Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's the Golf Show on the tickets.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Margalaier and Kurt James from MK Golf joining us this morning.
So Harris English, who is a Ryder Cup player, and
at times I don't know if he still is or not,
but one time or another he was on the PGA
Tour Policy Board, has hinted that major changes are coming
to the tour in twenty twenty seven with the new
commissioner taking over.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And I'm going to start.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This conversation by something that has been a topic on
a lot of golf websites lately is that there are
no marquee players really playing the Fall series events. Basically
after the Ryder Cup. They're taking time off. And this
is exactly what the Scottie shufflers of the world have
been asking for for a long time. We need a
golf season. The golf season was basically fifty two weeks
(00:49):
for many many years, and when the season, even when
the tour championship was over, you still had opportunities to
play back. Before two thousand and nine, the Valero Texas
Open was a Fall Series event and Houston was a
Fall Series event.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
For a while.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And then you have what's going on right now, with
the RSM, and there's a tournament I think in Mississippi
every year, the Anderson Farms maybe is one in the
Silverado Tournament. And those tournaments are never going to go
away because they have they have great community support, They
sponsor some great or sponsored by some great charities that
they give money to, and players want to play, especially
(01:27):
the ones that didn't make the top one hundred or
don't have their cards secured for next year. And some
want to play just so they don't get rusty. But
the Rory's and the Scotties and the top ten or
fifteen players want downtime. And so I don't see the
fields ever getting better. But I don't see these tournaments
(01:47):
actually going away completely.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
In the fall you mean, yeah, yeah, I would find
that hard to believe.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't think the fields are ever going to be great,
but in the purses are going to be less than
the rest because the sponsors going only afford so much
and they are going up against football.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So well, and that's kind of what they did this
year with the Fall Series, that is, they made it
more for the guys who were trying to work their
way into the shop one hundred to give them a chance.
You've got to have a way for the guys coming
up to move up now.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now that the Century Tournament champions is not going to
be played this year, I think this gives the PGA
Tour an opportunity to start their series their season later,
which is something they're talking about now. I know we
need to avoid football, and I get the fact that
we that that's why the PGA Tours Tour Championship is
either Labor Day weekend or the week before, because they
(02:46):
don't want to compete with the NFL, and they don't
want to compete with college football any more than they
have to. But once we get to January, we're basically
in the playoffs, and Hawaii is a prime time event
the United States. In the mainland, that tournament is played
from seven to eleven o'clock at night. So I see
no reason why you should scrub Hawaii because most of
(03:08):
the time you're not competing against football. You might have
a Sunday night game occasionally, but for the most part
you don't. And then I don't see any reason to
get rid of the American Express because again, it's a
West Coast event that you can play later in the day.
Football is usually earlier in the day, but they are
talking about potentially not starting what would be the start
of the season until late January or until maybe even
(03:31):
after the super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
See.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I think one of the things about Phoenix, it's always
on super Bowl weekend, and that's a great tournament to
lead right into it, because no matter what network it's on,
they're going to finish the golf by four o'clock in
the afternoon Central time or five, so they can lead
right into the super Bowl. And in years that CBS
has the super Bowl, they don't run they flip flop
(03:53):
tournaments with Phoenix. NBC takes over the Phoenix event, and
then the years that NBC or ABC has the Super Bowl,
then CBS carries that event, so they switched that off
from year to year. So I don't see where that's
a problem. But Harris English is hinting that we may
have fewer events, fewer cards, and shorter fields. And my
(04:14):
biggest concern about that is it's going to give players
who don't make it an opportunity to go to live
or go to Europe or go someplace else where they
can know that they're going to have more starts.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, to me, the beginning of the season or the
end of last season or whatever you want to classify
it as. It's confusing because you got the four playoff
events for corn Ferry, which they don't televise, and then
you got these players that made the PGA Tour trying
to play in a end of season, beginning of next season,
(04:48):
PJ Tour, Mexico orsm whatever, And it's just it doesn't.
I don't see the continuity in the beginning or the
end of a season. So I'm I'm confused. Yeah, it's confusing.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, players want this is when the season begins, this
is when it ends. The rest are, for lack of
a better word, silly season events. We can plan them
if we want to. Do they count towards anything for
the next year or do they not? And yeah, you
get paid, but does it help your FedEx cut points, does.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It help your world ranking?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
All those things? Yeah, well now it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
No, No, from now on the Fall series these are
Masters events.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
No, there used to be, but they're not now.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
You can't start the PGA Tour season in March and
then have the Masters the next week later.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, six weeks later. You can't do that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Well, You're not going to ever give up Pebble Beach.
You're never going to give up Riviera. I I don't
know why you would ever give up Phoenix or Tory Pines.
And so even if you skip Hawaii, you can start
the second week of January. But listen, I I like
football like as much as anybody else does. But when
the season starts to shring down and the regular season
(06:03):
is over and you only have playoff games, I don't
have a problem with watching a football game until seven
o'clock and then watching primetime golf from Hawaii for two hours.
