The NFL Is Chasing Tech Money. LIV Chased Saudi Money. The Cautionary Tale Is the Same.

Is It Put Up or Shut Up Time for Jordan Spieth? Plus Early Open Championship Picks | Mailbag

Is It Put Up or Shut Up Time for Jordan Spieth? Plus Early Open Championship Picks | Mailbag Go to https://kachava.com and use code WINGO for 15% off your first order. Golf Live mailbag is back. Trey Wingo and Justin Ray answer your questions this week on Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, early Open Championship picks, Sergio Garcia missing the field, US Open setups, dream courses and why Justin somehow has not played golf yet this year. Duncan is also back from paternity leave, which means the disembodied voice has officially returned. Jordan Spieth and Sponsor Exemptions The first question gets right to it. If sponsor exemptions are going away, what does that mean for Jordan Spieth? Trey’s answer: play better and stop hitting it crooked. Justin’s answer is basically the same. If the PGA Tour is leaning harder into meritocracy, even someone as accomplished and popular as Spieth cannot just be a famous name and expect to get into events. At some point, it becomes put up or shut up. Trey also points out the stat that still feels hard to believe: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have both won majors more recently than Jordan Spieth has won on the PGA Tour. Where Is Justin Rose’s Game? Justin Rose came out hot this year, but the bigger point is where his focus is now. Justin Ray says Rose’s best weeks are still coming in the events he cares about most. Third at the Masters. Top ten at the PGA. Tied for 11th at the US Open. He is gearing everything toward the biggest championships because, at this stage of his career, those are the weeks that matter. Trey compares it to the veteran mindset. The majors, the old courses, the events with history. That is where the energy comes from. Early Open Championship Picks The mailbag then turns to Royal Birkdale. Justin starts with Scottie Scheffler. Everyone keeps asking what is wrong with him because he only has one win this year, but statistically he is still almost exactly where he was at this point last season. Trey brings up Rory McIlroy, who has only one Open Championship win, back at Hoylake in 2014. If Rory is going to keep chasing the second leg of a double career grand slam, this is another real opportunity. Matt Fitzpatrick also gets mentioned as a strong fit because Birkdale is not only about power. It is about avoiding the right trouble, managing the bunkers and playing smart. And then there is Jon Rahm. A strong Scottish Open week could send him right back up the Open odds board. Sergio Garcia Missing the Open The biggest surprise non-qualifier? Sergio Garcia. Justin says it first, and Trey agrees immediately. Sergio has played the Open Championship 26 times, with ten top-ten finishes and two runner-up finishes. For a generation of golf fans, he has always been part of this championship. For European players, the Open is different. It is their championship. And with Seve Ballesteros as Sergio’s idol, never winning it is probably going to stick with him more than anything else. US Open Setups and Bad Breaks One viewer was tired of “tricked up” US Open courses, where good shots can roll away and bad misses sometimes get better breaks. Trey gets the frustration, but he is fine with the US Open making players suffer a little. There are plenty of weeks where the PGA Tour sets up for low scores. The US Open is supposed to be different. Justin’s view is simple: you cannot please everybody. Some of the bad breaks, good breaks and strange bounces are part of what makes the US Open unique. The One Course Question One course for the rest of your life turned into about 30 answers, which feels right. Trey loves links golf, but if he had to play one course forever, he wants something fun. Cabot Cliffs is near the top of his list. He also mentions Lanai, Pinehurst No. 4 and Pinehurst No. 10. Justin refuses to pick something he has not played, so Augusta is out for now. He considers Carnoustie, Pebble Beach and Kapalua, then lands on Pebble because of the balance of beauty, shot-making and fun. Why Justin Has Not Played Golf This Year Finally, the question everyone needed answered: how has Justin Ray not played golf yet this year? His answer: business building, young family, too many jobs and Dallas heat. Trey’s answer: because Justin has 74 jobs. Justin takes the L, but he does have rounds planned during his upcoming UK trip, including Formby. Trey, meanwhile, is headed to the American Century Championship in Tahoe, where his goal is simple: enjoy the weekend and not hurt anyone. Low bar. Clear it first. Then reassess. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nelly Korda Is Still the Story. But Evian Is the Wild Card.

