had no problem with it really.

Luke Manning: 00:26:22

I saw Desert Duffer on X did have a problem with it he seems

Luke Manning: 00:26:26

to have a particular problem with KVV and so he was very quick to jump on

Luke Manning: 00:26:31

the tweet from KVV announcing that, an anonymous source had told him the

Luke Manning: 00:26:36

charges were going to be dropped.

Luke Manning: 00:26:37

He jumped on that pretty quickly and said here's my prediction.

Luke Manning: 00:26:40

Yeah.

Luke Manning: 00:26:41

If the charges are dropped, we're going to get a big, Hey, I told you so from KVV.

Luke Manning: 00:26:46

And if the charges aren't dropped, we're going to have a it was

Luke Manning: 00:26:50

right at the time that I reported it, but things have changed.

Luke Manning: 00:26:54

And of course, that's exactly what we did get.

Luke Manning: 00:26:56

So I thought it was a, an astute prediction from Desert Duffer

Jake Hower: 00:26:59

You can see it.

Jake Hower: 00:27:00

Like the way.

Jake Hower: 00:27:01

Journalists word thinks you can say whether or not how confident they are in

Jake Hower: 00:27:05

saying something, because if a journalist is confident, they come out and just

Jake Hower: 00:27:08

say, they pretty much stated as fact.

Jake Hower: 00:27:11

So yeah as I said, for innocuous, for an innocuous situation like

Jake Hower: 00:27:15

this, where there's no one where it's not impacting anyone, really.

Jake Hower: 00:27:19

You're not talking about sort of anything personal or any any news

Jake Hower: 00:27:23

that needs to get to family members.

Jake Hower: 00:27:25

So I have no problem.

Jake Hower: 00:27:26

With it, but yeah, very interesting to see how journalism operates these days.

Luke Manning: 00:27:30

It's still crazy that Scotty's able to push forward

Luke Manning: 00:27:34

and put another T2 on the board.

Luke Manning: 00:27:38

potentially have threatened to get in the mix with the lead there

Luke Manning: 00:27:42

on Saturday with a low round.

Luke Manning: 00:27:44

Just incredible from this guy.

Luke Manning: 00:27:45

He's a machine.

Jake Hower: 00:27:46

he is, but he didn't win and it's may we hasn't won past April.

Luke Manning: 00:27:50

Yeah.

Luke Manning: 00:27:50

You've, you've been very vocal on that point.

Jake Hower: 00:27:53

he'll win.

Jake Hower: 00:27:54

No, there's no doubt about it, whether it's this year or another year.

Jake Hower: 00:27:56

That's nothing really.

Jake Hower: 00:27:57

He probably primes himself for that early season.

Jake Hower: 00:28:00

When you see him in Platewell and take out most of his wins, but that'll be

Jake Hower: 00:28:03

something he'll see, he'll identify you if he hasn't already and he'll work your way.

Jake Hower: 00:28:09

Or work out a way to take it up for the bigger events in

Jake Hower: 00:28:11

the back end of the season

Luke Manning: 00:28:13

You think he's probably going to have a

Luke Manning: 00:28:14

couple of weeks off now, right?

Jake Hower: 00:28:16

has to he's gone through this stressful situation

Jake Hower: 00:28:18

the past couple of weeks.

Jake Hower: 00:28:19

He's got a new son at home.

Jake Hower: 00:28:21

Yeah, I was thinking about that driving to work today and the

Jake Hower: 00:28:25

reporting and the commentary around the masters around his wife.

Jake Hower: 00:28:29

Maybe need or Scotty needing to rush home because his wife was going to give birth.

Jake Hower: 00:28:35

It was essentially a month later before she did or close to it.

Jake Hower: 00:28:39

And he hasn't stopped even once she did give birth.

Jake Hower: 00:28:41

He's just keep kept on playing.

Luke Manning: 00:28:43

The newborn is almost a forgotten storyline and amongst

Luke Manning: 00:28:46

everything else that's been happening.

Luke Manning: 00:28:48

But I don't think you can underestimate the impact that, that having a new

Luke Manning: 00:28:52

child and your first child can have.

Luke Manning: 00:28:55

And it's just amazing he's been able to continue putting results on the board.

Jake Hower: 00:29:01

Now moving across to a couple of the us, us open qualifier.

Jake Hower: 00:29:05

So Howard the at Walton Heath over in the UK and the other one was, it was in Texas.

