Rollback Is the Wrong Word: What F1 Teaches Golf About Regulation

0:00Welcome to the backdrop untold stories and golf. I'm your host, Matt Constadine Sheer, with our co-host, The Professor. Professor Slancho, good morning, sir. Happy. What is today? Tuesday. I think we're recording now. I'm confused. We're all over to place. Got to ask. Have you ever had a concert era in your life? Yeah, yeah, I probably did. I would say it was in the, huh, it was probably the, the least golf years of my life. Concerts filled a little bit of a void there. I've never been a huge concert goer, like I wasn't the one organizing it, but, you know, around that 20, call it, gosh, 2010, 11, 12, there were some good runs there. I've seen a lot of shows, a few festivals. Do you have a favorite genre or anything? Favorite band to follow?

1:00Yeah, you know me. I mean, that did line up with some pretty decent indie rock and roll, kind of coming out of college. Also, like, I don't know, I'm thinking there was, the, like, the strokes, one of my favorite bands was Tourin with Pearl Jam, and I saw them three times that year, the two of them together. It was, that was the year I'm thinking of stuff like that comes to mind. Was it the strokes I had to beef with black keys or those to two that black keys had beef with someone or the leads, right? I forget. Maybe forget those strokes for yeah, I could see that, you know, a couple of Midwest guys versus the East Coast New Yorkers, I could see that. What about you? Is this, is this, are you in a phase of this? Your player is in her concert era now. She is all in, going to concerts, started probably about a year, a year and a half ago. And I think in the last month, we've, I think, had a nine concerts to

2:05the docket this year. She's just burning through it once ago everywhere and, and see everyone. So that's how it is. That's what we're doing this year. A little less golf, a lot more concert. I mean, so you're going broke is what it sounds like is, is Taylor Swift? How many Taylor Swift are on the, no, no, Taylor's. That could be because her tour is not announced. I don't know if she's got a tour going. I don't think she has. So no Taylor right now. A lot of Mumford and Sons. I think Claire's seen Mumford and Sons twice, three times last year. And now we've got, I think, three times this year, we're going to, we're going to see them a little ahead in the heart action, out Red Rocks. Oh, we're going to see Mumford and Madison Square Garden. That was the, one thing she's, yeah, we're like, that's just good in New York to see them. Chris Stapleton several times. Hey, old Crow medicine show. Yeah, just line up. I can get in. Yeah, I can get in on a lot of this. I'm, I'm, I thought I was going to be some stuff I'm just not aware of. What's the most obscure

3:07that's on the calendar? Oh, most obscure. Let's see, definitely a little Kishi Bashi. For those that haven't listened to Kishi Bashi, go dial him up. He's awesome. I'm going to spend a lot of his time in Athens. I would say that's the most obscure that we have, we have going on. Obviously, I'll go see a lot of you introduced me to chopper up before, shuffle around. You introduced me to that long before it hit everybody else's airways and I was a fan before she became, you know, massive and my kids are coming home from school saying pink pony club. That's what I'm excited for you guys. You know, this does align with a couple of weeks ago when we were pulling headlines and stuff we missed over the winter and I looked at the masters and the sea geek did a little mini deep dive on sea geek. I mean, in-person experiences are up and to the right. There are so many dollars flooding into sports and live events more than ever. And I think partially a reaction to post-COVID

4:14getting together with people feeling a sense of belonging. But also, yeah, it's just, it's kind of the community element of what our grandparents used to get out at church. We're kind of looking for in our interests. And yeah, there's just a feeling you get when you're at those shows, right? And that sense of being with a lot of other people seeing the same words. It's kind of cool. Yeah. I do love it. I mean, as I get older, the late nights, you know, you can buy the concert tickets in the day of. You're like, oh, man, I got to, I got to make it some alto midnight. But now I saw another analysis too somewhere talking about, you know, especially with the young say our generation and lower drinking is, yes, less prevalent, especially as you go younger than generation younger than our generation. And some of that expendable income is going to concerts is one of the areas that's going or live experiences. And it pushes back on, you know, there's been some narratives around, you know, with the lack of drinking, people are going to be

5:16less social. And you know, you need that, that sort of is a positive to be drinking out social. Which on the surface, I buy that argument, but it misses the point of like, no, people just replace social things with other social things, right? That can't be done. It's not like, oh, because I'm not drinking now, I'm just going to stay in my room and not leave and go socialize. It's like, no, if I replace it with something else going to a concert, doing whatever, then and you're seeing that actually coming out in the data that that's actually occurring where people were placing some of their socializing and moving away from the alcohol centered things that are just, you know, a bar that's saying, moving more towards a concert venue. Yeah. And it directly speaks to the continuous growth and golf. And another record year of rounds played in 25 and projections shown the same for 26. I think there's a lot of my buddies who probably spent those same concert years drinking with me at the late, staying out late and whatnot that are picking up

6:20the game of golf with finding that exactly what you described in the game. Speaking of, that's combined live events, perhaps with the game of golf. And this is just something I saw this morning as you and I were getting on. And it's going to have a lot to do with our show today. I'll just cut to the chase. The professor and I after some of our headlines the last few weeks, professor always tends to pull the governance. I think you were a lawyer or an attorney in past life. Kevin, you love the analysis of rules and regulations and changes. We were talking about, if you're a loyal listener, you know that the professor called out the fact that we pushed back again, golf's regulating bodies, pushed back the rule changes. There was some, you know, good timing for another very, very popular sport. The faster one of the fastest card sports in the US right now released all their new regulation changes for a 2026 season. And that's F1. And the professor

7:22knows a little bit about this space. And so we thought, well, let's just talk about something outside of golf and and see how it applies maybe to some of this debate. We all are pretty tired of but continuously engaging around the rollback and the rules of golf and the governing bodies and the major leagues. I think I think that's the strategy they're taking. But my transition, make it make it make us tired of it. So then we just forget about it and they just move on with status quo. Yeah, it could be that could be that could be to I what I was going to say his my transition was what what I saw this order was one of those companies, one of those F1 companies is in the game of golf. McLaren golf has announced that they're going to be coming out with a line of equipment. What do you think of that? What do you think? I mean, businesses like the move and strike where it's hot, right? So McLaren's not a dumb company at all. I'm not sure

8:27if they're under an umbrella company who might be above them in terms of McLaren as a company and of itself. But hey, if you got a hot sport and you know, they got a couple they got at least one driver that loves the game and a little birdie tells me there's several people inside that pit crew that love the game. So not a super surprise to me to see some company flooding into the golf market where a lot of money is moving around, especially when some of their more notable people inside the company are quite addicted to the game. Yeah, there was a Porsche tried this a number of years ago. Oh, I forgot about this. Just doing a quick search. They still have like Porsche golf apparel no longer hard goods. They got out of hard goods. But I mean, who's the guy buying Porsche golf gear? I don't get it. I don't like it. I mean, even look at the Nike moved out of the hard gear. I can just move to just, you know, soft materials and shoes. Yeah, interesting move.

