What’s next for Tiger Woods after yet another surgery? | Golf Channel Podcast

What’s next for Tiger Woods after yet another surgery? | Golf Channel Podcast

Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Channel podcast with Rex and Lav. Well, folks, the sun is shining a little brighter today because I still remain ahead of Rex in both of our fantasy leagues so far. However, he claims that he has cracked the code. Rex, let’s get into this midweek podcast with yet another back surgery for Tiger Woods that was announced over the weekend. We don’t know how, we don’t know when, but Tiger Woods did have another procedure. It was a lumbar disc replacement. I thought it was notable in the Tiger Woods with statement that was released on social media that he did not mention golf. He mentioned his body. He mentioned his health when talking about the need for this surgery. That’s now seven back surgeries, more than a dozen procedures overall. Turns 50 in a couple of months. Where are you in the state of Tiger Woods after going undergoing uh surgery yet again? I think it was either ESPN or maybe Golf Digest. If I get it wrong, I apologize. But they did one of those really cool graphics that showed all of his surgeries all over the all the years. You know, it’s just a a picture of Tiger and it’s got all the footnotes on it and it’s dizzying to sit and look at that. I mean, it’s it’s it’s horrifying. Living breathing operation game. Remember that game? Uh yes. That’s kind of what it feels like. It feels like he’s an entire episode of House simply because of everything that’s had to be taken off of him. Everything’s been cut out of him. everything that’s put into him. I mean, it’s it it’s amazing that he was able to do what he did now in retrospect in his career. When you and I got the email, I believe it was Monday morning that we were going to be on a round table this week. It was Golf Central, which we have to wear suits and ties for, which apparently was news to you. We’ll probably get into that later. But when we got the email and our producer, Arthur Vulpi, who’s always very, very good at sort of laying things out, he didn’t even have tiger surgery in the original email. Now, I’m not saying that to pick on Vulpi. It’s because it’s become such the norm. I think is why I sort of let Bul be off the hook because I mean, are we surprised by this? I mean, it was I think the only reason I was surprised is it was a late Friday night drop and that that seems a little out of character for him these days. He doesn’t seem to care about when he does the news drop. The question we got asked was when when can we expect to see Tiger Woods again? And I I kind of said it half jokingly, but in retrospect, maybe I didn’t. He is he’s closer to the PJ Tour champions than he is the PGA Tour. he turns 50 in December, by all accounts, we probably won’t see him play certainly an official PGA Tour event until next year. And so, are we talking about is he going to play again on the PGA tour? Are we going to or is he going to start his PJ tour champions career? And I’m only saying that partly tongue and cheek just because I think there’s part of him that actually would be interested in playing with his buddies and playing 54 holes and tooling around in a golf cart. I think that might hold some appeal to him much more so than stomping up and down the hills at Augusta National because I did read a couple of stories and by all accounts that this particular surgery has about a 6 to8 week recovery period which keeps let’s say the PNC championship which he has played historically with his son here in Orlando keeps that in play. Maybe even the hero world champ challenge which is his event in the Bahamas that’s 72 holes that’s a little bit different in an animal. It keeps it in play, but I guess my curiosity is I’m less interested in this version of Tiger Woods as a player than I am about everything else. All right. I’m curious, is he going to take on the radicup candidacy in two years when we the US tries to win it back or tries to win it in Ireland or is he going to stick around as the PGA Tour sort of deacto commissioner now that we have a CEO where he’s in these meetings and making all these decisions as the tour moves into a new era? What is he going to be? Is he going to be that elder statesman that Jack Nicholas took over, that Arnold Palmer took over later in their careers, or is he really going to try to play again? I don’t see how that happens, but I guess it’s a possibility. Yeah. As it relates to the injury time frame, I I’m with you. I saw six to eight weeks. I also saw 3 to 6 months, which would obviously not include the PNC championship, which is in in mid December. Um, that’s also sort of like an able-bodied man with those with those projections and not someone with Tiger’s litany of surgical procedures that he now had. Keep in mind he didn’t play a tournament Rex in in 2025 because of a completely separate issue with blowing out his Achilles. I was on the live from desk at the players championship when we got that dropped. We we all assumed we all thought that boy maybe even Tiger was going to be playing in the players championship instead as that procedure and was out for the year. Now we sat here in early October said okay maybe we see Tiger