Jake Hower: 00:29:10

Was it

Luke Manning: 00:29:11

Club, I think.

Luke Manning: 00:29:12

So we've got yeah, a number of DP World Tour players that have

Luke Manning: 00:29:16

qualified including Robert Rock.

Luke Manning: 00:29:19

What a rock star name that is.

Jake Hower: 00:29:21

The swing

Luke Manning: 00:29:22

Met That's right Matteo Manassero Edward Molinari, and and

Luke Manning: 00:29:26

Aussie Jason Scrivner from the DP

Luke Manning: 00:29:29

World Tour.

Luke Manning: 00:29:30

Which is great to see.

Luke Manning: 00:29:32

Sergio lost a 7 for 6 playoff in Dallas But, notwithstanding that,

Luke Manning: 00:29:37

has secured first alternate spot, so you'd have to think that he's probably

Luke Manning: 00:29:42

still going to play at Pinehurst as the first alternate on the list there.

Luke Manning: 00:29:47

I think he would have been pretty pissed.

Luke Manning: 00:29:49

He went out and shot a, an opening round 66 and then follow that up

Luke Manning: 00:29:54

with a 73 to fall into the playoff and then to miss out on on a spot.

Luke Manning: 00:30:00

Would have been good to get some cameras on course there.

Luke Manning: 00:30:02

We know that Sergio can run a bit hot at times,

Luke Manning: 00:30:04

so I suspect there might have been a few profanities flying around.

Jake Hower: 00:30:08

That one caught me off guard a little bit.

Jake Hower: 00:30:10

I was, I think I was interacting on Twitter and I then looked at

Jake Hower: 00:30:13

the scoreboard and the scorecard effectively showed that he got through.

Jake Hower: 00:30:17

They had the line, the players that got through and he was above the line.

Jake Hower: 00:30:21

So I assumed that he was in, I think there was a few others that reported the fact

Jake Hower: 00:30:24

that he had gotten in and then closed X and come back a couple of hours later

Jake Hower: 00:30:28

and see that he missed in a playoff.

Jake Hower: 00:30:30

I thought that was a little bit confusing.

Luke Manning: 00:30:32

And then some other notables with Eugenio Chichara

Luke Manning: 00:30:35

from the Fireballs and also former Open champion Francesco Molinari

Luke Manning: 00:30:40

qualifying along with his brother.

Luke Manning: 00:30:42

Should be an interesting field, really looking forward to Pinehurst.

Luke Manning: 00:30:45

I think it's going to be a great event.

Luke Manning: 00:30:47

And a couple of names to miss out though in terms of Abe Anser

Luke Manning: 00:30:52

Caleb Surratt and Cameron Champ.

Luke Manning: 00:30:55

Although Champ's not been playing particularly well, but I've

Luke Manning: 00:30:58

got good raps on Caleb Surratt.

Luke Manning: 00:31:01

But, not to be this time around, but I think there are

Luke Manning: 00:31:04

big things waiting for him.

Jake Hower: 00:31:05

I made a point of following him around in Adelaide

Jake Hower: 00:31:08

Just cause I followed him relatively closely since he joined Ram's team.

Jake Hower: 00:31:11

And he does look like he's got it.

Jake Hower: 00:31:13

He's got that sort of that, that it factor.

Jake Hower: 00:31:15

So it'll be interesting watching him over the coming years.

Jake Hower: 00:31:18

And and Eugenio Chikara is he came on and had success early with live and

Jake Hower: 00:31:24

he struggled a little bit with form.

Jake Hower: 00:31:26

So this is, this will be his first major, which will be great to see.

Jake Hower: 00:31:29

He did post on socials that's indicating that perhaps he's.

Jake Hower: 00:31:33

Been struggling with injuries and that he's injury free now.

Jake Hower: 00:31:35

So it'll be interesting to watch him for the remainder of the season in live.

Luke Manning: 00:31:40

Definitely.

Jake Hower: 00:31:41

Now then this week we have the Canadian open.

Jake Hower: 00:31:44

So Nick Taylor's the defending champ.

Jake Hower: 00:31:46

That was interesting last year.

Jake Hower: 00:31:48

Other notables in the field, we've got Rory McIlroy, Nick Taylor,

Jake Hower: 00:31:51

Shane Lowry, Cam Young, Nasser Heath and Scottie's playing as well.

