On today’s show, Patrick Cantlay pulls out of the John Deere Classic, and The Open final qualifying day is wrapping up overseas.
[Music] everybody Welcome to two the 1 it’s July the 2nd 2024 I’m Ryan balie just got into the studio for stream your so we tried doing uh a a live but scheduled show for the first time ever and I made it with about 45 seconds a spare so congrats to me on not being a total to make the the stream but thank you for being here appreciate it whether you’re watching live or you are catching us after the fact either way we are happy to have you here uh we’ve got plenty to talk about today we have the Open Championship qualifying today and that final qualifying is still ongoing as we speak as I’m plugging the battery back into my computer so this doesn’t go out in the middle of it and we have four sites as usual if you are not familiar with open qualifying there are four sites in open qualifying and those have historically been pretty similar they’ve they’ve typically kind of stuck around the same four places but it’s changed a little bit this year so Royal snc ports is one of them then the second one is Burnham and Barrow the third one is dun Donald lyns shout out to Dundonald lyns I know some great folks there and then at West lankashire that is the other one I know I’m going to put you that I I’m not very good at pronouncing things in the proper British English so sorry for for totally butchering that but they’re not quite done at each site yet so they’re still wrapping this up but top four to each site move on that means 16 spots are available through this 36 hole process which is a lot different than the US Open where they’ve it used to be closer to half the field got into the US Open this way you know through a 36 hole final day of qualifying and there obviously more of them right but that has been Whitted down now toward like the 40s mid-40s in terms of qualifying numbers the RNA has kind of been like this for a number of years now I at least as long as I can remember following qualifying and that is you had four slots at four spots you had 16 players in the field and it was interesting because I was watching this is how geeky I am about golf I was watching the 2004 John Deere Classic on CBS Sports Network today because channels like that when they don’t have live stuff they just show old stuff which is totally fine but they were showing a marathon of John Deere Classics like the classic John Deere Classics so 2004 was the year mark hensby won Mark hensby had won uh and previously in his early professional golf career lived out of his car like didn’t even have a permanent house like would live out of his car and he winds up beating this British guy John Morgan who wears a backwards hat which is the last thing I think of when I think 2000 early 2000s British people but it was quite electrifying nevertheless so they’re talking about John E Morgan wanting to win the John Deer classic because he would then qualify for the Open Championship and if you win you were in or if you were the next highest you know if you didn’t win but you were the next highest finisher that wasn’t qualified you got in so this is like preop qualifying series days and John Morgan winds up losing in a playoff to to mark hensby but they mentioned in The Telecast and tarq ear days too and Steve Melnick and Ian Baker Finch they’re calling this on ABC back in the day or ESPN and they talk about John E Morgan trying to qualify for the open at Congressional which is 25 minutes with traffic from my house I don’t even really remember anything like that that they had like an American qualifier or series of American Qualifiers so now you know you’ve got the open qualifying series series of worldwide tournaments with one two three four slots depending on the tournament and they F at the field that way so they’ve kind of taken away from the final qualifying to a degree to give to that open qualifying series makes it more of a global tournament I get it so anyway we’re wrapping up the qualifying here all the spots are not accounted for at this point at West Lancashire you have Daniel Brown who’s a DP World Tour regular who’s in at 5 under total along with Masahiro camura and Matthew daberry who’s an amateur playing out of Royal Liverpool he has a couple holes left obviously you’re playing for four spots there are there’s one golfer on the course Sam horfield who’s playing on the the live golf tour live golf league he has several holes left he’s at four under Ben Schmidt is at four under and already in the clubhouse so there could be a playoff for that and then Sergio Garcia is a three under total he got put his group got put on the clock earlier he had a very vocal disagreement with the RNA officials or the rules officials who were overseeing this tournament because they didn’t account for people showing up to watch so Garcia was upset that a lot of people had to be moved around to account for them actually being there and they’re not being ropes to really hold them back and that they got put on the clock for that but a lot of people pulling for him at this qualifying site he’s got one hole left he’s got at a minimum to get to minus four to give himself a chance at a playoff because there there’s pretty much no chance there’s not going to be at least four players at minus four or better so that’s one site and I will say you know a number of live golf players are competing in this in this site you got horsefield you got Garcia You’ got Carlos Ortiz who is playing pretty well he has to fr the last couple holes to get in it’s really cool to see who shows up to each of these sites and each of these things I you got Sergio Garcia You’ve Got Justin Rose over dun Donald lyns they’re very they’re much much closer to the end and it’s a little bit of a different site you’ve got Sam hsby who plays out of the Hedge and Golf Center who’s at eight under total he’s in unh doggo adalo is minus five he’s in the clubhouse Liam Nolan who’s