9:31Interesting move. Well, I digest orange is not a great color either. In terms of their company colors, they're going to have to branch. They're going to have to branch out from those to actually make some attractive gear. Yeah, I'll be more curious to hear what our friends at Tyler's think about a McLaren golf equipment company. But I know you're going to hit us with a lot of facts. You're going to hit me with a lot of facts. I'm actually just genuinely curious to hear your insights on on F1 regulation rule changes. I know you and Claire follow it closer than I, but you got anything else for us to get us going this morning? I think Jason maybe. Yeah, just getting back from a math education conference up in Alexandria, you know, spent four days just going to, I don't know how many different talks, given some talks. Obviously the buzz, you know, around the academia world is a lot of conversation around AI. So just a quick tidbit from some of the interest there. In terms, the 10,000 foot view, you know, our conversations are around how do we use it? Fibling and useful ways and then, you know, what's it distracting from and how can we combat that?

10:32But some pretty interesting, you know, research starting to merge from it that gets into it. And one of the interesting things that's showing is just its impact on critical thinking. And if you think of your brain as a muscle, exercising critical thinking, even on menial tasks is an important thing to do. But obviously one of the benefits of AI is you can offload a lot of just menial stuff to it and just say, oh, let it take care of it. But what you're seeing there is people doing that and not looking at that output critically. And so that's diminishing just their general critical thinking ability by going through exercises and doing something and producing output, but never actually looking at it in a critical way. And that's actually impacting people's critical thinking abilities and their other tasks for that reason. It harkens to the, you know, how you do the smallest thing is how you do everything. If you think about from that mindset, that's the phenomenon there that, you know, you're just turning your brain off because the menial task when that in AI handle it, you got to be careful

11:33that you might actually be doing your brain a little bit of harm in doing that. That's timely. I'm sure everybody listening is utilizing AI and some capacity, maybe all capacities. And it's a lot to digest, right? But man, that really resonates. And you're, we should do a whole episode on AI from your perspective because all your research around studying how the human brain learns and functions. And I would love to hear more deep dive on it at some point, but that that resonates because I think, you know, do the hard thing is what I've come out of from my early experiences with AI as a small business owner. You know, you have to use a lot of it to be more efficient now. It's, it does increase your, your, your output. But I've definitely learned the hard way. It needs to amplify the people and not replace because as soon as you pull

12:40that critical thinking element out of it or, you know, some refer to it as taste and decision-making, I mean, I have noticed it, it can be bland, but it also, yeah, it, it, it dulls your thought process. And, and you, when you look at it after, like, you take a couple of days away from it, and then you come back, you're like, wait, why didn't I question that or this or the other thing? And so one thing I was talking to a older gentleman who's a very successful entrepreneur who's using the heck out of it, he was saying, you know, do the hard thing, write the draft, do the, order the book, do your own thinking first and then go to it. Don't start square one with what it's going to feed you. That's just his perspective, but I, I could see your point there being a big reason to do it. It's fascinating. And it also thinks about, makes me think about, go off and my golf game, where you don't make it too easy on yourself or you're not going to get better,

13:46right? And like all the training tools that, you know, I'm thinking of the, the training tools that shrink the sweet spot, right? The little ball of the head or the little gate on your putter, you know, that is how you learn, yes, the technology is going to help you around the margins, but one way to learn is making hard on yourself, challenge yourself. That's great. All right, I'm fired up. You did it. You did it to me. Talk to me about another timely thing. Let's get to the show here. Thanks first to our friends and partners at Titleist, the ProV1, ProV1 X, ProV left dash. They offer the greatest combination as we all know, the speed, the spin, the feeling, the gain combined that with the SM 11 wedges. You're definitely looking at the most played ball and wedges on the PGA tour. And that's for the last 70 plus years. You can find the right ball for you. I always do this now each year before I put in my order. I just go to the

14:47fitting tools on Titleist.com. I go reread the education resources occasionally. I can't remember what years, but they'll flip the pro personas on each ball just with some updates. So I always like revisit it. This year, I fell back into the same one I was in, which is the ProV1. And it's important to play the right ball, to play the best ball, to play equipment that gives you confidence. That's why Titleist is the number one ball in golf. Professor, let's get on to the show. All right, I'm back in F1. You got me. I took a little while off, but I don't know what it was. I do think, obviously, I'm a basic, it could be like everybody else out there that fell into this sport during COVID. But I did like last year, I tuned in pretty late. And there's a lot of new names on the grid. And that excited me. I was like, huh, what's this guy's story? And

15:53in the drama, I'm a drama queen. I think when it comes to what I'm going to watch, and that includes for it. So they hooked me back. Oh, yeah. And Brad Pitt being a stud with a shirt off that SOB, got me in the movie. So I know you never left. And I know we share some texts. There are people that are much more avid than you. But where's your fandom on F1? Has it fainted at all? You excited for this season coming up? Oh, super excited for this season. I shouldn't say super excited. A friend of ours, Chica from Midtown said, you know, that's an authentic phrase to use. So I should say I'm just genuinely excited for a new season. I mean, if there's one thing about F1, it is a little bit of a soap opera sort of situation between the teams, the drivers, the owners, the, you know, chief officers, the engineers. I mean, it is just a lot of mud slinging and it's just, you know, they cycle through drivers quickly in and out. So there's always something new. Just at the driver level to be excited about this year, you know, I think the lunar new year