at the PMC Championship. TGL has already gone out of its way to proclaim I believe it’s March 1st is the date for the Tiger Rory uh TGL match. Um so so there were clearly signs that he was at least ramping up for competition. We don’t know how or why this latest issue popped up. Was he training for a comeback? Was was he tying his shoes and his and his back went out and all of a sudden he has the collap disc that needs to be repaired? We we we don’t know as it relates to like are we when are we going to see him again and is it going to be on the senior tour? I have a hard time imagining that he would not want to sort of at least try to get ready for the Masters. If it’s clear that he only has a finite number of swings left in his brittle body, why would you quote unquote waste them on the over 50 circuit? Why not try and catch lightning in a bottle at the Masters? Why not try and catch lightning in a bottle at the Open Championship? St. Andrews is in 2027. Pebble Beach is in 2027. I I still think there are enough um carrots out there dangling for him to to not want to quote unquote waste them on championships, on tournaments, on reps that are not going to do anything legacywise. Like if if you’re going to play any tournament at all in 2026, it shouldn’t be the US Senior Open. It should be the Masters. It should be the Open. You’re making this into a zero- sum game, and I don’t think that’s the conversation that we should be having. Of course, the Masters is marked on his calendar as what he wants to ramp up and get ready for. That’s always been the case and even before he has gone through this most recent spite of injuries and surgeries and all the recoveries that he’s gone through. I would say, and again, this is slightly tongue and cheek that the PJ tour champions is on the table simply because I think he would enjoy it. He has voiced this before. If you would have asked me 15 years ago, Tiger Woods was never going to play on the senior circuit. Just wasn’t in the cards. He had no interest for all the reasons you just pointed out. It’s more about legacy for him than it is anything else. I think he’s reached a point in his life and we’ve seen it a lot lately when it comes to Tiger Woods that he just kind of misses being out there. He misses being in the locker room. He misses being on the range. He misses I don’t think he’d like time for 30th though at a at the at the Boeing Classic. I wouldn’t anticipate that would last very long and I wouldn’t anticipate the you know I would think it would be a very extremely limited schedule that he would play. maybe two or three of their majors and maybe one or two others. He might play in Stricker’s event. He might play in Furick’s event. Like I think there might be just some friendship things going on there. But no, you’re right. Of course, it’s the Masters. And then beyond that, can he somehow get ready for the rest of the season’s major championships? I think the point of the recovery though, and you’re right, I read kind of a couple of different things. And according to one trainer that I talked to, 6 to 8 weeks seems to be the right window, which would put that PNC, that hero into play. it would be pushing it. And I don’t think approaching 50 years old, someone who’s gone through that many surgeries would want to push it. Probably the bigger thing that someone pointed out to me was it will have been more than eight months since he had that Achilles repair. And that’s probably the bigger issue right now when it comes to the golf swing. It’s dire out there, man. Like Tiger Tiger didn’t didn’t play at all in 2025. You look at what he did in 2024. He missed the cut uh in three majors. He was last among those who made the cut at the Masters. That’s it tournament-wise over the past two years. That was before the Achilles. That was before another back issue. You know how the kinetic chain works. We’ve talked about this repeatedly. Like it’s it’s only going to get worse. Long-term concerns for sure with a fused back with a fused ankle as well. I’m I’m with you. I I think, you know, competitive wise, anything from here on out would be a bonus. I’m very intrigued to see if he sort of reemerges in a different way in a leadership role whether it be as captain of team USA has any done that though as a defective I’m saying being more front and center we have not heard anything other since Brian Rollup announced the competition committee looking into the competitive model for the PG tour in the future that which Tiger Woods is heading would certainly love to hear Tiger Woods outline his vision for what the PJ tour competitive model should be. That’s that’s sort of what I’m talking about, just being a little bit more front-facing in those potential roles. And obviously, the Roder Cup captaincy looms largest among those. All right, we mentioned the uh Rory Tiger TGL match. We do know at least at least one of those guys is teeing it up this week. That’s Rory Mroy who’s playing in the India Championship. Very interesting golf course at Delhi Golf Club. Roy was asked, you know, how many drivers does he think he’s going to hit this week? And if you have not seen the the images of this golf course, it is it is claustrophobic to say the least. He said he does not think he’s going to be hitting a driver