00:00So the Tour Championship will continue to be played at Eastlake Golf Club in Atlanta this year and in 2027
00:05before being rotated to prestigious courses, including many that the Tour will play for the first time, such as Pine
00:11Valley Golf Club in New Jersey, Cypress Point Club in California, and Seminole Golf Club in Florida.
00:17It was later walked back a little bit, whether it was via internal sources, refuted reports by the PGA Tour,
00:24and kind of said, hey, look, this was our vision board. I have asked questions as to like, what actually
00:30happened in the room? Whose idea was this? How did this come to fruition? Was this a mistake? Was this
00:36something that was meant to be private? And these are just the types of places, if we're dreaming here, no
00:42bad ideas, this is where we're going to go.
00:44But obviously, you know, we want to figure that out before we make an announcement and it just made its
00:48way to a report, you know, by some accidental fashion. Or was this a sort of initial trial balloon of,
00:56hey, soft asking, we'd love to come play at these places. Do you want to do this? And that's an
01:01approach that I might not have taken.
01:04So I'll tee you up first. What was your reaction to this piece? And again, it aligns with what we've
01:10been asking. Can we go to some more interesting venues? But it's the way this piece was dropped, I think
01:15was maybe the only fumble of the entire rollout of what this is going to look like in 2028.
01:23Well, because I asked the question. I was like, I'm sure you all saw the reports of this coming out.
01:29Is this fact or fiction? And I think they all kind of laughed and said, well, we were kind of
01:33surprised it took a life of its own.
01:36But they refuted the report pretty quickly, but also said this isn't something that isn't false, right? This is something
01:43that they could see as a possibility if they could get some buy in, of course, from the clubs.
01:48Now that's asking, that's asking a lot considering hosting a PGA Tour event versus hosting a Walker Cup is a
01:56little different. And just the overall dynamics of why they would support it, which I think you might be able
02:02to touch on a little bit more.
02:04Yeah, I think and I'll just the first thing I'll say is I'm in no way speaking on behalf of
02:09the members, the membership at these clubs. This is all what I'm trying to do.
02:13It's understanding the culture of what these clubs are like. Why? Why did they do the things that they do?
02:20It's let's let's just look at the history of the decisions that they've made and what they're telling us through
02:25those decisions.
02:27So Cypress Point, Pine Valley, Seminole are all clubs that are support the growth of the game.
02:34And I'm not talking about it in the cliche context, right? Like, I know they have their own major, but
02:40this is there are many.
02:41I think it's doing National Golf Leagues of America. But I'm saying specific to this report, these three clubs that
02:46were that were named are they've supported game growth.
02:50And again, not in this cliched modern sense, but really one of the driving tenets of these clubs has been
02:55being good custodians of the game of golf and supporting, you know, really, I think the purest form of the
03:00game in their minds, which is amateur golf.
03:02Right. So when they go when they host a Walker Cup, when they host a Curtis Cup, you know, they're
03:07not doing that because that's generating a ton of revenue for the club or because the exposure is something that's
03:13going to help them sell memberships.
03:15Like they don't they prefer to be private, just have these places for their members to enjoy and play.
03:20And then when asked by governing bodies, where one of the key core drives of what they're trying to do
03:26is expose the game to new audiences and is do it in a way where they're showcasing a form of
03:31golf that they do believe in, like a Walker Cup, like a Curtis Cup.
03:35And they're happy to lend their venue for a set period of time.
03:38But those build outs are, of course, much smaller. And I think that's where the idea comes.
03:43I can see where the idea comes into play here. It's if match play was a limited field, more of
03:49a made for TV thing and the footprint and the amount of course usage aligned with what you saw on
03:56a week basis for a Curtis Cup or a Walker Cup.
03:59Could that be palatable to these clubs? Now, I get that from just a purely operational course usage standpoint.
04:05Here's where I think the disconnect exists, is that we're now talking about a for profit PGA Tour Enterprises entity.
04:13And I just don't see that as aligning with the core values of what these clubs will tell you that
04:20they stand for, not necessarily written or printed anywhere, but just by the decisions they've made in the events they've
04:25decided to host.
04:26And so, you know, I think that I saw a report, maybe it was like front office sports where, you
04:32know, imagine the amount of lucrative tickets you could sell for like hospitality at a Cypress Point or a Pine
04:38Valley.
04:39And it's like, I don't think that lands anywhere remotely on the radar of a Pine Valley or a Cypress
04:45Point or a Seminole member.
04:46I just don't think they care about that.
04:48And I think if anything, and this is why I say that it's a real shame that this wasn't handled
04:54in a better way, like whether it was a mistake or was a trial balloon.
04:57Because if you would have had a private discussion with these clubs, you know, maybe there could have been some
05:02sort of middle ground to broker, how it would, how it would benefit the things that they like to support
05:07in the game of golf.
05:09But now you're at a place where you're like, we don't want to be talked about.
05:13Like, why, why are you putting our name in this?
05:15And, you know, we're very much going to be more resistant to this.
05:18Who knows?
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