BROOKS KOEPKA LEAVES LIV

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The Second Cut gets you everything you need in the world of golf on the PGA Tour and more! Tournament previews, storylines for each week, and in-depth players reviews. Hosted by Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood). Joined by Greg DuCharme (@therealGFD), Mark Immelman (mark_immelman), and Patrick McDonald (@pmcdonaldCBS).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Emergency pod. Emergency. I've been sitting here just enjoying, you know, doing a little data, having a nice, you know, relaxing time. Sure, you guys are happy, having, you know, happy, hopefully safe holidays, happy festivist. We've got grievances to air. I've got a lot of problems with you people. And that is kind of what has just happened. Uh, because this is, I feel like this is kind of a big moment. Brooks Kepka has left live golf. Uh, just announced minutes ago that Brooks Kepka is uh not going to complete his final year on live golf, yet a year remaining. Uh he's gone from Smash, he's gone from live. There are a lot of questions about what's next, but this is like I think this is kind of big. I don't know who it's good for, who it's bad for, but there this is a moment. We're having a moment right now. Here's the quote. We'll start with Brooks's uh quote first from his representatives. Brooks Kepka will be stepping away from live golf. He's deeply grateful to Yasir, Al Rumayan, Scott O'Neill, that's the new CEO, and the live golf leadership team, his teammates, and the fans. Uh also family has always guided Brooks' decisions, and he feels this is the right moment to spend more time at home. Brooks will continue to be a huge supporter of live golf and wishes the league and its players continued success. Brooks remains passionate about the game of golf and will keep fans updated on what's ahead. Okay, so that's the statement, which reads as if this uh departure is amicable. It is it is with the live golf blessing. Now, there were rumors about this. There were rumors that Brooks did not necessarily want to be playing his final year on live golf. The speculation was he wants to come back to the PGA tour, or he wants to use the final year of this contract to serve what we suspect is a year-long suspension from the PGA tour, which is what uh these guys have gotten when they've gone and played on a competing circuit, right? So, so that that has kind of been the rumor mill around the industry for the past couple of weeks. But now something is coming to fruition. Uh, so Brooks Kepka's gone. We have no idea whether he had to pay back any money. That was some of the speculation, right? Was if you if you breach your contract, if you leave early, some of that major signing bonus that we gave you, that's gonna have to be given back to us. I don't know. Statement was pretty friendly. Maybe they came to a settlement, maybe they came to an agreement. Chances are we'll probably never know the answer to that question, but that could be likely. Um, the the PGA tour side of things has to be. I mean, if you're not picking up the phone right now, right? If you're not Brian Rolap and you're not picking up the phone right now and calling Brooks Kepka and saying, Brooks, hey, how, uh, you know that one year suspension, you know that thing that that we that we smacked everybody with? We're willing to give it up. We don't we don't need that. There is a moment here that if if Brooks wants to come back and play on the PGA tour, at least have the opportunity to play in Phoenix and Riviera or wherever else he might want to play, right? Um, start earning OWGR points again, not that he's in dire need of them. He's a five-time major champion. The PGA Tour, from a business sense, should be doing literally anything they can to get him back in. Um, you might have to do things you're uncomfortable with. You might have to do things that your membership is uncomfortable with. We've got a situation now where the PGA Tour membership is getting smaller, it's getting more elite, it's getting harder. Can you just hand Brooks Kepka a card back? Maybe you call it the five time the five-time major exemption. If you're a five-time major winner and you go play on live and you come back, we'll wipe your we'll wipe your suspension clean. Maybe that's what happened. Good comment here from Lost Kiwi, which is uh there have probably already been these discussions, right? Says discussion with the pre-J tour probably already happened. Probably. Or he plays on the DP World Tour for a year and then tries to earn a card that way. Both of those things are very likely. Oh, I know him. That's David. Uh, good, good, good comment there, David. Um, very likely, if you're Brooks Kepka, you are well represented enough and you are uh smart enough to not leave yourself as a lame duck, I would imagine, right? You are you've either had these discussions with the PGA tour about your potential suspension, you've figured out a pathway of what you're gonna do for the next year, as opposed to just leaving live and becoming this kind of lame duck duck scenario. I cannot imagine that happen. So these discussions have