Luke Manning: 00:31:57

Pretty good field by the look of things and hopefully we

Luke Manning: 00:32:02

don't see repeat scenes on the 18th green with Adam Hadwin being bowled

Luke Manning: 00:32:07

over by security again, certainly.

Luke Manning: 00:32:10

Took took away from some of Nick Taylor's win but it was great content nonetheless.

Luke Manning: 00:32:15

I remember also Hadwin's wife had some awesome tweets on X following

Luke Manning: 00:32:19

following that security guard incident, but it'll be it'll be interesting to

Luke Manning: 00:32:24

see how it goes up there in Ontario and who comes to the fore, whether

Luke Manning: 00:32:28

it's another Canadian or or not.

Jake Hower: 00:32:31

It's crazy to think we should probably be speaking about the Scheffler

Jake Hower: 00:32:34

incident in the same way we speak about that Adam Hadwin incident last year.

Jake Hower: 00:32:40

But like we're still a while away from being able to do that

Jake Hower: 00:32:44

cause it's quite serious still.

Luke Manning: 00:32:46

That's right, and we probably won't know where it

Luke Manning: 00:32:48

truly lands until the arraignment happens later in June but let's

Luke Manning: 00:32:53

hope it's the same result where.

Luke Manning: 00:32:56

It's just put down to a misunderstanding and a and a

Luke Manning: 00:33:00

mistake and we can move forward.

Jake Hower: 00:33:03

The DP World Tour have the European Open in Hamburg.

Jake Hower: 00:33:06

So that's a, an increased purse of 2.

Jake Hower: 00:33:08

5 million and we've got Paul Casey and Kelly Smuja playing.

Jake Hower: 00:33:12

, Luke Manning: from Liv and a couple of other favorites.

Jake Hower: 00:33:15

We've got the Barn Rat, Kiridak Appy Barn Rat playing and Andrew

Jake Hower: 00:33:19

Beef Johnson who I haven't seen Beef play for a little while now.

Jake Hower: 00:33:22

He's been more pushing out podcasts and I think, competing on the pro circuit,

Jake Hower: 00:33:26

but it'd be good to see how those.

Jake Hower: 00:33:28

The Hoygaard brothers are in the field along with Danny

Jake Hower: 00:33:31

Willett, former Masters champion.

Jake Hower: 00:33:33

Particularly keen to see how Dave Micheluzzi goes.

Jake Hower: 00:33:37

He obviously won the Order of Merit for the PGA.

Jake Hower: 00:33:41

Australasian tour and therefore qualified for his DP World Tour card.

Jake Hower: 00:33:47

I think he got in contention in one of the events earlier in the year,

Jake Hower: 00:33:50

had a really good look, but couldn't get it done over the final stretch.

Jake Hower: 00:33:54

So keen to see how David goes in this particular event in Germany.

Jake Hower: 00:33:58

And then Jason Scrivner fresh off the

Jake Hower: 00:34:01

back of his qualification for the US Open.

Jake Hower: 00:34:04

Hopefully he shows some good form.

Jake Hower: 00:34:06

I've had the pleasure of watching David a little bit

Jake Hower: 00:34:08

Micheluzzi a little bit in some local tournaments and he's someone, he's

Jake Hower: 00:34:11

very compact quite powerful, but he's someone that can get really hot.

Jake Hower: 00:34:15

When and when he gets hot, he he's pretty hard to bait.

Luke Manning: 00:34:18

he gets on those streaks, doesn't he?

Luke Manning: 00:34:20

And as you say, for a small fella he gets it out there.

Luke Manning: 00:34:23

And when the putter's running hot, there's there's a lot of

Luke Manning: 00:34:26

birdies on the card for him.

Jake Hower: 00:34:28

The biggest events of the week is the U S women's open.

Jake Hower: 00:34:31

That's held at Lancaster country club, which is just outside of Philadelphia.

Jake Hower: 00:34:35

That's a 12 million purse, which is great to see the defending

Jake Hower: 00:34:38

champ is Ellison Corpus.

Jake Hower: 00:34:40

Most notable is Nellie quarter.

Jake Hower: 00:34:43

Who's coming off a bunch of wins.

Jake Hower: 00:34:44

It'll be very interesting to see how she performs in the major.

Jake Hower: 00:34:48

Lydia Ko, we've got Rose Zhang, who is also rounding into some good

Jake Hower: 00:34:52

form after, extending her studies or finishing off her studies at Stanford.

Jake Hower: 00:34:57

Maya Stark, and there are, I believe, five Aussies in the field.

