From Irish Goodbyes To The Business Of College Sports And Golf’s Civil War

Ever left a party without goodbyes and felt oddly right about it? That’s our jump‑off point for a fast, funny, and candid ride from a midnight move out of Charleston to a new life in Harrisonburg—where a sore back, a pool streak, and a golf addiction spark a deeper look at how we chase joy and manage wear and tear. We talk about the quiet power of leaving at the right time, then get honest about aging, fitness, and the tradeoffs we make when passion runs hot.

From there, the conversation widens to sports culture and the gravity of star power. The PNC Championship felt lighter without Tiger and Charlie, and it raises a tough truth: icons change the temperature of a game. That same force ripples through college sports as NIL and the transfer portal reshape loyalty. We break down how revenue sharing made long‑overdue corrections but eroded season‑long narratives, and we pitch a fix that preserves mobility while restoring meaning—move the portal window until after the national titles so coaches coach, players finish, and fans get closure.

Golf’s civil war takes center stage next. LIV’s shotgun chaos and giant purses versus the PGA’s tradition and tension—what did money fix, and what did it flatten? We sketch a realistic path for big names to return: fines, a delayed runway, and limited access to premium events at first. Not out of nostalgia, but because stars lift the ceiling for everyone—attendance, ratings, and the feeling that anything can happen on 18.

We close with a sharp watch pick: Plurribus on Apple TV, Vince Gilligan’s mind‑bending series anchored by Rhea Seehorn. It’s a reminder that the best stories—on a course, a stage, or a screen—bind us together. Hit play, then tell us: which rule would you change first—portal timing, LIV returns, or something we missed? And if this resonated, follow, share, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show.

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Chapters

• 6:08 Tone Deaf Body awareness
• 10:21 A Lister Effect
• 19:30 The Fable of the Portal and Playoffs
• 31:49 Liv and let Live
• 38:12 Pluribus... WOW!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Welcome to Tales from the First Hitty. I'm Rich Easton. Now telling tales from picturesque Harrisonburg, Virginia, outdoor adventure capital of the Shenandoah Valley and home to the James Madison Dukes. What do you know? The Irish goodbye. For any of you that quietly exit from family rituals, religious services, business meetings, parties, celebrations, or anything else that included three or more people, of which one was you, you could be executing an Irish goodbye, a French or Dutch leave, a Polish exit, all characterized by a sudden disappearance without announcing your departure. I try never to be the last to leave anything. I can't remember the last time I closed a bar, sorry, or was the last guest to say goodbye while the host started cleaning up. That's the universal, please get the fuck out of my house. But in a nice way. Now I wouldn't do that unless my partner spent more time on goodbyes than hellos. Now I get it. At the end of the evening, after a good time was had, you might feel inclined to float an idea of something you might all like to do in the future. It's untimely when you first arrive. You have to get to know people and kind of get a feel for where their lives are at at the time. I was once in relation with somebody who always asked a series of deep questions that bordered on funny interrogation and demasking, which usually catches people off guard, but after a few drinks of wine, some might find it endearing or at least comic relief. She was the Gracie and I was Burns. She couldn't help herself and would start asking questions at the end of meals or on the way out the door when it was just time to go. Everybody else is gone, and now it's us, and she's like, hey, what did you say your dog's name was again? Or whatever the question was. It was like, this is the start of a stream of consciousness and a conversation. And for me, that's not typically what I like to do when my head passes through the doorway on the way out. I just want to get to the car and head home. But, you know, that was her thing. So basically, I think I've got PTSD from that. So I've come to terms with myself about making quick exits, sometimes unannounced. That was my recent experience in the move from Charleston, South Carolina to the Harrisonburg, Virginia area. I've mentioned my partner Susan in previous episodes, my personal mini cheesecake baker, mother of five, now grandmother of nine, if you can believe it. She's certainly the more interesting of the two of us and plays well with others, which expands our circle of friends. We decided that the 500-mile distance between our homes was certainly a good test of a relationship, but not sustainable. So the solution that checked the most boxes for both of us was me relocating to Virginia instead of her relocating to South Carolina, at least for now. We started breathing life into the idea months ago, and then of course, like everything else, logistics challenges accelerated our departure way quicker than we had planned. Like everybody, once you get into go mode, it becomes all about checklists, critical paths of what goes first, what goes second, lining up moving help, and packing up all my shit, donating and disposing of stuff that lost its value over time. All of that had to be done in four days. Anyway, we made it happen. And for those I didn't get to say a heartfelt goodbye on our call it a midnight move out. Charleston has been a wonderful place for me to live, play and make friends. Those whom I've had a chance to tee it up with, have a drink with, or even break bread with, I'll miss those times. But know that I plan on coming back and visiting. And when I say I, I mean we. So until then, Elvis has left the building. I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball, off like a prom dress. The eagle has left the nest.

