Social star arrives: Min Woo Lee overcomes Scottie, Rory and Tosti’s antics | Golf Channel Podcast

In this week’s edition, the guys discuss Min Woo Lee’s breakthrough victory in Houston, what happened with Alejandro Tosti in the final group, and what Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy gained in their final tune-up for the Masters. #GolfChannel #PGATour #HoustonOpen

Chapters:
(0:00): What was different this time for Min Woo Lee
(10:00): Can Min Woo’s game translate to more than just a wide-open Tour course?
(14:00): Inside the tension of the final group with Alejandro Tosti
(20:30): What to make of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy’s final tuneup starts for Augusta
(27:00): Steve Sands joins the show!
(42:00): Gary Woodland steals the show in Houston
(44:30): Ex-LIVer Eugenio Chacarra wins on the DP World Tour
(46:30): LIV heads to Trump Doral
(47:30): Listener questions
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Social star arrives: Min Woo Lee overcomes Scottie, Rory and Tosti’s antics | Golf Channel Podcast
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[Music] Hello and welcome into this edition of the golf show podcast with Rex and Lav. Well, Minu Lee is a firsttime winner on the PJ tour holding off world number one Scotty Sheoffller to win in Houston. But from Minwy to Rory to Gary Woodland Rex, I thought that was a pretty good tuneup for next week’s Masters, wasn’t it? When you look at where we were on Friday just a few days ago and then even Saturday coming into the final round with Minwi having such a commanding lead, it seems like Scotty wasn’t firing firing on all cylind cylinders. It seemed like Rory wasn’t firing on all cylinders. There didn’t seem to be much to talk about. Actually, I was concerned. Not going to lie, concerned. 52 minutes. My god, are we going to do that? That’s a that’s a lot of time to fill. So, it was nice to see it come together coming down the stretch. We’re going to have Steve Sands on from the broadcast as our boots on the ground segment in just a minute. And I love sort of the story of Menu Lee and we’re going to get into this more, but where he was just two weeks ago at the players championship when he’s tied for the lead through 36 holes, you thought there was no reason to think that he wouldn’t hang around and just had an awful weekend. And that’s been a bit of the MO if you look at his finishes this year. Didn’t play well at all the week before at Beel misses the cut. He had good rounds at the Genesis Invitational sandwiched between some really bad rounds. So, it was the inconsistency that had stood out for Men Woo. And so, to get it done, not just to get that first victory, but you get style points on who it’s against, don’t you? I mean, if you’re going to beat Scotty Sheffller and Rory and Gary Woodland and everybody else that was aligned against you, that’s pretty good. It was just like Stephen Joerger a year ago at the Houston Open. Scotty Sheffller last spring went 11211. that second place finishers was in Houston against Stephen Joerger, a player you probably would not have expected to beat Scotty Sheffller at the peak of his powers. Actually, you remember a couple years ago uh Paul Azinger was on the call, I think it was at at PJ National. He was talking about Tommy Fleetwood and how this is a player who had won, you know, repeatedly on the DP World Tour, but he hadn’t come over on the PJ tour. And there’s a difference between winning on the DP World Tour and winning on the PJ tour. I was thinking about that line constantly. And that’s nothing to diminish what what happens on the European tour. Just fact of the matter, this is stronger competition. And so I was genuinely curious how Min Wu Lee, a three-time winner on the DP World Tour, was going to handle a position he had never been on the PJ tour. Minu Lee has had over the past couple years two pretty notable disappointments. He does not get into contention on tour very often, but when he has, it has been pretty disappointing. I think back to the 76 they shot in the final round of a 2020 uh three players championship alongside eventual champion Sky Shuffler. And then I think back just a couple weeks ago when he shared the halfway lead at TBC Srass that ended up finishing in a tie for 20th at the players championship. And so like the narrative has gone with Min Woo that this is a guy who’s 26. Uh he said if you watch Full Swing on Netflix, he was sort of featured there. He said that at times he has lacked maturity. When he says maturity, he doesn’t mean like in a childish manner or he’s, you know, acting, you know, petulant on the golf course. He’s talking about not being as disciplined as he needs to be to be a professional golfer. And he said he made a reference to in the interview with Kurik Dixon afterward that he got a few quote kicks in the butt after TPC saw. But I think where the immaturity or the lack of discipline or precision has showed up in Minu Lee’s game has been his approach play. You know, he loves to smash it. He’s putting up ball speed numbers, Rex, that you and I could only dream of. 192, 193, 194, 195 miles an hour, which is like serious serious stuff. 5 mph is faster than Roy Mroy, who absolutely obliterates it. But that love for the long ball has never translated to approach play. He has been a terrible iron player each and every season. He has been on the PGA Tour. Just this season, he was 144th in strokes gained approach, was outside the top 125 in every uh sort of scoring category inside 150. A huge flip in Houston. Yes, he could bomb it everywhere, and we’re going to get into that. Yes, he puted the absolute lights out, but the biggest difference maker and why Minulee is now a first-time winner on the PJ tour came down to his approach play. His distance control was impeccable, particularly in the final round. If he can play like that, I I mean it looks like we have a potential star that’s budding on the PJ Tour to Rex. I would say that because of the power that he has and like look, they talked about it on the telecast. When you get up to ball speeds anywhere 192, 194, 196 that starts getting ridiculous. Then you don’t really care where it goes, which I thought was a pretty good line that came out of the telecast as I was watching on Sunday. But but I will point out like it was the putting at Houston. It’s been the putting this season. I would say he’s fourth on tour this season in putting. that’s compared to 118th last year. So, I do think that’s part of this resurg resurgence for him as well. And I I kind of wanted to flip this on you because it is fascinating that I don’t know why my mind went here, but as I’m watching him come down the stretch and I want to get into what he did on 16 because it seems to me that’s when he got a little nervy and it could have come apart with him right there. But before we get there, I did want to ask go back to last year’s President’s Cup. He played just one team match before Sunday singles. He he he just played twice at rural Montreal. I and I don’t understand why and I don’t think we ever I don’t think anybody really ever took a deep dive into it because seems like no one was playing particularly well