16:58just happened recently. It's the year of the, I think it's the fire horse might be. Fire horse, you talked all about it. Yeah, so it is a happy fire horse here. Yeah, that was our fact of the day. Well, that's relevant to this because it's a pink pony or the red pony for Ferrari. It's their year. I've got my hope back. We start, I mean, that's why I'm excited every year. We start out the year with hope as a Ferrari fan that this is the year, you know, Prince Sarlo Claire or the goat Lewis Hamilton. They're going to get it done. They're going to bring a title back to Ferrari. This is the year it's happening. I'm ready. Rubber stamp in it. We're going to get one too in the driver's championship. Talk about being basic, isn't that just the default team for anyone that likes fast cars, the hot red one, the Lewis Hamilton, the goat is, I mean, when did your fandom start with these guys? I mean, if you said you liked fast cars, I would imply that you have a fast car, which has been a while since we've had one of those. You know, we've had arguably one or two of the fastest drivers, you know, of the top three or four in the grid and

18:03can't deliver them a car, but that's again, changing this year. I just, I don't know, Ferrari's Ferrari. I mean, it's hard when you get into F1, and especially when I got into it, Charles Clare was pretty fresh in his story. Just like no one's ever said a bad word about the guy in any capacity ever. And then Carlos signs, you know, was there, came over when we were getting into it, and that just cemented Clare's love for Ferrari right there. And she's followed Carlos over to Williams, certainly. So that's that's where we're team Ferrari. And now we got Lewis, we'll see this year, see if we can deliver. Is it, why do you think golfers, it feels to me, and I see this inside a new club, I see this in my text group, it feels to me that there is a synonymous fandom with not just F1, F1 maybe just being the top or pinnacle of motor racing is where a lot of the golf fans have gravitated. But why, why do you think it's,

19:07it's so similar of a base of fans, it's an affluent thing, I feel like that's probably part of it. But what, why else? Yeah, if we remove this socioeconomic side, let's just get rid of that. And this is, that is a big contributor to it. I mean, one, like cars in general, people do, definitely most people like golf probably like cars. And again, there's a blurring of socioeconomic aspect to that, right? If you're at a country club, you're affluent enough to also probably start getting into cars at some point, especially later, you know, in your 30s and 40s. So you might gravitate towards a sport that involves cars and engines in high precision form. I think you could make an argument for a late ability. And it's in the same way, like, you're like, oh, we play golf, the pros play golf. They play a very different game than us, the pros do, but yet there's still relatability. We all drive a car, right? We all probably as idiots, when we're 16 years old, drove our car way too fast in certain situations. So I think

20:14watching the sport, you know, it's living vicariously through through something. I think it's the same in the college football fandom. You live vicariously through your football team, so their winning gives you that sensation of winning, a race watching and gives you the sensation of driving, you know, driving that car. I think that's a big piece of it. And then just go, frankly, those are all sort of makeshift psychology reasons. But then the day, the marketing that they've done since, especially COVID, the timing of drive to survive just occurring right at that, you know, the COVID phenomenon. You just couldn't cook it up any better for the sport. All of a sudden, we're stuck indoors. You got something that's contained. It's like I'm only committing two hours of my Sunday or Saturday night to this. That's it. We've got everything on recording now, right, with YouTube TV and everything. So you can fast forward through the red flags. It's just a sport set up to consume quickly and have tons of excitement throughout it. So I think that

21:14that helps it too. All right. In this then diagram of overlapping golf fans and F1 fans, which it does feel like there's many of now, how many do you think would be pro rollback or anti rollback? Oh, wow. I was not prepared for that question. That's hard because like, this is my transition to the regulation changes of F1. F1 itself, the cars are so built on pushing technology to its fullest, right? These are the highest precision cars. It's the joke is like, if you breathe on them, they don't work anymore. And so it's always pushing technology to its max. They're supposed to resent the most innovative aspects of the sport. So that level, it's like, well, the equivalent would be we want our clubs to be as innovative as possible. So I would actually think the quick

22:18answer for a lot of people would be anti rollback for a lot of people. That's where I was going. I think that's the big answer. Yeah. But, but and this is what we like to do on this show is go a little layer deeper. So why don't we, why don't we go with tell us what happened in F1 recently professor? What did they change? What are these rate? What is the governing body implementing for 2026? Yeah. So you've got the FIA over F1 to give that, let's give the 10,000 foot view over what's happened this year. They regulate, they regulate F1. They're constantly and it's all way down to the races and passing down decisions within races. But at the Granger scheme going in each season, they think about what are the cars? What we've seen the last year, a couple years, what changes do we want to make the regulations? Because we want our product to be superior. We want to improve the product. We want racing going on. We want the fans happy. You know, what's it going to be relative to that? And let's keep in mind when I say keep the fans happy. They're not just monitoring the numbers because they were monitoring the numbers a bit. We're blowing up. Why would we

23:22change anything? Now, they're really thinking about the race product on the field. They're thinking long term, not just like, oh, right now things are going great. That's not touching anything. So this coming year, they're making pretty significant changes. We're especially relative to previous changes they've made. They're of course putting different regulations in the car in terms of wheel base and size and everything like that. They always like to experiment with that. In this case, I would argue the biggest changes are with respect to the engine. So they're switching to more of a 50-50 hybrid engine of battery and just combustible, you know, an ICE. And in doing so, the downstream effect there is they're changing some of the racing rules. So previous rule, DRS, in the straights, 10,000 foot view, you had to be within a second of someone. If you're within a second, you could drop your wing, you know, reduce your drag, chase someone down, you know, give you better arrow on down the straight. That's changed now. Everybody will be able

24:25to do what they want with their back wing during the straights. It doesn't matter if you're close to someone or not. That'll also change your arrow backwards in the front with your front wings, reducing your drag. Also now, you can deliver more battery down the straights. And again, you don't be within a certain range of someone. You can just deliver more energy from the battery to make you go faster. On top of that, there's other parts of the tracks where you can go into boost mode, also delivering more energy from your battery as you are moving through those parts of the tracks. So in other words, giving much more where DRS was, just if you're within a second, your wing goes down, you know, you're moving into, you're going to move a little bit faster and deploy, you can deploy your battery during that. Now you don't need to, we'll be the one in one second and there's going to be many places throughout a track. A driver can choose to deliver more battery. The big idea there is put more control in a driver's hand throughout more of the track to strategically