And I think the golf community likes that. I applaud
the PGA Tour for not having events that matter, like
the tour championship and the playoffs in September. It's the
(06:24):
same argument I have with the WNBA. Their best basketball,
their most important basketball is dead against the football season,
and really the only sport that has a chance to
compete against football is Major League Baseball. Golf does not,
and they recognize that, and they stop their championship if
you will, on Labor Day weekend. But you can have
as many of these events as you want. Golf Channel
(06:46):
needs programming. Sky Sports needs programming, and there's plenty of
people that will still watch it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Would I hope they.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I don't know if they're going to get rid of
the Century tournament champions, but I do like the fact
that we used to start traditionally in Hawaii and in
California and in January, and I see no reason why
we shouldn't do that. I'm not a big fan of
eighty player fields. I understand if it's an invitational, you
don't want one hundred and forty four one hundred and
fifty six. But there's no reason why you can't do
(07:15):
what they've done forever and have around one hundred and
twenty two hundred and twenty eight.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
It's just that's gonna I think that's going to have
a detriment to the game overall, because if you just
have eighty players in the field, what are you going
to do with junior golf? Because it's it's gonna hurt
junior golf because if you look at it as a
junior and no, I'm only got to this slice of
a of a mathematical computation to get in to be
(07:41):
a PGA Tour player, or used to IO was two
hundred and forty or two hundred and whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I had the one twenty five, you had the one
twenty five exemption level, then the one fifty that gave
you different status, and then the one eighty and then
the rest had to qualify. But now they're saying, if
you don't make the top one hundred, you lose your
card for the next year, right, unless you have other exemptions.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That's a bad direction to go because you take tees.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
I mean, then you had the PGA Tour, you to
add to the twenty five corn Faery kids that have
a chance to PJ Tour. And and the last time
I looked, most of the Corn Ferry graduates, if you
look at their next year, most of them aren't on
(08:28):
the PGA Tour if you look at the statistics.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So that's it's hard to stay there.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And part part of that is because it's so hard
for them to get in those early season events.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Right, and you take it one of our kids that
we know real well, he's now in the top fifty,
but now he's that doesn't matter. He's got to get
FedEx Cup points. It's all about the FedEx Cup points,
which I think I think.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
The FedEx Cup is nobody ever had nobody ever dreamed
on the punny green when they're eight years old. This
puts to win the FedEx Cut, right, That's not so,
that was never part of the equation.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
The only thing fifty is going to get you is
maybe in some events.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Now, man, it's gonna get if you're fifty on January first,
It's get you in the Masters. And I think Johnny's
what it right at fifty Johnny is fifty.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, yeah, Jotti Kiefer, who we're talking about now, Going
back to the you were talking about some of the
issues with the tournaments. The other thing I don't understand
is why does every golf tournament have to be Thursday
through Sunday. Why can't it be Tuesday through Friday autum
football week, yeah, or Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Through especially on the West Coast, when you.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Can still show it in the early Why can't they
move it earlier in the week. It doesn't matter what
day it is.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, No, So maybe the January events are Monday through Thursday,
and then we get ready for Friday, Saturday Sunday football,
and then we get to February when football is over,
we go back to the week.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Why couldn't you do that except for the fact that
I know they make tons of money off of their
prorams that go on for two or three times on
Saturday and Sundays.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Prorams are wealthy anyway, and they could take off whenever
they want to take off, right tom.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Right, Well, you can play a Saturday Sunday pro am.
I'm sure somebody would skip watching football for the weekend
if they got a chance to go play golf with
a PGA Tour player, of course they would. It's only
one it's only one week. Other one last thing on
this Rory is hinted for a long time about he
wants to see a world tour where there it's like
eighteen events all around the world. Now, I like Rory,
(10:34):
but Rory's forgetting something. And I'm not trying to be
the ugly American here, But the only place that this
matters and the only place where the money other than
the Saudi money that's there. If you're going to have
a world tour, you need American television dollars to back
it up.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And that's one of the things.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
The PGA Tour is monetized a lot lately, and so
if you're we will tolerate the British Open or the
Scottish Open starting at three o'clock in the morning once
or twice a year, and every other year when the
President's Cup is in Australia or the Ryder Cup is
in Europe, we'll get up early on Sunday to watch
the tournament. But we're not getting up at three o'clock
(11:12):
in the morning to watch the Hong Kong Open, whether
Singapore Invitational or whatever tournament's going on in Melbourne. We're
gonna watch it on tape delay. And that means that
television dollars in the United States are going to be
far less. So if you have a world tour and
your events, and you'll have let's say you have eighteen
events and only seven of them are the United States,
you're gonna lose a big audience for two thirds of
(11:34):
your tournaments. And so you have to have a West
coast central time zone, East coast type schedule in order
for the American television to and the PGA Tour and
whatever tour you have, World Tour or not to maximize
the revenue. Yes, there are a lot of people that
watch TV in Europe, A lot of people that watch
TV in Australia and the.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Philippines and China.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But it's not at the level that we look at
it here, and we're not paying astronomical rights fees.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
For tournaments that are in other time zones.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
That theory only works with the one percent of the
population that has traveled the world.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yes, that's the truth.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Well, if you're a world traveler and you've traveled the
globe and you understand the different parts of the world,
and you that makes sense to you to have a
world tour.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Scotti Scheffler has said, I'm not playing outside of the
United States except for President's clup Ryder Cup, Scotti ch Open,
and Open Championship. I am playing four events every two
years outside of the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I don't care how much you give me.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
You can give me a billion dollars and I'm not
playing the Saudi Invitational or the Cutter Masters. I got
my kids to deal with. I got my family to
deal with. I'm the number one player in the world.
I don't have to travel.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
The average American maybe has gone to Europe, like maybe
the Scotland or to maybe Paris or maybe Rome.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And that's it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's a long flight both ways and it's a lot
of it's a lot it's a lot of taxing as
you as you get older and traveling. All right, we
got more to get to on the Golf Show. We'll
get to that coming up neck on the ticket.