until he plays in Abu Dhabi in a couple weeks the DP World Tour. Otherwise, he in other words, he’s keeping it in the bag. Just an insanely tight, narrow golf course with very little reward for pushing it down further. Nonetheless, it should be an interesting watch to see how Rory does in a tournament. Obviously, he is playing for the very first time. When Roy met with reporters on Wednesday, he mentioned that he wants and he foresees his schedule, Rex, to be a little bit more international in nature moving forward. He’s 36 years old. He’s been a pro for nearly uh two decades at this point. You think the PG tour should be worried that we’re going to continue to see less and less of Roy Mackroy, who is arguably the biggest star in the world right now? I think the PGA Tour should be less worried in what they might when we might see Roy Moy again and more concerned or more focused on when we do see him when the P when he does show up at the PGA Tour to make sure it’s the best events against the best fields. And that’s the idea of I think what Brian Rolup and you mentioned the competition committee that’s the focus of all this and less is going to be more. I don’t think we need to read too much into the tea leaves on that one. So create a schedule that compels Rory and the other top players to play more often or if not more often and make sure when they do show up that these are the best events in the best markets during the best times of the year. I think that’s the challenge for the PGA Tour. did enjoy the conversation we had on the round table again on Golf Central because you needed to wear a suit and tie. The idea that coming out of the Masters and you and I spoke endlessly about this about where does he find motivation now once you reach the top of the mountain and he was really clear about yes this has been what I have been fixated on for the better part of a decade. This is where I wanted my career to land. If you wanted to draw an X on the map, it was going to be that spot at Augusta on that Sunday, walking up that hill to win his first green jacket and complete the career grand slam. Where do you go from here? It was a logical question. I think we’re not the only ones who were asking. I think Roy was asking himself. We have seen now. We have a body of work that Ryder Cup still means the world to him. We saw how he performed. We saw the emotion. We saw everything he had to endure at Beth Paige Black. I think we’re going to continue to see it throughout the remainder of this year. winning that money title, the points title on the DP World Tour is important to him. And so he still has things that motivate him. But I think you’re right. I think the things that are probably going to motivate him are not the things right now that the PGA Tour is fixated on. But I think that’s a that’s a great point where if your biggest star, and look, Rory is not Scotty. Scotty has made it abundantly clear that he prefers what’s happening right now on the PG tour schedule, which is big money events against the very best fields located almost exclusively in the United States. He’s starting a young family and that’s what he prefers at the moment. Rory in a different stage of his career, in a different stage of his life, I guess you could say, finds it more appealing to go to places and finds it more exciting to go to places that he had not previously been. He’s sort of paring what Roger Federer had told him a couple of years ago where when Roger was sort of in the late career stages, he really uh got a lot of enjoyment and personal satisfaction of going and playing in Cincinnati or going and playing in Turkey, some tournament he had not played previously. That at that point of his career when he had done it for two decades was something new, was something exciting. It was something that could get his competitive juices going. Rory Mroy clear very clearly finds himself at a similar crossroads at this point. Is he going to find personal satisfaction teeing it up at the truest championship? Probably not. Is he going to find personal satisfaction teeing it up at the RBC Heritage? Clearly not. But if he plays in India, new country, he experiences new things. If he goes to Australia at the end of this year, new country, experiences new things. that is all very appealing to him. I I want to be very clear with this like Royy’s not doing this out of the the kindness of his heart that he’s trying to spread the gospel of a game. He is he is a businessman. He is being paid uh handsomely to be playing this week at the India Championship just as Brian Harmon has gotten himself out of hunting season to play in India just as just as Ben Griffin has left. He’s got a big game on Saturday in Indian. He certainly does. I’m not sure what the time difference would be, but it’s going to be very difficult for him to watch in the middle of the night. uh in India. But I digress. And so Rory among others are are are at least sort of projecting an attitude of inclusion that they they’re at least open to this idea. Rex, if the Pitor does become more international, more global, more worldwide in nature that they would be up for it. Could it be at the expense of a of a Scotty Sheffller who maybe wouldn’t make three to four trips across the pond per year? That’s I think