Roundtable: Stroke penalties, Donald Trump’s Open wish, grilling Lavner | Golf Today | Golf Channel

Roundtable: Stroke penalties, Donald Trump’s Open wish, grilling Lavner | Golf Today | Golf Channel

Rex, there was an interesting penalty assessed on the PGA tour over the weekend. Davis Riley uh called it upon himself actually for misusing a distance measuring device, which is part of this tour’s uh experiment in trying to educate its players about pace of play. But over on the LPGA tour, a tournament player got a two-stroke penalty for slow play and the tournament leader on the PGA Tour Americas got a one-stroke penalty. Still managed to win the tournament. Are we finally getting to a point here where penalties been stroke penalties being assessed for slow play are actually going to become commonplace? I hope so. I mean, we’ve heard a lot about the PGA Tour’s plans to really address pace of play, speed of play, as they like to say, but I don’t know if the rangefinder is the way to go. I thought the penalty that Davis Riley had to call on himself, two-stroke seemed a little overly harsh for what was clearly an accident and it was completely self-inflicted. He owned that. I just don’t feel like rangefinders is going to be the secret sauce on the LPGA penalties. That is going to make a difference. And I think the PGA Tour will get there eventually, as well as some of the other initiatives as far as maybe shaming some of the slower players on the PGA Tour. Those things will help. I don’t think handing out two-stroke penalties because Davis Riley accidentally hit the wrong button is going to do anything. L one of our colleagues, Claire Rogers from golf.com, posted a tweet. A cornfairy tour player was basically bashed by a fan. They bashed his play, said he cost him money, bashed his religion. It was pretty rough stuff. Are we just in an era where with gambling and social media that, you know, having random people chase down, curse out, badger players is just going to be the norm of everyday life? Yes. The short answer is is yes. This is what happens at the ugly intersection of golf and gambling. I’m actually surprised, guys, that this has not been more of an issue at PGA Tour events with with fans either interrupting players during the course uh of play, screaming out during a putt or a back swing to sort of interrupt it and make sure that their wagers are are going to go off swimmingly. There was an incident, I think a couple years ago, right, in the FedEx Cup playoffs. Uh Chris Kirk may have been involved with a with a fan who shouted up, but that has really been an anomaly. I’m surprised it has not gotten to that point in PJ tour competition, but again, I wouldn’t be surprised, particularly depending if some of these wagers get get deep into to four or five figures. Brian, there was also a report in the Guardian newspaper last week in London that Donald Trump has been leaning on the British government to in turn lean upon the Royal and Ancient to bring the open back to Turnbury, which it has not been held at since 2009, which is 5 years before Donald Trump bought the resort. Do you see any prospect of that happening anytime soon? No. And it’s a shame because the golf course itself, obviously, Amy and you’ve been there, is is magnificent, particularly after the renovation that they had a couple years ago. There’s really three things that are working against Turnberry being added back to the road. One is the remote location without the proper infrastructure and and transportation in place. In secondly, in 2009, uh, the golf course accommodated roughly half of the spectators that they expected either this year at Port Rush or last year at Trin. That’s obviously not ideal for the RNA, which is in the money-making business. And thirdly, and most importantly, Donald Trump is the US president. Martin Slumbers, the ex- head of the RNA, was very clear a couple years ago that he did not want to take the open to Trump Turnberry until he could be sure that the focus was going to be on the competition and not on the golf course owner given the other obstacles that the RNA has financially with a return to Turnberry. It seems uh most likely that they’re just going to avoid the circus altogether. Well, Rex, the president also was a part of these negotiations between the PGA Tour and the public investment fund. There was a time in the winter where all of us were checking our phones and calling people, texting people, trying to get information because it seemed like a deal was imminent. Here we are in May and it’s all quiet. The PJ tour seems to be on one track, live on another track. Is that going to continue as far as you can tell into the summer and perhaps beyond? I think by all accounts this is the new reality. I don’t know that the conversations are even ongoing at this point. I was told actually a few weeks ago at during Hilton Head that the conversations had actually stopped between the PGA tour and the public investment fund and that they were no longer negotiating trying to reunite the game. So I think what we have right now is