Matt, how are you, man? Good, JR. How are things? Very well.
Thank you for taking the time to join us. I guess right out of the gate, we got Justin Rose here, who's leading the way. And this guy hasn't won a major in almost 12 years.
What is the likelihood, we got a long way to go, that he ends up on top? Well, he's capable of it. He's in his early 40s. He's kept himself in shape. In fact, he goes to extraordinary lengths for his health. You name it.
Saunas, cold plunges, red light therapy, etc. The exercise, the nutrition, constantly working on his golf swing. He's one of those guys that I would describe as a tinkerer, always making sure that the club is technically in the position that he wants it to be in to execute the shot that he envisioned. So, he's gone above and beyond with his discipline. He's a very, very intelligent guy. If you look at what he did today and how many times that he chose not to hit driver, oftentimes to the surprise of observers saying, he's hitting it so well.
Why wouldn't he just blast a driver down there? But he stayed resolute to his conservative approach. So, I think that he has every shot at holding on. However, the hard part is, particularly with Saturday at Augusta National and back nine on Sunday, it's hard to maintain that kind of resolute mentality of conservatism because you're going to have people chasing after you and going after you. We saw that today. I mean, we saw some really, really good rounds. Justin Rose was only one under today. It's hard to back up a low round like he had yesterday, but he was only one under today, JR. Meanwhile, right behind him, you got Bryson, who was four under. You got Rory, who was six under today. You got Matt McCarty, who was four under today. You got Shane Lowry, who was four under today. You got Rasmus Huygaard, who was five under.
And I'm just giving you a few examples of players being aggressive and going after it. Matt Adams is here with us from the Golf Channel. You mentioned Rory McIlroy. He had a better day today than he did yesterday, six under in this second round. Between yesterday and today, is this not kind of indicative of how he typically performs at the biggest moments?
I mean, his drought is almost, what, 12 years at this point? It's 11 since he won, but the difference with Rory McIlroy, he spoke to it afterwards, and I thought his words carried a lot of wisdom, frankly, JR, to be honest. He only had two bad holes yesterday, right? He had two double bogeys.
Unfortunately, they came in a three-hole stretch in the closing holes of yesterday's opening round, so that really hurt. The way he approached it was to mentally say, wait a minute, I'm not going to let two bad holes overtake and define the narrative of the rest of the holes that I played really, really solidly, really safe, really conservative. But kind of similar to the conversation that we were having with Justin Rose, I think if you go back to, just as an example, the 2022 open at St. Andrews, where Rory coming into the final round, everybody thought it was going to be a coronation. Instead, he cruised and shot a 70, and as a result, Cameron Smith, who shoots a 64, overtakes him, and he doesn't even finish second. He finishes third in that open at St. Andrews.
That's the risk. I think when Rory McIlroy is true to Rory McIlroy, which means to go after the pins that you want to go after, be aggressive as you want to be, be who you are, instead of trying to change yourself and going, I'm just going to try to cruise here, then I think he becomes the Rory McIlroy that can be magic, when the putter, for example, becomes a brush instead of a hammer. So if that's the Rory McIlroy that we continue to see tomorrow, who seemed very much at ease, he didn't seem as though he was haunted by ghosts of Thursday or ghosts of Masters past after this round, then I think he could be very, very dangerous.
Well, Matt, in between and off the course, we all know about the agreement that hasn't been had between Liv and the PGA. He's certainly been someone who's been outspoken about his thoughts about that. It seems like, as he's gotten older as well, kind of how he communicates and speaks or doesn't speak with the media, it's kind of changed.
Have you noticed anything? Well, Rory has always been very honest and his honesty at times, as you could appreciate as a person that chronicles all the sports and all the athletes, we always have this dichotomy with our athletes. Say an athlete's up before a microphone and they're talking about something, anything, and they get overcome with emotions and they start to weep and you'll have the naysayers saying, ah, you know, they're soft or this and that.
And I always sit back and go, wait a minute. We want our athletes to give us something more than platitudes. We literally want them to be honest with us. That's all we're asking. But then when they do it, people jump all over him for it.
So that is the red state, blue state world that we live in right now. Rory McIlroy is quite resolute in telling you how he feels. And at times it has got him fans and at other times it has got him haters because he has plenty of both, which may surprise people on both sides to hear that. So that's the Rory McIlroy that now in his mid 30s will sit back and tell you live in the PGA Tour should bring the game back together. There should be more opportunities of seeing the best players in the world play on the same stage more than just four times a year. And he'd like to see it structured the way international soccer is structured, that the higher tiers that you go to, the more elite it becomes and the smaller the respective fields accordingly. But there are pathways for ascension for players as you start to play better, as you get stronger in your respective field.
So all of that is reasonable and sounds good. But golf, especially at this level, is also big, big business. And as a result, when it's big business, you're going to have a lot of people that are going to weigh in on a concept that sounds pretty straightforward and go, no, no, no, I don't want to go that way because those guys left the PGA Tour and got paid however millions of dollars, over 100 million in some cases, etc.