25:29deploy their energy, their battery energy in terms of creating overtake opportunities based on where they think might be the best places for them as a driver to do that relative to their competition. So overall, that is sort of the biggest change relative to it and all around how the engine's working and how energy deployment will work with the engine throughout an entire race. That was pretty efficient use there. You kind of nailed what the changes are. I'm so curious about a few in particular, but what is the precedent, I guess, for this? So these golf fans that are watching have won and we're on tax change with, they're like, oh, they're changing the rules again. Even somebody I saw in a group or part of was saying, yeah, I like it's more about the drivers

26:33driving versus the tech in the car. It seems, and this is a novice fan like myself, so I don't know if they can back that up. But what's your thought on that, Professor? It does feel like there's the governing body's attempt to always balance that best driver or best car. Yeah, that is a perpetual chase, right? So in terms of history, this is nothing new. The FIA makes significant changes. If you look back, I bet you could look almost every five to seven years. There's something that's they've done that you'd look at and be like, oh, that's a pretty big change. That's going to change, or that's going to cause the racing to differ. In this case, the snapshot of where we're in, you could argue, in the last five years, you've had a lot of monotonous driving, not a lot of overtakes. They get in what's called a DRS train. Everybody just kind of stays there. You don't see a lot of dissimilarities and help people are racing. So you could argue that it's like, yeah, everybody's just kind of driving the same way,

27:37and it's a little monotonous. So what can we do to change that? We're definitely the current changes. If you think it's moving too much, the cars are going to have less grip. That's just factually, by the way, they're going to design. They're going to have less grip, and the drivers have more control over how power is delivered. That, by definition, is going to make it a little bit more of a driver's car. The driver in the seat will matter a little bit different because the car, when they push to the edge, has a little bit less grip. They're going to have to have better touch with it, right? Better control. They're driving style. This is where an argument has been made. This might actually suit Louis Hamilton a little bit more than, say, a max for staff and max is very, very aggressive into a corner, goes kind of full in. He's a front other car driver, so he needs full grip. The way he drives super aggressive needs grip where Louis is a very smooth driver. They call him a rear end driver, where he's fine if the car is a little loose. And actually, historically, he has tons of races where his tires are going out, and every other driver would be

28:42pitting or getting worse. And all of a sudden, he locks in and actually starts running the fastest times of the race because he just, you get him in a car like that. He just has the uncanny ability to take a slippery car and just move it into exactly what he wants. So overall, yeah, the current regulations, the hope is they make it a little bit more of a driver's car. And you see a little bit more variability on the track in terms of overtakes, drivers having to race different in different parts based on their car setup and their specific style of racing. That is the overall goal of these changes in the regulations. Yeah, it's the times they've done this before. I don't know what the goals were, but since I've been a fan too, I remember, you know, some outrage on what's the, what's the dissonance or the, you know, from what you see F1 fans, do they get upset at these changes or they probably changes in light golf where there's just folks on both

29:46sides of the aisle upset at each other? What do each of these do? I mean, at least within the chambers I live within, there's no mud throwing on this. And that could be because this is just how it's been for the longest. The FIA is a regulating body. They're going to regulate the sport. I think where you see arguments are, everybody wants the races to be competitive and they want action, they want overtakes, they want drivers to be able to drive, they want to see differences in driving styles pay off. So most arguments would be around, hey, we want regulation. What should that regulation be to create a better product on the track? You know, so different arguments will occur there, what they should do. And you see failures on the regulations. I would argue the most recent, some of the most recent changes around DRS and what's occurred there that it hasn't created a better product. You know, I don't think it's necessarily created a worse product, but definitely if you go back five years ago, some of the changes that were made with the DRS, all of a sudden,

30:46the DRS train was introduced and that's a very boring race when you get these DRS train races there. So overall, you don't get this like, oh, you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't regulate or why are they making these changes? It's like, no, we're trying to make the product. We want F1 to be competitive. We want F1 to, you know, always be about the drivers driving the best cars. And so that's what it's all about. And I think at one point to that, I think is very important to make. The teams, it puts in the team's hands innovation when the changes are made. Like, who is the team that's going to innovate the best? You know, Mercedes whiffed on the most recent arrow body changes and that cost them Lewis Hamilton. He left eventually because they whiffed so bad. So this puts, you know, when the regulations change, it puts the teams back in innovation mode and back in R&D mode. And then you get to see who comes out on top from that. And then other cars try to, you know, and teams try to catch up with those that made the right decision. So that

31:50I think that adds a little bit of spice to it too, which is fun to watch. Yeah, the only other sense I have been watching and basically just chatting with you about this sport, the changes in 2022 that they rolled out had a lot of the same intentions, I think, is that balance of competitive, you know, a race worth watching and these technical developments pushing the envelope of what's possible. And I think Mercedes in the first half of the year screwed that up. Oh, terribly. That was a matter of fact. What was it called the oscillating? The porpacing that was occurring. They were just slow as could be in the, just slow everywhere. And so they didn't have a car that could even podium. I did find it fascinating. And I think the study, worth studying there is the governance intervention that was intended to get that competitive balance to, you know, bring some folks in from the midfield, I think,

32:56to have at the top, the three races I've watched. It's always been the teams, you know, the season long narrative of three teams that could all win the Constructor's Championship is far more intriguing to me. And I think that was the intention then in 22, but what played out, that's not what played out, dominance played out, right? Yeah, I mean, you and Max Verstappen just become the most, you know, arguably one of the most dominant seasons to ever occur. And now then McLaren recently, but then McLaren, if you look before those regulation changes, McLaren was non-existent, right? Right. Right. They were struggling and now all of a sudden they're the top horse. It's, I'm trying to think of a decent comp not engulfed, but it would be like, you know, changing guidelines and rule sets, and you have a dynasty, Tom Brady's, New England Patriots, and all of a sudden, you know, they drop off. And there's another because of the, it's so rare in

34:02other sports that the people at the top of the game would fall off that drastically. Yeah, that because the comparison thing you make, you know, baseball is always messing with the ball, so you move from the pitcher area to the hitter's area, right? And that happens, but it happens a little bit over a little bit longer period, I guess. NFL, you can make a comparison of the way the rules have been officiated, passing your appearance, holding that sort of stuff. We've moved from a defensive game to an offensive game. Yeah. NBA, NBA has been primarily strategy. That's what's changed there in terms of the style to play a little bit less about any regulation changes. There have been some that have contributed to the change in style in NBA. But yeah, it is hard for me off top of my head to think of a comp to F1 in terms of just how significant, like, how hard they work to regulate, and then the changes that creates within the teams and the pecking orders. Well, we're also talking about the budgets of these teams, you know,

