Matt Considine (00:03.094)
Welcome to the bag drop on told stories and golf. I'm your host Matt Consine here with our co-host, the professor, Professor Slantja. Good morning, sir.
The Professor (00:11.082)
Good morning, sir. We're staring at a 70 degree day down there in Athens. I've already got my workout in. I was nursing a hangover yesterday. That's gone. So all is feeling well and chipper down here in the classic city.
Matt Considine (00:21.87)
professor of the party boy. What do you, you're not celebrating national championships or super bowls. What do you got to.
The Professor (00:27.03)
I mean it was was you know when this release is not timely, but it was the Super Bowl weekend I decided I've been good good bins I've been really good since Texas Georgia all the way back in November after my buddies Andrew and Tommy took me off the horse and after three months of being good on my
Matt Considine (00:41.998)
After they torpedoed our four ball hopes basically by keeping my partner out too late prior to tee times, but hey.
The Professor (00:45.182)
That's the after the rumen are for ball hobs.
That's right. And I figured, hey, it's a Super Bowl. Let's imbibe a little bit. And I regretted it the next morning significantly.
Matt Considine (01:00.108)
Well, it's been a cold winter. I'm very happy to hear things are warming up for you guys down there. This always bugged me about the South. Painted Greens. What's your opinion on Painted Greens?
The Professor (01:15.106)
I mean painted greens, painted bunker faces, painted fairways, all of it. Let the grass be what it is. I mean we got to obviously embrace the brown, but in this case just like why do we need to put chemicals down just to maintain a certain aesthetic look? It's just unnecessary. Too much inputs going on, too much money wasted.
Matt Considine (01:22.402)
Okay.
Matt Considine (01:33.422)
Yeah, I was with some Atlanta new club members recently and we were chatting about that. so someone did like take the block of it. It's really practical in distinguishing, you know, the areas of play for the the better upkeep of the course. I was like, that is ridiculous. Like you're telling me a painted green or a painted fairway is distinguishing something for you.
Stop it. It's a weird superficial thing we do in golf and I just want us done with it. Make it about the play.
The Professor (02:08.886)
Yeah, if it's that then they could just use the little paint spray can that they go through and put the dashes right if they want to put markers for the mowers and stuff like that. That's fine. And I think a lot of places use that practice. I know we often use that practice at Athens Country Club.
Matt Considine (02:21.42)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're coming out of, up here and my neck was much colder temperatures for a long streak. can't remember a winter that's been this cold and you and I were catching up, you know, fire in the pod back up into the new year. And I think you asked me, you're like, yeah, what have I missed in the golf world the last three months? Cause it was like the holidays and there is, you know, all these other things. And I do feel it's good to separate from the game for a little bit.
if you're, you know, an obsessive ardent golfer like the two of us, like it's good to just take a break. And I remember you asked me like, so what did I miss? Like what has been happening? I had to be honest with myself. I'm like, actually, I don't know what you've missed. I haven't been so tuned in myself. We've both, you know, just been busy with family and work and all of life's obligations. But we thought we'd have a fun pod here today of actually looking back on the last
The Professor (02:59.934)
Yeah.
Matt Considine (03:19.854)
call it three months of golf happenings, golf news, golf, whatever. And so we're calling it, what did we miss? What did the professor and Matt miss over the last few months? And what did we find interesting of headlines? And shout out to all of our friends who run great newsletters, run great pods that allowed us to go check out, what did we miss? What can we get caught up on here? So this is a bit of a catch-up pod, and then we'll end, I think, looking forward.
The weather's breaking your way. hope it breaks sometime in my near future up here. Uh, but what do we miss? Not about the golf world. What do we miss about our golf? And, I don't know about you professor, but this is, you know, around that Valentine's day hits and it's onwards into, uh, uh, St. Patrick's day is when I start to get a little itchy for some G back in my life. So we can, we can have some fun talking about those things. What are the things we miss?
The Professor (04:00.8)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (04:12.927)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (04:20.31)
I do. You know, just watched the Super Bowl recently. Maybe think about sports parity. Always reminds me of a great trivia question because you could say, the best sports league have the best parity, meaning anybody could win a title. Right. So you're to get good competition throughout the year. And obviously the NFL's in terms of how they structure things, they try to make this happen. Right. The worst teams from the previous year play the worst teams the next year. You know, try to even out the records.
Matt Considine (04:20.504)
Do you have a fact for us?
The Professor (04:46.582)
And in this case, this year worked out well for the Patriots that they went through one of the easiest schedules of any NFL team to make it as far as they did. But if we had to think about that, we've got the four major sports, right? If we think about parity as in the percentage of teams that have won their title, could you rank order who is the least parity to the most parity? That is, who has had of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB,
Who's had the percentage of, the lowest percentage of teams that have won a title and then the highest percentage of teams that have won a title? Could you come up with it off the top of your head?
Matt Considine (05:18.734)
wow, parody in that regard. So it's like champion parody is what we're.
The Professor (05:27.766)
Champion parity, right? Yeah, percentage share of most teams that have won at least one title.
Matt Considine (05:34.562)
And you're keeping it to the major league. it's the four, such a slap in TGL's face. I can't believe that. Anyways, okay. I'm going to try to rank parity, man. Least parity I'm going to say is the NBA. That's going to be my least. You're going wait for me to give you my whole four.
The Professor (05:36.48)
Just the four, yeah, the four major ones in the United States.
The Professor (05:43.593)
You
The Professor (05:58.261)
You can do all four if you want any any gut reaction to the NBA. Why that one?