that’s certainly possible. But I but I do think if the money is right and the competition is right, if the golf course is right, if they can put on a a a big tournament in nature, that would sort of be equivalent to a signature event. I really do think that these top players have have signaled that they would be up for that. I think so, too. And Roy has talked about the idea just not and and I do like the concept of let me go to places that I’ve never been before. This kind of hearkens to another another generation to the Gary players of that generation who wanted their games to travel who wanted to take the game to parts of the globe that probably wouldn’t have seen the world’s top players. Roy has also been really open about wanting to win national championships when he won the Canadian Open. That was a big deal to him. That was a milestone. When he won the Scottish Open, that was a big deal to him. And I think when you look, this is a broader PGA tour conversation that the signature events that the tour is locked into right now may not be the way to go on that future. If you really want to make this a global schedule with all of the best players going to the best markets, it’s going to have to include at least a handful of those national opens, whether that be the Scottish or the Canadian or whatever the case may be. Certainly the Australian would factor into that as well. It remains to be seen because I think there’s probably more Scotty Shefflers on the PGA tour than there are Rory Maroys, at least right now. Now, the tour could probably change that narrative based on how you wanted to create the schedule and what events you deemed to be important, but right now I think the players would be a little reluctant, but if you did it right, you could probably pull it off. Yeah. Yeah. And if I think when you look at sort of the the fall schedule and what the PJ tour is doing with this essentially this elongated Q school to either lock up the 51 through 60 and the signature events or the the top 100 to be fully exempt or uh the top 101 to 125 for conditional status like that’s sort of its its own obstacle and I would almost put that as like the corn ferry tour plus. What I still think there’s with the untapped potential is is the fall for the bigname PG tour players and potentially incorporating more with the DP World Tour. Like there’s a host of tournaments that have gotten really good fields and obviously they’re some of those are benefited and boosted by appearance fees, but I mean boy the the Spanish Open, um the Irish Open, BMW PGA, Dunhill Links, this week in India, you still have Abu Dhabi and Dubai out on the horizon, Australia. There are a host of tournaments, Rex, that are very appealing to top players in that window from September through December, which the PJ Tour, I think rightly has said that they do not want to compete head-to-head with the NFL in college football. I think that is very smart. However, if you sort of zoom out and if you go international, if you go worldwide, if you go global in nature, technically you wouldn’t be competing with the NFL if those were big money events that are incorporated into the PGA Tour schedule. Those tournaments are all ending right around 1:00 Eastern time, right when the NFL slate is kicking off. Are viewership numbers going to be measure it with what you would see on a Sunday in July? No, you’re you’re not going to get those numbers, but you can tap into other regions. You can tap into other markets. You can still uh appease sponsors who want to be a part of the PJ tour umbrella. I really do think if the PG tour and Brian Rollup determines that January through August can be elongated throughout the calendar year once again, I think the only option is to go global in the fall because you again you’re not directly competing against the NFL and the college football behemoth. you’re actually preempting it, which I think could be actually be a pretty good selling point. That uh not entirely true. And I’m a huge fan of the NFL Sunday game. Certainly, your Jaguars seem to spend more time in London than they do in Jacksonville at your beloved stadium. However, I would argue that yes, there are plenty of opportunities in the fall for the tour to cross-pollinate with the DP World Tour, the strategic partner, and we’re seeing it. I mean, there’s a back there’s there’s a program now called the back nine, which essentially allows the top PGA Tour players entry into these final nine events on the DP World Tour. And we’re seeing sort of sprinklings of it. I think we’ll see probably more of it as they get closer to their playoffs in the Middle East. However, this cannot come in addition to whatever the schedule is going to be, I guess, would be my argument. If it’s going to be a 25 event schedule, it probably needs to include whatever these events are as well. Sure. I you’re absolutely right that there’s a handful of them that just would fit in perfectly whether if you wanted to make the Dunnh Hill or the BMW PGA or any of these other big events that they have on the European tour, but it’s not going to be in addition to because as we see right now, we had a handful. Xander Schoffley played last week in Japan. My guess is we don’t see Xander again, at least until the Hero World Challenge