LIV GOLF SOUTH AFRICA

March 17, 2026

Bryson DeChambeau

Paul Casey

Anirban Lahiri

Charles Howell

The Club at Steyn City

Crushers GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome to the media center Crushers GC. Thanks for taking the time today. We're joined by captain Bryson DeChambeau, Charles Howell III, Paul Casey, and Anirban Lahiri.

Bryson, you're coming off a win in Singapore. Had a T3 finish in Adelaide and are currently second in the individual standings. How are you feeling about your game entering this week's event with an eye on major season just around the corner?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I feel like I'm progressing well and comfortable with my game, hitting it a lot better than I have in years past leading into major season, early in the season for LIV Golf. I practiced a little earlier this year, and it's starting to pay off.

Q. Paul, this is LIV Golf's first time playing in Africa, on the African continent. Already huge crowds are expected for this upcoming event. What does it say about the interest in LIV Golf on a global scale?

PAUL CASEY: I mean, this is a global tour, so it was only a matter of time. You look at the strength we have within LIV with the Stingers, those guys have been talking about --

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Southern Guards now. It changes.

PAUL CASEY: Sorry, Southern Guards.

Look, South African golf has always been world class. As long as I've been playing, we always looked up to a lot of South African players and their skills.

Yeah, I'm happy to be down here. I've played golf in South Africa many times. It's good to be back. Never played here, but I know how much golf means in this part of the world, so I know it's going to be an exciting week.

Q. Charles, many of the fans are going to be coming out this week. This will be their first LIV Golf experience. This morning the Southern Guards were out here and they said they think the fans still aren't quite ready for what they're going to get and the amount of fun. How do you describe a LIV Golf event experience for those who are going to be seeing it for the first time?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Ooh. Well, everyone I've spoke to that's been to a LIV event is always more impressed than they thought they would be and always want to come back, so that obviously says the most for it.

Yeah, there's music playing. There's fan zones set up. There's good food. They can see all their favorite golfers because it's a shotgun start. There's no worry about, well, I missed my guy, he played early or he played late.

I think South Africans love their golf and love their sport. We hear there's big numbers coming out. I think they're going to love it.

Q. From a player's perspective, Anirban, many of our players have a party hole. This week it's named the Lion's Den. What's it like walking through the tunnel on to that tee box for a hole? What is that experience like as a player?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: I think that's one of the unique things that LIV Golf has brought to the entertainment aspect of it, whether it's the party hole, whether it's this week the Lion's Den. It's always fun to go out there and entertain. It's a good hole. You're going to see a lot of golf shots come close, and of course the crowds are going to be -- they love it. I think South Africans love their sport. They love their golf.

Yeah, I think it'll be pretty exciting with some of those balls probably getting close to a hole in -- maybe we get another one. That would be amazing.

Q. Bryson, I think one of the coolest things last week was in the playoff with Richard to see some genuine compassion from you in such a competitive landscape. I think that speaks to what LIV represents as a competition. It's obviously fierce rivalries. The Southern Guard wants nothing more than to take down the Aussie boys from Ripper and I guess anybody else. Can you speak a little bit more to some of that compassion, energy and camaraderie that exists even between teams on this tour?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, I think we all have a great respect for each other, no matter if it's the Rippers or Southern Guards or Crushers, Smash, 4Aces. We all have a great respect for each other, but we want to beat the living you-know-what out of everybody. I want to beat the living crap out of everybody on my team here, and we all want the same. I think that's what makes it so great as a competitive landscape.

But I think at the end of the day, there's compassion, and this game is so deeply rooted in compassion. I think it's valuable that we have the team aspect now out here in golf, and we're still individuals playing to beat each other.

It's a great balance that I think LIV Golf brings to the world, and coming from last week, even a wild card, he has the chance to win for the first time in LIV Golf history. I wanted to go another hole with him. Seeing him miss that putt was a shock to me.