Matt Considine (06:03.086)
I'm just thinking dynasties that that kind of ran the show for a while, whether it be the Bulls or the Celtics before them or the Lakers. So that's Spurs even. Yeah. Our Cleveland Cavaliers getting to the finals for many years in a row and only taking one down. But we got one. I'm going to go with NBA the least. I'm going to follow that up with. gosh, this is tough.
The Professor (06:11.658)
Lakers, right, the Spurs. That's,
The Professor (06:20.342)
But we got one.
Matt Considine (06:32.43)
I'm gonna follow that up with NHL. I wanna put NFL as the most parody, but I feel like that's gonna be a pump fake. I'm gonna go NFL in my two spot and I'm gonna go MLB in the final. That's...
The Professor (06:49.046)
That's pretty good. Not exact. NFL is the least parody of that. I believe this has changed. think it was when I had this as trivia question back in 2012, I think NBA was the least parody for the exact reason. NBA for the exact reason you said. And NFL hasn't really just caught up to it. But NFL, you think about it right, Cowboys, Steelers, 49ers, Patriots.
Matt Considine (06:54.67)
okay, see, that was a layup. You gave me a layup.
Matt Considine (07:17.484)
Yeah. Yeah, it's.
The Professor (07:18.934)
And it's a shorter runway, right? They've only been playing the Super Bowl since what, the 60s or whatever. So that's a little bit of a context clue there. So NFL, Lease Parity, then NBA for exact reasons you said, a lot of titles soaked up by several teams, Spurs, Lakers, Celtics, and so on. Then NHL, right? So this goes 62%, 66%, 68 % of those three organizations, NHL being about 68, 69 % of the teams that have won.
Then you get to the MLB 25 or 30 about 83 % and MLB is by far the biggest parody and that makes sense Yeah, the Yankees, you know have had their years of dominance, but you're talking about a hundred and some year, you know Runway for that and anything of the last 50 or 40 years. I mean the number of teams that have won World Series in the MLB. It's just go down the list. It's like yep. They won that they won. They won. They won. They won
Matt Considine (08:04.439)
right.
The Professor (08:16.603)
And then get to the Guardians and you're like that's still since 1948 and we're still we're still waiting on that so
Matt Considine (08:23.042)
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I was, what was I, one for four then, NBA was the only one.
The Professor (08:28.776)
Yeah, but you had the three of them grouped together pretty well.
Matt Considine (08:33.602)
Yeah, kind of an NFL is kind of more of a because it's built into the NFL, right? The parody of championship is what I wasn't certain of. But that is what they were designed around was good quality games. What they realized was it's the the strength of the league, not the team that draws people in, which was counter to MLB. It was the big dog at that time. And and they just thought like star power, your Joe DiMaggio's your.
The Professor (08:39.966)
It is.
The Professor (08:47.862)
That's right.
The Professor (08:57.703)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (09:01.824)
New York Yankees and that's going to like prop up everybody else. It's really interesting to think about these leagues and how they evolve. But I love that, man. That was a great, great one.
The Professor (09:10.728)
Yeah, NFL knows the regular season is where they'll win it. They know, like, dominate the regular season by making parity through the regular season. And that's where you're going to win your viewerships and your dollars. It would be interesting if you did like a playoff study on parity. I wonder if there the NFL would shine. Just getting into, NHL lets everybody in still, I think. So they probably have pretty good parity of getting into the playoffs. It'd be interesting to go across the leagues and look at that.
Because certainly then at the championship level, NFL is the worst parity, but getting into the playoffs, they might actually have higher parity than the other leagues. So stats guys out there, go get those numbers for us.
Matt Considine (09:37.23)
That would be cool.
Matt Considine (09:45.708)
which is so much more devastating, more devastating news to Brown's fans. The parody's built in and you still consistently stink, go figure. Maybe it's too close to like a radioactive lab or something, we just don't know. know, Burrito, Ohio, guys are just getting... Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The Professor (09:53.417)
Yep.
The Professor (09:57.643)
we don't even make the playoffs, right?
The Professor (10:05.718)
Coming up with the San Francisco excuse right now of the injuries. Shout out to our boy, Poosh. We know he's down that rabbit hole and they're moving their facility, believe, or moving something. So look out for the Niners. They're gonna win the Super Bowl without their injuries now.
Matt Considine (10:18.488)
So funny.
Matt Considine (10:22.542)
Well, that's a good transition. All these little commentaries of stuff that's happening in the golf world now will change from from that to this. But before we get there, thanks to our friends at Titleist for always supporting the show, supporting New Club. Professor, I'm still waiting. Do you got any wedges yet? SM11s are out.
The Professor (10:38.102)
Oh, mine came in. Mine came in and it is perfect timing. We are in sticky wet Bermuda season. And so I was super excited to get them in, did a whole unboxing of them and it dragged me out to the golf course. had been out to the golf course probably in three weeks and I'm like, I'm going to play nine holes each day this weekend. I have to say, know. I know they worked a lot on their grooves and just having better group performance across the face with the new wedges, but I felt like I had even better turf interaction with the new ones. So I was playing on
I mean, we've had nasty rain, cold, just the muddiest, stickiest Bermuda. And I got to tell you, none of those early season chunks that are all rust and all that, chipping and pitching game kept me in the matches that I played in this past weekend.
Matt Considine (11:23.502)
Yeah, the new SM11s. I haven't held them in the hand just yet, but they look dope. And your customizations, Professor, I'm gonna give you a shout out. You sent me some pics. They look fantastic. I love your choices. You are an artisan, sir. Very cool, very cool design.
