Welcome to the onp par podcast from the beautiful winners award show showroom here in Coconut Creek I’m your host Drew de Alberto I’ve got Sean kicker back in the studio with us good to have you back Sean it’s good to be back it feels like
We it’s been a while since we we have a whole lot of stuff to talk about in the world of golf today a lot so you know PGA Tour it’s now March 18th this is going to come out this coming Thursday on the 21st so you know topical
Obviously with the PGA Tour we’ve had two and a half months so far so what are your biggest takeaways right now out of how the tour is going this year yeah we really haven’t talked much about PGA Tour in in quite a few episodes and it’s been wow it’s been quite an exciting
Year so far I mean let’s where do we start let’s start with the elephant in the room ROM going to live just absolute shocker I mean I was shocked I don’t know how you feel about it you know it’s confusing to me because you’ve got the PGA torn you’ve
Got live golf and they allegedly tried to merge but we have no idea really where that is in the process at this point so what does it actually mean for a golfer to leave now that they’re merged sort of kind of yeah I have absolutely I don’t think anybody knows
It’s the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen in this sport yeah maybe any sport because there’s so much um unknown fast you know rewind back to Summer of last year right and the big announcement that Liv was going to be merging with the PGA Tour and they were to work on
Collaborative Partnerships that’s right and we all were just scratching our heads fast forward they were talking about having a deal done by the end of 20123 mhm well well and then you know law lawyers get involved politics get involved a bunch of things that have nothing to do with golf intertwine into
This now and you know the fans let’s say the Casual fans that’ll watch some golf on the weekends and play golf as often as they can like I do are left kind of just staring at it going okay well what does all this mean yeah what does all
This mean and you know somebody that I know uh that really likes live you know how I stand on live I can’t I just yeah you just haven’t watched it you don’t you’re ambivalent well Indi if you will I don’t I don’t enjoy it I I don’t know
Why I don’t enjoy it maybe because I’m such a traditionalist but there’s lots of people that do enjoy it but I don’t and I’ve given it its fair shap you know I’ve tried to watch it but I would rather watch reruns of something else rather than watch a live live golf event
So you know Rah is now with live golf but he can still play in all the PG tour stuff so he has the best of both worlds I don’t know if that’s the truth I don’t know how that works cuz they’re not stopping him anymore right I mean live
Guys can play in PGA invite they’re not they’re not doing that okay so he just took the money and said screw it I’m I’m doing what those other guys did because the PGA Tour said that Liv was the worst thing in the world and then they did
This merger so it’s kind of you know what do you do if you’re a player you know it’s it’s basically out of your control and they told you one thing and did another so take the money and that’s it yeah I mean from from a player’s
Perspective if I was a player okay and John Daly said this himself he says dude if I if if I was offered to go to live in my playing career if live was around I would have gone there I mean of course I get to play only three rounds versus
Four rounds there’s no cut they’re going to pay me all of this money and there’s only 14 events a year and by the way I can still play in the majors for the for the next couple of years as long as I continue to perform well in the
Majors what why would I want to take that grind of playing on the PGA tour week after week after week after week and the expense of it people don’t understand how expensive it is to be a PGA Tour player in this day and age the
Travel costs it used to be when I was playing you could drive your car from one location to another location to another colation now you’re on one side of the country one week you might be on the other side of the country the next week you might be in another country and
Again I mean you’re looking at it as from a player standpoint of okay well look they they merged now so I’m going to get the best of both worlds and get kind of eventually it’s going to be one League like every other sport has combined because that’s what the fans
Want to see and ultimately they’re all at the mercy of the fan right the guy who says you know what I want to see the best players in the world play each other cuz that’s the whole point of professional sports in general it is and
So I going back to what I was talking about about this person who’s a live fan uh he said ultimately what we’re going to see here the transformation of what’s happening is that all of the best players in the world are going to be on the live League okay and everyone else
The PGA Tour is now going to become The Proving Ground to be able to get into the live golf league so it’s crazy now the PGA is going to be like the minor leagues eventually if that happens um I still don’t know and here’s here’s the
Thing all right and I didn’t look this up we should look this up the TV ratings number one there’s no corporate sponsors paying for live to be on go on on television right okay they’re not they’re not generating any money and I understand they don’t need to generate
Any money when they have almost a trillion dollar fund however and I’ve said this many times before people with money aren’t in the business of losing money you know what I mean all right um unless there’s some sort of end game to this but even then if they don’t achieve what their
End game is it’ll all go away in the blink of an eye at some point in time and no one’s going to know about it until it’s over MH so um do I think that’s going to happen I don’t know I I think if the PGA Tour was was