on the international team. We ended up with another blowout going the US way. I But now in retrospect given how he’s playing this season, given what we’ve now seen from his record, I am curious what did the captain see or didn’t see in him that essentially left him sitting on the bench for most of the week? I mean, he was very streaky last season on the PJ tour. Would have stretches where he played good, got himself sort of on the fringes, contention, obviously could never convert it, but I think when you look at Minu Lee’s skill set, obviously a prodigious driver of the golf ball. You look back to Royal Montreal, the host site of last year’s President’s Cup, you know, you you weren’t going to blast it everywhere and have success. It was sort of a positionoriented golf course, A to B, uh, sort of plotting your way around. That’s obviously not Minu’s game. Uh he was not he was not a good putter on the PJ tour. I know he’s made significant strides. He’s think he’s now a top 25 putter on the PJ tour this season last year really struggled. So if you’re if you’re not finding fairways and and you’re not making putts and again to harp on something that I just ranted about for like three minutes like his approach play numbers were very very bad. Like you never see an elite player who loses strokes to the field in that category. He actually sort of reminds me, Rex, of Windham Clark, who when he’s on with his driver, like can just cut down beefy mammoth golf courses down to size. And as we saw, and as we’ve seen at times in Windham Clark’s career, like his iron play can be very good as well. And now, you know, he’s he can pair that with a hot putter at times. And all of a sudden, you have a player who wins signature events, wins major championships as Windham Clark has done. And so yeah, like when you look at those combinations of factors last season, I can understand why Mike Weir would not put him in just because his skill set didn’t necessarily fit that golf course. No, and that’s fair. And as you follow this arc, I did find it interesting reading some things that Minmu said earlier in the week. I guess it would have been easy coming out of the players championship getting down on yourself, beating yourself up a little bit that I had another opportunity and it was fun to listen to how Jason Day has impacted him because look, if you if you need a shoulder to cry on, I don’t think there’s a better one in the game than Jason Day considering everything that he’s been through through injury and he’s been to the top of the game and the bottom of the game and he can probably speak about as well as anyone when it comes to these type of things. And the message that Jason seems to have given him was just put yourself there. you just want to I think it’s called the Joe Biden you just want to be there when the time comes on Sunday you gave yourself an opportunity this week and you got through the door and and the way he explained it was Jason says it’s much much harder just to put yourself there than to actually finish it out and I think that’s kind of probably what he learned over I would say the last year and a half because you look back to last year he gave himself real two really good opportunities last year he finished run up twice on the PGA tour seemed like he was trending in the right direction but when you’re he’s coming down the stretch and it didn’t seem to me he was doing anything wrong. And he gets to 16 and we talk about that predicious power where he can take things out of play that other players cannot. That was a horribly bad time swing because not only did it put him in a really difficult position just to make a bogey, which I thought ended up being a really good bogey on that par five after putting his T-ot, but everyone around him was watching. I think it was funny to hear Bones talk about Gary Woodland and the group ahead of him sort of turning around and and sort of asking did did the he just hit one in the water? Was that a splash? There was like a boat out out there like did it did it almost hit that little dock? Like that thing was miles dock. It was it’s it’s Wasn’t that the blow up of the logo for for Children’s Hospital for Texas Children? Yeah, I mean it could have been but that I mean it was it was miles right. Way to be there for the sponsors. Uh and and I will say that was one of just two balls, T- balls on that hole that went into the water on the weekend, not Sunday, on Saturday and Sunday. So for 36 holes. So you get an idea of how horribly bad that was and bad timing. And it was also I had to go back and kind of look because it seems to me leading up to this he was missing more shots left if at all. And his the only time he missed a drive right all day long before 16 was on the 10th hole. So it was out of character. You could tell he was a little nervy. And I think the bogey probably allowed him to settle his nerves a little bit. Like I think I love Memorial Park. Like if if I were a PJ for a golfer, this would be like the the exact perfect golf course that I would need where there’s virtually no penalty off the tea. The fairways are incredibly generous and then you have like huge wildly undulating greens. But there’s really not much penalty for mis hits off the tea. It was actually something that Roy Moy asked at the end of his press conference on Sunday like, “Hey, do you think you could, you know, potentially see yourself coming back to Houston in the future?” He’s like, “Yeah, you know, I’ve, you know, I haven’t played Tampa before. You know, I’ve played uh TBC San Antonio host site of the Valero Texas Open before. You know, I wanted to put this on to see how my game stood up. I wish there was more of a penalty off the tea.” And so, like, you can blow it anywhere. And Minule for the most part did blow it everywhere throughout the week at the Texas Children’s. Houston stood up at 42% driving accuracy. But basically the two spots that you could get yourself into trouble were the two spots that Minule put it in on eight. He almost went out of bounds. Found the the Bush. Ended up having to take an unplayable after a long discussion. Ended up making par on that hole and then blew it as we mentioned miles right on 16 and escaped with a good bogey. That’s why it’s like it’s hard to know like how much stock to put into this victory. Obviously, this guy is immensely talented. If you look at his stat, this was a little bit of an outlier with his approach play. Maybe he’s found something in his game. He talked about sort of the hard work that he has been putting in. I mean, you’d love to see Minmu Lee all of a sudden become a consistent contender on the PJ tour. He brings in the youths, pushing out the olds like you uh that that that love and appreciate the PGA Tour. And so like like I think we’re all rooting for Min Wu Lee, but I don’t I also don’t subscribe to the theory like that this sort of driving will translate to many golf courses on the PG tour. I know the fairways at Augusta National are generous as well, but there’s still trouble. There’s still angles and that’s something that, you know, had he had he driven this anywhere else, I think he could have potentially gotten himself into much more trouble. And