In the inaugural episode of Beyond the Tour, hosts Jake Hower and Luke Manning dive into the latest happenings in professional golf.
They analyze the results from the LIV Golf Singapore event, where Brooks Koepka dominated en route to victory, while also discussing the team format and how LIV can continue building momentum.
The conversation shifts to the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup, touching on Taylor Pendrith’s maiden win and the contrasting field strengths between premier and regular tour events.
Jake and Luke provide insights on newsworthy topics like Talor Gooch’s PGA Championship exemption, Greg Norman’s potential Open Championship absence, and the ongoing battle between established tours and the upstart LIV Golf circuit.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction and background on hosts
00:00:55 Luke’s golfing background
00:01:51 Jake’s path into golf
00:03:44 Golf’s rising popularity
00:04:28 Mornington Peninsula golf courses
00:05:41 Jake’s favorite local courses
00:06:01 Episode format discussion
00:06:27 LIV Golf Singapore recap
00:08:08 Brooks Koepka’s dominant win
00:08:53 Cam Smith’s resurgent form
00:10:08 Potential LIV team format changes
00:12:00 Singapore as a LIV venue
00:14:17 Replicating LIV’s Adelaide success
00:15:21 PGA Tour’s CJ Cup recap
00:17:21 Contrasting PGA Tour field strengths
00:19:27 Potential PGA Tour/Korn Ferry integration
00:21:06 Jordan Spieth’s struggles
00:22:36 Australian player performances
00:23:08 Talor Gooch’s PGA Championship exemption
00:24:49 David Puig’s path to the PGA Championship
00:26:27 Potential LIV OWGR inclusion
00:27:49 Greg Norman’s potential Open absence
00:29:09 Closing thoughts and listener feedback request
welcome to the first episode of beyond the tour I’m Jake and with me is Luke how are you hey Jake happy to be here for our first episode I’ve got the Rippers cap on celebrating back-to-back wins for team Ripper and ready to talk all things golf with you yeah absolutely they they’ve done pretty well over the last couple of weeks haven’t they yeah it’s great to see them return to form particularly leash showing some some good trajectory yeah now we we caught up in person at Liv Adelaide after getting sow each other a little bit on X and we both actually had the idea of potentially looking at a podcast which is the conversation we ended up having and this obviously is what led us to this particular show maybe we should give the listener a little bit of a little bit of a background of what each of us has done in golf or why we’re here at this point I’m happy if you to start off sounds good I’m a father of four love to unwind and de stress from work and from Family Life by playing golf so I started Golf in my teenage years was a member at the Brisbane golf club for 20 odd years and have been a member at a couple other clubs here in in Queensland where I reside have loved golf all my life and I think much to the sort of decries or different to the decries and the moans that we hear on social media I think right now is probably the most interesting time for professional golf the change that we’ve seen live bring about in the professional golf world has been really Dynamic it’s exciting to see the amount of money that’s been invested into golf and so it’s a really exciting time to be part of the conversation and hence the the idea for maybe you and I to get together and start to talk about this in a pot yep absolutely I myself got into golf I moved from the town of well I’ve been my my background is in the travel industry so straight out of school got into the travel industry and I’ve owned travel agency since 2009 it was in Melbourne itself and we moved down onto the peninsula with with a young family so my son at the time was three three four and had a young daughter so in 2015 we moved on to moona links so we our house was just above the guy the driving range there so that that got me into golf and the bug hit me pretty hard so i’ usually get out put the kids to bed and get out for a routing of four or five holes so I’d go and hit some on the Range and I went down to Rabbit Hole hard so like getting the all the lessons playing golf three or four times a week got myself quite low from a handicap perspective over two or three years got down to very low single digits and yeah ever since then I’ve been hardcore into golf the biggest change I’ve seen probably even in that short period like although it’s now pushing up to 9 years but I still love switching on the European tour of an evening and you’d watch some really good quality golf play and then you be able to switch across over a morning time watch the PJ tour and I really noticed over the past sort of 5 years or Co sort of years the quality of Tours globally has really been hit by the dominance of the PGA 25 very similar to you the rise of live although controversial has been really good in terms of the the viewer outside the US I think it’s a really exciting time at the moment as lots of good quality golf U being played around the world which I think is really important and yeah I think you get yourself outside of that the bubble that is social media and it seems to be quite healthy the golf ecosystem yeah I don’t think golf has been more popular it’s it’s hard to get a tea time tea sheets are full at so many different clubs golf courses that didn’t have waiting lists now they’ve got years worth of waiting lists and so I think combination of Co and also just the general excite excitement of that of professional golf at the moment is driving a really strong demand but just back to your story a couple of things that jumped out at me firstly how quickly you got to low single figures quite impressive and and secondly on the Mornington peninsula there just sport for choice in terms of quality golf courses down there God incredible as I said it was completely coincidental but I’ve fallen into in my opinion what is the best golf in all