probably already happened. That's a good pathway back in. A good pathway back in is go play on the DP World Tour. Who knows how many events he would have to play? Um, what if he plays 12? What if he plays 12 and four major championships and he plays 16 times, starts racking up OWGR points? If he can finish inside the top 10 of the DP World Tour, he could punch his ticket back to the PGA tour, right? Uh, maybe he has to play more than that. Obviously, he could see as the as the season goes on. But this is uh a moment for him and it's a moment for pref for professional golf. We are though only like three weeks away from him having to figure this out. Um, if he's gonna play and where he's going to play, because the new season's gonna start very quickly. If he does, if he's gonna try to qualify on the DP World Tour side of things, he's gonna have to probably start playing and earning points and getting in getting into the mix over there. The the other thing is uh there was a question in the comment in the comment section says is this a trend? Is this the start of a trend? Which uh is probably um the biggest question if you are on the live golf side of things. Live golf's pipeline for player talent has gotten a little better. I mean, the bar was incredibly low, but it has gotten a little better in like year three and four than it was in year two, for example. Um, so first couple years, the the only way that you know live was just recruiting and saying, hey, um, you're a major champion, you're a big name, you're a popular person, we're gonna throw a ton of upfront money at you, and you're gonna play for huge purses. That pipeline, very wide open, right? Gets you Bryson, gets you DJ, gets you, gets you all these guys, Cam Smith, right? Gets you all these guys. That pipeline wide open. Then the PGA tour kind of counterpunches, creates the signature event system, creates TGL, creates really all these ways to just funnel money to the top players and and kind of closes the gap between the financials of the PGA tour and live golf outside of those huge upfront contracts that are no longer coming. So pipeline started to drip right now. Who are you getting? You're getting, you're trying to pick off a guy here and there. John Rahm felt like a steal, although I think the sentiment is that John Rahm was uh going to be the linchpin that brings all of this back together. That obviously didn't happen. And you start to pick off young, college, high-end college amateur talent. Uh, and that's a good way to do it, but there's not enough of those guys to make a difference. And then in recent the last couple of years, the pipeline is just kind of running dry. You know, you're opening up your qualification system a little bit more to the Asian tour, you're getting a couple of different qualifiers from from that method, but the pipeline is so dry on the D on the live golf side of things that you've got um uh you've got Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter re-signing as co-captains to the majestics. Like that that that should say how dry the um the pipeline is. Uh, there's a comment here that says, Did you see the PGA tour statement? No. We're gonna try to pull this right now. We'll see if try to get Mina on this. Let's see if there is a statement. Here we go. Um it's pretty. It is, is it a statement? Um, Mina, if we could pull up this grant. Here it is. The official statement from the PGA tour. This is the official statement from the PGA tour. Brooks Kepka is a highly accomplished accomplished professional, and we wish him and his family continued success. The PGA tour continues to offer the best professional golfers the most competitive, challenging, and lucrative environment in which to pursue greatness. That's it. That is two lines from the PGA tour, two sentences that looked like they were ripped off of uh Brooks' wiki, not even Brooks's wiki page. If you just typed into Google, who is Brooks Kepka? It would be like, oh, here's your Google, here's your AI result. Uh Brooks Kepka is a highly accomplished professional, right? Like, that's exactly what it would be. We wish him and his family continued success. The PJ tour continues to offer the best professional golfers. How about this? Most competitive, okay, challenging, yep, and lucrative environment. I, you know, I'm gonna try to read between the lines here and I'm gonna try to speculate wildly off of a two, a two-sentence statement from the PGA tour. Uh kind of kind of dirty that they threw in the lucrative word, right? Because that was the obviously the game changer of most game changers to get all these guys was the money rolling in. Is this a trend? Who else wants to come back? I actually had somebody ask me, I was I was playing golf this morning, and a guy said, Hey, like, what do you make of this whole live PGA thing? And I literally said to him, I said to him, um, I don't think there is much incentive from either side to come together. I say, like, I don't, I think the guys on live want to stay on live. I think the guys on the PGA tour are happy with where they're at. But I think there are only a handful of golfers on live golf who would conceivably want to come back