It brought up just thoughts of times that have happened for other people. You just feel for him. That's all you can do in that moment because I personally don't want to win that way. Albeit it's a win, it's great, but you want to go out with a 10-footer that you made to beat everybody. That's what we all dream of doing, not being necessarily handed it.

Albeit I hit it in the water and hit a great shot up there, still, I wanted to go another hole with him. I think that's what's so great is we want everybody to do well, whether it's AK coming back, his amazing comeback story and winning in Adelaide and beating Jon and I. Our season has been quite a fairy-tale story so far, from Elvis winning the first week, a young stud, to then AK, his full transformation and comeback story, so then Jon finally getting it done in Hong Kong and having a wild card almost win but me pushing through for the victory. I think there's just a lot of great stories there that show not just how competitive it is but the compassion that we show for the game of golf and the world.

Q. Obviously you spoke of fairy-tales. It would be remiss of me not to bring up the green jacket that I'm sure you've got one eye on. How does LIV affect your preparation cycle? You've got a win in the bag; obviously that's some momentum. How are you feeling in the run-up to Augusta?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I know I have to dial in my wedges. That's going to be a big thing for me. I'm starting to drive it well, starting to iron play it well, putting it really well.

The last key for me is wedges and I've got a full bag of wedges I've been trying this week, different grinds, different weights, different shafts, different lengths, everything, kind of doing what I did back in '23 when I was just testing a bunch of drivers at the end of that year and then I found the driver that I'm still using today.

Hopefully I find what works and it continues to stick. It helped last week, but this week is a little different conditions, as well. It's soft like last week but just different. Augusta is going to be different.

I'm really focused on my equipment getting dialed in.

Q. Charles, this event has been billed as the biggest golf tournament in South Africa since the Presidents Cup in 2003. You were part of that tournament. Is it nice for you to be back --

CHARLES HOWELL III: I'm old.

Q. 23 years later you're back for this. Must be nice.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I was 10.

CHARLES HOWELL III: You were 10? Thank you. Teammates. Compassion. Remember that statement he just said?

First off, that tournament was incredible. I played every match that week with Tiger, and because it was Tiger, I was paired against all the South Africans, so it was Ernie, Retief, Tim Clark, and the South Africans are passionate about their sport. That was a phenomenal event. I'm hoping this is every bit of that, if not more.

But the way that ended and just everything was pretty incredible. Gary Player obviously was the captain on their side. But yeah, it was a phenomenal event. Glad you reminded me that was 2003. A few gray hairs ago.

Q. Bryson, we haven't got an elephant for you to ride yet and I know that's something you were looking for to --

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: A Tiger would be cool, too.

Q. No tigers over here, but we'll --

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Lion's Den.

Q. Lion is close enough. For the whole team, have you guys had the opportunity to go out on the course? Do you think the altitude is going to give you a bit of an advantage, especially Bryson, a guy who hits a long ball like yourself? And how do South African courses compare to the international ones that you guys play?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I think that altitude is going to help us obviously hit it farther and carry it longer distances. The golf course is soft right now. Hopefully it dries out a little bit. But there are areas where you can absolutely smoke it off the tee and give yourself a short wedge in.

The rough is spotty and long so fairways are a premium this week and making sure -- the greens are small, too, so just making sure you place the golf ball on the right side of the green is really important.

I don't know, I think that's --

PAUL CASEY: I'd also add that the altitude is tricky. There's a lot of guys who have never played in JoBurg before, and that quality of strike -- if you combine it on the kikuyu grass as well, it's difficult to get the strike consistently, and you'll see guys just not getting -- it looks like they're not getting the yardages correct, but maybe it's just a slight mis-hit and then you lose the spin rate and you can look foolish either long or short.

South African golf courses are -- you have world-class golf courses, plain and simple. You don't produce world-class golfers if you don't have world-class facilities, and you've got world-class golfers.