Luke Manning: 00:35:02

five Aussies in the field and two of them in

Luke Manning: 00:35:04

particularly good form at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:35:06

And Hannah Green and Gabby ruffles.

Luke Manning: 00:35:08

Then we've got Ji Stephanie, KU, and also an amateur who's playing

Luke Manning: 00:35:13

college golf in America at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:35:15

Keely Marx.

Luke Manning: 00:35:16

She's got some pedigree.

Luke Manning: 00:35:17

Keely.

Luke Manning: 00:35:18

She won the 2022 IMG Junior Championship at Tory Pines.

Luke Manning: 00:35:23

And she's qualified for this event.

Luke Manning: 00:35:25

Via the sectionals.

Luke Manning: 00:35:27

Looking forward to seeing how this event unfolds.

Luke Manning: 00:35:30

I think it's going to be a ripper.

Luke Manning: 00:35:32

I was reading earlier this morning that Lexi Thompson, this will be

Luke Manning: 00:35:36

her 18th US Open, and she's only 29

Jake Hower: 00:35:41

It's crazy to think, isn't it?

Jake Hower: 00:35:42

She has been an absolute, she's an stalwart of the tour at 29.

Luke Manning: 00:35:47

Just incredible to be able to pay at that level at such a young age.

Luke Manning: 00:35:51

I think we forget that sort of, that achievement just you

Luke Manning: 00:35:55

have to see it to believe it,

Jake Hower: 00:35:57

Gabby Ruffles is an interesting one.

Jake Hower: 00:35:59

This is her, it's her second season on the LPGA after, but she spent

Jake Hower: 00:36:05

some time down on the Epsom tour.

Jake Hower: 00:36:07

Having, I think, was it the initial season?

Jake Hower: 00:36:09

She just didn't she didn't re qualify and then went back to the Epsom

Jake Hower: 00:36:12

tour and won a few events there.

Jake Hower: 00:36:15

So she's certainly, is definitely, has always been someone who

Jake Hower: 00:36:19

should be up at the LPGA.

Jake Hower: 00:36:21

Her story is.

Jake Hower: 00:36:22

Pretty impressive as well.

Jake Hower: 00:36:23

Obviously switching across from tennis late in her teens to golf.

Luke Manning: 00:36:28

incredible hand eye coordination in that family

Luke Manning: 00:36:31

where the brother Ryan Ruffles can hit a pretty main ball as well.

Luke Manning: 00:36:35

Hasn't quite reached the heights that she has, but she's definitely

Luke Manning: 00:36:38

in a purple patch of form.

Luke Manning: 00:36:40

I think two thirds in a row, the last.

Luke Manning: 00:36:42

Two LPGA events and I think we'll be very keen to demonstrate

Luke Manning: 00:36:46

that form in a major in the U.

Luke Manning: 00:36:48

S.

Luke Manning: 00:36:48

Women's Open is a great one to star in.

Jake Hower: 00:36:52

Now before moving on to some other stuff, I just want to

Jake Hower: 00:36:54

touch a little bit on Harry Higgs second win on the Cornfrew tour.

Jake Hower: 00:36:58

So he's won twice from his last two starts, and this sort of harks

Jake Hower: 00:37:01

back to a couple of conversations we've had already in past episodes.

Jake Hower: 00:37:05

I'd love to be, I'd love to see him now playing the Canadian Open this week.

Luke Manning: 00:37:10

And he's not,

Luke Manning: 00:37:11

and there's no real pathway for that.

Luke Manning: 00:37:13

But it's one of the things that would be great for the PGA

Luke Manning: 00:37:17

Tour to be able to work out.

Luke Manning: 00:37:19

How can we get people that are running hot on the KFT up earlier?

Luke Manning: 00:37:24

Because that will help produce the overall competitiveness of the PGA Tour

Luke Manning: 00:37:30

product and that's going to be better for fans better for broadcasters,

Luke Manning: 00:37:34

better for sponsors, et cetera.

Luke Manning: 00:37:35

So it's a great point that you make.

Luke Manning: 00:37:38

And if Higgs doesn't get the opportunity to get back on the PGA Tour until the end

Luke Manning: 00:37:44

of the year, he may well be out of form.

Luke Manning: 00:37:47

So you missed that.

Luke Manning: 00:37:48

You missed that opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.