The Professor (11:44.041)
Yeah, mean the customization they allow. I was almost overwhelmed because obviously we've gone through the fitting. Everyone should go through the fitting, but we've done enough times at this one. like, I'm just going to order, you know, based on my previous specs. No reason to draw drag out Haybagger to, you know, waste another hour of his time with me. He's given me enough of his time. And when I went in there to order, was just like getting hit in the face with a, you know, hot air out of the oven in terms of the number of options that were there in terms of shafts, stampings, even stickers on the shafts.
every different bounce you can do, degrees, wraps on your grips. Just reminder of why, you know, if you're going to go for wedges, they're hard to pick against stylist.
Matt Considine (12:22.57)
It's every customization detail your heart could desire. It is a little overwhelming, but I think the one thing I, we always talk about tools or toys on the show, feel like, and the one thing that I so respect and just following, you know, their engineers and their wedge reps, it is the performance. It is the tool that they care about first and foremost. you know, especially with the new SM11s, it's
The Professor (12:31.168)
Thank you.
Matt Considine (12:50.814)
the three big ones, cleaner contact, controlling flight, and then finding the right amount of spin. so, you know, going through that both in person and online, it's like, yeah, you start there and then you put some things, you know, stamps and colors and wraps and grips once you get past it. But check them out. SML11s are now out there over at Titleist.com. Let's get on to the show.
The Professor (12:57.61)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (13:19.662)
Alright, Professor, what did miss? We'll start with some golf news. What is your first thing? We did some dives independently and we know that a lot has occurred this winter. What did you find? What were some things we missed that are of interest?
The Professor (13:36.631)
I mean, we missed a whole lot. feel like this was a very active off season. have to say, you this is a bonus miss and it's something that we didn't miss that I think is why we stayed so tuned out, you know, without Kapalua on the schedule this year. I think that's a big explanation because like, yeah, with waste management on the schedule, like that tuned me back in the golf, right? So now I'm kind of locked back in, you know, early, was that early in February, waste management was, and it's like, I'm back in without Kapalua. That's typically, I'm like, oh yeah, that is why January passed by without me thinking much about.
Matt Considine (13:49.358)
I think there's a correlation.
The Professor (14:05.334)
the media and pro golf scene is because we didn't have those beautiful, you know, 8pm views of the Hawaiian coast and Roger Maltby, you know, waxing on about the whales and so on. So we missed that. And yeah, I mean, a lot happened just in January. So let's see, where do we want to start?
Matt Considine (14:22.786)
I think we could go down a whole bucket of things that happened, because you're right, it was active. I think, how about you pick three stories, I'll pick three stories, and we'll chat about them. You kick us off.
The Professor (14:36.11)
Ugh, alright. I'm gonna kick us off. I'm gonna go with something maybe unexpected. I'm gonna go with Liv. And hey, guess what happens when you play by the rules?
Matt Considine (14:46.638)
you get some ranking points.
The Professor (14:49.534)
You give some ranking points. The whole message, the whole time has been like, you're not a real, you pay 54 whole shotgun start team of like the rules. You're not serious people. The rules are like they're right here. They've been published forever. If you play by these rules, you will get rolled ranking points. We will not say like, you live, you're bad. We're not giving you points. Just follow the rules and they kick and scream and talk about being unfair and we're going to sue and making all this noise. And guess what? You played by the rules. You get.
Matt Considine (14:57.314)
You're not serious people.
The Professor (15:19.008)
where you get your reward.
Matt Considine (15:20.712)
Am I correct that at first was it going to be the top three finishers and they expanded it to top ten?
The Professor (15:27.4)
Yeah, I think some rumors are the top three, which I think would have been ridiculous. Like, come on, the fields aren't, they're fine. There's a lot of good players on live. You know, they are out there now going to be playing 72 holes. There's to say like, you only get top three when you look at like the alternate field events and the PGA tour and some of quality of those and who's getting in. so I think they're going top 10 finishers in each, each event will get points from the OWGR. and they basically think they are.
equating it to alternate field events in terms of the weighting, how many points are being given out to the top 10 will be basically equivalent to what would be an alternate field event. And to give some context, if you think about that relative to sort of the waste management that say, which is, you know, not the top tier PGA Tour event, but a really solid PGA Tour event, you're looking at like one third of that is basically what an alternate field PGA Tour event is, or what a live event will be. And I think that's a that's a good start.
to it, know, and kudos to them for making adjustments and know WGR sticking to their word and be like, okay, you've made the adjustments. So here are your points, you know, regardless of what you think about live or not. I think that's the right move by OWGR. But I think now raises the question of where do things go from here? You know, what is lives? They've made it through this sort of launch phase. They are now stabilizing into these are what the events are. These are the structures. Where does live go? What's their next
play? they just going to like lay low? Are they happy where they found themselves now and just kind of move along, play a long game? Or do they have something up their sleeve in six months? Are they bringing Craig Norman back into the mix? They scream about something? You know, what are they going to do? got what Ohain is now, you know, helping out with them. So he's obviously an innovator and a pretty brilliant individual. So I suspect that there's something coming down the road for them that they're going to try to do that's innovative or different. But I have no clue what that is.
Matt Considine (17:21.836)
Yeah, I got to imagine. mean, my live minute is like, they're still pushing the franchise valuations. And I think that's going to be where they're, they're still putting the strategy in the play. I think, I don't know if it was self-reported or, or they had an outside group, but they're still, you know, hovering around a billion dollars for these franchises. And it's like,
knowing a little bit more over the last few years about how things are valued, it's a tough game to argue because there's no precedent in golf for franchises, right? So it's like, well, if they're the ones putting the stake in the ground, I TGL, that's a big part of that. you know, I imagine it's going to be primarily in there. if you value
The Professor (18:06.838)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (18:16.234)
live based on the dollars that have gone in to live primarily from PIF. They got a big valuation. know, what are they up to? I think it's estimated $5 billion has been spent or something like that. yeah, they're
The Professor (18:29.014)
Well, you imagine they look at that as a differentiator with respect to the PGA tour that they have this financial model where people can come in and infuse money, have investment in the product, investment in the teams, which then in terms of long term, you know, ownership and attachment and all that puts them in a good position because if you have people coming in and investing money, then they're going to want to keep growing and be better and you can get further investments from that.