35:03that how many total teams are there now in F1? Did we just 10? Yeah. And then go to 11 with Cadillac or whatever. Cadillac joined in 22 drivers. Yeah. But these teams have these financial caps were part of the regulation changes. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, you know, for more parity throughout, keep people to some rules. But I think it's much like the salary caps of other leagues. It seems like there's a lot of wiggle room when it comes to these things. But there's what was the numbers? I saw 215 million is the team cost cap baseline with another 150, 48.5 million on the manufacturer cost cap. And then another almost 200 million for the inaugural season and later. So like, we're talking funny money here. This business is so fascinating to me. And like,

36:09I don't know, that's part of maybe what turns me off is like, give these guys my Uncle Jack's garage and some if I sit back and think about the ethical moral side of the dollars in this sport and all that, then yeah, we're just we turn that off for two hours on Sundays. And I don't mean to divert us down that because I think what I was really interested in your perspective on is just the idea of a governing body consistently changing the rules of play and the requirements of the equipment and technology. So what we're talking about this almost in another stratosphere than what any other sport really comes to because of the engineering behind it and these ridiculous dollar amounts. But I let's go there. I mean, this is shortly after other regulation changes. The best driver in the world, arguably in Max Verstaffen is pissed off. Some of the things

37:11yeah, let's be clear with Max. He just likes the he likes to complain. That's he's he's he's likes to speak his opinion and he's always a little bit of a little bit ornary. That's right. But the what do we what can we learn from this to apply to our favorite sport and golf? Obviously, we're on the tail of a very quiet announcement to move back any regulation till 2030. Again, you know, and it's such a different behavior in this fastest growing sport out there. Golf is too, but not at the pace we're seeing with with this and they clearly don't have the fear of backlash from, you know, the other powers that being golf does. What can we learn? Yeah, yeah, that's my clear. The F1 does not have to deal with the OEM issue. That's just not there for them. It's not like McLaren's going to want to sue them because

38:13they're selling their F1 car to the general public. And, you know, regardless if real or not, they're not you know, you don't buy Perrelli's. Yeah, yeah. I used to rock Perrelli's on my Jeep. Did you really? Oh, yeah, I wouldn't even know where to get those. But yeah, it's it's not like they have, you know, again, is it real or not? That's put that aside in terms of does this actually sell clubs, but they appeal to like, oh, you can play the same stuff the pros play. That's not a conversation point for McLaren and Mercedes, they don't want to pretend that's the case. So, so let's put that aside. But their sponsorships, Cadillac being that prime example, I can go to buy a Cadillac and many Americans do. So, they're a sponsor of it, even though the tech isn't even close to what you're going to have in your Cadillac. Right. And that's and that's be real in F1. Even though you can't buy that for our car, you can't buy that. If you're in a right earning class, a lot of people are going to buy, if they're fans of a particular F1 team, a lot of people are going to buy a car made by that

39:17maker, because they are rabid fans in F1. Isn't it? I just want to call out a bit of counter position here that even though you can't buy what the F1 drivers have, it's on the ultra high spectrum of what a car is capable of doing and your road vehicle is on the other side of that. And golf, where actually at least the rollback crowd is making the argument to go the opposite direction in many cases. Some people might be for rolling it all back, but what we're saying, there is no, I want to buy the souped up equipment and I want the professional players to play a reduced version of it so you can host tournaments at the old course so you can, you know, all that debate. That's kind of, that's funny, isn't it? Yeah, this is one of the things I chew on

40:20when I'm laying in bed at night and can't fall asleep. It's like, what is the comp here? And the comp I would make throughout to this is where I've always been against the word rollback. I just think it's a stupid word. It's regulation for the purpose of having the game, resemble whatever it is that we want to resemble. That's what it's for the purpose of. So that's in F1, that's the comp. Like, what do we want racing to be? We want it to be racing. We want there to be variance. We want, we want the drivers who are supposedly the best in the world to be in a position where they can showcase that. And the car is built where it's going to create a margin for them to showcase that, but it is a margin. And it's going to be a fine margin of showcasing it versus, no, you're not winning or whatever, right? And we're going to build it so you see that differentiation on the playing field on the track, right? We're going to build that technology so you can actually see who's pushing the margin the best and doing that. I think that's

41:21the comp. What is the technology? Let's just call it technology and we can design that technology to the best our ability. And we're going to design the technology, the equipment using the best technology possible to achieve what we want on the playing field. And do we want variance? Do we want margins? Do we want fine margins that then let players showcase their skill more than that? So I think it's a false. When we start with the equipment itself and talk about more technological, more advanced, less advanced, I think that's the wrong perspective to come at it. The perspective is what do we want this to look like and as use technology to build that, whatever. And if that ends up being persimmon because of X, Y and Z, we'll build the best persimmon we can, you know, and we'll do that. If that ends up being, hey, that's just whatever space material we want that because this is what we want to look like on the grounds of the game, then that's build that, right? I think that's the conversation to be had. It's regulating around what we want the product to look like.

42:24And in show in terms of people competing in differentiating themselves, that's the framing to take on this issue. That's interesting to me. Well, no, it illuminates for me. My prior point is more about technological development, but it doesn't make it easier for them to drive an F1 car. It actually sounds to me like 2026 makes it a bit more challenging or different to fit. The challenge is maybe figuring that out. Yeah, the challenge is different. It's different. And yeah, it's not like you're a better driver if you or I were given an F1 to go to the grocery store today. It's probably going to be really frickin hard to get that thing down Main Street, you know, across the highway over to the grocery store. But I do think there's just the change at all, just a regular relation body change in anything and doing it regularly. What? Why, Professor?