Was yeah I’m not going to say that well so back back to ROM for a second it’s almost a no-brainer that he did this threw so much money at him that it was impossible for him to say no especially the timing was perfect cuz now he’s not a villain for leaving like
The other the first guys were was a villain god philon melson was crucified in in in the media right I mean now Rah wins because he’s still the good guy right like we like to root for Rah cuz he’s funny he’s entertaining he’s interviews joking around he’s out there
Having fun like you can’t help but want to root for the guy even though he’s not a United States player and we all like to root for the USA guys like I would go as far to say Ram’s my favorite guy to root for on the tour that is not from
The United States you bring up a great Point okay like the go back of previous generation of when I was younger on the PGA tour and there really was a European tour and that really doesn’t exist all the best international players are now on the PGA tour now some of them are but
I remember the days of people rooting against Nick valdo rooting against sebie bios rooting against you know um burnhard Langer if you can imagine that who’s as good a guy as possible because they want an American sure to win sure now when you said that about John R I
Don’t even think of him as a Spaniard anymore I love the guy I love rooting for John R I mean the guy is he’s got a cool swing he’s just and again like he’s out there having fun kind of the way that I envision myself out on the golf
Course with my friends or my business associates or my coach or whoever you know that’s the way that I see Rah as like the the funloving and you know people used to see Mickelson the same way until they vilified him mikkelson’s had controversy back and forth between
Being a really good guy between GIC and all the other stuff all of these things um you know it’s it’s funny how how you’re either a Tiger fan yeah or you’re a Phil fan right and there really wasn’t two there were two two KS right you couldn’t be both yeah you couldn’t be
Like an Arnold Palmer fan and a Jack Nicholas fan which couldn’t be both right and we can’t have a golf podcast without still talking about tiger so let’s let’s get into a little tiger stuff cuz I I mean when when Phil won uh it was the US Open when he Phil won the
US Open at 50 years young I was rooting for him like he was Uncle Phil yeah just because everybody I mean you know I was involved I was in it I was sitting on my couch at home eating a s you know eating a buffalo chicken slider and drinking a
Beer and rooting for Phil Michelson to win fun to watch man it really was and and now you know he’s the big villain and then night then you have tiger and tiger you either had to like tiger or Phil okay fine we’ve established that but then you know Tiger’s had his demons
And his issues yeah nobody likes to talk about that in the media nobody wants to highlight all of the the bad parts of tiger they have to glorify tiger because they put all their eggs in that basket made him God for for lack of a better
Word and it worked right I mean people watched golf if tiger was in it and if he wasn’t playing that weekend people didn’t watch golf I mean we know the numbers we’ve seen it no doubt but they shot themselves in the foot by by doing that for so long and they still keep
Doing it instead of taking and highlighting the amazing talent that they currently have on the tour is they’re still they’re still wanting to push tiger still wanting to push tiger and we saw what happened when he played in Riviera you know he had to withdraw he withdrew from the Masters and and you
Know I just think that all of the injuries which I believe are because of certain things substances that have gone in his body over the years okay nobody wants to talk about that in the media nobody wants to talk about them even though it’s document but he’s untouchable when it comes to
That kind of stuff um so who does the toll on his body so who I mean and and the NBA did the same thing with Jordan with Jordan and then they did a great job of transitioning it to Kobe and then they did a great job of transition
Whether you like Kobe or don’t or don’t like LeBron or don’t it doesn’t matter they did a really good job of even though the sport has been watered down arguably the NBA has been water down over the years with changing of rules and all the other things that have
Changed and we don’t you know like I don’t know about you but I don’t really watch basketball anymore in the pros because it’s not the same game that we grew up watching golf hasn’t changed golf is still you know get the ball in the hole right I mean correct changed
Tremendously but the rules haven’t changed ridiculously right I mean the rules of golf if you look at the rules of golf versus the rules rul of the NFL or rules of the NBA or rules of baseball or rules of hockey even over the last 50 years those other sports those other
Four major sports have changed their rules immensely and golf hasn’t not nearly to the extent nearly to the extent so how does how does the PGA live now transition from tiger tiger tiger tiger to who do they pass the torch to well there’s a ton of them out there
Right now there’s an absolute ton of them out there um I mean you got you got shefer you got the Shambo had his run you’ve got a few other guys no one’s dominating no like like tiger dominated or like Jack dominated before that no just the there they were Transcendent
Athletes that were more mentally tough and were absolute winners and the guy that I see in today’s PGA Tour that’s starting to show that now who long who knows how long it’ll last because Rory was that guy and then Jason was that and so they’re all still there they’re all making a
Tremendous living and maybe that is the answer is they’re all so comfortable as opposed to when Jack was playing when you know his first paycheck I think was 6363 like insane um so I think part of it might be might be that there’s that Comfort level MH but there’s Al just so