I do think there's an argument there just playing the long game. They know they have a business model that in today's world, especially with the private equity role and the VC role that's going on and evaluations and growth. They're like, well, we've got actually the business model that matches where today's society is at. So if we just sit, hang out and just keep doing what we're doing, like, we probably have the more viable product that becomes the bigger product 20 years from now.
Matt Considine (19:20.908)
Yeah, and I, the only thing that doesn't sit with me is that now that we have the counterpoint of TGL that seems to be doing pretty well, like the Monday nights and they've got it much improved from season one.
The Professor (19:38.615)
I have to say I watched 20 minutes of One Ninh a Day and I'm like, okay, it's still like, I only lasted 20 minutes, but I'm like, all right, like they've got a product here now, like they've got an execution, the execution is there, like it's entertainment, right? It's high calorie, sugary entertainment.
Matt Considine (19:46.346)
It feels a void. It feels a void. And that's where I was.
That's where I was going. It's just the fact that Liv will harp on the valuations and the franchise model from the business perspective. But then when you look at what product they put out, there's this constant battle between individual and obviously they do that for official World Golf rankings. They do that for so many probably other reasons, but
You know, if I'm just looking at who is more, product centric on team, team golf product will teach you yell for sure. Cause they don't have that. They're not telling you what the individual is doing on, right? They're saying this team is three up. This team's three down this team won this team didn't this team, know, and I think that is that that's where it doesn't, you know, be who you are kind of deal. But anyways, I digress my.
The Professor (20:28.64)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Matt Considine (20:50.072)
first topic, story I completely missed in January, found this one, called a lot of groups, Friday, normal sport, global golf post, went a little deep on this one, SeatGeek has stopped listing Masters tickets. I thought this was very interesting. Many of the quotes point to Augusta National pressure, which anybody that knows
The Professor (21:08.726)
The Professor (21:13.589)
Okay.
The Professor (21:18.912)
So this SeaGeek CEO wants to be a member of Augusta Nationals.
Matt Considine (21:22.542)
Yeah, he's holding out who knows uh, i've heard there there are ways in related to capital i've been told um the uh, this this for me was kind of just like Really interesting because I looked it up seek geek is a 200 they really boomed after 2020. Um, and that's a lot a lot of to do with the
The Professor (21:46.154)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (21:49.486)
We're all pent up in COVID and looking for events after that, but they did about it. They're a privately held company, so you can't get all the precise numbers, but they did 250 million to maybe 500 million in 2025 in revenue. So they're, they're a big boy and their valuations in the billions, 1.2 billion, I think was the most recent valuation. So like they're a player. And I was just curious. was like, what does Augusta make each year? And I found an article that someone
The Professor (22:17.717)
Mm.
Matt Considine (22:19.286)
It's all speculative as well because they are privately held, owned and operated. The master's imitational and operated by Augusta National Golf Club, who historically love their privacy. So you're not going to get the precise numbers, but it doesn't take an economist to figure out that they're definitely making over 150 million, probably closer to 250 million. So they're kind in the same ballpark. The thing that's interesting though about Augusta is that, you know, they leave and this is what this whole
The Professor (22:40.66)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (22:46.646)
article centered around was they leave $300 million on the table every single year because of their light commercial love, because of how they, why do they do that? Control. So when I saw this headline, I was like, this is all about control. just don't, do they care about the money? I mean, they're leaving a lot of money on the table. I'm sure by not having a relationship with this Goliath that is SeatGeek or any reseller.
The Professor (22:51.584)
Right.
The Professor (23:11.67)
Or charging more for their ticket value too. mean, they could, they've increased a lot over the last 10 years. Let's be clear, a lot probably about 100 % increase where they are now, but it's incredibly affordable for the general population. It is the best value. Yeah.
Matt Considine (23:22.774)
one of the best values in it is the best value. Yeah. And they want it that way. it's control more, more control coming out of Augusta National Golf Club, which I just found interesting.
The Professor (23:38.805)
Yeah, they want and that's control. You know, I think it's a very positive move with their ticket pricing, but that's also control of a narrative. They don't they don't want the Super Bowl narrative of this is nothing but CEOs on the grounds, you know, and high level earners. They want the narrative of these are patrons. The patrons represent some decent subset of the golf world across it, right? That me and my uncle can go. And then also the CEO of a Fortune 500, you know, can be standing right beside us.
They want that narrative to go along with them. They're proud of that as they should be. think it's again, terms of an executed major sporting event, it's hard to argue that it's not the best in terms of the pinnacle sporting events in the world.
Matt Considine (24:23.64)
Yeah. What's your next one? What's your number two?
The Professor (24:27.574)
Oh, which one? What do I want to go with? That's switch gears because we're going to actually go back to a related one to my first one in a minute. And I'm going to try it out the rant here. Golf equipment regulation, just kicking the can down the road. Right. Twenty twenty eight. Now we're going to go to twenty thirty. Meanwhile, we got the F1 over here saying, hey, all that R &D y'all did on your cars.
Matt Considine (24:45.838)
I caught this one too. Almost put it on my list.
The Professor (24:55.094)
get rid of it because we're changing up the regulations for the cars completely changing up arrow packages. We're changing up what your front wings can do. We're changing engines by the way. We're going to change everything. So go back to the wind tunnels, figure it out. Just what a dichotomy of like one regulating body. mean like, we regulate the game and the other regulating body being like, just don't want to make decisions. We don't want to make hard decisions. We don't want to deal with friction.