Q. Have Louis and the boys introduced you to any of our naughty South African customs?

PAUL CASEY: Such as?

Q. Like brandy -- if you're available later, we can make a plan, but I know Louis like his brandy --

PAUL CASEY: Bryson is not much of a drinker.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Chocolate milk but that's about it for me.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: We hope the South Africans deliver on the wine.

Q. Anirban, I know you're big mates with AB de Villiers. During the World Cup did you have any banter with the Southern Guards during the tournament?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: I knew that cricket was going to come up with what just happened a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I was expecting a South Africa-India final. I think they were the two best teams. It was unfortunate to see how you guys went out in the semis.

I still haven't caught up with AB. I was texting him this morning. He was 50/50 to come tomorrow, but I don't think he's coming now. But yeah, he's been very kind. We've gone back and forth. He loves his golf, I love my cricket. So we'll meet soon down the road. I think he might come out later this week, and I'm looking forward to meeting him.

PAUL CASEY: I love the fact you've just missed England. You didn't even mention it.

Q. Bryson, for LIV Golf, how great is it that LIV actually goes around the entire world, becomes a global league, and then to come to the African continent for the first time where kids from villages around the corner will probably have never had the opportunity to see you guys play, but the fact that now you're on their doorstep and that LIV provides those opportunities, how great is that?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I think that's a part of our mission, becoming more global and influencing and giving people an opportunity to see what golf can do for communities and for people around the world.

It's been done quite well in the States so far and now we're doing it internationally. It only improves, I would say, facilities and communities everywhere across the globe. I think that's a part of our mission statement, that it's important to us. It's part of our identity now. Being here in South Africa, it's only -- there's only one place we haven't gone yet, which is South America, and that would be another cool place to go.

But being here in South Africa, I've always wanted to come here. Talking to Gary Player quite a bit and Ernie and Louis and the whole Southern Guards team, obviously, they just rave how great it is obviously, and coming here and seeing how special the hospitality is, the people, the culture and the way that everybody conducts themselves, it's quite amazing.

The world is a big place. It's amazing to see how great humanity is.

Q. Bryson, I think a lot of South Africans are really excited to see a Bryson moment that you've become so well-known for. Is there any hole this week that you can't wait to sink your teeth into?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: What are you talking about because it could go either way, either really mad or really happy?

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: We've seen all kinds of moments.

Q. I think we were looking forward to you driving the first green with your pitching wedge.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: There you go. I think that's going to be an awesome opportunity. I hope I can do it this week. It looks like a great opportunity. Hopefully the wind is right and I can stick it right next to the hole and tap it in for eagle. We have had an albatross, not a hole-in-one on a par-4 yet. That would be cool to get a hole-in-one on a par-4 for LIV Golf.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: We've had a couple of albatrosses, one in Australia, one last year in Mexico.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Steely did it one time, too.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Blandy got one --

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, that's right, Blandy.

PAUL CASEY: Let's hope there isn't another Bryson moment.

Q. What is your take on the Cricket World Cup semifinal? I know you probably watched it with a lot of interest. Just joking. How do you motivate yourself after that incredible win last weekend, to come and do it again in a country you don't know? What processes do you do, first of all? Second of all, maybe someone else can also answer, how do you get over the jet lag so quickly as mere mortals going from time zone to time zone would still be in a coma at the moment?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It's brutal going from time zone to time zone, but as professionals that's what we have to do. We have to suck it up sometimes and go through tired moments and body not feeling great. That's just a part of the job. We're called to do that.

How do I stay motivated every week? It's a personal journey. I'm always trying to improve my own game in whatever capacity that is, so whether it's a little bit more in putting, starting it online more consistently or wedging it closer, hitting my irons, starting it on my lines a little bit better with the start lines, it's just a personal journey that I'm trying to improve on every single week.