we’re going to get into Rory and Scotty and I think what we saw out of their games going in to Augusta and certainly driving for Rory is going to be the big one. And you can make the comparison that okay, this helps you get ready on some level for Augusta National. But you’re right, it’s not about necessarily hitting a fairway at Augusta. It’s about putting it in the right part of the fairway. You have to be very very technical. Tiger Woods has talked about this in the past that it’s not even you want to be on the right or left side of the fairway. It gets much more technical if you want to have the right approach shot to this. And I I I will say and they talked about this on the telecast, I think Minu Lee has the quality to sort of ascend to that superstar status and he has a long ways to go with his play, but certainly when you look at his personality and what he does on social media, you and I do an entire segment on barbecuing and this this guy loves to cook. So there’s a lot of reasons to like him. And I I do remember going back just a few weeks ago and you would have been one of the loudest voices in this room when Jordan Speed did not get a sponsor’s invitation into the Arnold Palmer Invitational and because well he did not get one in no small amount because Minu Lee got one and I think going back you could make the argument that not only was Minu Lee playing better than your beloved Jordan Speed but maybe they see something in him that others did not at that point in time. Yeah. I think you don’t want to compare anyone to Bryson because Bryson I think is is a genius in terms of marketing himself and playing himself to a crowd. He understands social media. He understands YouTube. He knows how to connect with a younger audience. Minmu Lee does that on a much smaller scale and there’s a certain showmanship to him. Like I thought I thought doing aim point for his little two-inch tap in to win the golf tournament was was genius and just sort of a window where I think now that he’s got across the line, now that he’s going to be in signature events and have sort of a a bigger platform, now that he’s going to be secure and has a confidence in his game that could translate to more and more PG tour victories, I think we’re going to start to see more of the personality that Minule has. Um, and I love that that potential for him. I did want to get to to something that Minu was battling. So, it wasn’t just the nerves. It wasn’t just trying to nail down his first PJ tour uh victory. You know, it wasn’t just Scotty and Rory and Gary Woodland all making runs at him. There was actually a little bit of tension Rex in Minmu Lee’s own group as it relates to Alejandro Toasty. And we’ve seen this in the past from Toasty. We’ll get to that in a second. But there was an issue where Toasty while Minu Lee was sort of sorting out his rules issue on the eighth hole where he needed a 5 to seven minutes to determine whether he was going to play it on his knees and sort of scoop it out of there or ended up taking uninflatable. But the entire hole Rex took 30 minutes and that was aggravating to Alejandra Toasty. Then Toasty seemed to sort of purposely slowplay the group uh down the 12th hole. What was your reaction to everything that was going on inside the group as Mini was trying to win? I don’t want to do this with Alejandro because he’s not the ally that I want. Like his history speaks for itself. I I don’t think I I don’t want to be on team Alejandro when it comes to this. However, it did take Mini more than 30 minutes to play that hole. And I can I can see why his level of frustration. However, when and like I had to go back just to start doing some searches just to remember how clearly it was. And like 2023, I guess, on the coinf fairy tour was was just absolutely dreadful. He actually was withdrew or disqualified from a tournament because of some of his behavior stemming directly from what he felt like was egregious pace of play. We have talked a lot about pace of play this this year, which has been strangely uh refreshing based on what we normally have to talk about when it comes to golf these days. However, screaming at a rules official about your playing partner playing slow probably isn’t going to help it. We’ve come up with some decent ideas. is you and I have batted a lot of things around that I think could probably be helpful, but yelling at a rules official and pouting and then trying to slow play said player is probably not the way to go on that front. And I think this kind of behavior is only going to backfire on him. I think we saw it with the way he came down the stretch. It certainly did not bother Minu. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other. So, good for him for boxing it out and not letting it. And I don’t find like look, they’re going to publish numbers eventually. We’ll know exactly who the slow players are hopefully starting next season or maybe even this season. However, I don’t think Minw is one of them. And he I mean he took an egregious amount of time on a number of shots. I thought sure the back nine. Sure. And again, you’re contending you’re coming down the stretch. I I didn’t find the round went long. I I think the starting point should always be did the telecast go off on time and it did. And I think that’s kind of a testament to not just that. You can’t put that on Men Woo. If the pace of play is bad, you know it because NBC’s running 10 minutes long or whatever the case may be. And in this particular case, I didn’t find anything that Minuly to be egregious. I didn’t think it was outrageous. Certainly, I don’t even think he was put on the clock based on anything I heard during the telecast. But you’re only going to box yourself into a corner if you’re going to act like that on the golf course. I I mean, you got to give Toasty credit because he’s he’s unafraid if if consistent and consistent if nothing else. And consistent. I mean, you you referenced the 2023 suspension. Our friend Ryan French of Money Q Info uh had the story back then of, you know, repeated behavioral issues. Remember at this tournament last year, he got into a tiff with Tony Fen now about who was away on the green. He was playing with him. Tony Fido, he got into a tiff with Tony Fenow. Feno was probably like, “Man, don’t you know who I am?” Like one of the most likable characters on the PJ tour. And look, I I’ve I’ve covered Alejandro Toast here for a long time. I did a deep dive on him on a feature story uh in college. He has a very inspiring backstory. He grew up in relative poverty in Argentina at the age of eight. He was taking solo bus rides an hour long just to get to a golf course. He had encphilitis his freshman year of Florida. Like he has persevered through a lot to get to this point on the PG tour. we’ve seen these episodes of um let’s call it combustibility where you know it it makes you scratch your head a little bit and and I’m I want to be on record as saying the PJ tour needs more characters. They need they need players with personality. They need villains. They need conflict. I think all of that stuff is compelling, but you also don’t want it to come at the expense of being rude or disrespectful to your