Biggest Storylines of 2024 with Patrick McDonald
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Noah really dropped the ball in the marketing aspect for years. But December's a good month to set some goals and implement some new changes. So if you could help us out in that direction, that would mean a lot. All right, coming up on this podcast, I'm bringing on my good friend Patrick McDonald of CBS Sports to talk about the 10 biggest storylines entering 2024 in professional golf. We had a lot of fun with this one. It's a little more lighthearted than some of the rather...

Self-serious and cynical rollback and fractured golf world conversations that I am very much culpable in. Hopefully this one is a bit of a palate cleanser for you. I will say quick programming note as well. I am on vacation this week in Hawaii. So Patrick and I recorded this.

Pretty much the day before the ink dried with Jon Rahm going to live. We recorded this about a week and a half ago. So we pretty much operated under the assumption already in our conversation that this was already a done deal. So I don't think it's really going to feel dated when you listen to it, but yeah,

I think we recorded this on December 5th. So if you hear us talking in the future tense a little bit, forgive us. Had to get ahead of the game. When I go on vacation, I would, I'd rather release a podcast. It's in my contract anyway, than not having, having anything out there. So everything we talk about, even the ROM stuff, I still think is pretty pertinent, not really dated at all. So we hope you enjoy this one as much as we did. And let's bring on Patrick.

All right, Patrick McDonald is here. First Cup podcast, CBS Sports. We are recording this on December 6th. Probably going to release this sometime in mid to late December. So we apologize in advance if some of these takes age poorly. It's been an unusually spicy time in golf. A lot for us to chew on today.

Yeah, it's too bad. My takes typically have a shelf life of three weeks max. This episode, I feel like might expose me a little bit, but yeah, like you said, in between Thanksgiving, Christmas, corporate time, I mean, that's the bread and butter, right? You're at your cubicle, you're barely working, but you're still clocking 40 hours a week. But yeah, it's been quite busy for us. Bill Simmons has this bit on his podcast where he talks about the Tyson zone.

to describe like it got to a point with Mike Tyson where a new story could come out and there's nothing that could happen and you would be surprised, right? Like Mike Tyson bites somebody's ear off. Okay. That kind of checks out. Mike Tyson buys a tiger. Okay. I can kind of see that. I feel like professional golf has entered that zone where you

There's not a thing that could happen tomorrow morning where at this point I'd be shocked. I could wake up tomorrow morning or in two weeks from now and you could tell me, okay, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are co-CEOs of a new live TGL PGA Tour venture where half the events you hit the ball into a screen, the other half of the events are

are 54 holes. Some of them are 72 holes. Like you could tell me that Peter Costas launched a silent rebellion, storming the gates of St. Andrews tomorrow about a golf ball that gets rolled back in 2030. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

No one knows anything. And that's been the case for the past couple of years. And the people who are out there hooting and hollering and saying they do know stuff are

Typically just doing it on feelers and they don't know anything like the rest of us. So yeah, I mean, we're pretty much what, two, three years into the whole golf saga, so to speak. And I think I'm more on edge now than I have been ever. Right. It's, it's hard not to be. So I think we'll probably cover some of that stuff in the

What we do this evening. We did this last year too. I think it's a fun time in December. Hopefully this will be a little bit more lighthearted than some of the stuff that's coming out in the golf world right now. But I asked Patrick, give me the five things.

biggest storylines, things you're most excited to follow in 2024. I came up with five as well. So we're just going to, I'm sure there's some overlap. So we're just going to go back and forth. They could be obvious. They can be ridiculous. They could be small. They could be big, but we're just going to basically go back and forth and talk about, hopefully we compile a list of seven to 10 of the most interesting stories

fascinating, engaging, intoxicating things to watch in 2024. You want to go first? Yeah, sure. You said they'd be fun and more lighthearted than what is currently going on in the game. So I'm just going to

Nip that in the bud immediately with the first one. And what I am looking to for to the most in 2024 is how is Live Golf and the PGA Tour going to coexist? I think it is the biggest question currently.

in the game and it is clear to live golf is going to stick around, but in what manner, and you know, maybe it's even the PGA tour that could fold for all we know. Right. I think Yasser and the Saudi PIF definitely have the upper hand in negotiations, but I've been kind of screaming from the mountaintop since the framework agreement that some sort of champions league style format is going to be in play where, uh,

The PGA Tour will be home to stroke play event stuff and then on Live Golf or maybe they rebrand it to whatever you'll have.

eight team events with, you know, the captains they got now and the top players from the PGA Tour, how they figured that out, God knows what, how. But I'm really looking forward to how that happens. I don't think it's a coincidence that Live Golf scheduled four events across from four signature events on the PGA Tour. They typically try to avoid those on the calendar, you know, go against the Haunted Classics and the Lesser Classics

fields and the fact that they kind of went toe-to-toe with the Arnold Palmer, the Memorial Travelers and the AT&T Pebble Beach. I think I might be looking too into it, which I have a habit of doing, but I think there might be something there and kind of how they might coexist moving forward.

Do you think one of the reasons why they're doing that, because you're right, the first two years, they were really defensive with their schedule, right? They weren't taking on any of the premier PGA Tour events. They weren't trying to go head-to-head with Riviera. They weren't trying to go head-to-head with Bay Hill or even Torrey Pines or Waste Management. Do you think the change now is an indication that they might be a little bit more confident, which...

Probably they have every reason to be now, given what could be perspiring with the ROM news, which is one of mine. So we could probably use this opportunity to talk about both. But do you think maybe the more liberal scheduling of we're just going to pick the dates that we want is them saying, okay, maybe we've got a lot more leverage in this situation than we did in previous years?