What's in it for me, the guy that stayed and hung around, right? So that's the kind of stuff that's going on behind the scenes. That's the roadblocks that Rory's saying, let's not let this be a roadblock. We're all playing for plenty of money, but it's hard to convince other people of those sorts of things. Matt Adams is joining us, covers all things golf for NBC and the Golf Channel.
Just to deviate before we get back to the tournament we're watching this weekend. This is now going on for years between the PGA and Liv and let's come to an agreement before somebody gets the lawyer blood sucked out of them. This is difficult, especially given the political climate of the world. What do you think is most likely to happen outside of more disagreeing over, I assume, the next few years? I think it's going to go on for the next few years, frankly.
I think it's going to continue to be dragged out. I think part of this, in terms of a political perspective, I think part of this is trying to wear down the will of the other side. Liv, which is owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia, is costing a tremendous amount of money. But the Saudi Arabians, when they invest in something, according to the experts that I've spoken to, they don't look at it in terms of what's my quarterly return, what's my yearly profits or losses, etc. They look at it in terms of generational growth.
So they might be looking at it in a cycle that goes 25 to 50 to 100 years down the road. They want to develop their country. So I don't know what's bigger than a five star resort, but they want it to be bigger than five star resorts, golf courses, everything else that's involved in it. So you know why they're going after the demographic that is golf, because it's demographic that is money. So they're looking at it and going, okay, well, all this makes sense. Well, they're investing a tremendous amount of money. And they have said over and over again, Yasser al-Rumiyan, that they're not in it to lose money.
Long term, they want to see a payoff for what they're doing. It's just right now it's costing a tremendous amount of money because they're building the foundations of that which they hope to build. At the same time, on the other side, you've got the PGA Tour, who has already an in-grain structure.
They've already built their buildings. So basically what Piff and Liv is saying is, hey, why don't we move in together? We can operate as two separate tours. The PGA Tour is not sure if they want to do that. I can't tell if that's business or if that's in securities talking.
I don't know the answer to that. But it doesn't seem as though they're crazy about the idea of the two tours going on together. They got a $1.5 billion investment in the PGA Tour from what's called the Strategic Sports Group. These are individual investors that came together as an association and invested this $1.5 billion and formed a new entity that is a for-profit taxable entity with the PGA Tour. And so now that they have that money in their coffers, there doesn't seem to be as much of a hunger on the side of the PGA Tour to potentially put together a deal, which is cheered by those who don't want it to happen anyway. And at the same time, Liv is sitting out there going, guys, we're ready to write this check. We just want to know what we're getting for it. And the PGA Tour is saying, well, in my interpretation, we're not quite ready to give you what you may have had the impression we were going to give you at one time because the situation is starting to change. Whether this is, which is a different question I realized than the one you asked me, Jayar, if this is a run-up to a new heated confrontation and competition between the two, in other words, Liv trying to once again sign players off the PGA Tour with very large contracts, that would only be even more damaging to the game. So where this is going to end up right now, we don't know.
Yeah, just a lot of beef. Well, Matt, final question here. What do you expect for us to see on Sunday? Should we expect Scotty to go on a run? Another green jacket back to back? Is Rory finally going to get one?
Is there a dark horse? What should you expect at the end? What should we expect?
First of all, we're only halfway through. So there's plenty of time for the likes of Scotty Scheffer who's only three shots off the lead to assert himself. I fully expect that he will. Rory McIlroy is only two shots back. I fully expect that Rory's going to assert himself. I think that Justin Rose will at worst tread water.
So Bryce DeChambeau is one shot back. So I think what we're going to see is we're going to see the top of the leaderboard get very, very tight. Every one of those names that I gave you, I expect to be in the mix. I think Shane Lowry is going to be close because you know, being in Atlanta, the win that we've had over the last few days and that will continue over the next couple days as well. So I think you're going to see the best players in the world contract at the top of the leaderboard. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised on Sunday evening if we don't have a playoff.
And my sense is that the playoff this year could include three, maybe four people. All right. Well, I hope the wind dies down.
Almost blew across the street trying to get into work today. You got a good point on that one, Matt. Appreciate the time and the expertise. Very much appreciated, Matt.
Thanks, Jared. Nice to talk to you. Where can people follow and keep up with you and your works on a full-time basis? I've got to fly up to New York this weekend. I'm hosting all of the React shows for NBC Sports on Golf Channel, so you can catch me there this coming week. My show, Fair Ways of Life, airs live on Golf Channel. Next show will be Tuesday at 9 a.m. Eastern. It's syndicated, so down your way. It's on FanDuel Network. It's pretty easy to find me, to tell you the truth. If you're looking for golf, just look up Matt Adams FOL as my way to find me, and I'm out there.