You know, we want to shake hands and attend the Masters with all the other people in the business and, you know, have our nightly parties and just really enjoy each other's company and have no issues there, right? It's like being trapped back in middle school again, I feel like with the PGA tour or the USGA and the PGA tour and the OEMs. It's just like, what are we doing?
Matt Considine (25:46.542)
Did you read the actual release? I did not. I was curious, because for those that didn't catch this one, essentially they punted yet again the date is June 1st of 2030, or January 1st.
The Professor (26:02.23)
January 1st, 2030 for new testing standards. Yeah, we're just, yeah.
Matt Considine (26:08.386)
Yeah. Okay. So we're talking another four years. I thought your assessment seems, seems right. there's just so many, like, who is it, who is it threatening the most? Is it the OEMs? Is it the, the, leagues and the elite game? And, cause I, it just feels to me like the inevitable thing, a governing body that has been asleep at the wheel just has to do.
and any time is only gonna make it harder to do, right?
The Professor (26:44.118)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And the more entrenched things become the more just noise and this I think is where social media has plenty of positive but in this debate, it's this huge negative because it lets people just create noise and put out these outlandish things where like if it was just a regular 1982 and the regularity came in and said, hey, we're changing these to these and it gets a couple newspaper printings, you know, it's in golf digest or whatever. And yeah, you sit over your coffee or your beers being like, that's a stupid whatever and then it just happens and
people move on, right? The OEMs can't do these flexing that they're doing that we're going to sue and this is terrible for the game. Look at all the good we do for the game and the public, you know, eating all that up. It would just happen. OEMs would have to, you know, look at where they're diverting funds a little bit and, you know, move back and pry to a little bit more R &D, right, to try to get out in front. We'd see cool shakeup because maybe some other OEMs would take over in different areas because they would make the right guess just like that one, right? Think of the year Mercedes.
comes out, know, and George Russell and Lewis are looking, look at our cards, so different than everyone else's, you know, we're going to dominate. And then they couldn't finish inside the top six, right? They just had to clunker. And this would happen here.
Matt Considine (27:52.142)
And yeah, a lot of that is regulation changes in F1, right?
The Professor (27:57.547)
Yeah, like that and that creates new space and the engineers love it because they get to go try to figure out the next big thing, right? Like, okay, yeah, can we be the first ones to crack this the best? So it'd be so much good that would come out of it and so much fun excitement, especially for the gearheads or friend like Ryan Barath, where he'd get the watch unfold and think of like the content he could put out as the OEMs are chasing the next best thing with new regulations. It would just, it would make for just amazing golf.
Matt Considine (28:03.436)
new problems to solve.
The Professor (28:27.718)
narratives and news as the companies chase that.
Matt Considine (28:29.836)
Yeah. I haven't let my head get there, but as a tinker and an ardent golfer, I, that will be fun. Like, did you try any things finding, you know, okay, the data and science is saying this works best for them, but what's going to work best for me? Is this, does this fit my strength? Does it help me in my weakness? I will enjoy that with, with new regulations. I didn't even think about that, but now I got to wait.
at least four more years to even look forward to doing those types of things.
The Professor (29:04.702)
I think our hope is, I think I've said on this a while ago, Augusta National is, think our Star Wars last hope, right? Like, help me, Oba Wankum Nobi, like help me, Augusta National, just come in and just make the news like, hey, we're going to your tournament ball next year, and we're just going to do it. It would just be so, so refreshing because they will have no consequences. Nobody's going to pull out of their event.
Matt Considine (29:16.558)
Ha
The Professor (29:34.388)
Nobody's going to squawk about it. mean, they'll make great, definitely great narratives on social media and people squawk about it there. It'll make, you know, great sound bites, but everybody's going to show up, play it and we'll see. Look, the world didn't end and it was just fine and players adjusted and still did awesome things. And yeah.
Matt Considine (29:51.598)
That's, you know, what that makes me think about. I have a good friend now who is getting into golf, but he is a, a politician and he's a public servant. And we talked about the election cycles and the four year terms, two year for some things for, for, for many. And, and how the moon shots and the big impactful things are really scary for those guys. Cause like,
The Professor (30:08.832)
Hmm.
Matt Considine (30:21.706)
You can get many things done and get your coalitions and blah, blah, but, it, if it's going to take more than a term, you risk going in the next election cycle, riding and dying with whatever that moonshot is, or, just, just being a failure, just failure. Cause a new turnover. And it's like, all right, well, there's a lot of good in that too. You don't get a, the monarchy or people staying in power too long, but.
Your comments on Augusta national talks about the positive there, right? Because, chairman Ridley, I don't believe that's an elected position. And I think that there's a council that determines, but if he needs to stay for a couple of decades to get something like that done for the game of golf, they have the ability to do that. the USDA does not the, know, there's much more, more synonymous with governance. It's a governing body. So I don't know. That's where my head went with all that stuff.
The Professor (31:09.14)
Yeah, it's a group decision.
The Professor (31:19.862)
Or maybe the RNA surprises us and they're the ones that do it. Next time it comes back to St. Andrews, they're just like, is what we're doing. Off we go. That'd be beautiful.
Matt Considine (31:23.182)
day.
Matt Considine (31:27.682)
that be something? Why don't that be something? All right. My, I'm the one that brought up politics. I'll take us there. This one actually I didn't miss because it's quite frankly pretty near and dear to my heart. And that is the scenario unfolding in DC with National Links Trust versus our federal government and the Trump administration's pressure. A lot of it's
The Professor (31:31.222)
What you got?