Yeah, that's kind of how I took it, where they know they're in a pretty good position compared to the first two years. And even if it's a scenario where

We talk about kind of the fluidity in between tours, what that's going to look like. I'm not sure anyone really knows at this point. I mean, the Searsure events, those four are only 80-man fields. You tack on the 48 from Liv, and that's pretty much a full-field PGA Tour event. If they wanted to go that route somehow and maybe cut the contracts with the courses they had in mind, I'm not totally sure, but I think it does exude a bit of confidence.

Okay. Here's our first opportunity for this podcast to age really poorly. Do you feel comfortable saying live to ROM is ROM to live is done? Is that a done deal? Like, are we fully there? Yeah.

Oh, man. So it is a Wednesday night. I feel like the news is going to drop. December 26. So I'll just give, in case people are listening to this in two weeks, I'll give everyone the information that we have at our disposal right now. The Telegraph report comes out, which is the first time that you're getting it from

more traditional media source, right? This is not me taking shots at some of the Twitter live fan accounts that, to their credit, if they're right about this, they did have this way before anyone else. They've been wrong about a ton of things, but the Telegraph was the first report where a guy like James Corrigan, who actually does have a really good track record on this stuff, came out and did not say anything

Rom is going to live, but he did say that his sources believe it to be expected coming soon. Many of his peers expect it to be a done deal. And then you have people like the knowing a podcast saying,

Something smells really funny here because we have a relationship with Rom. We have a relationship with Rom's agent and we've reached out to him. We've reached out to PGA Tour players and we've gotten nothing back. PGA Tour players have said that they've reached out to Rom and they've gotten nothing back. So either Rom's on, I guess, silent meditation retreat in the Himalayas or there's at least some smoke. There's at least some fire to the smoke.

Yeah, I don't know if I'm comfortable saying Rahm to Liv is a done deal. Because in that Corrigan report, and I think people kind of glossed over it a little bit. And based on who I've talked to within LiveGolf, they don't know much about it. Rahm is negotiating with the Saudi PIF right now for that report. He's not negotiating with LiveGolf.

he's negotiating with the saudi arabian government what a world absurd it is absurd to even say out loud right now oh yeah the reigning masters champion he just yeah he's negotiating with the saudi saudi government right now and the timing of it is not coincidental with the negotiations and i've thrown it in our slack a bunch where

And Corrigan hit it on the head, too, per sources where, you know, Yasser can come to that meeting with Rahm in his back pocket and be like, hey, Jay, this is what you're going to give me or else I'm going to take Tony. I'm going to take Patrick. I'm going to take Xander. And I'm going to keep going down the list until your tour is gone and it's Rory McIlroy playing against Xander.

you know the hundredth player in the world pretty much and yeah and you know we all love rory but no one's gonna love watching that that much and so there's concessions that i think either speed or someone said it at the hero where there are things the pga tour side isn't going to be willing to give up and i'm starting to believe it is

The CEO position in the Enterprise Starship, the PGA Tour Enterprise, I've just started calling it the Enterprise Starship, where that's currently Jay's role. Part of the initial framework agreement is, you know, Yasser will get a board seat, but Jay's the CEO. I'm starting to believe Yasser wants to become the CEO of it.

I'm starting to believe Jay doesn't make it out of that negotiation alive. No pun intended. Potentially. And so I think what Rom has been doing from his personal point of view is pretty smart. I mean, I think Jay kind of gave the okay for players to

except the money on June 6th, right? I mean, he got off the moral high ground and said, well, I'm going to take the money for the league. But after all, I said, you guys can't take the money for the league. So if you're looking for money, like not quite a quick risk scheme, but kind of, I think Rahm's doing it right where he's waiting it out. He's the chess piece at the moment. And he's going to get paid hundreds of millions by someone by doing this.

Uh, whether that's with the PGA tour or with live golf, someone's going to pay him a boatload of cash. So it was a good time and good place for him to become leverage. Whether that turns out, he becomes a member of live golf. I have no idea, dude. I mean, everyone's been saying it's a done deal. It's a done deal.

I don't want to make a prediction. I'm wrong. Dude, I'm wrong so much. I'm batting below the Mendoza line right now. So right now, I can't do it. By the way, any golf prognosticator that says they're batting above the Mendoza line are lying to you. Yeah, that too. So I'm going to say Jon Rahm,

I don't know if you could become a member of Lyft. So let's operate, because this was one of mine, was let's operate in a world for a second where ROM goes to web. One of the things I am more fascinated about is

does that change anyone's relationship to live? Do more people watch the golf? I think what gets lost on a lot of the live discourse is conversations about the actual golf being played. It feels like such a secondary story in anything related to live. And one thing I'm kind of fascinated about is

Do more people watch because of ROM? And if more people don't watch, at some point, does that ever become a problem? Because like you mentioned, you laid it out very eloquently. It seems to me too, like you see, has all the leverage in this situation based on the amount of money that they have and the fact that the PGHR leadership has been so bungled across the board over the last two years. The one point of leverage that I would expect

the PGA tour that the one bargaining chip that they have is two years in, I would think the fact that nobody still watches the golf on live at some point, does that ever matter? And maybe it doesn't like maybe you see her looks at it. Like this has always simply been a bargaining chip. We're going to continue to light money on fire, but two years in,

I don't think that there's anything that Liv can do anymore to make people watch the on course product. I put out a poll the other day

What makes you more likely to watch Liv? Strokes gained or Jon Rahm? And Strokes gained 170 to 30, right? And I've learned from some of the comment section that that isn't happening anytime soon based on the stranglehold of the relationship that PGA Tour has with Shotlick. And pretty sure gambling's illegal in Saudi Arabia too, right? So what's curious to me is like,

Does this change how we view live at all? If ROM goes like, let's operate in a world where next year ROM is captain of the fireballs and, you know, maybe there's one or two more guys that, that fall in line with ROM. What does that golf world look like? Does that legitimize live for you in any way? Does that,

make you less interested to watch tournaments. You know, Rom won four times on the PGA tour last year. Rom won like some of the biggest events on the PGA tour last year. And I'm just curious what the actual golf landscape in terms of our relation to what's happening on the course changes at all. If John Rom is playing for Lev instead of the PGA tour, maybe it's a stupid question. Maybe it doesn't even matter.