of Australia in terms of a grouping of courses there are better courses obviously up on the sand belts down in Tasmania but in terms of accessible golf in a small sort of region I think this is the best in Australia and it probably Rivals some of the best in the world really as well have you got a favorite St Andrew’s Beach I really love the the layout of St Andrew’s Beach it’s a course that I play probably every 3 or 4 months I’m not sure if it’s an a course that I would enjoy playing every week uh because it is quite difficult in places the in terms of layout probably the Junes that’s although it’s not as conditioned as well as the national courses and Andrews Beach the layout there is very versatile so I was a member there for four or five years and depending on P pin positions win Direction you’re playing a very different course day today uh yeah I think that’s probably my favorite layout down here I’m now a member of porty which is quickly improving in terms of the conditioning it’s a great little Club to be a member of all right rcky let’s Golf Course yeah June’s a wonderful Golf Course particularly Public Access golf course and yes I can attest to the difficulty of St Andrews Beach that doke design beat me up badly last year back in September on a boys trip yeah yeah it’s really it’s a fun little course isn’t it some some struggling memories there yeah now format for this podl how are we going to tackle this yeah so I think we’ll we’ll have a quick rundown of some of the key results on the PGA Tour live tour Etc talk about some of the things that stood out for each of us in the particular events of the week and then also we like to call out other bits of news that grabbed their interest throughout the week I think that’s a good format for us to kick off with absolutely so we’ll head straight across I think to the biggest event for the week which was live Singapore so we had the team competition of rippers rippers winning that which was their second week on the Run they bet the fireballs and the click and on the the individual side of the competition Brooks was a runaway winner really he looked in complete control and looks to be rounding into ominous form coming into PJ Championship yeah I uh I tweeted earlier over the weekend that we’re two weeks out from a major championship and Brook says here hold my beer and he’s on truly starting to Peak at the right time I I was interested to read some of the comments that he’d made in press conferences around how he thinks he’s got the ability mentally to go to places that other golfers can’t get to and that really um struck a cord with me around how Tiger Woods was in those Maes where he was just really able to compartmentalize anything else that was going on around him and focus solely on the task at hand incredible win from Brooks as you say he never really looked threatened and that Golf Course Sentosa it makes you hit the shots as you come down the stretch some of those t- shots are extremely demanding he just never looked phased he makes the parts he needs to make and a great win from Brooks edging out Cam and Leash who had really good finishes uh particularly cam over the weekend uh great scores probably could have been different if he’d had a better score on Friday um but really great uh event to watch yeah absolutely I think focusing on Camp for a second he has come into the last couple of Seasons looking like he’s really enjoyed the offseason and if we go back to his 2022 season when he come into that season he was looking as fit as I’ve ever seen him and he really hasn’t since then but what was interesting this week when he was speaking at at one particular point to suan he was talking about the fact that he’s finding that he’s working out everything in terms of his game but he seems to be on a diet as well which is good because the op optimized cam Smith is pretty hard to beat and I’m glad that he’s paying more attention to those aspects of his of his game that’s right and and I think the team aspect has something to do with that as well I know there’s been lots of CRI criticism of the team aspect of Live And and people saying I just don’t really care but the change this year to make sure that the fourth score counts on Sunday I think has given uh the players a lot more to play for and also the criticism from thegr side of things that the team event is a blocker to them obtaining ranking points uh I just see that there’s an increased level of commitment uh to the team side of things and I think that’s filtering through into Cam’s individual play as well wanting to lead from the front what do you think of that that that fourth score counting I’ve been thinking about that a little bit and I wouldn’t mind seeing all scores count on all days and maybe adding one or two plays to each roster uh so that each week the teams maybe have to choose who their best Squad is but having all four all four scores counting every week I think fixes up some of those issues that the owgr potentially has with it because you can’t benefit your teammate by perhaps not scoring as well as you possibly could because your score matters I was thinking the same thing having all four scores count really puts the or holds the feet to the fire of these players ensuring that there’s no free passes on any day hadn’t really considered adding an extra player or two that’s an interesting idea might be difficult to make work in practice I guess you’re pulling professional golfers offline they may or may not get a game and what other opportunities are they for going to do that but but I guess a big signing bonus might Save A Lot solve a lot of those problems yep it’s maybe also it’s maybe expanding on what some of the reserves are doing like way hsby so obviously each live event he him and his caddy are paid to come along and he sits there in reserve now if you’ve got an extra person on each roster maybe you don’t need to do that in in in particular if you get