Matt Considine (31:56.212)
Unknown still but I know on the big headline was december 31st end end of 2025, you know national links trust was delivered the message that they're in default of their lease with the three historic golf courses, in in dc rock creek east potomac and langston, that that they have been managing for what five years now and
making significant process on it. And what I believe it's not just what you get done, but how you do it. I, we know that they're all about accessible, sustainable golf and the way that they were trying to go about it wasn't in, could they have gotten more done in DC if they were to fund it differently, if they were to, you know, play for bigger headlines, probably, but they really care about a model that works.
for accessible, sustainable golf. That's why the word trust is in there. The Lynx Trust is in their title, I believe, is they are taking their inspiration directly from the home of golf and the St. Andrew's Lynx Trust. And what could that mean broadly? So this one, I got more questions than answers. We got good friends in journalism. Shout out to Garrett Morrison at the Friday Egg. Shout out to Gabby Herzig at the Atlantic. Those two.
The Professor (32:52.766)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (33:03.924)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (33:16.726)
yeah.
Matt Considine (33:21.198)
where I got a lot of the details on it while this was unfolding, but if anyone missed it and I guess I haven't commented most probably no, but the Trump administration has a different vision for those courses and specifically at East Potomac something that is going to be world renowned and a host venue for Ryder cups and championships and likely cost a thousand dollars a tee time similar to other Trump golf course properties.
And that they'd have a lot of roadblocks in their way as well to achieve that. It is a protected historic landmark with our national parks. So there's a bunch there, but I just worry. So there's this battle for golf and I think it's the soul of the game that shows up every once in a while on a bigger stage. And this is one of those things like we need groups like NLT groups that
The Professor (34:06.88)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (34:14.934)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (34:20.014)
are standing up for golf being a egalitarian sport of the people that you, it doesn't mean you can be a member anywhere, but it does mean you can play this game if you're a nurse or a construction worker or a school teacher. And the other option here does not support that. And so I get pretty fired up about it, professor. I know you do too, but this one, I just encourage folks to go.
check out what's happening there and try to support NLT, because I know they're good people and I know they got a good vision and mission behind it.
The Professor (34:52.853)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, this was definitely a very depressing piece of news, right? Because you had an LT trying to do things differently in the United States with respect to golf, trying to set precedent, trying to develop a model that others could follow. And to have that ripped away, you know, basically overnight and all the work they've done was just a sad day for golf, in my opinion. And I was always raised by, especially...
by mom and dad to be very weary of someone that needs their names on things and someone that chases awards and gets dramatic about awards. know, and it's like, well, here it is. Like, gotta put my name on this thing, like, without no, no consideration of what's trying to be accomplished. What's the purpose of it? Just coming in overnight, just saying, I want my name on this. And it's just, that's not a good, not a good thing. I don't, you know.
I don't know what else to say about anybody that supports the change. I think you should ask yourself some hard questions about why you support that change.
Matt Considine (35:58.754)
Yeah. Yeah. And there's, aspects of what they do that aren't in the bright lights. And one of those I see is ecology and, just, just some of the stuff I know I've been involved in some community golf course projects. And when you realize like what golf courses have been, backed into this detriment to our environments, but then you, you, you start to learn more about it and you realize.
how they can be an asset and they need stewards that can do that. A lot of the stuff they've achieved isn't on the golf course. It isn't for golf nerds like you and me. It's environmentalist, man. And I have a friend who's dedicated their life to that, that pursuit, and they were following along with this thing. And they want a more sustainable, ecologically friendly way to maintain a
premium golf courses, you know, good golf product and, and groups like this were championing that as well, which that'll lead me to my third news bit I discovered, but let's, let's go to something else. What's your third golf news for, we might've missed this winter.
The Professor (37:13.974)
Yeah, I want to circle back. You brought it up in the context of the live conversation and the direction they're going and you brought up TGL. More broadly, just golf indoor leagues are growing, right? They're looking at a women's counterpart now to the indoor golf leagues, right? Following that. Yeah, that's looking at coming out. I think that news broke in the last couple weeks here, right? About the end of January, maybe early February. And think Nelly Corda is going to be involved. Obviously, you got to have the Cordas involved on it.
Matt Considine (37:29.186)
I did not know that, I missed that.
The Professor (37:43.607)
So yeah, I think so. Yeah, we're going to see some indoor leagues growing more and more. And obviously, it's just public generally still seeing some simulator golf growing. think numbers do show it's still growing a little bit in terms of these, you know, indoor clubs that are popping up across the nation. I think to me, it raises the question, you know, that the public facing part of golf, like this media part, you know, the indoor golf professional leagues, just in general, what is this?
public-facing part of golf becoming because it is now, it's becoming a little bit more pop culture oriented, right? If you think of TGL, how it's being presented, how the game is being presented. Even the PGA Tour, you think of, the waste management set precedent. Now you've got other tournaments following its image in what they want to have going on on the grounds. You think of this year's waste management, the number of people hollering during swings and the number of times that occurred. Across multiple people, Hideki obviously got a few of those.
It just, yeah, I wonder, you know, how that's going to unfold as this continues to grow in the way it does. Because if you look at golf, it is unique in how it's been conducted on the playing fields. But if you think of golf now growing into a similar vein as baseball, football, basketball, in terms of the product and the entertainment, it's just an entertainment product. Are we going to see more fan participation like that in terms of, it's like whatever happens out there happens in golf world?
professional golf or competition golf will kind of evolve into that. I don't know.
Matt Considine (39:18.018)
Does indoor golf scratch your itch and the same way that playing on a course does like when we're coming out of the winter and you're going to, know, I I'm sure I'll be hitting in more simulators than you probably will for the next couple of months, but, does it give you the same kind of satiation?