No, I think it's fair, right? I mean, how many needle movers have there been in professional golf over the last handful of decades? Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson. Yeah. And even Phil doesn't really, I mean, it's the back ass of his career granted, but I wouldn't say he really moves it in terms of getting eyes onto the lift product. Well, we'll look at it this way.

Brooks Koepka has 300,000 more Twitter followers than Jon Rahm. I'm pretty sure Brooks Koepka's wife has more Instagram followers than Jon Rahm. Brooks Koepka does all these podcast appearances. Bryson DeChambeau has a bigger social media following than Jon Rahm. Cameron Smith wins the most monumental award.

consequential seeming major championship of the last decade. And none of those guys changed the numbers of the pure amount of eyeballs on live. Now, maybe what Rom brings is different, right? Rom is largely viewed as this voice of reason by many people in golf. Rom, I would say, is more respected.

than a player maybe like Brooks Koepka or Bryson DeChambeau. But Rahm is not the biggest star that Lev has gotten, and it did not change how many people watch the golf. I have found that I am too close to golf sometimes, if that makes sense. Not the general fan at all, where...

i i bet in the in the united states because i get hit on for having the uh the american view the snarky yankees in the united states i would bet 50 of weekly golf viewers wouldn't realize john ron isn't on the pj tour anymore because the average day yeah i think you're right

is, okay, I'm going to watch the four majors every year. I might turn on live from, or look up a golf podcast to get me prepped with all the information I need. I'll do the office pool, make some bets. And maybe I'll watch like the players too, or the Ryder cup or the president's cup. And that's kind of it. And so, I mean, I think live could bring a lot of people over, but

the golf fan is just like you know they're not die hard we're not talking about college football fans or nfl fans or they're locked in week to week to week yeah there is a pretty good subsection of those fans out there but like you said they're into the data the strokes gained live doesn't have that so i'm not really sure what they could do they're kind of in between a rock and a hard place where the product doesn't resonate with those week-to-week fans

And they also like want to differentiate from the PGA tour where, look, I wasn't a believer in the TGL that much. I thought it was dumb. I knew it wasn't for me or my age group or whatever it may be. But the thing I did applaud is they, they went out there and did something completely different or they're going to do something completely different, something bizarre. You know, we're hitting it into a mat in front of 2000 people where they're

Let's go off track to this new product, which, you know, they're still working on, still tweaking, whatever it may be, but it's pretty much just the same thing as the normal PGA tour. They just have like, they add a team score at the end also. So I'm not sure like if, if ROM is going to be able to fix that. I know the flushing it Twitter account had the rumor that he wanted a new format as well. But I don't think that's going to happen. So yeah,

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if like anyone could really change the perspective of the average golf fan because they're not really paying attention too much. Do you know how many times I've gotten the question?

wait john's go john ronald's going to live i thought the pga tour and live merged what are they doing yeah oh it's it's every time i step out my door i swear to god every time i'm like i can't do this anymore i've started you know i think about that maxoma tweet where he talks about uh being a real estate agent in ubers i've started to do that

I can't talk about this anymore with you guys. I explained it to Johnny over there. Jimmy, I don't have time for you right now. That's the vast majority of golf fans out there. I think my favorite tweet on all of this is, you have to wonder if the 36 million Saudi citizens know that their government is paying 500 million for a Spaniard to play golf while 78 people watch on the CW.

Oh my goodness. I'm kind of with you. I think that Rom does differentiate himself from different players in the past of similar star level that have gone to live in the sense that

Most media members, most fans have a lot of respect for Rob. They may not be diehard fans of his, but when he talks, they listen. I don't think Bryson carries that level of respect. He's still more of a caricature. And even Brooks, like

People know the Brooks shtick by now. Brooks cares about four weeks out of the year. So you were never going to put your butt in front of a TV to watch Brooks play a non-major on live, just like you were never gonna put your butt in front of a TV to watch what Brooks did on the PGA tour. Right. But ROM does occupy this very interesting, different space, uh,

Like he's this golf historian who cares deeply about the game. He cares deeply about the Ryder Cup. People know who he is after the Masters. He's got two majors now. And I guess the only counterpoint to it is it could legitimize them and maybe move the needle for them in a way that Brooks and Bryson and Cam Smith weren't really able to do because they just occupied a different space in the golf ecosystem more than it

The other side of that is it's just another story of a golfer in his prime that most people now neglect outside of four weeks of the year. I don't know. We're both going to tune in to watch Rom's first shot on live. I know that because it's our job. But it's fascinating to me. We can move on, though. Yeah. I'm good moving on. Okay. Go next. My next one is...