selected then you’re you get brought up to the live league if you’re not selected you’re playing your your normal schedu I think and maybe you’re starting to fill those positions with more developmental style players so the younger players who are maybe already on the Asian tour or playing on the corn fairy tool potentially I don’t know it’s certainly an aspect that you can start considering because injuries is one thing form is a big thing as well you don’t really want to be playing players that are just in really terrible form because impacts the team it impacts the competition as well really yeah agree and maybe the Asian tour is is an option for that they’re probably not going to have as much conflict with Asian tour events so that may be one way of filling those extra one or two spots in the team rosters as you point out there’s already players like Wade Ormsby Ben Campbell Etc that are at these Live Events as reserves sounds like a possible option anything else from Liv before I move move on to the PJ tour look probably just a question mark around Singapore as a venue it’s a pretty tough spot to fill coming off the back of Adelaide and trying to keep the momentum from such an event that popped really well so I think there was a noticeable difference in terms of the vibe between Adelaide and and Singapore and this is the great challenge I think for live is to be able to recreate the Adel Adelaide style event in more location around the world and if they’re able to crack that n then I think they’ve got enormous potential and a huge future so we know that they’re stopping in Singapore because the tourism board in Singapore is tipping in a lot of money there’s there’s plenty of critics of the actual course itself I I I think it’s a very tough test of their Golf and I think Brooks even said it’s it’s definitely Championship golf that needs to be played which is no surprise why it was winner this week but I do think there are question marks around Singapore as a venue I love Singapore it would just be great to see more pop coming out of that particular event I think and and more probably from the crowd yeah I think yeah obviously the weekend or Sunday looked a little bit busier Adelaide being the Pinnacle it’s hard to replicate I think it’s going to be around the world maybe we’ll see a little bit in valderama and maybe even London or or the UK may even have a bit of a crowd going on there but yeah I’ve been thinking about how they replicate Adelaide really I think it’s probably a slow burn more than anything if they continue to focus on worldwide venues and maybe um not adding venues multiple venues in in in this in the same country and make it more of like a live adelade more of that sort of aspirational type event so the must attend event so if you can sell out adels and not add another event in Brisbane or something like that just make Adelaide it make everyone want to attend that event maybe we you’ll start to see the spill over and you’ll start to see others think okay maybe we need to attend Singapore and then you maybe that builds up slowly over time and then you get that sort of Taylor Swift effect where everybody’s looking to get a ticket and every each event become like must see or must attend yeah and I think you’ve seen that a bit in Formula 1 where there was some stops on the Formula 1 circuit that were pretty hoam and every city and every country is really lifting it game you’ve got some incredible uh Formula 1 events now right around the world no matter what the city yeah it’s definitely the key challenge for live to solve there’s lots of untapped demand out there in in globally and so I think it is around live selecting the right markets and really going hard like what you said Spain is probably one where we do see it pop I think New Zealand would be a fantastic location they’ve got incredible golf courses I think you’d find the fans and the crowds there would be very similar to Australian crowds so it’s interesting to see where they go next Norman was obviously posting on social media that he was in Japan watching the final round of Singapore from I think Tokyo Airport or something like that so he’s obviously cooking up something in Asia further so it’ll be very interesting to see how it pans out yep absolutely let’s let’s jump across the PGA T the CJ cup V Nelson held it TPC Craig anch which which looked a bit like a ranch it wasn’t in the best condition the best condition that was won by Taylor penduff after Ben Kohl’s had a little yippy chip off off on the 18th and essentially gave away his lead I I wouldn’t call it a choke but it did certainly look like it was a very yippy sort of Chip you went straight under that ball and ended up bogeying a hole that not many others did yeah in fact he was the only one to bog it on Sunday uh a very tough way for for you to lose an event going into the 18th with a one shot one shot lead lots of commentary on the course that I’ve heard in other podcasts and seen on social media highly critical of Craig Ranch as a venue I didn’t see much of the golf but what I did see of it it looked pretty bland in terms of the course the 18th hle is probably the best casing point it just looked like an open field with with not much doing at all tough scene for Ben Kohl’s decelerated on that chip for his third chunked it gave himself an impossible stance for his fourth and of course couldn’t get up and down to save his par so probably not the way pendrith would have scripted his Maiden Victory on the PGA tour but you take the win no matter how you get it and I think that probably all but secures him a spot in the um in the international President’s Cup if he wasn’t already written in that’s right on to to Canada with hopefully some form for the Internationals for pendra yep absolutely it’s interesting these events that the fields are not incredible really are they it’s almost like a corn Fury to a plus sort of field level I feel like the