Nelly Korda Is Still the Story. But Evian Is the Wild Card. Go to https://kachava.com and use code WINGO for 15% off your first order. The Evian Championship is the fourth major of the LPGA season, but it is not the last one. And even after everything that happened at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the conversation still starts in the same place. Nelly Korda. She is still the main story. The only question is whether Evian lets this week play out the way everyone expects. The Nelly Standard Justin Ray puts it in perspective right away. An eighth-place finish at a major somehow felt like a letdown for Nelly Korda. That says everything about the level she has been playing at. Through the first three majors of the season, Nelly has gained more than 46 strokes total. That is 16 more than anyone else. Gabby Lopez is second, and the gap is still massive. So yes, Nelly is the favorite. She is still the player everyone is chasing. And if you are asking which of the final two majors she is more likely to win, Justin still leans toward the AIG Women’s Open. Not because Nelly cannot win Evian. Because Evian has a way of turning normal Sundays into something completely different. Why Evian Is the Wild Card Justin went back and watched highlights from last year’s Evian Championship, which he admits is a perfectly normal thing for a person to do on a summer Sunday night. And honestly, he had a point. Last year’s finish was insane. Jeeno Thitikul had a 98.6 percent win probability standing on the 18th tee. Grace Kim made eagle in her group. Jeeno missed an eight-footer that would have won it outright. Then they went to a playoff. On the first playoff hole, Grace hit her approach into the water, took a drop, then holed out from off the green for birdie. Jeeno made her birdie putt to extend it. Then Grace came back and made eagle on 18 to win her first major. Eagle. Birdie from the water. Eagle. That is why this tournament is so hard to predict. It is beautiful. It is dramatic. And it has created enough Sunday chaos that Justin thinks it may be the hardest women’s major to forecast. Who Could Pop This Week Trey asks Justin for a name that could make sense if Evian gives us another unusual outcome. Justin points first to big-name players who could bounce back after missing the cut at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Charley Hull. Minjee Lee. Hannah Green. Players with enough talent to win anywhere if the week turns their way. Then there is Miyu Yamashita, the reigning AIG Women’s Open champion. She is 4-foot-11, does not overpower golf courses, and does incredible work in and around the greens. If you have never watched her play, Justin says she is worth your time. Lottie Woad is another name to watch, even if Justin admits that is not exactly a deep cut. She is fourth in the world and nearly won this event as an amateur last year. Gabby Lopez also deserves attention. She has built her schedule around the majors and has been one of the best major performers this season. Lauren Coughlin’s ball striking continues to show up too, even if the putting has come back down a little. That is the thing about Evian. It does not always give you the obvious answer. The Four-Major Question Then Trey gets to the bigger question. If Nelly wins the final two majors of the season, she would have four major championships in the same year. But because the LPGA has five majors, what do we actually call that? Justin’s answer is careful, because golf history is not as fixed as people sometimes think. The definition of a major has changed over time, especially in the women’s game. The du Maurier Championship used to be a major. The Titleholders Championship used to be a major. Evian became a major in 2013. Even on the men’s side, Jack Nicklaus was once described during a Masters broadcast as going for his 20th major because they were including his two U.S. Amateur wins. The point is simple: golf history changes. The labels change. The way we talk about records changes. So if Nelly wins four majors in a five-major season, maybe it is not a clean single-season Grand Slam. But it would still be one of the greatest major seasons the sport has ever seen. What Counts as a Major Anyway? Trey makes the point that there is no official bylaw that permanently defines what a major is. There is no article, code, paragraph or governing-body rule that says these are the majors forever and nothing can ever change. A lot of it is history. A lot of it is perception. A lot of it is what the golf world decides to value. That is what makes the Nelly conversation so interesting. If she wins Evian and the AIG Women’s Open, the label may be complicated. The achievement would not be. Four majors in one season is four majors in one season. But first comes Evian. And at Evian, nothing ever feels guaranteed. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Scottish Open Is Giving Golf What It Has Been Missing

The Scottish Open Is Giving Golf What It Has Been Missing Go to https://kachava.com and use code WINGO for 15% off your first order. The Scottish Open has always been one of the best lead-ins to the Open Championship. Rory McIlroy’s shot into 18. Robert MacIntyre winning his national open. Phil Mickelson using it as a springboard before winning at Muirfield in 2013. But this year feels a little different. Because this year, the Scottish Open has something golf fans have wanted since the sport split apart: a field that actually brings everybody back together. Everybody in the Same Place Justin Ray put it perfectly. This is the most excited he has ever been for the word co-sanctioned. Because with the Scottish Open co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, the field gets a lot more interesting. Jon Rahm is there. Tyrrell Hatton is there. Patrick Reed is there. Rory McIlroy is there. Chris Gotterup is