Luke Manning: 00:37:52

I do understand the flip side of that though, where players who have earned

Luke Manning: 00:37:58

their PGA Tour card, they earn it for a year, and in order to make way

Luke Manning: 00:38:05

for Higgs, someone has to come down.

Luke Manning: 00:38:09

But maybe it's the case that you earn your tour card, but you know

Luke Manning: 00:38:13

that there is a relegation sign.

Luke Manning: 00:38:16

Whether that be on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis, maybe that's

Luke Manning: 00:38:20

one way that you could work it.

Luke Manning: 00:38:22

That after each month, there'll be some ups and downs or after each

Luke Manning: 00:38:26

quarter, there'll be some ups and downs something along those lines,

Luke Manning: 00:38:30

but there's no pathway at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:38:32

And it probably means that the fields are weaker for that.

Jake Hower: 00:38:35

There's a legitimate argument to say that he shouldn't be able to get in

Jake Hower: 00:38:39

anyway, because there are rookies on the PGA tour who are not even getting a start.

Jake Hower: 00:38:44

Now where I think that is there's a story around that is that these

Jake Hower: 00:38:49

rookies have nowhere to play.

Jake Hower: 00:38:51

So if you have that sort of that fluid movement, if they're not

Jake Hower: 00:38:55

getting a start on this particular event, they can go back and they

Jake Hower: 00:38:57

can play on the Khorne Ferry tour.

Jake Hower: 00:38:59

And maybe some of the medical the medical exemptions that are getting

Jake Hower: 00:39:03

PGA tour starts, maybe that's not where they deserve to be.

Jake Hower: 00:39:06

Maybe they need to be playing Khorne Ferry.

Jake Hower: 00:39:07

So that fluidity of movement, I think has more benefits and advantages,

Jake Hower: 00:39:11

but it'd be interesting to see.

Jake Hower: 00:39:13

Yeah.

Jake Hower: 00:39:13

Interesting to see if they consider it.

Jake Hower: 00:39:15

I don't know, probably won't.

Luke Manning: 00:39:17

They've got a lot of things that they need to consider at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:39:20

That may not be.

Luke Manning: 00:39:21

high on the list of priorities, but I do think it's something that would really

Luke Manning: 00:39:26

improve the, it certainly would improve the product at the PGA tour level.

Jake Hower: 00:39:31

Now, I'm not sure if you saw this, but live golf had a transfer window

Jake Hower: 00:39:37

opened or a trade period open, and it is closed with the zero trades being made.

Luke Manning: 00:39:43

I did say that.

Luke Manning: 00:39:45

I think the line of thought was that there probably weren't going

Luke Manning: 00:39:49

to be any trades, but maybe one or two would still eventuate.

Luke Manning: 00:39:53

As you say, nothing has eventuated and it's been a bit of a fizzer.

Luke Manning: 00:39:58

Yeah.

Luke Manning: 00:39:59

That's a real disappointment.

Luke Manning: 00:40:00

I think the team and the trades aspect of Liv is something that could be

Luke Manning: 00:40:05

really good if they can get it right.

Luke Manning: 00:40:07

But these things will take time.

Luke Manning: 00:40:09

They, there were a number of trades at the start of the year or in

Luke Manning: 00:40:13

between last season and this season.

Luke Manning: 00:40:15

And so you can understand the team captains wanting to give people

Luke Manning: 00:40:21

enough of a go to prove their worth or not wanting to unsettle

Luke Manning: 00:40:25

the team by unnecessary trades.

Luke Manning: 00:40:28

Disappointing that we didn't at least see a couple, but I think

Luke Manning: 00:40:31

that probably means we'll see more pent up demand at season's end.

Luke Manning: 00:40:36

And my hope is that we will see a greater number of spots open for

Luke Manning: 00:40:42

relegation and therefore a greater number of spots able to be earned at

Luke Manning: 00:40:47

the LIV qualifying event in December.

Luke Manning: 00:40:50

I think that was an excellent event last year, but

Jake Hower: 00:40:53

It was

Luke Manning: 00:40:54

There were, you could really feel the stakes that were on the line

Luke Manning: 00:40:58

for those players vying to get a spot.

Luke Manning: 00:41:02

And I think increasing that from 4 to, I don't know, maybe 8 or 10 might

Luke Manning: 00:41:08

be a better way to to make that event have more juice and feel less of a

Luke Manning: 00:41:14

sort of foregone conclusion or less that there feel less that there's not

Luke Manning: 00:41:18

much change that's going to happen.