will the signature events on the pga tour have the same type of type of success because you think about the changes that they have made the only cuts being in the player invitationals uh 80 man fields you don't really have the the storylines like uh i mean kurt kidiyama i thought was one of the more underrated wins of the year him cutting off rory speed cantlay scheffler

at Arnie's place. And, you know, those kind of came out of thin air. The PGA tour kind of pulled those out of their ass when making them. And it seemed like this was kind of the same situation when changing them a little bit. So I think, will they be a success will be, you know, something I'm looking at, especially as that petition from, um,

the lower middle class of the PGA tour comes out where they're trying to, you've hit on one of mine, the mule uprising, trying to change things. And I think, yeah, I asked this the other day, is there like anyone happy on the PGA tour right now? No, not a hand has managed to piss off the top players, the middle tier players who won kind of hat got the golden tickets

Last couple of years with the middle tier of the PGA tour moving out, you think, I mean, you look at the 50 to 70 range, they got completely crushed by live. And now they kind of got the short end of the stick with getting into signature events too. So it's, it's just all wow to me. And if signature events are a positive, if they change at all before we get there, I doubt they do something I'm looking at. Yeah. I've talked about this a lot on podcasts before, but yeah,

This subplot of bottom-of-the-barrel PGA Tour players coming out and voicing their displeasure with the status quo...

is incredibly fun to me. I think this is going to be loads of fun this year. And I think you said it best with, I don't think anyone's happy, right? I wrote down this anti-Faldo tweet in my notes on this, where he said, pro golf in 2023, the middling players want to be played like top players, even though they bring in close to $0 from a revenue perspective. And

And the top players want to be paid like NFL quarterbacks, even though the entire sport doesn't bring in that much money. And I don't necessarily think that Chris Stroud is...

necessarily any more delusional than some of the top players that think people were going to watch them on live or in the TGL maybe, but at least the top players still play really good golf. Their mindset in terms of what they think they are worth versus what they're actually worth might be completely out of touch. But I think tracking the frustration from the players that have had every opportunity to play better.

I don't know how this happened. I mean,

I do know, and I think this is what happens when an irrational actor enters the marketplace and creates disingenuous value. Somebody like Chris Stroud probably looks at some of the guys that went to live, Charles Howell, Danny Lee, Cameron Tringali, Coe Crack, that level of player who have made more on live in the last year than he probably has in the last five years. And he says, you know what?

I'm not that much worse than those guys. This isn't fair. Right. And that's kind of the situation that we're operating in right now. Right. Yeah, it really is. I do like the point that you made where, yeah, I know Chris Stroud took plenty of heat for it, but I don't think you're wrong where some of the top guys definitely have that same delusion.

where they think they're like hot shit, cream of the crop, star of the show. And it really is like, if I walked into a Starbucks today or any normal person walked into a Starbucks today, not me, I'm a bad example because I'm a freak. Like no one would really recognize them. No. And so, yeah, I think you hit it bang on there. And what I would say to Chris Stroud is, you know what?

It's not fair. Like I said, the Cameron Tringale, Anirban Lahiri, Charles Howell, Danny Lee, that division, I would argue that that group of players have been the biggest winner in all of this. The number one, maybe if Rahm signs for 800 million, he's the number one biggest winner. But in terms of the most disproportionately compensated athletes in all of sport,

And what that has done to create a ripple effect where all the guys with similar skill levels that are not good enough players to win a lot of money on the PGA Tour are now just deliciously salty. I think from like a macro view, I think it is one of the funnier subplots in golf in the last decade, honestly. In what other sport can you be an out of shape 40 year old making millions of dollars?

NASCAR, maybe? I don't know. You got me there. Yeah. It's probably just golf. Yeah. We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the

better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash bluewire.

Just go to Indeed.com slash BlueWire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. How did they get 30, 30, how did they get 30, how did they get 20, 20, 20, how did they get 20, 20, how did they get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. Alright, so I'll go next. I'm going to give

Not really a big curveball, but I'm surprised we haven't talked about him yet. Is Tiger on your list at all? Sort of. It's a trickle-down effect that Tiger's on it. Okay, so maybe we could use what I'm curious about with Tiger to dovetail what you wanted to talk about with Tiger, too, but

Tiger looks huge. This is not like a tiger is on steroids tick. I'm not interested in that discourse. Although I thought that was one of the stranger developments over the hero. Did you catch some of those tweets of people, mostly live fan accounts, really going deep on his sweat patterns? We live in a world in 2023 where

Patrick, where you got a 48-year-old man, Tiger, being accused of being on steroids. Phil Mickelson, a 52-year-old man, he's on Ozempic, apparently. That's where we're at in the golf world in 2023. I am lucky to have missed all those tweets. But yeah, I mean, that boy was sweating, and he definitely looked like a yield sign out there in the Bahamas. Yeah.

He, you know, what I thought to dive into what I was going to ask you about in terms of

expectations for Tiger in 2024. What was interesting to me is that he ranked fourth. And now listen, let's take all this with a grain of salt. It's a hit and giggle in the Bahamas. He, he ranked fourth in strokes, getting off the tee at the hero. He ranked finished 18th out of 20 players made 19 birdies. I wouldn't say that he played that poorly, but

But there's a lot of room for improvement in the sense that in the 20-person field, he was the worst iron player in the entire field. Right?

right and you know if you want to be optimistic about it you could say you know tiger's probably the best iron player ever and historically in this iteration of tiger in the mid to late 40s iteration of tiger just statistically off the tee has been his bugaboo so it's kind of a rorschach test right of how you want to look at tiger an optimistic view could be man if he's

been in the gym pumping up his upper body and figuring out this new driver move that allows him to gain a ton of strokes off the tee every week. If he could just figure out the iron play, which is he's always been good at, then maybe he's got a real chance here to do something special. Or, you know, you could look at this probably more rationally and say, okay, how many times are we going to do this? Yeah, I think my expectations of him are

are to play half a dozen times i know he said once a month and people are like oh my god we're gonna see tiger woods 12 times it's like all right no one sees the golf season as a year-long thing it's eight months he's not gonna play in january i don't think he'll play at tory and you're gonna get him at la a course where he has historically struggled maybe the players maybe he decides to do the api instead they're back-to-back weeks who knows and then the four major championships and