defending. And suddenly, this feels like more than just the week before the Open Championship. It feels like golf looking the way it is supposed to look. Trey’s point is simple. Whatever happens next with LIV, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour or the future structure of the sport, this is what fans want. The best players competing against the best players. That part does not need to be complicated. Why the Scottish Open Works National opens just feel different. The US Open. The Italian Open. The Spanish Open. The Scottish Open. There is a pride and energy around those events that you cannot fake. The crowd cares differently. The players feel it differently. And when Robert MacIntyre nearly won in 2023, then came back and won his national open in 2024, it reminded everyone why this tournament matters. The Scottish Open is not a major. But when the field is this strong and the Open Championship is sitting right behind it, the week has real weight. Justin also makes the point that this tournament has quietly delivered year after year. Aaron Rai beating Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff. Min Woo Lee beating Matt Fitzpatrick in a playoff. Xander Schauffele winning by one. Rory beating MacIntyre by one. MacIntyre winning by one. Gotterup beating Rory and Marco Penge by two. As Justin says, it has been banger after banger. The Rahm Factor Jon Rahm is one of the biggest reasons this field matters. Justin brings up a wild stat: Rahm is still third on the PGA Tour in wins in the 2020s, behind only Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, even though he has been gone for more than two years. That is the reminder. Rahm has not disappeared as a player. We just do not see him in this kind of setting as often anymore. So when he does show up against Rory, Hatton, Reed, Gotterup and the rest of this field, it gives the week a different kind of edge. This is the part golf has been missing. What It Means for the Open Trey asks the question everyone asks this time of year: how much does the Scottish Open actually tell us about the Open Championship? Justin says there is some correlation, but it is not perfect. Sometimes it is just hot players staying hot. Sometimes the conditions line up. Sometimes they do not. Phil Mickelson won the Scottish Open in 2013 and then won the Open Championship the next week. Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open last year and played well at the Open. So it can matter. It is not a guarantee, but it gives us clues. And this year, with the kind of field that is showing up, those clues are a lot more interesting. The Phil Mickelson Conversation The Scottish Open also brought the conversation back to Phil Mickelson. In 2013, Phil won the Scottish Open, then went on to win the Open Championship at Muirfield. For a player who never got the US Open, that Open title became one of the defining wins of his career. Trey and Justin talk about how strange it is to look at where Phil’s story is now compared to where it was just a few years ago. After winning the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah and becoming the oldest major champion ever, Phil had a very different place in the sport. He was still not Tiger, but he had become something like golf’s cool uncle. The Wanamaker Trophy. The jokes. The “hit bombs” persona. The whole thing worked. And then it changed fast. The LIV fallout, the gambling stories, the reported allegations and everything else around him have completely reshaped the way people talk about Phil. Trey is clear that none of the alleged behavior is being excused. Justin’s word for the whole thing is simple: sad. Maybe there is another chapter eventually. But right now, it is hard to know what that would even look like. Why This Week Matters That is why this Scottish Open feels bigger than usual. It has Rory. It has Rahm. It has Hatton. It has Reed. It has Gotterup defending. It has a national open crowd. It has the Open Championship waiting on the other side. For one week, golf gets closer to what everyone has been asking for. The best players. Same field. Same tournament. That is what we wanted. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chris Gotterup Is Suddenly in Scottie and Rory Territory

Chris Gotterup Is Suddenly in Scottie and Rory Territory Go to https://kachava.com and use code WINGO for 15% off your first order. Chris Gotterup just won again. And the list he is now on is almost hard to believe. Since mid-May of 2024, the players with the most wins on the PGA Tour are Scottie Scheffler with ten, Rory McIlroy with five, and Chris Gotterup with five. That is the conversation now. Not whether Gotterup can have a nice career. Not whether he can occasionally pop up on the leaderboard. Whether he has become one of the most dangerous American players in golf. And after another final-round charge at the John Deere, Trey Wingo and Justin Ray are starting to look at Gotterup differently. The List That Changes the Conversation Justin puts the number in perspective right away. One year ago, Gotterup was heading into the Scottish Open as a one-time PGA Tour winner. Now he has five PGA Tour wins. The company matters. Scottie. Rory. Gotterup. That does not mean he is Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy. It does mean the résumé is changing quickly. And the way he is winning might be even more impressive than the total itself. There have been four times this season where a player has won on the PGA Tour with a final round of 64 or lower. Three of them belong to Chris Gotterup. The other was Wyndham Clark shooting 60 in Dallas. Justin could not find another modern-era example of a player winning three PGA Tour events in one season with a final round of 64 or lower. That is not normal Sunday golf. That is a player who can go nuclear when the tournament is there to be