43:32Why can't we regulate our sport? Yeah, I mean, especially it's the pro game. You know, I've except a long time ago, the pro game is different than the game we play, right? Program name, program has an entertainment aspect to it. It's supposed to be the best people in the world like showcasing their skill set. And so that's just treated differently, right? Let's regulate it. And if that's bifurcation, it's already a bifurcated game. Like again, I don't care about that argument like over a couple beers, sure, but like just do it. Like who cares? Let the pro like this is have the pros that think hard about what the pros should be doing and what the game should look like at that level and ensuring that they're having to differentiate their skills. I think that's the conversation should revolve around that full stop. And it shouldn't be something where like us knuckleheads that like play, you know, Saturdays get this input of, you know, throwing mud of like, oh, no, we can't regulate the pro game. Like it's not, it's not on it. That's not for us to decide. That's for the regulating body to see here and say what this should just

44:34look like. And you're going to still love it. You're just going to still going to be entertained by it. And there's plenty of evidence to show that across other sports when changes get made, especially the F one that like sound like, oh, this change is made. And now, yes, sir, if it became all 20 car, 22 cars, 20 cars driving around in the same order, the whole race, they would lose fandom. So like bad decisions can get made in regulation. But that's that's the regulating body gets to live and die by that. I've heard anecdotedly that certain F one tracks that are historic, right? What's the prime example help me out is a manza in Italy. It's a what's someone? Monicarlo. Come on. Monaco. Monaco. Thank you. Yeah. Is I've heard anecdotally that a lot of the changes in the past things, perhaps like DRS, are making those tracks less appealing and even

45:37to the point where they couldn't host there, which I think for most F one fans, Monaco is a sacred place that needs to always be a part of the sport. Yeah. I've even heard the same thing about Melbourne, which is on TV this week. Like, obviously, there's the comp. I'm, you know, where I'm going here is as soon as the old course can't host an open, my heart is going to, you know, break. I just see the incredible connection, connective tissue of the game to not just there, but places like Pebble and we saw what technologies requiring there. Gil's going to put it under the knife and do a bunch of stuff, but I'm guessing it's not going to, you know, be the line of defense we need to keep hosting opens there. A long way of asking in, have they haven't or any of these changes going to make a Monaco more relevant? Yeah. So Monaco is a perfect cop. For those not familiar Monaco, it's just historic race. It is the race that I think a majority of F one fans

46:46and definitely a drivers would say if like that wasn't on the calendar, you don't have F one. Like, it is just, it's iconic in so many different ways. And what that race has become is if you qualify first, you're going to win the race as long as you don't mess up, just the cars because they're arrow packages the way they race their size predominantly as well. This is general size of the cars. It's just you're kind of stuck in no passing very few overtakes. The whole race, if you hit your pit stops and the race plays out without cautions or anything like that, it's kind of like one through 20 is going to be one through 20. It's going to almost essentially say that. And the cop would be, if we think about St. Andrews, okay, if we're making changes, we'd be reckoning buildings, making the streets wider. We would literally change the entire racetrack and you wouldn't have Monaco anymore. You wouldn't have these really tight city streets through these iconic buildings, you know, along the water, just like none of that would exist anymore. And it would just be a totally different race. So going to the old course think of, hey, okay, well, in golf, we can build new

47:51teas. We can put them on this different property. We can do this. We can add bunkers. So we're just going to rather than regulate, we're going to take a scalpel and perform plastic surgery, something. And that would, it's just, it's two different perspectives on solving, you know, a problem. But I think, you know, thinking about it, it's like, well, should we be continuing to perform plastic surgery every two years to these things that are the timeless things. Players come and go, equipment come and go, everything comes and goes, except the grounds of the game, right? Like those are the things that are timeless. So where should we, in thinking about regulation, a lot of the F1 moves have been, well, we don't want to lose these iconic venues. We just, they're part of our fabric and they need to be part of our fabric. And, you know, hopefully, the business interests won't change that. And they'll continue to regulate and move and keep those iconic venues as they move forward.

48:53It does seem that they will continue though to be more boring than the others. Because with the dollars in the sport, it's like, sure, Abu Dhabi is going to build a new track more suited for today's technology or at Las Vegas. We'll just re-wrap down the strip to make that more exciting for the sport fans. And I don't know. I think like there's probably a much smaller contingent of F1 tragic, just like there's golf tragic, so aren't going to want that. But, you know, the 45 million Americans who are flooding to watch this thing, they might not care about Monaco, right? Yeah, and I think that's a competing interest in the sport. I'm sure behind the scenes that historically there was a, the sport itself is obviously a little gross and it's money involved and it's a influence. But at the fan level, it's been egalitarian. And you know, the fans attend an F1 race. Historically, they've been very affordable. That has changed a little bit recently.

49:56But historically, very affordable, especially for a general grounds pass of fans from all walks of life at them. And in-person experience, you're talking, you know, hundreds of thousands of people across a weekend, huge. But now the competing interest is with TV dollars and visibility. You know, it used to be like one reason to preserve the venues was also preserve the fandom at the venues. You know, each of these venues have a subset of fans that live their traffic in from, you know, their country to go there. But that's obviously changing now. You move to something like Vegas and it doesn't look for anything like say a silverstone where you just got these fields of just people camped out watching. So you're seeing an evolution there. And maybe that will begin to compromise some of these iconic venues a little bit more that they're very hard to get to. Like don't have great infrastructure, don't have great lodging. You know, Silverstone, Claire and I went to that. It's not the easiest event to do. You just have to be ready. You have to be ready to be ready to bust in tons of traffic. Like it's in the middle

50:57of the country side. It's just not like we would, it's no Augusta national in terms of like ease and access. Now they run an amazing event at it. Like F1 has it dialed the in-person experience. But these I kind of venues often earn the middle of nowhere. A quick aside or a tangent, if you will. I think one of the things that has brought me into being a novice F1 fan is and you know this, I'm a Star Wars nerd. Maybe as nerdy as you are about F1. I am about Star Wars. The fan element of it and you know your experiences you shared with me from Silverstone. It does remind me of Pod Racing scene. Oh yeah. In the second trilogy. George Lucas, I've read about this. He did take direct comps from the world of F1 at the time to show what you're talking about. That everybody was