in December. These players want to be done. They’re tired. They played in Napa, the top players did. They played in Napa to get ready for the Ryder Cup. Then you had the RDER Cup. Scotty Sheffller has no interest in coming out of that cave, at least until we get to December. And most top players probably feel the same way. But they’re tired because they started on January 1. Yes. if all of a seeds if all of a sudden the season is delayed where again you’re not competing directly against football because the West Coast events on the PJ tour are competing against that be like wild card weekend divisional card divisional weekend conference championship weekend as you get through the end of January like you’re still competing head-to-head if all of a sudden you’re delaying the start of the PG tour schedule by a month maybe a month and a half all of a sudden I think there’s a little bit more uh room to breathe and maybe you don’t have quite the fatigue that you see from a lot of the players right now which I think is an accurate point like Scotty Shuffler’s not getting off the couch until he defends his title once again at the hero challenge. I just think it’s an interesting exercise and something very interesting to think about. I do think there’s an appetite for some of them maybe not all of them but there’s so many great tournaments that are not just um relegated to the PJ tour. I think that’s two observation and a question real quick. First, do your uh seats include a seat at Wimbley Stadium when the Jaguars are overseas and is it for both of you or does it include CAM seats as well? We have access we have access to purchase those seats. Thank you for asking with the child ticket. Sure. And then that just a comment I would argue and I’m hearing from multiple sources that the Sentry probably isn’t going to be played next year. That you’re probably going to start the year. I think officials are starting to tell players, plan on starting your year if you want to at the Sony Open, which means that they either couldn’t find a home or didn’t have a lot of motivation to find a home for the century. Of course, that golf course is endured drought and it simply wasn’t playable. It could be a way to set a standard to show players that maybe it’s better if we don’t start at least those signature events season until maybe we get to Pebble Beach or LA. Would be an interesting field if that were the case. Jason, thank you for dropping that news nugget at the 22-minute mark of this midweek pod of this midweek podcast going all the way out to Hawaii to potentially miss the cut. Uh, that’s going to be a very hard sell for players, but obviously if there’s a tournament, it will come. Real quick, Xander Schoffé ended what was a largely disappointed 2025 season with a win at Japan at the Bay Current, edging out uh Max Grazerman, who once again was a runnerup on the PJ tour. I continue to be impressed with his resilience and how he plays in those final groups. It’s not like he’s, you know, squandering his opportunities. He’s he’s playing well and more often than not is getting beat. some serious Cameron Young vibes the way Max Gracerman is going about his business in the final rounds of these close calls on the PGA tour. What do you think, Rex, as sort of zoom out on Xand or 2025 at large and sort of where he is at the moment? You think this year was an aberration? Is there anything sort of troubling about the way that he plays and thinking that he can back uh to his, you know, he’s technically number three in the official World Golf rank? Do you think he can actually play up to that standard again? Is there anything I could possibly say that you wouldn’t make him your player of the year candidate going into next season? Is there is there any words that could come out of my mouth that would persuade you not to do it again? If you if you broke if you broke news that that that Scotty Shuffler had had injured his other hand in in a in a in a in a in a Halloween mishap. If he was carving a pumpkin and and suffered an injury that was going to set him back, yes, I would be back on the train that Shawplay is going to be the player of the year in 2026. I I think you and I both agreed when we talked about this on Golf Central this week, the idea that there are signs towards the end of the season. And if you really want to look at Xander season as a case study, this is what injury this is how injury affects a top player in the game. Not necessarily the injury in and of itself because my guess is by the time he got to the US Open, certainly by the time he got to the open championship, the injury itself had subsided. That you’re not playing with pain. You’re not playing with discomfort anymore. This is all about how you prepare for a season, the things you do to make sure you can play your best at these incremental moments in the season. All the things that Scotty Shuffler does so well. When you look at Xander’s year and you zoom out to 30,000 ft, started the season with an injury. It’s a rib injury. Those things are nagging. You never really feel right for quite a while. And you see how it set him back, not just with his swing. It was really his putty towards the end of the year that was such an issue. And you could also see when he kind of started to