I guess my expectations of him are, you know, I think it'd be a great year if you made four Sundays. If you made it to four Sundays, I think that's a very successful year because Augusta has been quite cold the past two years. You think about 22, that rainy cold or not rainy, that cold Saturday that threw him for a loop. He played horrible there. Obviously the walk is very tough. And then last year with the rain,

the open anything could happen there and then his best shot i think is probably going to be the u.s open at pinehurst nice and hot there in north carolina flat golf course firm and fast ball runs forever on the ground yeah yeah and so i think if he makes it to four sundays maybe tickles us a little bit at the u.s open i think that's a great season for tiger woods

I think I'm with you. I actually think Pinehurst is the one that he's the most live at. If I just gave you right now, you're a bit of a gambler yourself too. I don't know what the odds on this would be, but if I just gave you, you can have Tiger. He's going to be top 10 at one of the majors this year. Are you taking the yes or the no on that? I'm taking the no. I'm probably taking the no, but I think I'd take the yes on a top 25.

I'm still, I mean, there's so much injury built up where he talks about how the ankle There's only like 73 players in the Masters. That is true. It is a very easy cut to make. I think either of us could do it. On our like fourth or fifth try. You know, once we get a little course knowledge under the belt. I mean, yeah, he'll probably make the cut at the Masters. He's done it 23 years in a row. And then the other three, who knows really. Okay.

Hit me with what you got next. I've already done three of mine, so I've only got two left. My Tiger one was more, I'm looking forward to the international team winning the 2024 President's Cup in Montreal. Wow. And throwing the United States leadership room into a loop. I mean, we got Jim Furyk at the helm this time around. Love that. Yeah.

He's part of that. Freddie Couples, Davis Love III, Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker group. And even after the Ryder Cup, Davis Love III was like, yeah, I think we need some new blood in there. So I'm hoping that means we get some new blood in 2025. And I think a lot of people are looking at Tiger Woods to captain the ship at Bethpage, but I do not believe he will be the captain today.

for the U.S. Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black. I think he's got plenty going on right now.

trying to save the PGA tour as a player director, trying TGL, trying to save the TGL as well. Who knows what's going to go on there. Luckily we could save that conversation to when we do this again in a year. Yes. Yes. Hopefully there's a lot of, a lot of golf leagues that need to be saved right now. And Tiger appears to be the guy saving them. So I think after the international team,

Beats the U.S. team. I think the leadership room is going to be in a tizzy. But, I mean, they'll name the captain before that. But I don't think it'll be Tiger Woods at Bethpage at 25. Ooh, interesting. Who do you think it would be instead, then? Man, I have no idea. I mean, the leadership room is very scarce. I know. I mean, God, Phil leaving, like, threw such a wrinkle into it where he's just the obvious choice for Bethpage.

And then I've heard any time, any time you could, you can find a guy to captain your team that, that 400 K on the event, just to feel alive. You take it. I've heard Freddie couple's name tossed out there, but I mean, that guy spills state secrets with the best of them. Right.

Although that might have been a huge ploy in hindsight, which did nothing to help the team. You can't give Cam Young the run around one more time. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's playing five pretty much. And then only Max Oma does. So I honestly have no idea. I know they added Stewart Sink.

last year. They added Webb Simpson at the President's Cup. It's kind of just like a lot of uninspiring white guys. I'm good on Sea Island, right? Yeah, I'm good on Sea Island. I think all those, the Stu Sanks, the Webb Simpsons, the Zach Johnsons, the AI, this guy was generated in a lab in Sea Island. I think I'm good on those guys. Yeah, so I don't know where they go, to tell you the truth. But hopefully...

Go ahead. I was going to say, back to the President's Cup, do you think that the international team has their best chances, completely contingent on if the web guys can play? Yeah, and it's coupled with maybe some American guys move on as well. And so...

like if either of those happen the international team could be in a much better spot than originally thought but you think about i mean they have a really nice young crop with minwoo and tom uh you throw in uh jason day and adam scott hideki cam davis is probably in for a big year i'd say after being sick for the first half of 2023 yeah sanjay yeah yeah so i

I like their chances a lot, honestly, in Canada. All right. I will go with my number four, which is what are we going to see out of Rory McIlroy this year, both on and off the course? So I'll start with on the course.

He's coming off statistically maybe the best stretch of golf in his entire career. And once again, we've got a major championship in Valhalla that Rory's got some history at. This is actually the site of the last major that Rory has ever won. How serendipitous would it be for him to break his 10-year major drought at the place where he last found glory? We're both writers. The columns write themselves. I don't

Also feel like we've been in this three-year time loop where every major venue we go to is suddenly the most romantic and fitting place for Rory to end his major drought. First, you've got St. Andrews, the home of golf, where Rory broke onto the scene in 2010, his favorite golf course in the world. This is the spot. And then you've got Oak Hill. He's an honorary member there.

an adopted Rochesterian his wife's from the area okay that didn't work out let's go to Royal Liverpool the last time we were here guess who won I was Rory McIlroy and now back to Valhalla right what do you know the site of Rory's last major championship victory and it it

It just goes on and on and on where it almost feels like the more perfect of a story, the more history at the venue, the more we want to romanticize it, the less likely it is to come to fruition. And Rory's going to break the major drought surrounded by a bunch of AI generated fans at like PGA Frisco in 2029 when everyone's just done with his shit.