to the PGA tour. Brooks is obviously one of them. I think John Rahm is one of them. Uh, I don't necessarily think Bryson Deschambeau is. I really think Bryson loves what he's got going on. I think Bryson loves the freedom to be the captain of the crushers and do his YouTube stuff and he's gonna play in major championships for a long time, right? Like, I'm not sure that Bryson is chomping at the bit to get back to the PGA tour, and I don't think a lot of guys are. So if this is a trend, I think the trend of it is there are only um there's only like two or three guys that matter, right? No offense to Cameron Tringale. If Cameron Tringale leaves live golf, I don't even know if he's still on live golf, to be quite honest with you. I think he is. If he lives leaves live and is like, I want to come back to the PGA tour, that doesn't matter. It it just doesn't. So so even if this is a trend, the trend is only important and only um like critical to the business if it is one of a handful of names. And and those names are Rom, Joaquin Neiman, probably, um, Bryson D.Chambeau. Like that might be it. You know, Sergio Garcia, probably at his age, probably has no incentive to come back. Dustin Johnson at his age probably has no incentive to come back. Cam Smith would be kind of interesting if he if this were to become a trend for him. But my point being that I think there's only a handful of these guys in which this becoming a trend actually matters. There is also a statement from um uh live golf CEO Scott O'Neill. So he's the he's the new CEO. He's came from uh actually came from like the Flyers, right? Uh says we have amicably and mutually agreed that Brooks Kepka will no longer compete in live golf following the 2025 season. Well, that 2025 2025 season has already happened. Brooks is prioritizing the needs and family and staying closer to home, which, if you believe this, would indicate uh Brooks is not going to take on a DP World Tour schedule, which would not keep him close to home. Is the is the outside is there a is there a long shot that Brooks finds his way to a TGL squad? That Brooks, we'll get to that in a second. Uh Liv's golf mission is to expand the game's footprint to new markets, increase competitive opportunities, etc. etc. etc. Uh mostly just boilerplate stuff. He does he does go on to say, so if you are if you are worried about this from a Smash GC perspective, uh Taylor Gooch is back to being your your captain for for Smash GC. I believe he was traded there a couple of years ago from the yard goats. I I I'll tell you what, I think that's actually correct. So this is uh this is something where I think John is correct in this sense, where some of these guys, so the the the comment says uh Brooks not even wearing Smash gear in his tribute post says a lot. He never fully embraced Live. Uh 100. There were guys that didn't Brooks was just wearing his Nike stuff, wasn't even wearing his Smash stuff like ever. Uh rarely did you see it at major championships. If you did, it was very low-key. It was it was nothing crazy as opposed to Sergio Garcia being plastered in red and yellow and all that stuff, right? You can you could sense from the start that Brooks, if you remember back, right? Like you got to remember how this evolved at the time when Brooks left, there were that was like full swing season one, and there were a lot of injury questions. Remember, it was like, I don't know if he's ever gonna be healthy again. He's like, How am I supposed to beat Scotty Scheffler? Right, like we we saw that on full swing. It was just like, man, yeah, if I if I didn't know my if my knee was gonna be okay and they were gonna give me a hundred million dollars, like maybe I should go to live. I don't know if he was ever like, I'm Brooks Kepka and I care about glowing the game globally and doing all this. Like, I don't I don't get that sense from Brooks Kepka. I get the sense that it was like probably like a little bit of an insurance policy, as opposed to some of these other guys that I think are much more invested in what the live golf model is. Could you imagine? I I mean the this is a this to me is a big, a big moment, a big domino because we're also going to find out what Brooks Kepka, five-time major champion, what Brooks Kepka, who is basically the I mean, I know Rory just tied him and completed the career grand slam, but Brooks Kepka for the last 10 years is is the greatest uh modern major champion that we have. So the greatest modern major champion that we have in professional golf doesn't have a home to play golf in a year that starts a week from now. That that's the takeaway, right? If I was doing the Michael Scott Dunder Mifflin headline of this, modern major goat has no place to live in 2026. Some companies still know how to do business, right? Like that would be that would be the headline of of this. Uh I think that's a big deal. Is there going to be a secondary domino that falls that says Brooks Kepka is now gonna be on TGL. Brooks Kepka is gonna take Tiger Woods' spot on Jupiter Golf links, which man, this would be some real like homeland, like there is some real good conspiracy. Like, this would be kind of sick, right? So