playing partners. So, like I hope that he can channel the the the venom that may be brewing inside and instead of being, you know, petulant and someone that guys are are dreading to play with, channel it into something positive and and be compelling in that way as sort of a very intense character inside the ropes. And we were very clear last week. We had a lot of fun with one segment that we did last weekend on just the idea of all the violence that was going on in the sport. And let’s start with Adam Hadwin who who took it out on a sprinkler head. Uh, and and I I think there was some push back on social media because it seems as if we were standing up for these players. I certainly wasn’t. I don’t think you were. What we were standing up for is some sort of personality. And I don’t want to be duplicitous in this. I I want to be perfectly clear that I appreciate Toasty’s passion. I appreciate his fire. I’m just not sure if slow playing your opponent in the final group on a Sunday is the right way to do that. But if he feels like that’s the best way for him to fire himself up, then go ahead, have at it. I really don’t have a problem with that. I’m not going to to say one thing last weekend and say a different thing this time around. I will say as I I went back to Ryan French’s story from 2023. There was another tournament, I believe it was on the corn ferry tour, where Toasty went out of his way to find sprinkler heads to hit on his way down the fairway, which makes Adam Hadwin seem a little silly right now that he not only did Adam Hadwin have to pay to have the sprinkler head fixed, uh, I I think they put something on social media, his wife and he, about they they bought the entire superintendent crew lunch one day. So clearly he felt bad about it. The other way to go was just find every sprinkler head and take it out on them. And and look, he’s obviously not going to make many friends on the PJ tour behaving like this. JC Deacon, his old coach of Florida, said he’s not interested in making friends on the PGA Tour. You have to play, you have to play consistently well to back up this sort of behavioral issue. Alejandro to his first year on the PJ tour, lost his card, had to get it back through Q school. Uh he has not been in contention very often in the Houston Open. Again, we like these guys. We like conflict. We like villain. It just can’t be disrespectful. And Bones, who was on the call for NBC, thought that it veered into that territory. On the sort of character spectrum, Rex, I’m not sure you could find guys that more disparit polls than Alejandro Toasty and his fiery demeanor on the golf course. And the stoic one, the world number one, Scotty Sheffller, who tied for second, I believe, for the third straight year at the Houston Open. Shot 62 on Friday, shot 63 on Sunday. Scotty, Rory, both in the field. What were sort of your biggest takeaways as it related to those two players? Uh, I’ll start with Rory because I think if you’re looking at it from 30,000 ft and I don’t want to make this sound like a warm-up for the Masters, but in those two and their warm-up for the Masters. It was a warm-up for the Masters. I’m not taking anything away from the Houston Open, but let’s be honest and call this what it is. And if you’re Rory, I’ll start with him because that’s the easiest. Fourth and strokes gain T Green top 10 and driving distance. The things that he didn’t seem to quite have even in victory at TPC Srass seem to come together. And again, you just pointed out it was he had to work really hard to miss fairways on this particular golf course. However, I think what he saw out of his game was probably very encouraging. And I think once he got on scoring runs, which we all know can that that’s how you get things done at Augusta. You go on a scoring run and suddenly you have four straight threes on the card and you know you’re you’re doing something special. And we’ve seen it out of him before. And I I am curious because this goes to the idea we sort of talked about last week when we were co-hosting golf today that Scotty Sheffller is still the favorite, but in my mind I continue to trend towards Rory and not necessarily because of what he did this week, just because of where he is in his game. I think for Scotty it was one of those incremental gains. I guess the one thing that I will say about Scotty’s game and I think this coalesed on Saturday when he needed to quote unquote moving day to use the cliche when he needed to do something special and he had done something special the day before with a 62 he I think he shot one on a par shot 69 the scoring average on that day was 68 so he didn’t even keep up with the average for the field which is surprising out of Scotty and I keep going back to I think we both keep going back to the idea that that hand injury set him back in his off season and he is a creature of habit. We know exactly what he wants to do. He shows up at the golf course with a game plan and he sticks to it. I think he was probably held back further than maybe anybody anticipated, maybe even himself he anticipated. And I made this comment last week on Golf Today because we threw up a graphic between some key stats between last year and this year’s. And the difference is minute. It’s being second in putting versus 12th in putting this year. I mean, we’re talking about fractions at this point. We’re talking about a quarter of a stroke per round, but those things add up, and I think that’s the difference why he is now six events into his season and still hasn’t won. So, I think overall both players got what they wanted out of their final tuneup at the Houston Open. You started with Rory. I I would start with Rory as well. He he made a slight driver adjustment after the third round. Knocked down some loft. They said it was getting too spinny. Seemed to drive the ball much better in the final round. That’s something to look forward to. And I think Rory said it himself that he he still knows what he has to work on. You know, he has not been lights out these last three weeks on the PGA Tour. Didn’t drive a particularly well at Bay Hill or hit his irons. He was sort of scratchy still at the players championship, which I know is ridiculous to say. Uh the strongest field of the PJ tour season and won that golf tournament. I think he did so a lot on the strength of great short game, great putting sound course management. And then, you know, he was not obviously top uh, you know, full flight as well at the Houston Open. He said, “Michael Ban, his longtime swing coach, is coming into South Florida on Monday. They’re going to get to work.” His putting in short game continue to be very good. I thought like anecdotally, the stats didn’t necessarily be out. I thought like he hit some fantastic short game shots that are going to portend very well for Augusta National with the very undulating greens, a lot of slope, uh, some of the false fronts, the tightly moan areas. thought that was very encouraging as well was fourth in stroke gain ta green. One thing though, Rex, like it popped up in the interview with Cury, he said, “My right elbow has been bothering me.” He said, “I’m going to get a little bit of treatment on that and we’ll