Yeah, I think, like you said, I don't think it's really a coincidence that Rory McIlroy's best two years coincided with the world of golf going up into flames. And I don't really know what to expect of him on the course because he's been so good. You would think he's 34 now.

Probably got a handful of more years in his prime before it starts to fall off a little bit. But I mean, he knows he looks as good as ever. He looks better than he was when he was winning major championships. So, I mean, it sounds so cliche to say that, oh, he just needs to put himself in the mix more and more and the ball is eventually going to bounce his way. But that's really what he needs to do. I think like you mentioned the off the course stuff too, right?

He's kind of entering this weird new era himself. Like he's no longer on the pack. He already has gotten plenty chippy on Twitter, waiting into the rollback stuff, which let me tell you firsthand, like Rory, it's not a kind place out there for the pro rollback advocates. I actually think me and Rory feel the same way about a rollback and the

I listen, man, I don't really know what the game plan is here. You're going to get torched by the masses with that one. So after the guy is seeming seemingly speaking his mind about live in the

What I thought was generally very rational thoughts on Liv, but also very polarizing in the way that he waded into Liv when other people kept their mouth shut. He's once again, like he's not shying away from speaking his mind, which I have a lot of admiration for. But sometimes I just question that.

What the upside is a little bit like he comes out and says most amateurs are not going to be able to tell a difference with a rolled back ball. Okay. In a vacuum, Rory, I agree with you. I don't think you're wrong about that, but I know for being on the internet over the last three days,

that people on the internet do not agree with you. They don't agree with you. And I don't know if you need to really be the one telling people

that the 25 handicap, is it going to tell a difference in their golf ball? Even if you're right, because I don't think that's going to land for people coming from you, the 0.00001% of skill and elitism when it comes to this. And like I said, while he's right,

You could say it's a little tone deaf, and mainly it's just catnip for your detractors. Talk about something that's easy to pounce on in terms of all the fans that think you're wildly out of touch with the general golf ecosystem. Like I said, I've got a lot of admiration for

him having the balls to speak his mind in a generation of golfers, you know, like I said, that are just generated out of the sea Island AI lab, uh, like that should be what we want in our star athletes as people that cover the game. It's a lot more fun when our stars talk to us and say interesting things. But when it comes to Rory, I just question if,

maybe the on the course stuff would come a little easier to him if he sat a couple of these ones out. Yeah, I think he came across as a guy who hasn't been on the internet for a few years, which was definitely the case. But I kind of tossed out there when he decided to resign from the policy board, which was something he was thinking about since the summer.

that he might actually become more likable just because he's out of the spotlight yeah he's not going to be in front of the mic having to say all these polarizing things he can just play golf and let's be honest he doesn't love to watch rory mcroy swing a golf club i mean no matter what you think about the man he's one hell of a golfer and he's got one of the most beautiful swings ever so that that's kind of what i thought with the him kind of leaving the spotlight so to speak but

I think it does. I mean, I think it did really help him a lot.

with all the shit going on inside the ropes and whether he can channel some sort of that same energy somehow or whatever the hell, I mean, who knows? Maybe Rory McIlroy will be on a live golf team in 2024. If the champions league I presented becomes true. And I mean, who knows where he is mentally going in 2024. It felt like that tweet about the rollback with him fencing,

maybe about some other stuff. I know Rick put on his tinfoil hat and was reading into the last sentence where he said, you know, everything else in this game is about money. He thought that wasn't sign as, Oh, John Rahm is going to live golf. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know what to think of Rory. I mean, statistics, he's as good as he's ever been. It's just the mental and emotional side that who knows.

All right. Hit me. You got two more, right? I've got, I've got only one more. Yes, I have. Oh, that one's kind of boring. Uh, I have the return of, let's just say the boys. I'm really intrigued of what Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth will do in 2024. I am too. I think this is a fascinating, fascinating subplot. Yeah.

Jordan Spieth because he had a great spring. People just forgot how good he was in the spring. He played great at the Masters. That followed up him kind of luck boxing around Bay Hill Sunday there before his luck ran dry coming down the stretch of the Arnold Palmer. Probably should have won the Valspar, but he hit one in the water late. Lost in a playoff at the RBC Heritage. And you're like, okay, after this spring,

Jordan Spieth, PGA Championship. I know it's not a great statistical fit for him at Oak Hill, but he's playing some pretty damn good golf. Yeah. And then Quail Hollow happens Monday. He hurts his wrist, hurts his back, which was underreported, playing with his son. Never seemed to recover. Had a really forgettable summer outside of the first round in Memphis. Horrible Ryder Cup. Horrible. He was atrocious.

in rome even he would admit that i think and then he comes to the hero plays i mean he struck the ball beautifully the first two days and that follows up him admitting he hurt his wrist again during the off season figured it was some sort of nerve damage so at least he knows now but

I mean, who's Jordan Spieth moving forward? Is he a guy who wins once a year and contends in one major year? Is that all we're going to get from him? That's kind of where I lean, to tell you the truth. And then obviously, Justin Thomas. He's like 30-ish, 27-ish in the world right now. Back on gluten, we should say.