there's this weird relationship, obviously, between uh TGL and the PGA tour. They they they are the same, they're not the same. I don't know. I don't know what the financial relationship is, too, but um if you're the PGA tour, you could conceivably give uh Brooks Kepka a job for the next year, which is really just the next three months, you could give Brooks a job where he gets to stay at home in Florida, he gets a little bit of money, you get to rehab his image and make him look really good, and he gets to hang out with Kevin Kisner and Tom Kim and Max Homa and all that stuff, and you can use his name, image, and likeness, and you can still keep him suspended, right? Is that is that the best of both worlds? If you are uh Brian Roland and you have to go to your membership and say, Hey, uh I know you're not gonna like this, but we need to get Brooks Kepka back into this thing, we're going to forgive his suspension or whatever. That's a pretty tough conversation to have after you just cut the number of jobs to then hand one of those back to Brooks Kepka. So uh maybe an easier way is to say, hey guys, I got your back. Brooks Kepka is still going to serve his suspension, he's going to serve this suspension. And then uh, you know, tomorrow golf gets to come out and say, Well, we're okay, we're we're signing Brooks. And this has nothing to do with Brian Rollopp, it's nothing to do with his suspension, yet he still gets to be a part of this. That would be kind of a very sneaky way to get Brooks back on the PGA PGA tour adjacent platform without having to unsuspend him without impacting a bunch of people and still getting him in the mix a little bit. It's kind of dirty. It's kind of really dirty. I kind of really love it. Um I'm trying to think what else is is going on here. I have to check with Mina on something. Is that true? And and like how how close are we to that? Uh Link has just been okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so we we are rolling along here. Um, I want to give credit where credit's due. First place I saw this reported was was Bob Herrig of SI Golf. If he was not the first, I apologize to whoever it was. But obviously, this has now been cemented with statements uh by both the uh Live Golf, by Brooks Kepka, and believe it or not, by the PGA Tour. Not even sure why the PGA Tour felt the need to have a statement on this one, which is which is kind of interesting, but Brooks Kepka will no longer be with Live Golf. Um, they also just had Mito Pereira retire 30 years old. Mito Pereira retired. Not that Mito Pereira is a needle mover, he's not uh not even close to a needle mover. But this is this is the pro the the the live golf ecosystem from a player perspective has a problem right you're a pseudo closed circuit I know they're trying to improve things they're you're a pseudo closed circuit that also gives people gives players like the golden the golden ticket if you're Mito Pereira and you've made 30 some odd million dollars and you got what but who knows what he got 10, 12, 15, I don't know what he got up front, but he's made plenty of money. He doesn't even have to play for you anymore. Right? So it's this weird thing of like we've overpaid guys to the point where we're gonna lose them because they don't need to work anymore. If if you went to your job and got this outrageous amount of money, uh and after a couple years, you're like, I don't need to do this anymore. Like, why do I do this? I why am I why am I why am I killing myself over this? Why am I having these anxieties? Why am I doing like I don't need to do this anymore? Pathways back for Brooks and Kepka to the PGA tour, if that's even what he wants. Man. So DP World Tour, right? So go play on the DP World Tour and uh finish inside the top 10 and get your card. Corn Fairy Tour, I suppose, uh, where he could earn enough points to go and earn his PGA tour card. Or if first I mean, I I doubt this would happen because it's only happened 12 times in the last 20 years or whatever. If he won three times on the Corn Fairy tour, he'd be immediately promoted. That's that's very unlikely. Um sponsors invites, right? We haven't really like if how do sponsor in sponsor invites work for guys who are suspended, right? Sponsors have way too much power in setting the fields in golf. What if just all the sponsors of like the eight signature events are like, yeah, like obviously obviously we want Brooks Kapco. I'll give him a sponsors invite. Can they give a sponsor's invite to a suspended player? I assume not. I assume there's some type of language that says they have to be uh upstanding with with their tour, right? I I assume that. But whenever Brooks is eligible to receive sponsors invites, he's gonna get a ton of sponsors invites, but like obviously. So I wonder how that is going to factor into all this. Uh, I see you behind the screen. Give me a thumbs up if you're ready to go. All right, let's do it. Uh bring them in, Mina. Greg Ducharm is here. Gregors, first and foremost, uh, it is good to see we have not spoken in like a week. I did not know we were gonna talk under these emergency-like conditions, but it's good to see you, my friend.