SPEAKER_01: 6:28

But my back sure hurts.

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

Look, you get to a certain age, and for many people, it can be difficult. Your body informs you on how you've been treating it at every single age you're at. In in my teams, I insp I experienced sports injuries with everything else that life throws at you flus, colds, allergies. In my twenties, I experienced burning the candle at both ends, leading to mono and hangovers, like most college students. In my 30s through 50s, my body started raising its inner voice, telling me to lighten up. But and I didn't want to be an overreactor. So I just kept playing until something broke. Did the least enter into the medical community so at least I could be back at life as soon as possible. I didn't want to spend too much time in doctors' offices. I figured my body would fix itself. So now I could say it was probably a flawed strategy, but I'm not sure I would change anything because I get antsy. ANSI to get back at whatever gave me personal pleasure. In my 50s on, it's been golf. I've been passionately addicted to most things golf, to the point where my part-time work in retirement has been golf or golf adjacent. And that led me to a 10-year sabbatical in the Charleston area, entrenched in a golf playground. This passion positioned me to practice and play more than I could have ever imagined while I was working full time. It was a dream of mine while I was sitting in corporate meetings, globetrotting for work, or just sitting at my desk daydreaming about eagles and hole in ones. Things I didn't do a lot of early on. Probably not a lot recently either. So it's no surprise that I try to live out my dreams. I've played with so many golfers older than me that seem to keep up with their health and fitness and and basically crush me on the course. I wanted that as well. But I've been tone-deaf to my body, telling me to add other like health-related activities along the way, moderate my diet, get in the pool, work out, stretch, all of those things instead of playing golf that day. But I just wouldn't listen. We all have to listen when our body tells us don't go over to practice for two hours. Don't play three back-to-back rounds of golf. Stop perfecting sourdough bread and homemade pizza at the same time. So I'm happy to report that now that I'm up here in beautiful Harrisonburg, Virginia, I visited the local gym 14 out of the last 15 days and have been in the pool every day. I'm still working on the whole thing about watching what I cook, bake, and eat, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Tiempo al tiempo, paso a paso, which is another way of saying it's the next thing on the agenda, because my partner is half my size and half my weight. So something's gotta change. Okay, so where am I coming from here, you might ask? Every December for the past several years, I look forward to the PNC golf event to get a glimpse of Tiger Woods and his phenom son Charlie, watching them tee it up again against other past major champions and their offspring parents or step family. The two-day tournament showcases the family golf relationships, skill sets, and interestingly enough, comparable behavioral characteristics between parent and child. Charlie Woods' swing and demeanor resemble those of his legendary father, and their competitive nature make it fun to watch them compete. However, because of another back surgery, Tiger was unable to compete, and the Woods contingent was conspicuous by its absence this year. John Daly and his son, formerly named Little John, but now that he's man size and competing for the Arkansas Razorbacks, his moniker changed to John Jr. They teeded up to try and win as the front runners, but were outed by the team of Matt and Cameron Couture, which gave the announcing crew at NBC an emotional gold mine. A few months earlier, Matt Couture lost his father, Peter, unexpectedly to a heart attack while he was vacationing in the Caribbean. Back in 1998, I had a ringside seat at the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco to watch amateur Matt Couture at the time tie for 14th place with his father, Peter, actually on his bag as a caddy. I followed them for a day to watch Matt's enthusiastic father get the crowds into the match every time Matt hit a great shot. Understand, he's in college. All these other players he's competing against are pros, and he's playing out of his mind. I enjoyed the charismatic camaraderie that the two of