go from there.” Like, oh, what what can can we follow up when, how, what swings uh with with the Masters on deck? That was certainly notable uh for me as it relates to Scotty. I thought this was very encouraging as well. He putted great three of the four rounds. He was first in the field in proximity to the hole. He made only two bogeies all week. What I noticed off the tea, and we just talked about how Minu Lee was bombing it everywhere. Rex, Scotty seemed to be like purposely laying back some off the tea to prioritize accuracy. He was only 42nd in the field in distance. His ball speed was somewhere around 175. Uh Mark Ralphie did a great breakdown uh on one of the Golf Central pregames about how Scotty’s footwork, you know, wasn’t as active as it has been in the past. I would have loved to ask him, you know, was this by design even even though you’re on a golf course where you can blow it anywhere? You know, it it goes against sort of his nature to be looking ahead to the Masters. So, I wonder if it’s that or I wonder if maybe he just doesn’t completely feel 100% with his game. He still like Rory says he’s got some work to do as well. No, and I think that’s a good conversation to have about Scotty because he clearly is at the point now where he is probably going to search a little bit knowing that he’s now in the major championship season that the warm-up is over. I I need to probably sort of start locking in that I think there was a degree of grace that he’s given himself because of what he went through during the offseason. And I keep going back to the idea that maybe the hand injury was a little bit more intrusive than we gave it credit for. Maybe he because he was dismissive about it. He made it sound like yes, it was a bad cut. I had to get stitches, but once the stitches were out, I was able to start. I think there was probably something there that set him back a little bit more than we anticipated. All right, Scotty and Rory taking the week off, the week of the Valero Texas Open. But just as a reminder, right, we’ll have plenty to discuss on Wednesday. We do this podcast twice a week, just once on linear television. Stay tuned for a new episode on Wednesday on YouTube or wherever it is you get your podcast. Be right back with Steve Sans after this short break. [Music] And we are pleased to be joined now by NBC Sports broadcaster Steve Sans who is on the call for the Texas Children’s Houston Open. And and Sansy, I want to start with this. This thing was an absolute snoozer with a five shot lead on the back. All of a sudden, it became a little bit more interesting, didn’t it? Yeah, it’s a bit of a trend, isn’t it, Ryan and Rex? I mean, look, Bay Hill, Colin Morawa had a three-shot lead late, couldn’t finish. Rory Maroy had a three-shot lead late at the players, couldn’t finish, but he ended up winning that Monday morning playoff with JJ Spawn. And last week at the Valbar, Justin Thomas for a brief second had a three-shot lead, but mainly a two-shot lead when he got to 16T. Uh, and he ended up not being able to finish. So, it’s hard to win, man. And I mean, we say that all the time, but Minu Lee having never won before, this one isn’t nearly as big a surprise as the previous three weeks. I love the way you guys told the story coming down the stretch because, as you just pointed out, having not won on the PGA Tour, I don’t think people realize how much pressure, how much you internalize that, how much you set up late at night worrying about am I going to do the right thing in that situation. What did you see out of Men Woo that impressed you the most? You know what, Rex? I I think toughness. I I just think that, you know, when you have a bogey late like he had on 16 and and these guys are well aware of what’s going on around him. Scotty Sheffer with four straight birdies, number one player in the world, Maroy making a run, Woodland making a run and it’s an emotional run at that. He knew that he posted 19 under and he knew that he had to close strong and you know a bogey at a par five 16th for a reachable par five for a guy of not only Minw’s caliber but his power. Uh that was a terrible T-OT. Uh and he ended up gutting it out, kept his poise, and ended up making a couple of pars coming home. Uh and got the one shot win. It’s just it’s tough, man. He’s tough and it is tough out there. I know you’re not on social media even though you have a a Twitter account that that has more followers. Do we do this every time? every time you guys make fun of me on this. However, however, Minwoo is actually a pretty big deal, Tanya, on Instagram, on Tik Tok, on YouTube. Like, do you think that this can resonate with the greater sports audience or can this sort of be just confined to, wow, this is a great first- time winner on the PJ? I I I think that’s the beauty of social media. I think that social media can gather people who might not be sports fans and then all of a sudden make the audience and the interest larger because of social media’s reach. I I I thought it was funny. You guys would love this. Um you know, our great producer Tommy Roy, we go through all these elements during rehearsal and all these different things that we’re supposed to do all throughout a show and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. It’s live TV, it’s live sports, so you can’t script it. But we did something on his social media presence uh and something um of his Instagram post and Tommy had me do it going to commercial break in a flip of a second and I’m thinking to myself, is it Instab box? Is it Facebook? Is it what? I mean, I don’t know what these things are called, you know? And I’m like, oh my gosh. I’m like, and all of a sudden, one of the guys to our left holds up a sign and says Instagram. I’m like Insta Box. What is Instab box? You know, FaceTime, Insta Box. I don’t know what anything is. And so anyway, so I think that social media is a cesspool in a lot of ways, but I think when it comes to sports and gathering momentum as a live event is moving forward, absolutely an audience can gather as social media starts to, you know, build some momentum towards the end of a sporting event. I think it’s great. I think social media in that respect is great for sports. I had about 10 other questions about the finish on Sunday. Exciting finish, PGA Tour. But since you’ve steered me in this direction, I cannot let this go. I I can’t let this this go. I think it was my first year at Golf Channel, so it would have been 15 16 years ago. You and I were in Abu Dhabi. We were doing a segment and what was the name of that segment in your mind? Wait, for me? Yes. What did you think that it’s it’s pound ass rex? And of course we know now 15 years later that’s actually a hashtag. You know it now. Correct. Rex, you and I are the same age. All right. I’m 5. Correct. But I Yes. A it was a pound sign for the first 40 years of our lives. And all of a sudden this thing called social media comes around and I’m standing next to Rex Hoget in the middle of the desert in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi. And I got to do this segment with him. And all of a sudden, it’s not a pound sign anymore. It’s it’s a hashtag. Well, I never heard of