SPEAKER_00: 22:56

Well, it's great to see you too, Rick. Um, I'm uh I'm sorry I'm a little late, but you try to put a little screen time away, and all of a sudden you get breaking news like this.

SPEAKER_01: 23:06

How dare you put your phone away?

SPEAKER_00: 23:08

Yeah, I get it's not allowed, and I guess it just can't happen anymore. But obviously, there have been some rumors about this, yeah, and you know how it goes with live rumors. They are rarely true.

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

Rare, they are they are not true more than they are true. Just let me just refer you back to Siwoo Kim and Sung Jim last week, who have both kind of said that ain't happening.

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

I mean, live rumors usually end up being untrue. How about this time last year, Tony Finao? I mean, that one didn't didn't even seem like he was in discussions. So uh, you know, all of a sudden the Brooks Kepka stuff, which seemed to it, Rick, it seemed to come out pr pretty early on in his career on Live, you know, shortly after the PGA championship win, that he wasn't necessarily happy with uh everything that was going on there. Um, and it makes me think, you know, when you look at the John Roms, um, some of these players that went to Live, where it's been speculated that they were sold a uh, you know false bill of goods, if you will, uh, that they were unhappy but kind of weren't allowed to say anything. That's the way it felt. There was no evidence of that, real evidence that you could lean on until this. You know, this kind of makes me feel like a lot of those things may be true as well.

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

So, so when you see uh, and just immediately everybody confirms it, right? Like Liv releases a statement, you get the Brooks Kepka statement, you get it all right away. When you see that Brooks is foregoing his final year on Live Golf, your initial reaction was what?

SPEAKER_00: 24:47

Uh it was true. You know, I can't I can't believe it. Um, so that was that was one. Also, I you know, I'm thinking about what is the financial penalty with that contract. There were again rumors that it was, and if that's out, I apologize. I haven't read up too much.

SPEAKER_01: 25:06

I have not seen that yet, but there, yeah, there were, I mean, rumors that a lot of that upfront money was gonna have to be essentially paid back.

SPEAKER_00: 25:14

Yes, and in like I I heard reports that it was like four times the upfront money. Yeah, something else. Like basically they made it so you couldn't do this. Right. So one is are those financial penalties there? Um you know, what were they, if if any, and what does that say about the decision? Uh, because if there are significant financial penalties and he did this anyway, he's very clearly unhappy with something, whether it's the OWGR points, which I I doubt in his position, being able to play in all the majors still. I I doubt that's his real sticking point. Uh, perhaps it's just his ability to prepare for competition. He doesn't feel like it's as strong on Live as it could be, even on the DP World Tour.

SPEAKER_01: 26:07

This is a man, and I I I mentioned this earlier before you came on. He's won five major championships in the last seven years, something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:15

17.

SPEAKER_01: 26:16

Yeah, okay, eight years. Uh, he is the modern major GOAT, right? I mean, it it's at least in the last decade, it has been all Brooks at major championships, and now we do not know where or if he is going to play in 2026. That's a little bit surprising. So, so what are the options? The options are you're suspended from the PGA tour, maybe you can get that lifted somehow. Do you try to go get status somewhere? Do you just wait it out and take a year off? Like this, this is kind of unheard of now.