Jake Hower: 00:41:21

definitely just to me, it is lax, lack the juice

Jake Hower: 00:41:24

because it's just not clear.

Jake Hower: 00:41:26

Like we don't know what.

Jake Hower: 00:41:27

What who's contracted to where, and maybe a little bit more sort of transparency

Jake Hower: 00:41:31

around some of those points would make even a transfer window would just even

Jake Hower: 00:41:35

if there was still no transfers, it would just create a little bit more buzz

Jake Hower: 00:41:39

around it and that's that they haven't, have not hit the mark on that yet, but

Jake Hower: 00:41:43

hopefully they continue to work on it.

Luke Manning: 00:41:45

And transparency around those details, I think

Luke Manning: 00:41:48

again, will help lean into it.

Luke Manning: 00:41:50

Let us know who's contracted to when, what's the contract value, what are

Luke Manning: 00:41:54

the stipulations on the contract, the, the special conditions on

Luke Manning: 00:41:58

the contract that are of interest.

Luke Manning: 00:42:01

But I really hope that they get rid of this.

Luke Manning: 00:42:03

playing captain exemption or at least where you've got teams that have

Luke Manning: 00:42:07

got three playing captains it's just

Luke Manning: 00:42:09

ridiculous.

Jake Hower: 00:42:10

yeah.

Jake Hower: 00:42:10

Agreed.

Jake Hower: 00:42:10

Agreed.

Jake Hower: 00:42:11

Now they also the team championship venue was also announced throughout the week.

Jake Hower: 00:42:16

And that's being held at Merida golf club in Dallas, which is where Will

Jake Hower: 00:42:21

Zellatoris and Spieth are members that,

Luke Manning: 00:42:24

Have you seen the course?

Jake Hower: 00:42:26

not a great deal.

Jake Hower: 00:42:27

Reports that I saw looked like it was a pretty tough test of golf.

Jake Hower: 00:42:32

For

Luke Manning: 00:42:32

It looks a great golf course.

Luke Manning: 00:42:34

I've only had a look online but it looks a fantastic golf course.

Luke Manning: 00:42:39

I think Andy Johnson called it a real ass kicker so it's going to be a great test

Luke Manning: 00:42:45

of golf and I think a fantastic venue.

Jake Hower: 00:42:48

Maybe slightly disappointing in going back to Texas because

Jake Hower: 00:42:52

the PGA tour spent so much time in Texas, but this venue looks like

Jake Hower: 00:42:56

it's got the support of the owner.

Jake Hower: 00:42:58

He seemed very happy and keen to have lived there.

Jake Hower: 00:43:01

And I've signed a, I believe it's a two year contract.

Jake Hower: 00:43:04

But it's a very good get for live.

Luke Manning: 00:43:06

Agree.

Jake Hower: 00:43:07

And then I guess rounding out the live stuff is that after

Jake Hower: 00:43:10

he's win at the PJ championship there was an interview with Xander's dad.

Luke Manning: 00:43:14

He was pretty adamant that Xander won't be joining or there's

Luke Manning: 00:43:18

zero chance of Xander joining Live Golf.

Luke Manning: 00:43:21

So the question was obviously put to him, now that Xander's got five years

Luke Manning: 00:43:26

worth of exemptions into the majors.

Luke Manning: 00:43:28

What about live to which he responded, no chance, particularly given

Luke Manning: 00:43:33

that there's no path back to the PGA tour and also no OWGR points.

Luke Manning: 00:43:41

Obviously coming from Xander's dad, not coming from Xander himself, but pretty

Luke Manning: 00:43:45

emphatic that it's not going to to happen.

Luke Manning: 00:43:49

He went on to say that it's Xander plays for legacy not money.

Luke Manning: 00:43:54

But I think this word of legacy gets thrown around a lot.

Luke Manning: 00:43:58

And what has historically been legacy, I don't think is necessarily

Luke Manning: 00:44:03

going to be legacy going forward.

Luke Manning: 00:44:05

The definition of legacy in Pro Golf is changing.

Luke Manning: 00:44:09

It's evolving, despite people not wanting it to on, in some quarters, it is and

Luke Manning: 00:44:16

so I think those people that are able to move with the definition of legacy

Luke Manning: 00:44:23

will know where that's where that's headed and make decisions accordingly.

Jake Hower: 00:44:27

What's going to be interesting in 20 years, 30 years time is looking

Jake Hower: 00:44:31

back and seeing seeing how the current.