Much competition M uh I went to the last couple of PJ tour qualifiers okay there was one at Weston Hills for the Argentinian open which is a Latino American tour okay there was 60 players on both courses the tour course and the Players Course and on the tour course
63 didn’t get you in it got you into a playoff there were three guys from the back te’s at the tour course at West Hills that shot 63 one guy that shot 63 got eliminated in the playoffs that’s low that’s insane n under and then on
The Players Course which is where I was guy shot 63 and then four or five guys had to play off at 65 um and you watch them hit the ball you can’t tell one from another from another from another they’re all clones they’re all bombers they’re all hitting
At 300 to 340 yards off the te which is unfathomable yeah and and to your point anyone can win right we saw it with Nick Dunlap not first amateur since 1991 yeah but keep your eye on that kid all right well and that’s what I was
Going to say is like maybe maybe just maybe we because we all want that next dominant player right so maybe just maybe a Nick Dunlap comes out of nowhere and and wins a lot I mean I would almost I would almost almost guarantee it drew because any PGA Tour event that an
Amateur is winning M that kid’s got some stones that kids got what it takes and it is not easy to win on the PGA tour look at yesterday I was going to save this for later when we started talking about the players championship and how exciting it was and you look at the
Stats of a guy like Xander schling amazing golfer amazing player but he’s been in the final round he’s been in the final pairing of I think something like 16 times you know how many times he’s won how many well yesterday didn’t add to his total I can
Tell you that right now two two two right so there’s something to be said about the guy that can’t get it done there’s lots of guys out there that just aren’t winners and this is what separated Jack and tiger from the rest they were going to win no matter what
They were winning and other guys they knew that other guys we’re going to lose okay period okay fair enough so you know then we get into like you said you know you’re not that big a fan at all of the Liv the format the way it works that
Leads me right into talking about the waste management craz yeah because that is your least favorite PJ event I I would say from from no yeah other than live golf I think that’s you know what show that goes on out there in Arizona every single the poopy show yes say to
Be uh you know safe with the words but uh so yeah I mean this year the arrests got out of control they stopped alcohol sales the fraternitysorority part party you know dried up real quick well that’s what we’re saying is is hey it’s all fun in games it’s all great until it gets
Out of control and it reached that point finally um where the frustration from the players in the event and and so you know you I mean you saw a guy like Billy horel mhm who just lashed out at somebody that was just being overly rude yeah there just behave
Yourself my goodness I love going to the Masters because everyone’s on their best behavior they can be exciting they can be excited they can have fun but they’re not disrespectful they’re not rude they’re not drunk because you’re going to find yourself out of there and you’re
Never going to be back ever again so so what do they do to prevent that next year because they have to tone it down a little bit right you don’t want people getting arrested and all kinds of craziness and I know no press is bad press but they got bad press they did
They f for finally did where they’ve been glorifying this event over and over and over again with throwing the bottles out it’s not a golf event it’s a party sure right right right well now now live can be the party right and um I think that what they do is they start stealing
Back look what’s happened we’re in the midst of spring break right now Miami Beach has been an absolute nightmare of a show for the last couple of years okay and and so what happens you have to crack down you have to take away the fun I suppose what they’re
Calling getting really drunk and seeing videos and reals of people stumbling through the mud and they’re drunk and stupid we’re not teenagers or in our 20s anymore either so our idea of fun has changed probably maybe that’s it I’m going to as as the bitter old guy but behave yourself for God’s sakes
At a PJ Tour event that’s all I’m saying so I think that what you’re going to see is they’re going to they’re going to have to scale back some of the the stuff that has been acceptable that should have should never have been acceptable in the first place so save the waste
Management then you got the cognizant which was going to be a great event it really was however the Reigns came and they came and they came and I was in the bear trap it was a circus and I got there the bear trap and I positioned myself right
Behind the 16th green watching some great shots that that pin position on Sunday was really tough it was tucked right over the bunker I don’t think anybody was going to make birdie there and I when from the rounds that came through nobody made birdie yeah yeah um
Because I mean you’re you’re that hole you’re you got a downhill side Hill six iron in your hand that got to hit high up over a bunker and stop it quick tough tough shot easier said than done with the greens rolling at a 75 yeah mere mortals aren’t aren’t
Doing um and so I was getting sprinkled on then and then the rains just came and we thought all right okay it’ll be all right and then I just saw the 17th green of the bear trap was just completely underwater it was like where’s the green the green is gone gone because it’s
There’s so much rain what are you supposed to do at that point you have no choice I I just had a feeling like oh no this is this is um it’s not going to end and it didn’t end and so they finally did get the golfers out there at about