SPEAKER_00: 26:45

It is unheard of. Now, I know that the there's a couple interesting things going on. One, um, on the PGA tour, like ideally, the the initial thought would be, okay, I'm gonna leave Live. That means I'm gonna go back to the PGA tour, right? You don't think what you don't think of Brooks Kepka leaving Live to go play on uh the challenge tour and work his way through the professional ranks again. I would say five-time major champion, right? So you're thinking, well, PGA tour. What is the possibility of that? And this time last year, you probably would have said there's no possibility of that, uh, or it's gonna be a year or two years, right? There's gonna be some significant penalty. But now you have Brian Rolap in the mix uh as the leadership. And the other fascinating thing to me in this, Rick, is that he's the first guy to come back. It's been talked about since, which I always thought it was kind of like you know, in a way, arrogant of like PGA tour fans to be thinking, Well, how do these guys come back? Right, we know right away. It's like, well, they just left. Like, I don't how do you know they're gonna want to come back? Um, but that's what uh uh many people were talking about, and I wondered um what would you do? So now it's for the first time, it's here. And is this an opportunity for the PGA tour that they could really take advantage of? Um, do they want to give any uh credit at all to this kind of live versus PGA tour saga? I there there are so many different strategies. I just I find it interesting in two ways. One, he's the first guy to do it, to actually come back. And second, you have new leadership in Brian Rolap, who may have a different viewpoint, a different strategy than perhaps Jay Monahan did initially.

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

The man who decided on what the penalties should be is not the man who is enforcing the penalties, which you see this everywhere. You get a new coach, you get a new GM, they're gonna go get their guy, they're gonna put their fingerprints on things. So let's let's let's do this, Gregors. Uh, you're now in charge, you're now in charge of the PGA tour, okay? Brian Rolapsea, it's it's Greg Ducharm's show now. Um, are you making a phone call? Are you do moving heaven and earth to get Brooks Kepka back, or are you standing by kind of the monahan suspension? What you're in charge now. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00: 29:24

So he won the I'm gonna get pretty creative here if I'm in charge. All right. Um I'm I'm not necessarily a like I think that this is a really difficult potentially war that you're in with Live Golf. But even though it seems quiet, this is a big moment. It's a really big moment. So you're at war with Live, and even though it's quiet right now, it may not be for a long time. Like if you consider Live to be your enemy, you don't know what they're gonna do next. They may have calmed down the giant signing bonuses and the huge deals, but that's not because they have to, like they could easily just say, hey, um, yeah, we're actually gonna give so-and-so a billion dollars. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And and that's a real threat that isn't gonna go away unless Live shuts down entirely. So you are still in a highly competitive space. And I think what I'm gonna do if I'm the commissioner right now is I'm gonna set a policy. One, I'm gonna look at your status because it is a member organization. So Brooks Kepka uh won the 2023 PGA championship. That gives you a five-year exemption. All right. So um that would mean you're exempt through 2028 with that PGA championship victory. I'm gonna say that Brooks is welcome to come back to the PGA tour. Um, but since this is the first guy that wants to do that, this is gonna start a uh a window of opportunity where if anybody wants to come back, they can and they're eligible, right? They have to have status.

SPEAKER_01: 31:17

Right. This is not the um god, uh who could I pick? Um, like Matt, well Danny Lee probably does not have PGA tour status right now.

SPEAKER_00: 31:29

So if Danny Lee doesn't have PGA tour status, like he's not welcome back. Sorry, Danny. Um and and it has nothing to do with live at that point. You're just you don't have any status.

SPEAKER_01: 31:41

So so you you open up a window and you say, Hey, the window's open. The transfer period is open. Yes. Uh if you want to come back and you have status, you are welcome back. Is that is that the Greg Duchard model?

SPEAKER_00: 31:57

You're welcome back, and it's between now and April 1st, Q1 of 2006. Q16 make it before tax day, make a decision. Before tax, yeah, make it April 15th.

unknown: 32:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 32:12

So, right, and this I think gives you an opportunity uh for to kind of test the waters, see where other players are with their deals.

SPEAKER_01: 32:21

So that is kind of tactical, right? It's kind of strategic. It's saying, um, one, yes, we accept you, Brooks, we'll take you back. Thank you very much, honky dory. You're a five-time major champion. We get to use you and your name, image, and likeness, and all that fun stuff. Um, but also, yeah, kind of just like, hey, anybody else test the waters? Uh we got a we got movement here.