an Amer out of gallway he is five under with a couple holes to go and then you got some guys at minus four who are in the clubhouse who are probably looking at a playoff situation Jack McDonald Tim Ving who is playing on the corn fairy tour already has his PJ tour card for next season qualified for the US Open trying to qualify for this and then you got Daniel young who is at Kings Barnes he’s still got several holes to go he is a minus four looking like a playoff over there then then over at Burnham and Barrow again not particularly familiar with this place but they are not nearly as far along as everyone else is or at least the scoring isn’t you have Dominick Clemens who’s an Amer English Amer he has a couple holes left to go he’s at minus n almost certainly gonna make it Justin Rose is trying to qualify today his exemptions are not available to him he’s not in the top 50 in the world he didn’t do well in the DP World Tour the FedEx Cup the exemption from winning the US Open for five years that’s long gone so he’s got to qualify it props to him he’s he’s going to get in I mean barring a catastrophe here he’s going to get in he’s at minus eight Charles Lind has what five holes left to go and then you’ve got Justin Walters who’s a South African who’s played a lot of DP World Tour golf a lot of PGA Tour golf uh he is six under but a long way to go honbon leiri and a aner are at minus five those are live guys uh they’ve been trying to qualify leir’s in the house aan is almost in the house that may get him to a playoff so so you got that site and then finally Royal SN ports is like the one i’ I’ve known forever they still have uh pretty much everyone that is in contention is in the the latter stages of the back nine Matthew Southgate is minus four leads Elvis Smiley the Aussie is minus three Jamie Rutherford’s minus three uh haime montoo Fernandez is an Amer he is minus two Brandon Grace and this is funny to me because they have an attachment Club thing that they put on here this is a very much European thing they don’t have this in American American leaderboard it’s like what club do you play for Brandon Grace’s Club is Stinger which I love love the attachment to it Min is two he still got some some spots left or some holes left yino chakara though interestingly enough his attachment is unattached he does not say the club he plays for he doesn’t say Fireballs none of those things I think that’s kind of interesting so there’s your open qualifying update with a little bit left to go it’s I love this about the opens right I I like it a little bit more about the US Open because you tend to get I don’t know you tend to get stories that you can identify with maybe a little bit differently because there are so many sites and you kind of have to be a little strategic about it and there are sites where and you know doing 13 of them and several of them internationally but 10 in North America there are ones that players pick because of convenience because you know the PJ tours in Columbus so they’re gonna go play Columbus or do you want to go try to play in a smaller field for fewer spots to go play in Springfield and maybe try to make that work that’s always interesting psychology then the pros that show up around here in Rockville with uh Woodmont and then you’ve got out west you’ve got qualifiers that there there really aren’t a whole lot of pros at but they have some spots and they have smaller Fields that’s always interest you don’t have that with this you have hey here these are the four spots pick one and see what you get and very much weather dependent you you saw the scoring being quite different between spots so that’s interesting uh we’ll we’ll see what the end result of that is and and maybe talk about that tomorrow so here’s 10 minutes about open qualifying now John Deere classic is this week as I mentioned I was devouring the 2004 John Deere classic highlights movie on CVS Sports Network today which I can’t believe that’s a sentence I said aloud but I did and then they were showing the 2013 one which was Jordan spe winning for for the first time in that event and that being a spectacular finish I didn’t that’s just finished like as we’re talking about this didn’t watch that all the way through but this tournament has been around a long time the Quad City’s tournament has been around 50 years basically I mean it is a long time for tour I mean it’s more than 50 years now long time running tournament John Deere has been around forever as a title sponsor of this tournament and there’s kind of been some worry that maybe John Deere won’t be around much longer even though they’ve signed an extension way into the future which I think a lot of people probably don’t know but that extension sort of flies in the face of and doesn’t especially mean anything but sort of flies in the face of massive job cuts at John Deere as they move their production and move some facilities South of the Border and Manufacturing out of the United States that’s something that isn’t a good headline for a company that’s doning a ton of money over the years for this tournament or as a result of this tournament to local communities still it’s really well supported there are great crowds every year deer Run’s not the best course there’s ever been but it’s c not the worst it’s also publicly accessible by the way so if you do want to play a PGA tour course get out to Silvis Illinois and go play it I think you’ll find it quite interesting um really well-run tournament people like it and it’s a cool week to have an opportunity to gain FedEx Cup points make some good money to get yourself into the open those types of things Patrick Klay was going to be the headliner for the field this week he had committed to the tournament susp suspiciously early like what why are you saying you’re going to play this like what what is going on here is this your one and four kind of thing are you is this the tournament you’re adding this year are you trying