The Professor (39:44.535)
No, definitely not. I have not hit a single simulator golf shot this year. And I'm not sure I actually hit one last year. Maybe up at my buddy Lee's house up in Chattanooga over winter break when we're up there for like a Christmas party or something. it doesn't, simulator golf doesn't move the needle to me. Now, if I was like grinding on my game and we've talked about this on other episodes and the mid-aim was something I was really going after, I'd...
do a lot over the winter. It's been a lot of time, just like in high school, I spent all winter on a simulator every day, seven days a week for at least an hour or two. But in terms of just itching my golf game, yeah, but it just doesn't move the needle for me at all. The social aspect I like, but the golf, yeah, I'd rather bowl, honestly. I'd rather go bowling than play similar to golf, 100 % every day.
Matt Considine (40:23.79)
Yeah.
Matt Considine (40:28.973)
Yeah, I-
Matt Considine (40:37.282)
Yeah, this is, think where I was kind of leading us probably is the differences of it as a spectator sport, as a participant sport. And it's unique in that way, because we have almost 50 million participants now and in the U S alone. And so it's like, those are still two very different things. I think it's ironic even that when the elite game and the spectator sport made the jump to indoor golf with TGL and
now this women's league that I'm curious to learn more about. It's the, they took the elements of outdoor, like they had to replace some things. They're hitting off grass. They're bringing in a dynamic green that moves for Christ's sake. it's not things that are...
The Professor (41:22.068)
got real sand with like a lip that moves up and down based on yeah.
Matt Considine (41:26.4)
It's not like you or I as participants can recreate the SoFi arena experience, but from a spectator positioning, there's, I got to give some credence to being on a golf course to spectate versus being in the SoFi centers, a different experience as well. But I just, I always come back to, and I know we're golf tragics and we're going to fall this way.
probably regardless, but I try to be unbiased about it. And I, and I just even see with my buddies who have more gotten into golf that there's still something they're not falling in love in the SIM. They're, they're definitely grinding in the SIM. They're definitely socializing in the SIM. It's part of their golf life for now. And I think that's why it's a, you know, sustainable part of golf moving forward for sure. But then there's this like deeper layer of golf that I
The Professor (42:06.986)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (42:23.982)
personally believe is deeply instinctual. And it goes back to our animalistic roots of being hunters, going out into the wild, know, pursuing the thing, overcoming obstacles, getting that ball in that cup, doing it nine times out and nine times back, returning home. Like, just, those are the weird
things that get me excited for a round of golf that I just, I don't know if we'll ever replicate with indoor golf or AI or augmentation or anything.
The Professor (42:54.538)
Mm-hmm.
The Professor (43:04.552)
Yeah, the idea of having the search for your ball, right? Walk up there and wondering what the lie is going to be and coming upon it. All those things like balls in the air, what bounces it's going to take. All that. Now I will say to go back to like TGL, kudos to the golf course design change and now doing artificial holes. I one of the dumbest things they did was let's play these on real golf holes or just sort of nondescript. No, like crank those things up. Let's have a blast.
Matt Considine (43:31.308)
Yeah, that's a fun part of it.
The Professor (43:33.97)
And I'm glad they're leaning that because just like when we were playing Tiger Woods Golf 2002, 2003 on the PS2, you played the Predator. That's all you played. You didn't play any other courses. Yeah, you played the Predator 24-7.
Matt Considine (43:41.966)
yeah. Why tee it up anywhere else? Either shoot 30 under at the old course or go play the Predator.
The Professor (43:49.685)
Yeah, you go play the Predator. That's the way it should be done. So, like that to me is the one thing that does have my attention as they have to navigate these extreme golf courses that are just utterly ridiculous, but in a way that's perfect for the product that they're putting on the table.
Matt Considine (44:08.504)
Yeah. All right. I'll say this is my last one and this will be the last for today. Maybe we do what we're missing of the golf season. We'll give ourselves a couple more weeks to, to long for that outdoor season and what we can cover the other ones. But my last one, is, from back to our friends at USGA, their green section sticking with technology. They, the green section has upped their game. I've been following them for probably eight years now, and I just feel like
The Professor (44:17.387)
to do that.
Matt Considine (44:37.528)
The information they now share is really interesting if you are into agronomy and taking care of golf courses. They do research papers and blah, blah. But this one I completely missed back in January and it's AI. all know AI is gonna hit in every aspect of life. But along with some machine learning, they are already, there's companies in...
in the grounds and maintenance industry that are already using precision spray applications with AI. It's technology that it has vision, machine learning vision of spraying and identifying weeds in real time and applying things like herbicides with much higher precision. So traditionally you think about that time of year where you're
Your course is spraying they're gonna spread it pretty wide and and one reason for that is it's the equipment and and they got to spread it You know significantly, I guess this new machine learning vision artificial intelligence is gonna dramatically reduce chemical use and it's going to Improve some turf safety right like when you're licking your ball, you probably shouldn't be if they just sprayed
The Professor (45:55.124)
Mmm. I like it.
Matt Considine (46:03.982)
on a Monday and you're playing on Tuesday. But, but yeah, this is, this is big. Like I'm always waiting for these technology advances to do, to not increase costs, to reduce them, to do like better things than help me whatever book an airline. Like, yeah, that's nice. Thanks AI. But I want this stuff to like really impact real world stuff. And this, this to me was like, Ooh, I want to know more about that because
The Professor (46:04.17)
I can't remember the number of times I've done that.
The Professor (46:28.214)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (46:33.102)
It's improving the environment and it's dropping a, this is a big cost line for golf courses, uh, pesticides, herbicides. This is a huge cost and sorry to those industries, but we got to figure out a way to use less inputs. And if we do that, particularly for your daily fee golf courses, you know, golf is. I've been looking at the numbers since gov golf has gone up with demand, of course, but prices are skyrocketing. And, and that's everything from the.