PJ tour needs to further separate and differentiate between their Signature Events and their standard events because it really is two two two separate tours really at the moment Andy Johnson on shotgun start was just incredulous that this field has the same branding as as a field that we’re going to see at Quail Hollow the coming week for the Wells Fargo and I guess there’s a bit of Merit in that take should there be an arade and a vrade style event um then I guess you start to blur the the lines between the corn fery tour and the PGA Tour um it’s just a very diff difficult um nut to crack for the PGA T how they get this right how they uh get the best players playing against each other more regularly um obviously the Signature Events are are the best attempt they’ve made so far um but probably what it’s doing is drawing a sharper contrast between the weeks that that we’ve just seen and the one that we’re going to see in the coming weeks so I’m not sure what the overall answer is but I don’t think it was coincidental that the corn Fury Tour player of the year last year almost won this week that’s interesting because he hasn’t been in great form I looked at his from so I called out Ben Kohl’s and compared him to Taylor G in terms of US Open exemption category so Ben Kohl’s obviously was the corn f tour money leader or or the um points leader last year so he gets an invite to the US Open and I thought that call was going to backfire on me when he nearly won this particular event but outside of this event he hasn’t been in in in great form on the PGA 2 so it’s come from a little bit from nowhere which I don’t know whether that highlights the field strength or just the fact that he’s played well this particular week but one thing I’d love to see is maybe a little bit more sort of fluidity in the movement between the coin f t and this rung of the PJ tour maybe if you can have all the points the two tours have their point system intertwined so that the best players on the corn fairy tour get access to the PGA Tour and we see the better players float between the two and all attempting to get up into that Signature Series yeah and I think that’s how would work in an ideal sense the challenge is that we’ve got things like sponsors exemptions and money list career exemptions Etc that get in the way and so actually solving for that becomes really difficult so there’s there’s lots of criticism about live that its relegation is not not fed income it’s not it’s not real and I do think Liv’s got plenty of work to do in and around the relegation side of things I think expanding the numbers of promotions and relegations would be a good thing I also think one of the scourges that Liv has is the captains not being able to be relegated they need to do something with that because teams like the Majestics where you’ve got three playing captains therefore three of them are exempt from relegation just doesn’t make sense at all but the PGA to equally at that bottom end there hasn’t really got it right in terms of the up and downs moving between kft and the PGA Tour and giving an opportunity to Young emerging Talent at the expense of some of the older Main Stays on the tour yeah absolutely I think probably the Highlight that’s most recently highlighted is probably zorus when he stuck down in the cor fairy to through Co through that extra year essentially which was it was clear that he was one of the best golfers in the world at the time but yeah he just couldn’t move up just because of the rules and there yeah it’s just it’s a the big and convoluted sort of system isn’t it the PJ tour as we’re finding out more and more as as we get into this war between the tours that’s that’s right and then just in terms of field strength and whatnot surprising to see SP missed the cut more surprising to me that he couldn’t make the cut given the quality or lack thereof in this particular field does raise some questions around whether we’ll ever see the spe of old again I’d love to see it but it’s just been missing for such a long time now you wonder whether we’re going to see it again yeah we really haven’t seen it since 20 was it 2018 really was is it that’s right yes it’s it’s yeah it’s it’s something he’s probably one of my favorite golfers just because of his his how animated he is on the golf course um how talented he actually was in his recoveries and he would just he was never out of a hole that’s his far from that right now agree and like such an exciting player when he’s at his Peak so I think all golf fans are roting for Jordan to get back to his best yep absolutely so we had a few Aussies in the field as well minr and Adam Scott they finished 24th and 30th ads was down at 41st Harrison UT who has not really had a lot of opportunity this year was finished in 50 52nd and Jay day in 59th so they all made the cut I think of the Aussies in the field they’re all able to make the cut but not really impacting the score scoreboard like you’d like to see them no nothing much doing with the Aussie boys this week I I think minu flirted with getting inside the top 10 uh he might have even got equal T10 at one stage but never really was able to push so hopefully they can equip themselves well at Quail Hollow this coming week and then also into the PGA the following week now looking at some of the other news probably overnight there was announced that Taylor G and David F both got invitations for the PJ Championship thoughts on that you could have knocked me off my chair when I opened up X this morning and saw that Taylor G had been given given an exemption or special invite to the PGA Championship lots of back and forth on on social media particularly following Tiger’s exemption to Pinehurst the US Open later in the year about whether Taylor G was deserving as well I think you’re comparing apples with oranges there tiger will get exemptions wherever he wants them and arguably that is right given his record and status in the