Back on gluten, seemingly back on his normal statistical profile as well of hitting iron shots heavenly and missing a whole lot of putts just based on that four-round sample size in the Bahamas. But I've got really high expectations because kind of similar to Rory, Justin Thomas is a very emotional player. And he definitely, definitely heard everyone, myself included,

rip him for the past eight months and I know he would love nothing more than just to shove it back into our faces uh and you know him taking ownership of his swing him you know really grinding this off season I think I mean I'm expecting a really monster season for Justin Thomas to tell you the truth at least two wins which I mean

Relative. Compared to where we were with Justin Thomas, I think he could be in store for a really nice bounce back here. Robert Leonard : I agree. I'm buying the JT stock. The Spieth one's really fascinating. I actually just wrote a pretty long piece about this for your colleague, Rex, website.

where I was looking at Spieth's career, his career trajectory, it's really one of the more fascinating careers in modern golf. I think people misremember just how good Jordan Spieth was from 2015 to 2017. And I think people think of Jordan Spieth as this escape artist, this great putter who

you know, magic beans, right? Like he kind of never passes the eye test, but he just finds a way to get the ball in the hole. Um,

That's just not actually how it played out in 2015 to 2017. Spieth was the best iron player in the world. The most well-rounded player in the world. Like he was a really good driver of the ball. Yes, he was a good putter, but that's not even remotely why he won those three majors and 12 times in a, in a three year stretch. He had like 30 top fives and in three years, it was unbelievable. Um,

So I'm really interested to see. And then the fall from grace too, right? Like the last five years with Spieth, if you actually break down the numbers, this is the thing I wrote about.

It was kind of just a combination of everything. It wasn't really one thing that fell off the cliff. The off the tee just got a little bit worse. The irons just got a little bit worse. The short game was kind of the only thing that stayed really good. And the putter just got a little bit worse too. Whereas Justin Thomas was a little bit more pronounced in his struggles last year. Like he had his worst iron year and his worst putting year by far. And I think both rebound. I mean, let me ask you this right now.

to put a bow on these guys. Who's more likely to win the Masters? Who'd you rather bet right now to win the Masters, saying both are between 25 and 30 to 1? Jordan Spieth. I probably would, too. Yeah, interesting. Just Jordan Spieth at that place. I always say Jordan Spieth has two built-in major chances every year, between the Open and his creativity and affinity for Lynx Golf over there and the Masters.

Um, I mean, he could, he showed up in 2018 as a, as a shell of his former self. Yeah. And if not for that tree branch on the 72nd hole, he's what he's in a playoff with Patrick Reed potentially. Yeah. Um, so it's just something out there. I know JT's had some good runs there, but I mean, never really in contention. So I would go with, uh, with Spieth.

Okay. I'm going to give you my final one and I kind of can't believe we haven't talked about him yet, but I also totally can because he doesn't really give us much off the course, but I got to say,

So Scheffler's 2023 T-degree numbers, Data Golf had this in their newsletter the other day. They're the second best in the entire strokes game, Derek, behind Tiger in 2006. Pretty sure in 2006, Tiger won like six or seven times. At least Scheffler put a nice little bow on 2023 with the hero. But really, really curious to see

what Scheffler's follow-up is to that season. Have we considered a possibility where the putter gets better for Scottie Scheffler and the ball striking remains at this historic unsustainable level that we saw from him in 2023? Because that's what happened at the hero, right? And I think conventional wisdom, if you are asking me to put my prognosticating hat on

and tell you right now what I think is going to happen for Scottie Scheffler in 2024, I would say, I bet you the putter gets a little bit better and the ball striking gets a little bit worse, right? Like we see a little bit of regression to the mean in both categories and maybe he catches a little bit more wind luck.

I'll give him credit. He is working tirelessly on this putting thing with Phil Kenyon. And maybe he's two in his head, but he's six out of 20 in Albany. And to be honest with you, when you hit the ball like Scottie, that's kind of all you need. I know it's a 20-man field, but he gained a stroke putting and won by three or four. And

There's like three or four tournaments last year, big ones too. One or two of them might be a major where if Scottie gains a stroke putting a stroke, he wins. So I'm really curious to see how, what that interaction looks like is, does the putter go up and the ball striker goes down or what kind of relationship those two have in 2024?

He could have won the PGA, which I'm sure will get people riled up for saying that. It's true. He could have run away from the field at Jack's place. Very true. And the week before at Colonial, I think he still finished a shot outside that playoff somehow. LACC too, like didn't, he was right there too. Yeah. I mean, that's four and he won twice. Yeah.

Yeah, I think what you said is probably what I would think as well, where, okay, the ball striking was dumb, silly in 2023. It's got to revert a little bit in the putting. I mean, I think the year before he gained about a stroke a tournament on the greens when he won four times that breakout year. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think his ball striking is going to be better than 2022. Yeah.

And if his potter can somehow return to that level, he won four times in 2022. I mean, would you put his over under for when count at, let's say three and a half? Are you going over or under? I actually, it's funny you ask that because this was posted one of my completely degenerate golf group chats. I think.

I think it's so hard to win now on the PGA tour, even with some of the Exodus to live. I don't know if you can put any player at more than 2.5 of the over-under, but in Scheffler's case, I think three feels right, right? Like if you gave me 3.5, I'm taking a slight under. And if you gave me 2.5, I'm taking a slight over. What about you? I think I kind of lean to four, honestly. Four with a major?

No, not necessarily with a major, but four wins in 2024, I think. I mean, he could have won like 10 times in 2023. He could have. Oh, man. He was on my list as well, to tell you the truth. So is that your final one? I could go somewhere else. Let's go with these crop of...