51:57tuning into it. When the race was coming around, but then you have the elites, the ruling class up in their boxes, the gambling around it. But the hero's journey, obviously the kid who Anakin Skywalker. Anyways, I'd love to get your pod racer comps on the F1 grid. That would be fun. But here's one more segment I just thought of, Professor. In getting to like golf regulating their sport, tell me if this would be fun. I'll name a couple of the recent regulation changes that you ran through for F1 and let's say what would be the comp and golf. It's called Word to do this. It's what I chose. I'll start with smaller, lighter, nimble, top car tires. What would that be? I mean, I think the easy one there is just going to smaller heads. Driver heads. You could think, you could regularly all across the bag though, but driver heads,

52:59making a smaller margin of air on the face, an off center hit. If you move just so far off center, like it creates these spin dynamics, these aerodynamics and regulating that, just more fine tune, you know, low and smaller T, you know, all sorts of different. I'll go a different route. The wheels, I will say are synonymous to the golf ball. The thing that always touches the track and the thing that always touches the club head and goes, you know, it's a part of every shot. I think this would be synonymous with moving back to the British ball. Smaller ball. I like that. I'll do another wheels one because there we're in the world of grip. How about smaller depth grooves, especially wedges, right? So just you can, the wedges don't have as much action or control. That would be huge on any around the green in just general pitch shots, right? Like anything in the rough. So like that's reduced the depth on the grooves, which is actually an easy change. Should we do the

53:59pros? All right. Let's do another one. The active aerodynamics that is replacing DRS. What would you call it? Is it the passing zones or whatever now? Yeah. So it's just energy deployment. Let's just take it into that. Or you want to appearly about the aerodynamics. Yeah. This is the aerodynamic one. So it's whatever's replaced in DRS. DRS was for the speed in the straights. If you're falling along, what would that be in golf? Oh, man, active aerodynamics. Man, that's a tough one. Yeah, that's a tough one. The comp. I'll use your fire one. I feel like that might be someone I was going to say the size of the club head. Oh, size of the club. Yeah, that might be a little bit better for that. Or is it a makeup of a shaft torque requirements or some along those lines that restricts? Yeah. Yeah. Force in the where I'm going with this is the straightaway. And F1

55:07is synonymous to the big dog to let him eat and hitting a mile. So like I would think that is some type of governor on the drive. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm just making these up as we go. All right. This one. Here's the one I was most interested about. And we could maybe you know, it's what we'll line it down here. Maybe one or two more. But this dual engine, the energy deployment, energy conservation. This is the quote I initially texted you about this because when Verstappen was talking about deploying energy and the hybrid engine, I was like, wow, this is interesting. Like they are basically saying you can't run your car anymore at a certain level. You got to make decisions earlier in a race to balance that when you deploy it. Am I right? And how can I conceptualize it? Yeah. Yeah. You're thinking like I can deploy energy at certain

56:07so much because as I deploy it, then I have to recharge it eventually, right? And they do that through breaking zone and stuff like that. So yeah, you can imagine like, okay, if I run my battery at a hundred percent, I'm going to start draining that down. And so when am I going to do that? When do I want speed? When's that going to help me pass someone? You know, it's honestly about the fastest lap. It's like, can I get past someone? And when should I do that? And then not have them pass me later? Gosh. So golf, you got any for this? Yeah. I do. Like, that's first move off. You know, we don't want this to be a five hour episode. We could just go straight into match play and all the cool stuff we could do. If it was in match play, we could get much more creative. Stroke play, we can't get super creative because you're just protecting the field and, you know, can't have someone in a group telling what the other opponent should be doing. So, I mean, the easiest one is I, you know, let's say we change the equipment, but you still allow this like souped up driver in the bag, doesn't count towards club count or whatever. And it can be deployed

57:08so many times. In a round, I would honestly, I would say a tournament, maybe. So like, you get so many uses in a tournament, not just a round, but a whole tournament. So you could actually save it all for the last day, Sunday, if you wanted to, right? I want to, because that adds more strategy in my opinion. Versus like three around go, no, you get 12 across the whole tournament. When do you want to use it? You know, use it as you want. And so like, now you really got to think, when do I want to bring out this souped up 460 CC driver that I pick up 10 miles per hour with? The bomb goes stick. Yeah. And like, think of the strategy, like, think of the content of conversations with the caddy when you allow it in real time to occurs. Like, is this the moment? You know, why are they doing this? Zuka for a 350 yard drive on Sunday. After the round, why did you choose to deploy it then? Why did you not choose? Like, you know, those sort of things, I think, that's interesting. I think it's a no brainer. I mean, it would be a blast to watch.

58:13That's interesting. You know, because I'm reading a lot about the earlier golf side, is there was specific clubs in bags. One, they didn't have a regulation on number of clubs they could carry. So there was some guys in the 1800s having their caddy walk around with literally, like, 40 clubs. I mean, they were laughed at, but it was true. Most of them, you know, primarily, you're just looking for most distance possible. And so that would be the woods or what they called the the cleaks and things that have long-nosed, you know, wood clubs. But their version of that were the the rut irons and the things that they used to get out of a situation. And they specifically carried them for that. This is the alternative of that. It's like, you're specifically carrying this for a big bazooka shot. That's just some good stuff. I will turn in. Tune in. I've got two other ideas. Like, I was watching indoor golf. Last night, I'm falling on these creative holes. They're creating like just more of that.

59:17I mean, keep them ridiculous like that. This is not real golf. And again, I think pro golf should stop like trying to be real golf. Like, that's just like regulated, do whatever with it. I think a fun one would be like a variation of the one club challenge throughout around. You have to use so many clubs on approach shots. So like, you have to have seven different clubs on approach shots about the end of the round. Like, yeah, I've had seven different clubs as approaches. It would be a fun one just to see them get creative. But then going back, you brought the team budgets and all that. We got limited number of people on these guys teams. And, you know, we're I'm looking at the range anymore in a pro event. I got 12. Like, well, they got four agents that are their buddies just standing behind them for an hour and a half. Just like, it's always the arms crossed. One, you know, one hand on the chin and just not insane. Something's like, you guys got no business being there. Like, you're just sitting there happy about the money you're getting as a kickback from your player, because you're, you know, you're the agent friend. Like, come on, we need to limit the teams, the number of people,