taken. Why Gotterup’s Ceiling Looks Different Now The obvious part of Gotterup’s game is the power. He is excellent off the tee and that has always been the starting point of the conversation. But Justin points out the part that makes the ceiling feel real — he is also a top-30 putter this season in strokes gained. That combination is why this is no longer just a “hot player” conversation. He has won on different kinds of golf courses, in different environments, with different asks. The Scottish Open is not Phoenix. Phoenix is not the John Deere. That matters. He is not proving he can only win one specific type of event. Trey asks the bigger question: is this a guy you now have to think about as a major championship factor for the next decade? Justin’s answer is pretty clear. He would be surprised if Gotterup does not pick off a major in the next few years. He already had a strong Open Championship last year. He now returns to the Scottish Open as a defending champion. And if this version of Gotterup shows up overseas, he is going to be a problem. The PGA Tour’s New Gotterup Problem The conversation gets more complicated when Trey brings up the PGA Tour’s new two-track future — the working-title Championship Series and Challenger Series. Gotterup just won the John Deere. The event clearly matters to him. But if the John Deere eventually becomes part of the Challenger side of the new structure, what happens if Gotterup is a Championship Series player and still wants to go back? What happens if Scottie Scheffler wants to play the Byron Nelson? Or Colonial? What happens when the biggest names in the sport want to support events that mean something to them, but their presence takes a spot from a player trying to earn his way up? That is the issue Trey had not fully considered until a friend brought it up. If a top player drops down for one week and takes a spot, and someone else misses a chance to move into the Championship Series because of it, that becomes a real problem. Justin thinks there will have to be some kind of middle ground. Maybe a once-a-year exemption. Maybe a past champion rule. Maybe a compensatory points system. Nobody has the exact answer yet. But this is the kind of detail that will decide whether the new structure works. Rigid in the vision. Flexible in the details. This is one of the details. Max Homa and Lucas Glover Deserve a Mention The John Deere also gave Trey and Justin two other stories worth noting. Lucas Glover nearly won again in his mid-40s and led the field tee to green. Trey has said it before and says it again here — years from now, Lucas Glover as PGA Tour commissioner would not shock him. The way he thinks about the game, the way he talks about structure, and the way he carries himself all point in that direction. Then there is Max Homa, who finally looked more like Max Homa again. Justin noticed it on the back nine Sunday. The walk. The expression. The look of a player who believed he was going to make the next one. For a guy who has been grinding through a difficult stretch, that is not a small thing. Trey puts it simply: it looked like Max was playing golf again, not playing golf swing. The Morikawa Reminder Colin Morikawa also enters the conversation after Trey sat down with him at the Travelers. The line that stuck: until you win all of them. That is the goal stated without fully stating the goal. Justin brings the numbers behind why Morikawa can talk that way. He leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained approach this season. A few years ago, he led the tour in average proximity from 125 to 150, 150 to 175, and 175 to 200 yards — what Justin calls the iron play triple crown. When Morikawa is in full flight, the only real debate is whether he or Scottie Scheffler is the best approach player in the men’s game. He already has a PGA Championship. He already has an Open Championship. If the game is getting healthy again, nobody should be surprised if he shows up overseas and posts one of those rounds that changes a tournament. The Open Championship Build Begins Trey and Justin also start the show with a reminder of why this stretch of the golf calendar is different. The Scottish Open comes first. Then the Open Championship. The history, the links golf, the weather, the early mornings, the coffee, the entire experience of going overseas for the oldest major in the sport. For Trey, the Open Championship is still his favorite major. Justin is right there with him. And now Gotterup enters that stretch as one of the most fascinating players in the sport. Five wins since last May. A Scottish Open title defense coming. A major ceiling that suddenly feels much more real. Scottie. Rory. Gotterup. That is the list. And that is why the conversation has changed. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Xander Schauffele on Two Majors, the US Open Streak, and What Comes Next

Xander Schauffele — Two Majors, a Gold Medal His Dad Slept With, and What Comes Next Go to https://kachava.com and use code WINGO for 15% off your first order. Xander Schauffele sat down with Trey Wingo at the Travelers Championship for a conversation that goes well beyond what most golf interviews cover. Two majors. Ten consecutive top-15 finishes at the US Open — a streak only Jack Nicklaus has exceeded in the history of the championship. A gold medal his parents still have because it means more to his family than it could ever mean to a trophy case. And an honest assessment of where his game is, where it is going, and why his time will come. The US Open Streak — Badge of Honor or Badge of Frustration? Ten US Opens. Ten top-15 finishes. The only player in the history of the US Open with a longer consecutive top-15 streak is Jack Nicklaus. Xander found out about this stat recently — he is not on social media and has not been since the 2020 Masters, which he says has helped