to assure yourself of more points to make sure you’re in the top 50 I don’t know but he had committed to the tournament at the deadline then withdrew that was announced yesterday there wasn’t originally a reason given kentley comes out the evening and says he hurt himself while training for the tournament and he you know he’s sorry thanks to the quet cities people for having me blah blah blah blah blah and uh you know I’m not going to question a guy’s health or choices you know that that’s up to you you make your choices but also at the same time unless it’s some kind of catastrophic problem a lot of you you you and me I mean you and we have done things on the golf course or hurt ourselves playing golf or the night before playing golf done stupid stuff and then gutted it out the next day and whether that was we drank too much we hurt our back something else stupid whatever it was and we found found a way to play and a lot of people probably came to this tournament wanting or are coming to this tournament originally wanting to see Patrick Klay because it’s probably one of the few chances they’ll get to see him in person without having to travel way out of the way to do it and now that he’s not getting to play I think that’s a real bummer I it be great if he just showed up and whacked the ball around in a pro amp and a cart I don’t know it just feels kind of weird and wrong be like hey here’s our headliner for the week and then he goes ah hurt self can’t play you know don’t feel so good and he may legitimately have an injury I’m not it just doesn’t feel right I I don’t know there’s got to be some way to kind of have him there and shake hands and kiss babies even though he is not that kind of politically Savvy type guy you know wins over fans that way wins over people by how he plays golf not with necessarily his personality still feels kind of weird and then you had Cam Davis who won last week he pulled out Taylor Montgomery pulled out there was one other person I forget the moment pulled out so all of a sudden you have you still have seven of the world top 50 competing you don’t have last week’s winner you do have one of last week’s Runners up in Aaron Ry competing you got Davis Thompson in there played pretty well and he’s been playing pretty well the last couple times out in June so what what do you make of this week I mean it is an it is basically on an island there is no LPGA event there’s no Champions Tour event uh you got the cor fairy tour to think about but that doesn’t really get televised and then you’ve got the BMW International open on the other side of the pond and it’s getting close to the point where that maybe is the better event of the week uh over in Munich Germany if You’ never been I cannot recommend going to Munich enough especially if you go to October Fest went there last fall is kind of a stop over from the solheim cup down up then down to the Ryder Cup cannot recommend it enough Munich was a really cool City even without that but uh highly recommend and that golf tournament is also another kind of really well supported tournament because of the connection to BMW and having just kind of that local support bringing in BMW Ambassador types and this is a homecoming for Marty kimer it’s also the DP World Tour goodbye for burnhard longer German hero obviously multitime major winner bazillion time senior major winner and this is his last DP world tour start this week he’s calling it quits after this year and he is said he not had that pickle ball injury blowing out as Achilles he would have had his last Masters that’s that’s next year now so have one last Masters but this is kind of this is his farewell tour so he’s doing one last DP world tour start in his home country I think that’s cool you’ve got some obviously you’ve got your DP World Tour regulars your burn febers your Alex Fitzpatrick you know those kinds of guys Danny Willet Ryan Fox is playing this week you’ve got Tristan Lawrence who’s who’s the defending champion and then you’ve got some live guys playing you got Patrick Reed who I didn’t even know was playing the Italian Open last week until I looked at the final leaderboard you’ve got Martin kimer obviously um I think Lou haas’s in this if I remember right there’s one other live guy that I forget at the moment but you’ve got a you know a mild field of Live players because they don’t have a tournament either their next one is I believe next week for the event that they have at at valderama in Spain so they’ve that’s their precursor to the Open Championship which feels kind of weird as a setup for the open going to play one of the most claustrophobic golf courses in the world as opposed to link style golf course but that’s the way the schedule works so they’re trying to play this week just to maybe get some points maybe get a little payoff whatever that is to play and for kimer obviously it’s a National homecoming that that’s a a nice thing for him and there’s cleaks mum momentum out there with Richard Bland and I think the cleeks finally won did they win pretty sure they won the team thing in the Houston tournament not the National Tournament the Houston tournament so some good things happening for Martin kimer in his life and and that’s nice and they’ll be able to have that this week but otherwise it is a pretty Barren slate of tournaments that’s really what we’ve got to work with here and I do think that’s part and part part of it is hey you know it’s July 4th weekend right there’s not a lot of attention paid to sports outside of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest during this week of the year and even that I’m not going to watch because the scumbags who run that thing are keeping Joey Chestnut out because he wants to promote impossible meat or whatever like who cares let let him eat he eats all kinds of junk all day long it like his job because it is his job let the poor man eat some freaking hot dogs he saved your contest last year like literally Barn