Jake Hower: 00:44:36

Fan and the current sort of media personality looks at the

Jake Hower: 00:44:40

past results around the world.

Jake Hower: 00:44:42

Someone like a Rory McIlroy, who was one all over the world may be elevated.

Jake Hower: 00:44:49

If we have this sort of this legacy moving more to a world perspective

Jake Hower: 00:44:53

rather than a PGA tour focus.

Jake Hower: 00:44:55

Cause yeah, I think even like a Jack Nicklaus winning he won a

Jake Hower: 00:44:59

lot of amateur events, I believe.

Jake Hower: 00:45:00

Did he, amateur majors?

Luke Manning: 00:45:02

Global wins used to have more weight.

Luke Manning: 00:45:05

Winning around the world was important and that has been lost more recently

Luke Manning: 00:45:10

where it's only really considered a win if it's on the PGA Tour.

Luke Manning: 00:45:16

And that in things like the Australian Open, it doesn't

Luke Manning: 00:45:18

have the luster or the impact.

Luke Manning: 00:45:21

A win in the Australian Open doesn't have the same luster or impact that it used to.

Luke Manning: 00:45:26

But the changing tides in world golf Might bring you opportunity and

Luke Manning: 00:45:32

obviously we hope that's the case.

Luke Manning: 00:45:34

And so the, in the number of global wins may well be a more definitive

Luke Manning: 00:45:42

marker of success in the future.

Jake Hower: 00:45:44

Probably it's a, has a positive outcome for someone

Jake Hower: 00:45:47

like an Adam Scott as well.

Luke Manning: 00:45:48

Agree.

Jake Hower: 00:45:49

And Garrett, Greg, Norman.

Jake Hower: 00:45:51

Yes.

Jake Hower: 00:45:51

A Gary player.

Jake Hower: 00:45:52

He'd be the one.

Jake Hower: 00:45:52

He's the global golfer, isn't he?

Luke Manning: 00:45:54

Definitely is.

Luke Manning: 00:45:55

Let's not go down a Gary player rabbit hole place.

Luke Manning: 00:46:00

Haha.

Jake Hower: 00:46:01

All right, the round out the episode, the other piece of

Jake Hower: 00:46:03

news was hit the mainstream was the Rory and the Amanda Balianas rumors.

Luke Manning: 00:46:08

Yeah, the report or the story got picked up by the New York

Luke Manning: 00:46:12

Post, to publish an article on it.

Luke Manning: 00:46:14

It was a bit of a nothing article

Luke Manning: 00:46:16

really, probably just recounting the actual rumor itself.

Luke Manning: 00:46:19

But If it's happening and they were hoping to keep a lid on it certainly not the case

Luke Manning: 00:46:24

now.

Luke Manning: 00:46:25

Nothing has been communicated by either of them.

Luke Manning: 00:46:28

They've remained tight lipped on, on the on the issue.

Luke Manning: 00:46:32

And Amanda continues to post prolifically on social media, on all manner of

Luke Manning: 00:46:37

things regarding golf and puppies.

Luke Manning: 00:46:39

It's not it's not stopping her from pursuing her loves.

Jake Hower: 00:46:43

no, it certainly isn't.

Jake Hower: 00:46:44

Oh, look, I think that's it, isn't it?

Luke Manning: 00:46:47

That's it.

Luke Manning: 00:46:47

Another

Luke Manning: 00:46:48

great episode, Jake.

Jake Hower: 00:46:49

I I took a delivery of a little nice little bit of a

Jake Hower: 00:46:54

this one I'm going to be putting in the claim receipt here.

Jake Hower: 00:46:56

This is a new camera for the podcast.

Luke Manning: 00:47:00

Very nice.

Jake Hower: 00:47:01

Yes.

Jake Hower: 00:47:01

Yes.

Jake Hower: 00:47:01

So we'll have a little bit better quality next week.

Luke Manning: 00:47:04

I'll be looking forward to seeing it,

Jake Hower: 00:47:06

Yeah.

Jake Hower: 00:47:07

Lovely.

Jake Hower: 00:47:07

All right, mate.

Jake Hower: 00:47:09

Good to chat again.

Luke Manning: 00:47:10

we'll be back again next week.

Jake Hower: 00:47:11

Yep.

Jake Hower: 00:47:12

See you later.

Luke Manning: 00:47:13

See ya.