them had together. But competitors, caddies, and the actual competitor of other golfers didn't like it. Imagine you're playing this professional round of golf, and you're gonna hit a shot, your competitor's gonna hit a shot, and when your competitor hits a good shot, typically the crowd will make a noise and react. Typically, the caddy might fist pump, but you're not gonna hear much from him. But on this weekend, Matt's dad, Peter, was a cheerleader. He would get the crowds into it, and players and caddies actually had to contend with the officials and say, hey, get Peter to knock it off. But he didn't. In the absence of the Woods team, announcers like Peter Jacobson, one of my favorites, Dan Hicks, Kissner, and Kaufman filled the airwaves with sound bites about the Coochers' loss of Peter every chance that they could get. As a result, the couple of the coochers were the emotional favorites despite the great play by the dailies, the loves, the quarters, and the strickers. Now, don't get me wrong, every year the production quality for this event is always light and uplifting and entertaining, particularly during the holiday season. And despite the fact that the Coochers won and gave the network a theme to wrap around the victory, to me, it was missing something. It was missing the star power of Tiger and Charlie. I mean, have you ever planned to attend an event in hopes of seeing a superstar do what they do best to only be disappointed when they're absent from the event? I've been to two Bulls games in Chicago when the Bulls were competing for the last of the six NBA championship seasons, and Michael Jordan was a superstar. But the two games that I attended, he wasn't playing. In the six seasons where where there were four hundred and eighty-eight games where they won the championship, he only missed eighteen out of the four hundred and eighty-eight games. And the two that I attended were two of the eighteen that he missed. Now, going to a Bulls game in Chicago at the United Center, that's is an experience. It's fun. But in years where Michael Jordan's leading the team and he's not there, they played well, but it was missing something. Okay, listener, let's say you're not a sports fan. I'll give you another example. I attended Phantom of the Opera in the late 80s in hopes of hearing and watching Michael Crawford sing. But when I got to my seat and waited for the curtain to open, the announcer announced that there will be an understudy, Steve Barton, to play the role of the Phantom. And when I heard that, I'm like, motherfucker. This is the guy you want to see when you see this show. Now, I would tell you, Steve Barton was great, but didn't have the A star power of Michael Crawford. Most every weekend in the NCAA in the NFL, a player with star power goes down with an injury. And a replacement has to step in and fill his shoes. Now, coaches do everything possible to plan for those unlikely events. As a fan, your hopes of victory in a game get dashed, particularly if they're the star quarterback, because when you look at the stats, replacement quarterbacks win less than 40% of the games they play in. That means there's a 60% chance that that team that you want to win with that quarterback that you wanted to watch, once he's replaced, your chances are dwindled. And if one of those quarterbacks was Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, or Jaden Daniels, it's just not the same when you see the replacements going. And look, they know the plays, they could run with the ball, they could throw the ball, but they don't have that X factor. They're the stars that make the games interesting and fun to watch. And if if you're one of the 50 to 60 million people that engage in wagering on NFL games, the loss of star power reduces your chances of winning. But I don't have to tell you that. Look, I'm aware that the Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal. But in 1776, they hadn't seen Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, or Shoe Otane. Okay, at birth, they might have all been created equal, but passion, hard work, and well-hone skill sets boosted their status to superstar. What I'm saying is stars make a difference. Yeah, I know somebody's gonna say, yeah, but what about washed up Shane Falco played by Keanu Reeves in the replacements? He was a nobody and they won the game. And I would tell you this, if actor Morton Schmuggy played that role and he's not an A-lister, it just wouldn't be the same movie. Sorry, Morton.