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

How does John Rahm really feel about his contract? Um, and and if they do that, they have you know no penalty to serve, so to speak, right? I I'm not a believer in they can play, but they can't make any money, you know, or they're not eligible for no. They you you bring them back, you bring them back. But I would say after this period, the penalty is this. It's a year-long suspension. You come back in May, and uh and my cutoff was in April. Uh, you're gonna have to wait a full year. And if you have status at that point, you can come back.

SPEAKER_01: 33:21

Uh, if you're just joining us, this is the Second Cut Podcast. I'm Rick Gaiman. That right there is Greg Duchon. We do these pods all the time, multiple times a week. We're getting ready for a big 2026, but we could not go without an emergency pod because Bruce Kepka has left live golf. Make sure you subscribe so that you get notified when we do go live for emergency pods. When we do go live post-round and you can follow along with what's happening in the game of professional golf. I like that, Greg. That's better than I thought. Um, that was more creative than I thought. I should have given you more credit. But I I thought, um, what about this one? Okay, Brooks, you've got uh you've got status through 2028. We're gonna let you serve your suspension on the back end of it. You now have you now have status through 2027, and that gives you time to re-up yourself. You can come back right now, you still have time to re-up yourself, but you have still been penalized in some way.

SPEAKER_00: 34:17

So he lose so if he wins in 2026, he'd be eligible in 28 to play. So it's not like he has to take a year off down the road. No, he just loses a year of his loses a year's eligibility. Yeah. Yeah, I I think that's a good move as well. Um, here's the the big concern going forward is is like I said, it this is still whether it feels like it right now or not, you're still at war in a way. And what you have to keep in mind as the PGA tour is we we don't want players jumping for a quick sum with the idea that they're gonna be able to come back. Right. You want it to feel like hey, leaving's a bad leaving is a long-term decision. Um, that's gonna be very costly to me should I do this. See you you'd love to get the players back that that left already, but you really don't want any more to leave. And they've done a great job of keeping really all of them since John Rahm. Since John Rom. Tyrell hat I mean, no one really of note, um, which I think is uh the PGA tour deserves a lot of credit for that. So um, how how can you make your tour better in the short term without opening a door for players to go make a quick hundred million and then feel like they can come back?

SPEAKER_01: 35:50

Feel like there's no penalty or anything stopping them from coming back. All right. Well, last thing before I mean we'll we can we can wildly speculate on this for the next 10 hours, and I'm sure I'm positive this is not the last we will talk about this, but I want to get your thoughts on this statement from the PGA Tour Mina, if you could put that up for us. This statement uh I guess is by definition a statement. They released it on Letterhead, it has the PGA Tour logo on it, however, it is uh quite bland. I'll read it to you again just for everybody who's just tuning in. Here's the PGA Tour statement. Brooks Kepka is a highly accomplished professional, and we wish him and his family continued success. The PGA Tour continues to offer the best professional golfers the most competitive, challenging, and lucrative environment in which to pursue greatness. I'm not sure, Greg, why a statement was even needed. I'm not sure why this was the statement, but what is the read read between the lines? What does this really mean?

SPEAKER_00: 36:48

Well, uh the strange thing is there's no context. None statement at all. Normally, statements, official statements from well, the PGA tour one and other professional sports organizations, even when everybody knows what has happened, they kind of write it like uh you know, how you write a high school paragraph. There's an like a press release or something, right? You set it up no matter what. You assume your reader has no clue what's going on. I would it's uh almost like this is missing something.

SPEAKER_01: 37:25

Right. In light, in light of Brooks Kepka announcing his departure from Live Golf, we want to remind you that Brooks Kepka is a highly accomplished professional, right?

SPEAKER_00: 37:34

There's just no context whatsoever. And um the last one, I it's it seems random. I'm sure it's not random.

SPEAKER_01: 37:47

I'm sure that I'm sure there were a dozen people involved in this. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 37:51

The PGA tour continues to offer now just flip this around. Brooks Kepka left the PGA tour. Right. Does this statement is this statement any different?

SPEAKER_01: 38:04

It's the same statement. It almost makes more sense. Continued success.

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

It almost makes more sense if he had just left the PGA tour. Yeah. Rather than left another league. It is literally it's almost like hey, we I know we lost a guy that you may be a fan of, but we still offer the best. This is still the best product out there. Yeah. Uh so is it a sales pitch to Brooks?