The Professor (46:41.749)
Right.
The Professor (47:00.0)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Considine (47:02.296)
private club down to the $40 municipal, everything is up. And so if we're gonna be real about trying to keep golf as this accessible leisure pursuit, we gotta talk about the cost lines. And this is a big one. So I like this. This is something I'm gonna be following along and see how these companies advance with that machine vision, spray.
I guess there's also a step that they believe it's going to help with managing diseases and snow mold and even insects. Like where are the, instead of spraying everywhere for the pesticide use, they can do that for the other pest. I'm in, man. I like AI being used in this capacity.
The Professor (47:44.919)
I say whereas USGA with regulation has not been on the ball necessarily, the green section as you mentioned have been, they've been working hard. So much has come out in the last couple years in terms of really trying to help supers out and really think through these things. Because yeah, the chemical use you think of not only is that a huge cost to the golf courses, but then the downstream effect of the use of chemicals on the local environment, on golfers that are playing that we don't know, in terms of we don't know those effects. This is a huge...
This is a possibly very important initiative that they're undertaking right now. So kudos to them for doing that.
Matt Considine (48:21.58)
Yeah. Now they might charge, you know, a billion dollars for each machine that has the eyeballs to do this, and, and cut jobs. I understand people with, with that side of the debate as well, but the regulatory landscape, you know, that's, it's, it's only going to end up in one direction for golf. And I think that's what the USDA has seen for decades now is like, we, we can't be reactive to regulatory stuff. We have to be leaders in understanding.
The Professor (48:24.05)
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Matt Considine (48:51.49)
our impact on the environment. yeah, kudos to them. That's been cool to see. Well, there you have it. We could probably go through a million other things we missed during the winter, but I thought those are some fun ones.
The Professor (48:54.197)
Yes.
The Professor (49:02.94)
We didn't even cover Brooks Koepka. That was a shocking, shocking, and the whole Patrick Reed winning everything. Pick him for the Masters maybe. I don't know. mean, a major got her up, winning everything. Jeez.
Matt Considine (49:07.244)
Yeah, we didn't talk about, we didn't talk about Brooks Koepka. He's back on PJP. Patrick Reed got her up, got her up being an absolute stud. I, I, I'm trying to think if there's any others that.
The Professor (49:23.926)
think Taylor made in Callaway have been fighting, I think a little bit maybe it's something like something been going on there.
Matt Considine (49:29.55)
roll app on the PGA tour. They're going to change the schedule, likely post Superbowl 2027, all those things short in the season. Uh, your point on, I think you started us with Kapalua. I didn't even realize that until you said it. Maybe a big reason I've been missing all this stuff in the broader golf world and been more tuned out. That didn't hit my TV this year. That didn't hit my.
The Professor (49:55.158)
No
Matt Considine (49:56.174)
And it always does. And you get that little tickle of excitement the first week of January, you know, the first week when everyone's covered in snow and not playing, but yeah. Oh, and sports betting. had that, I was going to potentially bring that up. We could do a whole episode on sports betting.
The Professor (50:01.42)
Yeah.
The Professor (50:08.374)
Yeah, rinse and repeat that for the next 10 years that we're still doing podcasts in the next 10 years, it'll probably be more and more sports betting. mean, that is going to be the dominant sponsor across all sports media in the next 10 years.
Matt Considine (50:20.672)
If we...
Matt Considine (50:24.822)
If you and I are still doing a podcast, we're probably gonna be sponsored by one of those. There's no way out now. It feels like they have 90 % of all podcasts. Well, awesome. Any other things before we sign off, Professor?
The Professor (50:28.246)
Probably be, that's right.
The Professor (50:33.311)
That's right.
The Professor (50:41.224)
Just looking forward to the golf season getting around and yeah, I of I say it every year, but I really hope I get to play a lot of golf this year.
Matt Considine (50:49.262)
We're gonna make it happen. New Club is gonna make it happen. Shout out to all of our listeners who are members of New Club. lot of, that's right, don't ever forget Spring Maiden, baby. It's very fortunate every year to get back to Sweetens Cove. April 26th, I believe, 26th and 27th this year. We got some trips leading up prior to that to some pretty special places.
The Professor (50:55.018)
I've got the spring meaning on my calendar. I know that.
Matt Considine (51:14.926)
particularly for our hosts, members that host that new club and in our captains who volunteer much of their time throughout the golf season. those are, or looking forward to it. Northeast Ohio. know it's cold, man. The weather has stunk, we launched June 1st in Northeast Ohio. And so we're having, I think it's six more, some meetups before the masters. Like get, get, if you, if you like what professor had to say about indoor golf, come and hang out with us one of these Fridays and make some swings. A lot happening on that front.
for Cleveland, for Northeast Ohio, very excited for welcoming all those new founding members there. And, thanks for everybody. Generally this audience is some of the coolest people I know in golf. Thank you for listening. If you're not a subscriber to the bag drop, please do subscribe. It helps us grow this show. It keeps me and the professor hanging out on a weekly basis. You can like, rate, review us wherever you're listening. And, and, and thanks for helping us just make this show in this game more meaningful for those who love it.
Professor, we'll catch you on the next one. And thanks to our friends at Titleist, SML 11. just can't wait to see what you do with those this year. I'm expecting mine soon.
The Professor (52:25.078)
I'm going to go to the range this afternoon with the 70 degrees we got and we're going to go to that short game area and I'm going to sit there for an hour and a half just messing with the four that I got.
Matt Considine (52:35.214)
We'll put the link for the new SM11s on the show notes and we'll catch you all in the next one.