turn the corner. And I would argue when going into the playoffs, he didn’t do a whole lot. But you look at what he did with top 10 finishes at the Scottish Open and the Open Championship. I would argue he was one of the bright spots, few bright spots for the US team. Beth Page, well, he was one of three players with a winning record. I think JJ Spawn certainly had a good week. You would look at at what he was able to do. I I think the things that we saw out of Xander that towards the end of this year, look at what he did in Japan with that win. You’re right. It was it was a gutsy win against Max. All of those things signal that this was very much an outlier. This was a one-off for Xander Schoffley. Not sure I’m going to pick him to be my player of the year going into next year. But I think he’s he’s right now the world’s third best player according to the World Golf Ranking. That seems about right based on what he’s accomplished in his career and the potential that he still has. I mean, he’s just such a talented player. He’s such a complete player. He’s such an all-around player that it’s easy to dismiss 2025 as an outlier. Like you look at what he did in 2024, winning a pair of major championships. He was top 45, Rex, in every major statistical statistical category. Even Sky Sheffield, the player of the year, was not that. Like I I think he’s he’s just such a high class player that when you look at his best finishes in 2025, I’m talking about Xander Schoffley. like they came in the Masters, they came in the open championship, the best of the best, the most grueling test, the most um you know taxing on your body, the most taxing on your mind, the most taxing on your swing, and he held up and performed the best. He’s just such a high class player that I think with now this essentially this three-month reset, you know, make sure his swing uh is is is on track with Chris Como, make sure his putting, which was I think 130th on the PJ tour this year. That is an outlier. That is an anomaly from what he typically does uh week in and week out on the PJ tour. make sure his body, remember, it was his body that he admittedly got a little bit lazy with during the off season, which is what was the root of the issue with the ribs, sort of staying on top of his body now that he is in his age 32 season. I think all of that is going to be very very interesting. you you do bring up a a point uh too Rex that I that I wanted to get into and I think I have like football brain rot where you know I play a lot of fantasy football and I’ve got a lot of guys on my team and if they suffer an injury right let’s say they have a a sprained knee or a sprained foot or they have like a AC joint with their shoulder and they they miss two or three weeks and then they come back and it’s just sort of this expectation that how you were playing going into that injury At least in football, you typically can carry that out. You come through the injury fine and you get back to how you were in golf. I think Xander Schoffley’s injury this season was a a reminder that golf swings are like living, breathing organisms. They’re always evolving. They’re always changing. Just cuz Xander Schoffé was playing great heading into the injury doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to play great coming out of it. Golf swings are so much more technical. They’re so much more precise. They’re so much more reliant on timing, similar to a baseball swing, obviously, than what a football player or a basketball player who’s just getting on back on the hard word or getting in between the white lines and going out and performing his craft. We saw it with Scotty Sheffller who took him a while to get going. We saw it with Xander Schoffé. It took him a while to get going. We’ve seen it in the past with Roy Moy when he had that back slash rib issue pop up. It took him a while to get going and to get settled. And so I think it was a good reminder, at least for me personally, like giving these guys grace post injury. It it just it just takes a little bit of time and you either have to get really lucky or you have to just be insanely good to pick up right where you left off and hit the ground running post injury. I think this year Xander 2025 is a good reminder of that. And I keep every time we have a conversation like this, I always go back to Harris English who had hip surgery and was able to rebound not just in a way that was impressive. He came out of the hip surgery and I think you and I both would agree he’s a much better player now than he was before those surgeries and you get an idea that’s a year and a half removed a year and a half removed from that procedure like it took him a long time. You talked to Justin Parsons his swing coach you talked to Randy Myers all of the people in Harris’s camp talk about how hard he had to work to come back from that surgery but just not come back. He’s a better player now than he was before. That’s kind of that’s I would argue that’s the outlier in this conversation because very rarely do players have the ability to do that. Yeah. Billy Billy Horchel is on is on my son’s uh uh baseball sling baseball team. He is just coming off hip surgery. He just returned to competition at the Dunnh Hill and played last week in Japan. He’s going to be