1:00:23they're in a golf course team that's regulate budgets around the players. Let's, let's do that. I was definitely going to slip that one in the 500 plus million dollar cap combined, or whatever it is now that F1 implemented. How would you do that in golf? Would it be something related to your team that you can't spend on X amount? I don't know where you can financially cap a guy's mentor. So many physio visits. Let's get real restricted fear. Oh, you heard your back. I used to only get two physio visits. We'll give you a third because you got documented injuries. Yeah. Not realistic to actually do, but, you know, I mean, I think it would really apply if you went the other route on governance. Well, I guess it's a historic route on golf's governance. Open up the can, let people let the engineers go, but this would be each player is, you know, given a team of engineers and the pit crew, if you will, on the driving

1:01:27range and that's the thing that's budgeted, right? And we're capped. Team golf obviously TGL could do this, maybe. Maybe TGL could do this and then play with it. Gosh, this is just enlightening to think about it. I think it does just regardless of how you feel about this output of rollback, not rollback, regulation, no regulation, deregulation, it's definitely a timely thing of a very popular sport that is regulating very publicly, very quickly, and a sport that's not. And they're both totally different powers that be, let's say, pushing on each of them, but not right or wrong, just interesting to think about. I loved your perspective on this, Kevin. Yeah, because at the end of the day, non-regulation is a form of regulation, right? Decisions are being made, including indecision or decision to not do anything. That is a form of regulation. So just, to me, it's

1:02:28all regulation. And some people in life make hard decisions and follow through with them and some of them take the status quo easy decision and run with that. And, you know, if there is one true stagnation, isn't a very productive place for most things to be. I know some folks who have been a part of governance in golf. And one in particular is coming to mind where my conversations with them have been around stewardship. And the importance of just ensuring the game is in a healthy place long after he dies. And he is very dedicated to the rules of golf. And it was involved in the modernization of the rules that took place prior to COVID. And I think had a lot to do with the growth we've seen and the inclusion we've seen just last last question for you on F1. Would you consider this governing body and the stuff that you've a lifetime of watching

1:03:28this sport? Are they stewards or is it ego? Are they are they thinking about the future of this sport? Are they thinking about these massive dollars and their own influence? I assume the cynical side of me, you know, this is an entertainment product and a lot of decisions are being made based on money. At the same time, at least the decisions being made can be connected directly to the product that they're trying to create in terms of bracing. Like you can look at the decisions and it's consistently it's like we want more overtaking. We want more of this. So at least that, like if you know, which is racing, racing is right overtaking than at least you can argue the decisions there. And of course, yeah, the better product on the field in the long run should bring in more eyes and more dollars for them. You know, and you look at some actions they've taken to on the previous

1:04:32guy that was in charge in the bad decision he made with Lewis and Max race like they axed him. So they've made they've made difficult decisions that definitely say like we care about the product, obviously downstream care about the money. And with that said, I will say as a golf fan, it's really I would prefer to see differentiation be a huge thing in lots of variants, which means there's probably a lot of weeks you'd have a winner run away with it. Like if someone's truly playing better than the rest of the field, they're going to get out to five, six shots lead. You know, and if that would happen regularly, but not with the same person, I don't know if their audience would grow that much. If it's a tiger woods that keeps doing it and or Scotty Shefford, that's always doing it. Your audience grows. But if every week you're getting, you know, you across 30 tournaments, you get say, 15 different winners and 10 of them were by five shots or more that might hurt your product. So again, the regulation could be built equipment where everybody kind of ends around the same score instead of the courses. So we've got 10 people

1:05:38within one shot of the lead going into the, you know, final nine holes. You know, that's again, spin your F1 question to a golf question. Maybe they try to maybe that's what the decisions they're making right now are all relative to that. We want a bunch of leaderboards. We want a khaki game of golf because it creates a dynamic leaderboard. That could be the reason for doing it. I actually think it is. I just wish they'd say it that that is the case because I agree with that case. I do think that in just look at history, when there were real changes, the ProVi1 came on the market. We, we saw increased what? Dominance Tiger, obviously a rare breed and was probably going to dominate in any era. Anything given to him yet. But what's crazy is we're actually not and we haven't been in a very dominant era. And Scotty Schuffler has still done what he's done. But to your point, a Chris Godderrup has, you know, in the, I don't know what he is now in the

1:06:41world, five or six, but he can toe-to-toe beat Rory and stay within a striking distance on the tail of a Scotty Schuffler or Rory Macri. If there were rollback and go all the way to Persemin or, you know, for 20 CCs or 380 or Wow and Balls, whatever it is, I do think you're going to see a much more increased variance. I think you're, you've done some data, right, to suggest that. And I do think there is a lot of folks who don't believe that's good for the game. It's, you know, what it's doing, it's letting those guys highlight how good they really are. And it's, by doing that, you will end up with some runaway cases, right? Well, and this, this is where F1 benefits, because they have the midfield race, they have the backfield race, right? The race that occurs

1:07:42across the entire grid matters. We're engulfed. Once you get past this, you know, that top of the leaderboard, nobody's really paying attention. We're F1 benefits from everybody paying attention to the entire thing. And that's, and that's part of the entertainment product telling a narrative, sharing a story, getting you more involved in the stuff that isn't the runaway, Sean, well, your buddy LaClaire hasn't won anything. I mean, you probably still won't, but the other guys, McLaren running away with it or her staff. And, you know, Scotty's still been able to do that in our tech-enhanced era. Yeah, it's very impressive. Pretty wild to think about because there's just more margin for error with this stuff. And, um, yeah, yeah, tiger benefit from playing with the ball before other people had it, right? So he had that little area where he was playing with definitely different technology. And I know I'm not aware of Scotty playing with anything different right now than everybody else out there. So what Scotty's

1:08:44doing is is very, very impressive. Yeah, he sustains this for another couple of years. You could make the argument that in terms of differentiating himself, he's done it as well or better than tiger, at least along some lines. Now, tiger went into open by 15 shots. The US Open, I don't care if he was playing a different ball or not doing that in the way he did. Like, that's just stupid. Yeah, but he adjusted to the opportunity just like some F1 team will this year. Hopefully, it's my guy hot. I hope it's not going to be a fry. I know that. But all right, we can talk about this all day. Professor, thanks for taking our our little deviation into car racing for this week. I really was fascinated by this. I knew you were going to bring the heat and you totally did. Now, I'm excited to watch a little a little Melbourne this week. And thanks to everybody for listening. We'll see you guys on

1:09:47next one. Thanks to our partners at Titleist, the number one ball in golf. We'll catch you guys on next one.