No matter if I won last week, I'm on to the next. I appreciate it, I respect it, I have great moments that have built off of that and I learn that emotional toll coming down the 18th hole and feeling those moments and how to control that as much as I can, the angst of hitting it in the water and go, hmm, might not win. But then reestablishing I can still make par in my head. Getting over those mental blocks sometimes when you feel uncomfortable on a tee shot. All those are things that I gather and I just try to build off of for the next weeks to come, for major season, for whatever I'm trying to create, even if it's for a YouTube video. I'm still trying to be a better version of myself.

I think having a goal of being the best version of myself is really what keeps me going. It's funny, in Hong Kong I was so frustrated after Hong Kong playing the way I did. I said, this is enough, I've got to change something. Something has got to change. Then sure enough, the next week I go and play well and win.

Sometimes that's just what it takes is a kick in the butt and you focusing a little more and dialing yourself in and pushing yourself sometimes.

It's not always pretty, but it's a situation that sometimes as professionals we all experience. We're like, okay, it's time to kick it in gear, enough is enough. So I think it's about a personal journey more than anything.

Q. I know it's not always easy to explain some of the complexities of equipment from someone who looks at it the way you do, but I want to give you a chance to nerd out on your wedges. You say you need to dial them in and they are going to be a prime focus of your next few weeks. What does nerding out and dialing in wedges for Augusta look like? What grind do you think will work in Georgia that you maybe won't use this week? Will wedges go further this week than then? What does the process of dialing those in actually look like?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It's a great question. It's a lot about strike point and how much turf is getting in between the face and the grass and mitigating that, managing that strike, and how you manage that strike is dependent upon how soft the turf is. If it presses into the ground a lot, if it doesn't, if it bounces off the ground like in Australia, it was really firm ground so it bounced off quickly. So I could throw it behind the ball quite a bit and then hit low on the face. If it's soft here, you hit just the same spot and it goes right under; you hit high on the face and it comes out with more spin and shorter and deader.

So trying to find a bounce that works for me, number one, that plays like firm conditions because I've always played pretty well in firm conditions. I'm learning from these guys. I see how they strike it. I see what they do, and I'm learning a lot from my team, even though I'm not necessarily asking because they're tired of me asking about wedges. They're just like, go to shorter wedges and normal clubs, which I've tried, and I still suck with that.

But I'll tell you that it's nice seeing how they strike the ball, the forward shaft lean, and where they're striking on the face is important. So I think leading edge height to bounce is very, very important depending on how soft the turf is.

I think the surface friction on the face is really important, how rough it can get. Funny enough, when the face gets rougher, it actually starts to spin less at a certain point, to the legal limit. Then once you go past the legal limit then it starts spinning more and more. There's like a bell curve with it. It's kind of wild.

Then you can get scenarios where it's super slick face and then it's wet and slides and doesn't spin at all, and it has to spin.

I unfortunately mis-hit my wedges quite a bit just because maybe I don't have the right bounce configuration. Maybe the shape of the grind is a little different.

I'm trying some new wedges. They've got almost a bubble on the bottom and it's been helping quite a bit. It helped last week. Got a little more head weight on the wedges. We're cutting away things that have not worked for me, whether it be a softer shaft, shorter wedges, different type of torque in the head for contact, different types of grinds, lighter heads, no grooves to grooves to friction on the grooves. We're just going through everything as much as possible and trying to isolate the biggest problems in my wedge game and cutting those out as much as possible so I can be -- shoot, if I'm 5 more percent consistent, I have a better chance than what I did last year at the Masters.

I took that last Masters as an opportunity to learn how to become a better iron play and a better wedger. I feel like most of it was there. Just a couple fine-tuning moments and continue to ball strike it the way I have and hopefully I give myself a good chance.

Q. Paul, you've grown up on the DP World Tour, were on the PAC for five years on the PGA TOUR, you play now on LIV. I think you understand what a golf tournament offers or what a golf tournament looks like and what these different tours feel about what that should look like. I'm curious when you look at LIV Golf, what gaps do you think it fills that maybe don't exist elsewhere that you think are net positive to the ecosystem?