SPEAKER_01: 38:31

I see that's that's what I'm thinking. To me, this reads as is this reads as like the PJ tour saying, Yeah, we knew we knew we knew this was coming, or like we were in on it, or we talked to Brooks in advance. This to me says we are not surprised.

SPEAKER_00: 38:49

We just have to say something. It it's something we've got to say something. I'm very uh I'm I'm taken aback by this.

SPEAKER_01: 39:01

What do you think we'll find what do you think the timeline is that we find out something next? Whether Brooks is gonna take the year off, whether he is going to fill in for Tiger on TGL. That came up in the chat, right? Hey, I'll fill in for Tiger on TGL while I serve my suspension. I will go to the Corn Ferry, I will do, I will do nothing. Excuse me, when do we find out something next?

SPEAKER_00: 39:26

My inclination is that there's gonna be a DP World Tour event that he's gonna play in. Um, probably, you know, what's the event in January? Rory always plays in in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi. Right? So I my my imag my guess would be Brooks Kepka goes and plays in Abu Dhabi. Wow, and there's a press conference, and he answers some questions and gives us a little insight. I I don't think there will be another statement from the PGA Tour until there's a statement. From Brooks, unless the PGA tour welcomes him back. In which case they would say this is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 40:12

The events in Dubai. That's my bad. So two events in Dubai to start the year. Yeah. That's the crazy part, is we're like two weeks away from probably needing to know something. So we we we're gonna need to find out something where the we're gonna need to know within the next basically two weeks of where the uh greatest major champion in the last 10 years is is going to play golf in 2026.

SPEAKER_00: 40:35

Yeah, it's uh it it's very again. My guess, what I really think will happen is he's gonna play this year on the DP World Tour. He'll probably play you know, somewhere around 15 events on the DP World Tour through the calendar year and four majors, and four majors. So you get somewhere around 20, and then you try to make your way back to the PGA tour in uh 2027, would be my guess. Um again, I think there's an opportunity to really mix things up on the live side and really put some pressure on them by allowing him to uh play this year. But at the same time, I understand that you got 200 members you gotta keep happy as well. And many of them would be very upset with I mean it's not 200 members, but you got a lot of people who are fully exempt on the PGA tour. Uh who and many of them would not be happy with uh with Brooks coming back with no penalty.

SPEAKER_01: 41:39

Last last thing, I I promise I'm saying I'll say this is the last thing. It's the last time I'll say a last thing. Uh sponsors invites. Can you receive a sponsored invite as a suspended player? Or there's probably some little nugget in there that says you have to be an upstanding something.

SPEAKER_00: 41:57

Yeah, you usually that language says uh you know, a PGA tour member in good standing. In good standing. Yes. And I believe those rules are the clearest um on signature events. So if you look at those, there's an order that makes sure that you're not getting you know, Steph Curry and exemption into a signature event with no cut. That would really stir the pot. That would be a member in good standing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 42:25

Okay. Well, this will not be the last time we talk about this. Uh the second cut pod will roll on as we always do multiple times a week. Make sure you're subscribed to uh watch all of our post-round recaps, our previews, and yes, when things like this, the emergency pods do happen. Gregors, uh, if I don't talk to you before then, Merry Christmas. It's good to see you. You're wearing your red. Um, I hope you guys are having safe and have happy holiday.

SPEAKER_00: 42:53

Yes, and same to you and Mina uh as well. And I look forward to catching up again soon. I'm really what I'm really looking forward to is getting back to our schedule, right? Getting some golf to talk about. We're gonna have a little bit of a uh a delay without the sentry, uh, but I'm really looking forward to getting back to the Sony Open here and covering our golf on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_01: 43:16

Well, maybe there's just gonna be a ton of NBA style drama over the course of the next couple of weeks that will fill us until the Sony open. Merry Christmas to everybody tuning in. Happy holidays. Enjoy the next few days. And we, if hey, if anything else comes up, we'll be here for you. Big thanks, producer Mina. She does all the hard work behind the scenes. That's Greg Ducharm. I'm Rick Gaiman. This is the second cut. We'll catch you next time.