game gu is nowhere near that so I don’t think comparing the two is a sensible comparison but I am glad to see the PGA sort of maybe take a little bit of the higher Road here give PGE and G the speci special invite similar to what the Masters did with nean because I think all of us as golf fans want to see the majors Above The Fray above the politics and just really focused on getting the best players together in those four occasions each year that’s what the fans want that’s what sponsors will want that’s what broadcasters will want and so digging your head in the sand and not dealing with the live issue for me I don’t think that’s the right approach uh Liv doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon um despite what many have told me um on social media uh but I think uh creating some sort of um alternate path to qualification outside of owgr points is a sensible way for the Maes to go yeah I think rge has done incredibly well to get to the position even in even thegr that he has because he’s essentially played Asian tour events and he’s just about cracked the top 100 which is incredible given he’s not even playing a full schedule on the Asian tour and extrapolating onto that it he hasn’t performed probably up to his potential on on live itself he’s had a few reasonable reasonably High finishes but he certainly hasn’t to me achieved that same level that he has on the Asian tour that he has on Le and yeah so when you’re comparing a PGE invitation or even an nean invitation to AA G who’s won three times it makes sense that he gets an exemption very surprising to see it actually happen because there isn’t much of a case he hasn’t really played any other tour at all in the last couple of years so the invitation is either off his 2022 PGA Tour form or it’s off his live for which hopefully will open a floodgates potentially yeah I think it probably does put a bit more pressure on the US Open and the Open Championship to give some consideration to what they’re doing around some of these Live players that that probably won’t qualify through other means so I think that’s that’s a good thing and and promoting or or provoking the conversation so that we can land in a sensible spot on this is what I think golf fans want to see I could see it maybe what’s potentially going to happen now is that maybe we do actually see Liv get some sort of inclusion in the owgr the fact that the majors hold positions on the owgr board might be a way for them to not lose face but get exemptions for all these players back into the major tours now that the PGA Championship has included one I think you’ve got to start considering either being left behind by maintaining your existing stance or getting the players in your field and if you don’t want to do it through special exemptions maybe we do actually see thegr essentially allow Live players to get exemptions into the Mages through their world rankings again so it’s going to be interesting over the next 12 months to see if if anything changes there yeah I think the special exemptions is really just a Band-Aid fix it’s a short-term thing there needs to be something more permanent put in place it could as you suggest might be done through theg given the influence that these Majors have on the on the governing board or there’s just a separate qualification category people have been suggesting the top 10 Live players are given are given qualification automatic qualification if they’re not already qualified through other means so that’s another way that it could be done as well uh in other news for the week we saw um the RNA saying that uh Greg Norman had not been sent for not appeared on the ticket lists for attending the open yeah what what did you any comments on that look I hope it’s not true it was a report out of the telegraph I think over in the UK um reportedly from the director of comms it would be a terrible thing or a terrible position for the RNA to do that to a two-time open champion and would just reinforce I think the perception that some some of these major bodies might be engaging in politicking hopefully it’s all just a storm and a teacup if Greg wants to go he goes if he doesn’t want to go he doesn’t go but it’d be very Petty I think if it was true yeah it’s certainly I guess these sort of bread indicate that things aren’t going to change quickly we’re seemen to be in for the Long Haul in terms of this war it seems like it’s going to be death by Thousand Cuts and of of the organizations to to actually accept live into the ecosystem it looks like obviously the PJ tour but the op the RNA and Augusta seem to be the organizations that are going to fall last yeah the two most conservative of the bodies you would say and the whe the Wheels of Change turn slowly you can say yes they certainly do they certainly do now L I think we I think we call it call that podcast there our first episode it’s a little bit of a test run for us both yeah so we’re going to be aiming to to get a podcast out uh each week probably of a similar length we’ll throw in some segments and and make changes on the fly as we get feedback from you the listener so we’d love to hear your feedback whether it’s on the socials or you can just visit our website which is btod.com yeah we’d love to get your feedback this is obviously for us has been relatively nerve-wracking getting on screen and speaking publicly really is what it is for the first time is not easy to do so yeah it’s it’s good to get something out there though I must say agree tidle and to those that are listening as Jake mentioned we certainly welcome your feedback we want to create an engaging forum and an engaging Community for those that want to follow along and listen we’d love to hear from you on how we can make this better going forward and what you’d like to hear from as we start to publish more of these episodes on the pod great thanks Luke until next week we’ll speak to you soon sounds good thanks Jake