PAUL CASEY: That's a good question. It's a complicated question and one I'd probably defer to answer some other time because it's nuanced. Yeah, product market fit is a real thing that we discuss. We talk about it a lot as players actually. I don't think it ever gets talked about enough.

I sat on the PAC, I sat on the committee on the European Tour, and I actually sit on the player advisory group at LIV. But in my roles prior to LIV, we weren't able to contribute. That was out of our control as players.

We have a lot more control now out here, and it is discussed and it's something we care deeply about and hopefully we're filling those gaps.

Yeah, maybe it's something we have a discussion about in the future because it's highly technical, as you know, which is why you've just asked the question. But it's the right question. It's not asked enough, so thank you for asking it.

I know I didn't answer that fully, but...

Q. Bryson, can you take us through last week, that moment where the ball landed in someone's bag?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Actually the craziest thing, even probably -- I don't know if it's crazier than the two hole-in-ones with G-Mac back-to-back weeks, but on the fifth hole Saturday and Sunday I hit the exact same drive within one inch of the spot, and I was standing on the side of the bunker and I was almost baseball swinging it.

The first time I missed it out to the right on Saturday and hit it in the bunker and made a great bogey. I had the shot on Sunday again with a 6-iron and I said, okay, I'm going to try and hit it up the left-hand side.

Saturday my left foot slipped and I fell in the bunker face forward, which was fun to see, and then Sunday I tried to keep my left foot more planted and my right foot slipped and I just completely mis-hit the shot, face turned over, pulled it way left, and I didn't know. I was like, G-Bo, where is it. He's like, it's left, and he's like, "fore!" Went over there, hit off an umbrella, bounced back into the guy's -- it wasn't in his bag but it was wedged in between his chest and the bag.

I mean, that's not normal. I haven't seen that happen. I've seen a lot of crazy things happen. I hit one in the back of a golf cart on 3 in Hong Kong the first round. I pushed it a little right and it went in the back of a cart. How did it end up there? My ball has been in some weird places lately.

Q. If you were to get the impossible question of if you're in charge of golf tomorrow, and there's various tours, there's various things to play, you see the game in a certain way. What is the crystal ball thing that you would love to be able to implement as far as your calendar for golf?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: What would I like to implement as far as my calendar for the game of golf?

Q. Yeah, because various tours have various offerings. I think LIV has shown us what's possible when you can take certain aspects of golf and really dial it up from a fan perspective. If you had the impossible chance to try to amalgamate a few things, what would your best thing be in golf?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I do think there's an opportunity in the future for team golf to be next to the forefront of golf, with all the -- even the majors and whatnot. I do think at some point we can get close. It'll never be a major, obviously, but having team golf rivalries, whether it's just the Crushers versus Southern Guards or whatnot is great, but imagine a scenario where we're going up against Jupiter Links on an 18-hole showcase, four man/four man, going up against each other Netflix show or something, or whoever wants to put it on a show.

I think there's a lot of opportunity for teams to go up against teams in the future that could be a big growing-the-game moment of people that never played the game watching and just tuning in. Maybe they don't ever play the game, but they tune in, just like football.

I heard a statistic the other week, football has about 2 million people that play it every -- that's a great question, by the way. It's not easy to ask that question. That's a great question.

People only play football -- only about 2 million people play football, but there's like over 50 million that watch every week. The Super Bowl gets over 100 million people watching that, a two and a half, three-hour showcase. In golf it's almost the opposite where you're getting 3 to 5 million people watching a week on various tours and you can add it together and -- those aren't the perfect numbers, but you know what I mean. Then there's probably 50 to 60 million people playing the game.

So it's complete opposite of football. So we don't have just people randomly watching and enjoying golf. I think there's an opportunity for the world to see the game for what it could be, which is rivalries and teams against teams.