him live longer. His wife has Instagram. He gets screen recordings from the group chat when something is funny. That is the extent of it. His honest reaction to the streak — a mix of both. Having his name on a list with those names is something he is not complaining about. Objectively it is remarkable. Personally it would be nice to be a little closer to the lead. Be a little more a part of the mix. But his answer on where that leaves him is the line that defines the whole conversation — my time will come. He is going to keep paying it forward and he genuinely enjoys what he calls the psycho challenge of trying to play good golf on really hard golf courses. Shinnecock — What Actually Happened Xander's honest assessment of his week at Shinnecock is refreshingly direct. He felt like he could never get anything going. Leaving putts short. Not making birdies. Running out of holes. He tried to stay patient and let the golf come to him and it just never did. He was not playing good enough and he knows it. What he does know is that his game is built for US Open setups. The risk management, the course management, the discipline of knowing when to be aggressive and when to lay back — that is the kind of golf he enjoys and the kind of golf US Opens reward. His caddy Austin has become exceptional at analyzing risk in major championship settings, understanding exactly what score is needed on any given hole across any given round. The example that sticks — on 13 at Shinnecock coming off two doubles, Austin told him to hit driver when Xander had a four-iron in his hand. He hit it to a foot and made birdie. Small moments, big decisions, trusted relationships. US Opens are war. That is his word for it. Mental war first, physical war second — dinner at 10 PM, up at 3:30 AM for a restart, grinding for four days on courses designed to punish you for every small mistake. And that is exactly why winning one feels so validating. The difficulty is the point. The New PGA Tour Structure Xander has been paying attention to what Rolapp announced and his overall reaction is genuinely positive — but the thing he keeps coming back to is not the match play or the iconic courses or the regular season champion. It is the certainty. The last four years of his career have been all over the place in terms of knowing what events are happening, who the sponsors are, where the schedule is going, how the points system works. The points structure changed every year. The playoff format kept evolving. There was no stable foundation to plan around. The new structure — whatever the working titles end up being — gives players a framework that is supposed to be set for generations. He knows what he is playing for. He knows what it looks like. He knows what the path is from February through the playoffs. For a player who is a creature of habit, that matters enormously. His take on the core philosophy — Brian Rolapp used the phrase "you eat what you kill" in the meetings. Xander loves that framing. If you want to play professional golf and you are not ready for that kind of language, professional golf is probably not for you. Play bad, make zero dollars. That is how it has always worked at the highest level and the new structure just makes it more explicit and more honest about what the meritocracy actually looks like. He also loves the match play concept — thinks Brian's background in the NFL means he understands what fan interaction looks like and if match play is done at the right venues it could be genuinely incredible for the sport. And when the subject of Pine Valley, Seminole, and Cypress Point came up in the press conference — those whispers are real and he is excited about them. Harry Higgs — The Most Heartwarming Story of the US Open Xander had a moment at Shinnecock that had nothing to do with his own round. Harry Higgs made the cut. The Big Rig — who had not made a single cut all year, had made zero dollars on the PGA Tour in 2026, and was fighting his way back from losing his tour card — made the cut at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills. Xander gave him a huge hug. They are both new dads. Their kids were born not far apart. He knows Harry is super happy at home right now and super unhappy with his golf. Seeing him make the cut and make some money and get back on the horse — Xander hopes that is the beginning of the comeback. That one moment was one of the more heartwarming things of the entire week for him. The Gold Medal — The Real Story This is the part of the conversation that stays with you long after the interview is over. Xander's father was his swing coach until Xander was about 30 years old. Before that — before any of this — his dad trained to be a decathlete in Germany. He trained hard, worked toward competing in the Olympics, and got in a terrible accident that ended all of it. Everything he had learned, everything his coaches had taught him, all the wisdom and discipline and mental preparation that goes into being an elite Olympic-level athlete — he poured all of it into Xander's brain from the time he was a young kid. When Xander won the gold medal in Tokyo it was at the COVID Olympics — no crowds, no spectators, almost no one allowed in. His caddy and his dad. Those were the two people with him. That was it. His dad slept with the gold medal the night they won. Xander does not have the gold medal. His parents have it. And the way he says that — the tone, the matter-of-factness of it, the quiet pride — tells you everything about what that moment meant and still means to his family. His dad gave his Olympic dream to his son. His son gave him the gold medal back. Two majors. A PGA Championship. An Open Championship. A gold medal. And a US Open streak that only Jack Nicklaus has beaten. Xander Schauffele is 33 years old. His time will come. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.