going to be the reality going forward. Both tours on parallel tracks going forward. We’re only going to see the top players four times a year at the major championships. And that’s something that both sides are going to continue to wrestle in with varying degrees of success. Certainly the PGA Tour has enjoyed its level of success this year when it comes to the players who have won and the commercial product that’s on the field. The other half of it is live golf and we see where they end up. Rex, there’s an interesting venue this week in Philadelphia Cricket Club. Hasn’t been seen much by golf fans over the years. Is this what the tour needs? Is it what players want? something more iconic and interesting in terms of its golf courses designs and a lot less of things like TPC Craig Ranch where 30 plus wins and now this is the golf nerd in me Aiman and yes absolutely 100% give me Philly Qriket club every single week and I think the PGA Tour could actually do a better job of this. Nothing against TPC Craig Ranch. It’s going to go through a major renovation before we get back there next year. But it’s just kind of a mundane s so track especially when you put the top players on it. Whoever is not excited to watch the best players in the world play Philly Cricket Club. You don’t particularly like golf in my opinion because it’s going to be fun to see how the modern game holds up against this classic golf course and we only get it a couple of times a year. I think it’s awesome. Well Lav, you’re a golf nerd too. Does Does the venue matter? Does the score matter that golf and old school venues? How many should we see? Should it be half of the PJ tour schedule? Should it be more than half? The classic designs. I mean, I went on like a fiveminute rant on last night’s podcast about this very issue where I think if the PJ tour was smart and were trying to do best by the hardcore golf fan, they would prioritize and underscore the very best venues that you have on the PJ tour schedule. I do believe they’ve done a decent job of identifying those. I think Harbortown is very interesting. Obviously, Riviera is one of the best, but I think there’s still too many uninteresting, unoriginal, mundane tracks that sort of dot the PJ tour landscape. I’d love to see them go to the very best golf courses, even if it is not, you know, infrastructurally um going to be as as sound as it potentially could be. I think that’s really important because location matters, but I also think the the spot of the country matters as well. You have to have PJ tour events in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, Chicago. Like I understand spreading the wealth, but these are golf starved areas of the country that do not see action, but just a couple of times every other year. Um, and so I feel like that’s a big miss as well. So venue matters, location matters just as much. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, this you’re getting your event in Philadelphia this weekend on an interesting golf course. happens to be the week before a major championship. You mentioned Hilton Head. That was the week after a major championship, but on this very show a couple of weeks ago, you said you would kill off any PGA Tour events, the week before a major and the week after a major. What is it, Ryan? Which do you want? So, so in in the earlier segment, we were talking about the signature event model and the field sizes, right? I don’t I don’t really particularly care if it’s 72 or a 100 players. I certainly would quibble though with the scheduling of the signature events. I don’t think you should have one leading in to a major championship. I feel like that is overshadowed and everyone sort of has an eye on what’s going to happen next week at Coil Hollow. And I certainly don’t think it should come the week after a major championships cuz then it sort of hangover. You said you didn’t want any events. You didn’t specify signatures. You said no events the week before major, no events the week after. you wanted to take 8 weeks out of the PGA Tour schedule. If you were going to blow up the PJ tour schedule, which I think a lot of golf fans would like to see a 25 to 30 week PJ tour schedule with some added breaks in there, I think it makes sense to have them after a major championship and potentially leading into a major championship. That’s all I’m saying. Aan Lynch with receipts is a very, very dangerous man. What does that say? Bad taste, says Bre. I tell you what, that’s what’s so great about the Golf Channel podcast. Gentlemen, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thanks for brightening up our Monday.

Ryan Lavner and Rex Hoggard continue their Golf Today roundtable to talk stroke penalties over rangefinder snafus, future venues (including Trump Turnberry) and more, before the guys grill Lavner on his schedule takes. #GolfChannel #GolfToday
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Roundtable: Stroke penalties, Donald Trump’s Open wish, grilling Lavner | Golf Today | Golf Channel
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