stormed out was like we’re having the hot dog eating contest rolled up on stage kick some ass wav the flag and now you’re telling him you can’t do it it’s unbelievable how you would shoot yourself in the foot between Kobe ASI and Joey chestn Le the best people who have ever eaten food and mass and you just don’t want them at your contests unbelievable to me nevertheless not a lot of people paying attention to sport this weekend so I get that and there’s also the reality that the Olympics have kind of messed things up a little bit right you’ve got the gota play a little Shuffle and dance because you’ve got the Evan Championship next week which then you kind of lead into start to lead into the Olympics and you got to have that so that plays off nicely you’ve got obviously the the Scottish open and the open open next two weeks so you’ve got that going on so a lot of guys are just kind of traveling over so you have an event but not you know big priority event that makes sense the LPG we talked about the LPGA then the champion SW is playing like a major every other week for like the next forever so it’s a weird time of the year in schedule this is kind of one of those bottlenecks I feel like golf needs to get better at is this early J basically the month of July I mean the open is great love the open but everything around it is very weird and from what I can tell and I think this was Josh car at sports Business Journal for the reporting on this but he cobbled together the dates of the PJ tour schedule from January through June of next year and it looks like basically nothing is different and so hopefully they figure out a way to make July better in some fashion and I realize having to go overseas and come back messes with things but if you’re G to do this then have a make part of the DP World Tour schedule co- sanction do it for the whole month of July have the Scottish open the IR Irish open and the open and then have one kind of semi clunker in there just to give people a break and let them play Let’s have some fun with this like this is what we’ve been talking about with the changes that can supposedly come with strategic Sports Group investment and having a kind of mismatch of DP World Tour assets and live assets and PGA Tour and private Equity put it all together have a European stretch call it call it the UK stretch I don’t care whatever you call it but that’s got to be July and no offense to the deer or the 3M open or anything like that that needs to kind of be unto itself and those can be considered Oppo events I don’t know but there needs to July needs to be better it is a total mess in July in golf and people just kind of shrug their shoulders and go what’s on you go I don’t know and hope so hopefully we get that a little bit better hopefully we get that more right than we’ve been doing and there has been interesting talk out about there being fewer PGA Tour cards moving a number of PGA Tour events to Corn fairy tour status which sounds very strange to me it sounds like antithetical to what the PGA Tour has done for 60 years but that is a possibility and then trying to kind of figure out a basically a different tier structure which if you read my article from sometime in 2021 or 2022 I think like rejiggering the PGA Tour schedule and having like the top tour then the PGA Tour be as it is currently constructed be the secondary tour and then the cor tour they’re basically going in that direction it’s it’s weirdly prophetic I did not expect that at the time but they’ pretty much implemented everything I said they should Implement so there’s that but if you could really fix July I don’t really care what else you change fix July that would be lovely and appreciated okay uh we have a new RNA head we’ll talk about that tomorrow it’s just it’s a administrative thing guy’s 45 years old with two kids hey that’s cool he can be in this job for as long as he wants nice to have a younger voice in the room we want more younger voices in the room Mike Juan’s youngish you’ve got this new guy at the RNA you’re GNA have a new head new CEO of the PGA of America after Seth wall stepping aside Seth wall was a lovely man still is a lovely man he’s not dead lovely man but maybe getting a little bit younger blood in there is a good thing and let’s see if we can’t kind of turn some things out here turn out some interesting and new ideas we don’t need to talk about the administrative stuff because that that we have 30 seconds to talk about that and then we’re done on that topic so there’s your 30 seconds on RNA Administration changes all right that’s good do it for us today on the show thank you so much for spending some time with me I appreciate it if anyone says something or does something stupid we’ll talk about it tomorrow but the odds are we will have no live stream tomorrow and no we typically are trying to do these Monday Tuesday Wednesday but I’m G to be in the car around 10: a.m. taking a 10hour drive down to Tennessee see some family over Fourth of July weekend we’ve done it for a number of years we’re GNA roast a pig like we’ve done every year which is awesome love doing that getting the pool have some fun drink a lot of lot of liquor and uh that’s that’s what we’re planning to do so live stream may not happen tomorrow if it doesn’t then we’ll try to record a show and then we’ll do voice only versions Thursday and Friday as we we typically do please leave a comment on wherever you’re watching this helps us reach more people always appreciate the engagement check out the golf Newsnet subreddit on Reddit if you’re on Reddit check out golf Newsnet you’ll find us you can join for all of the content we’re posting there follow me on Twitter threads X Instagram Blu Sky Ryan valy golf Newsnet is the handle for all those services for the golf Newsnet main handle back with another show very soon probably tomorrow thanks so much for spending some time with us and we’ll catch you next time 2 the 1 have a great day everybody