SPEAKER_02: 19:17

Winners always want the ball when the game's on the line.

SPEAKER_00: 19:29

The Fable of the Portal and the Playoffs. Hey kids, would you like to hear the fable of the portal and the playoffs that changed college sports? Once upon a time, College and University was an institution for higher learning, personal growth, and an opportunity to enhance future earnings. Athletics were provided to improve body, mind, health, and create community identity as colleges developed an athletic competitive landscape. And over time, college rivalries drove this us versus them dynamic, boosting loyalty and social identity. Hold that thought for a second. Over time, the governing body of college sports developed rules and structure to control and prosper from the unbridled growth. College athletes were considered student athletes with strict guidelines on academics and zero tolerance for any income opportunities during their time at the school while they're on scholarship. Over time, the big and powerful wizards of the NCAA, while building a net worth over a billion dollars, were challenged in court by a group of hungry, injured, overworked, and broke college athletes to change the system to allow them to get a piece of the action. The truth, kids, is that it was the legal community and the law firm of Higgins, Berman, Sobel, and Shapiro spearheading the lawsuit, House versus NCAA, that actually made the case and won the case. All these student athletes now were thrilled and they were like, look at us. And then Higgins and Berman were like, hey, look at us. The law firm won a$2.8 billion settlement for back pay and revenue sharing. And did they get a piece of the action? You bet they did. Now, if you were a poor student athlete at the time Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler were making the case and winning the case, they were your heroes. So did the NCAA start sharing their stockpile of profits to the student athletes when they lost the lawsuit? Well, first kids, let me clarify the term student athlete. Look, it's not like these football and basketball stars scheduled a full classload, attended all their classes, spent nights at the library cramming for exams, and spent hours researching papers to boost their GPAs and position themselves more competitively for the workplace that was facing them when they graduated. Now, some did, but most were awarded tutors, online classes, and spent most of their time practicing and traveling for their sports when they weren't playing video games in their dorm rooms. Student athletes in our modern era at Division I schools that provide athletic scholarships are recruited and attend colleges to compete in their sport, sometimes pick up some knowledge and credentials along the way, but make no mistake about it. They're now professional athletes in an academic institution that compete on the school's behalf to boost university revenues, get TV contracts, ticket sales, and ancillary businesses that depend on the lifeblood of the sport success. The game has changed. The athletic facilities at most successful programs have been built on the backs of student athletes and serve to attract future student athletes. Which makes perfect sense, right? You build on success. So how were the student athletes compensated? Did the NCAA just start paying them out? Not necessarily. At the start, they allowed outside compensation from businesses, consortiums of wealthy alumni, and individual contributors who are well healed. It was called name, image, and likeness. College superstars were endorsed by multinational corporations and second-tier athletes like I hate to say this guys, offensive defensive linemen, they're endorsed by local businesses like car dealership chains, things like that. But in 2025-2026, now that led to direct revenue sharing up to$20.5 million per school plus back pay for former athletes. So now they're getting the NIL money and in certain situations also getting revenues from the colleges. Student athletes can be compensated and not have to starve at night after practice when the cool school cafeterias were closed. Now remember, they would lose their scholarship if they tried to get a part-time job or gifts from donors, although we know that was happening for years, as multiple programs have been accused and some penalized for compensation infractions where funds were siphoned to student athletes. And look, nobody's shocked, just a lot of embarrassment. And now in the spirit of hey student athletes, you're not indentured servants, and you could take your talents to any organization willing to pay to play. We now have the transfer portal. Football's portal opens January 2nd and closes January 16th with a five-day extension for postseason players after their final game. If they choose to play their final game because maybe they want to go in the portal, don't want to be injured. Maybe there's a girl involved, I don't know, but those are probably the big two. And once they transferred, they had to sit out an entire year before stepping on the field. And for all you rules buffs, the transfer portal established unlimited transfer with no sit-out penalties. You transfer, you go and you play. The timing of the portal for players and coaches has a significant impact on how and when they have to decide to go for the golden ring merry-go-round. In effect, coaches have to decide before the first playoff game in December, which basically means they recruited players and they recruited coaches and developed a program so that they could win games, go into championships, and win a championship. Now, certainly some coaches like Kurt Signetti would say there are other things involved here in terms of player development and team development. But at the end of the game, they are using that carrot of national championship to motivate their players game after game. And then as they get to the end of a season, a university with big pockets lures them away and says, you need to leave and commit to us the day after your last regular season game. And you cannot be part of any of the playoffs or the championship because we need you in our program and we need you to start the recruiting process when that portal opens up on January 2nd. You and your coaches and your whole staff have got to be ready to fire up and get the best candidates to our school. Look, we watched Kurt Signetti after building a competitive program at JMU. That's right, the Dukes here in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He says yes to the job. Not only does he leave before the playoffs two years ago, but he takes a good amount of his staff that he developed with him and some players. There is a residual effect of coaches making decisions at the end of seasons that have a very strong effect on what players play where. Comes down to star power again, doesn't it? Now, in this situation, JMU survived the defection, rebuilt their program with coach Bob Chesney, and then two years later, he enters the portal to coach UCLA and was replaced by Billy Napier. Think about what the university goes through and the loyalty and what happens with the players. How can they commit themselves to a full season? How can they