that. How would I ever hear of that? The best part about it was John Fo, our camera guy, and our producer, Alan Robinson, and you all knew, and I had no idea, and I was the one hosting the darn show. I had absolutely no clue. But you handled it very well. It was very kind of you to be nice uh to a to an old man. But but but Sansi, it’s sort of an interesting point though because I mean we do live in a social media era and you know people can build brands based on how they interact with folks or what they sort of put out socially. How have you been able to you know in in the span of your career avoid social media and not join the temptation to put no unspoken thoughts out there for everyone to see? I I I think a couple things. One is it’s how I was raised. My mom and dad raised me to to realize that it’s a team game. You know, it’s not an individual pursuit. Our lives are so great. We travel all over the place. I’m talking to you right now from Houston. We just finished an amazing PGA tour event. For the most part, everyone who’s watching right now is a golf fanatic or else they’re on the wrong channel. So, why would I want to show off? Nobody likes to show off. You know, everybody knows where we are. It’s a very visible medium. I’ve been doing this 34 years. I’m incredibly blessed. I’m incredibly fortunate to work with people like you guys and all the team uh all throughout the years and I I just think that it’s important. I know people are into their brand and I guess everybody has their own brand. All three of us, I guess, have our own brand. But to me, I just think that no one’s interested in what I am doing at the time. Hey, I’m at a bar in Houston watching the Sweet 16 on Thursday night. What are you doing right now? You know, I mean, nobody really cares. And I I also think that direct contact is really important, especially with what we do. For for people who don’t know, they think that we’re like best friends with these guys because we’re around them all the time. We’re referencing them. We’re speaking to them. We’re seen with them. Listen, it’s a professional relationship. And I’m forever grateful from Tiger all the way down to everybody else who have been very good to us. And I feel like it is about trust. And that’s it. And if I want to reach out to somebody, and I mean this in the most humble way, I’ll reach out to them directly. If I need to hear from somebody, I will call or text them um directly. I just think social media sometimes can get a little squirly. Um and I’ll leave that to you two, young guys. I’m I’m not I I can’t do it. I’m not into it and I don’t want to be into it and I don’t know what to be known for it. And I feel like every once in a while if Rex and I are out having a beer late at night, well, we might say something stupid and put it down and and type it and that would not be good for either one of us. Now, you learned this in journalism school at the University of Maryland, proud University of Maryland, fighting Steve Sandes, as I call them. But you root for the story, not the player, to to do the journalism thing right now. I I truly trul I I really truly mean this. Whether I’m speaking to you guys on this show or it’s on a radio show or whether I’m talking to kids at a university or whatever’s going on in the world, I am a firm believer that we are just clowns in the circus. I think that the events, the players, the officials, the caddies, uh the tournament organizers, uh it’s all about them. And we’re obviously there to document it. Uh we’re obviously there to be the voice of record. Um and we’re there to entertain and enlighten and inform the audience. But I don’t think we’re part of the show. We’re just kind of on the periphery of it. And I think people who are who do what we do for a living. If you’re a sports cer and you feel otherwise, I personally think you’re mistaken. It’s always about the events that you’re covering and the athletes. All right. Nope. That’s what I was getting at. Perfect segue. Is was there a better story today? And look, Minu Lee was an incredible story, but Gary Woodland, you and I both know GW. We both know what this means to him after everything he’s been through. How would you characterize that story? Oh, I think Gary was the biggest story. Uh, and that has nothing to do with Minu Lee. I mean, Minu Lee winning is is great. 26 years of age, he’s come close before, a couple of runner-up finishes, has a huge personality along with a ton of game. But let’s put it in its proper context. If Gary Woodland comes back after what he has gone through and comes back and wins, that’ll be one of the biggest stories, if not the biggest story of a season on the PGA Tour. And there’s no denying uh the energy around Gary. Uh I had a long chat with him on Wednesday on the practice putting green about these types of things, holding his emotions together. You know, how big of a deal Gabby is in holding the family together, which allows him to go play golf and how big of a deal Brennan Little is Caddy has been in helping him regain his confidence back out on the golf course. If he would have gotten to the finish line today, that has nothing to do with Minu Lee. that would have been a a bigger story I think in the world of golf and sports. It’s a it’s a wonderful story to see him come back and you saw anybody who watched the final round as he was making his run to a course record time 62 and finished one back. I mean he was getting love from all kinds of fans every step he took and you could see the emotion on his face. He held it together uh but you could see the emotion on his face. Sans you’ve done a bunch of Florida swing events now. You’ve seen Roy Mroy up close. You’ve talked to Roy Mroy, extended conversations over the past couple weeks. Why can this year’s Masters be different for Roy Moy? Uh, it’s a great question, Ryan, and I’m sure we’re going to talk about this on Live from the Masters. Uh, which by the way, I’m sure we’ll get to that, too, is my favorite segment of the year each day dealing with YouTube bozos. Uh, getting up there and spewing all of your knowledge. Here’s why I think Rory has the best chance to win the Masters. I think now I’m about to say something crazy because Scotty Sheffer played well this week. He didn’t win, but he played the best he’s played. He shot a 62, shot a 63 I think today. Um, clearly he’s playing good golf, but he’s not quite razor sharp just yet. So, if you take the top two players, you know, Xander Schoffley is not quite razor sharp either. So, the top three players, Maroyy’s won twice, first time he’s ever done that in his career leading up to the Masters. a players win. Obviously, a massive win and a win at Pebble, a big big win for him as well. And I think he rides a lot of confidence going into the Masters. I think he understands. He’s tried it what since 2014. It was his last major. So, he’s had what, 11 or 12 cracks at it, 10, 11 cracks at it. He’s probably tried it eight or nine different ways. And I think that he’s probably learned, I think, to just go play. Drive the golf ball and try to chip and pitch it. If you miss greens, make a few putts. Give yourself an opportunity on the weekend. Don’t be too overly aggressive on Thursday