We have players against players and we've done showcases, we've tried it, it's great, but imagine creating a culture like the NFL, like the NBA, and I guess we're an individual sport; I understand that. But we do play team events. We've got the Ryder Cup. We've got the Presidents Cup. There should be something else. Why not?

Q. So how about TMRW golf league versus LIV?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: How about the Crushers goes up against Jupiter Links in an 18-hole match, 4-v-4 stroke play.

Q. Okay, so now do we make that happen? If you start it we can do something -- I just think, again, because of what LIV has done, it's changed our idea of what's possible. What you do as well, you push the boundaries. I think that's definitely a first step.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: We can just call them out right now and say let's go. Let's do it.

Q. Decided right here, LIV SA?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Right here, why not? You guys would love to go up against them, right? Why not? That would be fun. Show them who's the best, who's the best team in the world, or any of them. LA, it doesn't matter. We'd go up against them. Jon Rahm's team, we'd all go up against them. How great would that be for golf, too, by the way?

Q. Bryson, you're obviously familiar with videos that draw a lot of eyeballs. You mentioned when you fell into the bunker. Do you think that one is going to go viral?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I definitely knew there was going to be a slo-mo moment of that, just me, whoa, falling in there looking like an idiot, which I usually do, but that's okay.

Q. For the rest of you, did you just think, that's so Bryson?

PAUL CASEY: I didn't even see it.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: I haven't seen it.

PAUL CASEY: I saw other Bryson moments last week and the week before, obviously. Those would have gone viral. That one in Hong Kong would have gone viral.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: That was fun. That was a fun one.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: We've had ropes, we've had bunkers, there's all kinds of things that come after him. It's entertainment. I think that's the whole idea is we do what we love to do, but it's got to be entertaining.

I think things like that are as entertaining as some other moments which are great golf shots. Yeah, as long as we're making golf popular and people are watching, that's what matters.

Q. For the majority of the people coming out this weekend to see you, they're also casual golfers. As a casual golfer myself, we all play, we shoot horrible scores, but it's always that one nice chip or a good putt that you drill that just brings you back to the game. For you guys who are on the professional tour, what brings you back to the game wanting to play every single day?

PAUL CASEY: It's not a game anybody has ever perfected. So Bryson mentioned it earlier, it's that quest, it's that process. I think we all deep down are addicted to trying to be better. AK says it every day, 1 percent better. 1 percent is a huge amount. We're trying to be just a traction, just improve on something.

Bryson struggled in Hong Kong, but you weren't happy, worked on things, gets the win the following week. It's always something, and it'll be something else this week. Whether your golf game -- let's say your golf game doesn't change. You've now got a different test. It's always something and that's the frustration of the game and the beauty of the game. We are no different than any other golfer. Our level might be different, the ability that we have, the shots we can hit, but our frustration with the game is no different.

Q. Maybe just to put it into perspective for the casual guys out there, how much time do you spend when not playing tournaments actually practicing your golf game?

PAUL CASEY: More than you could ever imagine, because if you're not doing it, somebody else is doing it. We've all been -- okay, I'm the eldest in the group here, but I still spend an exorbitant amount of time. But I always feel that somebody else is out there working harder than me, so there's always that drive. I was that kid once, and everybody else was, where we were on the range from sunup to sundown, plain and simple. I've done my 10,000 hours. I've done that five, six times over.

I call it secrets grill work, secrets grill club. We're always doing something, whether it's guys hitting 100 six-foot putts in the hotel room at night with the wife on the phone checking their form or whatever. We've heard those stories. We're all doing it. He knows what I'm talking about.