commit themselves to a game when they don't know the next day whether their coaches who have been blowing smoke up their ass or breathing fire down their necks, if they're still going to be there in the future to help them win the next big game? So, how did the pendulum swing so far, so fast, to make this a shitty situation for fans and athletes that have committed themselves? Well, I began the fable by defining the social experiment of college athletics as a dynamic to boost social identity through loyalty to the school and the program. Loyalty has come a long way from pride of association with a program to bank account building and driving fancy cars and being the coolest guy on college campus because you're now the richest kid on the college campus. If players don't like the way coaches are coaching them or they aren't getting the playing time, then and if they're not making bank, they go to the portal. They're gonna find somebody else, maybe a smaller program, different program that could use their particular talents and have no loyalty to the last program they were at. Look, I can go into the Lane Kiffin story, but everybody knows it's basically the same thing. Kids, this is a classic clusterfuck that needs to be adjusted. Change the timing of the portal to begin after national championship games, maybe a month after, to allow coaches to coach, players to play, and fans to adjust. Just saying, I think. Said virtually no one, including Brooks Capco, who announced his departure from the tour. The Live Tour has been the Saudi-backed Greg Norman-influenced countertour to the PGA and all their affiliates. In 2022, just four years ago, Greg Norman, with the deep pocket backing of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, poached 38 PGA players from the PGA tour, including major winners and star powers like Phil Mickels and Dustin Johnson and Brooks Kepka, and in following years Bryson D.C. Chambeau and John Rahm. It was the most talked-about move in professional golf since Ellen Norgren caught Tiger in a squeeze play. I've watched a few live events from the comfort of my couch, and quite frankly, as an ADHD dyslexic, found it difficult to follow or even care about the outcome. Every golfer on the course is playing at the same time with a shotgun start. They're playing both as individuals and teams, like Formula One racing. But they don't play in the same pairings. They're absent from the same pairings as their playing partners. Confusing. The scoring is displayed on the top left side of the screen for individual golfers, and sometimes team scores show up below the individual scores. Again, confusing. Golfers are wearing shorts, music's blasting on the course like the waist management open 16th hole, and the winners, because of the random hole starts and because of the shotgun format, most likely don't win on the 18th grain like the PGA. I know I sound like a curmudgeon not accepting the fact that things change, but sometimes change is not good. Now, it was certainly good for the players that wanted to play for live from a bank account building standpoint. It also had a positive residual effect on the existing PGA tour players because the price for poker went up. They're now eight to twenty million dollar purse events. And so they are inclined to make more money by playing on the tour because high tides rise all boats. Now, besides that, these are all elite pro golfers and most of them wealthier than they'd ever imagined. So we're watching millionaires and sometimes multi-hundred millionaires, depending on their signing bonuses, compete like it means something. Which at times seems like uh like a toothless dragon that no longer breathes fire. I guess what I'm saying is, Brooks, we get it. Once the funds hit your bank accounts and you're you're you're done driving your yachts, your high performance cars, flown your Gulf Stream G50500s, and bought your or built your dream home, you get to this homeostatic high plateau and realize this tour, the Live Tour, is fige. It's time to reconsider your career aspirations. The big talk around Brooks and others to follow the departure from Live is will they compete in the PGA tour again once they leave? So they have to. Not including the majors where they might have already qualified for years or lifetime exemption. Some say, fuck 'em. They took the money and left. Good riddance. And those who say that are mostly naysayers. They're gamons, as they say in Britain. You know, as I said earlier, star power makes a difference. When Bryson DeChambeau competes, he adds something worth watching. His swashbuckler demeanor, no fear, fiery spirit make him matinee idol material on the golf course. He's fun to watch. He's fun to watch in every major, and he gave the Ryder Tub team a needed energy despite their loss on U.S. soil. Brooks Kepka, a five-time major winner, has the resume to bring excitement to most events that he cares about, which seem to be the majors. Not a warm and fuzzy guy, but since when did that affect Vegas odds? So should the PGA charge fines and disciplinary delays in the players' return to make the transition? I say, sure. Why not? The net effect will be players taking funds that they earned from going to play in the Saudi back live tour are gonna turn around and give some of that money back to the PGA tour. Almost like invading Venezuela. And what are those penalties and what do those delays look like? Man, there are a million stories in the big city and how you can do that. And I think there should be. I think there should be a penalty, a payment penalty, a come back and play penalty, and I think there should be a delay. Now, in that delay, there are eight big$20 million events uh outside of the majors. I say let them play in no more than four of those. And then whatever time of the year it is, if they could qualify for majors, let them qualify. If they could qualify for the FedEx Cup Tour Championship, let them try. But don't give them a running start in the beginning of the year. And why do I care about giving traders from the PGA tour a chance to come back and compete for available prize money? The answer? Star Power Baby. It fills spectator stands and increases the percent of eyeballs watching. That's simple. Anyway, who's watching Plurribus on Apple TV? If you like Breaking Bad, Better Call Soul, and the X-Files, then you're familiar with the work of writer, producer, director Vince Gilligan. His new series on Apple TV is captivating, thought-provoking, and damn right mind-blowing as it follows radio signals from outside Earth that are captured and create a worldwide virus that joins everybody's minds together in this collective consciousness, with the exception of thirteen unaffected humans spread over the entire planet. The story focuses on best-selling fiction author Carol Sturka, a non-converted human and her quest to reverse the joining of the collective conscious because she projects doom and gloom. Carol, played by Rhea Seahorn from Better Call Saul, makes the series bingeworthy. I finished season one, seen it twice with Susan, can't wait for season two. You gotta watch it. I'm Rich Easton telling tales from exciting Winter Wonderland, Harrisonburg, Virginia.