and Friday. Kind of ease your way into it. And I think he carries the most confidence he’s ever had into Augusta based on those two victories. And let’s face it, the two or three other best players in the world are not quite as razor sharp as he seems to be leading into Augusta. So, I think he takes this week off, practices, preps, gets ready, and I think he shows up at Augusta. And if it’s his time, uh, it’s his time. But, I do think it’s his best opportunity we’ve seen in quite some time. And I think that’s fair, and I’m with you 100%. But Lav and I are really bad when it comes to any gambling conversations. Him much more so than me. I’m bad as well. You’ve been known to make a wager from time to time. Given what you just said, why would why is Scotty the favorite just ahead of Roy going into the Masters? Well, he’s the defending champion. He’s won two out of three times. And and the three of us have talked about this on and off the air. I’m a big believer. Let’s say there’s 100 people in the field. I don’t know the exact number that’s in the field uh just yet, but let’s say it’s around 100. It’s usually, you know, somewhere in the in the 90s or around, let’s call it 100 players. you can wipe away 65 of them off the off the bat in my opinion. And I think if you take 30 to 35 players, I’ve always thought the two the two events that are the easiest and they’re not easy to win on tour or the Tour Championship and the Old Century when there were only like 28 or 29 guys because you don’t have that many players to beat. And I think at the Masters, look, Scotty’s the favorite because he’s won two out of three times. All right. Rory is going to be one of the favorites because he’s just a fabulous player who has not gotten it done there. And I think that you cannot overlook the experience at that place. You cannot overlook the vibes you have when you enter the grounds. I mean, how did Lee Trevino never win there? He didn’t have good vibes when he got there and, you know, it was a different time, different era, and it just kind of probably prevented him from playing his best. Well, Maroy is trying to do something that only one guy in the history of the sport has ever done. Win the career grand slam at Augusta National. And no offense to the Squire, but back in 1935, Jean Sar won the Masters to complete. Slightly different attention. Yeah, it’s just a touch different now than it was then. So, look, you know, you never know. But if you had to put money on one guy, it would have to be one or the other. And you probably would have to put your money on Scotty just based on past performance there. He’s way more comfortable there, I would assume, uh, than Maroy is because he’s won it twice. Well, I know we’ll be discussing Scotty and Rory and everybody else in a week’s time on the live from the Master Set. Can’t wait to see you buddy in about a week’s time from Augusta National. Thanks for joining us. See you soon. And just a reminder, you can catch Steve and the rest of the NBC Sports team on the call next week at the Valero Texas Open. Coverage beginning Thursday on Golf Channel. All [Music] right, Rex. Following on the heels of Bud Collie’s inspirational comeback, Gary Woodland posted the best finish of his own comeback in Houston, tying for second alongside Scotty Shuffler. Which story to you is more remarkable because they’re sort of dominated the early spring at this point of the season on the PJ tour. I don’t know if you can really compare because Bud Collie story is really cool. We had a chance to talk to him last week on golf today and I think his attitude coming out of everything that he had been through. There was a horrific car crash in 2018, but there was just a litany of injuries and surgeries that came after that to get back to where he is now, which is having a chance to buy for a PGA tour card, contending at the players championship just a few weeks ago. But for me, it’s it’s Gary Woodland because I think you and I both are probably a little bit more invested in this story just because Gary has been so open about it. I remember going into last year’s Masters and sitting down with Gary at the Players Championship to do a story he was up he we given the golfers association had given him our Ben Hogan award which is essentially the same as the PGA Tours courage award which is what he won this year. Ha PGA Tour you were too late. We beat you to the punch. Um, but I remember sitting down with him on the lawn just sort of having me him walk me through the surgery that he had been through and the baseballsized tumor and how much uncertainty was there and how much anxiety and fear that caused because it was it was pressing on a nerve that controls specifically those emotions. And I remember turning the recorder off and he and I talked a little bit longer just sort of, you know, in a more friendly conversation and he confided that yep, still not there. like we’re still struggling trying to find the right drugs. I’m still struggling. I can’t sleep. I still have fear. I still have anxiety. And I remember seeing him at the Cognizant Classic just a few weeks ago this year. And he was smiling and laughing. And I remember I he was on the pack for the first time. So I wanted to talk to him about why he chose to do that. And the conversation turned to how are you feeling? You know, the human response. And he was so happy that he feels like he’s finally landed in a spot. And it was fascinating to me because the litmus test was he played in Phoenix and we all know what those crowds are like. And he goes, “I I wanted to get extra sleep. I wanted to have as much rest as possible because I knew how much that could stress me. It’s kind of triggering for him.” And he said, “I was fine.” And I think that’s the corner that he was looking to turn physically. And now we’re starting to see the corner when you look at what he’s able to do on the golf course now. I mean, this has been such a pallet cleanser over the past couple years on the PJ tour that have been dominated by greed and and money and and everything else to have these two players who are who are sort of waging their own inspirational comebacks. I mean, Bud Collie in that car accident broke six ribs, collapsed right lung, fractured right leg, didn’t hit a golf ball for three years as he dealt with some of the other complications. You mentioned we had him on golf today. Like you could hear the gratitude in his voice just being able to play at a high level once again. And like it’s great to see as it relates to Gary Wooden, like one of the most universally well-liked players on the PJ tour. Uh, one of the only bright spots of that full swing series was seeing Gary Woodland, you know, inside the MRI room, inside his house with his family as he was was sort of trying to come back from this and and dealing with the fallout and trying to get his medicines right. Like it’s so courageous for him to even try to come back and to do it now on the best tour on the planet and be competitive again. He linked up with Randy Smith, a longtime swing coach of Scotty Sheffler. He has his great his game in a in a great uh spot. I don’t think there’s any reason to think like the next few years uh can still