These five guys who pissed me off. Let's go with these five. What are we going to see in major championships from Xander Shoffley, Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau, Max Homa, and I'm going to throw Cameron Young in there because he's been pissing me off lately. I knew you were going in this direction. I'm pretty sick of

can't lay and Xander shit, to be honest with you. And I think the Ryder cup was a culmination of that for a lot of people. Now, what I'll say about can't lay is the one thing that he did kind of prove at the Ryder cup is that the guy does seem to want the ball. Right. And I think he's got a couple, uh,

Like I was breaking down, I do a early major championship December futures preview that I just recorded last week. And so I was looking pretty closely at Valhalla and it's like, man, Jack Nicklaus course,

reminds me a lot of Muirfield Village, Backgrass Greens. You're out of excuses, pal. If you can't show up at a place like Valhalla, I don't know what to say to you anymore. So I will tell you, I think Cantlay is the best golfer out of those five. But

I can't sit here and definitively tell you that a single one of them is going to be on a betting card for me at a major next year. And this is coming from a guy that probably hung on way too long that he should have with those guys. Yeah, the thing with... It's so funny how...

can't lane zander's major championship finishes are i mean zander has much better higher finishes but as of late at least last year the last couple years they've been pretty similar where they kind of just live in that p12 zone and the way they get there is just so different like at least zander puts himself out there a little bit right he's out there on the dating app he's swiping right

He's doing all the right things. His prompts are probably a little quirky for all we know, but he's going on dates. You know, he's getting hurt every now and again, but he's putting himself out there. Patrick Antler is in his basement playing video games. And then, you know, his mom makes some meatloaf and he goes upstairs and he smells it. He's like, all right, guess I'm finishing T12 at the U S open this time. And it's just like,

I applaud Xander for at least putting himself

in the position at first. Zander's hitting the local bar scene on Friday night and then getting ghosted by the girl he buys a vodka tonic for. Exactly. Yes. The first hole of the third round of the U.S. Open was ugly. I was there. Yeah. I was following that Rory Zander group. Yeah. It wasn't fun to watch, but he was there. That's what matters. And I think that's kind of what

i want to see from tony finow who hasn't had a top 10 in major championships ever since he's learned how to win and of course maxoma who's coming off his first major top 10 granted the back door back doors at the open but maybe that can you know stoke some confidence for him and then for cameron young it's just like what are we getting like what is cameron young who is cameron young really like is he

this guy that everyone thought he was going to be given his his rookie year and what he's done at major championships you know being right there at the pga championship being right there at the open championship as well uh or is he kind of just a guy who can hit it long his iron play wasn't that great on the corn fairy tour maybe it won't be that great moving forward his short game is

Oh, just atrocious. And so, you know, I kind of, I need to see something from Cameron Young this year, just in general. Yeah. Cameron Young's a fun little sliding doors because he's like two shots away from two major championships and he hasn't even been on the PGA tour. Who's, if you had to pick one to most likely to win a major in 2024, who would you pick out of the five? Man.

I think honestly I would go with Max Ola. Which one, which ones you think it would be? Oh gosh, that's a great question. I don't know. I feel like Max could win an open somehow. I think so too. Whether it opened. Yeah, I think so too. And he's, he's been on record saying he also thinks that'd be his best chance. So why not? Like you were speaking of like people who want the ball, like,

That dude's done everything except compete in a major championship at this stage. Winning at Genesis, you know, that putt to not lose the Rotter Cup. Played great at the President's Cup too. It's like, all right, man, you're 33-ish now. Something like that. Like, it's time to go. It's now or never.

Yeah, I think I'd maybe still go Cantlay just because I think he's the best pure golfer out of that group. And I think Valhalla is a pretty darn perfect spot for him, but it's tough, man. It's tough. I do the major over-unders every year. I did them this year with another one of your colleagues, Kyle Porter, and we were talking about

all these 0.5 guys, right? Where it's like, once can't lays all these guys that are now entering their thirties, we're running out of major championships guys. Like not all these guys are going to finish their career with one. And especially what more can remind us that of a year where we've got fricking Brian Harmon and Wyndham Clark winning a major. So all five of those guys, it's like,

can't lay 0.5 is he going over under zander 0.5 is he going over or under i think maybe two and three is probably out of the equation with a lot of those guys but it's really going to be interesting to see which one of them gets that one uh because it i think it changes a lot of a lot of how we think about those guys yeah i think i forget who mentioned it first but someone said

Think about the players championship as a half major. Yeah, I forget. I forget who said it. But when you when you say it, like when you say it out loud, it like it really does make a lot of sense. It's like, OK, Scottie Scheffler has, you know, one and a half majors. Rory McIlroy has four and a half majors.

Ricky Fowler, he has a half major. That probably makes sense. Like it really does like help. That's how I've started to put things into perspective by adding the players as a half major. All right, my friend, this is a blast. We'll do it again soon, buddy. What you, you got anything exciting to plug coming up in December? You taking some time off? What's, what's going on with you the next couple of weeks?

uh nothing much just working work until the new year work until uh you know i'm working hard until this framework agreement's done just like jay just like jimmy just like eddie the rest of my boys yeah um as for things to plug nothing too much just uh if you do follow me uh subscribe to my newsletter status update

Pretty much just all my unsolicited thoughts that can't be housed on CBSSports.com or else I'd be fired. So be sure to subscribe to that. All right, buddy. Safe travels the rest of your drive. And it was good to see you, my friend. We'll do it again soon.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Andy. All right, that is it for the podcast. We will be back next week. Until then, best of luck with your bets in the NFL this week. Enjoy the holidays, and we will see you next time. Cheers. ♪ If I ventured in the slipstream ♪ ♪ Between the viaducts of your dream ♪ ♪ Where mobile steel rims crack ♪

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