4:30 but they still had quite a few players to finish I was supposed to play in the Monday after event stag me in the heart cuz I haven’t gotten to play in that event and it’s a special treat when you get to play the day after a PGA Tour event the
Conditions are unlike any conditions that you’ll ever play anywhere I mean even the private clubs that you and I have played some of the nice places they’re still not in that condition because you can’t maintain those conditions for more than a week or two at a time that’s it the course would die
So yeah that was uh was a disappointment and then you talk about a dominating performance after that at Bill you had Sheffer and you know your words were he just ran away he did so just ran away with it he is the guy right now that
Knows how to win and everyone else at this point is going to have to prove that they can win too MH uh because this week even with this he had the neck injury in in the middle of the of the either second or third round he’s getting treatment on his neck because he
Pulled something and if you’ve ever had that happen it sucks it is excruciating pain and you got to play in a professional golf event and and Win It by a landslide no no that was no that that was that oh okay I’m sorry that’s that was this week that was this week at
The Players Champion players yeah which which that was exciting my goodness that was I stayed glued to the screen the whole time because I knew it was going to be a horse race it was going to be a photo finish and sure enough um you know
Sheffler shoots 64 he he was down on the leaderboard it was this going to be the battle between um between uh schling Xander schaffling and um who’s the kid that won the PGA Championship last year uh Clark yes and Harmon no Haron was up there too yeah Harmon was up
There the Lefty yep who I I sat there and watched him hit balls on the range at the gusta last year just striping it just absolutely striping it like your size by the way he is not a big dude okay and just pounding it out there you
Got the right swing and you practice it just like you’ve said a 100 thousand times on this show so uh what about this neck injury like what do you see coming up for for Scotty I think it’s I don’t think it’s a major thing I think he’s
Going to get some treatment for it um lots of Chiropractic and acupuncture all that good stuff massage therapy yeah yeah I’m not worried about him at all all right all right and then of course the PGA leads us right into the first T so what’s going on new in the first te
You got a big announcement today well there’s lots of big announcements there’s all kinds of stuff and speaking of um we we’re growing you know that we’ve been growing we grew the numbers tremendously in 2023 were poised to grow even more in 2024 and so when you grow
Your staff needs to grow as well I mean we used to be a oneman show when Jack Bloomfield was running first T Broward um it was just him mhm and he grew it to what it is I’ve come in and I’ve almost tripled it all right so now we’re adding
New staff so we have our program coordinators which are co-program coordinators now Chris cup PGA professional has moved up into a co- um program coordinator’s role with conjunction with our previous uh program coordinator Rob foko all right Rob’s going to take care of the northern part of Broward County Chris Cup’s going to
Take care of the southern part of the county and I have added what I call a new our new rock star to the team um the assistant director of operations and Business Development Anya Holston okay who comes to us previously from Spirit Airlines um we are very excited about
Having her on board and the potential for growth awesome awesome and then any anything coming up that we need to be aware of for first te for events there are a few things the par three Corporate Challenge is going to is going to be up that’s an invitation only yes sir um
Usually it’s Executives that that play on that it’s just a nine-hole Event Y 36 players total nine teams uh and that’ll be on Tuesday May 7th okay at the coral rich country club yep and it’s always a blast I love it I love it I played in it last year with Chris and
His brother from steady returns he’s in again this year we had an absolute blast out there at Coral so also where we did the hund hole Challenge and almost cooked to death out there that day like the hottest day in Florida ever but uh that’ll be coming up
Again this summer too it will be stay tuned for more information on challenge so uh last things last I want to just mention on April 28th and 9th we’ve got the uh chera Family Foundation we’ve got the dinner coming up on the 28th at broken sounds brand new Clubhouse where
They hold the TimberTech championship and then if you’re lucky enough to get it before it sells out you can go to the onar podcast.com website uh but there’s going to be golf at the old course at Broken Sound a another course that you can’t really usually get on have you
Play you have you played there before I have not I walked it with Nick my son Nick when we went to the TimberTech this year but no I have not play I will be playing it on April 29th it is a very special treat yeah um you know we play
Our tournament at Royal Palm mhm Royal Palm’s awesome Royal pal is awes I played in it a couple years ago that was fantastic I think in my opinion Broken Sound the old course of Broken Sound is even it’s the real deal I think so all right I think so you’re going to really
Enjoy it you know I I can’t wait I’m so p and and I did not make it you went to the dinner last year I did uh I did not make it to the dinner but this year the Polo Club last year yeah Crystal already got her dress so I’m definitely going to
The dinner so to go there but uh you know other than that I think you know we’ll save the rest for the next episode from Sean kicker the coach and I’m drew the Alberto from the winners award group showroom and we’ll catch you next Thursday with another episode thanks for listening