produce some of the best golf’s career. We absolutely love to see it. Second topic, Rex Yueno Shakara playing on a sponsor exemption. Won on the DP World Tour at the Indian Open. You impressed with this young talent? Uh, very impressed and also what it means for golf. I wrote this story at the players championship just a few weeks ago with Lori Caner playing in it. Here is a former LIB player, Lori Caner I’m talking about, as well as Shakara, uh, who had sort of bridged that divide. He was the first li former LI player to play in sort of a non- major, non-csanctioned event at the players championship. And now you have Shakar who has an opportunity to play his way inside the top 10 and earn a PGA Tour card that way. That was certainly Lori Caner’s decision. I mean goal as well to make it over to the PGA Tour. We’re making very very slight incremental tiny little steps. But it’s always encouraging when you actually see it where there is a universe where both of these players could end up playing on the PGA Tour and the path back that we’ve all wanted to see for so long would be right there in front of us. And like he’s obviously a a big time town. He was number two ranked amateur in the world out of Oklahoma State when he decided to jump to Liv. So he has now won on three professional circuits at at a very young age. He won on Liv. He’s won on the Asian Tour and now he’s won on the DP World Tour. He was one of those players who, you know, after getting dropped by his team sort of in the wilderness. He’s, you know, suspended on the PJ tour uh through September of this year uh because the non-sanctioned things like you would think he would be looking for places to play. ends up taking advantage now of a sponsor exemption that comes with a two-year exemption on the DP World Tour, assuming that he takes up membership, which of course he would. And again, he could get his PGA Tour card at the end of this season via the top 10 in the Race Dubai standings. An immensely talented player. Good for him for making it work even under less than ideal circumstances after getting dumped by Liv. Speaking of Liv Rex, it took until April, but Liv is finally back in the US this week at Trump Dale. We’re already seeing some of the propaganda in advance of the big event. Does it have your attention? The event that’ll be conflicting directly with the Valero Texas Open. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a it’s a fun venue. I mean, the tour went there forever. I think it’s always interesting to go back and play the Blue Monster Golf Course after covering events there for so long. This will actually be the first time I think I haven’t covered the live event at DAL. There’s a wedding I have to go to in Savannah because I always felt like it was good to at the very least go out and talk to the players who you haven’t really had a chance to see since last year’s Olympics, I guess, but more so the Open Championship. But yeah, I’m looking forward to it. And I guess the part, and we’ve touched on this before in previous podcasts that this is probably the first time when you’ll be able to make a head-to-head comparison between a PGA Tour event and a live event. And it’ll be fun to see how that lands. Yeah. Like I want to see not just the ratings, but I want to see the I want to see the players. I want to see how John Ram I want to see how Bryce Namba. I want to see how Brooks kept look on a championship test. It’s so hard to see if you’re not if you’re playing some of these confining claustrophobic golf courses that the live guys have been playing on the international sites over the past couple months how that would sort of translate to big boy major championship venues. This uh obviously would do that at Drum Dorado. It’s going to be a great week to have two televisions. We we’ve actually left time for for listener questions. We never do this at the end of the podcast. Very excited. This is from Marcus Finley. Real quick though, Rex, he wants to see LPGA players on each TGL team. You a fan of that? I am a fan of that and I think there’s going to be some version of that going forward. I think we talked a little bit about this after the final last week. Just the idea of everywhere they can go to expand. Obviously, I think they’re going to add two maybe even three teams and there’s the talk of starting a woman’s league, but yes, I think mixed teams would be in the mix as well. Yeah, I don’t know if there’s a huge appetite for it, but I think in the right window and sort of a limited schedule, it could be really fun. And I think it could could boost the profile of, you know, a half dozen dozen players, however they want to end up working it for the TGL schedule. I think players would like be lining up around the SoFi center to get paired with a Nelly Corda or a Charlie Hall, two of the most uh charismatic players on the LPJ with tons and tons of game. I think in the right window, I think that could really be quite successful. How about this Rex from Lori Morgan who is who is dumping on us saying the Golf Channel you and I are okay with throwing clubs but we’re not okay with Ken Morawa skipping the media. Do you care to explain yourself? Uh we we hit it off big last week on as our friend Steve Sans would say instabbook because of something that we said. So my I hope this happens and we go live on Instabbook or we we pop off on Instabbook again. To be clear, we weren’t okay with him blowing off the media, but I think both of you you and I were under the same mindset that no, he does not owe the media anything. I think we’ve been absolutely perfectly clear with that. As far as players getting angry last week, I think the idea that we we talked about was some sort of personality. That’s all we want to see. Now, I do not condone what Adam Hadwin did to that sprinkler head. I think it’s shameful, but uh no, I’m not going to sit here and criticize him for that. Look, the point here is that there’s consequences for actions. That is why you saw all of these PJ Tour players come out on social media to try to explain themselves, to apologize for the fans, to essentially say, “This is not who I am, and this is not who I want to be as a PJ tour player and a role model.” They’re obviously going to receive a fine most likely uh from Ponavidra and the PJ tour. Would they have apologized if the videos did become public? Probably not. But it’s the reputations at stake as it relates to K Morawa. Like it’s it’s a similar thing but also different and that it harms everyone involved if there is not cooperation between PJ tour players and media members. Fans don’t get to know these players better and players run the risk I think of being sort of dehumanized by the public if they’re not a part of the media. That’s all I have to say about that. Stop dumping on us. Although I always check the comments. All right, that is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Show podcast with Rex and Lav. You guys know the drill. NBCS.com/golf for latest news, notes, and updates. Rex and I’ll be back on Wednesday for a preview of the Vero Texas Open and Trump Dell on LIB. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Talk to you guys in a couple of days. [Music]