playing next week as well uh in Utah. And I asked him how his body feels. Body feels great. How’s the swing feel? Swing does not feel how it did. It is. It is brand new. Same body, same swing. It might look very similar on camera, but the motions, the feels, the technique are all just a little bit different. I think that was a good reminder of that this year. Actually, we’re supposed to keep this at 20 minutes, but although I do think the fans actually enjoy these weekly recaps that we give them. We haven’t done this in a while. Anything you’ve been putting on the grill that you’re particularly proud of? Uh, well, having been home last week for the first time in quite a while, I had a lot on the grill to be honest with you. So, I smoked a pork butt on Saturday because that’s the best way to spend Saturday on my back porch watching football and smoking a pork butt. And then next week, I think I think I’ve finally been talked into trying to do a brisket. My middle son Trevor, as we referenced, daunting a daunting task. I don’t think he understands that a pork butt is four or five hours of labor on the back porch. That’s a labor of love. I can sit and watch football and drink a couple beers. I mean, a brisket is is like a full-time job. It feels like uh it is a full-time job. You also don’t have a pellet grill despite my insistence that you should get one because you could do it overnight and obviously cut I don’t know what 10 hours 9 10 hours off that cook by not even paying attention to it. Uh yes, I wish you good luck. The trim for a brisket uh is incredibly important. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before, but I’m a Jags season ticket holder. And one thing that we are doing this year that is different besides getting child tickets, shout out to Mike in the Jags ticket department for the heads up on that one, is we do these um these tailored tailgate spreads where whoever the Jags opponents are, we try and you know pay pay homage, pay pay tribute to that team’s location. So, for instance, the Jags played Carolina Panthers in week one. Typically, in standard fashion, we did Carolina barbecue. Last week, Seattle Seahawks came to town. We didn’t want to have cod. We didn’t have salmon. That’d be that’d be lame. We could have done some fish tips. A couple friends did bring some fish tips. But what we did, Rex, was a seafood boil. Yes, folks. This was just my way of getting into the seafood boil that I did. Did I Did I color outside the lines by making this a Cajun flavored seafood bowl? Certainly. Yes. As someone that lives in Seattle does need to have to have some flavor, but it’s seafood. The whole point, Rex, is that it’s seafood that we are tailoring for these folks. Yes. Yes. Look at that. Look at that wonderful spread. Crab legs. Looks delicious. corn, potatoes, shrimp, veggies. There’s my six-year-old son who again, shout out Mike. Now it comes to the games. Was loving it. Absolutely loves crab legs. We had a great time. I love tailgating, Rex. I don’t know about you. I know UCF is pitiful. It’s down bad. you’re suffering from another case of frostbite. But to me, tailgating, getting ready for the tailgate, thinking about the tailgate, preparing for the tailgate, cooking at the tailgate, like to me, that’s almost as much fun as the actual game themselves. Uh there is something to be said for it. And I think UCF is a very underrated school to go watch a football game now. The stadium, the bounce house is on campus. The quad is full. It’s always fun. It’s a lively atmosphere. It’s not Athens. I will give you that. Apparently, it’s not. What’s the name of the stadium that’s not in London? That’s the home stadium for for your team. We uh No, the one that’s not in London. So, something Bank Stadium. Whatever. Whatever name ever Bank. Yeah, that’s it. Uh it looked like it’s a good time. So, but no, I don’t think it it was an unnecessary shot from UCF. Good luck to UCF this week. Whatever pitiful psy they’re playing this week, obviously Georgia has Old Miss. My mood in next week’s podcast will be determined by the outcome of that game. All right, hope you guys enjoyed this edition of the Golf Show podcast with Rex and Lab. You guys know the drill. In the meantime, mcports.com/golf aka the soontobe relaunched golf channel.com. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. We’ll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks.

In this week’s edition, the guys discuss the news that Tiger Woods has undergone a seventh back surgery, look at Rory McIlroy’s first appearance in India and what it could mean for a global schedule, and debate Xander Schauffele’s 2026 prospects after a slump-busting win. #golf #golfchannel #tigerwoods

Chapters:
(00:00): What to make of Tiger Woods’ seventh back surgery
(09:30): Rory McIlroy is teeing it up this week in India – and what it might signal for his schedule going forward
(14:30): There’s a window of opportunity for the Tour to dabble internationally in the fall
(22:30): Xander Schauffele wins in Japan. Was his 2025 just an injury-plagued aberration?
(30:00): It’s tailgate SZN

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What’s next for Tiger Woods after yet another surgery? | Golf Channel Podcast
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