Q. Lastly, there's been a lot of conversations in the last few years about equipment getting out of hand, guys striking the ball just longer, more straight than they ever have in any other golf tournaments. Does that really make such a big impact, or is physical conditioning, looking after yourself, doing weight training, getting in the gym, do you think that's progressed the sport more than equipment has?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I think there's a legal limit set for everything. There's really not a way to go around it. If you want to say that a driver back in 2009 is worse than now, I would actually disagree with you on that. I think they're relatively the same and not much has changed. You can't change it that much with the rules being the way they are.

So I think it's a lot more the athletic ability, and not being as afraid to go after shots or swing harder or be more aggressive. I caution anybody that tries to change the rules in the game because they've already been established. Let the athletes be the athletes and let's go have some fun.

PAUL CASEY: I agree with that because we've seen significant jumps. We saw the jump from persimmon to steel drivers and then into the graphite shafts and there's always these jumps. I'm a Titleist guy, but when the Professional came out, there was a huge jump in technology. And it's no slant on the OEMs; the OEMs are doing what they do. They're trying to make the game a little easier, a little more fun, golf ball go a little farther. Remember, the architects did their thing with pushing out the golf courses, building more houses. It was always something. There's no blame anywhere in this stuff.

I will say there's not enough credit given to the athlete and how hard the athletes now work, and using the technology at our disposal. Whether that's launch monitors or the fitness or whatever it is or the technical ability, I still feel like that gets -- the question we hear a lot, what about the equipment? No, no, hang on a second, there's a lot that goes into this. That's plain and simple. I don't think we get enough credit, but that's just -- we just use everything to our advantage.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Also golf course design. Some of the hardest golf courses are some of the shortest, like Valderrama every year is by far one of the hardest golf courses we play. It doesn't even compare to the last 10 U.S. Open venues, but it plays like a U.S. Open.

So it's not just about equipment. Like Paul said, there's so many facets, but everybody only talks about that. It's an unfair argument.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: One last thing, too, I think it's very important to set the baseline, from a question standpoint. What are the bodies of golf trying to accomplish? Are they trying to preserve the traditions and history of the game, or are they trying to grow the game, because those are two different things. They can cross over in some facets, in some regard, but when you're trying to preserve the traditions and history of the game, yeah, you're going to want to go back to a golf ball that's going shorter because players are more athletic. Yeah, you're going to want to shrink the heads. You're going to want to do this or that.

But if you want to grow the game, that's not how you get kids to hit the golf ball farther and enjoy it and want to be a part of this game. They're at a bit of crossroads right now and they have to answer those questions. What do these governing bodies really want? If they can answer that, then we can start moving in that direction, but right now, they have to answer that question before us players can get involved because if they want something different, well, us players may want to make it easier for others like I do. I like showing how much fun it is to play the game of golf, not how difficult it is. Yeah, there's difficult moments but I want people to enjoy it, get out in nature.

My goals are as such that I want people to experience this more. So answering that question is, I think, the first step to knowing where the game of golf needs to move.

Q. Bryson, you talked earlier about how having rivalries, getting more people watching the game, and completely agree. You see in the NBA and the NFL there's a lot of animosity between players and there's almost fist fights and teams really dislike each other and they're going after each other in press conferences. In golf that doesn't happen. It's a game built on compassion and decorum. How do those rivalries happen? Back in the day, we saw Tiger and Phil may not have loved each other. How does that even come about in golf, and how do we make rivalries happen when these players are so good to each other?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I think Paul said it right. It takes time. There's always been rivalries, like Brooks and I and even Rory and I. There's a bit of that there.

I'm sure you've had rivalries with your players back in -- I'm kidding. I'm joking. Just chill out, I'm kidding.

But what I'm saying is we're all competitive. I think one way to do that, since there's already internal built-up rivalries in the game right now, whether it's the PGA or LIV or TGL and LIV, let's give the fans what they want. It's time. It's been too long.

Q. So build on your earlier point with TGL, if champions versus team champions of the TGL and just to clarify that's going outdoor match, right?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Let's play outdoor golf.

ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Real golf, real golf.